alanjjohnstone
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No quibble with the text of the report. ALB's statements seem to be accurately put. And Danny's interview is always worth a re-play.No idea what they filmed …but we not got a real complaint about it, have we? Is it possible to request a copy of the raw unedited footage for our own future use?…Or do you think its been scrubbed already?
Quote:"Charges against any member shall be submitted in writing to the Branch and a copy supplied to the member accused who shall be allowed 14 days to enter the defence. The Branch shall consider the matter at a specially summoned Meeting, and a majority of those voting shall have power to expel any member, subject to ratification by the Executive Committee. An expelled member shall have the right of appeal to Delegate Meeting or the Annual Conference….[A] member acting in a manner deemed by the EC to be an infringement of the Principles or Rules, or detrimental to the interests of the Party shall be immediately suspended by the EC from all Party business except the matter in dispute. The EC shall forthwith submit particulars of the charge to all Branches and at the same time communicate the charges in writing to the accused and enclose a copy of this rule. Branches shall hold at least one specially summoned meeting to discuss the charge. The Delegates at the next Delegate Meeting or Annual Conference shall hear the case of the EC and of the accused; after which no further circulation of arguments for or against the charge may take place. The Delegates shall submit their findings to a Party Poll and the result of the Party Poll shall apply as from the date of suspension. No parties to the charge or dispute shall be allowed to sit as Delegates or Chair at Conference, ADM or any EC meeting where the case is being reviewed."An attempt to expel you, would provide an extraordinary platform for you to full expound on your idea, Lbird…well worth the gamble i think but i don't think many would engage in the hunt for heretics…Robbo isn't a member…Vin has been through the trials and tribulations of disciplinary charges (blurred memory on that one…don't go over the details all over again, Vin) so i doubt he would inflict that on others…DJP may disagree with you but i think he would defend your right to say what you say rather than crucify you… I may be wrong but you have no right to resign…a resignation has to be accepted by the EC…and sometimes the Form F is deferred….Form X for Expulsion…oh, you are kafkaesque…
Do you know, LBird, when i actually posted that, i thought to myself to half-expect it would elicit a response from you on that quote ….You didn't disappoint…For my pitiful efforts, LBird, i am trying to suggest that once the party has got its breath back from a earth-quaking vote of 0.2% (if we are lucky) …a statistical fact i am sure will transpire…after a well earned respite to recover from all the exceptional campaigning and activities, we must come together and re-focus the whole party. We have to decide if it is the content of our case or the presentation of it or a mixture of both that we are failing not only ourselves but our fellow workers.You are very welcome to offer your input in that but as a non-member, unfortunately it doesn't allow you any actual decision making role…i have suggested that you can join…our guidelines for new members is surprisingly broad…I'm sure your replies to the new entrants questionaire will not lead to a rejection…then lo and behold…all our procedures will be open to you…branches and conferences will have to listen to you…you can bring to your influence our party polls…no more harping on from the sidelines but part of our democratic process…a majority deciding what are the facts…(well pretending that they do from their respecive ideological standpoints)The Form A awaits you
Quote:that four known surviving members constitute a viable political party?I hate to point out that we also suffer similar situations concerning viable branches.But on the broader level…we have non-functioning companion parties….and those that do exist are infinitely insignificant…WSPNZ operating from a converted garage..WSPUS with a bust website that i'm told has be in this disrepair for months..WSP(India) a handful in a population of billions…SPC members try hard but no comparison with the SPC of old. We've seen the WSPI (Ireland) and the WSP of Australia disappear, entirelyWe ourselves as a viable political party survive only because of dead men's legacies…eventually we will not have the replacement members for the deceased and i have previously mentioned this age demographic situation before and the legacies will also gradually dwindle as we pay the expensive upkeep of HO and the monthly print-run of the Socialist Standard.But my point in my post was that there are other organisations with the same objective as us…Anarchist Federation, for one, and Zeitgeist another, both as different from eachother as they are from us in our respective strategies to achieve our common aim. The question is…are we having any more success in comunicating our ideas to fellow workers to compete with them…and particularly to the new generation of workers…i am pessimistic that we are and i base that on the optimism that we were a growing active party in the 60s and 70s, tapping into a general upswell of political consciousness.Now, each time there is a shift in political awareness, the Party (for whatever reason) is slow to react and take advantage. John Crump in his critique talked for his earlier generation …Others today like Stuart Watkins was disillusioned by the lack of interaction with Occupy…( it gives me no sense of satisfaction that we were proved right, in the end)We are sl….ow …maybe it is the steady approach of our democratic process that is the cause…but equally that decision-making is also our main safe-guard to recklessness…But until we begin to talk to people on their wave-length, which is social media it seems, we are not going to be viable.Until we are also seen to be present (even if not actually involved) in social protests nobody is going to notice us or take any notice of us. You all know my attitude by now…keep flogging away at dead horse regardless of how few heed…and strange as it seems…every mention by me of the need of a dedicated post-election discussion is never ever answered…Until we agree on the means to how to get to our goal, we'll still go around in circles.
