Socialist Party: good attempts at bridge building...

[durruti02]

so supporting my organisations call for a new workers party constitutes a commitment to reply to every tedious do-nothing fuckwit making a tedious do-nothing, uninformed and ignorant, cynical comment on urban 75?

apparently i am meant to conform to their fantasies of 'political commitment' which consist of half-baked preconceptions repeated ad-infernitum on a bulletin board

Jean Luc never asked fuck all - he made a riduculous and ignorant snide remark and it was treated in the same way it was handed out. if Jean Luc of any of the other tedious fucks hanging around on this website wish to make sensible remarks or ask any reasonable questions I am more than happy to answer as and when real-worlds commitments permit. I am of course, more than happy to do this in real life as well (something I find the ejets i've pulled up in the past tend to back away from)

thats the context, durrutti...

ok then answer me then As you know i regulalry work with members of the SP and am happy to do so out of all the left. BUT i and i think others are entitled to use this forum to ask serious questions about longer term aims and objectives of those we work with.

 

[durruti02]

i welcome the opportunity for 'real serious debate' - do point me in the direction of the core individuals and wake me up when it starts

so no responsibilty for you ( or I or anyone else) in all this? why do you bother then??

 

[Joe Reilly]

.

Surely more to the point is that this initiative is fucked if it doesn't get the working class on board, primarily through the unions.

Which in the usual blind-sided way side-steps the fact that the majority of the working class (blue collar in particular) are not unionised.

 

[Joe Reilly]

.

Surely more to the point is that this initiative is fucked if it doesn't get the working class on board, primarily through the unions.

Which in the usual blind-sided way side-steps the fact that the majority of the working class (blue collar in particular) are not unionised. Should they just be left to the BNP?

 

[cockneyrebel]

Which in the usual blind-sided way side-steps the fact that the majority of the working class (blue collar in particular) are not unionised.

I said primarily, not exclusively. But the fact is that the working class has its power in the workplace, so the unions are a good base to start from.

 

[Joe Reilly]

I said primarily, not exclusively. But the fact is that the working class has its power in the workplace, so the unions are a good base to start from.

What power has the unionised working class displayed in a quarter of a century?

 

[cockneyrebel]

What power has the unionised working class displayed in a quarter of a century?

Quite a bit, but mainly in a defensive role.

But you could ask what power has the working class displayed in the last quarter of a century? Doesn't mean we don't have any power.

Also I don't see the IWCA method being a roaring success exactly.

 

[imposs1904]

Jean Luc never asked fuck all - he made a riduculous and ignorant snide remark and it was treated in the same way it was handed out.

Roughly translated as: 'Jean-Luc got me bang to rights'.

 

[Joe Reilly]

Also I don't see the IWCA method being a roaring success exactly.

You are totally incapable of defending your position so your chilldishly threadbare rejoinder is to compare the trade union movement involving millions and a party like the IWCA and pretend it is like with like. Twit.

 

[articul8]

Unless they are prepared to try and engage with the SWP in this, this is dead in the water without the meeting taking place.

It would be tempting to reverse this and say, if they make a point of ensuring the SWP feel comfortable in being involved, then it really would be dead in the water.

A genuine question - were a NWP to emerge and fight for electoral success, wouldn't it follow the trajectory of the Labour party in "proving its respectablity" to the middle class? Won't the SP find itself acting in pretty much the same capacity as the LRC in Labour now?

 

[brasicritique]

Socialist Party: good attempts at bridge building...
until the bridge builders suffered from splinters

The end

 

[cockneyrebel]

You are totally incapable of defending your position so your chilldishly threadbare rejoinder is to compare the trade union movement involving millions and a party like the IWCA and pretend it is like with like. Twit.

Twit?

Not at all, my point is that your alternative is hardly an inspiring alternative.

I've already "defended my position", as I said the workplace is where our power is and so the trade unions are good place to start. But I never said anywhere that's exclusively where we should base activity. Indeed my trade union branch is linking up with tenants reps and community groups and other trade union reps to form a "public services, not private profit" campaign and there has been talk of trying to stand candidates.

And the fact that the trade unions involve millions of workers is exactly the point......

 

[The39thStep]

I think it shows the bubble mentality of some on the left that something can't be achieved without a tiny organisation of 1500 activists being involved.

Surely more to the point is that this initiative is fucked if it doesn't get the working class on board, primarily through the unions.

Do you mean bubbly?

 

[treelover]

In my Op, I repeat i was acknowledging that the SP were attempting to allow genuine debate on the way forward, how forward, we will find out after the event. to me any new realignment needs to go though a long process of discussion, airing of disagreements, and crucially building trust. However, i cannot atmit see the SWP being part of the process due to their innate dishonesty in political activities..

