Refused as fuck
"ethnic pakistani tosser"
Subs.
SWP fraud?
- Thread starter sonny61
- Start date
Das Uberdog
remembers the alamo
kavenism said:
Bullshit - I've never heard of a single case, and don't know a single SWP member who wouldn't be totally affronted by the suggestion (quite rightly). One of the first things I ever asked Preston branch after joining was whether or not any of the paper money got slyly spent on an after-sale pint - I was totally stonewalled. The party, and its members, take that extremely seriously.
Das Uberdog
remembers the alamo
And, JHE, to what mellifluous ends would you believe the SWP would like to collate people's numbers and addresses? The petition is about starting a conversation - as are the emails sent around to people on the lists afterwards. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it.
kavenism
Progressive misanthrope
I never suggested money from sales was going for a cheeky pint, and like you I've never met anyone who would condone that. But that doesn’t mean that petitions are not used somewhat liberally and the exact nature and destination of donations is a little murky. Like any group on the left, we're cash strapped and as such squeezing 80p for a paper out of a larger donation here and there as a result of a grey area is pretty standard practice. Most of the fairly new people in the party I have met think that the petitions are a bit misleading, and this often leads to disillusionment after a while with the whole sale process, but then I guess that's why the SWP has such a high turn over of people, they vote with their feet. None of this is likely to change, and I don’t think the SWPs way of doing things like this deviates much from other groups on the left.
frogwoman
Let them eat newts
Yep and in the SP as well.
JHE
.
Pup,
1. Do yourself a favour. Stop throwing around words that you don't understand. "...mellifluous ends..." FFS! Daft things like that just make you look like a pretentious teenager.
2. The Social Worker 'petitions' are a fucking con. They are not sent to petition the government. The are kept so that you have some more 'contacts'. You know this perfectly well and if you are really incapable of admitting even to yourself that this is dishonest, I feel rather sorry for you, you poor Trot-corrupted teen fool.
Refused as fuck
"ethnic pakistani tosser"
Rest assured, next time I donate money to the SWP I will ask for a receipt and demand satisfaction.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
goosegrease
Cheap fish products here
So what if trots use petitions as a way of starting a convo with people in the street, and so what if folk who sign them are e mailed afterwards.
It's always struck me as very low yeild for your work, I mean spending your Saturday mornings being ignored and laughed at in the street by strangers when you could be sipping tea in bed. Let them get along with it.
Why do you find this so offensive, JHE? Speaking as an ex trot myself there is nothing sinister about it. The money goes to The Party and the names largely go in the bin, after one or two unresponded e mails.
As for all the young recruits wanking out the party lines, well youth is wasted on the young.
It's always struck me as very low yeild for your work, I mean spending your Saturday mornings being ignored and laughed at in the street by strangers when you could be sipping tea in bed. Let them get along with it.
Why do you find this so offensive, JHE? Speaking as an ex trot myself there is nothing sinister about it. The money goes to The Party and the names largely go in the bin, after one or two unresponded e mails.
As for all the young recruits wanking out the party lines, well youth is wasted on the young.
JHE
.
Have you read my posts about this? Is there anything in them you can't understand?
Do you deny that it is dishonest to ask someone to sign a 'petition' which is in fact NOT a petition since it is not going to be used to petition anyone?
Do you deny that MANY people add their names and details because they think the petition is a genuine petition and want to add their little bit?
Do you deny that the Social Workers deliberately use this ploy because they know that if they were honest and asked people to write down their contact details if they would like to be contacted by the bloody Social Workers they would get many MANY FEWER people's names and contact details?
Fucksake! Trots have become such wretched creatures that they can't see anything wrong with lying to people!
Some people here will be too young to remember, but it was old Tony Cliff himself, the founder and proprietor of the Social Workers, who used to insist that you should 'never lie to the class'!
