DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
I don't think its pirahana-behaviour if one person describes a rape accusation as 'really bad sex' then lots of people object to that. A statement like that is gallowayish
SWP expulsions and squabbles
- Thread starter Nigel Irritable
- Start date
Das Uberdog
remembers the alamo
it's hard to say anything right when every word you say is being scrutinised and disagreed with by 40+ observers. and in fact when those observers are continually throwing in increasingly hostile responses the tendency is actually to make more errors not less. personally i take from bb what his stated position is, not what might presumably be revealed from a nebulous turn of phrase used in one post. i think there's enough there to get angry about without adding in the extra outrage.
and anyway i totally disagree with him which was my point, i just didn't want to phrase that in a way which perpetuated his role as the thread's loyalist whipping boy (whilst dishonestly ignoring that i disagree with lots of other people here about all manner of issues as well).
and anyway i totally disagree with him which was my point, i just didn't want to phrase that in a way which perpetuated his role as the thread's loyalist whipping boy (whilst dishonestly ignoring that i disagree with lots of other people here about all manner of issues as well).
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
its not one nebulous turn of phrase and even if it was it shows a thinking thats pretty off-beam imho
The whole thing about 'you aren't in the know so you don't know' stuff is pretty thin imo. BB has explained upthread why he's changed his attitude on the matter as well.
The whole thing about 'you aren't in the know so you don't know' stuff is pretty thin imo. BB has explained upthread why he's changed his attitude on the matter as well.
dennisr
the acceptable face
Here's a generic letter to fill in:
http://ianbone.wordpress.com/2013/12/20/my-resignation-letter-from-the-swp
(for any latecomers)
http://ianbone.wordpress.com/2013/12/20/my-resignation-letter-from-the-swp
(for any latecomers)
Vladtheimpaler
Active Member
Good old Boney! I was beginning to worry he'd gone a bit soft what with Class War's born-again electoralism after decades of slagging off everybody else's 'illusions in bourgeois democracy'.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Class war never did any such thing. And here's another habit the now left-swp are going to have to kick. The pretence of total knowledge. And also swamping this thread in lecturer shit.
bolshiebhoys posts have often infuriated, and sometimes repelled. However i cant help feeling a certain respect towards him for sticking to his misplaced guns, against some very formidable opponents.
Merry yule to one and all - Urban's a great forum, made so by general decency.
Merry yule to one and all - Urban's a great forum, made so by general decency.
benedict
Well-Known Member
This is just not the case though, redcogs.
A couple of days ago, BB's line was that the Delta case was really just a pretext grasped by an opposition itching to turn the IS tradition upside-down. It boils down to a political argument, essentially. Then he rolls in with his misplaced comments on the details of the case. Later he rolls back in with the news that he's shifted to neutral after a middle-of-the-night call from an unnamed old comrade supplying secret information.
I'm probably not the only one who remembers a similar Damascene conversion earlier in the year (can't be bothered to go through the thread to find it) when Bolshie finally admitted the CC got it horribly wrong in dealing with the Delta case - after steadfastly defending the process up to that point. If memory serves, this was after bumping into a long-lost woman comrade who gave him fresh information and perspective on the case.
I've appreciated BB's sticking with the thread and adding to the debate with his more sober contributions. But consistent he had not been. I think this inconsistency speaks more of his desire to believe in the party, thus the repeated contortions and the vacillation between the kind of shit we've seen over the last 24-hours and a more sensible approach. Plus the interventions he's received from old comrades seem to be able to put some sense into him at times when he's gone right off the Cliff.
ska invita
back on the other side
nonetheless, seasonal tidings everyoneon a different note, if anyone here from the SWP posters knew Chris Maguire, Id like to draw your attention to this free-to-download memorial album put together by urbanites. It would be great if it could be shared around. I think he was a member, and im guessing up in Leeds - if anyone has any knowledge of his closest colleauges in the party that would be useful to know - either PM me or post details on the relevant thread - id like to make them aware of this:
http://www.urban75.net/forums/threa...ilation-rise-like-lions-free-download.318657/
Vladtheimpaler
Active Member
Pretence of total knowledge? Bullshit! Seems to me like the ex-SWPers on this thread are some of the very few who are prepared to admit that they ever got anything wrong in their lives ever. And meanwhile we're supposed to act like Aunt Sallies for arrogant macho willie wagglers who assume they know everything about us & act like fucking bruised prima donnas every time we take a relatively mild pop at their own far-from-perfect outfits.
