alanjjohnstone
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JDW, what the SWP do (and what the WRP did) was to demand (conscript) their rank and file members into selling a quota of their paper. Has anybody actually seen Alex Callincos clutching a supply of Socialist Workers and selling them. I would be very surprised if anyone has. And we all know from our own participation on protests that the huge numbers of the Socalist Worker sellers (they don't even agree to do swapsies with me, so i am a bit hostile) is one of near-ridicule.Their reason for a print -run is more to do with party disciple, imho. Their rationale presented in your quotes are simply camouflage.I think anyone who has been a member or associated with their members will not recognise this representation they seek to present to the public about the relationship of people with their paper.The Trotskyist movement have decades and decades of putting forth arguments for a "worker paper". It is a core element of their structure – putting out a party-line. Perhaps if we are seeking to make comparisons,it should be apples with apples than apples and pears which would be closer and more valid for us to compare.
Lew has done an excellent dispassionate exposition of why we must move on. I agree with his flexibility in doing run-offs of appropriate articles at appropriate occasions. I agree with you Robbo that we should let a thousand flowers bloom and like Lew i have also suggested that we also do hard-copy distribution of the Standard, not blindly as we do now, but to targetted audiences and events.I am all for retail outlets but sadly we have tried and not succeeded…why do you think we placed a bar-code on the Standard, Robbo? We have approached the commercial distributors. They simply aen't interested. We have to create our own means of putting out the message.If we are to be truthful, on the wider market, bookshops and booksellers are slowly disappearing. Kindle is a blossoming business. Gnome could only cite two but i am sure he could add some more such as Housemans but stockists we can count on his fingers. No getting away from that.The free three Standards has been fruitful, no doubt about that…bringing in interested and eventual new members. A free pamphlet or two, can be its replacement. We can still have a form of subscription for an e-zine…delivering it to your inbox and for applying, we could offer some of our seldom-used promotion stuff…a teacup…a tee-shirt. We have tried to gauge feedback, but i think you do the internet an injustice when it comes to evaluating hits and their worth. There are many tools and i am by no means an expert but i think members who are, could contribute their thoughts on this aspect. Online surveys…online quizzes…As for the face to face interaction, you overlook another proposal, Robbo – a national membership structure – not a branch based one. That will be more of a threat than any lack of interaction on the internet…but i question the basis of your assumption and cite such as this discussion list that tries to remedy that handicap.The Party members at one time were organised around the Socialist Standard. I recall in my early membership we spent Saturday mornings and afternoons street-selling it and on Friday and Saturday evenings pub-selling it. Our monthly order was in the hundreds and hundreds were sold. No branch is able to perform like that these days. Even members aren't too fussy about buying a copy when they can read online. The online monthly version is not a fit substitute for an e-zine and was not originally designed to be. Adapted by our imaginative internet committee i think we could do very much better.I am a bit biased because i have tried to make our blog into a daily press review of socialist related posts often without the customary conclusion ( …with socialism this will mean…), hoping readers can reach their own insight but the input it is still mainly the work of one person with limited internet (or artistic layout ) skills and a copy and paste thief, rather than original creative writing. A lot of stuff is left out. RobertS does a thrice weekly news-round up. The blog does not include too much theory whereas the Scottish blog does include general promotional material every day.I envisage some very necessary editorial control being imposed which is a weakness of the current blog practice but i am sure some form of review and approval of submissions can easily be devised and then shaped by further experienceThe e-zine should exist to draw in much more collaborative cooperative involvement and participation than the blog. I am sure ALB once said that the problem with the Standard is that we have too much to choose from. Surely we shouldn't have this thought of as a problem. Any way, Lancaster deserve credit for raising the issue and i recall being extremely critical of their previous idea that we charge for reading the Standard online. We shouldn't duplicate the newspapers who are charging for what they cal their premium articles (The Telegraph) or place pay-walls (The Times) or limited access to 5 or 10 stories (The Herald).
No, i don't think it is a crack-pot idea but i do believe it will be easily defeated but it will not be the first time the party has been dinosaurs and refused to recognise that times are a-changing. We have an opportunity to make the monthly Standard an online weekly or even a daily propaganda medium – the aspiration of our founding members for the Socialist Standard …a daily commentary on capitalism and a daily advocacy of socialism. One which goes beyond even their imagination in that it can incorporate video and music and podcasts. We struggle to find outlets for the Standard yet we have a world-wide platform that is forever growing and becoming more accessible. It is not a time for sentimental attachments and nostalgia for days gone by.YouTube has replaced Hyde Park Speakers Corner. I think there is an amendment which will ensure a yearly printed omnibus of the Standard. Although it is not specific, i think it should be the "Best of.." and not necessarily annually…it could be twice a year or quarterly.Surely, a de facto published book a few times every year is a good substitute and alternative and maybe – just a maybe- a better chance of getting it on the shelves commercially.And when a hard-copy is required for any special events, it would not be difficult to print a Special edition of the Socialist Standard with a dedicated theme and as i have said before – hand it out free. What is embarrassing is our leaflets that we distribute, always very general and because of the demand of space, omitting much of our case and its nuances. Those who remain fixated of the printed Standard, apart from the occasional street stall, have any member or branch did what was regularly done in the past – stood on the street-corner selling it? I think this will be something we will return to every few years and when we do eventually adopt an e-zine format for the Standard we will be Johnny-come-latelys with all the associated problems.
