tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21995284.post7686335385085550936..comments2023-10-25T12:49:50.074+01:00Comments on The Old Socialist Unity Blog - we have moved: The left's long journeyANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05901425044840795347noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21995284.post-63211867264815946942007-04-21T19:48:00.000+01:002007-04-21T19:48:00.000+01:00But: is what the "Star" says on any given issue ac...But: is what the "Star" says on any given issue actually *true*? No! They're a bunch of liars! So why do you lot give them any credit?<BR/>-Jim DenhamAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21995284.post-62537215604516640622007-04-19T14:08:00.000+01:002007-04-19T14:08:00.000+01:00Jim: Actually the Star has had articles by Liz Dav...Jim: Actually the Star has had articles by Liz Davies on the changes to legal aid and how this will impact on people gaining access to justice both criminal and civil, which other leftie papers have not bothered to find out about.Louisefeministahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08279991897445225597noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21995284.post-14383872934371935072007-04-19T13:16:00.000+01:002007-04-19T13:16:00.000+01:00Dave.To return to your argument (back from oslo no...Dave.<BR/><BR/>To return to your argument (back from oslo now).<BR/><BR/>The question of organisational form cannot be divorced from the politics, but just as importantly the form and politics cannot be divorced from its context.<BR/><BR/>The experience of the British left has had certain peculiarities, and I simply don't know to what degree it is applicable elsewhere. <BR/><BR/>What we describe as "leninist" in the British context is the Healy/Cliff/Grant model, which was itself very much influenced by the ealrly years of the CPGB.<BR/><BR/>Now I know that the LCR would for example describe themselves as a leninist organisation, but has almost no similarity with the british model.<BR/><BR/>It is to a certain extent true Ii think what Ken says that his description is colouyred by the SWP, but Phil hearse's description of life in the Militant is similar, and anyone who remembers the Militant during the time of the poll tax campaign would recognise how his description fits their behaviour at that time - and in particular their difficulty with developing long term relationshios with activists who were not willing to accept their "leadership"<BR/><BR/>I accept we need leadership, and I accept that groups have a right to caucus. But the british model has been for groups to assume their fitness to "lead", and dictate to other activists.<BR/><BR/>I also accepot that a democratic party of militants is what we should be aiming for, rather than networks and loose associations, but starting from where we are now in England, that is not on the short to medium term agenda.ANhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05901425044840795347noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21995284.post-62522863798419073732007-04-19T12:51:00.000+01:002007-04-19T12:51:00.000+01:00Oh yeah, check the features here:http://www.mornin...Oh yeah, check the features here:<BR/>http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index2.php/ex/examples/featuresANhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05901425044840795347noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21995284.post-13800291859007556752007-04-19T12:50:00.000+01:002007-04-19T12:50:00.000+01:00JImThat is clearly a load of hogswash, as a brief ...JIm<BR/><BR/>That is clearly a load of hogswash, as a brief look at recent contributers to the "features" section will show, a broad range of opinion from JOhn McDonnell and felicity Arbuthnot to Fidel Castro and Jeremy Corbyn.ANhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05901425044840795347noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21995284.post-77292287423423576912007-04-19T00:13:00.000+01:002007-04-19T00:13:00.000+01:00Gregor Gall's contributions are just about the onl...Gregor Gall's contributions are just about the only reason any serious socialist would want to read the 'Star': the rest of it is pro-"Respect" garbage. misrepresentation of trade union affairs and letters from geriatric anti-semites.<BR/>-Jim DenhamAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21995284.post-55920133879678139422007-04-17T22:41:00.000+01:002007-04-17T22:41:00.000+01:00...well, apart from the Pabloites, obviously....well, apart from the Pabloites, obviously.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21995284.post-34488658309978808702007-04-17T22:03:00.000+01:002007-04-17T22:03:00.000+01:00It sounds as if Jim A.'s argument exemplifies the ...It sounds as if Jim A.'s argument exemplifies the historical myopia Gall talks about. The anti-Poll Tax movement was huge; the mobilisation behind the Miners' Strike was huge; the peace movement was pretty sizeable in its day. All gone now. (Come to that, even something as small, relatively speaking, as the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign looks pretty big by today's standards.)<BR/><BR/>The problem has always been developing a level of mobilisation that will sustain itself in the absence of an obvious external threat or target. I don't think you can get there without a lot of time being put in by members of parties with their own agendas - or, in the best case, <B>ex</B>-members of ditto.<BR/><BR/>That's an ideah - perhaps we should be trying to convert members into ex-members, with a view to an eventual agenda-free regrouping (Trots Reunited?). My old group (defunct these ten years or thereabouts) had cadre who were ex-IMG, ex-IS, ex-WRP and in at least one case ex-Spart - not to mention the Pabloites (we kicked them out). We got on fine.