Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
That Sheffield SWSS status stream last night was indeed pretty weird. There's a pretty clear claim in it thought that there were a significant number of resignations in Sheffield last night.
Really? I've never really seen much indication of that, bar perhaps their occasional role as vanity publisher for Matgamna's poetry.
Actually the SWSS have been one of the prime gateways for identity politics in universities and among the wider young. You trained them to defend what you now pretend you reject.
That, comrades, is the dialectic in action...I had a mate who worked in a pub who was encouraged by the management to break the rules and take a plate of chips each shift, everyone else was encouraged to do that and the manager did it too. When the management wanted an excuse to sack him, they sacked him for stealing food.
On the contrary the party didn't train them to be that way, it didn't do a very good job of challenging the training they were getting from their identity politics professors and mates. It needs to now, though clearly that's going to lead to a certain turnover.
And that isn't enough? Have you tried to read the dreck he calls poetry?
it didn't do a very good job of challenging the training they were getting from their identity politics professors and mates. It needs to now
I'm not talking about people in general, I'm talking about this woman. What reasons have been given in this thread, for this particular woman not going to the police, then or NOW? I don't know that information, do you have a link to that in this thread, or elsewhere. Especially now, it is being discussed on the Internet daily. I don't think immigrant status is an issue here, is it?
The woman involved has gone to the press. She said she didn't go to the police, for fear of being expelled. Then she left the party. The woman involved then returned to the party, and asked for disputes committee to handle it. She knew who they were, it would be people who knew Martin Smith. It would be pretty hard for people not to know Martin Smith in such a tiny organisation (I meant to raise this issue before). You say the could have found a way, how in such a tiny organisation could they do that democratically?
I actually agree with you about the Lib Dems, and that it has been dealt with badly, but given the structures of the party at the time, I come to the conclusion if you really really really wanted to put the interests of the party, before the interests of the individuals Martin Smith and the woman, you should have refused to deal with it. With the structures of the party at the time, there was no other way to safeguard the interests of the party. (You cannot just throw away a rule book in a political party. But even if you had, people would still have made this an issue.)
Looking at it from this perspective, the interests of the party, just for one moment, you could equally ask, why didn't they put the interests of the party above those of the two individuals, and refuse to handle it? What do you think the answers to this question would be?
I think you see the fairness in the arguments, it would have been impossible to restructure the party, in an adequate time frame, protecting everybody's privacy. This gives them the option of going outside the party. Have people made suggestions of organisations the party could have given this issue to deal with, outside the party, which would have guaranteed privacy not only for the individuals involved, but for the party?
I know the person that sat with the woman, if Rita is who I think it is. The woman that went back in and complained about how the situation had been dealt with by the disputes committee, and I trust her judgement. Don't think there is any excuse for this. The party should have gone outside, if they were going to handle it themselves, and find out what questions to ask, and how you asked them. But to be honest with you, even if they had handled it better, I cannot see people like the Daily Mail ever not making political capital out of this situation. The only way, and I realise this is just opinion, but the only way in my opinion they could have put the interests of the party first, was to not touch this with a barge pole.
This is all just speculation, from me. I don't know why they did this. I know at least two of the people involved, having worked closely with them for several years. Then there is Pat Stack. (Do have a full list of names of people on the disciplinary committee?) Would I consider everybody involved feminists? Absolutely!
I actually, in the end don't have answers. Only questions. Even the woman's use of the word slut, brings up questions. That's why I chose not to discuss it before now. Apparently if you don't defend them, you are wrong, and if you do defend them, you are wrong. Well what happens when you just choose to ask questions? Is that reasonable?
GTG
A certain turnover? Apart from the 5 groups that have left so far, the rest appear to be in such disarray that there are approximately 15 left nationally in a state where they can send two delegates to a national meeting, and those still seem to be in revolt. You aren't talking about "a certain turnover" but the near complete destruction of SWSS as it stood a year ago and an attempt to start, if not quite from scratch, then from some shattered remnants.
Now you might think that's necessary or that it's the least bad option, but you should at least be clear about what it means. Particularly given that the SWP has been largely built and reproduced through the continuous recruitment SWSS has provided.
That Sheffield SWSS status stream last night was indeed pretty weird. There's a pretty clear claim in it thought that there were a significant number of resignations in Sheffield last night.
"Last night we lost a large number of SWP members in Sheffield, in case you've not noticed we are in mourning."
from FB, do they mean SWP or SWSS?
I gather the Loach film, Spirit of 45 is having quite an impact.
On the contrary the party didn't train them to be that way, it didn't do a very good job of challenging the training they were getting from their identity politics professors and mates. It needs to now, though clearly that's going to lead to a certain turnover.
That Sheffield SWSS status stream last night was indeed pretty weird. There's a pretty clear claim in it thought that there were a significant number of resignations in Sheffield last night.
