Workers Power have split

[One_Stop_Shop]

In all honesty I can only see one person on this thread who's taking themselves seriously and who thinks this shit actually matters in the grand scheme of things and, unlike that poster, I'm happy to name names, though I doubt whether I actually need to.

I think you are missing the point. If you aren't taking yourself seriously and can see the humerous side of being in a barmey sect, it's a little odd to then go on carry on doing it despite the fact that you know it's so off the wall that you could make a sit com about it.

Also if you don't think any of it matters why devote a substantial amount of time doing it? Personally I do think it matters in the sense that socialist ideas are very good ones, and it's a shame they are represented by fringe groups who your average person thinks are a bunch of nutters because of the way they go about things. It gets even worse when those groups do occassionally have some influence, such as in the anti-cuts movement, and use it to do far more harm than good. Such as what I mentioned earlier when I had to buy my work mates a drink to apologise for taking them to the NSSN anti-cuts event that turned in to some kind of circus. I'd spend ages trying to convince them to get involved, and then they were met with that experience.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Only if you're in those groups for non-instrumental reasons - I doubt many people are these days.

And I think you're flattering those "sects" by overestimating their influence in the anti-cuts movement.

Also, judging by your humourless contributions on this thread, I reckon going for a pint with you probably did more to put them off than any trot conference.

 

[KeeperofDragons]

Blimey I managed to read the entire thread If the far right split as much as us on the far left Hitler would have been walkover

 

[SpineyNorman]

Have you looked at the BNP or the EDL lately? They do. And their microsects make the sparts look more down to earth than my grandad.

 

[JHE]

Blimey I managed to read the entire thread If the far right split as much as us on the far left Hitler would have been walkover

I think fringe political groups are fissiparous on the right as well as on the left. There may be a slightly greater tendency for left-wing splits to be about - or to be expressed in term of - obscure doctrinal differences, but the most important factor is simply size. If you are part of a tiny group, you have little to lose by splitting into two tiny groups. If you are part of a large group with popular support, you have an interest in sticking together, in order to get 'a piece of the action'. Faction fights in the Labour Party tend to remain faction fights (though sometimes entrists, like the poor old Millies, get kicked out). Faction fights within little Trot sects tend to lead to splits.

 

[KeeperofDragons]

Remember the debacle that was the RESPECT split - bloody farce that was - people who had been friends for 20 years were crossing the street so as not to acknowledge each other

 

[frogwoman]

At least in most trot splits nobody gets killed over it.

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

Fissiparous! I've learnt a new word today, sounds like a dinasour!

Only if you're in those groups for non-instrumental reasons - I doubt many people are these days.

And I think you're flattering those "sects" by overestimating their influence in the anti-cuts movement.

Also, judging by your humourless contributions on this thread, I reckon going for a pint with you probably did more to put them off than any trot conference.

Leaving my pub humour aside for a moment (although I have got a cracking joke about the Foreign Legion and a camel), again I think you are missing my point. If someone said I'm joining the Jesus Army, but I'm doing it for instrumental reasons, I think you'd think that was a bit strange. But on here people seem to think it's logical to say I'm in a crackpot sect on the one hand and it's a bit of a joke, but I'm doing for instrumental reasons on the other, which doesn't quite add up to me.

As for the anti-cuts movement obviously the trade unions, for instance, doing sweet FA obviously is a bigger factor, but who would expect anything else with the current shower running them. But where the left did have an influence, they chose to use it to divide up the national anti-cuts groups in to their own three circuses, which in turn did have a genuine negative effect and just further ridicules the ideas of socialism.

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

At least in most trot splits nobody gets killed over it.

Admirable positiveness.

 

[chilango]

As far as I know none of us on the thread are members of the crackpot sects.

There are a few members of the SP - the largest and most sensible ( or dull depending on your POV) of the far left groups, one that for better or worse does have real, if very small and peripheral role in British politics.

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

We'll have to diagree there. I think they are all crackpot sects. Some may be larger than others, some may be even more nuts. I've not come across most of the groups on the list, but the ones I have, SWP, Socialist Party, Counterfire, AWL, are, all mad sects in my view. As said the NSSN event I went to, which was dominated by the Socialist Party, was like a circus.

 

[JHE]

We'll have to diagree there. I think they are all crackpot sects. Some may be larger than others, some may be even more nuts. I've not come across most of the groups on the list, but the ones I have, SWP, Socialist Party, Counterfire, AWL, are, all mad sects in my view. As said the NSSN event I went to, which was dominated by the Socialist Party, was like a circus.

