Article

Letter

Hi,

I'm writing to you after reading BF215 which I picked up at the 1 in 12 Club in Bradford as normal. I was impressed by this issue which had a lot of useful and inspirational stuff in it. However, I was less impressed when I read on.. The reports in BF214 and the booklet from the Mayday conference about the lack of backbiting, and the feeling of moving forward were good and uplifting. Upon getting to the latter half of the magazine I was dismayed to read the letters page and some of the articles, which o hearkened back to the bad old days of constant sniping at each other through the pages of different magazines. The amount of space spent having a go at Green Anarchist appeared to me to be a waste which could be put to better use having a go at our real enemies - those who have authority over us, our lives and our futures. Much of it was irrelevant unless you are heavily involved in the scene and already knew what was going on - in Bradford we have real problems to deal with, which means that you either get along or find something else to do - but you don't waste precious time and resources having a got at each other. I realise that GA has been of great importance to us recently with the GANDALF trial, but this doesn't mean we have to re-open old arguments that are never going to be resolved. This appears to be what is wrong with us all, constantly rehashing the same old lines at one another, particularly London groups who seem to maintain feuds with one another, instead of getting together and working round problems. Too much time thinking and theorising and not enough doing has led to the usual result of a lot of pissed off and separated people, Cheers Jon

Comment: We have had letters from three of the Gandalf defendants, which we are not going to publish. One is from Noel Molland answering the attacks on him by GA, the others are from GA editors, insulting us and anyone else who doesn't share their great theoretical insights. If anyone wants to see them, write to us. We stand by our decision to publish the article in BF215, and in the event of Steve Booth ever coming up with a considered reply instead of the usual rants, lies and insults, we'll publish that. A quick perusal of "Do Or Die", for example, shows that "irrationalism" has a deeper currency than just GA. We consider such ideas are a serious barrier to building any anarchist movement worthy of the name, as are the people who can say that they'd rather see mass starvation than mass society.