jondwhite
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What’s the point of the left?China Mieville, Chris Nineham and Laurie PennySaturday, June 1, 10:00-11:15Many thought the economic crisis would result in automatic growth of the left. But much of the left looks left behind. How has the crisis exposed its weaknesses? And how can they be overcome? China Mieville, Chris Nineham and Laurie Penny debate.
Quote:The North Star at Left Forum by The North Star on May 27, 2013 The North Star is growing; this means new collaborators, new topics, a new website, and hopefully new readers — more on this soon. It also means that we’ve organized three panel discussions for this year’s Left Forum. Stop by if you’ll be at the Left Forum, at Pace University in New York, June 7-9 — register here. Left Third-Party Organizing: Challenges and OpportunitiesSunday, June 9, 12:00pm – 01:50pm, Room W211 Carl Davidson (Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism)Tim Horras (Philly Socialists)Ursula Rozum (Green Party)Seamus Whelan (Socialist Alternative)Chair: Ben Campbell In an age of two-party domination and neoliberal hegemony, what opportunities exist for left electoral politics through third party campaigns? Why and when should leftists focus on third party campaigns, as opposed to Democratic Party primaries? Where should the left focus its electoral resources, and how might it overcome division? Should third-party politics be thought of in terms of consciousness-raising, or is the left in a position to affect public policy by taking power? The Crisis of Capitalism: Five Years LaterSunday, June 9, 03:00pm – 04:50pm, Room E307 Radhika DesaiDoug HenwoodLeo PanitchChair: Ben Campbell The financial crisis of 2008 seemed to mark an inflection point for capitalist accumulation. How does the post-2008 period compare to that of pre-2008? Is global capitalism still in crisis? How does or did this crisis compare to past crises of capital, and how has or will global capitalism recover, if at all? How will this all depend on ongoing struggles of resistance? The North Star: Strategies on Renewing the Radical LeftSunday, June 9, 10:00am – 11:50am, Room E316 Luke ElliottTim Horras (Philly Socialists)Siobhan WatersAmy WuestChair: Dario Cankovic Recognizing that understanding and changing the world must be a collective and comradely effort, The North Star aims to serve as a space for open and rigorous discussion and debate with an aim to contribute to the reconstitution of the radical left. To this end, we’ve brought together editors and participants of The North Star project to discuss some of the questions that need to be asked and answered in order to renew a radical left with real political muscle. What is the state of the radical left in the wake of Occupy? What is the immediate task of the radical left in the United States? What lessons, positive and negative, are to be learned from past and present organizations, movements and struggles? What is our role as self-identified ‘radical leftists’ in building and advancing these organizations, movements and struggles? What are the relations between theory and practice, academia and activism, socialism and democracy, science and socialism? How should these relations impact strategy and struggle?Chushichi Tsuzuki.There are some accurate problems highlighted here with the label impossibilist, but as a (very) shorthand explanation I think it has some positives especially when differentiating ourselves from usurpers of 'socialism'.
Latest UK party membership estimates (as of May 2013 via New Statesman http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/05/ukips-membership-surges-towards-30000)Labour 193,000Conservatives 130,000 to 150,000Liberal Democrats 42,501UKIP 30,000+SWP 2,300 (March 2013 via http://the-faultlines.blogspot.ie/2013/05/losing-aura-of-competence.html)
As I understand two requests by e-mail have been made for a stall or some engagement and not received a reply last time I checked.
