alanjjohnstone
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No one is condoning ISIS, CP, but the SPGB and many of its members have been around for a very long time and we do know that ISIS crimes are much the same as committed by others in the past, and will be the same as will occur in the future.ISIS and like-minded Islamists are not an unique phenomena. You are right that we do not consider ISIS as the "real" problem" but as more a symptom of the capitalist system's constant misery and horror.Maybe our weakness is that we have grown too accustomed to the brutality of capitalism because we see it everywhere we look in one shape or form. Perhaps, you might not be very wrong in describing us as fatalists when it comes to crimes of the capitalists. We expect it and we are rarely if ever proved wrong.Remember the Contra's, killing and raping and torturing of Catholic nuns in Nicaragua but described by the then US president as freedom fighters and provided with money and weapons?What about what is happening right now in Myanmar against the Muslim minority, in the name of the Buddha?You know i could go on giving examples and offering comparisons and similarities.People are being murdered right before your eyes but you, too, look the other way, CP, or is Black Lives Matter wrong in alleging that many US police get away with murder, whether the figure is one, a hundred, or a thousand, is irrelevant.I personally don't think Marine Le Pen is that very different for some ruling EU political leaders. Viktor Orban, for instance. But when political gangsters fall out amongst themselves in their power grabs, why should i really care.
The most important thing is first to capture the machinery of the Stae so that we can then begin dismantling and transforming it.Withering away was a metaphor but requires to be put into practice.I know of members of the Socialist Party who engage in a healthy debate and discuss the parts of government which could be maintained, moreorless, intact (eg. health, farming) but with changed priorities and other ministries which would require drastic modification to become useful administrative structures (wouldn't the Royal Corps of Engineers army regiments, for instance, be retained and put to better use?) What is not in dispute is abolishing the State as an organ of class-rule once the political power of the capitalist class has been neutralised and stripping it of its coercive powers.
Perhaps this website may help you in your venture Brianhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVh9o-sVDHV9XmE6hRIlU3w/videos
Further evidence that to be a genius in one subject, doesn't make it so in another topic, outside of your disciplnscope of expertiseBen Carson in America is similar …a fantastic neuro-surgeon by all respects but nevertheless a foolish politician.
Has the SPGB ordered copies of Pritchard and Casey's book and will there be an advert in the Standard for them.
Since you appeal to the authority of Engels, TWC, i reply to you likewise.This Council, in the name of the working-class interests which it is its duty to protect, calls upon the sub-prefect of the district.To recall at once the troops whose presence, entirely uncalled for, is a mere provocation; andTo intervene with the manager of the company and induce him to revoke the measure which has caused the strike.Carried unanimously.In a third resolution, also carried unanimously, the Council, fearing that the poverty of the commune will frustrate the loan voted above, opens a public subscription in aid of the strikers, and appeals to all the other municipal councils of France to send subsidies for the same object.Here, then, we have a striking proof of the presence of working men, not only in Parliament, but also in municipal and all other local bodies.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/06/25.htm
In late April 2014, in an effort to save about $5 million over fewer than two years, the city switched from purchasing treated Lake Huron water from Detroit, as it had done for 50 years, to treating water from the Flint River.Yeah, i'm being utterly naive in thinking that elected socialist delegates would actually endeavour to do whatever possible to end an immediate threat of brain damage to their own kids, their friend's kids, their neighbour's kids, their co-workers kids…"March 23, 2015 – Flint City Council members vote to reconnect with Detroit water."Our Flint WSP branch does not instruct its elected socialist delegates to vote for this attempt to mitigate the health risk to themselves and their families and fellow-workers. Yes, this is definitely a way of gaining the support and persuading them that socialism is a cure for their social ills, definitely the perfect way of demonstrating class solidarity…
TWC, have you read about the Flint water supply scandal? I am sure you have but this link is to remind youhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisisThis is not related to any worldwide phenomenon of water shortage or climate change in general but a mere cost cutting exercise by the city authorities that seriously back-fired and their reaction to the crisis was also based on cost implications. Once again, would future elected socialist delegates, acting at the behest of the local socialist party with a membership made up by local socialists who along with their families were drinking this water and therefore being poisoned by the lead content, stand idly by and do nothing?And yes there are capitalist solutions to the Flint water supply and many actions have taken place, some very reluctantly by the city council…But, TWC, are you saying our socialist delegates so directly victims would not vote for those remedial repairs because it meant reformism I think not.
Oh, i am sure that any future delegates of the World Socialist Party in the legislatures of Michigan State or the city of Flint would have a series of demands to make upon those politicians and officials in office concerning the poisoning of the public water supply and the failure to remedy it and a reluctance to compensate. Taking advice from independent public health experts, i am sure remedial actions to fix the problem would have been proposed immediately by those socialist delegates on health and safety grounds.
