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Life after the SWP?

Lo Siento. said:
"Vote Labour with No Illusions, Build a Socialist Alternative," however you dress it up, is still (a) a call to vote Labour and (b) an announcement that you're going to vote Labour. We're all aware of the theory behind it. Do you think it's been particularly successful, historically?
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I still think this is the most fair and honest criticism of the SWP. In my opinion all the accusations of telling, hectoring, preaching and instructing muddy the waters of what could be an nonsectarian debate.
 
Louis MacNeice said:
So what did Lenin see as the purpose of the paper in what is to be done; an invitation to discussion or the necessary, centrally directed, organisational trainer, educator and instructor?

I can see why you'd want to write your own imagined tradition, but it is not the one the SWP claims to stand in.

Louis MacNeice

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have you ever read socialist worker? LOL
 
ResistanceMP3 said:
OK. In my honest opinion that's a silly interpretation of events. But hey, you probably think my interpretation is silly. :)

Where I lived if you went round to TELLING people what to do, you would probably get a crack on the chin. They didn't have any problem with the paper slogan vote Labour ,but build a socialist alternative, on the basis it was telling them what to do. They would argue with you politically but they knew the difference between somebody stating a position, and giving them an instruction.
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It's a slogan calling upon other people to do something.

It's not a statement of what you are doing.
 
ResistanceMP3 said:
so you never saw passers-by stop and talk to them?
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Yes.

Just as people stop and talk to chuggers, religious nuts and mime artists.

Of course you will get some people who come up and are interested in what you have to say. Of course. But these people would come up if you had a book stall and weren't shouting slogans at passers by.

I know this cos I've done both.
 
ResistanceMP3 said:
I still think this is the most fair and honest criticism of the SWP. In my opinion all the accusations of telling, hectoring, preaching and instructing muddy the waters of what could be an nonsectarian debate.
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I'm not "accusing" the SWP of anything.

I'm telling you how they appear to me.

I'm not alone in this perception either.

...and how can it be sectarian, if I'm not a partisan of another group?
 
chilango said:
Yes.

Just as people stop and talk to chuggers, religious nuts and mime artists.

Of course you will get some people who come up and are interested in what you have to say. Of course. But these people would come up if you had a book stall and weren't shouting slogans at passers by.

I know this cos I've done both.
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I've done both, and you're absolutely wrong, in my experience.

Dynamic, engaging, attention grabbing paper sales, demo's, interventions were always more effective at getting people outside the party doing stuff, than comrades just stood there like stuffed dummies out of Lewis's.
 
ResistanceMP3 said:
I've done both, and you're absolutely wrong, in my experience.

Dynamic, engaging, attention grabbing paper sales, demo's, interventions were always more effective at getting people outside the party doing stuff, than comrades just stood there like stuffed dummies out of Lewis's.
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Shouting slogans and haranguing passers-by to "sign a petition against capitalism" (yes, they did actually do that) is not "Dynamic, engaging, attention grabbing ".
 
I tell ResistanceMP3 I used to hate doing Saturday sales. I was embarrassed. If any of my mates saw I was mortified.

I didn't mind "factory" sales. They were usually a lot more sensible. Me and neprimerimye stood outside some workplace at a stupid hour arguing with Jeremy from Workers' Power. Always preferable to getting associated with the screeching, megaphone sloganeering that went on on Saturday sales.

God, I remember there was one woman who used to get up on the table in the University refectory and start shouting speeches at the students. I'd desperately try and slide under the table at that point.

...still I might be wrong.

Maybe it's worked and the SWP are a growing force and going from strength to strength.
 
chilango said:
I'm not "accusing" the SWP of anything.

I'm telling you how they appear to me.

I'm not alone in this perception either.

...and how can it be sectarian, if I'm not a partisan of another group?
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Hell chill, sorry. No YOU are not sectarian. That is wasn't particularly aimed directly at you.


and I'm not denying your perception, and that others may share it. What I am saying, in my personal experience such techniques have got more people involved in eg "Save Booth Hall Hospital", than the more subtle approaches.



And I am not saying ,you can do both.


GTG
 
chilango said:
I tell ResistanceMP3 I used to hate doing Saturday sales. I was embarrassed. If any of my mates saw I was mortified.

I didn't mind "factory" sales. They were usually a lot more sensible. Me and neprimerimye stood outside some workplace at a stupid hour arguing with Jeremy from Workers' Power. Always preferable to getting associated with the screeching, megaphone sloganeering that went on on Saturday sales.



God, I remember there was one woman who used to get up on the table in the University refectory and start shouting speeches at the students. I'd desperately try and slide under the table at that point.
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We used to have a comrade. He was brilliant if you had a problem understanding anything [so I used his services a lot]. But he was absolutely hopeless on paper sales. It was just a personality thing, rather than a political disagreement. He always turned up, but did little.

...still I might be wrong.

Maybe it's worked and the SWP are a growing force and going from strength to strength.
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Very witty LOL. But I think most people on here are agreed that is more down to internal and external dynamics, rather than paper selling techniques. ;-)
 
chilango said:
I tell ResistanceMP3 I used to hate doing Saturday sales. I was embarrassed. If any of my mates saw I was mortified.

I didn't mind "factory" sales. They were usually a lot more sensible. Me and neprimerimye stood outside some workplace at a stupid hour arguing with Jeremy from Workers' Power. Always preferable to getting associated with the screeching, megaphone sloganeering that went on on Saturday sales.

God, I remember there was one woman who used to get up on the table in the University refectory and start shouting speeches at the students. I'd desperately try and slide under the table at that point.

...still I might be wrong.

