SWP expulsions and squabbles

[Karmickameleon]

Stack & Davison will leave. Gonzalez & Trudell will stay, temporarily at least. Not sure about Dee. But Stack is definitely off

Agree with your predictions. Both Gonzalez and Trudell signed the middle-of-the-road statement, so one would expect them to stay.

 

[SpackleFrog]

Whenever I read many of these I can't help feeling that the writer couldn't give a shit about the women at the center of this and are simply happy to have a stick to beat the SWP with.

I have zero percent enthusiasm for the prospect of this blogger and her mates setting themselves up as the demonstration / campaign police.

I know exactly what you mean - to people like this, anything and everything that involves class analysis and collective action is by default the enemy, and you kind of feel like they're secretly rubbing their hands whenever anything that they feel confirms their viewpoint happens, however horrific it may be for those it happens to. In addition, if they were ever in a position to "police" demonstrations/campaigns, you get the impression they'd take some kind of sadistic pleasure from it.

That said, I'm not sure this particular blogger goes on many demonstrations or gets involved in many "offline" campaigns. In fact, I seem to remember some pieces she wrote about how "offline activism" was inaccessible and exclusionary.

To balance this, I actually find some of her articles on culture and sexuality to be really interesting, well written and intelligent - it's just that politically it's all utterly disconnected from reality.

 

[SpackleFrog]

I don't really see a dividing line on those grounds between Dee, Stack, Davidson, Gonzalez on the one hand and Bergfeld, Birchall, Wilson, Neale on the other.

On the trust thing, well I don't think you really have to look at it from that angle. All of these people have burnt a lot of bridges, are now no longer going to have a supportive milieu inside the organisation. There's no way back for any of them in loyalist terms.

Who is Neale? I've never heard of him. I'll be disappointed if Stack doesn't leave, I can't think of anybody else who could push the ISN/those around them in a useful direction.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Who is Neale? I've never heard of him. I'll be disappointed if Stack doesn't leave, I can't think of anybody else who could push the ISN/those around them in a useful direction.

Main writer on environmentalism and the like.

 

[butchersapron]

and vietnam/post war american history.

 

[SpackleFrog]

Cheers

 

[imposs1904]

Who is Neale? I've never heard of him. I'll be disappointed if Stack doesn't leave, I can't think of anybody else who could push the ISN/those around them in a useful direction.

He wrote a good novel a few years back called Mutineers. I think it was published by Redwords.

 

[barney_pig]

He wrote a good novel a few years back called Mutineers. I think it was published by Redwords.

It was a good book, his one on the Everest climbers was also good

 

[manny-p]

Owen Jones on Facebook-

"The Socialist Workers Party finally all but disintegrates as anyone with a shred of decency flees a sect that covered up rape allegations"

Owen Jones

45 minutes ago near London
The Socialist Workers Party finally all but disintegrates as anyone with a shred of decency flees a sect that covered up rape allegations

 

[Nigel Irritable]

I quite like Jones and am obviously no fan if the SWP but that's a bit fucking cheeky given his Labour membership and associations.

 

[manny-p]

I quite like Jones and am obviously no fan if the SWP but that's a bit fucking cheeky given his Labour membership and associations.

Agreed. Thats what someone on the fb comments said. Made the same point Revol was making about the war and crimes commited in Iraq etc.

 

[comrade spurski]

This maybe a red herring in which case please forgive my ignorance ...
Why does the comment equate women with children? ie some women and children lie...I think that men are victims of sexual violence so why not some women and men lie? I think it is a deliberate equation designed to denigrate the women concerned and women in general.

As someone who works with children and has done so since 1985 I know some children make up stories of abuse...in EVERY case I have come across the child lied to see what response they'd get from the adults and when they saw that it was taken seriously they (the child) then disclosed what turned out to be a legitimate allegation against a real perpetrator (again in EVERY case it was easy to prove that the childs first allegation did not add up as the child did not want some one to get into trouble...they just wanted to know they would be treated fairly and listened to). Friends and colleagues of mine have also said that some allegations by children that turn out to be incorrect are due to them have a particular perspective rather than them telling a "lie"...

to equate adult women with children clearly implies the women were "damaged/stunted" (sorry but am very tired so can't think of a better words) in some way rather than being equals in a socialist organisation.

reactionary people in a reactionary organisation

hope this makes sense

 

[bolshiebhoy]

I quite like Jones and am obviously no fan if the SWP but that's a bit fucking cheeky given his Labour membership and associations.

What I most dislike about him isn't his attacks on the SWP, that's to be expected. It's how he tailors his words to his audience. He was quite good at Tower Hamlets surrounded by anti fascists but when he spoke here in Swindon a few weeks ago it was middle of the road drivel extolling Thatcher and Blair's conviction politics. He's no Benn.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

What I most dislike about him isn't his attacks on the SWP, that's to be expected. It's how he tailors his words to his audience. He was quite good at Tower Hamlets surrounded by anti fascists but when he spoke here in Swindon a few weeks ago it was middle of the road drivel extolling Thatcher and Blair's conviction politics. He's no Benn.

I've only heard him speak in person once and that was on an Irish SP platform. He spoke well and from an essentially hard left point of view. Whether that was tacking to the prevailing wind I can't say.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

What I most dislike about him isn't his attacks on the SWP, that's to be expected. It's how he tailors his words to his audience. He was quite good at Tower Hamlets surrounded by anti fascists but when he spoke here in Swindon a few weeks ago it was middle of the road drivel extolling Thatcher and Blair's conviction politics. He's no Benn.

