Questions for IWCA

[Nigel]

So there were no trade unionists or working class people at the biggest political demonstration in british history then?

What would be the benefit of allowing the 'resistance' to win in Iraq for the indigenous Trade Union Movement and left.

Blindly supporting Islamicists may not be the answer.
The last demonstration of the anti war movement that I went on had Islamicists intimidating young Asian women for not wearing a scarf, denouncing the Jews, and calling for an Islamic Kaliphate. All putting up Orange banners at a specific time.

These are the people who are smashing strikers like the recent industrial action by bus workers in Iran. Or the Grey Wolves: Fascistic Militias in Turkey.

 

[LLETSA]

I think Justin's spot-on about Andrew Smith (not an evil man, but by being in the cabinet that went to war, he's a classic example of 'letting evil triumph') and the IWCA ('lairy' is the perfect description!). They are essentially populists, with a nasty vigilantist streak on dealing with crime and drug-dealing. They use 'working class' rhetoric to avoid taking a stance on wider political issues - Matt can testify that they abstained from the vote on the council to impeach Blair, as it wasn't a 'working-class' issue (presumably they don't consider Brish squaddies working class). One of their councillors made a speach in council attacking multi-culturalism, and in particular the funding of Eid lights on Cowley Road. Again, it was all couched in 'working-class' rhetoric, but objectiely it leaves them in the same camp as Veritas. (OR, as I call them, In Vino Veritas, cos you'd have to be p***ed to vote for Kilroy-Silk)

MikeE

Traditionally, the western far-left takes a 'our evil is better than their evil' stance, when it comes to 'letting evil triumph.' All in the name of anti-imperialism, of course. Hence, in the eyes of the working class, the far-left is identified with support for anti-working class dictators; hardly surprisingly, this obscures the crimes of the infinitely more sophisticated rulers and apologists for western capitalism for most workers, who are simply thankful that they do not live under most of the regimes that the far-left either takes a positive attitude towards, or else tolerates as 'anti-imperialist.'

As for the rest of MikeE's post, all it proves is that, like most of the far-left, he doesn't understand any kind of pro-working class politics that tries to make a difference on issues that can bring about change in the lives of working class people now. He fails to understand that, unless you can do this, there will never grow working class organisations able to alter the wider picture. Hence, what he doesn't understand (or doesn't want to), he seeks to vilify.

The far-left is like a stuck record. Incapable of admitting (or even recognising) its mistakes, it is doomed to repeat them ad infinitum.

 

[audiotech]

I would bet that there were plenty of working class people who were opposed to the war, or at least had misgivings about it, but, quite understandably, did not go on any demos because they had the nous to realise that there was no chance whatsoever of stopping it, no matter how many marched.

Luxuary of hindsight alway's handy innit?

There was alway's a chance to stop it before it began. It's clear 'plenty' believed in the 45 minutes warning and WMD nonsense. They wouldn't now.

 

[Nigel]

Anyway I thought the main argument was against Stuart Crafts' position by the 'Anti War Movement', was that Oxford should not twin with Fallujah or Rammallah or something.

Out of curiosity what benefit would this have done?

 

[Chuck Wilson]

EG the provision of Eid lights for the sizable Muslim community. Now whether or not the Muslims would want them is another matter, but Craft is opposed to them fullstop because he says they divided the working class on racial and religious grounds. How? He doesn't say.

If "Culture and race" and redundant ideas then do we abstain from issues like police racism and the treatment of asylum seekers? I guess the IWCA would answer yes to that.

Far from abstaining on racism members of the IWCA have a superb history of anti fascist work, funnily enough so do the working class as a whole as it is has a higher percentage of mixed race realtionships and communities.funnily enough this was not down to the middle class and their self elected champions on race. do yopu think for a moment if a tenant or esident apprioached the IWCA and said that they had been racially abused that the IWCA would say turn the other cheek?

So why not ask these communities do you want Xmas lights, Eid lights etc etc. Most people are actually quite tolerant of others. Or ask them you can have extra assitance for drug users on the estate or a community clear up day or a day out for all kids in the area or fre bus travel or bloody eid and Xmas lights.

What does stand out is that at a time when in your own words poverty exists you seem to think that it can be fobbed off with some tinsel and light bulbs.

 

[revol68]

Far from abstaining on racism members of the IWCA have a superb history of anti fascist work, funnily enough so do the working class as a whole as it is has a higher percentage of mixed race realtionships and communities.funnily enough this was not down to the middle class and their self elected champions on race. do yopu think for a moment if a tenant or esident apprioached the IWCA and said that they had been racially abused that the IWCA would say turn the other cheek?

