jondwhite
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'The case not the face' – as a reason not to supply photographs of candidates on request – is a symptom of the psychology of the current membership elevated to dogma, not any sort of socialist principle.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Quote:Rugby Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition launches its camapigns for the 2015 general and council elections this Saturday, March 14 – but not with traditional speeches. We are not a traditional party, and we have no intention of doing things purely in traditional political ways. This is why we are launching our campaign with a rock music event – a benefit gig.http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1049/letters/Can i suggest that TUSC are making a big song and dance over their pitiful menu of palliatives.
Wouldn't this count as the 'theatrics' you propose?
The politicians in major established parties are now whining about democracy and neutrality (in the case of the debates) because the minor parties are playing politics in the same way the major parties have been doing comfortably.
Does anyone know anything more about their internal structure and democracy though? Natalie Bennett alluded to it in her infamous interview when she said conference write the manifesto. They didn't even have a leadership until 2007.
Green Left is critical of capitalism, and sees capitalism as incompatible with ideals like sustainability, peace and social justice. As such it places itself in the tradition of William Morris, the British eco-socialist who operated within the Marxist Social Democratic Federation and Socialist League.
I thought this talk was really good. One of my favourite recent ones as with the Dostoyevsky talk. Thanks.
Best way to get the message across is by making Socialism and the parties representing it credible. We are not yet there. Whether we will get to socialism cannot be predicted without a working crystal ball. Best way to get there is convincing people (especially through elections where they exist) not forcing them, not shooting people, not deceiving people, not patronising people and not ignoring people. Nothing wrong with preaching to college students or intellectuals, but the worst thing that happened to misrepresent socialism was the soviet union.
Just watched this and it was quite interesting for spotters. Also uploaded was Benn's bandwagonhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e4MWekQKZE
I don't think the SPGB claims to be able to destroy extremist ideas whether religious or racial only that free discussion is the best environment in which to reduce or expose irrationality.
In fact, if you look at the way she answered the question about the threat of Russia, she answered without hesitation or equivocation but was similarly castigated which makes you wonder if it isn't just because it is a non-mainstream acceptable political position regarded as 'cowardly' to refuse to engage in war-mongering rhetoric.
stuartw2112 wrote:As Adam twigged but others seemed to miss, I wasn't making the point, or saying it was unanswerable, just pointing out that any socialist argument would struggle under Paxman style questioning. That because he has all the assumptions (of bourgeois ideology, of "common sense") on his side. To give anything like a convincing answer, you'd have to challenge the assumptions. But as soon as you do that, it's "Answer the question! Answer the question!"As Jools says, a failure at that Punch and Judy game is no failure in anyway that counts.Still, if Danny and Adam and others are able to do it, fair play to them!I think this is a fair point. I listened to the interviews with Natalie Bennett and she was basically saying the costing would be in their manifesto which was still in the process of being written by conference. Not the disaster as reported. She also said that the manifesto was being written by conference as the Green party is a democratic organisation. It didn't placate the media storm and the question remains how the SPGB would answer this without being castigated (as questioning costs seems to become an accepted lazy politico-journalist test of credibility), or even whether conference would write the manifesto in as democratic a way as the Green party.
