the east end is/are our streets!they belong to the united all sorts of the east end and to the international working class

reports from online socialist worker,and video footage on it and you tube shows a significant victory today for the people of east london,and for the international working class!

the edl/english defence league have been completely humiliated and it seems been kept off any streets anywhere,at least for today.

as i write this i have a mixture of emotion and thought.like any revolutionary socialist i question and doubt everything.i am also envious in some respects because my increasing disability limits my mobility and safety for myself and others.i wonder how others far more disabled than myself manage it-i guess a fearlessness and courage i dont possess.but even if it only for a moment i miss that glimpse and feel for how things might be and would be better-in seeing the footage of the victorious community of all sorts,marching-yes marching-in celebration,chanting"these streets are our streets".as i write i have tears running down my face.this is a rare moment in which we,the people who live and work here momentarilly possess our streets.i can share that feeling even from a distance,for this wonderful,diverse,rich(in all senses)city is briefly mine too.i have lived,worked in or yearned for it for most of my life

in the footage i have seen there is not a fascist in sight,nor indeed are the police.yet i must not get ahead of myself.this victory is a battle not the whole war.there is lots to be done and it does not break or end fascism or discrimination.but it does raise hope,confidence and indeed the stakes

one of the things i love about this great city is that the world,our world,the working class in all its diversity is here.i look forward to the time when everyone is safe here,and that we who live and work,have our yearnings and futures here,will own the streets fully and collectively.

there is lots to be done,which includes mass mobilisations againt the ruling coalition gang at their party conferences,in organising towards a general strike.not least in celebrating LGBT identities later in the month also in the east end,and celebrateing the 75th anniversary of the battle of cable street,alos in the east end when the antifascist movement and the left did not allow the BUF/british union of fascists to pass either.

lets end racism,fascism,discrimination by puttinhg the edl,their associates and the bigotry on th rubbish pile of history.

victory to the united working class.the workers united will not be defeated

when i wrote my earlier piece i had not seen the posting by shiraz socialist.whilst that piece may be the reflection of cooler heads,i do not retreat substantially from my own perspective.

whilst i have no wish to be triumphalist i do want to stress how at leastsome struggles give us a taste,a flavour,a flash,a moment of how else it might be.i think this might be what john holloway means in how to change the world/crack capitalism in describing cracks in capitalism and what i have called the "we are not yet" .none of us have to accept his whole theory/philosophy to see the insight offerred.

i would also contend that some of what shiraz suggest require the class struggle to be at a point it has not yet reached.it would be more helpful to suggest the detail of how we get from here to there.i am not advocating a stagist theory of revolution.i think i am talking about simple logic.

i also think that without further impact of our class struggle on the agencies of the state,the presence of the bodies of more or less armed men is inevitable.its what they do.their mere presence is not neccessarilly a sign of their strength or their iniative,although i am of course unable to argue with what i did not see or experience.

is it not also possible that the shiraz account reflects some sectarianism when one section of the left cannot possibly acknowledge that no one section/organisation has the whole perspective. sometimes this seems the case especially when the other lot are trotskyists and/or the swp.

i am not a member and cerytainly have differences with them but i do not devalue them.to call them faux revolutionaries like some sites/organisations do,is not good enough.it is simple abuse,explains nothing about anything and may simply be wrong.

whilst we need to be hard headed in our understanding and analysis,a down in the mouth picture does not help to galvanise or harness enthusiasm,energy even pride.

events do not explain themselves.we have to do so and to be honest in our interpretation.just because the commentator might be a better marxist does not make everything right.

i dont doubt shiraz will no have me down as an idiot or faux revolutionary.that may or may not be true but it also changes nothing.surely the point is to learn and organise together

the struggle continues,with or without me or shiraz.i would rather be active in that river of life,even if i am swimming against the stream.history and matching our insights to making change are the measures and the judge.