BBC - Owen Jones

[ViolentPanda]

my class? really? I suppose you and your lumpen/boho/crusty mates won't have much time for the working class, no

I've got plenty of time for the working class.
You are not part of the working class. What you are is someone who wants to use the working class. You're part of the problem, not part of the solution.

 

[sihhi]

what forms would you imagine this might take?

Are you asking because you think those forms will be inside Labour Party, and want to crib something for you to answer the requests for you to outline your plan to make Miliband not be Hollande by supporting and voting for his party?

 

[articul8]

Are you asking because you think those forms will be inside Labour Party, and want to crib something for you to answer the requests for you to outline your plan to make Miliband not be Hollande by supporting and voting for his party?

I don't have, or want, a strategy to rescue Miliband

 

[articul8]

You are not part of the working class. What you are is someone who wants to use the working class.

You really don't have a clue. Now off you fuck

 

[ViolentPanda]

You really don't have a clue. Now off you fuck

I have plenty of clues.
You want to use the working classes to shore up/bolster the party you support. That you may once have been a member of the working classes is irrelevant. That you wish to use the working classes to advance the cause of a party whose policies have mostly negatively affected the working classes is.
That you have no sense of shame about wishing to do so, and strategising so as to do so, is signal of the fact that you've left us behind, and allied yourself with the bourgeoisie.
Perhaps you should change your username to Esau. He too sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.

 

[sihhi]

I don't have, or want, a strategy to rescue Miliband

Here's my take: Every new member, every Labour MP, every 'Miliband could change, we don't know him yet', every single vote is part of sustaining Miliband.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

She's not attacking their radicalism she's attacking their sectarianism!

She's contrasting both their radicalism and their sectarianism to Livingstone's supporters "innovative, radically democratic and determinedly egalitarian" politics. Before rambling on about the wonders of some funded quango she was on. It is not simply about "sectarianism", her critique of "sectarianism" exists so as to propose a reformist bureaucrats social democracy, with Livingstone as her then exemplar.

I'm never quite sure how much of your inability to see this is wilful disingenuity and how much of it is ordinary stupidity.

 

[articul8]

She might well be soft on Livingstone (in this context) but what she wanted to do with the GLC was to build alliances with forces beyond simply Labour and the unions - in communities, in the womens movement, in environmental or peace campaigns, LGBT, disabled people etc. Not in any way as a cross-class "popular front" but as a genuinely empowering participatory form of radical democratic politics.

You may have done a 180 degree turn from Labourist dogmatic sectarianism to anti-Labourite dogmatic sectarianism - but otherwise learnt nothing....

 

[Nigel Irritable]

She might well be soft on Livingstone (in this context)

No, you slimy ratfucker. You can't gloss over it like that and hope that nobody will notice.

She's not "soft on Livingstone". She presents Livingstone's politics - at least as of 1996 - as an example of the "innovative, radically democratic and determinedly egalitarian" politics she advocates. That's not "softness", it's an identification of her project with his. And it's contrasted to the noisy "sectarian" radicalism of people to her left and Livingstones left. It's particularly fitting that she then waxes lyrical about her former job as a funded quangocrat back when Livingstone had the cash to coopt people like her and her "radically democratic" friends.

That piece sums her up. And it sums you up too.

but what she wanted to do with the GLC was to build alliances with forces beyond simply Labour and the unions - in communities, in the womens movement, in environmental or peace campaigns, LGBT, disabled people etc.

An alliance towards social democratic ends, controlled by social democratic bureaucrat's money, and administered by social democratic bureaucrats. But, to be fair to her, at least back when she had some slight relevance she was fantasising about this against the background of a strong Labour left with control of things like the GLC. She wasn't as divorced from reality as some clown we can probably both name who dreams not entirely dissimilar dreams while surrounded by the rotting corpses of the Labour left she thought would make this happen.

 

[articul8]

An alliance towards social democratic ends, controlled by social democratic bureaucrat's money, and administered by social democratic bureaucrats.

