Wednesday, February 29, 2012

 Shocking stuff!

This kind of thing will only serve, end of the day, to strengthen and intensify anti-Union sentiment intensely, of course.


Or will it?

Trying to not alienate people is a mug's game,innit? I mean it's not like the Right much cares about the effects on the general public and its general popularity in pushing through its agenda is it? It's not like the finance industry is worried about tarnishing its image.

Trying to win hearts and minds with moderation and a softly-softly catchee-members approach? Got a bit of a thin skin? Want to engage in constructive debate?

You have got more chance of inspiring people and releasing their latent insurrectionary energies if you start to look like you have power and that you are ruthless, equally ruthless in your application of that power. Is it an end in itself? No, it is a way of building agency, of making people aware of their power. Of how they are linked in chains of supply and service that are the real lifeblood of any city. The food that doesn't get delivered, the rubbish that doesn’t get collected, the transport that doesn't arrive, the motorways that are blockaded, the disrupted fuel lines, the hacked websites, the lost emails. The city depends on these millions of tiny, taken-for-granted interlinked interactions.

In James Toback's documentary on Tyson, Tyson talks about his first manager, how he used to praise him, tell him he was going to be the greatest fighter in the world, make him look at himself in the mirror and talk about what a great athlete he was, how much potential was there. Tyson was suspicious at first and thought the old man wanted to get some sweet, batty-luvvin from a buff young ghetto yoot, but then realised in fact, it was all done to build up his confidence, his self belief.

You are the city, builders, bus-drivers, cleaners, librarians, coffee-servers, sandwich makers, nannies, teachers, security guards, binmen, street cleaners, shelf-stackers, ticket collectors, train drivers, warehouse workers, truck drivers, porters, care assistants, nurses. Without you, if you stay at home for a week or two, night falls and chaos descends.

Use your power wisely and be merciful if you can, minimum-wage masters of the universe, public sector powerbrokers, service-industry kingmakers. Remember, their lives are in your hands.

4 comments:

ASHDAV said...

Followed predictably by http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/feb/29/nick-clegg-ed-miliband-len-mccluskey?intcmp=239, FFS.

Btw, isn't it a load of poncey old wank that organisations that used to go by perfectly reasonable names like the Transport and General Workers' Union now bear the names of abstract concepts that sound like advertising slogans? "Unite" FFS. What's next? "Empowerment"? "Value"? "Serendipity"?

carl said...

yeah it cleaves to the ideological rebranding banality of Nu Lab a bit too much, dunnit.

David K Wayne said...

I keep waiting for the DWP to be rebranded 'Believe' or 'Win' or something (with 250 grand for the consultants who design the logo).

ASHDAV said...

Have these people never seen Monkey Dust? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvx5j216wOI