So wrote Richard Seymour in an article in yesterday's Guardian. Pity it was SEYMOUR but it's not going to make him popular with those here who regard any talk of abolishing money and banking as wildly and hilariously utopian.To paraphrase Karl Marx on religion, the demand to abolish banking is a demand to abolish the state of affairs that needs banking.
I agree, but can you just for clarification. The second women you are referring to is not the women who made the second complaint, as she was not in her teens and never went to bed with Delta. So you then know of another teenager he had an affair with the women involved has made no compliant to the SWP? So there are now at least three women involved, although one of them has made no complaint?Of course there are circumstances which are none of our business. But it doesn't make you a bourgeois moralist to think what the hell is a 48 year old leader of a socialist organisation doing trying to go to bed with a 17 year old, and another teenager not much older.
The position was always more subtle than for or against identity politics per se. Resisting Islamophobia was one of the better things the SWP did in that period. But if you remember it actually meant pissing off a layer of people who had a problem with Islam's attitude to sex and gender. One of the first debates I remember having on here was about German's remark about there being no shibboleths in Respect, gay issues in particular. Standing with Muslims against the tide of shit being thrown at them meant not screaming at them at every opportunity about the treatment of women in Islam and making that a condition of working with them, a subtlety that would be lost on the current student opposition. The approach was fine, the problem was a section of the leadership - the all knowing leadership even! - went native in the anti war movement.Rubbish - you lot hid behind them for 2 decades - you did it on here, cheering on every islamophobe! sexist! smear against people that you disagreed with.
What this shows is two things. Firstly, that the content of the smears are interchangeable - they can flip from being examples of identity politics to attacks on identity politics. The model remains though- hysterical shouting by junior trots, stealthily directed by people like you. And secondly, the ownership of the real politics of the SWP by an small core of longer term members who do hold the real positions, but are quite happy to have a wider membership who disagree with them on pretty much everything, even to encourage these disagreements as long as they can a) do the footwork b) pay for their jobs and c) make it look like the party is progressing rather than allowing people to to see the apolitcal hollowed out potemkin party based on covert accepted elitism that it really is.
Your memory is faulty."Jo C didn’t really contribute anything to the meeting. In fact, when an FE student made a contribution, instead of listening intently and trying to answer his question as best she could, she instead chose to heckle him. This was incredibly rude and inappropriate, not least because she’s a middle aged adult and the FE student is one of the youngest members of the organisation. When the same FE comrade asked for advice as to how we build in FE, he was told to “call a meeting” with no explanation as to how and with whom."
Oh dear, she was one of the better ones I recall...
Don't really want to open the debate again but I thought the shibboleth thing was massively overblown. To me it was just restating the basic principle of solidarity like the old, old line about what do you do if you are on a picket line and someone makes a racist/sexist/homophobic remark, do youThe position was always more subtle than for or against identity politics per se. Resisting Islamophobia was one of the better things the SWP did in that period. But if you remember it actually meant pissing off a layer of people who had a problem with Islam's attitude to sex and gender. One of the first debates I remember having on here was about German's remark about there being no shibboleths in Respect, gay issues in particular. Standing with Muslims against the tide of shit being thrown at them meant not screaming at them at every opportunity about the treatment of women in Islam and making that a condition of working with them, a subtlety that would be lost on the current student opposition. The approach was fine, the problem was a section of the leadership - the all knowing leadership even! - went native in the anti war movement.
I think they should set up a temporary forum called the junta for an invited group of likeminded souls so they can come up with a genuinely democratic framework for internetz blogging
Andy Newman telling off South African dockworkers in refusing to unload high-tech weaponry from China to Harare, later sent by plane: “As i understand it, the dockers were following the pro-MDC position of South African leftists like Patrick Bond"
That Sheffield SWSS status stream last night was indeed pretty weird. There's a pretty clear claim in it thought that there were a significant number of resignations in Sheffield last night.
The position was always more subtle than for or against identity politics per se. Resisting Islamophobia was one of the better things the SWP did in that period. But if you remember it actually meant pissing off a layer of people who had a problem with Islam's attitude to sex and gender. One of the first debates I remember having on here was about German's remark about there being no shibboleths in Respect, gay issues in particular. Standing with Muslims against the tide of shit being thrown at them meant not screaming at them at every opportunity about the treatment of women in Islam and making that a condition of working with them, a subtlety that would be lost on the current student opposition.
The approach was fine, the problem was a section of the leadership - the all knowing leadership even! - went native in the anti war movement.
Your memory is faulty.
Resisting Islamophobia while pissing on women and gays - nice work, and how very subtle!
corrected for you"Last night we lost a large number of SWP members in Sheffield, in case you've not noticed we are in morning."
from FB, do they mean SWP or SWSS?