ALB
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I don't recall defending the "integrity" of the BBC, only saying that it wasn't as bad as the others as it didn't carry adverts, a bit of shelter from commercialism, the hucksters and their lies.
I think that's unfair. I'm not a Guardian-reader but you can't compare it to the Scum. To say they're the same is like the ultra-left position that there's no difference between fascism and political democracy. The Scum is in a league of its own as a dangerous anti-foreigner rabble rousing rag. The Daily Wail is down there with them
jondwhite wrote:ALB wrote:Is the John Holliday who has a letter on the wars in the Middle East under the title "Barbarism" not also a former Party member?Yep and he has posted here on this forum once too.
The article he provides a link to, arguing that the conflict in Syria is at least in part a "pipeline war" is quite good.http://armedforcesjournal.com/pipeline-politics-in-syriaIt would seem to explain why Saudi Arabia and Qatar support one side and Iran the other. Not really Sunni v Shiite. That's just to get workers to go out and die for one ruling class or the other.
This is going to be an unusual by-election. The Greens say they won't be standing and are urging voters to back the LibDens while UKIP are backing the outgoing MP Goldsmith (despite the fact that he's clearly one of the "globalised elite" they claim to be against) who is standing as a Nimby candidate. It seems that the line-up is going to be Brexiteer Goldsmith versus the pro-EU LibDem candidate, a sort of second referendum.The date has now been fixed for Thursday 1 December. West London branch decided at its meeting on Tuesday to produce a leaflet and hold a stall in Richmond one Saturday, on 19 and/or 26 November (to be decided at our next branch meeting on 15 November). Detailsof exactly where and when will be given on the World Socialist Movement section of this site.
There's a letter in this week's Weekly Worker which has some relevance to the discussion here.
Quote:Comrade Eric Blanc, in his otherwise excellent article, 'The roots of 1917' (October 27), makes the throwaway remark that “the soviets represented a more direct form of democracy than envisioned even by the early Kautsky” – which (as he notes earlier) was that “a parliament based on universal suffrage would be a central component of the dictatorship of the proletariat”.This is a fallacy, albeit commonly held by revolutionary Marxists and anarchists. In a sense, the opposite is the case. Except at the very lowest tier – that of the workplace or geographical neighbourhood – council democracy is extremely indirect. A national parliament is directly elected by the citizenry. A central (or ‘supreme’) council, which is the national decision-making body in the council model, consists of delegates elected by regional councils, which in turn consist of delegates elected by city or county councils, which in turn … etc. In this pyramidal structure several tiers separate the national decision-makers from the grass roots.Moshe Machover refers to another, comparatively recent article making this point as "ground breaking", but an article in the July 1920 Socialist Standard had already made the point:
Quote:The word "Soviet" is used by many supporters of the Bolsheviks as though it denoted some newly discovered magical power. When one is told that it merely means "Council" the magic vanishes.At the base of this system are the Urban and Rural Councils, directly elected by the sections qualified to vote. The delegates are elected in the proportion of one delegate to every 1,000 members in the towns (up to a maximum of 1,000 councillors), and one delegate to every 100 in the country.Above this comes the Volost Congress. A Volost is a group of villages, and the Congress is composed of delegates from the Councils of these village groups.Next above in the order is the District Congress composed of representatives from the Village Councils.Still higher is the County Congress consisting of representatives from the Urban Councils and the Volost Congresses.Overriding all these bodies is the Regional Congress made up of delegates from the Urban Councils and Congresses of the County Districts.At the apex of the system is the All Russia Congress of Councils which is the supreme authority of the Russian Republic. This is formed of delegates from the Urban Councils and the Congresses of County Councils.We have, then, six grades of authority in the Russian system. But note how they are elected.The "labouring masses" vote once – namely, at the local councils, urban and village. This is their one and only vote. All the other grades are elected by the delegates of the Congress immediately below it.This the Volost Congress is elected by the Village Group Councils; the District Congress by the general Village Councils; the County Congress by the Urban Councils and Volost Congresses; the Regional Congress by the Urban Councils and Congresses of County Districts; and the All Russia Congress by Urban Councils and Congresses of County Councils.We see, then, that "the supreme authority of the Russian Council Republic" is removed five stages beyond the vote, reach, or control of the workers.Is the John Holliday who has a letter on the wars in the Middle East under the title "Barbarism" not also a former Party member?
Only when from the 70s on these votes were cast in their favour. In the 50s and 60s when they were cast in favour of "the rightwing leadersjip" the left were against the system.Here's the front page of the October 1960 Socialist Standard showing Bill Carron, the leader of the AEU, casting 908,000 votes at the TUC Congress that year against unilateral nuclear disarmament:Later he became Sir William Carron, a knight of the round table installed at the TUC headquarters in Congress House.
That's what the Brexiteers said they wanted, isn't it, parliament "taking back control" and becoming "sovereign" again? The dominant section of the ruling class is mounting a determined rearguard action against the crazy decision (from their point of view) that Cameron took the risk of allowing the electorate to take.
Here's the quote from yesterday Times that has sparked this discussion:
Quote:The split at the top of the organiation is over whether it should move towards using a delegate system or a "one member one vote" system. The former would see the organisation rely on selected individuals to convene and make key decisions, while the latter could allow all its actovists to take part in decision-making via online ballots. Jon Lansmann, the founder of the group and a veteran Bennite, is understood to have promoted the second option, arguing that it offers direct democracy. but some members claim online voting has only the veneer of democracy and leaves people 'atomised'.It went on to say that this 'atomisation' criticism came from "The Labour Party Marxists". Just looked at their website and see they are a front organisation for the Weekly Worker mob, practising Lenin's entryist tactic of supporting the Labour Party (and no doubt Momentum too and last year Left Unity) like the rope supports a hanged man.p.s the report also said that Paul Mason had joined Momentum (and so the Labour Party).
This still leaves out Central Branch which may soon comprise something approaching 50% of the membership as they did before and which led to Conference voting that only members overseas could join Central Branch but which has since been relaxed.
gnome wrote:I wonder how many, out of the 10 who joined during the period, are, or will be, organisationally active and what, if anything, are we doing to ensure they are?Two of them have had articles published in the Socialist Standard.
Like the SWP and the others who demand "Make the Rich Pay" which assumes the continued existence of the rich?
According to a report in today's Times, the pro-Corbyn Momentum group has been discussing the same issue as we did under items 4 and 11:
Quote:The split at the top of the organiation is over whether it should move towards using a delegate system or a "one member one vote" system. The former would see the organisation rely on selected individuals to convene and make key decisions, while the latter could allow all its actovists to take part in decision-making via online ballots. Jon Lansmann, the founder of the group and a veteran Bennite, is understood to have promoted the second option, arguing that it offers direct democracy. but some members claim online voting has only the veneer of democracy and leaves people 'atomised'.We have a hybrid system where delegates discuss but where decisions are made by a vote of all individual members after reading the discussion.This hybrid reflects that we may be in a transition from one system (decisions used to be made by a vote by delegates at conference0 to the other.I don't agree that the second has "only the veneer of democracy" but there is some truth in the claim that it leaves individuals "atomised" which can lead to them voting on the basis of their own personal prejudgements without the benefit of hearing or bothering to read about the discussion. In any event, that seems to be the situation we are evolving towards.
