alanjjohnstone
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Again Stuart i think this relates to the experience of the Scottish Referendum i keep harping back to. Some members expressed the thought we should have recommended a No if we were pushed to choose one or the other, but others ( a minority view, i judged it to be) thought the Yes optimism and the popular engagement they created meant we should have went with them. What was clear was the abstentionists of the anarchists and the spoil the ballot-paper of the SPGB were totally insignificant and at odds with any section of the vote which was reflected in the result. For sure it could be said to have been a victory for the nationalists…the unionist and separatists, as some on Libcom declare being the reason why 90% joined in the process,(making a lie of the cliched slogans of anarchism and the third who don't want to vote) but i fear that is a bit simplistic in my opinion. My discussions with the Yes people led me to believe that they were not voting for their wee bit hill and glen as the Flower of Scotland puts it. Many knew it was romantic nonsense but were rather hoping that by localising politics they were going to have more influence…a contradictory and forlorn hope, i know, just look at the town council voting to see how utopian such an aspiration was…but as i said…people i talked with thought it would lead to a more participartory inclusive politics. ..the beginning of a positive change Likewise, those in the No camp i talked to were not voting for the British union and the status quo but held instead out for a wider class solidarity …internationalism…recognising that links went beyond borders as did the class struggle….(even to be parochial, they recognised that families crossed borders) Maybe i talked to the wrong type of people and got a mistaken impression. I don't think i did. If the EU referendum comes, i hope we do have something that people can relate to much more and in our approach that we do touch upon their real hopes…that we actually acurately detect what those are …and try to distinguish that both the In and Out will be voting for something much more than what the debate on simple economic advantages and material benefits will be focussed upon by the media and mainstream parties…Something in their attitudes and feelings and consciousness that is tangible that we as socialist can articulate. (I think i might go and read some Billy Bragg and refresh myself about his left patriotism conmbined with internationalism and see if we can appeal to both the In and Out on class unity and make them question why they are being forced into this dilemma of In or Out)…As i keep saying these days on a lot of questions i don't have the answer but then i don't think others do , as well…but it is from raising those issues amongst ourselves that we learn something.
I'm going to play the role of Devil's Advocate by repostng a cut and paste from maoist site
Quote:5. IMAGINE THAT YOUR PARTY — A PARTY OF GENUINE SOCIALISTS — HAS WON A MAJORITY IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN A GENERAL ELECTION.WHAT STEPS WOULD YOU TAKE TO INTRODUCE SOCIALISM CONSTITUTIONALLY?.Even the posing of this question requires considerable imagination. For the development of electoral opinion to the point where a general election might occur would clearly take a considerable time and would not go unnoticed by the capitalist class. Since this class will obviously use every weapon in its power to preserve its wealth, power and exploiting 'rights , — in the name, of couse, of preserving 'freedom' and 'moral values' — it would obviously take steps prior to the election (alteration of electoral laws and boundaries, outright banning of your party as 'subversive' etc.) to try to prevent such an embarrassing electoral result.Let us assume, however, that as a result of some miracle of stupidity the capitalist class fails to take such preventive action.Your party must then hope that the Queen will invite the leader of your party to form a government. It has long been customary for the monarch to invite the leader of the party with the largest number of seats in the House of Commons to become Prime Minister, but there is no constitutional obligation on her to do so.Let us assume, however, that she takes this step and that the leader of your party selects his provisional Cabinet. Before these can take office as Ministers, they are required by constitutional law to take an oath of allegiance to the Queen. Since your party's electoral programme must have included pledges to abolish the undemocratic monarchy, the arrest of these Ministers on charges of perjury will be perfectly legitimate. And when sufficient of your MPs have been, quite legally, imprisoned, your party will no longer have a majority in the House.Let us therfore assume another miracle — that the capitalist class is too stupid to take constitutional measures to prevent your party from taking office and that it introduces legislation to socialise the principal means of production.Such legislation can only be adopted with the approval of the House of Lords and the Queen (the latter can hold up legislation indefinitely), so that further miracles have to be imagined for your socialist programme to be put into legislation.The capitalists may then appeal to the courts to rule that such legislation is unlawful, and a further miracle is required to make the upper class judges rule in favour of the socialist government.Furthermore, the putting into effect of this socialist legislation requires the cooperation of the heads of the civil service, who are also drawn from the upper class, so that their cooperation would require a further miracle.One must also assume yet another miracle. Constitutionally, the armed forces — the heads of which are also drawn from the upper class — may in case of 'emergency' at the request of the monarch establish martial law and rule dictatorially That reactionary military coups are not confined to distant countries was shown by the infamous Curragh Mutiny of 1914, which led to the partition of Ireland. Another miracle has, therefore, to be imagined to render the monarch and the armed forces inactive in this respect.Such a wholesale series of miracles does not occur in real life, and it is clear that the concept of a constitutional transition to socialism is absurd.The old SLP response would be that we have the SIUs as our industrial muscle, some on the Left (WW CPGB) say we should be now be calling for the creation of a militia instead of a standing army as recommended by Engels to be the guarantee of democratic legitimacy. Have we given the necessary prominence to the extra-parliamentary power of the workers will have to create in parallel with the political action of the Socialist Party?
