alanjjohnstone
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Where will the LibDems stand on this occasion? Will all Labour members oppose the war? Regardless, Cameron can still go ahead without Parliamentary approval using his Royal Perogative as can Obama without Congress consent with his presidential executive powers. If Cameron's whips do not foresee a majority, don't expect a vote.
I find it surprising that Stop The War Coalition apart from some web statements has been fairly inactive in opposing the build up to the war. Of course, i fully expect the BBC and the yellow press not to seek contrary opinions to the prevailing war-mongering. But an appeal to 1945 nostaligia brings many thousands of activists to a conference hall. A Left Unity project creates dozens of new local groups of activists. But where is the anti-war movement? Will we see a million march again in a show of real unity demanding no war but class war?
Again i have to go to the right wing press for a reasoned article on Syria where as the BBC , the Guardian and the Independent continue to beat the war drums http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2013/08/before-we-bomb-syria-shouldnt-we-seek-proof-of-guilt-.html
ALB's suggestion worked for my post at unity thread but its awkward placing the </p><p> before the div/divs.
The Left Unity project has raised many issues that the Socialist Party of Great Britain have faced and answered before. Our critics accuse us of being out in the political desert. But the Socialist Party is not prepared to join with parties whose aims and methods are contrary to the interests of the working class and a hindrance to the achievement of socialism. The Labour and Trotskyist Parties are parties to which that condemnation applies. It is our experience that any other policy is fatal for a socialist organisation. We would require the Left Unity Party to first state exactly what is its objective. It ought, of course, to be unnecessary to ask such a question of a party which declares its aim to be socialism Unfortunately, the labour parties in all countries have misused the word socialism, and applied it to their aim of state capitalism, which leaves intact the division of society into a propertied class and a class of property-less wage-earners. It is argued that if we can get unity of the workers' forces, the strength gained thereby will attract more and more towards our movement. Activists want to create a new left party because those that exist appear inadequate. There exists trap which the advocates of compromise always fall. They promise to solve certain urgent problems by entering into pacts and alliances hoping perhaps to gain strength later on to press forward. They forget that in taking on the administration of capitalism they do not gain strength, but lose it. They at once begin to earn the unpopularity and contempt which always centres on an administration which carries on capitalism. The effort to solve problems inside capitalism creates uncertainty, mistrust, apathy and despair among the workers who have cherished false hopes as the Green Party now fully realise in Brighton. When it was decided to form the Socialist Party those who made that decision did so against the advice of many individuals and groups that claimed to know a better way of getting socialism. By joining the Labour Party our advisers said genuine socialists should get inside where they would have a wide and receptive audience for socialist propaganda. The justification to their view was that it was possible in those days to talk and write about socialism within the ranks of the Labour Party and to argue the socialist case with Labour supporters who were at least familiar with the works of the socialist pioneers. They didn't accept the socialist case but they were aware what that case was. Socialism maybe a worth-while aim but workers being what they were, the only practical policy was of making capitalism better through reforms and introducing nationalisation as an administrative stepping stone to socialism while teaching socialist principles to raise the level of understanding among the workers. We will let the readers judge the success or failure of its reforms and state-ownership but on the issue of those who advocated the unity strategy and membership of the Labour Party where is the Socialist influence that was to permeate the ranks of the Labour Party? Has it raised the level of knowledge in Labour Party? Sure with accumulation of experience of political power they know all about winning votes and influencing electors. They know all the intricacies of government and administration. They can can hold their own in the wire-pulling and double talk. It is full of ingenious schemes for settling capitalism's problems but never on any occasion do they put the socialist alternative to capitalism or show a socialist understanding of the nature of the problems. The socialist case is not heard in Labour Party and if a person put it forard she or he would be regarded as a crank or an oddity not to be taken seriously. Far from being influenced by socialist propaganda, the Labour Party has now forgotten what little it once knew. It cannot now even argue against socialism for it does not know what socialism is. There are some members of the Labour Party who can remember the days when strikers were people to support and when patriotism was something of a dirty word. What do they think now of their party, a fully fledged party of capitalism, with taking political office as the one and only object of its miserable life? We now receive similar wisdom from those who desire that we merge with the future Left Unity Party when it comes into being. It too possesses the attractive quality of an aimless but enthusiastic spirit of revolt against the iniquities of capitalism. The Socialist Party mission is simple. We have to proceed with our educational propaganda until the working class have understood the fundamental facts of their position—the facts that because they do not