SWP expulsions and squabbles

[emanymton]

Yeah I agree but we're just political disosaurs and slut shamers or something. I think it's a general inability to differentiate between institutions and individuals who are involved in said institutions - you can see it when they talk about the police and military too (though they take the opposite position here - everyone in the military is a cold blooded muderer and ACAB).

Their right about ACAB though.

 

[J Ed]

Seymour didn't like Fischer's article, I wonder if he thinks the metaphor is any more pertinent now...

 

[revol68]

yeah the other key point is that the argument is less important than the person making it, so Seymour being a white male making such a case is a racist piece of shit telling black people what to think, when he links to a black person and race play participant arguing pretty much the same case he is an even bigger bastard using black people as sock puppets to defend his own racism.

This despite he's not even involved in making racist art or race play.

It's irrational shit.

 

[discokermit]

Lie back and think of England isn't that long ago is it? I think the church had something to do with it.

the church said no sex before marriage but this has been broken on a consistent and widespread basis. also i doubt the lie back thing has much of a basis in fact. it certainly can't be considered as forcing anyone to do anything.

It's more difficult to orgasm than being on top because it's harder to control stimulation of the clitoris and to control the movement of the vaginal muscles. Obviously all women are different and maybe the young women of today are all super multi-orgasmic beings in all positions but this was fairly common knowledge when I was younger, as was the experience of many women not being able to orgasm at all with penetration alone, as was the experience of faking so the man would hurry up and finish.

Caveat: I am one woman in a world of women enjoying sex in all sorts of ways....

i'm not gonna go into details but i don't agree with much of that.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Gotta love emanymton

 

[oskarsdrum]

Autonomism strikes again! Try Leopoldina Fortunati or Mariorosa Dalla Costa.

Thanks!! Made a note of those. All of the autonomists I've read so far have been terrific and kind of electrifying...although without ending my fondness for left Eurocoms. Obviously, I've much to learn, but I think the class composition/recomposition is really illuminating. I liked this, on Marioros Dalla Costa, although I wouldn't claim it all made sense to me: http://viewpointmag.com/2013/09/28/the-gendered-circuit-reading-the-arcane-of-reproduction/

 

[oskarsdrum]

Their right about ACAB though.

Even that though...what about DV specialists? Half-decent local coppers who do their best to protect vulnerable people from neighbourhood harrassment? Even the traffic police? If they're bastards then most of the public sector workforce aren't a lot different (children's social workers, teachers marking exams, housing rent collectors.....)

It's irrational shit.

Yeah I think that's basically it. There's better and worse ways of trying to make a point and there definitely *are* experiences of oppression that people with those experiences more important to listen to than others, but the whole logic of how it played out would make it impossible for most britons even to have an opinion on a lot of subjects. That's the other thing, is that misusing the valid insights on interpersonal discussions and standpoint/intersectionality brings the whole thing into disrepute!

 

[Red Cat]

the church said no sex before marriage but this has been broken on a consistent and widespread basis. also i doubt the lie back thing has much of a basis in fact. it certainly can't be considered as forcing anyone to do anything.

i'm not gonna go into details but i don't agree with much of that.

Maybe, I mean I'm sure there are plenty of myths, and it's not something I've researched, and I don't think there's a monolithic history of repressed sex despite the apparent cultural prohibitions at certain times and places but.... any girl who enjoyed sexual activity when I was at school in the 80s was still called a slut, sometimes daily, and I remember some poor girl being called Orgy (with a hard G) for the last 2 years of school for obvious reasons. I also remember being harassed almost daily by older boys and men and raped more than once. It does make me wonder how then we all became confident and liberated lovers, making our needs and desires known and getting them met.

 

[Red Cat]

I absolutely loved the couple of Federici articles that I read! Such a powerful writer, as well. I totally agree about the whole personal experience and reflection perspective (especially doing welfare state work!). I suppose Marxists tend to see that as being open to lifestylist type approaches but it's not necessarily the case at all.

Surely it's always our experience that leads us to political perspectives? Otherwise it's abstract and not rooted in our lives. I'm interested in housework and childcare in relation to capitalism, hence wanting to read Federici. I'm sure the SWP also had a position on work in the home being unpaid reproduction of the labour force but their answer to the problem was get women out of the home and kids into nurseries, which I think is inadequate (long time since I read Sex, Class and Socialism so may be wrong, again).

 

[Red Cat]

I didn't realise we were all supposed to have opinions on obscure fetishes so bear with me, cos I've only just started thinking about this, but... Surely a consensual sexual encounter doesn't reproduce racism/sexism/rape culture/whatever in the same way that racist/sexist behaviour towards people who don't want you to be racist/sexist to them, regardless of what that sexual encounter consists of? Unless you force others to watch or something.

