DJP
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You’re right in that we should get creative in how we spread awareness of socialist ideas. And you’re right that real world interactions are more powerful than online ones.
But it seems to me that some of what you are saying *is* a change in policy. The stuff about a general strike is just wishful thinking on your part.
Is that 1000 votes figure correct?
Of course, the SPGB will never be on the streets “supporting Palestine” or any other nation-state. Like I said in the beginning, I find it surprising that someone who went through the admissions test is coming up with things like this. Have you had much contact with actual members?
I’m not sure if it’s an urban myth but wasn’t the slogan for one year’s election campaign something like “Don’t vote for us. (Unless you understand what socialism is and are willing to help put it into practice)”
This stands out from those that make promises they can’t deliver and gets people to think.
Manipulative vote chasing is not what the SPGB should be doing. And that’s not how socialism can be reached. You can only get socialism by building a mass of people who understand what it is and are willing to put it into action.
Galloway is a opportunist hack.
I’m just a hanger rounder not a member..
The talk about an economic collapse and finge parties taking power looked like an approval of minority revolution to me..
But this is all stuff you’d have to raise through your branch rather than post here with the vague hope of it being actioned. I don’t fancy your chances though, it all goes against long established, and generally sound, positions.
“But these are all properties of matter.”
I fully admit this is not my speciality, I am not a trained physicist. But what you are describing here is the old Newtonian physics. In modern physics, gravity is the curvature of spacetime. But if you want to build a bridge, Newtonian physics works just fine.
I’m more familiar with the distinction between ‘materialism’ and ‘physicalism’ from a philosophy of mind or philosophy of language background. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/#Term
The question of whether the SPGB should admit religious people is a separate one from the question of whether the possibility of socialism turns on the question of the existence or not of god.
I thought the SPGB didn’t want to admit religious people because it had chosen to explain socialism from a naturalistic perspective. Having religious people on board would open up the organisation up to the possibility of an endless derailment.
The “no-self” stuff is also famously in Hume and Buddhism.
My tuppence worth is that it probably makes more sense to think of the self and consciousness as a process rather than an object or entity.
Also, the final paragraph about matter is completely wrong. I’d be careful saying things like “there can be no non-material things acting upon us” – energy, time and gravity all act upon us, but are definitely not matter. It would be better if you used the word “physical” perhaps.
But then, when it comes to arguing for and against socialism, does any of this really matter!
Finding people saying stupid things on social media is too easy.
As far as I know, there haven’t been any Democrats of note trying to claim that the vote was stolen or rigged against them. Or have I missed anything?
“Wasn’t it always?”
Of course, oligarchic influence is nothing new. But what is perhaps new, or at least at a new level, is the extent to which social media echo-chambers and single-viewpoint alternative media outlets are skewing people’s perceptions. I’ve heard this cycle being described as “the podcast election”. But this is just a hunch, I don’t know what hard data would say – this is what people like Allan Lichtman will have to be working on.
Thought it would be interesting to hear what the creator of the “13 keys” would say. In short, from the comments section, “The keys only work if everyone lives in the same reality”. The polarisation of news sources, and the level of disinformation present within them, has led to a breakdown of the keys as a predictive model. US “democracy” is now completely under the control of oligarchic power.
“There are no considerable differences in economic policy between the Republicans & Democrats.”
There was only one candidate running on a protectionist platform, so there definitely are significant differences.
“The election of Trump was the US proletariat’s imposition of its dictatorship”
A proletarian dictatorship enacted through unchallenged oligarchal power perhaps?
