Why anarchism as a method of action doesn't work.

[Pickman's model]

that's shut you up

 

[ViolentPanda]

i'm not misrepresenting him, you've admitted you can't understand his posts you daft fuck.

You're not misrepresenting me. He can't even understand my posts, the daft fuck.

 

[TremulousTetra]

I haven't been a member for about 30 years, but I 've got friends and acquaintances who stayed in, and I've never heard this bollocks argument that the SWP are a working class organisation before. Nearest I've heard is how they're an organisation for the working class, which is a mile different from what RMP3 is claim

these acquaintances, you have asked them 'is the Socialist WORKERS party a working-class organisation'? You need to explain how you distinguish between anarchists being working class, and socialists [or does this only apply to Socialist worker] not being so.

 

[Pickman's model]

these acquaintances, you have asked them 'is the Socialist WORKERS party a working-class organisation'? You need to explain how you distinguish between anarchists being working class, and socialists [or does this only apply to Socialist worker] not being so.

what principles do you share with tony blair?

 

[TremulousTetra]

so you're saying there is greater meaning in the word 'socialist' which encompasses people like you and tony blair. what principles do you and tony blair share?

No! lol

you say you are an anarchist not a socialist, so you define what you mean by this.

 

[TremulousTetra]

what principles do you share with tony blair?

what principles do you share with the working class people who elected tony blair/new labour?

 

[Pickman's model]

No! lol

you say you are an anarchist not a socialist, so you define what you mean by this.

you're contrasting anarchism, which you're saying is meaningless, with socialism, which is presumably for you a coherent set of ideas. you call yourself a socialist, and tony blair calls himself a socialist. what principles do you share with tony blair?

 

[Pickman's model]

what principles do you share with the working class people who elected tony blair/new labour?

i've asked you a question: what principles do you share with tony blair? and until you answer that question i'm not up for getting sidetracked by your puerile distractions.

 

[TremulousTetra]

More misrepresentation. So far, so normal.

I didn't say that "anarchists are working class" (the "us" I spoke of in post #117 wasn't "us, the anarchists", it was "us, the working class"), I queried how your claim that "the emancipation of the working class being an act of the working class" could be successfully integrated with your claim that the SWP believed in "working with the working class". By your own words that would suppose the SWP becoming part of the working class, which they are not. The membership isn't drawn primarily from the working class, however "working class" the accents the paper-sellers adopt, and the central committee? They're not working class, even if some of them do live in Hackney. Like I said, the SWP isn't part of us (the working classes), it's part of a bunch of cocksucking leeches looking to get somewhere on the backs of the working classes.

LOL I didn't realise your shit argument was based upon such a flimsy hypothesis.

I didn't actually say that, and you have supposed wrong. But don't worry, I'm sure it was a genuine mistake.

 

[Pickman's model]

LOL I didn't realise your shit argument was based upon such a flimsy hypothesis.

I didn't actually say that, and you have supposed wrong. But don't worry, I'm sure it was a genuine mistake.

and what principles do you share with tony blair?

 

[ViolentPanda]

I cant get my head around the suggestion that there are NO, none, common principles amongst anarchists, which can define them and distinguish them. In other words, that the term anarchism is completely meaningless.

Even more misrepresentation. No-one has stated that no anarchists hold any principles in common (except maybe the voices in your head). What has been stated is that we don't have a unitary set of principles. In other words, we're not dogmatists. We don't conform to central diktat, whereas most dogmatists (be they Swappies or Fabians) do. And like all investors in belief systems, dogmatists anathematise those who "stray from the one true path" as heretics, misrepresenting them, condescending to them and otherwise attempting to "monster" them.

You're transparent, sunshine.

 

[ViolentPanda]

so you're saying there is greater meaning in the word 'socialist' which encompasses people like you and tony blair. what principles do you and tony blair share?

A commitment to lying?

 

[Pickman's model]

*edited because question answered in post 222*

 

[ViolentPanda]

these acquaintances, you have asked them 'is the Socialist WORKERS party a working-class organisation'? You need to explain how you distinguish between anarchists being working class, and socialists [or does this only apply to Socialist worker] not being so.

You know what, I have, and do you know what answer I got? A fairly honest one (from a 22-year veteran, no less!) that went something like "we say we're a party of the workers, but currently, because we're not yet a mass movement, we're a party for the workers".

