Special post-election conference on the party and its future
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Good post, Alan. I think along similar lines. I think there is a lot we could be doing as a party.
Oh i did forget another problem that arose during the campaign…leaflet dumping by Royal Mail…it seems voter addressed enveloped has more success than mere unaddressed leaflets. Expensive to organise and requires sub-contracting probably to a mail-sort business, but is it better value for the money, in the end. Just another practical thing we learned and should look into more.
Oh another thing to evaluate and assess is those internet lobbying systems like 38 Degrees…Not simply how we responded, but can we make fuller use of them ourselves in drawing attention to ourselves?
Why is Zeitgeist more well known than the World Socialist Movement /SPGB? Have they ever needed to stand at elections to get their case heard? If not how did they do it?
The simple truth of the matter is that the workers still have a love affair with capitalism. They are not ready to receive and ACCEPT our message.The green shoots of growth have been felt in well tended tory strongholds and marginal seats are awash with bribery. Couple that with promises of tax freezes and that's how the tories pulled it off.Vulnerable families subsiding on benifits must be fearing the worst
northern light wrote:Vulnerable families subsiding on benifits must be fearing the worstYes cde, the appeal of reformism, which is an allusion. How can we explain it
Alan, you talk about protest, IE when we were disallowed the use of the "Platform" as duly accredited Election Candidates. Myself, personally, had decided that if I was denied the "Platform" at the husting I attended, as a "Minor" candidate, that I would not allow the husting to go ahead. Indeed, I had phone numbers pre-programmed into my mobile, so I could, in a short space of time, contact the Media, to get publicity.In the end, it proved unnecessary but you never know!!!
Our message is pathetic. Cass struggle and revolution cannot be dressed up. Don't patronise workers, we know what needs to be done. A rose by any other name. Fuck bourgeois terminology. Revolution through class struggle is what we are about. If they don't like it they can fuck off.The earth is owned by a parisitic minority and we aim to take it off them. if they don't like it then bully for them.Fuck the media Stop the electioneeringIt is the case. not the face and not the crap
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Vin wrote:Our message is pathetic. Class struggle and revolution cannot be dressed up. Don't patronise workers, we know what needs to be done. A rose by any other name. Fuck bourgeois terminology. Revolution through class struggle is what we are about. If they don't like it they can fuck off.Problem is, Vin, socialists are in the business of communicating ideas and to communicate effectively you have to start from where people are. You have to, in a way , put yourself in their shoes, and try to help them to come to a socialist understanding through dialogue – through what was originally called "dialectics" in the Socratic sense. Though I understand your frustration which is very evident in your tone – I feel it too! – I think socialists have to resist the temptation to come across as just trying to ram the message down peoples' throats. It wont work and is self defeating I have to say I was very impressed with many of the response of the SPGB candidates to enquirers in this election – particularly Howard Pilotts. It was very effective indeed in my opinion – this kind of personalised approach to delivery of the socialist message and breaks with a more formulaic type of response. That is something that perhaps this Special Conference ought to consider as well as other things such as how to make it easier for people to join the SPGB. I know I go on about it but I still think you have to look again at the requirements for membership and eliminate anything that is superfluous and only presents a further unnecessary obstacle to joining – like the very strict ruling on religious beliefs. Totally unnecessary in my view. Apart from that I think Alan has compiled a fairly comprehensive list of things to consider which could be built upon.
robbo203 wrote:Problem is, Vin, socialists are in the business of communicating ideas and to communicate effectively you have to start from where people are. You have to, in a way , put yourself in their shoes, and try to help them to come to a socialist understanding through dialogue – through what was originally called "dialectics" in the Socratic sense.I must respectfully disagree with that. It sounds patronising and a little like the parties of the left. We need to be open and honest and hide nothing.Brand is a good example, he was not afraid to use the term 'revolution'. He got 10 million twitter followers. Why should we be afraid of the term. perhaps people are pissed off with politics because of all the 'dressing up'. perhaps people want a party to get to the point: exploitation, Parasites etcWhen our speakers are asked 'What do you stand for?'We tend to say 'we want a nice society without war, classes, money etc. With all the horrors going on around us it makes us sound like christianity. People rightly don't listen any further. After all it sounds nuts. The starting point of our propaganda should be that there is a parisitic class leeching from the rest. We have to deal with this reality through revolution. They own the earth and intend to take it from them.
Why do I need to go through my branch, through the EC, thro' the election committe, back through my branch etc to get the party twitter account to increase its followers or to get a party twitter account myself? edit posted on the wrong thread
Religion and membership has been raised on our discussion forum and i think Robbo will be interested in Paddy Shannon's replyhttps://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/WSM_Forum/conversations/topics/52463;_ylc=X3oDMTM1YTI0Y2Q0BF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzE2MDYxMARncnBzcElkAzE3MDgzNjMwNzcEbXNnSWQDNTI0NzAEc2VjA2Z0cgRzbGsDdnRwYwRzdGltZQMxNDMxMTY3MTA1BHRwY0lkAzUyNDYz
i think our problem is that our objective is not related to the present, as Robbo indicated.I mentioned our candidates answers to specific campaigns as did Robbo. He also raised the issue of whether we do enough to connect socialism with the actual resistance that is going on right now but what some members too readily dismiss as reformism.We have to (and i keep using this word) make socialim an immediancy, something that really can be achieved today and tomorrow and not something to be placed on the back-burner for the far-off future that so many on the Left relegate it to (and as i say we too because of our retinence in being more detailed in what socialism will be like).But we have to use the spring-board of where as Robbo says, people are actually at now, and that includes our rivals on the Left and in the environmental movement.We have the NHS and schools and a host of other aspects of current capitaist society where we can say it is provided according to need and free access is the principle of them. I think we failed to link the few positive features of capitalist society to what is possible if the logic was extended. The Universal Basic Income is another example where we should be able to say…great idea and here are where you are right… but why stop short …it is such a small step further to take to actually do away with the exchange economy money and wage labour. To ecologists we acknowledge their aspirations and we agree with nature and people being in harmony…but we stay aloof from the eco-socialists where we should be saying…you are correct in describing the limitations of the market but don't go far enough. It's hard but we have to approach those who disagree with us as comrades with simply the wrong tactics and strategy. Our hostility clause should be reserved for class enemies, not merely our misinformed and the misguided fellow workers.But i say again it is not easy when some of our opponents are suggesting self-destructive alternatives to us. We should however do more to identify potential allies and become more inclusive. I was always impressed by the number of ex-members and non-members who remained closely associated with ourselves, at times it may have seemed we had more sympathisers than members of branches. The WSPUS permitted people like Mattick and Pannekoek to share the columns of their magazine. We now have become more open and permit non-members to share our platform in what we now call forums rather than adversarial debates. We do slowly move forward to becoming a broader party but back away from admitting it.
I can't understand why the Standard doesn't have a twitter account. Most publications do.https://twitter.com/DailyMirrorhttps://twitter.com/search?q=private%20eye&src=tyah For example Socialist Standard Monthly@SocialistStandardor Socialist News@SocialistStandard
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