brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
But, but...haven't you seen how awful it all is? The old people have stopped the young people from voting on their phones.
'SWP urge members to get involved with 'Momentum'
- Thread starter Prince Rhyus
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chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
He's right about the old people and wrong about the young people.
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
As a naive, young, idealistic socialist I was outraged that the meeting started on time rather than waiting for me to get my arse to London. One of my friends, Porcha, was so upset at this macho approach to meeting times that she simply burst into tears.
As I said to the Shadow Cabinet Minister I work for as a special advisor, starting meetings on time is alientating counter revolutionary behaviour and puts us youngsters off. I posed the idea that those guilty of it should be imprisioned in forced labour camps. He said he would pass my idea on to Jeremy once he got back from his allotment.
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
Tom A
Goat among sheep
How is Jones Stalinist? I thought if anything he was a wishy-washy liberal/social democrat type.
But anyway, I have been very pessimistic about the situation with the Labour Party since around the time of the Brexit vote onwards, and not been too enthused with how Momentum has developed. But I wish the best of luck to those wanting to repel the Trotskyist threat, for far too long they have held the left back, and it would be great to see, just for once, a mass organisation of the left not disintegrate into sectarian infighting due to the malevolent actions of the Trots, who's views remain totally irrelevant to ordinary British people in 2016.
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Have you read the links posted up on this thread today? I ask, as you don't seem to notice that the sectarian infighting is well underway.
Tom A
Goat among sheep
I generally don't take much notice of Labour or Momentum these days. I am aware of the latest spats involving the AWL if that's what you are implying.
Anyway, how is Owen Jones Stalinist?
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Are you wishing the best of luck to people like Milne, Andrew Murray, his daughter and other Stalinist fellow travellers in the other camp within Momentum by the way? Do they have views relevant to ordinary British people in 2016?
Tom A
Goat among sheep
What's that got to do with my dislike of Trots? But, regardless of whether I agree or not with them, what makes them Stalinist, rather than merely wet liberal Guardianistas?
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Well Murrary is a CPB member and Milne used to be and continues to advocate their politics. Other than that nothing I suppose
Tom A
Goat among sheep
Now, about Owen Jones...Well Murrary is a CPB member and Milne used to be and continues to advocate their politics. Other than that nothing I suppose
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Read his aticle. Examine his view that only one side in the momentum split is factional. Assess his claim that one side is made up of embittered old trots whilst the other are just young idealists interested in horizontal structures and social media as tools to organise. Look at the source he quotes (clue her name is Murray).
I didn't say Jones was a Stalinist by the way (I don't think he actually has any politics, just 'instincts'). I said he was a mouthpiece for them.
Dom Traynor
Tino Pai
Is Jones still working part time for the Class think tank? If so that would make Andrew Murray, if not his boss then certainly a boss figure in the organisation that employs him.
Having said that, its better to criticise Laura Murray on the basis that her job casts a doubt on her faux naivety, rather than her father's politics, unless we do the same to Jones unless it's because she is a woman?
In the Momentum fight there is no side worth backing, it was poisoned from the beginning by the involvement of the dregs of Trotskyism and Stalinism. But the arguments smokeandsteam is using betray a contempt for attempts to involve and interest new people and for democracy as if he or she doesn't know how the left abuse the delegate model over OMOV, and as if new ways of organising including online voting and more relaxed meetings are not worth trying.
Having said that, its better to criticise Laura Murray on the basis that her job casts a doubt on her faux naivety, rather than her father's politics, unless we do the same to Jones unless it's because she is a woman?
In the Momentum fight there is no side worth backing, it was poisoned from the beginning by the involvement of the dregs of Trotskyism and Stalinism. But the arguments smokeandsteam is using betray a contempt for attempts to involve and interest new people and for democracy as if he or she doesn't know how the left abuse the delegate model over OMOV, and as if new ways of organising including online voting and more relaxed meetings are not worth trying.
cantsin
Well-Known Member
plus 'meetings' are, by their very nature, 'anti movementist'
Dom Traynor
Tino Pai
Apart from a few appointed senior union bureaucrats and a newspaper few read what influence do they really have? I don't really believe Jones is dancing to their tune, he's quite capable of having his owen
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Well that's what I would've assumed too. But I don't really pay as much attention to this stuff as I used to, so I might have missed something?
Dom Traynor
Tino Pai
Neither do I, and so might I
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
My criticism of Murray is based upon the nature of her criticism of the Trots. The language used is classically Stalinist and deliberately and disingenuously misrepresents the positIon of the AWL.
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Me too to be honest. I'm not close enough to this shit and not do I want to be. What wound me up was the faux innocence of Murray and Jones.
Tom A
Goat among sheep
It does seem to be a case of "a plague on both their houses". Maybe one day ordinary people will be able to form their own movement which can keep out the malign influence of both strains of the old-fashioned authoritarian left, or at least banish them to the margins where they belong.
Regardless of what agendas are being pushed, one member one vote is inherently fairer and will engage people from the grassroots, rather than engineering a democratic deficit where the people at the top are increasingly detached from the bulk of the members. One good thing about Left Unity was it did adopt a model where every individual member could have a say over who run the executive, based on OMOV. You did not get that in many of the other "left alternatives to Labour".
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
It does all seem more like a response to the leadership of this definitely democratically-led participant-based body being challenged. Why, that could only be because there are dyed-in-the-wool Trotskyists conspiring to take it over!
I like the idea that the only reason political meetings are boring is because Trots.
Necessary, indeed essential, but not sufficient ...
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Dom Traynor
Tino Pai
Fair enough, I don't know you and wouldn't accuse of you of sexism it was more a comment on some of the faux innocent outrage from the Trot corner.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Lecturing the proles and forming a revolutionary vanguard.
Oh wait, they're not even very good at those, however hard they work at it.
mikey mikey
Active Member
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
but national groups are frequently indolent and do shoddy work.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
is that bez in the england shirt?
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