alanjjohnstone
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Plenty of discussion guaranteed over all the propals and reforms by the scope of their agendaI note our ex-comrades call for a Basic/Citizen's Income has been still ignored (except for an aside on some future study of its feasibilty) I also note in regards to another thread and my comment on it about militias, there is a call "for the workers to arm themselves and win over sections of the military forces of the capitalist state… the working class must equip itself with all weaponry necessary to bring about revolution…The people have the right to bear arms and defend themselves."The online discussion and the actual conference debate will be of interesting reaading….hate to say it …but more so than our own rather dull AGM agenda.
One of the first acts of Franco was the execution of 200 senior Spanish Army officers right at the start of the civil war.Most of the Spanish Navy remained loyal to the government.
Quote:Only they envisage using workers militias or whatever to do this. A bit suicidal if you leave, as they propose, the State in the hands of the pro-capitalists.Suicidal in the widest context !!In all my long years as a socialist i have only known a handful who have ever had any military traning and since conscription/draft been abolished there simply won't be too many with the relevant experience in arms and weaponry to be an effectivve militia. I have only know one..a single person…who thought armed insurrection was inevitable and joined the TA to get that required military skill. But even so, they never taught him how to drive and fire a tank, or range and direct an artillery barrage, or fly a helicopter gunship and host of other high-tech armaments, even if available.Surely those who disagree with us that the military will fall in line with the democratic consensus, reinforced by our legality and legitimacy regards the constitution, must take the steps now for a "red army" militia and i see no evidence of this. A few scattered sects do argue for the re-introduction of conscription and the establishment of a British Army on the lines of some other countries "citizen" army ie the Swiss and Swedish but probably the most reflective is perhps the Israeli and they aren't that popular to emulate.As far as America is concerned the establishment of armed militias have been predomnantly right-wing racist survivalists…hardly a recommendation. The days of Black Panther urban guerilla warfare have long past as they themselves discovered turning into a self-help mutual aid organisation and self-defence becoming secondary role.
An updated overview of what has been happening to the Uighur from IPS.http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/10/can-china-pacify-its-restive-minorities-peacefully/
Well lubed by Country Life butter bum-holes, i hope…and the 5 million quid he got for advertising it.Care to c and p the full Times article as it is behind a pay-wall
http://www.tusc.org.uk/17012/27-06-2014/rmt-conference-unanimously-votes-to-continue-support-for-tuscAs Gen Sec he may have reservations, i don't know, but RMT conference seems to be still committed. and Mick Cash says there will be a continuity of policy even though like yourself the Left Futures website doubts it
Quote:perhaps the days of significant financial support from the RMT to TUSC and No2EU are numbered if only on “value for money” grounds.Mick Cash, new RMT leader, promises “no deviation” from Bob Crow’s approach
Can i raise the question….What is the World Socialist Movement?And another question..What does companion party of it actually entail other than acceptance of the D of P and acceptance by the other members?If some of us are intent upon emphasising the identity of the WSM for the SPGB, shouldn't we be making the WSM something more definite and concrete than a mere expression or aspiration, a rather passive non-active entity. Shouldn't the WSM be a functioning structure?I suggested a while back on some thread or another that if we have been successful using Skype for EC meetings then we should delve further into its usage…or the interactive system Brian J believes is an improvement that TZM uses for their worldwide internet discussions to hold WSM conferences eventually in the long run leading to a unified World Socialist Party. The members of the SOYMB blog have agreed amongst themselves that the way forward for it is to become more a WSM blog once we sort out the templates and formatting of the blog site and have acquired volunteer bloggers from the companion parties. A work in progress and a slow one unfortunately. At one time we experimented with "World Socialist"…but next time instead of simply having it as a print magazine we can also publish it as an E-zine. (Maybe a transformed blog serving as the prototype.)
Quote:The last thing we want is another big, divisive debate over the name.Let us have it instead about the effectiveness of us identifying the party's case with people. If they don't understand what we stand for, they aren't likely to care a hoot about what we are called…. Maybe we should call ourselves, the Planetary Party…just kidding
I don't think in any of my readings of party literature have we differentiated between the House of Commons main chamber where we would sit and the work of the Select Committees in our particiption of Parliamentary process?Just how are MPs appointed to those? Would a lone or few SPGB MPs be involved. I can't recall Caroline Lucas or George Glloway being involved except as witnesses in cross-examinations or submissions.Curious of their legal powers, too, to call and examine people, We know about the US Senate Committees and their McCarthy witch-hunt but could Murdoch have said Go Stuff yourself in the UK when he was called to account with impunity?40% of their recommendations are accepted by government but of those, only 40% are implemented by the government, mostly minor details, the crossing of the t's and dotting of the i's …i'm not maths gifted but isn't that kind of actually low. Or am i misreading
Quote:Around 40% of [parliamentary Select Committee] recommendations are accepted by government, and a similar proportion go on to be implemented.And 2/3rds of big changes proposed are rejected.We can count on one hand the really big issues that get rejected by Parliament because Whitehall (is this term also deceiving in that it suggests a parallel power to parliament of minsterial civil servants). The refusal to sanction Syrian military intervention would be one recent example…but of all the various Committees post-Iraq criticism, little of substance came of them, imhoAs for House of Lords, a bit of irrelevance because just how practical are the prospects of SPGB peerages being installed? Or do you argue the aristocrats and sycophantic party fund donors will reverse their class loyalties? Maybe one or two might just as one or two capitalists will forgo their class interests and join us for reason of saving the planet from environmental destruction maybe. ( Hopefully Bill Gates will join the WSPUS and provide billion$ to organise his own demise)Is this really grist for our mill or ammunition for those who say that any socialist in parliament would end up administering capitalism by engaging in Committees, albeit critically? I do argue that involvement Parliament is necessary with the caveat – not everywhere, not at everytime.
i said prior to the revolution merely beause of your mention of post-revolution but i insist the party will not exist, therefore ideas of now members cannot be projected into post-revolution as party views.
