robbo203
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Alan Its became a habit to talk of the declining fortunes of the Party (Ive done it myself) but are we so certain this is the case. I might be wrong but at least in terms of membership I have the impression that the Party is very slowly growing in size over the last one or two years = almost all of course via the internet
Can someone confirm that this is the case or not?
As a result of publicising the forum, largely on Facebook, six new members (users) have joined in the past 24 hours with 20 users and 891 guests visiting over the same period.
Just goes to show what can be done with a little bit of effort. Good work Dave. Perhaps your advert should be repeated once a month and in all the WSM FB sites
To return to an earlier point – Matt, would it be possible to send a single one-off syndicated email to all users listed on this forum? I understand the “RedMarx option” is not available for the technical reasons you cite but is there another way of doing this?
Re my earlier suggestion I quite like this one . Accommodates up to 18 people from around 3000 quid for 2 weeks. Very nice location also
https://www.groupaccommodation.com/properties/casa-la-negra-periana-malaga-andalucia-spain#location
Some excellent ideas BD! I like also the idea of organising more social events like the recent event organised by Lancaster Branch which I understand was highly successful.
As an organisation the SPGB seems to be predominately internet-based these days (almost all new members come via the internet for example) and there is relatively little in the way of face-to-face interactions. As a consequence one can develop a quite misleading impression of the person with whom one is engaging indirectly via the internet which I suspect is the source of many of the conflicts that occasionally flare up between members.
So there s a strong argument for encouraging more face to face interactions. I have been thinking recently of something, prompted by Lancaster’s example, but on a more ambitious scale – a Socialist Summer Holiday Scheme. Perhaps a week or two abroad in a nice location. Living in Andalucía in Southern Spain I can think of plenty of fantastic locations around here which would be suitable. Group bookings can substantially reduce the average price of accommodation
To take a random example – although this one is slightly pricey – for 2 weeks you could hire this entire 1o bedroom villa accommodating 20 people for 13.7k euros which work at about 600 pounds person for 2 weeks
https://www.holidaylettings.co.uk/rentals/granada/77630
Or if you want something much cheaper there is this one near Cordoba which comes to about 260 pounds per person for 2 weeks
https://www.holidaylettings.co.uk/rentals/hornachuelos/6866581
Or how about this one closer to the Med which accommodates 22 people
https://www.holidaylettings.co.uk/rentals/malaga/9286686
There are plenty of other options . If you arranged it early enough you could get bargain basement prices for air flights or hire a large minibus and drive down. Of course there are other costs like food (though you have to eat anyway even if you didn’t go on holiday) but there again there are savings to be had in bulk buying particularly when it comes to the vino!
Sorry they do have. Because of data protection laws.
You didn’t read the small print when you joined it.OK fair enough. I wasn’t aware of this not being very technically minded. But I wonder if there was a way of contacting all the people on this list in a one-off fashion (not in the way RedMarx does) with a brief syndicated statement encouraging greater participation not only in the forum but also as Alan suggests in the blogs and even our several FB sites.
Would this be too laborious or is there are some other way of syndicating the process using batches of emails at a time?
It seems that the anti-Semite Bakunin might have had a hand in promoting this particular myth
Bakunin on Marx and Rothschild
“Himself a Jew, Marx has around him, in London and France, but especially in Germany, a multitude of more or less clever, intriguing, mobile, speculating Jews, such as Jews are every where: commercial or banking agents, writers, politicians, correspondents for newspapers of all shades, with one foot in the bank, the other in the socialist movement, and with their behinds sitting on the German daily press — they have taken possession of all the newspapers — and you can imagine what kind of sickening literature they produce. Now, this entire Jewish world, which forms a single profiteering sect, a people of blooksuckers, a single gluttonnous parasite, closely and intimately united not only across national borders but across all differences of political opinion — this Jewish world today stands for the most part at the disposal of Marx and at the same time at the disposal of Rothschild. I am certain that Rothschild for his part greatly values the merits of Marx, and that Marx for his part feels instinctive attraction and great respect for Rothschild.
This may seem strange. What can there be in common between Communism and the large banks? Oh! The Communism of Marx seeks enormous centralization in the state, and where such exists, there must inevitably be a central state bank, and where such a bank exists, the parasitic Jewish nation, which. speculates on the work of the people, will always find a way to prevail ….”
Source: Michael Bakunin, 1871, Personliche Beziehungen zu Marx. In: Gesammelte Werke. Band 3. Berlin 1924. P. 204-216.The second part is fake history concocted by antisemites and not worth the paper it was first printed on. We haven’t the time to refute every example of fake history or every conspiracy theory, but don’t even need to in a case like this one.
Yes , that we dont need to refute such nonsense is true enough Adam but you know what the internet is like – lies like this on can replicate themselves and soon the fact that they have been repeated so often times means many individuals can come to believe them. This would be to the detriment to our own attachment to Marxian ideas. Other than challenging the fake historians to provide tangible evidence I’m wondering if there is anything else we can do to stop the dissemination of these crackpot theories
I don’t have this facility yet in this version of the Forum. In any case it would have needed to have been incorporated at the start with an option to ‘opt in/out‘.
