Articul8 you're full of shit.
SWP expulsions and squabbles
- Thread starter Nigel Irritable
- Start date
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
I've no problem discussing the issue whatsoever, but I'm not going to do so with your lie as a starting point. Five responses from you now. You have made no attempt to justify or provide evidence for your claim. You know it isn't true. Yet you won't admit it. Embarrassing stuff.
Ok well the Labour party and Fabian Society "believes in eugenics" because George Bernard Shaw did. Fair enough?
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
Ok, French trots in the 40s explicitly argued homosexuality was a bourgeois deviation. Militant denigrated the importance of the issue until much later than some other left currents. Is it so unlikely that key theorists of an earlier generation were resistant? Perhaps Nigel can quote from Ted grants support for homosexual rights?
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
And disgusting.
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
Yeah that might well be the case, but it still isn't "The Militant believed homosexuality was bourgeois deviation" is it? That's nothing more than a smear, it's no different to me saying The Labour Party supported eugenics because of George Bernard Shaw.
Now a wider discussion, on the history of homophobia in Trot groups, the exclusion of everything non-class, is pretty much going to be impossible because you decided to kick things off with a blatant falsehood. No doubt Militant, Ted Grant, were resistant to issues like gay rights, he in particular had a really exclusionary worldview (He once claimed to Tony Benn that "I am the only man in Europe to have interpreted and followed Trotsky correctly" ffs this is the mindset you're dealing with) but as far as I know at no point did Militant ever have a policy of "homosexuality is a bourgeois deviation" and if you prove otherwise I suggest you do so, rather than trying worm your way out of it by conflating it with other broader issues.
That's true, in fact I reckon there was probably more support for eugenics in the Fabian society than there was for homophobia in the Militant and it's successors, but you still couldn't say that "the Labour party believedin eugenics" as a policy it'd be outrageous.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
Oh fuck off you dishonest cunt.
Either back up the claim you made or apologise for a disgusting smear.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
You are getting there, and it only took six responses.
Militant did not have a position that homosexuality was "a bourgeois deviation". Many years ago, it did not take any position until a decade or so after most other British left currents had recognised its importance. Because it had no position you would undoubtedly have found people with all kinds of personal views, some of them straightforwardly homophobic, within the organisation and those views would not have been challenged. That situation, which ended in the 80s when gay and lesbian members successfully fought for it to change, was quite bad enough without you making shit up.
I have no idea if Ted Grant was personally homophobic, though it is somewhat suggestive that when the Socialist Appeal split happened, some years after Militant had adopted a pro gay liberation stance, SA immediately went back to the early Militant (non)position of simply saying nothing about gay liberation at all. They maintained that stance up until last year, quite a long time after Grant died though. I generally take the view that singling him out is rather too convenient a narrative and that all of the leading figures of the time have to take their share of blame.
The Socialist Party has a large and very active LGBT group and takes gay liberation very seriously these days. I should note, as an aside, that Militant in Ireland actually had a pro-gay liberation position much earlier than the British Militant for reasons that aren't entirely clear to me.
This isn't really an appropriate thread for this discussion, but feel free to start one about the left's historical positions on gay issues if you like.
Militant did not have a position that homosexuality was "a bourgeois deviation". Many years ago, it did not take any position until a decade or so after most other British left currents had recognised its importance. Because it had no position you would undoubtedly have found people with all kinds of personal views, some of them straightforwardly homophobic, within the organisation and those views would not have been challenged. That situation, which ended in the 80s when gay and lesbian members successfully fought for it to change, was quite bad enough without you making shit up.
I have no idea if Ted Grant was personally homophobic, though it is somewhat suggestive that when the Socialist Appeal split happened, some years after Militant had adopted a pro gay liberation stance, SA immediately went back to the early Militant (non)position of simply saying nothing about gay liberation at all. They maintained that stance up until last year, quite a long time after Grant died though. I generally take the view that singling him out is rather too convenient a narrative and that all of the leading figures of the time have to take their share of blame.
The Socialist Party has a large and very active LGBT group and takes gay liberation very seriously these days. I should note, as an aside, that Militant in Ireland actually had a pro-gay liberation position much earlier than the British Militant for reasons that aren't entirely clear to me.
This isn't really an appropriate thread for this discussion, but feel free to start one about the left's historical positions on gay issues if you like.
audiotech
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Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Yeah. No shit.
As for whether Grant personally held that view, it's as least as likely that he just didn't consider the whole thing very important, in the same sort of way that other leftist "dinosaurs" of that generation of the left often didn't. Read for instance the dismissive comments about gay issues in Sullivan's "As Soon As This Pub Closes" to get a sense of the degree to which many otherwise decent socialists simply didn't give a shit. I've heard plenty of people say that they've "heard" Grant thought this, that or the other, but I've never actually heard anyone say that they heard him express that view with their own ears, which, given that all kinds of falsehoods circulate on the left about this (eg your claim about Militant) makes me somewhat dubious. Not that he was incapable of holding some pretty stupid views mind you (his attempt with Woods to refute much of modern physics was to put it mildly rather ill advised). But it's also very easy to say "Oh we were slow on this because of conveniently dead Ted and his old fashioned attitudes. Which even more conveniently he never expressed in print. Nobody else's fault. Honest."
bolshiebhoy
socialism leinster drink
And in my small circle there are three of us ex members who'd say the opposite. Either way kind of irrelevant.
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
The jacobins?
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
It's an old feud going back decades, best left alone on the web at least.
audiotech
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One long-standing member in ****** has posted on facebook that the papersale went well today. Jeezus!
Edit: Two membership forms taken away!
Absolutely unfuckingbelievable given the situation. This is no wet behind the ears student (apology's to any students
) either, nor someone who in the past would put up with any party hackery.
Edit: Two membership forms taken away!
Absolutely unfuckingbelievable given the situation. This is no wet behind the ears student (apology's to any students
) either, nor someone who in the past would put up with any party hackery.
bolshiebhoy
socialism leinster drink
What do you want them to do auditech commit mass suicide. Of course they'll carry on as normal.
emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
Charlie Kimber, or at least someone using that name has posted a CC response, of sorts, on Lenin's tomb.
You didn't overstate anything. You were talking shite.
electric.avenue
lots of work to be done
Yes, what worries me, doing searches on Twitter, is that the fash are having a field day.
bolshiebhoy
socialism leinster drink
If that is Kimber writing on Lenins Tomb he doesn't say much new does he. "As far we are concerned, this case is closed."
emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
It looks like it is an email that has gone out to all members and may guess is someone has posted it up using his name. And yes it is rather brief, I had settled in for a long read.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
One long-standing member in ****** has posted on facebook that the papersale went well today. Jeezus!
Edit: Two membership forms taken away!
Absolutely unfuckingbelievable given the situation. This is no wet behind the ears student (apology's to any students
It's an iron law of the universe that any time something goes seriously wrong or there's a major debate underway in a left wing group, some clown somewhere will start talking about how great this weeks stall/branch meeting/other routine task went. It's the socialist equivalent of the patronising dude who tells women "chin up love, it might never happen" except with a little more bathos.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Shouldn't you be sneering at the lack of "politics"?
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
Yes, what worries me, doing searches on Twitter, is that the fash are having a field day.
the fash are already known for having lots of sex pests in their ranks, what's more worrying is the damage it will do to the left, and how left-wing organisations might draw all the wrong lessons from it
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