Left Unity.org / People’s Assembly

[alanjjohnstone]

I think a few of us in the earlier part of this thread suggested that for those forming LU, in a sense, they were re-inventing the wheel since they had the option of joining the Green Party (or TUSC, for that matter) so perhaps some of us are less surprised by the development of a proposed anti-austerity alliance and expected something like it to happen.  I think it will be clear that the Green Party will be the party that gets all the benefits since i doubt that the Green Party members will be in a position to reciprocate by supporting LU in consituencies where they are standing and the Greens are not. As Stuart always suggested there was this optimism and a will for something better in LU's early days that has dissipated a bit now. I only wish our party image and the presentation of our ideas was somehow more positive that we could have tapped into this genuine prevailing atmosphere and attitude that is seeking change, whether it is LU here, the Greens, or Syriza and Podemos in Europe….Stuart, i think rightly, recognised this rise in hopes and aspirations with Occupy. I think we all did but we struggled with finding the appropriate strategies of how to respond to it. Occupy rose and fell too quickly for the Party to react wth its usual slow but sure process of decision-making and position-forming so there was little opportunity to interact with it effectively.I think we still haven't found the right approach to people really striving for political alternatives and sadly it is the nationalists…UKIP/SNP, that are succeeding. I tried to raise the consciousness topic indirectly in the Scottish Referendum voting thread i started. I maintain (probably idealistically) that it is not our positions that are at fault, they still hold both the psychological and political appeal when stripped down to their basics (one of which is our organisational structure without leadership as an example already offered by Stuart) but our weakness and failure is in how we connect with those we wish to convince to take that one step beyond, to go that one step further in their thinking. To shake off the shit of the past as Marx said somewhere. (To stop delegating their own responsibility to leaderships and elites, for instance, so to have an easier life.) We know people have to do it for themselves for they cannot be pushed or pulled into this transformation of the struggle. I think we have to hold up a big mirror so they can see their real selves in action so they can be instilled with confidence as well as recognise some of their warts. Maybe we should show more of a picture of what is possible and what our aim is we some elaborate blueprint as i sometimes also propose.I think this is an important debate for the party to hold. Our decision to  spend a lot of cash on election activity can be seen as a gamble and/or experiment but importantly it is part of this debate we must have on how we should be as a political organisation. The post-mortem after May7th will be hopefully very illuminating and instructive on our future.   Anyway morning sermon over…

[ALB]

It so happens that one of the handful of Left Unity candidates in the coming general election will be standing in Vauxhall where we are too. So there'll be a head-to-deal clash withh them there. However, their candidate doesn't seem to be a normal LUer:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/world-socialist-movement/general-election-news-release?page=7#comment-20804

[stuartw2112]

mcolome: Thanks for your reply but I disagree with your implications. I don't think I made a mistake joining LU, nor do I regret it for one instant, nor do I think I wasted my time or energies, nor that subsequent developments have proved the critics right particularly. The idea, originally, was to get as many people together as possible to have a discussion and figure out a way forward. That conversation was concluded too soon for my liking, and LU then became just another small left party – something I'd always said I had no interest in joining, having only just left a perfectly good one if that's what you wanted. Anyway, people in glass houses should be warned about the dangers of chucking stones.Alan: Nice analysis Alan, much of which I agree with. I'm particularly with you on the need to do more thinking and work on alternatives – very much in tune with my current interests.ALB: Simon Hardy's a nice decent guy, smart too. Perhaps on the election trail you can make friends.

[Anonymous]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

 I only wish our party image and the presentation of our ideas was somehow more positive that we could have tapped into this genuine prevailing atmosphere and attitude that is seeking change, whether it is LU here, the Greens, or Syriza and Podemos in Europe….

 My feelings exactly. We could try talking about the issues that affect the working class at the moment instead of 'science for socialists' and 'hunter gatherers'We are in the middle of an openly violent and aggressive attack on the working class, we should be at the forefront of the calls for 'no austerity' 'no cuts' 'stop the wars' etc etc by organising for socialism. Instead of giving the impression  that we are on the sidelines and waiting for something to happen,    

[ALB]

stuartw2112 wrote:

ALB: Simon Hardy's a nice decent guy, smart too. Perhaps on the election trail you can make friends.

I can agree with you on that. I've read in some of his stuff. Probably shan't come across him myself as I'm the election agent for our candidates in Oxford. In fact I'm off  in a while for a drink there with a member of the trot group "Socialist Resistance". I think they're in LU too, aren't they? No, it's not Alan Thornett.

[stuartw2112]

Yes, you could say they're the main movers, and quite a nice lot ("house trained trots" one comrade described them as!). Good luck with the campaign.

[ALB]

Met the person from "Socialist Resistance" ("house-trained trots", I like it). There is virtually no LU in Oxford but there is a branch of his group. He gave me a back copy of their magazine Socialist Resistance for Summer 2013, i.e after Ken Loach had made his appeal for a new Left party and before LU was founded. There's an article 'UKIP advances [in the May local elections of that year] shame the left' in which the author (Phil Hearse) writes:

Quote:

The failure to construct a left electoral alternative to Labour shames the left, and in particular the leaderships of the SWP and Socialist Party, jointly culpable for the collapse of successive left unity initiatives. Certainly on the kind of unfavourable terrain that existed in yesterday's elections would not guarantee any kind of left electoral   breakthrough. But the left should try to be a growing electoral alternative to austerity, xenophobia and racism. The present practice on much of the left is in fact a form of electoral abstentionism, although at a formal level organisations like the SWP and the SP reject it. Shrugging your shoulders and muttering about the primacy of mass struggle is (at best) a capitulation to syndicalism and spontaneism. The right wing must be fought in elections as well as in the mass struggle, obviously.

