imposs1904
Thread Killa'
Everybody's an old fart on Urban 75.
What's the Spartacist League up to these days?
- Thread starter Idris2002
- Start date
Everybody's an old fart on Urban 75.
krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
old farts/old sparts?
Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
At this point, I feel like this thread was probably single-handedly responsible for reviving the SLB by reminding them that they exist.
Having had a look, there's an absolutely classic graphic here:
As I understand it, they seem to be suggesting that the Queen gave Boris Johnson syphilis, which through a complicated series of events then led to Dave Ward of the CWU infecting the entire RCG?
This is probably the best poster ever made. And this thread is truly outstanding, an absolute stone-cold classic.
Carl Steele
Well-Known Member
Watch this space, there may be something coming down the pike.
For those who have had the misfortune to venture into the Tom Riley article, on all the irrelevant stuff about me in the 1980s I'd just say that this was undoubtedly my worst decade, I talked absolute shite on a daily basis for the entirety of it (and also for about half of the 70s). In the 90s I appraised the experience and reconnected with reality. And rejected the entirety of what Riley wants to uphold. It's a hatchet job with nothing to chop up since there is nothing there I would defend.
Riley is an unreconstructed Spart who is not used to being disagreed with let alone criticised, hence the ridiculous length of the article.
JeffTipps4
New Member
I wonder if the Workers Vanguard will ever be published ever again? I thought the Hammer was dead but it came back.
Before I bother reading his article could someone let me know his view of the most pressing issue for the international proletariat i.e. whether the annexation of South Ossetia was imperialist?
Carl Steele
Well-Known Member
It's odd that the UK was the place where the corpse was reanimated - but they can't even commit themselves to a twice a year schedule. I don't think they have the literary capacity for WV in the USA. They struggle to produce a leaflet.
Carl Steele
Well-Known Member
Where can I buy the t-shirt?
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
Things have moved on since core posters were leading lights in things like Anarchist Youth Network
JeffTipps4
New Member
I was also surprised about that. A SL supporter on a FB forum said that they British faction fight was concluded, hence they could produce something but the international (and presumably the US) faction fight still going on, so that aren't in a position to. I find it staggering given the amount they had published on the black struggle, the pamphlet series and so forth, that they said literally nothing about BLM (as far as I know)
hitmouse
music obfuscation technology
If anyone does answer this, they should put it in spoiler tags to avoid giving the twist away for anyone who hasn't got up to that bit yet.
Idris2002
Christmas Eve, you know?
Ah now, this is just being mean.
Carl Steele
Well-Known Member
I just figured out what spoiler tags are. Now I understand the sentence
Even without talking about South Ossetia it's a very strange document. It seems there is a progressive deterioration in the ability to relate to reality the longer someone remains locked in the Spart/BT mindset. I said on a blog somewhere that I joined the Sparts for psychological/emotional reasons rather than because of the politics. Tom keeps going on and on, "but in 1983 you said it was because you agreed with ... (insert list of Spart political positions)", in 1986 you said this ... And then it's "maybe you've forgotten why you joined the Sparts, maybe you are embarassed (about what? I don't get that). And I'm thinking, maybe it's because I've reappraised everything, in the intervening period. But the idea that someone could join a tiny sect with an abstruse and abstract ideology for anything other than explicit political reasons really seems to unsettle him.
And then I remembered a conversation I had with Tom in the early 80's. He'd had a few drinks and he was telling me, after he was ejected from the Sparts he went to art classes to try and fill in the aeons of free time he now had. But the classes were boring, not at all satisfying, and not much of a substitute for being involved in building the revolutionary party (or nucleus thereof) ... and then he founded the External Tendency (forerunner of the Bolshevik Tendency). Now I'm not saying ... but hmm.
planetgeli
There's no future in England's dreaming
I believe...I believe..in something. Anything. I need to believe.
Yeah I get the cult/sect shit. Belonging.
But some of us, and it can't just be me, follow this thread from a 'you really thought you were leading the working class to the Marxian revolutionary inevitability?' type thing.
I was brought up in poverty to be subjected to this shit? As my God?
Gtf.
Yeah I get the cult/sect shit. Belonging.
But some of us, and it can't just be me, follow this thread from a 'you really thought you were leading the working class to the Marxian revolutionary inevitability?' type thing.
I was brought up in poverty to be subjected to this shit? As my God?
