jondwhite
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Sounds like a public safety information video buthttp://internationalsocialismuk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/advice-for-comrades-feeling-heat-from.htmlIn the face of the unprecedented opposition within [SWP] to the [SWP] Central Committee, its shocking handling of the rape allegation against a leading member, its attempts to force through a post-conference pretence that all is settled, and its continuing bullish defence of undemocratic methods and ongoing attempts to silence dissent, the Central Committee and its full-time organisers have started to move against those of us demanding an accounting in the party. Comrades around the country have been summoned to meetings on their own, or at best with one fellow member to accompany them. In these meetings they have been accused of all manner of attacks on "forty years of British Leninism", and recantations, confessions and apologies have been demanded, along with suggestions that they leave if they cannot toe 'the line'. Don't be intimidated. It's our party. You are not alone, much as the CC may wish to make you feel isolated. Here are some suggestions for comrades in these situations: DON'T go alone to one of these meetings. If "invited", accept, and tell the CC member or organiser the names of three other comrades who will be coming with you. Stick to your guns on this. DO take notes during the meeting and reject any demand that you should not. DON'T agree to anything – tell whoever is disciplining you that you will go away, discuss their points with other comrades, and respond later. DO tell other comrades before and after the meeting that it will be happening. We have NOTHING to hide from other members and from the class. DON'T apologise for standing up to them and for fighting for our party. DO tell us, here at the IS blog of any incidents of bullying and / or intimidation. Any threats, any suggestion of disciplinary sanctions – tell the party, the party needs to know what is going on.
Is Leninism finished?Replies so far fromLouis Proyect (Broad Bolshevik?), 28 Janhttp://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/leninism-is-finished-a-reply-to-alex-callinicos/Kevin Crane (seemingly broadly "IS tradition" loyalist, deep cover Counterfire?), 29 Janhttp://rethinkingtheleft.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/is-interventionism-finished.htmlJamie Allinson, 29 Jan (SWP Democratic Opposition "change the CC"?)http://internationalsocialismuk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/is-zinovievism-finished-reply-to-alex.htmlPham Binh (ex-ISO), 30 Janhttp://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=5319
How not to handle complaintshttp://internationalsocialismuk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/reflections-on-2011-swp-conference-by.html Instead the ‘special session’ initially derived its notoriety from the standing ovation, foot stamping and the chant of “the workers united will never be defeated!” that Delta received from a significant section of the assembled delegates after he was allowed to make a speech in a session supposedly meant to address the fallout of the informal complaint made against him. Two years later comrade W, badly let down by the party’s internal disputes process, would demand a similar opportunity to address an SWP conference but would be denied by the CC. This is not to suggest that this is how a formal or informal complaint should have been dealt with but simply to note that such a demand appears to have been a desperate demand to be seen and heard when the flawed Disputes Committee process let comrade W down and compounded the failures of the CC stretching back two years. … There was another aspect to the notoriety the 2011 SWP conference acquired. That was the fact that a few party comrades were foolish enough to deny that comrade Delta ever received a standing ovation in the ‘special session’. Some of those comrades claimed to have been present. Perhaps they were. But whether they are repressing their memories or drawing a discreet veil over things, such disavowals can only corrupt. Revolutionary socialists cannot afford to play fast and loose with the truth. The oppressed and exploited need the truth, however unpleasant. The militants and cadre of a revolutionary socialist organization must tell the truth, not just to party members, but also those they struggle alongside and seek to win. It is not always easy or expedient to do so. For example, many in the party would like to pretend that this crisis is all the fault of the bourgeois media. But we can be grateful to a militant teacher whom I know, who in his letter to the National Secretary excoriated this myth. He told the truth, that the party leadership was “delusional”, and did us all a small service. We were anxious that the issue be dealt with openly, transparently and that comrade Delta be treated no more favourably than any other party member simply because he was a leading member. We were also concerned about the damage to the party’s reputation if this did not happen. We agreed that I would speak to Charlie Kimber (the National Secretary replacing Delta) about our concerns. I spoke to Kimber privately on the Saturday of conference shortly before the ‘special session’ took place (I did not know it was scheduled until Kimber told me so). I talked of my concern at the rumours circulating though I did not know the nature of the allegations. Kimber interrupted me and said he could not divulge their exact nature. I said I understood but that I wanted a reassurance that comrade Delta would not receive special treatment because he was a leading party member. Kimber assured me this would not happen and that a ‘special session’ would follow shortly that would address the concerns of comrades. I said OK and shook hands and stepped away. That was it, short and brisk. Five minutes later back inside the conference as delegates returned from a break to retake their seats I saw Delta and Kimber sharing a joke at the side of the conference stage. To say that I and the comrade accompanying were disturbed would be an understatement. As a result of the informal complaint against him, Delta stepped down from, or was removed from, his post as National Secretary. But he remained on the CC. Delta informed us all that he was “happy as a pig in shit” to be returning to the Industrial department where he had always been happiest.
