We're publishing here a letter to parents and school staff that we received from a local teacher.

Protests by college and school students on November 24th and 30th were an exuberant festival of disorder. Young people threw down a challenge to adults facing threats to our livelihoods from the all-party cuts currently starting to kick in. Students as young as twelve got out on the streets, stepping out of their allotted roles and creating a vibrant, positive response to the vicious attacks that their generation are facing. At one Brighton school over 550 pupils walked out - a third of the total school population - as well as hundreds from other Brighton schools and Lewes Priory.

The Millbank riot and some of the subsequent student protests have been widely condemned in the media as the actions of a 'violent minority'. NUS president Aaron Porter infamously described the riot as ‘despicable’. Property destruction, we were told, undermined the message of the NUS’ peaceful protest. This was the behaviour of ‘anarchists’, outsiders hijacking what would otherwise be respectable political protest in a liberal democracy. But liberals would do well to reflect on their own glass house before casting such rhetorical stones.

Liberalism: doctrine of the violent minority

Liberalism in fact is nothing but the ideology of minority violence par excellence. Margaret Thatcher’s favourite thinker, Adam Smith, was refreshingly frank about this back in the 18th century:

Chris Wood – Dulwich, 19th December 2008

Chris Wood is a rare thing indeed, an articulate English folk singer with moving songs and an approach that takes on many of the ills of the modern world from a radical perspective.

I was fortunate enough to have been given a double album of his two CDs, The Lark Descending and Trespasser. These are both fine records that examine what it means to be English in a much more sensitive way than the likes of Billy Bragg, mixing contemporary songs with traditional, with a slight emphasis on Wood’s home in Kent.

A Century of Writing on the IWW (Steve Kellerman)
Boston IWW 2007 – 38 pages – $5.00

This bibliography of books on the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) is the most complete work of its sort by a considerable margin. It is divided into four sections – general works (books exclusively about the IWW); biographical works; miscellaneous works with some bearing on the IWW; and writings by IWW members. The appendix on the IWW in fiction is so extensive relative to what has been available in the past as to constitute virtually an original work.

Available for $5 a copy from: IWW Literature Dept., PO Box 42777, Philadelphia, PA 19101 ($2 shipping for first item, 50¢ each additional item). For bulk orders contact Boston IWW, PO Box 391724, Cambridge, MA 02139 (50% discount on orders of six or more).