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Mark Steel - What's Going On?

danny la rouge said:
Bookmarks is the SWP publishing house, and Bookmarks bookshop their bookshop.
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Shouldn't it be called Bookmarx?

MC5 said:
Saying "I'm not really sure" how the world can be changed means Steel's written off the working class like so many others over the years.
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How on earth did you come to that conculsion?


I loved Reasons to be Cheerful and look forward to this one.
 
Met Steel 5 years back at a Desmond Dekker gig. He was with Mark Lamarr who was djing the night with his pretty good collection of old 60's Trojan/reggae. I told Steel he was pretty funny at the SSP election comedy night..... He looked me up and down and went into shock mode..... :rolleyes:

Shame that for a funny funny bloke he was still sticking to idiot stock responses..... Wonder if he'll still think the same.
 
It is a very good read and no he hasn't given up on Revolutionary Socialism. In fact, one of the best chapters in the book is called 'us and them' which hammers home the point that society is divided by class and workers are the agency of change. He also does attempt to answer the question of 'what is going on?' and what can be done. He does give his old party a bit of a kicking and there is a very amusing account of the whole Galloway Big Brother appearance. I thought it was a better, more honest and more insightful book than Reasons to be a Cheerful.
 
Maggot said:
How on earth did you come to that conculsion?
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guilt. Steel is just an honest version of MC5. If MC5 were 'really sure' himself he'd still be a member (n paper at least, like so many others). That he isn't just means he can't admit to himself/us that he doesn't really know either.
 
belboid said:
guilt. Steel is just an honest version of MC5. If MC5 were 'really sure' himself he'd still be a member (n paper at least, like so many others). That he isn't just means he can't admit to himself/us that he doesn't really know either.
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No, I'm thinking 'shit, it ain't gonna happen in my lifetime'. :p:D
 
HackneyE9 said:
I once asked if they sold Red Pepper at that bookshop - bloke behind counter looked at me as if I'd asked for a copy of Asian Babes. :(

I mean, pardon me for asking for a green-red leftie mag in a leftie bookshop which I inadvertantly didn't realise fitted the Swappie cult mindset.
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- i dunno- they used to sell Black Flag in there- which was usually 50% articles exposing the outrageous lies of the SWP against anarchists. mind, it was a bit embarassing taking in the new issue and picking up the cash. I guess they never read it..
 
they used to proudly take every left paper and journal in there - except (I think) dead Moralism/Living Marxism.

Needed to keep an eye on what else the comrades were reading I guess ;) I used to get some dirty looks for buying anything other than Militant
 
butchersapron said:
It's a hands off operation. He can just say nothing to do with me guv' whilst plastering their arguments everywhere. It's rather dishonest, as you would expect from MC5
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SWP fellow traveller, Michael Rosen, does the same routine on various blogs that I've been known to frequent.
 
imposs1904 said:
SWP fellow traveller, Michael Rosen, does the same routine on various blogs that I've been known to frequent.
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Michael Rosen, Children's Poet by Appointment to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II? There aren't many Trots with such grand titles - though I admit I quite like him on Radio 4 sometimes.

MC5 is not the Children's Laureate in disguise, is he? Probably not.

He needs a title of some sort, though. The Trotty Teenagers' Laureate? The Old Folk's Special Trot? The World's Most Social Working Non-Member of Laureation Potential?

I don't know - perhaps we can just call him Em. Is that too familiar?
 
I actually bought it earlier in Foyles and am about 3/4 of the way through. It is a very very good read and reflects what a lot of people on the Left have been feeling in the past few years. BTW Steel seems as committed to Socialism as ever.

Here's an excerpt that made me laugh out loud on the Tube home (and it helps if you have heard Galloway's radio show):

"George presents a radio phone-in on the Talksport channel, which is addictively entertaining because he speaks as if he's addressing a mass rally in Sao Paulo. So you seem to hear such snippets as, 'Your obfuscations and half-truths will succeed only in accelerating your descent into the snake-pit of oblivion you have brought about by your own reptilian actions - that is all I have to say to you, Dave from Basingstoke' ".
 
Mark Steel is supporting Respect Renewal and has done a fundraising event for it. There is a link from his personal website to Renewal's website to show he endorses it.
 
Something should be done about his disrespectful attitude to GG MP. Next thing you know, he'll mock Mohammedanism - and then where will we be?
 
Haller said:
I don't think there's any relationship at all anymore. Pluto is strongest in areas well beyond the SWP.
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It might well be, i'm not arguing different. I'm not arguing that pluto is in some way dependent on the SWP or vice versa - i'm just saying that historic links make it the first port of call for the SWP tops when they want to do proper books, and that those historic links might open a few doors.

edit:though, to undermine my own point it does seem polity press is more favoured nowadays.
 
JHE said:
Nothing to excuse, VP. I was just having fun.


The Bookshop was much better years ago when it was on Seven Sisters Road - a mainly working class part of north London. There was more space, there were many more books and there was a large second-hand department. It was the sort of bookshop in which you could cheerfully spend many hours browsing before making your way to the till with your little haul of books and mags.

In the 90s, they moved to the smaller, posher premises in Bloomsbury. Some said that was to be nearer their social base - London University students. A big part of it, though, was a deal they made with the TUC, which is based nearby, to distribute TU literature. The deal was lucrative for the Social Workers. It's a sign of the times, I suppose, that the TUC didn't want to run the distribution itself. It opted for 'outsourcing' and the best (cheapest?) distributer the TUC could find, apparently, was an odd little shrinking Trot outfit.
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Free student labour per chance?
 
belboid said:
guilt. Steel is just an honest version of MC5. If MC5 were 'really sure' himself he'd still be a member (n paper at least, like so many others). That he isn't just means he can't admit to himself/us that he doesn't really know either.
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Perhaps he still has contacts in the party?
 
Mark steel book great terrfic cool getting rad left the swappies cool oooo bit radical bit politcal next project writin a about a swappie criket team coming to terms with thatcherism in 2008 :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
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