Leninism is finished: a reply to Alex CallinicosOnly there really is no basis for revolutionary socialist organizations to keep their business internal. This was not the case in Lenin’s day, nor should it be the case today whether we are communicating through the printed page or on the Internet. This idea that we discuss our differences behind closed doors every couple of years during preconvention discussion was alien to the way that the Russian social democracy operated. They debated in public. We are obviously more familiar with Lenin’s open polemics with the Mensheviks that some might interpret as permissible given that a cold split had taken place (a false interpretation as Pham Binh and Lars Lih have pointed out.) But even within the Bolsheviks, there was public debate as demonstrated over their differences on whether the bourgeois press should be shut down.
The Prof asks Is Leninism finishedhttp://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=12210I have read a second person to claim a mass purge is imminentGiven that Seymour, Mieville et al are calling for a recall conference (in public anyway), a purge would seem more likely than a split.
Graeber has done a ama at reddit including about hedgeshttp://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/17fi6l/i_am_david_graeber_an_anthropologist_activist/
I see the SWP CC are counterposing political debate with activity again. Seems like their last resort when just bashing their critics as sectarian and enemies doesn't work.http://swp.org.uk/party-notesSWP Party Notes 21st January 2013The party has seen a lot of discussion and argument since conference. And these issues will no doubt be raised at the National Committee (NC) meeting on 3 February. The 50 comrades elected by our recent conference will want to have their say.The NC is an important political body whose task is to question, advise, guide and assist the CC. There will be report-backs from the 3 February NC to branches.Comrades have complained about some of the material that has appeared on blogs, Facebook etc. People are tired of slurs, lies and unsubstantiated allegations. Such matters, and what action to take, will also be discussed at the NC.We need to make sure we are not paralysed and do not become unable to intervene in the class struggle.We are moving ahead with the perspectives we agreed at conference. These were sent out last week in the post-conference bulletin. This is what our democracy looks like – debate, votes and elections involving all delegates and then carrying out the decisions in a united way.We are not going to overturn the decisions made two weeks ago by a very open conference, the highest level of our democracy.That is why the CC opposes the call for a recall conference, a demand that emerged even before the decisions of the 4-6 January conference had been sent to every member and which seeks to brush aside the decisions just made by the delegates.It is also clear that as part of the discussions some people are raising a wider debate about the direction of the party. This does not mean that everyone who has raised issues about the recent events is attacking our political tradition. But some are seeking to overturn important parts of what we stand for – and the politics we reaffirmed at conference.There are some people who want to replace a Marxist analysis of women’s liberation with one centred on patriarchy theory. Others believe that changes in capitalism have altered the structure of the working class so fundamentally that it is no longer the key element in the battle for socialism.Others, outside the party, are making attacks on the SWP as a way to buttress Labour.And in his article on why he is leaving the SWP, “Donny Mayo” attacks the party over recent events but then goes on to attack its attitude to Syriza and its failure to back Len McCluskey for Unite general secretary. He then delves deeper and claims there is a “global crisis of old-style Trotskyist Leninism” and that the SWP is an example of a “historically outdated model” and that democratic centralism has become an “increasingly cultish mantra”.We need to win people to our analysis of exploitation and oppression, Leninism today, and the revolutionary party.Please note that if branches are going to discuss motions they should be circulated to all branch members in good time in advance. This is to ensure that comrades have a democratic right to take part in the discussion. After consultation with the chair of the Conference Arrangements Committee, any motions for a recall conference have to be in by 5pm on Friday 1 February. This is to make the NC aware of them.
Good point. Wonder if we will ever see a Weyland Yutani "building better worlds" mining and terraforming planets.
Here's another CPGB article making the same claim (I think)http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/946/nature-and-programme-wealth-of-nature-and-counterfeit-marxism
Should the statement include anything on the matter coming before the SWP disputes committee at all (rather than the police)?
"start to think about forms of coordination which … require a form of political organization that is not horizontal, that can be rather hierarchical, and a lot of people on the left are rather hostile to that idea. But, as i try to say, well, next time if you fly the Atlantic and you're half-way across the Atlantic and somebody says, "Well, flight traffic controllers in New York have gone into assembly-mode right now and they are going to discuss which airline should get priority landing," just imagine what you would think!"
Very interesting. Wikipedia says of Utopian socialism"The utopian socialist thinkers did not use the term utopian to refer to their ideas.""utopian socialists generally don't feel class struggle or political revolutions are necessary to implement their ideas""They often feel their form of cooperative socialism can be established among like-minded people within the existing society and establish small enterprises designed to demonstrate their plan for society"Would a space colony count as "within the existing society"?The Wikipedia page even mentions"Ursula K. Le Guin (born 1929) wrote about an impoverished anarchist planet in her book The Dispossessed, which was published in 1974. The anarchists agree to leave their home planet and colonize the barren planet in order to avoid a bloody revolution."