To repeat from the WW article
Quote:Left Unity’s officers make a solemn “public pledge”. They say: “we will support any candidate, whether they are from the Greens, the Labour left or a smaller party committed to equality, who states clearly that they will never vote for austerity and whose record leads us to believe that they are sincere.” On that basis our officers write: “Not only will we not be standing against these candidates: we will actively campaign for them where possible.”I wonder if there is any advantage to be had in officially emailing the LU directly and asking for an explanation in what sense they consider us to be pro-austerity and therefore to be stood against….Get it in writing how they actually view the SPGB politics…they may provide ammunition that we can use against them.I wonder if the Green Party who are standing also in Vauxhall might also be querying this ambiguity.
A daring election video by a spoof political party challenging UKIP in Farage's constituency. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9Gn04SLiyYhttp://rt.com/uk/233831-zebab-troll-ukip-farage/We could be just as controversial in our satire too…with a video of a declaration of our class war upon capitalism and capitalists…
I think a few of us in the earlier part of this thread suggested that for those forming LU, in a sense, they were re-inventing the wheel since they had the option of joining the Green Party (or TUSC, for that matter) so perhaps some of us are less surprised by the development of a proposed anti-austerity alliance and expected something like it to happen. I think it will be clear that the Green Party will be the party that gets all the benefits since i doubt that the Green Party members will be in a position to reciprocate by supporting LU in consituencies where they are standing and the Greens are not. As Stuart always suggested there was this optimism and a will for something better in LU's early days that has dissipated a bit now. I only wish our party image and the presentation of our ideas was somehow more positive that we could have tapped into this genuine prevailing atmosphere and attitude that is seeking change, whether it is LU here, the Greens, or Syriza and Podemos in Europe….Stuart, i think rightly, recognised this rise in hopes and aspirations with Occupy. I think we all did but we struggled with finding the appropriate strategies of how to respond to it. Occupy rose and fell too quickly for the Party to react wth its usual slow but sure process of decision-making and position-forming so there was little opportunity to interact with it effectively.I think we still haven't found the right approach to people really striving for political alternatives and sadly it is the nationalists…UKIP/SNP, that are succeeding. I tried to raise the consciousness topic indirectly in the Scottish Referendum voting thread i started. I maintain (probably idealistically) that it is not our positions that are at fault, they still hold both the psychological and political appeal when stripped down to their basics (one of which is our organisational structure without leadership as an example already offered by Stuart) but our weakness and failure is in how we connect with those we wish to convince to take that one step beyond, to go that one step further in their thinking. To shake off the shit of the past as Marx said somewhere. (To stop delegating their own responsibility to leaderships and elites, for instance, so to have an easier life.) We know people have to do it for themselves for they cannot be pushed or pulled into this transformation of the struggle. I think we have to hold up a big mirror so they can see their real selves in action so they can be instilled with confidence as well as recognise some of their warts. Maybe we should show more of a picture of what is possible and what our aim is we some elaborate blueprint as i sometimes also propose.I think this is an important debate for the party to hold. Our decision to spend a lot of cash on election activity can be seen as a gamble and/or experiment but importantly it is part of this debate we must have on how we should be as a political organisation. The post-mortem after May7th will be hopefully very illuminating and instructive on our future. Anyway morning sermon over…
