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Post by michele cryer on Apr 10, 2005 10:55:46 GMT
Thanks for your comments Bryan...a big thank to to you and your colleagues too, for organising the event so well...
Thanks for reminding me of at least 2 articles/news items that have not appeared in Freedom, if you can send me, via email, any other examples I will mention them in my letter to the organisation...
I do hope that we can resolve this matter.
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Post by bryan on Apr 11, 2005 7:09:51 GMT
Michele, I'll try to get the two booklet reviews that FREEDOM hasn't yet published, put on put on the BOOK REVIEW THREAD of the web forum. Regarding the e-mails from Derek Pattison, I spoke on the phone to him yesterday and related FREEDOM's response thru Rob Ray on the FORUM. He is livid and disgusted at the remarks suggesting he may be sending down long-winded 3,000 word diatribes, manufacturing cliches, pumping out unreadable rubbish etc.
I understand companero Pattison is about to launch his debut on this FORUM SITE.
So there is Pattison's e-mails, the two reviews of Martin Gilbert's booklet by Gambone and Draper respectively, there is a short review of NORTHERN VOICES 3, by Helen Buchanan, and there is a report by the Canadian writer Larry Gambone of a visit late last Summer to the CGT (Spanish General Confederation of Labour) in Barcelona. This last item they didn't put in (it is rumoured), because it may have offended those sensitive souls at Sol Fed.
But they at FREEDOM, have a particular responsibility regarding the Martin Gilbert booklet. Martin was encouraged over a numer of years to produce a RAVEN (FREEDOM's old quarterly theoretical stable mate); he gathered up articles and put the material together. Then FREEDOM stopped publishing THE RAVEN a couple of years ago. Martin then put the booklet together and published it out of his own pocket. One would have thought the least FREEDOM could do now is publish a review of it: given the work and money he has had to put into it.
It could be that the NEW REGIME at FREEDOM don't know the history of this, but they don't seem too worried to find out. This is the problem down there in the CAPITAL, every time LONDON get a new set of greenhorn jerks and hacks off the street taking-over, we go thru this kind of madness.
I'M SICK TO THE TEETH OF IT! I am!
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Post by michele cryer on Apr 11, 2005 8:07:37 GMT
Oh dear Bryan...thanks very much for that detailed report on how the current situation is with Freedom.
I will get in touch with Rob Ray and see if anything can be done about it all...thanks for your help.
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Post by Filthy McNasty on Apr 11, 2005 10:42:31 GMT
of course you have never considered the possibility that bryan is lying thru his teeth!
btw i contacted a couple of solfed groups and they have said that none of there members vote and suggest other motives for the statement that they do. they asked if there was any proof whatsoever
i have also googled "Father James Petty" and came up with very interesting results. i advise evryone to try it
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Post by Tom Delderfield on Apr 11, 2005 12:03:23 GMT
Feelthy,
what an exciting life you must lead!
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Post by Barry Woodling on Apr 11, 2005 12:24:25 GMT
The Northern Anarchist network conference which took place in Burnley on Saturday 9th April was probably the best I have ever attended and in my view was a resounding success. Anarchists and libertarians came from as far afield as Carmarthen and Wellington in Shropshire. Members of the IWW and Anarchist Federation attended together with supporters of the libertarian magazine Northern Voices. A special thanks to the members of the Burnley Anarchist Group who facilitated the event and made everyone feel very much at home.
As Michele pointed out the presentations by MIke Ballard on housing policy with particular reference to PFIs and Dave Douglas on the history of miners struggle were very informative and produced a stimulating discussion . In addition the discussions around the anarchist press led to a very constructive outcome.
The conference was free of sectarian rancour and bitterness and has proved that the importance of networking cannot be stressed enough. One very positive result is that the next NAN will take place in July in Wellington and the following one may well move to the North East where a number of useful anarchist contacts were made at the recent Projectile Arts festival in Newcastle.
