SWP expulsions and squabbles

[imposs1904]

they were a couple for years and couples can start to dress like each other. anyway, a massive amount of people in their forties dress like that. mod-life crisis.

 

[flypanam]

Drunk post ignore please.

 

[barney_pig]

It's one you've been developing since this thread has started.

What?

 

[sihhi]

Not said very often but a good paragraph from the AWL:

"The self-righteousness of the ISG does no service to women’s rights. As well as criticising the SWP, the AWL has also attempted self-examination. How would we have dealt with similar allegations in our own organisation? Even the best political positions and education programmes are no guarantee against individual abuse. Do we have strong enough safeguards against the sort of lower-grade wrongdoing which seems to have formed the background to the Smith scandal: older activists using their “prestige” in political activity for sexual advantage with young members and contacts?"

Wider piece is OK too on the Glasgow incidents.

 

[barney_pig]

Drunk post ignore please.

Ok, carry on drinking ;-)

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

They don't.

I don't think that's true anymore. I'm pretty sure that the law changed so the police will now prosecute in some cases, even if the victim doesn't want them to. They have to decide whether it is in the "public interest".

http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/prosecution/domestic/domv.html#a04

This link seems to back that up, and says that the police will prosecute in some instances even without the victim wanting them to, and gives an example such as the perpetrator admiting guilt.

 

[treelover]

reading various LU FB sites it look like where significant SWP elements broke away, eg, SWSS, then they are going to get involved with LU en masse, not convinced this is a positive move...

 

[muscovyduck]

I don't think that's true anymore. I'm pretty sure that the law changed so the police will now prosecute in some cases, even if the victim doesn't want them to. They have to decide whether it is in the "public interest".

http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/prosecution/domestic/domv.html#a04

This link seems to back that up, and says that the police will prosecute in some instances even without the victim wanting them to, and gives an example such as the perpetrator admiting guilt.

There's a difference between what's written down by the CPS and what the police actually think/do

 

[laptop]

reading various LU FB sites it look like where significant SWP elements broke away, eg, SWSS, then they are going to get involved with LU en masse, not convinced this is a positive move...

But how much is this spin by the promoters of LU?

I mean, if you were launching something like that, you might want to do some stick-bending to create the appearance of momentum, wouldn't you?

Even if you were forming a darts team...

 

[treelover]

But how much is this spin by the promoters of LU?

I mean, if you were launching something like that, you might want to do some stick-bending to create the appearance of momentum, wouldn't you?

Even if you were forming a darts team...

If that is a 'leninism' then I hope all are banned, as is that dreadful deterministic phrase 'layer'

 

[belboid]

If that is a 'leninism' then I hope all are banned, as is that dreadful deterministic phrase 'layer'

what?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Hm! to my discredit, I'd not considered it before from a communities point of view. Thinking about that. I'd view sexist violence as having a continuum of causes, from pure interpersonal inadequacy at one end to sadistic exercise of power at the other, in a hierarchy of gender dominated by "malesness" but where individual male behaviour is often more pathalogical than specifically dominating. If that's reasonable then one way could be organising neighbourhood-based courses for men on conflict resolution, appropriate sexual behavior, and generally 'coping' better in difficult or confusing situations personal inadequacies can cause huge oppression.

Other courses could be for women, on avoiding or escaping violent situations. Male and female community mentors could be helpful too. I should think some of this is all going on but probably to almost all socialists' (and anarchists'?) blissful ignorance....

As the SP statement pointed out, campaigns for Council housing and better welfare services are crucial too.

That's all more to do with preventing violence and abuse and giving women maximum control where it does happen I guess. Dealing with offenders, and the general category of outright power abusers, are we looking at an inevitably criminal approach here? Apart from perhaps increasing community awareness and stigmatization of sexist violence. In sharp contradiction to drugs/property/"fight on a night out" type crime I think these categories necessitate prison in order to protect the victims. Serial harassment/predatory violence cases especially.

? ? ?

Community action shouldn't just be about community awareness and courses for interested individuals, when it might also be about communities "policing" the behaviour of its' members. There have been interesting data coming out of the Canadian First Nations and some of the native American jurisdictions, where old practices have been revived for policing intra-familial violence and sex offending. Contrary to some 19th-century narratives, this doesn't involve the removal of genitalia via the medium of fingernails, it involves sustained public shaming alongside sustained opportunities for the aggressor to "do penance" in a way meaningful to the victim. One of my favourite case studies involved a man who'd broken his daughter's leg while drunk, who was punished by being made to carry her everywhere until her cast was removed, while his daughter and other members of the community assisted him in dealing with his alcoholism. I'm not saying we need to transplant such techniques, but we can learn from what they tell us about the effectiveness of such programmes over the current most common methods. We've got, with intra-familial violence, a low reporting rate in part because the first recourse is often a custodial sentence; a low "carry through" rate from reporting to court; a low conviction rate and an on-off trend for an upsweep to degree of violence in subsequent offences against the same individuals that may be an artifact of poor reporting, or may reflect the rapidity of changes in direction of social attitudes to specifics of intra-familial violence.

