articul8
Dishonest sociopath
you know - its when Militant were expelled (or walked, half of them). After that it was a barren bourgeois cesspit.
BBC - Owen Jones
- Thread starter Zabo
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Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
3rd January 1996, at about 12:35 pm.
It was a process which took a long time. The early to mid-80s highpoint of Bennism, followed by thirty years of continuous rightward movement and the hollowing out of party structures. The early years of Blair did see a brief expansion in membership, bucking the trend, but by then it was a notably different set of people looking for notably different things. I don't think there's actually a day, a month or a year when you can say that Labour stopped being a place where you'd get large numbers of politically radical people gathered. It was a process of attrition.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
And most vaguely leftish people in the US will vote Democrat. Doesn't mean that there's any point in "contesting that particular space", does it you nimrod.
articul8 said:
You have no excuse for that kind of stupidity.
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
US Democrats were founded on a different basis to the Labour party - it's not comparable
Article8 give up; just give up. That train - what used to be the Labour Party - has left. It is gone. It is time to fight the Tories and the neoliberal economics supporters directly without reference to the Labour Party which is part of the problem.
The propaganda battle against neoliberal economics happens outside of party politics and through the various media - old style printed and broadcast as well as the internet. There is no parliamentary party involved in this battle; they have all bought into that Chicago School philosophy. Our opposition must be constant and be nothing to do with elections. The political parties only really gear up in the run-up to elections, we have to keep going in between elections attacking every policy that is announced and continuing the fight after one party or another has won their election. You are not part of this opposition to neoliberal economics if you are part of any of the electoral parties. You are of no use to us at all.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Yes, of course they were founded on a different basis, as if it makes a blind bit of difference what either party was like a century ago. Now they fulfil very similar roles.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
I was just thinking that!
that tbaldwin isn't here to give us his unique take on altruism. 
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
I was just thinking that!
Aye, was sad to hear about balders
revol68
what, fucking what?
allow me to do both
you can find me here
1. Me
2. You
View attachment 21041
You can have one last post
You look like such a Mogwai fan.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
He doesn't look anything like dubversion!
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
There has been a certain convergence - but it's not a process that's been completed or that's irreversible.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
And we're right back to the bewildered Japanese soldier act. I'm sure one or two of them would have accepted that the Japanese Empire had perhaps suffered a few reverses, but defeat wasn't complete or irreversible yet.
You're more than 20 years late pal. It's over.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Every time articul8 posts now, I'm going to have visions of a grizzled old veteran, bayonet mounted on his Arisaka Model 99, gazing incredulously at the modern world..
The personal is political, after all.
That's what I thought.
JHE
.
Yup.
The Millies were not just Trots who thought it was prudent and useful to be in the Labour Party. For them, being in the Labour Party and working through the Labour Party was an article of faith, an absolutely key tenet of Millie Trottery. They fetishised it. Any would-be socialist who was not in, or organised any campaign or protest without going through, the august organs of the Labour Party and its affiliated unions was denounced as ultra-left, petty-bourgeois blah, blah, blah.
After their expulsions/resignations, the Millies performed an 'about turn' as smartly as any bunch of well-trained parade-ground squaddies. They still care deeply about the issue but now the key point is that the Labour Party is no longer a workers' party. The Millies (or Socialist 'Party', as they call themselves) retain all their fervor and dogmatism, but now use it to denounce anyone who (however moderately) believes that it's worthwhile working in the Labour Party.
"Trotlets, abouuuuuuuuut..... wait for it, wait for it... abouuuuuut turn!"
Dammit, can't do Tuesday. Free on Wednesday though..?
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
Yup.
The Millies were not just Trots who thought it was prudent and useful to be in the Labour Party. For them, being in the Labour Party and working through the Labour Party was an article of faith, an absolutely key tenet of Millie Trottery. They fetishised it. Any would-be socialist who was not in, or organised any campaign or protest without going through, the august organs of the Labour Party and its affiliated unions was denounced as ultra-left, petty-bourgeois blah, blah, blah.
After their expulsions/resignations, the Millies performed an 'about turn' as smartly as any bunch of well-trained parade-ground squaddies. They still care deeply about the issue but now the key point is that the Labour Party is no longer a workers' party. The Millies (or Socialist 'Party', as they call themselves) retain all their fervor and dogmatism, but now use it to denounce anyone who (however moderately) believes that it's worthwhile working in the Labour Party.
"Trotlets, abouuuuuuuuut..... wait for it, wait for it... abouuuuuut turn!"
is there anything wrong about the SP's stance on the labour party then? apart from "fervour and dogmatism" and the fact that imo we should never have been in it at all what's wrong with it?
It's not that the SP are wrong with the characterisation of the Labour party, coz it isn't a working class party any more and entryism would be a total waste of time today, its more the way it done, in this sort of Orwellian "Eurasia has always been at war with Oceania" kind of way, how overnight what appeared to be deeply held convictions suddenly changed on the instruction of the top. I've seen similar kinda of things, where all of a sudden everyone changed their mind about something, in the SP before. I remember well how everyone was singing the praises of Jerry Hicks and how Len McCluskey was a Labour hack, then all of a sudden it changed when the SP decided to back McCluskey. Was very weird.
And yes the SP is less sectarian than other left groups. There's even a quote in the Official History of mi5 book by Christopher Andrews that says the same thing, how mi5 noted on more than one occasional the the Militant was unusual in that it didn't have mass expulsions every few years like the SWP and co do, and had managed to remain a fairly coherent organization.
And yes the SP is less sectarian than other left groups. There's even a quote in the Official History of mi5 book by Christopher Andrews that says the same thing, how mi5 noted on more than one occasional the the Militant was unusual in that it didn't have mass expulsions every few years like the SWP and co do, and had managed to remain a fairly coherent organization.
JHE
.
I don't really agree with either Millie position, the one before or the one after the abrupt 180 degree turn. The post-abouuuuut turn position is that there was a profound change (a 'qualitative change' in Marxoid language) in the nature of the Labour Party from being a 'bourgeois workers' party' (as Old Father Lenin called it) to being a bourgeois party. On this account, the Millies' change from being devoted entryists to devoted exitists results from a changed world, not just from a change of opinion on strategy among the leadership of the sect.
I don't think there has been such a profound change. The organisational (and financial) links with the TUs still exist. Given the failure of all (of many) attempts so far to establish alternative parties, it is even true that the Labour Party remains the party (ie, the only significant party) of the organised working class. That doesn't make it good. It doesn't make it socialist. It implies nothing one way or another about the utility or reformability of the Labour Party, but it does make the Labour Party basically the same beast that it was when the Millies insisted (wrongly, IMO) that all political work must go through the organs of the Labour Party.
cantsin
Well-Known Member
allow me to do both
you can find me here
1. Me
2. You
View attachment 21041
You can have one last post
love the way this thread went off on such a admirably daft tangent. and others just carried on with the dialectical discourse.
LD maybe shades it for it me, though chuck a gold chain and some speedos on PD and there could, surprisingly, be some Marbella style swagger there. Needs a poll to sort it properly though.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
Good man.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
If he's got any sense he'll open on that line and put KM under pressure from the start.
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