ALB
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More news from New Zealand:http://pictures-of-cats.org/new-zealands-conservation-minister-suggests-two-cats-per-household.htmlNote the nutter who wants to slaughter them all.
The man whose name you can't remember was John Archer and at the time he was not the mayor but a councillor even if he was a supporter of the statue. He didn't become mayor till 1913 by which time the affair was over. More on him here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Archer_%28British_politician%29One interesting thing here is that he was elected as a "Progressive" (as the Liberals called themselves for local elections in London) for Latchmere ward. He would have been known to the party as that was one of the two wards the Party contested for Battersea Council that year. (For the record, in the three-member ward, the Party candidates got 117, 117 and 113 votes respectively).Just found this in the Socialist Standard for December 1906:
Quote:The "Progressive and Labour" candidates in Battersea ran under the auspices of the Battersea Trades and Labour Council, which consists of various trade union branches, Liberal associations, Radical clubs, etc. Many of the T.U. branches are affiliated to the L. R. C., and therefore while working with the Liberals, subscribe with the ostensible object of fighting them.The LRC was the "Labour Representation Committee" which later became the Labour Party. Archer in fact later became a Labour councillor.For those who can't be bothered to read up on the affair there's this three-minute video. I don't know how accurate it is but the affair seems to be more to do with the history of the anti-vivisection rather than of the socialist or even the working class movement.http://wn.com/brown_dog_affair
I'm afraid you've missed the point or even the joke and will no doubt prefer the leaflet we handed out for the exact same event in 2013:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2013/no-1306-june-2013/socialism-only-alternativeAll we need do is change "22 June" to "20 June". Or we could wait till they organise one on a 22 June again. I'm sure they'll be saying the same old thing themselves. These events are rituals anyway but, don't worry, we'll be there.You don't like our leaflet. You should see theirs, telling the new Tory government to end austerity !
No. It was just a pious resolution which doesn't change anything. There tend to be a few of these from time to time.. We'll be there as usual handing out the same leaflets as before. This one in fact, left over from a similar demonstration three years ago:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2012/no-1298-october-2012/future-worksWe'll probably be distributing the same in three years time too. These demonstrations keep coming around.
Let's hope the judge doesn't decide that they are "sturdy beggars" and order them to be branded — which, apparently, the Magna Carta didn't ban.
That's a good find and a good article, SP. All the more strange that, even at the last election, the SWP were calling for the election of a Labour government, both explicitly and implicitly.Another good pamphlet on the post-war Labour government is this one from the old Syndicalist Workers Federation:https://libcom.org/history/how-labour-governed-1945-1951.As well to have this information at our fingertips in readiness for the celebration in some quarters of the election of the election of the Attlee Labour government in July 1945.
I see they are invoking the Forest Charter to justify being there. Be interesting to see what the judge in Guildford County Court makes of it. Maybe he'll have to ascertain whether they are "freemen" or serfs.
That's why I said "planned" (by Archives and Campaigns), but I think it's going to be a low-key affair compared with what did for the outbreak of the First World Slaughter last year.
I don't know whether the new radical mayor of Barcelona really is proposing that all decisions are made by "citizens's assemblies", though I very much doubt it. Even so, the professor of constitutional law has a point: it wouldn't work. Such direct democracy has its (severe) limits. Anyway, it's not what we propose in socialism, where some decisions can be taken by assemblies, some by referendum, some by answerable and recallable delegates and some left to "experts". I agree that even in socialism "I don't go into a restaurant and tell them how to cook". Nor, when I turn on the tap at home, am I interested in deliberating how the water got there. I'll be satisfied that it does. As has been pointed out here before, in socialism we're not going to spend all day deliberating and voting on everything.
For the planned exhibition at Head Office in July on the 1945 General Election I dug out this leaflet produced (in the 1960s, I think) by the comrades in Belfast. It's a reminder to those (eg Ken Loach) who look back on the 1945-51 Attlee Labour government with nostalgia that Old Labour was just as bad.
Quote:LABOUR GOVERNMENT AND THE WORKERSYour Labour candidate will advise you that you can improve your conditions of life by voting Labour. His Party, the Northern Ireland Labour Party, are at one with the British Labour Party. Below we give some details of Labour Government in Britain :(1) Used CONSCRIPT TROOPS to BREAK strikes.(2) Imposed a "PAY PAUSE" and "INDUSTRIAL CONSCRIPTION."(3) Used (in peace time) a wartime Order, 1305, in an effort to have striking trade unionists JAILED.(4) Had workers RESISTING BLACK-LEG LABOUR sentenced to IMPRISONMENT and FINES under old PROPERTY-PROTECTION ACTS of 1875.(5) Agreed to, and tried to justify, the dropping of the FIRST A-Bomb on Hiroshima.(6) Safeguarded the interests of British capitalism by nationalisation of bankrupt industries.(7) Sent British troops to AID DUTCH IMPERIALISM, and IMPRISONED and BANISHED African leaders.(
Imposed the FIRST CHARGES on the "free" Health Services.This is but a small part of Labour's black record when it waged war against the workers in the interests of British capitalism between the years 1945 and 1951. We challenge our Labour opponents to deny or "explain" these terrible happenings.In this Election the UNIONIST AND LABOUR candidates stand for the MAINTENANCE of CAPITALISM. Only the WORLD SOCIALIST PARTY challenges the capitalist system and proposes an alternative—SOCIALISM.BEFORE VOTING YOU HAVE A DUTY TO CONSIDER THE SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE.Printed by the Cranmour Press, 49a Mountjoy Street, Belfast 13, and Published by the World Socialist Party, 185 Donegall Street, Belfast 1.Your description of the affair doesn't correspond with that on wikipedia:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Dog_affairThe dates are wrong. The rioters were medical students protesting in favour of vivisection not workers protesting against it. Battersea council was not then chaired by a "black man", etc.If the wikipedia account is accurate then it might explain why the Socialist Standard doesn't seem to have mentioned it as might have been expected if workers regarded it as a major issue, especially since, as you point out, the party was particularly strong in Battersea at the time: it was a dispute between two sections of the bourgeoisie, medical students and feminists (Votes for Rich Women) who were also anti-vivisectionists.This is not to defend vivisection but to defend historical accuracy.On the other hand, the April 1905 Socialist Standard in an article "Socialists & Capitalist Hospitals" did complain about the treatment of working class girls and young women who went to hospitals being forced to strip to the waist in the presence of medical students for them to examine as part of their training.Lafargue's article (he was of course himself a medical doctor), dating from 1881, can be found here.https://www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/1881/12/25.htmIt is unlikely to have been known to early party members — but no wonder the anti-vivisectionists don't like him !
