General Election
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The idea of refusing to vote for something you don’t want when you can’t vote for what you do want is spreading and almost becoming mainstream:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7773909/Nigel-Farage-reveals-spoil-ballot-paper.html
This is what those who want socialism should do on Thursday (except in Cardiff Central and Folkestone & Hythe of course).
It’s something we started in 1918. Our answer to tactical voting — principled voting.
Two views on leaders and their debates. A useless gadget and the real-time reaction of socialists.
I see Steve Coleman our ex-comrade is involved in this project. According to Steve, talking of this gadget: “We think that this has potential to provide vital democratic feedback from the audience to the politicians and broadcasters.”
I cant see how that is true. Yes in a superficial sense it provides feedback and to that extent aids democracy but it also undermines democracy in a more insidious and fundamental way by focussing attention on the politicians themselves and by perpetuating the undemocratic leader/follower dichotomy that is the stuff of conventional capitalist politics.
Does is really matter if Boris Johnson is a bore or just plain boorish?
“I see Steve Coleman our ex-comrade is involved in this project. According to Steve, talking of this gadget: “We think that this has potential to provide vital democratic feedback from the audience to the politicians and broadcasters.”
How are the mighty fallen?
Does is really matter is Boris Johnson if a bore or just plain boorish?
Or if idiosyncratic or idiot.
No.
Capitalist elections and politics are about personalities.
Only the WSM is about substance.
The exit polls suggest Labour has been heavily defeated and the Tories will have a substantial majority in parliament
I have raised this issue but what could be the knock on consequences for the SPGB?
Any thoughts?
The exit polls suggest Labour has been heavily defeated and the Tories will have a substantial majority in parliament
I have raised this issue but what could be the knock on consequences for the SPGB?
I think we need to redouble our efforts to make inroads to the 1,000s of disappointed labour activists who genuinely thought that Corbyn, et al was going to bring about change. I know several who are starting to question reformism, we need to get out there and show to them that, despite all the well meaning promises, reformism is an cul de sac of capitalism.
I genuinely feel this is a huge opportunity for the Party generally
A Labour victory, being associated with “socialism” in people’s minds, would have further alienated them from the word, were that possible, when Labour failed, as all governments do, and led to another Tory victory in five years’ time.
As it is, aren’t Labour voters voting Tory, because they think Corbyn is a “Marxist”?
As for those on the breadline, things will get worse than ever now. Expect more homeless and more destitute.
No end in sight to the misery.
As John Oswald expressed it “Capitalist elections and politics are about personalities.”
There was no doubt that the continual smear campaign from all the media against Corbyn since he became Labour Party leader worked successfully.
Added to that, Brexit dithering and the overturning the 2016 referendum and calling for a second referendum to pander to the majority of the UK capitalist class, showed that he was not a politician of principle.
Bijou is right. We must return to socialist fundamentals but they need to be expressed in a different language. Our terminology has been tainted over generations and we have to address this directly. We have to distinguish ourselves from both the Old Labour of Corbyn and the Democratic Socialism of Sanders.
I know we and others have tried without much progress to try new ways to promote socialism. We had the Movement for Free Access dropping the word socialism and we had our video Kids Stuff making no reference to the word socialism. The Zeitgeist Movement also tried and after some initial promising impetus they seem to have stalled, too. Such efforts resulted in not very much of a response but were they mistaken in their basis that people might be more receptive to socialist ideas if we used other words to describe our ideas?
We have to debate and discuss this.
We have to ask ourselves that because our language is misconstrued and misinterpreted, should we jettison it?
Also we must question whether in the end it really matters because we will always be accused of being socialists and communists and Marxists. We would be accused of deceit and subterfuge rather than political honesty
As the Manifesto says – “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims.”
But can we defeat the overwhelming power and dominance of capitalist ideology spread by its institutions. Again we are reminded of another observation of Marx, “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.” Our class enemies have all the advantages of the tools of propaganda, manipulation, advertising, from the press to the movies.
We surely cannot believe we can counter the media, the university professors and intellectuals, the politicians and all those on the Left and Right who have distorted and corrupted the original tenets of socialism.
No worker can be blamed for not understanding what is meant by socialism and associating our “real” socialism with all those “false” socialisms.
But do we throw out the baby with the bathwater?
If we retain the way we present our Marxist thought, can we do it in a way that resonates with people?
Bijou seems to imply that our target audience should be the Labourite and Leftist.
Others recently suggest it should be the climate activists.
Our lack of replies ALB reminds us in a comment on the forum
“Some replies from the election leaflets delivered by the post office but hardly any by comparison. Which was our experience in the euroelections too. There may be a lesson to be learnt here. Something to do with getting a better response from targeted distribution as opposed to distributing to everyone.”
Who do we aim our message at?
Get that question right and then we are on our way to a revival of the Party.
88 votes for Brian
https://www.bbc.com/news/politics/constituencies/W07000050
0.2% compared to Andy’s 0.1% but still bottom like Andy
I think we need to redouble our efforts to make inroads to the 1,000s of disappointed labour activists who genuinely thought that Corbyn, et al was going to bring about change. I know several who are starting to question reformism, we need to get out there and show to them that, despite all the well meaning promises, reformism is an cul de sac of capitalism.
I genuinely feel this is a huge opportunity for the Party generallyMy sentiments exactly Bijou. And what about those one or two ex SPGBers who left the Party to vote Labour. Surely they can see now this is a dead end
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