SWP expulsions and squabbles

[One_Stop_Shop]

This is new too:

http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2013/01/16/how-i-was-expelled-swp

LOL! Why I left the SWP 40 years ago. Cutting edge stuff.

 

[danny la rouge]

Not by Francis Newton? That was the name he normally used when writing about jazz.

Usually, but not this time.

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

Not that it matters much but he was in the past paid to work as a DJ no? Music was always his second passion after politics when I knew him. I get why people who hate his politics want to paint him as some seedy oddball trying too hard to be trendy but that's so not the bloke many of us know.

As I said earlier, people obviously have different impressions. The ex SWPers I have spoken to didn't like him and described him as a wanna be thug. But I think the main problem is how the SWP have dealt with such a serious issue, which personally I think stems from their terrible way of operating and their political methods, which have led them to become more and more isolated from the working class (while proclaiming to be the vanguard of the class) and ever more like a cult.

 

[The39thStep]

Not by Francis Newton? That was the name he normally used when writing about jazz.

Me sister mentioned a case to me last night that you might remember as well. Very early nineties, the party recruited a 'leading' black nationalist, who was rapidly promoted, frequent SW contributor, speaker at Marxism, National Council (I think) - all set for the big time. And then he raped a comrade - again in circumstances with no witnesses or other evidential 'proof'. He was expelled after an internal hearing, and then the facts were reported to conference. There was no 'we cant tell you cos its all confidential' - the basic details of what had happened, without names, was relayed, and conference accepted what they were told (although there were a few unconvinced). Why they didn't do so in this case.....it wouldn't have stopped all the arguments, obviously, but it would at least be a little more transparent.

No but the articles are reprints as the book is a collection of previous works as it were. Really enjoyed the whole book , can't remember what i did with it now.

Don't recall that incident pm me his name if you remember. What I can't work out is how Delta escaped any sanction per se .

 

[DaveCinzano]

Incidentally, on left-ish books about jazz, Chris Searle's "Forward Groove: Jazz and the Real World from Louis Armstrong to Gilad Atzmon" disappoints on almost every level...(He's the jazz correspondent for the Morning Star).

For a minute there I thought that you were saying privately educated Old Cliftonian Chris Serle was a Morning Star correspondent - I nearly gagged on my proletarian cereal. Then my eyes refocused and I saw your 'a' and realised it was the other chap. I found his Grenada: The Struggle Against Destabilisation quite interesting (if somewhat undermined by actual events overtaking publication schedules).

 

[The39thStep]

The Guatemala Times:

http://www.guatemala-times.com/opin...ual-violence-dont-let-them-off-the-hook-.html

Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal:

http://links.org.au/node/3183

all that well meaning article says is that cases should be investigated and appropriate measures taken if found that there is a case.

 

[The39thStep]

As I said earlier, people obviously have different impressions. The ex SWPers I have spoken to didn't like him and described him as a wanna be thug. But I think the main problem is how the SWP have dealt with such a serious issue, which personally I think stems from their terrible way of operating and their political methods, which have led them to become more and more isolated from the working class (while proclaiming to be the vanguard of the class) and ever more like a cult.

To describe Smith as a wannabe thug is to devalue the status of thug. As someone once said about someone 'He acted like a gangster in the student bar and like a student in the gangster bar'

 

[articul8]

Not by Francis Newton? That was the name he normally used when writing about jazz.

Not as good as Adorno's pseudonym - Hektor Rottweiler

 

[electric.avenue]

I wonder who Donny Mayo is?

http://www.counterfire.org/index.ph...y-i-resigned-from-socialist-workers-party-swp

 

[emanymton]

I wonder who Donny Mayo is?

http://www.counterfire.org/index.ph...y-i-resigned-from-socialist-workers-party-swp

Gee it isn't like his made up name is remotely similar to an ex-cc members is it.

