alanjjohnstone
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"I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when i read this newspaper story. Attorney General Dominic Grieve has said politicians need to "wake up" to the problem of corruption in some minority communities. Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Mr Grieve said he was referring mainly to "the Pakistani community". He said some people arrive in the UK from societies with a "favour culture" – but it must be made "absolutely clear" that is unacceptable in Britain."http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25062450 Have i overlooked the culture of crony capitalism, the old school tie, the free-mason handshake, in certain Tory quarters? And what about the corrupt dealings British governments and companies have with foreign countries? Did anyone mention BAE?…What is it the Bible say about those with sin casting stones and more secularly those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones either
Slothjobber is correct that I have, quite often, used the term that we are the parliamentary wing of the anarchist movement. That debate can go to a different thread.I am indeed "one of yours" just as yourself is "one of theirs", Slothjabber, but I am responsible for that opinion and not as an official spokes-person for the party. I do post as an individual member of the SPGB on Libcom, and you know well that I have on occasion criticised the party Ibelong to and have been recognised by other posters on it as simply as one tendency of the SPGB, to use a rather grandois term. I know YMS does not share my empathy for the anarchist movement and there are others in the party who are not sympathic for more closer relations between the "thin red line", the non-market, non-state socialists. But you must grant that others apart from ourselves understand that there is a long-standing ban upon ourselves, (as there also is at the Manchester Anarchist Bookfair). If you keep getting refused then surely there comes a time that you accept the refusal and stop applying.Perhaps it is up to the organisers of the Anarchist Bookfair to make clear their new guidelines on who can participate and, goodness gracious me, they pass by our bookstall outside the venue, they could at least have said …come inside …or suggest applying for next year. The fact they didn't is either they are unaware of past decisions to stop our stall and believe we prefer it outside under the usual misinterpretation of our hostility clause or they actually don't wish us to participate. Whenever it has been mentioned on Libcom, I have never seen any attempt by the organisers to try to deny the ban or offer an invitation. So okay, you say we should not say we are banned…perhaps we should re-phrase it …our presence is unwelcomed!
The unity i will gladly join despite the background and politics of some of the signatories. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/21/fight-attack-trade-unions
Fraid even "people" has had its meaning corrupted. "We are the people" is a popular loyalist slogan in Northern Ireland and with extremist protestants in Scotland. i am still prone to using worker or labouring class, since under our definition regardless of wheher you work or not, if you aren't a capitalist, you are a worker. Older articles will also invariably call a worker a he, his or a him.But more you read recent stuff , more humanity or community and gender neutral is substituted. Like everything it will take a while to fully.
" WIC has not decided to "enter the new party" since that would be completely at variance with its stated purpose."Out of curiousity what arguments pro or con were raised in this WIC decision? Did a debate on the question actually take place?BTW, my browser raises a malware warning when i tried to go to World in Common website, something to look into. Often they are false alarms but it scared me off and probably others.
Cromwell and Communism by Edward Bernsteinhttp://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bernstein/works/1895/cromwell/ Christopher Hillhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/hill-christopher/english-revolution/ And to listen tohttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/sites/default/files/audio/Class%20Struggle%20and%20the%20English%20Revolution%20pt.1.mp3 http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/sites/default/files/audio/Class%20Struggle%20and%20the%20English%20Revolution%20pt.2.mp3
The first step is to bring together like-minded men and women to discuss their ideas and share expectations. Not sure about your individual circumstances but one method is to find some local aspect of radical thought or action within your community's history and write about it to your local newspaper. And then who knows what response it elicits but something like a local labour history forum is an approach that can lead to a socialist discussion group.
