George Monbiot on "Wales' unreported revolution"

[existentialist]

If you want to correct what someone has written the honest thing to do is to quote what they actually wrote and then post how you think it requires correction. The honest thing to do is to be clear who is saying what. Your post still claims that Gravediggers wrote something that they did not.

I think any reasonable person (the man on the Clapham omnibus, perhaps) would see what Louis did as more parody than passing-off.

If all Gravedigger has got left is getting outraged at someone tweaking a quote, it sounds like he's pretty much all out of argument...

 

[agricola]

I think he summed up the spirit quite well you miserable bastards. I honestly don't think the recent spate of SPGB interventions on here have done you any favours at all.

The sad thing is that these "interventions" will probably described as "smashing the forces of reaction" in a couple of years.

 

[editor]

Because I don't have your finely developed sense of humour Jim, that's why.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

Don't fuck about with user quotes please. Thanks.

 

[phildwyer]

Come on Phil you can't be serious? Have you ever been to Gwynedd

No, in fact I've never been north of Brecon (in Wales). But my grandparents were Welsh-speakers from Carmarthenshire, and I spent quite a bit of time there.

Come on Phil you can't be serious? Have you ever been to Gwynedd (and I don't mean this in a patronising way)? It's not so much English is a 'foreign language' but the language itself is foreign to alot of people.

Welsh is the first language of the majority of residents in the county of Gwynedd. This is a fact.

The fact that they can all speak English does not mean they are comfortable using the language or accessing services in it. English speakers can still access services in English in Gwynedd, as they do every day. So can Welsh speakers in Welsh. That is equality.

I'm sorry but it's simply bizarre that you'd imagine English should be the language of administration in a place like Gwynedd!

Well I suppose you're probably right. I'd still quibble with the idea that English is a "foreign language" though.

 

[editor]

You have done no such thing cos you haven't even edited your post.

Moderator what are you going to do about this blatant disregard for the rules?

I've asked her to stop.

So, how many signed up members have you currently got?

 

[phildwyer]

I've asked her to stop.

So, how many signed up members have you currently got?

I don't know about GD, but the former poster known as Neprimerimye is a member of a party that quite literally has three members.

There ought to be a prize or something.

 

[JimN]

Because I don't have your finely developed sense of humour Jim, that's why.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

It's my finely tuned sense of humour which is struggling to find the funny side of your dishonesty.

 

[JimN]

So far the criticisms of the SPGB on this thread seem to amount to:

The party doesn't have enough members. We only listen to the case put forward by an organisation of X membership.

They don't seek to lead the working class. Evidently not seeking to lead people is vanguardism.

They work to publicise ideas about a new society based on common ownership, production for use, democracy, freedom and peace. A classless society without the state, profit, money, nations or war. Evidently this is seen as elitist.

They don't seek to be elected in order to take office and administer the capitalist system that creates untold misery in the world. Other parties who seek to perpetuate the capitalist system, but have won a few crumbs of compensation for workers blighted by this very system are seen as champions of the working class.

 

[butchersapron]

How utterly dishonest.

 

[JimN]

How utterly dishonest.

No. I said they "seem to amount to"....Or am I lying about what they seem to amount to to me?

 

[butchersapron]

Oh please away with your sophistry and your down pat unexciting propaganda that's remained unchanged for over a 100 years (the same can be said of your politics btw). Maybe you mistook impossibilism for miserablism?

If the points put to you and your bearded comrades on this thread 'seem to amount' to that tendentious retelling above then you have serious problems.

 

[robbo203]

In brief, you've cast yourself in the role of teachers and truth-bringers. A more vanguardist relation to the w/c you could not find. You really sound like you're stuck in the first two decades of the last century.

With respect, I dont think you understand the meaning of the term "vanguardism". Vanguardism is not about expressing a forthright opinion and trying to persuade others to accept it. If this were the case, everyone here would be a vanguardist. We all have an opinion on something and we all obviously think we are right in holding this opinion - otherwise we wouldnt hold it. would we?