There are sections of the left so weird and off-putting that they make most members of the sects you mention seem pretty normal. Have you ever visited an anarcho-event or visited your local urban campers in the Occupy movement?

 

[barney_pig]

Somebody is still producing the EPSR - the latest issue is from this February.

I'll delete the Red Party.

It is an oddity that our most leninoid member, whose departure from the red party ( no capitalization) caused the group to finally decide to dissolve the party and become a group, would go on to form the most publicly visible libertarian socialist group going atm.

 

[barney_pig]

Just get the right ICP....

The SEP version are a bit...er...well, you wouldn't want them round your house for a cup of tea. Put it that way.

Had them round once, it was scary.

 

[chilango]

We'll have to diagree there. I think they are all crackpot sects. Some may be larger than others, some may be even more nuts. I've not come across most of the groups on the list, but the ones I have, SWP, Socialist Party, Counterfire, AWL, are, all mad sects in my view. As said the NSSN event I went to, which was dominated by the Socialist Party, was like a circus.

That's the nature of "enthusiasts" and "hobbyists" for you.

 

[SpineyNorman]

We'll have to diagree there. I think they are all crackpot sects. Some may be larger than others, some may be even more nuts. I've not come across most of the groups on the list, but the ones I have, SWP, Socialist Party, Counterfire, AWL, are, all mad sects in my view. As said the NSSN event I went to, which was dominated by the Socialist Party, was like a circus.

Let's Ignore the obviously fucking barmy comparison with the Jesus army - who are a christian group - so it would obviously be a bit daft for a Marxist to join them. Because I am, and you claim to be, a Socialist, it makes more sense to join a socialist group for instrumental reasons than it would to join a Christian one. It's amusing and worrying that I have to point this out.

Now, it would be easier to figure out what you're on about if you'd be a bit more specific about what, precisely, it is you're saying is mental/detatched from reality about these groups. And it's not really "groups" is it? It's one in particular - the one that I belong to and the one that pretty much all non-trot lefties I know acknowledge is the least barmy of them all.

And the fact that you've never encountered sparts or ICCers goes some way towards explaining why you think you've spotted a lack of self-awareness or hypocrisy or whatever.

It's like saying someone who's once worked for MacDonald's can't criticise a corporate CEO because they're also tainted by the corporate disease. Or that someone on the dole can't complain about inequality because they're not a starving Etheopian. Or like saying someone in the Labour Party can't criticise the Nazis because they're right wing too. It just doesn't make sense.

So what precisely is it that you're trying to say? Because I really don't get it. Are some of the hacks in the SP a bit barmy? Yes. Are the people I work with in my branch like that? No, they're not. And the people we talk to when we're out campaigning don't appear to think we are either. And that's what really matters isn't it? Fact is if I wasn't in the SP I'd be impotently ranting on the internet, or maybe I might have gone to the totally fucking mental occupy camp. That's the reality.

The people we talk to, the people who get involved with our local campaigns, who we help, don't know anything about trot dogma and they don't really care. They're more bothered about what we do and more specifically what we can do to help them and ourselves. Strikes me they're taking a far more sensible and pragmatic view than you are.

This may not be how it works elsewhere in the country, it might not reflect what's happened at national events you've been to (difficult to tell really cos you're not actually saying anything beyond "you're as mad as they are", despite the fact that you admit to not having the first clue just how insane they really are). I don't really care. I'm bothered about how I can be as politically effective as possible in my local area.

And it doesn't matter how big you'd like our influence in the national anti-cuts movement to be, the fact is on that level we're irrelevant - it's the unions that really count and if people are drawn in out of necessity, as they will have to be for us to get anywhere, our influence will become even more negligible.

That's just how it is.

And if you think whatever mentalness you claim to have witnessed from the SP is even comparable to what the sparts and co come out with I'd suggest you're the barmy one.

 

[discokermit]

What kind of kid would actually want to go and sell newspapers?

my stepson. convinced of the need for a vanguard party and also conversant in the internal workings of the swp, joined the sp.

oh what fun we had, me leaving pictures of derek hatton on the computer and referring to a fork as a "deformed spoon*", him calling me a student.



*"what you gonna eat your dinner with? 'neither forks nor spoons'!",

"you forking idiot",

"fork off, fork face".

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

I wasn't comparing left groups to the Jesus Army, it was a comparison in logic. Sorry if that wasn't clear. My point was that there is no logic to me in saying a group is a sect and such a joke that it could be sit com on one hand, but on the other hand say you are joining and staying in it for instrumental reasons.