I'm sure that such sharing schemes will flourish in socialism. As Zeitgeist (whatever happened to them?) pointed out in their activists' guide:
Quote:People claim “ownership” because it is a legal form of protection. In a system of abundance, without the need for money, the idea of ownership becomes irrelevant. In this new system no one owns anything. Instead, everyone has unrestricted access to everything. Ownership is a massive burden. No longer will a person need to live in one place. One could travel the world constantly. Anything needed is obtained, without restriction. There is no reason for abuse for there is nothing to gain. You can’t steal things that no one owns and you certainly couldn’t sell them. Household items are obtained through central distribution in the cities, while recreational items are available on call or near the location of their use. For example, if you go to a golf course you would select, on site, your clubs from the most effectively designed models available. You use them, and then you return them. If you decide to keep the clubs, go ahead – that is your burden… for why would a person want to transport, maintain and store golf clubs, when they can always have access to them and then return them onsite? Our homes today are full of junk that we hold onto because of the supposed value they maintain. This waste will no longer be needed. In this model, the city complex or, in fact, the entire world, is really your home. Instead of having extraneous items like recreational equipment and vehicles sitting about your physical house, collecting dust when they are not in use, they are stored centrally for everyone’s free access, with products being utilized actively, minimizing redundant waste. If you require an automobile for whatever reason, the car is made available for you. When you get to your destination, the satellite based driving system will automatically make the car available for others to use, as opposed to sitting in some parking lot wasting space and time. In society today, the need for property results in extreme product overlap and redundant waste. There is no reason for every person to “own” a car. Most only drive them for an hour a day. It is much more intelligent to create a universal shared system, for it dramatically reduces waste, redundancy and increases space and efficiency.Just read the same article in this weekend's i paper. I read it as saying that within capitalism such schemes will never be mainstream, but isn't this was what we say? It could have some relevance to the idea Robbo has revived on the SPGB Communications thread about encouraging such schemes as bits of pre-socialism within capitalism. Having said that, that doesn't mean we should reject or denounce them (after all, they are one way of trying to survive under capitalism), just criticise extravagant claims made about them.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Then let us see what Left Unity have discussed. http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1062/standing-in-londons-elections/Interesting discussion by them on the last election and the coming London elections next year. I see that they are aware of the People's Front of Judea question too.
Quote:Ken Loach decided to enter the discussion. Whereas he usually takes more of a back seat in LU, now the gloves came off. He thought the Hackney motion was “madness” and that it would lead people to invoke the Monty Python ‘People’s Front of Judea’ sketch – especially with LU’s name being what it is. We would be “laughed out of the room” if we adopted the Hackney motion, he said.The Hackney resolution was in fact carried. It's that of the first group described here:
Quote:In the discussion which followed it seemed that LU in London had split into three broad camps. There were those who supported LU standing on its own on a pro-migrant and pro-European basis. This group was made up of the leadership in the form of Kate Hudson and Andrew Burgin, as well as Socialist Resistance speakers like Terry Conway. The CP lent its support to this grouping. Then there were the ISN speakers, who promoted Tusc on the basis of “socialist unity”. Finally there was a quite backward grouping, around Simon Hardy and the Workers Power and ex-WP milieu, which also had on board the likes of Ruth Cashman of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty and some ex-SWP speakers, who felt that elections were a waste of money and what LU should really be doing is “building the movement”.Maybe, at last, LU will stand on its own in elections, independent of TUSC, so we can see how much support they have (or have not) got. We'll see.Simon Hardy, by the way, stood against us in Vauxhall, one of the few who stood as LU not TUSC:
Quote:He jokingly started by giving his name and “188 votes for socialism” in reference to his campaign to become MP for Vauxhall.Compared to our 82. So, they're still in the same league as us, which "building the movement " instead of contesting elections won't disguise.
Howard Pilott wrote:Additionally unless there is a reference to Marx and preferably Engels too, somehow there’s a lack of credibility. Just ask yourself for a moment, why do references to some long dead German have such a status in our communications? To me it is almost as if we doubt our own integrity unless there is a link to our apostle and his holy scripts. My view is that most people could not give a monkey’s about what he said and in fact are turned off by the references; many of which quotations are turgidly expressed in the written voice of a bygone era.Howard's summary of the view of "some members" thoughts here is a bit unfair as it is based on listening to speakers at one meeting, at which the chair quoted Engels and the speaker Marx. Actually, whether or not it is a good or a bad thing, this is not done at all our meetings. Far from it. And it varies from speaker to speaker. It is certainly not compulsory.
