alanjjohnstone
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But just to warm the cockles of Stuart's heart and how revolution is often expressed in various ways, if he hasn't read it , Noam's latest interview.http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/11/20/media-control-and-indoctrination-in-the-united-states/ Then Noam as the song goes he spoils it by saying something stupid like endorsing Mondragon as some sort of alternative worth struggling for even when he fully understands the futility. "And it’s grown and developed. It’s now a number of productive enterprises: banks, housing, schools, hospitals. It’s quite an elaborate affair. And it seems to be with standing the financial crisis, while everything else in Spain is collapsing. I don’t know the details, but that’s what it looks like. It’s not worker-managed. Workers select management, who then act on their own. And, of course, it’s part of an international capitalist economy which means that you can argue the ethics of it, since they do things like exploit labor abroad and so on. They say that they have to do it to compete and survive—maybe—that you can’t extricate yourself from the world you’re in."
We know Stuart's voice (and vote) is just only one in the LUP as is Ken Loach's. Like Stuart, Loach talks the walk with our sort of language "Loach wants to see instead a party that will propose structural changes in terms of common ownership and democratic control and an economy that works in the interests of everyone, not just the few."http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/salman-shaheen/ken-loach-left-unity_b_4302871.html He goes on to explain that he wants from a LU party. "Loach acknowledges that clear mistakes were made in both the Socialist Alliance and Respect. Despite the attention the media has paid to him as a prominent supporter of Left Unity, he is keen to point out that it is not the Ken Loach party. Nor should a party be built around one or two people, however occasionally brilliant they are."It's got to be really accountable, really democratic," Loach says. "We can't have parties within parties. We have to make certain all elements within Left Unity are represented in the central grouping. They've got to be there from the beginning, we can't have it controlled by one platform…. We need a party that has a thought-through programme, that uses language which is attractive to everyone who is against the austerity programme, who is against the imperialist wars, who wants to defend the environment…so that everyone emerges feeling we made the best use of the time, we've got the best result we can, and no one has been defeated, we're all part of something we can all share and believe in even if we didn't get everything we want into the statement [of aims], that our opinions are respected."Summed up as the broad church and which the LUP means something despite to everyone, regardless of their differences "so that everyone's inside the tent pissing out, no one's outside the tent pissing in".He too defines his socialism much as Stuart has – "the core principles from which everything else spreads are socialist ones: common ownership, democratic control, a planned economy, no discrimination."Feasible? Achievable? Realistic? Stuart and Ken says yes. If they are right, we have not committed any serious transgression from a wait and see strategy and if such an open organisation comes into existence and our ideas and contribution will be welcomed with comradely open arms and without rancour. Our well-justified scepticism of any possibility of success, our well-placed reluctance to immeditely participate, will all be forgotten as fully understandable considering the history of failed unity ventures in the past and our well-known predictions for their demise. No need for us to turn on Stuart or Ken Loach and the other LU supporters. It is they in the words of Carl Sagan who make the extraordinary claims which require their extraordinary evidence. The proof will eventually be in the pudding. And for ourselves, we do what we always do, because again as a saying goes first, our actions do no harm and are an exercise in the precautionary principle of politics.
Another thing you wrote from your own view :-"What is socialism? Is there a core meaning in the term or in the history of its practice that could be said to unite all socialists? My answer is yes, and the clue’s in the title. The core meaning of socialism is the social (social-ist) or communal (commun-ist) ownership of the means of production and distribution. As the Left Party Platform puts it, it is a vision where “[t]he natural wealth, productive resources and social means of existence will be owned in common and democratically run by and for the people as a whole”. Or, as the Socialist Platform puts it, socialism “means a society in which the wealth and the means of production are no longer in private hands but are owned in common”. Or, as the Class Struggle Platform puts it, it is “a publicly-owned economy, democratically managed and planned by those who work and those who use its goods and services”. Or, as the proposal to replace the platforms with a set of principles puts it, the socialist aim is to “enlarge common ownership, co-operative models and public-sector provision and diversify their forms”. So, we’re agreed that we’re socialist, and we’re agreed what it means. So far, so good! The trouble is that, as surely everyone must also agree, this is an aim for the medium- to long-term.”Then you go on to argue for the citizens wage – the basic income – as a transition to socialism, then having raise some strawmen arguments against those opposing it you somehow ignored Marx's criticisms of such a scheme. In fact, you claim his authority for it. And i know you are far more informed on Marxian economics than myself so how else but as a purposeful omission can i interpret that as.Nobody has questioned that the unity project is part of a reaction to the recession but unity by who for what is the issue. We sought a meeting with one platform for this clarity to no avail. We are excluded from addressing the founding conference although i fully understand the reason, it is a founding conference and no-one wishes time wasted on any counter voices undermining it. I hope we will have a strong presence outside the door. I am all for escalating and intensifying the class war, using the weapons we have at hand, such as the trade unions, and perhaps adopting new strategies and adapting our present tactics as offered by Occupy and Uncut. But equally important is making socialism an immediate demand, not once more relegated it to some vague future and not one that has self-defeating so-called stepping stones towards it. On the long term to use your terms, making socialism an immediancy is imperative. You can crow about the failures of the past from those like us but you have to also concede that the reformists have also failed miserably – and there is one big difference – the reformists had power and tried to implement their reforms and failed. …Our crime is that we have only failed to convince people through our inability to convey our message effectively when we have those calling themselves socialists offering up half-measures and who can blame workers for rejecting "socialism" when disillusionment sets in. As they say , who needs enemies when we have friends like the Leninist or Trot or wishy-washy Labour.
