ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
emanymton said:
Perhaps it was a meeting of the local carnivore club?
What's the most ridiculous thing you've heard at a political meeting/rally?
- Thread starter Prince Rhyus
- Start date
Perhaps it was a meeting of the local carnivore club?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I can't. I'm obssessed.
biff curtains
Fred West or Fred Housego
glenquagmire said:
To be fair the maddest thing said at that meeting was probably along the lines of; "John4Leader has hundreds of thousands of workers young, and old, up and down the country energised about the possibilities of creating a space for socialism within the Labour party and ending the grip of Blairism". Or some other stupid bollocks.
most stupid thing courtesy of SWP idiot ' we have the bricks we have the builders lets build the houses
BTW i wonder how many builders there are in the SWP
BTW i wonder how many builders there are in the SWP
JHE
.
brasicattack said:most stupid thing courtesy of SWP idiot ' we have the bricks we have the builders lets build the houses
BTW i wonder how many builders there are in the SWP
Assuming that 'we' means something like 'the people' or 'the people of this country' (and not the Student Social Workers Church of Latter Day Bolsheviks), I think the 'idiot' in question was probably making a decent point about resources not being used to meet human need and that they should be. Mind you, some Social Worker hacks are such idiots they can make even sensible points sound daft.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
And who are the builders - the architects?
JHE said:
His point was poor I just thought it was just typical lazy sloppy sloganeering SWP in assuming people ' thw workers' will do as they are told
butchersapron said:
Noooo idea the idiot did not elaborate typical SWP really
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
They're the architects.
SWP are freemasons
i should have known .... secret finger wagging signals.. bizarre rituals of recruitment...non senseical statements in keeping with a semi religious organisation..organanised along the lines of a cult...social elitists...it now all makes perfect sense
i should have known .... secret finger wagging signals.. bizarre rituals of recruitment...non senseical statements in keeping with a semi religious organisation..organanised along the lines of a cult...social elitists...it now all makes perfect sense
JHE
.
brasicattack said:SWP are freemasons
Much much higher turnover, though. There must be something that keeps people in the Masons.
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
You could hardly avoid a meeting in the late 1970s when a member of the Spartacists did not get up with something nutty, of which 'Hail the Red Army in Afghanistan' in 1979/80 was the best. I got a bit worried though when I heard John Ross say virtually the same thing at an IMG meeting. 
Ross was always a good laugh - in 1983 he developed the theory that the British Tory Party was historically in decline forever, just before it won another 3 elections.
Talking of John Ross, reminds me that I wasn't there but I'm told Ken Livingstone gave a eulogy at Gerry Healey's funeral that had to be heard to be believed (I think Nick Cohen used it to take a swipe at the left).
Best one I ever heard though was an elderly member of the NCP ('National Car Parking' as we used to call them) going doe-eyed when describing how wonderful socialism was in the German Democratic Republic (aka East Germany), how it was a land of plenty where everyone was well-fed, well-housed and in a worthwhile job, and how the Berlin Wall was designed to keep imperialism out, not the population in. She actually believed it all!
Ross was always a good laugh - in 1983 he developed the theory that the British Tory Party was historically in decline forever, just before it won another 3 elections.Talking of John Ross, reminds me that I wasn't there but I'm told Ken Livingstone gave a eulogy at Gerry Healey's funeral that had to be heard to be believed (I think Nick Cohen used it to take a swipe at the left).
Best one I ever heard though was an elderly member of the NCP ('National Car Parking' as we used to call them) going doe-eyed when describing how wonderful socialism was in the German Democratic Republic (aka East Germany), how it was a land of plenty where everyone was well-fed, well-housed and in a worthwhile job, and how the Berlin Wall was designed to keep imperialism out, not the population in. She actually believed it all!
Red Leicester
Active Member
glenquagmire said:
Hard to believe, actually. WP had a "critical support for McDonnell" position but didn't demand that he call for the abolition of private property (I don't believe that the WP programme calls for that!!) as a prerequisite for support.