Muchos besos y abrazos to the companeras and companeros of the Burnley Anarchist Group who were such warm and friendly hosts.
Barry Woodling
Northern Anarchist Network
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Post by michele cryer on Apr 11, 2005 13:33:40 GMT
Thank you Barry...I'm looking forward to attending the next 2 NAN conferences...
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Post by Rob Ray on Apr 11, 2005 15:55:22 GMT
I will reply in greater depth to this when i'm not at work, but just quickly, no we aren't aware of the history, as we took over last year and had no contact with the previous editors (only Toby was around at the time) before starting.
Why the hell you imputed that my saying (quite reasonably) that if you wanted to send in articles we'd try and publish them as long as it wasn't a 3,000 word diatribe was a personal slight against this Martin fellow I have no idea but that's fucking outrageous. I'm not sure I've even met him.
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Post by PeterTCA on Apr 11, 2005 19:01:09 GMT
Freedom's continual mantra of being too busy to reply to letters or acknowledge contributions poses all sorts of questions for the value of voluntary labour. It also suggests of how seriously we should consider Ethical Anarchism with its emphasis on taking responsibility for the consequences of our actions. A paper that doesn't care for its readers ultimately doesn't care for itself. Ask any shopkeeper to adopt a policy of telling their customers they are "too busy" and you will witness a progressive loss of custom. I've put my final point to Freedom often enough: If you really are too busy then why abandon customer care in your time-management priorities? Be Good. PeterTCA
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Post by Rob Ray on Apr 11, 2005 20:26:15 GMT
K I did a quick check back; in the last ten of my home issues of Freedom (I'm missing a couple of copies so there are gaps) there were:
13 stories about the North 17 stories about the South 2 stories about the Midlands 1 about Scotland and none about Wales (I'm gonna bring that up at the next editorial meeting now I've spotted it as a failing).
This only includes the stories which had specific geographical links named. The vast majority were UK-wide, rather than region specific.
Now if you were from the midlands, scotland or wales and complaining about the content being southern biased, I wouldn't have a leg to stand on, but the fact is that given we're a good 6 hours from you by train (8 hours from where I live) and have bugger-all contacts up north, you aren't doing too badly.
On the subject of missing reviews out, apologies if we did but how does that demonstrate an ignoring of northern issues? If we missed a listing I apologise again, but I think that was an issue when we ended up bringing it out a week late and there was no point in putting it in the paper (I may even have sent you a reply saying so), because, as we've repeatedly said, we have distribution problems.
We don't have a party line as such, but our policy is different from that of Vernon Richards, who it must be said wasn't exactly representing the whole anarchist movement either (the most commonly used word I hear is 'hijack' when his name and Freedom are mentioned).
We simply don't get the same articles written in as he did, as we have a different stable of writers. We often have a shortage of copy, and we say in the paper that we don't represent the views of all the writers, so we may well print, but if we don't get that copy we can't print it, understand?
NIBs are 100-150 words, News articles 300-400 words, page leads 400-600 words, features 1,500-1,700 words, editorials 580 words. We try not to put in opinion pieces as news articles, if you wish to analyse an issue please write to feature or editorial length, otherwise just say what has happened (tho a small amount of analysis is fine on page lead articles). We can't garuntee we'll publish if it's a full news week.
I do try to care for writers Peter, but to give you a run-down of our current staffing:
Our total editorial staffing is three, plus one sub-editor who does not get involved with proff-reading, contacting writers etc as she does mailout and looks after the building. We all work full-time, so only meet to put the paper together on Sundays. I travel from Ipswich (4-6 hour round trip on sundays) to help out as neither of the other editors have time/money to show up every issue. The shop is not doing very well so we have had to start cutting back on our outgoings to make Freedom come close to breaking even. Each of us, outside of Freedom, have other activist commitments which take up a great deal of our time.
