SWP expulsions and squabbles

[SpineyNorman]

because what you do is so much more prominent? Acting to promote the struggle of the working class, how?

This bit just shows how shit you really are - sihhi doesn't have to be doing anything to 'promote the struggle of the working class' to correctly point out that, even if the SWP really were key to 'the emancipation of the working class as the act of the working class', that wouldn't excuse the kind of stuff we've heard about on this thread.

basic solidarity the left shoulder each other in the face of attacks from the right. Done it myself many times for anarchists.

You've told people to leave off criticising anarchists when they take part in botched rape investigations?

(I'm going to regret asking this question aren't I?)

 

[TremulousTetra]

That's how swoppies train their members to 'argue' with ideas they don't agree with.

Step 1: Misrepresent the other persons argument and present a position no sane person could possible agree with.

Step 2: Argue against this new position you have invented.

Step 3: You have 'won' the argument.

In my 15 or so years of observing and discussing with members of the IS 'Tradition' in several different countries this is the method that is followed almost without exception. It's another reason why I always smile when you get a particularly self aggrandising IS member who likes to boast about the great theoretical heritage of the IS 'Tradition' (you get some ex-members like that as well, Sebastian Budgen springs to mind).

The reality is that because the IS 'Tradition' is such a hotch-potch of contradictory positions, often the result of importing different ideas whole sale from elsewhere, that most IS members are quite often not really that confident in their own ideas. For this reason they often resort to this dishonest method of debate when discussing other ideas.

Personally speaking I often find it much more challenging to debate with an anarchist or even a Stalinist than someone from the IS 'Tradition'.
With the former two there is at least some sort of clash of ideas but with an IS person what mostly end up doing is correcting the distortions of your own position.

aren't you being a bit hypocritical, having totally misrepresented the arguments of the SWP here;

So the IS Tradition is neutral in a conflict between "state capitalist" North Korea and American Imperialism, then it is pro "state capitalist" North Vietnam a decade later. Then in the '80's it backs reactionary Islamic jihadists against the "state capitalist" USSR.

During the early stages of the Socialist Alliance the SWP is "uncompromising" on the issue of open borders and migrant rights, then when it is in a position to actually put such a position on a national platform in Respect it suddenly has nothing to say on the matter.

It is a "at the heart" of the LGBT struggle one minute but then such things become 'shibboleths' in other circumstances

It refers to the IRA as the "cutting edge" of the struggle against imperialism in the 70's and 80's but by the late 90's it has a position largely indistinguishable from the "Queens Own Socialist Party"

Now, I make no comment about the rights and wrongs of those positions in themselves, that's for another thread(s). My point is that there is no way these multiple contradictory positions can be reconciled under a political and theoretical 'tradition' beyond the fact that a certain brand name called, "The IS Traditon" held them at one point or the other.

 

[belboid]

and if anyone knows anything about misrepresentation, its rmp3...

 

[TremulousTetra]

This bit just shows how shit you really are - sihhi doesn't have to be doing anything to 'promote the struggle of the working class' to correctly point out that, even if the SWP really were key to 'the emancipation of the working class as the act of the working class', that wouldn't excuse the kind of stuff we've heard about on this thread.

that's misinterpreting my argument.
Discussion of the rape allegation, and how it was handled, is not the only discussion taking place on this thread/and in the media. A general attack upon Leninism/Trotskyism (and on the left in the media).
I was not asking him to excuse the rape allegations and their handling, but if he's going to make sneering comments about coaches ect, I'm entitled to ask what does he do that is so much better?
You took one comment out of context. Please don't do that.

You've told people to leave off criticising anarchists when they take part in botched rape investigations?

(I'm going to regret asking this question aren't I?)

practice what you preach.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

more of an opening fart, I'd say, but hey ho. Is LG's book still going to be central? Didnt Shelia write owt? (other than her seminal pieces on Fair Isle Knitting Patterns, which may, I suppose, just possibly be by a different Shelia McGregor)

Lol. Don't think so. LG's is the best one in print by that group of people even if the author herself may have abandoned much of her own work now.

 

[SpineyNorman]

that's misinterpreting my argument.
Discussion of the rape allegation, and how it was handled, is not the only discussion taking place on this thread/and in the media. A general attack upon Leninism/Trotskyism (and on the left in the media).
I was not asking him to excuse the rape allegations and their handling, but if he's going to make sneering comments about coaches ect, I'm entitled to ask what does he do that is so much better?
You took one comment out of context. Please don't do that.
practice what you preach.

No, you're the one trying to rip it away from its context - because the anarchist in question was using their hiring of coaches etc to excuse the horrendous stuff we've read about on this thread.

Again, your knee jerk defence of the SWP leads you to lose all sense of perspective.

