# Should the Trade unions form a new left leaning party?



## jiggajagga (Sep 26, 2011)

When Miliband told the unions at the TUC he was against them doing this and against them doing that I thought, why should the unions keep funding a party that is giving them very little and has done so for at least 30 yrs?
As an ex-labour voter and member I have just heard a Labour MP just say that "Labour has always been seen as a party for the poor, now we must be seen as the party of the ( here we go again) 'hard working families' throughout the land", just like the Tories and Lib Demonics?

As a disabled and chronically ill person who depends on the welfare state I have to ask Who is looking out for me and people like me if the Labour party no longer does?

Thus, the trade unions stop funding Labour and the T.U.C democratic union party comes into being to fight for those the rest of the politicians have abandoned and are to abandon even more apparently.
I have no one else to vote for now so my vote would be assured and I am sure many ex-labour voters and members would turn to them in droves.


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## Dr Dolittle (Sep 26, 2011)

It's difficult to imagine such a party having much success. People are pissed off with politics generally. And political parties, whatever good intentions they might start off with, always come under increasing pressure to drop any radical ideas as they get nearer to forming a government. Germany had a Green-Socialist alliance government a few years ago, but the effects of that weren't exactly revolutionary.

A better idea would be a big pressure group aimed at defending the interests of workers and stopping the ruling class from abusing their power. But for that to work, it would be important that they are NOT tempted to become a party. Otherwise they would end up just the same as all the others, which is exactly what happened to the Labour Party.


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## taffboy gwyrdd (Sep 26, 2011)

if trade unionists were to try this it would have to be a lot more far reaching in appeal than just to their own kind. We have done left parties round and round here for many years. I think there is room for one, separate from the Green Party, and getting the SWPs heads round that would not be easy. But it is the Labour left who would need to be attracted too. LRC has a not dis similar amount of members to the Green Party.

Although the SPD/Green coalition in Germany wasn't especially radical, it should be noted that specific greenleft parties have made some decent progress in Iceland and Denmark.

Overall, a non party movement as Dr Dolittle suggests, might well be a good idea too, but the function of an electoral political party is different and that function probably still needs attending to.


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## butchersapron (Sep 26, 2011)

Who are the unions kind?

The Green Party has under a 1000 members?


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## The39thStep (Sep 27, 2011)

I thought the SP were waiting for Bob Crow do do this?


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## gunneradt (Sep 27, 2011)

The39thStep said:


> I thought the SP were waiting for Bob Crow do do this?



ha ha - that is hilarious - theyd need big funds to lose their deposits mainly across the \uk


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## Termite Man (Sep 27, 2011)

The problem is the poor don't vote so the politicians need to appeal to the people who do.

I have given up with politics for this very reason.


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## krink (Sep 27, 2011)

TUSC, the sp was telling me about it at the miners gala.


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## Smokeandsteam (Sep 27, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> The problem is the poor don't vote so the politicians need to appeal to the people who do.



An assessment of why the 'poor don't vote' (or at least don't vote for the 3 capitalist parties, Greens/UKIP or TUSC/Respect etc) might assist in answering the original posters question.

Either you think the 'poor' aren't interested in politics full stop or you think that there is no party that properly represent their interests.


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## Termite Man (Sep 27, 2011)

Smokeandsteam said:


> An assessment of why the 'poor don't vote' (or at least don't vote for the 3 capitalist parties, Greens/UKIP or TUSC/Respect etc) might assist in answering the original posters question.
> 
> Either you think the 'poor' aren't interested in politics full stop or you think that there is no party that properly represent their interests.



I don't know which came first, the poor not voting or the main parties moving away from the poor. Either way they are not represented and as such have become apathetic.


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## DotCommunist (Sep 27, 2011)

disengagement is not apathy.


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## Captain Hurrah (Sep 27, 2011)

Indeed.


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## butchersapron (Sep 27, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> The problem is the poor don't vote so the politicians need to appeal to the people who do.
> 
> I have given up with politics for this very reason.



Poor people do vote. The problem is that those they vote for have little or no interest in them or their needs. Society isn't just made up of poor people either - MPs generally don't represent anything or anyone but a very restricted set of interests, or they wouldn't have got through the various formal and informal selection processes. That's because society is orgnaised to make this happen, the system legitimates itself throug the electoral process, getting different MPs won't chnage this. To change this you need a social movement concerned with those interests the MPS are not their to represent, and it has to be largely social before electoral.


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## jiggajagga (Sep 27, 2011)

All the mainstream parties come out with helping the 'squeezed middle' don't they? If that is so it leaves a bloated top ( which the Tories look after ) and a bloated bottom who.......just who _*IS*_ looking out for the bloated bottom?

If no-one is looking out for them then I suppose they will have to look out for themselves ( see; riots )


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## Termite Man (Sep 27, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Poor people do vote. The problem is that those they vote for have little or no interest in them or their needs. Society isn't just made up of poor people either - MPs generally don't represent anything or anyone but a very restricted set of interests, or they wouldn't have got through the various formal and informal selection processes. That's because society is orgnaised to make this happen, the system legitimates itself throug the electoral process, getting different MPs won't chnage this. To change this you need a social movement concerned with those interests the MPS are not their to represent, and it has to be largely social before electoral.



You don't have to take things so literally, poor people are statistically less likely to vote so the mainstream parties don't have the interest in them. Apart from that everything you said is spot on.


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## butchersapron (Sep 27, 2011)

We're in agreement then! One other thing i'd say though, it's not just that they are less likely to vote -  it's that labour knows it largely has their vote sewn up if they do vote, and if they are voting other than labour they're very likely to be swamped by those that are voting labour in that area. So even if they did vote it wouldn't matter, the parties would still have no interest in them. Their being ignored has very little to do with them voting or not, it's to do with them being poor.


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## Termite Man (Sep 27, 2011)

I can see things getting worse though, especially as Cameron seems to want his big society to replace the welfare state as much as possible, he is taking what little benefit the poor get from politics and removing it from the political spectrum in favour of the wealthy.


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## Plumdaff (Sep 27, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Who are the unions kind?
> 
> The Green Party has under a 1000 members?



Green Party has about 12,000 members.


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## butchersapron (Sep 27, 2011)

Ta. So not really similar to the LRC then.


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## krtek a houby (Sep 27, 2011)

Would be excellent to see the unions withdraw their support from the execrable Labour, yes. But would a new party take off? After all, beyond pockets of resistance throughout the island, there's much apathy towards politics.


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## weltweit (Sep 27, 2011)

I think England is quite right wing, so a TUC party might not do well in England, but where it could do well, it would take supporters from Labour which might defeat the objective.


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## LLETSA (Sep 27, 2011)

weltweit said:


> I think England is quite right wing, so a TUC party might not do well in England, but where it could do well, it would take supporters from Labour which might defeat the objective.


 
In what sense is England 'quite right wing?'


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## weltweit (Sep 27, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> In what sense is England 'quite right wing?'



There was a report some time ago that said if Scotland and Wales seperated, they would have Scots Nats and Labour pretty much in perpetuety and England would have the tories.


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## LLETSA (Sep 27, 2011)

weltweit said:


> There was a report some time ago that said if Scotland and Wales seperated, they would have Scots Nats and Labour pretty much in perpetuety and England would have the tories.


 
Even the Tories aren't right wing in any meaningful sense on many issues anymore. Nor does support for Labour necessarily reflect left wing sympathies.


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## _angel_ (Sep 27, 2011)

weltweit said:


> I think England is quite right wing, so a TUC party might not do well in England, but where it could do well, it would take supporters from Labour which might defeat the objective.


If you separated northern England and the south you'd see a difference.
Anyone who thinks Labour are not right wing is beyond help really.


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## butchersapron (Sep 27, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> If you separated northern England and the south you'd see a difference.
> Anyone who thinks Labour are not right wing is beyond help really.


Thanks. There are more w/c people in the south than the north. Proportionately and in absolute terms.


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## LLETSA (Sep 27, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> If you separated northern England and the south you'd see a difference.
> Anyone who thinks Labour are not right wing is beyond help really.



I don't think it's a s simple as Labour being simply right wing. Economically they've embraced neo-liberalism, which originated on the right but has become the new orthodoxy, the default choice of governments whether originating on right or left, but socially they are, like the Tories, more liberal than they've ever been, despite implementing some authoritarian policies which again are common to parties originating on both left and right.


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## _angel_ (Sep 27, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Thanks. There are more w/c people in the south than the north. Proportionately and in absolute terms.


There are more people in the South fullstop. But elections seem to be dominated by what the South East thinks rather than other areas.


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## butchersapron (Sep 27, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> There are more people in the South fullstop. But elections seem to be dominated by what the South East thinks rather than other areas.



You know what a tautology is right?


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## butchersapron (Sep 27, 2011)

Why do northerners think that ..oh fuck off...can't be bothered


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## goldenecitrone (Sep 27, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Thanks. There are more w/c people in the south than the north. Proportionately and in absolute terms.



But they don't wear cloth caps or race whippets so they don't count.


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## ayatollah (Sep 27, 2011)

I think that over the next few years of forthcomong welfare and wages cuts unprescedented since the 1930's the national UK political landscape will be in for big upheavals. This is still to feed through into political action yet -- witness the smug slogan mongering masquerading as politics at both the Lib Dem and Labour Conferences. The ever greater impoverishment of the mass of people MUST lead to political action ...not by any means all progressive --the Far Right will do well too. But my prediction is that both Labour and Lib Dems will split over the next 5 years as the UK Government increasingly tries to enforce Greek Style welfare and pensions and wage cuts on us all to "solve " the crisis . I could even see a Ramsay Mac style 1931 "National Governent" being created to push through the 25% cuts in living standards the capitalist class are already flagging up as required. BIG changes on the way I predict. That's it for my "Mystic Meg" moment... I'll go and have a lie down !


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## butchersapron (Sep 27, 2011)

You're wrong. They will all stay together to force the thing that you talk about through. There is no internal drive to split in any party. That's a mad catasrophist analysis.They can be administered quite easily under normal rules.


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## The39thStep (Sep 27, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> disengagement is not apathy.



disengagement by whom?


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## The39thStep (Sep 27, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> In what sense is England 'quite right wing?'



The election of Boris and then Cameron = fascism


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## Maurice Picarda (Sep 27, 2011)

I think this is a wonderful idea and I hope it happens. How can I vote or donate to make it so?


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## Sue (Sep 27, 2011)

weltweit said:


> I think England is quite right wing, so a TUC party might not do well in England, but where it could do well, it would take supporters from Labour which might defeat the objective.



Why might it defeat the objective to take supporters from Labour?


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## butchersapron (Sep 27, 2011)

Maurice Picarda said:


> I think this is a wonderful idea and I hope it happens. How can I vote or donate to make it so?


Why? What's wonderful?


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## The39thStep (Sep 27, 2011)

Maurice Picarda said:


> I think this is a wonderful idea and I hope it happens. How can I vote or donate to make it so?



i am acting as temporary treasurer , contact me.


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## Maurice Picarda (Sep 27, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Why? What's wonderful?



Because it would get the frothing ideologues out of the electoral college, allow a purple booker to replace Miliband and make Labour both fundable and electable again.


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## Sue (Sep 27, 2011)

The39thStep said:


> i am acting as temporary treasurer , contact me.


I suspect this is not the way to make your fortune...


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## butchersapron (Sep 27, 2011)

Maurice Picarda said:


> Because it would get the frothing ideologues out of the electoral college, allow a purple booker to replace Miliband and make Labour both fundable and electable again.



Labour is going to win the next election  no matter what. Your weirdo meddling is neither here not there. You actually have no 'in'.


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## butchersapron (Sep 27, 2011)

Maurice Picarda said:


> Because it would get the frothing ideologues out of the electoral college, allow a purple booker to replace Miliband and make Labour both fundable and electable again.


How would a mean b maurice?


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## Maurice Picarda (Sep 27, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Your weirdo meddling is neither here not there. You actually have no 'in'.





butchersapron said:


> How a mean b maurice?



There was a time, in 2009 or so, when you made sense. This HAL9000 phase is distressing.


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## butchersapron (Sep 27, 2011)

The absence of the word 'does'


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## Hocus Eye. (Sep 27, 2011)

It is a mistake to think that the Trade Unions are on the left of politics. Within the Labour Party they have always voted to the right. Just because the tabloids throughout the post war period in attacking the trade unions by saying that they were communist controlled doesn't mean that the average trade unionist is communist or even on the left of the Labour Party. The hierarchical structure of the trade unions was a mirror of that within ownership and management of the industrial workplaces when these were the dominant employers. The trade unions originally founded the Labour Party to represent their interests but once it was created it had a life of its own and it was ruled by people who were part of the ruling class, if perhaps non-conformist. The Labour Party itself has never been particularly left wing except for a brief period after WWII. Even they they were just enacting policies that had been worked out during the war by middle-class educated idealists. That was a good thing because it created the Welfare State, which was so popular that even the Tories left it in place after winning the subsequent election.

The influence of idealist reformers has gone now. The word 'reform' has itself changed meaning. It used to be used to suggest an improvement for the oppressed or disadvantaged. Now 'reform' is a weasel word meaning strike out against anything that impedes the rich and powerful and the vested interests of international Capital.

As for the Trade Unions I think everyone who works should join their trade union and become an active member. The trade unions are very useful pressure groups and still do lots of good work in protecting the interests of working people operating within the laws. As for creating or changing those laws, this is the job of MPs but a vote for an MP does not influence their policies, they are controlled by patronage within the party. In any case change in the laws is not going to happen directly through Parliament any more. Even if by some strange change of fortunes there was a majority in Parliament for a trade union sympathetic party, old or new, the power of law is not within any one country any more. Our laws and that of all the countries within the EU are made within the European Parliament. The only relationship our Parliament has with the EU is one of subservience. I am not being Nationalist here. You can vote for an MEP but have no influence over policy. In its turn the EU Parliament is entirely under the control of international bankers and massive multinational companies whose purview is not just the EU but the whole world. Currently the media are reporting what the IMF is saying about European and World economic policies. Our various governments under all political persuasions will do exactly what the IMF wants. Who voted IMF in any election ever?


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## DotCommunist (Sep 27, 2011)

The39thStep said:


> disengagement by whom?


 
of 'whom' was I replying to?

Short answer- the people I know, w/c people who aren't interested in electoral politics, people my own age. And the refrain is all to often 'doesn't make any difference' 'it's all a load of bollocks'. That is not apathy. It is not 'I don't care'. It's disengagement, recognition of the futility of electoral politics in relation to thier own interests. The same people will quickly raise issues over what the gov does, elements of social issues and so on. so not apathy.


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## The39thStep (Sep 28, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> of 'whom' was I replying to?
> 
> Short answer- the people I know, w/c people who aren't interested in electoral politics, people my own age. And the refrain is all to often 'doesn't make any difference' 'it's all a load of bollocks'. That is not apathy. It is not 'I don't care'. It's disengagement, recognition of the futility of electoral politics in relation to thier own interests. The same people will quickly raise issues over what the gov does, elements of social issues and so on. so not apathy.



I was asking because whilst what you say is true ( ie I haven't voted for years) one of the most significant aspects of disengagement is by the Labour party itself in working class areas. One of the reasons why both the BNP and IWCA did well was that they went to communities that labour took for granted.

The Goodwin report on new extremism repeats the very simple but significant fact that people who vote for these new groups will often say that they had more contact with then on the door step and in their communities that the established parties.

What was interesting in the last election though was that I got the distinct impression the Lib Dem's pretty much cleaned up on young women's support and as a proportion of their overall age voter profile had a greater percentage of young people than the other parties.


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## killer b (Sep 28, 2011)

The39thStep said:


> What was interesting in the last election though was that I got the distinct impression the Lib Dem's pretty much cleaned up on young women's support and as a proportion of their overall age voter profile had a greater percentage of young people than the other parties.


there isn't any mystery to that tbh. they targetted the young soft left vote very effectively - I'd say the majority of 18-30 yr olds i know voted for them.

none of them will do it again (apart from liampreston).


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## DotCommunist (Sep 28, 2011)

well yes, they had the 'student' vote. And pissed it right up the wall.


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## killer b (Sep 28, 2011)

I think their main attraction was that they were neither labour nor tory. That sheen's gone now too.


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## DotCommunist (Sep 28, 2011)

Unless I've got my reasoning all wrong it occurred to me that clegg had a chance at being politically relevant rather than the teaboy. If he had refused coalition with both, the tories would have been able to form a minority gov, and both labour and the tories would have been having to rely on lib dem support, vote by vote. Clegg then, could have been the 'power behind the throne' rather than the chamber pot underneath it.

So he's twice a mug.


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## ayatollah (Sep 28, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> You're wrong. They will all stay together to force the thing that you talk about through. There is no internal drive to split in any party. That's a mad catasrophist analysis.They can be administered quite easily under normal rules.



Er, ...I think you'll find there is a perfectly well understood driver to split the parties.

 As a number of other posters have pointed out in relation to the Lib Dems, most of the young, idealistic, Left leaning voters who voted Lib Dem last time wont do so again . Result ? Many lost Lib Dem marginal seats, and other Lib Dem MP's having doubts about their party's rush to the Right.

Similarly in marginal Labour areas the pathetic stance of Ed and his chums on Pensions, NHS Reform, Strikes etc, etc means many Labour voters will stay at home at the next election and many Labour seats will be lost. SO lots of Labour MP's feeling under threat will be seeking  more Left policies from Ed and his chums to safeguard  these same  MPs' JOBS . They won't get the more Left policies from ED and Chums, or the Lib Dems from Clegg and his chums

-- the scene is set for internal party conflict on a Left/Right policy basis,  and, possibly, an eventual   party realignment scramble at some point.

The SDP with Shirley Williams et al did after all split from Labour on the Right  and eventually join the Liberals-- so IT DOES , sometimes, HAPPEN. Ironically Shirley Williams is currently far, far to the Left of  NuLabour.


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## temper_tantrum (Sep 28, 2011)

Maurice Picarda said:


> I think this is a wonderful idea and I hope it happens. How can I vote or donate to make it so?



I believe you can contribute to the Butchersapron 'Building Solidarity Through Unity Fund' via Paypal ...


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## articul8 (Sep 29, 2011)

weltweit said:


> I think England is quite right wing, so a TUC party might not do well in England, but where it could do well, it would take supporters from Labour which might defeat the objective.



Exactly - which is why the thinking elements of the left (Labour and Non-Labour, McDonnell and Serwotka) understood in the AV referendum that the FPTP voting system is a major barrier to the any new left formation getting traction on a national basis.


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## articul8 (Sep 29, 2011)

Just travelling back from the LP conference.  I know to some extent it's been the case for years, but this year more than ever it was like two entirely different political cultures meeting in parallel - on the one hand, the union fringes felt grounded, facing upto the urgency of the cuts and the economic situation and the reality for workers and their families - there's a particularly interesting coming together between UNITE and PCS - McCLuskey spoke on the LRC platform which was another very positive move.  But then there's another type of event altogether - the think-tank/policy-wonk/corporate lobbyist schtick which seems to exert a more powerful influence on the Shadow minister types, and is where a lot of the policy direction comes from.  A this is a world away from life as it's actually lived by most people, the "political bubble" which is relatively impervious to non-corporate influences.  (It goes without saying that pretty much 100% of the main conference sessions are turgid apolitical bollocks, members just like a fanclub, stage managed by bureaucrats and filled with eager students trying to climb the greasy pole).

What is depressing is how poorly the Labour left is equipped to organise in the party - LRC has the best politics but also a terribly outdated culture - people like Christine Shawcroft and the Labour Briefing crowd who really don't do McDonnell any favours.  But outside that you've got Compass which has a few rare worthwhile moments but is generally amorphous liberal dross, with little influence in the unions.

The core problem of the left's weakness goes right to the heart of Labour's founding split where the party looks after "politics" (the meaning of which is getting Labour candidates elected) and the unions stick to the "industrial" - workplace issues, wage bargaining etc.  This has acted as a break on the unions at both levels - and meant they have been too slow to organise directly with working class _communities_ on an everyday level.  There's still this schizophrenia in someone like McCluskey - he's recognising that the unions need active public support and backing for an alternative - but at the same time his "political strategy" amounts to little more than "me and Paul Kenny and Dave Prentis will have a quiet word with Ed".

Maybe it was helped partly by being in Liverpool, but I kept thinking how few Labour MPs (count them on the figners on one hand?) were real fighters for working people.  McDonnell is.  How many more?  Tony Mulhearn was in the audience at the LRC - and to be honest he's more of an inspiration than any amount of careerist drones.   But the SP really haven't thought through what it would take to build a new workers party - it certainly won't happen in the upcoming period.  Nor will Labour be reclaimed.   So making that division paramount only gets in the way of building effective unity - hopefully the Unite/PCS link up can prefigure a united front between the Labour left and those outside.


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## temper_tantrum (Sep 29, 2011)

Was there much mention of the electricians' strike, Articul8? I know McDonnell has been to the protests.


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## articul8 (Sep 29, 2011)

It was mentioned at the LRC - sure that the Sparks have full support there.   But didn't hear much of it anywhere else.