Maybe it's worked and the SWP are a growing force and going from strength to strength.
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i once had a really bizarre argument with a district organiser who insisted everyone loved doing Saturday sales (apparently the best way to get people involved was to get them on a sale), I tried to explain that this wasn't the case, but she just didn't seem to be able to get it.
 
People crossing the road to avoid you is not a debate with the class. It might give you an op to show the full timer how committed you are, but don't try and mug anyone else with it. That is so insulting.
 
A freezing cold 7:30 morning sale outside an engineering factory selling none was real commitment I can tell you and as it tuns out a complete waste of time and energy. Keep deluding yourself Rmp3. You come across increasingly like an apparatchik on vacation from North Korea btw. :)
 
ResistanceMP3 said:
The whole point of the slogan, and the newspaper, is that they are tool SWP comrades use to provoke dialogue between the comrades and anybody about them.
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I have to agree with others. This is not your tradition, nor is it the intention of the SWP. Propaganda is to guide people into action, to push them down a revolutionary path. If you were intending to stimulate debate you would have a genuine exchange of ideas, sometimes contradictory and provocative instead of condescending shit like "what socialists think..."
 
butchersapron said:
People crossing the road to avoid you is not a debate with the class.
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rarely had that problem comrade, as most comrades from several parties political organisations who worked with me would tell you.

Yes, sure, being in the wheelchair, it was difficult at first. Then once I got mobile in the electric wheelchair, and a comrade helped me overcoming the problems Chilango described, there was no stopping me.

Whatever we were campaigning about, selling papers on, I would work the issue. Stop people with a question, try to engage them with different approaches. Find out which questions worked, and which ones put people off. After a bit, you develop a sort of knack for it. Why?

I used to get a buzz out of it. You see, when you're in the wheelchair, people talk to the wheelchair. But when you engage them politically, I mean truly engage them in a real conversation which is confirming or challenging their views, you can see in their eyes the wheelchair melts away, then you become a person they are talking to. I used to get buzz out of being treated like a real person again, and it helped me overcome my issues with the wheelchair. That was the personal reason, but politically, and more importantly;

It might give you an op to show the full timer how committed you are, but don't try and mug anyone else with it. That is so insulting.
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so there is no possibility any socialist worker member could be motivated by any other reason? They couldn't actually agree with the politics and tactics? They are just trotbots, unthinking, doing what they are told to do for 20 30 or 40 years. It's a perfect sect argument, because it means you don't need to take on a real debate, you can just dismiss.

PS. Just to be clear. I certainly wasn't any kind of super comrade. As my story about Brian above relates. You play to your strengths. So I would get people stopped, engaged, and try to involve Brian in the conversation as much as possible. That way he he could play to his strengths.

Having said that, did most of the workplace sales on my own. At the local hospital, went from one regular sale, to about a dozen. Which identified people/shop stewards/trade unionists who you could regularly count upon to get involved in campaigns, workers dispute, fighting the Nazis et cetera. The same with other workplaces. I also created contact lists of over 60 trade unionists in the broader area, who I would contact on a less regular basis, but who would donate to, get involved when campaigns that talk their interest. Building network connections not just with the party, but between trade unionsists, as overtime we got them supporting each others disputes.

When a massive amount of hours I was putting in brought my marriage to breaking point, I thought I owed too much to my partner to let it do so, so I gave up. I find unbearable to even look at the news, the newspaper now.

GTG, daughter wants help booking a hotel for her and her friends. :)
 
october_lost said:
I have to agree with others. This is not your tradition, nor is it the intention of the SWP. Propaganda is to guide people into action, to push them down a revolutionary path. If you were intending to stimulate debate you would have a genuine exchange of ideas, sometimes contradictory and provocative instead of condescending shit like "what socialists think..."
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Hey, is difficult to tell from your post but I think you're misinterpreting me. Absolutely, I don't have any problem saying I am a revolutionary. I don't have any problem saying the creation of a classless society is what I am aiming towards. I don't have any problem with revolutionaries engaging with the class, and trying to win the argument for social revolution. I don't have any problem with as you say "the propaganda is to guide people into action, to push them down the revolutionary Road" EVENTUALLY. If you read the party's publications, you would see them argue that the two are not mutually exclusive, but essentially compatible.

Saving the local hospital, is about building the revolution. But that does not mean saving the local hospital is a pawn, not important. You will see them arguing them publications, that saving the local hospital and the revolution are all part of the same process. What's more, it's absolutely essential, absolutely essential revolutionaries listen to, and learn from the working class.

When I'm talking about debate, I'm not suggesting for one minute we act like the anarchists or perhaps Chilango, in trying to stimulate people to have their own debate and come to their own conclusions. We go in with a firm agenda, which can be rejected. Fruitless. But if you pitch your agenda at the right level, the aim is to maximise the number of people involved in struggle. Because ideas change in struggle.

It's only when your agenda fit with the class struggle, wins things, that you can expect to have any possibility of winning people to socialist revolution.


Whether socialist worker is as good at walking this walk, as talking this talk, is another issue. :)

PS. I think I have demonstrated extensively on here, I'm not an intellectual LOL. I don't always put the arguments across very well. You would be better off reading what they say for yourself.

Really got to, sorry.

ETA. In my humble opinion, it is the failures of the SWP to set their agenda at a target that will maximise the number of people involved outside the party, and win something, that has brought it to its current situation.
 
butchersapron said:
Fuck him :D Look at his record on here with me. Or rather, don't waste your time.
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Heh.

When I'm stuck in the house with a napping baby and the choice is arguing with RMP3 pointlessly on the internet or doing the dishes/laundry it's a close call. Today RMP3 won.

Tomorrow who knows? Maybe I'll do the hoovering...
 
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