I signed up to this thread a few days ago because I was getting fed up with the over-pompous, over-worthy (yes, lecturish! - fuck you & your workerist stereotypes about lecturers!) discussion that was going on elsewhere & you seemed like a breath of fresh, irreverant air in comparison. But now I'm beginning to think that, although there a lot of good serious people who post on here who are really interested in learning the lessons of the SWP debacle & trying to use those lessons to create a better more unified revolutionary left, & although I think you dealt excellently with the appalling Bolshieboy, & although I know I've cocked up embarassingly a few times, it seems to me all that is undermined by the uncomradly, point-scoring, circle-jerk mentality of a minority, which although it quite correctly attacks the horrific sexism of the SWP seems 90% dominated by hormonally-pumped-up ego-tripping men.
I wish those of you who really are interested in creating something out of this, rather than just destroying ideological 'enemies' (& saying fuck-all about the real class enemies of us all), well. In this, believe it or not, I include Spiney Norman, who (for the record) I don't think is a sexist for using the 'c' word or an equally-bad-to-the-SWP sectarian for being in the SP, but an interesting & intelligent person who sometimes is her/his own worst enemy.
I'm sure some of you will be glad to see the back of me. Not sure where I'm going now. Certainly not 'the wilderness'.
barney_pig
Po-cha-na-quar-hip
If I remember correctly, it was immediately after his first damascene moment that he then decided to rejoin.
There must be a surplus of scales on the road to Swindon
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
We live in the real world.
If that post was serious vlad, you are all fucked. Look, you came on here offering your experience - great, much need, welcomed. But a few days later and we're getting the finger wagging and the interminable SP/SWP stuff. And then this is placed against what this place should look like? A place that you decided is here to build a non-swp revolutionary left that doesn't take the piss out of the left. I didn't agree to that. Nor, i think, did the people here years before you. Nor, do i think the people out there in the non-swp non-internet world will either. You may be in for a surprise. And it's ridiculous to leave for being told so.
benedict
Well-Known Member
Why don't you take a deep breath, eat some humble pie for the scraps you got yourself into, then get back to serious discussion?
You wouldn't roll into a new boozer, start slagging off the years-long regulars, and then throw a huff when they gave you the cold shoulder. Don't do that here.
Just cool down, start contributing seriously, and you'll earn respect.
barney_pig
Po-cha-na-quar-hip
That's us told.
You know what Vlad, off the fuck with you. Loads of people on here were never taken by the sick cult you have stayed in for so long for, others, like me realised what a pile of shit it was years back, and none of us have been hanging on for some trot cunt to come wet eared out of the afterbirth of the 'IS tradition' to show us the right way to build a'revolutionary movement'
You sad excuses for Leninists have had 95 years to show your top down murderous centralism could achieve socialism and what have we got?
Real Leninism gave us a fuck load of mass graves, your playground version finishes in a squalid rape cult.
Off you go to wnerever you end up, just don't pretend that the smith debacle came out of a clear sky. The party you have defended supported and sought to build for years has used the exact same practices against everyone else on the left for all the time you have been a loyal member that the cc has used against the opposition over the past year.
You have been made welcome here, but because people don't fall over themselves to fawn in your brilliance you decide to flounce.
By the way, the 'workerist' slur doesn't cut anywhere outside the middle class ghetto of the swp.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
that's pretty much all of us, isnt it?
tony collins
Active Member
That's all well and good, but what the hell kind of socialist thinks it's *ever* acceptable to describe a rape allegation as "very bad sex"?
Bolshibhoy has deleted the comment he made, and I don't care if it's cos he now found out that a rape happened (it's actually cowardly for him to delete the comment).
He felt it was acceptable to describe it as "very bad sex" even after everything that's been said on and offline for the last year. That's pretty disgusting.