own the means by which they live they are commodities on the market, never bought unless the buyers (the owners of the means of life) can see a profit to themselves in the transaction, always sold when the opportunity offers because in that only can the necessaries of life be obtained. We have to emphasise the fact that no appreciable change is possible in the working-class condition while they remain commodities, and that the only method by which the alteration can be wrought is by the working class taking the means of life out of the hands of those who at present hold them, and whose private ownership is the cause of the trouble. Before this can occur the workers will have to understand the inevitable opposition of interests between them and the capitalist class, who, because of their ownership of the means of life, are able to exploit them, so that they will not make the mistake of voting into power, as they have always done previously, the representatives of the interests of those owning the means of life, because those who dominate political power dominate also the armed forces that keep the working class in subjection. This is our mission, and we shall conduct it with all the resources we have at hand. That is our position and if it contains flaws we shall be glad to hear of them and debate it. It is the mission of the Socialist Party by its educational propaganda, to clarify issues so that socialists will stand out us a political party distinct from and antagonistic to every other party to be a power in the land to-day. For the triumph of socialism, national and international, organisation is essential, but the organisation must be for socialism and based on socialist principles or such organisation can be nothing to the workers but a delusion and a snare. The new form of society is ready to take shape under its direction. Its consent is the only thing lacking. The majority not want Socialism and do not understand it. That being so, it is mere illusion to imagine that working-class unity on a socialist basis is attainable at present. A socialist party cannot yet be more than a minority party. For unity:- The objective of common or social ownership, must be clearly understood.There must be no room for policies of minority action and armed revolt.There must be no collaboration with capitalist parties. (This would rule out parties prepared to urge the workers to vote for the Labour Party and nationalists) The Left Unity Party will gain membership partly on the basis of the failures of the Labour Party, but it has adopted exactly the same erroneous position. The Left Unity Party is committed to a gradualist, reformist strategy: seeking support on the basis of a programme of reforms. The case of the Labour Party is relevant here in that they too originally set out to impose on capitalism something—in their case, social measures in favour of the working class—that was contrary to its nature as a profit-driven system. The Left Unity Party are facing the same choice of strategy as did the first socialists in Britain at the end of the 19th century: to build up support on the basis of the maximum programme of fundamental social change and remain small till people have become convinced of the need for the change in question or to build up support on the basis of reforms within the system and grow faster but at the price of abandoning the maximum programme or relegating it to a vague remote, non-operational long-term objective. So much is this the case that we can already anticipate the weak excuses, the shifting of blame and apologies for their inevitable failures to come. There is no need to be Nostradamus in foretelling its future. The widespread rejection of the Labour Party by radically-minded people does provide the basis for the growth of a genuine socialist party on sound principles, but the Left Unity Party does not fill the bill. It has nothing to offer except the failed old policy of state intervention and state control to try to make things better for people. Despite the repeated demonstrations that this reformist policy does not work, the new party wants to have another go, flying in the face of the inescapable conclusion that capitalism just cannot be made to work in the interests of the majority. At the moment capitalism cannot even sustain the reforms it was able to afford at an earlier period. Since the post-war boom came to and end in the early 1970s, there have been no reforms – no improvements in housing, pensions, health care, social services or state benefits. Quite the reverse. Pre-existing reforms have been whittled away and things have got worse in all these fields. Nor is there any prospect of them getting any better; all the signs are that they will continue to get worse. Nor can unemployment, poverty in old age, bad housing, inadequate health care, etc, etc, etc be solved within the capitalist system, not even by the most left-wing governments. Certainly, Left Unity says it wants to replace capitalism with a socialist society but this turns out to be, not real socialism, but the state capitalism that nationalisation represents. This is the past. We’ve seen it and it doesn’t work. Knowing that socialism is the only solution and that it can be brought about only when the electors become socialists, it would be a dishonest political manoeuvre of seeking election on a programme of reforms of capitalism. It is dishonest because those who do it know that the reforms will not solve the problem. The Socialist Party stands for the policy of independence. Unity is absolutely indispensable before socialism can be achieved, but it must be unity of socialists: on a socialist platform and in a socialist party. Socialist politics is concerned with a materially realisable future, not with a mythical past, and is actively working towards a more equal and more humane society. A non-exploitative and non-hierarchical society is a practical goal not an ideal, one which necessitates a social order based on the common ownership of natural resources.
