BBC - Owen Jones

[articul8]

You want to move beyond Labourism by doing Labourism in the political sphere.

I don't see there's any alternative but an immanent critique of Labourism, "in and against". It can't be bypassed or ignored. It has a number of institutional supports, like the the parliamentary/electoral system, the trade union bureaucracy, etc. etc. Militant was far too quick to fold its hand in the 80s (in the anticipation of the red nineties). But by the same token when it was inside, it was too quick to dismiss everyone outside as sectarians, timewasters, petit-bourgeois elements or whatever.

There have been paths not taken (from Ralph Miliband and Tony Benn through to the SLP and the Socialist Alliance). I hope Loach's Left Unity outfit doesn't take up a sectarian position re the genuine Labour left, nor the left to it.

 

[butchersapron]

Do you have an immanent critique of law too? Of economics? Why does immanent critique mean you have to be inside? It doesn't. It's supposed to show the inability of the thing under consideration to do what it says it aims at. So welld one on both arguing that it cannot do what you say but let's try it anyway.

But isn't that claim to be doing this immanent critique just a wanky way of saying that you are challenging labour to 'do better'? Like some pathetic manager, you can do better than that Keiron, i know you can, don't let yourself down by not working your arse off me

 

[articul8]

Any chance of doing this articul8?

The key strategic position at the moment is that of McCluskey and the UNITE broad left, and therefore the main question how they can be made to use what influence they have. Jerry Hicks' 80,000 votes should be giving Lennie food for thought right now.

 

[Streathamite]

- is this Labour left in any way adequate to the task it has set itself?

surely "is this nebulous left rump significant enough to be worth bothering with in any way whatsoever?" is a more pertinent question?

 

[butchersapron]

The key strategic position at the moment is that of McCluskey and the UNITE broad left, and therefore the main question how they can be made to use what influence they have. Jerry Hicks' 80,000 votes should be giving Lennie food for thought right now.

That's not an answer is it? At least notto the questions asked. You have to say something here other than pressure. You outlined what you think is a strategy - it isn't a strategy, it was just a list of things you want to happen that involved the word pressure. Outline the strategy.

 

[articul8]

It's supposed to show the inability of the thing under consideration to do what it says it aims at.

this is precisely it! To show the inability, not just assert it.

 

[butchersapron]

this is precisely it! To show the inability, not just assert it.

I know. Why does it require that you a) be in it and b) argue that actually it can be changed, come and join us in it.

 

[butchersapron]

this is precisely it! To show the inability, not just assert it.

So, you need to prove to yourself that the labour party is not some sort of party that seeks to bring about real social change for the w/c. What better way then than to join it and argue for other people to do so, to work for it, and to vote for it. Oh but you meant everyone else didn't you? They're the ones who need their illusions in labour smashed by this process. The 4 million w/c votes they lost since 1997 - these are the people who need their eyes opening by joining working for and voting labour, not you.

There's something very wrong with you.

 

[articul8]

So, you need to prove to yourself that the labour party is not some sort of party that seeks to bring about real social change for the w/c. What better way then than to join it and argue for other people to do so, to work for it, and to vote for it. Oh but you meant everyone else didn't you? They're the ones who need their illusions in labour smashed by this process. The 4 million w/c votes they lost since 1997 - these are the people who need their eyes opening by joining working for and voting labour, not you.

The point is that disaffection from Labour at a particular point in time doesn't imply the rejection of Labourist assumptions which are alive and well enough. It's part of the cyclical ebb and flow. It's to Labour that people will look, because they have to look [in England at least], to get rid of the ConDems. Breaking from this means breaking from its inner logic not just its contingent manifestations.

 

[butchersapron]

The point is that disaffection from Labour at a particular point in time doesn't imply the rejection of Labourist assumptions which are alive and well enough. It's part of the cyclical ebb and flow. It's to Labour that people will look, because they have to look [in England at least], to get rid of the ConDems. Breaking from this means breaking from its inner logic not just its contingent manifestations.