Quote:I find this very naive, and is clearly based upon Engels views about the 'material' and the 'ideal'. You're arguing that, if the 'material' circumstances don't 'exist', then 'elite ideologies' can't form.You will recall a long time ago i exempted myself from aspects of these philosophical debates because i simply have no clue what you, YMS, DJP were going on about. I still haven't got a Scooby (but i am sure i am not alone in that) So if my naivity is based upon Engels views it is coincidental since i never bothered to study his ideological bent.You will also recall somewhere in the beginning of this thread or another i tried to ask of its relevance in practical politics andi think my occasional forays have been centred less on the philosophy but more on the political…I suppose that in post-revolution, sccools and universities…centres of education …will still exist, (although Marx was more of the opinion that they would be polytechnic colleges)…and that would be the material circumstances to impose a view on others..via a curriculum. But since there will be few limits on counter-theories establishing themselves, the people will choose, voting with their feet for whatever ideological strand they view as in their best interest…back to the democracy and vote on what is "knowledge" and what is "truth"…but once again i recoil at your comparison with Leninism…we aren't going to have the power to Stalinisescience…Lysenko-ism or implement Nazi racial science, denying Einstein findings because it was Jewish science…or music or art or culture…
Quote:even after a revolution, they won't accept that the class as a whole should determine the meaning of the 'material'. That is, your party members are arguing that they, either as individuals or as a party….This issue is about a post-revolutionary situation….Lbird, i think you can have the satisfaction that there will be no SPGB after the revolution and these now ex-members of a now defunct organisation simply won't have the ability to lay any special claim to the
Quote:access to a means of generating social knowledge that is either not available to the mass of workers, or that the mass of workers can't be trusted with.Or maybe more accurately, any more than any other individual member of the community has access to the means of generating social knowledge. Again, there does not exist the possibility of any political privilege/power that today's elites are able to acquire through a political dominance to impose an ideology…So isn't this all a bit of hypothetical scare-mongering, in a way, about a situation that circumstances won't allow to arise. As for the SPGB attitude towards knowledge prior to the revolution i think we do acknowledge that, as you say elsewhere, it is ideologically based, in that out of the millions of pieces of facts and information, we select only those that support our case for socialism to advance that case. Anything else is discarded. (dangerous groud to go down, i know) The case against socialism we deny its validity from our arguments for socialism. What did Marx say in some context or other…when there exists two equal but conflicting rights… it is the success of the force of one which prevails…something like that anyways…what doesn't happen is that "truth" always wins out.
Quote:the SPGB is identical to the Leninists and their party model, of an elite telling workers what they must believeI have to plead guilty to this although i wouldn’t have phrased it that way.
As a party we do claim to possess a collective knowledge acquired from accumulated experience of past events and what we consider their proven worth in interpretation so we do endeavour to educate (propagandaise) workers and tell them where they may be correct and where they may well be wrong in their view of society.
The old slogan of “Educate…Organise…Agitate” still stands as a guide for todays socialist parties although “self-education and self-organisation” may be an improvement but the creation of a formal organisation i view as having its place in our self-liberation, myself as an individual and myself as a constituent of something larger, my class.
In many ways we are anti-democratic but in the sense that popular ideas held by the majority of workers are not accepted by ourselves as the undeniable truth and we challenge them, often in the guise factually and scientifically, such as the issue of race. Might of numbers is not always right.
What we don’t try to do is impose our “minority” views on that majority by political power or street violence, which differentiates us from the Leninist.
We may hold that we are possess a superior consciousness…class/socialist consciousness, an elitist position ,perhaps, …but we do not claim that as authority or suffice reason to offer ourselves as a vanguard leadership to substitute our party for our class. We may well think we are correct but we still rely on persuasion and the power of argument to convince others of our correctness.
As an aside your reference to workers councils is over-egging the pudding. There exists and is tolerated within the SPGB a variety of opinion and empahasis on the value or otherwise of workers councils and the party position is elastic and flexible on their futur potential role. Our critics decline to offer the same give and take on the question of the use of parliament and as James Connolly moreorless said about the IWW political action clause being deleted…”just try and stop the workers from using it…”,
In the work-place i was often acccused of arrogance…of having an answer for everything…which usually is the case with socialists…I’m sure that accusation has been thrown at you, too…welcome to the elitist club, LBird
Quote:"thus the political need for democratic methods being used throughout that society, including science."That was the reason…a jury of your and YMS peers deciding democratically who is correct – the test of the vote. Plus now you mention it, the prospect of on platform fisticuffs is also appealing, too, now.