Provisional timetable announced herehttp://dangerousideas.org.uk/index.php/timetable
Quote:Provisional timetable – more information to follow. Keep checking back to see when and where the many more pop-up performances, campaigns, workshops and exhibitions will be.Friday, May 31, 201314:30-15:45 Why Marx was right Terry Eagleton The bloody history of the British Empire Richard Gott, Paul Gilroy Left-Wing Comedy: an Infantile Disorder Steve Parry and friends16:15-17:30 How to tackle the scroungers Owen Jones Leninism 2.0 Paul Leblanc, Clare Solomon Prison writings The testimony of Talha Ahsan, Shaker Aamer and Bradley Manning18:30-20:00 Against Capitalism and War Tariq Ali, Lindsey German, Tony Benn, Danielle Obono, David Harvey21:00-23:00Venue Lumen ChurchFestival Party Grace’s Aces, David Rovic, Rafeef Ziadeh and more…Saturday, June 1, 201310:00-11:15 What’s the point of the Left? Laurie Penny, China Mieville, Chris Nineham After Chavez: the future of Latin America Jeremy Corbyn, Matt Wilgress and others The State,racism and the Right Sanum Ghafoor, Unjum Mirza, Alex Snowdon A short history of Britain since 1945 (without the boring bits) Neil Faulkner Scotland and the breakup of Britain Kat Boyd and Jonathan Shafi The Levellers: Britain’s first revolutionary party John Rees A plastic interrogation: Could you live without plastic? Dr Kat Austen11:45-13:00 Rebel Cities: From the right to the city to the urban revolution David Harvey What class are you really in? Wealth and work in austerity Britain Elly Badcock, Andrew Murray Neil Davidson debates Permanent Revolution Neil Davidson, Dominic Alexander The politics of sport Mark Perryman, Vicki Baars What do Marxists say about Feminism? Kate Connelly Workshop Raast band Film: Five Broken Cameras * Session ends at 13:4514:00-15:15 Is American power on the decline? Tariq Ali Strategy and tactics: How the left should organise to change the world John Rees Fighting Gove from playpen to PhD: imagining a better education system John Westmoreland, Henry Parkyn Smith, Alex Kenny, Faduma Hassan Fascism: from Hitler & Mussolini to Golden Dawn Chris Bambery Film: Sisters in law Director Kim Longinotto in conversation with Jane Shallice * Session ends at 16:00 Signs of revolt: creative resistance to a commodified world Noel Douglas Long live Southbank: campaign to save the skate park With skate & graffiti performances15:45-17:00 The Revenge of History Seumas Milne in conversation with Nina Power Can the left take power in Greece? Stathis Kouvelakis, Elli Siapkidou The drugs don’t work: why can’t our rulers kick the austerity habit? James Meadway, David Graeber Out of control? The media, democracy and the state Jolyon Rubinstein (Organised by the NUJ) The new scramble for Africa Maie El Hag, Danielle Obono, Dan Poulton Corporate irresponsibility: sweatshops and workers rights Jubilee Debt Campaign & War on Want18:00-19:30 Fighting sexism: why it’s kicking off everywhere Ellie Mae O’Hagan, Lindsey German, Feyzi Ismail Culture-shock! Artist as activist Peter Kennard, Cat Picton Phillipps, Season Butler The crisis of the British regime: democracy, protest & the unions Sam Fairbairn, Adrian Cousins, Pilgrim Tucker, Kevin Courtney Palestine and the Arab Uprisings Rafeef Ziadah, Fran Legg Saffron Kitchen: tales from a Persian Kitchen Yasmin Khan Apocalypse Soon: can we stop global warming? Elaine Graham LeighFollowing on from conditions set out by ISN for LeftUnity.org on 25 March
Quote:(a)[it is] not simply another electoral front, but is an activist organisation,(b) it is a member-led organisation with a democratically elected leadership both locally and nationally, and(c) there is freedom for organisations such as the IS Network to maintain their own press and organisation.17 May article by Kris Stewart sounds like ISN (ex-SWP) have agreed to enter into LeftUnity.org
Quote:Some will be inside – IS Network members are already, as are comrades from Socialist Resistance, the Anticapitalist Initiative, Workers Power and others. Some won't – the left within Labour for certain, with SWP and Socialist Party comrades not clearly falling one way or another at this stage.Also ISN sound like they are entering with their own agenda
Quote:we're revolutionaries, but we don't expect Left Unity to be a revolutionary organisation, do we? In which case, are we going to work towards trying to build Left Unity as an avowedly socialist, class-struggle party? I want to. And I want to work with other people who feel the same.Old habits die hard
Quote:further – we're planning to launch a regular publication, with a cover price. When and how are we going to offer it for sale?Funny thing is I'm not sure that a line divides the objects of the SPGB, SolFed/Libcom, William Morris, the Zeitgeist Movement on one side and Occupy and the reformist rest on the other.Rather perhaps the class politics of SPGB and Occupy (the 99% class analysis, horizontalism, anti-substitutionism, no future cookbook, holistic societal perspective) on one side andSolFed/Libcom, the Zeitgeist Movement and the reformist rest with their wrong class analysis, hierarchical (structured or not), moralistic cookbooks and single issue campaigning on the other?
photos and report of thousandshttp://www.demotix.com/news/2012777/thousands-protest-londons-international-workers-day-march a reply in solidarityHow to marginalise Stalin
gnome wrote:Ed wrote:Quite shocking that a former SPGB member could undergo such a radical political transformation in such a short space of time.SW is a master at metamorphosis; transformations occur on a fairly regularly basis.
jondwhite wrote:Almost feel sorry for TUSC, at least they had the word socialist in their name!ALB wrote:Surely it's the other way round. It's a bad thing that TUSC has "socialist" in its name and a good thing that the new Left Unity party (hopefully) won't!Precisely! The fewer organisations using the description the better…
Good point.
Almost feel sorry for TUSC, at least they had the word socialist in their name!Two Weekly Worker podcasts this week (dated May 12), a take on the past weeks world events, and a special *bonus feature* dedicated to the Left Unity project.