See the difference?

 

[ViolentPanda]

*edited because question answered in post 222*

See post #222.

 

[TremulousTetra]

you're contrasting anarchism, which you're saying is meaningless, with socialism, which is presumably for you a coherent set of ideas. you call yourself a socialist, and tony blair calls himself a socialist. what principles do you share with tony blair?

I have never said anarchism is meaningless, I am asking anarchist, what is it's meaning.why do you refuse to answer, this thread is after all about anarchism, not Tony Blair, and not the SWP.

 

[Pickman's model]

rmp3: what principles do you share with tony blair? i'm off now but i expect to see some answers by the time i return

 

[Pickman's model]

I cant get my head around the suggestion that there are NO, none, common principles amongst anarchists, which can define them and distinguish them. In other words, that the term anarchism is completely meaningless.

I have never said anarchism is meaningless, I am asking anarchist, what is it's meaning.why do you refuse to answer, this thread is after all about anarchism, not Tony Blair, and not the SWP.

you lying cunt

now, what principles do you share with that famous socialist tony blair?

 

[TremulousTetra]

You're not misrepresenting me. He can't even understand my posts, the daft fuck.

forgive me, I credited you with greater intelligence than was due.

 

[ViolentPanda]

LOL I didn't realise your shit argument was based upon such a flimsy hypothesis.

Rather than laughing out loud and worrying your carer, why not put some effort into elucidating how my hypothesis is flimsy?

I didn't actually say that, and you have supposed wrong. But don't worry, I'm sure it was a genuine mistake.

That stuff in my post? It's a direct quotation of you. You did "actually" say that.
Would you like me to tell you the number of the post in which you said that? It's #110, on page four.

 

[ViolentPanda]

and what principles do you share with tony blair?

Hey, don't worry. he didn't say the stuff that he said in post #110, you know.

It was probably some anti-Swappie computer virus infecting his speech recognition programme that said the stuff he didn't say.

 

[ViolentPanda]

forgive me, I credited you with greater intelligence and was due.

You presuppose that I care about your opinion. I don't care for the opinion of liars. Never have and never will.

 

[Riklet]

this is so embarrassing...

 

[TremulousTetra]

Hey, don't worry. he didn't say the stuff that he said in post #110, you know.

It was probably some anti-Swappie computer virus infecting his speech recognition programme that said the stuff he didn't say.

All ready clarified what was meant when I said "working with working class MOVEMENTS" [my emphasis in my original post];

POINT 1. The problem with your argument is nobody, absolutely nobody has denied you that right. What you don't seem to understand is, there is a world of difference between denying anarchist their right to do their own thing, and debating the efficacy of them doing their own thing. Can you not see the difference?


To underline the point. Nobody denied the right of anarchists in Seattle [our previous discussion]. It is patently untrue to suggest anyone stoped anarchists, because there is yards and yards of film footage of anarchists doing exactly what they wanted to do, even though this went against the will of the majority. [I'll come back to the will of the majority]

What's more, as you point out correctly, it is good everybody doesn't toe the majority to rule line. Diversity in tactics IS A GOOD THING! However, in the case of Seattle I think it was a bad thing. The anarchists did their thing, and the police mainly left them alone. Preferring to use the actions of the anarchists as an excuse to pulverise the students and workers. Using the anarchists as volunteer agent provocateurs, so to speak.

So, nobody is denying the right, just debating the efficacy.

POINT 2. You are still totally misunderstanding this socialist argument. Let me give you an example.

I have absolutely nothing against people solving eg op homelessness by occupying empty properties. Socialist would be totally in agreement with anarchist that the best way to deal with homelessness, would be to occupy empty properties. But there is a world of difference between a few self appointed activists doing it on behalf of homeless people, and the homeless people doing it themselves en masse.