I too have suffered the same problem and the advice you gave was the same but unfortunately I have "disable(or enable) rich text" under my box., nothing about "input format" or "full HTML" The problem doesn't appear to be when directly typing a message but arises if pasting on to it.
Die Linke and the Pirate Party in Germany also demonstrates the problems Left Unity will face and need to overcome, both constantly hampered by internal dissension.
In regards to Occupy and its success, we must praise it in that it was successful in raising class consciousness of people.The 1% V the 99% drove home to many, particularly Americans, that the middle classes was largely mythical and reinforced the real fact that we live in a 2 class society.It brought to the forefront of working class politics the issue of methods and ways of organising democratically without a vanguard or distinct leadership even if it still retained certain flaws in regard to voting and delegation.The fact that currency cranks were so prominent was that people like ourselves were not able to present the alternative as effectively as we should have. Our failing, not Occupy's. It was shared by many on the libertarian/anarchist thin red line. The occasional visit for a few hours to hand out leaflets and Socialist Standards was not a suffice response but it was a start that should have been built upon.As a party we are relatively well off in material resources with a potential for much more but we do not make full use of the few volunteers we can get together. Our approach to how to make our sparse membership more visible and vocal must be our priority in discussing propaganda. More literature and banners is just a beginning to convey our message.Why i am keen that we actually attend and address LU directly is that they should have the full possible alternatives to choose from. The choice of political strategy should always be up to the working class, they make their own bed and must sleep in it, and suffer the consequences of wrong decisions but we cannot allot blame to them if they are not given the option of accepting or rejecting our case. Once again it will be our own lapse in not providing the necessary information and propaganda and engaging more fully in discussions and debates. I would rather see this done via the Party iself and not by individuals which i think was a situation akin to Zeitgeist. Our case for socialism is a Party case and we should endeavour to make it under its auspices and be prepared to accept the rebuff as a Party and to come back again …and again…and again…with the same message but perhaps with different lyrics and sung to a different tune.
“a wishy-washy Left reformist party …a second Green Party if you like (but with Trotskyists in it).” And where does TUSC (with SPEW in it) fit in and RESPECT that like Solidarity and the SLP appears to be a convenient vehicle for its egoist leaders …Left Unity if it is to mean anything has to include those parties… And what actual Left Unity in Scotland if it is a separatist Left. I see little debate on that. Can we be blamed for being sceptical when we have those German and Rees declaring that they have changed their spots and now willing to join with Left Labourists like Loach and Owen. I cannot really accept that there is a serious change in the Left taking place at any other level than those who were already politically involved and slightly disenchanted with the existing arrangement …it does appear that as someone mentioned a game of musical chairs again, shuffling around but still failing to connect with those who are not activists. This is the universal problem and re-branding and re-labelling or making our mission statement more palatable. won’t be a long-term solution. We are being offered a way forward with too few to remind us, we have already been there. Perhaps too many on the parochial English Left failed to see the weakness of the SSP which was a Left Unity Party, which did take off with a surprising popularity . The majority of my shop-stewards resigned from the Labour Party and the SNP to join it, for instance, but the SSP simply became lost because it was actually directionless, basing itself on whatever populist slogan was in vogue…free school dinners for all, free travel for all…all very worthy aims if related to making free access the objective but the one aim that never got voiced was socialism.
