belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
hmmm, not sure which bit I belong too, probly the trad dads. Shit.
We dont all hate each other tho. We just hate Richard, the pompous guardian columnist shithead [note:dont call him a twat].
SWP expulsions and squabbles
- Thread starter Nigel Irritable
- Start date
We dont all hate each other tho. We just hate Richard, the pompous guardian columnist shithead [note:dont call him a twat].
benedict
Well-Known Member
Thing is, Vlad, so far many of your posts so far seem to be cheap potshots aimed at SP members for various imputed sins. It's like a long-term binge drinker gone teetotal who immediately starts lecturing other moderate boozers about the demon drink. Not very convincing. Especially when you're lecturing individuals who've been discussing the issues consistently and thoughtfully for over a year.
Why don't you begin by sharing your own experiences of the SWP, its failings, your perceptions, how errors could be corrected etc? Other former members have been posting up their thoughts on this and I'm sure you would contribute valuably to the debate.
Bakhtinite
New Member
I wonder if anyone who has recently or just left the SWP could clear up a confusion
(i resigned in 98 after 10 years in, my contribution to the conference IB and resignation letter citing the usual stuff - lack of democracy, lack of ability to work with others as evidenced by the SWP front organisations)
In Weekly worker and on here people have talked about the Leatherites. Presumably before he resigned from the CC, Martin Smith was leading this bloc on the CC and it seems Amy leather was his protege. But where is Weyman Bennett in all this. I think he went on to the CC around or just after the time I left the SWP. In the 'how close were you to Cliff = how important are you " SWP mentality wouldn't that make him the senior CC member for the Centralist faction?
My motivation in asking is partly trainspotterish SWP kreminology, partly to make sense of what might be coming in the next internal fight that is likely to happen in the SWP between the democratic CENTRALIST Callinicos/Kimber faction and the CENTRALIST leatherite/bennett/(smith) faction, and partly because it was Weyman Bennett who recruited me......
(i resigned in 98 after 10 years in, my contribution to the conference IB and resignation letter citing the usual stuff - lack of democracy, lack of ability to work with others as evidenced by the SWP front organisations)
In Weekly worker and on here people have talked about the Leatherites. Presumably before he resigned from the CC, Martin Smith was leading this bloc on the CC and it seems Amy leather was his protege. But where is Weyman Bennett in all this. I think he went on to the CC around or just after the time I left the SWP. In the 'how close were you to Cliff = how important are you " SWP mentality wouldn't that make him the senior CC member for the Centralist faction?
My motivation in asking is partly trainspotterish SWP kreminology, partly to make sense of what might be coming in the next internal fight that is likely to happen in the SWP between the democratic CENTRALIST Callinicos/Kimber faction and the CENTRALIST leatherite/bennett/(smith) faction, and partly because it was Weyman Bennett who recruited me......
Vladtheimpaler
Active Member
Actually, I think you'll find the term 'swamp', or at least 'marsh', as applied to an amorphous & confused mass who won't commit themselves one way or another, goes back to the French Revolution. I only mentioned the CPGB because they're the ones who've been using the word (not necessarily inaccurately) in relation to ISN.
But to answer your questions as a self-confessed sceptical ISNer who quite probably won't be for much longer...
(1) I can't enlighten you about the tendencies & tensions much beyond what I've already said here about the various competing groups, other than I (& many others) don't feel much sympathy with any of them. (2) I suspect that they will all go their separate ways very soon. (3) I think all the merger stuff with irrelevant groupuscules was a waste of time & increasingly seems like flogging a dead horse. (4) Die, probably.
Will that do?
I wonder if anyone who has recently or just left the SWP could clear up a confusion
(i resigned in 98 after 10 years in, my contribution to the conference IB and resignation letter citing the usual stuff - lack of democracy, lack of ability to work with others as evidenced by the SWP front organisations)
In Weekly worker and on here people have talked about the Leatherites. Presumably before he resigned from the CC, Martin Smith was leading this bloc on the CC and it seems Amy leather was his protege. But where is Weyman Bennett in all this. I think he went on to the CC around or just after the time I left the SWP. In the 'how close were you to Cliff = how important are you " SWP mentality wouldn't that make him the senior CC member for the Centralist faction?
My motivation in asking is partly trainspotterish SWP kreminology, partly to make sense of what might be coming in the next internal fight that is likely to happen in the SWP between the democratic CENTRALIST Callinicos/Kimber faction and the CENTRALIST leatherite/bennett/(smith) faction, and partly because it was Weyman Bennett who recruited me......
I was organising Marxism with John Rees in 1998. Sorry, this sounds a bit grandiose - I was in the Marxism office doing what I was told by John Rees in 1998 - and occasionally allowed out to speak at Marxism organising meetings in districts. I don't think Weyman was on the CC then. Back then it was: Cliff (founder)/ Callinicos (International)/ Harman (SW)/ Stack (Treasurer)/ Waterson (ANL)/ Hayes (Industrial)/ Rees(ISJ)/ German (Socialist Review)/ Bambery (National Organiser).
