alanjjohnstone
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The weird and wonderful world of official bureaucracy…No SPGB but SP dash GB is permitted. Did we offer the more grammatically correct S.P.G.B. ?My preference from now would be to register "Socialist Party (World Socialist Movement)" since that is a variant we do not current possess and have that on the ballot papers from now on.
Refuweegeehttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/21/syrian-refugees-in-scotland-cold-weather-but-warm-welcome Takes its name from the slang term for a Glaswegian – Weegee. It is the brainchild of Selina Hales, a city native who was prompted by news coverage of Syrians travelling across Europe seeking shelter. Its volunteers are putting together welcome packs, which include a handwritten letter from a local as well as Glasgow-appropriate items including obligatory umbrellas. “I wanted to capture that real Glasgow welcome,” says Hales. “People don’t just want to welcome people but to embrace them and make them feel like a local.”
Social action is what it is …action…social media…is text…As i said it may help to get people out on the streets or into other public spaces but it is feet on the ground that counts…especially if it is marching to the polling booths to cast our ballots…So social media is merely a tool to achieve actual action. As someone deprived because by personal circumstances of attending face-to-face party events, the internet and Facebook is a poor substitute…Is NERB an internet branch by choice or necessity…wouldn't the preferred medium be physical meetings if those were possible… How often has humour, irony, sarcasm, etc. etc. been misinterpreted on this list because text is no replacement for body language. But rather contradictory, in the past, i have suggested we do away with our hard-copy journal and go for a e-zine…i have suggested we do not need a building of bricks and mortar of No 52 to organise, that we can do most of our business online …This part of the debate about our future we should be involved in…not evading such questions as our relationships and interactions with one another, with our existing audience, and with those we are trying to reach out to with the socialist message…
You said
Quote:It will be nothing like the past. Technology has changed everything.i said
Quote:The Party will transform into something i don't think many of us can predict or imagine once we reach that "critical mass" that has been talked about elsewhere.Despite the internet and social media, i still think we require an organisation to mobilise and carry through the political changes necessary for socialism…capturing the machinery of the State etc…Twitter alone won't bring socialism even though it might bring people on to the streets to protest. If you meant that the Party organisation will not be anything like the past, i agree. Already i am on record for proposing the use of Skype for EC meetings and conferences and perhaps the need for either in decision making may be superfluous in the future. But will branches disappear?…Do we become the proverbial armchair revolutionaries sitting at our keyboard engaging with one another via the screens …i think we forget that socialist activity is …ummmm…a social action …But who knows what will happen…i don't but i don't mind committing the crime of speculating…
Ozy, probably originated in Glasgow, but it was used often by Edinburgh branch speakers who learned their craft from Dick and Vic at the Mound which was where i regularly heard it used… Rodman, you are seeing the worse in people. He was a typical Left-winger and had differences with ourselves on many issues and no way a "groupie". He simply knew the party from its regular outdoor meetings and was making an observation that he had not see us out and about for a long time and presumed we were defunct…perhaps he only meant the branch. But i did take it as a message that we must be active on the ground or else we will be seen as dead and gone and who seeks out a corpse to join? Rodshaw, the Party will transform into something i don't think many of us can predict or imagine once we reach that "critical mass" that has been talked about elsewhere…i can't even envisage what it will be like with 10,000 members much less the hundreds of thousands we contemplate joining the closer we approach our goal, I remember how it was when we had a modest 1,000 members and there was a great difference from then and now …weekly branch meetings …weekly EC meetings …
ALB, as well you know, Spikeymike, is an ex-member from the 60s and 70s. Auldbod is an anarchist of many years from Scotland who knows the Party from there …hardly typical if you seeking a poll. Okay, be as pedantic as you wish that i misquoted the poster but it is very much a distinction without a difference. Both are equally dismissive the way i read it…but perhaps i am wrong…others may detect a softening of tone in the difference of words but i don't. The point and i will repeat this…We were not the first or even the next port of call for someone who wished to discover and explore socialism…that despite being the oldest existing socialist party and the second oldest political party in the country …he hadn't heard of us……(and by following the thread he never showed any interest in correcting that omission although he may well have for all i know) We can either say…the problem is his own for not doing his research more fully…Or that for some reason we are at fault for not being on the radar of someone seeking to investigate socialism….(despite as another thread reminds us the most looked up word in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary)Without attributing blame to him, i have suggested at one time in our history, in many major cities in the UK, we had a presence because there were public forums where we could address fellow-workers directly. It brought us exposure. And as they disappeared, knowledge of the party has grown less and we have not sufficiently compensated. Bookshops and libraries do not stock our journal like they used to and for the street-selling of the Standard, a couple of branches – and all due credit to them – conduct the occasional lit stall but circulation is nothing like it used to be. Facts as i see them that just might be unwelcomed and unpleasant for other members.I have been consistently suggesting two things over the last several months, much to the chagrin of some…That we begin the process of rebranding ourselves as an organisation…And that we begin to devote far more resources to making ourselve better known on the internet.Doom and gloom, Private Fraser, glass half-empty pessimism, Moaning Minnie are descriptions that i accept in the comradely fashion i hope they are handed out but when it comes down to it, i'm still inside the tent pissing out, not on the outside, pissing in. And i won't be going away any time shortly, nor are my views and opinions upon the party and how it expresses its socialist case going to disappear from my comments on here even if others think they present only negative conoctations about the Party for any visitor to this discussion list. As my very opening words to this thread was…i was taking advantage of a lull in posts, no doubt because people were out xmas shopping or having festive drinks or whatever, to kindle some interest in something that crossed my horizon…someone interested in socialism who had heard of the SWP and Militant SPEW but never heard of us. Surely that should be a concern. Surely it was worth trying to raise some discussion on that fact by quoting…(ok, very slightly misattributing his words but certainly not misunderstanding their import) somebody's experience.