Gareth Porter, a respected journalist, has this theory on what chemical was used – Phosphinehttp://www.truth-out.org/news/item/40222-new-revelations-belie-trump-claims-on-syria-chemical-attack
Quote:the policy Alan is floatingYes this is all i am doing. Putting forward something for us to think about and discuss, and for developing into party policy, it must be something that is much fully raised at EC/Annual Conference/ADM and , of course, at the branches. As i have said on other threads, we should be more interested in practical questions than esoteric debating points on abstract theory. Some might say this is still all hypothetical so just as abstract but ALB conceded we had a good chance of getting elected. I have already acknowledged my very limited understanding of such things as parish councils and suggested other members have much more insight of them to add to this thread. YMS is very interested in electoral procedures and applications. ALB accepts that there is a possibility of electoral success and that was without a more active Party-wide participation. So i presumed correctly that our chances of being elected are better and with success comes publicity but my worry is the responsibility, and not just with the exercise of what some now say is not "reformism", so i stand corrected. It will be a test of our rule-book where the local branch will have the task of directing our parish councillor. And would this be trial and error practice for the the future, indicating issues on how we apply this rule in the real world, no matter how small a world. However, i think ALB is on slippery ground about where real power lies. Local authorities do not possess the same powers as national government and the supra-national EU Parliament has only recommendatory powers yet we engage in those. Since we have to do our own leafletting for local authority elections, perhaps being smaller wards for parish councils, we could ensure saturation coverage. Isn't our very limited street stalls having some success in keeping our Party visible? Couldn't our parish council campaign promote the local indoor and outdoor forum/ general assembly type of canvassing which has always been our strong point…face to face interaction with audiences. Don't we have more access to the pages and web-pages of the local press than the mass media? And an important element in our case is to do with creating a democratic structure that will be based upon a modified and adapted version of the existing model and surely we could expand on that link and build upon it. The downside i think may well be that as a political party we will be viewed as entryists parachuting into a local situation where as ALB says, other activists are more informed and better equipped. But didn't we have a member (JB) who did have that qualification? Once more referring to our rule book we have no prohibition of members taking up trade union positions as individuals but for political positions he or she can only do so as declared members of the SPGB. If we choose that parish councils are not a medium we seek to use as a Party, then are we by default saying members can stand as parish councillors as individuals and not as SPGB candidates? Party historians can tell me what our position was when there were direct elections to school boards and guardians of the poor and district health boards etc. Let's engage in debate within the Party and with our not-so-limited resources actually perhaps experiment in a project regards parish councils. What have we actually got to lose by such a venture, compared with what we can actually gain. But it all comes down to the availability and will of members so better now, than to wait until later.
This reminds me of that story of the Soviet Union factory that produced nails and to meet its quota made one enormous sized nail.