 

[discokermit]

Come on Sean. What was it Guy Smallman asked for, a bit of perspective? 25+ years ago a younger, stupider version of someone was in a fight, a fight with another bloke of similar build and age, that got a bit too physical. And as socialists we should argue this guy couldn't change and is to be barred from all leading roles in the movement?! Really? Btw conflating that case with a case of alleged rape is pretty poor. There's a strategy here of listing every shit thing anyone in the SWP ever did, blaming it on the party's politics whether that's fair or not, then writing the swp off as a violent bunch of rapist thugs which for anyone who knows and has worked with the party is a laughable claim. Many, many working class people come to socialist politics with a rough and ready past. The point is whether being in socialist orgs helps them channel their anger and cast off the inter personal violence shit. Having stod next to the person you're so outraged at and been glad he was there to physically take on fascists about to rip my head off I'm glad he's stuck around and learned how to focus his hatred of the system.

he didn't come to the party with a rough and ready past then channel his anger and cast off the inter personal violence shit though, did he?

he came to the party then channelled his anger into inter personal violence shit.

you are such a liar.

 

[TremulousTetra]

and if anyone knows anything about misrepresentation, its rmp3...

many of the arguments made against socialist worker on here, from MY POINT OF VIEW are nonsense. And I don't mean that insultingly, I mean literally they make no sense. [I genuinely cannot understand how people can so misrepresent the SWP, i.e. shibboleth.] So it shouldn't be surprising, I misinterpret them (misrepresent them).

I am not offended by this, I'm fascinated. I genuinely would like to comprehend it.

Whilst I am fully aware of the major major differences between all the different political strands, I do think one of the major problems is, people need to wind their neck in a bit, and try to create a common language, without hyperbole, and listen to each other.

So when I DO misrepresent what people are saying, it is either because 1. I genuinely don't understand them or 2. Get that fed up of being misrepresented, I can't be arsed.

 

[belboid]

MY POINT OF VIEW are nonsense

is, not are

 

[TremulousTetra]

No, you're the one trying to rip it away from its context - because the anarchist in question was using their hiring of coaches etc to excuse the horrendous stuff we've read about on this thread.

Again, your knee jerk defence of the SWP leads you to lose all sense of perspective.

well that's your interpretation. The CPGB also made the point about defending socialist worker from the right, WHILST criticising socialist worker.

I would prefer you to deal with the questions I actually asked. If everything is about recruitment, why are they so piss poor at recruiting? Is it possible they are genuine socialists? Is it possible I am a socialist? Is it possible, we could GENUINELY disagree?

 

[TremulousTetra]

is, not are

and people accuse me of trolling. Trying to take the thread off topic.

Is that correct? I said arguments, which is plural. So surely you cant say the arguments is wrong. You have to say the arguments are wrong?

Look, the personal abuse is just water off a ducks back to me. But it is very NOT interesting, or enjoyable for the thread. Why cannot you just ignore what I say, or ACTUALLY take on what I say without misrepresenting it? (No offence )

 

[TremulousTetra]

he didn't come to the party with a rough and ready past then channel his anger and cast off the inter personal violence shit though, did he?

he came to the party then channelled his anger into inter personal violence shit.

you are such a liar.

there is no need for this personal abuse. Why would he lie? It's a bloody chit chat board, there is no point in lying.

 

[TremulousTetra]

Anyway, have a nice day Norman belboid.

 

[SpineyNorman]

well that's your interpretation. The CPGB also made the point about defending socialist worker from the right, WHILST criticising socialist worker.

I would prefer you to deal with the questions I actually asked. If everything is about recruitment, why are they so piss poor at recruiting? Is it possible they are genuine socialists? Is it possible I am a socialist? Is it possible, we could GENUINELY disagree?

No, sorry I'm not going to help you completely derail a thread by answering or asking irrelevant questions (nobody has claimed they're not genuine socialists - that they believe what they're doing is what's best for advancing socialism - after all, if the SWP is the one true socialist faith then it makes perfect sense to put the interests of the party before all else).

I dare say you're just incapable of seeing your own biases - people with a religious style faith in groups, political or not, are often like that.

Now, about these anarchists you've defended after they undertook botched rape investigations...

 

[emanymton]

So anyway, back on topic, Seymour responds to Julie Sherry's piece.

Just occurred to be that for all the CC's whining about the opposition and the bourgeois press, the first side to openly write about it in the bourgeois press was in fact the CC.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

So anyway, back on topic, Seymour responds to Julie Sherry's piece.

Just occurred to be that for all the CC's whining about the opposition and the bourgeois press, the first side to openly write about it in the bourgeois press was in fact the CC.

