SWP expulsions and squabbles

[bolshiebhoy]

See, the rest of us are missing the point, disco.
The point being that War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Bolshie, unlike many others, is willing to give himself over to the revolution wholly and uncritically.

He really is either that gullible, or that scheming.

Oh definitely scheming. Me and the prof caucus daily.

 

[mlyp]

http://rapeapologists.org

 

[butchersapron]

This bit?
Response to attacks on the SWP
From Jan?

edit: just got it

 

[barney_pig]

Ex-WRP and Solidarity founder, Maurice Brinton raised this question many years ago in his classic article: ‘Suicide for Socialism’. There he made credible comparisons between Jim Jones’ socialist suicide cult and Gerry Healy’s WRP. Later, of course, it was revealed that Healy had been even more abusive than Brinton suspected.

]

Me: "predict a rash of new posters raving about Maurice Brinton in the near future"

 

[butchersapron]

Me: "predict a rash of new posters raving about Maurice Brinton in the near future"

You speak from experience though barney

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

I think this new lot should form a Marxist-Humanist party called the Red Party

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Ohh, you mean like this? Thanks Pickman. This is for bb ... and sptme.

That's cool, how did you know I was addicted to COD! Though currently loving Tomb Raider and it's strong woman lead battling a crazed cult of rapists led by a deranged teacher.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

'Laurie Penny in Lenin's Tomb'

 

[barney_pig]

You speak from experience though barney

Yes, but I was the first!

 

[butchersapron]

The milkman speaks.

 

[sihhi]

Yes but only the Platform had a wider agenda of ditching whole areas of the party's politics. By leaving the Sino-Seymourists have made it possible at some point for the loyalists and factionalists to talk about the dc without every conversation becoming a different one about leninism/feminism and the rest. But that can't start immdiately one would have thought, this early into the formation of the ISN people will still be looking at each other wondering "you staying or going?" And with RS serialising his 'revelations' about the horrid things the loyalists said and did over the last 4 months no chance right now. Once the dust of the split has settled maybe things will be different. Or maybe I'm fooling myself but there's no alternative for those who want the swp to survive.

What is/should be the SWP CC plan now? To stay in TUSC or to leave and concentrate on Unite-The-Resistance? Does the behaviour leading up to and over the past weekend make sense on any level?

Do you not think there is a conversation to be had about feminism and the SWP? How some of its vanguardist tendencies smothered aspects of its commitment to gender equality in practice.

Even the In Defence of Our Party Faction - the leadership that has now resigned and which you claim is "in the sewer", declared in its documentation:

"Regardless of our position on the current arguments in the party, most comrades are in agreement that the party's record on fighting for women's liberation is exceptional. We do not need to list here the interventions that the party has led and the arguments that it has won, often with our students at the helm, by putting class at the heart of the struggle against women's oppression."

I think you categorisation is wrong and I do not believe the party's record is exceptional - as in better than other people's. Back in 1980s after purposefully ending Women's Voice, chief theoretician Harman (the Callinicos of the time) declared of women's self-organisation that is basically inevitably right-wing in character.

He states the women's movement is not rooted in "production" meaning it loses out very easily and falls in strength as compared to the workers' movement (Same could be applied to workers' movements. What happens when production shifts abroad? Does that movement stay as strong) Also, future or current housework, childbirth and childcare is production.
He says
"Then all the pressure is on the movements’ activists to move to the right. They make concessions to existing society because they find they cannot achieve their goals by fighting it. Revolutionaries who have made concessions to the arguments of the movements get drawn along by this rightward pull. It is bad enough dissolving your politics into a movement that is dynamic, enthusiastic and growing. It is even worse doing so in a movement that is tired, demoralised and increasingly inward looking. This explains the connection between ‘movementism’ and what we in the SWP call the ‘swamp’ – the milieu of ex-leftists who have drifted to the right as they adapt to reformism, the trade union bureaucracy and the mysticism of feminist separatism."

It is fixated upon not making concessions to the arguments of the movements (principally feminist movement but also anti-racist movement and anti-nuclear movement). It also creates a scarecrow with little basis in reality about "separatism":
"reformism and separatism reinforced one another. The bourgeois feminist prejudice against the working class helped create a ‘common sense’ within the movement which treated any talk of women’s liberation through working class revolution as ‘crude workerism’ and ‘old fashioned Leninism’. And the separatist objection to collaboration with men meant, in practice, keeping well clear of rank and file workers’ struggles – and this in turn, meant rejecting involvement in the only struggles that could gain more than the most marginal things from the system."

I think the record is fairly clear that so-called "separatist" organisations did not keep "well clear of rank and file workers' struggles" - women's groups in north London for instance were wholly and practically supportive of the Miners Wives, visits and holidays for children, assistance to people.

It also suggests things like freedom from sexual violence, from having to worry about domestic violence - part of the concerns of many separatist groups - are "marginal things", that overturning the law about the impossibility of rape under a marriage was not an important step forward etc.

I believe RESPECT was the end result of this stuff in the 1980s (the double standards applied to women's organisaton versus all male union branches, I don't have a problem with either organising and doing pro-working class activity, SWP had a problem with the first but not the latter)

The RESPECT era saw political principles on gender equality being abandoned as shibboleths. Women's autonomy in reproduction was abandoned and sidelined, however softly.

"SWP members sitting dumbstruck and powerless to object when George Galloway slammed abortion as an “abomination” at a Respect rally at Leeds University. Even the deliberately vague position Respect as an organisation held in relation to “a woman’s right to choose” was too much for Galloway, and the SWP all too willingly conceded more ground. The issue was made a matter of conscience, so that, regardless of any policy Respect had, George could - as Respect’s sole representative in Parliament - do and say as he pleased. The CPGB’s motion calling for accountability of representatives at the 2005 Respect conference was dutifully voted down by SWP comrades."