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## butchersapron (Sep 29, 2011)

ayatollah said:


> Er, ...I think you'll find there is a perfectly well understood driver to split the parties.
> 
> As a number of other posters have pointed out in relation to the Lib Dems, most of the young, idealistic, Left leaning voters who voted Lib Dem last time wont do so again . Result ? Many lost Lib Dem marginal seats, and other Lib Dem MP's having doubts about their party's rush to the Right.
> 
> ...



18 months in. No split. Voters being pissed off does not equal a split. This is a wet dream for the members.


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## butchersapron (Sep 29, 2011)

Maybe they need your touch of absolute fucking bourgeois death  moon?


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## ayatollah (Sep 29, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> 18 months in. No split. Voters being pissed off does not equal a split. This is a wet dream for the members.



Why don't we wait for the backwash from the future ELECTION results as the by election disasters for the Lib Dems and Labour build up, and the results of the next General Election, before making such emphatic pronouncements. Early days yet in the ever deepening world capitalist meltdown to be making such "Nothing will ever change with the major parties" statements.

You do "geddit" that we are in the most serious, and ever-deepening systemic world economic crisis  since the 1930's dont you Buchersapron ? There's no quick fixes with this one , at the individual political  party level never mind at the level of the individual nation state.


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## butchersapron (Sep 29, 2011)

ayatollah said:


> Why don't we wait for the backwash from the future ELECTION results as the by election disasters for the Lib Dems and Labour build up, and the results of the next General Election, before making such emphatic pronouncements. Early days yet in the ever deepening world capitalist meltdown to be making such "Nothing will ever change with the major parties" statements.


Ain't got time. I'm warning against emphatic statements.


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## butchersapron (Sep 29, 2011)

ayatollah said:


> Why don't we wait for the backwash from the future ELECTION results as the by election disasters for the Lib Dems and Labour build up, and the results of the next General Election, before making such emphatic pronouncements. Early days yet in the ever deepening world capitalist meltdown to be making such "Nothing will ever change with the major parties" statements.
> 
> You do "geddit" that we are in the most serious, and ever-deepening systemic world economic crisis since the 1930's dont you Buchersapron ? There's no quick fixes with this one , at the individual political party level never mind at the level of the individual nation state.


At what point is is it ok  say there will be no split? Before or after?


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## Bakunin (Sep 29, 2011)

And how many new left parties will that  be now, dare I ask? This isn't the first time any of us are likely to have heard the suggestion for some new, lefty party, after all. And I very much doubt that whatever mishmash of perpetually in-fighting factions and parties might come from such a call if it were issued YET AGAIN would be likely to escape the fate of all its predecessors.


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## DotCommunist (Sep 29, 2011)

If only Galloway could help it might work out


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## JHE (Sep 29, 2011)

jiggajagga said:


> When Miliband told the unions at the TUC he was against them doing this and against them doing that I thought, why should the unions keep funding a party that is giving them very little and has done so for at least 30 yrs?
> As an ex-labour voter and member I have just heard a Labour MP just say that "Labour has always been seen as a party for the poor, now we must be seen as the party of the ( here we go again) 'hard working families' throughout the land", just like the Tories and Lib Demonics?
> 
> As a disabled and chronically ill person who depends on the welfare state I have to ask Who is looking out for me and people like me if the Labour party no longer does?
> ...



The major unions are mostly sober, serious organisations, run by practical people.  If they (re)direct their funds to a new political party, it will be because they think the new party can get enough popular support to be of use to trade unionists and the objectives of the trade union movement.  They will not throw around great dollops of their members' dosh to set up an electoral failure.

So I suggest a slightly different question: What would the electoral prospects be for "a new left-leaning party"?


> ...I am sure many ex-labour voters and members would turn to them in droves



Evidence, please.


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## articul8 (Sep 29, 2011)

JHE said:


> So I suggest a slightly different question: What would the electoral prospects be for "a new left-leaning party"?



Now?  Dreadful.  But how about asking what barriers to a successful left alternative could be lifted?


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## ayatollah (Sep 29, 2011)

articul8 said:


> Now? Dreadful. But how about asking what barriers to a successful left alternative could be lifted?



Ok, I'll ask that one then. So what do you propose ?


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## love detective (Sep 29, 2011)

scrapping all illusions in, and of reclaiming, the labour party for a start


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## trampie (Sep 29, 2011)

jiggajagga said:


> When Miliband told the unions at the TUC he was against them doing this and against them doing that I thought, why should the unions keep funding a party that is giving them very little and has done so for at least 30 yrs?
> As an ex-labour voter and member I have just heard a Labour MP just say that "Labour has always been seen as a party for the poor, now we must be seen as the party of the ( here we go again) 'hard working families' throughout the land", just like the Tories and Lib Demonics?
> 
> As a disabled and chronically ill person who depends on the welfare state I have to ask Who is looking out for me and people like me if the Labour party no longer does?
> ...


I feel your pain commrade, the Labour party sold its soul after Thatcher appealed to peoples greed, cutting taxes, selling off the countries assets [selling off council houses and our nationalised industries], all this came at a price, benefits and public services were cut.
People in work were better off, the pensioners, students, unemployed and sick were worse off but as long as the majority was in work and paying less tax they were voting for her there was no way the Labour party [old Labour] was going to win another election [for years and years anyway], it took a while for Labour to realise and they decided to sell their soul to appeal to middle England, Mondeo man was the in term used at the time.
Socialism became a dirty word that was dropped by the Labour party who became 'new' Labour and we reach today where England has no left wing parties only right wing parties appealing to peoples greed.
The union may well break up in time because of it, the Scots and Welsh dont want right wing policies, England does, the fact that there is no left wing alternative in England is here to stay for a long time unfortunately.
I like your idea 'jiggajagger' but the unions in England in many cases are also right wingers, they are as greedy as the politicians, but what can one do ?, emigrate to a Celtic country perhaps if the split comes, setting up a viable left wing party in England must happen at some stage but I cant see it in the forseeable, perhaps if the financial system collapses then there will be political change.


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## JHE (Sep 29, 2011)

articul8 said:


> Now? Dreadful. But how about asking what barriers to a successful left alternative could be lifted?



Yes, OK, let's ask that too - and also: How could they be lifted?

I think there would first have to be a credible left programme.  If there were one, it probably would then be very possible to build a credible party.  In other words, I think the biggest problem is the absence of a popular destination and half-decent map showing how to get there, not the current absence of an adequate vehicle in which to make the journey.


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## articul8 (Sep 30, 2011)

So what would a "credible left programme" need, in your view?


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## SpineyNorman (Sep 30, 2011)

"Repatriation" of Muslamics probably.


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## DotCommunist (Sep 30, 2011)

JHE said:


> Yes, OK, let's ask that too - and also: How could they be lifted?
> 
> I think there would first have to be a credible left programme. If there were one, it probably would then be very possible to build a credible party. In other words, I think the biggest problem is the absence of a popular destination and half-decent map showing how to get there, not the current absence of an adequate vehicle in which to make the journey.



Perhaps the map could be given away free with every subscription to the new party newspaper


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## SpineyNorman (Sep 30, 2011)

This just proves that the left is stuck in the past - maps are just so last century - I bet the Tories all have political satnavs.


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## frogwoman (Sep 30, 2011)

articul8 said:


> So what would a "credible left programme" need, in your view?



dunno, maybe he can go on a march ...


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## articul8 (Sep 30, 2011)

eh?


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## SpineyNorman (Sep 30, 2011)

articul8 said:


> eh?



JHE yesterday:


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## JHE (Sep 30, 2011)

articul8 said:


> So what would a "credible left programme" need, in your view?



A believable account of a workable socialist future!

Leave aside the poor showing of this or that sect or odd lash-up. The problem is much bigger. There are fewer people in Britain who believe in a socialist future than at any time in my lifetime, probably fewer than at any time in more than a century. Among the younger generation, it is not usually a matter of disagreeing with socialist ideas. They have no notion of socialism. Is the idea dying out?

The remnants of the left either (a) want something like the set-up which existed in the putatively socialist countries, though this is unattractive to most people (and the supporters of this line are in many cases dying out fast, anyway) or (b) talk about socialism as if there had not been major, albeit illiberal and undemocratic, attempts to create functioning planned, publically owned economies (that was all capitalism really, y'see, so it tells us nothing about what will work after our revolution) and, especially in the case of the poor old Social Workers, don't even believe in explaining how it would work because the workers' councils will work it all out on the night. Obviously, neither approach has much success at creating socialists.


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## JHE (Sep 30, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> "Repatriation" of Muslamics probably.



Compulsory 'gap years' for Dhimmi-Trots in some Sharia-imposing Islamodump!  We can just hope that the poor Trotlets are not mistaken for godless commies and put to death.


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## SpineyNorman (Sep 30, 2011)

JHE said:


> Compulsory 'gap years' for Dhimmi-Trots in some Sharia-imposing Islamodump! We can just hope that the poor Trotlets are not mistaken for godless commies and put to death.



I'm going on a march, cos I want Britain to be about British!


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## ayatollah (Sep 30, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> I'm going on a march, cos I want Britain to be about British!



13 years of formal education and this gibberish is the best you can come up with !
Write out 2000 times:

"I am an ignorant  Nazi bonehead and noone will take me seriously unless I can express myself properly".


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## JHE (Sep 30, 2011)

Don't be so mean to poor old SpinelessNorman.  He was trying to be parodic, bless 'im.


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## SpineyNorman (Oct 1, 2011)

Spineless Norman - I see what you've done there, never heard that one before. It's nearly as funny as the way you apply the prefix "islamo" and the suffixes "ladesh" and "istan" on words. If only I was a Breivikite I'd be "funny" too.


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## Sasaferrato (Oct 1, 2011)

I'm surprised that there wasn't a stall at the Labour party conference where union members who are financing the Labour party could line up to have ' mug ' tattooed on their forehead. What the fuck are the unions thinking about? They are supplying about 80% of Labour's finance, yet seem happy to bend over and take it up the arse.


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## ItWillNeverWork (Oct 1, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> I'm going on a march, cos I want Britain to be about British!



I always heard him as saying "...cos I want Britain to be _back_ British". Somehow that made it a bit funnier.


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## trevhagl (Oct 1, 2011)

you can't really blame the poor for not voting when all 3 main parties hate them with a passion and want to destroy the welfare state


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## ayatollah (Oct 1, 2011)

JHE said:


> Don't be so mean to poor old SpinelessNorman. He was trying to be parodic, bless 'im.



Sorry SpineyNorman. Like all Americans (so it's said)  I obviously dont "do" irony. Detention  and lines  postponed.


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## Sasaferrato (Oct 1, 2011)

Poor old Labour, they need a band to march behind and they get a thousandth of one.


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## JHE (Oct 1, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> Spineless Norman - I see what you've done there, never heard that one before. It's nearly as funny as the way you apply the prefix "islamo" and the suffixes "ladesh" and "istan" on words. If only I was a Breivikite I'd be "funny" too.



Awww... Come on, Spineless.  You _are_ funny!

1.  It's funny that, on a thread about socialism and whether the trade unions should set up a new party, a Trot's only contribution is to have stuck up for bloody Islam!  I remember the days when Trots banged on endlessly about their programme.  Now many of you have given up on Trottery's world-historic ambitions, though you don't say so.  You just accept an undignified role as unpaid promoters of establishment Islamophilia.

2.  It's funny that such a wretched Islamophile should think himself a Marxist!  Just imagine what the scathingly sarcastic godless Dr Marx would make of such a craven creature calling himself 'Marxist'!


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## DotCommunist (Oct 1, 2011)

mocking your axe grinding is not the same as sticking up for islam is it?


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## SpineyNorman (Oct 1, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> mocking your axe grinding is not the same as sticking up for islam is it?



It is you know, it's not possible to think that both Islam and people who swallow some mental Koran fueled apocalyptic fantasy are stupid.

Strangely enough I actually agree with most of what JHE has been saying on this thread. I think what the left currently offers both in terms of descriptions of what the future society ought to look like and the means by which to get there does tend to be fairly vague. Fuck knows what the answer is though.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 1, 2011)

Dr Dolittle said:


> It's difficult to imagine such a party having much success. People are pissed off with politics generally. And political parties, whatever good intentions they might start off with, always come under increasing pressure to drop any radical ideas as they get nearer to forming a government. Germany had a Green-Socialist alliance government a few years ago, but the effects of that weren't exactly revolutionary.



Calling the SPD socialist is like using the same word to describe New Labour - entirely inaccurate. Expecting them to be revolutionary (as some Germans did) because the party had some 68ers at the top was wishful thinking on a grand scale.



> A better idea would be a big pressure group aimed at defending the interests of workers and stopping the ruling class from abusing their power. But for that to work, it would be important that they are NOT tempted to become a party. Otherwise they would end up just the same as all the others, which is exactly what happened to the Labour Party.



Doc, we're long beyond the point where this can be about "defending the interests of the workers", it has to be about any and all threatened by capital defending themselves against it. Focussing on the workers may have been a great move 150, 100 even 50 years ago, but nowadays? With the constraints on meaningful trade union activity you'd be defending the interests of a minority.


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## Dr Dolittle (Oct 1, 2011)

I thought that might come up, but I'm talking with my Marxist hat on. Nowadays, the 'workers' means just about all of us - including the 'squeezed middle' - all of us who are, as you say, "threatened by capital defending themselves against it", if I'm understanding you correctly. The middle class have been affected by declining living standards for at least ten years now, with most of them having to do the jobs previously done by at least two people. This was what Marx predicted, and we're finally starting to see it. If there's a serious organised rebellion against the abuses of capitalism, it will be the middle class who lead it, because they are the modern equivalent of the skilled working class of Marx's time.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 1, 2011)

taffboy gwyrdd said:


> if trade unionists were to try this it would have to be a lot more far reaching in appeal than just to their own kind.



I presume you mean other workers?



> We have done left parties round and round here for many years. I think there is room for one, separate from the Green Party, and getting the SWPs heads round that would not be easy.



Who gives a dogs cock what the Swappies can get their head around? Look at their record, for fucks sake. They give the kiss of death to just about any endeavour they get involved in that won't allow itself to be used as an SWP front.



> But it is the Labour left who would need to be attracted too.



The "Labour left" is a rump, not just in parliament, but in the constituencies. The old lefties have given up, and there's no new blood taking their place because frankly if you're interested in politics as a vehicle for beneficial social change, then Labour, even it's remaining left, won't inspire you much.



> LRC has a not dis similar amount of members to the Green Party.



Not many, then.



> Although the SPD/Green coalition in Germany wasn't especially radical, it should be noted that specific greenleft parties have made some decent progress in Iceland and Denmark.



Both countries that have small populations, and a far greater individual and community involvement in local and national politics, too. The simple fact is that here can't be like there because there is no mechanism available for "us" to garner meaningful representation from "them". The Danes and the Icelandic *do* have such mechanisms, we have barely any chance, with or without a "new left-leaning party", to secure such mechanisms for ourselves. That's what parliamentary democracy does - gives the illusion of democracy, so that we're free to sit and complain, but can't actually change anything unless it's a change "they" want rather than "us".



> Overall, a non party movement as Dr Dolittle suggests, might well be a good idea too, but the function of an electoral political party is different and that function probably still needs attending to.



Fine, but non-party movements tend to run on either specific issues or on "single issues". What's your proposed angle?


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## Hocus Eye. (Oct 1, 2011)

Sadly I think you are right Violent Panda. I was one of the 'old lefties'. I never see any of the others I knew, these days. We have all given up on politics.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 1, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> The problem is the poor don't vote so the politicians need to appeal to the people who do.



An admirably astute train of thought marred only by the fact that it's mind-fuckingly inaccurate.

The problem is that those members of "the poor" who don't vote (and an average of around 40% nationally DO, higher in Scotland and Wales) have no incentive to vote for anyone because under our current political system their votes are meaningless as devices for securing any gains for "the poor". Politics has shifted from (roughly) a social democracy approach where elements of capitalism and socialism existed (mostly uncomfortably) side-by-side, to an approach informed by neo-liberal economics, and exemplified by consumption - you are what you own. Rather than being defined by your achievements, you're now defined by what you accumulate. Don't have a smartphone? Then you're a nobody etc etc.

As for politicians needing to appeal to those who do vote, it's far worse than that: They only have to put any real eefort into reaching swing-voters in marginals, the rest just needs keeping an eye on.
Sad, but our governance depends on a couple of hundred thousand people who oscillate wildly across the political spectrum, depending on what bribes they're offered.



> I have given up with politics for this very reason.



No, you've've given up on politics because it has no meaning and no benefit for you, just like "the poor" you're talking about.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 1, 2011)

Termite Man said:


> I don't know which came first, the poor not voting or the main parties moving away from the poor. Either way they are not represented and as such have become apathetic.


 
The numbers, excluding flukes like "the Falklands factor" or the 1997 landslide, tend to show the drift away from political engagement happening across the social spectrum (bearing in mind that from the late 1960s-onward the whole "voting with your class" issue had started to dissolve). As fewer and fewer realise any direct or indirect benefit from one or another political party governing, so fewer vote, and more feel distrust.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 1, 2011)

jiggajagga said:


> All the mainstream parties come out with helping the 'squeezed middle' don't they? If that is so it leaves a bloated top ( which the Tories look after ) and a bloated bottom who.......just who _*IS*_ looking out for the bloated bottom?



The whole "we'll help those in the squeezed middle" _schtick_ is a phantom anyway. You're looking at a few feelgood policy ideas and a restatement of (so-called) values, that's all. What would help "the squeezed middle" (and everyone else except Capital) is making those who smashed the economy pay to rebuild it.

That won't happen.



> If no-one is looking out for them then I suppose they will have to look out for themselves ( see; riots )



It's been that way as long as I can remember, mate. I first got involved in local politics as a teenager, in 1976, and it's the same now as it was then - you can only trust establishment politicians, even the "decent ones", to do one thing: Shit on you if it means perpetuating the state and assisting Capital and its' -ism.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 1, 2011)

Hocus Eye. said:


> It is a mistake to think that the Trade Unions are on the left of politics. Within the Labour Party they have always voted to the right. Just because the tabloids throughout the post war period in attacking the trade unions by saying that they were communist controlled doesn't mean that the average trade unionist is communist or even on the left of the Labour Party. The hierarchical structure of the trade unions was a mirror of that within ownership and management of the industrial workplaces when these were the dominant employers. The trade unions originally founded the Labour Party to represent their interests but once it was created it had a life of its own and it was ruled by people who were part of the ruling class, if perhaps non-conformist. The Labour Party itself has never been particularly left wing except for a brief period after WWII. Even they they were just enacting policies that had been worked out during the war by middle-class educated idealists. That was a good thing because it created the Welfare State, which was so popular that even the Tories left it in place after winning the subsequent election.
> 
> The influence of idealist reformers has gone now. The word 'reform' has itself changed meaning. It used to be used to suggest an improvement for the oppressed or disadvantaged. Now 'reform' is a weasel word meaning strike out against anything that impedes the rich and powerful and the vested interests of international Capital.
> 
> As for the Trade Unions I think everyone who works should join their trade union and become an active member. The trade unions are very useful pressure groups and still do lots of good work in protecting the interests of working people operating within the laws. As for creating or changing those laws, this is the job of MPs but a vote for an MP does not influence their policies, they are controlled by patronage within the party. In any case change in the laws is not going to happen directly through Parliament any more. Even if by some strange change of fortunes there was a majority in Parliament for a trade union sympathetic party, old or new, the power of law is not within any one country any more. Our laws and that of all the countries within the EU are made within the European Parliament. The only relationship our Parliament has with the EU is one of subservience. I am not being Nationalist here. You can vote for an MEP but have no influence over policy. In its turn the EU Parliament is entirely under the control of international bankers and massive multinational companies whose purview is not just the EU but the whole world. Currently the media are reporting what the IMF is saying about European and World economic policies. Our various governments under all political persuasions will do exactly what the IMF wants. Who voted IMF in any election ever?



Well said.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 1, 2011)

ayatollah said:


> Why don't we wait for the backwash from the future ELECTION results as the by election disasters for the Lib Dems and Labour build up, and the results of the next General Election, before making such emphatic pronouncements. Early days yet in the ever deepening world capitalist meltdown to be making such "Nothing will ever change with the major parties" statements.



Yep, let's sit and wait and see, thumbs up our collective arses and silly grins on our faces. 



> You do "geddit" that we are in the most serious, and ever-deepening systemic world economic crisis since the 1930's dont you Buchersapron ? There's no quick fixes with this one , at the individual political party level never mind at the level of the individual nation state.



And why exactly are we in that crisis? What has been done to treat the cause of the crisis? I'll tell you what, the political equivalent of sticking an elastoplast on a sucking wound.

Do you "geddit" that because of the neo-liberal turn of politics, people at the bottom don't even have the pretence of a defence against what is already happening, let alone what is to come? This isn't about individual parties and states, it's about, eventually, living free, or living under (if you're privileged to live in a "democracy") the velvet glove concealing an iron fist that often won't hesitate to "amend" your rights to do anything that might threaten it.


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## ayatollah (Oct 1, 2011)

Hocus Eye. said:


> Sadly I think you are right Violent Panda. I was one of the 'old lefties'. I never see any of the others I knew, these days. We have all given up on politics.



