SWP expulsions and squabbles

[DotCommunist]

i wonder what's in the bottle?

if he rubs it three times lenin comes out and grants him no wishes

 

[frogwoman]

The swp have just put this on youtube (real)

Check your judge of good graphic design privilege there butchers.

 

[butchersapron]

Check your judge of good graphic design privilege there butchers.

They be-deck the walls with historical ones (in lieu of union banners).That was never good design.

 

[belboid]

Check your judge of good graphic design privilege there butchers.

decent choice of font, but the lack of proper leading is shocking, if rather ironic.

 

[frogwoman]

The swp have just put this on youtube (real)

"Lomdon"

 

[butchersapron]

I shall watch this vid later. It might yet contain many mansions.

 

[Das Uberdog]

if he rubs it three times lenin comes out and grants him no wishes

genu-lol

 

[butchersapron]

One step forward two steps back.

 

[discokermit]

Molyneux is an awful toady shit

willie black makes him look a dick.

 

[benedict]

It's like a condensation of all the head-in-hands moments of the average Marxism. The hectoring by party droids, the characteristic speaking style, the gestures, the stock of simplistic parables, the unthinking repetition of easy formulas, the partisan foot-stomping. Even the posters are recycled many years over. A real house of horrors this one. Birchall comes out with some dignity but then you remember what he's defending...

 

[discokermit]

It's like a condensation of all the head-in-hands moments of the average Marxism.

the molyneux trotsky quote was massively embarrassing. even he looked embarrassed as it limped to an irrelevant conclusion.

 

[emanymton]

The swp have just put this on youtube (real)

I'd never noticed how big his ears are before.

 

[leyton96]

The swp have just put this on youtube (real)

I have to say (through gritted teeth! ) I'm impressed the SWP put it up. for them it's a big concession to put public disagreements online.
OK, as I never tire pointing out to Apology Boy, radical change in the SWP's internal culture normally means aligning yourself with standard practice in other left groups but still for the SWP this is a bit of a departure.

That said listening to Callinicos rabbit on I cannot for the life of me understand how he's gotten away with this image of being 'one of Britain's foremost Marxist thinkers' for so long.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Ah but hang on, One of the best things about Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution for example, that paragon of Leninist history is the number of times the class teaches the party rather than the other way round as happens in stalinist history

yeah books are shit.

 

[butchersapron]

yeah books are shit.

Some are.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

I have to say (through gritted teeth! ) I'm impressed the SWP put it up. for them it's a big concession to put public disagreements online.
OK, as I never tire pointing out to Apology Boy, radical change in the SWP's internal culture normally means aligning yourself with standard practice in other left groups but still for the SWP this is a bit of a departure.

That said listening to Callinicos rabbit on I cannot for the life of me understand how he's gotten away with this image of being 'one of Britain's foremost Marxist thinkers' for so long.

He looked tired and distracted (forgetting names). But then I don't think he ever imagined he'd be the one having to lead this charge, he's not really built for it. That said I thought he spoke cogently about the twin dangers of sectish vs adaptive behaviour and that the antis from the floor sounded far too wishy washy in reply. They reminded me of the same people who'd drift into branches in the old days, add a bit of colour and then throw a hissy fit about how stale and centrally controlled things were, then flounce off. There's something far too dilettantish about the folk behind uncles Ian and Pat.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Audio of the other meetings all up now: http://swpradiocast.bandcamp.com/album/marxism-2013-part-1-of-4

Who says the swp hasn't embraced the interweb? To think how long we used to have to wait for the tape recordings in the bad old days and I have never forgiven the guy who forgot to turn on the recorder for my one and only meeting at Marxism :-(

Steely bolshevik efficiency these days!

 

[butchersapron]

He looked tired and distracted (forgetting names). But then I don't think he ever imagined he'd be the one having to lead this charge, he's not really built for it. That said I thought he spoke cogently about the twin dangers of sectish vs adaptive behaviour and that the antis from the floor sounded far too wishy washy in reply. They reminded me of the same people who'd drift into branches in the old days, add a bit of colour and then throw a hissy fit about how stale and centrally controlled things were, then flounce off. There's something far too dilettantish about the folk behind uncles Ian and Pat.