That doesn't have anything at all to do with what i posted or immanent critique. It's just wank. Tell me why immanent critique needs you to be inside and encouraging people to get inside of the structure you're critiquing. Then outline this strategy you were talking about. What does it involve? Can you even say what 'pressure' means?

 

[articul8]

I know. Why does it require that you a) be in it and b) argue that actually it can be changed, come and join us in it.

by walking we make the road etc

 

[butchersapron]

by walking we make the road etc

By standing in the shit we don't stand in the shit. Great.

Let articul8 take you by the hand children, let him take you through the meadow of illusions in labour to the hidden door of failed hopes and into the golden dawn of SYRIZA...what do you mean that you don't have any illusions in labour...wtf? Are you serious? But this is the strategy!!!

 

[articul8]

the golden dawn of SYRIZA..

unfortunate turn of phrase. SYRIZA is not the magic solution, nor is it necessarily about illusions in Labour. It's more the ongoing institutional power which sustains Labourism as an ideology in Zizek's sense, "I know very well, but nevertheless". It requires what Freud calls "working through":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_through
It's like an unresolved state of mourning for what's lost. We need to go through this phase

 

[articul8]

to get inside of the structure you're critiquing.

This is just it - you only really get a feel for the inner contradictions, unresolved problems, gaps, etc of a logic by engaging on its own terms whilst also being in a sense outside of it

 

[butchersapron]

unfortunately turn of phrase. SYRIZA is not the magic solution, nor is it necessarily about illusions in Labour. It's more the ongoing institutional power which sustains Labourism as an ideology in Zizek's sense, "I know very well, but nevertheless". It requires what Freud calls "working through":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_through
It's like an unresolved state of mourning for what's lost. We need to go through this phase

No, not an unfortunate turn of phrase. What do the big-brains called catching up with everyone else?

That post is a condensed version of everything wrong with you - wanky shallow intellectualism based on antediluvian politics which are in turn based on your own warped individual needs to appear radical whilst you know that you're not - you must all go through labour to see it's shit (see also this argument of mine about why labour isn't really shit), whilst having no grasp on contemporary political realities whatsoever. Beyond a joke now.

 

[butchersapron]

So, this strategy articul8, going to outline it? Can you? If you can't, just say.

 

[articul8]

Labour isn't simply shit - it is and remains a contradictory formation, in development. I'll spare you the lecture on dialectics (wanky intellectualism?). It can't just be inherited and utilised. But it can't just be jettisoned entirely altogether.

 

[butchersapron]

Labour isn't simply shit - it is and remains a contradictory formation, in development. I'll spare you the lecture on dialectics (wanky intellectualism?). It can't just be inherited and utilised. But it can't just be jettisoned entirely altogether.

No, please give me the lecture - i and the class obviously need it if you're going to herd us into the party ignite our hopes and dreams then destroy them, then set up a real left wing party afterwards. Because i and the class think that you're mad.

Sure you should be boozing at work on a tuesday btw?

 

[articul8]

"I and the class" - your version of the "royal we"?

The point is people don't need herding anywhere. The point is that given people who want to kick out the coalition are inexorably being pulled towards the Labour party, there is no point standing aside from the battles that are taking place over where it stands. Labour is the battleground not the winning side.

 

[articul8]

Sure you should be boozing at work on a tuesday btw?

hard as it is to believe, I'm neither working nor boozing.

 

[butchersapron]

"I and the class" - your version of the "royal we"?

The point is people don't need herding anywhere. The point is that given people who want to kick out the coalition are inexorably being pulled towards the Labour party, there is no point standing aside from the battles that are taking place over where it stands. Labour is the battleground not the winning side.

Your point was that they do, that they need to go through labour to reach the promised land. They need the hellfire of your immanent critique, when this critique has never required people be member of the object of critique. And more to the point, you want people inside labour to save labour - see your flip-flipping between pressure on the leadership can move a leftward moving membership and leadership and the party is only good for destroying other peoples illusions in it.

You don't know what you're saying half the time i think. You sound a little lost. Like a lost little twat.

 

[Streathamite]

The fact that someone like Ken Loach - in the Spirit of '45 - is effectively looking to rehabilitate a version of classic old Labourism shows that.

he's not, he really isn't; he's trying to recapture and present the optimism and idealism particularly associated with those times, and that didn't - and certainly doesn't now - start and end with the LP.