There's an awful lot of world weary pessimism and cynicism on here ... and obviously for good reason . I'm an old 70's Lefty too - finally so pissed off by the late 80's by the "Life of Brian " reenactment society antics of the Left that I gave up and "had a life" away from political activism. But , bloody hell, the much trumpeted "crisis of capitalism" we all blethered on about as young bright eyed socialists , fruitlessly, since 1945, is FINALLY HERE ! Only a mass Left isn't of course... it diminished in the interim to a handful of sad zealots...bloody typical of us all !

But we all better get off our collective arses and simply RESIST by whatever means we can, at local , national. and trades union levels , because if we don't , we are all going to suffer the 25%+ drop in living standards the capitalist class are quite openly lining up for us all. I simply don't know if viable new formal and informal political/campaigning organisations can be formed as the crisis deepens ... but I get some hope from seeing the spontaneous rising of resistance in the Arab states in the "Arab Spring events " (Though of course with the exception of Libya the bulk of the regimes are still there). Nevertheless , remembering the success of the anti poll tax campaign, and hoping that faced with collective and personal ruin we will eventually collectively start to RESIST in a myriad of ways against the cuts , I refuse to retreat to the saloon bar and weep at the hopelessness of it all. For instance I'll be demonstrating tomorrow in Manchester outside the Tory Conference with thousands of others. Useless ? Possibly, but at least we'll get some satisfaction of we can worry the bastards !


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 1, 2011)

Dr Dolittle said:


> I thought that might come up, but I'm talking with my Marxist hat on. Nowadays, the 'workers' means just about all of us - including the 'squeezed middle' - all of us who are, as you say, "threatened by capital defending themselves against it", if I'm understanding you correctly. The middle class have been affected by declining living standards for at least ten years now, with most of them having to do the jobs previously done by at least two people. This was what Marx predicted, and we're finally starting to see it. If there's a serious organised rebellion against the abuses of capitalism, it will be the middle class who lead it, because they are the modern equivalent of the skilled working class of Marx's time.



Marx predicted it, Jack London wrote a very funny (in my opinion anyway ! ) explanation of why that'll never happen in "The Iron Heel". The middle classes, because of who they are, because of their drive for status, for some distinction from the masses, will almost always, except for isolated members, go with the forces of reaction rather than revolution, even though it's obvious that doing so will eventually crush them.
I realise that sounds a bit gloomy, but the middle classes have pissed on the poor so often through the course of history that on a worldwide basis we tend to loathe them even more than we loathe the ruling classes, modern-day equivalents to the artisan class or not.

I do take your point, I'm just not particularly sanguine that the middle classes will ever realise that making common cause with us makes sense, when it means destabilisation of everything many of them hold dear - relative status and power compared to "the common herd", even if it is transient.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 1, 2011)

Hocus Eye. said:


> Sadly I think you are right Violent Panda. I was one of the 'old lefties'. I never see any of the others I knew, these days. We have all given up on politics.



Streathamite and I were discussing our own experiences too. Same thing, and those that did stay in post-Blair's demolition of any retence of socialism burned themselves out trying to keep their constituencies alive once the membership rolls started free-falling. Some haven't given up on politics _per se_, but merely on party politics, but even so, there was a wealth of knowledge and compassion there that the Labour party pissed away when it decided to follow the money trail.


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## Dr Dolittle (Oct 1, 2011)

The MOD, apparently, don't share Violent Panda's view of the middle classes not going along with the common cause. My optimistic take is based partly on this report leaked by the Guardian a few years ago. Note the fourth paragraph, sub-headed 'Marxism'.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/apr/09/frontpagenews.news?INTCMP=SRCH


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## Dr Dolittle (Oct 1, 2011)

Not that I'm a Marxist in the strictly conventional sense. I call myself a Marxist sympathiser - agreeing with some but not all of what Marxists say. Years ago, back in the 80s, I was involved in Militant, but even then I was sceptical about what they could achieve. It's clearer now than it was then that the Left were fighting a losing battle. But that was in the Thatcher days, and a lot has changed since then. Not that I'm likely to resume political activism: I'm too old, I haven't got the energy. But I wish the youth good luck.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 1, 2011)

ayatollah said:


> There's an awful lot of world weary pessimism and cynicism on here ... and obviously for good reason . I'm an old 70's Lefty too - finally so pissed off by the late 80's by the "Life of Brian " reenactment society antics of the Left that I gave up and "had a life" away from political activism. But , bloody hell, the much trumpeted "crisis of capitalism" we all blethered on about as young bright eyed socialists , fruitlessly, since 1945, is FINALLY HERE ! Only a mass Left isn't of course... it diminished in the interim to a handful of sad zealots...bloody typical of us all !



*This* "crisis of capitalism" has been here for nigh on 40 years, mate, and if you are indeed an old lefty, you'll know why there's only a bewildered (and often bewildering) rump left. If you legislate away the ability of unions to take action, they become a tradition rather than a socially-relevant organisation. If you tie unions to political parties (as happens virtually everywhere), you inhibit action by introducing a brake on change.



> But we all better get off our collective arses and simply RESIST by whatever means we can, at local , national. and trades union levels , because if we don't , we are all going to suffer the 25%+ drop in living standards the capitalist class are quite openly lining up for us all. I simply don't know if viable new formal and informal political/campaigning organisations can be formed as the crisis deepens ... but I get some hope from seeing the spontaneous rising of resistance in the Arab states in the "Arab Spring events " (Though of course with the exception of Libya the bulk of the regimes are still there). Nevertheless , remembering the success of the anti poll tax campaign, and hoping that faced with collective and personal ruin we will eventually collectively start to RESIST in a myriad of ways against the cuts , I refuse to retreat to the saloon bar and weep at the hopelessness of it all. For instance I'll be demonstrating tomorrow in Manchester outside the Tory Conference with thousands of others. Useless ? Possibly, but at least we'll get some satisfaction of we can worry the bastards !



The cuts are coming whoever sits in the Palace of Westminster. As I said earlier, we have no legal or licit mechanisms through which to prevent them. That means that people have (to their own minds) more to lose from resistance than compliance - resist and you could possibly end up in prison, comply and you'll suffer the cuts, but you'll still have your (relative) liberty. Things will need to a lot shittier before a Poll Tax riot or Arab Spring moment, direct threats such as the tuition fee rises, not nebulous local authority or police service spending cuts, and who disseminates the information about these threats? Who mediates the message between the threat and the reportage of it, "us" or "them"?


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 1, 2011)

Dr Dolittle said:


> The MOD, apparently, don't share Violent Panda's view of the middle classes not going along with the common cause. My optimistic take is based partly on this report leaked by the Guardian a few years ago. Note the fourth paragraph, sub-headed 'Marxism'.
> 
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/apr/09/frontpagenews.news?INTCMP=SRCH



I remember reading that when it was first leaked. It was pretty much a belated echo of the sort of stuff Rand were producing and feeding to Rep and Dem politicians during Clinton's tenure. You basically work out where you want money to go, and then find a way to "sell" a threat that will have money spent on it. For Clinton that meant increased defence spending (obviously) but also increased Federal Emergency powers and funding to states for "internal security", here, it meant expanding spending on surveillance capabilities, both personnel and materiel.
History doesn't agree with that report, unfortunately for the authors. While elements of the middle classes become radicalised, the mass don't. The mass favour inertia, stability, the _status quo_.


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## ayatollah (Oct 2, 2011)

Just picked up more gems from your endless pessimism ViolentPanda on my laptop whilst endlessly waiting around in a HUGE demo on the way to confront the Tory Conference in Manchester. No ViolentPanda capitalism hasn't been "in crisis for 40 years" ...it was actually in generally upward growth mode since WWII... the current world-wide systemic crisis only started in 2008. Why do you waste your time spreading your hopeless , weary worldly-wise saloon bar pessimism on this thread, why don't you just slit your wrists and spare us all your pathetic whining !

Anyone who wants a realtime update on this great demo have a look at the Socialist Worker website, now and during the day.


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## Sasaferrato (Oct 2, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> An admirably astute train of thought marred only by the fact that it's mind-fuckingly inaccurate.
> 
> The problem is that those members of "the poor" who don't vote (and an average of around 40% nationally DO, higher in Scotland and Wales) have no incentive to vote for anyone because under our current political system their votes are meaningless as devices for securing any gains for "the poor". Politics has shifted from (roughly) a social democracy approach where elements of capitalism and socialism existed (mostly uncomfortably) side-by-side, to an approach informed by neo-liberal economics, and exemplified by consumption - you are what you own. Rather than being defined by your achievements, you're now defined by what you accumulate. Don't have a smartphone? Then you're a nobody etc etc.
> 
> ...


 
' The Poor ' have a vote, just like those whom you would designate as ' not poor '. I suspect we would disagree as to the definition of poor, in my view, in Britain, we have those who are less well off, but by the standards of third world poverty, are actually quite well off. The point at issue with poverty is where society chooses to draw the financial line.

One person, one vote and a plethora of political divisions. In Scotland this is less of an issue, the loonie left picks up a seat or two in the Scottish ' Parliament ', but does not return a single mP to Westminster. The left needs to stop the whining and navel gazing and unite behind a single candidate. Forget the Marxist, Stalinist, Anarchist etc tossers, and combine the votes behind a credible candidate. At the moment the left is getting precisely what it deserves, fuck all.


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## TremulousTetra (Oct 2, 2011)

taffboy gwyrdd said:


> if trade unionists were to try this it would have to be a lot more far reaching in appeal than just to their own kind. We have done left parties round and round here for many years. I think there is room for one, separate from the Green Party, and getting the SWPs heads round that would not be easy. But it is the Labour left who would need to be attracted too. LRC has a not dis similar amount of members to the Green Party.
> 
> Although the SPD/Green coalition in Germany wasn't especially radical, it should be noted that specific greenleft parties have made some decent progress in Iceland and Denmark.
> 
> Overall, a non party movement as Dr Dolittle suggests, might well be a good idea too, but the function of an electoral political party is different and that function probably still needs attending to.


As an X-SWP, I agree with all your comments there, which make your comments about the SWP not being able to get their head round it puzzling. What did you mean?


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## TremulousTetra (Oct 2, 2011)

Sasaferrato said:


> ' The Poor ' have a vote, just like those whom you would designate as ' not poor '. I suspect we would disagree as to the definition of poor, in my view, in Britain, we have those who are less well off, but by the standards of third world poverty, are actually quite well off. The point at issue with poverty is where society chooses to draw the financial line.


you are just side stepping his point though, not dealing with it.



> One person, one vote and a plethora of political divisions. In Scotland this is less of an issue, the loonie left picks up a seat or two in the Scottish ' Parliament ', but does not return a single mP to Westminster. The left needs to stop the whining and navel gazing and unite behind a single candidate. Forget the Marxist, Stalinist, Anarchist etc tossers, and combine the votes behind a credible candidate. At the moment the left is getting precisely what it deserves, fuck all.


I would put it the other way round.  " At the moment the working-class is getting precisely what it deserves, fuck all." ONLY when the working class takes control of its destiny, ACTS,will it get something different.


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## Sasaferrato (Oct 2, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> you are just side stepping his point though, not dealing with it.
> 
> I would put it the other way round. " At the moment the working-class is getting precisely what it deserves, fuck all." ONLY when the working class takes control of its destiny, ACTS,will it get something different.



It is well beyond my scope to define where the line should be drawn as to what is poverty. I would regards the absence of:

Affordable housing
Enough to eat
A washing machie
Fridge
Vacuum cleaner
Televison
Telephone and internet
At least a basic cable or satellite subscription
Cooker with oven
Adequate heating

as meaning that someone was in poverty, others would add and subtract to the list. I regard the TV subscription as being an essential because when you cannot afford to go out, TV is virtually the only entertainment and stimulus.

You are correct regarding the left, working class, whatever. Until there is unity and endorsement of a single candidate, the left is going nowhere. You also really need a new leader, I would not be so presumptuous as to suggest whom, but Balls or Cooper would be little better than Milliband.

I am genuinely sad to see the death of the Labour party, in its heyday it was an institution that was working for the betterment of the ordinary person. That went with Blair, or perhaps even before then.


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## TremulousTetra (Oct 2, 2011)

Sasaferrato said:


> It is well beyond my scope to define where the line should be drawn as to what is poverty. I would regards the absence of:
> 
> Affordable housing
> Enough to eat
> ...


I'm sorry, I can see now you are genuinely misunderstanding the main point, rather than sidestepping it.
It doesn't matter how you define poor, how many there are, whether they had them items on your list or not, there would still not be any significant political choice between any of the parties on offer, and so no reason to vote. That is main point. [Though there is some debate also about your definition of poor, in the 1950s and 60s we didn't have such abundanceof many of those things on your list, but were still arguably richer.]


> You are correct regarding the left, working class, whatever. Until there is unity and endorsement of a single candidate, the left is going nowhere. You also really need a new leader, I would not be so presumptuous as to suggest whom, but Balls or Cooper would be little better than Milliband.
> 
> I am genuinely sad to see the death of the Labour party, in its heyday it was an institution that was working for the betterment of the ordinary person. That went with Blair, or perhaps even before then.


 wouldn't the working class getting enough unity, to take power and deliver it to the likes of Balls and Cooper, just be repeating the mistakes of the past? Wouldn't it be better for ordinary people to take power for themselves rather than politicians, with their track record?


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 2, 2011)

ayatollah said:


> Just picked up more gems from your endless pessimism ViolentPanda on my laptop whilst endlessly waiting around in a HUGE demo on the way to confront the Tory Conference in Manchester.



Bully for you. Off you go to shout your slogans and wave your placards.

Ineffectively.

Again.



> No ViolentPanda capitalism hasn't been "in crisis for 40 years" ...it was actually in generally upward growth mode since WWII...



40 years takes us back to the early 1970s, when that "generally-upward growth mode" you're blabbering about was kicked in the arse by, successively, the Nixon administration ceasing dollar convertability to gold, which in turn fed into the effects of the 1973 oil-shock and which both contributed, at separate times, to the two year-long worldwide bear market of 1973-'74. The effects of all these events contributed to a crisis of capitalism that fueled the political acceptance in supposed social democracies of a neo-liberal "solution" to that crisis. The crisis has never gone away. It is, in fact, *perpetuated* by an adherence to neo-liberal economic doctrine, as can be seen from an examination of most market and social failures over the last 40 years.



> ...the current world-wide systemic crisis only started in 2008.



It came to a head in 2008. It didn't start then.



> Why do you waste your time spreading your hopeless , weary worldly-wise saloon bar pessimism on this thread, why don't you just slit your wrists and spare us all your pathetic whining !



I don't spread pessimism, I take a view, one that is informed not by adherence to a particular political dogma.

As for slashing my wrists, why would I do that when what I say riles a no-mark like you enough to call on me to commit suicide?


> Anyone who wants a realtime update on this great demo have a look at the Socialist Worker website, now and during the day.



Says it all, really.


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## Sasaferrato (Oct 2, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> I'm sorry, I can see now you are genuinely misunderstanding the main point, rather than sidestepping it.
> It doesn't matter how you define poor, how many there are, whether they had them items on your list or not, there would still not be any significant political choice between any of the parties on offer, and so no reason to vote. That is main point. [Though there is some debate also about your definition of poor, in the 1950s and 60s we didn't have such abundanceof many of those things on your list, but were still arguably richer.]
> wouldn't the working class getting enough unity, to take power and deliver it to the likes of Balls and Cooper, just be repeating the mistakes of the past? Wouldn't it be better for ordinary people to take power for themselves rather than politicians, with their track record?



You will wait a long time before there is a revolution, armed or otherwise, in Britain. We have a parliamentary democracy. To change things, you need to get your people elected, not an easy task, but not impossible.

The formation of a new left leaning party would need to start soon, and to do so, with any hope of success, you need to get the disparate groups under one banner.

Good luck.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 2, 2011)

Sasaferrato said:


> ' The Poor ' have a vote, just like those whom you would designate as ' not poor '. I suspect we would disagree as to the definition of poor, in my view, in Britain, we have those who are less well off, but by the standards of third world poverty, are actually quite well off. The point at issue with poverty is where society chooses to draw the financial line.
> 
> One person, one vote and a plethora of political divisions. In Scotland this is less of an issue, the loonie left picks up a seat or two in the Scottish ' Parliament ', but does not return a single mP to Westminster. The left needs to stop the whining and navel gazing and unite behind a single candidate. Forget the Marxist, Stalinist, Anarchist etc tossers, and combine the votes behind a credible candidate. At the moment the left is getting precisely what it deserves, fuck all.



You've entirely missed my point, old son, which isn't about whether left or right is best, it's about a political culture that has progressively alienated people, left or right, from engaging with it. That people who have less, who may exist in poorer conditions, may be more alienated, less likely to vote, should be a cause for concern, yet it isn't, because our votes don't matter, our say doesn't matter.

You talk about creible candidates, but there aren't any, there are merely different flavours of the same pile of bullshit. *\you* may be unable to see the same neo-liberal principles behind the policies of every party, but plenty of others do.


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## Sasaferrato (Oct 2, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> *This* "crisis of capitalism" has been here for nigh on 40 years, mate, and if you are indeed an old lefty, you'll know why there's only a bewildered (and often bewildering) rump left. If you legislate away the ability of unions to take action, they become a tradition rather than a socially-relevant organisation. If you tie unions to political parties (as happens virtually everywhere), you inhibit action by introducing a brake on change.
> 
> The cuts are coming whoever sits in the Palace of Westminster. As I said earlier, we have no legal or licit mechanisms through which to prevent them. That means that people have (to their own minds) more to lose from resistance than compliance - resist and you could possibly end up in prison, comply and you'll suffer the cuts, but you'll still have your (relative) liberty. Things will need to a lot shittier before a Poll Tax riot or Arab Spring moment, direct threats such as the tuition fee rises, not nebulous local authority or police service spending cuts, and who disseminates the information about these threats? Who mediates the message between the threat and the reportage of it, "us" or "them"?



So you feel that the uprising from support for the naked greed of students protesting against fee rises? I don't think so. Go to Harvard if you don't like it here, fees £25k a year _upfront, _not after you are earning £21k a year. No student pays a penny until after graduation, not that you would realise that from their mendacious statements. The bare faced cheek of those people, they expect the taxes of the poor to go giving them a university education, which leads to salaries which are multiples of those whom they expect to feather bed them.


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## fogbat (Oct 2, 2011)

Yep. You've got all the cliches in there. Well done.


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## TremulousTetra (Oct 2, 2011)

please forgive me editing your post.





ayatollah said:


> Just picked up more gems from your endless pessimism ViolentPanda on my laptop whilst endlessly waiting around in a HUGE demo on the way to confront the Tory Conference in Manchester. Why do you waste your time spreading your hopeless , weary worldly-wise saloon bar pessimism on this thread, why don't you just slit your wrists and spare us all your pathetic whining !
> 
> Anyone who wants a realtime update on this great demo have a look at the Socialist Worker website, now and during the day.




he's not pessimistic, he has an alternative which he feels would be more fruitful. Unfortunately I am unaware of any meaningful manifestation of that alternative in the UK.


> No ViolentPanda capitalism hasn't been "in crisis for 40 years" ...it was actually in generally upward growth mode since WWII... the current world-wide systemic crisis only started in 2008.


have a look at the Socialist worker website, and its affiliate's, and you will see they too believe capitalism has been in crisis's for 40 years.in fact, it's a bit of a pedantic point and arbitrary, but from memory they place the date of the end of the post-war boom as 1972, and I think it was the Bretton Woods Agreement.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 2, 2011)

Sasaferrato said:


> So you feel that the uprising from support for the naked greed of students protesting against fee rises? I don't think so. Go to Harvard if you don't like it here, fees £25k a year _upfront, _not after you are earning £21k a year. No student pays a penny until after graduation, not that you would realise that from their mendacious statements. The bare faced cheek of those people, they expect the taxes of the poor to go giving them a university education, which leads to salaries which are multiples of those whom they expect to feather bed them.



You're again missing the point.

We have this thing called a social compact. It's basically an agreement between the governed and those that govern that in return for certain considerations, the governed submit to governance.

With me so far, Methuselah?

In the case of those students, they (and their parents and sometimes grandparents) have been brought up to believe that the system works a certain way - that if, for example, you achieve good results and wish to go to uni, that your tertiary education will be subsidised. This was the way of things from the early 1950s all the way into the 1990s. For you to define a desire to receive the same assistance their parents and grandparents might have received as "greed" is an egregious misuse of the word.

Will the likes of your Mr Cameron, and Mr. Osborne be paying for their (state-subsidised) stays at Oxbridge? Or the likes of many of the previous administrations? Of course they won't, and yet it's perfectly alright to change the rules unilaterally because the banks have blown the economy and no politician has a big enough pair to stand up to their paymasters?

As many of your fellow-countrymen might say, "get away tae fuck, ya choob".


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 2, 2011)

fogbat said:


> Yep. You've got all the cliches in there. Well done.



He did indeed. It was like wading through bullshit soup.


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## TremulousTetra (Oct 2, 2011)

Sasaferrato said:


> You will wait a long time before there is a revolution, armed or otherwise, in Britain. We have a parliamentary democracy. To change things, you need to get your people elected, not an easy task, but not impossible.
> 
> The formation of a new left leaning party would need to start soon, and to do so, with any hope of success, you need to get the disparate groups under one banner.
> 
> Good luck.