Once more, i thought we as a party has distinguished between actual reforms and a political policy of reformism. I thought i had earlier referred to why we oppose reformism in that we do not seek to attract non-socialists wanting half-measures and gradual changes. It is not because reforms give support and succour to the ruling class which is the general anarchist stance.The Prime Directive of members is to maintain the objective of our Party. I see no-one on this thread questioning that.For our class, however, abdicating any struggle whatsoever against the capitalist class is collective political and economic suicide. We would eventually lose the political power necessary for socialism due to gerrymandering of the electorate. I mentioned a concrete example in an earlier post of how workers are being excluded from registering to vote in the USA.I thought i made it clear that i was all for defending laws and reforms that workers had extracted from the ruling class. The fact they can be and are being removed is part of our case against reformism but it does not mean socialist and non-socialist workers don't try to stop any roll-back. ( Imagine if we stopped asking for pay rises because inflation eats it away on the long term.)Another concrete example for your consideration of a reform that is being made null and void.http://www.teenvogue.com/story/bills-18-states-discourage-protests-protestersWill an elected socialist delegate socialist elected delegates vote against these new laws infringing on democracy or are they going to hum the Internationale as public demonstrations are forbidden?Or don't protests really matter in your opinion to advancing the ideas of socialism and protecting what limited liberties we have been granted.Will a Socialist MP let the ruling class pass laws restricting freedom of speech and assembly without even walking into the no lobby but instead head off to the nearest bar and regale everybody with excuses that the capitalist class were going to win anyways and a no vote was an empty gesture. TWC, what would your key message have been when the party had a stall at the Protect the NHS march last weekend?Would it have been free at the point of delivery medical treatment had no benefit for sick and ill workers?Or that such an egalitarian principle as treatment based on needs should be extended throughout society?
This is an interesting development. Detained immigrants are suing for-profit private prison operator GEO for forced labour and breaking minimum wage laws. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/03/05/thousands-of-ice-detainees-claim-they-were-forced-into-labor-a-violation-of-anti-slavery-laws/?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.b101a06b78bbDetainees work for up to eight hours a day, 40 hours a week, cleaning bathrooms, showers, toilets, windows, patient rooms and staff offices, waxing floors, and preparing and serving meals, for a dollar a day.
The topic was about was it worthwhile engaging in elections at this period of the party's development. My first contribution was simply to state the advantages of having an MP. #8There was then a discussion on spoiling ballot papers and i raised an issue of practicability when the process of casting ones vote was changing.I then suggested that the Party will have to equip itself better when we do begin getting members elected. Our current rule is simply too broad a brush. That was a projection into the future of the party.The topic then veered off on to the subject of engaging in the class struggle for whatever scraps that fall off the table.I contributed a few links from the party's history, that our elected delegates would not cut their nose off to spite their face and would support certain reforms that arose in Parliament. To paraphrase James Connolly when the IWW dropped political action, he said "just let them try and stop the workers from taking part in it." Likewise, with reforms…Workers will seek to improve their conditions, no matter how transient the reality might be, regardless of whether we support them or not. .Your statement that "The Socialist Party is not here to “benefit the working class” It’s here to abolish the working class precisely because, so long as the working class—a capitalist category—exists, it can’t be benefitted. Otherwise, why Socialism?" is in my view mistaken. Without we cannot have socialism, without our fellow workers the socialist party cannot bring about socialism. A truism.
Quote:Without an educated and powerful working class as the motor for achieving socialism, we cannot have socialism. Or have I forgotten my Marx? Our Party's role is simply to be educators, agitators and organisers, catalysts not a substitute for our class.Whatever strengthens the potential power of the working class, what keeps it healthy and virile, is a benefit to it and a benefit to the goal to achieve socialism when we have strong, physically and mentally healthy fellow-workers, in a fit state to heed our message, but more importantly to reach their own socialist conclusions, without necessarily having heard our voice.We cannot bind a future party and its elected members to a policy of abstaining on every issue that comes before it when we don' know what those issues might be. The bigger the threat socialism becomes the bigger the scraps they will throw usAnyways the way i see things is: Firstly, i am a member of the human race, Secondly, i am a member of the working class and thirdly, i am a member of the Socialist Party. A holy trinity Hard as it is, i try to run my life and apply my politics accordingly.
