Beware of false idols, grifters and divide and rule merchants

Ever since the events at the ill fated London Anarchist Bookfair in the autumn of 2017, the two of us behind this project have increasingly been ploughing our own furrow, moving away from what passes for an anarchist movement here in the UK. A process which I wrote about at some length in this soul bearing piece I put up last year: Why do I do this to myself? 12.4.23.

Why has the frustration and pain of being an activist got worse? I'll try to explain. I used to be very tribal. Once I'd found a political home, I'd defend it and my comrades vigorously. Any nagging doubts I had were packed away in a box and hidden in a dark cupboard. That was until the point when it started to become clear that what I thought was a 'for ever' political home was changing and going off in a direction I couldn't travel in. That was the point when the doubts packed away in their box were making so much racket, the box had to be opened up and the doubts had to be acknowledged and acted upon.

As well as this, we've also become increasingly sceptical of grifters latching onto currents of dissent to promote their own dubious agendas. This was something that I particularly noticed in 2020 and 2021 with the various currents of opposition to the Covid 'crisis' lockdowns and vaccine mandates. I called this tendency out here: We don't need 'leaders', 'voices' or false idols for our revolution 18.9.23.

Of course, when someone gets taken down because of question marks about their personal conduct, what also gets taken down at the same time is the message they're communicating about various issues. Anyone who agrees with the message while having very serious reservations about the messenger delivering it, still gets tarred with the same brush as those unquestioningly defending the messenger. So we have a situation where allegations about personal conduct, that rightly need to be dealt with, take over the agenda while the message that should be detached from the messenger, is consigned to the sidelines or dismissed as 'conspiracy theory'.

Given all of this, can you honestly blame us for deciding to think independently and plough our own furrow rather than succumb to any kind of group think that ends up with the denial of reality? That also applies to blindly following any kind of so called leader looking to exploit emerging currents of discontent. The first takes in the anarchist movement and the second takes in what some have dubbed the freedom movement, although, as I've previously argued, it's more of an uneasy coalition of various currents of dissent than a movement in any recognisable form: Moving on from tribalism 20.9.23.

Regular readers of this blog will be aware that I took part in a number of the anti-lockdown / anti-vaccine mandate protests in 2021 going into the early part of 2022. When I've written about these protests, I've gone to great pains to explain that from my perspective, they weren't an on the streets expression of a unified movement. They were more a coming together of different currents of dissent.

Currents of dissent that didn't always agree with each other and sometimes would hold conflicting views to each other. This is something I tried to patiently explain to my now former anarchist comrades but, they weren't having it. For their own reasons, they wanted to stick to the narrative that we were all alt right conspiracy loons. I gave up trying to get through to them as there's only so much banging my head against a brick wall I'm prepared to take...

You may want to know how we're ploughing our own furrow... I've been doing my level best to post up a fair number of posts looking at what can be done in the here and now, at the grassroots, to start creating the world we want. The technical term for this is prefigurative politics or action. We've also been busy on our practical work - the litter picking and the community vegetable plot in our local park. As well as this, we've been busy with our input into the local plans from Bath & North East Somerset Council and also, Keynsham Town Council. The two of us have been doing what we can in our community to put our principles into action. As for the people we work alongside, they're a mixed bunch with a variety of views on a range of issues. What we all strive to do is not let our differences divide us and sabotage what we're trying to achieve in our community.

I'm happy with what we're doing, albeit we realise that there's always room for improvement. Both of us are long past the point of wanting to belong to any kind of movement. We do however work with independent minded people in ad hoc alliances on issues of mutual concern. We're certainly past the point of wanting to deal with intra-movement dramas arising from different takes on contentious issues. This is particularly the case when people see things in strictly black and white terms with no room for grey areas or nuance. Ideal territory for the divide and rule merchants who want us at each other's throats. It's also ideal territory for the grifters and chancers with their own dubious agendas.

We've seen way too much of the work of the divide and rule merchants in our time. This ranges from the toxic rows over gender identity which have done incalculable damage to the anarchist movement through to the loose anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine mandate coalition shattering after the latest flare up of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians last October: It was never going to last so, we need to move on... 16.10.23.

I've got some bad news for those who have been berating me for my involvement in one of the many currents of opposition to the Covid narrative and the great reset - I'm not mourning the loss of what was nothing more than an illusory sense of unity. At some point, the shit had to be cleaned out of the stables - that has finally happened. I'll be honest and admit that it should have happened a lot sooner. Anyway, a massive shaking out has happened so, while I haven't found what could be termed a tribe, I have found a range of people thinking roughly along the same lines I can work with on fighting the great reset.

