SWP expulsions and squabbles

[belboid]

if this has done your head in you should have been around when they argued all socialist should read Salmon Rusdie books cos they are great...I made the mistake of saying I found them unreadable to be told that it was a shame that the education system failed me...it was said a little more subtly but that was the meaning...that was by a lecturer called Gareth J

he was right tho! up to the point you had the conversation, anyway

 

[J Ed]

Bet they don't argue that socialists should read Rushdie now.

 

[belboid]

Bet they don't argue that socialists should read Rushdie now.

of course they still argue it! Otherwise they'd have to admit something they said in the eighties was wrong

 

[frogwoman]

Bet they don't argue that socialists should read Rushdie now.

What would John Rees say?

 

[emanymton]

Yes. I fell for it and even started repeating the ridiculous revolutionary defeatism argument. I remember flyposting during the Euro 96 semi final desperate to watch and know the score but too scared to admit I wanted to know to my comrades at the time.

You should have tried the old 'I hate England so much I really want to watch the match just so I can cheer for the other side'.

Thinking about it I don't really remember the argument being applied to sports other than football. But that must just be because football is more prominent.

 

[Red Cat]

ditto...but to be honest the revolutionary defeatism line was just ponciness...Delta was a west ham fan which was ok regardless of some of the west ham crowd being amoungst the most anti semetic fans in England...but a port vale fan would be lectured about being a bad socialist for support british racism if he wanted england to win a match...mind you it was funny to watch their neck veins nearly pop when they saw black people supporting england...it didn't compute or fit into their boxes so they just looked confused

I remember watching football (world cup?) in ULU during Marxism with a few people from my branch and it did feel like sagging school. Oh how we laughed about our betrayal of the cause.

 

[belboid]

Thinking about it I don't really remember the argument being applied to sports other than football. But that must just be because football is more prominent.

definitely used about the rugby too. and then references always made to india-pakistan in cricket

 

[emanymton]

Incidentally I wonder what this is like?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Capitalism-...tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1388775172&sr=1-1

Chapter 13 might be of special interest to people.

 

[DaveCinzano]

What would John Rees say?

THIS DEMANDS TO BE A TUMBLR

 

[belboid]

Incidentally I wonder what this is like?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Capitalism-...tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1388775172&sr=1-1

Chapter 13 might be of special interest to people.

looks quite interesting, some good people in there.

There's quite a good review in one lefty rag - 'But if we only focus on these aspects of sport [its domination by big business and, very often, its nationalism and militarism] we end up with a one-sided reductionist account.' I doubt chapter 13 will pass that test

 

[comrade spurski]

i remember being told to stop wasting my time watching match of the day or going to see spurs play (apparently I should have been using the time usefully to build the next branch meeting, marxism, demo etc) when I asked why it was ok for certain comrades to watch cricket I was told that CLR James wrote extensively about it!!!!
So I asked if I could take up fox hunting as Trotsky used to like fox hunting...that went down like a lead balloon

 

[imposs1904]

looks quite interesting, some good people in there.

There's quite a good review in one lefty rag - 'But if we only focus on these aspects of sport [its domination by big business and, very often, its nationalism and militarism] we end up with a one-sided reductionist account.' I doubt chapter 13 will pass that test

Is there a list of contents online?

 

[Nigel Irritable]

i remember being told to stop wasting my time watching match of the day or going to see spurs play (apparently I should have been using the time usefully to build the next branch meeting, marxism, demo etc) when I asked why it was ok for certain comrades to watch cricket I was told that CLR James wrote extensively about it!!!!
So I asked if I could take up fox hunting as Trotsky used to like fox hunting...that went down like a lead balloon

Sure,y this sort of thing was just down to a few clownish enthusiasts locally rather than some kind of policy.

 

[belboid]

Is there a list of contents online?

if you click on the cover pic it should come up

 

[imposs1904]

if you click on the cover pic it should come up

cheers

eta: I see Delta's thanked in the acknowledgements.

I take it that is the same John Foot who wrote a history of Italian football? Is he in the SWP? I see he teaches in the Italian Department at UCL. Him and Robert Lumley must make for interesting coffee mornings.

 

[barney_pig]

When I was in Southampton swp they used to drink in a pub where the left as a whole congregated, everyone getting on fairly well and happily tolerated by the management and staff. Until the 1990'world cup when the swp decided to loudly and aggressively support every team england were playing against, and abusing anyone who disagreed as a racist. Having a white middle aged middle class head of library services lecture st Mary's West Indian bar staff on their racism was enough to get the swp, and the rest of the lefties banned.