Agree that they basically just react to stimulus rather than ever thinking about anything though.

Seymour is right in that isn't he, that there's no evidence that that kind of sexual play reinforces racism outside of that play.

I think thinking about internalisation gets stuck if we think about it as a kind of static unchanging structural thing that has to be got rid of, rather than thinking that we all have different parts to ourselves that are expressed in different circumstances.

tbh I don't find saying a man is a sexist particularly helpful, it's more accurate to say we all have sexist and racist thoughts, fantasies. I don't think it's impossible to think about this in a non-policing non self-critical way.

Anyway, I have to go be with my neglected children so I'm leaving that half though there.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

yeah the other key point is that the argument is less important than the person making it, so Seymour being a white male making such a case is a racist piece of shit telling black people what to think, when he links to a black person and race play participant arguing pretty much the same case he is an even bigger bastard using black people as sock puppets to defend his own racism.

This despite he's not even involved in making racist art or race play.

It's irrational shit.

That's the word exactly. They are frustrating as hell to argue with and I couldn't put a word to it but you're completely right, it's just irrational. Stark bonkers pre enlightenment nonsense.

 

[leyton96]

That's the word exactly. They are frustrating as hell to argue with and I couldn't put a word to it but you're completely right, it's just irrational. Stark bonkers pre enlightenment nonsense.

Indeed, as bonkers as describing Deltagate as bad sex and as frustrating as listening to some one who changes their position depending on how many lemonades they've had that night.

 

[J Ed]

Maybe, I mean I'm sure there are plenty of myths, and it's not something I've researched, and I don't think there's a monolithic history of repressed sex despite the apparent cultural prohibitions at certain times and places but.... any girl who enjoyed sexual activity when I was at school in the 80s was still called a slut, sometimes daily, and I remember some poor girl being called Orgy (with a hard G) for the last 2 years of school for obvious reasons. I also remember being harassed almost daily by older boys and men and raped more than once. It does make me wonder how then we all became confident and liberated lovers, making our needs and desires known and getting them met.

I don't really know what to write in response to this but I'm so sorry that you had to grow up in that environment and go through those experiences.

 

[J Ed]

Indeed, as bonkers as describing Deltagate as bad sex and as frustrating as listening to some one who changes their position depending on how many lemonades they've had that night.

I would like to know exactly WHEN the idea that the veracity of a statement is entirely dependent on who is saying it starts to appear logical to someone. Surely no one wakes up one day and begins to think that...

 

[comrade spurski]

You seem determined to find offence where none was meant. I'm talking about internalisation of oppression, or of power relations, and how it manifests in sex, but also in giving consent, making choices. I'm really not particularly interested in sex as a subject, but I am interested in how we internalise relations. And we can do that without being moralistic or getting too into identity politics, I think.

I did NOT conflate giving consent within current conditions of inequality with a man forcing a woman physically. I really can't be clearer than that. I do find it interesting that you assume that I've twisted your words rather than you assuming you've misunderstood me.

fair enough...guess that years in the swp have left their mark in that department...
stopped saying anything and attending meetings cos of the the way people liked to cheap point score by twisting what you said so they could look good.
should have taken you at face value

I remember saying in a meeting about sexism that I had no idea what it was like being on the receiving end of sexism and although I am used to being on the receiving end of racism it's not the same in my opinion...and that although I am committed to anti sexism that I am aware that sometimes I might not be seen a being of help to a woman in my role as a union rep.
I used an example of how a union member came to me as her rep because management wanted her to photocopy some confiscated porn film dvd covers which she found upsetting and decided (while explaining it to me) that she need to speak to only a female rep as she would be understanding of her needs. I found her a female rep and as a result when the same problem occurred a few months later she approached me again and asked me to deal with it as she felt I had been so sympathetic and understanding previously.

the rest of the meeting was spent with (mainly white middle class men) telling me how I had feminist and black nationalist politics and had pandered to bourgeois middle class life style politics.

hope you had fun with your kids ... just taking my daughters out ... love the weekends

 

[Karmickameleon]

fair enough...guess that years in the swp have left their mark in that department...

It's good that you should say that. Many of us (ex-SWP or otherwise) will recognise that same reflex.

 

[leyton96]

I would like to know exactly WHEN the idea that the veracity of a statement is entirely dependent on who is saying it starts to appear logical to someone. Surely no one wakes up one day and begins to think that...

The veracity of the statement is not in doubt. A pointed reminder that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones was the aim.

 

[Red Cat]

I don't really know what to write in response to this but I'm so sorry that you had to grow up in that environment and go through those experiences.

Thanks.

But it wasn't meant as a woe is me, from what I can gather from threads on here where women talk about their experiences it is very far from unusual.