It now looks as though gender critical feminists are splitting with each other over whether it's a good idea or not to support Kellie-Jay Keen, Let Women speak and the Party of Women. This is in light of Keen, some of her supporters and a few so called 'gender critical feminists' thinking that attending Tommy Robinson's marches and rallies is a good idea. This is causing a lot of grief. Particularly so when militant Trans Right Activists (TRAs) refuse to acknowledge the concerns some gender critical feminists have about Keen's dodgy associations, instead, branding all of them as 'fascist'. For the benefit of any TRAs who may by some fluke be reading this post, I'd like to present some evidence that there are gender critical feminists who are speaking out against other 'feminists' attending Tommy Robinson's marches and rallies. This is what I found on just a brief trawl through some of the people I follow on X:

Dr. Jane Clare Jones

@janeclarejones

Okay, well that was all predictably depressing.

GCs, you have a serious far right problem.

And at this point there is really no excuse for anyone pretending they can’t see it.

You can read this thread in full here

Jayne

@ruskienboots

Just a reminder of who it is you’re supporting

#FeministsAgainstFacism #TerfsAgainstTommy

You can read this thread in full here

Woman’s Place UK

@Womans_Place_UK

We campaign for the rights of all women and girls. This campaign aim cannot be achieved if we discriminate against groups based on their skin colour, ethnicity or nationality. Nor can it be achieved by lending legitimacy or cover to those that seek to do so.

Resurgence of the far right

You can read this thread in full here

I'd genuinely like to think that there are some TRAs who would acknowledge this but, given my unfortunate experiences of dealing with them in the past, nuance isn't exactly their strong point...

As for Keen and her friends joining Tommy Robinson marches and rallies, what the f**k are they thinking? As you can see from the above, it's not like they haven't had enough warnings about what a shit stirring grifter he is. The optics of participating in his marches and rallies are terrible as it gives the TRAs the perfect excuse they want to brand all gender critical feminists as 'fascists'. If that isn't a massive own goal, I don't know what is. How Keen and her cohort can't see the damage this is doing to gender critical feminism is beyond me. Secondly it's splitting gender critical feminism at a time when unity in the face of women erasing transhumanism is essential. The dangers of which are clearly laid out in this piece: Corporatism, the New, New Left and the Gender Industry - Jennifer Bilek | Substack | 21.3.23.

This fracturing of humanity via the colonization of human sex is how unfettered corporatism functions. It splits everything into smaller and smaller fragments to open markets. Where we once had a single-family physician to help us heal, we now have many specialists to treat everything from lung cancer to toenail fungus. Where we have had a sexually dimorphic species, we now have medical identities that deconstruct sex, being foisted upon us, to open markets.

Yes, Tommy Robinson has latched onto child grooming gangs as an issue. An issue that away from those choosing to exploit it to promote their own dubious agendas, should be a concern for anyone with a shred of decency. He can do that because a Left that has largely abandoned the working class and refuses to acknowledge the sickening harm these gangs inflict has gifted him the issue to make it his own.

There are however a few brave exceptions of people on the Left who have spoken out:

Full text:

Nazir Afzal, Maggie Oliver and Sara Rowbotham battled with police and council bosses in order to seek justice against grooming gangs in Rochdale NOT Tommy Robinson. All he did was risk justice for the victims while he pretended to be a journalist. Well, that and stalk a woman.

If the Left and the anarchists want to take the wind out of Tommy Robinson's sails, they need to confront the issue of grooming gangs head on. While I accept that gender critical feminists attending his marches because they're understandably concerned about grooming gangs is a crap thing to do, the Left and the anarchists have to acknowledge the political vacuum they've created by refusing to acknowledge the issue. The experience I've had of the Left and a lot of anarchists over the years suggests that there's sod all chance of that happening, leaving the field clear for Robinson and other grifters like him to make hay with the issue. You reap what you sow and all that, don't you?

The elites must be loving this in the same way that any other form of of resistance to the system and the status quo has been neutralised by toxic divisions. They must also be loving the general raising of tensions which they hope at some point, will prompt people to start looking to authority to provide some stability. Grifters like Tommy Robinson who stoke up these tensions must be a god send to them. Trust me, the way things are going, those tensions are going to be playing out on the streets in a pretty nasty way, sooner rather than later.

What gets me is that people allow themselves to get riled up against another group without taking a few steps back from the fray to ask who is going to benefit from this ratcheting up of tension. Every time, seemingly without respite, the divide and rule merchants are allowed to do their work, pitting us against each other. What also gets me is the way people fall for false idols offering simplistic solutions to complex problems without asking some searching questions about their agenda. Also, what gets me in the movements I used to belong to is the rigid group think that allows no room for grey areas, nuance and meaningful discussion and debate.

As I've written a good few times before, we live in 'interesting times'. Ones that demand some agile thinking to understand and respond to them. What we don't need is rigid group think, tribalism, people falling for divide and rule tactics and people falling for false idols. Which is why the two of us behind this project have stepped aside from any movements, becoming independent mavericks who assess each issue on its merits, while trying to relate them to a broader context. It's the only way we can maintain our f**king sanity in an increasingly weird and dystopian world...