 

[Jean-Luc]

However, i cannot atmit see the SWP being part of the process due to their innate dishonesty in political activities..

What makes you think that the political activities of the Militant Tendency are not also innately dishonest? After all both they and the SWP come from the same stable. Both are Trotskyoid and so both believe in manipulative politics and disguising their real motives, ie to build up a "vanguard party" (preferably their own). You won't get anywhere with either of them.

 

[dennisr]

What makes you think that the political activities of the Militant Tendency are not also innately dishonest? After all both they and the SWP come from the same stable. Both are Trotskyoid and so both believe in manipulative politics and disguising their real motives, ie to build up a "vanguard party" (preferably their own). You won't get anywhere with either of them.

yes, and we eat babies.

sensible 'debate' my arse

 

[brasicritique]

I think it shows the bubble mentality of some on the left that something can't be achieved without a tiny organisation of 1500 activists being involved.

Surely more to the point is that this initiative is fucked if it doesn't get the working class on board, primarily through the unions.

Fuck the SWP and Fuck the unions.Niether can claim to represent any but there own interests and are totally irrelevent.

How can the unions claim to represent those affected by the welfare reforms when they supported the bill in the first place?

Seriously can one of you bright sparks address this point please.

come duruti2 or cockney rebel elaborate

For the last time working class as descriptive terminology is dead.

The left need to develop a new language

 

[JimPage]

Why would that be the case, Jim, given that the SWP have born primary responsibility for fucking up the last two major left unity initiatives in England? It isn't as if the SWP is some massive organisation with huge social weight that the rest of the left can't simply ignore.
.

The SWP, with 7,000 members, comprises the bulk of the English Left, and if you think that a genuine unity can exist without them ( and that unity is needed) you are fooling yourself

I think people have simply stopped trying- try to remember who the real enemy are, and its not the SWP

 

[Nigel Irritable]

The SWP, with 7,000 members, comprises the bulk of the English Left

If the SWP did actually have 7,000 members it would still be a minor political organisation, to borrow an old phrase "a sect on the fringes of the labour movement". As it happens, it has perhaps 2,000 members.

Exactly how much have you lowered your sights that you think a group of a couple of thousand people is so utterly indispensable?

 

[durruti02]

ok then answer me then As you know i regulalry work with members of the SP and am happy to do so, out of all the left. BUT I, and i think others are entitled to use this forum to ask serious questions about longer term aims and objectives of those we work with.

dennisr .. you do not believe jean luc wants a sensible debate. well i do .. so please answer to me .. clearly the SP has become a lot more open and communicable since the days of Militant .. but then we were never shure what were their aims as they were hidden by entrism .. now that has gone we can and should expect clarity

 

[articul8]

yes, it's not like they used to print all their ideas in a paper called The Militant or anything

 

[Fisher_Gate]

The SWP, with 7,000 members, comprises the bulk of the English Left, and if you think that a genuine unity can exist without them ( and that unity is needed) you are fooling yourself

I think people have simply stopped trying- try to remember who the real enemy are, and its not the SWP

The SLL/WRP in its heyday in the late 1960s/early 1970s was a much larger and more influential than the SWP is today. But it was still a sectarian obstacle to building an organisation that could unite the majority of the left and eventually collapsed. While there is still hope that they can change direction, the SWP are in danger of heading on the same path as the SLL/WRP.

And you are wrong to say "the bulk of the English Left" are in the SWP. The bulk of the English Left are not aligned with any left organisation. The SWP are probably not even the largest group - they are probably still to be found in the Labour Party, though as a cadre/vanguard party, the SWP is able to have more impact with lesser numbers.

 

[Jean-Luc]

For those who might not have the time the trawl through all this thread the questions I have asked dennisr who started it and which he is refusing to answer are:
1. If his "new workers party" is formed will his organisation disband and dissolve itself in the new party or will it maintain itself as a faction within it, a party within a party, like they did when they were the Militant Tendency within the old Labour party?
2. Is his organisation still a Leninist group and all that that implies, ie. dedicated to building a vanguard party to lead an armed insurrection to seize power and set up the same sort of political regime here as existed in Russia under Lenin and Trotsky?

 

[cockneyrebel]

The SWP, with 7,000 members, comprises the bulk of the English Left, and if you think that a genuine unity can exist without them ( and that unity is needed) you are fooling yourself

I think people have simply stopped trying- try to remember who the real enemy are, and its not the SWP

Why do you fool yourself that the SWP has 7000 members? Seriously why do you continually do it?

Even honest SWP members will say they don't have more than 1500-2000 active members. And in terms of building campaigns those who do nothing other than pay subs to the SWP aren't worth talking about.

So you're saying that an organisation with 1500-2000 active members, with very poor implementation in the unions and community campaigns generally is indespensible?

