Billy Bragg to sing at Occupy Sheffield and other events this week

Occupy Sheffield | 13.11.2011 13:06 | Occupy Everywhere | Sheffield

Events at Occupy Sheffield this week include talks about the campaign against the arms trade with Israel organised by the Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign with speakers from Smash EDO, on Monday at 1pm and 7pm. A visit and songs from Billy Bragg on Tuesday at 1pm. On Thursday there will be a talk from the Sheffield Equality Group on "You can buy happiness - how closing the wealth gap would help everyone" at 7pm.

More details of these events can be found on our wiki. If there is an event or talk you would like to see happen at Occupy Sheffield then please get in touch, organise it, add it to the wiki timetable and make it happen!

Occupy Sheffield
Homepage: https://occupysheffield.org/

Comments

Hide the following 21 comments

As if the rain and cold weren't enough

13.11.2011 14:19

They've now got to put up with the nasal whining and politically-clueless pontificating of this fraudster grown rich on other people's struggle. Why would you give him the time of day? In the 1980's Sheffield Anarchists picketed the gigs of this charlatan.

Anarchist

Clueless

13.11.2011 17:22

And in the 1980's Sheffield Anarchists... successfully attracted thousands of people to get involved in their actions? Yes or No? If the answer is "no", then possibly you should consider WHY it is your activism was SO spectacularly unsucessful ;)

Jean

Advice

13.11.2011 17:27

I don't like Billy Bragg either but if you havn't got anything better to offer then shut the fuck up

Sly

Clueless

13.11.2011 17:53

I was stuck in a Section 60 with Billy Bragg once. They guy is clueless. He may have been a kool guy at some point but from hanging out with Kinnock onwards he has had no idea and is stuck in some mythical liberal-socialist past that Kinnock and those who came later anyhow were totally were responsible for destroying in the shift to the right. Reap what you sow.

BOb

Not wanting to pick bones but have you the mansion Billy lives in?

13.11.2011 18:01

..and where has he been over the last decade when he could have stuck his head above the parapet to comment on so many issues?

Ask yourself that question!

Maybe now he has an album to release or at least offer some of his many rooms in his mansion to the homeless...

Aunty Christ

He wasn't

13.11.2011 21:01

If you read this Billy....??? You weren't a railway man,a docker...no you joined the army...and became a political singer..is it guilt that makes him want to sing..and thanks to dear old John Peel..you had a break!
Please let's hope there never is a Occupation Aid..it's the about the people not celebrities.

Anon

Actions?

14.11.2011 00:24

When Jean has Billy Bragg ever attracted thousands of people to get involved in his actions? What actions?! He couldn't even do a good job of recruiting for the Labour Party! Hardly surprising since when the muppet was spokesman for Red Wedge, Neil Kinnock had spent the past year shitting all over the striking miners. Bragg has NEVER had any political credibility, but he's got rich peddling an invented political cachet to mugs like you.

John

PS

14.11.2011 00:41

As for Sheffield Anarchists, while Billy Bragg was trying to flog the dead-horse Labour Party in 1985, a wave of school strikes involving thousands of school students spread across South Yorkshire directly instigated by Sheffield Anarchists. One of many actions in which the group were involved that year. So the answer to your question is 'Yes' Jean, but what has Billy Bragg ever done?

John

lone voice?

14.11.2011 08:52

I don't know why he's being singled out for vicious slagging off, look at the millions of singers who never chirp about anything more than their own personal relationships. Yes, I hate the way he thinks reclaiming the fucking Labour party is the way forward, but he is at least still performing protest songs in places you probably don't go to, places where he is the ONLY person singing about cuts and racism and njustices. That's his audience, not militant anarchists. He makes rich older people feel guilty and reminds ex-activists what they used to believe in.
As for actions, again, why not scrutinise the activist record of all our anarchist writers, songwriters, artists? Don't they use their skill as activism to inspire others?
Agh - can't quite believe I'm fighting Billy Bragg's corner!

anon

"Can't quite believe I'm fighting Billy Bragg's corner"

14.11.2011 10:47

Then stop, 'cos you're talking absolute shit! You sound like his fucking publicist! The man's a con-merchant frankly, he doesn't have the right to sing protest songs. He's just making money off guilt-ridden liberals who've probably not done anymore than he has.