 

[articul8]

what flip-flopping? It's clear that a) it is both useful and necessary to pressure the Labour leadership in the current context and b) this does not mean that Labour can or will ever be an adequate vehicle for the left.

This is about real - material and historical - contradictions. I've never argued everyone "has to go through" Labour. But it won't go away if you just shut your eyes and pretend it doesn't exist, or think you represent "the class" in rejecting it, when actually millions are planning to vote for it.

 

[Streathamite]

Do you not think "the Abbott left" (including David Lammy, Emily Thornberry, Katy Clark,

#
Are you SURE those people can be described as 'abbott left'? How so?

 

[articul8]

he's not, he really isn't; he's trying to recapture and present the optimism and idealism particularly associated with those times, and that didn't - and certainly doesn't now - start and end with the LP.

Regardless of what the subjective intentions of Loach might be, look at how people were celebrating Atlee instead of Thatcher, at how little was said about the context of British imperialism, NATO, or the flaws of centralised state management. He knows what buttons to press, because the Labourist illusions are alive and well - even if for the movement they are partly inherited by the likes of Galloway (claiming to stand up for "real" Labour values) - the kind of nostalgic talk you get around the fringes of TUSC too.

 

[butchersapron]

what flip-flopping? It's clear that a) it is both useful and necessary to pressure the Labour leadership in the current context and b) this does not mean that Labour can or will ever be an adequate vehicle for the left.

This is about real - material and historical - contradictions. I've never argued everyone "has to go through" Labour. But it won't go away if you just shut your eyes and pretend it doesn't exist, or think you represent "the class" in rejecting it, when actually millions are planning to vote for it.

Your flip-flopping. Between arguing different and contradictory things at different times - or more usually at the same time. God only knows what shite you push within the party.

What's clear? Oh more pressure. Can you say what this pressure consists of given that it's all you strategy contains. Surely not hot air? If this does not mean that Labour can or will ever be an adequate vehicle for the left then why have you argued over and over for years and years for people to join labour, work for labour and vote labour? If you're arguing - as you are this time, in this forum - that this will result in disappointment (or the your crude understanding of what constitutes immanent critique) then this is going through labour to lose illusions is exactly what you are arguing for.

 

[Streathamite]

Regardless of what the subjective intentions of Loach might be, look at how people were celebrating Atlee instead of Thatcher, .

yes, but in the context of late May, 1945, an exhausted populace etc., and a new hope after that - that context cannot possibly ever be repeated

 

[butchersapron]

Regardless of what the subjective intentions of Loach might be, look at how people were celebrating Atlee instead of Thatcher, at how little was said about the context of British imperialism, NATO, or the flaws of centralised state management. He knows what buttons to press, because the Labourist illusions are alive and well - even if for the movement they are partly inherited by the likes of Galloway (claiming to stand up for "real" Labour values) - the kind of nostalgic talk you get around the fringes of TUSC too.

Hence the massive interest in this film by mum. Button well and truly pressed. You clueless bubble.

 

[Streathamite]

The Labour leadership's paranoia over controlling their media representation as a party free from left contagion is not evidence of the existence of a Labour left. The actions of such a left wing would be evidence of its existence and those actions are minimal at best.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

actually, that is a much more feasible explanation, considering that bunch of paranoid control freaks

 

[articul8]

I'm saying that it's necessary *in order precisely to realise the best aspects of a century's experience of working class involvement in the Labour project* to win a section of the Labour party and the unions over to a different kind of politics and link up with forces who are already outside. It's as someone who values aspects of the Labour tradition that you;re best placed to evaluate what has to go. Like you're in the house of a recently deceased relative.

But dismissing this is like saying to someone who's close family member has just died "come on, are you a bit slow or something, they're dead - now cheer the fuck up". People are still fighting for the memory of what they thought Labour stood for - even where some have written off Labour today. But what Labour means is contested, not just in the party but in the country - but being in the party gives you full access to that "working through" that's going on.