Quote:"One former member remarked many years ago that we are probably better known than we think"Personal anecdotal evidence i have of this is when i re-joined and turned up at a protest with leaflets someone was pleasantly surprised that we were still in existence. He was well acquainted with ourselves from outdoor soapbox meetings but once those ended, he no longer saw our presence and presumed we had disappeared from the poliical arena. This happened a few times…Another personal story was while working alongside and talking with a work colleague, he mentioned an incident from about 20 years previous when a "socialist" on a soapbox singled him out from the audience, declaring dummies in the shop-windows are better dressed so who was the real dummy (and considering himself to be a dapper dresser, he was sort of affronted…) After all these years he still remembered the comment and now considered how insightful it was. He was, however, not aware of the Party's name nor knew that i was a member and was well acquainted with the speakers analogy to recognise it…(his description of the speaker being bearded didn't help to identify who the speaker actually was)…it was something that had stuck with him all that time…An anarchist comrade in the Wobblies when he heard i re-joined the SPGB wasn't surprised at all. He knew the party well enough to say that there was something unique about the SPGB… ex-members often return to the Party like prodigal sons …Your ex-member is right…we do punch above our weight…but do we still dance like a butterfly and sting like a bee as we once did in the past? What i am trying to always say, is we need an effective alternative to those outdoor meetings…social media on the internet seems the only option available to us so are we devoting as much resources to those as we relatively once did going around the country to Speakers Corners with our platform. Idf the answer is as i argue, no, then that lapse must be addressed as a priority. We have the cash, let us use it where it is needed.
Perhaps the only failing if there was one and we had to name it is perhaps the machine-gun delivery of the text. Fast and furious and it is possible that more important information is lost within lesser important messages. But i consider that to be a very very minor flaw and just my only personal criticism if i was pressed to offer one and it is countered that it does manage to present so many many aspects of the socialist case and include a very comprehensive indictment of capitalism in one short video. Kudos to the creator of it. (The opening claim that it is power that is the priority and not money, is one i think some members may take issue with…capitalists seek political power to make capital, not make capital to acquire political power…but both are so entangled to be unravelled…(i'm sure there is a better word to express the relationship between money and power than entangled.)I embedded the video on my own blog http://mailstrom.blogspot.com/ but i remind members that John Bisset endeavoured to create a Socialist TV website and if this was revived, we should most certainly include this video. Separating the Party from the actual media website may overcome any copyright legal challenges to the Party that may result in a lawsuit and financial loss for ourselves. A different website from our own permits as to take more risks on what is posted. http://socialist-tv.blogspot.com/Perhaps being keen gatherer of suitable videos and music for us and you being in actual personal contact can get the access passwords or whatever from John and resurrect his project, Vin. Make it NERB's baby.
