[ALB]

jondwhite wrote:

Bet Farage gets more votes than Brand at the next election.

Not if Brand is able to count non-voters as his.

[ALB]

I knew him when we were both students in 1962 and went to the "International Socialism" meetings he mentions. He's a decent bloke. We always said hello to each other when we bumped into each at demonstrations.I have just read all the way through the article and of the various "turns" which it has been suggested led to the SWP's degeneration, I'd put the one in 1968 when IS (as it then still was) decided to consciously become an organisation based on Leninist organisational principles.What struck me is Birchall's continuing adherence to the idea of leadership:

Quote:

… a revolutionary leadership needs to know what is going on in the working class. It cannot do this by reading the Financial Times, it has to listen to comrades who have roots in different sections of the class and who can report on what is happening on the ground. As Cliff argued: “… they have to learn from their fellow workers as much as – or more than – they have to teach. To repeat, the job is to lead, and to lead you have to thoroughly understand those you are leading. Leadership is a two-way process….many see the party leadership as the repository of doctrine, of theory, of organisational skill and knowledge. Of course it has to be all these things to some degree. But mainly it has to be the most apt learner, the most sensitive ear and the firmest will.”[emphasis added]

and also his description of how the "slate" system of election worked and its consequences:

Quote:

Yet all too often we have allowed democratic mechanisms which are quite adequate on paper to fall into disuse. Back in the eighties, when strong branch committees existed, the branch committee would nominate a slate of conference delegates. While it was obviously possible for members to nominate an alternative slate, this was frowned on, and in practice was relatively rare. I recall a chairperson telling us the agenda for a branch meeting and saying “and then the conference delegates will be announced”. In practice he was right – this was what usually happened.

Quote:

However recent events have shown the limitations of the slate system. It has become a means whereby the CC can indefinitely propose itself for re-election, co-opting approved individuals as it goes. Moreover, a career path has now clearly emerged – comrades, generally former students, become full-timers, and if they are successful, they rise in the apparatus and become CC members. Thus we get a CC almost entirely composed of people who have spent most of their political life as full-timers and have very limited experience of work or trade unionism.

One passage I liked and which we can use against all those who think in terms on confronting the state:

Quote:

Neither the SWP nor any other group on the British far left could confront a bunch of drunken football hooligans, let alone a bourgeois state.

He also repeats immediately following this passage the quote he gave in another article from the Statement of Principles of the Hammersmith Socialist Society:

Quote:

The important thing at present is the battle of ideas; as William Morris put it, “it should be our special aim to make Socialists”.

Which is what I tried to tell him in 1962 !

[ALB]

I think that should be "workers' share of newly created" or "added value" since, by definition, "surplus value" is the part of this that precisely doen't go to the workers.

[ALB]

I think they know full well that we traditionally contest Vauxhall, especially as Workers Power now part of Lambeth LU stood against us in the 2010 general election. Also Lambeth includes, in whole or part, a couple of other constituencies.I noticed too that the LU in Scotland is in disarray with some jumping on the Nationalist bandwagon and others wanting (arguably less stupidly) to vote No.

[ALB]

Revealing report on the disarray in LU over what candidates to field, who and where in this report:http://www.independentsocialistnetwork.org/the-reality-of-left-unity-4-or-5-general-election-candidates-despite-commitment-from-march-conference-and-two-hours-of-nc-time-spent-debating-whether-to-oppose-the-green-party/Since they both stand for more or less the same thing (although the Green Party thankfully doesn't call itself socialist) it is not surprising that the non-Trots in LU don't want to oppose the Green Party and probably want to vote for it. On the other hand, 2 of their candidates will be standing under the TUSC banner.Note the possibility of an LU candidate in Lambeth (one of our "targets") and the discussion about Brighton (another place we are planning to stand).