As i said on the other thread, yes it is a fair criticism and the truth sometimes hurt. Facts are facts and in the words of Burns "Facts are chiels that winna ding” [Trans. – facts are fellows that will not be overturned,/And cannot be disputed]We have been negligent over the past years to developing a stronger online/social media presence…perhaps its the consequence of our average age but maybe not. I don't use Twitter and i don't use Facebook and i'm a reluctant mobile phone user so mea culpa…my exposure and involvement in new technology is sadly limited. But as myself and others have said we have to spend more cash on building an internet audience even if it means sub-contracting and outsourcing some of that technical development. From a superficial acquaintence, our Meet-up site is performing as it should but other possibilities in networking either have to be boosted or kick-started.Vin has struggled to gain a forum on the Party's Twitter account, as i seem to recall…hopefully that is solved now. But here we are in the last lap of the election campaign and our Twitter inadequency is now just apparent and being discussed.I'll say it once more…we seriously have to re-think our communications problem once this election is over and learn from experiences like a very minimum Twitter campaign. …One more item to discuss.We can start simply…produce flash animations and basic videos. The AV Committee have a lot on their shoulders and no blame should be attached. But money is available and should be spent.
Our Declaration of Principle has what is commonly know as the "hostility" clause.
Quote:7.That as all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party.Our rule book is also explicitly clear on the issue.
Quote:6. A member shall not belong to any other political organisation or write or speak for any other political party except in opposition, or otherwise assist any other political party.Clause 7 of our principles does commit the SPGB to "there can only be one socialist party" in any country in the sense of only one party aiming at the winning of control of political power by the working class to establish socialism. How could there be more than one socialist party in any country trying to win political power for socialism? It just doesn't make sense. If this situation were to arise then unity and fusion would be the order of the day. The hostility clause only commits the SPGB to opposing all other political parties, defined as organisations that contest elections and/or make demands on governments to enact reforms, there needs to be only one working-class class party and that this must be opposed to all other parties which can only represent sections of the owning class and if there were two groups of organised socialists, with more or less the same principles, then it would be their duty to try to unite to further the coming into being of the single "ideal" socialist party, opposed to all others, mentioned in Clause 7. They would both want socialism; they would both favour democratic revolution to get it; they would both be democratically organised internally; they would both repudiate advocating or campaigning for reforms of capitalism. There would no doubt be differences over tactical questions (which presumably would be why there were two separate organisatiions), such as over the trade union question, the attitude a minority of socialists should adopt in parliament, even over whether religion was a social question or a private matter. But it would be the duty of the two groups to find a solution to this and form a single organisation.Concerning the hostility clause specifically, it is one issue that can justifiably put down to the 19th century social democrat roots of the SPGB since it stems from the early members experience of the SDF and the Socialist League. William Morris together with Aveling, Eleanor Marx, Belfort Bax and other members of the SDF, resigned and issued a statement giving their reasons, for "a body independent of the Social Democratic Federation". Yet they added: "We have therefore set on foot an independent organisation, the Socialist League, with no intention of acting in hostility to the Social Democratic Federation”. The main weakness, as some saw it, of the Socialist League was that it "had no intention of acting in hostility" to the SDF. When the Socialist Party was formed, its members made certain that their Declaration of Principles would include a hostility clause against all other parties (such as the SDF) who advocated palliatives, not socialism. Given the context when it was drawn up that the early members of the SPGB envisaged the party developing fairly rapidly into a mass party, not remaining the small educational group that it has done up to the present), what it says is that when the working class form a socialist party this party is not going to do any election or parliamentary deals with any other political party, either to get elected or to get reforms. Basically, the hostility clause applies to political parties, organisations aiming at winning control of political power. In fact, in the eyes of those who drew it up, it was about the attitude that a mass socialist party (such as along the lines of the German Social Democratic Party was then seen to be albeit with its warts and all) should take towards other political parties.In 1904 the SPGB raised the banner for such a single, mass socialist party and offered itself (proclaimed itself, actually) as the basis or embryo of such a party (Clause
