[SocialistPunk]

Thank you for your patience Gnome.Not wishing to waste more time, but post #11 makes no mention of the decision about the HO fascia.Also, if the 1988 conference decision regarding the use of party names was later confirmed or supported by a party poll, I have to ask why was the 2008 conference decision superceding the 1988 one, not taken to a party poll?Surely, for the sake of democratic consistency, a party poll should have been sort after to overturn a conference decision that was previously backed up by a party poll? Perhaps there was?But I'm out of touch with party rules and regulations, so I'm sure there will be an explanation. 

[SocialistPunk]

ALB wrote:

Vin Maratty wrote:

An end to the multiple logos and party names.

Good idea. We did get there in 1988 when Conference passed the following resolution to regulate the use of the various names under the party is known.

Quote:

Tnis Conference resolves that the Party's full name, 'The Socialist Party of Great Britain', be used in the following cases:(a) Legal documents, Forms A. to G, membership cards.(b) The World Socialist Movement listing box, The World Socialist Movement publications box, the 'Address of: the Party' box on the inside page of. the Socialist Standard giving details of EC Meetings, etc.'The Socialist Party' to be used in the following cases:(1) On the covers of the Socialist Standard, pamphlets and leaflets.(2) Generally in the texts of articles and pamphlets.(3) On all occasions where the address of Head Office is given, e.g. headed notepaper, adverts for socialist material, etc., except in (b) above.(4) All advertising and publicity material, posters, media adverts, etc.(5) In the titles of meetings and debates, and as the organiser of them.(6) Generally by speakers at indoor and outdoor meetings.(7) Manifestoes, election addresses, etc.( On the Head Office shop front fascia

It caused a bit fuss (to put it mildly) but was confirmed in a subsequent party poll.The trouble is that, in the last decade or so, opponents of it have been trying to gradually whittle it away, their latest success being the recent decision not only to restore "of Great Britain" to the fascia but, worse, to add SPGB as well.I'm afraid, Vin, the tide has been moving in the opposdite direction, even if (2) to (7) and parts of (1) still stand. But maybe, hopefully, a majority can still be found to stop it it being whittled away any further.

Hi AdamI was wondering, if as you point out in your post, the party has accepted the use of the party names as outlined above, then how come it isn't being implemented in the case of (. You mention the whittling away of the party decision, but how can that have happened when a democratic decision was made by the party? 

[SocialistPunk]

Vin Maratty wrote:

Good idea SP. I think I tried something similar but in 'off topic' and I don't think anyone frequents it.I will give it some thought and come back to you. Hope you get plenty of responses.

I checked out your thread in the Off Topic section and when it was set up I was not long out of hospital and feeling rougher than anything I ever dared imagine, so my appologies for seeming to ignore it.You are probably right in saying being in Off Topic meant less people engaging. I noted that yourself and a couple of others posted your stories about joining the party, so would like to extend an invitation to just copy and paste over onto this thread. Save the tedium of retyping. 

[SocialistPunk]

Hi SB_UKYour earlier posts were interesting as they conveyed a sense of enthusiasm and inquiry. Unfortunately your recent posts come across as almost pure random nonsense.We are more than willing to engage and discuss our ideas with you, as TZM has many similarities with our socialist ideas and aims, but it would be a lot easier with out needless confusion and randomness. 

[SocialistPunk]

Adam, I think you made an unintentional error here,

ALB wrote:

This does mean a violent insurrection but,  ……

I think you meant to say "doesn't" I note with interest SB_UK's boiling it down to some human weakness for wealth. A strange idea for a supporter of TZM, as I don't think I've heard Peter Joseph expressing such a notion. 

[SocialistPunk]

I don't get the impression LBird is suggesting we throw the baby out with the bath water.Lets see. Hands up those, like Brian earlier, think that LBird is proposing we reject all scientific knowledge because it has not been gleaned within a socialist setting?

[SocialistPunk]

Hi Alan

Alanjjohnstone wrote:

Should we offer a more detailed road-map rather than a world atlas as a guide to what path to take?Should we describe just what awaits at the end of the journey in more detail so we all know want to get there as quickly and as directly as we can?

I think the answer to this question is yes. Time and time again on this forum SPGB members have shied away from describing what we could achieve as a social-ist society. Usually you get the reply that the future majority will have to decide, always defering to the future revolution. Almost as if socialists today have no vision of what could be, but I don't think that is the case, as to be a socialist advocating such a rare version of socialism, means you have to have a strong imagination to be able to think beyond the confines of capitalist limits. I think there is more imagination within the SPGB/WSM than in the so called artistic community.Perhaps if we were more inclined to express our imaginations more openly than we do, it may excite more imaginations. Unfotunately the image that is often given out by the party is of a musty old lecturer, out of touch with the students ie the modern world. Note I use the word often, implying not 100% of the time.Sorry if this might seem off topic, but it is relevant in that it has to do with how socialists interact with our target audience and so influences socialist education.  