I don't read that into the thread, Rodman. Spikeymike #51 "PS: The 'Socialist Party' you joined is not I presume 'The Socialist Party' as in the SPGB – the latter party has a pretty good website dealing with some basic anti-capitalist ideas though neither organisations are anti-parliamentary."Ghostwhistler #53 "The only socialist parties I'm aware of are the SWP and the Socialist Party. If there's a separate group called the Socialist Party of Great Britain then, assuming it's not the latter, I haven't heard of them. I'm talking about the group formed from Militant."Auld-Bod #61 "You asked if socialists entering parliament had been tried before. Though I have strong reservations about the SPGB, in the December issue of their monthly journal, ‘Socialist Standard’, is a good article – ‘Cooking the books – You can’t buck the market but you can abolish it’, which debunks the Labour Party and all socialists, who wish the reform (or patch up) capitalism. It’s on their website."These are the only messages which mention ourselves. All Ghostwhistler's references to Socialist Party or SP on this thread are in relation to SPEW. So i think your suspicion is a bit misplaced. And as you see the title of this thread is part of a direct quote which i thought pertinent for us to try and understand better.
New conspiracy theories on the assassination are forever popping up.This is the latest i have read – LHO was an undercover agent for RFK who infiltrated the CIA as a double agent. LHO apparently was also an unsung hero who saved JFK's life tipping them off to a plot to kill JFK in Chicago (but perhaps not since it "… may have been a staged event all along in order to do exactly what it did — give the Kennedys a false sense of security during the lead up to the main event in Dallas…"…oh, those nefarious turns and twists of the US intelligence world…Smiley's people were simple souls in comparison.) http://humansarefree.com/2014/11/lee-harvey-oswald-proved-innocent-he.htmlAdd the above to the ever growing list of theories…Just need another "proving" it was Aristotle Onassis who ordered the killing to steal Jackie away fro JFK…Whoops …..apparently there is a theory out there that Aristotle was involved in the assassination of RFK so he could marry Jackie…http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/2601995/Aristotle-Onassis-ordered-Robert-Kennedys-assassination-according-to-play.htmlhttp://www.amazon.com/Nemesis-Aristotle-Onassis-Triangle-Kennedys/dp/0060580542
Quote:“Either the current Corbyn party will need some home outside the Labour party or the mainstream of the Labour party will need to make common cause with others to forge a new party.”http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/20/labour-could-split-to-survive-says-peter-hymanReminded me a bit like the US policy during Vietnam War…we got to destroy to protectThe New New Labour policies?
Quote:values, emphasising social mobility, increased opportunity for all through education reform, higher productivity, a leaner more agile state, reform of the welfare state based on the contributory principle and a recommitment to the green agenda.Quote:The half-emptiers do have a knack of choosing counterproductive thread titlesChoosing a title to gain over 30 posts to discuss our strategies for socialist activity i don't consider to be counter-productivity…or has everything that can be said, has been said and no more discussion will bear any fruit….even if it has produced a propaganda proposal from myself for the Party to participate in… a Mayday media campaign …If everything i posted never involved what i consider positive suggestions to replenish the half-empty glass then i may well be accurately described as a mere moaning minnie…but a look over the history of this forum will demonstrate that i always try to make proposals that are productive…some might be considered inappropriate…others though can be seen as pretty tame and mundane ideas for the party to accept…Nor as some say i talk the talk but don't walk the walk…i do try to contribute to party activity and party business the best i can, considering my situation. I don't think it is counter-productive to advocate some reflection on the business of making socialists and maybe…just maybe …gain some new insight….Or are we infallible like the Pope? Or as i said….do we believe even if there is nothing new to debate, and for others it might not be pointless to cover old ground and perhaps ensure that we never missed something or emphasised or made it a priority. .
Before my time but there was someone who spammed on behalf of the Party. Somebody else can explain the outcome. Actions have consequences and we should always be prepared for them. As i proposed, we do have an alternative strategy as an option…
Not that many celebrities reveal either their private postal or personal e-mail addresses so i think it will be quite a daunting challenge for whoever attempts this project. The Media Committee however has already collated a large number of email addresses for press releases. Perhaps concentrating on people in the media may be more feasible…but risks accusations of spamming. But we could devise a press release that covers broad ground, something like "We are still here, the UK's oldest existing socialist party and never gone away even though you keep ignoring us and wish us dead and gone" sort of thing.Too soon for a New Year circulation but what about Ist of May…a Mayday statement press release …plenty of time for text and to choose what links to offer…Various different messages could be sent if the Media Comm. list is broken down into areas of interest…environment…industrial…education…whatever… I think that is more do-able and just as ambitious – meaning by that – volunteers dedicating themselves to doing it and putting in the time and energy…Something we haven't too much of as we get reminded…it's always the same shoulders that carry the burden of party activity. But i'm sure if we can get a few new volunteers not already too busy and who have internet connections, they can take on this delegated task and give them the time-table to complete…Mayday…we can leave them to it and trust it is completed …It isn't too complicated i think …just time-consuming…which is why i think it shouldn't be the present media committee…they should be kept busy elsewhere by the EC…
