Marxism (the event that is!)
- Thread starter cockneyrebel
- Start date
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Bit shit, but still, why should Martin Smith be allowed to sit on top of anyone and then go through their pockets?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
That's why we need a proletarian court of honour to sort it out.
cockneyrebel
New Member
MC5 all the piss taking aside I saw the bloke about five minutes after it all happened and he was quite shaken up. There was a bruise on his arm, which I'm sure he'll get over, but still it's not a great thing to do and then to pin him down and go through his pockets. If it had been a less timid bloke I'm sure Martin Smith would have got an SWP table smacked over his head.
As said, the SWP blatantly has got a cultish/stalinist side to them, and the only reason they don't get more aggro now days is because most of their members couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag.
As said, the SWP blatantly has got a cultish/stalinist side to them, and the only reason they don't get more aggro now days is because most of their members couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag.
barney_pig
Po-cha-na-quar-hip
the way in which the young swappie who stopped to chat to us was ordered to be on his way by his organisor, and the furtive over the shoulder glances that others made and lowering of voices whenever critisism was being uttered support cr
audiotech
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cockneyrebel said:
It reminds me of a run-in with a WRP member once, who I told to fuckoff when he said I couldn't join their march (it was a march in support of miners). Also, I gave the same treatment to a rather immature DAM activist who got a bit stroppy with me one time. Then there was the intimidation from Militant members in Liverpool I received, because they took particular issue with a headline. Not forgetting the growls from RCP members on an anti-racist march. They looked a bit daft in their Doc Martins and combat gear btw (I wonder if Claire Fox was there?).
I find this sort of thing all very silly and not unique to the SWP.
It also see that the CPGB are milking this for all it's worth, as they are entitled to.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Did you get your mates to pin them down whilst you sat on them and went through their pockets? Because it all looks verbal from what you say...
Thing is CPGB is not taken seriously by anybody in the SWP and therefore no one is likely to take this seriously, based on hearsay. Furthermore Martin Smith is widely liked in the SWP presisely because he is one of the warmer amusing characters is the SWP leadership. The idea of him as a viscious bully is rather silly and just not going to stick.
One more mad leaflet given out by the sects at Marxism.
As for the event, plenty of good stuff on offer- Billy Hayes skirting around why the CWU is avoiding joint action with the PCS. Serwotka on Derek Simpson puting a "screw unity the key thing is Labours re-election" line at the TUC council. Good primers and info on the forthcoming CWU dispute. Interesting talk by Newsnight journalist Paul Mason on the global working class. Excellent meeting by Lebanese LGBT rights activist on working with Hezbollah in united front against Israeli assualt. Entertaining madness from Zizek. Good stuff from Sheffield Respects about linking floods, environment agency cuts global warming and neo-liberalism. Galloway rather anoyingly stroking the SWP's underbelly and dealing with very distressed heckler with aplomb.
Still worth the money
One more mad leaflet given out by the sects at Marxism.
As for the event, plenty of good stuff on offer- Billy Hayes skirting around why the CWU is avoiding joint action with the PCS. Serwotka on Derek Simpson puting a "screw unity the key thing is Labours re-election" line at the TUC council. Good primers and info on the forthcoming CWU dispute. Interesting talk by Newsnight journalist Paul Mason on the global working class. Excellent meeting by Lebanese LGBT rights activist on working with Hezbollah in united front against Israeli assualt. Entertaining madness from Zizek. Good stuff from Sheffield Respects about linking floods, environment agency cuts global warming and neo-liberalism. Galloway rather anoyingly stroking the SWP's underbelly and dealing with very distressed heckler with aplomb.
Still worth the money
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torres said:
It stayed verbal because I made it very clear that I wasn't prepared to put up with physical intimidation and neither should this bloke. Maybe he fought back? I don't know? Maybe, he was asked to leave and refused? I don't know. Is the CPGB's version of events a true reflection of what happened is my first thought?
cockneyrebel
New Member
Once again this is typical of the culture of the SWP. Everyone is a sect apart from them. And they, of course, are "The Party". I actually agree that the Weekly Worker is notoriously bad in terms of sloppy reporting and inter-left gossip but you must know that there are some characters in the SWP that are hardly the warm and fuzzy type you describe, indeed a lot of the organisers are fairly zealot like and fairly dislikeable people in terms of their characters. But of course that's hardly unique to the SWP, the far left has more than its fair share of tossers.
But while you describe everyone else as sects you might want to contemplate the culture and structure of the SWP. I mean a nine month ban on organising against the leadership for a start and the cult like way that people who have left "The Party" are treated with disdain.
