Year Zero ...

[durruti02]

Following the local election results (and election results generally ove the last few years) and following the debates on Urban and the reaction of many leftists to the very thought of debating immigration, IWCA or the BNP ( bizarrely thinking that some how these threads were right wing manouvers and betraying their backwardness in the process) ... it seems to me we are at a Year Zero in terms of the left in this country

I was bon in the early 6ts and had a leftists upbringing ( dad LP activist .. communist manifesto on the shelf .. though they were not communists) ... i remember the early 7ts and the power if the unions .. i was selling SW in 1977and joined the ANL then too ... i remember Cliff announcing the 'downturn' in '81 (???) .. which we thought wuld be temporary ... and it has gone downhill since then etc etc etc

where we are now is at the bottom .. i do not even want to say the very bottom as i believe if the shit hits the fan the boses will go farther to the right than they are now .. and we have global warming and peak oil in the mix too ..

so we can NOT carry on as we are ... i think the AFA/IWCA turn is crucial to this debate but i suspect there are many other things we need to think about ...

is it possible we could gt an entirely new humanist/popular /progressive movemnet out of where we are now???

 

[greenman]

"If there is hope, it lies with the proles"
Nineteen Eighty Four, George Orwell.

Seriously, though, without a revival of grassroots resistance and activity, the left are just pissing in the wind. The question is - how do we best encourage and facilitate the necessary grassroots revival? Rank and File organising? IWW-style organising drives amongst the casualised, unorganised and precarious? Community networks and forums? Mass unity and activity around a key area like the NHS? Localism and a concentration on "bread and butter issues"? IWCA type populism? Green Party/Respect style popular fronts? International organising?
Or a combination of some or all of these? Or something else?

Without some kind of an organised resistance, you are right, durruti02, the perspective is one of steady growth of the far right, only interrupted by the mainstream parties stealing their vote periodically through moving further to the right themselves. When the brown stuff really hits the proverbial (global economic downturn, peak oil scenario, energy crisis, mass migrations due to climate change, epidemics, or a combination of all of these) if there is no alternative pole of attraction there may be little to choose between the far right and the extablishment - they may by then be indistinguishable.

We need to look wider than England, wider than Britain, to the situation across the whole of Europe and the lessons to be learned from popular resistance to neo-liberal globalisation across the rest of the world.

 

[butchersapron]

It is, but is needs to be based in our lived experience, our relation to rapidly changing material circumstances and the shared needs that develop out of this - not dogmatic impositions. Which means that everything must be up for debate. The w/c cannot be done away with within capitalism, historically it can and does suffer decomposition but then tends to recompose itself on the basis of the new conditions that that decomposition has brought about - that's what we're seeing now - that battle going on. And these new conditions rarely call forth a replay of the old solutions - that's exactly why open debate on everything is so important right now.

Also, it's always important to distinguish been the left and their ideas and the movement of the working class. One of the last centuries really damaging problems was conflating the two and attempting to impose the fomers interests under the guise of the latters. They're still doing it. We need to move beyond that agenda onto one based around the self-expressed needs of communities. That has got the real results across a range of areas that we need to help build up the working class self-confidence that we first need in order to win later larger battles.

 

[audiotech]

It is, but is needs to be based in our lived experience, our relation to rapidly changing material circumstances and the shared needs that develop out of this - not dogmatic impositions. Which means that everything must be up for debate. The w/c cannot be done away with within capitalism, historically it can and does suffer decomposition but then tends to recompose itself on the basis of the new conditions that that decomposition has brought about - that's what we're seeing now - that battle going on. And these new conditions rarely call forth a replay of the old solutions - that's exactly why open debate on everything is so important right now.

Also, it's always important to distinguish been the left and their ideas and the movement of the working class. One of the last centuries really damaging problems was conflating the two and attempting to impose the fomers interests under the guise of the latters. They're still doing it. We need to move beyond that agenda onto one based around the self-expressed needs of communities. That has got the real results across a range of areas that we need to help build up the working class self-confidence that we first need in order to win later larger battles.

