Police workers? Libcom.org/Aufhebengate controversy

[jondwhite]

Here's an article so long that its hard to summarise but some key quotes follow

http://dialectical-delinquents.com/?page_id=9

"in January 2011, the TPTG², a small Greek group, discovered that John Drury, a significant “theoretician” and long-standing member of the self-styled anti-state communist group Aufheben, had been helping the cops with a divide and rule strategy for the very same crowds that this group ostensibly wanted to contribute to radicalising,"

…

"Whilst the Kennedy/Stone case affected dozens of individuals, the team of which Drury is a part potentially affects millions. And it’s worse in the sense that the UK “libertarian communist” milieu (as a whole, not necessarily as individuals) doesn’t give a toss about this, at least in any publicly decisive manner. So much so that Drury, unlike Stone/Kennedy can continue as normal, as if nothing has happened. What is not at all logical is for those who ostensibly desire an anti-state revolution to support and justify this piece of shit, or to do nothing about him, and so encourage others doing likewise. In fact those who defend him have become just as bad as him, lying²⁹ in order to rubbish genuine opposition."

…

"Libcom wanted the appearance of open access (a bit like the BBC) whilst maintaining a hidden agenda close to Solfed and to the ideological middle class that form the majority of admin and their fellow travellers. Above all, they want the appearance of being anti-state, but in this basic definition of being “libertarian” have proved themselves utterly self-contradictory (Lenin, too, in State and Revolution just before the Bolshevik seizure of state power, presented himself as a bit of a libertarian and many anarchists were temporarily taken in)."

…

"there are plenty of “libertarians”/”anarchists” (whatever) who mostly merely follow and imitate, who want to be a part of a scene above all, who don’t want to develop their own intelligence, confidence and inititative, who often defer to the intellectuals they trust and thus, by sheer lazy lack of critical vigilance, succumb to the articulate experts, who could well have hidden agendas."

…

"Revolutionaries in the 1st International helped create the basis for the political monstrosity of Leninism when they, despite Marx’s “the emancipation of the working class is the task of the working class itself”, decided that the workers by themselves couldn’t destroy capitalism without leaders and without concentrated centres of class consciousness. "

…

"One of the main aims of the 1st International was to win over/seduce/entice/recruit the masses with openly reformist ideas separated from a critique of capitalism as a whole; only once inside the party would the workers learn the whole of the truth as revolutionaries saw it. Typical politics: a mediated and hierarchical view of revolution where political consciousness separates means and ends and hierarchically patronises “the workers”. Battles over the organisation between Marx and Bakunin (Marx easily being the greater manipulator) became battles over the possession of the revolutionary movement (which at that time was primarily considered in terms of those who explicitly considered themselves ‘revolutionaries’)."

…

"As the Aufhebengate scandal unfolded, there were some who regretted the fact of what seemed like an internecine struggle, that “communists” have far more in common than they have significant differences. But whatever you call yourself is largely irrelevant: it’sin the practical struggle against our alienation, the world and our comportment in it, that we express our desires for a different world, and that can include those who do not call themselves communist/ anarchist/ libertarian/ situationist/ autonomist/ marxist or whatever as much as those who do."

[DJP]

This is old news.Dr John Drury is an expert on mass crowd psychology. Some of his work has been used by the Police. Big fucking deal!What's your take on this, Jon?

[jondwhite]

Is this only a betrayal if you're an anarchist who think police workers are the enemy?

[DJP]

Like with any matter an opinion is only valid to the extent that it's holder is in possession of the full facts.I only have a fleeting knowledge of the matter, but from what I can gather Drury's report was not along Draconian lines. If he we're suggesting rioters or demonstrators should be mustard gassed it would be a different matter.There was a long thread on this on libcom, I think the link to Drury's report is probably in there somewhere. If you're that interested why not give it a read and report back.I'm not sure just copy and pasting a bunch of quotes from the article you chose achieves anything. Again, would be nice to know what you think about the quotes you have chosen.

[jondwhite]

Dunno if libcom.org and aufheben can be trusted to be up front about this but I will look up the link. There seem to be recent comments on the Dialectical Deliquents article so its of contemporary relevance but don't know if Dialectical Deliquents are a trustworthy source either. At least some users are saying this on Red Marx. Some of the observations from Dialectical Deliquents though seem sound especially of deferential scene anarchists. Always thought Bakunin was more autocratic than Marx in the First International though, pretty sure I even read this on libcom.org!

[DJP]

So you assess the trustworthiness of source by reading what other people say about it?Surely if you want to know about something it's best to start by getting it from the horses mouth?The articles written by Drury are listed in an appendix here:http://anarchistnews.org/content/cop-out-%E2%80%93-significance-aufhebengateIf Drury is some kind of "collaborator" where do you draw the line? Are tradesmen who do repairs to police buildings collaborators? People off the street that volunteer for ID parades?Seems to me this kind of moralism doesn't lead us anywhere expect up the garden path.

[SocialistPunk]

DJPIf I am reading this right, we have a situation, where the hard done by Greek public, screwed by the capitalist state during this austerity ridden recession, take to the streets.Inevitably a number of radical political organisations get involved, much as the SPGB might attend rallies and demos' to convert people to the cause.A major "theoretician" among a communist group helps the police in their divide and rule tactics, kettling etc. Basically helping the state machinery control the demonstrators.You ask  what is the difference between a bricky doing repairs on a police building and an anti-state communist helping the state machinery control dissent among the masses, rightly pissed off with the one sided workings of capitalism?Would a real socialist (SPGB/WSM) help the police subjugate angry workers, pissed off with their treatment at the hands of capitalist state control?I suppose the answer to that, boils down to where you stand on control and authority.