"Socialism cannot be established by a minority. Period." [my emphasis]Robbo, what is a majority is an interesting question. I'm not one who considers it a numerical defintion but one that is a political one…a politically effective majority and that need not be 51% of the population or 51% of those listed on the electoral roll, or those 51% who turned out to vote. I don't think the question f how to define a majority is pedantic.It is vital that we act according to the prevailing will of the people otherwise a recalcitrant ruling class could deny the legitimacy and that the assumed majority did not, in fact, exist. Our aim is a majoritarian revolution, one involving the active and democratic participation of a majority of the population. But on saying that, i also have a more nuanced outlook on the question.In an earlier exchange i was reminded that the Socialist Party was set up when over half the population didn't have the vote – women and still a large proportion of men.Our Parliament pamphlet explains:
Quote:"we use terms such as “majority” and “majoritarian” this is not because we are obsessed with counting the number of individual socialists, but to show that we reject minority action to try to establish socialism – majority as the opposite of minority….a majority (yes, but in the democratic rather than mere mathematical sense)…."It is about an effective majority, not simplistic formalism of number counting. It may be acknowledging that there is an already established world majority of socialists who have, to some extent, voted with their feet and re-organised their jobs, freely distributed food and goods, refused to go to war, or whatever. We won't just sit on our arses for Jon Snow on Channel 4 News declare the success of the revolution on a swingometer. In the fall of the Communist Party governments of the Eastern Bloc no-one waited around for a massive vote of millions of people since the malaise of state capitalism was plainly evident, allowing individual revolts in each of the countries or individual Soviet republics. Circumstances will determine if Parliament will be the engine of change or not much more than a rubber-stamping exercise. i think the SPGB position is one that we do not rely on Parliament but that we use it if we can. We think it is the most effective way to get socialism with the minimum of violence. Elections are a useful expedient when the alternative is a bloody failure on some barricade or strangled general strike. But we're not legalists – if the capitalists withdraw the franchise or change its rules we'll have to act without it. Being dependent on the bourgeois offering us a voting opportunity for socialism is not the party case.Most successful revolutions of the past required a third of the people active support – which would be enough for an election of any capitalist party. If this third of the population actively supporting the revolution outweighs active opposition sufficiently to achieve its goals, with the rest of our class either passively support us or just keeping their heads down below the parapets to see what comes out of whatever crisis and comes to pass, that constitutes a sufficient majority of socialists, imho. It should be defined as "functional majority", or such terms, and also not put in thrall of the capitalist process. Capitalist politics, when they interact with our class at all, are fraught with ballot-rigging and gerrymandering. The franchise, even when considered "universal", always excludes large sectors of our class. We should also allow for the large possibility that any transition will not be that orderly – by the time we have succeeded there will be no need for such a ballot because the outcome will be obvious and have been the result of class warfare. It is essential for the revolutionary process that this majority is suffice to make socialism work as a system of society and the deciding factor on the 'majority' is going to be how many of the population will be willing to make socialism actually work.We cannot assume that all of our class will want to be actively involved – many for purely personal social or health reasons but for whatever reason will not want to stick their heads above the parapet. Also lots of our class will be in organisations that have interpreted the situation differently, whether , anarchists, even Trots or what-not , and would be as likely to cooperate in many aspects of a revolution . We should have a revolutionary model which refers to socialism being brought about by a sufficient majority of socialists – sufficient in their political willingness and awareness, not a 100% at the polls or even a 51% active support. We talk of as in a 1955 EC Statement of "The overwhelming mass of the people will participate, or fall in line with, the process of reorganisation " [my emphasis]. Class societies only persist because a majority support or acquiesce to the social system. Once these start to be withdrawn we can expect a revolution.For sure some of our members suggest that when we reach a third support, we should be patient and wait a few months more and lessen the possibility of violence, because then the chances are that we would have 40-50% of workers revolutionised, but it will be left up to the revolutionary period to decide. However, tThere are a wide variety of potential scenarios for revolution. We would be fools if we limit ourselves to what is theoretically perfect – and thus highly unlikely – rather than asking the question "what do we actually need to make a revolution?" and proceeding on that basis. The problem is not getting people to think "socialism is a good idea" but also transforming that into mass social action. We need to be able to act in an imperfect world rather than waiting for a perfect one. Revolution is not merely an announcement of a successful ballot, it is a process, and the process itself will draw our fellows into the struggle. The revolution makes the mass party – the actual date that power can be seen to shift to ourselves is not the beginning, but the beginning of a different phase. As with many other aspects of the socialist case, it is not in our interests to over-simplify a complex and complicated reality
Only if anybody replies, Brian. You got plenty of other stuff on your plate and the title isn't necessarily crucial to this thread.
Like everyone on this list, i have no idea whatsoever who did what but we can all speculate. I find it strange that we do not have any very vocal demands for verification of the the identity of the gas from the attack. I recall when Iraq war was ongoing, every missile used by Iraq , the press always called a Scud when in fact they were Exocets or whatever, missiles not covered by any prohibition. Any chemical weapon is now labelled sarin. But what we have to remember is American domestic politics and not foreign policy may have been the determining feature of the motive for the American missile launches1) this so-called "Deep State" reining in Trump – Bannon and another McFarlane, Trump nominee being dismissed from the national security council2) Trump distancing himself from the Putin's "Manchurian candidate" accusations against himself and his campaign team which actually could end in impeachment. As for Assad not having reason to end the war as quickly as he can, he is perhaps facing a very war-weary population and army – a few battle hard-fought victories does not mean an accompanying rise in morale , there are a lot more bitter battles still to be conducted, Idlib being one. I am sure we can go through hthe history of war and find reckless, meanlingless and illogical use of force.As i touched on earlier, we cannot ignore that it is North Korea that is the real target. A gesture that cannot be retaliated by Syria but if directed upon Korea, i think they would seek revenge. Scottish press reveal that components for the Tomahawk missile are manufactured here in Scotland, Marcos, as well as the guidance systems for the smart bombs being used bt Saudis in Yemen.
Be careful not to take your off another possible warhttp://time.com/4732530/navy-fleet-south-korea-vinson-pyongyang/