Unfortunately this does cut into our ability to keep in touch with all of the contributors who send stuff to us. We are also hampered by the fact our email inbox is clogged with hundreds of emails from pseudo-left groups, stalinists and who knows WHAT else, so we do sometimes miss emails from people we don't know.
Hope that clears up why our professionalism is sometimes not up to the standards we would like. I am planning to try and rectify this by training up some new blood (as opposed to taking on people who have no clue about news production, editing etc who fuck off after a week because they don't know how to be useful) but this is going to take a while as I am simultaneously helping out with Direct Action, and doing the same training in East Anglia to get a regional rag going there.
NB// I would appreciate it if BRYAN relayed to Derek Pattison that the remark was not aimed at him, and would hope BRYAN does not shoot his mouth off in future.
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Post by Rob Ray on Apr 11, 2005 21:01:11 GMT
Btw, since when was taking the time to talk directly to customers about their complaints, particularly when they've been so bloody rude as in Bryan's case, especially when nothing was said to us directly and I had to have this site passed on to me by a firend, bad customer service? If this was a normal paper trust me you wouldn't have had anyone spend this long on you. I work for a paper and if you phoned my editor with this stuff he'd have slammed the phone down long ago.
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Post by bryan on Apr 11, 2005 22:38:51 GMT
Let's talk turkey Rob! What happened to Derek Pattison's e-mails on the Asylum seeker and Pakistani journalist Mansour Hassan? What happened to the report on the CGT in Barcelona by Larry Gambone? What happened to the 2 reviews of Martin's Booklet on Social Workers? What happwened to the Helen Buchanan review of Northern Voices No3?
ALL THIS SEEMED TO DISAPPEAR ONTO A BLACK HOLE.
In addition we have sent stuff down about the MANCHESTER SOCIAL FORUM, THE MANCHESTER ELECTRICIANS (2 BOOKLETS ON THE ELECTRIANS' LOCK-OUT) AND UNLESS YOU ARE TOTALLY 'THREE SHEETS TO THE WIND' YOU MUST BE AWARE THAT THE MOST MAIN STREAM ANARCHIST JOURNAL IN THE NORTH ~ NORTHERN VOICES ~ IS EMBEDDED IN ISSUES LIKE THE SPODDEN VALLEY ANTI-ASBESTOS CAMPAIGN; ISSUES OF COMMUNITY RELATIONS IN BURNLEY; PICCADILLY ROAD CAMPAIGN BURNLEY; ANTI-RACISM IN OLDHAM; SWINTON FIELDS FOREVER IN SALFORD.
Many of the editors in the past like Pete Turner, Bill Christopher, Vero, Charlie Crute, Frank or Donald Rooum would have had the the sense to use this stuff. All you can do is write 'about the NORTH' FROM A SOUTHERN PERSPECTIVE. Hardly anything is of the NORTH, OR EMBEDDED IN THE NORTH. It's just a view from outside: A VIEW OF THE NORTH FROM THE SOUTH.
IF I HADN'T TRIED TO CONTACT FREEDOM I COULD UNDERSTAND YOUR SELF-RIGHTOUS INDIGNATION. BUT dEREK pATTISON ASKED ME TO WRITE TO FREEDOM, WHICH I DID AGES AGO AND GOT NO REPLY. I ALSO RANG JANE AND SHE SPOKE TO JOHN SHEPHERD I BELIEVE ABOUT OUR PROBLEMS WITH THE ABOVE. SHE SAID THEY KEPT SAYING TO HER: 'WELL WE'LL LOOK INTO IT!', AND THEN DID NOWT.
It seems like you are a bit dizzy down there. It must be because you live your lives nearer then Sun down there in the SOUTH and its gone to your heads.
We told Toby at the Liverpool NAN Conference when he first became editor about 2001, that he was smashing the link with the North. Gradually he alienated more or less all of the NORTH, and went off to join the Church. Since then even some people down SOUTH have asked us to intervene and 'do something about FREEDOM', but the feeling of many up here now is that we would be wasting our time with a bunch of losers.