. Not only did the working class in general, or in any great numbers, not "muster under its banner" but neither did all socialists. So we were left as a small propagandist group, but still committed to the principles set out in our declaration of principles. But we have never been so arrogant as to claim that we're the only socialists and that anybody not in the SPGB is not a socialist. There are socialists outside the SPGB, and some of them are organised in different groups.That doesn't mean that we are not opposed to the organisations they have formed, but we are not opposed to them because we think they represent some section of the capitalist class. We are opposed to them because we disagree with what they are proposing the working class should do to get socialism — and of course the opposite is the case too: they're opposed to what we propose. Apart from the SLP and its offshoots, nearly all the others who stand for a classless, stateless, moneyless, wageless society ("the non-market, anti-statist sector") are anti-parliamentary.For the SPGB, using the existing historically-evolved mechanism of political democracy (the ballot box, parliament) is the best and safest way for a socialist-minded working class majority to get to socialism. For them, it's anathema. For the SPGB, some of the alternatives they suggest (armed insurrection, a general strike) are anathema. We all present our respective proposals for working-class action to get socialism and, while criticising each other's proposals, not challenging each other's socialist credentials (engaging in comradely criticism). In the end, the working class itself will decide what to do."The thin red line " is condemned to remain thin it seems.At a later stage, when more and more people are coming to want socialism, a mass socialist movement will emerge to dwarf all the small groups and grouplets that exist today. In the meantime, the best thing we in the SPGB can do is to carry on campaigning for a world community based on the common ownership and democratic control of the Earth's natural and industrial resources in the interests of all Humanity. We in the WSM/SPGB will continue to propose that this be established by democratic, majority political action; the other groups will no doubt continue to propose their way to get there. And we'll see which proposal the majority working class takes up. It's not us handful of socialist/anarchists today who're going to establish socialism, but the mass of people out there. Until they move, we're stymied. Until then we agree to disagree. Those who want to argue that such a society should be established through democratic majority political action based on socialist understanding, and who want to concentrate on arousing this, will join the SPGB. Those argue that it will come about some other way, or want to do other things as well, will join some other group. And while at the same time addressing ourselves to non-socialists we should also keep on discussing with each otherImportantly, the hostility clause doesn't mean that we are hostile to everything. There are a whole range of non-socialist organisations out there, ranging from trade unions to claimants unions to community and tenants associations to which we are not opposed. Clause 7 does not mean that "if you are not with the SPGB, somehow you are automatically anti-socialist". Of course, there are, and always, have been socialists outside the party in the sense of people who want to see established, like us, a classless, stateless, wageless, moneyless society based on common ownership and democratic control with production solely for use not profit. The party has in fact always recognised this, right from the start, seeing some other groups as socialists with a mistaken view of how to get there. Clearly, such people and such groups are not in the same category as openly pro-capitalist groups.What about some of the anarchists, the original SLP? Of course there are socialists outside the SPGB, and some of them are organised in different groups, some (like us) even calling themselves a "party". That doesn't mean that we are not opposed to the organisations they have formed, but we are not opposed to them because we think they represent some section of the capitalist class. We are opposed to them because we disagree with their proposed method of getting rid of capitalism rather than because of the hostility clause. That opposition doesn't have to go as far as hostility. Our attitude to them is to try to convince them that the tactic they propose to get socialism is mistaken and to join with us in building up a strong socialist party. Of course, if we think that the tactic they advocate (such as minority action or armed uprising or a general strike by non-socialists) is dangerous to the working-class interest then we say so and oppose them. We are opposed to them because we disagree