Hi Matt
I dont see why you need to have an in/out option. Just go ahead and do it Redmarx and other sites I know of dont have an option of this nature although they do have an option whereby you can unsubscribe from the site itself. I doubt very much you will get any complaints anyway. You’ve got to be more pushy if you want to seriously promote the forum and I think this is very good way of doing – of getting the overwhelmingly dormant membership more actively involved
Here is an example of what I periodically get from Redmarx as an email
Top Discussions from RedMarx
Money, Money, Money…
RedMarx – Zanthorus This is a topic I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. I find myself troubled by certain aspects of the way in which Marx develops money, and equally troubled by the apparent theoretical inadequacies of alternative perspectives. The main thing that troubles me is this – Marx seems to insist on the f Read MoreMovie Thread
RedMarx – Savage I’ve been meaning to make this for a while but my duties as an Anglican priest haven’t left me much spare time. Even though these threads aimed at maintaining continuity often die I thought it would be worth a shot since film has a broad enough audience. Just post movies that you’ve been watching, g Read MoreSomething Bothering Me
RedMarx – Jas The subject is homosexuality and Marxism. Historically the two have had an uneasy relationship. Marx and Engels themselves had bad views on homosexuals, while this is understandable because it was only visible in the Bourgeosie and Petit-Bourgeousie classes, there were other socialists at the time t Read MoreAmerica’s suspension of dollar convertibility
RedMarx – Noa The reason for the US decision in 1971 to stop converting dollars into gold often is stated to be, that the West-European (+Japan) states, due to their post-war economic development, had run a balance of payments surplus with the US, out-competing the US, and were converting their dollars into gold. Read MoreRead More on RedMarx
Read MoreAccording to the papers, Boris Johnson’s great-great-grandfather was Haci Ahmet Riza born in Central Turkey in 1813. This means that in all probability he will have 3rd cousins living in Turkey. So what? Just as irrelevant as Marx being the 3rd cousin of the founder of the UK Rothschild dynasty.
It is not really the supposed genetic proximity of Marx to the Rothschilds that is of any particular interest but rather the claim – quite widely repeated in several fake news sites – that he was used by the latter for certain political ends. Thus, the article linked to in the OP claims this:
“Historians have confirmed that Karl Marx was not only related to the Rothschilds, but was also employed as their agent in order to subvert democracy and corrupt the Socialist movement.”
What is needed is a sustained effort to publicize and invite people to join this forum. Even the great majority of Party members dont seem to be on this forum . Which is a great pity. I think after the website was shut down a while back because of the malicious virus attack, the forum lost a lot of momentum
It is not as if it isn’t being visited Alan. As I write these words I discover this at the bottom of the page: “Activity within the past 24 hours: 10 users and 764 guests”. 764 guests – that’s a lot of people over the past 24 hours! I dont know of the technicalities maybe some of these are repeat visitors but even so….
So to kick off the discussion with a question – what practical steps can we take to encourage more 1) party members and 2) non members to join this forum? Its great selling point is that it contains a wealth of interesting and useful information going back over 1000s of posts since the inception of the forum
I would recommend for starters that forum does what other forums like RedMarx do which is to send out a selective syndicated digest of discussions on a regular basis – perhaps once a month – to every person (currently 913) who belongs to this forum. Is this technically feasible in the case of this particular forum? Since we have the email addresses of all who joined this forum this should be possible
It’s probably quite likely that most of us, certainly in the West, are descended from King Alfred himself, not just his great-cousin!
Indeed. If you use the services of something like MyHeritage.com you might be amazed by the results. My brother did it and discovered we have a whole bunch of second cousins in the US. My partner did it likewise – she is Spanish – and discovered that 10% of her ancestry comes from southern England
I believe the saliva samples are tested in Utah. Isn’t that where the Mormons are based. They are supposed to have the single largest database on people in the world
Shouldn’t this be in the ‘off-topic’ section? You do know that NewsPunch is a fake news website that frequently spreads conspiracy theories and political misinformation. Some call it satire…
I thought that was NewsThump, Dave but yeah this does have the whiff of fake news about it. I was not so much concerned with the Rothschilds connection (as a kid I was told we were descended from King Aldred the Great’s cousin – the geezer wot burnt the cakes – so I’m gonna claim my seat in the House of Lords) but with the reference to Marx being paid to undermine the socialist movement (an idea which might have originated with Bakunin)
I wouldn’t particularly worry too much except that this particularly claim has been quite widely circulated in Ancap and other circles in an effort to discredit Marx and the claim seems to have been made in several different publications, not just Newspunch
This sounds interesting and possibly significant though I am still not 100% sure what blockchain actually entails in practice. Can anybody explain in really simple layperson terms what it is all about so I can wrap my head around it
