SWP expulsions and squabbles

[Pickman's model]

talking of Poles I've just recieved an email confirming that solidarnosc previously of this parish (and many orgs on the far-left) is rejoining the SWP to take up cudgels in both the faction and the platform.

aren't we supposed to be suspicious of people who go from organisation to organisation as solidarnosc has apparently done?

 

[butchersapron]

There is no organisational solution to social problems. The key is engaged activity that produces forms of organisation. See, we are all autonomists now.

 

[sihhi]

There is no organisational solution to social problems. The key is engaged activity that produces forms of organisation. See, we are all autonomists now.

I don't understand this.

 

[butchersapron]

Activity produces organisation (and by activity we mean class struggle). It rarely throws up leninism. Self-replicating groups from when it might have done so, do. If, however, the class needs leninsim and this form(s) of organisation to meet its needs, then i'm sure it will find a way to express it.

 

[Random]

Activity produces organisation (and by activity we mean class struggle). It rarely throws up leninism. Self-replicating groups from when it might have done so, do. If, however, the class needs leninsim and this form(s) of organisation to meet its needs, then i'm sure it will find a way to express it.

8)

 

[butchersapron]

8)

Tired, sleepy...must save...class.

 

[Random]

Tired, sleepy...must save...class.

Fighting... must fight ... ruling ideas... of hegemonic class... in my brain

 

[butchersapron]

Need...pint, fucking sharpish.

 

[The39thStep]

The sniggering heard in the background of the first of this series of CPGB podcasts gave a flavour of what was to come. Reminded me of here.

Edit: Were you there with your witty one-liners?

They asked me to do the warm up spot but I had already said I would for an afternoon of demo voyeurism with my mate Laurie Penny

 

[bolshiebhoy]

How could they deliver on the second?

If and when they get the concessions they want and a recognition that it was all handled too administratively they will row in politically against the seymourites. I'm convinced of that cause of the things some of the faction (not the platform ) say in private. They are embarrassed by the anti IS trend of Seymour but won't say it public ally while they're both fighting the handling of this case.

 

[killer b]

Do they know that talking to you about it is roughly equivalent to talking in public?

 

[electric.avenue]

This thread is like the crowd of gawpers you get round the scene of an accident.

Hey, we're not just here out of vulgar curiosity!

 

[killer b]

speak for yourself.

 

[two sheds]

bolshiebhoy said: No I completely understand the indignation on the assumption you buy the coverup hypothesis.

​

So you don't buy the coverup hypothesis?

 

[emanymton]

​

​

So you don't buy the coverup hypothesis?

It was cock up (pardon the expression) rather that cover up. The CC has not tried to hid the fact that allegations have been made, they haven't gone out of their way to make it known either of course. They haven't made the details public and nor should they.

 

[butchersapron]

It was both. The cocked it up then they tried to cover up the cock up.

 

[two sheds]

In what sense cock up? If the transcript hadn't been leaked then we'd not have learned anything. They would have kept it quiet that they had packed the judging panel with friends of the accused (and the rest) - cover up, surely.

If that had been bourgeois justice and it had later come out that a rape accusation had been handled in the same way, in private, I doubt we'd be arguing.

 

[emanymton]

Thy did a good job of it.

 

[two sheds]

Thy did a good job of it.

Errrm not really

 

[butchersapron]

Thy did a good job of it.

Of what? They even cocked up the cover up.

 

[electric.avenue]

Are these high profile "oppositionists" a bit like the tame bogus "resistance cells" set up in Occupied France by German counter intelligence to attract genuine people in , nullify their activities , and then "dispose" of em ? In other words a "respectable" old guard "faction" emerges with a few" procedural quibbles", is soon satisfied with whatever fudge the leadership concocts to "solve the problem", and then declares the issue "resolved" -- a round of applause for the soundness of SWP democratic centralism. On to business as usual ?

This morning when we heard the news of the faction, myself and another former member thought that this could be a distinct possibility.

And if we want to go really paranoid: I have heard theories that the entire organisation is a way of neutralising dissent - draw people in, get them to slog their tripe out and use their resources, then after a few years boot them back out into the wild again, leaving them vowing never to touch another left org with a bargepole. But no, that's just fantasy, right?

 

[emanymton]

In what sense cock up? If the transcript hadn't been leaked then we'd not have learned anything. They would have kept it quiet that they had packed the judging panel with friends of the accused (and the rest) - cover up, surely.