Gtf.
kebabking
Not a Girly Swot, but I like them....
I'm not sure you're being quite grateful enough for the leadership of the proletariat that the Sparts have provided. Without their sacrifice, intellectual and moral rigour, and laser-like focus on the objective, the workers paradise you currently enjoy would never have been achieved...
A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
I always like the way hammers in posters are drawn. Obviously by someone who’s never actually had to use one…
hitmouse
music obfuscation technology
Don't make me post bits from the Didion essay about Comrade Laski cos I will absolutely post bits from the Didion essay about Comrade Laski with minimal provocation.
Carl Steele
Well-Known Member
I wasn't aware of this but I've just looked it up and if you don't post something I most certainly will.
hitmouse
music obfuscation technology
As it happens I am comfortable with the Michael Laskis of this world, with those who live outside rather than in, those in whom the sense of dread is so acute that they turn to extreme and doomed commitments; I know something about dread myself, and appreciate the elaborate systems with which some people manage to fill the void, appreciate all the opiates of the people, whether they are as accessible as alcohol and heroin and promiscuity or as hard to come by as faith in God or History.
That's the main bit I was thinking of, but it's all good.
That's the main bit I was thinking of, but it's all good.
nogojones
spelling is overrated
A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
STOP!
Carl Steele
Well-Known Member
And this Wikipedia quote is perfect:
"Laski is perhaps most famous for being the subject of an essay by Joan Didion, entitled "Comrade Laski, C.P.U.S.A. (M.-L.)", which was later compiled into her 1968 anthology Slouching Towards Bethlehem. As summarized by The Observer in 2015, she described Laski as a man "whose love of an ordered world made his political faction not just small but averse to the chaos necessary for actual social change", exemplifying the narcissism of small differences."
Brilliant, and I love the phrase "the narcissism of small differences."
"Laski is perhaps most famous for being the subject of an essay by Joan Didion, entitled "Comrade Laski, C.P.U.S.A. (M.-L.)", which was later compiled into her 1968 anthology Slouching Towards Bethlehem. As summarized by The Observer in 2015, she described Laski as a man "whose love of an ordered world made his political faction not just small but averse to the chaos necessary for actual social change", exemplifying the narcissism of small differences."
Brilliant, and I love the phrase "the narcissism of small differences."
Carl Steele
Well-Known Member
It's a great quote, really have to think about that.
Carl Steele
Well-Known Member
I found the Joan Didion essay, Comrade Laski, in the internet archive.
Particularly loved this:
The world Michael Laski had constructed for himself was one of labyrinthine intricacy and immaculate clarity, a world made meaningful not only by high purpose but by external and internal threats, intrigues and apparatus, an immutably ordered world in which things mattered.
Joan Didion could have written this about Tom Riley. Maybe I'll send him the quote.
ETA corrected spelling of name
Particularly loved this:
The world Michael Laski had constructed for himself was one of labyrinthine intricacy and immaculate clarity, a world made meaningful not only by high purpose but by external and internal threats, intrigues and apparatus, an immutably ordered world in which things mattered.
Joan Didion could have written this about Tom Riley. Maybe I'll send him the quote.
ETA corrected spelling of name
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JeffTipps4
New Member
Canadian ICL getting bit of a pasting here
Idris2002
Christmas Eve, you know?
A pasting from a woke liberal? Like being savaged by a dead sheep.
This truckers' blockade does seem like bad news - but shouldn't there be at least some attempt to reach out and offer a sane alternative to these people?
It should be embarassing for the Canuck left that it was left to the ambassadors from Planet Loon to do this.
hitmouse
music obfuscation technology
What definition of "woke liberal" are you using here? Lad seems like a trot to me.
Idris2002
Christmas Eve, you know?
"And are the woke liberals in the room right now?"
Yeah, you may be right, there is a bit of the old sectarianism in the lad's post there.
Dom Traynor
Tino Pai
He's a leading activist in a trot group I think he's IMT/Socialist Appeal whatever their Canadian franchise is.
And actually I don't think it's worth engaging with these protestors at the point of protest. It is worth engaging with them in their own communities, workplaces, families etc.
I tried engaging with their equivalent round here on Saturday at a demo I was walking past and just got shouted at by froth mouthed eye bulgers. However at work I've had quite a few productive conversations even seen people converted from anti vax to getting vaccinated.
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