I still don't understand why, from their own points of view, the leaders of LU have chosen not to participate in the coming general election. Whatever the reason (I think they mutter only about local, single-issue struggles), they've missed the boat and any chance of getting off the ground. They've given the Greens the chance to become "left electoral alternative to Labour". Maybe because that's where their sympathies lay anyway.

[robbo203]

Vin wrote:

My feelings exactly. We could try talking about the issues that affect the working class at the moment instead of 'science for socialists' and 'hunter gatherers'

 I don't know if I would go along with that sentiment at all, Vin.  I think the question of what happened in the past , or rather how we interpret the past,  IS highly relevant.  You are not just discussing issues that affect the working class at the moment for its own sake, presumably; you are wanting to put forward  an alternative to capitalism. However you look at it,  that is an ideological battle  that you are engaged in, at the heart of which is what we perceive human beings to be and to be capable of.  On that point I agree with LBird, even  if I disagree with him on many others. Do you imagine that socialism would be on the cards if it were widely felt that we were naturally prone to inflict violence on each other on the slightest pretext and that  this alleged predisposition towards violence – justifying the need for a state  – is something that we acquired in our remote hunter gatherer  past. ?  I don't think so. These kind of theoretical issues have to be tackled – not in isolation from but in conjunction with the kind of issues you have in mind

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

However you look at it,  that is an ideological battle  that you are engaged in, at the heart of which is what we perceive human beings to be and to be capable of.  On that point I agree with LBird…

Thanks, robbo.I think we agree about much more than we don't.On the rest, the debate will continue, hopefully with others, including Vin, involved.

[stuartw2112]

Isn't Ed Rooksby in Oxford? Did you meet him? Agree with you: the project to form a Ukip of the left has already had more success than I'd have thought possible. But it's the Greens, not LU.

[alanjjohnstone]

Because of Labour's position on the Scottish referendum, a number of people told me they intended voting Green Party at this election, (the SSP are a shadow of its former self and unlikely to recover)But you know me..the eternal pessimist , the Party's resident Cassandra…i told them to remember the German Green Party and how easy they integrated into the status quo and became indistinguishable from the mainstream…the inevitable fate of any Green Party success here…as we witness in Brighton…they'll split asunder…Maybe then LU might pick up a few strays…We probably won't because you know only too well..everyone hates the smart-alec who says …"we told you so"

[stuartw2112]

I like what you've had to say on various threads recently Alan, but the "I told you so" thing is daft. A stopped clock is right twice a day!

[Anonymous]

robbo203 wrote:

I don't know if I would go along with that sentiment at all, Vin.  I think the question of what happened in the past , or rather how we interpret the past,  IS highly relevant.  

Of course I agree with that, I am interested in the subject myself.To place my point in context:  Someone on this forum wondered why workers turned to Syrisa and not us. The simple answer is that Syrisa were engaging with the immediate problems facing  the working class.We need to link our poverty with with a solution. Workers don't need lectures on 'science for socialists' or 'hunter gatherers'. They need to know why they have lost their job and why they are living on the streets. They want to hear "We know the cause and we know the solution!'Understanding of the philosophy of science and hunter gatherers is not a precondition to class consciousness. I wanted socialism  40 years ago. I studied history and science later.Workers simply need to pursue their own economic class interests and as a revolutionary organisation that's where our energy should be.I started a thread about an eight year old girl, blind deaf and dumb and in a wheel chair. Society has withdrawn support for her. Her mother needs to hear why? and what is the solution? This can be explained to her without the need of a deep understanding of philosophy and history.The whole approach of this forum can be summed up in one phrase "Head up own arses" As one of my comrades often says:"Rant over"  

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

Someone on this forum wondered why workers turned to Syrisa and not us. The simple answer is that Syrisa were engaging with the immediate problems facing  the working class.

Yes, and that simple answer by Syrisa is: "Vote for us! You stay passive! We can solve capitalism's problems! No need for workers' democracy!"We can't give that answer, Vin, because we don't believe it.

Vin wrote:

We need to link our poverty with with a solution. Workers don't need lectures on 'science for socialists' or 'hunter gatherers'. They need to know why they have lost their job and why they are living on the streets. They want to hear "We know the cause and we know the solution!'

I'd argue that the 'solutions to poverty' do lie in 'science for socialists' and 'hunter gatherers'.We do know the cause, and we have a solution, and it flows from our understanding of both science and anthropology.

Vin wrote:

Understanding of the philosophy of science and hunter gatherers is not a precondition to class consciousness…Workers simply need to pursue their own economic class interests and as a revolutionary organisation that's where our energy should be.

What are their own economic class interests?These do not talk to workers.I'd argue that mass understanding of philosophy of science and anthropology are necessary for class consciousness.That task is where I think that any "revolutionary organsation's energy should be".Without mass class consciousness, we cannot build for socialism, Vin.Surely we know by now, that class consciousness doesn't simply emerge from 'material conditions'? That matter does not talk to humans? That humans have to build their knowledge? That workers have to build their consciousness?First warning: 1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.

[alanjjohnstone]

Stuart, it was very much meant to be self-depreciating…not an attackYou yourself recognise that the "told you so"  flaw within the party and have raised it often…i'm simply echoing that …obviously now a bit clumsily……it is something we have to rise above …we need ways to show our strategy and principles can stand on their own two feet without kicking away the crutches of others…I recognise it is a difficult thing to do…and i doubt anybody has the right approach as yet…We don't often hold out an open hand to our fellow workers but when we do …too often, we demand and expect too much…so our helping hand is often spurned…

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