Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
people paid for space in the weekly worker?
RCP/Spiked/IoI
- Thread starter Blagsta
- Start date
I'm sure it reached a wider audience than it would have by itselfAnd how did that work out for them?
Lo Siento.
Second As Farce
withdrawn. Should read more.
Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
And how did that work out for them?
Not actually that stupid an idea for a two or three man band (now apparently reduced). The WW had a big readership amongst members and ex members of various left organisations, which is precisely the target audience of that sort of sectlet. It makes more sense than producing your own rag about the problems with all the other little left group. It's both cheaper and has much better distribution. Even better you don't have to get off your hole to sell it, as some other fool is doing the work. The problem was that the RDG contributions used to combine being boring and repetitive with being a bit mad.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
You're too generous.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Possibly. I found them so boring and repetitive that I quickly learnt to automatically skip them.
nogojones
spelling is overrated
I've just noticed a campaign to ban Brendan O'Neill from campuses. fuck his free speach
https://www.facebook.com/events/932013066831285/?fref=ts
https://www.facebook.com/events/932013066831285/?fref=ts
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nino_savatte
No pasaran!
They should also ban Claire Fox. She doesn't half spout a load of shite.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
They should ban anyone called Brendan or O'Neill, just to be sure.
Fuck free speech - Je suis Charlie - Peace off.
billy_bob
Air of bewilderment model's own
When I was at university they spent a significant amount of time siding with the BNP against the rest of the left over whether fascists should (even when not standing in an election) be given a platform at the union.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
Who was inviting the BNP to the Uni?
billy_bob
Air of bewilderment model's own
No-one. They asked to be allowed to hold a (public) meeting and were turned down.
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
Loads of documents in SpinWatch's Scribd account:
https://www.scribd.com/collections/2699325/LM-network
https://www.scribd.com/collections/2699325/LM-network
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
http://www.scribd.com/doc/182342717/Frank-Furedi-Midnight-in-the-Century-Living-Marxism-Dec-1990
This article by Furedi seems to be the turning point, or at least it is near the turning point. The 1989 and 1990 "Preparing for Power" (!) public event programmes are basically those of a somewhat arrogant and slightly more intellectually inclined than most Trotskyist outfit. But between July 1990 and Dec 1990, quite a lot of the old stuff disappears and much (but not all) of the new course is settled. It's not so much that they have dropped leftist politics as that they have shifted from a radical optimism to a radical pessimism, which clearly lays the ground for entirely abandoning the left wing stuff over the next few years.
This article by Furedi seems to be the turning point, or at least it is near the turning point. The 1989 and 1990 "Preparing for Power" (!) public event programmes are basically those of a somewhat arrogant and slightly more intellectually inclined than most Trotskyist outfit. But between July 1990 and Dec 1990, quite a lot of the old stuff disappears and much (but not all) of the new course is settled. It's not so much that they have dropped leftist politics as that they have shifted from a radical optimism to a radical pessimism, which clearly lays the ground for entirely abandoning the left wing stuff over the next few years.
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
I think 'radical pessimism' hits the nail on the head. That essay was one they were always banging on about in the early 90s.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
It's surprisingly short and glib.
The main thing that's notable is the arrogance of the late 80s material, the Red Front, the Preparing for Power conferences etc and the suddenness with which all of the confidence seems to disappear. Not all of the personal arrogance - they are still, in their new conception, the only ones capable of doing what's necessary - but the political confidence. It's no coincidence, I suppose that the Eastern Bloc was crumbling in that period and the dominant narrative was the triumph of capitalism.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
A month earlier, the next step devoted an issue to the departure of Thatcher. In a way it's a bit more substantive than Furedi's article in its pessimistic new take, but it still poses the answer as the building of a revolutionary party. And it argues that the destruction wrought by Thatcherism has "cleared the decks for the emergence of a new working class movement in the nineties". Not so in December.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/169146747/Next-Step-30-November-1990-No38
http://www.scribd.com/doc/169146747/Next-Step-30-November-1990-No38
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
These two are the most prized parts of Spinwatch's collection, I suspect. Both are from their "Our Tasks and Methods" debate in 1996, just before the a RCP was formally wound up in 1997.
www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/72180002
http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/72188623
The first, by "Fiona Foster", is quite frankly bizarre, all about the psychological benefits of RCP membership even now that their dreams have come to naught. There are lots of references to other people having adopted the "false critique", which seems to be a catch all term for what they see as irrationalist, anti-human or backward looking political or social views. To be blunt, it reads more like the kind of thing you find on sites devoted to exposing Scientology or LaRouchite documents than like anything I'd previously seen from the RCP.