There was an argument put that the fracking boom was just all a stock-market hype to gain investor money. This RT article seems to support the case reporting that BP is pessimistic about its development in the UK for decades to come (and by then we will be most likely deep into global warming effectsand there will be political pressure to restrict it…oil in the soil and cole in the hole) http://rt.com/uk/233519-fracking-not-economically-viable/
Quote:BP’s forecast on the future of fracking in Britain and beyond surfaced in its most recent Energy Outlook Booklet. The oil giant’s leading economist, Spencer Dale, said: “We don’t see any shale production of any great significance in Europe and the UK by 2035.”With friends like this who requires enemies.http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/17/currency-scheme-1930s-save-greek-economy-eurozone-crisisGeorge "Just print the money" Monibot, the money crank nowAnybody read about this stamp scrip, first i have heard of it ?
I found this quite troublesome…a person's political affiliation being used in evidence in a child custody case.http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tees-31509391EDL may not be paragons of virtue and probably all members are racists but to declare it immoral creates a precedent. Not often do i agree with a judge but he is right.
Quote:"The city fathers of Darlington and Darlington's director of social services are not guardians of morality. Nor is this court."Committees and specialists taken on responsibilities they probably have no qulaification in i.e. politic analysis but then should such a case be put to a community vote? I fear some occasions that democracy can indeed be interpreted as mob justice and lynch law.
Oh, i know some have been waiting for Chomsky's pronouncement upon Syriza and Podemos and his view is likely to irritate some here.
Quote:Syriza is by today’s standards a left party, but not particularly because of its programs. It’s an anti-neoliberal party. They are not calling for workers’ control of industry…They are not even traditional socialists. That’s not a criticism; I think it is a good thing, and the same with Podemos, which basically is a party that’s rising up against the neoliberal assault, which is strangling and destroying the peripheral countries.Comrade Layton has had this article published in Dissident Voice, hopefully extending the reach of our case for socialism to an audience unlikely to have much opportunity to have heard of us.Plus he has had a number of his very apt poems also posted on the website http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/02/declining-wages-and-rising-unemployment-the-effects-not-cause-of-falling-demand/http://dissidentvoice.org/author/richardlayton/
For attention of campaigns, election, audio-visual committees…A very easy to make and very cheap video to make…and it does make its points clearly and concisely…no elaborate sets, just some excellent editing and good sound equipment and lighting, i suppose …which i believe we possess. We could …we should…have a series of those…on specific parts of the socialist case…A party member at the entrance of a police station or gates of a prison, explaining crime…An immigration detention centre as a back-drop as he or she talks about immigration…a shopping mall about consumerism…the stockmarket about capitalism…the list is endless with some imagination…No need to learn a script…the lines held up behind camera on big prompt boards…I'm sure we can get over the party position within 2 or 3 minutes on particular social problems. Two full months to do it for the general election…each of our candidates could be used…on local issues, perhaps…Oxford on education in capitalism V. socialism, for example…If not for the election then simply to advance our arguments generally….
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-31499189
Quote:Church of England leaders are set to urge members to take an active role in May's general election. In a letter to be released later, the House of Bishops is expected to call for debate on issues such as inequality and Britain's place in the world. It is expected to back the concept of a living wage and urge political parties to avoid scapegoating groups such as immigrants and those on benefits. The letter is the first of its kind to be issued by the Church.The get out clause is that they claim it is not party political and do not endorse a specific party….but it does exclude certain choices based on party manifestoes, doesn't it?
I see it also made a point of saying she was "Aussie-born" just to add a bit of xenophobia to the article, as well.