As for this incident while the CPGB leaflet might be ridiculously over the top the fact is that this did happen and was out of order. The bloke in question was timid and didn't look the sort to have kicked off himself to be honest. Personally I wouldn't have blamed him if he had knocked Martin Smith out but he didn't look the sort.
The guy was told quite clearly he couldn't come to the event but came anyway. I imagine what happened then was he was asked to hand over his ticket (a refund would have been given) and he said no. (Not that the CPGB would have wound him up to do this of course). So he got sat on, and said ticket was removed from pocket. You'll prob see far worse stuff from bouncers outside a nightclub any saturday night.
An interesting episode was when Zizek argued that marxism wasn't up to explaining the modern world, and a new theory was needed. A good third of the audience clapped wildly... There was a definite thread of argument about the role/centrality of the working class running through a whole bunch of meetings, so I'm gonna read Paul Masons book and see where he's coming from.
An interesting episode was when Zizek argued that marxism wasn't up to explaining the modern world, and a new theory was needed. A good third of the audience clapped wildly... There was a definite thread of argument about the role/centrality of the working class running through a whole bunch of meetings, so I'm gonna read Paul Masons book and see where he's coming from.
cockneyrebel
New Member
Well it seemed like he was man handled quite a bit, just don't see the need for it. If he had been disrupting the meeting then fair enough but he wasn't.
It's all bollox anyway, as said there are loads of people at marxism who were expelled from the SWP, are you seriously saying they should all be banned? It's just total control freakery, marxism is an open event and if people aren't disruptive then they should be allowed to go.
As for Paul Mason I'm not even sure he'd describe himself as a marxist anymore. He did a talk at the PR event and while it was interesting I disagreed with a fair amount of what he said. A review here by the way:
http://www.permanentrevolution.net/?view=entry&entry=1454
Interesting what you say about the audience at marxism.
cockneyrebel said:
You don't actually know the details though do you?
The CPGB are a silly and pointless sect. By rule of thumb aprox 90% of anything they write is roughly the opposite of the truth.
Martin Smith is no thug and nor are the three other comrades that have been accused over the years by the same sorry excuse for an organisation.
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
Groucho said:
Are you saying: The CPGB said it happened - ergo it did not because they are a "silly and pointless sect"?
I don't care whether it was the CPGB being beat up, or the Revolutionary League for supporting-little-green-men-from-mars, if it's true there should be no room for it- it doesn't matter what the politics of the victim are (other than if they are fascists of course).
The Labour Party carried out far gentler action in throwing out Walter Wolfgang, yet SW called them "thugs". The big difference was the lack of TV cameras at Marxism of course.
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
mutley said:
I doubt it. These days "bouncers" are called "door supervisors" and the employers expect them to go to College and attend courses to get certification in "Conflict Management" amongst other things.
How many SWP staff at Marxism have taken the time and effort to get trained and qualified I wonder? Or do they think it is beneath them, and vocational training is just for the plebs who didn't stay on at school and go to university?
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
BarryB said:
I've heard the same thing said about Noam Chomsky. It doesn't wash.
lewislewis
Lumumba Cymru
Did any other wonderful revelations for the workers come out of Marxism this year then, or just the fight?
cockneyrebel
New Member
I agree that genuine work is needed by groups on the left and not just sloganeering. But the sad thing is that nearly every far left group I’ve come across is obsessed with sniping about other left groups and have the traits of a sect. The zealot like way that many full timers carry on is a case in point. And as said a nine month ban on organising against the leadership is the mark of control freaks in my view, especially in the current conditions.
I didn’t say he was a thug, but whatever the details of the “assault” (and I’ve already said the CPGB leaflet was melodramatic), the fact is that the SWP bans all expelled members from their public events. Something that firstly seems totally unnecessary and secondly is applied totally inconsistently as there a lot of expelled SWP members who do go to Marxism.
Actually that’s a good point.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
The question is why didn't they take photos? They took them of the 'bruising' afterwards so they had cameras there - and if they were out to engineer a situation like this why not grab some pics?
poster342002
PROPER leftwing socialist
Next time: Turkeys and Christmas - why they should support Farmer Bloggs against agri-business.treelover said:
cockneyrebel
New Member
While Hezbollah is undoubtedly homophobic and the SWP doesn't take a critical enough stance, it isn't quite as clear cut as you're making out. For instance:
Littlejohn is nothing but a right-wing racist shit who mocked the genocide in Rwanda. Wouldn't watch anything produced by that scum.
Littlejohn is nothing but a right-wing racist shit who mocked the genocide in Rwanda. Wouldn't watch anything produced by that scum.
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