Yep, that beats the pol pottedness of the op.

 

[becky p]

is it possible we could gt an entirely new humanist/popular /progressive movemnet out of where we are now???

Based on what exactly?

 

[durruti02]

2 excellent posts from Torres and greenman ..

i think we need to broaden things out significantly and talk a lot more about power and control .. in my experiance there are few who are now in poverty as in can't put food on the table. Housing has changd fundamentally from wheni was young .. hardly anyone now has outdoor privies .. and much of the worst tower blocks have gone

but we all seem to feel frustrated stressed angry etc .. we have the worst drug and alcohol, teenage violence and pregnacy and STD problems in europe

'we' complin about cyclists about gatsos about 'immigation' about iraq .. i think this flailing is about a loss of control .. immigration in particular i think reflects people saying 'we did not vote for this!' even when it has little affect on there lives.

this is why i think BNP, kidderminster hospital IWCA and other 'indy' campaigns do well ..

so i think a 'improve democracy/ localism' slant is worth exploring .. i think greens should be working with iwca type groups .. they need to acknowledeg that if the w/c majority do not support them them all their worthy ideas come to nowt ...

the problem with the left in all this is that the are very top down and many peoples expeiance of them is similar to how the experiance the state/local govt .. as controllers .. fo the left to be pat of any progressive direction i think we need to have a renewal of marxism resurrecting CLR James/Dunyevskaya and all that was lost somewhere after '68 (apart from e.g. Bookchin)


p.s. apologies to Taffboy .. this sort of replicates your thread

 

[durruti02]

Based on what exactly?

see post 6

that people are essentially good but are feeling very frustrated .. thatcherism has NOT brought nirvana ...

 

[durruti02]

It is, but is needs to be based in our lived experience, our relation to rapidly changing material circumstances and the shared needs that develop out of this - not dogmatic impositions. Which means that everything must be up for debate. The w/c cannot be done away with within capitalism, historically it can and does suffer decomposition but then tends to recompose itself on the basis of the new conditions that that decomposition has brought about - that's what we're seeing now - that battle going on. And these new conditions rarely call forth a replay of the old solutions - that's exactly why open debate on everything is so important right now.

Also, it's always important to distinguish been the left and their ideas and the movement of the working class. One of the last centuries really damaging problems was conflating the two and attempting to impose the fomers interests under the guise of the latters. They're still doing it. We need to move beyond that agenda onto one based around the self-expressed needs of communities. That has got the real results across a range of areas that we need to help build up the working class self-confidence that we first need in order to win later larger battles.

while i agree absolutely with what you have written , why has it not done better in your opinion?

 

[Knotted]

If you talk to certain types of Trotskyist about this sort of thing, you will often get lectured about the importance of "targeting the advanced sections of the working class".

It always strikes me how circular this is. Who are the advanced sections? In practice it amounts to those 'workers' who broadly agree with you already. So how does the vanguard know that its ideas are so advanced? How do you test your ideas? You will always find some people who agree with you, so judging your ideas against what the 'advanced sections' think means nothing.

As torres says, everything must be up for debate. If we don't think we're dead in the water.

 

[durruti02]

If you talk to certain types of Trotskyist about this sort of thing, you will often get lectured about the importance of "targeting the advanced sections of the working class".

It always strikes me how circular this is. Who are the advanced sections? In practice it amounts to those 'workers' who broadly agree with you already. So how does the vanguard know that its ideas are so advanced? How do you test your ideas? You will always find some people who agree with you, so judging your ideas against what the 'advanced sections' think means nothing.

