Shaping Of the Future

Date: 3rd Sept '02

Name: D whittaker

Having just looked at the shaping of the future article it seems to me that RedAction is looking to establish itself as somehow superior,more mature and more realistic than the rest of the left.

This reminds very much of my experience of a the clique of mature,sociology students at Bradford University in the early nineties.I remember it being pretty much the same notion-that they were somehow above the trendy idealism of the rest of the students while at the same time being just as radically socialist etc.

At the end of the day this became for them a matter of establishing credibility with the local working class community.This involved eshrewing the campus bars in favour of gritty working class town pubs (one of which was the very one incidentally attacked in last year's riots).I remember tagging along with them even though as a normal age student and in Economics I was to be looked down on.

Alot of it now makes me cringe:the idea of "radical subversives" with multiple piercings and Kahmiri woven sweaters reckoning to mix it on all levels with the locals in work overalls,thinking that all that was needed was to mispronounce water as "woter",talk of currency in terms of bob and drink loads of rubbishy beer.

So much of Redaction echoes the attitude of theirs.I remember all their sneering at legoland students and espousal of having no censorship- even boosting of having friends in the NF as though this somehow validated allthe more their own multi-racialist views and gave them a credibility holier than thou political correctists could never claim.

At the end of the day however I am not sure any of this ever worked.No local people ever seemed at ease with them .Their mistaken belief like yours was that it was the way lefties put themselves across which counts not the substance of their beliefs. For my friends at the end of the day their endeavours to connect with local workers this was always going to be bullshit in one important aspect;however much they mingled at and hid their scorn for the Karaoki and other lude pub behaviour etc, after graduation there was no way there was going to be any of this for them.Their own worlds were going to be the salaried gravy train of the Public Sector.All this facade that theres wasn't a world of open immigration controls, sympathy for the rights of criminals, disdain for the family in terms of gender free roling etc was cynically debunked.My point is for RedAction- no ammount of revisionist rewording will change anything unless you really feel that your struggle is the same as those of such white working class people in Bradford Pubs. At the end of the day are just looking to self in way in which you might succede in conning your way in with them? Are you really with them or not?

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