 

[ViolentPanda]

No it's not it is the epitome of bad left writing - a theoretically crude polemical diatribe full of ad hominem attacks, and notable for both its lack of critical awareness and its deficit of imagination. I'm mean it's hardly as if BtF argued their insights emerged ex-nihilo without any historical precedents. Rowbotham is a historical FFS, she knows very well what alternative traditions she's drawing on.

And I hate this sociological reductionism where whole schools of thought are casually dismissed as "petit bourgeois" (something I note Hannah Sell has also picked up) - as though Engels wasn't a bourgeois, or Lenin, or Trotsky a petit-bourgeois.

That's not "sociological", it's rhetorical. It's just a device to avoid explaining that your dismissal is due to a disagreement you're unable/do not want to articulate. It's the exact opposite of when I call you a Fabian fuck and then explain that you're a Fabian fuck because you're a top-down "prescribe the solution to the masses" liberal.

What Hallas misses...

Missed.

is that the new social movements - though of course they emerged in class society and don't emerge from nowhere - can't be reduced or subordinated to some pre-given identity category. The idea that socialism might need to be re-thought in the light of feminist insights or insights from the environmental movement is ruled out from the outset.

It's ruled out for a reason, though - because it contradicts The Word Already Spoken. It was ever thus for the religious.

 

[belboid]

bonkers letter from Mark fisher in this weeks Weakly worker, I don't know whats worse his political points or the behviour of the AWL activists he is describing.

I saw LR at our Marxist Discussion Group thing last night, and he gave me the full goss on this. Surprisingly, it is exactly as Mark Fisher said. RH was, or at least acted, completely freaked out and just insisting that a mere appearance by Bowler puts women in danger! The fact that the relevant dole office probablhy has actual convitec rapists attending every day is fine apparently, but someone who simply heard a case (albeit badly) is dangerous? Fucking barking. Even her comrade seemed fully embarassed by her.

Still, I hope it means that if Bowler is at any meeting, RW wont turn up to it.

 

[butchersapron]

Let's make clear this is Mark Fischer, not Mark Fisher Of capitalist realism (and now is the time to turn to parliamentary struggle) fame.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

(and now is the time to turn to parliamentary struggle) fame.

Is that what he's on about now?! Where?

 

[J Ed]

http://internationalsocialistnetwork.org/index.php/documents/88-inaugural-meeting-minutes

 

[butchersapron]

Is that what he's on about now?! Where?

Have a read of this: The storm is underway & we have no shelter: a conversation between mark fisher & bifo

Never in my lifetime has capitalist ideology been weaker; neo-liberalism is now played out as a force which has forward momentum (though that isn’t to say that it can’t continue in perpetuity as a zombie). Now isn’t the time to further withdraw from institutions but to reoccupy them. In fact, part of the reason that neo-liberalism became so dominant is that we did withdraw, persuaded that mainstream media was dead and that parliamentary politics was a waste of time. But the very success of neo-liberalism indicates that these things are far from dead. Of course, both parliament and the mainstream media are deeply decadent in the UK, Italy and many other countries, and it will take some time – perhaps a decade at least – before we could make a difference. But it seems to me that, if we want to recover the future, now is the time to re-engage with such institutions.

 

[sihhi]

http://internationalsocialistnetwork.org/index.php/documents/88-inaugural-meeting-minutes

Is this Keith F the famous Keith F or a different one?

Chair- Kris S
Treasurer- Keith F
Secretary- Tim N
Charlotte B
China M
Ciara S
Emma R
Gina E
Hannah E
Ian L
Katheryn B-M
Linda R
Paris T
Penny S
Rich T-T
Richard S
Rosie W
Tom W

 

[butchersapron]

Disappointingly, no Sheila E

 

[belboid]

http://internationalsocialistnetwork.org/index.php/documents/88-inaugural-meeting-minutes

A lot of decent stuff on organisation, but...where are the plans to, y'know, actually do stuff?

 

[belboid]

Is this Keith F the famous Keith F or a different one?

a different one - expelled with AW twenty years ago (at least I presume it is)

 

[sihhi]

Paris, China and Richard all there.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Have a read of this: The storm is underway & we have no shelter: a conversation between mark fisher & bifo

Ta. Oh well, we never really saw eye to eye anyway.

 

[sihhi]

This one passed:-

We have received letters of greetings and support from Socialist Resistance and the Anti-Capitalist Initiative.
They have also sent observers to the meeting.
...
The Left Unity project has had a huge response- over 8,000 people have signed the petition initiated by Ken Loach.
Even if this translates to only a couple of thousand active members, it would still be the largest party to the left of Labour.
We should vote to work within Left Unity, look at the possibility of participating, and actively help set up local groups.

Everything is heading for a Socialist Alliance : The Return - right?

 

[J Ed]

Paris, China and Richard all there.

Bit surprised that a Sheffield undergrad is there

 

[J Ed]

This one passed:-





Everything is heading for a Socialist Alliance : The Return - right?

Rump SWP + IS in one organisation is going to be interesting.

 

[belboid]

Bit surprised that a Sheffield undergrad is there

someone from every area with a swss group, or enough for a branch, isn't it?

 

[sihhi]

Rump SWP + IS in one organisation is going to be interesting.

I think rump SWP might sit it out on the basis of some technicality - the big question mark is the SP.

 

[belboid]

'groups' cant join, only individuals, so I'm not really sure if either would be allowed to become members