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The Slow Fix - IWCA on the rise of UKIP and decline of the left...

I am having a weekend of cleaning out the chickens and spreading the good seed on the land ( at the allotment) then out to watch Man City with a group of women ( Paula's old crowd) .I think I will ask them what they think of UKIP, inter sectionalism and privilege theory at half time and order some onion rings.
 
The39thStep said:
I am having a weekend of cleaning out the chickens and spreading the good seed on the land ( at the allotment) then out to watch Man City with a group of women ( Paula's old crowd) .I think I will ask them what they think of UKIP, inter sectionalism and privilege theory at half time and order some onion rings
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Man City? :eek:
 
I most have been the only man in kettering to vote for them. I'd convinced ma into voting for them as well but she reneged on it and voted christian democrts instead. Floaters :(
 
Mark Perryman – I found the article you wrote to be absolutely compelling, thought provoking and most importantly easy to understand. Furthermore, you raise some key points in the comment you posted below about language and essentially marketing and PR or the party. I would like to also pick up on this idea to bullet point the following:
* PR and marketing are everything – thus, language and semantics is key. I suggest moving away from using any of the terms of anti-capitalism, bourgeoisie/proletariat relations, Marxism etc. to just focus on policy driven language in exactly the way highlighted by Mark P above. The working class is being eaten alive by the bankers, elites, landlords etc. we just need to talk about working people and what we can do for them because this is a party founded by working class people for working class people. That’s it. Simple.
“We need a progressive and radical common-sense language. About a political class that doesn’t represent us, bankers and corporations who don’t pay taxes like the rest of us, hospitals and schools run in the interests of patients and children’s needs not to make a profit. Drive home three or four messages but with imagination and creativity not the slogans of planet placard.”
I truly think this is vital, or else we will spend the rest of our lives labeled as far left extremists with a plethora of language inaccessible to the masses. This doesn’t mean losing the theory – but rather appropriating it in simple, easy to understand terms – democracy, workers, wages, job creation, exploitation, race, gender = policy related terms. No talk of communism or even socialism. UKIP do not market themselves as right wing populist xenophobes – but that is what they are and who they appeal to.
* we need to move away from anything remotely related to, or reminiscent of the Soviet Union ideals of communism and even ideas that stem from discussions of socialism – rather we need to focus on a party for the workers by the workers. Class struggle needs to be lost as an idea. The concept will come out naturally from the struggle ensued – by the very act of this party becoming the mass party of the working class. A dog doesn’t need to be labelled a dog and you don’t need to teach a dog how to be a dog. The working class, including myself, is sick of being told what I am, how I am , how I should think or how theory understand me to be. We need to stop talking about the working class as an “other”. The reason we are here fighting – is precisely because we ARE working class. David Cameron on the other hand – is very much NOT.
* we need to move away from any hammers, raised fists, soviet style emblems or even discussions over joint class struggle. we need new appropriations of “class struggle” that don’t sound whimsical, unobtainable and sound fearful. people are scared when they here socialism and the destruction of capitalism because they assume we will all live poor lives, in squalor, with no progress, no advancement and no jobs where we share everything, our job is not to educate people about the theory and terms – its just to successfully provide a vision, promote it and implement it – not to be the “theory policy”. Our job is not to reinvent socialism or communism. Again, this will come in time when one day we turn around and realize that the cultural shift has occurred. SYRIZA is successful because it focuses on policy, not because it claims to be trying to reappropriate communism and/or socialism as the flagbearer of socialism ideaology. This is why we MUST drop the Marxist tagline and just focus on leftwing policy that doesn’t overwhelm. Most people don’t know or understand Marx – that’s doesn’t make them stupid, uneducated or out of touch. They are suffering. If our policies connect with that suffering, its enough. Marx wanted the abolition of class, not the creation of a celebrity status around his identity.
* the youth is vital and getting youth involved, including in key positions of leadership is a big deal. I am under 30, and personally think we desperately need a party that has more youth in leadership positions (those under 40), more women, ethnic minorities and those from other marginalized or unrepresented groups (LGBTQ etc.) That does not however mean positive discrimination, which forces “one man and one woman to each meeting” as has been suggested on this website a number of times. I understand this – but as a woman I do not want to be sent to a meeting as a delegate BECAUSE I am a woman. I want to be sent because people think I am right for the job and they want me as a representative. The process must therefore be far more organic. Furthermore – if we really wanted to argue this point, we could simply ask what is a woman? Or a man? We need to come back to just seeing each other as humans, and just rely on involving more women, ethnicities, races, genders and sexualities in the party. Then you will have a natural flow of minority members as reps, delegates, etc. This should fuel all of us to strive to be the best rep/delegate we can be so we get nominated. Isn’t that democracy?
* the party website does NOT needs articles about how awful capitalism is, how we need to remove it, homages to Marx and free Palestine symbols. Leave this to the blogs. This is where the “major” far left parties are going wrong right now. When I enter their websites, I am bombarded with so much text and images and almost hateful sounding rhetoric that I am bemused and downright confused. I just want the policies, what they stand for and the party reps, not an entire enclyopedia of Marxist history. This is all coming from an ardent Marxist may I add so I do not wish to be accused on not understanding Marx, or wishing to uphold any form of “true socialism” whatever that may be. I simply want the creation of a party that can mobilize quickly, and efficiently and more importantly that is befitting for the times. We have to decide – are we here to spread the ideas of Marx, or create a party based on Marx even if it means removing the explanatory theory behind it? It is the later that offers a truly new and unique approach.
I am not a member of any group, I am however interested in the very pressing issue of founding a new party. As Mark P rightfully points out, organizations and funding stem from these vital questions : How? When? Why? Answering these democratically is of vital importance. But maybe if we can agree to declare a party, then we can come together and decide how it should look, feel, behave etc. Let us just cease any more longwinded discussion and actually begin this process as we have wasted enough time already, agreeing to the existence of a party that outlines what most of us are saying on this website – simple, policy driven, easy to understand party by workers for workers that is a million miles away from anything on the left that already exists today.

http://leftunity.org/what-would-a-ukip-of-the-left-look-like/
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posted in full, its a response to mark perryman's article on LU and its ace, imo.

Ooops, its by someone called Jasmin Al Hadaq
 
nutnut said:
Haven't the IWCA also moved to the Right by arguing that immigration should be limited, i.e. the possibility of class conscious peoples entering the country is denied.
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I think what the IWCA has said on the matter is extremely circumspect: ie the free movement of labour is at the behest of the free movement of capital. End of.
 
framed said:
I'm not comparing the IWCA with anything. I simply returned the serve. The Trots here seem to feel that their political hegemony is threatened by articles that broadly criticise 'the left'.
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That is a point that needs to be clarified. When the reference is made to the left is to the 'left in it's entirety' - all of those who still think the working class is the solution, or at least part of it, rather than the problem, or part of it.

Obviously that is a point that needs to be spelled out in similar terms to avoid the next debate being derailed.
 
articul8 said:
The IWCA analysis blatantly overstates UKIPs strategic "orientating toward the working class". How many active branches do they have in working class areas, how many footsoldiers do they have? How many working class issues are they taking up locally? Barely any. Ultimately they are a convenient vehicle to a populist right wing media in making available a safe "protest" option that offers no fundamental threat.
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Mark Seddon, former editor of New Statesman, described the result as 'alarming - like a Poujadist coup'. Which may for some be over the top for some, but where, with the benefit of hindsight do you sit now?
 
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