" It contains a definition of socialism and a commitment to attaining it that I can't see any socialist objecting to. " Would this be the statement you are referring to? "That, in the very near term, we oppose austerity, the attacks on the working class, and the destruction of the welfare state, and will support efforts to halt or ameliorate or reverse these. In the medium term, we stand for the reversal of the privatisation of essential services and utilities, and to bring them back into public ownership. In the medium to long term, we stand for the democratisation of all the social, political and economic institutions of society. Is it, and are we, socialist? Well, all that is exactly what socialism means as far as I’m concerned, whether you choose to call it that or not."
If a movement is all you want , Stuart – take a laxative. Seems like you are rather full of it today.
And more than half the country would support a new right-wing party….(albeit a bit dated poll) http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/shock-poll-shows-rising-tide-113067 So what do you suggest to follow uninformed sentiment …a populist Strasserite third party?
That is plenty of advance warning you gave …i hope you'll issue a reminder nearer the time. But it is also plenty of time to print out the " socialism and religion" and "how gods are made" pamphlets and hand them out free to the attendees (spend that money) Nothing like being well prepared, is there? Perhaps also organise our local public meeting on religion in Oxford.
"Left Unity has already exceeded 1,000 founding members" Whooopeeee!!! Come back and patronise us when you have a 1,000 socialist members. Some may have forgotten that unity is not an aim in itself but a means to reach the aim. Come back when unity is more than just an empty phrase as it is at the moment. From my observations, the differences to ends and means, objectives and tactics, methods and traditions are too deeply rooted for unity to be a sustainable lasting realistic objective. Perhaps you and your new comrades will prove me wrong. i hope so. i am not averse to eating crow when i am proved wrong. Unity can only be for definite and limited aims such as defence of the NHS, the Wefare State, and so on, where there exists some agreement on the Left, irrespective of differences on other issues. Left Unity is about uniting in defence of the gains workers have already made and which are being removed. But unity for socialism…ahhhh, that is a different question altogether. Some will argue that the attacks on our living standards, our wages , our working conditions – these aspects of the day-today class struggle – are not a party affair but one for trade unions. Removing the type of society that imposes the class struggle upon us, however, is the responsibility of a socialist party. But i'm being patronising again, saying things you already know….but ignore.
Meanwhile – Morrissey has given his public support of Russell Brand's call to abstain from voting in rebellion against the 'broken political system'. The singer said he agreed with the comedian that "the most powerful vote you can give is No Vote". In a 2,000 word tirade [ tirade?ajj] ranging from the monarchy to Sarah Palin, the singer said: “Thank you to Russell Brand for standing up and speaking out in recent weeks. “Like Russell, I believe that the most powerful vote you can give is No Vote; for the days of Prime Ministers have gone, and it's time for a form of change that is far more meaningful than simply switching blue to red.” http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/morrissey-backs-russell-brands-no-vote-call-in-tirade-against-british-establishment-8949902.html
Another entertainment personality calls for revolution. Or is it to hype up attendance to the movie?…(oh that cynic inside me, so hard to dismiss) http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/nov/19/donald-sutherland-hunger-games-catching-fire Donald Sutherland wants to stir revolt. A real revolt. A youth-led uprising against injustice that will overturn the US as we know it and usher in a kinder, better way. "I hope that they will take action because it's getting drastic in this country." Drone strikes. Corporate tax dodging. Racism.The Keystone oil pipeline. Denying food stamps to "starving Americans". It's all going to pot. "It's not right. It's not right." Millennials need awakening from slumber. "You know the young people of this society have not moved in the last 30 years." With the exception of Occupy, a minority movement, passivity reigns. "They have been consumed with telephones." The voice hardens. "Tweeting." The Canadian actor has a venerable record of leftwing activism dating back to support for the Black Panthers and opposition to the Vietnam war, but this latest foray into subversion dovetails with promoting The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the second instalment in a series of four films based on Suzanne Collins's bestselling novels for young adults. It takes forward the story of Katniss, played by Jennifer Lawrence, who must fight other oppressed proles to the death as part of a tyrannical government's strategy of rule through fear. The dystopia, called Panem, is built on the ashes of the US, and Sutherland wants young audiences to respond to the allegory. "Hopefully they will see this film and the next film and the next film and then maybe organise. Stand up."… Few stars could get away with that spiel, probably not even fellow liberal contemporaries such as Warren Beatty or Robert Redford. Sutherland, however, manages to sound sincere….His own generation's rebelliousness lapsed into bumper sticker slogans and today's young are too fretful about finding jobs to change society, he laments. "I just think they're not organised. It's not something that's happening in the universities, which is normally the breeding ground for that kind of activity." Does he despair of the young? The famous drooping, pale blue eyes widen. "No, no, no. Otherwise there would be no point making this film. I have great hope and faith in them. I know because I talk to my children."
Another bit of factoid on William Morris. Painting of his wife, Jane, by Rossetti sells for over 3 million.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25004793
Anyways i sent Chakrabortty a personal belated email briefly explaining our own situation and experience.I don't expect anything to come of it but i think it would have had a bit more effect if written in the name of the party rather than just a member of it.
As i tried to say this is a wider issue. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/18/police-students-threat-law-and-order-politics But once again it seems we missed the boat to add our voice of protest and perhaps get a mention . ahhhh, well…maybe we might have another opportunity another time, another place.