Is my snarky remark about our utter insignificance too far astray? I'm not so sure we should avoid hard truths.Did i back out of anything? You sought some sort of menu of palliatives to shoot down one by one. I refrained from satisfying you. But did i not give examples of real-life, present-day situations where our hypothetical MP would have a choice in whether to vote or not.And i mentioned that, agreeing with your early analysis, that capitalism is very resurgent and will re-coup temporary losses and many of the working class struggles is defending concessions previously bestowed such as the right to vote for african americans and not actually advocating new reforms but such resistance is not to be thrown out with the bath-water.You are dismissing such dilemmas as simply liberal humanism but i consider some decisions will be based on humanitarianism and compassion, as vague as these terms are but also tools and weapons in a very real class-war, and important in gaining our fellow-workers trust and confidence. I always just wonder how a mass socialist party will perform and relate to working class problems since even with the snowball or avalanche metaphor for socialist consciousness, there will be a period where we will have a minortiy of MPs.But i'm happy to have hope that when our membership grows and influence spreads, the Party will adapt and adjust and not resemble the educational study group it presently is. (i would have added propagandist, but we have a pitiful presence in the media to seriously boast of such a role).I have tried with some appropriate quotes to demonstrate that our party has never expected our elected socialist delegates to sit on their arses and whistle the red flag but will use their political position as effectively as they can to not just promote socialism with their oratory but to protect working class interests when situations arise and circumstances demand it, the best they can, following the guidance of the party as a whole, even if it is only a temporary respite in the long term.
We may not be able to completely end war by having an SPGB member vote on the issue in Parliament, but there are occasions that he or she may stop Britons blooding their hands in a sorry mess and escalating ithttp://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-23892783Does he or she give the MCH explanation for wars and a particular one, then walks out of the chamber debating room when a vote in taking place on whether to directly engage in a war.and risk the pro-war supporters committing to war?In Australia, i believe there is a Parliamentary initiated investigation into forced emigration of children and their consequent abuse. Does the SPGB MP simply say, "that's capitalism for you but i'm not interested in revealing any of its dark secrets or exposing the individual suffering endured. "Very human situations that an SPGB MP simply cannot walk away from when they arise. Did Capital ignore child and women labour? Did Capital neglect the issue of working hours and working conditions? But you are raising the issue of where we should stand vis a vis the Party or our class. My belief was that our stand against reformism was that a workers party advocating socialism would have that task diverted if it permitted its energies and members to be diverted into campaigning for specific reforms or for a platform of them which would involve non-socialists joining to promote reforms rather than socialism.Is our case now to actually oppose individual reforms because the ruling class can later turn them all to their advantage or that they do not overturn capitalism. An SPGB MP would not have voted for repeal of discriminatory laws such as those against homosexuality and would permit the persecution to continue until capitalism itself chose to end it?Surely when capitalism offers a referendum, we study the question and determine it is a class issue or not. Sometimes it isn't so easy…hence some members in favour of a Remain vote in the EU referendumRather than have a party which says C'est la Vie, i seek a party which says C'est la GuerreI simply find this all rather abstract…a few members in an organisation of negligible numbers choosing to decide what billions must do. Isn't this similar to why we are reticent about devising blueprints of socialism…it is not our task to do so, but for the future generations who have that job. And when we have tens of thousands of members to make an impact and the backing of millions of voters, maybe they should (and will) agree a strategy and the tactics in how a socialist party engages in class struggle.
Quote:Please consider carefully before you attempt to explain, in logical terms,any reform “to benefit the working class” that 1) you would champion today 2) that you can explain exactly how it will benefit the working class in a social system based on exploiting it.Perhaps I have not made it clear in some of my posts so I should repeat what i said.
Quote:Another issue is that it would mean the EC/branches having to re-organise themselves dramatically so that it could over-see and instruct their councillors/MPs. Decisions made by our elected delegate will come fast and furious at times, not permitting full debate and discussion at branch level and i am sure some of our delegates actions will be mistaken misjudgements in conflict with the branch position, perhaps. Maybe each branch will be required to have a political sub-committee operating daily so how will those volunteers be recompensed for lost wages and their time and expenses and even so, how can the general membership of the branch participate fully.”“What is in the interest of fellow workers i touched upon the necessity of reviewing how our EC and branch operates oversight of our elected members when that time comes. I see no advantage in guessing the actions of a vibrant active branch or EC capable of getting members elected. I can imagine it is like comparing oranges and apples to make any comparison with todays EC/branch and those future ones.”I thought I sort of implied that the future events will determine what our actions shall be.I'm not so keen on making hypothetical proposals for reforms, except to defend some that are proven benefits, the most basic being the right to vote, and if i was black in some states of the USA where there are right-wing campaigns to deny many the right to vote, i think i would be involved in defending and increasing that right of suffrage. But right now and right here i am more interested in ensuring a party structure that can be as adaptable and flexible as capitalism can be.Without an educated and powerful working class as the motor for achieving socialism, we cannot have socialism. Or have I forgotten my Marx? Our Party's role is simply to be educators, agitators and organisers, catalysts not a substitute for our class.
