(Prepare for) A Mighty Upsurge
- Thread starter belboid
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Fedayn
Well-Known Member
I've read the reports a few times and whilst, like others here I chuckled at a good few comments and reports there does seem to be a far better look at whats' happening than near any other group.
I've read a few critiques elsewhere, notably by former or current SWP types, railing at the hopeless optimism of the reports. However given the endless comments regarding the downturn and the grey clouds most SWP hacks think forecast of sun at the weekend are scandalously optimistic and un-Marxist.
I've read a few critiques elsewhere, notably by former or current SWP types, railing at the hopeless optimism of the reports. However given the endless comments regarding the downturn and the grey clouds most SWP hacks think forecast of sun at the weekend are scandalously optimistic and un-Marxist.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
You will find Green candidates coming out with just about anything, including no doubt dodgy anti immigrant shit. There's very little central control, so left wing Greens do their own thing but so do crazies.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
thats outrageous that you can't belong to an international political group in the US. How much dirty money funds the two r/w big parties there and wheres it sourced eh
BK Double Stack
Reconstructed Marcyite
Belboid: what I said about the Greens amounts to more than just them supporting SA candidates. Either you you didn't read my post or you're being dishonest.
J Ed
Follow Back Pro Expropriation
Thanks to Citizens United forrins can donate as much as they want to political parties too
muscovyduck
Good IT skills and food hygiene competent
Fed up of the TUSC twitter account retweeting everything Nancy Taffe says tbh.
Not relevant but whatever
Not relevant but whatever
andysays
Love and solidarity
Not normally a problem (here I mean, not a reference to your posts)
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
except all the other reasons are the ones usually given by other lefties to vote green
On top of all this there are or at least were two entirely seperate Green parties in the US
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_of_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greens/Green_Party_USA
I do think the US and South African stuff from the SP is nonsense - but it's also a red herring as the situation is more complex than either belboid or the SP make out.
While the report from the SP should embarrass any right thinking member of the organisation it is amusing that the person to start a thread on it is a member of an organisation which split over a row about roleplay in sex.
and I think Fed has a valid point about the difference in outlook between and organisation which seems to be doing alright and the Cliffite milieu who can only understand their predicament through the prism of the downturn (because what else could possibly explain their failure?)
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
What does that have to do with anything?
What's more amusing is how not one SPer has made any attempt to defend the hilariously stupid idea that we should be preparing for a mighty upsurge in class struggle.
And surviving isn't really doing alright, is it? Cos that's all the party is doing at the mo, no sign of it growing - and with daft comments like that, it never will.
It's perfectly legitimate for you to do so, but it adds an extra layer of humour for the rest of us
Actually given what's happened to the rest of the far left and anarchosphere I think surviving is doing alright.
The SP's biggest mistake is to not realise when they are doing the right thing and to fight against it to do the wrong thing instead in a belief it will help them get rich quick.
As I've said numerous times they don't understand why Sawant in the US was successful, they don't understand why they had 3 councillors in Coventry and respectable votes and the odd councillor elsewhere... If they did they would not be saying Sawant was part of a sea change or in this country they wouldn't be standing under the TUSC or No2EU banners.
SpackleFrog
Smash showy bell-bottom pants and sporty haircuts
Here you go then mate - WE SHOULD BE PREPARING FOR A MIGHTY UPTURN IN CLASS STRUGGLE. I'm not saying it's inevitable, but it's very likely, whether it comes this year or in 5 years or whatever. If you disagree with that statement, you are basically accepting that the working class will accept decades of attacks on their living standards. And if you've reached that point, you're not a socialist any more but just some hobbyist examining interesting peccadilloes.
Why do we write these reports? Fuck knows, nobody reads them. Is it well written? No. Was that line from Mary Jackson about "Why haven't we had a revolution" a good idea to include? No it definitely fucking wasn't - I love Mary but she comes out with this shite from time to time. Is the fundamental point of the article though, that we are in all likelihood moving toward a period of higher levels of class struggle, that the party needs to position itself accordingly, and that we're not doing a bad job of that.
Now on to you - you seem pretty desperate to try to elevate a naff conference report to evidence of a total lack of touch with reality on the SP's part, dropping in comparisons with all the insane stuff you put up with (not us - very few people I've come across in the SP would tolerate the SWP's nonsense - YOU) in the SWP.
What's this really about eh? How many years did you waste in the SWP, being told you had to learn conference reports and that there's never been a better time to be a socialist? Where are you at now politically? In an organisation which you freely admit is just a sad, pointless little talking shop?
