Origins of the IWCA?

[The Black Hand]

past Caring said "1) RA is run by MI5? Clearly the implication - "was that a spook I saw go past? Or is s/he under and/or around the table??"

Evidence please - or a retraction."

Note the appropriate use of question marks - i wasn't saying I had evidence of one. BUT Everybody knows that the RA bomber was being watched VERY VERY closely before being lifted - didn't they follow him for a month before lifting him?... I was alluding to a general issue of surveillance... Certainly they do plant spooks in organisations as well as monitor them very closely. In short no need to retract because I only raised the possibility...


I also forgot to mention I did try to add a bit of comedy to proceedings...

I have many examples of alternatives to the IWCA - if somebody was to stump up 6k for me to use - I could write a better programme in around 3 months with some help... And that's mainly on my own. With a budget of around 20k I'd want to draw in a few other people, and it would be even better... Dream on

You also said this
Black - "While I going to be general here routine trade union, and community advice still works believe it or not - the success of which can be measured by the feedback from the people involved.

PC - I nearly fell off my chair."

Well I was thinking of the work of Dave Douglass here www.minersadvice.co.uk Certainly succesfully bridging workplace and community organising over a long period of time, and I'm sure there are other examples of his type although none come to mind. Cos I am thinking about those who are not involved in what passes for the left, they just do it.
It's not too difficult to think about so stop the drama queen rubbish and get back on your chair...

Finally PC said "I strongly suspect that TBH is talking about Sunderland here and TWAFA. That'll be the same TWAFA that works hand in in hand with Searchlight and is sponsored by the New Labour City Council. That'll be the same Sunderland where the fash are climbing all over the furniture - 13,000 votes city wide last May iirc......."

WELL NO - i is not thinking about these.ALso Shall we use the opportunity to remind ourselves that the IWCA strategy for Sunderland (and many other places) is not working either... I hear the BNP are fielding a full slate there again soon too... It really isn't a question of IWCA or fash growth, that is rubbish.


I know of working class independents acheiving votes of the same order of the IWCA, so this then means that the IWCA isn't essential. Finally, people say waving criminal records (SWP- searchlight) will not stop the BNP, people must therefore view the BNP as fighting FOR THEM. Therefore, why must people discount a physical approach to this now when PEOPLE who will never vote for the BNP may regard anti Fa's in the same light. ALL the hype about working in enemy territory 'so we must adapt' FORGETS that even in these areas the majority ARE not voting BNP. And it's these who are more interesting for me...

Finally as for Thompson, I have the noble aim of doing what he did for the emerging industrial working class, for the working class now. I know I am on the right road, of course not got there yet, and I just might email you some evidence...

All the best, The Black Hand

 

[Flook]

All this stuff is a bit over my head but it is nice to read that the above poster, the Black Hand, wants to do something for the working class.

Well you could do something with our little group which meets every Wednesday at The Rifle in Enfield Lock, very much run by working people. Our shares club not only has good form in terms of average yields but has also raised over £3000 for the premature baby unit at the local hospital.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Please TBH just direct us to these election results as they appear in the public domain and then we can do our own research and learn without compromising your security concerns - otherwise it just looks a bit...well empty.

Cheers - Louis Mac

 

[The Black Hand]

Please TBH just direct us to these election results as they appear in the public domain and then we can do our own research and learn without compromising your security concerns - otherwise it just looks a bit...well empty.

Cheers - Louis Mac

Well as I have had a drink I have not taken kindly to this comment - so I'm going to indulge in a little petulance... And no, I don't care

WELL shall we hold up the mirror a little bit and look for 'empty' promises - like the IWCA pretending to fill the vacuum but NEVER standing DIRECTLY against the BNP BY all means correct me if i have got the numbers TOTALLY wrong and you've stood in dozens of elections against them. Or is it just 1, or perhaps none at all? (honestly i really don't know) I hear a bit about the London Mayor (that well known city with several BNP councillors, NOT) but it's a long time coming, a decade down the line Who's the young pretender now.... ?? And you know what they say about keeping fools in suspense don't you? ? .... Funnily enough, it was only earlier this afternoon that i emailed one of your lot saying I would send the details soon of the election i was on about. I will keep to my word and do it as soon as I get round to collecting the information together cos it involves a bit of mileage. But not here. No.

And by the way - I DID notice you didn't deal with any of the points from my last post.

 

[Happy Harry]

Jeez, you're hard work.

All the IWCA can offer is its own analysis, method and vision of building an alternative politics, centred around community-based struggle. It can only really do that in the areas where people have come forward to implement that vision. Occasionally, an opportunity such as the mayoral election may come around where there is a chance to promote the IWCA's politics to a far wider audience than would normally be viable.

