SWP expulsions and squabbles

[articul8]

What a pile of shit. He's clearly never met Sheila McGregor, Julie Waterson or any number of other hard as nails women comrades in the swp. How dare he suggest they're being 'masculine' for not suffering fools. That doesn't mark them out as less or more feminine, it's just a trait of many revolutionaries.

It's funny, this reminds me that Trotsky himself used the argument that Kollantai was too soft to understand hard political choices like NEP

 

[belboid]

This post is the perfect illustration of an SWP understanding of feminism, masculinity, and women's liberation

It is a shit piece tho. Tired gender stereotypes dont become suddenly correct just because they're made by a gay man.

 

[Jean-Luc]

I wonder will the SWP look like the SPGB in 100 years time?

They and all the other groups do already, except that their members are ten years younger.

 

[TremulousTetra]

It's funny, this reminds me that Trotsky himself used the argument that Kollantai was too soft to understand hard political choices like NEP

you remind me of Morrisey waving his flowers

 

[Nigel Irritable]

It is a shit piece tho. Tired gender stereotypes dont become suddenly correct just because they're made by a gay man.

I was rather taken with the notion that those silly miners could have won if they'd only their preferred tactic had been to set up a camp full of hippies rather than all that nasty aggressive picketing.

 

[articul8]

you remind me of Morrisey waving his flowers

thats the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me on here - ta

 

[belboid]

I was rather taken with the notion that those silly miners could have won if they'd only their preferred tactic had been to set up a camp full of hippies rather than all that nasty aggressive picketing.

if they'd only hugged those Notts miners, none would have ever crossed a picket line.

Maybe throw them a Tanita Tikaram gig into the mix too, just to make sure.

 

[SpineyNorman]

I was rather taken with the notion that those silly miners could have won if they'd only their preferred tactic had been to set up a camp full of hippies rather than all that nasty aggressive picketing.

Someone obviously forgot to tell Mr. Tatchell that women also took part in 'aggressive picketing'.

If they had opted for Greenham Common-style tactics of non-violent civil disobedience, the NUM would have almost certainly found it much easier to win public support for their cause throughout the country.

Would they bollocks. The old bill would have found it a lot easier to kick the shit out of them though. And as it happens some NUM activists, Dave Douglass for example, did use the sit down tactic (though they were very clear that this wasn't used as a 'pacifist' tactic):

However, one item which went out with the programme cannot go unchallenged. This is the legend deriving from Harry, a former Hatfield branch treasurer, according to which I undertook some sort of pacifist deviation in the form of a mass sit-down at the top of the pit lane. Activists, including Harry, will know well my attitude to physical resistance during the strike, so I need not labour that one (actually the producer chose not to include the most violent parts of our resistance - maybe to protect us from prosecution). Harry, to be right, has always taken the piss out of me and the sit-down tactic, accusing me of ‘peace, man’ hippyism - although it has usually been tongue in cheek. Unfortunately the way BBC2 shot the resulting police charge and riot, straight after Harry’s statement, made it look like I had somehow caused the assault on the miners and their families.

I claim a short, indulgent response here for the reason that certain unscrupulous groups on the left (and one in particular) may already have filed this story for future use against me, when the need comes up for the kind of political slander they often engage in. So, for the record, I never suggested the police would not attack because you were sitting down! I cut my teeth in the Tyneside Committee of 100 and numerous such sit-downs at nuclear bases, and the bumps on my head by the time I was 16 had led me to believe they would hit you with as much glee if you were sitting down as if you were standing up. So I had no illusions on that score and neither had anyone else.

No, what usually happened whenever we went to the pit gates in any numbers was the police would find some excuse to charge us and then a fight would happen while the scabs on the bus quietly slipped out of the gate almost without sight or sound of the pickets and the battles further up the pit lane.
The idea of the sit-down, just as the bus was setting off, was to force it to stop. The cops could not pick you up and carry you while they were gripping riot shields, so it was also planned to force them to lose some of their armour. The idea was to hold the scab bus as long as possible while they got some humpty for a change instead of the cops.

Of course, a combination to two things happened. The riot cops were still tooled up in the wings, and for some pickets bricking the cops was a hard habit to lose. When a few bricks went over, as the cops moved in to shift us, that was the cue for the snatch squads to charge into the crowd, many of whom were still sitting down. So, whatever else happened that day, I had an attack neither of pacifism nor naivety. One would have hoped in an otherwise excellent programme such a strong criticism could have been balanced by an explanation from me as to what the idea was from my point of view. Perhaps they felt it was covered by my own strong comments on the death of the taxi driver a little later.

Link

 

[TremulousTetra]

thats the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me on here - ta

ha, my pleasure.

Never understood the need for all the macho insults, no compromises, confrontation tactics and the glorification of the keyboard struggle on here.

 

[SLK]

Seymour part 3 is up.

 

[cesare]

ha, my pleasure.

Never understood the need for all the macho insults, no compromises, confrontation tactics and the glorification of the keyboard struggle on here.

Not happy to condone or compromise re fucked up rape/sex abuse/ DV complaints - thanks very much.

 

[TremulousTetra]

Not happy to condone or compromise re fucked up rape/sex abuse/ DV complaints - thanks very much.

sorry? What?

ETA. Ahhhhh, ok, a bit of leftfield logic.

Fine, if you know those are the facts, I wouldn't Expect you to compromise, and neither would I.

 

[cesare]

sorry? What?

ETA. Ahhhhh, ok, a bit of leftfield logic.

Fine, if you know those are the facts, I wouldn't Expect you to compromise, and neither would I.

They fucked up the investigation whether or not he's guilty.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Seymour part 3 is up.

A not very veiled pair of digs at mini Choonara and Bergfeld at the end.