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21995284.post-7587488118255762882007-04-17T16:00:00.000+01:002007-04-17T16:00:00.000+01:00Don't apologise daveYou are making a substantive p...Don't apologise dave<BR/><BR/>You are making a substantive point. I am in a hotel in Oslo at the moment with just limited internet access, so I will respond more fully when i get home.ANhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05901425044840795347noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21995284.post-29817730572510695172007-04-17T14:12:00.000+01:002007-04-17T14:12:00.000+01:00Going only by the excerpts, Gregor Gall's article ...Going only by the excerpts, Gregor Gall's article seems to generalise too much from the SWP. His picture doesn't fit Militant and its descendants, or the CPB, nearly so well.Kenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03493440163559858462noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21995284.post-85609932989136149142007-04-17T08:10:00.000+01:002007-04-17T08:10:00.000+01:00oops. I guess I get keyed up over this organisatio...oops. I guess I get keyed up over this organisational question because I think a lot of it is a distraction and so many comrades simply don't understand it because form has so often been allowed to rule rather than the substance.<BR/><BR/>So ignore my rant, Andy....Dave Rileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05319742357589026156noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21995284.post-79276086067803279462007-04-17T04:34:00.000+01:002007-04-17T04:34:00.000+01:00it's an interesting article. I think it slightly o...it's an interesting article. I think it slightly overlooks the role of theory (a point I mentioned in my blog) in sustaining activism - and provides a perhaps flawed reading of 'the left' but otherwise yus.J.Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18141125102048429933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21995284.post-85729927825890679412007-04-17T01:21:00.000+01:002007-04-17T01:21:00.000+01:00To some degree this 'model' --albeit in a warped &...To some degree this 'model' --albeit in a warped & crude form -- did prosper under the sway of Stalinism, but has not since, when it has been embraced by the post sixties new left.<BR/><BR/>I think that's very clear but maybe you too neatly equate organisational attributes with the political history as though it was the organisational form that sentenced the far left to marginalisation.<BR/><BR/>I don't think it can be so neat.<BR/><BR/>Over at Marxmail they make that mistake big time. and wallow in it, I fear, such that their core and pristine position , their shibboleth,is almost apolitical in nature.<BR/><BR/>I've often wondered, nonetheless, if the history here in Australia would have been very different IF the Alliance existed thirty or more years ago.<BR/><BR/>And the answer is that that is an impossible call because the Alliance exists BECAUSE of the history these last thirty years and what the organisational forms did was to help to ensure a political continuity. It needed that quantative component before change came begging. Because what happened in the sixties and seventies, as you point out, was a schematic belief that BOTH Stalinism and social democracy would be transcended by this new left. <BR/><BR/>That didn't happen so the mistake wasn't in the organisational form but in the mistaken perspectives embraced.<BR/><BR/>Looser and different organisational forms, such as the US SDS -- OR the Black Panthers, etc -- simply failed to prosper and died,(Was that "form" or politics in play?)<BR/><BR/>You also miss the point, I think, in not recognising the significance of the rise of the greens especially in the eighties and especially in Germany because this was indeed "the last hesitation to socialism'.<BR/><BR/>So that was the wake up call -- not so much the debates that may be had today. The greens posed the issue but this new left in the main failed to respond(as it still fails to today unfortunately).<BR/><BR/>You also fall into the trap that in being pre-occupied with organisational issues you cannot explain why 'social democracy' has more or less continued to prosper despite its shallow engagement with its membership and internal lack of democracy. Shouldn't that be its massive handicap?<BR/><BR/>Is that what you are advocating -- the social democratic model as being better than these others -- because of what it isn't?<BR/><BR/>The other mistake you make is that you fetishize the organisational form and presume that some structural thing is at issue -- say how much democracy and how much centralisation -- when, in fact, these organisational questions are core political questions. You don't organise for its own sake.You merge the organisational tool with the politics you advocate and embrace. It's dialectical and has a learn-as-you-go sort of dynamic.<BR/><BR/>Granted that the far left has so often been rigidly loyal to organisation for its own sake. <BR/><BR/>Here the organisational nature of the SA -- its structure -- is very fluid as the template is fiddled with all the time. Thats' not because we seek an unLeninish way of organising for its own sake, or a Leninist way by deceit --but because the form we adopt has the merge with the politics we do.<BR/><BR/>And I guess that's the lesson that has not been learnt in other contexts. Nonetheless, how the SA organises will develop and change over the time ahead and in the debate that will ensure over what constitutes good practice has to include an open ended debate about the forms of organisation you criticize here.<BR/><BR/>But as Jim Cannon asserted, and I agree, because it is the key question regardless of any model or template pursued: the question of the party is the question of the leadership of the party. That's as true for green, "combat" and social democratic parties as anything else .Dave Rileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05319742357589026156noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21995284.post-4050087242262539212007-04-17T00:12:00.000+01:002007-04-17T00:12:00.000+01:00muy interesante lo que dices aqui, te recomiendo q...muy interesante lo que dices aqui, te recomiendo que visites este site para comprar viagra para mujeres<BR/>http://www.buyintrinsa.blogspot.comArixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17521194835291471618noreply@blogger.com