alanjjohnstone
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I have sent off my reply to Tony Clarke, If anyone is curious to know what so to determine the content of their own, they can PM
Goodness…that Kautsky article is a long one and fairly comprehensive. I need to re-read it, though. I think JonD keeps referring the CPGB as modern Kautskyites rather than Trots.
Someone could take advantage of Dave Douglass opening in his letter on anarchists standing for election…And his deliberate omission of our approach to it rather than credit and commend Ian Bone
Good of WW to publish our letters, and i note Vin got one in too. (We might suggest a full article one day if we ask very nicely…perhaps next year for the Russian Revolution.)Tony Clark also added a reply which i intend to answer.1. I'll challenge the association he makes with of dictatorship with Marx …2.No idea where he got the idea that we dismiss energy technology revolution for circulation of money, but i suppose he means M-C-M..or whatever…he's disregarding Marx's whole theory of material conception history. i'll dig out that Marx steam quote reflecting society thingy and put an end to his make-believe Marx…3. Then add conciliatory conclusion agreeing on the futility of changing Labour.
Quote:out of the 10 who joined during the period, are, or will be, organisationally active and what, if anything, are we doing to ensure they are?A very pertinent point.Now that the nights are drawing in and the days are growing chillier, some activities such as the street stalls are no longer viable. It maybe perhaps a useful exercise to identify where we can make use of the internet from our cumfy and cosy armchair and laptop. Which websites permit comments, which even allow articles to be posted, which sites will let us engage with others. Cde. Johnson uses Quora to reply to questions. I have a few regular news-sites i respond at, Cde. Culbert adds his views to The Guardian news-items which are later collated and transformed into blog-posts. I am sure many others do similar things on different internet site. All i am saying is can we create a list of the more user-friendly and begin to share the chore about. And the old stand-by…letters to the editor. Always suggested but rarely done and certainly not in a coordinated manner. We are given the epithet armchair revolutionaries, so be it, let as act as suchUsually, in the days of yore, branches would begin a series of indoor meetings, either propaganda oriented or educational classes. I can't see any alternative to following that tradition but i am sure it can be very easily modernised. More use of the internet and comptuers at meetings. Videos of lectures can be watched and then discussed. Likewise, movies can be viewed and opinions shared. Even a book-reading club could be introduced. Something easily acquired and not too technical…i'm not suggesting Capital…but perhaps his shorter pamphlets of other folks…Ragged Trousered Philanthropist is always praised but we could do a systematic study…..many other works of fiction are good reads which inspire discussion…Practical projects can also be experimented with. I am not a particularly good public speaker. I would probably benefit from being made to stand on a table and address an audience to improve for others to judge and criticise comradely. Stuff like that could be undertaken. Make the branch meetings more fun. too…And what about branch outings. I Daniel is getting to be a popular movies…why not go as a group and then talk about the movie afterwards over a beer or a coffee. Invite along family and friends. Who doesn't like a night at the cinema. Every cinema has discounts for bulk tickets.
Yup, you have the Small Party of Good Boys syndrome, Jon As if not courting controversy has got us anywhere.As overshadowing our socialist case, perhaps you can direct me to where our analysis has had a receptive hearing and has been of any significant influence?You are following the thread on Libcom, Jon…someone genuinely wondering where our presence is locally so to make some level of contact. What was that membership statistic – a net loss of 4 members.Perhaps the mathematicians among us can forecast when we disappear….And that answer would be an optimistic one, for we will become a non-functioning political party long before that expiry time – as did the SLP. But our dividend returns should still pay for HO upkeep (if they are not spent on campaign tools) so it can become a mausoleum. Perhaps we can start using it for wakes, Gnome. Am i being too down-cast?Maybe. But does anybody detect any sign of the sea-change required to reverse our declining activity?So to answer you, Jon, what back-fire can we expect if we do as i suggested, act with a sombre in attitude, and i now add for emphasis, respectful in deed, do submit a wreath to fallen fellow-workers who died in vain for their masters? And we say just that as our reason and purpose being there – we are remembering the wasted lives, lost for nothing. "Never Again"…? Don't make us Laff…No, it should be "Lest we forget"…But as i said…Probably not get any coverage from the mass media…We are simply making our own news to spread on the social media we are on. So yes, it is publicity we seek and desperately need.