The simple fact is there will be no IWCA presence in an area (whether the BNP are active there or not) unless people in that area come forward.

Maybe the IWCA will not achieve its aims - that remains to be seen. There are certainly no big claims being made on the IWCA site nor by anyone on these boards that I have seen.

The trouble is your viewpoint is clearly clouded by all the bile you hold for "the Redaction". It really isn't that healthy to hold all that inside. Move on, do something constructive.

 

[Sean]

Well as I have had a drink I have not taken kindly to this comment - so I'm going to indulge in a little petulance... And no, I don't care

Funnily enough, it was only earlier this afternoon that i emailed one of your lot saying I would send the details soon of the election i was on about. I will keep to my word and do it as soon as I get round to collecting the information together cos it involves a bit of mileage. But not here. No.

Sorry Black Hand, this is just empty waffle. What's the point of claiming there's plenty of evidence about independent working class activism and then failing to produce it. Either there's plenty of evidence or there isn't. This strikes me as being the same desperate argument Cliffite used a few months ago when he disappeared to find some (apparently non-existent) research that would back up all his arguments, ever.

I'd love there to be pockets of dedicated activists engaging in working class community struggles all over the country, but until someone produces the evidence... you get my drift?

 

[juice_terry]

The black hand it's all so easy to snipe away from in front of your p.c in haggerston - so when the evidence is put forward by you , i may actually take some notice of what you are saying. So who exactly has set you up to "stir it up" a little bit??

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Hello TBH - the only substantive points you've come out with so far have been:

1. The IWCA claims that it alone has the answers. What the IWCA has actually put forward is a strategy that places the wroking class firmly centre stage as the ones who have the answers; the challenge has been made to put forward an alternative strategy which better fits the current conditions we find ourselves in and that contest won't be resolved here. All of which leaves your IWCA exclusivity claims looking a bit thread bare.

3. There are examples of sustained, credible and effective working class self-organisation and activity outside of the IWCA. Brilliant, just what is needed, and even better now that you have decided to share these examples. Thanks TBH I for one really want to see this stuff and learn from it.

3. RA and by association the IWCA are Leninists (albeit closet or even sub-conscious ones). You don't provide any evidence for these assertions. Evidence of RA's anti-leninism can be found on thier web site at http://www.redaction.org/open/remember.html . As for the IWCA, well perhaps you'd care to point out where the closet/subconscious Leninism reveals itself? once again without detail it's just comes across as empty talk.

Cheers - Louis Mac

Well as I have had a drink I have not taken kindly to this comment - so I'm going to indulge in a little petulance... And no, I don't care

WELL shall we hold up the mirror a little bit and look for 'empty' promises - like the IWCA pretending to fill the vacuum but NEVER standing DIRECTLY against the BNP BY all means correct me if i have got the numbers TOTALLY wrong and you've stood in dozens of elections against them. Or is it just 1, or perhaps none at all? (honestly i really don't know) I hear a bit about the London Mayor (that well known city with several BNP councillors, NOT) but it's a long time coming, a decade down the line Who's the young pretender now.... ?? And you know what they say about keeping fools in suspense don't you? ? .... Funnily enough, it was only earlier this afternoon that i emailed one of your lot saying I would send the details soon of the election i was on about. I will keep to my word and do it as soon as I get round to collecting the information together cos it involves a bit of mileage. But not here. No.

And by the way - I DID notice you didn't deal with any of the points from my last post.

 

[Joe Reilly]

Well as I have had a drink ...so I'm going to indulge in a little petulance...
QUOTE]

Do you expect any of us to believe you are actually SOBER the rest of the time!? LOL

 

[The Black Hand]

The black hand it's all so easy to snipe away from in front of your p.c in haggerston - so when the evidence is put forward by you , i may actually take some notice of what you are saying. So who exactly has set you up to "stir it up" a little bit??

Well actually you missed me by about 300 miles AND a considerable period of time, evidence of which I did email to 'one of yours' t'other day. As a critical left/anarchist/communist/libertarian/Marxist/humanist (delete to your own preference - I go with either Marxist Humanist/Libertarian communist/Anarcho Marxist or Left anarchist) I have no option but to call it as I see it. This is criticism (you know, in the revolutionary tradition) and we should ALL be able to think about ideas shouldn't we? Since the RA/IWCA fanclub started posting on here not so long ago it's got irritatingly one-dimensional, and I do like to promote other critical ways of being. I am not keen on knee jerk conformism.

Reply to Louis 1 - But what you said is contradicted by the IWCA fanclubs construction of its own self identity as THE only way forward - note how this fanclub swiftly pounces on things to dismiss them, such as the launch of the 'new no platform anti fascist group- anti fa'. IF you're SO good you would be able to leave these titbits alone cos, lets face it, they're only just starting out. BUT your lot condemned them ASAP before they've really done anything.... This attitude is not Marxist nor communist, though it is Leninist.