You trust politicians, nobody else does.literally nobody.

your argument was the same argument made to justify slavery, 'it's always been this way'.


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## TremulousTetra (Oct 2, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> He did indeed. It was like wading through bullshit soup.


God VP,you never used to be so rancorous. Just ignore people who get on your nerves mate, [including me  ]


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 2, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> please forgive me editing your post.
> 
> 
> he's not pessimistic, he has an alternative which he feels would be more fruitful. Unfortunately I am unaware of any meaningful manifestation of that alternative in the UK.
> have a look at the Socialist worker website, and its affiliate's, and you will see they too believe capitalism has been in crisis's for 40 years.in fact, it's a bit of a pedantic point and arbitrary, but from memory they place the date of the end of the post-war boom as 1972, and I think it was the Bretton Woods Agreement.



'71, as I mentioned in my reply to the self-styled "Ayatollah", and it was the *ending* of the Bretton Woods agreement that arguably started the ball rolling, although the economic fundamentals even then weren't particularly robust (which was, of course, one of the reasons Nixon's administration decided to "bust" the agreement).


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 2, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> God VP,you never used to be so rancorous. Just ignore people who get on your nerves mate, [including me  ]



I only show Sas rancour because I care, you know. Sometimes one has to be cruel to be kind.


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## TremulousTetra (Oct 2, 2011)

Sasaferrato said:


> So you feel that the uprising from support for the naked greed of students protesting against fee rises? I don't think so. Go to Harvard if you don't like it here, fees £25k a year _upfront, _not after you are earning £21k a year. No student pays a penny until after graduation, not that you would realise that from their mendacious statements. The bare faced cheek of those people, they expect the taxes of the poor to go giving them a university education, which leads to salaries which are multiples of those whom they expect to feather bed them.


you'll remember this. Remember when we had apprenticeships? Well we still have them today, but now they are not on the job paid for by the bosses, they are paid for by the taxpayer as workers acquire those skills at college. In other words, the bosses don't mind nationalisation when it suits them.

from Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair we paid through taxation for their education,so that big business could have a better quality workforce from which it could make better quality profits.

So all we are seeing in both cases is business shifting cost of producing a better quality workforce from itself, to the people.


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## TremulousTetra (Oct 2, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> I only show Sas rancour because I care, you know. Sometimes one has to be cruel to be kind.


that's up to you mate. Personally, I cannot see the point. Have a nice day.


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## Blagsta (Oct 3, 2011)

Sasaferrato said:


> So you feel that the uprising from support for the naked greed of students protesting against fee rises? I don't think so. Go to Harvard if you don't like it here, fees £25k a year _upfront, _not after you are earning £21k a year. No student pays a penny until after graduation, not that you would realise that from their mendacious statements. The bare faced cheek of those people, they expect the taxes of the poor to go giving them a university education, which leads to salaries which are multiples of those whom they expect to feather bed them.


Those big salaries will pay more tax and pay for their education won't they?


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## DotCommunist (Oct 3, 2011)

Sass makes a good point, the tax burden on low earners is too onerous, we should reduce it and fund higher education through heavier business taxation and lower the point where individuals come into the 50p tax bracket. Suprised to see him on the side of wealth redistribution of this kind but these are strange times.


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## SpineyNorman (Oct 3, 2011)

Of course the reality is that the poorest tend to be net beneficiaries when it comes to taxes and what they're spent on so to say universities are paid for by the taxes of the poor is displays either ignorance or dishonesty. I'll let Sasaferrato tell us which.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 3, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> Of course the reality is that the poorest tend to be net beneficiaries when it comes to taxes and what they're spent on so to say universities are paid for by the taxes of the poor is displays either ignorance or dishonesty. I'll let Sasaferrato tell us which.



It might be both, you know!


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## frogwoman (Oct 3, 2011)

they are both the scrounging recipients of taxpayers' money, and they also are paying for more scroungers to go to university (heaven forbid poor people go to university, that is not possible)


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 3, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> they are both the scrounging recipients of taxpayers' money, and they also are paying for more scroungers to go to university (heaven forbid poor people go to university, that is not possible)



Fucking moochers!! 

They should be like Sass, own their own property*, pay their taxes and be scrupulously financially honest**!! 

*Bought at a discount rate from the local authority, though, an option that won't be extended to most youngsters.

**Because I'm sure he declares/will declare any profits he makes on his philatelic endeavours.


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## TremulousTetra (Oct 4, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> '71, as I mentioned in my reply to the self-styled "Ayatollah", and it was the *ending* of the Bretton Woods agreement that arguably started the ball rolling, although the economic fundamentals even then weren't particularly robust (which was, of course, one of the reasons Nixon's administration decided to "bust" the agreement).


yes you concur with sw on all counts. [is ayatollah sw, or fellow traveller?]


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 4, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> yes you concur with sw on all counts. [is ayatollah sw, or fellow traveller?]



Nope, I don't concur with SW, I concur with history, as does SW.


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## TremulousTetra (Oct 4, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Nope, I don't concur with SW, I concur with history, as does SW.


 LOL does it really hurt you that much to admit, on this interpretation of historic events you and SW are in agreement.

PS, my main point was to Ayatollah, that the position he was rubbishing of yours, was also the same view of the group he was touting people to look at their website. I wasn't having a go at you, if anything I was trying to assist your point.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 4, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> LOL does it really hurt you that much to admit, on this interpretation of historic events you and SW are in agreement.



I just did. You're the one who made the error of saying I concurred with SW, rather than that SW and I concurred on history. 



> PS, my main point was to Ayatollah, that the position he was rubbishing of yours, was also the same view of the group he was touting people to look at their website. I wasn't having a go at you, if anything I was trying to assist your point.



I know.


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## ayatollah (Oct 5, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> please forgive me editing your post.
> 
> 
> he's not pessimistic, he has an alternative which he feels would be more fruitful. Unfortunately I am unaware of any meaningful manifestation of that alternative in the UK.
> have a look at the Socialist worker website, and its affiliate's, and you will see they too believe capitalism has been in crisis's for 40 years.in fact, it's a bit of a pedantic point and arbitrary, but from memory they place the date of the end of the post-war boom as 1972, and I think it was the Bretton Woods Agreement.



You should read the SWP article with a bit more care. You are simply wrong about the general view on the Left of the start of the current systemic world crisis . No, other than a recurring propagandist motif on the Left about the eternal "crisis of capitalism" I think you will find that the inherent "crisis" most on the Left point to is a continuous tendancy of the FALLING RATE OF PROFIT to manifest itself from the late 1940's onwards. But ever growing productivity ( hence a rising rate of exploitation) prevented the rate of profit falling - (hence no world systemic 1930's type crisis until 2008). The 1970's break up of the Bretton Woods international monetary system is seen as a vital part of the global deregulation of capitalism , a prerequisite for both further global expansion and laying the seeds of the eventual 2008 global crisis. Despite early post war denials no-one but the most blinkered Trot was claiming by the 60's that the post WWII period hadn't represented the single longest general expansion of capitalism , and rising living standards, in world history - regardless of many short term cyclical recessions..

Most on the Left then point out the HUGE transfer of income from the mass of the population to the top 5% from the 1980's onwards as a result of Reaganite/Thatcherite "neo Liberal" deregulated globalised capitalism policies. Thus the crisis of profitability was staved off as a systemic crisis of capitalism until the financial bubble finally burst in 2008.

I think any reasonable observor should be able to detect that there is a distinct qualitative difference between the general continued expansion in world capitalist production, and in general living standards in the advanced economies up to 2008 - and the situation AFTER the CRASH post 2008 ? Apparently the IWCA doesn't think anything radically new in the world and domestic economy has happened since 2008 ? - Strange position to hold - bit of a mirror image of the old late 1940's post WWII Trot view that the final crisis was imminant - regardlless of observable reality.

*Anyone wanting to get a good view of the causes of the 2008 crash and aftermath should watch the 4 part "Meltdown" documentary on the Al Jazeera website - it's quite BRILLIANT.*

I must say the "alternative " that Violent Panda (and I assume all the IWCA crew?) are constantly trying to promote, almost by default, (since you seldom offer a succinct alternative strategy), on this URBAN website, mainly through simply rubbishing the LEFT and each and ANY initiative by Socialists against the cuts, is a non-socialist "localist activism" politics which I find hard to grasp, as a Socialist. Good luck to you though with your very special "localist" political strategy - but I fail to see how rubbishing , for instance, a demonstration of 35,000 working class people against Tory policies on Sunday, really moves the struggle forward. "Solidarity in action anyone ?

By the way just because I recommended looking at the Socialist Worker website for news on the Sunday Manchester demo doesn't in any way imply a sympathy for the SWP - any more than my recommendation of the "Meltdown " documentary on Al Jazeera should suggest any enthusiasm for the Qatari Royal family. I'm just not sectarian where I get my information from.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

ayatollah said:


> You should read the SWP article with a bit more care. You are simply wrong about the general view on the Left of the start of the current systemic world crisis . No, other than a recurring propagandist motif on the Left about the eternal "crisis of capitalism" I think you will find that the inherent "crisis" most on the Left point to is a continuous tendancy of the FALLING RATE OF PROFIT to manifest itself from the late 1940's onwards. But ever growing productivity ( hence a rising rate of exploitation) prevented the rate of profit falling - (hence no world systemic 1930's type crisis until 2008).



Depending on when you're talking about between the '40s and the '70s, market expansion was as important as "growing productivity" (which was often characterised as stagnant in the '60s and '70s) in sustaining capitalism. Now production is more heavily reliant on selling "new and improved" than on new markets.



> The 1970's break up of the Bretton Woods international trade system is seen as a vital part of the global deregulation of capitalism , a prerequisite for both further global expansion and laying the seeds of the eventual 2008 global crisis. Despite early post war denials no-one but the most blinkered Trot was claiming by the 60's that the post WWII period hadn't represented the single longest general expansion of capitalism , and rising living standards, in world history - regardless of many short term cyclical recessions..



No-one has claimed otherwise (except perhaps RMP3, and he doesn't count). A crisis of capitalism doesn't necessarily equate to a crisis *for* capitalism. It equates to a crisis for those who suffer most *under* capitalism.



> Most on the Left then point out the HUGE transfer of income from the mass of the population to the top 5% from the 1980's onwards as a result of Reaganite/Thatcherite "neo Liberal" deregulated globalised capitalism policies. Thus the crisis of profitability was staved off as a systemic crisis of capitalism until the financial bubble finally burst in 2008.



To be fair, it started *before* Reagan and Thatcher, but the policies (hah!) they adopted certainly allowed the transfer to become faster and more systemic.



> I think any reasonable observor should be able to detect that there is a distinct qualitative difference between the general continued expansion in world capitalist production, and in general living standards in the advanced economies up to 2008 - and the situation AFTER the CRASH post 2008 ? Apparently the IWCA doesn't think anything radically new in the world and domestic economy has happened since 2008 ? - Strange position to hold - bit of a mirror image of the old late 1940's post WWII Trot view that the final crisis was imminant - regardlless of observable reality.



What has happened "in the world and domestic economy" that is "new", then? Certainly not the attempts to shore up the various currencies and bail out the banks, because that's just been the same old dance to the same tired tune that's been played since the late 1880s, but most loudly in the 1930s. There are differences, sure, but they're mostly negative, so far.



> *Anyone wanting to get a good view of the causes of the 2008 crash and aftermath should watch the 4 part "Meltdown" documentary on the Al Jazeera website - it's quite BRILLIANT.*
> 
> I must say the "alternative " that Violent Panda (and I assume all the IWCA crew?...



I'm not a member of the IWCA.



> ...are constantly trying to promote, almost by default, (since you seldom offer a succinct alternative strategy), on this URBAN website, mainly through simply rubbishing the LEFT and each and ANY initiative by Socialists against the cuts...



Wrong. Show me a good initiative by whoever (let alone socialists) that has even the possibility of succeeding and I'll back it, just as if you show me political hackery and tomfoolery I'll rubbish it.



> ...is a non-socialist "localist activism" politics which I find hard to grasp, as a Socialist.



Define your brand of socialism please. That way I can unpick it and tell you where you're missing the point, given that most of the grassroots activity proposed by many autonomous lefties on this board is socialist in nature (in the ideological rather than the dogmatic meaning of the word).



> Good luck to you though with your very special "localist" political strategy - but I fail to see how rubbishing , for instance, a demonstration of 35,000 working class people against Tory policies on Sunday, really moves the struggle forward. "Solidarity in action anyone ?



Who rubbished your demonstration? I commented on your informing the board of your attendance "Bully for you. Off you go to shout your slogans and wave your placards.

Ineffectively.

Again."
That's not rubbishing your demo, that's stating a fact. Demos may make you feel good, energised, like you've done something meaningful, but they rarely are unless they're sustained week-in-week-out efforts, not just an occasional feel-good outing for the folks.


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## ayatollah (Oct 6, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Quote  "What has happened "in the world and domestic economy" that is "new", then? Certainly not the attempts to shore up the various currencies and bail out the banks, because that's just been the same old dance to the same tired tune that's been played since the late 1880s, but most loudly in the 1930s. There are differences, sure, but they're mostly negative, so far".
> 
> My reply
> 
> ...


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## TremulousTetra (Oct 6, 2011)

ayatollah said:


> The 1970's break up of the Bretton Woods international monetary system is seen as a vital part of the global deregulation of capitalism , a prerequisite for both further global expansion and laying the seeds of the eventual 2008 global crisis. Despite early post war denials no-one but the most blinkered Trot was claiming by the 60's that the post WWII period hadn't represented the single longest general expansion of capitalism , and rising living standards, in world history - regardless of many short term cyclical recessions..
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Now why just make shit up like that VP?


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## TremulousTetra (Oct 6, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Again."
> That's not rubbishing your demo, that's stating a fact. Demos may make you feel good, energised, like you've done something meaningful, but they rarely are unless they're sustained week-in-week-out efforts, not just an occasional feel-good outing for the folks.


I don't think anyone political needs this pointing out, do they?

I don't think anybody argues that marching from a to B is an end in itself, certainly not Socialist worker. They argue it is the beginning of a process, as in Rosa Luxemburg and General Strike.


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## ayatollah (Oct 6, 2011)

Give up trying to reason with ViolentPanda ,ResistanceMP3, he's a perpetual argumentalist. BUT Is he really a 15 year old Tory Troll just winding us Lefties up do you think ? I think the evidence points that way.

But you are quite right NOONE thinks demos are an end in themselves - but they build class confidence and help to raise the general momentum of the wider struggle. Nowadays every boost to class solidarity and militancy helps. I tell you being with 35,000 other like minded people in Manchester on Sunday certainly boosted MY morale.

And in a non sectarian vein - I am not a member or supporter of the SWP (expelled with the Squadists in 1981) , but it IS nowadays an excellent website for keeping up with the rising tide of struggle, (as is Al Jazeera of course). So let's use em, without having to buy into  any "agendas".


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## TremulousTetra (Oct 6, 2011)

ayatollah said:


> You should read the SWP article with a bit more care. You are simply wrong about the general view on the Left of the start of the current systemic world crisis . No, other than a recurring propagandist motif on the Left about the eternal "crisis of capitalism" I think you will find that the inherent "crisis" most on the Left point to is a continuous tendancy of the FALLING RATE OF PROFIT to manifest itself from the late 1940's onwards. But ever growing productivity ( hence a rising rate of exploitation) prevented the rate of profit falling - (hence no world systemic 1930's type crisis until 2008). The 1970's break up of the Bretton Woods international monetary system is seen as a vital part of the global deregulation of capitalism , a prerequisite for both further global expansion and laying the seeds of the eventual 2008 global crisis. Despite early post war denials no-one but the most blinkered Trot was claiming by the 60's that the post WWII period hadn't represented the single longest general expansion of capitalism , and rising living standards, in world history - regardless of many short term cyclical recessions..
> 
> Most on the Left then point out the HUGE transfer of income from the mass of the population to the top 5% from the 1980's onwards as a result of Reaganite/Thatcherite "neo Liberal" deregulated globalised capitalism policies. Thus the crisis of profitability was staved off as a systemic crisis of capitalism until the financial bubble finally burst in 2008.
> 
> ...


What I am saying is that, the economy is a process. I constantly dynamic process. So one can get a number of insignificant changes taking place, each on its own un-important, however all these quantitative changes can add up to a qualitive change in the economy.

So between 1940ISH and 1971ISH, there was a capitalism which was qualitatively different from what went before, and has happened since. Chris Harman in Explaining the Crisis suggest there was a countervailing factor to the normal rise in the organic composition of capital, and the tendency for the rate of property to fall, namely the permanent arms economy. About 1971ish, this period of qualitatively different capitalism ended.

So the fundamental cause of crisis since 1971 has been the return of the upward tendency of the organic composition of capital, and the tendency for the rate of  profit to fall. Since then there have been all sorts of temporary countervailing factors, such as speculation booms, Keynesian style primer booms etc. Which have give temporary respite's from the slump.

I havn't read the article you are talking about. Can you give me a link please. I'm sure now, you are probably right. It looks like these temporary fixes for the fundamental cause have reached their limit, and that there is now a fundamental shift in the economy. However, I too do not know what these are and would be therefore interested in reading the article.


----------



## TremulousTetra (Oct 6, 2011)

ayatollah said:


> Give up trying to reason with ViolentPanda ,ResistanceMP3, he's a perpetual argumentalist. BUT Is he really a 15 year old Tory Troll just winding us Lefties up do you think ? I think the evidence points that way.
> 
> But you are quite right NOONE thinks demos are an end in themselves - but they build class confidence and help to raise the general momentum of the wider struggle. Nowadays every boost to class solidarity and militancy helps. I tell you being with 35,000 other like minded people in Manchester on Sunday certainly boosted MY morale.
> 
> And in a non sectarian vein - I am not a member or supporter of the SWP (expelled with the Squadists in 1981) , but it IS nowadays an excellent website for keeping up with the rising tide of struggle, (as is Al Jazeera of course). So let's use em, without having to buy into any "agendas".


Agreed! btw www.resistanceMP3.org.uk

No, he's an U75 anarchist. As you say, their sole purpose seems to be to pull everything apart, whilst producing/offering no meaningful manifestation of an alternative strategy.

ETA, I take that back. They are not all like that.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

ayatollah said:


> My sincere apologies to the IWCA , I thought the negative line you habitually spout about any action , analysis, or policy , by the socialist Left came from that "radical localist" agenda. However, the IWCA don't claim to be socialist , but it appears you do.



Perhaps you should re-read what I wrote, without the blinkers on.
I said that most of the actions proposed by people here (and by the IWCA for that matter) are socialist in nature, not that the people carrying them out or calling for them are "socialists".



> Re your extraordinary claim , above, that there is nothing special happening in the world economy , now, post the 2008 Crash. You are truly in denial, ViolentPanda.



I would be if that's what I'd said, but again your blinkers appear to be preventing you from actually comprehending that "nothing *new*" doesn't mean "nothing special".

Really, catch a hold of yourself.



> Then maybe you aren't one of the tens of millions who have lost their jobs and homes across the developed economies since 2008. Again I encourage you to have a look at the excellent "Meltdown" documentary series on Al Jazeera. It might open your eyes.



Seen it, been saddened by it, don't need to open my eyes, especially by someone who manages to misinterpret the written word so often.



> Fortunately across the world working people are taking to the streets, striking, demonstrating, trying to create forms of organisation and struggle which can, initially resist the capitalist offensive, and at some stage, hopefully, through STRUGGLE, create new organisational forms which attempt to supercede it.
> 
> You just carry on fruitlessly nitpicking and rubbishing everything the broad Left does, the many streams of activist struggle will just carry on regardless



Don't put words in my mouth, there's a good chap. As I said, I don't rubbish everything, and if trying to get to the core of issues is "nitpicking", then I'm guilty as charged. I'm happy and secure in the knowledge that the struggle carries on, as it should. I'm less than happy about constant attempts by political actors to appropriate those struggles for their own purposes.

Now, I've no doubt you'll continue to misread and misinterpret what I write, so I await any reply you choose to make with less than bated breath.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> Now why just make shit up like that VP?



What have I made up? Everyone on here is aware that whatever the argument you almost always tow or tout the SWP line, and as ayatollah mentioned "blinkered Trots" you came naturally to mind.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Oct 6, 2011)

ayatollah said:


> Give up trying to reason with ViolentPanda ,ResistanceMP3, he's a perpetual argumentalist. BUT Is he really a 15 year old Tory Troll just winding us Lefties up do you think ? I think the evidence points that way.


Please tell me you're on the windup.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> I don't think anyone political needs this pointing out, do they?
> 
> I don't think anybody argues that marching from a to B is an end in itself, certainly not Socialist worker. They argue it is the beginning of a process, as in Rosa Luxemburg and General Strike.



Oh come on.
We've both spent many decades moving in political circles, so we tend to see political action as a continuum (even when it is often "one step forward, two steps back"), but how many "non-political" (in an immediately ideological sense) people went on the big marches of the last decade? Many hundreds of thousands. How many of them were radicalised by it enough to reflect strongly in participation in political groups, single-issue groups etc, to actually become part of that continuum of action?