Little @

Protest songs

14.11.2011 11:45

The people who wrote the great protest songs would turn in their graves at the thought of Billy Bragg performing them. Isn't it obvious that he's only doing these gigs to sell records and make more money? For someone who sings as badly as he does Billy Bragg hasn't done bad for himself has he (emphasis on the 'for himself')?

Gav H

And there's more...

14.11.2011 12:11

David Rovics and Robb Johnson honest and reliable.!!!!Sure you good folks also could write an endless list!!!!

Anon

right?!

14.11.2011 12:27

"he doesn't have the right to sing protest songs."

ha - very revealing about your own ideology. Bring on the music fascists.. that'll solve evrything.

anon

Flag waving

14.11.2011 14:31

With his promotion of 'reclaim the flag' English nationalism and his army service, I'm surprised Billy Bragg isn't the poster boy of the EDL.

Protest songs

14.11.2011 14:40

Actually that was a reference to Woody Guthrie telling his son Arlo that he didn't have the pedigree to sing protest songs. Maybe you'd know that if you weren't the sort of moron who bandies the word fascist around in relation to everything EXCEPT politics.

Gav H
mail e-mail: leedsabc@riseup.net
Homepage: www.leedsabc.org

Kinnock's pal Billy Bragg

14.11.2011 15:21

This was during the period when Peter Tatchell and hundreds of other socialists were being hounded out of the Labour Party. Commenting on Tatchell, Kinnock famously remarked, "I'm not in favour of witchunts, but I know the difference between witches and fairies."

Joe Black

Still clueless

14.11.2011 19:48

Oh great, so Sheffield Anarchists successfully saved us all from capitalism in the 1980s. Unfortunately that was 30 years ago, so why are they..... sorry.... is ONE of them being, such smug / arrogant berks now, and since when did their opinion of who is or isn't "clueless" carry such weight?

At the moment some people who are ideologically opposed to the State's very existence are fighting tooth and nail to defend public services which are or were.... wait for it..... provided by the State, including the educational system Sheffield Anarchists so successfully disrupted in the 1980s, and you accuse Billy Bragg of being "clueless". Talk about the pot calling the kettle black

Jean

I like my anarchy, but good on Billy for supporting things

14.11.2011 19:55

Personally I like my anarchy more than my socialism, but good on Billy for supporting these kind of events. Sure he may be mainstream, but getting the message out to ordinary people is better than preaching to the hardcore militant converted.

And he's written some good songs. All in all I think it's a net benefit.

Down with anarcho-negativism!

anon

And on...

14.11.2011 20:35

Jean..see if you can meet Mr Bragg at the drop of a hat ,bet he has an agent etc...you can go to any occupation site whenever you like and you don't need to book an appointment to meet the people there either.
I am worried that we could start relying on celebrities to get folks to protests/occupation camps..it's for the people and by the people.As I said earlier what's next Occupation Aid?? Bet Mr Geldof will show his face soon,bandwagons and all that,well if there is one I hope the wheels fall off before it reaches a camp!

Anon

Rhetorical question?

15.11.2011 00:09

Are you stupid Jean? Since when has Billy Bragg "fought tooth and nail" for ANYTHING? Giue me one example please.

Some of us WERE fighting tooth and nail against the state 30 years ago, and we're still doing the same today. And we don't live in mansions payed for by psychophantic idiots like you.

Sheffield Anarchist
mail e-mail: @
Homepage: @

Anon

15.11.2011 00:16

Expect to see Jean hanging around trying to get Mr Bragg's autograph. Hang around long enough Jean n maybe you'll get a glimpse of Bono or even St Bob himself.

Sheffield Anarchist
mail e-mail: @
Homepage: @

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