DJP
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
TheOldGreyWhistle wrote:Are all people who leave your party class traitors.
No, of course not.
TheOldGreyWhistle wrote:So to clarify – your forum is a free for all for attacking past contributions from fellow workers but if they will not be allowed to defend themselves ?The forum rules are quite clear. The forum can be used to discuss pretty much any topic in general. It is however not to be used for the discussion of matters concerning the behaviour of individual forum users.The procedure for reporting offensive or off-topic posts is explained in the forum guidelines and rules."No personal attacks. Neither post nor respond to incendiary material. If a post elicits a strong negative emotional response it may be best to wait a while before commenting. Nothing requires an immediate reply. Re-read the post and your response before sending."
ALB wrote:Seriously, if someone did this properly with weighting for the answers, would it be possible to put it on this site?Bristol anarchist federation have a nice and simple quiz on their website:http://bristolaf.wordpress.com/2013/04/03/the-great-british-class-calculator/
The battle for a normal working day of 12 and then 8 hours was a long a bloody battle between capital and labour. As individuals and as members of the working class socialists take part in these struggles to increase the amount of the pie that goes to labour.But the purpose of the socialist party is to make these struggles obsolete, by organising politically to bring an end to the mode of production that gives rise to such struggles in the first place. Participating in reform movements is not the business of the socialist party.Here's a bit of history on the Chicago Martyrs and Mayday: http://libcom.org/history/1886-haymarket-martyrs-mayday
ALB wrote:We've been sent a pamphlet by Kurz to review No Revolution Anywhere. I don't if the pamphlet or the review will deal with his theory of economic collapse.Kurz briefly touches on his theory of collapse in the pamphlet. The rationale is that with each revolution in the means of production the concentration of constant to variable capital increases, and that it is impossible to go back once a stage has been reached eg. early factory production was more labour intensive then present day computer controlled robot production – it seems to be the standard 'automatic' collapse argument with a few extra bits added…Was going to give the Fragment on Machines (pg 690 – 712 of the Grundrisse) a proper read before writing the review. Perhaps this could be discussed on here?
jondwhite wrote:No disputes committee thankfully.Sorry I'm being a bit slow today. What has this to do with a disputes committee?
Brian wrote:To summarise what is suggested in the Swansea Branch report: Initial infringements be covered by an 'Attention Notice' being posted.Continual infingements be covered with a First, second and final warning being posted.Where infringements are clearly of a more severe nature this process can be by-passed either by issuing a notice of moderation, or a suspension.All moderation to be carried out under a committed locked thread.Well you could have saved yourself a lot of time since what you are describing is the situation we have at present (minus moderation queues).FYI A 'locked thread' is a thread in which no-one can comment.
The job of the moderator is not to micro-manage posts or to give a running commentary on what is or is not acceptable about each individual post. The job of the moderator is to contain disturbances so that the forum can be a pleasant and useful place for all of it's users. This is the reason that such things as the pre-vetting of certain posts or the deletion of abusive messages happen.It is the responsibility of forum users themselves to ensure that they stay within the rules.
Brian wrote:Moderators are not baby sitters, probation officers, prison wardens, or even behavioural scientists who are caught in a time warp of administering continual reinforcement. Like Skinner highlights "continual reinforcement is counter productive" because it becomes accepted as the norm and therefore fails to stimulate the recipient into changing their pattern of behaviour.Yes you're right about moderators not being baby sitters but you've fudged on your Skinner. A suspension could also be seen as a kind of 'negative-reinforcement'.As it stands on-topic comments are reinforced as they are allowed through the queue. Off-topic comments receive no response, they are not reinforced, so in theory the behaviour should become extinct.But as both positive and negative reinforcement is also taking place outside of the forum it is of course more complicated than that.
SocialistPunk wrote:Why does the SPGB use methods of censorship to control behaviour on their online communication sites?The 'censorship' that occurs on the forums and on the mailing lists is of the same nature that occurs at physical meetings and in our physical publications.Any topic of discussion is allowed but if a contributor continually makes personally abusive remarks, repeatedly makes irrelevant and distracting comments or otherwise disrupts the meeting or conversation they are asked to desist and if they fail to comply are eventually asked to leave the meeting.Likewise, the Standard letters page would not be allowed to be used for attacking individuals or as a substitute for internal appeals.
SocialistPunk wrote:The following link takes us to a Prof Peter Waddington and his promotion of the use of kettling by British police.Other than them both being academics I fail to see what the connection of this is to John Drury.Here's the abstract from the paper that John Drury co-authored and appeared in the journal Policing
Drury et al. wrote:Much public order policing is still based on the assumption that crowds are inherently irrational and dangerous. We argue that this approach is both misinformed and counter-productive because it can lead to policing interventions that increase the influence of those advocating violence in the crowd. We challenge traditional assumptions about crowd psychology and demonstrate how widespread conflict derives from the interactions between police and crowds. From this, we develop general guidelines as to how policing can reduce crowd violence and lead crowd members themselves to self-police violent groupings in their midst. We then use examples from anti-globalisation protests and the Euro 2004 football championships to show how these guidelines can be applied in practice and how effective they can be. We conclude by arguing that such knowledge-based crowd policing can turn crowd events into opportunities to overcome seemingly intractable conflicts between the police and groups within our society.They are towing in the other direction. John Drury has also had articles published in journals related to the fire services, not surprising for someone who has a theoretical background in crowd behaviour.But the fact of the matter is this.Does the fact that John Drury, a key contributor to the journal Aufheben, has had articles published in the journal Policing affect the truth or validity of anything written in the aforementioned journal?The answer is no. The truth and validity of any argument depends on it's internal logic and how well it fits in with the observed facts.Has John Drury contradicted himself by writing for a police journal? Only if he has said you should not do so. Personally I am not the slightest bit interested in this aspect of the argument though.Trying to claim Drury or Aufheben is the leader of a movement of millions, as the article that Jondwhite posted is ridiculous. If this presumed leadership where true I would like to know how it is manifested. Groups of black block spraying in depth critiques of decadent theory on bill boards perhaps?
SocialistPunk wrote:A major "theoretician" among a communist group helps the police in their divide and rule tactics, kettling etc. Basically helping the state machinery control the demonstrators.I don't think Drury's work is about kettling etc. But I've not read it, if it is I'm prepared to stand corrected.
So you assess the trustworthiness of source by reading what other people say about it?Surely if you want to know about something it's best to start by getting it from the horses mouth?The articles written by Drury are listed in an appendix here:http://anarchistnews.org/content/cop-out-%E2%80%93-significance-aufhebengateIf Drury is some kind of "collaborator" where do you draw the line? Are tradesmen who do repairs to police buildings collaborators? People off the street that volunteer for ID parades?Seems to me this kind of moralism doesn't lead us anywhere expect up the garden path.
Like with any matter an opinion is only valid to the extent that it's holder is in possession of the full facts.I only have a fleeting knowledge of the matter, but from what I can gather Drury's report was not along Draconian lines. If he we're suggesting rioters or demonstrators should be mustard gassed it would be a different matter.There was a long thread on this on libcom, I think the link to Drury's report is probably in there somewhere. If you're that interested why not give it a read and report back.I'm not sure just copy and pasting a bunch of quotes from the article you chose achieves anything. Again, would be nice to know what you think about the quotes you have chosen.