I've given my examples and experiences of the left, and no it's not just about one group at all, they all seem the same to me. The SWP, Socialist Party, Counterfire. In the anti-cuts movement they were all as sectarian and mental as each other, although for what it matters the NSSN event was the biggest circus of the lot. I've also met a lot of individuals in those groups who are dogmatic, rude and seem to want to spend far too much time droning on about their "rivals". The other example I gave was my union, UNISON, where we had the absurd situation where we had the SWP standing one candidate and the Socialist Party standing another candidate, with barely a political difference between them in terms of the manifestos. Prentis (the bastard) must be laughing his nut off. And within the union I've heard time and again someone from one of those groups bang on about rank and file this and that, but in reality we have the almost non-existant UNISON United Left run by the SWP and on the other hand the Socialist Party who aren't building anything of that sort at all.

I have no idea if the Socialist Party is the least barmy, but given the comparisons that really shouldn't be much consolation, but happy to say you are less mental than the sparts or whoever else if that means something. Most people I know don't know anything about these groups, but those that do don't distinguish they think they are all nuts. And I can't blame them given their and my experience.

Of course there are genuine people and good activists in the various sects, but the organisation they are building can never get anywhere because it is sect. I don't agree that if you're not in a group you have to be impotent, there are plenty of trade union and community campaigns to get involved with. And while I think it would be far better to have a decent socialist organisation, as collectively people can work far better politically than as individuals, there is no point in my mind joining one of the current crop who not only discredit the name of socialism they also wreck campaigns I've tried to build, such as the anti-cuts movement. While the NSSN might have been the biggest circus nationally, the SWP were the biggest circus locally and nearly wrecked our anti-cuts group. But they are all the same in my experience, in terms of the groups I've come across. And people do care when left groups turn up to campaigns and turn them in to bun fights, it's incredibly off putting.

I'm sure it may help you do local work being in a group, but I don't think being in one of the current sects ultimately helps to progress socialist ideas. And I find the argument that they are all irrelevant slightly disingenuous from someone who is in those groups. Surely members must think they will be relevant at some level and at some time, otherwise they wouldn't bother being in them. And the damage the various groups did to the anti-cuts movement was a real one, just blaming the trade unions doesn't wash it. It wasn't the trade union bureaucrats who squandered 1000s of people turning up to national anti-cuts groups, it was the far left groups themselves.

 

[Geoff Collier]

I think we should play a game. Put forward a made up far-left grouplet name, and see who first manages to come up with one that actually exists. My suggestion is The Left-Leninist Current.

I once saw a leaflet issued by the Revolutionary Labour League. It was around 1980 or so and I always suspected it may have been a spoof

 

[Red Storm]

What about the Animal Liberation Front.

And wasn't there some iffy stuff about Green Anarchist?

 

[frogwoman]

my stepson. convinced of the need for a vanguard party and also conversant in the internal workings of the swp, joined the sp.

oh what fun we had, me leaving pictures of derek hatton on the computer and referring to a fork as a "deformed spoon*", him calling me a student.



*"what you gonna eat your dinner with? 'neither forks nor spoons'!",

"you forking idiot",

"fork off, fork face".

 

[frogwoman]

Who are these guys then? Another new addition

http://www.urban75.net/forums/threa...-or-not-london-27-april.291997/#post-11089458

 

[SpineyNorman]

I wasn't comparing left groups to the Jesus Army, it was a comparison in logic. Sorry if that wasn't clear. My point was that there is no logic to me in saying a group is a sect and such a joke that it could be sit com on one hand, but on the other hand say you are joining and staying in it for instrumental reasons.

I've given my examples and experiences of the left, and no it's not just about one group at all, they all seem the same to me. The SWP, Socialist Party, Counterfire. In the anti-cuts movement they were all as sectarian and mental as each other, although for what it matters the NSSN event was the biggest circus of the lot. I've also met a lot of individuals in those groups who are dogmatic, rude and seem to want to spend far too much time droning on about their "rivals". The other example I gave was my union, UNISON, where we had the absurd situation where we had the SWP standing one candidate and the Socialist Party standing another candidate, with barely a political difference between them in terms of the manifestos. Prentis (the bastard) must be laughing his nut off. And within the union I've heard time and again someone from one of those groups bang on about rank and file this and that, but in reality we have the almost non-existant UNISON United Left run by the SWP and on the other hand the Socialist Party who aren't building anything of that sort at all.