[SocialistPunk]

And so unfolds an SPGB tutorial on the difference between "fact" and t"ruth", with a discourse on "objective" thrown in for good measure.Should take up a few pages as no doubt each word has numerous meanings. 

[SocialistPunk]

I'm not sure an "It will just happen" approach will get anyone anywhere.Imagine the word has spread and everyone is ready for the big change from capitalism to a resource based economy or socialism, whatever you want to call it. What next?Without direct democratic participation and organisation the change we seek will not "just happen".

[SocialistPunk]

Hi BrianYou made an assumption, that is all I was showing by highlighting part of your post. 

LBird wrote:

 I think that I take a broadly Marxist perspective, and so don't consider myself an 'individual', but a 'worker'. I think 'ideas' are socially-produced and class-based, so that 'ideas about science' will also be of class origin. I think, again broadly, that there are two competing 'ideas' about the world (social and natural), that is, 'ruling class' ideas and 'exploited class' ideas, and that these are relevent to a discussion about 'science'.

Where did you get the idea from the words above that LBird was proposing we ditch all science?

[SocialistPunk]

Brian wrote:

Nevertheless, to even attempt to make the case that all science is ideologically biased towards the profit motive would in my estimation not only be throwing the baby out with the bath water, for its also seemingly proposing we reject all science because it is "class based"  (LBird #1.)?  When the simple fact is that the revolutionary process will demand we will have no alternative other than to use the tools we have to hand which by default includes the scientific method as we know it and understand it, and despite its class bias.  

I've checked out LBirds opening post quite a few times over the last few days and I've done it once more today. But try as hard as I can, I just can't seem to find any reference to proposing to reject all science.What we have here is assumption.

[SocialistPunk]

Vin Maratty wrote:

SocialistPunk wrote:

 The world is full of changing definitions. Different definitions for different places, times and people.Perhaps we should keep quiet now our definition of socialism is not the one doing the rounds today. We have been left behind and we didn't even know it. Socialism as we define it is irrelevant, right?

Not if we are persistant and  state what we mean by it. Make clear our definition. So there can be know confusion.  

I agree Vin. I wasn't being serious when I suggested we give up on socialism because our definition isn't the dominant one. "We gotta fight, for the right, to paartyyy"I simply think it odd that some on this thread were quick to fall back on the many faces of meaning cop out, yet claim our definition of socialism as the true one, or the "truth"."Curiouser and curiouser" 

[SocialistPunk]

YMS wrote:

Just back to linguistic register. Latin was once a hugely progressive force, it enabled scholarship across national linguistic barriers, the role now played by English. It wasn't the rarified language of academia that kept working class kids out, it was the economic basi of the system whereby they wouldn't even get an education in the first place.

I don't recall claiming that  Latin itself was the reason why working people didn't get an education. If I believe that, then my socialist credentials would be in question, as I would then be another left wing inverted snob, instead of a socialist who understands the impersonal role of economic forces in distorting human relations. I beleive I stated the importance of money and status in attaining an education in days of old, rather than a language preventing that from happening. Once Latin had ceased to be a commonly used language it was retained by those who saw themselves as the elite. It became an elitist language, not that it was or is of itself.This thread just gets more surreal by the day.

[SocialistPunk]

Interesting anecdote Vin. Sure words change their meaning over time and different situations can throw up different meanings no doubt.  The world is full of changing definitions. Different definitions for different places, times and people.Perhaps we should keep quiet now our definition of socialism is not the one doing the rounds today. We have been left behind and we didn't even know it. Socialism as we define it is irrelevant, right?

[SocialistPunk]

Sure Vin, I've got nothing against asking a person about their socialist credentials. What they mean by socialism. Nothing wrong in that. But if that was the aim then get on with it. Don't beat around the bush with a load of waffle about defining ideology and the rest of the requests for endless definitions, for fucks sake. I don't recall being grilled about definitions when I joined this site.Do we not realise that we are here to promote socialism, not chase people around the room with intellectual bullshit. How do you define this and that, what about that, what about this, don't you know there are different meanings to this and in what context do you use that, blah blah.Socialism is about people, not beating each other over the head with philosophical tomes. I'm not saying we shouldn't discuss philosophy or science, course we can and should, but that isn't what is going on here. This looks more like a revenge beating.

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