We both know that the answer is (unfortunately) "not many". It'd certainly be wonderful if people were as amenable to radicalisation as they were in Rosa's time, but the differing (social and economic) conditions between then and now mean that even with what ayatollah quantified as "the tens of millions who have lost their jobs and homes across the developed economies since 2008", a majority of those victims of capitalism have not felt sufficiently harmed by their situations to step beyond the standard electoral political set-ups extant in their countries. Until that happens (G-d help them  ), until the tipping point of people saying "these cunts are just feathering the nests of their mates and themselves, and leaving us to pick up the tab. Let's get 'em", then "these cunts" aren't going to shft from what they're doing. Not when they've got their armed police and private security, their safely secured homes and hideaways behind which to shelter.

Remember the slogan "one solution, revolution"? Well fuck knows I don't pray for a bloody revolution, I've seen too much blood in my half a century, but I *do* hope for some kind of revolution in politics that shatters the grip of Capital on our political institutions. I happen to see it as needing to be "bottom up" rather than "top-down", though.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> Please tell me you're on the windup.



Of course he isn't.

Funny, isn't it?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

ayatollah said:


> Give up trying to reason with ViolentPanda ,ResistanceMP3, he's a perpetual argumentalist. BUT Is he really a 15 year old Tory Troll just winding us Lefties up do you think ? I think the evidence points that way.



How very childish and very predictable.


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## Dan U (Oct 6, 2011)

i'm chuckling to myself at the idea of VP as a 15 year old tory troll

i've never met the man, but jesus christ


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## DotCommunist (Oct 6, 2011)

I always suspected.


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## Onket (Oct 6, 2011)

He's been posting here since he was 5 years old. That's dedication.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> Agreed! btw www.resistanceMP3.org.uk
> 
> No, he's an U75 anarchist. As you say, their sole purpose seems to be to pull everything apart, whilst producing/offering no meaningful manifestation of an alternative strategy.



Because grassroots activism the way that some anarchists practice it doesn't fit in with the template for action most parties have, and is therefore not "meaningful" to those parties.
I don't "do" politics for the benefit of a party that may or may not eventually benefit "my" community, I "do" politics in that community for the direct benefit of my community, in accordance with the wishes of that community, no strings attached.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

Onket said:


> He's been posting here since he was 5 years old. That's dedication.



What can I say? I got a messiah complex very young!


----------



## fenrisx (Oct 6, 2011)

Dr Dolittle said:


> It's difficult to imagine such a party having much success. People are pissed off with politics generally. And political parties, whatever good intentions they might start off with, always come under increasing pressure to drop any radical ideas as they get nearer to forming a government. Germany had a Green-Socialist alliance government a few years ago, but the effects of that weren't exactly revolutionary.
> 
> A better idea would be a big pressure group aimed at defending the interests of workers and stopping the ruling class from abusing their power. But for that to work, it would be important that they are NOT tempted to become a party. Otherwise they would end up just the same as all the others, which is exactly what happened to the Labour Party.


 
The UK is a Communist land of wankers, *WANKERS!*


----------



## articul8 (Oct 6, 2011)

fenrisx said:


> The UK is a Communist land



good, now fuck off out of it


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## DotCommunist (Oct 6, 2011)

fenrisx said:


> The UK is a Communist land of wankers, *WANKERS!*


 
you wouldn't know communism if it shat in your mouth


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> you wouldn't know communism if it shat in your mouth



Be fair, most of the thick cunts who bleat about communism wouldn't know it if it shat in their mouths.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 6, 2011)




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## audiotech (Oct 6, 2011)

VP a 15 year old tory! Hahahaha! He'll be living off that remark for a while.


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## SpineyNorman (Oct 6, 2011)

audiotech said:


> VP a 15 year old tory! Hahahaha! He'll be living off that remark for a while.



Sounds like the perfect tagline to me


----------



## SpineyNorman (Oct 6, 2011)

fenrisx said:


> The UK is a Communist land of wankers, *WANKERS!*



Don't listen to the looney lefties on here mate, anyone with an ounce of _common sense_ knows you're right.

You know who I think are the biggest wankers in the UK? The Communist monarchy. *WANKERS! *the lot of them!


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## TremulousTetra (Oct 6, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Oh come on.
> We've both spent many decades moving in political circles, so we tend to see political action as a continuum (even when it is often "one step forward, two steps back"), but how many "non-political" (in an immediately ideological sense) people went on the big marches of the last decade? Many hundreds of thousands. How many of them were radicalised by it enough to reflect strongly in participation in political groups, single-issue groups etc, to actually become part of that continuum of action?
> 
> We both know that the answer is (unfortunately) "not many". It'd certainly be wonderful if people were as amenable to radicalisation as they were in Rosa's time, but the differing (social and economic) conditions between then and now mean that even with what ayatollah quantified as "the tens of millions who have lost their jobs and homes across the developed economies since 2008", a majority of those victims of capitalism have not felt sufficiently harmed by their situations to step beyond the standard electoral political set-ups extant in their countries. Until that happens (G-d help them  ), until the tipping point of people saying "these cunts are just feathering the nests of their mates and themselves, and leaving us to pick up the tab. Let's get 'em", then "these cunts" aren't going to shft from what they're doing. Not when they've got their armed police and private security, their safely secured homes and hideaways behind which to shelter.
> ...


you actually believe I/SW disagree with the single word that, don't you?


----------



## TremulousTetra (Oct 6, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Because grassroots activism the way that some anarchists practice it doesn't fit in with the template for action most parties have, and is therefore not "meaningful" to those parties.
> I don't "do" politics for the benefit of a party that may or may not eventually benefit "my" community, I "do" politics in that community for the direct benefit of my community, in accordance with the wishes of that community, no strings attached.


Hey, feel free to point to ANYTHING "meaningful" to ANY community, anarchist's in UK have inspired/done/facilitated.


----------



## DotCommunist (Oct 6, 2011)

butchersapron said:


>



did he not prefer the cleveland steamers to be curled out on his chest rather than into his gob?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> you actually believe I/SW disagree with the single word that, don't you?



No, I don't. In fact I plainly stated at the beginning of the post "We've both spent many decades moving in political circles...", and at the start of the 2d paragraph "We both know that the answer is...".

You're not always this obtuse.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> Hey, feel free to point to ANYTHING "meaningful" to ANY community, anarchist's in UK have inspired/done/facilitated.



Quantify your definition of "meaningful", please.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> did he not prefer the cleveland steamers to be curled out on his chest rather than into his gob?



Only so he could eat them at leisure.


----------



## TremulousTetra (Oct 6, 2011)

ayatollah said:


> The 1970's break up of the Bretton Woods international monetary system is seen as a vital part of the global deregulation of capitalism , a prerequisite for both further global expansion and laying the seeds of the eventual 2008 global crisis. Despite early post war denials no-one but the most blinkered Trot was claiming by the 60's that the post WWII period hadn't represented the single longest general expansion of capitalism , and rising living standards, in world history - regardless of many short term cyclical recessions..
> 
> 
> 
> ...





ayatollah said:


> ResistanceMP3 said:
> 
> 
> > Now why just make shit up like that VP?
> ...


"No-one has claimed otherwise (except perhaps RMP3, and he doesn't count)." Where did I claim otherwise, perhaps?

Anyway, forget. You have no interest whatsoever and looking at things from a different perspective.you made your mind up, on everything.


----------



## TremulousTetra (Oct 6, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Quantify your definition of "meaningful", please.


what has my definition got to do with anything? It is your claim, back it up with an example that a UK community would consider meaningful.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> "No-one has claimed otherwise (except perhaps RMP3, and he doesn't count)." Where did I claim otherwise, perhaps?




So it's okay for you to display a sense of humour and make little jokes at the expense of others, because you put a smiley after it, but when I make a fairly obvious dig that compares you with the "blinkered trot" in ayatollah's narrative, you not only don't get it, you throw a strop too. Well done!


> Anyway, forget. You have no interest whatsoever and looking at things from a different perspective.you made your mind up, on everything.


Being taken to task about not "looking at things from a different perspective" by *you*, well that's a joke and a half that is, coming from you!

BTW, don't tell me what I think, there's a good chap.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> what has my definition got to do with anything? It is your claim, back it up with an example that a UK community would consider meaningful.



Jesus, it's like talking to a breeze block.

Because unless I know how you define the word (as helping a single person, a dozen, an entire community, an entire polity) then I not only don't know what you mean by "meaningful", I can't know what you mean by "...that a UK community would consider meaningful", can I?


----------



## TremulousTetra (Oct 6, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Everyone on here is aware that whatever the argument you almost always tow or tout the SWP line, and as ayatollah mentioned "blinkered Trots" you came naturally to mind.


Where as you don't always put the 'anarchist' line? 

it's called the point of view. that the U75 anarchists have completely failed to dent that point of view in 10 years, speaks more of the paucity of your alternative. Especially when you consider, I haven't got a clue what the SWP line is these days. I read far more of your words, that I do theirs.


----------



## TremulousTetra (Oct 6, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> So it's okay for you to display a sense of humour and make little jokes at the expense of others, because you put a smiley after it, but when I make a fairly obvious dig that compares you with the "blinkered trot" in ayatollah's narrative, you not only don't get it, you throw a strop too. Well done!
> 
> Being taken to task about not "looking at things from a different perspective" by *you*, well that's a joke and a half that is, coming from you!
> 
> BTW, don't tell me what I think, there's a good chap.


Your on drugs.


----------



## TremulousTetra (Oct 6, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Jesus, it's like talking to a breeze block.
> 
> Because unless I know how you define the word (as helping a single person, a dozen, an entire community, an entire polity) then I not only don't know what you mean by "meaningful", I can't know what you mean by "...that a UK community would consider meaningful", can I?


as usual, nothing.

Surprise surprise.


----------



## TremulousTetra (Oct 6, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> Please tell me you're on the windup.


Whoosh!


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> Where as you don't always put the 'anarchist' line?



There isn't *an* anarchist line, you Norbert.



> it's called the point of view. that the U75 anarchists have completely failed to dent that point of view in 10 years, speaks more of the paucity of your alternative.



Anarchisms don't offer an alternative way of doing party politics, they offer an alternative way of being, and of conceiving politics that doesn't tend to include top-down _diktat_ as a feature of "policy" formation.



> Especially when you consider, I haven't got a clue what the SWP line is these days. I read far more of your words, that I do theirs.



I'll believe you. Thousands wouldn't!


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> Your on drugs.



I'm prescribed 14 different ones, which I take daily. What does that have to do with tis thread other than obviously being a device by which you attempt to imply I'm off my bonce?


----------



## TremulousTetra (Oct 6, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> There isn't *an* anarchist line, you Norbert.
> 
> Anarchisms don't offer an alternative way of doing party politics, they offer an alternative way of being, and of conceiving politics that doesn't tend to include top-down _diktat_ as a feature of "policy" formation.
> 
> I'll believe you. Thousands wouldn't!


God your like a 15 year old Tory troll. [Get it now?] Why the fuck would I lie.

just because you cannot understand an alternative point of view, does not automatically mean they are lying.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> as usual, nothing.
> 
> Surprise surprise.



Get it through your head: Unless I know what *you* mean by "meaningful", then it is impossible for e to do as you requested. I'm not going to write a load of stuff just to have you airily waffle "that's not meaningful", am I?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> God your like a 15 year old Tory troll. [Get it now?]



Still better than being like a blinkered Trot, old son.



> Why the fuck would I lie.
> 
> just because you cannot understand an alternative point of view, does not automatically mean they are lying.



Have I accused you of lying?

You're a hypersensitive wanker, aren't you?

See, *there* is an accusation, that you're a hypersensitive wanker!


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> Whoosh!



Mmm, because you know exactly what ayatollah means, don't you?

Be honest. The only person who *knows* whether or not ayatollah's comment went over spineynorm's head is ayatollah, not you.


----------



## TremulousTetra (Oct 6, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Get it through your head: Unless I know what *you* mean by "meaningful", then it is impossible for e to do as you requested. I'm not going to write a load of stuff just to have you airily waffle "that's not meaningful", am I?


Clue





ViolentPanda said:


> Because grassroots activism the way that some anarchists practice it doesn't fit in with the template for action most parties have, and is therefore not "meaningful" to those parties.
> 
> I don't "do" politics for the benefit of a party that may or may not eventually benefit "my" community, I "do" politics in that community for the direct benefit of my community, in accordance with the wishes of that community, no strings attached.


By your own words, it is what the community would consider meaningful. meaningful in the sense what the community would see as a tangible advancement's. If you don't like the word meaningful, try noteworthy. Is there anything in the past 100 years the UK community would consider noteworthy of anarchist endeavour? I'm honestly not aware of any such manifestation. Are you?


----------



## TremulousTetra (Oct 6, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Mmm, because you know exactly what ayatollah means, don't you?
> 
> Be honest. The only person who *knows* whether or not ayatollah's comment went over spineynorm's head is ayatollah, not you.



 yes, the evidence does suggest you are a 15-year-old Tory Troll.


----------



## TremulousTetra (Oct 6, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Still better than being like a blinkered Trot, old son.
> 
> Have I accused you of lying?
> 
> ...


I'll believe you, thousands wouldn't.


----------



## TremulousTetra (Oct 6, 2011)

anyway, I'll leave you to your pointless endeavour. Have a nice day violent panda.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> anyway, I'll leave you to your pointless endeavour. Have a nice day violent panda.



Passive-aggressive much?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> ClueBy your own words, it is what the community would consider meaningful. meaningful in the sense what the community would see as a tangible advancement's. If you don't like the word meaningful, try noteworthy. Is there anything in the past 100 years the UK community would consider noteworthy of anarchist endeavour? I'm honestly not aware of any such manifestation. Are you?



Nope, can't think of anything at all noteworthy, can't think of anything anarchists have done. Its not like they've ever got involved in local information dissemination or social centres, or community activism is it, let alone anything like what those Trots (G-d bless 'em) *doffs cap* do, what with publishing news and views and organising them there meetings.

You're not aware because you disregard anything that doesn't fit to your preconceptions. That's why you make the same mistakes over and over again about anarchism, and also why most anarchists on Urban won't give you the time of day - because you ignore anything that's inconvenient to your belief system, and stick with towing the party line.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 6, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> yes, the evidence does suggest you are a 15-year-old Tory Troll.



I'm sure it does.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Oct 6, 2011)

ResistanceMP3 said:


> Whoosh!



Yes, I've clearly missed a very sophisticated joke there - can you explain it to me please RMP3? I'm probably suffering from a lack of consciousness or something.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Oct 6, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> ... most anarchists on Urban won't give you the time of day - because you ignore anything that's inconvenient to your belief system, and stick with towing the party line.



Not just anarchists tbf.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 7, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> Not just anarchists tbf.



Fair enough. I was basing my point on the last time rmp3 whined about how anarchists on the board wouldn't give him the time of day, and it was explained to him (at great length) why they wouldn't.


----------



## dennisr (Oct 7, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Fair enough. I was basing my point on the last time rmp3 whined about how anarchists on the board wouldn't give him the time of day, and it was explained to him (at great length) why they wouldn't.


anyone with any sense would not give rmp3 the time of day. another thread turned to idiocy by the his/her pointlessness.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 7, 2011)

dennisr said:


> anyone with any sense would not give rmp3 the time of day. another thread turned to idiocy by the his/her pointlessness.



And the thread *does* ask a question that needs to be "put out there", albeit it's only asking the question along a single route, i.e. "should the trade unions form..." rather than "should those with an interest in a new broad left party...". As I made clear, although I've always been a union member when employed, and several times a shop steward, I'm not particularly sanguine about how union involvement would energise or make attractive a party trying to appeal to a broad left audience, or even a party trying to appeal to a narrow left audience - too many of the unions (or at least the hierarchies of those unions) would benefit more from maintenance of the _status quo_.
Also, to be blunt, is there room for a new mass party? I don't mean this from a voter's perspective, I mean "will the existing set-up allow any party that looks like threatening the _status quo_ to flourish if it means ceding some of their power?". We know from history that the state is entirely happy to infiltrate, subvert and destroy political organisations that they see as even a glancing threat to them.


----------



## dennisr (Oct 7, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> And the thread *does* ask a question that needs to be "put out there"



absolutely



ViolentPanda said:


> albeit it's only asking the question along a single route, i.e. "should the trade unions form..." rather than "should those with an interest in a new broad left party...". As I made clear, although I've always been a union member when employed, and several times a shop steward, I'm not particularly sanguine about how union involvement would energise or make attractive a party trying to appeal to a broad left audience, or even a party trying to appeal to a narrow left audience - too many of the unions (or at least the hierarchies of those unions) would benefit more from maintenance of the _status quo_.



its a fair point - my argument would be that trade unions have the organisation, resources and potential social weight that can play a lead in initiating a wider social movement and/or political party voice. You have to differenciate between so-called tu leaders and members. The role of tu bureaucracies is a danger - and the answer to that would be in how the structure of that organisation is decided - how that organisation can be inclusive drawing in wider political opposition to the status quo in a way in which those other voices both feel and are, in practice, genuinely represented.



ViolentPanda said:


> Also, to be blunt, is there room for a new mass party? I don't mean this from a voter's perspective, I mean "will the existing set-up allow any party that looks like threatening the _status quo_ to flourish if it means ceding some of their power?". We know from history that the state is entirely happy to infiltrate, subvert and destroy political organisations that they see as even a glancing threat to them.



always a danger - but again that comes down to the level of accountability of any 'leadership'. ie how easy it can be replaced if it compromises - so partly a question of the structure of the organistion. More importantly though - than even the most 'democratic' formal structure on the planet - would be it relationship to struggle and action outside of political/electoral politics - how grounded it would be (and therefore how grounded - as much as accountable - its representatives will be). That also links back to the importance socialists would place on trade unions - the members not the leaders of those unions. They are still a key organic link to the working class and working class communities. Trade Unions are still the first move most ordinary working people make towards organising themselves independently of other interests. The need for an independent political voice (to reflect this common interest) is merely an offshoot of that common interest not a replacement for it. That's not to discount the importance of single issue or non-workplace based movements that exist but to recognise the power of organising in a workplace. And easy example would be say the anti-war movement - if the working class of this country had crossed its arms and told the government to piss off - to go and fight their own wars - there would be a damn sight fewer soldiers coming back in boxes, many less dead civilians and a greatly reduced 'terrorist' threat to this tiny wee island off the coast of europe. That power is only 'potential' - but it is still there. it still exists.

It is a question that is seriously back on the agenda - as worldwide the crisis of representation of the other 99% (as they are saying in the US at the moment) comes to the fore while the 1% screw us so openly that even the most gullible (and the most downtrodden and desperate in places like the middle-east) are beginning to think 'hang on a moment..."

Of course I could be kidding you / trying to pull the wool over your eyes and just hopeful that you will  'vote for me' and mine rather than participating in changing your own world ;-)

(note: all the changes I have just made are simply for clarity in what is a long-winded post...)


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## Random (Oct 7, 2011)

dennisr said:


> my argument would be that trade unions have the organisation, resources and potential social weight that can play a lead in initiating a wider social movement and/or political party voice. You have to differenciate between so-called tu leaders and members.


 The members don't have that organisation and resources, though, do they? Getting the unions' weight behind a party inevitably involves wooing union leaders.


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## dennisr (Oct 7, 2011)

Random said:


> The members don't have that organisation and resources, though, do they? Getting the unions' weight behind a party inevitably involves wooing union leaders.



The branches - the grassroots - are the organisation and resources I am talking about here - not 'central office'. OK Unison, for example, has done it best to silence some - but it simply cannot silence all.

If the likes of Barber and Prentis's 'tactical' approach has its way there will be no trade union members left to pay their wages. Within the unions we see a delayed movement to the left. (a movement to the right will simply lead to their own destruction - no membership mean no bureaucrats being paid). You don't have to woo - you have to show left moving tu types their own interests without compromising on accountability (and the 'other side' of the class divide is doing quite a good job of showing up our interests as much as their own at the moment). Even if the likes of Prentis and co will never get it - they depend on their members and can be placed under preasure by those members. The desperate wooing and 'short-cut hopeful' compromise approach of certain arse-licking organisations has simply delayed the building of that new political voice.


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## Random (Oct 7, 2011)

dennisr said:


> The branches - the grassroots are the organisation and resources I am talking about here - not 'central office'. OK Unison, for example, has done it best to silence some - but it simply cannot silence all.


 Branches also have leaders. I'm a union activist myself and I can say that the problems that exist at the top can also be present in branches. Plus, don't the SP back candidates in union leadership elections? It's a bit rich you implying that you have no illusions about the leadership, and that it's all about the ordinary members, when you clearly do want to engage with the very tops of unions.


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## dennisr (Oct 7, 2011)

Random said:


> Branches also have leaders. I'm a union activist myself and I can say that the problems that exist at the top can also be present in branches. Plus, don't the SP back candidates in union leadership elections? It's a bit rich you implying that you have no illusions about the leadership, and that it's all about the ordinary members, when you clearly do want to engage with the very tops of unions.



Of course 'problems at the top can be present in branches' - tell me something new. What has that got to do with the price of fish? So you are saying that standing against the right wing in union elections is 'trying to engage with the very tops of the unions' (therefore with 'illusions') - and there was me thinking that standing in those elections is simply using the opportunity of a platform to appeal to those ordinary members... That's is a bit of a lame arguement (and that's me being nice about it  ).

