People’s Assembly Update
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There are now over 1,500 delegates signed up.
Have we got plans in the pipe-line on how we will make our presence visible?
A front-cover and main article for the June Standard?
A leaflet? I keep saying that rather than our usual run-of -the-mill leaflet we should do a 4 page special Socialist Standard-style. A print-run of 2000, one for each delegate. A "Revolutionary Manifesto" for the Assembly. A formal "Address to the Assembly".
If the Left want to make grandoise gestures then we should do likewise.
Is lit stall and volunteers at the ready? Make it a double table with non-party books by our members. Show the range of thought within the Party.
A gazebo if the weather turns nasty?
Perhaps over a month away but early planning helps. I think we should invite provincial members to assist to swell party numbers which means some sort of board and lodgings at HO.
Since i envisage a big turn out by the Left doing the same as us, how can we push the boat out to draw more attention? Is the public space suitable for an alternative out-door meeting, or have we got legal restrictions? Megaphones ? loudspeakers? North Korean music?
Where are those red flags and banners
Ian Bone’s take on it…”The new “People’s Assembly Against Austerity” will march through London on 22 June, and, with the help of the Stop The War Coalition, intends to break that group’s record for the largest public rally in the nation’s history.The Independent is reporting that there will now be an attempt on the Guinness book of record’s ‘largest and most ineffective demo of all time’ on June 22nd. Has the Independent got it wrong? Can see no mention anywhere else?”http://ianbone.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/peoples-assembly-march-on-june-22nd/(Read the comments)
We should of course be present at this event with leaflets and Standards, but it's going to be Old Labour stuff (with the Trotskyist and Maoist sects battling it out amongst themselves on the sidelines). Here's the "People's Budget" proposed by the Communist Party of Britain (the Mourning Star mob) on a leaflet they handed out at the Mayday rally in London last Wednesday:
Quote:Invest in health, education, housing, public transport and the environment.Halt all PFI and privatisation schemes to hand over public services to big business.Boost state pension and benefit levels in real terms, restoring the link with the retail price index.Increase the national minimum wage in real terms and retain the Agricultural Wages Board.Extend statutory equal pay audits into the private sector.Freeze gas, electricity and water prices and prepare to take all the utilities back into public ownership.Nationalise the banks and direct funds into manufacturing, small businesses, cooperatives and housing.Take the railways back into public ownership and subsidise fares and investment not shareholder dividends.Launch a massive public sector housebuilding programme. Where would the money come from?Introduce a 2 per cent Wealth Tax on the super-rich, raising £90 billion a year – almost twice this year's public spending cuts.Reverse the recent cuts in corporation tax for the biggest companies.Restore the top rate of income tax (at 60 per cent not 50).Slap a windfall tax on energy, retail and banking monopoly profits.Impose a financial transaction tax on the City bankers and speculators.Divert Bank of England funds from QE and the impotent Funding for Lending Scheme into infrastructure bonds issued by local, devolved and other public authorities.End the tax haven status of all territories under British jurisdiction.The chance of this being adopted is nil, so they are setting themselves up to fail while at the same time fuelling illusions that capitalism could be made to work in the interest of the wage and salary earning majority and their dependants.Looks as if we're going to have to be the party poopers again.
ALB wrote:We should of course be present at this event with leaflets and Standards, but it's going to be Old Labour stuff (with the Trotskyist and Maoist sects battling it out amongst themselves on the sidelines). Here's the "People's Budget" proposed by the Communist Party of Britain (the Mourning Star mob) on a leaflet they handed out at the Mayday rally in London last Wednesday:Quote:Invest in health, education, housing, public transport and the environment.Halt all PFI and privatisation schemes to hand over public services to big business.Boost state pension and benefit levels in real terms, restoring the link with the retail price index.Increase the national minimum wage in real terms and retain the Agricultural Wages Board.Extend statutory equal pay audits into the private sector.Freeze gas, electricity and water prices and prepare to take all the utilities back into public ownership.Nationalise the banks and direct funds into manufacturing, small businesses, cooperatives and housing.Take the railways back into public ownership and subsidise fares and investment not shareholder dividends.Launch a massive public sector housebuilding programme. Where would the money come from?Introduce a 2 per cent Wealth Tax on the super-rich, raising £90 billion a year – almost twice this year's public spending cuts.Reverse the recent cuts in corporation tax for the biggest companies.Restore the top rate of income tax (at 60 per cent not 50).Slap a windfall tax on energy, retail and banking monopoly profits.Impose a financial transaction tax on the City bankers and speculators.Divert Bank of England funds from QE and the impotent Funding for Lending Scheme into infrastructure bonds issued by local, devolved and other public authorities.End the tax haven status of all territories under British jurisdiction.The chance of this being adopted is nil, so they are setting themselves up to fail while at the same time fuelling illusions that capitalism could be made to work in the interest of the wage and salary earning majority and their dependants.Looks as if we're going to have to be the party poopers again.
Of course we need to be there with a suitable leaflet explaining why these measures won't be implemented and, even if they were, why the position of workers would basically remain the same.
"Looks as if we're going to have to be the party poopers again.'Then that should be the theme and focus of our propaganda and make a point of emphasising it …We know we won't be realistically expecting to convince them of our case…so let us at least spoil their party with unpalatable truths,,, over 50 yrs of facts and figures at our disposalPerhaps instead of a serious approach as i suggested in my first post perhaps we we should employ ridicule and satirical critiques. Make fun of them resurrecting failed policies, the walking dead zombies crawling out of their graves and we as the grave-diggers of capitalism battering them with our shovels… Our anti-countryside alliance and fox hunting leaflet springs to mind as the sort of thing i'm thinking about but ten-fold…spoof manifestoes, Instead of spread the wealth…spread the poverty…i'm sure others can be more original and humourous.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Then that should be the theme and focus of our propaganda and make a point of emphasising it …We know we won't be realistically expecting to convince them of our case…so let us at least spoil their party with unpalatable truths,,, over 50 yrs of facts and figures at our disposalPerhaps instead of a serious approach as i suggested in my first post perhaps we we should employ ridicule and satirical critiques. Make fun of them resurrecting failed policies, the walking dead zombies crawling out of their graves and we as the grave-diggers of capitalism battering them with our shovels…Our anti-countryside alliance and fox hunting leaflet springs to mind as the sort of thing i'm thinking about but ten-fold…spoof manifestoes, Instead of spread the wealth…spread the poverty…i'm sure others can be more original and humourous.Great idea, Alan; irony can be a very powerful weapon.Let's hope the relevant sub-committees/EC take note…
Agree with Alan's proposals, but no-one likes party poopers. Get a bigger banner and be constructive and positive. Make the assemblies limited proposals look like party-poopers not ours. Barack Obama's campaign slogan was "Yes, we can" and (though fairly meaningless) it resonated because it was positive. Contrast the Peoples Assembly with Occupy on horizontalism, substitutionism and class analysis. Clearly the Peoples Assembly is sub-Occupy in these respects.
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