If that had been bourgeois justice and it had later come out that a rape accusation had been handled in the same way, in private, I doubt we'd be arguing.

Of course we would but not in as much detail I we would all have been discussing rumor rather that fact and It would not have been kept quite from the membership, it was discussed at the conferree, it was discussed at the district meeting following conference. The whole idea behind there being a cover up is that they tried to hide it from the membership which is not the case.

 

[emanymton]

Of what? They even cocked up the cover up.

That was my point.

 

[electric.avenue]

Sexist!

Nah, that could be a man or a woman.

 

[electric.avenue]

Aren't the pole and the organ the same genital?

No, some organs are not poles.

 

[butchersapron]

That was my point.

Obv on the point of rejoining then.

 

[emanymton]

Obv on the point of rejoining then.

eh, you said they had made a cock up and tried to cover it up. I made a sarcastic comment about them doing a good job of it, meaning they hadn't and this means I am on the point of rejoining, or are you being sarcastic?

 

[butchersapron]

eh, you said they had made a cock up and tried to cover it up. I made a sarcastic comment about them doing a good job of it, meaning they hadn't and this means I am on the point of rejoining, or are you being sarcastic?

Oh god, all these years and i still can't get over non-literal stuff.

 

[ayatollah]

Activity produces organisation (and by activity we mean class struggle). It rarely throws up leninism. Self-replicating groups from when it might have done so, do. If, however, the class needs leninsim and this form(s) of organisation to meet its needs, then i'm sure it will find a way to express it.

Sihhi was battling to grasp an earlier version of this "wisdom" from Butchersapron in post 5581. I sympathise with his difficulty, because Butchersapron's statement is such utter bollocks that it almost defies belief .

One doesn't have to be either a "Leninist" or a Trot to understand that the old statement "Without revolutionery theory there can be no revolutionery practice" contains a hard kernal of solid political truth. The capitalist state's mass media, entertainment and education systems, and indeed the traditional barroom "truisms" of everyday culture serve to seriously distort most people's everyday understandings and interpretations of daily life, the true nature of the problems people face, and the best solutions to these problems. (And this is true of any class-based social system - that is how small ruling classes mainly hold on to their privileges and class power). "Spontaneity" and "action" on its own is just as likely to lead to distinctly reactionery self-defeating actions by the oppressed in society if not connected to a radical, progressive, political belief system. In the case of capitalism, this action needs to be connected to specifically socialist values and long term aims. Without this progressive, socialist , framework , people wanting to fight against problems like housing shortages are just as likely to see local ethnic minorities as the cause of their housing problems than grasp that the housing shortages being caused by the operations of the capitalist system. People worried about high unemployment levels - the capitalist ideology fed day in day out by the popular press is more likely to lead many people to focus on the jobs supposedly "stolen" by minority communities, than on the higher level operations of the capitalist system. And so it goes on in every case of social problems and people's understanding of the real underlying basis of those problems.

Butchersapron, not just here, but elsewhere on these threads, when he actually gives us a glimpse of his reactionery spontaneist politics, seems to believe that the undifferentiated "working class" has a mysterious spontaneous "wisdom of crowds" understanding of its real interests - so left alone from the malignant influence of the "middle class left" it will, through action alone, "find the true path" forward to some sort of "working class solution" ("working class power in working class areas" perhaps ? a la that simplistic key IWCA slogan - it's so simplistic it's positively laughable !). This is of course dangerous drivel, as the key oppressed class under capitalism, deeply imbued with a huge weight of capitalist ideology, the "spontaneous" expression of the non socialist influenced working class community is just as likely to be profoundly reactionary, as progressive. What Butchers is actually extolling is usually called crass "workerism" , the "tailing" of the "spontaneous" (but hugely capitalist ideology-influenced) instincts of the undifferentiated crowd , by an opportunist political party seeking only to "ride that wave" in whatever direction it goes. The Trot/Leninist tradition is profoundly compromised and disfunctional , true, but 200 years of socialist theory and practice has given us a priceless store of working class-based knowledge and experience (yep, WORKING CLASS knowledge and experience) as to how to combat and overcome capitalism. Socialist political militants need collectively to seek to build a more open, less rigidly dogmatic, mass socialist movement. We don't need to go down any of the empty , "action without thought or theory" routes hinted at by Butchers and his coterie of chums on here. That route leads in the end to gross opportunism and reaction.

 

[butchersapron]

The first two tablets.

Now take some gin.