In terms of the SP (if you want to make this an SP v anarcho thing which i guess you do...) you have to ask why SP members are being witch-hunted by right-wing trade unions leaderships if, as you strongly imply, our aim to simply to 'appeal to the tops' - a tactical mistake on our part surely?

Do you believe what you have just said or do you just want to believe it? 

You seem to be resorting to the 'look at me I am pure' (if forever unheard) line in your formal opposition to 'taking sides' in union leadership elections - the unfortunate reality is that you end up reinforcing the very disempowerment of those union members from wrestling control of their organisation that you formally wish to oppose. Unions are not an abstraction - they are made up of their members and there will always be an ongoing struggle to make the structures of those organisations accountable to those members.


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## Random (Oct 7, 2011)

dennisr said:


> Do you believe what you have just said or do you just want to believe it?


 I'm saying that you're being incoherant at best and, at worst, dishonest. It's clearly not just about ordinary members for you, and you're clearly not just using union ellections as a publicity platform. you know this, I know it. I'm not saying that this mixed strategy is wrong, but you're the one who's tried to seem 'pure' by pretending that you're only talking about getting the unions on side at the grassroots level.


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## dennisr (Oct 7, 2011)

Random said:


> I'm saying that you're being incoherant at best and, at worst, dishonest. It's clearly not just about ordinary members for you, and you're clearly not just using union elections as a publicity platform. you know this, I know it. I'm not saying that this mixed strategy is wrong, but you're the one who's tried to seem 'pure' by pretending that you're only talking about getting the unions on side at the grassroots level.



Hang on are you saying its OK to stand - but you don't want to actually win over the majority to your argument in practice!! - I'd be happy if the most effective tactic was to stand and win the leaderships of trade unions. We would (and do announce this when standing in elections) then use that position to push for a new workers party. I have no problem with taking over union leaderships but, firstly, it simply is not going to happen like that (certainly not in the big unions) - and secondly, where it is a possibility it would be based on the central idea that we could only build and maintain such an advantagous position if we bring the union membership into activity. In the wee PCS, for example, the left may well have won - and maintained - a leadership position but we have to recognise that does not automatically make up for a lack of active membership and division across many small workplaces so the left has been pushing and pushing to re-build the active structures and branches that had been all but destroyed in the previous 20 odd years of right-wing control. It does not mean that the formal leadership of the PCS can assume it can simply lead its troops like the grand old duke of york up and down hills - It still has to win those members to what is necessary - their own action to be able to defeat attacks on those members. There is nothing wrong, incoherant or dishonest about taking a position like that.

And where union leaderships are moving to the left - where there is a willingness to work towards an independant political organisation - there is nothing wrong, incoherant or dishonest about pushing them further than they would otherwise go. The accountability of those left leaning tu tops will depend on their members taking up the initiative and ensuring those tu tops remain accountable. That is why the SP puts such strong store on the idea that the growth of any political organisation is likely to come largely out of existing movements and campaigns - like the ones we are seeing building now in workplaces. That is also why I have put strong store on the need for clear democratic structures. A political party 'announced' by Bob Crow would come to nowt in and of itself - unless it filled out with those grassroots union members (ones already moving into struggle due to lack of choice).

Dishonesty is taking a position of permanant and impotant 'opposition' and claiming that position is 'revolutionary' and all others are suspect. Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty - even horror of horrors sit on the same platform as a trade union bureaucrat or a left reformist (I guess you must have done this as a trade union activist). That does not mean for one moment you forget the actual relation between 'leaders' and 'members' or no longer recognise the central need for those ordinary members to take the leading role. Its ABC for tu reps on the ground surely - you are only as effective as the will and determination of those you are elected to represent.


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## Random (Oct 7, 2011)

Dennis a lot of that is you just spewing ready-made arguments at me, wanting to take up some debate you think I want to have, rather than answering my actual points.

i'll confine myself to commenting on one of your statements:



> I have no problem with taking over union leaderships but, firstly, it simply is not going to happen like that



As I think this illuminates what I meant about your incoherance/dishonesty. You'd love to be able to run a union, by having the leadership on your side; your current pious statements about how it's all about the rank and file members, honest! are based on a tactical judgement. Just like many Leninists were happy to work inside the Labour party to reclaim it, until that became parently obviously impossible, many Leninists want to work within the union hierarchy, and when they fail they say, well, we only really care about the rank and file really.

Hierarchical socialist groups _don't have any real critical analysis_ of what is _structurally_ wrong with unions, or left political parties. You're always waiting for the wind to change, to bring about a moment when proper socialists can slip into a leading role in these unions and parties.


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## dennisr (Oct 7, 2011)

Random - on a side note - i think I have made some reasonable points the could develop the discussion on the OPs original question (not in the direction i would necessarily wish to go in - but, for example, question of accountability of 'leadership'; inclusion of minority platform opinions etc) .

It would be a bit pointless to be led up the cul-de-sac of "you have illusions in tu leaders even if i cannot prove it"  line - I'll say no. You'll say yes. And it will all become very boring. If you are trying to prove that the SP believe that 'leadership' can exist without being necessarily inherently evil - well yes we do. You have proven your non-point (actually you did not you just tried to say us authoritarian types just want the control ourselves by implication but without proof). A decent 'leadership' that recognises that it can only be a representative (and only then at _a certain point_ - ie if it remains responsive to the changing mood of its electors).

How about you expand on your solutions to the bigger questions. Otherwise you will simply end up sounding like one of those anarcho nutjobs who drove poor rmp3 bananas and into permanant incoherency


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## Random (Oct 7, 2011)

dennisr said:


> It would be a bit pointless to be led up the cul-de-sac of "you have illusions in tu leaders even if i cannot prove it" line - I'll say no. You'll say yes.


 We don't need to go any further, you've already said that you'd like to gain control of a union's leadership. What's to argue over?



> If you are trying to prove that the SP believe that 'leadership' can exist without being necessarily inherently evil - well yes we do.


I've not named leadership, I'm saying that you've no real criticism of the structural problems with parties and unions.


> How about you expand on your solutions to the bigger questions. Otherwise you will simply end up sounding like one of those anarcho nutjobs who drove poor rmp3 bananas and into permanant incoherency



I've not mentioned any solutions. What do you want me to expand on?


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## dennisr (Oct 7, 2011)

Random said:


> Hierarchical socialist groups _don't have any real critical analysis_ of what is _structurally_ wrong with unions, or left political parties. You're always waiting for the wind to change, to bring about a moment when proper socialists can slip into a leading role in these unions and parties.



Whereas abstract anarchist groups get lost in the impotant mist of purity?

So it is what you want to believe then?

I have repeatedly refered to the critical points about the actual relationship between leadership - 'representatives' - and those they represent - and how those representative can or cannot be made accountable. Your only concern is to abstractly insinuate that actually we really want the 'power' ourselves. No proof of this - just constant insinuation. Think about it rationally (and take those moralistic goggles of for one moment...) - if all we wanted was 'power' don't you think we are going about the wrong way around???

Let me help you - Maybe it would improve your attempts to argue you case if you recognise that actually we don't want 'power' for ourselves and that - try as you might you cannot prove that.  Surely the more reasonable anarcho arguements try to show how the methods used cause an 'inevitable' slip into totalitarianism?

Or maybe - instead - you could use your fantastic critical analysis to show solutions to this concern. Devlop the pointers i did actually raise above (rather than the devious and evil communist double-speak you deperately tried to 'expose'...  Or are we going to simply go back to the purile 'no leaders. man' position? (I am guessing you are not that daft...)


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## Random (Oct 7, 2011)

dennisr said:


> I have repeatedly refered to the critical points about the actual relationship between leadership - 'representatives' - and those they represent - and how those representative can or cannot be made accountable. Your only concern is to abstractly insinuate that actually we really want the 'power' ourselves. No proof of this - just constant insinuation. Think about it rationally (and take those moralistic goggles of for one moment...) - if all we wanted was 'power' don't you think we are going about the wrong way around???


 I'm not saying you want power for it's own sake, like some cartoon supervillain. There are socialist movements that like hierarchies and want to bring about social change using methods including using hierarchical and bureaucratic organisations, and Leninism is one of those. I think that's a fairly uncontroversial statement.

I'm ignoring your digs at anarchism because I'm not actually putting forward any anarchist way as a solution. I think the world we find ourselves in is full of contradictions, and often gains can be made by working within parts of the existing system.

As i said before, I'm not saying you're a bad person, or your party is evil or something; I just want you to come clean, rather than pretending to champion the union rank and file versus the leadership. because, in your perfect world, you would _be_ the union leadership.

Myself I think unions _cannot_ become supporters of revolutionary change, I think they have become assimilated into the capitalist system. they can help to make life under capitalism more bearable, but then so can a lot of other non-revolutionary institutions, such as Citizens Advice Bureaux or similar.


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## dennisr (Oct 7, 2011)

Random said:


> We don't need to go any further, you've already said that you'd like to gain control of a union's leadership. What's to argue over?



Sorry - do you feel this has 'exposed' me?  - To what. Stop being foolish. Why not read the rest of the paragraph - the practical points that elected control of the leadership of a union does not actual mean one controls that union r its membership - I even gave a real world example. Something you have yet to come up with...



Random said:


> I've not named leadership, I'm saying that you've no real criticism of the structural problems with parties and unions.



I was the one that raised the dangers inherent in such organisatons in the first place - I was the one who raised possible solution. All you have done mate is repeat insinuations with out substance and get a bit arsey becasue i keep pointing this out to you  - you keep talking about your profound critical analysis but haven't actually got around to telling anyone what it is yet?



Random said:


> I've not mentioned any solutions.



Yes, I know, I am clear on this - this is precisely what I was asking you to mention or expand upon.
If you feel you have the correct answers to the problems the least you could do is educate the rest of us about them.


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## Random (Oct 7, 2011)

dennisr said:


> Sorry - do you feel this has 'exposed' me?  - To what. Stop being foolish.


 I think you've very aware of what the Leninist position on trade unions is. As I've said time and time again, I jsut want to point out that you're not really supporting rank and file versus the leadership, are you?

As to your real-world example, where you'd "bring the membership into activity" I just thought that was so embarrassing that I'd just leave it, tbh.

As to solutions I've already said what I think is needed. Honesty: that trade unions cannot be revolutionary. This discussion with you reminds me of arguing with articul8 about the Labour Party. In both cases there's a fundamentally flawed organisation, which socialists would love to 'reclaim' and which I think is and always was fundamentally flawed.


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## articul8 (Oct 7, 2011)

I agree that the Labour party and the unions are and always were fundamentally flawed.  They are highly unlikely to be won over bag and baggage to a revolutionary perspective.  But that doesn't mean that there isn't both a tactical and strategic reason for engaging within them.

Question for Dennisr: what would it take to conclude with the trade unions (as you have with Labour) that they have been permanently lost to w/c interests?


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## Random (Oct 7, 2011)

articul8 said:


> Question for Dennisr: what would it take to conclude with the trade unions (as you have with Labour) that they have been permanently lost to w/c interests?


 A takeover by Mandelson? I think the unions are unlikely to be streamlined and purged, like the New Labour clique did to that centrally-controlled Labour Party. Union activity is too spread out and messy, and inevitably involves class conflict.


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## dennisr (Oct 7, 2011)

Random said:


> I'm not saying you want power for it's own sake, like some cartoon supervillain. There are socialist movements that like hierarchies and want to bring about social change using methods including using hierarchical and bureaucratic organisations, and Leninism is one of those. I think that's a fairly uncontroversial statement.



That's a relief to hear - stop trying to imply shite then 



Random said:


> I'm ignoring your digs at anarchism because I'm not actually putting forward any anarchist way as a solution. I think the world we find ourselves in is full of contradictions, and often gains can be made by working within parts of the existing system.



Fair enough and that's interesting. I do not really see how the view directly above works with the view (that i have taken the liberty of moving) directly below though. Surely that view does not recognise the contradiction inherent within those organisations? (ie even though you talk about contradictions above). I don't agree. I think unions are, ultimately, made of of members who though not 'supporters of revolutionary change' themselves for much of their existence (like the rest of us...) but can be driven by conditions to go way beyond their original starting points. As unions are made up of those individuals - those organisations can also take on revolutionary characteristics - can even be transformed for a period - new forms can grow out of old - I think it is a very practical view.

I guess that when we are talking about working class representation though - we are not even saying it has to be as a whole 'revolutionary'. There can be a platform within such an organisation for the various views to be had out openly. It is just that - a voice for working class people. And - even if as you say the trade unions are assimulated - they are still the only present existing organisations that do give a limited voice to working class opinion - so it would be a natural progression to the political voice. I could argue about the how the nature of that political voice is likely to develop - given the situation we all face but that is another thing entirely.



Random said:


> Myself I think unions _cannot_ become supporters of revolutionary change, I think they have become assimilated into the capitalist system. they can help to make life under capitalism more bearable, but then so can a lot of other non-revolutionary institutions, such as Citizens Advice Bureaux or similar.





Random said:


> As i said before, I'm not saying you're a bad person, or your party is evil or something; I just want you to come clean, rather than pretending to champion the union rank and file versus the leadership. because, in your perfect world, you would _be_ the union leadership.



I know you are not fella (but you are derailing something else - and I am joining in....) Are you saying you would _be_ the unions non-leadership? (if so i am afraid Brendon Barbour beat you to it...) . In the perfect world there would be no leaders. In the meantime - To be very frank i am wary of the term rank-and-file because of its repeated misuse . I am a champion of people taking control of their lives and that would include the organisations that claim to represent them. ie making those who claim to represent them accountable to their collective wills. Ultimately its self-interest for this individual - because it is in my interests too. In the meantime also I am realistic that i cannot proclaim the abolishion of heirarchy and it will simply become so. Folk have to work that out for themselves rather than be told - I would hope through the process of doing (just like I learn through the process of doing my job rather than reading about it).

And you still have not proven your repeated insinuation - but hey, I cannot stop you repeating it


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## Random (Oct 7, 2011)

dennisr said:


> And you still have not proven your repeated insinuation - but hey, I cannot stop you repeating it.


 Which insinuation? I'm genuinely baffled. All I'm saying is uncontroversial stuff, about how Leninist socialists operate, and you've just agreed with it in this post. What's the difference between this and the 'shite'?


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## Random (Oct 7, 2011)

dennisr said:


> I do not really see how the view directly above works with the view (that i have taken the liberty of moving) directly below though. Surely that view does not recognise the contradiction inherent within those organisations?


 Like I say, unions are not and cannot be revolutionary, but union activity can still win gains in the here and now, and I think that a working class that is making gains is in a better position to carry out revolutioanry change and a working class that is barely surviving. But that does not mean that the union work is itself revolutioanry, or will flower into revolution given the right circumstances. Well-funcioning activity is essential also for the smooth accumulation of capital. As a union activist it seems to em that a lot fo the time I'm trying to stop management shooting themselves in the foot. Sad but true.


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## dennisr (Oct 7, 2011)

articul8 said:


> Question for Dennisr: what would it take to conclude with the trade unions (as you have with Labour) that they have been permanently lost to w/c interests?



Personally - regardless of any party line - I try and avoid 'inevitabilities' - There is even the very faint possibility that the LP could be transformed again (its a bloody unlikely one at the moment though....)

Re the trade unions - its a bit of an abstract question but i guess you could look at blue unions or state set-up unions in the old soviet system as examples of 'permanantly' lost unions. Even there it is contradictory though - Look at the changed role of the old state unions in Poland, or the changed role of the PCS or of the POA. Not so sure one could be that prescriptive.


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## dennisr (Oct 7, 2011)

Random said:


> Which insinuation? I'm genuinely baffled. All I'm saying is uncontroversial stuff, about how Leninist socialists operate, and you've just agreed with it in this post. What's the difference between this and the 'shite'?



No I did not agree with "it". (Que: 'yes you did' - 'no I didnt' - pantomime episode). I thought you were an anarchist not a conspiracy theorist?


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## Random (Oct 7, 2011)

dennisr said:


> No I did not agree with "it". (Que: 'yes you did' - 'no I didnt' - pantomime episode). I thought you were an anarchist not a conspiracy theorist?


Is that it? That some socialist parties like to operate through bureaucratic parties and unions? You don't have to agree with it, it's still a mainstream analysis of Leninism, rather than a 'conspiracy theory.' You're the one bringing in the pantomime elements tbh.


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## DotCommunist (Oct 7, 2011)

Spanish civil war re enactment, get your spanish civil war re enactment tickets, right here, etc etc


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## Random (Oct 7, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> Spanish civil war re enactment, get your spanish civil war re enactment tickets, right here, etc etc


you don't think this discussion has any bearing on political action in the here and now? Odd.

Edit: sorry, should have said 'Jetztzeit'.


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## DotCommunist (Oct 7, 2011)

just taking the piss tbh- the conversation is an interesting one mind, I have my own reservations with unions but they are what they are and what we have to work with now, even if the dread hand of the trotskyist SP do talk to leaders and ranks- well what else have we got. The revolution?


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## Random (Oct 7, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> I have my own reservations with unions but they are what they are and what we have to work with now, even if the dread hand of the trotskyist SP do talk to leaders and ranks- well what else have we got. The revolution?


I've not said anything to disagree with that. What I'm against is spreading the false belief that unions (or the Labour party) can ever be won over to revolutionary change.


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## Jeff Robinson (Oct 7, 2011)

If DotCommunist had been in charge of the Comintern at the time of the Spanish Civil War I have no doubt that the correct revolutionary road would have pursude and Franco would have been forced to do that famous Mussolini upsidedown swing thing. Word.


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## Random (Oct 7, 2011)

Jeff Robinson said:


> If DotCommunist had been in charge of the Comintern at the time of the Spanish Civil War I have no doubt that the correct revolutionary road would have pursude and Franco would have been forced to do that famous Mussolini upside swing thing. Word.


He'd probably have converted the Moors to socialism and then established Red Spain supported by a Red-Green north african coast.


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## DotCommunist (Oct 7, 2011)

@random

history shows they'd sell it out first ennit. What we can do with them while it can be done though. Labour party- goner as far as even soc/dec comes in. Unions? well I've outlined my thinking on them elsewhere but in defense of colleagues they should be supported. As to the wider question about them forming a new left leaning party well...the likelihood isn't high and do we really want the supines that head most unions to be at the forefront of this hypothetical venture?

I still maintain that unions should be supported etc.


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## Jeff Robinson (Oct 7, 2011)

And he would've pwned Hitler. Fact.


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## articul8 (Oct 7, 2011)

dennisr said:


> Personally - regardless of any party line - I try and avoid 'inevitabilities' - There is eventhe very faint possibility that the LP could be transformed again (its a bloody unlikely one at the moment though....)



did Militant think that the Labour party could be taken over - en bloc - to be a revolutionary vehicle (as opposed to being a useful area to try to recruit and organise in for the here-and-now?)



> Re the trade unions - its a bit of an abstract question but i guess you could look at blue unions or state set-up unions in the old soviet system as examples of 'permanantly' lost unions. Even there it is contradictory though - Look at the changed role of the old state unions in Poland, or the changed role of the PCS or of the POA. Not so sure one could be that prescriptive.



So why is it that it's ok to be prescriptive (if not inevitablisit!) about the Labour party?

For me it's a tactical judgement - given that millions will vote Labour even if solely as a means to kick out the other cunts, isn't it at least as productive to work inside (without triming sails to support the leadership and its programme) - linking up with anti-cuts activists outside - as to tilt at windmills?[/quote]


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## butchersapron (Oct 7, 2011)

Without trimming sails? Have you heard the shit you've come out with over the last few years? Have you compared it to what you used to argue? You've got no frigging sails left. Now times that by under a thousand.

If you can do it outside then why do you need to be inside? What do you gain - except networking opps, jobs and positions?


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## frogwoman (Oct 7, 2011)

articul8 said:


> did Militant think that the Labour party could be taken over - en bloc - to be a revolutionary vehicle (as opposed to being a useful area to try to recruit and organise in for the here-and-now?)
> 
> So why is it that it's ok to be prescriptive (if not inevitablisit!) about the Labour party?
> 
> For me it's a tactical judgement - given that millions will vote Labour even if solely as a means to kick out the other cunts, isn't it at least as productive to work inside (without triming sails to support the leadership and its programme) - linking up with anti-cuts activists outside - as to tilt at windmills?


[/quote]

You could equally use that arguement to support the Tory party because millions will vote Tory to kick out the other cunts.


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## articul8 (Oct 7, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Without trimming sails? Have you heard the shit you've come out with over the last few years? Have you compared it to what you used to argue? You've got no frigging sails left. Now times that by under a thousand.



What?  Other than AV which I (like McDonnell and Serwotka) argued was a tactical step forward in a straight choice with FPTP - where am I supposed to have shifted to the right?  You are making "shit" up.



> If you can do it outside then why do you need to be inside? What do you gain - except networking opps, jobs and positions?


I'm not saying everyone needs to be inside - I'm saying that in a period where a significant no. of anti-coalition votes fall into Labour's lap. on what grounds is it wrong and self-defeating for socialists to organise within the party and link up with forces outside?