I have no idea if the Socialist Party is the least barmy, but given the comparisons that really shouldn't be much consolation, but happy to say you are less mental than the sparts or whoever else if that means something. Most people I know don't know anything about these groups, but those that do don't distinguish they think they are all nuts. And I can't blame them given their and my experience.

Of course there are genuine people and good activists in the various sects, but the organisation they are building can never get anywhere because it is sect. I don't agree that if you're not in a group you have to be impotent, there are plenty of trade union and community campaigns to get involved with. And while I think it would be far better to have a decent socialist organisation, as collectively people can work far better politically than as individuals, there is no point in my mind joining one of the current crop who not only discredit the name of socialism they also wreck campaigns I've tried to build, such as the anti-cuts movement. While the NSSN might have been the biggest circus nationally, the SWP were the biggest circus locally and nearly wrecked our anti-cuts group. But they are all the same in my experience, in terms of the groups I've come across. And people do care when left groups turn up to campaigns and turn them in to bun fights, it's incredibly off putting.

I'm sure it may help you do local work being in a group, but I don't think being in one of the current sects ultimately helps to progress socialist ideas. And I find the argument that they are all irrelevant slightly disingenuous from someone who is in those groups. Surely members must think they will be relevant at some level and at some time, otherwise they wouldn't bother being in them. And the damage the various groups did to the anti-cuts movement was a real one, just blaming the trade unions doesn't wash it. It wasn't the trade union bureaucrats who squandered 1000s of people turning up to national anti-cuts groups, it was the far left groups themselves.

Now I can't even work out what it is about my post that you took issue with.

Let's step back a bit - I said I was in there for instrumental reasons - because it helps me be more effective locally. You compare that to joining the Jesus army for instrumental reasons I know it was a comparison in logic. But unfortunately the logic fails because you're not even coming close to comparing like with like. If I'd been a christian who believed in communal living but thought the wacky uniforms were a bit daft then it would be a logical comparison. Then you admit that it probably does help with my work locally. Do you see what might be wrong with this argument?

And it's very simple - in the national context we are irrelevant. But the work my membership facilitates locally isn't. There's really no contradiction.

Now, my membership isn't contingent on how well the group "helps spread socialist ideas" partly because I'm of the belief that people arrive at socialism through experience, rather than reasoned debate. However, the local work builds trust in the community. People we've campaigned with who've found us to be effective trust us. We have discussions about politics and what I say makes sense to them, especially as my work alongside them has built the trust necessary to lend my arguments credibility.

It's not a monolith. It's not a cult. It's quite possible to find all the dogma and 1917 re-enactment stuff amusing and rediculous and still have good reasons for remaining a member.

I don't know much about that unison election but I do know that in a unison SGE election campaign I'm helping with at the moment we have SP and SWP candidates on the same platform. I'm working very closely with a very effective SWP activist who isn't mental or remotely dogmatic in setting up a unite community branch.

And if those anti-cuts meeting had been well enough attended to have even a remote chance of achieving anything whatsoever it wouldn't have mattered what the loony left had done - they'd have been drowned out by the voices of the thousands of "normals" that would have had to be there to make it relevant.

Again, I doubt this is the reply you wanted. But it's the truth.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Weird double posting phone thing.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Weird triple posting phone thing.

 

[frogwoman]

Leaving my pub humour aside for a moment (although I have got a cracking joke about the Foreign Legion and a camel), again I think you are missing my point. If someone said I'm joining the Jesus Army, but I'm doing it for instrumental reasons, I think you'd think that was a bit strange. But on here people seem to think it's logical to say I'm in a crackpot sect on the one hand and it's a bit of a joke, but I'm doing for instrumental reasons on the other, which doesn't quite add up to me.

because the SP is not on the same level as the ICC or any of that is it?I am not saying that we are on the verge of leading a revolutionary vanguard or other mad shit, but the SP and CWI are a serious organisation that is doing a lot of important work, work which i myself have seen the results of in this area and others around the country. round here we have took part in and actually started local anti cuts groups in areas where none existed before, on things which imo actually stand of real chance of having some sort of success. I can say the same for the SWP and Solfed and the IWW, IWCA etc, all organisations which, why they might have some loons and hacks in them, (and yes i know that the IWCA would't like being lumped in with the others on my list ) have got a serious record of that type of participation, not just of ranting on the internet about people being parasites, stealing typewriters of people in your sect that disagree with you, or standing up in the meetings of other groups with all kinds of malicious lying shit, devoid of any connection to what people think or how people behave in the world, or for that matter argueing for people to break strikes and not be in unions because you're owned by a right wing publishing mogul that hates unions.

