2012 STRIKE FOR A MONEYLESS WORLD

The SPGB should get a copy of “How to Make Friends and Influence People”.  Smugness does not become you and you are in no position to be smug about anything.    Worldstrike2012 may have been hopelessly foredoomed from the start but you dont rubbish individuals for wanting to have a go and who want something that  socialists wantBrush up on your PR skills for chrissakes

Actually, we normally are positive in our approach to others who talk about a moneyfree world, eg the Zeitgeist Movement and the Free World Charter, but when we discussed WorldStrike2012 in detail in 2010 on the WSM forum doubts were expressed (not just by us) about the link between those behind this strike call and a millenarianist idea that the world was suddenly going to change as a result of this strike. See:http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/WSM_Forum/message/44601http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/WSM_Forum/message/44895Having said that, the publicity around it will probably have created interest in the idea of a moneyfree world amongst people who wouldn’t agree with the perspective of those behind the strikecall and who we should try to contact.If you haven’t already contacted them, OGW, the Free World Charter has produced an excellent short video:http://www.freeworldcharter.org/en

 I have no problem with the idea of robustly and honestly critiquing Worldstrike 2012.  It clearly was not going to suceed and it is perfectly legitimate to say that.  But that was not the point, was it? .  The point was about the ridiculing of individuals involved .  THAT is where you need to brush up on your PR skills. Even on a single thread on religion over the past week on this forum  you lot  have managed to disillusion one or two potential members and one or two existing members.  But you never learn,  do you? You just cannot afford to behave in this arrogantly dismissive manner that you do and you still dont seem to realise this. Then there’s this priceless little gem from the Gnome: if “the SPGB has not been successful after 108 years and doesn’t have more members, then that must be because it is doing something wrong or failing to do something right”  Er… yes… and why not?  It must  share at least  part of the blame for its very conspicuous non-success Or do you seriously think the SPGB has done absolutely nothing wrong at all and everything it has done to date  has been perfectly right.?   In which case – why has it got only 332  members (and steadly falling ) after 108 years and despite the generous transfusions of  legacy money  to keep it going?  Now where have I heard that expression before – ” its all the fault of everyone else, its got nuffin to do with me, guv”

Well of course, and this is what he’s always done, both when he was in the party (see the 1987 Guildford Branch polemic and the various responses to it just uploaded to the Spintcom files section) and since.   If Robocox employed a little less rhetoric and a little more energy in putting his ‘solutions’ to the test we would undoubtedly see his “World in Common” group surpassing the SPGB as a political force to be reckoned with or the formation of a Socialist Party in Spain where he’s been residing for, what, the past eight years?   Not a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening because what he relishes above all else is a slanging match with anyone foolish enough to take him seriously.

I think you’re right (at least I hope so). The discussion on this forum over the past few days — the liveliest we’ve had so far, which is good — has I suspect been between men in the 50s and 60s (apart from you and Ed) who wouldn’t dare speak to each other like we have if we were meeting face to face in a pub. After all, people of this age don’t normally get involved in pub brawls. There seems to be something about the internet ….

 Yeah , go on,  deflect the blame on poor  Robocox (LOL) as you and Mr Copy-n-Paste Gnome have been doing all along.  Its not me who has been the cause of their disillusionment.. My motives  have been obvious from the start: I would love nothing more than for the SPGB to flourish and grow but it aint gonna happen unless it gets off  its complacent arse and makes some pretty radical changes..  Thats what I and others who have left the Party would hope for  but perhaps I am more naive  than them  in thinking such change is possible in the face of the such entrenched conservatism as we have seen here.  Those who defend the organisation, come hell or high water,  will do everything possible to avert their eyes from the pretty obvious shortcomings of the organisation rather than face up to the plain truth.  Why the SPGB is in steady decline had got nothing to do with the SPGB, in their view ;  its all the fault of troublemakers outside or whatever.  As if But quite seriously – why do you think the SPGB is an organisation in decline?  I know it is about half the size it was when I was a member (and, no, I’m  not imputing any causal connection between these two things  – LOL).  I would love to hear a genuine up front explanation from a die-hard member.   I don’t think, for example, pointing to the general malaise on the Left is an adequate answer since you would have thought this would have been excellent opportunity to recruit from the Left.  Yet  go the Revleft  where,  irony of ironies, I have have often been stoutly defending the  SPGB against Leftist criticism while people like ALB and Gnome whinge pathetically about bad boy Robocox but couldn’t be arsed to participate in the debates in  Revleft themselves, and you wont find much sympathy for the SPGB.   I wonder why?