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
You're rotting inside out
frogwoman
Let them eat newts
To be honest whatever the swappies do is nothing compared to what happened to my housemate when she joined the labour party at school 
There was an after school "Labour Club" and they had to pay some money (about £2 or something) and she became a labour member and didn't even realise it
There was an after school "Labour Club" and they had to pay some money (about £2 or something) and she became a labour member and didn't even realise it
frogwoman
Let them eat newts
As for the swappie petitions, everyone knows that if you sign one of them you're running the risk of getting sent crap by the SWP! So, if you sign one of them and then complain if/when you get junk mail in response its your fault tbh.
It doesn't stop me doing it though, because they do collect for other causes (palestine etc! and the money collected for them does actually go to what it says it does ...)
It doesn't stop me doing it though, because they do collect for other causes (palestine etc! and the money collected for them does actually go to what it says it does ...)
goosegrease
Cheap fish products here
Part of me just thinks yeah but so what. The ones who don't wanna be contacted but are dont reply to the e mails, at the worst they mite get a bit irritated for a minute and hit the spam button. It's nothing many companies don't do, I remember agreeing to being e mailed by a karate club and got about 2 e mails a week for a month. I just a direct form of self promotion.
I was in the S.P and remember there was a tick box on the petition for "more info" no tick there no e mail sent.
Okay, granted many people think that they are signing a petition in the sense that it will be presented to the government or somthing but that leads me to the thought that the whole exercise is about as pointless as sending Mr. Brown a petition to stop the war or whatever.
Really mate, I agree where with your coming from. Trots can wreck a good campaign with their sneaky and minipulative ways. They can take a genuninely passionate radical minded youngster and wreck them, push them and fill their heads with Neo Marxist balls until they lose sight of why they gave a shit in the first place, oh yeah. But think of it this way, as long as they're making a racket in the high street you can clock the faces and weigh up where they are coming when you come across them in more seroius circs.
And judging by the social make up of the SWP, I don't think Cliff was refering to the working class anyway
this isn't true though. plenty of people will sign them thinking it's a petition... not everyone is that clued up...
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Tough shit really.
OH no, the SWP have my name which i gave them on a petition.
Next?
OH no, the SWP have my name which i gave them on a petition.
Next?
frogwoman
Let them eat newts
A lot of people sign petitions on stuff like PetitionsOnline thinking they're real petitions as well, or that they're going to get sent somewhere. You live and learn ... it's no different to what many companies do. I'll happily sign SWP petitions btw because they're important in guaging public support for stuff - and yes it is slightly deceptive but in this point in my life I think there are more important things to worry about tbh.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
More fool you/them. They use a trick to get to talk - fair play. Trots are awful at this
oh yeah, i don't care. just saying, like.
frogwoman
Let them eat newts
Yep. I dont have a problem with it, its kind of expected when you're on a demo that there'll be the SWP there selling papers. I don't kid myself that the petition signing is gonna have any wider political impact.
but it makes you (well, me) feel like you're doing something
Das Uberdog
remembers the alamo
JHE said:
And, errr, why would they ever want to have some contacts on an email list?
Seriously, my biggest issue with the SWP is that their tactics are most often ineffective - not that there's some uptight 'moral' issue about the way in which you get people into a conversation in the street.
frogwoman
Let them eat newts
This basically.
JHE
.
Under appreciated,though.
There's Mori. There's ICM. There's Populus. There's Gallup (or have they closed down?). There's YouGov.
These are well known, but the really important one is Trotometer.
Trotometer has its own special methods, based on opinion polls disguised as petitions. Trotometer's surveys are conducted outside supermarkets on a self-selected sample of people. Instead of employing people to conduct surveys, Trotometer depends on volunteers from a front group that poses as a small political sect calling itself the Social Workers. Trotometer theorists insist that it is only by abandoning any attempt to get a representative sample that you can find out what people really think.
goosegrease
Cheap fish products here
What I mean is if loads of people are signing one of their petitions then it's somewhat of an indication of how much support the actual demo or issue they're campaigning about has among the public. Or maybe not
Ive never seen loads of people sign a petition before. Anyway support for the demo is irrelevant, getting to the front and waving your banner in front of all the others is the key to building the movement. Just a few worker ants with papers on the periphery.
goosegrease
Cheap fish products here
I should add that the worker ants are in fact middle class ants.