Bolshibhoy has deleted the comment he made, and I don't care if it's cos he now found out that a rape happened (it's actually cowardly for him to delete the comment).
He felt it was acceptable to describe it as "very bad sex" even after everything that's been said on and offline for the last year. That's pretty disgusting.
I agree. I said that, and have not deleted my post quoting him. You can see what I said. I think he was wrong, is wrong.
I think he should not be judging the case (he thinks or thoguht that everyone else has judged it, so he can to. I disagree, and think that most people haven't judged but are erring towards what they think happened [though some, inc frogwoman have said that MS isn't innocent]).
It's misguided. He's not a sexist. He has a proud record of fighting sexism, including in Ireland when abortions were illegal. He is a good guy.
He wants the SWP to exist because he's spent more than half his life defending or building the SWP, because he believes in a different sort of society and thinks the SWP is the best vehicle. I think he's wrong. I don't really believe like he does any more. I've kind of given up. However, he wants to defend an organisation that fights for socialism because he thinks it's the best organisation to get there.
So I'm not going to say "give him a break". I think he's wrong. And he phrased it wrong. But now that he's gone back on it, please take him at face value because he is a decent bloke.
Edit to add: Charlie Hore opened my eyes (in turn) the other night by saying that his eyes were opened by a young comrade who said that the SWP was a vehicle to get a better society. If it wasn't working, they'd find another vehicle.
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benedict
Well-Known Member
To clarify, I didn't mean to cast doubt on the truthfulness of BB's posts about hearing from comrades. I was just trying to point out how his position on the core issues of the case has changed over time. Like I said, I believe this arises out of his desire to believe the party can sustain and that such horrors would not have been instigated by his former comrades.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I don't trust him. I've seen him come up with this i've just been told, oh i just met someone now i just don't know what to think (he's even already done it in this bloody thread) - thing enough times over the last 13 years. He'll be back banging the same line come tuesday. He got drunk sat night (this used to be the night he ripped into me and i woke up sunday morning to find reams of it), told the truth about what the thinking is in his and their world. Mug yourself if you like.
emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
I agree.
I think BB like many loyalists has been stuck trying to mesh his principles with his loyalties and they just wont fit anymore, which has just enhanced the normal human tendency to be somewhat confused and contradictory. None of us are wholly consistent at the best of times and trying to stay true to your principles and loyal to the SWP thorough all this must really screw with your thinking and I think goes someway towards his tendency to shift position at times. I have sympathy for him, but the sad truth is that if he had done what he should have from the start of this mess and stuck to his principles, then whatever he heard last night would not have hit him nearly so hard. I don't accept all this stuff about the necessity of defending the IS tradition. But I think if I was truly committed to the IS tradition, what I would be feeling right now is that it was the opposition that had fought to defend it while the CC and the party loyalists had betrayed it. While no doubt this has been an extremely painful experience for the opposition, especially those that have committed decades to the SWP at least they can still hold their heads high knowing they did the right thing even if their party did not. What struck me in his last post is the realisation that he can't do that.
I will probably get vilified for this post, but I still feel that whatever positions BB has taken over the last year, he is fundamentally on the same side as mean in the class struggle. I will even go as far as saying that despite what he said last night, I still think he has a stronger genuine commitment to women's liberation than the majority of people.
edited to correct spelling.
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I would go further than that and say "the vast majority, at least".
I also agree with the rest of your post.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
No bolsheviks here then?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
You may well be right about us being mugs.
I don't get the rest of you post though, what has a party commitment got to do with anything? The SWP's commitment is obviously not worth very much, and in any case signing a membership form does not automatically mean someone has a commitment to woman's liberation just because the party they are joining has one. And I am in no position to judge anyone, as that would imply I have some special authority on the matter, all I can do is say what I think based on what I see.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Your belief in his commitment to WL comes in one case from knowing him and the other in from knowing what party he is in. I'm saying - as do you - that this is now worthless as guarantor. I then asked how you judge other people to be able to say that his commitment to wl's is more than the vast majority of people?
Or is is just another unthinking backslap to a comrade?
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