Left Unity.org / People’s Assembly
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"make it a genuinely pluralist party to the left of Labour." It has been pointed out on this thread that there already exists parties left of Labour, being the SLP, TUSC and RESPECT but biggest of all – the Green Party (and in Scotland, the SNP are claiming the mantle of left of Labour) Of the 1000 new members, i dare say a few are political virgins but i hazard a guess damn few and majority have probably been through other groups and organisations, whether fully signed up or nominally non-aligned. You and Stuart are examples, are ye not? Certainly neither of you are virgo intacto politios. So is it re-cycling the same pool of people and the momentary attraction of LU is that it is all things to all people right now. But once committed to a platform, to election promises and policies and to a administrative structure will the unity prevail?
stuartw2112 wrote:As for dinner, you try telling someone who's hungry that unhealthy snacks are a diversion from the glorious Michelin starred restaurant that awaits us at the end of a 40 year journey. I'll hold their coat while they smack you about the head.I see you're having duck for dinner. Anyway, eating sweets between meals can ruin your appetite. It's the snackers that are delaying dinner, that's the point.
jpodcaster wrote:Welcome to politics Bill – its a messy business. Alternatively you could always establish a central dinner committee to tell everyone where they'll be going?Or, we could organise a Dinner group based on the agreement of what a restuarant is, and how to get there, first, instead of trying to reconcile incommensurates. The idea of unity between Labour reformists who don't want socialism, Stalinist and Trotskyist totalitarians and woolly libertarians is the opposite of politics. Politics is deciding what you want to do, and how to do it, not agreeing to submerge those two key things for the sake of 'unity'.Or, to use Alistair Campbells very useful TLA: OST Objective, Strategy, Tactics. Left unity looks to unite around tactics, and knock O & S into the long grass.
Hmm, the truce didn't last long did it? Should have known better than to try a reasonable conversation.
Just in case there's anyone left in this braindead organisation who is actually interested in socialist politics, and who is capable of reasoned argument without resorting to snideness and sarcasm and cynicism and stupidity, and on the offchance that they're reading this discussion and are interested in what the actual arguments are, rather than in a load of offensive drivel and horseshit, here are the three best articles I know of making the case I would try to make here if anyone here was interested in actual debate:http://leftunity.org/which-way-for-left-unity-the-case-for-the-left-party-platform/http://leftunity.org/for-what-its-worth-my-thoughts-on-left-unity-and-the-platform-debate/http://www.leninology.com/2013/10/theses-on-austerity-and-how-to-fight-it.htmlIf you'd like to discuss further, please email me, not this list, as I won't be poisoning my mind or wasting my time with this forum or this party ever again:stuartrag@yahoo.co.ukStuart
jpodcaster wrote:You knew him much better than I but I wouldn't necessarily agree that he would have rejected LU. For example in his resignation letter he talked of the likelihood of a working-class socialist party being formed outside of the SPGB.Since John Crump is no longer with us it's all speculation but I still think it highly unlikely that someone who became anti-parliamentary anarcho-communist would support a party committed to engaging in electoralist politics, reform programme and all.
jpodcaster wrote:Also let's not forget that, whatever your views on the "wishy-washy reformism" of LU, the organisation contains a significant minority of men and women with a commitment to a socialism virtually indistinguishable from that envisaged by the SPGB, including ex-members and sympathisers.Does that mean that Robin Cox's World in Common group has decided to "enter" the new party?
I see the ghost of Stuart is still eating duck (after asking for a bit of robust debate and getting it). he seems unable to answer the question of how you achieve unity between people with different objectives: he's never answered that one any time it was raised. good uck to Tactical Unity, they'll need it.
"I see the ghost of Stuart is still eating duck" I hope it won't be humble pie he will be eating in a few years time.
