Young Master Smeet
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To be frank, I'm at a loss as to why someone who will not or cannot join the party would even want to moderate our forum for us. My first thoiught is sabotage, or to turn the forum towards whatever policy or idea they do support. If someone is mustard keen to moderate our forum for us, they can apply to join the party, and then join ther forum team. Or they can open their own forum for discussing ideas they do want, or even join an organisation that does represent their views.At formal debates I've been to, the chair is normally a party member appointed by the branch, usually with the agreement with the opponent. When we do need a neutral chair, it's by agreement between the contenders, and the chair is someone known to both parties, not someone off the street.
1) Accountability: a member of the party has been tested for the soundness of their views, and has made a demonstrable commitment to the cause of socialism. They have their entire membership of the party to lose if they misbehave as moderator.2) The party: is about encouraging people to join the party, and so should not be making it easier for people to not join.3) Like minded workers who want to help the cause but not join the party and be bound by its discipline, are free to go set up internet fora wherever they wish.4) A party member can attend and speak at confrence, can go to their branch and can vote in party discussions, whereas a non-member cannot.
SocialistPunk wrote:So in the abscence of party volunteers, a non party sympathizer volunteering to moderate this site would be turned down?That about sums up my opinion. Not sure how the quote below relates. Sympathisers can go run their own socialist fora if they want.
Actually, a member couldn't be removed from the forum, except via disciplinary charge. Anyway, the short version is we're trying to get people to join the party, so we shouldn't be helping peple not join it.
https://berniesanders.com/democratic-socialism-in-the-united-states/#This is his 'NMajor speech' outlining what he thinks of as socialism.
Sanders wrote:n that remarkable speech this is what Roosevelt stated, and I quote: “We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. Necessitous men are not free men.” End of quote. In other words, real freedom must include economic security. That was Roosevelt’s vision 70 years ago. It is my vision today. It is a vision that we have not yet achieved. It is time that we did.In that speech, Roosevelt described the economic rights that he believed every American was entitled to: The right to a decent job at decent pay, the right to adequate food, clothing, and time off from work, the right for every business, large and small, to function in an atmosphere free from unfair competition and domination by monopolies. The right of all Americans to have a decent home and decent health care.Sanders wrote:People are not truly free when they are unable to feed their family. People are not truly free when they are unable to retire with dignity. People are not truly free when they are unemployed or underpaid or when they are exhausted by working long hours. People are not truly free when they have no health care.Killer:
Quote:I don’t believe government should own the means of production, but I do believe that the middle class and the working families who produce the wealth of America deserve a fair deal.Motion to conference, amend rulebook.Or, 6 members declare themselves to be 'Internet Regional Branch' and ask the EC to hand running the forum to their Branch, and then elect a moderator amongst themselves.
SocialistPunk wrote:I guess a big issue for party members is trust. Can a non-party moderator be trusted to moderate appropriately in an unbiased manner. However the same question regarding moderating in an unbiased manner is still applicable to a party member.Nope, nothing to do with trust or bias, simply: this is a Party forum, it should be run by party members, democratically accountable to the rest of the party.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg7bPgrosAE1 minute 50 Robeson sings Joe Hill.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Still not convinced.LBird wants to equate ISIS with the RAF. Now that might be just about doable when it comes to convincing fellow workers. You tried to compare ISIS with Marks and Spencers. That will an almost an impossible task when it comes to persuading our fellow workers.Well, it's not that there is a direct and easy equation between the British state and ISIS, more that there is an observable economic formation which repeats itself, and allows us to ask, why the focus on IS and not Colombia, Mexico, Boko Harem, etc. These rape/murder gangs are nothing special, and emerge out of the basic situation or portable wealth near surplus populations, hence why they replicate essentially medieval 'surplus extractive' social structures.We need to be able to explain that this doesn't happen because of nasty ideas floating around just waiting to land in susceptible heads, nor happening at the instigation of insidious plotters and ideologues.
Vin wrote:It is fascinating to observe a non member having to argue the Socialist case on war against usIt is a capitalist war prpaganda tactic to refer to one side as a 'bunch of gangsters' or 'nutters' or 'terrorists' and give the other side some form of legitimacy. Socialists take no sides in the wars of capitalism.Israeli murdering gangsters are at it every day but I will not display the imagesLBird is spot on in this instanceWhere do I give either side any legitimacy? My whole point is that the British war machine (which I have said we have to oppose) will try to talk the bunch of gangsters up into some sort of existential threat and a grand cause. The first step to opposing the whole war is to show that it is just business as usual, and not a grand moral cause that supercedes the class struggle and demands human unity between masters and workers.They are a bunch of gangsters, it is business as usual, and so our position must be to continue to oppose and call for an end to business and capitalism, and, yes, the Brituish state are just as much a bunch of gangsters (sorry if I didn't reply to Lbird repeating what I had already said, but I didn't see any need to point out to her that I had already made those points).What I want to know is why Lbird apparently advocates using a Giant Robot Octopus to smash IS…
Well, he wasn't (though had a Socialist movement been around, he may have joined).; but, this fragment is worth reading: Fragment: ‘What Men Gain Fairly’.(Perhaps connected with that immediately preceding (Forman). — ED.)What men gain fairly — that they should possess,And children may inherit idleness,From him who earns it — This is understood;Private injustice may be general good.But he who gains by base and armed wrong,Or guilty fraud, or base compliances,May be despoiled; even as a stolen dressIs stripped from a convicted thief; and heLeft in the nakedness of infamy.https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/shelley/percy_bysshe/s54cp/volume24.html#section165 He was a radical, a democrat, a republican, but the above indicates he wasn't a socialist.