Vanguardism is the theory that the emancipatipon of some larger group (e.g. the working class) is, in practical terms, dependent upon some smaller group. Anyone who knows anything about the SPGB at all will realise this is absolutely not their position. Yes, they have a set of ideas which they see as the truth and which they fervantly seek to impart to fellow workers but they have always, to their credit, consistently argued that unless a majority of workers want and understand socialism as they see it, you will not get socialism. Anti-vanguardism is built into their theoretical model of the way forward.


You may legitimately criticise them for being at times being a little too rigid in their ideas - though the SPGB has come a long way in that respect - but there is no way you can possibly accuse them of "vanguardism". This, remember, is the only political party to tell workers at elections - if you dont really understand what we stand for or if you dont really agree with it, then for heavens sake, dont vote for us!!

Thats a breath of fresh air in a political culture dominated by sheer opportunism - and vanguardism!

 

[Louis MacNeice]

So far the criticisms of the SPGB on this thread seem to amount to:

The party is small to the point of insignificance.

They seek to lead the working class, as they are the only properly qualified educators.

They work to publicise the SPGB.

They are incapable of being elected.

Corrected for you Jim.

Louis MacNeice

 

[JimN]

The sad thing is that these "interventions" will probably described as "smashing the forces of reaction" in a couple of years.

Sorry, I'm not really acqainted with the terms "intervention" and "smashing the forces of reaction". Sounds like the kind of jargon the Trots go in for.

 

[JimN]

Corrected for you Jim.

Louis MacNeice

Louis, you are being very very naughty!

 

[frogwoman]

once we start thinking for ourselves they will have lost the plot.

I can assure you the whole of the membership of the SPGB (including comrade Buick) will agree with every word I've said on this thread.

Erm ... spot the irony in this post

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Vanguardism is the theory that the emancipatipon of some larger group (e.g. the working class) is, in practical terms, dependent upon some smaller group.

Given that the SPGB (very small group) declare themselves to be in opposition to all other parties - since they are the only true socialists - then the working class (vastly bigger group) is dependent on them and them alone for the revelation of that truth. Not just vanguardist but quasi-religious as well.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[butchersapron]

With respect, I dont think you understand the meaning of the term "vanguardism". Vanguardism is not about expressing a forthright opinion and trying to persuade others to accept it. If this were the case, everyone here would be a vanguardist. We all have an opinion on something and we all obviously think we are right in holding this opinion - otherwise we wouldnt hold it. would we?

Vanguardism is the theory that the emancipatipon of some larger group (e.g. the working class) is, in practical terms, dependent upon some smaller group. Anyone who knows anything about the SPGB at all will realise this is absolutely not their position. Yes, they have a set of ideas which they see as the truth and which they fervantly seek to impart to fellow workers but they have always, to their credit, consistently argued that unless a majority of workers want and understand socialism as they see it, you will not get socialism. Anti-vanguardism is built into their theoretical model of the way forward.

No it's not, it's merely disguised and turned into an educational function of the party. You're already there at the end of the path calling people to come and join you - that's a crude summation of the parties relationship with the class. We've found the end and the means, no one comes to the father but through me. It's a soft-vanguardism rather then the open hard version some orthodox groups still cling to, but it's based on the same assumptions all the same - the self-selecting party seeing further and longer than the mass of the w/c. You just draw different organisational conclusions, rather than the party having to lead the w/c by the hand to that end point you're there already beckoning them towards you - yoo! hoo!.

Working class self-activity in this model becomes mere formal agreement with the SPGB on what the path is and where it leads. It's the other side of the openly vanguardist coin. There's no conception of the class identifying its own needs, and its own methods to reach them. It's anemic 2nd international beardism and it's drowning in the 21st century.

 

[frogwoman]

i remember there was a poster called nomoney when i first joined urban75 who was a member of the spgb who claimed to wear high heels and go on about the "meadle class" all the time ...

maybe im entirely wrong but thats what i always think of when i think of the spgb (and when do they ever come up in conversation? )

 

[frogwoman]

anemi 2nd internal beardism

thanks butchers, nicking this!!

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Give it a couple of years and Gravedigger will be citing this exchange as part of the SPGB's practice. We made ourselves known he'll say; made yourselves a laughing stock might be nearer the mark.