Of course, this debate does revolve around our raison d'etre, possiblism/impossiblism. We would not for one second deny the need to fight for our living standards here and now: only that a political party (one aiming to use the offices of state) shouldn't do so. Leftists can use other, more effective avenues than Left Unity: you can join the Labour Representation Committee without joining Labour, You can join Labour. You can join the community section of Unite, so even within the principle of fighting back, it's far from clear that a new small party will really be the most effective way to do it. These are the issues we could have discussed (and have further back in the thread).
I did take the time to read (refresh my memory ) Stuart’s recommended reading. In only a few months, more than 9,000 people have signed up to an appeal by film director Ken Loach to set up a new party.[ OOOPs and Stuart skips over the disappearance of 8,000 when it came to joining and paying dues]“… broad left party needs to encompass not only socialists, but feminists, greens/environmentalists, anarchists (and people who aren’t particularly anarchist in their practice but say they are anarchists), communists, syndicalists, autonomists, alongside people who might call themselves “mutualists”, or “co-operators”, or supporters of “parecon”, or just “radical”, or “libertarian left”, or any number of other more unusual self-descriptions – situationism, anyone? Not to mention combinations, like “eco-feminist” or “anarcho-communist”, and people who say things like “well, I don’t label myself” or “I just want to defend the welfare state”. And yes, the dreaded “left reformists” should also be included (though, of course, almost no one uses that term to refer to themselves). I’m sure I’ve missed plenty. These are the people who I “fear will walk away”. We need to try to weave together the many, many threads of left tradition into a common party…. One final point: Is this about “hiding” our socialism and voting for bad positions, in the style of the Socialist Workers Party in Respect? No – and I find this the most tedious accusation of all. The Left Party Platform is full of left principles, and certainly does not advocate the abandonment of any of them. Supporting it is, simply, about being openly socialist, but not demanding that everyone else should be. It is about being the kind of socialist who can co-exist in a party with a wide spectrum of the left. If we’re going to demand that people agree with us before they can even join, then what is the point of having a new party at all?” Throw in everything into the formation of LUP but the kitchen sink and Stuart declares “Well, that’s that argument nailed, for me anyway. Great piece, thanks Tom.” The author of the second recommended article writes “I’ve supported the Left Party Platform precisely because it is an entirely different type of document. It does not claim to be complete and does not ask people to subscribe to a pre-packaged set of formulations. It does try to explain and contextualise “socialism” and on this basis begins to conceptualise a new and different kind of party.” In simple words we will define our “socialism” depending on what we want it to mean in specific situations to abstractly imagine a new party with a pre-conceived meaning – Gibberish words but Stuart disagrees – ” To me a very great deal! Excellent piece” Lastly Richard Seymours contribution which actually says something worthwhile by adopting the best from the old IS into the ISN. “Those fighting these struggles are stronger if they are united in a common cause, but it has to be a complex unity: a ‘unity in difference’. We need to help create ‘systems of alliances’” And i believe we have argued that a socialist party should be the umbrella organisation for all the single issues campaigns – so little to disagree with, IMHO. I always had a soft spot for the IS’s R and F organisation. But in sneaks that vanguardism “…we as socialists need to find and try to cohere the most militant forces who are able to argue for a strategy that is not parliamentarist, not based on deference to leadership, and not bound by ‘law and order’. Of course, those forces will be small and will probably lose most of the time. But the stronger they are, the harder the position of the wider anti-austerity movement can be.” And of course the Trojan Horse of transitional demands “In the UK, given the balance of forces, we would be fortunate to assemble a radical formation with a broadly ‘left reformist’ politics that was nonetheless hospitable to a significant anticapitalist minority. It could usefully deploy some simple demands that would gain widespread support and threaten significant institutional bases of ruling class power: ‘nationalise the banks’, for example. We ought to be directly involved in helping to build that.” But since Stuart has departed i feel i am talking to myself.
