Gerry Healy
- Thread starter bashthefash
- Start date
PTK
Paul Kegan
Very good!
hitmouse
music obfuscation technology
For those Cliffites who are unable to read books, here's a podcast interview with the author of the new Healy book:
podtail.com
One of the interviewers is Andy Gittlitz who wrote the book on Posadism, so it's a high concentration of expertise on niche trot history there.
E265: The Party is Always Right w/ Aidan Beatty – The Antifada – Podcast
Aidan Beatty, author of The Party is Always Right: The Untold Story of Gerry Healy and British Trotskyism joins us to trainspot the British Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP), a Trotskyist cult that wa... – Listen to E265: The Party is Always Right w/ Aidan Beatty by The Antifada instantly on...
podtail.com
planetgeli
There's no future in England's dreaming
For those Cliffites who are unable to read books, here's a podcast interview with the author of the new Healy book:
One of the interviewers is Andy Gittlitz who wrote the book on Posadism, so it's a high concentration of expertise on niche trot history there.E265: The Party is Always Right w/ Aidan Beatty – The Antifada – Podcast
Aidan Beatty, author of The Party is Always Right: The Untold Story of Gerry Healy and British Trotskyism joins us to trainspot the British Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP), a Trotskyist cult that wa... – Listen to E265: The Party is Always Right w/ Aidan Beatty by The Antifada instantly on...
Thank you for bringing Posadism to my world. Let's hope that Gittlitz never achieves cult of the individual status because Gittlitzism is a right bastard to say, practically impossible when you're pissed I imagine.
But yeah, Posadism. Pluto tell me
Advocating nuclear war, attempting communication with dolphins and taking an interest in the paranormal and UFOs, there is perhaps no greater (or stranger) cautionary tale for the Left than that of Posadism.
And I'm already thinking what's not to like?
The Left is another world. I might give it a listen.
My partner was recruited into the WRP as a teenager while in youth theatre with Don Warrington (Black guy in Rising Damp), later after the split with the ICFI which renamed as the SEP. Many factory gate paper sales, camps in Germany and also the march from Trier, Germany to London for the 100th anniversary of Marx's death!The SEPs denunciation of this book is truly despicable.
Biography as demonology: Aidan Beatty’s <em>The Party is Always Right: The Untold Story of Gerry Healy and British Trotskyism</em>
Aidan Beatty's new book is not a biography, but rather a political diatribe against Gerry Healy and Trotskyism.www.wsws.org
I read about half of it before realising it was unreasonably lengthy, but it was full of praise for his "exceptional qualities as a political leader" and not one reference to rape or sexual abuse. I did a search for relevant terms in case it mentioned them later but no.
If they believe that it was a smear that he was a serial rapist, at least come out and make that case, don't just ignore it. It gives the impression that they simply don't consider him being a rapist to be relevant or worth mentioning. Really makes me wonder about what skeletons David North has in his closet. I remember WSWS doing a very weirdly ardent defense of Roman Polanski too.
They are just a cult and an unpleasant one at that, rude bastards and they ran it like a closed shop family business. Had the misfortune to have met most of their CC down the years since the early nineties, they used to walk into where we lived and blank me for being a Muslim. Cunts, mega cunts.
Edit: It was the ICP not the the ICFI but part of it, old age got me there.
Last edited:
PTK
Paul Kegan
I think that the paper of the Posadists in Britain, Red Flag, was the first left-wing paper that I ever boght, when I was about 15.
charlie mowbray
The Enforcer
The same for me, PTK. I was bemused and uncomprehending when I attempted to read it.
Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
PTK
Paul Kegan
I don't know. I know that a well-known activist in the NUM was once a member, in the early 1970s.
I was chuffed that the woman who sold me the paper thought that I was at college, when I was still at school.
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
My sister in law and her husband ( from my first marriage ) were active members. The husband was a steward in UCATT and was actually quite reasonable if you manage to keep him off the subject of the WRP , but his wife, who worked in some art and drama type charity, is less so. I also knew but avoided like the plague if he'd had a few beers because you couldn't get rid of him, Gerry Downing when he was sin the WRP. He held a union position in Brent Council Direct Works and when we were on strike we went to speak at his union meeting.. His opening remarks at the union meeting consisted of a monologue on the Falklands war and British imperialism.
Bus Honeygun
This week the score draws are plentiful
One of my wife's aunties got involved in the WRP and gave considerable sums to them. She was lovely but came from a comfortable middle class background and seems to have substituted the family's Catholicism with this cranky bollocks. Thankfully she came out the other side, but it was interesting and ironic that a supposed workers' party was aimed largely at the well-off. All very IngSoc and 1984, but mostly reminiscent of the hippy guru scams of the 70s, right down to the sexual abuse.
I wasn't in the UK in the WRP days but the ICP/SEP was and remains definitely a scam and a cult. I always felt that like the 'far left' in Italy some were infiltrators of the US and UK intelligence services, 'David North' or whatever his real name is for starters.
Am watching the 'Esterno Notte' TV series at the moment which rekindles my suspicions of absolutely everyone! Long but recommended despite the ridiculous saintly portrayal of Aldo Moro.
and worked for ASLEF.
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
What's that on ? It's on Filmon over here but no English subs unfortunately .
I torrented it about six weeks ago, one torrent with all six episodes and comes up as 'series 1' but there is/was only one series. The episodes are all HD and .mkv with good hard coded English language subtitles.
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
Done, sent you the link.
nogojones
spelling is overrated
petee
no gods, no malarkey
i know that name from when i used to read the WSWS.
i remember the brouhaha when it came out that he was a business owner and CEO.
During his professional career, he was also CEO of the Metro Detroit-based Grand River Printing and Imaging Inc., winning the "Best Places to Work" award from Crain's Detroit Business magazine in 2003.
(Wiki)
if you're going to be a socialist capitalist, at least run a good workplace!
Last edited:
PTK
Paul Kegan
I liked it a lot. It was a different world, those days.
PTK
Paul Kegan
I think I read that it has ceased to be.
I just saw this book. I don't think I saw this before, but my memory is not what it was.
I Want to Believe
Advocating nuclear war, attempting communication with dolphins and taking an interest in the paranormal and UFOs, there is perhaps no greater (or stranger) c...
www.plutobooks.com
charlie mowbray
The Enforcer
Red Flag stopped publishing in 2000 and I believe the British Posadist section has closed down some time ago. Also, see this on Dave Douglass and the Posadists:
The Socialist Union (Internationalist)- a local split from the Posadists
UPDATE 14/02/2020: The Doncaster Archives are catalogued here. The very last item made me laugh out loud… Many thanks to John R for sending these. Some groups are just so obscure, smal…
splitsandfusions.wordpress.com
PTK
Paul Kegan
Even the terrorism was better.
JimW
支那暗杀团
We all had the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave...
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark--that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark--that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
countingtozero
Active Member
Were you living in Italy during that period? If so, do you mind revealing where?
tony.c
Well-Known Member
During the summer a couple of people were leafletting outside our tube station about the ending of the winter fuel allowance for pensioners. They wanted people to email our mp.
I spoke to one and said I was sure our mp would oppose it, which she did. The woman gave me a card with her contact details and it said she was a member of some socialist group, I can't remember the name but it did say it was part of the Posadist International.
Similar threads