with what they are proposing the working class should do to get socialism — and, of course, the opposite is the case too, they are opposed to what we propose. We agree to disagree. Comradely disagreements.We cannot see any alternative to the present situation of each of us going our own way, putting forward our respective proposals for working-class action to get socialism and, while criticising each other's proposals, not challenging each other's socialist credentials. In the end, anyway, it's the working class itself who will decide what to do. For the moment, "our sector", the thin red line as some have called it, is condemned to remain an amorphous current. At a later stage, when more and more people are coming to want socialism, a mass united socialist movement will emerge to dwarf all the small groups and grouplets that exist today.In the meantime, the best thing we in the SPGB can do, is to carry on campaigning for a world community based on the common ownership and democratic control of the Earth's natural and industrial resources in the interests of all humanity. We in the SPGB will continue to propose that this be established by democratic, majority political action. Other groups will no doubt continue to propose your own way to get there. And, in the end, we'll see which proposal the majority working class takes up. When the socialist idea catches on we'll then have our united movement.To paraphrase the sci-fi Ken McLeod in the Stone Canal, an SPGBer answering the charge of sectarianism from a Trotskyite exclaims: “how can a member of a split from a split from a split from a split from a split from the Fourth International call US sectarian?” Such a similar reposte can be so easily directed at those on the anarcho/council communist milieu . In the main, it remains true that no other organisation or group comes anywhere near the comprehensive case which the SPGB set out. If there was one, myself and many others would be joining. Good intentions do not change the nature of organisations, and membership carries the responsibility for the actions of those organisations. The SPGB expects any working class organisation to possess democratic self-organisation, involving formal rules and structures, to prevent the emergence of unaccountable elites and endorses Jo Freeman's, Tyranny of Structurelessness.Our Parliament pamphlet puts it thus:- Quote:"The socialist political party (of which we are just a potential embryo) will not be something separate from the socialist majority. It will be the socialist majority self-organised politically, an instrument they have formed to use to achieve a socialist society. The structure of the future mass socialist party will have to reflect – to prefigure – the democratic nature of the society it is seeking to establish. It must be democratic, without leaders, with major decisions made by conferences of mandated and recallable delegates or by referendum, and other decisions made by accountable individuals and committees. It won’t have a leadership with the power to make decisions and tell the general membership what to do. In other words, it will be quite different both from the parties of professional politicians that stand for election today and from the vanguard parties of the Leninists….With the spread of socialist ideas all organisations will change and take on a participatory democratic and socialist character, so that the majority’s organisation for socialism will not be just political and economic, but will also embrace schools and universities, television, film-making, plays and the like as well as inter-personal relationships. We’re talking about a radical social revolution involving all aspects of social life."I hope that lengthy repetitive answer helps. I will further confess that different members of the party, present and past, do sometime verge on the importance and emphasis of the hostility clause…it has always been a healthy discussion feature within the SPGB and always will be as we encounter organisations such as The Zeitgeist Movement in the future.
Maybe the article is biased , but i think it reflects the real power struggle that exists about fracking and how the the power of the State is used to ensure any opposition to fracking is weakened. While anti-frackers are fighting in courts, they aren't available to engage elsewhere…http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/04/citizen-journalist-fined-for-telling-the-truth/#more-58093
Ummm..Steve, i think you are mis-directing your discontent…Aren't we the social media Luddites…debating if following someone on Twitter is ideologically selling out? …Maguire expressed a painful truth, don't shoot the messenger…we have pitiful low figures for our magazine, our blog and Twitter and Facebook accounts ….We are failing to effectively use all the means of communication to connect with fellow workers….We witness the rise of (for want of a better word0.false ideologies…racism, nationalism….and we can as a Party can do very little about it…(whatever happened to the planned nationalist pamphlet) …I keep saying…after this election, we have to take a good long look at ourselves…warts and all…and see which way we should go forward.