jpodcaster wrote:Welcome to politics Bill – its a messy business. Alternatively you could always establish a central dinner committee to tell everyone where they'll be going?Young Master Smeet wrote:Or, we could organise a Dinner group based on the agreement of what a restuarant is, and how to get there, first, instead of trying to reconcile incommensurates. The idea of unity between Labour reformists who don't want socialism, Stalinist and Trotskyist totalitarians and woolly libertarians is the opposite of politics. Politics is deciding what you want to do, and how to do it, not agreeing to submerge those two key things for the sake of 'unity'.But Bill – you've been trying to organise this dinner party for 100 years and despite sending out invitations to everyone its only you and your mates who ever turn up! Whether that's because of your definition of what the restaurant is or how to get there, or the fact that your invited guests know that they'll be bored out their skulls listening to a small group of white men talk about the state capitalist nature of the former USSR, doesn't matter. The fact is – and I can't believe a group calling themselves scientific socialists can't see this – something has gone badly wrong with either your objective, your strategy or your tactics (or a combination of all three).
jpodcaster,And? At least it's the restaurant I want. In my opinion, this is the best course of action, and I need to be able to argue for it clearly, rather than curtailing my comments in the name of unity with people whose objectives are massively at variance with mine. I might be wrong, I might be right. I've no problem with people trying something different (and I reserve the right to voice my opinions on their efforts). I see no viable alternative to my activity now.
If this was the first ever attempt at unity, a totally new venture, never ever tried before, then perhaps some of us would be more receptive. But it is not , is it? What is being forgotten is that there has been repeated attempts at this unity and if we have failed in our approach, those, too, have failed Obviously, situations and circumstances do change and offer some hope that the outcome may be different but when history is deliberately and purposefully ignored and all those previous unity moves never discussed or debated and i am not just talking about the past decade or two but over a 100 years because it may challenge and undermine the prevailing narrative which has to be one of optimism. Spoil-sports who cast some well-founded doubts like ourselves are most unwelcome and not permitted. The promise of open broad church has been demonstrated to be false by Stuart who grabbed the ball and went away home in a huff because we don't accept claims by assertion but rather demand evidence and proof that we question and quiz for clarity. That type of investigation into political ideas is our scientific socialism. “There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.” ― Arthur Conan Doyle
Young Master Smeet wrote:good uck to Tactical Unity,Are we supposed to fill in the missing letter ourselves? Is it "duck" or "luck" or what? Or maybe you simply meant "uck"?
jpodcaster wrote:But Bill – you've been trying to organise this dinner party for 100 years and despite sending out invitations to everyone its only you and your mates who ever turn up! Whether that's because of your definition of what the restaurant is or how to get there, or the fact that your invited guests know that they'll be bored out their skulls listening to a small group of white men talk about the state capitalist nature of the former USSR, doesn't matter. The fact is – and I can't believe a group calling themselves scientific socialists can't see this – something has gone badly wrong with either your objective, your strategy or your tactics (or a combination of all three).I have seen hundred of lefty groups with large membership who have vanished from the face of the earth, and they can not even send an invitation for dinner to a cook, because most of their members dropped from the movement, and they left in stampede. The first ones who left were the captains of the sinking shipsSome are collaborating with the ruling class, and some are socialism haters, some are seating on a rocking chair, and some lost the hopes for the establishing of a new society better than capitalism, they do not have an alternative in their minds, so, something wrong happened with their principles, their objectives and tactics Since I know the left better than the palm of my hands,( and I have not seen any essential differences between right wings and left wing, i can place both in a blender and I will obtain the same juice with the same taste, and the same color ) I would prefer to stay with this small group talking about state capitalism, and others topics related to socialism, instead of joining other groups to talk about reforms and reformism, proven that they do not work, and the only thing that they have done is to prolong the existence of capitalism. My intention is not to put any more cosmetic powder on the ugly face of capitalismI would leave the WSM or the Socialist Party when I find something better, since I have not seen, or found any better yet in this planet, I will stay, even if we drop our membership to three members only , because I will not change gold for nickel. I already did my homework and my window shopping. Who ever leaves the Socialist Party in order to joint heads with the left is making a great mistake .I have seen many of those so called Left unity for the revival of the faith who never had positive results, and at the end they collapsed and they formed several new sects
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