Retrospectively tarring the whole GLC resistance to Thatcher with Livingstone's spinelessness does no justice to the historical reality. In any case, it's a bit rich to imply that any tactical engagement with him - however criticial - is enough to constitute the mentality of a social democratic bureaucrat, given that your organisation supported Livingstone in his first bid for London mayor (yet another false dawn of the mythical "new workers party")!

 

[ViolentPanda]

Here's my take: Every new member, every Labour MP, every 'Miliband could change, we don't know him yet', every single vote is part of sustaining Miliband.

The sad thing being that this "follow the leader" strategy was and is absolutely predictable given the hollowing out of party democracy over the last 15 years or so. If you have a party where political thought is circumscribed by boundaries put in place by neoliberalism, then stimulating non-neoliberal solutions to any question was always going to be a hiding to nothing. That articul8 either can't or won't see that is, at the very least, indicative of who he's positioned himself with.

 

[articul8]

a party where political thought is circumscribed by boundaries put in place by neoliberalism

Whose thought? Not the members or the activists, or even a section of the PLP. There is a question of the limits on what gets taken up as policy, but even here there is a hiatus at present, where the boundaries of what is/isn't possible to take up can be contested. The fact Miliband D has recognised that his pro-neoliberal wing are on the defensive shows they aren't having it all their own way.

 

[butchersapron]

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

Whose thought? Not the members or the activists, or even a section of the PLP. There is a question of the limits on what gets taken up as policy, but even here there is a hiatus at present, where the boundaries of what is/isn't possible to take up can be contested. The fact Miliband D has recognised that his pro-neoliberal wing are on the defensive shows they aren't having it all their own way.

Freud calls this denial:

Denial is the refusal to acknowledge the existence or severity of unpleasant external realities or internal thoughts and feelings.

Defense mechanisms are indirect ways of dealing or coping with anxiety, such as explaining problems away or blaming others for problems. Denial is one of many defense mechanisms. It entails ignoring or refusing to believe an unpleasant reality. Defense mechanisms protect one's psychological wellbeing in traumatic situations, or in any situation that produces anxiety or conflict. However, they do not resolve the anxiety-producing situation and, if overused, can lead to psychological disorders. Although Freud's model of the id, ego, and superego is not emphasized by most psychologists today, defense mechanisms are still regarded as potentially maladaptive behavioral patterns that may lead to psychological disorders.

 

[articul8]

perhaps....

 

[ViolentPanda]

Whose thought? Not the members or the activists, or even a section of the PLP. There is a question of the limits on what gets taken up as policy, but even here there is a hiatus at present, where the boundaries of what is/isn't possible to take up can be contested. The fact Miliband D has recognised that his pro-neoliberal wing are on the defensive shows they aren't having it all their own way.

As far as I'm aware (and I do still talk to people from my old CLP quite regularly), none of the moves that eroded internal democracy and disempowered local activists have been rescinded, so your claims are nothing but obfuscation, and there's no mechanism by which policy formulation can be guided from below (as used to be the case), just the usual "we hear what you're saying, but here's what we're going to do" top-downism.
Until such mechanisms allowing internal democracy are reinstated, all your jabber is meaningless. As for neoliberalism, the conflict in the parliamentary party isn't "neoliberalism vs socialism", it's "which form of neoliberalism - slightly more ameliorative, or slightly less ameliorative?". Whichever way the axe falls, it's still neoliberalism.

 

[articul8]

To be honest, these glory days where conference determined policy is all a bit of a myth anyway. Conference would decide, and then the Cabinet would ignore whatever it chose to.

Ameliorating the neoliberal attacks is not enough, certainly, but it's not nothing either.

 

[ViolentPanda]

To be honest, these glory days where conference determined policy is all a bit of a myth anyway. Conference would decide, and then the Cabinet would ignore whatever it chose to.

Well, that's the received wisdom about it nowadays, anyway. Reality differed.

Ameliorating the neoliberal attacks is not enough, certainly, but it's not nothing either.

