Now Blears goes...

[JHE]

If there is nothing but dog food on the menu. I don't eat the dog food. I walk out of the restaurant.

But you are going to eat somewhere. At home, maybe. You'd better knock up something tasty.

How is your political meal preparation going? If it's looking good, you could invite Glen to join you.

Ah, but maybe the table is bare, the cupboard is empty and there's nothing in the fridge but a half-empty can of Red Stripe. Best not invite Glen over yet. You'd just show yourself up. Worst of all, the bugger might produce a can of dog food from his pocket and offer you some. Yuck.

 

[dylans]

Worst of all, the bugger might produce a can of dog food from his pocket and offer you some. Yuck.

I'd rather starve

 

[JHE]

Iñaki Dylans refusing to accept a Labour Party membership card

 

[Kaka Tim]

But part of the reason that the left has failed is that the historical structures that have been the agents of change - the grassroots labour movement, trade unions etc - are still in the deadly death grip of the labour party.
Until those elements of the labour movement realise that the Labour is a busted flush as a vehicle for socialist/progrssive change we are going nowhere.

People like glenquagmire are part of the problem - they stick around in some futile hope that the party will return to its ideals and in the meantime that they can be a force for socialism - or whatever - from within.
Its self delusional nonsense - as the record of the last 15 years amply demonstrates.
The party is run by careerist, meritocratic, neo-liberals who seem to think the only virtue is the prsevation of their own power and infuence and are entirley divorced from any of the founding principles of the labour movement. They treat the grassroots, the unions and the whole legacy of 150 years of struggle with utter contempt. And no matter what they do people like Glen keep coming back for more.

No wonder hes so angry.

 

[frogwoman]

heh, and I thought most of Labours socialist voters had fucked off to the SP or lib dems.

she votes for them out of loyalty tbh, not for any rational reason

she was actually tricked into being a member of it in the first place, because of going after school to a "labour club"

 

[Wolveryeti]

The party is run by careerist, meritocratic, neo-liberals who seem to think the only virtue is the prsevation of their own power and infuence and are entirley divorced from any of the founding principles of the labour movement. They treat the grassroots, the unions and the whole legacy of 150 years of struggle with utter contempt.

They are also completely broke and thus will be stitched up either now or in the near future by business magnates who want to keep it cushty for themselves and their boys.

 

[gosub]

aritcle in similar vein by Simon Jenkins over on CiF

 

[glenquagmire]

But part of the reason that the left has failed is that the historical structures that have been the agents of change - the grassroots labour movement, trade unions etc - are still in the deadly death grip of the labour party.
Until those elements of the labour movement realise that the Labour is a busted flush as a vehicle for socialist/progrssive change we are going nowhere.

People like glenquagmire are part of the problem - they stick around in some futile hope that the party will return to its ideals and in the meantime that they can be a force for socialism - or whatever - from within.
Its self delusional nonsense - as the record of the last 15 years amply demonstrates.
The party is run by careerist, meritocratic, neo-liberals who seem to think the only virtue is the prsevation of their own power and infuence and are entirley divorced from any of the founding principles of the labour movement. They treat the grassroots, the unions and the whole legacy of 150 years of struggle with utter contempt. And no matter what they do people like Glen keep coming back for more.

No wonder hes so angry.

Well I can't reply to everything since my last post but this will do for starters.

I don't really understand the first paragraph. Are you suggesting that in the past the trade unions were a force for change despite being affiliated to the Labour Party? And now, being affiliated to the Labour Party is somehow preventing them from being?

I'm under no illusions about the party returning to anything, nor any illusions about what it once was. It's always been, because of Britain's peculiar history and political system, the only meaningful arena for debate and fight, and the attempt to push forward towards socialism under a capitalist system. That doesn't mean I expect it to do so in the next ten years, nor that I would have expected it to at any stage (with a couple of brief exceptions maybe) over the last hundred years. But it's what there is.

The alternatives on offer are a dead end of fourth internationalist irrelevance, third internationalist tyranny or abdicating all attempts at political change and retreating to single-issue campaigning or syndicalism.

 

[JHE]

Ha! No mention of the Fifth International, I see!

The objectively counter-revolutionary lickspittle apologist for Her Majesty's Loyal Labour Party "accidentally" omits to mention the true leadership of the world proletariat.

Long live the Fifth International!

 

[Kaka Tim]

Well I can't reply to everything since my last post but this will do for starters.

I don't really understand the first paragraph. Are you suggesting that in the past the trade unions were a force for change despite being affiliated to the Labour Party? And now, being affiliated to the Labour Party is somehow preventing them from being?

.

Im saying that in the past grassroots and the unions were powerful voices for the workling classes and acted as agents as change. Whilst this remained true, it gave socialists and radicals within the labour party a viable argument for staying within the mainstream political system.
Since Blair (although the process started under kinnock), the party managers have utterlly neuatralised the grassroots and just used them and the hard core working class vote merely as a vehicle to power.

To stay within the labour party now means you are enabling this bunch of utter shysters to continune fucking us over in return for no influence whatsoever. Iraq was the tipping point - I cant see how anyone with any sort of socialist views could have stayed within the party after that. Indeed a mass wave of resignations may have put sufficient pressure on mps for them to vote against the war - and win - and get rid of Blair - when they had the chance.

However - like Claire Short - most labour party members 'wrestled with their consciences and won', falling for the self justifing fallacy that they could make things less bad from within.

Well thank you very fucking much the labour party rank and file.

 

[glenquagmire]

Heh. Sorry for not resigning to make you happy.

 

[Kaka Tim]

Heh. Sorry for not resigning to make you happy.

Well if you're happy with having blood on your hands .....

 

[glenquagmire]

I'm happy that I don't have blood on my hands. And I ain't going to lose any sleep over you thinking otherwise.

 

[gosub]

Im saying that in the past grassroots and the unions were powerful voices for the workling classes and acted as agents as change. Whilst this remained true, it gave socialists and radicals within the labour party a viable argument for staying within the mainstream political system.
Since Blair (although the process started under kinnock), the party managers have utterlly neuatralised the grassroots and just used them and the hard core working class vote merely as a vehicle to power.

To stay within the labour party now means you are enabling this bunch of utter shysters to continune fucking us over in return for no influence whatsoever. Iraq was the tipping point - I cant see how anyone with any sort of socialist views could have stayed within the party after that. Indeed a mass wave of resignations may have put sufficient pressure on mps for them to vote against the war - and win - and get rid of Blair - when they had the chance.

However - like Claire Short - most labour party members 'wrestled with their consciences and won', falling for the self justifing fallacy that they could make things less bad from within.

Well thank you very fucking much the labour party rank and file.

I don't think Claire Short wrestled with her conscience, that was Robin Cook. What Claire Short did was ; well case for UK invading Iraq at the time was not about toppling a dictator US could pretty much do that without us (no offence to British troops), was about having influence on the way US shaped aftermath. Claire Short as International Development minister was the interface with US on doing that (worked on plan with State Dept). As has already come out through US freedom of information, Rumsfeld came in at near last minute at binned that plan and with it UK's pragmatic justification for being involved.