You haven't been in a branch for two decades. Yet you know the fatal fault of the people they attract by the big hitters (round and round ye go)

 

[bolshiebhoy]

You haven't been in a branch for two decades. Yet you know the fatal fault of the people they attract by the big hitters (round and round ye go)

There is a certain type yes, the dilettante just as there is the other type, the infamous 'hack'. Think the silent majority in the party always hated both but knew one was at least useful.

 

[discokermit]

There is a certain type yes, the dilettante just as there is the other type, the infamous 'hack'. Think the silent majority in the party always hated both but knew one was at least useful.

the dilettante causes far less damage.

 

[benedict]

He looked tired and distracted (forgetting names). But then I don't think he ever imagined he'd be the one having to lead this charge, he's not really built for it. That said I thought he spoke cogently about the twin dangers of sectish vs adaptive behaviour and that the antis from the floor sounded far too wishy washy in reply. They reminded me of the same people who'd drift into branches in the old days, add a bit of colour and then throw a hissy fit about how stale and centrally controlled things were, then flounce off. There's something far too dilettantish about the folk behind uncles Ian and Pat.

This is lovely. Wonderfully encapsulates a party culture where rigidity and conformism are the key values. Heads down, into the bitter wind, steely grimace, clutch-full of SW's under-arm, holding the line, the biggest revolutionary organization in Britain. Sounds perfectly awful. Why do you think these dilettantes flounced so soon Bolshie?

 

[discokermit]

This is lovely. Wonderfully encapsulates a party culture where rigidity and conformism are the key values. Heads down, into the bitter wind, steely grimace, clutch-full of SW's under-arm, holding the line, the biggest revolutionary organization in Britain. Sounds perfectly awful. Why do you think these dilettantes flounced so soon Bolshie?

why did he himself flounce?

 

[leyton96]

Man alive that Irish guy was boring.

"We need, like, a revolutionary uhhhh party, because, you know fascism and ahhhh the unemployed."
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

 

[frogwoman]

This is lovely. Wonderfully encapsulates a party culture where rigidity and conformism are the key values. Heads down, into the bitter wind, steely grimace, clutch-full of SW's under-arm, holding the line, the biggest revolutionary organization in Britain. Sounds perfectly awful. Why do you think these dilettantes flounced so soon Bolshie?

Must be an awful lot of "dilletantes" then.

 

[discokermit]

View attachment 38214

Man alive that Irish guy was boring.

"We need, like, a revolutionary uhhhh party, because, you know fascism and ahhhh the unemployed."
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

i think that's a bit out of order.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

This is lovely. Wonderfully encapsulates a party culture where rigidity and conformism are the key values. Heads down, into the bitter wind, steely grimace, clutch-full of SW's under-arm, holding the line, the biggest revolutionary organization in Britain. Sounds perfectly awful. Why do you think these dilettantes flounced so soon Bolshie?

Yes yes the party is a cult etc. The thing is many of those who flounced did so only so far as variuos real cults, the alphabet zoo of sects. I really, really don't recognise this picture of the swp or it's sister parties as conformist. The most common phrase between comrades was 'yes but'. People had a basic core of shared politics but debated constantly as to their application/development. There's a quote from Nigel Harris in Birchall's Cliff about leaving the party because it stopped having new ideas in the 80's. Did it or did people like Harris not just find the massive pressure to abandon the shared core of IS ideas increasingly harder to resist? If anything that pressure is probably even greater today.

 

[butchersapron]

Listen to yourself. The question begging - did they fail the IS? One by one, group by group, leading member by leading member. They all failed the IS.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

why did he himself flounce?

More of a tired shrug than a flounce.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

i think that's a bit out of order.

It is. Guy had some balls even to get up there in that athmosphere.

 

[discokermit]

Listen to yourself. The question begging - did they fail the IS? One by one, group by group, leading member by leading member.

soon it'll just be bolshie, a couple of aristocrats, a clown and a biter, with a sex case lurking about in the background. the swp and it's periphery. the true defenders of lenin.