As torres says, everything must be up for debate. If we don't think we're dead in the water.

yes thats true .. but their contact with the w/c as a class is so minimal these days i'm sure there is any science in that at all!! ..

i find that nowadays they are more interested in looking for the oppressed group that will become the vanguard .. i think this obsession with the minority is a fundamental problem .. one i think implies that the majority are backward and also is dogma led .. the RCG took this to an extreme where they believed that the w/c was bought and change could only come via minorities .. migrants prisoners

actually i think there is a simple progressive politics attractive to the majority, around ideas of of democracy and freedom, that is common to all but the capitalists who believe in the dominance of the market and the rich minority, and the facists and leninists who both believe in the dominance of the minority in the party

 

[donald duck]

yes thats true .. but their contact with the w/c as a class is so minimal these days i'm sure there is any science in that at all!! ..

i find that nowadays they are more interested in looking for the oppressed group that will become the vanguard .. i think this obsession with the minority is a fundamental problem .. one i think implies that the majority are backward and also is dogma led .. the RCG took this to an extreme where they believed that the w/c was bought and change could only come via minorities .. migrants prisoners

actually i think there is a simple progressive politics attractive to the majority, around ideas of of democracy and freedom, that is common to all but the capitalists who believe in the dominance of the market and the rich minority, and the facists and leninists who both believe in the dominance of the minority in the party

These people should declare their allegiance when they post or it doesn't mean much.

I mean it could be MI5 posting for all I know.

As a former SWP member i know something about mi5/special branch.

 

[118118]

yeah but durruti, don't you think that minorities are better off something like that. i forget what exactly i found rediculous in your ideas.

 

[butchersapron]

while i agree absolutely with what you have written , why has it not done better in your opinion?

I'll try and come back on this one later today d.

 

[durruti02]

These people should declare their allegiance when they post or it doesn't mean much.

I mean it could be MI5 posting for all I know.

As a former SWP member i know something about mi5/special branch.

you are right that we do not know who we talk to .. and i also suspect youare right that MI5 or whoever monitor this .. but i disagree that his is bad .. i think we should ignore personalities and try to deal with ideas on here.

 

[durruti02]

yeah but durruti, don't you think that minorities are better off something like that. i forget what exactly i found rediculous in your ideas.

try again later!

 

[becky p]

so we can NOT carry on as we are ... i think the AFA/IWCA turn is crucial to this debate but i suspect there are many other things we need to think about ...

is it possible we could gt an entirely new humanist/popular /progressive movemnet out of where we are now???

Can you explain more about this. More about AFA/IWCA their crucial turn?
Are they humanists and are they very popular?

 

[october_lost]

i was selling SW in 1977and joined the ANL then too ... i remember Cliff announcing the 'downturn' in '81 (???) .. which we thought wuld be temporary ... and it has gone downhill since then etc etc etc

Its all been going downhill because of a policy announced by the swappies??

 

[treelover]

have to agree with the OP, in some areas, the left and wider civil society has been negligent, leaving people to fend for themselves. For example, there have been no campaigns to protect old people living in care homes, facing abuse and neglect, no campaigns for those in the private rented sector, who face corrupt and often abusive landlord. No big marches and campaigns for the numerous young people who are dying in prison, often taking their own lives at painfully young ages, instead the left has almost fetishised cultural issues such as the veil or conducted endlessly protracted marches ‘against the war’. Imo, any new left project has to move away from 19th century ideas of the 'worker' and go back to basics: Fighting for those at the bottom: those on sink estates, those on benefits or pushed into low skill New Deal programmes or minimum wages, unfortunately this is often anethma to many on the left, who largely ignore these concerns as they are not ‘part of the programme’ or in some cases just don’t know what life is really like.

A key example of this has been the the Welfare Reform Bill,
now the Welfare Reform Act 2007:

 

[october_lost]

I think that those who are concerned or affected by the above are too little to effect change on a wide enough level and those big enough, are either too oppurtunistic, reformist or generally crap to even care.

 

[118118]

 

[durruti02]

Can you explain more about this. More about AFA/IWCA their crucial turn?
Are they humanists and are they very popular?

will reply l8r

 

[durruti02]

Its all been going downhill because of a policy announced by the swappies??

he he possibly!!! was referring to left opposition at that point .. though i would date the demise of the SW to the coup in 76/77??? when they became a Party ..