Genuine question, and I'm not trying to be a dick here - does a part of you hope that every socialist organisation ever is proven to be just as insanely self defeating as the SWP, and thus absolve you and many others of your political failings?
PS You don't have to look any further than the end of your street in Sheffield to see we are growing by the way - only in modest terms but growing nonetheless.
SpackleFrog
Smash showy bell-bottom pants and sporty haircuts
Why do you think we were successful in Coventry and the US then?
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
what is the point in putting it as your headline? Making it the focal point of the piece? It isn't (according to the reports own statement) likely to happen for at least two years, so why talk it up now? And is it really likely to happen then?Well, of courtse we'd like to think so, but there is no real evidence to say tht it will. Of coure their will be at some point a return and a resurgence ion class struggle, but to say now that there will be, is plain daft. Why will people suddenly break from the union tops? Or will those tops be replaced? Again, why? It's just wishful thinking. That's it. Marxism is meant tobe scientific, that's just utopian.
bloody silly question, I hope we can build a socialist organisation that isn't hopelessly deluded, and lying to itself about the 'nature of the period' and the short and medium term prospects for success. Another one going whoop whoop is no use, even if it lifts your spirits for a while.
I actually thought the quote from Mary was perfectly reasonable, given the collapse of the system of course there bloody well should have been!
excuse me for being unconvinced. Standing in an absurd number of seats - far too many to run any serious kind of campaign around - wont help much either. Tho hopefully I'll be proved wrong and you'll all do great.
SpackleFrog
Smash showy bell-bottom pants and sporty haircuts
Do you see nothing contradictory in what you just said?
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
no. Are you a spontaneist?
SpackleFrog
Smash showy bell-bottom pants and sporty haircuts
No, I don't even know what that means. My point was that I don't understand how you can simultaneously say that there should have been a revolution by now but at the same time argue that "preparing for a mighty upturn in class struggle" is hopelessly optimistic.
As a side note, I wasn't at the Congress so I don't know, but Mary may have gone on to explain that the lack of a mass opposition to austerity could be explained by the incredibly low level of class consciousness and class struggle which preceded the crisis, in which case it wouldn't have been a daft thing to say.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
I think that there's a very good understanding of how the SP has occasionally won council seats in Coventry and a few other places. It has to do with very intensive work, local grounding, hard working candidates with a record of visibility etc. But there's also an understanding of the limits of that kind of work - the same limits the IWCA ran into, eg sustainability and reproducibility, not to mention the ease with which a small national voting shift can cost you seats you've fought over for a decade.
This is also true in Ireland but the smaller scale and the electoral system means that intensive local work can get you Dail seats and/or a national profile, which changes the sustainability/reproducibility question somewhat.
The Seattle vote is another issue again. A lot of British leftists want to fit it into the "hard local work" model, but they are hammering a square peg into a round hole. You don't come from nowhere to getting 50% of the vote across a major city on that basis. Different processes are involved.
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
Why would we defend stuff that we don't necessarily agree with and, in my case, find cringeworthy. We're not the fucking borg.
Aside from which, you've openly admitted on this very thread that you wouldn't defend half the (even more insane) stuff your org comes out with.
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
Some of us do and have done for a little while. I've been quite open for some time in opposing the TUSC strategy. That said, I'd rather we had a flawed electoral strategy that at least means there is a left alternative for people to vote for, even in tiny numbers, than nothing at all.
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
Yeah, I'll accept criticisms, even crap ones, but anyone who starts on Mary makes an enemy of me - one of the nicest, most effective and most committed socialists you could ever meet.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
well, if none of you agree with it, its an exceptionally odd choice of headline! Clearly your leadership agree with it
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
Much as I would like to have the final say on what is and isn't published unfortunately that's not yet the case.
TUSC is going nowhere, actually Class War have the right idea when it comes to standing for election, if you do it take the piss and be combative, use the occasion to inject that into the discourse. Don't just be a dull trot with some reheated eurosceptic Bennite stuff to dole out, if you're going to lose at least make it interesting and a wortwhile thing. Sometimes the SP's actually managed to do the electoral stuff quite well, but after how many years TUSC isn't replicating any of those successes.
What is going to happen to TUSC now Bob Crow's gone?
Fucks sake as if TUSC outlived Bob Crow there's no justice
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Well, no. But your leadership obviously do.
Fedayn
Well-Known Member
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
That's a statement of the bleeding obvious though isn't it? How much of the stuff that comes from the ISN leadership do you agree/disagree with?
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