duruti2 i am still waiting for an answer
Socialist Party: good attempts at bridge building...
- Thread starter treelover
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duruti2 i am still waiting for an answer
dennisr
the acceptable face
Which sums up the limits of your and JLs politics doesn't it - 'success' for 120 years of the SPGBs existance is 'winding someone up' - what an achievement in 120 (is it that long?) years. what a wanker.
You use the term 'socialist' as a personal ego boost. You could not give a fuck about real people in the real world
The internet has been a boom for wankers like the SPGB - finally a 'presence' - a bit like conspiracy theorists and various other types of loon. You may not like folk like me but at least we are not completely irrelevent, surplus to real life. You may sit smugly behind your computer wanking away on the back of your personal fantasies about what amounts to 'triumph' - the real world still goes around and you will still have not played any productive role within it. Just a small-minded sectarian ego
The problem with cowardly fucks like the two of you to is you would not dare to face real people. And that is what you remain cowardly sniveling fecks
imposs1904
Thread Killa'
Which sums up the limits of your and JLs politics isn't it.
You use the term 'socialist' as a personal ego boost. You could not give a fuck about real people in the real world
The internet has been a boom for wankers like the SPGB - finally a 'presence' - a bit like conspiracy theorists and various other types of loon. You may not like folk like me but at least we are not completely irrelevent, surplus to real life. You may sit smugly behind your computer wanking away on the back of your personal fantasies about what amounts to 'triumph' - the real world still goes around and you will still have not played any productive role within it as your organisation has not for the last 120 9is it that long?..) years
The problem with cowardly fucks like the two of you to is you would not dare to face real people. And that is what you remain cowardly sniveling fecks
Yawn. Try that workerist bollocks with your local SWSS branch.
Of course, you posted this reply from your barricade via carrier pigeon.
If that's the best you've got, then no wonder you've been avoiding Jean-Luc's legitimate question like the plague.
It's an old observation, dennisr, but if you're the vanguard, what does that say about the rest of us?
dennisr
the acceptable face
No - from my workplace. Arrogant smug cowardly cunt
imposs1904
Thread Killa'
Does Peter Taaffe take two or three sugars in his tea?
dennisr
the acceptable face
how hilarous you are today - hope i've made your day/week/year/120 years (delete as appropriate) you must be proud
imposs1904
Thread Killa'
Nah, not proud, just wondering when you're going to answer Jean-Luc perfectly reasonable question. Or are you waiting for one of your "real people" to ask it?
Always had a soft spot for the Millies. They were the first Trots I ever met politically (when I joined the Labour Party Young Socialists back in the mid-eighties). All that *nudge nudge wink wink* we're only a paper, honest, must have really dazzled the impressionable.
dennisr
the acceptable face
Oh god, they're SPGB are they? - explains a lot
yep, most of the membership (post-split) i imagine
anyway i have enjoyed showing how not to go about 'bridge-building' on this thread
dennisr
the acceptable face
oh, i think you are - like most idiotic sectarian types - you love it, its your political 'lifeblood'
and no - i am clearly not going to ask a question that was not posed in the first place by the other liar
back in the real world - i talk with real people every day - they ask genuine questions and i give honest answers. this thread is just another forum where you pretend to do the same - but fail because you are unable to take your blinkers off before talking to another individual, you continue to prejudge them wothout knowing owt about them - it your way - i suppose folk like you find the internet so much easier in that respect
dennisr
the acceptable face
It must be so much easier for you now - just sit back and make comments to prove you are a 'socialist'. talk the talk (well the bits you read about)
imposs1904
Thread Killa'
Nah, it was good being a member of the Labour Party in the mid-eighties. I was able to discover that the Labour Party wasn't socialist and I was able to spot a fake accent at twenty paces.
imposs1904
Thread Killa'
Look back at your contributions on this thread. You went off on one because Jean-Luc originally asked a perfectly legitimate question about the motives surrounding SP/CWI's CNWP campaign initiative.