So why not ask these communities do you want Xmas lights, Eid lights etc etc. Most people are actually quite tolerant of others. Or ask them you can have extra assitance for drug users on the estate or a community clear up day or a day out for all kids in the area or fre bus travel or bloody eid and Xmas lights.

What does stand out is that at a time when in your own words poverty exists you seem to think that it can be fobbed off with some tinsel and light bulbs.

i think the real issue is that the y should have to choose. the IWCA ends up having to manage the piss poor resources the local council are allotted and so a zero sum politic ensues.

 

[LLETSA]

Luxuary of hindsight alway's handy innit?

There was alway's a chance to stop it before it began. It's clear 'plenty' believed in the 45 minutes warning and WMD nonsense. They wouldn't now.

I think I remember having a drawn-out debate about this with you during the build-up to the war, on another board. I said at the the time, more than once, that there was no chance of stopping the war, and criticised the far-left's obsession with international issues when, as organisations, they do precisely nothing to affect the everyday lives of working class people.

 

[LLETSA]

i think the real issue is that the y should have to choose. the IWCA ends up having to manage the piss poor resources the local council are allotted and so a zero sum politic ensues.

This stuff is amusing in its laziness and stupidity. That's because the fools who parrot it are intellectually lazy. And that's because they're stupid. Hey look, there's a kind of pattern there!

To hear them talk, you would think that the IWCA was running councils and actually doing the dastardly deeds that its 'radical' detractors accuse them of in advance. In actual fact, that day is a very long way off-and might never come. Soft lad here, along with his fellow pipsqueaks, doesn't actually know what the IWCA would do were it in a position to 'manage the piss poor resources the local council are allotted.' Obviously, if they ever found themselves in such a position, they would have been put there because the political situation in the country had changed drastically. So drastically that the strategy of the IWCA might well have changed unrecognisably (no dead Russians to hold them back.) If the working class does take centre stage again, I don't think that either the far-left, with their gesture politics ('hey, let's all get in coaches and march round London for a few hours yet again! That'll show them!) or people like revol 68, Soulman and Attica with their obsessive preoccupation with political alternatives that exist only in their own fevered minds, will be all that relevant to what's going on.

But there you go.

 

[Nigel]

Old Mother Reilly

Obviously, if they ever found themselves in such a position, they would have been put there because the political situation in the country had changed drastically. So drastically that the strategy of the IWCA might well have changed unrecognisably (no dead Russians to hold them back.)

Just a mad Irishmen!!!!
And a couple of his Cohorts!

 

[LLETSA]

Obviously, if they ever found themselves in such a position, they would have been put there because the political situation in the country had changed drastically. So drastically that the strategy of the IWCA might well have changed unrecognisably (no dead Russians to hold them back.)

Just a mad Irishmen!!!!
And a couple of his Cohorts!

This another one with a screw loose?

 

[Nigel]

Shall I take this as a complement??
People who live in glass houses...........?

 

[Nigel]

Those who don't learn the lessons of history are condemned to Repeat them

Obviously, if they ever found themselves in such a position, they would have been put there because the political situation in the country had changed drastically. So drastically that the strategy of the IWCA might well have changed unrecognisably (no dead Russians to hold them back.)

Just a mad Irishmen!!!!
And a couple of his Cohorts!

So seriously LLETSA, are you saying that their are no lessons to be learnt from history, esepecially by the writings of the main players, promenant players and political leaders of one of the few succesful socialist revolutions in history, of which almost all others were influenced by & whose regime, however corrupted, deformed & degenerated held together for over 70 years.

 

[Chuck Wilson]

So seriously LLETSA, are you saying that their are no lessons to be learnt from history, esepecially by the writings of the main players, promenant players and political leaders of one of the few succesful socialist revolutions in history, of which almost all others were influenced by & whose regime, however corrupted, deformed & degenerated held together for over 70 years.

Stick to hanging around with the SP whilst they let you.

 

[soulman]

This stuff is amusing in its laziness and stupidity. That's because the fools who parrot it are intellectually lazy. And that's because they're stupid. Hey look, there's a kind of pattern there!

To hear them talk, you would think that the IWCA was running councils and actually doing the dastardly deeds that its 'radical' detractors accuse them of in advance. In actual fact, that day is a very long way off-and might never come. Soft lad here, along with his fellow pipsqueaks, doesn't actually know what the IWCA would do were it in a position to 'manage the piss poor resources the local council are allotted.' Obviously, if they ever found themselves in such a position, they would have been put there because the political situation in the country had changed drastically. So drastically that the strategy of the IWCA might well have changed unrecognisably (no dead Russians to hold them back.) If the working class does take centre stage again, I don't think that either the far-left, with their gesture politics ('hey, let's all get in coaches and march round London for a few hours yet again! That'll show them!) or people like revol 68, Soulman and Attica with their obsessive preoccupation with political alternatives that exist only in their own fevered minds, will be all that relevant to what's going on.