"Respect has not a word to say on the subject... this question should be regarded as a matter of 'conscience' for individual candidates." (Weekly Worker on RESPECT trials and tribulations)

There were other sorts of examples.

So I think it's wrong to say
1 the party has an exceptional record on gender equality and
2 that feminism/leninism cropping up in faction statements and conversations means the CC have done OK in the past 3 months.

Of course the internal culture of the party is crucial in cases of sexual violence within parties - and that internal culture has deteriorated the longer the leadership positions have not been rotated (Is this anti-Leninist?) The demented nature of having long-term close friends of Delta, who've indulged him on his Atzmon, on the single Disputes Committee investigating rape of a very young adult - is testament to it.

This is not anti-SWP post, similar analysis could well be done of other parties and other leftist groups claiming to lead us.

 

[marty21]

It's a clusterfuck!

From what I understand - and please correct me if I'm wrong - several woman accused a senior figure in the SWP of sexual assault - they decided to deal with this internally, not trusting the Police - and decided there was no case to answer - so feminists are fucked off - and a load of members have left as a result - how am I doing so far?

 

[sihhi]

The milkman speaks.

the SWP began to shrink, probably due to socialism becoming a harder product to sell. But it refused to acknowledge it was shrinking, preferring to insist it was constantly growing. Then, if anyone pointed out this clearly wasn’t true, they were told sharply that they were mistaken.

Like Basil Fawlty, rather than admit to telling small lies, they decided to protect them, by telling bigger and more ridiculous lies. And once that happens, internal democracy is under threat. Contest the distortions and you have to be denounced as an enemy.

Lots of lies in the early 1990s - about the BNP and its growth, ANL's "crucial" role, about the end of downturn and the rise of the rank and file resistance leading the awkward squad against a future Labour government.

Or maybe it came from such a determination to defend socialist ideas, against all orthodox thinking, that they became impervious to any criticism at all. They became so defensive that any suggestion of doing things differently was met with the phrase that this would “Betray the tradition.” Even the internet was treated with heavy suspicion, with blogs and websites set up or contributed to by members frowned upon or banned.

This probably did happen with the rise of the internet.

Whatever the reasons, debate with people outside the party was replaced with vitriol. A trade unionist who usually backed the SWP disagreed with them on an issue, so a story was invented that they’d rigged the vote to get their union position. Often when people left the SWP, it was announced that they’d never been members in the first place.

Wow - this is pretty damning.

Effective characters such as Owen Jones, Salma Yaqoob, Caroline Lucas, Laurie Penny, along with Unite and other unions, and organisers of UK Uncut are launching the People’s Assembly, which could represent the most encouraging attempt for years, to create a movement that can attract the heaps of people appalled by the current order that’s running society.

But not this nonsense again .

 

[killer b]

yeah, i was finding lots to agree with until that last paragraph you quoted...

 

[Nigel Irritable]

One part of the whole row that remains something of a mystery to me is just what is so special about Delta that the rest of the SWP leadership were willing to destroy the reputation of their organisation to protect his.

They crucified Rees and German as soon as it became advantageous to do so. Why not Delta? I'd generally expect the SWP CC to ruthlessly prioritise the good of the party as they see it over any individual.

 

[killer b]

It's a clusterfuck!

From what I understand - and please correct me if I'm wrong - several woman accused a senior figure in the SWP of sexual assault - they decided to deal with this internally, not trusting the Police - and decided there was no case to answer - so feminists are fucked off - and a load of members have left as a result - how am I doing so far?

this is probably as good a rundown as any...

The milkman speaks.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

www.rapeapologists.org

ETA: it wasn't me by the way

 

[butchersapron]

It's a clusterfuck!

From what I understand - and please correct me if I'm wrong - several woman accused a senior figure in the SWP of sexual assault - they decided to deal with this internally, not trusting the Police - and decided there was no case to answer - so feminists are fucked off - and a load of members have left as a result - how am I doing so far?

Halfway there marty, there is now two cases (or, two that are formally talked about, there is at least one other rape allegation) - the second where the reported rapist was given two years exile.

 

[killer b]

do we have to call him delta still? it feels slightly embarrassing...

 

[frogwoman]

The milkman speaks.

Over the last few weeks I’ve almost dared to be optimistic. Effective characters such as Owen Jones, Salma Yaqoob, Caroline Lucas, Laurie Penny, along with Unite and other unions, and organisers of UK Uncut are launching the People’s Assembly, which could represent the most encouraging attempt for years,

to the barricades




/dc

 

[killer b]

apart from that bit.

 

[frogwoman]

www.rapeapologists.org

ETA: it wasn't me by the way

 

[articul8]

do we have to call him delta still? it feels slightly embarrassing...

you could call him Martin Smith the alleged rapist?

 

[killer b]

or just martin smith?

 

[frogwoman]

I've got some time for salma yaqoob but she's hardly the new lenin

 

[Pickman's model]

I've got some time for salma yaqoob but she's hardly the new lenin

selma jacobs?

 

[belboid]

I've got some time for salma yaqoob but she's hardly the new lenin

good. There are already more than enough 'new Lenins'

 

[killer b]

I've got some time for salma yaqoob but she's hardly the new lenin

do we need a new lenin?

 

[butchersapron]

good. There are already more than enough 'new Lenins'

And old ones. Which is partly why this thread exists.

 

[chilango]

you could call him Martin Smith the alleged rapist?

Surely no need.

He doesn't believe in bourgeois justice.

We could just get a group of us lot together and decide that he's not being libelled.

That's how it works, right?