 

[The39thStep]

I wonder who Donny Mayo is?

http://www.counterfire.org/index.ph...y-i-resigned-from-socialist-workers-party-swp

Quite remarkably joined the SWP in the early 90s and believes that ' that the International Socialists were the best organisation on the British left in the 60s and 70s'. He wouldn't have been even born then. 'Nostalgia' as X. Moore once said 'never remembers'

 

[Pickman's model]

Quite remarkably joined the SWP in the early 90s and believes that ' that the International Socialists were the best organisation on the British left in the 60s and 70s'. He wouldn't have been even born then. 'Nostalgia' as X. Moore once said 'never remembers'

 

[emanymton]

Quite remarkably joined the SWP in the early 90s and believes that ' that the International Socialists were the best organisation on the British left in the 60s and 70s'. He wouldn't have been even born then. 'Nostalgia' as X. Moore once said 'never remembers'

Early 90s? He joined around 2001. Considering he was the CC member with responsibility for Marxism, the whole thing reads rather like the work of a sulky teenager. But if he is right it is interesting that the CC downplayed Marxism. The figures he gives for retention of members are interesting to.

 

[The39thStep]

Early 90s? He joined around 2001. Considering he was the CC member with responsibility for Marxism, the whole thing reads rather like the work of a sulky teenager. But if he is right it is interesting that the CC downplayed Marxism. The figures he gives for retention of members are interesting to.

Maths has never been my strong point.

 

[The39thStep]

“The Opposition has been banned. Opposition leaders expelled. Throughout the country a purge is taking place against Opposition comrades, with branch committees being called as kangaroo courts. Using the methods of McCarthy, comrades are being asked to choose: the Opposition or the Tendency. Opposition branches are being systematically closed down and “reorganised” by Full Timers. This witch-hunt is the culmination of the neo-Stalinist campaign that has been waged against the Opposition since its formation. By these actions the majority faction has engineered a split – despite the protests of the Opposition – and, true to form, immediately publicised it in the pages of the capitalist press, before the ranks had any chance to comment.”

Guess which organisation?

 

[barney_pig]

I wonder who Donny Mayo is?

http://www.counterfire.org/index.ph...y-i-resigned-from-socialist-workers-party-swp

Every new wave of resigners has a particular moment when their party was the true voice of the proletariat, and a particular moment when it degenerated into a toxic cult.
They never ask themselves whether the entire model was broken from the beginning

 

[belboid]

Guess which organisation?

Workers Power, 2007

 

[The39thStep]

Workers Power, 2007

but no.

 

[The39thStep]

I always thought Andy Newman would not look like this but it does add weight to the ugly = politics theory that someone had on here

 

[Pickman's model]

I always thought Andy Newman would not look like this but it does add weight to the ugly = politics theory that someone had on here

someone should do something nasty to the photographer too

 

[belboid]

I always thought Andy Newman would not look like this but it does add weight to the ugly = politics theory that someone had on here

I do like how he's got his lippy to match his blusher so well, tho

 

[emanymton]

someone should do something nasty to the photographer too

Wasn't having to photograph Newman bad enough?

 

[Pickman's model]

Wasn't having to photograph Newman bad enough?

it could have been better composed. much better composed.

 

[frogwoman]

check your attractiveness privilege

 

[SpackleFrog]

Every new wave of resigners has a particular moment when their party was the true voice of the proletariat, and a particular moment when it degenerated into a toxic cult.
They never ask themselves whether the entire model was broken from the beginning

"I believe that the International Socialists were the best organisation on the British left in the 60s and 70s. I believe that the SWP had many things going for it. I think things possibly were salvageable. There was a conscious effort to 'modernise' the SWP after Seattle and the mass anti-war demonstrations. But then, for whatever reason, the leadership (including those who have since split) retreated from these attempts. After the failure of Respect though, the retreat became a full-on rout. Modernisation was consciously reversed. And in the context of the gravest capitalist crisis since at least the 1930s, the Arab Spring and the European Autumn, this was not the time to retreat from the outside world.
And so it became the case that the SWP suffered the same problems that had haunted the rest of the Trotskyist-left. Splits along essentially generational lines, brittleness to the point of absurdity (treating criticism of "comrade delta" as the abandonment of classical Marxism) and sectarian retreat and isolation."