When you refer to the Midlands I would be careful; some people see that as an offensive term. Bill Bryson says there is a line that runs from thew Wash to Bristol and on each side of that line their are roughly 27,000,000 people. South of that line are the Southerners and North of it are us NORTHERNERS. That's why we are having the nexr NAN in Shropshire.
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Post by Rob Ray on Apr 12, 2005 7:17:13 GMT
Okay on the CNT article (the only one listed that I could find in our email archive, could you please give me dates for the other ones?) the issue in question was for the London Bookfair and we had two exclusive articles written specifically for that issue on China and Nigeria, which, if we're talking amounts of geographical coverage, we decided to give priority to as they hadn't been heavily covered recently (as opposed to the CNT, who get quite a lot). That's the kind of editorial process we go through bryan, it's only some weird southern conspiracy in your head. When did you try to write to us? How?
Who the hell are Northern Voices? I'll repeat, we have no contacts round your way, we took over from Toby and he didn't give us a contact list. Also, if as I suspect it's one of these periodicals which only comes out every so often, we won't use it because the news will not bne contemporary.
Got to head off to work, will try to reply to the rest in a bit, but frankly given your claim comparing Manchester to Barcelona on this very thread, 'too much sun' is not something I'd bandy around lightly.
Bill Bryson? You're quoting Bill Bryson? Ffs...
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Post by peterTCA on Apr 12, 2005 7:26:23 GMT
Rob, But we are all busy. I regularly clock-in14 hour days. Sometimes all it takes is a second-class stamp to acknowledge the work of a contributor. Be Good. Peter TCA
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Post by Rob Ray on Apr 12, 2005 11:53:46 GMT
Yeah, and sometimes all it takes is a phone call to find out what happened to an article. This runs both ways Pete, I do a 14 hour shift for Freedom on Sundays, not instead of my normal job, as does everyone else. I usually also have something on Saturdays and weekday evenings (regional activism) so your inference that I'm simply not making the effort is quite insulting - more usually I'm warned about burnout.
Until recently Freedom had a semi-policy of not replying at all to people who sent in articles, so the precedent wasn't set that people would expect replies (mainstream papers also usually do this, only replying to contributors they need more information from).
Given the amount of correspondence we get in from nutters, replying to everyone would take a great deal more time than 'one second class stamp'. We've only started sending emails back to people fairly recently (as in the last couple of months), and that really only includes people we know, or regular contributors who have specifically requested that we RSVP.
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Post by Rob on Apr 12, 2005 13:01:37 GMT
Rob, I had not intended to be insulting or to imply you were not putting in the effort. But things are clearer now to learn there is no policy of acknowledging contributions at Freedom. I think this is a questionable decision and one you are clearly paying a price for. Most people (even nutters) put effort into their work and not unnaturally come to feel angry and snubbed when their contributions disappear. I go back to my shopkeeper analogy. Customers who are continually being told the shop is too busy pick up on the underlying anxiety or simply go elsewhere. But at least it is refreshing to learn that Freedom is willing to set up a debate with those outside of London. Be Good. PeterTCA
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Post by octoberlost on Apr 12, 2005 17:51:23 GMT
Can I say big apologises for not attending the NAN gathering in Burnley, I hope all who organised it and attended felt reinvigorated for the many challenges which wait for us.
~
What I do find quite disturbing is the same individual who as continually used this forumn to attack SOLFED, be those reasons justified or otherwise, is now launching a slur against FREEDOM.
Since this is not a criticism but rather a full suggestion of vetting contributions - ie censorship, I find it quite remarkable that this is the first Ive heard of it and its from someone whose politics have several times been called into question on this forumn, for both sexism and sectarianism.
Can I suggest if someone as a proper complaint about the anarchist movement they do so in an open and sincere way, informing all concerned, and not poisoning the atmosphere in a remote corner of the web.