WhiLe you are both online maybe someone will answer my questions, back on the thread. Might be naive but i am genuinely curious about the political implications of holding to the tendency explanation has in the real world and not the theoretical mathematic models of who's right and who's wrongI read the Socialist Studies article and they seem to believe it is all about the workers being passive…and i think they raise a straw man argument when they challenge the supposed point of difference.
Quote:This means they reject the SPGB’s case that capitalism can only be ended through the class struggle, by the revolutionary political action of the working class.Won't the working class be giving tottering capitalism its final push so that we do not degenerate into Luxemburg's barbarism scenario…that our class will act to preserve civilisation and community by dismantling capitalism, the cause…. All this i believe returns to our holy grail that socialist keep searching for…how will workers achieve socialist consciousness on a mass scale to be strong enough to overthrow the social and economic system…and we know who haven't got the answer but who the hell does have the answer, is what we all want to know and keep asking…All my time in the party i have never encountered anybody who does not accept the importance of ideology/education in class consciousness but we do need a receptive fertile soil to sow the seeds…an a farmer like yourself, Robbo, knows you have to turn a field up before you can spread the seed …
Maguire may have been sarcastic but it think we can't fault him for telling the truth, can we?…Pains me to say so.
If you look back to message #20, Marcos, you'll see my confession of ignorance concerning economics, specificall the tendency of the rate of profit to fall and the implications of Kliman's views on this theory I posed a few questions and wait the answers from the more knowledgeable members of the Party. An earlier exchange on this thread indicates Kliman in NOT a collapsistMy comment was merely to indicate that government action did mitigate the effects of the recession and in a sense "saved" it from itself…Who knows what would have happened if the "free market" didn't actually intervene through government fiscal and financial policies…if banks folded and money lost value…maybe the streets of America may have run with blood in either a left or right wing backlash. Normal functioning of society may have collapsed in what Marx also pondered about …the mutual ruination of all classes.
Quote:I hope he does not come with the same argument of Dunayeskaya, that during the great recession state capitalism saved the collapse of the capitalist societyWouldn't some say that it did with the extensive bank bail-outs (and in the UK bank nationalisations) and then QE intervention from the Fed (and the Bank of England)
Some hustings ammo for our candidates to expose Labour's pro capitalist position http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/24/labour-to-call-on-michael-heseltine-if-it-wins-electionMichael Heseltine, the former Conservative deputy prime minister is being lined up by the shadow business secretary, Chuka Umunna, to advise Labour in government. Umunna described Heseltine as a “visionary” A "One Nation" Tory who supports Tory welfare cuts, now has Labour Party blessing.
I think there has been several studies that show that fracking in the UK will not reduce energy bills for consumers so i think deaths of OAPs and fracking is a false dichotomy. I note you omit from your concerns to the safety of the public the increased risk of earthquakes, limiting it to water contamination. There are increasing evidence that fracking industry is a direct cause of themhttp://wichita.ogs.ou.edu/documents/OGS_Statement-Earthquakes-4-21-15.pdfThe jury is still out on fracking, imho. As far as cyanide and gold production is concerned, i think mining will be drastically reduced when all the gold bullion sitting in bank vaults is recycled for more useful purposes and this will offer a leeway so that alternatives to cyanide in the actual extractive process can be explored more fully. There's 177,200 tonnes of stocks in existence above ground. And there ample ways of recycling gold…(i've got the pliers here to get your gold filling, YMS ) Nearly one billion cell phones are produced each year and most of them contain about fifty cents worth of gold. Their average lifetime is under two years and very few are currently recycled. Although the amount of gold is small in each device, their enormous numbers translate into a lot of unrecycled gold. Not to mention all that jewellery…think if marriage fades in popularity worldwide…the gold wedding bands…the gold dowries…disappearing…And religion disappeaing…$1 trillion in gold is held by India's temples alone. http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/features/going-for-gold-alternative-processing-methodsWe could always switch to platinum
