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Burn a Banker- legitimate class anger?

category ireland / britain | the left | opinion / analysis author Thursday April 02, 2009 19:22author by Seam Matthews - WSM (personal capacity) Report this post to the editors

"We are angry that rich people, like him, are paying themselves a huge amount of money, and living in luxury, while ordinary people are made unemployed, destitute and homeless. This is a crime. Bank bosses should be jailed. This is just the beginning."
(Statement released by the anonymous group behind the attack.)
burn_a_banker.jpg

The outburst of condemnation from liberal commentators against the recent property damage to (British banker) Sir Fred Goodwin’s privileges is nothing new. Indeed, for once these bastards got a taste of their own medicine and is quite trivial in comparison to the violence dished out to working people every day in terms of redundancies, house evictions, police brutality and war. Let’s face it- if this property damage occurred in any working-class area, we would be lucky to hear a thing in the media never mind an investigation by the police. Class society at its cutting edge!

The question of violence is tactical one and is necessary during class struggle, as the ruling-class will never cease its power and privileges peacefully. However, there is no substitution for mass direct action such as strikes, go slows and general strikes.

Bankers, those in the upper rank in the financial sector, are not the only people to blame for the economic recession. Whenever it’s the system we live under, underpinned by capitalist exploitation of labour which is the root cause of the problem. Removing a few bad apples and passing a few token reforms only reinforces the status-quo which does not bring us closer to reaching a solution.

We must also expose and reject attempts by self-serving, corrupt and opportunist politicians to jump on the bandwagon. They must not be let off the hook by deflecting attention away from their disastrous right-wing economic polices which have created the climate for excessive profits and bonuses for the very rich in our society. We need to look no further than recent scandals from Tony McAnulty's fraudalent expenses for his second home to the partner of Home Secretary Jackie Smith using public money to watch porn films. The Belfast Telegraph also reported last Wednesday that our local politicians at Stormont are paying out over £50,000 of ‘public money’ in bonuses to their staff.

Across the world, we are witnessing the flame of class war being spread like wildfire, manifesting itself in a variety of forms and tactics, such as the kidnapping of bosses by workers in France to prevent lay-offs to workplace occupations in Ireland.

We need to channel this anger and growing social discontent towards a vibrant, confident revolutionary movement which will wipe away these parasites from the face of the earth.

author by Juan Carlos - nonepublication date Fri Apr 03, 2009 01:21author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Im a normal colombian citizen, sick with the economic situation around the world... we mas joint and burn down all the banks and made them pay for all this crisis, we must overrule all goverments on the planet and force the armies to bring peace to our people, to finish with frontiers, border and everything that keep us isolated.
blessing for everebody.

Jc

author by Poli-Theopublication date Fri Apr 03, 2009 02:24author address author phone Report this post to the editors

The key to what your saying is "we need expose and reject" the phonies who use the frustration of the masses to advance their careers and agendas. While I understand the anger at Banks, I'm not sure how useful a tactic that was since we knew in advance how the media would cover it.

Radicals in this age need to be more creative than ever, we have to find ways to reveal unknown ideas to the general public in ways that just a flash of video in a 20 second news piece could make them think!

This crisis is our best chance to "expose" the system of unjust capitalism that we have had in decades -- maybe ever -- but the only way to inspire a mass rejection of the system is to be more effective in our tactics.

I personally thinking that staged acts of public rage, just waste valuable opportunities.

author by ajohnstone - socialist party of great britainpublication date Sat Apr 04, 2009 14:12author email alanjjohnstone at yahoo dot co dot ukauthor address scotlandauthor phone naReport this post to the editors

Are the banks and greedy and incompetent bankers to blame for the current economic crisis? That’s what a lot of people think and what the media seems to want us to think. Certainly, bank directors generally are greedy – awarding themselves huge “salaries”, bonuses and pensions – and some of them are incompetent on their own terms. But blaming them is to let the real culprit off the hook: the capitalist system of production for profit.

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/apr09/page10.html

There are few places in the world more pointless than a bank. There are few compelled to toil more uselessly than bank employees. In every respect, the function of banks is to facilitate a form of exchange in which nothing is produced and much can be lost. A world without banks would be a wholly better place.

http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2009/04/gu....html

author by AnotherPOVpublication date Sat Oct 10, 2009 11:13author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Perhaps this this fictional blog, "PinstripeSniper, about a man planning to cap abuses in the financial industries in a very direct way..." represents an extreme?

Will there be another French Revolution?

Related Link: http://pinstripesniper.blogspot.com
 
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