For Marxists, the "abolition of private property" isn't something that happens through "state decree".
Do you have any evidence for your statement? Can you point to any WP policy statements that might back up your suggestion? Or is your statement itself one of the most ridiculous things to have been uttered "on the left"?
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
brasicattack said:most stupid thing courtesy of SWP idiot ' we have the bricks we have the builders lets build the houses
BTW i wonder how many builders there are in the SWP
Bet he'd have been pissed off if you'd said "okay mate, where's your back garden then?".
glenquagmire
Rightwing NuLab apologist
I was under the impression from the paper that he was holding that he was WP but of course I could be mistaken. But TBH I really couldn't care less which micro-sect this chap represented. The point was that the comment was ridiculous in the context where it was uttered.Red Leicester said:
Evidence indeed.
JHE
.
Fisher_Gate said:You could hardly avoid a meeting in the late 1970s when a member of the Spartacists did not get up with something nutty, of which 'Hail the Red Army in Afghanistan' in 1979/80 was the best. I got a bit worried though when I heard John Ross say virtually the same thing at an IMG meeting.
It doesn't feel right sticking up for an IMGer, but I'm afraid it's got to be done...
1. I vaguely remember Ross's book on the Tories and, IIRC, it contained no claim that the Tories were bound to lose the next election or anything of the sort. I think Ross pointed out two long-term declines in the Tory Party: (i) outside England and (ii) in large sections of the middle class.
He was right, wasn't he? The Tories are not a major party outside England and large sections of the middle class have abandoned them. Believe it or not, back in the 60s it was normal for teachers to be Tories! The middle class was overwhelmingly Tory.
Ross and others also pointed out the very high average age of members of the Tory Party. Though they have tried, AFAIK, they have not overcome this problem much. If they don't, the result is obvious: they'll die off.
The Tories have been doing badly in the polls for almost all of the last decade and more.
2. At the time, I had no sympathy for the Sparts' slogan (which you suggest Ross pretty much agreed with), but the Sparts turned out to be highly prescient about Afghanistan. It was the Sparts who pointed out what the consequences would be of the Communists being defeated by the Islamist rebels in Afghanistan: civil war between Islamist factions and then a regime that would make the Iranian theocracy look almost mild. And lo it came to pass. If only the PDPA and their Soviet allies/masters could have won!
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
JHE said:It doesn't feel right sticking up for an IMGer, but I'm afraid it's got to be done...
1. I vaguely remember Ross's book on the Tories and, IIRC, it contained no claim that the Tories were bound to lose the next election or anything of the sort. I think Ross pointed out two long-term declines in the Tory Party: (i) outside England and (ii) in large sections of the middle class.
He was right, wasn't he? The Tories are not a major party outside England and large sections of the middle class have abandoned them. Believe it or not, back in the 60s it was normal for teachers to be Tories! The middle class was overwhelmingly Tory.
Ross and others also pointed out the very high average age of members of the Tory Party. Though they have tried, AFAIK, they have not overcome this problem much. If they don't, the result is obvious: they'll die off.
The Tories have been doing badly in the polls for almost all of the last decade and more.
2. At the time, I had no sympathy for the Sparts' slogan (which you suggest Ross pretty much agreed with), but the Sparts turned out to be highly prescient about Afghanistan. It was the Sparts who pointed out what the consequences would be of the Communists being defeated by the Islamist rebels in Afghanistan: civil war between Islamist factions and then a regime that would make the Iranian theocracy look almost mild. And lo it came to pass. If only the PDPA and their Soviet allies/masters could have won!
1. Ross was writing about the end of the Tories in 1983. The Tories (under John Major!) scored the highest vote ever (14,093,007) won by a party in a British General Election in 1992 - more even than Labour in 1951, which was the previous high water mark. Ross was blinded at the time by the rise of the SDP/Libs as the '2nd XI of British capitalism parties' into thinking that the Tories were dead and buried in 1983. What Ross also did not realise was the transformation of the Labour Party in to the real first XI, was what would reduce the Tory Party's grip on the machinery of the state. That's why he and his former SA supporters are still piddling around in the Labour Party and no doubt advised Livingstone to rejoin and sign up for New Labour.