I didn't like them all but they were all, Hayes aside, real heavyweights.
I might have forgotten some. I think Weyman was full time ANL, and he continued to be for a while after that. I'm not sure about him on the CC. Not that this answers any of your questions.
Bakhtinite
New Member
Are you in the ISN?
Vladtheimpaler
Active Member
Sorry I come over that way. I've already posted my mea culpa about last night's altercations & no disrespect is intended to the many excellent people involved in this conversation. I did give a potted account of my SWP history when I first signed up, but I'm happy to provide all the grisly details if you really want to know. Suffice to say that 'long-term binge drinker' isn't really the right analogy. 'Occasional party goer who generally throws up the morning after' would be more accurate. There does seem to be a tendency here to stereotype all ex-SWPers as formerly blinkered robotic hacks who've suddenly woken up & smelled the coffee. That just isn't true of most of us, who've been kicking endlessly (& fruitlessly) against the pricks for many years & have suffered all manner of vituperation as a result.
Jara Handala
New Member
Well, I joined at the beginning, mid-March, but got suspended at the end of July - not by a Cde. Chaplin email but by a public message on our own website. Classy. I was accused of being a troll. Double classy.
I asked why this had been done, who had made that decision, & what was the procedure to end such nonsense.
No response was the stern reply. So I did what Tom Walker & countless others have done over the ages, I wrote to the tribune of the oppressed in such matters, & surprise, surprise, they published it - the Weekly Wanker, the organ of the only organisation in the world with more letters in its name than members, a true Clio.
I had tried to initiate systematic debate, even political debate, but that was obviously a step too far. Andy Wilson (seemed to run the website, but had never been appointed - nothing in Steering Cttee or National Meeting minutes) was told by Keith Fisher (Treasurer & SC) to ban me from the site. So that was that.
No-one protested my suspension. I was never told anything.
I knew ISN was dead when the Members' Forum was closed (1) without any notice, (2) without the Steering Cttee or the National Meeting deciding to close it, &, most importantly, (3) without anyone battering an eyelid.
The only conclusion to draw was that the ISN was a clique-ridden & clique-driven coven of cliques. And, as we all know now, all that has now intensified. Perhaps it's just as well most of ISN is a cyber-reality: no risk of drowning.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Except doing so has to bring to mind grace jones. And that is not a combination of images I want in my head, thank you very much!
andysays
Love and solidarity
imposs1904
Thread Killa'
Whereas I was thinking of The Normal . . . but that doesn't work either.
eta: Andysays beat me to it.
imposs1904
Thread Killa'
I honestly thought he was loved by everyone.
Vladtheimpaler
Active Member
In fact, 'Warm Leatherette' was originally written & recorded by The Normal (a name which certainly couldn't be applied to the gruesome fructophobic Amy).
Why?
Vladtheimpaler
Active Member
Loves himself enough for millions.
Vladtheimpaler
Active Member
Good god, I'd better retract that before I'm hauled up before the Identity Police.
Banana dodgers are, of course, an oppressed minority!
bolshiebhoy
socialism leinster drink
Sorry Oisin but you've just described at best the Analytical Marxist approach to social science and at worst simple empiricism. On the contrary Marx's method in Kapital was explicitly the ascent from the abstract to the concrete. There are no pure facts free from theoretical trappings. As you harked back to when we were younger I'm pretty sure I first read about that in a chapter in the Prof's Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx, it was a slap in the face for me at the time because I was studying philosophy of science which in these islands is dominated by empiricism and the whole point about Marx, which you seem to have missed judging by your outline of Marxist methodology above, is that he breaks with that 'from the facts up' approach. In the specific case of the current crisis the opposition's obsession with 'new conditions and changed facts about the modern world' is eclectic and empiricist in as much as it doesn't try to understand those facts as part of a larger whole by applying the theoretical models developed by the IS Tradition. Unfortunately much of the opposition seem to think that classic marxist approach is so boring and 80's. Their rejection of that doesn't actually lead to original Marxist thinking , it just leads to in the extreme , the random accumulation of facts that Seymour articles represent.
Vladtheimpaler
Active Member
Do you mean the 'sexist' bit? Repeated use of the 'c' word.
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
Jara Handala
New Member
1) The current Constitution says the CC decides the ratio of delegates to members (section 4), & I believe it is 1:10. (So one incentive for a branch cttee. not to cull.) As the nominal membership wasn't much lower in 2006 than this year one can only conclude that in 2006 not that many Swap-peeps could be bothered to make the trek to an event without event, i.e. less delegates were elected than an aggregate was entitled to send. 2006 was so routinist not many could be bothered to stay on the hamster wheel.
