GAME of SLOGANS: The great anarchist poster war on the streets of Newtown, Sydney 2016

Almost every Sunday morning I walk up to Newtown. Forty minutes exercise, get a coffee, a weekly catch up with my union mate and sometimes other old time left wing stalwarts. Its allus a stimulating walk. 6.30 in the morning, you brush shoulders with returning party goers, head trippers, people cleaning the streets, old Greeks slowly making their way to church, joggers, dog walkers-and oldies like us, early risers needing the exercise. I'm particularly fond of the graffiti and posters. Newtown still has its hardcore anarchists fighting for space with gigs being advertised (Steel Pulse-local grunge and thrash etc), people looking for lost cats or new flatmates, keep fit/self-defence classes, boxing gyms, and the latest money making capitalist venture get me rich quick pyramid scheme.

The pavements littered with bottles, broken glass, cans, fag boxes, crumpled sticky cellophane and smashed out butts, discarded take-away wrappers, vomit-corners of shops stinking sharply of piss-the occasional needle and syringe. My friend that I walk with used to clean the streets and knows every street sweeper, council truck driver out on Sunday mornings. Its a job cleaning up after the Saturday night revellers and without a shadow of doubt since the Kings Cross/CBD lockdown-Newtown is getting more roving party animal foot traffic and as a consequence is much grubbier. Grot is not all bad. Cities are over used and life tends to accumulate layer upon layer. But there is the grot of outsiders coming into play who don't care about the shit they drop and leave behind. Even some badge of honour in defiling someone else's turf mabe. Likewise, a meanness is creeping into the anarchist messages pasted up and visible this morning. Someone in the collective has done away with humour in favour of the direct action.

Or mabe there was a poster competition. Find some of the old political posters like the red arm smashing the bourgeoisie-and this one is old style-more Metternich First World War era than Turnbull. And Yuppie, I didn't think they were still an agenda item of scorn. Who are the new bourgeoisie or yuppies. Fucked if I know what label fits. I prefer Albo's Tories, the recognition that there is still an ongoing class war. Even the 'chattering classes' still fits the twitter era. What do you call the political indifferents? And can you engage them, make em think in the poster wars?

 These declare the workplace as the enemy, ownership as theft. Supporting the principle of shop lifting and looting, but loses sight that these were values of the punk era and changed very little. More often and not aimed at small businesses with limited security-easy to turn over and a riot was also the opportunity for the greedy to loot. As for work, like education is not all a joke. My family (Geordies and Flemings) were proud to work and put food on their family tables. They also new first hand the cost of loss of work. This is why they were mostly committed unionists but suspicious of empty Marxist rhetoric when it came their way. They supported workers education program, for some it was where they first learned to read, write and do basic math and to think, especially critical thinking.

Then there is this one. It hits the button around the tendency of current protest to fragment. Not much sign of union involvement for example opposing the Reclaim Australia movement. At least not here in Sydney. And yes there is an insidious class war happening through stealth. The rich, even with the hit taken by share markets are still getting richer by percentage and those living below the poverty line, or hardly able to make ends meet are increasing. Even the middle classes (those still in permanent jobs), treading water for the past year are now being pushed backwards. And yes the banks, the utility companies, those responsible for pushing up increased numbers of high density living units, investors-these are living off us. The banks with their profits have never justified increasing mortgages in 2015. And the commodity society, where when we want we go out and get, whether we can afford it or whether there is a consequence in the loss of another home based industry. But lumping the cops in as oppressors? Yes, they are frequently used as agents of the state, but they are also highly unionised. They may not be the workers friends but they are not the enemy. Too much of what they do, I would not wish on anyone. Criminality is not anarchy or outlaws fighting the system or establishment. All too often it is scum feeding of those perceived as weaker or prey-look at domestic violence, stand overs-robberies, embezzlements, cons, burglaries-these are opportunistic more than political statements.

As for voting. It is not much but it is something the ordinary man and women fought to get. Yet we have allowed it to be devalued by making elections something akin to reality television. We have allowed muppets to be glorified as strong leaders when they are made of straw or worse are arses pretending to be committed to public duty. We do not value diversity or integrity sufficiently to vote for the values we believe in. Throw it out and replace it with what or not at all. Lastly, my call to the anarchist collective responsible for these posters. I know you are the hard nosed pragmatists and I've seen your direct action close up at Reclaim Australia and other rallies. But bring back some humour into your messages. It engages, it informs, it educates. One laugh is worth more than many frowns or scowls.

PART TWO:

Might pay to give the brown acid a wide berth

Last week (early January 2016) taking an early morning walk up through King Street Newtown every rubbish bin had been slapped with a poster decrying State and Capitalism. And then some! Ee up, I thought, lads and lasses at Black Rose have got a printing' press in their Christmas sock. Well, they've been busy and only a week later, a whole new set of A4 sized pastes are up, stuck ta bins, an' walls; broadcasting anarchy in Newtown.
And as for equal rights; I was reet pleased to see hippies had joined yuppies and pollies on the anarchists death wish list. Although I thought hippies, like Trots had bin consigned to the endangered specie list- summat to see in old museum photos of demos, where men with long hair, beards and head bands sat with groovy chicks, with long hair, headbands and cheese cloth dresses and mostly without beards and sang stirring anthems sooch as "We Shall Not Be Moved" until they were scythed into suet and blood pudding by industrious truncheons and the size twelve boots of the wooden tops. But mabe like "hipsters" hippies have made a come back. But if so, you have to wonder what they have done to piss off the anarchists and what kind of death? My experience in the early seventies was that they all, left to contemplate where their political navel might be, they sink under their own inertia, bummed out by all the problems of how to drop out of consumerism but keep their stashes. Those of us on the edges of the political left, even if we had long hair and wore flared jeans, we were inclined to dismiss hippies as political lightweights. Has owt changed? We liked MC5, the Stooges-they liked Incredible String Band. I rest me case.

And amongst 'messages on side of tin bins' this weeks outbreak of slogans, poetry and some old style agit-prop...and even a quote from Mr Orwell. Cruel to use a press gallery photograph of Mr Brandis explaining why he won't be releasing his dairies anytime soon.