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Post by michele cryer on Apr 12, 2005 18:20:00 GMT
Octoberlost...I agree with you entirely...the use of emotive language when trying to set up communication between ourselves and Freedom, or any other group for that matter, is not useful and, unfortunately, does lead to the kind of 'playground' comments which have appeared on this forum lately...
Rob Ray, I thank you for being so helpful and informative regarding the issue of sending in articles for publication in Freedom...I hope that everyone here will now be satisfied that the problems in the past will not be repeated, unless unavoidable, and that we can look forward to contributions from The North being printed if they conform to the rules ie. length of article.
Bryan and Pete and others...I do appreciate this matter being discussed and followed up by you, but I think it is now the time to stop any further accusations regarding articles having gone astray in the past, and to focus on the future...hopefully an amicable one...
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Post by bryan on Apr 12, 2005 23:31:42 GMT
Rob Ray claimed there had been no attempt to contact FREEDOM about the problems outlined above regarding the disappearing articles from many sources. Today Gereck Pattison told me he had not only e-mailed FREEDOM, but wrote to them. In each case he got no reply. I didn't e-mail: I wrote and rang up the press and even in despair, called my friend Jane who has worked for FREEDOM as a layout artist/typist for many years. Like I say even she got nowhere.
The article by Gambone was the CGT, not CNT, as Rob suggests. As for October lost's contribution didn't he once say something about a 'statement' would be forthcoming from the Sol Fed on the sacking of comrade Jim? As for NORTHERN VOICES well FREEDOM BOOKSHOP sells it and I believe its sales exceed that of FREEDOM in the NORTH.
What follows is a letter sent by me to John Shepherd, who I understand FROM JANE to be the current editor of FREEDOM
NORTHERN VOICES
25th, January 2005
John Sheppard, Freedom Editor, 84b, Whitechapel High Street, London, E1 7QX
Dear John,
I have been trying to contact you for some time. I wrote to you in December enclosing a review of NV3 (this same review was sent to Donald Rooum and passed on to you in October 2004). In my letter I urged you to take the North more seriously and drew your attention to not only Northern Voices, which sells in some 60 newsagents in the North West and West Yorkshire, but also to the rank & file building worker’s paper North West Cowboy. We get the impression from reading Freedom that it is a bit out of touch with radical ideas of our time and the working class people of this country generally.
Of course, I don’t expect living in London you will agree with these views, but they are widely held in the North these days. Your failure to publish the article on the CGT by Larry Gambone on the apparent grounds that to do so would be to offend the Sol Fed., if true, is beneath contempt and not worthy of an anarchist publication.
I am told that when questioned about these things you fob people off dismissively. Well if you are not going to publish the Gambone piece I ought to tell you that we will, and what’s more we will accompany it with a little about your recent history down London.
If we do not hear from you within the next two weeks, we will assume the worst and act accordingly.
Yours fraternally,
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Post by bryan on Apr 12, 2005 23:37:24 GMT
There is a point I did get wrong earlier: it seems Harold is no longer Secretary of FREEDOM PRESS as I had supposed. But he was Secretary when comrade Toby Crow took over.
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Post by michele cryer on Apr 12, 2005 23:49:56 GMT
Bryan, thanks for all of your contributions to this particular thread...It is late at night, and perhaps I am reading your post a little 'fazed', however, I really do think it's time to put the past behind us and try to make a new start with the current staff of Freedom, who have not been dealing with the publication for very long. Perhaps some emails and phone calls were not dealt with sufficiently during the time that the staff were changing over...who knows? The present and the future is what matters now...please, let's all start afresh, send your articles, I might even send some myself, and let's see what 2005 brings us, without any bickering/backbiting...
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Post by bryan on Apr 13, 2005 2:16:20 GMT
I agree with October lost & Michele that the important thing now is the future. Given the success of the BURNLEY NAN CONFERENCE last Saturday and the holding of the SHOCK OF THE NEW meeting IN MANCHESTER last Thursday, we must move forward and set up a strong regional anarchism.