I would support the en masse occupation of empty properties by homeless people, but not by a few people doing it on behalf of the working class. This is substitutionism. I don't know whether you are familiar with the term, and I wasn't clear in my original post, but I am clear now that what I am arguing against is substitutionism. This is what James Connolly was guilty of, and he paid for with his life. And this is what these people are guilty of, and they are paying for it. And so, though I admire these people's commitment, and don't question for one moment they do so for the best of reasons, I believe it is folly to open yourself up to state victimisation. If you do this as part of a mass campaign, you do not open yourself up to the same victimisation, because they cannot throw us all in prison en masse. That's the difference. And that's the main point. [There are many other reasons to be against substitutionism]

POINT 3. When I talk about working with the working class, what I actually said was working with working-class movements, what I am doing is counterposing the attitude of some anarchists "we will do what we want, regardless of the will of the majority", and the attitude of some socialists "we voluntarily submit ourselves to the will of the majority [mob rule as you put it]". Why? Why do socialists submit themselves to the will of the majority, to stay within the working class movement? [I'm using the term movement in the generic sense. ie the anti-war movement, the housing movement, whatever you want]

As a socialist I'm totally in agreement with this point "The majority of black Americans preferred MLK Jr to Malcolm X; the majority of Indians preferred Gandhi to Subhas Chandra Bose; the majority of Irish Republicans favoured peaceful protest to the actions of the IRA. But, in each case the struggled was significantly aided by a minority which chose to pursue the same aims through different tactics. Would you have stamped out those dissenting comrades?" That is a good point well made, and a point that is equally well made in many Socialist worker publications. But the problem there, as I am sure many class struggle Anarchists would point out, is that neither MLK Jr or Malcolm X; Gandhi or Subhas Chandra Bose; Irish Republicans in favour peaceful protest or the the IRA DIDN''T deal with the problem, the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle. They didn't put at the forefront the emancipation of the working class has to be the act of the working class. But that, looking to MLk Ghandi peaceful protest, was the will of the majority. That was/is the consciousness of the majority. The majority don't necessarily accept that we need a social revolution, that the emancipation of the working class has to be the act of the working class. There is no running away from the will of the majority for people who want to see a social revolution, you have to deal with the will of the majority. You have to make a decision. Do we work with the working class movements the working class produces, or do we run away to our own little ghetto, and do our own thing? This is where I disagree with anarchist just doing their own thing.

What I am saying is, I think it is better to take a dynamic dialectical view of working-class consciousness. You start from the reality, what the majority of people think is the best method to deal with eg homelessness. You argue your case ie that the best thing to do would be for homeless people en masse to occupy all empty properties. If you do not convince people, you have made your point, but you carry on working with them at what level of activity they are prepared to commit to. If this is a petition, demonstration, occupation, whatever. The key is to get as many people active as possible. And then trust that in that struggle, they will learn their own lessons as to the best way to take that struggle forward. Because at the end of the day, the emancipation of the working class has to be the act of the working class. This is the hard slog, but it is more efficacious IN MY OPINION than activism for activism sake Or substitutionism.

 

[Pickman's model]

the

 

[Athos]

"the... above is a load of old pony"?

 

[TremulousTetra]

Hey, don't worry. he didn't say the stuff that he said in post #110, you know.

What's your problem with 110? ie the Socialist workers party have never stated they want to take over the state and wield on behalf of the working class, that is a misrepresentation of Marxism.

because of what happened earlier, I thought I would explain why I like your post.

Your post in my experience of most people I have spoke to on here do seem to reflect the majority of anarchist position to progressive left. 'modern left and right wing thinking is nothing more than sides of the same coin.'

it's a bit like the link I gave to the anarchist talking about the occupying movement, and his position about 'Marxism' just wanting to take over the state and wield it on behalf of the working class, even though the SWP have said many times "the state is not like a car you cant get in and drive in any direction you want' and 'the emancipation of the working class has to be the act of the working class'. It just amazes me how often anarchists completely must understand, and misrepresent what is actually said, and then jump to the conclusion that the the SWP, and in this case the whole socialist revolutionary left, are just as bad as the ruling class.

 

[Pickman's model]

What's your problem with 110?the Socialist workers party have never stated they want to take over the state and wield on behalf of the working class, that is a misrepresentation.

^^ that's a misrepresentation

 

[TremulousTetra]

"the... above is a load of old pony"?

Well the key thing in that "load of old pony" was that the emancipation of the working class has to be the act of the working class. Neither anarchists or socialists can substitute themselves for the self activity of the working class. Statements I'm prepared to stand by.

 

[Pickman's model]

Well the key thing in that "load of old pony" was that the emancipation of the working class has to be the act of the working class. Neither anarchists or socialists can substitute themselves for the self activity of the working class. Statements I'm prepared to stand by.

if 'neither anarchists or socialists' can substitute themselves for the self activity of the working class then why the fuck do you witter on about it so?