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## articul8 (Oct 7, 2011)

You could equally use that arguement to support the Tory party because millions will vote Tory to kick out the other cunts.[/quote]

err the Tories are in power?  If it wasn't possible to launch a viable mass workers party when Blair was waging war in Iraq, what has changed to make it viable when Labour seems relatively attractive if only when compared to the other two?


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## butchersapron (Oct 7, 2011)

This argument that you're trotting out now for starters, Well done, you're a trot in the 30s arguing you need to be where the workers are. Let's have 80 more years of these..._tactics_.

Why do you need to be in it to do it at all?   People who vote for labour are not going to be  pro-cuts because you're outside of labour are they? What's the advantage to you being in labour? I know the personal benefits but i cannot see a single political one.Clearer example of your rightward regression could not be found. That you've convinced yourself that you're doing something different (_tactics_) is as self-serving as your AV guff, and just as wrong.


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## frogwoman (Oct 7, 2011)

Huh? the sp were calling for a workers' party when tony blair and co were in power, and set up things like No2EU etc then too. I'm not saying that they were a success and I'm not saying that it will definitely be a success this time, but its untrue to say that SP only started putting fwd the idea of the workers' party once labour were out of power no?


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## Random (Oct 7, 2011)

articul8 said:


> in a period where a significant no. of anti-coalition votes fall into Labour's lap. on what grounds is it wrong and self-defeating for socialists to organise within the party and link up with forces outside?


 Because it means becoming a Labour Party member. For fuck's sake.


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## butchersapron (Oct 7, 2011)

articul8 said:


> err the Tories are in power? If it wasn't possible to launch a viable mass workers party when Blair was waging war in Iraq, what has changed to make it viable when Labour seems relatively attractive if only when compared to the other two?


And here we get to the key - it's vote labour. It's use the outside forces to construct a broad pro-labour coalition whilst telling yourself you're using labour to build a broad extra-parliamentary left to destroy labour. Self-serving cant - and you don't believe it for a second. I can at least respect people like glenaquamire who used to argue that the labour party is the only way, there is no other way, you think the same but want to keep your 'radical' credentials so argue these false bollocks.


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## frogwoman (Oct 7, 2011)

articul8 said:


> err the Tories are in power? If it wasn't possible to launch a viable mass workers party when Blair was waging war in Iraq, what has changed to make it viable when Labour seems relatively attractive if only when compared to the other two?



OK then why not the BNP? People vote for them too, against the "establishment" parties.


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## articul8 (Oct 7, 2011)

Still think AV was right option - don't see any evidence of the coalition splitting at the seams at a NO vote. But the continued existence of FPTP will continue to retard the progress of smaller parties.

Let's not trade historical examples as though that meant anything - William Morris was arguing in the 1880's much the same as you argue now. And with similarly meagre results.

I'm not saying that everything stands or falls with joining Labour - but I don't see how an orientation to a party that will pick up greater support over the coming period and arguing for it to take a stronger anti-cuts line can be damaging to the overall movement. You think that McDonnell is just someone benefiting from a position and networking opportunities?


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## articul8 (Oct 7, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> OK then why not the BNP? People vote for them too, against the "establishment" parties.


because the BNP has never set itself the objective of representing the interests of the working class in Britain qua class?


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## frogwoman (Oct 7, 2011)

articul8 said:


> because the BNP has never set itself the objective of representing the interests of the working class in Britain qua class?



Yes they have and do. as do the tories (publically, that is)


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## articul8 (Oct 7, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> And here we get to the key - it's vote labour. It's use the outside forces to construct a broad pro-labour coalition whilst telling yourself you're using labour to build a broad extra-parliamentary left to destroy labour. Self-serving cant - and you don't believe it for a second. I can at least respect people like glenaquamire who used to argue that the labour party is the only way, there is no other way, you think the same but want to keep your 'radical' credentials so argue these false bollocks.



I want to build a broad anti-cuts movement full stop.  Whether it decides to critically back Labour, to vote Green or nationalist, or to set up another party is less important than where people stand vis-a-vis the coalition.

The Labour Party can't be ignored given the strategic position it occupies - any viable movement will need to attract elements that support and identify with the Labour left.  Doesn't mean everything has to be filtered through that, or that there aren't equally if not more significant developments outside Labour's ranks.


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## articul8 (Oct 7, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> Huh? the sp were calling for a workers' party when tony blair and co were in power, and set up things like No2EU etc then too. I'm not saying that they were a success and I'm not saying that it will definitely be a success this time, but its untrue to say that SP only started putting fwd the idea of the workers' party once labour were out of power no?



of course - the SP supported the SLP, Livingstone (when an indie) the SA, gave critical support to Respect/ Left List, supported NO2EU etc.

I'm saying that if these initiatives couldn't breakthrough when Labour's respect was shot, on what grounds can they succeed when Labour can position itself as the only alternative to the coalition?


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## articul8 (Oct 7, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> OK then why not the BNP? People vote for them too, against the "establishment" parties.


No - they may have claimed to support "British workers" - but not workers qua class.


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## frogwoman (Oct 7, 2011)

articul8 said:


> I want to build a broad anti-cuts movement full stop. Whether it decides to critically back Labour, to vote Green or nationalist, or to set up another party is less important than where people stand vis-a-vis the coalition.
> 
> The Labour Party can't be ignored given the strategic position it occupies - any viable movement will need to attract elements that support and identify with the Labour left. Doesn't mean everything has to be filtered through that, or that there aren't equally if not more significant developments outside Labour's ranks.



You don't think that encouraging people to vote labour and explicitly tying the anti-cuts movement to the Labour Party could have the effect of discrediting it and making people view it as a LP front??


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## frogwoman (Oct 7, 2011)

articul8 said:


> of course - the SP supported the SLP, Livingstone (when an indie) the SA, gave critical support to Respect/ Left List, supported NO2EU etc.
> 
> I'm saying that if these initiatives couldn't breakthrough when Labour's respect was shot, on what grounds can they succeed when Labour can position itself as the only alternative to the coalition?



I don't see how labour are positioning themselves as an alternative to the coalition at all!they may say so, in their propaganda, but people don't have the memories of goldfish - people remember the Iraq war, they remember pfi, etc. Also Milliband said he wouldn't reverse any of the cuts, he's supported the tories in many of their decisions, if anything, a growing number people now are only voting labour as a last resort (the same way that some people vote BNP or Tory, also as a last resort against the other shower of cunts).


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## articul8 (Oct 7, 2011)

I haven;t argued anywhere that the whole of the anti-cuts movement should hitch its wagon to Labour - I don't think that.  But I am arguing that it's important that socialists inside the Labour party contest the current (cuts but not as fast) position, and link up with those outside to build a broad based anti-cuts movement.


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## articul8 (Oct 7, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> I don't see how labour are positioning themselves as an alternative to the coalition at all!they may say so, in their propaganda, but people don't have the memories of goldfish - people remember the Iraq war, they remember pfi, etc. Also Milliband said he wouldn't reverse any of the cuts, he's supported the tories in many of their decisions, if anything, a growing number people now are only voting labour as a last resort (the same way that some people vote BNP or Tory, also as a last resort against the other shower of cunts).



I think you are plain wrong if you think a majority of working class people see no essential difference between Labour and Tories/BNP.


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## frogwoman (Oct 7, 2011)

articul8 said:


> No - they may have claimed to support "British workers" - but not workers qua class.



i think you're underestimating them tbh, because they are using explicitly left wing and working class rhetoric these days - there've even been bnp leaflets describing them as "the labour party your parents worked for" and i heard that they claimed to be calling for "a workers mp on a workers' wage" ! (I don't unfortunately have a source for these claims, but I can contact the person who told me them).


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## butchersapron (Oct 7, 2011)

articul8 said:


> I think you are plain wrong if you think a majority of working class people see no essential difference between Labour and Tories/BNP.


This post demonstrates why you're a dishonest cunt.


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## frogwoman (Oct 7, 2011)

I didn't say that people saw no difference between Labour and the BNP. I'm saying a growing number of people see no difference (or a very small difference) between Labour and the Tories, I also think that many people vote for parties they dislike in order to keep out parties that they dislike even more. This certainly accounts for much of the BNP vote, and probably much of the Tory vote as well (and for all I know probably part of the SP vote!). Why is it so unlikely that it wouldn't account for much of the Labour vote too?


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## frogwoman (Oct 7, 2011)

articul8 said:


> I haven;t argued anywhere that the whole of the anti-cuts movement should hitch its wagon to Labour - I don't think that. But I am arguing that it's important that socialists inside the Labour party contest the current (cuts but not as fast) position, and link up with those outside to build a broad based anti-cuts movement.



The fact is though that if they stay inside the labour party that's all they're going to be ... ignored.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 7, 2011)

dennisr said:


> absolutely
> 
> its a fair point - my argument would be that trade unions have the organisation, resources and potential social weight that can play a lead in initiating a wider social movement and/or political party voice. You have to differenciate between so-called tu leaders and members. The role of tu bureaucracies is a danger - and the answer to that would be in how the structure of that organisation is decided - how that organisation can be inclusive drawing in wider political opposition to the status quo in a way in which those other voices both feel and are, in practice, genuinely represented.



My problem with differentiating between the hierarchy and the membership is that in some cases the membership are almost as powerless in terms of changing the policies of their unions as members of the Conservative and Labour parties are with theirs. If memberships were more widely motivated and involved, rather than sometimes being used as rubber stamps for the "grand ideas" of their bureaucracies, I'd be a lot more sanguine about them taking the lead on a new party.
Your point about structure is well made, but again I'll don my doomsayer hat and say that if the TU hierarchies are involved as representatives of their unions in the formation of/writing the constitution of a new party/body/organisation, I'm not too sure that they'd resist looking after their own interests first, rather than ours.



> always a danger - but again that comes down to the level of accountability of any 'leadership'. ie how easy it can be replaced if it compromises - so partly a question of the structure of the organistion. More importantly though - than even the most 'democratic' formal structure on the planet - would be it relationship to struggle and action outside of political/electoral politics - how grounded it would be (and therefore how grounded - as much as accountable - its representatives will be). That also links back to the importance socialists would place on trade unions - the members not the leaders of those unions. They are still a key organic link to the working class and working class communities. Trade Unions are still the first move most ordinary working people make towards organising themselves independently of other interests. The need for an independent political voice (to reflect this common interest) is merely an offshoot of that common interest not a replacement for it. That's not to discount the importance of single issue or non-workplace based movements that exist but to recognise the power of organising in a workplace. And easy example would be say the anti-war movement - if the working class of this country had crossed its arms and told the government to piss off - to go and fight their own wars - there would be a damn sight fewer soldiers coming back in boxes, many less dead civilians and a greatly reduced 'terrorist' threat to this tiny wee island off the coast of europe. That power is only 'potential' - but it is still there. it still exists.



I don't disagree with any of that, I'm merely not optimistic that the better side of "human nature" often manifests where power is concerned, and that organisations, even those formed with the best of intentions, will always be prone to manipulation behind causes that don't actually benefit that organisation. To avoid this, any "leadership" would have to be directly accountable, and I can't see many of the union bosses (except maybe Crowe) going for that.



> It is a question that is seriously back on the agenda - as worldwide the crisis of representation of the other 99% (as they are saying in the US at the moment) comes to the fore while the 1% screw us so openly that even the most gullible (and the most downtrodden and desperate in places like the middle-east) are beginning to think 'hang on a moment..."
> 
> Of course I could be kidding you / trying to pull the wool over your eyes and just hopeful that you will 'vote for me' and mine rather than participating in changing your own world ;-)
> 
> (note: all the changes I have just made are simply for clarity in what is a long-winded post...)



That's okay. I often try to improve the clarity of my posts once I've posted them. [/quote]


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## dennisr (Oct 7, 2011)

articul8 said:


> I haven;t argued anywhere that the whole of the anti-cuts movement should hitch its wagon to Labour - I don't think that. But I am arguing that it's important that socialists inside the Labour party contest the current (cuts but not as fast) position, and link up with those outside to build a broad based anti-cuts movement.



Its important that they support and build those independant anti-cuts movements AND build independant working class organisations out of those independent anti-cuts movements. Being in the LP at the moment would be a tactical mistake and one will simply end up somewhat pointlessly and very hopelessly apologising from and trying to legitimse that mistake on the interwebs for the rest of their lives if they refuse to see that mistake for what it is.


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## dennisr (Oct 7, 2011)

_(except maybe Crowe)_ 

Actually - I've got to say I wouldn't be too sure about him.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 7, 2011)

articul8 said:


> did Militant think that the Labour party could be taken over - en bloc - to be a revolutionary vehicle (as opposed to being a useful area to try to recruit and organise in for the here-and-now?)
> 
> So why is it that it's ok to be prescriptive (if not inevitablisit!) about the Labour party?
> 
> For me it's a tactical judgement - given that millions will vote Labour even if solely as a means to kick out the other cunts, isn't it at least as productive to work inside (without triming sails to support the leadership and its programme) - linking up with anti-cuts activists outside - as to tilt at windmills?


Unfortunately, although your judgement may be tactical, effectively your vote will serve to entrench the current dominant discourses within the party, especially if they win, so the possibility of "working inside", appealing as it might be, is just as hopelessly romantic and Sisyphean as it has ever been.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 7, 2011)

articul8 said:


> ...is it wrong and self-defeating for socialists to organise within the party and link up with forces outside?



What, like a kind of clandestine vanguard for change?


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 7, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> This argument that you're trotting out now for starters, Well done, you're a trot in the 30s arguing you need to be where the workers are. Let's have 80 more years of these..._tactics_.



Hey, not to worry, the planet will probably have been sucked dry long before we've had to suffer 80 years of such "tactics".


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 7, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> You don't think that encouraging people to vote labour and explicitly tying the anti-cuts movement to the Labour Party could have the effect of discrediting it and making people view it as a LP front??



As well as diluting any momentum that an independent anti-cuts movement has built up.

Can you, for example, see the LP tolerating/sanctioning any of the more robust tactics adopted by the protesters last year, including giving the old bill the runaround? Nah. They'd want to show what good folk they were, and that would neuter any advantage the anti-cuts bloc has.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 7, 2011)

articul8 said:


> I think you are plain wrong if you think a majority of working class people see no essential difference between Labour and Tories/BNP.



Mention party politics to my neighbours and the refrain is remarkably consistent: Variations on "they're all cunts who're out to look after themselves, not us".


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## articul8 (Oct 8, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> This post demonstrates why you're a dishonest cunt.



Where's the dishonesty in that post?  Labour had been successively compared to Tories and the BNP earlier in the thread.
Less abuse more argument please.


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## articul8 (Oct 8, 2011)

dennisr said:


> Its important that they support and build those independant anti-cuts movements AND build independant working class organisations out of those independent anti-cuts movements. Being in the LP at the moment would be a tactical mistake and one will simply end up somewhat pointlessly and very hopelessly apologising from and trying to legitimse that mistake on the interwebs for the rest of their lives if they refuse to see that mistake for what it is.



The Labour party might be fucked but it's an actually existing fucked organisation with strong residual TU and w/c support. So of course it would be a huge mistake tactically to end up pretending that Ed Balls is the answer to our prayers. But to argue clearly and consistently as McDonnell has done against the Labour leadership whilst at the same time appealing directly to Labour voters AND those who have left it in disgust seems a perfectly legitimate tactic - if not the only one, or a magic wand.

As for "pointlessly and very hopelessly apologising for and trying to legitimise that mistake on the interwebs" I would have thought after Militant Labour, SLP, SSP, SA, Respect, Left List, NO2EU, Solidarity, TUSC you'd have got some of that feeling yourself, no?


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## butchersapron (Oct 8, 2011)

articul8 said:


> Where's the dishonesty in that post?  Labour had been successively compared to Tories and the BNP earlier in the thread.
> Less abuse more argument please.


No they hadn't, peoples desire to vote to keep another party out as a cross party phenomenon was highlighted. Which you twisted into frogman comparing labour voters to tory and bnp voters. You always start this shit when put under pressure.


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## articul8 (Oct 8, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Unfortunately, although your judgement may be tactical, effectively your vote will serve to entrench the current dominant discourses within the party, especially if they win, so the possibility of "working inside", appealing as it might be, is just as hopelessly romantic and Sisyphean as it has ever been.



Whilst I don't agree, I can understand people saying that entrism is and has always been an impossible and self-defeating tactic.  I think part of the problem in the past was groups like Militant putting all their eggs into that basket and dismissing forces outside of Labour as the "sectarian fringes" or "petit-bourgeois elements" etc. -  But that doesn't mean to say that socialists can't or shouldn't work in the party as point of entry and seek to build a broad left alliance.  To that extent (only) I don't really see on what grounds the original justification for entrism as a tactic has been invalidated.

Yes people are deeply sceptical about (Labour) politicians at present - and with bloody good reason.  But there is still a sense that Labour has betrayed us because it ought to be/have been our party.


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## articul8 (Oct 8, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> No they hadn't, peoples desire to vote to keep another party out as a cross party phenomenon was highlighted. Which you twisted into frogman comparing labour voters to tory and bnp voters. You always start this shit when put under pressure.



I twisted nothing.  And you're always throwing in some petty misplaced indignation to avoid arguing on the substance.


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## butchersapron (Oct 8, 2011)

articul8 said:


> The Labour party might be fucked but it's an actually existing fucked organisation with strong residual TU and w/c support. So of course it would be a huge mistake tactically to end up pretending that Ed Balls is the answer to our prayers. But to argue clearly and consistently as McDonnell has done against the Labour leadership whilst at the same time appealing directly to Labour voters AND those who have left it in disgust seems a perfectly legitimate tactic - if not the only one, or a magic wand.
> 
> As for "pointlessly and very hopelessly apologising for and trying to legitimise that mistake on the interwebs" I would have thought after Militant Labour, SLP, SSP, SA, Respect, Left List, NO2EU, Solidarity, TUSC you'd have got some of that feeling yourself, no?



Appeal to who to do what?

Why does he our anyone else need to be in the labor party to do that? I'll tell you why, even though you know the answer, because the appeal is essentially to vote labour, join labour and reclaim the labour party. You lie to yourself and to other people you talk to when you pretend it's to destroy labour from the left. People see right through this - and you.


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## butchersapron (Oct 8, 2011)

articul8 said:


> I twisted nothing.  And you're always throwing in some petty misplaced indignation to avoid arguing on the substance.


You don't even know that you're doing it anymore do you? I think a  clearer example of how the party  changes you rather than you changing the party would be hard to find. Eh moonie?


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## articul8 (Oct 8, 2011)

Hmm  a new tactic:  Quote yourself making an irrelevant point, change the gender of someone else, and then ventriloquise yourself an interlocutor taking up the positions you'd rather they'd taken rather than ones they actually did.  Hats off, sir.


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## dynamicbaddog (Oct 8, 2011)

articul8 said:


> Hmm a new tactic: Quote yourself making an irrelevant point, change the gender of someone else, and then ventriloquise yourself an interlocutor taking up the positions you'd rather they'd taken rather than ones they actually did. Hats off, sir.


it's not a new tactic tho, he does it all the time


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## dynamicbaddog (Oct 8, 2011)

articul8 said:


> I haven;t argued anywhere that the whole of the anti-cuts movement should hitch its wagon to Labour - I don't think that. But I am arguing that it's important that socialists inside the Labour party contest the current (cuts but not as fast) position, and link up with those outside to build a broad based anti-cuts movement.


In Lewisham where I live there is a People before Profit group that seems to be taking off quite well, and has the potential to become a successful  broad based movement.


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## TremulousTetra (Oct 8, 2011)

dennisr said:


> I know you are not fella (but you are derailing something else - and I am joining in....) Are you saying you would _be_ the unions non-leadership? (if so i am afraid Brendon Barbour beat you to it...) . In the perfect world there would be no leaders. In the meantime - To be very frank i am wary of the term rank-and-file because of its repeated misuse . I am a champion of people taking control of their lives and that would include the organisations that claim to represent them. ie making those who claim to represent them accountable to their collective wills. Ultimately its self-interest for this individual - because it is in my interests too. In the meantime also I am realistic that i cannot proclaim the abolishion of heirarchy and it will simply become so. Folk have to work that out for themselves rather than be told - I would hope through the process of doing (just like I learn through the process of doing my job rather than reading about it).
> 
> And you still have not proven your repeated insinuation - but hey, I cannot stop you repeating it


virtually everything I've ever wanted to say to an anarchist.seems to be the absolute nub of the argument between socialists and anarchists, that never gets to be discussed.


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## dennisr (Oct 8, 2011)

articul8 said:


> So why is it that it's ok to be prescriptive (if not inevitablisit!) about the Labour party?



I am not. Read the very post you were quoting from


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## frogwoman (Oct 8, 2011)

articul8 said:


> The Labour party might be fucked but it's an actually existing fucked organisation with strong residual TU and w/c support. So of course it would be a huge mistake tactically to end up pretending that Ed Balls is the answer to our prayers. But to argue clearly and consistently as McDonnell has done against the Labour leadership whilst at the same time appealing directly to Labour voters AND those who have left it in disgust seems a perfectly legitimate tactic - if not the only one, or a magic wand.
> 
> As for "pointlessly and very hopelessly apologising for and trying to legitimise that mistake on the interwebs" I would have thought after Militant Labour, SLP, SSP, SA, Respect, Left List, NO2EU, Solidarity, TUSC you'd have got some of that feeling yourself, no?



as far as i was aware, the SP were never in respect or the SLP, were they? so why should he apologise for that.