I was thinking about something Stuart said – about the glaring space left of Labour Party that is vacant, ready to be filled by LUP. Isn't the reason it is there because everytime a left-reformist party tries to occupy such a position, it invariably gets drawn back into the mainstream arena of reformism since that is where a reformist actually has any real significance? Over the years several parties have tried and failed to take advantage with left recipes that are supposedly more radical than Labour's, the old ILP, for instance, (who remembers the Socialist League of the 1930s) and like some of the Left groups they too had the personalities such as Maxton, but the right-ward drift despite language always manifested itself. Even Germany's Die Linke are likely to form part of the SPD revival, just as the Green Party was integrated into the SPD. Just a quick thought that requires me building upon it more
If this was the first ever attempt at unity, a totally new venture, never ever tried before, then perhaps some of us would be more receptive. But it is not , is it? What is being forgotten is that there has been repeated attempts at this unity and if we have failed in our approach, those, too, have failed Obviously, situations and circumstances do change and offer some hope that the outcome may be different but when history is deliberately and purposefully ignored and all those previous unity moves never discussed or debated and i am not just talking about the past decade or two but over a 100 years because it may challenge and undermine the prevailing narrative which has to be one of optimism. Spoil-sports who cast some well-founded doubts like ourselves are most unwelcome and not permitted. The promise of open broad church has been demonstrated to be false by Stuart who grabbed the ball and went away home in a huff because we don't accept claims by assertion but rather demand evidence and proof that we question and quiz for clarity. That type of investigation into political ideas is our scientific socialism. “There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.” ― Arthur Conan Doyle
I did take the time to read (refresh my memory ) Stuart’s recommended reading. In only a few months, more than 9,000 people have signed up to an appeal by film director Ken Loach to set up a new party.[ OOOPs and Stuart skips over the disappearance of 8,000 when it came to joining and paying dues]“… broad left party needs to encompass not only socialists, but feminists, greens/environmentalists, anarchists (and people who aren’t particularly anarchist in their practice but say they are anarchists), communists, syndicalists, autonomists, alongside people who might call themselves “mutualists”, or “co-operators”, or supporters of “parecon”, or just “radical”, or “libertarian left”, or any number of other more unusual self-descriptions – situationism, anyone? Not to mention combinations, like “eco-feminist” or “anarcho-communist”, and people who say things like “well, I don’t label myself” or “I just want to defend the welfare state”. And yes, the dreaded “left reformists” should also be included (though, of course, almost no one uses that term to refer to themselves). I’m sure I’ve missed plenty. These are the people who I “fear will walk away”. We need to try to weave together the many, many threads of left tradition into a common party…. One final point: Is this about “hiding” our socialism and voting for bad positions, in the style of the Socialist Workers Party in Respect? No – and I find this the most tedious accusation of all. The Left Party Platform is full of left principles, and certainly does not advocate the abandonment of any of them. Supporting it is, simply, about being openly socialist, but not demanding that everyone else should be. It is about being the kind of socialist who can co-exist in a party with a wide spectrum of the left. If we’re going to demand that people agree with us before they can even join, then what is the point of having a new party at all?” Throw in everything into the formation of LUP but the kitchen sink and Stuart declares “Well, that’s that argument nailed, for me anyway. Great piece, thanks Tom.” The author of the second recommended article writes “I’ve supported the Left Party Platform precisely because it is an entirely different type of document. It does not claim to be complete and does not ask people to subscribe to a pre-packaged set of formulations. It does try to explain and contextualise “socialism” and on this basis begins to conceptualise a new and different kind of party.” In simple words we will define our “socialism” depending on what we want it to mean in specific situations to abstractly imagine a new party with a pre-conceived meaning – Gibberish words but Stuart disagrees – ” To me a very great deal! Excellent piece” Lastly Richard Seymours contribution which actually says something worthwhile by adopting the best from the old IS into the ISN. “Those fighting these struggles are stronger if they are united in a common cause, but it has to be a complex unity: a ‘unity in difference’. We need to help create ‘systems of alliances’” And i believe we have argued that a socialist party should be the umbrella organisation for all the single issues campaigns – so little to disagree with, IMHO. I always had a soft spot for the IS’s R and F organisation. But in sneaks that vanguardism “…we as socialists need to find and try to cohere the most militant forces who are able to argue for a strategy that is not parliamentarist, not based on deference to leadership, and not bound by ‘law and order’. Of course, those forces will be small and will probably lose most of the time. But the stronger they are, the harder the position of the wider anti-austerity movement can be.” And of course the Trojan Horse of transitional demands “In the UK, given the balance of forces, we would be fortunate to assemble a radical formation with a broadly ‘left reformist’ politics that was nonetheless hospitable to a significant anticapitalist minority. It could usefully deploy some simple demands that would gain widespread support and threaten significant institutional bases of ruling class power: ‘nationalise the banks’, for example. We ought to be directly involved in helping to build that.” But since Stuart has departed i feel i am talking to myself.
"I see the ghost of Stuart is still eating duck" I hope it won't be humble pie he will be eating in a few years time.
"make it a genuinely pluralist party to the left of Labour." It has been pointed out on this thread that there already exists parties left of Labour, being the SLP, TUSC and RESPECT but biggest of all – the Green Party (and in Scotland, the SNP are claiming the mantle of left of Labour) Of the 1000 new members, i dare say a few are political virgins but i hazard a guess damn few and majority have probably been through other groups and organisations, whether fully signed up or nominally non-aligned. You and Stuart are examples, are ye not? Certainly neither of you are virgo intacto politios. So is it re-cycling the same pool of people and the momentary attraction of LU is that it is all things to all people right now. But once committed to a platform, to election promises and policies and to a administrative structure will the unity prevail?
