[ALB]

The good news is that hopefully  they will now dissolve themselves as a public party and  re-enter the Labour Party leaving to us one of the names we've called ourselves since 1904.

[ALB]

While we're being cyncial. Some of the Syrian rebels are media-savvy and some of the photos of babies and children they put out have obviously been staged (not that babies and children haven't been killed but not with a man with a camera nearby).

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What's wrong with you Brian? Let that thread go round in circles and not open another one for our feathered friend. This forum is to discuss socialist ideas not the bizarre theories of some eccentric individual. Sometimes we are our worst enemies.

[ALB]

Apparently referendums in Hungary have been lost due to abstention leading to a turn-out of under 50%:

Quote:

In 1990, there was a referendum on the direct election of the president. The turnout was 13.8 per cent and the measure was supported by 86.0 per cent of those voting. However, the measure failed because it was supported by less than 50 per cent of the eligible voters.

[ALB]

The point did need to be raised but a rather more discreetly.

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I don't think there is any danger of TV companies going after us, but the chances are increased as long as we keep publicising this possibility…..

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Here:https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/WSM_Forum/info

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Twford John wrote:

decision to play the stock market

Twford John wrote:

making capital investments

Assuming for the moment that you are sincere, on what basis do you make your claim that we have decided to do these things?

[ALB]

I agree that these days trying to make things less worse is like running up a downward moving escalator. The trouble is that if you stop running you'll slip back even further.Not that people will stop running anyway. All this — having to run fast just to stand still or not slip back — is in itself a powerdul condemnation of capitalism and a reason to get rid of it.

[ALB]

twc wrote:

You could shamefacedly cast a reformist “NO” on a Referendum ballot paper while simultaneously ‘writing-in’ a revolutionary message    W O R L D   S O C I A L I S M

Actually, that is precisely what some Party members have done in some referendums, eg. the 1997 one of Welsh devolution. Of course in this country it's regarded as a spolit vote. In fact if you write anything on the ballot paper this is the case on the (absurd) grounds that the voter's intention is not clear.

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

If for example a local council put the question of whether a local park should be used as a children's football pitch or turned into a golf course, would it be anti socialist to take part in a decision making process that could be used as an example of the value of participatory democracy?

I don't think it would be anti-socialist but this could be left up to individual members to decide without the Party itself having to take up a position. I remember in the late 60s or early 70s Haringey Council in London organising a local referendum to give it the power to pay electricity and gas bill arrears where the landlord had not paid and where the tenant was therefore in danger of the supply being cut off and then to try to recover the money from the landlord. This seemed a reasonable minor mitigation of benefit to some workers. I don't think I was being anti-socialist in voting for. After all, while nobody, not even us, can make capitalism work in the interest of the workers, it is still possible to make things less worse — though of course that's not the job of the party either but of other working class organisations such as trade unions and tenants associations.

[ALB]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

The "Right to Ever-Lasting Life"…a statement that enormous gains in longevity is possible with socialism…

After the Monster Raving Loony Party, the Jehovah Witness Socialist Party. Here's what the JW's promise:

Quote:

Picture a time when there will be no such thing as poverty, malnutrition, famine, or welfare systems.

So far, so good, but

Quote:

Can you picture that time? No more funerals, no more cemeteries, no more tears of grief !

Not a bad spoof, Alan.

[ALB]

twc wrote:

ALB asks whether a vote of “No” is an appropriate response to a referendum like the 1951 Australian federal Referendum to “Ban the Communist Party”, a ban that readily extends itself to embrace the Socialist Party?My answer is that, despite the serious emergency situation of such a Referendum vote, with dire collateral consequences for the Party, an opposing vote of “No” is not the appropriate response, and I would personally vote the default:     W O R L D   S O C I A L I S M But I would not urge others to vote the same way on such a crucial issue that puts the short-term survival of the Socialist Party on the agenda.

The SPGB was faced with a similar situation in January 1941 when the government banned the Daily Worker. Here is what the Socialist Standard said on this:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1940s/1941/no-438-february-1941/suppression-daily-workerThis article contains this passage:

Quote:

All the same the S.P.G.B. is opposed to suppression of opinion.

Although of course there wasn't a referendum on the question, suppose that there had been. Wouldn't it be a bit hypocritical to say we are opposed to the suppression of opinion and then, confronted with the possibility of opposing it, refuse to do this? (And what if the referendum had been on banning the Socialist Party?)It would be interesting to know how members of the SP of Australia voted in that 1951 referendum. There is a copy in the SPGB archives at Head Office of the September 1946 issue of Socialist Comment, the joint paper of the SPA and SPNZ, on another referendum in Australia. This was a referendum to transfer powers to legislate on social services, marketing if primary produce and industrial employment from the States to the Federal government. The front page article headlined "THE REFERENDUM" concluded:

Quote:

Thefore, the Socialist Party of Australia maintains that it is not in the interest of the working class to vote either "YES" or "NO". One issue, and one issue alone, is worthy of working class support: Socialism. You can use this referendum to reject the two evils offered to you, and at least protest against this rotten system by writing "SOCIALISM" across the ballot paper. Then, when you understand the choice before you, come and join us in more positive action !"

In the event, the referendum was lost by 50.56% to 49.44%.

[ALB]

Actually it's another TV station but I won't mention it in case it helps them track us down.

[ALB]

These are not specially made videos such as the AV committee might make but videorecordings of meetings. Not quite the same thing.  Incidentally, I didn't notice our 2014 election video or did I miss it?

[ALB]

I've found on the net what seems to be rule for the Hungarian referendum:

Quote:

… a national referendum is valid and successful only when more than half of all voters have cast a valid vote and more than half of those voting in a valid manner support either the 'yes' or the 'no' alternative. The requirement is thus more or less the same as the referendum requirement pertaining to constitutional amendments in the Weimar Republic, a requirement which was characterized as insurmountable and criticized because it made possible voting by abstention.

I don't know why this rule is regarded as insurmountable as under it the 1979 Scottish devolution referendum would have been carried. Given the level of xenophobia in Hungary the one there should easily be successful. And of course what is wrong with "voting by abstention" (or by invalid vote)?

[Author]

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