2. It was Trotsky talking about the USSR's invasion of the Baltic States who pointed out that a military occupation, even by a 'workers state', was no way to convince people of the benefits of socialism, and would move them in a reactionary direction. Would the fundamentalists have arisen in Afghanistan had the Soviet Union not invaded? Impossible to say, Iran is certainly a possible example, but I don't think the Iranian regime can be entirely compared with the Taliban. I don't think the Sparts (or Ross) were correct to support the Soviet invasion - it did incredible damage on the global scale. The real problem in Afghanistan was that the social base of the PDPA regime was too narrow and based on stalinist policies. One could defend it against the Mujaheddin, in the same way that one would defend a social democratic regime against fascism, but not support its strategy, and certainly not the use of military force.
JHE
.
Fisher_Gate said:
No doubt there are many things Ross did not realise, but his two observations on the long-term decline of the Conservative Party were basically sound, IMO.
The SU invaded in response to armed revolt against the PDPA govt's reforms.
Yes, maybe the PDPA's coup/revolution was premature and maybe the SU's invasion and bloody attempts at pacification made the whole thing worse.
Nevertheless, the aims of the Communists were preferable to those of the 'slamists. I cannot help sympathising with them in retrospect.
I've no idea what you are trying to say about Iran. That you quite like that brand of 'slamist tyranny? That, as the Sparts correctly predicted, the Taleban are even more extreme?
A odd sort of 'defence'!
The SU, for good or ill, had a different view of defence, involving troops.
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
JHE said:
And his conclusion that therefore it is necessary to continue working in the Labour Party for time immemorial?
Ross put a certain element of this in his book - I remember him showing me the 100 year graph of Tory vote proportion going innexorably down as though it was some profound discovery - but his conclusions within the IMG and as presented in its meetings were barmy.
Scotland obviously is a different question. There the Tories quite clearly have moved from ascendancy to marginalisation within a couple of generations. But Scotland, important though it is, represents less than 10% of the population of the British state. And the land ownership issue is still a major unresolved question.
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
JHE said:
I was trying to see that if the USSR had not invaded, we do not know whether Afghanistan would have become more like Iran or Bangladesh. And that the Iranian regime is clearly different to the Taleban, though both are reactionary fundamentalist forces, just as Sweden is clearly different to the USA, though both are capitalist states.
october_lost
It's not hip any more...
"Asylum seekers welcome here"
october_lost
It's not hip any more...
At the big anti-war march I remember we picked up this bus load from Wigan or somewhere near there while we did the North-West rounds and there was this hermit type, who was a fellow traveller of the SWP but only more naive than you can imagine.
Anyway we gets down to London and most of the day has been uneventful and were demonstrating in central London while theres people petering out and a few skirmishes starting with some assembled crusties and the police and we came past Whitehall. This guy points to Whitehall and Im expecting some fired up wevolutionary militancy to come out of his mouth and he says "I want to break in there and tell Tony Blair he his hangin out with the wrong people."
Anyway we gets down to London and most of the day has been uneventful and were demonstrating in central London while theres people petering out and a few skirmishes starting with some assembled crusties and the police and we came past Whitehall. This guy points to Whitehall and Im expecting some fired up wevolutionary militancy to come out of his mouth and he says "I want to break in there and tell Tony Blair he his hangin out with the wrong people."
october_lost
It's not hip any more...
Also I was at the said meeting when Julie Waterson (sp?) said that only the scum on the estates vote BNP....lovely woman, did wonders for the ANL.
Prince Rhyus
Spokesman of King Antonio
At the big anti-war march there were a bunch of spartacists proclaiming the revolution and that everything was going to be fantastic after it.
Similar threads