Having said that the various spats between the SWP and SP (like in UNISON) and the fact that there are now two campaigns against the BNP (the LMHR/UAF SWP one, and the SP one) is quite damaging/frustrating, whoevers fault it is (it's often hard to work out as the allegations are thrown across the line).

 

[articul8]

1. If his "new workers party" is formed will his organisation disband and dissolve itself in the new party or will it maintain itself as a faction within it, a party within a party, like they did when they were the Militant Tendency within the old Labour party?

Why would it be either liquidation or full entryism? Why couldn't they be a platform like the SWP, SSM and CWI were in the SSP? Or maybe less formally still like Compass, Campaign group etc. are in Labour?

 

[articul8]

sorry - double post

 

[dennisr]

For those who might not have the time the trawl through all this thread the questions I have asked dennisr who started it and which he is refusing to answer are:
1. If his "new workers party" is formed will his organisation disband and dissolve itself in the new party or will it maintain itself as a faction within it, a party within a party, like they did when they were the Militant Tendency within the old Labour party?
2. Is his organisation still a Leninist group and all that that implies, ie. dedicated to building a vanguard party to lead an armed insurrection to seize power and set up the same sort of political regime here as existed in Russia under Lenin and Trotsky?

If one ACTUALLY reads through the thread one will see that
a) i did not start this thread at all
and
b) Jean Luc's inital 'contribution' consisted of a statement of uninformed opinion combined with pre-conceived prejudice. The resulting somewhat weighted 'questions' continue on this oh, so original 'theme'

It helps - if you want to look like you are clever rather than just a bit of an arrogant pillock with a half-baked set of preconceptions if you get the basic facts right Jean Luc...

What book did you read all you 'viewpoints' from Jean Luc? When did you realise you knew it all?. Anyway back to this planet...

So what evil things did the Militant Tendancy do then Jean Luc? (apart from build 1,000s of houses + many schools and sports centres in Liverpool, defeat the poll tax, wrestle control of the civil service union out of the hands of an extreme right-wing clique, expose the underhand machinations of the the labour bureaucrats, get victimised for standing up for the rights of working people, lead mass struggles -as opposed to reading a couple of half-baked theories about it, and doing fuck all else for 120 years like some silly cunts are 'proud' to have done). Do us a favour Jean Luc and fuck off until you know what the fuck you are talking about. wanker

*shakes head - cos sometimes you have to call a spade a spade*

 

[dennisr]

Why would it be either liquidation or full entryism? Why couldn't they be a platform like the SWP, SSM and CWI were in the SSP? Or maybe less formally still like Compass, Campaign group etc. are in Labour?

I wouldn't bother taking this ejet that seriously article8, he's one of those idiots who thinks he knows it all in advance of any discussion or debate - a gobshite

 

[JimPage]

If the SWP did actually have 7,000 members it would still be a minor political organisation, to borrow an old phrase "a sect on the fringes of the labour movement". As it happens, it has perhaps 2,000 members.

Exactly how much have you lowered your sights that you think a group of a couple of thousand people is so utterly indispensable?

7,000 is their published figure, and allowing for rounding up, seems like the right in terms of numbers and activists. Only the SWp can do things like pull 100,000 people for the LMHR carnival

No, those outside the SWP are as valuble as the SWP- as a part of a wider socialist unity project. But, self evidently, the SWP must take a major part as they outnumber the rest of the left combined, and Galloways group must be excluded for what they did to Respect.

 

[imposs1904]

If one ACTUALLY reads through the thread one will see that
a) i did not start this thread at all
and
b) Jean Luc's inital 'contribution' consisted of a statement of uninformed opinion combined with pre-conceived prejudice. The resulting somewhat weighted 'questions' continue on this oh, so original 'theme'

It helps - if you want to look like you are clever rather than just a bit of an arrogant pillock with a half-baked set of preconceptions if you get the basic facts right Jean Luc...

What book did you read all you 'viewpoints' from Jean Luc? When did you realise you knew it all?. Anyway back to this planet...

So what evil things did the Militant Tendancy do then Jean Luc? (apart from build 1,000s of houses + many schools and sports centres in Liverpool, defeat the poll tax, wrestle control of the civil service union out of the hands of an extreme right-wing clique, expose the underhand machinations of the the labour bureaucrats, get victimised for standing up for the rights of working people, lead mass struggles -as opposed to reading a couple of half-baked theories about it, and doing fuck all else for 120 years like some silly cunts are 'proud' to have done). Do us a favour Jean Luc and fuck off until you know what the fuck you are talking about. wanker

*shakes head - cos sometimes you have to call a spade a spade*

Yep, Jean-Luc got dennisr bang to rights.

*shakes head in laughter - cos it's always funny when a toy town Bolshevik throws his toys out of his pram*