This is fucking classic - he/she claims that the SWP has only recently fallen to the problems of the rest of the Trotskyist left, despite the fact that every single 'trotskyist' split save one in the last 50 years in Britain has been a split within the SWP.

 

[The39thStep]

check your attractiveness privilege

I used to be a child model in the Birds Eye Cod in batter advert, knitting patterns and catalogues. I know how that industry exploits attractive privilege, I have been a victim.

 

[TremulousTetra]

The lesson of actually existing socialism tells me they should have been dealing with this a long time ago. Socialism has no theory of government. It relies on a totalising economic and historical perspective that they think will give them the answers if and when they come to power. They are wrong. Without a positive theory of power and government all revolutions that make that break into an exceptional situation are just as likely to see the exception become the rule i.e. totalitarian dictatorship. In taking over the apparatus the liberal capitalist state fails to wither away and instead is transforms into a hyper administrative, hyper bureaucratic state.

surely the point was, there is no positive theory of the state. The state is like a gun, you can choose to leave it in the hands of a psychopath, or you can choose to take it from them, to disarm them. The lessons of Spain, lean me to the latter.

 

[The39thStep]

"I believe that the International Socialists were the best organisation on the British left in the 60s and 70s. I believe that the SWP had many things going for it. I think things possibly were salvageable. There was a conscious effort to 'modernise' the SWP after Seattle and the mass anti-war demonstrations. But then, for whatever reason, the leadership (including those who have since split) retreated from these attempts. After the failure of Respect though, the retreat became a full-on rout. Modernisation was consciously reversed. And in the context of the gravest capitalist crisis since at least the 1930s, the Arab Spring and the European Autumn, this was not the time to retreat from the outside world.
And so it became the case that the SWP suffered the same problems that had haunted the rest of the Trotskyist-left. Splits along essentially generational lines, brittleness to the point of absurdity (treating criticism of "comrade delta" as the abandonment of classical Marxism) and sectarian retreat and isolation."

This is fucking classic - he/she claims that the SWP has only recently fallen to the problems of the rest of the Trotskyist left, despite the fact that every single 'trotskyist' split save one in the last 50 years in Britain has been a split within the SWP.

Not true

 

[Pickman's model]

"I believe that the International Socialists were the best organisation on the British left in the 60s and 70s. I believe that the SWP had many things going for it. I think things possibly were salvageable. There was a conscious effort to 'modernise' the SWP after Seattle and the mass anti-war demonstrations. But then, for whatever reason, the leadership (including those who have since split) retreated from these attempts. After the failure of Respect though, the retreat became a full-on rout. Modernisation was consciously reversed. And in the context of the gravest capitalist crisis since at least the 1930s, the Arab Spring and the European Autumn, this was not the time to retreat from the outside world.
And so it became the case that the SWP suffered the same problems that had haunted the rest of the Trotskyist-left. Splits along essentially generational lines, brittleness to the point of absurdity (treating criticism of "comrade delta" as the abandonment of classical Marxism) and sectarian retreat and isolation."

This is fucking classic - he/she claims that the SWP has only recently fallen to the problems of the rest of the Trotskyist left, despite the fact that every single 'trotskyist' split save one in the last 50 years in Britain has been a split within the SWP.

is it? socialist appeal split off militant; and there were fuck loads of groups split out of the wrp. and i'm sure i'm missing a few.

 

[belboid]

every single 'trotskyist' split save one in the last 50 years in Britain has been a split within the SWP.

uhhh, no. Militant, WRP (and then several of the splitting organisations), SSP, CPGB, Workers Power, etc etc. Up until ten years ago the SWP was the organisation that had split the least