[ALB]

Actually he didn't. If you read to the bottom of the link you'll see that the Guardian was obliged to publish a retraction and a correction:

Quote:

• This response from the government’s chief scientific adviser, Mark Walport, was added on 16 December 2014:(…)“The Guardian article that linked fracking with thalidomide and asbestos is a florid example of what my report argued most strongly against. It confuses arguments about science with value propositions. It selected one sentence from one evidence paper, quoted it in part, and in doing so misrepresented both the report and indeed the evidence paper itself. This has been picked up in a careless fashion by other news channels and by social media and subjected to a hopefully brief period of amplification. In doing so, the article debased an important discussion about future energy supplies – and, at least as importantly, it devalues science journalism. I am glad however, that the Guardian has allowed me to express my own voice adjacent to the offending piece of journalism.“With regard to fracking, the hydraulic fracturing of shale to obtain natural gas and oil, I fully endorse the report of the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering. Of course methane is a fossil fuel, but as long as it is burned efficiently and fugitive emissions of methane gas are minimised, it is a less harmful fossil fuel than coal and oil, and is an important way-station on the global journey towards low carbon energy. The scientific evidence is clear that any environmental or geological risks can be managed effectively in the UK as long as operational best practices are implemented and enforced through effective regulation.”

[ALB]

Yes it does look as if we could do with a new banner:

[ALB]

Pouqoi pas?

[ALB]

I agree that the passage you quote from Bruton is a fair assessment. However, his other views are not so acceptable, such as his saying that the Irish Nationalist Party in the House of Commons was right to have supported the British side in the First World War (though he does make a telling point against the Irish Republicans for supporting the other side):http://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/1916-Easter-Rising-was-not-a-just-war-says-former-Irish-leader-John-Bruton.htmlIncidentally, the Irish Independent has a pretty unsavoury history.The other thing is that the result of next year's general election in the rest of the British Isles could lead to a repeat of the pre-WW1 situation when the Irish Nationalists held the balance of power (and propped up the Liberal government) with, this time, this role being fulfilled by the Scots Nats (propping up a Labour government?)

[ALB]

That doesn't make sense. Twenty or so years ago we did a survey of readers of the Socialist Standard. One of the facts revealed was that about 25% (one in 4) had voted Labour at the previous election.  So should we throw the message out with the medium and not bother to publish the Socialist Standard?

[ALB]

What's wrong with George Orwell?

[ALB]

This is the same description of how banks work as in the articles in the Bank of England's Quarterly Review for the first quarter of 2014 mentioned in message #139:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/100-reserve-banking?page=13#comment-12263Positive Money and other currency and banking reforms (they don't like being called cranks) think this backs up their view of how banking works, but it doesn't. It confirms that banks don't and can't "create money from thin air". As the article you quote says, of banks

Quote:

In addition to helping manage this payments system they issue money in the form of loans. Banks earn a profit in the means of transacting business when their assets are less expensive than their liabilities. In other words, banks need to source their ability to run this payments system smoothly, but will seek to do so in a manner that doesn’t reduce their profitability.

Profitability, that's what places a limit on what they can lend.

[ALB]

I see it's more complicated than I thought. Just found this:

Quote:

•ILP advocated universal suffrage (the vote for men and women). This meant a lack of support within the Party for a separate women’s suffrage bill.••ILP ambivalence also because suffragists demand for the vote, ‘on same terms as men’ would have mostly enfranchised propertied middle and upper class women who traditionally voted Conservative.

While the ILP campaigned for universal suffrage under capitalism we said that enough workers already had the vote to win control of political power once they had become socialist, adding of course that bringing in universal suffrage would be one of the first measures introduced after the working class had won political power for socialism.  There are quite a few articles in the archives section here showing what we said at the time. For example: http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1900s/1908/no-46-june-1908/suffragette-humbug   http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1913/no-111-november-1913/franchise-questions

[ALB]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

http://qi.com/infocloud/votes-for-womenI assume they could be contacted and asked for their source…

You mean of this:

Quote:

The 'suffragists', established in 1897, believed in peaceful campaigning, persuasion and the Liberal party.   Emmeline Pankhurst’s 'suffragettes' established in 1903, favoured direct action (smashing windows, arson, hunger strikes, etc). Both groups only sought votes for property-owning women. This reduced support among socialists, who were against sexual discrimination but unwilling to campaign for even more votes for the middle classes.

[ALB]

So, now those campaigning against water rates have two rival groups trying to hi-jack their campaign — the Irish Republicans of Sinn Fein and the Trotskyists. Down with Leaders was never a more relevant slogan.Meanwhile Sinn Fein have a new recruit:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2867123/Irish-singer-Sinead-OConnor-joining-Sinn-Fein.htmlIt seems her views have changed somewhat than twenty years ago:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1990s/1993/no-1061-january-1993/%E2%80%9Cabolish-money%E2%80%9D-%E2%80%93-sinead-o%E2%80%99connor

[Author]

Posts