 

[comrade spurski]

Sure,y this sort of thing was just down to a few clownish enthusiasts locally rather than some kind of policy.

too many people in the swp only ever mixed with people in the swp...all their friends and social life were in the swp. Therefore they became divorced from reality. Their self esteem and self worth came from it too...they found it impossible to disagree and to be accepted they could become almost evangelical. I remember being "told off" for going to see king kong instead of some ken loach film...the person moaning couldn't cope with me crying with laughter.
I am sure I remember a review of lethal weapon 2 (the south african bad guys) ending with a comment about the film ignoring the south african working class
I guess i was tolerated in the swp for so long cos I sold around 25 socialist workers each week in work and collected a lot of money for strikes, campaigns sw appeal etc. in the council I worked in and was one of the few genuine working class members who was politically active in work.
I survived by never going to meetings or doing saturday sales from 1999 til i left a decade later.

 

[emanymton]

i remember being told to stop wasting my time watching match of the day or going to see spurs play (apparently I should have been using the time usefully to build the next branch meeting, marxism, demo etc) when I asked why it was ok for certain comrades to watch cricket I was told that CLR James wrote extensively about it!!!!
So I asked if I could take up fox hunting as Trotsky used to like fox hunting...that went down like a lead balloon

I did meet plenty of huge football fans in the SWP, so that could have just been your branch.

 

[SLK]

I did meet plenty of huge football fans in the SWP, so that could have just been your branch.

Yes, when Stack was on the CC I lived with a blind Spurs fan so I often used to go and sit with my flatmate not far from Stack in the disabled section at WHL.

 

[phildwyer]

I take it that is the same John Foot who wrote a history of Italian football? Is he in the SWP?

I don't know about that, but he is Paul's son.

 

[belboid]

I never met one person who said supporting England was 'racist' either

 

[imposs1904]

Yes, when Stack was on the CC I lived with a blind Spurs fan so I often used to go and sit with my flatmate not far from Stack in the disabled section at WHL.

Discokermit in the past has written about the popular five a side tournaments at the SWP's beano in Skegness, so I'm guessing it was never about the SWP's attitude towards football, per se, and more about the England football team and International tournaments.

TBH, there's a lot to be said about hating modern football and its plutocratic ned owners and the dickhead overpaid footballers with their dodgy mates but I'm afraid I can't bring myself to hate football despite all the shite that surrounds it nowadays.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Discokermit in the past has written about the popular five a side tournaments at the SWP's beano in Skegness, so I'm guessing it was never about the SWP's attitude towards football, per se, and more about the England football team and International tournaments.

TBH, there's a lot to be said about hating modern football and its plutocratic ned owners and the dickhead overpaid footballers with their dodgy mates but I'm afraid I can't bring myself to hate football despite all the shite that surrounds it nowadays.

Although they did at one point put out some piece (possibly by Bambery?) saying that under socialism competitive sport would be replaced with cooperative games, didn't they?

 

[butchersapron]

This is not just a SWP thing - it appears across other parts of the left, esp the academic end of it. See Verso/New Left Books recently publishing Marc Perelman's disgusting book Barbaric Sport: A Global Plague. Sample:

The phenomenon [sport] we are going to describe in terms of its most salient (but often also most invisible) characteristics pertains more importantly to a colonization if the body in many of those who devote themselves to it relentlessly, and a mutilation of awareness in all those mesmerized by
it as a spectacle...The everyday lives of billions of individuals are thus contaminated, consumed, infected

edit: phil will now come on and say that he agrees with the sentiment.

 

[butchersapron]

Although they did at one point put out some piece (possibly by Bambery?) saying that under socialism competitive sport would be replaced with cooperative games, didn't they?

Yes, it was him.

 

[imposs1904]

Although they did at one point put out some piece (possibly by Bambery?) saying that under socialism competitive sport would be replaced with cooperative games, didn't they?

Do you think Bambery was last to be picked in the playground? Whenever I encountered an SPGBer with the same opinion on football - not that many, tbh - that was usually the explanation for their opinion.

 

[butchersapron]

Discokermit in the past has written about the popular five a side tournaments at the SWP's beano in Skegness, so I'm guessing it was never about the SWP's attitude towards football, per se, and more about the England football team and International tournaments.

Or maybe about the type of person who a) likes football and b) the type of person who doesn't like football and joins the SWP.

 

[belboid]

Discokermit in the past has written about the popular five a side tournaments at the SWP's beano in Skegness, so I'm guessing it was never about the SWP's attitude towards football, per se, and more about the England football team and International tournaments.

yeah, the national team and english teams in europe were no no's. Quite how anyone was meant to justify to their mates that they wanted their team to the FA Cup, league and whatever else, but not the European Cup, I dont know

 

[J Ed]

yeah, the national team and english teams in europe were no no's. Quite how anyone was meant to justify to their mates that they wanted their team to the FA Cup, league and whatever else, but not the European Cup, I dont know

...multitudinous positionism?

 

[butchersapron]

For the real headbangers on the issue i think it was a way to culturally reject that which they politically fetishised (white w/c males) and who they had come to rely on for their psychological existence - a resentment breeding situation.