 

[ViolentPanda]

So these so called "credentials" are based upon fairly superficial things then ? Plus a hefty dose of stereotype.

In Smith's case, absolutely!

 

[ViolentPanda]

you mean like Marx and Engels. Workerist.

No, I don't mean like Marx and Engels, I mean like some faux-proletarian Mockney-accented wankshafts with no more original political thought in their heads than a weak lemon drink.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

It is a shit piece tho. Tired gender stereotypes dont become suddenly correct just because they're made by a gay man.

I wasn't defending the article - I haven't read it and don't need to in order to criticise bb's boneheaded Swappie "hard as nails" women example.

 

[Sean Delaney]

This and your later assertions about the theoretical supremacy of SWP members in the 1980's is interesting as a example of the ability to look at an organisation in an era and see exactly opposite things.

I would argue that for the rest of its entire lifespan the SWP has been essentially a slowly failing political cult of the WRP type.

You are right. As someone pointed out to me the other day, both factions involved in the SWP dispute are claiming impeccable Leninist credentials! I was an easily impressionable youth in the 1980s, and with the benefit of hindsight now, I can see that the 'theoretical brilliance' of the SWP was really cribbed from an incredibly limited tunnel vision of what Marxian ideas were - essentially Tony Cliff's volumes on Lenin plus a boilerplate critique of political economy, fashioned in the first instance by Kidron, then polished up in the later years by Harman. There was never an attempt to borrow down into the philosophical underpinning of the ideas in any meaningful way. This hysterical obsession with 'activism' and 'building the party' has partly lead to where the SWP finds itself today: a sinking ship without a rudder.

If there is to be a renaissance of Marxian ideas, it has much more to gain from the Luxemburgist tradition of the IS, when ideas could be more wide ranging and not what followed after Cliff's putsch in the mid 1970s. But the concept of tolerance and pluralism is seen as a weakness in SWP la la land.

 

[TremulousTetra]

They fucked up the investigation whether or not he's guilty.

YEAH, all, including themselves, seemed to agree upon that.

I don't have a clue what the right way to deal with it would have been, as much in the account just seems very odd.
SWP kangaroo court

 

[cesare]

YEAH, all, including themselves, seemed to agree upon that.

I don't have a clue what the right way to deal with it would have been, as much in the account just seems very odd. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/mar/09/socialist-workers-party-rape-kangaroo-court

The link doesn't work

 

[bolshiebhoy]

I wasn't defending the article - I haven't read it and don't need to in order to criticise bb's boneheaded Swappie "hard as nails" women example.

What's boneheaded about it? Thatchell is saying in-your-face-bolshevism is proof of machismo. Women who behave that way are at least a problem for that analysis no?

 

[Nigel Irritable]

What's boneheaded about it?

Saying that some women can gleefully adopt a "hard" style too is not an argument against the idea that the fetishisation of toughness reflects political machismo. The Thatchell article is woeful, but that doesn't mean that every hostile response to it is correct or reasonable.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

What's boneheaded about it?

It's an unthinking ripost to anyone who says that a certain political/social environment may not be an attractive place to others particularly women because of the culture.

It's also very reminiscant in my view of the arguments used by right-wing women who are successful in politics or business against women and others who complain about board room or House of Commons culture and working proceedures.

It's boneheaded because it basically uses extremely simplistic reactionary arguments that celebrate sterotypically masculine behaviour in a couple of women to demonstrate why the given environment is not alienating to women.

"But look at Margaret Thatcher, why do we need to make it easier for women to get involved in parliamentary politics?"

The president of the US is a black man.

 

[TremulousTetra]

The link doesn't work

sorry about that, just changed it.

Can you just clarify where you're coming from with this, as you actually quoted a bit of banter originally.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

This nonsense so reminds me of the senior Millie who used to tell our comrades off after public meetings for swearing during our speeches as it would offend women. The irony that he was telling it to women swpers swearing back at him was lost on him.

 

[cesare]

sorry about that, just changed it.

Can you just clarify where you're coming from with this, as you actually quoted a bit of banter originally.

Which banter did I quote?

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

This nonsense so reminds me of the senior Millie who used to tell our comrades off after public meetings for swearing during our speeches as it would offend women. The irony that he was telling it to women swpers swearing back at him was lost on him.

While I don't agree with the Millie in question - this post in another reminder of what's wrong with the SWP mindset.

It's quite an impressive feat to have a least three wrong things in a two line post.

 

[cesare]

YEAH, all, including themselves, seemed to agree upon that.

I don't have a clue what the right way to deal with it would have been, as much in the account just seems very odd.
SWP kangaroo court

Hang on. When did Kimber start saying they found against the accused? They found "not proven" which is not the same thing.

Responding to the allegations of mishandling an investigation, Charlie Kimber, the party's national secretary said: "The SWP strongly contests major elements of this account of the disputes committee hearing. The woman concerned brought serious accusations to our attention, we investigated, found against the accused and took prompt action. Those are the facts of this case."

 

[Nigel Irritable]

This nonsense so reminds me of the senior Millie who used to tell our comrades off after public meetings for swearing during our speeches as it would offend women. The irony that he was telling it to women swpers swearing back at him was lost on him.

I can't tell if this laughable bit of evasion is meant as self-parody.

"My story begins in nineteeen dickety two when I was still surrounded by my super hard gang. One of my endless supply of apocryphal Militant members said something vaguely backwards none of which has any real bearing on anything, but it's as good a way as any to change the subject..."

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Hang on. When did Kimber start saying they found against the accused? They found "not proven" which is not the same thing.

He's talking about the other case this time where they found Smith guilty of rape so suspended him for two years before giving him a job as an organiser again.