Weekly Worker
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Is it me or is there something up with the Weekly Worker website…last update i see is from the 13th Aug.
They are on their annual hols – 'Communist University' was held last week, and the paper returns this Thursday, 3rd September.
In the meantime how about a revisit of one of their specials?heres onehttp://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/686/frederick-engels-and-natures-dialectic/
Speaking of which, do you think it's reasonable, Jon, to sign off letters with your party affiliation when advocating something tht isn't the party platform (open primaries)?
i never sign off my letters SPGB to WW but the editor adds SPGB to my letters to them. It has led to some confusion in the past as if i was an official spokes-person for the Party.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Speaking of which, do you think it's reasonable, Jon, to sign off letters with your party affiliation when advocating something tht isn't the party platform (open primaries)?I didn't join a 'democratic centralist' party so I believe members are free to express their views including on open primaries online or in print just as in the Labour party for example. Weekly Worker in fact claim this isn't even the view of all 'democratic centralists' and their party's members publicly expressing their views not shared by the majority is encouraged. Whether this is true or not, I did not join a closed secretive cult when I joined the SPGB.The Socialist party was quite strict on members publicly expressing their own opinions in the 1930s and 1940s but this was redundant by the 1950s when Forum Journal (something some members still want to quietly forget about) went to print. Quite possibly Hardy's new theories on economic crises in the 1930s and the party's volte-face had something to do with it too. With an online public forum since the early 2000s, such strictness is even more redundant since what are members to do, trot out the party line?Anyway, by 1973, conference was stating 'This Conference reaffirms that nothing in the Party Rules should be so understood as to prevent any member or members from expressing criticism of the Party verbally or in writing" (1973)'
Quote:Rule 11. Branches, Groups and members shall neither publish, sell or distribute any political literature in the name of the Party, excepting handbills and leaflets, which has not been approved by the Executive Committee or the New Pamphlets Committee. Election Statements and Election Manifestos, being Official Party Statements, must be approved by the Executive Committee.It's a simple matter, the EC recognised (I recall a resolution around 2000) members can sign off letters to the press as members of the party, but plenty of resolutions commit all speakers (and thus letter writers) to broadly put the agreed party case. no-one is stopping you putting forward your own views, but gently asking you, when your views aren't the agreed party position, not to associate the party with them. It's simple common sense.
Fair enough but it sounds like letters or comments on facebook (for example) from members are not leaflets nor party statements let alone political literature. Likewise, letter writing members or facebook commenting members are not 'party speakers', 'party speakers' are members who have passed the speakers test delivering a talk or address.If you can dig out the resolution it would help.
2000 is pre-electronic records, I may try and find it sometime because it keeps coming up. The simple answer is to always make clear what is your personal opinion and what is the accepted party case, and avoid the two being confused, that's the minimum. Not signing off letters that don't put the party case (or even asking Weakly Wanking not to put your affiliation on this one) would do the trick.Facebook posts, forum debates, etc. are usually done in your own name (and in the past I've gone out of my way to ensure forum participants around the world are aware that I am not speaking for the socialist party, but as a socialist). When you sign off letters with an org name, essentially you are publishing in the name of the party.I think in general, we take a broad approach to "approved by the Executive Committee or the New Pamphlets Committee." taking anything that has been printed in the Standard, or accepted over a long period as being the broad party case. Obviously, common sense has to apply, facebook and online is like an argument down the pub, a letter to a newspaper is a matter of historic record and is usually a more considered affair.