Anyway....

 

[Karmickameleon]

The latest ISN "external" bulletin is now available on their website. The race play furore exploded too late to meet the deadline, so those interested in such questions will have to wait for the February bulletin (in which, I presume there will be copious debate on this topic). However, for those interested in the more prosaic RS21 and LU play:

http://internationalsocialistnetwor...rnational-socialist-network-external-bulletin

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

The latest ISN "external" bulletin is now available on their website. The race play furore exploded too late to meet the deadline, so those interested in such questions will have to wait for the February bulletin (in which, I presume there will be copious debate on this topic). However, for those interested in the more prosaic RS21 and LU play:

http://internationalsocialistnetwor...rnational-socialist-network-external-bulletin

The best and most beautifully pointless article is the one from page 8 to 10... It's correct in everything it raises and because of that completly redundent

 

[emanymton]

The best and most beautifully pointless article is the one from page 8 to 10... It's correct in everything it raises and because of that completly redundent

Is that 8-10 in real page numbers or 8-10 as per the contents page numbering.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Is that 8-10 in real page numbers or 8-10 as per the contents page numbering.

8 - 10 in real numbers written by some loon called Richard

 

[belboid]

8 - 10 in real numbers written by some loon called Richard

a well known wanker

 

[SpackleFrog]

The latest ISN "external" bulletin is now available on their website. The race play furore exploded too late to meet the deadline, so those interested in such questions will have to wait for the February bulletin (in which, I presume there will be copious debate on this topic). However, for those interested in the more prosaic RS21 and LU play:

http://internationalsocialistnetwor...rnational-socialist-network-external-bulletin

Had a quick flick through, all fairly asinine apart from Belboid's piece. (I'm assuming its yours Belboid, it all made a lot of sense to me apart from your list of suggested topics - if the ISN did discuss them would either lead to further inactivity, total implosion or both.)

Stand out point for me though-on page 7 Simon H suggests that the ISN should be the wing of the revolutionary left which is "clearest on...solidarity with the Syrian revolution". Do the ISN/people with in it have some daft line on Syria I'm not aware of?

 

[belboid]

Had a quick flick through, all fairly asinine apart from Belboid's piece. (I'm assuming its yours Belboid, it all made a lot of sense to me apart from your list of suggested topics - if the ISN did discuss them would either lead to further inactivity, total implosion or both.)

well, that's my (im)plausible deniability blown! I might have to be nice about Seymour now.... (and i'ts belboid, btw, not Belboid, i am an anti-capitalist....)

the 'list' came about just cos I'd written everything else and then went 'ohh shit, I have absolutely no suggestions for how to counter any of these problems. Better say something!' - and they sprang to mind

Stand out point for me though-on page 7 Simon H suggests that the ISN should be the wing of the revolutionary left which is "clearest on...solidarity with the Syrian revolution". Do the ISN/people with in it have some daft line on Syria I'm not aware of?

naah, I think its just the big international issue at the mo, and the one where the groups looking to merge actually basically agree

 

[SpackleFrog]

well, that's my (im)plausible deniability blown! I might have to be nice about Seymour now.... (and i'ts belboid, btw, not Belboid, i am an anti-capitalist....)

the 'list' came about just cos I'd written everything else and then went 'ohh shit, I have absolutely no suggestions for how to counter any of these problems. Better say something!' - and they sprang to mind


naah, I think its just the big international issue at the mo, and the one where the groups looking to merge actually basically agree

Sorry mate!

I just found it worded oddly-I don't think anyone sees what's happening in Syria as a revolution but rather a civil war, and I wondered if the writer had anybody in particular in mind to be 'in solidarity' with. Just seemed a really odd thing to include.

 

[belboid]

just realised the fuckers cut out my footnotes! Bloody Stalinists.....

 

[belboid]

Sorry mate!

I just found it worded oddly-I don't think anyone sees what's happening in Syria as a revolution but rather a civil war, and I wondered if the writer had anybody in particular in mind to be 'in solidarity' with. Just seemed a really odd thing to include.

I dont really think they do have anyone in mind. Just not Assad. Or the Islamists. The stuff on Ukraine (such as it is) similarly fails to distinguish between different opposition groups.

 

[oskarsdrum]

MASSIVE NEWS, blindsided the weekly worker and everything: https://www.dropbox.com/s/c35lq1ua7kn8gzn/Resignation from the ISN.docx huge 8 resignations from the ISN

 

[SpackleFrog]

MASSIVE NEWS, blindsided the weekly worker and everything: https://www.dropbox.com/s/c35lq1ua7kn8gzn/Resignation from the ISN.docx huge 8 resignations from the ISN

Massive is probably an exaggeration.