Gnome, i think most people possess a mobile with the video capability that would be perfectly adequate. I certainly did not suggest we would mobilise a significant presence of members and envisaged a "massive turn-out". I made a point that only two or three volunteers were requiredAnd if you think we cannot get that sort of number for a publicity event, then i'm afraid we can just simply wrap up as a Party, sell HO and all go to the pub and get ourselves blissfully blotto Is what you really trying to say?1. It is not a very good proposal. 2. There is not a willingness within the membership to do it3. It simply isn't feasible to carry out because we would be disallowed from the Cenotaph or any other memorial to the war-dead. or 4. Another bright idea from the other side of the world from someone who won't be participating and therefore lumbering the onus onto others to carry out…
Well, a blog is ready and scheduled for 11/11But it will scarcely attract much attention than some timely agit-prop that doesn't require even much talent to carry out, just a sense of sombre seriousness. But i suspect that there will be some bureaucratic process to perform such an act to stop the neo-nazis from upstaging the conventional wreath-layers.
Perhaps we can focus on all those who have given their lives in the greater war – the class war….indeed, "lest we forget"
When i first saw his remarks i assumed him to be just some cavalier politician who had picked up the populist anti-banking trend, but i see that he does have an economics pedigree and is no novice on the subject. There is also much more to dislike about him…he applauded the French sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and he is a climate change denialist.But i see from the wiki entry that indeed he is a jovial and entertaining individual but if we do debate him, i hope we make him pay for all the drinks afterwards.
Quote:Red Lion Press (re)publishing Bill Pritchard's autobiography, entitled Revolutionary Socialist: Life of the Socialist Party of Canada and the OBU, 1910-1922; Fred Casey's Thinking: An Introduction To Its History and Science;and, Method in Thinking: An Introduction to Dialectics.Costs: $3 for Pritchard, $6 each for the Casey's plus postage costs. Contact E-mail: redlionpress@hotmail.comCan i suggest that the Party makes a bulk order of these books and make them available to the membership and public through HO
I doubt he would be willing to engage in a public debate with us.But I do think we should produce a detailed pamphlet or at least an extensive dedicated on-line explanation and response because on my daily trawls of the internet for news to blog about i regularly come across variations of the money out of nothing banking myth. Sometimes it is along with the conspiracy theory of the Fed Reserve – i bet you didn't know they were the ones behind the JFK assassination ;-)Perhaps when creating the new website, it can be designed for an education guide section that can be easily updated. I know we have stuff on the topic but it is scattered about and some of it is dated such as Douglas Social Credit, but those can be updated to appear contemporary. Another two topics that i constantly come across is cooperatives and citizens wage. Again we have a lot of material on those but they aren't collated into a unified analysis.
You seem to believe that this was some sort of abstract theoretical debate. You couldn't be more wrong. The thread was contemporary with the Occupy movement, and here at St Pauls and across in the US at Wall St. there were many on the gound propagating monetary and banking reform,obtaining a receptive audience, and they had to be refuted and their policies rebutted. Somehow, I don't think you went to the link and read what i replied concerning once again the idea that the all problems of capitalism can be laid at the feet of the banks and the financial crisis'I will repeat the crucial argument here for you now and it may save you re-reading the whole thread which provides ample proof of our case.
Quote:If banks could create money/credit with the stroke of a pen, that would mean in effect they could create wealth, and consequently the Marxist Theory of Value would be shown to be wrong. For some people rather than challenge the capitalist system per se, they seek to divert attention to what they consider to be only failings of just parts of capitalism which can be remedied by government policy and legislation. There is always a falling-out-among-thieves from the different capital sectors seeking advantage for themselves by fixing capitalism’s problem on others. In the past it was the industrial trusts and the monopolies. Today, it is the financial sphere that has become focus for reform. The problem before society to-day is not a financial problem. It is a property problem.The banks belong to the superstructure of capitalism. Private property is the foundation. So banking is intimately connected to 'the real economy', but it isn't productive but instead provides the necessary liquidity and fluidity for the production and circulation of commodities. The financial crises, consumption crises, credit crises and the like are nothing more than the reflections of the fundamental economic crisis arising from the anarchy of production. If you abolished the Fed and the Big Banks and even brought in a different monetary system this would still leave corporations owning and controlling productive resources and using them to generate a profit rather than to directly satisfy people's needs.My real concern is that a broad informal alliance of credit/money creationists are diverting attention away from abolishing capitalism and towards their various and often conflicting alternative banking models. These views dominate the banking debate on the progressive /left-wing websites and are steering political action into futile reform of banks.As you see, the problem of erroneous analysis on banks is not some minor one that can be ignored
I think the link made clear he was pro-PKK…But perhaps he is not a card carrying member but someone only closely associated with it and i assumed /presumed too much
Quote:He …spent a few months in the region…Amir and his friends did a great disservice to the Kurdish struggle today by claiming to represent itAs i said, i can only ponder if other dissidents are treated with similar intolerance?
Anybody witness the rumpus at the Syria meeting which i posted details about here?http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/lions-rojava-kurdistansyria-new-international-brigade?page=2
