Hands Off Venezuela National Conference Nov 4

[Nigel Irritable]

you seem to have spent some time getting yourself informed, if indeed they are a minor sectlet, that makes you a sad individual

It is rather strange to have some sectarian complain that I've bothered to find out the views of his sect! Presumably you think that, like the working class generally, I shouldn't bother.

As it happens, I take an interest in the views of small left wing groups. It's a sort of hobby. Which may indeed make me a sad individual.

I note however that despite your return to this thread you still haven't seen fit to outline your organisation's views on homophobia, answer my question in any way, or dispute the view I put forward. I leave it to other contributors to draw their own conclusions.

 

[redjordi]

sad irritated nigel

It is rather strange to have some sectarian complain that I've bothered to find out the views of his sect! Presumably you think that, like the working class generally, I shouldn't bother.

Now, now, I can see where your irritation with a "minor sectlet" comes from: Socialist Appeal has had quite a lot of success in Venezuela, Cuba, etc. And the Hands Off Venezuela has also been quite succesful at what it was originally set up to do: build solidarity with the Venezuelan revolution. Maybe that is what is making you so bitter and brings foam to your mouth everytime you mention it, but as I said: not good for your stomach

As it happens, I take an interest in the views of small left wing groups. It's a sort of hobby. Which may indeed make me a sad individual.

I think we finally found some common ground!

I note however that despite your return to this thread you still haven't seen fit to outline your organisation's views on homophobia, answer my question in any way, or dispute the view I put forward. I leave it to other contributors to draw their own conclusions.

I am sorry I haven't been around in this thread very much, but I was looking for some dying intellectual in order to suck some credibility from him... couldn't find one though ... maybe it is because I was busy with some real world stuff: a picket of Grant Thornton called by the Bolivia Solidarity Campaign, which has just achieved a first victory, then the Hands Off Venezuela campaign London weekly meeting (there were 30 people there, and I counted only 5 Socialist Appeal members), then I did some leafleting for an HOV event with a Venezuelan student on Monday, and finally went our for drinks with some friends on Saturday.

As for Socialist Appeal's position on homophobia, you have not been paying attention, it is actually printed every month on page 31 of the Socialist Appeal magazine. how is that relevant to a thread on the HOV national conference, you tell me....

comradely

redjordi

 

[redjordi]

I just forgot, since we are discussing the issue, what is your position regarding solidarity with the Bolivarian revolution? and what is your oranisation's position regarding the December 3rd presidential elections in Venezuela? (I think this are relevant to this thread)

 

[JHE]

I don't blame you for trying to get the thread back on topic, but I can't resist asking about this:

Socialist Appeal has had quite a lot of success in Venezuela, Cuba, etc.

Are you claiming that your international Trot grouping, the IMT, has a section in Cuba?

 

[redjordi]

all I said was that the IMT has had success in Cuba, being twice present at the Havana Book Fair, Woods and Grant "Reason in Revolt" being published in the island, Woods speaking at a number of meetings, and Cubans having attended the last two international gatherings of the IMT,

I think it is fair to call this "success"

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Socialist Appeal has had quite a lot of success in Venezuela, Cuba, etc.

If you count setting up a bookstall at an annual bookfair and competing with the USFI to see who can suck up to Celia Hart the most as "a lot of success", then I suppose you have a point. Of course these earth shattering, erm... successes... have come at the expense of quietly dropping the Marxist view that a political revolution against the bureaucratic dictatorship is necessary to establish real democracy there. In other words, the Cuban Stalinist regime tolerates you selling a few books because you are utterly ineffectual and in any case pro-regime.

The way in which you adopted this new position is itself revealing. One day you were arguing for the Marxist position, the next you stopped arguing that the working class should overthrow the Stalinist bureaucracy. And not a word of explanation was ever given. Nothing to see here boys and girls, we've always loved Castro...

As for Venezuela, there your new politics of uncritically supporting leftist leaders in the third world reaches its pinnacle. Not that it has done you much good. Your small group there has just lost around half its membership in a bitter split. Not that your publications report such things. Too busy telling us all about what Alan Woods ate for breakfast I suppose.

As for Socialist Appeal's position on homophobia, you have not been paying attention, it is actually printed every month on page 31 of the Socialist Appeal magazine

If some one line point has made it into the printed magazine, it certainly hasn't made it to the Socialist Appeal website yet, which still has zero to say about gay liberation or gay oppression. The same goes for your international website. Nor has the printed Socialist Appeal carried any proper account of your view on gay oppression, any programme for dealing with it, any explanation for its sudden appearance as a token one liner, or any accounting for the change in view. Strange that, isn't it?

 

[Udo Erasmus]

have come at the expense of quietly dropping the Marxist view that a political revolution against the bureaucratic dictatorship is necessary to establish real democracy there.

Actually this view is anti-marxist, the correct marxist analysis is a state capitalist one.

For example, the Hungarian revolution whose aniversary we comemorate disproves this type of analysis. The hungarian workers in 1956 rose up against the stalinist state and established workers councils at the grassroots. If the problem was some "political degeneration" at the top (Nigel's analysis) then why establish workers control of the means of production from below, in fact all the revolutions against stalinist states fail to fit the pattern of "political revolutions" against bureaucracy but instead fit the role of classic revolutions against capitalist states that exploit workers economically and politically whether under the guise of state capitalism or private capitalism

 

[Nigel Irritable]

The hungarian workers in 1956 rose up against the stalinist state and established workers councils at the grassroots. If the problem was some "political degeneration" at the top (Nigel's analysis) then why establish workers control of the means of production from below,

I'm not even remotely interested in debating the idiocy of state capitalist theory with you Udo. Baiting one sectarian is quite enough per thread and anyone who seriously espouses state capitalism as a theory even after the havoc wreaked by the collapse of the Soviet Union isn't worth bothering with. In brief answer to your specific question - workers councils (or soviets) are organs of democracy under workers power. They are set up precisely because workers are organising a political revolution - replacing bureaucratic dictatorship with workers democracy.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

god, what a bum fight

considering that ted grant was gay himself one would have thought that their policy towards homosexuality would be a bit more progressive

so what the main Venezuela groups then - who the Venezuela Information Centre >>> ? Are there any others?