I think you'll find you have misinterpreted the dialectic that prompted Julie Sherry's piece.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[bolshiebhoy]

he didn't come to the party with a rough and ready past then channel his anger and cast off the inter personal violence shit though, did he?

he came to the party then channelled his anger into inter personal violence shit.

you are such a liar.

To make a claim like that you better have some first hand knowledge of what he was like when he joined otherwise you can fuck right off.

 

[discokermit]

To make a claim like that you better have some first hand knowledge of what he was like when he joined otherwise you can fuck right off.

eh? what the fuck are you on about? are you saying that he was actually worse before he joined? that him biting lumps out of comrades ears was actually an improvement? jesus fucking christ.

 

[SpineyNorman]

 

[bolshiebhoy]

jeesus. I'm saying none of that. I'm saying people don't change overnight but they do change.

 

[Sean Delaney]

But Bolshie, my original point still stands, which I think I may have missed a response from you or any other SWP sympathiser on here - which is that some poor jon whose crime is to dare discuss or question the finer details of the SWP leadership's twists and turns get expelled for life, while the kind of behaviour which is by most peoples standards grossly inhumane gets a slap on the wrist because 'they are good organisers.' What kind of party is it, that operates on such a basis?

Such a culture has nothing to do with socialism. I dread to think what kind of society the current crop of SWP loyalists would be presiding over.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

But Bolshie, my original point still stands, which I think I may have missed a response from you or any other SWP sympathiser on here - which is that some poor jon whose crime is to dare discuss or question the finer details of the SWP leadership's twists and turns get expelled for life, while the kind of behaviour which is by most peoples standards grossly inhumane gets a slap on the wrist because 'they are good organisers.' What kind of party is it, that operates on such a basis?

Such a culture has nothing to do with socialism. I dread to think what kind of society the current crop of SWP loyalists would be presiding over.

On the one hand questioning the theory of the leadership is questioning the very basis on which the party operates; as such it is a fundamental attack on the party. On the other, biting someones ear or sexually harassing someone needs to be set against the needs of the class; in these cases the need of the class to have good organisers/leaders if they are to fulfill their historic potential.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[frogwoman]

On the one hand questioning the theory of the leadership is questioning the very basis on which the party operates; as such it is a fundamental attack on the party. On the other, biting someones ear or sexually harassing someone needs to be set against the needs of the class; in these cases the need of the class to have good organisers/leaders if they are to fulfill their historic potential.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

We need proletarian leaders who are unafraid to bite the ears of the bourgeois class.

 

[frogwoman]

As we bite the ears of wayward comrades, so we tear a chunk off the greasy lugs of capital!

 

[emanymton]

Can we leave off the ear bitting, unless the suggestion is he was acting as an enforcer for the CC at the time or something I don't see the point of it. So two young blokes who both happened to be in the Irish SWP got into a fight once and one lost a bit of his ear, so what?

 

[JimW]

... so what?

Well, his hat never sat straight again

 

[SpineyNorman]

And he's got nothing to hang his specs on

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Can we leave of the ear bitting, unless the suggestion is he was acting as an enforcer for the CC at the time or something I don't see the point of it. So two young blokes who both happened to be in the Irish SWP got into a fight once and one lost a bit of his ear, so what?

The voice of reason.

 

[TremulousTetra]

(nobody has claimed they're not genuine socialists - that they believe what they're doing is what's best for advancing socialism - after all, if the SWP is the one true socialist faith then it makes perfect sense to put the interests of the party before all else).

I dare say you're just incapable of seeing your own biases - people with a religious style faith in groups, political or not, are often like that.

by saying they are a faith group, you are denying they are socialists. You are denying Like you, they look at the world and come to some conclusions about how to change it. If socialist workers is a faith group, then so is yours.

I would say, the fact of the matter is, nobody! Not you and your political group/org, the anarchists or the SWP have the one true politics. I learned that from socialist worker.

Now, about these anarchists you've defended after they undertook botched rape investigations...

hypocrite.

 

[SpineyNorman]

by saying they are a faith group, you are denying they are socialists. You are denying Like you, they look at the world and come to some conclusions about how to change it. They make mistakes. If socialist workers is a faith group, then so is yours.

I would say, the fact of the matter is, nobody! Not you and your political group/org, the anarchists or the SWP have the one true politics. I learned that from socialist worker.

hypocrite.

I was once a member of the SWP - I've seen it from within. You're right that some of the more hackish elements within the SP take the party line on faith, but in my experience they're a smaller proportion of the membership than their SWP equivalents.

I do have the one true politics by the way, the SP clearly don't though, otherwise I wouldn't disagree with as much of the party line as I do. And I can say that without being threatened with expulsion or in any way disciplined.

That really is the last reply you'll get from me, I'm kicking myself for getting into this to be honest. You're an idiot, I really can't be arsed any more.