george galloway & the burghers of bethnal green & bow
- Thread starter Pickman's model
- Start date
oisleep said:
They went on publicising them many days, possibly weeks, after the Orange One had left the country for his speaking tour.
So I have no idea whether:
- They're crap at updating the constituency stuff on the website on time (SWP-inspired stuff seems up to date though... draw your own conclusions);
- The site is broken - someone deleted these pages by accident;
- He's not holding surgeries
- More than one of the above
When I work out what I want to annoy him about, I'll see whether I can book at time. I'll talk to friends who found out yesterday what they want to annoy him about.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Well it's a rough measure but 16 articles referencing socialism as opposed to 729 referencing Galloway and 439 referencing Islam or Muslims would tend to indicate something about the emphasis of the organisation concerned, no?
Nigel Irritable said:
It's not posturing, I'm not the chest-beating type.
I'm remarking that John Rees has been merrily encouraging potential RESPECT councillors to commit arrestable (and presumably custodial) action, while neither he nor anyone else on the SWP CC intends to lead by example. If they aren't prepared to do so, then they have no right whatsoever to expect others to take their places, and all the risks to go with them.
I will also reiterate that their attempts to organise such action at Bethnal Green were an abject failure, which doesn't inspire confidence in my eyes.
The SWP CC also failed utterly to provide the most basic safeguards for any action, and that also doesn't inspire any confidence.
There are no 'joys in going to jail', as you put it. Nobody with an ounce of sense actually looks forward to going inside. And they'll look forward to it a lot less when they find out they don't have any support network and have been sacrificed because the SWP CC decided it was in their interest to do so.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
News series in october. Sky One.oisleep said:
MC5 said:
OK. IIRC, there was a proposal to remove a fire engine from a fire station in the Bethnal Green area. This was, if memory serves, around the time that Galloway was seeking election there.
During this time, RESPECT were making this a local issue. There was talk of direct action, such as a blockade IIRC, to prevent removal of said engine. If memory serves, it was around this time that John Rees made a comment that all RESPECT councillors should be prepared to go to prison for their beliefs if necessary.
There was a hotly debated thread on the issue at the time, concerning what was to be done to halt the removal of the fire engine. On this thread, posters experienced in direct action were wondering what kind of direct action the SWP CC were thinking of and how it would be done.
I asked whether there would be legal support (lawyers, people to take details and arrange transport home for those arrested on their release, etc). The response was a fudge at best, IIRC. There was certainly no definite commitment made on the subject.
I also asked if there would be bustcards. Bustcards contain the name and number of a lawyer, the number of the legal support team and so on. Again, the response was, at best, a fudge. One poster asked how to make a bustcard and I supplied the relevent info. Even then, there was no confirmation that bustcards were even made, let alone distributed, even though bustcards are considered as useful bordering on essential IME.
I also raised the question of the need for legal observers, another essential IME. Again, another fudge.
So, on the question of esential supprt networks forthose at risk of arrest, nothing but a fudge. In fact, IIRC, none of these essentials were on hand, at least that was what observers at the event stated. Fortunately nobody was arrested, but if they had been they would have found themselves in the cells, at the mercy of the Old Bill, without any decent support network available to them. THAT is why I don't trust the SWP CC to organise effective and safe direct action.
As far as trust goes, I was a member of the SWP. I wouldn't trust the SWP CC as far as I could spit, and I doubt many others would either. Maybe some rookie Swappies might, but I'm pretty sure, if they went out to do direct action, they may well have ample time in the cells to regret that they had done so.
As far as 'pure motives go, I'll say this: The SWP CC seem like careerist political hacks to me. I wouldn't trust them not to send out junior members to risk arrest for the sake of a few column inches. That doesn't sound like a particularly decent thing to do. If people are made fully aware of the risks involved, fine, but I wouldn't trust the SWP CC to provide its members even that.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Pilgrim said:
Political hacks sounds fair enough, but careerist? It's an odd sort of careerist who volunteers to live in poverty for years on end as an activist for what is very much a fringe political party. Any of them could have had much more lucrative and much comfier careers dowing something else. I'm no fan of the leadership of the SWP but there are enough valid reasons to criticise them without throwing mad stuff in.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Yeah certainly, but surely calling them "hacks" covers that. "Careerist" implies that they are in it for what they themselves can get out of it in terms of job, money etc and in my opinion you would have to be a total mentalist to become a far left activist for those reasons.
Oh, I dunno - in the context of a party, large or small, I'd define "hack" as "mindless policy-regurgitating machine" and "careerist" as "striving mostly to rise within the organisation, rather than to achieve any of its (alleged) goals".
In stagnant organisations it's possible to be both at once; in others you'd need some unhackish qualities to rise.
In stagnant organisations it's possible to be both at once; in others you'd need some unhackish qualities to rise.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I sometimes wish i was in a trot party. Or the SWP.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I've got a GF in the IWCA so i'm ok on that score - but, i sometimes wonder how quickly i could slide up the ladder? How soon could i be shouting at scared and inexperienced students? Or Gumbert.laptop said:
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
butchersapron said:
After a suitable period of political decontamination and a firm beating with a copy of Trotsky's Military Writings, our lot might have you.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
butchersapron said:
Shouting at scared and inexperienced students would get you in trouble. Shouting at Gumbert would probably be considered a harmless personal eccentricity though.
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