“alternative” (quack) medicine. Always astounds me when i discuss with those who support non-evidence based medicines, how very much reluctant they are to accept that Traditional Chinese Medicines used for thousands of years should be available on the NHS …after all, rhino horn powder is as good as Viagra, and bear bile is excellent remedyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bile_bear and a tiger gonads does wonders for general health…http://www.tigersincrisis.com/traditional_medicine.htm All these so-called Western medical “experts” who discount all claims of any curative power is because they are shills of the animal rights lobby and those medicines from animal parts that may have a use these animal rightists are in cahoots with Big Pharma to manufacture the alternatives. Its all a conspiracy, i say. http://www.animal-rights-action.com/chinese-medicines.html
What the Irish Hate About Bono http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/23/what-the-irish-hate-about-bono/ In 2010, U2 Ltd paid €16,500 in corporate tax, while U2 the band two yearly returns showed they grossed $736,137,344. Take his company (RED) ‘a model of opacity’ – a company supposed to garner millions for the world’s poor by selling its conscience friendly branding to the world’s rich. In returns posted in 2009 (actual figures for all of Bono’s companies are notoriously difficult to come by) just $18 million reached its parent company the Global Fund, while a staggering $100 million went on advertising.
Britain has said it believes forces loyal to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad were responsible for a chemical weapons attacks in the rebel-held suburbs of Damascus, saying the Syrian government had "something to hide". "I know that some people in the world would like to say that this is some kind of conspiracy brought about by the opposition in Syria," said the foreign secretary, William Hague, on Friday. "I think the chances of that are vanishingly small and so we do believe that this is a chemical attack by the Assad regime." Again the main media has this story prominently placed but none had the temerity to actually ask Hague what evidence he has for such a statement. Again we are being faced with a nation’s reluctance to permit UN inspectors a free reign as a reason for escalation. Hague,s reference to conspiracy theories led me to recall Blair’s 2003 dismissal of the war for oil motive in Iraq as a “conspiracy theory” What was that Marx said about history repeating itself, first as tragedy then as farce…unfortunately i am not laughing at the Syrian suffering
My Darling Party Line http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl1r7E3e-ks Old Bolshevik Song (Gilbert and Sullivan tune but spoiled by distorted sound) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ6q2sC6jKM
It has been mentioned before but isn't Left Unity actually divisive. We have currently RESPECT, TUSC , the Green Party and as someone mentioned Scargill's SLP. Surely, by going by their lack of success we can venture comparisons. In fact, there are those on the Left who continue to argue for involvement and to fight their corner within the Labour Party as the CP, the ILP and Militant once supported. Why re-invent the wheel? Why duplicate the effort?? Being sceptical is not the same as being cynical. I have tried to follow the debates online but struggle when minutes use only initials and do not mention any party affiliations. The platforms use full names but again neglects to include existing party membership details. The Communist Unity taks of 1919 involved political parties dissolving and merging into a new one. I don't think we will have that real unity arising with LU and so to look into my crystal ball, it will still continue to be divided by distinct factions vying for the soul and control of it. You don't need to be a soothsayer like Nostradamus to prophesise this. The differing positions on fundamentals exist now, and it is wishful thinking that a founding conference and the adoption of one particular platform will make those divisions disappear. If you read back on this thread, i hoped that LU succeeds since we are in urgent need to resist the present capitalist offensive and engage more people in that resistance. I hope the trade unions can make their own contribution in this mobilisation. i hope against expectation , i am afraid. For you and Jools , the glass is half-filled, mine is half-empty. Whatever the SPGB contribution may make, it will be made openly in the name of the Party.