Yep, I bet you call "real people" cunts when you're doing your stall on a Saturday if they ask any awkward questions.
dennisr
the acceptable face
it must be so much easier for you - all that reading and key interventions in exciting threads such as this one to prove what a serious 'socialist' you are?
we don't really get along do we imposs -lets leave this somewhat limited 'dialogue' now - I'll leave the last snotty comment for you to make...
dennisr
the acceptable face
Yep, I bet you call "real people" cunts when you're doing your stall on a Saturday if they ask any awkward questions.
one last legitimate reply: yes, if they are cunts I will tell them so
imposs1904
Thread Killa'
As one of the "real people" (very underrated Liverpool band from the early 90s, btw), could I ask that you chew over the possibility of answering Jean-Luc's perfectly legitimate question.
I'll get back to my armchair and you and articulate8 can get back to the barricades.
imposs1904
Thread Killa'
Does that explain the vote in Greenwich and Lewisham, then? Outside of Chris Flood's patch of Telegraph Hill, it wasn't very good.
I had to double check with the SPGB that they hadn't also stood a candidate in G & L.
That's my last snotty comment of the day. Things to do. Have a good 'yin.
cockneyrebel
New Member
This thread is U75 p&p all over!
So what if it's their published figure? As said SWP members say their active membership isn't more than 2000, so why do you insist on saying 7000? And why do you care about the people who do no more than pay subs to the SWP, they're not gonna help build a campaign. If you think that a campaign can't be built without the input of such a tiny organisation then I think you must live in a left bubble.
And give it up on the boring spat with Galloway. Both sides were pathetic and both sides didn't face up to their political mistakes/flaws.
So what if it's their published figure? As said SWP members say their active membership isn't more than 2000, so why do you insist on saying 7000? And why do you care about the people who do no more than pay subs to the SWP, they're not gonna help build a campaign. If you think that a campaign can't be built without the input of such a tiny organisation then I think you must live in a left bubble.
And give it up on the boring spat with Galloway. Both sides were pathetic and both sides didn't face up to their political mistakes/flaws.
Jean-Luc
Well-Known Member
Or perhaps a Tendency? The CWI, what is that? I thought it meant "Communist Workers International" but on checking find it means "Committee for a Workers International". Is this another front organisation for the "SPEW" or is it the other way round: that the SPEW is a front for the CWI?
Anyway, thanks for the lead as the site of the CWI in Scotland (www.cwiscotland.org) provides the answer to my question:
.
That's clear enough for me and I'm sure it will be for others too. I imagine that if ever the "new workers party" project gets off the ground there'll be a similar split in the SPEW, with Nellist, the local councillors and other sincere elements dissolving themselves in it, with Dennisarse and his ilk maintaining their organisation as a party within a party seeking to turn the New Workers Party into a "Marxist Party".
Anyway, why do we need another left-of-Labour party when one already exists in the Greens? They really do have 7000 active members -- and have successfully kept Trotskyist entryists out.
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
What a load of horse shit this really is. The point is that the CWI were able to operate as a distinct grouping within the SSP without having some kind of secret agenda. Marxists argue for Marxism...why is this such a scandalous position? Btw why do you think that Nellist, who was both a Labour MP and supporter of Militant, would suddenly ditch his comrades of several decades if a new party were to emerge? He didn't do it to keep a cushy job in Westminster - why the fuck would he do it now?
And if you think the Greens are so fucking wonderful as a party, why don't you join them instead of your little sectarian band of irrelevant halfwits?
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Which "perfectly legitimate question" would that be?
If you mean the one about the Socialist Party continuing to exist as an organisation within a new mass party, the answer is neither secret nor particularly controversial.
If a new workers party isn't Marxist in its programme and organisation, then Marxists will remain organised separately within it, working both to build the wider party and to win it over to our views. The Socialist Party is completely open about this and in fact specifically argues that a new party should be organised on federal lines, allowing political organisations to openly work within it without dissolving. That would apply to the SP, and of course to political groups which disagree with the SP.
In Britain, the Labour Party was formed as a federal organisation, consisting of its component parts. In fact for some years you couldn't even join the early LP as an individual member, you had to join one of the component groups. The SP doesn't advocate an organisation with the politics of even the early LP and it doesn't advocate a form of federalism so extreme that individual members are disbarred from joining, but the way in which the LP formed does, I think, provide some useful pointers to how a new mass party might be created.
By the way, anyone who thinks that the Green Party really does have 7,000 active members is every bit as credulous as the gormless SWPers who wheel out the line that they have 7,000 members.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
There are no guarantees. It's something that will take significant internal and external struggle to avoid.