Louis said this: "3. There are examples of sustained, credible and effective working class self-organisation and activity outside of the IWCA. Brilliant, just what is needed, and even better now that you have decided to share these examples. Thanks TBH I for one really want to see this stuff and learn from it."

BUT I HAVE already posted up workplace and community work that can be found via www.minersadvice.co.uk and the fine work of Dave Douglass (and his other books/articles), bridging the artifical divides of community/workplace over a long period of time. As I said I need to collect the other information together. In the mean time I suggest you read Dave's books/articles, there are several of them, the impressive speech he made at the start of the 'great strike' is one of the great class war interventions of all time. (see Dave Douglass,"Agit-prop: Delegate's speech at Hatfield Main" in "The Enemy Within: Pit villages and the miners' strike of 1984-5", edited by Samuel, R. et al, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul) The point being, as Thompson and his fellow travellers say (e.g. Harvey Kaye) that class is experience, it didn't start with the IWCA nor will it end when the IWCA passes away - Everything that has a beginning has an end

I will add that I really like the work of the Construction Safety Campaign, longterm workplace organising, and other Health and Safety researchers, such as David Bergman, and Steve Tombs. The mobilising surrounding the Bhopal survivors is also very significant, but then I am an internationalist as was Marx... If you are really interested about long-term reformation of a radical working class current hadn't you better examine what happened in the past in this country. I don't think any of you have read "EP Thompson: Critical Perspectives" edited by Harvey Kaye, 1990, Temple University Press. And that's a shame because it contains within it the means by which the working class formed itself in the early 19th century during the period of economic liberalism. And unfortunatly for you it wasn't on the IWCA model. Now we are under neo-liberalism the lessons of this for me are clear...

Finally, cos you never replied to this and i think it's rather good - here's me again;

"Finally, some anti fascists say waving BNP criminal records (SWP- searchlight) at the electorate during campaigns will not stop the BNP, some voters must therefore view the BNP as fighting FOR THEM. Therefore, why must people discount a physical approach to this now when PEOPLE who will never vote for the BNP may regard anti Fa's in the same light. ALL the hype about working in enemy territory 'so we must adapt' FORGETS that even in these areas the majority ARE not voting BNP. And it's these who are more interesting for me..." I am sure seeing Le Pen and the BNP a tad humiliated so recently will have given many voters & anti Nazis heart for the struggles ahead, 3 cheers for the British Police and 10 cheers for those 'anti nazis' who turned out to do it.

 

[The Black Hand]

Loius I had a scan read of this http://www.redaction.org/open/remember.html . and to be honest I would rather of had a look at the original debates within OP. Has this article changed my opinion of RA? NO. Because the promotion of one tendency ie the IWCA, has not escaped the vanguardism of a 'one party' answer ie. Leninism. This is also outside of the way the class forms itself (a reference to the extremely limited recognition of the IWCA within the working class, and how class identity is formed e.g. at work) EVEN if the IWCA has the openest of programmes, and the IWCA's is far from being totally open...

 

[scawenb]

On the question of IWCA origins - I was one of those invovled right at the start. I've got their very first leaflet somewhere which sums-up its aim and also list those involved - Red Action, Revolutionary Communist Group, Communist Action Group and others. It followed on from Scargill's Old Labourite SLP and was more of an alliance of groups to do practical work at election time and amongst communities than a parliamentary strategy.

 

[cathal marcs]

the IWCA, has not escaped the vanguardism of a 'one party' answer ie. Leninism. ..

Using that logic almost all political parties must be Leninist in that only they can create a better society.

 

[hibee]

Loius I had a scan read of this http://www.redaction.org/open/remember.html . and to be honest I would rather of had a look at the original debates within OP. Has this article changed my opinion of RA? NO. Because the promotion of one tendency ie the IWCA, has not escaped the vanguardism of a 'one party' answer ie. Leninism. This is also outside of the way the class forms itself (a reference to the extremely limited recognition of the IWCA within the working class, and how class identity is formed e.g. at work) EVEN if the IWCA has the openest of programmes, and the IWCA's is far from being totally open...

It's one thing to have a critique of parties. But by your defintion the Liberal Democrats, the DUP and Plaid Cymru are all "leninist".

Has the word "leninist" now become as degraded by anarchists as "racist" has been by trots and liberals?

 

[scawenb]

Anarchists attack their enemies as Leninists
Leninists attack their enemies as Trotskyists
Trotskyists attack their enemies as Stalinists
Stalinists attack their enemies as Liberals
Liberals attack their enemies as Anarchists . . .