Last week on the dates 7th & 9th, April 2005, I believe northern anarchism turned a corner. It was an awesome experience. First of all a distinguished Catalan anarchist - EDWARD MASJUAN - came to MANCHESTER to discuss urban develoipment in MANCHESTER & BARCELONA, corruption in politics and the building trade in the CATALAN CAPITAL, especially since the scandal of the metro station at Carmel where houses colapsed through lack of cement.
That was an extraordinary event given that the CATALAN anarchists, more than any other Spaniards, see themselves as the GIANTS and us as the PYGMIES. A bloke rang me from MADRID at the weekend and asked me what impression EDWARD MASJUAN had of the meeting in MANCHESTER. It seems that most people over there in SPAIN think that the anarchists are feeble in this country, because they don't have anarcho-syndicalist unions like they do with the CGT.
The other event, perhaps more significant, was the BURNLEY NAN. In a way Mike's talk on housing PFI followed on from Edward's study of city development. The roofless life, without architecture, is nasty, brutish and wet. So what both Edward Masjuan from BARCELONA, and Mike from MANCHESTER, have to say was bound to be important in so far as they represent, in there different ways, a contrast to what the local authorities and Mr Prescott are throwing at us.
The fragmentation of our traditional communities has been felt both in BARCELONA and MANCHESTER. The policies of governments in both cases has done more to permanently disrupt peoples' lives, than the Spanish Civil War and the First & Second World War. The City planners are being more merciless in knocking down terraces, older buildings, quarters and barrios like the Barrio Chino and Hulme, than the German bombers.
Juan Masjuan said BARCELONA is a bad model for MANCHESTER to immitate. Mike told me afterwards that probably there is more corruption in Spain, than England, but the English are being corrupted not be money, rather by madcap ideas of modern or post-mod architecture.
Mike quoted Tory MP Sir John Gorst, who said in the 1980s: "Modern civilisation has crowded the destitute classes together in the cities making their existence more conspictious and more damgerous." Now Edward Masjuan is saying the poorer classes are being forced out of the city centres of BARCELONA and MANCHESTER into hell holes like Wythenshaw and Longsite, and beyond the suburbs in BARCELONA.
From being bang-up together in the industrial revolution, to being thrown apart and their communities smashed to smithereens in our post-moderb time has been the lot of the poor. This has had particular resonance when we look at the mining communities as Dave Douglass did in his historical account of the miners through the 1980s. The mining communities have been damaged beyond repair. The process started by Thatcher has accelarated, according to a recent study at Sheffield university, under the governments of Major and Blair. Our civilisation is suffering fragmentation and the brutal rupture of the way we live together. And this now threatens the people living on Piccadilly Road, Burnley now, just as it did the residents of Hulme and Barceloneta in the run up to the Olympics in 1992. The consequences in Barcelona says Senor Masjuan, was racism and ethnic conflict owing to the chaotic throwing together of populations after their old houses were demolished. With the miners it led to drug addiction and despair.
The art critic Robert Hughes says of buildings: "It is better to recycle what exists, to avoid mortgaging a workable past to a nonexistent Future, and to think small."
The poor have been moved on from the centre of MANCHESTER to the outskirts, the soup kitchens fore the homeless which the deems untidy were threatened last Autumn, now the barrow boys and street book stall is threatened with sky high licences (up some 500%).
Forums like BURNLEY VOICE and publications like NORTHERN VOICES must form an alliance as was agreed at the BURNLEY NAN CONFERENCE last Saturday, and start to challenge the real enemy. It's time to start putting the arrogant politicians, the greedy developers and the slum landlords out of business.
We must replace hole-in-corner journalism with some genuine street-corner jouirnalism. BURNLEY VOICE has already shown it can flush out cant and the platitudes of the pretentious. The playground stuff must end; that was only target practice. Now its time to start going for the big boys Richard Leese the Labour Party Boss in Manchester; the Carillion Black List; the Caddy crowd in Burnley.