Jean-Luc
Well-Known Member
On what grounds are you challenging the Green Party's claim to have 7000 members. In their vote on whether to have a "leader" or not some 3500 voted. I bet that's more would vote in a referendum in the SWP (if they believed in consulting their members in this way).
Although you've answered the key question clearly enough (yes, the CWI, SPEW, Militant or whatever their real identity is, would maintain an organised existence as a party within the projected "New Workers Party") and have been more straightforward than the foul-mouthed dennisr and more articulate than his buddy who started this thread you have ignored the other relevant question put earlier on in the discussion:
At least the Green Party has tried to break out of this mould.
nightbreed
Im Bored
Er.....How???
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
I'm not challenging their claim to have 7,000 members. I'm laughing at your claim that they have 7,000 active members. The Green Party may well have 7,000 people who have bunged them a tenner once and signed a bit of paper. If in fact they do, then it wouldn't be dishonest for them to claim 7,000 members.
Green Party membership doesn't entail a commitment to activism. It doesn't entail a commitment to do anything bar sign a form and hand over a few quid. They are completely open about that. They are an electoral party, which also contains some activists, rather than an activist group.
Comparing their membership with that of the SWP is not comparing like with like. The SWP's claims to have 6,800 members are laughed at because their definition of membership, and the definition used by almost all of the far left, does entail a commitment to activism. If the SWP openly argued that anyone who signs a bit of paper and paid a tenner was a member, then few people would bat an eyelid at claims to have four or five thousand of them. Largely because such a measure is nearly meaningless.
Activist numbers measure something significant about an organisation. Voter numbers measure something significant about an organisation. Paper membership does not.
Jean-Luc
Well-Known Member
Well, the Greens have developed into the most successful left-of-Labour party in England since the last world war. They are now the 4th largest party here with many councillors and a consistently higher percentage of votes than all the "socialist" and "workers" parties put together. And they achieved this independently of any vanguard party and the out-dated Leninist ideology these all have.
The Green Party ticks all the boxes for what any "New Workers Party" would advocate (I'm quote from the policies on which they fought the recent elections in London):
A London Living Wage of £7.20.
Change planning rules so that 60% of all new housing is affordable.
Rail and tube franchises back under public control
Cut all bus and off-speak Tube fares by 20p.
Oppose all airport expansion in London and the South East.
The Green Party also wants to allow local councils to start building housing again, are opposed to privatisation of the NHS and in favour of a tax policy to redistribute income from the rich to the poor, and against Britain's participation in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In some respects the Greens advocated more radical reforms than the SWP-sponsored Left List (for which dennisr voted if he followed his party's instructions).
So, why the need for another left-of-Labour party when one already exists?
I hope I haven't made the Green Party seem too attractive so that some Trotskyist group decides to "enter" it and bore from within. That would be the kiss of death.
Why don't I join the Green Party myself? One reason is that I'm a motorist and don't fancy having to drive at 20 mph on all side roads.
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
To attempt to answer the "how?":
- It doesn't define itself by a C19th definition of class. Whilst there are many in the GPEW who talk about class etc. There is no pretence at being a "workers party" which imo frees up the kind of language, strategy and ideas the GP can adopt.
- It attempts to develop a relationship between activism and electoral politics based upon pragmatism as well as ideology, the left is often hamstrung by loyalty to ritual in its tactics and dogma in its strategy.
- It, of course, gets many things wrong, but at least many in the GP recognise this and do not feel the need to pretend otherwise.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
So, this brave step forward essentially entails dropping a class analysis of society (not just a "19thC" class analysis, but any class analysis at all) and abandoning principles for "pragmatism". Taken together I think this explains fairly well the Greens willingness to enter local coalitions with the Lib Dems and the Tories. Or, over here in Ireland, their willingness to act as a mudguard for the Fianna Fail government.
The Greens are a very small party, with no immediate prospect of winning even a single seat in Westminster. They have a few thousand paper members and a much smaller number of activists. They also aren't all that left wing.
The Greens are a very small party, with no immediate prospect of winning even a single seat in Westminster. They have a few thousand paper members and a much smaller number of activists. They also aren't all that left wing.
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