Louis MacNeice

 

[Beanburger]

Exactly. There's a whole load of reasons why someone may decide to vote Plaid, but dismissing all of them as "Welsh nationaists" is woefully simplistic. There's quite a few English folks living in Wales expected to vote Plaid for starters, and to others it's more about voting for the kind of radical, local, left politics that chimes with their beliefs. To them, the fact that Wales is a country may almost be incidental.

I'd sure as hell be voting Plaid if I lived in Wales, and I ain't Welsh.

 

[whichfinder]

Because you've found the answer already - all that remains is for the workers to realise that you're entirely correct, well in advance of them. Who put you in advance - if you recognise that you ('the educators') need educating, who educated you? Who selected you? Why are you in the position of 'the educators'?

Even those who are obviously correct on a particular issue can still benefit from education. There is always more to learn............Unfortunately, there are those who seemingly have an in-built reluctance to learn anything new.

 

[butchersapron]

Give it a couple of years and Gravedigger will be citing this exchange as part of the SPGB's practice. We made ourselves known he'll say; made yourselves a laughing stock might be nearer the mark.

Louis MacNeice

This is a part of the annoying thing, despite their faults i've a lot of time for the SPGB and have know many good people that have been members - but they just can't see that this Keir Hardie soapbox propaganda model hasn't been a goer for 50 years plus. It mirrors some of the orthodox marxists and trots still working on the paper-as-organiser model. It totally ignores all the changes of the 20th century - social and political - mass education and mass communications etc Sure, they put themselves and their stuff on the internet but it's still preaching on the harken unto me ye starvelings approach.

 

[butchersapron]

Even those who are obviously correct on a particular issue can still benefit from education. There is always more to learn............Unfortunately, there are those who seemingly have an in-built reluctance to learn anything new.

Who selected you and the SPGB as 'the eductaors' though?

 

[JimN]

Originally Posted by whichfinder
Even those who are obviously correct on a particular issue can still benefit from education. There is always more to learn............Unfortunately, there are those who seemingly have an in-built reluctance to learn anything new.

Who selected you and the SPGB as 'the eductaors' though?

I read that as whichfinder saying that members of the SPGB can still learn alot. Did I misread it?

 

[butchersapron]

Originally Posted by whichfinder
Even those who are obviously correct on a particular issue can still benefit from education. There is always more to learn............Unfortunately, there are those who seemingly have an in-built reluctance to learn anything new.



I read that as whichfinder saying that members of the SPGB can still learn alot. Did I misread it?

You may have missed gravediggaz post in which he responded to my probing about the SPGB casting themselves in the role of techers to the w/c by saying that they recognised, along with Marx, that even the educators need educating - placing the party directly in the role of 'the educators'. My question is why does he view them as having that role? How?

That itself is a classic restatement of the vanguardist postion that says it's ok because the exists a dialectical relation ship between the party and the class.

 

[editor]

I'd sure as hell be voting Plaid if I lived in Wales, and I ain't Welsh.

Whoops! There goes Gravediggers 'argument'!

 

[editor]

Originally Posted by whichfinder
Even those who are obviously correct on a particular issue can still benefit from education. There is always more to learn............Unfortunately, there are those who seemingly have an in-built reluctance to learn anything new.



I read that as whichfinder saying that members of the SPGB can still learn alot. Did I misread it?

Kinda weird how only you and Gravedigger quote posts in this strange, cack-handed manner.

Oh, and seeing as you sound like you might know: how many signed up members has the SPGB currently got?

 

[JimN]

This is a part of the annoying thing, despite their faults i've a lot of time for the SPGB and have know many good people that have been members - but they just can't see that this Keir Hardie soapbox propaganda model hasn't been a goer for 50 years plus. It mirrors some of the orthodox marxists and trots still working on the paper-as-organiser model. It totally ignores all the changes of the 20th century - social and political - mass education and mass communications etc Sure, they put themselves and their stuff on the internet but it's still preaching on the harken unto me ye starvelings approach.

Look butchersapron, the members of the SPGB are just a bunch of workers, some admittedly with beards some without (the women), who share a common goal of socialism.

If you have any suggestions about how better to put this across to people without seeming like preaching and without seeming like we know it all then I for one would be delighted to hear them. I'm sure people in the whole non-state, non-market socialism sector (call it what you will) including anarchists suffer to some extent from this problem.