We've got to start to fight for what's best in our towns and communities. BURNLEY VOICE has the advantage of providing a rapid local response for a growing readership. NORTHERN VOICES must develop a more considered approach to regional criticism in the areas where it has influence.
West and South Yorkshire, Burnley and Nelson, Manchester and Salford, Bury and Rochdale, Shropshire, South Wales, Cumbria, and North Wales, all had an imput into the Burnley NAN Conference. We must build on this in the months ahead.
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Post by michele cryer on Apr 13, 2005 11:17:44 GMT
Thank you Bryan...that was a brilliant piece of writing...and you did much more justice to the talks by Mike and Dave than I could! I'm sure they will appreciate this. So yes, the answer is to go together, unified in friendship, to battle the 'big boys' and if that includes sending our articles to Freedom as well as including them in the NV or NC magazines, then so be it...good luck to all.
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Post by Derek on Apr 14, 2005 17:37:02 GMT
Regarding the issue about Freedom Press, I thought I would comment to cut through an awful lot of crap which is appearing on this site about this matter. My gripe is simply this: In the paper Freedom say, 'If you are interested in writing regularly for Freedom we want to hear from you!' This appears in every issue and yet in spite of sending two e-mails and an article about a Pakistani journalist who is facing deportation and possibly death at the hand of his persecutors, I have never received as much as an acknowledgement. Having written for Freedom since 1991 and also holding a Freedom press card, I`ve never seen such a shambles. Even the previous Editor, who was a former General Secretary of the SPGB, had the decency to acknowledge contributors. Offering the excuse of having an 'essay crisis' which the editorial panel often fall back on, is simply not good enough. If they`re not up to the job then the paper needs staff who are up to it. As Clint Eastwood says, ' A man`s got to know his limitations'.
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Post by bryan on Apr 14, 2005 23:27:48 GMT
In reply to Michele above: Don't be dazzled! I think you are underestimating your role and that of the many other contributors to the success of the BURNLEY NAN last weekend.
When I said at the NAN that you can teach us city rats a thing or two I meant it. The Piccadilly Road contribution was a vital down to earth presentation by people inside a struggle Any honest reporting by people involved in a campaign which affects their lives so crucially, as the Piccadilly Road dispute clearly does, is going to be worth more than any amount of theoretical analysis by me or anyone else.
The brilliant thing about last weekend's NAN is that nearly everyone contributed, and that the questions and suggestions were so intelligent and to the point. Everything clicked! And I can only think this has something to do with BURNLEY.
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Post by Rob Ray on Apr 15, 2005 10:50:47 GMT
As I've already said derek yes we are short-staffed, and I'm trying to rectify that, and we've started replying more often recently anyway, so I'm not sure what sort of crap you want to cut?
At the same time, we can't, with the greatest of respect, hand over the production of a page to you, for all the reasons I stated earlier.
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Post by Rob Ray on Apr 15, 2005 10:54:16 GMT
NB// what's going on with these manchester electricians btw?
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Post by derek on Apr 15, 2005 11:12:46 GMT
Derek, I think the earlier Barcelona/Madrid - Manchester/London metaphor applies. We in the North have for years hung on to the apron strings of London. Our only meaningful response can be to build a strong Northern Voice. Be Good. PeterTCA
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Post by Rob Ray on Apr 15, 2005 11:48:04 GMT
That'd be fantastic Peter, something from the north by the north is the only way to truly get around the geography problem, particularly as, if nothing else, it allows for more pages of coverage overall.
How often does Northern Voice come out? Cos if it's fortnightly, or plans to be, it'd be great to co-operate on production days. Feel free to lift from Freedom btw, we're copyleft.
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Post by Rob Ray on Apr 15, 2005 11:53:30 GMT
Oh incidentally, you can email me (less spam on the account) at ipswich_anarchists@yahoo.com. If you want to get my mobile number so we can talk direct just send me a message and we can swap.
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