Rubbish, I've seen him talking to different audiences from union bureaucrats and Labour MPs to trots and anarchos and he always says very similar messages while tailoring the message slightly for the audience which seems like a good approach compared to the monomania of many on the far left

 

[Kuke]

Who is Neale? I've never heard of him. I'll be disappointed if Stack doesn't leave, I can't think of anybody else who could push the ISN/those around them in a useful direction.

Who's going to dress up as Santa at their Xmas office bash now their chuckler in chief has departed?

 

[bolshiebhoy]

The Blairites and centre left in my local party love him and see him as an antidote to left wingers who want to stay outside the party, and he plays to that audience perfectly.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Rubbish, I've seen him talking to different audiences from union bureaucrats and Labour MPs to trots and anarchos and he always says very similar messages while tailoring the message slightly for the audience which seems like a good approach compared to the monomania of many on the far left

Lucky you if thats so. The Lab left wingers in the room at our local meeting with him here last month were disappointed. He said zero that upset anyone, in fact he seemed surprised there were any socialists in Swindon (fair point maybe!).

 

[imposs1904]

The Blairites and centre left in my local party love him and see him as an antidote to left wingers who want to stay outside the party, and he plays to that audience perfectly.

Owen Jones, Andy Newman and Bolshy at a Swindon Labour Party public meeting. Oh to be a fly on that wall.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

The Blairites and centre left in my local party love him and see him as an antidote to left wingers who want to stay outside the party, and he plays to that audience perfectly.

Sorry that sounds like one of your pub encounters

 

[laptop]

Why does the comment equate women with children? ... I think it is a deliberate equation designed to denigrate the women concerned and women in general.

Absolutely.

Clearly the vanguard, collectively, is the only Grown-Up Real Man in the room.

 

[laptop]

Seems like the dialetic just means...

My sleep deficit is outnumbered by the free drinks.

I read that as "the diuretic".

I decided that I decline to correct myself.

 

[discokermit]

I have time for Gonzalez

you didn't have to stay in a house at marxism with him.
"shall i get my guitar?"
cunt.

 

[SpackleFrog]

Just seen an SWP member post the following on FB:

"Stronger, Faster, Fitter watch out fascists watch out Tories" - followed by the SWP clenched fist pic.

I'm stunned, I thought better of them tbh.

 

[benedict]

That might be true if I'd known anything about you when I said it, it was an offhand response to someone whose age and gender I didn't have the foggiest of. But in the climate being created that isn't allowed. Or rather flippancy is allowed on this thread, if the person doing it is anti SWP. I keep forgetting that house rule. None of which is your fault of course so apologies if you got hit in the crossfire.

As I'm normally less dismissive I'll try to explain properly what I meant. I thought it was comical, regardless of who said it, because despite the stupidity of whoever in the party used the phrase women and children (and it was stupid and as I said a few pages back, offensive) it was an attempt by someone to be provocative rather than reflecting some deep seated party animosity to young people. The SWP might have had a torrid time with it's younger members recently but the one thing it hasn't traditionally done is forget to take young people seriously. And by seriously I mean both value them AND argue with them cause theres nothing more patronising than saying, as the opposition do, that young people should be treated with kid gloves intellectually (taken to a silly extreme when the ISN argue with each other about whether they should be allowed to argue with each other). Bollox to that, I was argued with relentlessly since the moment I joined swss and that process of debate and learning is what I valued most about the party when I joined first time round.

Yes the SWP has long taken young people seriously as essential protest fodder as they pass through the revolving door of student radicalism, SWP recruitment, and inevitable dejection and burn-out. And this whole thing about "being argued with relentlessly" is just bollocks. It's a classic SWP trope: "we need to win the argument". A cliche of deadheaded Cliffism at this point. Total nonsense. Like the idea of "winning the argument" in some campaign group of other, which more often than not consists of secret caucusing and packing meetings, it's total bullshit. It's made to sound (not only by bolshie) like some vigorous, rigorous form of macho, hardheaded oldskool-socialist bare-knuckled intellectual brawl in which ideas are thrashed out, new positions taken, old idols dethroned. But in reality it's being brain-pummeled by a series of middle aged 1980s generation regurgitations of established truths, hackneyed aphorisms, puerile exemplars, and sterile insights. It boils down to the thin gruel formula of the grey sludge SWP party line.

[Oh and it was clear from muscovyduck's post that she is relatively young and was making an intervention drawing on her experience, so don't try to wriggle out of how disgustingly disrespectful you were being bolshie. You really have degenerated yourself during the course of this thread, along with your new comrades.]

 

[emanymton]

Just seen an SWP member post the following on FB:

"Stronger, Faster, Fitter watch out fascists watch out Tories" - followed by the SWP clenched fist pic.

I'm stunned, I thought better of them tbh.

Black humour?

 

[imposs1904]

Black humour?

gallows humour.

 

[redsquirrel]

thanks for the comic relief. Some of us needed it.

You utter twat (miles behind the time I know but this is such a prick comment that it deserves it).

 

[redsquirrel]

just had to unban myself to call bolshy a cunt.

anyway, as you were.

Good to see you KB, you should stick around for the albums of the year at least though, I want to see your choices.

 

[mk12]

I'm have an ex-SWP friend on Facebook who has commented on a status asking all those 'SWP friends' if they're 'in' or 'out'. There's over a hundred comments. The responses make for interesting reading!