SWP expulsions and squabbles

[phildwyer]

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

How little you know me.

 

[belboid]

Wilson blamed Labours loss in the 1970 election on Englands shit world cup performance (a propos of nothing in particular)

 

[emanymton]

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?

Might me worth pointing out that he is a huge sports fan.

 

[butchersapron]

Might me worth pointing out that he is a huge sports fan.

Yeah?

Physical recreation and play are about the enjoyment of one's body, human company and the environment. Sport is not. It is about competing, doing better than the next person, being the best. It is about obeying arbitrary rules an ideal preparation for the capitalist productive process.

Cracker this one:

But socialists should follow the example of the Bolsheviks in pulling out of all sports competitions based on nationalism, such as the Olympics

 

[tony.c]

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

There were those like Deason who made a big point of their team allegiance to emphasise how working class they were.

 

[belboid]

Yeah?

he lived in a Celtic top for years (not that proves anything at ll...)

 

[imposs1904]

There were those like Deason who made a big point of their team allegiance to emphasise how working class they were.

team allegiance has nothing to do with class. it's all to do with geography. frank skinner has the correct line on this.

 

[butchersapron]

Here's another Bamberry cracker:

Or 2002 when Chris Bamberry tried to discredit Brazillian football by denouncing them for never having had a Black captain...when a speaker slip was put in suggesting 1970 captain Carlos Alberto, he said 'he wasn't really Black, not like Pele' !

 

[SLK]

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, and there was a whole debate on it at a Students fighting for Socialism event (or maybe it was Marxism) one year. I can't remember who the debate was against, but I decided I didn't agree with him. He also debated Ed Horton, who used to post on here, at one event.

He basically said that Sport is a capitalist bastardisation of play, and that it would fade and we would be in stadiums listening to opera and the like rather than competing, and used examples of during the Russian revolution. I can't remember them though.

 

[tony.c]

team allegiance has nothing to do with class. it's all to do with geography. frank skinner has the correct line on this.

Not all Man U (or any other team) supporters are from the geographical location of the team, so frank skinner is wrong.

 

[SLK]

he lived in a Celtic top for years (not that proves anything at ll...)

Yes, he thought he was brilliant at football banter. He wasn't.

 

[imposs1904]

Not all Man U (or any other team) supporters are from the geographical location of the team, so frank skinner is wrong.

that was Skinner's point.

 

[emanymton]

Yeah?



Cracker this one:

None of which means he isn't a sports fan. Just that he also thinks there is a bigger picture.

 

[Trotter]

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

Rushdie was in my local ANL group in the late 70s, early 80s - and an active member. I remember celebrating with him at a meeting when he won the Booker prize.

But I've never been able to read his novels!

 

[comrade spurski]

For Spurski:

that really made me laugh...cheers

 

[DotCommunist]

Rushdie was in my local ANL group in the late 70s, early 80s - and an active member. I remember celebrating with him at a meeting when he won the Booker prize.

But I've never been able to read his novels!

go with Shame, Ground Beneath her Feet and Moors Last Sigh. The rest are rubbish

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

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.

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

I did in the same branch as barney though years later, aand possibly the same person. We were doing a stall (possibly an anti-racist one) in the town centre when a load of chanting England fans rocked up, some of whom I knew quite well from work, and some of whom were actually Polish. They all signed our petition - and afterwards I thought the Swappy idiots heads were going to explode with confusion until one of them pointed out that it was just because I knew them there's no way they agreed with the petition really, and that Poles tend to be really nationalist because of Solidarnosc...

This was the same branch that bullied out a really good activist because she was of CoE (her dad was a local vicar), and all of whoms old hands are currently on the CC side...

 

[barney_pig]

I have good memories of my time in Southampton, it pains me to see those names on the loyalist petitions/ motions. But after a lifetime of commitment it cannot be easy to admit it was for a false idol

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

I have good memories of my time in Southampton, it pains me to see those names on the loyalist petitions/ motions. But after a lifetime of commitment it cannot be easy to admit it was for a false idol

I was only very briefly a member and tbh every time I've bumped into them since I left the city (only about 3 or 4 times) they have been very personable, even the head bangers.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

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

Half my Harlesden branch supported England and delighted in pointing out the hipocrisy of the Irish and the plastic paddies who refused to apply rev defeatism to any game between Irish teams and anyone.

 

[articul8]

Half my Harlesden branch supported England and delighted in pointing out e hipocrisy of the Irish and the plastic paddies who refused to apply rev defeatism to any game between Irish teams and anyone.

There is no Harlesden branch now. Barely anythinging in Brent at all these days.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

he lived in a Celtic top for years (not that proves anything at ll...)

He called me a nationalist-populist for wearing an Ireland rugby shirt at Marxism one year, I told him to feck off as it was a united Ireland team.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

None of which means he isn't a sports fan. Just that he also thinks there is a bigger picture.

Think you're right. I broadly agree with his analysis of sport under capitalism and how it might change under socialism. It's also the only real argument I've ever heard for the preservation of capitalism! If Leinster won't still be winning European cups under socialism I'm not sure I want to live under socialism.

 

[muscovyduck]

This was the same branch that bullied out a really good activist because she was of CoE (her dad was a local vicar), and all of whoms old hands are currently on the CC side...

Quite a lot of the left act like that about religion. They fail to notice that not everyone who believes in God is a right wing homophobe and that it can be more about culture and family tradition than going to mass every week.

 

[xslavearcx]

I've never understood the whole fixation against sport that sometimes emanates from some quarters of the left. Fair doos, i can see how they can be seen to be ideologically linked to capitalist notions of competition within the context of capitalism; but surely competition doesn't always have to signify all the rest of that stuff. Football, i think, yeah its competition between 2 teams, but its co-operation within the team, why not say that that co-operation is symbolic of communism if we are going down that logic? I'd think that if after the revolution, localities, workplaces, whatever were to orgainise their own football teams and play against each other, i don't think all of a sudden they'd be like good match comrade but wouldnt it be even better if it was done under full neoliberalism.. just seems mental the whole anti sports/football thing...

 

[frogwoman]

The ICC also put out several pamphlets against 'sport in decadent capitalism' which while well researched, came to some awful conclusions IMO

 

[frogwoman]

Sport more and more clearly expresses the rottenness of a bourgeois society without a future

 

[xslavearcx]

it would be interesting to read some of those kinda arguments. Ill know what ill say next time some ISG scotland person trys to convert me to their sect. ill say, "your leader doesn't allow me to go to the football so no thanks"

 

[DotCommunist]

Bredrin of mine is proper ABE but because he is scots. Even unto wearing Brazil shirts to work at the point where that would be most provocative.

The trend sounds well facepalm though- I mean nobody likes the brit state but when its just football you should be able to cheer england along. Its not like you are tacitly endorsing the irish famine and indian partition etc

 

[frogwoman]

http://en.internationalism.org/icco...sm-part-iii-sport-nationalism-and-imperialism here you go