Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/08/30/police-raid-illegal-all-night.html
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Thetford Forest is an interesting place; it was created between the two world wars, in an attempt to reverse centuries of British deforestation caused by an addiction to naval hi-jinks and a love of fireplaces.
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Aaaand the partygoers take what COVID-19 infections are being spread around to home or their workplace, and the infection rate rises again.
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There was a time when I would cheer on such activities, even be part of them - a pandemic is not that time.
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Tonight we’re going to party like it’s 1989?
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Perhaps more concerning is this kind of behaviour (included David Icke, so perhaps not that surprising)
It is not just England’s idiots, there is a definite selfish trend to ignore/defy the efforts of the rest of the population
Some partygoers in Norway almost didn’t manage to get home to infect their families
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So young people can’t gather together in the open air to have fun but must cram into classrooms. Garment workers will get no enforcement of either health and safety regulations (even pre-covid) or minimum wage or sick pay or any other employment law in cramped backstreet factories. Crops will be picked by immigrants in dorms on fly in fly out contracts with no legal protection and it’s all da kids fault?
Got it.
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That’s pretty funny. I know the park where this was held very well – it is along the natural walk from where I lived to downtown Oslo, and also near the synagogue – but was not aware there was a massive underground bunker there. Here’s the floorplan (from a Norwegian newspaper):
The two events raise interesting questions about coronavirus. The British forest rave was outside, so should be intrinsically safer, but England has a far greater infection problem than Norway (though the latter is up to around 50 new cases/day, 4 times what it was when I left). I think one shedder at the Oslo party would have a good shot at infecting the whole bunch (which was apparently the reason someone called in the tip to the police).
The death metal in that bunker must have been awesome.
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The dodgy part of it is that the laws doling out £10,000 fines have been drawn up by the government, without going in front of Parliament. And while Piers Corbyn is an anti-vax idiot, he essentially got fined for organising a political protest, which is potentially worrying.
(The Coronavirus Act was voted on in March, and it’s that which allows the government to announce new laws and restrictions, essentially as emergency measures. There’s also a fixed two year lifespan on the Act and it has to be voted on every six months, so it’s not a power-grab. Yet.).
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Apolitical individualism, maybe. Political anarchism isn’t though. Bakunin’s quote about bootmakers has been coming up a lot recently, in reference to following advice during the pandemic.
Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or engineer. For such or such special knowledge I apply to such or such a savant. But I allow neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor the savant to impose his authority upon me. I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism censure. I do not content myself with consulting authority in any special branch; I consult several; I compare their opinions, and choose that which seems to me the soundest. But I recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, I have no absolute faith in any person. Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others.
If the government says do something and it makes sense then do it, but doing it because they are the government is a bad reason.
That is not anarchism.
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You’re conflating punk with anarchism. They’re not the same things.
But maybe listen to @the_borderer on what anarchism is and isn’t.
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Which no one here did, and the people who do are obviously ignorant about both topics. 
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The raves are not punk or anarchist, they are a commercial enterprise, slickly run and, if anything, entrepreneurial counter culture. Plenty of drugs and dancing.
Honest question for @the_borderer
When there are two or more bootmakers at odds over their expertise, how is that resolved in an anarchist society to the benefit of the non-bootmakers?
it wasn’t a River Raid though.
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