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This is becoming a thread not just for Private Fraser, but for Jeremiah, Cassandra and Moaning Minnie. I'll leave youse to it.

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I must say I was surprised at the result. You would have thought that workers in Greece would punish Syriza for breaking its promise to end austerity but I suppose that, given the choice, they prefer to have austerity imposed by a government reluctant to do so rather than one keen to. Workers have been browbeaten into accepting capitalism and that's all capitalism has to offer. And where parties that claim to be able to protect or improve conditions for workers within capitalism end up.

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robbo203 wrote:

So why then do you suggest that Vin and I "get together to work out a protocol for deciding which one of you is right"?  Is it not possible that both of us could be right? Come to think of it this may be yet another reason for the SPGBs poor performance to date – the tendency for members to think simplistically in only black-or-white terms

Precisely my point , there can be any number of reasons why our membership and support is only progressing slowly. But that's a criticism of Vin's analysis (or, rather, assertion) than of what I've been arguing.

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I wasn't talking about our particular collective activity at the moment, but about political activity in general (meetings, rallies, election with a chance of winning). You are probably right about Brand and, before him, Zeitgeist . They are/were essentially internet phenomena. But I think "Corbynmania" is different. and is more like what I'd expect the take-off of socialism to be like: overflowing meetings, etc.

Vin wrote:

The fact that we have attracted so few during this period of Austerity is overwhelming evidence that we are wasting time and resources and heading in the wrong direction.

This isn't a logical argument. Merely an assertion on a par with Robbo's that it's because we are opposed to religious people joining. You might be right but what you say does not follow from the fact in question. There could be any number of other reasons for the fact in question including our anti-religious stance …. Not sure how you'd prove either. Perhaps the two of you could get together to work out a protocol for deciding which one of you is right,

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Vin wrote:

So members are not wasting their time sitting on their arse on the internet.

I didn't say they were. What you think I'm doing now?

Vin wrote:

I think Corbyn Mania was also the result of the Internet yet we persist with the old pre digital methods

Really, just an internet phenomenon?  Do you really think that his campaign would have taken off without the well-attended public meetings he held up and down the country (even if they were advertised via the internet).  The internet is a tool, which we do and should use, but is not a substitute for collective political activity of one kind or another.

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imposs1904 wrote:

Anyway, I call bullshit on this latest story. It feeds into the paranoia of the capitalist left. They want to believe it.

Where's the like button when you need it.

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If you re-read the supporting statements for the two items you'll see that the problem for 2 branches is that new members allocated to them who join this way don't participate in any organised socialist activity, eg come to meetings, help out at stalls, distribute or sell literature at demonstrations. They seem to be just keyboard socialists.

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There are two items about that too on the agenda. They seem to be but that's where they stay….

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An Americanism, then?http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/62859/origin-of-the-word-shill-shillaber

Quote:

was used for anyone who lured the target into any sort of crooked game (as well as into brothels, strip-clubs and other places where they were likely to come out substantially poorer).

Strong stuff.  But we never used the word.

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Up to you, but if you don't send in a written cobtribution (whatever else you do) there'll be nothing in the Proceedings of ADM that will be sent to members.

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I'd send a written statement to be read at ADM, if only because most of those likely to be delegates or attend ADM won't be on here.

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

But hope on the horizonA third of SNP voters may return to Labour http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/19/third-snp-voters-more-likely-back-labour-jeremy-corbyn-poll

Actually, I think a left turn under Corbyn might well help the Labour Party at all elections except a general election (very few see him as prime-ministeriable, not even us I suspect, not that that's a criticism of the man considering what you have to be to aspire to be prime minister). We'll see after the regional (London, Scotland, Wales) and local elections next May.Meanwhile the pathetic Liberals think they can gain by stealing the pro-business, pro-austerity, anti-welfare clothes of Corbyn's defeated rivals.

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robbo203 wrote:

I am however slightly sceptical about this "we are all leaders" approach that Corbyn is advancing here – not because I doubt that he sincerely means it  but because his whole appeal – as this whole Corbynmania phenomenon  has shown – is that for his hundreds or thousands of supporters, he as a person has made a profound difference to the political landscape  that is Britain. In other words he is being regarded by them as some kind of saviour figure even if he himself would like them to regard himself as just one more leader amongst hundreds of thousands of other  "leaders"You cant really have leaders in this sense with this implying followers and that is essentially what his supporters are

I'm not sure that this is entirely fair. At the West London Peace Market yesterday we met 2 of the 251,417 who voted for him in the Labour Leadership (sic!) election. One was a long-standing Labour Party member, the other someone who paid £3 to vote and was going to join it. Neither struck us as regarding Corbyn as a "saviour" but more, perhaps, as a symbol of the sort of Labour Party they want.They weren't the only people to ask us about Corbyn of course — everybody's talking about him. I would have thought that it's self-evident that we shouldn't start off by saying "he's just a reformist" or he's what Private Eye said we said he was(but which we didn't) a "capitalist shill" (whatever a shill is, anybody know, or was this a misprint for shit?). Needless to say we didn't. We started by saying things like "we don't support the Labour Party" or "at least he's livened up politics" before saying that neither he nor the Labour Party will be able to change things because it's capitalism that's the problem, etc, etc.  (and here's a copy of the Socialist Standard). One person liked our description of him as "Harold Wilson warmed up" but then he was an ex-member of the anarcho-syndicalist SolFed.

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

The most important word there is "reported"

Actually, I nearly wrote "widely" reported and could have added "credibly". I don't think it was a smear as that's what nationalism in particular lends itself to.  I haven't heard any cases of this sort of thing being reported during Corbyn's campaign. If it had been you can be sure that the press would have picked it up and exaggerated it. The incident regarding our head office will have been the work of a lone nutter.

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jondwhite wrote:

Increased government spending is what the left-wing of capital have as their object.

I see. I thought you might have meant that they would welcome the resulting economic crisis as this would turn the workers against capitalism. But of course the Labour left are not Trotskyists.Governments can always increase their spending if they want (they control the amount of money created) even if the result may not be what they anticipate. The Mitterrand government did this in France in 1981 before having to reimpose "rigueur" (the French for austerity) a couple of years later.

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