SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
Last I heard hed resigned his party membership.
SWP expulsions and squabbles
- Thread starter Nigel Irritable
- Start date
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
yeah that's how it looks. to me as well but I'll see what I can find out about it
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Is Margi Clarke's son really a holocaust denier/nazi sympathiser?
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
I've got no time for the SP leadership and many of the membership these days but I find it hard to believe that organisers on the ground would stand for that sort of shit.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Don't be a fucking clown any more than you can help it, there's a good lad.
dennisr
the acceptable face
Maybe a conspiracy nutter hoving off in that direction.
But you have to take everything on that strange 'activist's blog with a huge pinch of salt - it comes across as some shouty, self-obsessed idiot who seems to end up attacking and pissing off just about everybody she comes into contact with. Her experience of 'fighting fascism' is that of a fantasist. She attacks older activists with decades long experience by name - demanding they "check their privildge" who I can vouch for from experience have done more to fight (physically) fascism than this little arsehole would ever contemplate - a victimised worker with 30+ years activity under his belt. She attacks some campaign for allowing a group with possible dodgy links in knowlsey to affiliate - arguing that this shows the role of "trots" and how this endangers members - then in the next post glosses over the fact that this knowsley group were not actually allowed to be involved. Not a word of explaination. Just some gobshite. No self-awareness whatsoever.
Sadder still that barney-bollocks is trying to use her words for an even less informed dig at something he knows even less about.
barney_pig
Po-cha-na-quar-hip
Having done a little digging I had discovered that the chair of thee meeting is a member of another trot sect, and was going to apologise, but the frothing of the sp has been a sight to behold.
Dennisr especially provides a classic example of the exact same logic as presented by swappie loyalists at the suggestion that some slip of a girl might be right about older (male) activists.
Some things don't change.
Dennisr especially provides a classic example of the exact same logic as presented by swappie loyalists at the suggestion that some slip of a girl might be right about older (male) activists.
Some things don't change.
Oisin123
So Much for Subtlety
Not me, I like to see barney's perspective on various matters, or even just his idle banter.
Strange, the above SP reaction to a blog whose credibility is weak. Why storm against barney? Isn't it better to say, sensibly, like Spiney, that if such a problem really did arise, you'll find out and correct it? End of story.
So the latest is that the main piece of the new ISJ will be Callinicos and Kimber slagging off the DC reform committee. In particular, some former hacks come in for a bit of a ride. This piece was not passed through the ISJ Steering Committee because there are people on that committee who might/ would leak it. But it's been leaked anyway.
BK Double Stack
Reconstructed Marcyite
SLK: Link?
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
Precisely what I've been arguing for in Unite (and I'm fairly confident we'll do it eventually). Those scoffing at the idea are no doubt the same ones saying our advice/support centre is 'reinventing the wheel' and will mean
No wonder the left is seen by many as at best an irrelevance.
Worst comment on there is by someone who I think posts on here.
barney_pig
Po-cha-na-quar-hip
What's encouraging about the article is that it expresses a desire that the left needs to be amongst the working class attempting to lessen the impact of the blows inflicted upon it by this vicious govt.
What is far less encouraging is that the op and all the commenters see this as a way to create an audience, rather than a worthwhile and practical application of socialist principles.
I was reminded when I read it of the Salvation Army, and how they use soup kitchens to peddle their god bothering. The examples cited; oxfam and the trussle trust, suggest radicalised charity rather than mutual aid within working class communities.
What is far less encouraging is that the op and all the commenters see this as a way to create an audience, rather than a worthwhile and practical application of socialist principles.
I was reminded when I read it of the Salvation Army, and how they use soup kitchens to peddle their god bothering. The examples cited; oxfam and the trussle trust, suggest radicalised charity rather than mutual aid within working class communities.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Barney started the, ahem, "storming" and got a response in kind. If he'd raised the (bizarre) claim in a "here, what's all this about, is this true?" sort of way, he'd have got a different response.
Spiney Norman said:
There's a big difference between the kinds of stuff a gigantic union can feasibly do and the kind of stuff small political organisations can feasibly sustain though. The path from working class power in working class areas to one working class running club in one working class area is paved with good intentions.
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
You've done it now 
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
i'd just like to see unison do something.
barney_pig
Po-cha-na-quar-hip
Odd how local churches and charities can manage to do practical work but it's beneath the vanguard
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
yeah, because the vanguard really is as big and as wealthy and as well connected to supermarkets and other donors as churches and charities are.
love detective
there's no love too small
You've done it now
Given how irrelevant Nigel seems to think initiatives like that are (i.e. working class self organisation) he doesn't half seem to mention it a lot
His words also seem to imply that 'gigantic unions' just came out of nowhere with some kind of big bang as their midwife, sent down to us on earth fully fledged in all their giganticness instead of arising out of struggle itself
And now as it ever was, nothing else should ever be attempted or done because if a gigantic bureaucratised unions that may have been fit for purpose in a previous century can't achieve something in the here & now then there's no point in anyone or anything else being tried in the current century
barney_pig
Po-cha-na-quar-hip
The cpgb(ww), an organisation of less than 50 members raised £27000 in a few weeks for their summer offensive, every year the swp raised over a £100000 in its appeal, local branches regularly can find the funds for public meetings, coaches, even trains. It is not a question of funds but politics.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
they didnt really, you know.
And even if they had, to make food banks work on something other than a purely tokenistic scale would take a damned sight more than 27k. they require mass organisations for them to be able to work regularly - because if they aren't regular, they're worthless, with the food only going to their mates and contacts.
And if we're talking about the 'politics', then a bit of charity work (which is what you are talking about unless your food bank is going to seize the means of food production and distribution) is not going to make any difference. Especially when others will almost definitely be doing it better.
Political acts are about doing something because the end is worthwhile AND because the way of doing it gives power back to our class.
If you just wanna do the former, fine. Go and join a church. Or the Labour Party.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
I've said nothing at all opposed to "working class self organisation".
I do however think that the people on this thread moaning about how "the left" (meaning organisations they aren't in) don't devote their extremely limited resources to setting up small, ineffectual, unsustainable versions of charity projects are fucking idiots. If left groups actually did decide to spend their efforts on creating, say, food banks, within two years both the left groups concerned and the food banks established would be gone.
That's not to say that there's something wrong with anyone who wants to set up a food bank. It's laudable in its own way. It's just not a viable political strategy for small activist groups with a wider agenda. When and if there's a larger radical political movement, you probably will see all kinds of semi-political self-help projects stemming from it, as well as cultural projects, etc. But different tasks are appropriate to the capabilities of different size organisations.
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Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
And it's worth noting that the breakfast for children programmes were something that arose from and were made viable by rather specific conditions - which included the extreme poverty prevailing in many US urban black ghettoes at the time, the near absence of a welfare state, the ability to draw money from black churches and black business etc. Which is why the big example of this kind of thing working for a relatively small group is from more than forty years ago somewhere far away.
Idris2002
Christmas Eve, you know?
An ability aided by the fact that the Panthers had guns, if memory serves.
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Absolutely.
There's a crucial difference between looking at examples of political organisation/strategy from the past and drawing inspiration from them and seeing them as models or blueprints that can be transplanted across time and space. Isn't there?
love detective
there's no love too small
true - you don't seem to mind it in theory
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
You forgot the last 4 letter word
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