[DJP]

SocialistPunk wrote:

A major "theoretician" among a communist group helps the police in their divide and rule tactics, kettling etc. Basically helping the state machinery control the demonstrators.

I don't think Drury's work is about kettling etc. But I've not read it, if it is I'm prepared to stand corrected.

[SocialistPunk]

Hi DJPI did not intend my mention of kettling to suggest Drury's research and police contributions were about kettling. I simply used kettling to illustrate the involvement of academics in directing police tactics of social control. I apologise for not being more precise.The following link takes us to a Prof Peter Waddington and his promotion of the use of kettling by British police.http://www.birminghampost.net/comment/birmingham-columnists/agenda/2009/04/21/professor-defends-kettling-technique-used-at-g20-protests-65233How about an answer to the question below?

SocialistPunk wrote:

You ask  what is the difference between a bricky doing repairs on a police building and an anti-state communist helping the state machinery control dissent among the masses, rightly pissed off with the one sided workings of capitalism?Would a real socialist (SPGB/WSM) help the police subjugate angry workers, pissed off with their treatment at the hands of capitalist state control?

There is a difference between a bricky working on a police building and a so called anti-state communist Prof helping police formulate social control tactics. I would have expected a socialist to know the difference. I'll give you a clue, the answer has nothing to do with morality.

[Anonymous]

You want links to JDrury co-authored articles?Here:http://jdarchive.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/chaos_theory_bw.pdf http://dialectical-delinquents.com/?page_id=529 There are plenty more in the appendix to “Cop-Out…” Also, there’s a critique of the SPGB’s ridiculous attitude (a bit explicit, mostly implicit)  to the cops in this article on the 1919 Police Strike (because I have yet to properly organise this new site, you have to scroll down past the titles of,  and links to, all the articles on the site before you get to the specific article). Sam

[Anonymous]

Either your links thingy doesn’t work, or I did something wrong. Here they are again:http://jdarchive.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/chaos_theory_bw.pdfhttp://dialectical-delinquents.com/?page_id=529Here’s the link to the Police strike article:http://dialectical-delinquents.com/?page_id=81

[ALB]

Here's what the Socialist Standard said at the time about the 1919 police strike:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1919/no-178-june-1919/bobbys-discretionandhttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1919/no-180-august-1919/police-v-police

[Anonymous]

 I think you've yet to organise much more than your new site, Sam.  You've got all of your work ahead of you with regard to organising your ideas.  Your article refers to us as 'ridiculous people' who are 'stuck in the past'.  Aside from the puerile nature of your name-calling – and oh, look, there's that less-than-amusing 'small party of good boys' gag again – your analysis is demonstrably wrong. Class is determined by one's relationship to the means of production.  And guess what? Most people who join the police force aren't doing it because they've chosen sides in the class struggle.  They're doing it because their economic position in society demands that they sell their labour power to an employer in order to live.  They are members of the working class and have the same economic interests as any other worker.  The fact that they do not realise this yet is neither here nor there. In case you hadn't noticed, most members of the working class don't realise this yet.

[DJP]

SocialistPunk wrote:

The following link takes us to a Prof Peter Waddington and his promotion of the use of kettling by British police.

Other than them both being academics I fail to see what the connection of this is to John Drury.Here's the abstract from the paper that John Drury co-authored and appeared in the journal Policing

Drury et al. wrote:

Much public order policing is still based on the assumption that crowds are inherently irrational and dangerous. We argue that this approach is both misinformed and counter-productive because it can lead to policing interventions that increase the influence of those advocating violence in the crowd. We challenge traditional assumptions about crowd psychology and demonstrate how widespread conflict derives from the interactions between police and crowds. From this, we develop general guidelines as to how policing can reduce crowd violence and lead crowd members themselves to self-police violent groupings in their midst. We then use examples from anti-globalisation protests and the Euro 2004 football championships to show how these guidelines can be applied in practice and how effective they can be. We conclude by arguing that such knowledge-based crowd policing can turn crowd events into opportunities to overcome seemingly intractable conflicts between the police and groups within our society.

They are towing in the other direction. John Drury has also had articles published in journals related to the fire services, not surprising for someone who has a theoretical background in crowd behaviour.But the fact of the matter is this.Does the fact that John Drury, a key contributor to the journal Aufheben, has had articles published in the journal Policing affect the truth or validity of anything written in the aforementioned journal?The answer is no. The truth and validity of any argument depends on it's internal logic and how well it fits in with the observed facts.Has John Drury contradicted himself by writing for a police journal? Only if he has said you should not do so. Personally I am not the slightest bit interested in this aspect of the argument though.Trying to claim Drury or Aufheben is the leader of a movement of millions, as the article that Jondwhite posted is ridiculous. If this presumed leadership where true I would like to know how it is manifested. Groups of black block spraying in depth critiques of decadent theory on bill boards perhaps?

[SocialistPunk]

DJPI merely posted the link about prof' Waddington (that I now think does not work) to show who advocated kettling.But you are right they are both academics, and both involved in a field that has benefits for any capitalist state machinery looking into different ways of controlling the masses. And by the way I read the "Chaos Theory" that Drury supposedly denies co-authoring.You should know as well as I, or any socialist, that many academics end up involved in fields of research that benefit the ideology of capitalism. Here it involves physical manipulation of people through the use of psychological crowd control techniques, for the benefit of the state. Now you could if you wish, argue it benefits the protesters as they may find themselves on the receiving end of less police violence. But that is as far as that goes. How different is such academic support of the state in it's tactics of policing than say Steven Pinker or Ayn Rand's excuses for the in-built one sided misery of capitalism?This is an example of a lefty academic, whose research is paying off. Most academics follow the research, it is the most important thing, it leads to professional recognition and monetary gain.So he has been outed as a hypocrite, advocating one thing and actually doing another. Why get so wound up about such simple truths?

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