In fact it's worse than nothing, because it holds out the hope for people that things will get better/things will get no worse, while allowing them to continue to be ground down by forces enabled by the party's adherence to neoliberalism.

 

[articul8]

In fact it's worse than nothing, because it holds out the hope for people that things will get better/things will get no worse, while allowing them to continue to be ground down by forces enabled by the party's adherence to neoliberalism.

That's a silly spartoid argument like "the welfare state was a bad thing because it masked the real nature of class division" or some such bollocks

 

[ViolentPanda]

That's a silly spartoid argument like "the welfare state was a bad thing because it masked the real nature of class division" or some such bollocks

Nothing like.
Fact is, that whether or not the welfare state masked the real nature of class division or not, the welfare state was of great benefit to the working class.
The slavish adherence to neoliberalism displayed by the party you support (and it is slavish. Arguing about how to serve it up to the electorate isn't resistance, it's surrender) is of no benefit to the working class. Neoliberalism destroys jobs and lives, and in fact needs to destroy prospects in order to ensure a sizeable reserve pool of labour through structural unemployment.

Get a grip, and try getting some political nous at the same time.

 

[sihhi]

You've already determined in advance it couldn't possibly be adequate, so what is the point?

Come on articul8, I genuinely think you could do better than Owen Jones. This is his laughable attempt with Chuka Lambeth's left but not Labour Left MP discussing strategy how to win back the millions and overthrow neoliberalism.


Chuka Umunna @ChukaUmunna

2d​

We need the banking sector to better serve the real economy - this is crucial to implementing the UK industrial strategy I've talked about
View details ·
Owen Jones@OwenJones84

​

​

.@ChukaUmunna Why not argue for turning the bailed out banks into a publicly owned investment bank?

 

[sihhi]

Verso heart Verso.

Tariq Ali in conversation with Owen Jones.
£5. Time – 15.00, Sunday. Venue – Abney Public HallBuy tickets
Tariq Ali is a writer and filmmaker, described by The Observer as ‘an outlier and intellectual bomb-thrower’. He has written more than a dozen books on world history and politics, including Pirates of the Caribbean, Bush in Babylon, The Clash of Fundamentalisms and The Obama Syndrome, as well as five novels in his Islam Quintet series. He talks to Owen Jones, ex-trade union lobbyist and author of Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class, one of the defining young voices of the Left. Together, they will discuss the reissue of The Stalinist Legacy and cover a lot of ground in their exploration of current global politics.

In association with New Statesman.

 

[Citizen66]

Great. He's building a movement for us all.

http://tyneandwear.sky.com/news/art...-jones-rallies-anti-cuts-support-in-newcastle

At a time when NE activists are doing the legwork to build stuff, famous lad wants to split any initiative between grass roots and his Labour back door shit. Cheers Owen.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Great. He's building a movement for us all.

http://tyneandwear.sky.com/news/art...-jones-rallies-anti-cuts-support-in-newcastle

At a time when NE activists are doing the legwork to build stuff, famous lad wants to split any initiative between grass roots and his Labour back door shit. Cheers Owen.

FFS - we all know what party he's in, but constant partisan sniping has got us to the exact point of nowhere further than People Front Of Judea sketch from 40 years ago.

Why have UKIP had a clear run with their phoney and reactionary anti-establishment pose? Because of left-sectarianism. It's at the point where it's failure is flat out disgusting and a betrayal of the public in not having a solid platform of some kind to offer, either in, out or across parties (as far as parties matter).

Owen Jones is but one person doing the People's Assembly stuff and is not claiming any kind of "leadership". How do you know he "wants to split the initiative"?
The linked piece is Murdoch - no shock it singles out one person, tending towards being "household name". It's not Owen Jones fault they might think their readers are too dense to digest the notion of something more collective.

The Manchester PA had contributers from plenty of parties and none, none made a big show of it and none were partisan. Did they want to "split the initiative"? They probably know it would fuck up if they tried. It's a piece of piss to slag off Labour, Greens, SWs, other socialists and anarchists any time. Any fucker can be a critic.