2) In SWPworld 22% rebellion is suicidal behaviour by members. A veritable OMG!!!!!
But was it followed through? Of course not. Then German-Rees-Nineham, & . . ., & . . . Another fine mess you got me into, Stanley.
3) In terms of abstaining, in what seems to be the first contested CC election in over 30 years, only 4% abstained (11 out of 276). (But I have no record of the no votes - see below for the significance of this figure.)
But that's nothing compared with the vote in January on the Disputes Cttee report. I commented on this at the time on Socialist Unity. People hadn't brought two facts together: Socialist Worker reported that "more than 580 delegates" attended, & the DC transcript said the vote went "231 votes for accepting, 209 votes to reject and 18 absentions." WOW! These add up to 458. Knowing how modest the SWP are, the SW figure isn't being coy coz over 600 attended, no, there were less than 590. To make the calculations favourable to the Lynchers, let's assume 580.
Conclusions:
a) there were NO VOTES of at the least 122, or some cdes. couldn't be bothered to hear the session. 122/580 = 21%.
b) supporters of the DC report were less than 40% of delegates, only 39.8% (231/580).
c) those that didn't vote amounted to over half of those who approved the report, 122 compared with 231.
d) & Cde. Chaplin straight after Conference said, on behalf of the Party & the CC, that a line has now been drawn under all this. More like a knife drawn thru the belly of the Party.
http://de.scribd.com/doc/111724862/SWP-Constitution
http://socialistworker.org.uk/art/29739/SWP+conference+debates+the+way+forward+for+the+resistance
http://socialistunity.com/swp-conference-transcript-disputes-committee-report/
benedict
Well-Known Member
Studied a bit of philosophy of science myself, Bolshie, and I'm pretty sure empiricism is not conventionally defined as failure to apply the theoretical models of the IS tradition. Don't think Marx was using those models either. This is just barren dogmatism.
love detective
there's no love too small
What utter nonsense - you're conflating Marx's method of exposition/presentation with the method of enquiry
While Capital itself as a book is presented in the form of a journey from the abstract to the concrete - the method of inquiry is a much more richer, iterative and dialectical process
The first step is the observation of the concrete and the appropriation of the material in detail
The next step sees that material used to develop first simple abstract concepts and then on to more complex/richer concepts to establish a 'totality of thoughts', it's the logical construction of the essence and the interconnected organic whole, i.e. the understanding of the inner connections and them as a totality
Then the logical process continues, but not in terms of essence, but in terms of how that essence appears, how to explain that appearance and the various forms in which the essence is manifested, and indeed how that totality of that essence must appear
Next it's time to relate the concepts that have been generated to the real concrete world, the testing stage so to speak. Here is when the 'concept of the real' and the 'concrete in the mind' (i.e. the last two steps) is reconciled to the real objective concrete, which is also a return to the starting point and the point of departure again as the process goes on and on.
As Marx himself says:-
Of course the method of presentation must differ in form from that of inquiry. The latter has to appropriate the material in detail, to analyse its different forms of development, to trace out their inner connexion. Only after this work is done, can the actual movement be adequately described. If this is done successfully, if the life of the subject-matter is ideally reflected as in a mirror, then it may appear as if we had before us a mere a priori construction.
Vladtheimpaler
Active Member
Look. I'm not a po-faced linguistic idealist & I'm not moralising at you. I've argued long & hard with radical feminists & plenty of nominal socialists too that language doesn't determine structures of oppression - it's the other way around. Words, of course, have no power in themselves & it's silly to fetishise them & take them as indicators of where someone's at politically. However, what's the point in consciously using words you know will offend & alienate people you want to communicate with, however wrong-headed they might be? The fact is a lot of your potential allies will be turned off by that word & won't listen to anything else you say.Don't be a silly cunt
Bakhtinite
New Member
Comprehensive response from Love Detective. I would add that Marx does argue that, for example, you cannot deduce the existence of classes just from empirical analysis. You need the concept of 'class' to understand political economy. But Marx is not a Hegelian - if the concept of class did not make sense of (rise to) the concrete then it would need to be revised.
Rising from the abstract to the concrete does not mean 'start with theoretical models of my choosing' then describe the world so that this fits with my theoretical models, ignoring anything that might contradict this'.....come to think of it that's not a bad description of the SWP's CC and supporters response to the last year. So spot on Bolshie Boy - for making the SWP's method clear - 'what we want to believe will determine what we will believe'
Rising from the abstract to the concrete does not mean 'start with theoretical models of my choosing' then describe the world so that this fits with my theoretical models, ignoring anything that might contradict this'.....come to think of it that's not a bad description of the SWP's CC and supporters response to the last year. So spot on Bolshie Boy - for making the SWP's method clear - 'what we want to believe will determine what we will believe'
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