But there you go.

You're doing it again cunt. Trying to lump people together to create some kind of common enemy for your little marxist group. While revol, myself and Attica might well have some criticisms that overlap it's quite obvious to anyone with a bit of nowse that you're talking about three individuals who have a seperate critique that they've arrived at independently.

You know what never ceases to amaze me is that these marxist statist grouplets can never see their irrelevance to most people. Instead what develops is some kind of defensive collective psyche whereby they feed off reasoned criticism and take the position of hard-done-by politicos fighting the good fight against all the odds, in the council chambers, in the labour movement, sometimes in parliament, now on game shows it seems.

20th Century history is littered with them and still they believe they have something to offer.

 

[LLETSA]

You're doing it again cunt. Trying to lump people together to create some kind of common enemy for your little marxist group. While revol, myself and Attica might well have some criticisms that overlap it's quite obvious to anyone with a bit of nowse that you're talking about three individuals who have a seperate critique that they've arrived at independently.

You know what never ceases to amaze me is that these marxist statist grouplets can never see their irrelevance to most people. Instead what develops is some kind of defensive collective psyche whereby they feed off reasoned criticism and take the position of hard-done-by politicos fighting the good fight against all the odds, in the council chambers, in the labour movement, sometimes in parliament, now on game shows it seems.

20th Century history is littered with them and still they believe they have something to offer.

Leaving aside the fact that you are seeking to slay the straw man again, I have nowhere said that the three of you are working in harmony. You do indeed all arrive at Dickhead Station by independent roads, even if they do intersect in some places.

That conclusion is nothing to do with the IWCA, by the way, and everything to do with me.

The common thread that runs through you all? You are all so busy focussing on the supposed shortcomings of the IWCA that you hope people will overlook the fact that the so-called alternatives you put forward are entirely imaginary.

What is it about boards like this that turns some of those who lose the argument into people who come across like they should be wearing a sandwich board outside the tube station? Wipe those flecks of foam from the corners of your mouth, have a stiff one and go sleep it off again. There's a good lad. Stop coming on at this late hour: you're doing yourself no favours.

(Anyway, I thought you declared this thread no longer worthy of your attention some time before Christmas?)

 

[soulman]

Leaving aside the fact that you are seeking to slay the straw man again, I have nowhere said that the three of you are working in harmony. You do indeed all arrive at Dickhead Station by independent roads, even if they do intersect in some places.

That conclusion is nothing to do with the IWCA, by the way, and everything to do with me.

The common thread that runs through you all? You are all so busy focussing on the supposed shortcomings of the IWCA that you hope people will overlook the fact that the so-called alternatives you put forward are entirely imaginary.

What is it about boards like this that turns some of those who lose the argument into people who come across like they should be wearing a sandwich board outside the tube station? Wipe those flecks of foam from the corners of your mouth, have a stiff one and go sleep it off again. There's a good lad. Stop coming on at this late hour: you're doing yourself no favours.

(Anyway, I thought you declared this thread no longer worthy of your attention some time before Christmas?)

And right on cue LLETSA does the defensive hard-done-by thing. You've constantly accused people of not putting forward an alternative, now there seems to be one. Maybe you can explain the alternatives I've put forward then I could explain them to you.

I'm here because I got home from work just after midnight and I'm taking some time to catch up and relax before I go to bed. Why are you here LLETSA?

If I have posted on this thread before I don't remember, probably wasn't that important to me. Got a post number or even better a link?

 

[LLETSA]

And right on cue LLETSA does the defensive hard-done-by thing. You've constantly accused people of not putting forward an alternative, now there seems to be one. Maybe you can explain the alternatives I've put forward then I could explain them to you.

I'm here because I got home from work just after midnight and I'm taking some time to catch up and relax before I go to bed. Why are you here LLETSA?

If I have posted on this thread before I don't remember, probably wasn't that important to me. Got a post number or even better a link?

Sorry, I was thinking it was the other thread. You know, the one that you initiated about the 'IWCA in the North' with a smug, smartarse, 'I'll show 'em'' attitude, which, after a short discussion conducted in reasonable tones, degenerated into half-baked, pie-in-the-sky theories from you, which people then laughed at and you took the huff and went all childish and petulant. Pie-in-the-sky theories do not amount to an alternative, even if you dress them up like one (which you did.) Meanwhile, the lunatics had started rattling the doors and windows of the asylum....

Given the tone in which you began the other thread, you should be able to take a bit of mild piss-taking and sarcasm.

Apologies once again-I must be getting tired, what with having to wait up for you and your nocturnal rantings. Your threats shook me so much that I'm afraid to go to sleep anyway....

(Cue for soulman to post up final word, complete with 'cool' smiley.)