But what the PAs are showing is that a broad left can draw far more attendees than any single party from anywhere on the spectrum. That's positive stuff and I struggle to see why people STILL seem compelled to be negative after the decades of endless screw-ups.

Owen Jones happens to be a good orator, capable of making good points, and with solid enough centre left credentials. The bitterness towards him is pretty hilarious.

So he went to a good university? How shocking and treacherous. Are all who went to Oxbridge or redbricks obliged to be conservatives? Should socialists be compelled to lower their academic ambition?

 

[butchersapron]

You prat, he's being criticised for leading all that positive energy into supporting voting and joining labour. The party you have spent the last few years condemning , writing off and loudly proclaiming that every last member has gallons of blood on their hand. All forgot now that you've been in a room with him though.

And you don't even know what sectarian means as your increasingly shouty and can't be bothered to read what anyone else is saying posts show.

 

[sihhi]

Citizen66's analysis is right Labour always gets its left and the non-party left to do its work for it.

taffboy's point is an absurd one, after all this is taffboy's post against John McDonnell, the Labour MP Owen Jones was parliamentary researcher/aide to:

He could join The Greens, or if he wanted a machine to give him a good chance he could try the Libdems who are more sincere on the environment and aint apologists for war, ID cards. Neither are they as inherently corrupt or as full of liars pretending to be more "left wing" than they actually are.

Labour would probably win his seat anyway, people generally vote for the rosette and not the person. In some ways, so what if it was a right-winger? Labour are a right wing party, it is appropriate they should have right wing candidates and people will get what they voted for.

 

[butchersapron]

There's two implicit levels to this isn't there - you lot at the PA you do the legwork, the groundwork and come election time, we (labour) reap the rewards. Which is why they can afford to play around with non-party forces like this, as they know the involvement of Jones etc will only bring them credibility_+other things)-->votes, and votes among those who may be more likely to have broken with or thinking of breaking with labour.

All one big happy labour movement family urgh.

 

[Delroy Booth]

Neither are they as inherently corrupt or as full of liars pretending to be more "left wing" than they actually are.

That's classic.

 

[sihhi]

I'm reading through Chavs from the library now - not a good look. I read the Conclusion first it judges that left-wing intellectuals in the 1950s and 1960s helped Labour and its leadership assist the working-class.
Then finds that because most academic articles now aren't key-worded with working-class the Labour Party brains trust don't receive these ideas anymore.
Then it offers Jon Cruddas as the way forward as to how to think about 'aspiration', and sees Obama lying to millions of people as a good way to enfranchise them ie get them to vote Labour.

The whole book appears a bit of a fraud it has Burberry cap on the front cover - worn only by the young really - then connects Karen Matthews as being a 'chav'. Then spends only bits of the next chapters discussing the use of the term. 'Chavs' is not really about the term chav or really about the people it's applied to.

There's been so far only 4-5 pages on old Labour and seems to imply inflation would not have occurred in Britain had credit controls not "been eased" in the late 1960s and the Vietnam war not happened. He repeatedly cites Graham Turner (his consultancy business here) to explain post-war economic trends.

Six word summary: bashing chavs bad, Keynesianism is answer.

 

[articul8]

There's two implicit levels to this isn't there - you lot at the PA you do the legwork, the groundwork and come election time, we (labour) reap the rewards. Which is why they can afford to play around with non-party forces like this, as they know the involvement of Jones etc will only bring them credibility_+other things)-->votes, and votes among those who may be more likely to have broken with or thinking of breaking with labour.

All one big happy labour movement family urgh.

The point is to help build a mass movement against austerity that will effectively force the Labour party to shift fundamentally its position, not to recuperate opposition for a barely reconstructed New Labour vehicle.

 

[butchersapron]

The point for Owen is that this movement 'doesn't challenge labour - you have said this yourself when you decided for the PA's that they would not be standing ay candidates against labour. This movements central aim, it's central relationship is not to be with the class but with labour and its internal battles. And its generals and would be generals openly state this - look at the post i'm replying to for example.