As for comparing labour voters to bnp and tory voters, i think it is a valid comparison, especially because many - although not all - bnp voters are former labour voters who have become so disaffected with that party that they end up voting bnp (and the BNPs propaganda plays on this constantly). i'm not saying that people see no difference between Labour and the bnp, ffs. I'm saying that the reasons why people might end up voting for one party over another, hell i would vote labour if it was the "best" chance of keeping out the bnp out, but not because i like labour.

and as for john mcdonnell, i agree he's a good bloke etc but what successes has he had within the Labour Party apart from argueing "clearly" and "conssitently"? Again I am not saying the SP is perfect and has had success after success, but labour party members always point to people like benn, mcdonnell, etc, as an example of how the labour party is still relevant, can be reclaimed etc, but what success have these people had since the 90s? How have they managed to shift Labour's policy to a more left wing direction? they haven't


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## frogwoman (Oct 8, 2011)

As for being an actually existing organisation with trade union support - have you noticed that ed milliband and co are trying their best to distance themselves from the unions, are talking about diluting their influence on Labour, are even talking about changing the constitution of the party so that non-party members can vote (so diluting their influence even further?) Despite the fact that the unions still give them a huge proportion of their funding?


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 8, 2011)

articul8 said:


> Whilst I don't agree, I can understand people saying that entrism is and has always been an impossible and self-defeating tactic. I think part of the problem in the past was groups like Militant putting all their eggs into that basket and dismissing forces outside of Labour as the "sectarian fringes" or "petit-bourgeois elements" etc. - But that doesn't mean to say that socialists can't or shouldn't work in the party as point of entry and seek to build a broad left alliance. To that extent (only) I don't really see on what grounds the original justification for entrism as a tactic has been invalidated.



Entryism into small political groups is an often-practiced tactic for shifting a group's political centre of gravity, but it doesn't work in large-political parties, and here are some of the reasons why:
- Big parties contain a broader spectrum of political views than small groups. This means having to convince not only those close to your views, but those opposed to them too, or at least get enough other members onside to overwhelm those opposing views.
- Big parties generally have access to resources and materiel that allows them to purge "malcontents".
-Entryism calls for the kind of full-blooded political commitment that few people are able to make.

As far as the Labour party is concerned, too, there's the whole issue _vis a vis_ entryism that the party has made sure that most mechanisms for voicing dissent, formulating policy and otherwise bringing the party into line with the membership, rather than _vice versa_, have been dissolved.
This means that any attempt at entryism not only has to navigate the issues I mention above, but also (and concurrently) reconstruct and add to mechanisms of accountability that would genuinely put the membership in the driving seat.

That is *not* going to happen, however much wishful thinking is done on your part.



> Yes people are deeply sceptical about (Labour) politicians at present - and with bloody good reason. But there is still a sense that Labour has betrayed us because it ought to be/have been our party.



I believe you're wrong. I believe that most people *expect* some form of betrayal from party politicians, so I don't think that "betrayal" is that much of an issue. By the end of Blair's first government most people who had any interest in politics had clearly been shown that Blair was merely another neo-liberal, albeit one who pretended to empathise with the people he was shitting on. What does appear to be an issue is the nakedness with which policies that are counter to the interests of the mass of the electorate have been pursued by all of the mainstream political parties with virtually *no* pretence at empathy, and every sign of contempt for those whose votes put them in a position of power.


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## dynamicbaddog (Oct 8, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> As for being an actually existing organisation with trade union support - have you noticed that ed milliband and co are trying their best to distance themselves from the unions, are talking about diluting their influence on Labour,


so what?
this is nothing new, the leadership has always wanted  to cut it's ties with the unions (read Rob Sewell's In The Cause of Labour for a detailed history of this).


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## frogwoman (Oct 8, 2011)

dynamicbaddog said:


> so what?
> this is nothing new, the leadership has always wanted to cut it's ties with the unions (read Rob Sewell's In The Cause of Labour for a detailed history of this).



If anything that's an arguement against more entryism rather than an arguement that people should continue to support labour?


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## articul8 (Oct 8, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> as far as i was aware, the SP were never in respect or the SLP, were they? so why should he apologise for that.



They weren't in the SLP but welcomed it as an initiative in the early days, and basically baulked at joining when Arthur wouldn't grant factional rights.  And Ian Page (then an SP councillor) did stand as Respect for the GLA elections.  But they wisely opted out of that too.



> i would vote labour if it was the "best" chance of keeping out the bnp out, but not because i like labour.


 exactly why most of those who might otherwise be won to a new workers party will be voting Labour at the next GE.  There's no point pretending or wishing otherwise.


> and as for john mcdonnell, i agree he's a good bloke etc but what successes has he had within the Labour Party apart from argueing "clearly" and "conssitently"? Again I am not saying the SP is perfect and has had success after success, but labour party members always point to people like benn, mcdonnell, etc, as an example of how the labour party is still relevant, can be reclaimed etc, but what success have these people had since the 90s? How have they managed to shift Labour's


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## articul8 (Oct 8, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> If anything that's an arguement against more entryism rather than an arguement that people should continue to support labour?


It's never been about giving blanket support for Labour.  It's organising in the party advancing socialist ideas that can attract support from Labour voters and activists (and beyond) and help to drive a wedge between them and the interests of the leadership.


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## frogwoman (Oct 8, 2011)

articul8 said:


> They weren't in the SLP but welcomed it as an initiative in the early days, and basically baulked at joining when Arthur wouldn't grant factional rights. And Ian Page (then an SP councillor) did stand as Respect for the GLA elections. But they wisely opted out of that too.
> 
> exactly why most of those who might otherwise be won to a new workers party will be voting Labour at the next GE. There's no point pretending or wishing otherwise.



yes but my point is that although they may have supported it, they have supported a lot of things, that doesn't mean that they joined either party.


articul8 said:


> They weren't in the SLP but welcomed it as an initiative in the early days, and basically baulked at joining when Arthur wouldn't grant factional rights. And Ian Page (then an SP councillor) did stand as Respect for the GLA elections. But they wisely opted out of that too.
> 
> exactly why most of those who might otherwise be won to a new workers party will be voting Labour at the next GE. There's no point pretending or wishing otherwise.



So why does the same thing not apply to BNP, Ukip, Tory etc voters who would have otherwise voted Labour but have been disaffected by its policies, when many of them have actually ended up voting for/supporting the SP, the IWCA or similar (but not going back to Labour?) Are you saying that the reason "exactly why" people would vote Labour these days is to keep out the BNP etc, in which case it's not exactly a ringing endorsement is it?


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## SpineyNorman (Oct 8, 2011)

articul8 said:


> It's never been about giving blanket support for Labour. It's organising in the party advancing socialist ideas that can attract support from Labour voters and activists (and beyond) and help to drive a wedge between them and the interests of the leadership.



How's that going then? Having much success? And why is it necessary to be inside New Labour to do this?


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## articul8 (Oct 8, 2011)

I am saying that most of those who could otherwise be won to a new workers party will - at the next election - make their priority to boot out the coalition parties.  This doesn't mean they have to like or trust Labour very much.  Just judge them to be less damaging than Clegg and Cameron.


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## articul8 (Oct 8, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> How's that going then? Having much success?



Success is relative.   Len McCluskey addressed the LRC fringe - that is a small but significant piece of evidence.


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## frogwoman (Oct 8, 2011)

But *exactly the same arguement* applied to many of those who voted tory during the last election.


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## articul8 (Oct 8, 2011)

Really?  You think that loads of potential supporters of Bob Crow et al voted Tory to kick out Brown?


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## frogwoman (Oct 8, 2011)

articul8 said:


> Really? You think that loads of potential supporters of Bob Crow et al voted Tory to kick out Brown?



yes.


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## frogwoman (Oct 8, 2011)

ffs, not everyone who votes/voted tory at the last election (possibly never to again) is some rich cunt in a bowler hat.


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## SpineyNorman (Oct 8, 2011)

articul8 said:


> Success is relative. Len McCluskey addressed the LRC fringe - that is a small but significant piece of evidence.



It's not the LRC you need to win over though is it? If the rest of the party were like them I might even agree with you. The leader of the party refused to share a platform with Bob Crow. Remember that?


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## Pickman's model (Oct 8, 2011)

articul8 said:


> Really? You think that loads of potential supporters of Bob Crow et al voted Tory to kick out Brown?


if they're but potential supporters they could have done anything at the last election. we're all potential christians, potential muslims, potential murderers - why shouldn't we be potential supporters of bob crow?


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## articul8 (Oct 8, 2011)

No but I don't think that w/c people who vote(d) Tory are going to be recruited to a new workers party in very short order.  Whereas people who tactically vote Labour to keep out the Tories might


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## articul8 (Oct 8, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> if they're but potential supporters they could have done anything at the last election. we're all potential christians, potential muslims, potential murderers - why shouldn't we be potential supporters of bob crow?


er OK Rose West is a potential militant shop steward, the Pope is a potential prod.  Whatever.


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## frogwoman (Oct 8, 2011)

i think you're wrong and they have and could be. you don't have to like them, like their politics, anything.


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## SpineyNorman (Oct 8, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> ffs, not everyone who votes/voted tory at the last election (possibly never to again) is some rich cunt in a bowler hat.



I think some people find it hard to grasp just how disengaged from mainstream politics vast swathes of the population have become. Before the election I lost count of the number of people who told me they were voting Tory because Labour had been shitting on working people for 13 years and so it was time to give the other lot a go - "they can't be any worse" (or words to that effect anyway). Many of those were people who tend to agree with me when I talk to them about the actual issues that affect them.

Unless the Labour "left" realises this I don't think they'll ever appreciate just how futile the task they've set themselves is.


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## articul8 (Oct 8, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> It's not the LRC you need to win over though is it? If the rest of the party were like them I might even agree with you. The leader of the party refused to share a platform with Bob Crow. Remember that?


The fact that the elected leader of UNITE - the biggest single funder of the party let's not forget - elects to share a platform with McDonnell, Tony Benn, Mark Serwotka etc is surely a welcome sign, even if it's only a gesture he has no real intention of backing it up.

The fact that you have Prentis (of all people) basically throwing down the gauntlet and insisting Ed M backs the Nov 30th strikers shows what pressure they  - and by extension he - is coming under.


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## Pickman's model (Oct 8, 2011)

articul8 said:


> er OK Rose West is a potential militant shop steward, the Pope is a potential prod. Whatever.


er... rose west is unlikely to have the opportunity to be a union member let alone a shop steward, let along a militant shop steward. and the pope is, as is well known, a christian already. people who voted one way at the last election can quite easily change their allegiance before the next one - so many of the people who voted lib dem last time are unlikely to make the same mistake again.


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## SpineyNorman (Oct 8, 2011)

articul8 said:


> The fact that the elected leader of UNITE - the biggest single funder of the party let's not forget - elects to share a platform with McDonnell, Tony Benn, Mark Serwotka etc is surely a welcome sign, even if it's only a gesture he has no real intention of backing it up.
> 
> The fact that you have Prentis (of all people) basically throwing down the gauntlet and insisting Ed M backs the Nov 30th strikers shows what pressure they - and by extension he - is coming under.



What's his response? A lurch to the left? No. He's looking into ways of breaking Labours "dependence on the unions". You're only fooling yourself.


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## articul8 (Oct 8, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> I think some people find it hard to grasp just how disengaged from mainstream politics vast swathes of the population have become. Before the election I lost count of the number of people who told me they were voting Tory because Labour had been shitting on working people for 13 years and so it was time to give the other lot a go - "they can't be any worse" (or words to that effect anyway). Many of those were people who tend to agree with me when I talk to them about the actual issues that affect them.
> 
> Unless the Labour "left" realises this I don't think they'll ever appreciate just how futile the task they've set themselves is.



You lot are so blinded by hostility to Labour that you miss the big picture - Cameron and the Tories couldn't win a majority despite the economy having undergone the biggest crisis since the 30s, Labour was resented for failed wars in Iraq/Afghanistan, they fucked up with the 10p tax rate etc.etc.

Why was Brown not turfed out by a total fucking landslide?  Because working class people remembered what a Tory government was like and there was a last minute shoring up off the Labour vote.


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## articul8 (Oct 8, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> What's his response? A lurch to the left? No. He's looking into ways of breaking Labours "dependence on the unions". You're only fooling yourself.



He can look into whatever he likes.  But can he do it?  If he does he'll sign his own death warrant


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## frogwoman (Oct 8, 2011)

articul8 said:


> You lot are so blinded by hostility to Labour that you miss the big picture - Cameron and the Tories couldn't win a majority despite the economy having undergone the biggest crisis since the 30s, Labour was resented for failed wars in Iraq/Afghanistan, they fucked up with the 10p tax rate etc.etc.
> 
> Why was Brown not turfed out by a total fucking landslide? Because working class people remembered what a Tory government was like and there was a last minute shoring up off the Labour vote.



there was an element of that, yes, but you could ask the same question, why did labour not get back in by a landslide once there was a real possiiblity of the tories winning? Why did loads of people (not just middle class, students, there aren't that many in the country) vote Lib Dem for that matter rather than labour or the tories? why was there an increase in the vote of the greens, vote of the far right and other "fringe" parties? etc


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## articul8 (Oct 8, 2011)

LD vote in part anti-Tory tactical votes.  In other areas Tory voters tacitcally voting against Labour.  Not a coincidence that LDs suffer in terms of vote share in PR elections!


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## SpineyNorman (Oct 8, 2011)

articul8 said:


> He can look into whatever he likes. But can he do it? If he does he'll sign his own death warrant



The point is his first reaction wasn't to move to the left, or even talk left. Instead he lurched rightwards and talked about getting rid of the unions. You're fighting a losing battle - you'd be just as effective outside Labour, probably more so. But you wouldn't have to sell your soul.


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## SpineyNorman (Oct 8, 2011)

articul8 said:


> LD vote in part anti-Tory tactical votes. In other areas Tory voters tacitcally voting against Labour. Not a coincidence that LDs suffer in terms of vote share in PR elections!



It always comes back to electoral reform. Marx was wrong - class struggle isn't the driving force behind social change, electoral engineering is lol


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## articul8 (Oct 8, 2011)

Not selling my soul to anyone.  Even if i wasn't a Labour member I'd still be voting Labour to punish the Lib Dem MP.  I spend more time working with the local anti-cuts group than in promoting Labour candidates.  In fact where the Labour council is shit (closing libraries) I say so, though I also point out how hypocritical the local "save our libraries" campaign by local LD councillors are.

I'm not under any illusions.


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## Pickman's model (Oct 8, 2011)

articul8 said:


> I'm not under any illusions.


yes, you are.


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## articul8 (Oct 8, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> It always comes back to electoral reform. Marx was wrong - class struggle isn't the driving force behind social change, electoral engineering is lol



The electoral system is one major barrier - not the only one by any means - to the emergence of a viable left alternative.


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## articul8 (Oct 8, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> yes, you are.


on balance yes - but no more than is healthy


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## dynamicbaddog (Oct 8, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> why was there an increase in the vote of the greens, vote of the far right and *other "fringe" parties*? etc


  the far left did abysmally in the last  general election and in this years May local elections, worst results ever  despite 13 years of New Labour and the  Tory cuts . If they  can't be successful  under those conditions when can they be?


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## SpineyNorman (Oct 8, 2011)

articul8 said:


> Not selling my soul to anyone. Even if i wasn't a Labour member I'd still be voting Labour to punish the Lib Dem MP. I spend more time working with the local anti-cuts group than in promoting Labour candidates. In fact where the Labour council is shit (closing libraries) I say so, though I also point out how hypocritical the local "save our libraries" campaign by local LD councillors are.
> 
> I'm not under any illusions.



What does Labour membership allow you to do effectively that you couldn't do from outside? Personally I couldn't pay subs to a party for whom Frank Field was an MP.


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## articul8 (Oct 8, 2011)

I got to accuse him of pursuing ideas last seen in Pinochet's Chile to his face, that's one thing


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## SpineyNorman (Oct 8, 2011)

dynamicbaddog said:


> the far left did abysmally in the last general election and in this years May local elections, worst results ever despite 13 years of New Labour and the Tory cuts . If they can't be successful under those conditions when can they be?



The Labour left has utterly failed in its attempt to move the party towards anything resembling even social democracy, nevermind socialism, despite New Labour's trouncing at the polls and all the pressure from the unions. If they can't be successful under those conditions when can they be?


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## SpineyNorman (Oct 8, 2011)

articul8 said:


> I got to accuse him of pursuing ideas last seen in Pinochet's Chile to his face, that's one thing



Almost worth it for that. Almost.


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## frogwoman (Oct 8, 2011)

dynamicbaddog said:


> the far left did abysmally in the last general election and in this years May local elections, worst results ever despite 13 years of New Labour and the Tory cuts . If they can't be successful under those conditions when can they be?



the worst results *ever*? Are you sure???

but this year also saw the most successful Trade Union demo ever, the most strikes in a *very* long time, etc. i'm not saying that everyone is going to join a new workers' party immediately, but i think trying to get a new party is more worthwhile than trying to "reclaim" the party that went into Iraq, and actually started all these cuts in the first place, that introduced the white paper on the NHS, etc. i agree that people are disaffected with the far left but it is also because everyone is disaffected with the parties and the voting system generally. i don't think that labour are going to be the main beneficiaries of that disaffection and even if they are i dont think it's worth pursuing entryist strategies again any more than it's worth pursuing entryist strategies in the tory party.


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## dynamicbaddog (Oct 8, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> but this year also saw the most successful Trade Union demo ever,


I don't see how that backs up your argument. Are you trying to claim that the TUC demo  was organised by the SP?


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## frogwoman (Oct 8, 2011)

dynamicbaddog said:


> I don't see how that backs up your argument. Are you trying to claim that the TUC demo was organised by the SP?



No I'm not saying that at all, I'm saying that it's a mistake to say that nobody will have any sympathy for unions/the far left and the only vehicle for this is the labour party, I'm saying that not all of the people that were on that demo and involved in organising it, supported Labour and it certainly wasnt organised by fuckin Labour was it?


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## dynamicbaddog (Oct 8, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> it certainly wasnt organised by fuckin Labour was it?


No it was organised by the TUC whose parliamentary voice is the Labour Party.


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## frogwoman (Oct 8, 2011)

Labour didn't organise it though did they?


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## butchersapron (Oct 9, 2011)

dynamicbaddog said:


> No it was organised by the TUC whose parliamentary voice is the Labour Party.


Qed


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## Mr Blob (Oct 9, 2011)

No, the trade unions should continue backing Labour


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## frogwoman (Oct 9, 2011)

why?


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## TremulousTetra (Oct 17, 2011)

now the thread has died of natural causes.





ViolentPanda said:


> Fair enough. I was basing my point on the last time rmp3 whined about how anarchists on the board wouldn't give him the time of day, and it was explained to him (at great length) why they wouldn't.


why do you lie like this? What I HAVE said is,ie that if you search this board you will find very few serious discussions about anarchism with anyone [Not just me]. Considering how many Anarchists there are on this board, I find it curious, and so have tried to provoke some,when attempts at reasoned discussion failed.

And here is an example that it is not only me who fails to have a reasoned discussion about the differences in strategy between socialists and anarchists. Look at the discussion you provoked between random and Dennis above starting with this question. 





ViolentPanda said:


> And the thread does ask a question that needs to be "put out there"
> snip


 Random was clearly unable to get past his preconceptions of socialists, to understand the more nuanced argument Dennis was making. So incapable, Dennis ended up saying.





dennisr said:


> No I did not agree with "it". (Que: 'yes you did' - 'no I didnt' - pantomime episode). I thought you were an anarchist not a conspiracy theorist?


 sound familiar?

And you fail to even get involved in the discussion, you started. Why, because like random





Random said:


> I'm ignoring your digs at anarchism because I'm not actually putting forward any anarchist way as a solution.


 you have nothing to offer. Criticise what everybody else is doing, but put nothing out there as an alternative 99% of the time.  Ayatollah was right.

PS. I would not make this accusation about anarchism. There are plenty of anarchist out there who are prepared to put out their beliefs for people to accept or reject, for whom I have nothing but respect.


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## Zabo (Oct 17, 2011)

The tragic sadness is we do not have a single figurehead with which people can coalesce. Same goes for the current world wide anti-banking, anti government demonstrations.

In the distant past we had the likes of Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Rudi Dutschke for inspiration. Today, with all the smartest technology such as Twitter and the likes it seems there is no single voice representing the multitude.

My apologies if the media has missed out any key figure for their own agenda.


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## butchersapron (Oct 17, 2011)

Names


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## Spanky Longhorn (Oct 17, 2011)

Tasmin Omond?


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## DotCommunist (Oct 17, 2011)

Galloway


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## past caring (Oct 17, 2011)

Chris Knight


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## JimW (Oct 17, 2011)

He may be dead, but Kim Il-sung is still the Eternal Leader.


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## DotCommunist (Oct 17, 2011)

Sherridan


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## DotCommunist (Oct 17, 2011)

JimW said:


> He may be dead, but Kim Il-sung is still the Eternal Leader.


 
[uncle joe based rejoinder here]


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