This debate can be widened, and has been, to the SOYMB, Socialist Banner and Socialist Courier blogs. While the SS has an editorial committee so there is some sort of prior peer review of articles, blog-posts are missing this self-monitoring. Some times it has been accused by some of not presenting the party view correctly or without the qualification of appropriate disclaimers. Do we subject every post to the blog to a vetting process which would mean a loss of topicality, which the blog was set -up to redress in the Standard's once-a-month-analyses or accept as a price to pay for being daily and hourly that now and then it may not get it 100% right but also acknowledge the damage is minimal and can be rectified by re-editing or deleting offending passages or simply blogging an explanatory post if there exists a request for such. In many personal letters or emails the actual benefit of being published to the party is completely lost if either the party is not named in them or the sender doesn't sign off as a member. It is vital to name-drop for publicity purposes.You may recall that myself and StuartW had an exchange and difference in the letters section of the WW and a non-member also contributed by highlighting the disagreement of other members with my views were being expressed on Spopen). Unaminity of political opinion i don't think should be expected or demanded on every aspect of politics and the class struggle which aren't core to the SPGB case. If it is in a grey area, it will be clarified by further investigation if anybody's curiousity is piqued by a remark or observation.I have on Libcom expressed private opinions and said that a debate is ongoing on those views within the SPGB, even if the actual debate is just myself dissenting from everybody else
Alan,that's fine, where, generally, there are grey areas in the party's case, that's why I use the term of the relevant conference resolution 'broad party case' but on issues where a policy is clearly not the party's but one's own, I think we need to be clear. I could write letters to the Weakly Wanking on electoral reform (the party has no position on this), but it would be invidious of me to associate the party with Approval Voting or Condorcet voting, not because such things are against the party case (they're not) but because the party has not held a copllective view on such things.Also, that's why I've chosen to have a friendly discussion, directly (and publicly) rather than wite a tart letter to Jon nor send a thundering branch resolution his way. It's not 'Though shalt not' but 'careful now.'
SHOCK HORROR , THE WW did not print one of my many letters to them…oh, well, i had a good run while it lasted and no hard feelings. (perhaps others might see a cause for the editor of WW to decline publication)But for those interested and since it is topical even if historical , i repost here.It was in reply to an exchange i was having with Stephen Dianmond on immigration whose last letter said Debs positon was a Christian moral one "Just to elaborate on Deb’s attitude to immigration and add to Stephen Diamond’s comments, Debs views developed from an anti-immigrant position to the one espoused later in life of inclusion, and this was not from Christian charity but from what best advances the socialist cause. I think his ideas evolved from those of a trade union leader with vested sectional interests of his members to the broader ideals of a socialist spokesperson, representing all workers of all lands. Debs inherited the prevailing prejudices of the American worker, reflected by the Know-Nothing Party of the time. He attacked the immigration agents as representatives of capital – “enemies of American workingmen” who wished to “chinaize the county” and he openly welcomed legislation that permitted the authorities to deport “to their despot cursed home” the “victims” of these agent’s efforts. Debs found the Italians even less desirable than the Chinese. “The Dago” he claimed “works for small pay, and lives far more like a savage or a wild beast, than the Chinese,” This Italian “fattens on garbage” and cares little for civilization, and therefore, “able to underbid an American workingman” Only in this way can the Italian appear industrious and Debs warned that Italy “has millions of them to spare and they are coming” Jews fared little better. When it was announced that the London Board of Guardians had instituted a program to transfer Russian-Jewish immigrants to the United States, Debs claimed that that this would increase the already increasing hostility towards immigrants. Identifying these immigrants as “criminals and paupers” Debs bemoaned the fact that most were able to “take up a permanent residence” and strongly advocated that “it was possible to end the infamous business.” These early views of Debs changed from class experience, not charity, and made the unions and the socialist parties ever stronger as the influence of the foreign-born sections of the IWW, SLP and SP, shows. The positive possibilities were highlighted by that Irish immigrant, James Connolly, when he was a labour organizer active in America. I’d rather not remark upon Stephen Diamond’s observation “The migrants fleeing the class struggle in their native lands do not more deserve the largesse of the working class than those who stay behind, particularly when they remain to fight,” as it appears to condemn every migrant and settler from all across the world for the past several centuries, including, no doubt, his own antecedents and those of his friends and neighbours and work colleagues. " alan johnstone
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