The second is a one page piece on a particular attempt to "raise our profile in the bourgeois world", and is as close to a "smoking gun" as Spinwatch' and Co have ever found backing their view that the post-RCP are still engaged in a joint political project, through an organised attempt to influence "mainstream debates.
The problem with seeing the second document as a kind of "blueprint", explaining their behaviour since, is that it assumes a certain ongoing political and organisational continuity which seems a bit unlikely given how quickly they were evolving in that period. It shows that they did deliberately engage in an organised series of attempts to "raise our profile in the bourgeois world", in order to pursue their project of creating a new political subject (or perhaps more precisely creating the conditions where such a subject could emerge). But all of the preceding evidence is of an organisation rapidly swapping old ideas for new ones while at the same time spinning apart. How likely is it that they remained essentially stable and coherent for the following two decades?
www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/72180002
http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/72188623
The first, by "Fiona Foster", is quite frankly bizarre, all about the psychological benefits of RCP membership even now that their dreams have come to naught. There are lots of references to other people having adopted the "false critique", which seems to be a catch all term for what they see as irrationalist, anti-human or backward looking political or social views. To be blunt, it reads more like the kind of thing you find on sites devoted to exposing Scientology or LaRouchite documents than like anything I'd previously seen from the RCP.
The second is a one page piece on a particular attempt to "raise our profile in the bourgeois world", and is as close to a "smoking gun" as Spinwatch' and Co have ever found backing their view that the post-RCP are still engaged in a joint political project, through an organised attempt to influence "mainstream debates.
The problem with seeing the second document as a kind of "blueprint", explaining their behaviour since, is that it assumes a certain ongoing political and organisational continuity which seems a bit unlikely given how quickly they were evolving in that period. It shows that they did deliberately engage in an organised series of attempts to "raise our profile in the bourgeois world", in order to pursue their project of creating a new political subject (or perhaps more precisely creating the conditions where such a subject could emerge). But all of the preceding evidence is of an organisation rapidly swapping old ideas for new ones while at the same time spinning apart. How likely is it that they remained essentially stable and coherent for the following two decades?
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
"Fiona Foster" now has an OBE!
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
Isn't "Fiona Foster" Claire Fox's sister?
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
I still have a chuckle at "Preparing for Power". How fucking delusional was that? 
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
Look who's involved in this Spiked! organised event. Only Policy Exchange.
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/events/#.VNpCJSusXnh
Then there's this pencil neck.
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/events/#.VNpCJSusXnh
Then there's this pencil neck.
TOM SLATER
COORDINATOR, FSUR
Assistant editor at spiked, freelance arts journalist, head of the 'Down With Campus Censorship!' campaign and coordinator of the FSUR.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
I still have a chuckle at "Preparing for Power". How fucking delusional was that?
They really swing from the most extreme optimism ("Preparing for Power") to the most extreme pessimism ("Midnight in the a Century") very quickly. This more than the abandonment of left wing views is the big shift. The left wing stuff gets dropped relatively slowly and unevenly over five or six years. Their 1992 election manifesto is still, for instance, straightforwardly socialist.
I can see why both of these approaches were attractive to some. Who wants to be in a sect that measures itself against other little sects rather than against the tasks it allegedly exists to accomplish? If you are going to devote your political life to a project, shouldn't it show some ambition? Then the violence of the pessimistic swing is partly explained by the intensity of the preceding optimism and ambition, but there is a reasonable kernel or two to their assessment of the state of the socialist and labour movements even as that assessment is exaggerated and used as a foundation for an obnoxious new project.
Yes, "Fiona Foster" is the sister of Claire Fox.
The part I'm most interested in is what happened to the membership outside of the old leadership and their inner circle of hangers on and useful contacts. There were no organised splits. I've very rarely encountered any ex- RCP people around the left. Yet quite a large sect went through a process of abandoning its ideas in favour of a new project, with little head for the existing rank and file. What happened to those people?
Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
What an absolute cunt.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
They've largely organised themselves into a loose network. Their taste for front groups has never diminished.
A couple of ex-RCPers (Barnfield and Calcutt) work at my university.
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There was a fun article about the Modern Movement possibly linked to on this very thread - I think it answers some of those questions
ETA it was me what posted it http://necessaryagitation.wordpress...the-continuity-revolutionary-communist-party/
Nigel Irritable
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Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Yes, but that's the old leadership, inner circle and useful contacts from the rank and file plus newer people who were never in the RCP. It's the old RCP rank and file I'm asking about.
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