I don't think that I'm in a crackpot sect, I agree with everything we're campaigning on and everything we're doing locally, if that ever changed I would leave. yes it could do with some changes in certain areas, but it's nothing like the groups we're disscussing and their crazy dogma's. Everything we do in this area is about the local area and people don't think that we are mad while we're doing it. i was out for half an hour today earlier and ended up getting 20 signatures on a petition about some local cuts. do people think we are irrelevant lunatics, no, because we're campaigning on things and organising on things that are actually relevant to people's lives instead of ranting about parasites and swamps and the like.

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

The logic was that saying there are instrumental reasons joining a group which is a nutty sect makes no sense to me, that was it, I'm sorry if the comparison wasn't very good in making that point. Obviously I wasn't comparing like for like. I don't think joining one of the current sects will help get socialist ideas any closer to reality because I think those groups, generally, make a laughing stock of socialist ideas. So while it might help you do things better locally, the group itself is actually making it harder to spread socialist ideas because it discredits them.

Even at a local level all those groups have acted in a way that has damaged local anti-cuts groups. If this hasn't happened in your area then good, but there are plenty of places where I know the SWP, SP, Counterfire etc have done real damage to local groups because of the way they operate. Obviously there weren't 1000s of people turning up to local anti-cuts groups, but there were 50 or so in lots of places, and in many cases most of them never came back because of the way left groups carried on, which put a total break on going forward. At a national level maybe 3000 people turned up to the various conferences. No massive shakes, but a fair few people, and again this was wasted as the left turned them in to a circus.

It's simply not true to say that you needed 1000s of people to turn up to local groups to achieve anything. In our local anti-cuts group we have had around 20-60 people turn up to any given organising meeting (we have two a month) and we have initiated and assisted with campaigns that have stopped services being shut down and stopped job cuts and this wouldn't have happened without the local anti-cuts group. However at the beginning when the group was set up it nearly all fell apart because the left groups just turned up and tore in to each other. Luckily they stopped coming as they set up their front groups, which meant we could get on with things.

I think people arrive at socialism through experience as well, but when their experience of socialism is strange sects that call themselves socialist organisations then that doesn't help.

The UNISON election was very recent and was the general secretary election, it was at a crucial time for the union, and the far left, because of petty differences, stood two candidates. To be frank, it was pathetic and did have a real affect in demoralisng and disorientating members who have had a enough with the leadership.

Anyway we will probably just waste our time carrying this on, I'm not very likely to convince a member of a group I think is a sect that that is the case. Especially on U75. As you say, if that is going to happen, it will happen with experience.

 

[SpineyNorman]

That's the SEP isn't it who try to break strikes? They operate round here and it's 2 people - a university professor and a teacher. One of them had a go at me for supporting labour once, when I asked him what the fuck he was on about he said that because I supported the public sector strikes I was supporting the reformist TUC's fake war and therefore supporting the labour party.

Interesting to learn they're owned by a publisher. Makes sense. They stood in the ward next to mine in last year's council elections. Their leaflets were shit - no mention of anything local or relevant at all, it began by stating that they were revolutionary Marxists who stood in the tradition of Lenin and Trotsky, leaders of the Russian Revolution of 1917. That was probably the most sane bit that best tapped into the local mood though. The rest of it was attacks on unions and the rest of the left. The only vaguely reasonable bit was against the labour party, but they even managed to fuck that up, can't remember exactly what it said but I remember thinking that they'd basically called anyone who ever voted Labour a moron. But they were on really expensive glossy leaflets, I'd assumed both members had made big sacrifices to pay for them, but now I know what their scumbag leader does I suspect he did them.

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

Frogwoman I have no idea who the ICC are. The same goes for you, as for the other poster, I am very unlike to convince someone they are in an organsiation that I think is a sect and harming socialist ideas. Good luck in what you do, but I suspect the far left groups will go around in an ever dwindling pool of numbers becoming ever more irrelevant to working class communities, which is shown by the last 30 years. That's not to say I think socialist or marxist ideas are any less relevant today, indeed they should be more relevant than ever in a time like this. As socialist groups still aren't getting anywhere in this kind of climate it should give them a reality check, but it won't. In my view something new will have to come along, an organisation that functions in a very different way to the current crop. I hope that will happen, but there is nothing there as of yet.

 

[SLK]

This was an entertaining thread for a while