Yesterdays Love Music Hate Racism demo

[cockneyrebel]

So what do you suggest?

I've said before that I think the number one priority should be rebuilding the unions and I don't mean through top down do nothing initiatives like Fighting Unions but an initiative that actually gives people the means to build up local branches by giving people help and ideas with stuff like getting members meetings going, putting up notice boards, leaflet templates etc and then linking the branch to local campaigns.

We're trying to do that in our branch (I've put up reports on here) and are hoping to have a united front called "Save our Services" which links union branches in the area to community campaigns and tenants organisations. People are also talking about standing Save our Services candidates.

I think that while community campaigns are vital without workplace strength we'll never really get anywhere.

 

[cockneyrebel]

So what is a REALISTIC alternative in your view?

Well you never suggest anything postive and your answer was vote Boris.

 

[dennisr]

So what is a REALISTIC alternative in your view?

Well, firstly let me just reiterate that a somewhat UNREALISTIC view would be "vote for the tories and stick your head in the sand in a hopeful manner'

As with butchers - I would argue there is no shortcut or 'easy' solution (we have already seen what happens when folk resort to 'short cuts' - they end up as long cuts and cul-de-sacs) to the building of an indepandant voice for working people - one that allows self-organisation, testing of different ideas, and democratic dialogue between the different strands of working class opinion). The key word there is democratic - not imposition of one groups opinion of what is neccesary.

thats not just realism - it is the only alternative open to us.

and in the meantime anything else is simply a holding operation - counter propaganda to reactionary division (rather than pandering to reaction as idiots like you opt for...). CRs examples above are good examples of that - building on working class (hey, virtually all...) peoples REAL concerns (ie other than the created concerns such as the sex lives of big brother contestants that is...). Jobs, Homes, Security, Wages, health, Education etc etc etc

The tories are not an independant voice for working people (by the way like...)

 

[cockneyrebel]

Now there's a post I agree with

 

[KeyboardJockey]

Well you never suggest anything postive and your answer was vote Boris.

I suggest plenty. Voting Boris was a positive thing in the face of tide of Livingstonian arrogance we suffered from in London over the last few years.

 

[cockneyrebel]

Yeap another constructive post there.

 

[dennisr]

I suggest plenty. Voting Boris was a positive thing in the face of tide of Livingstonian arrogance we suffered from in London over the last few years.

it was the response of a powerless idiot reinforcing his sense of powerlessness as a result

 

[smokedout]

*whoosh*

yeah that was quite funny, not that with it today

 

[durruti02]

I suggest plenty. Voting Boris was a positive thing in the face of tide of Livingstonian arrogance we suffered from in London over the last few years.

KJ that really is ludicrous .. you could claim it was a 'negative reaction' to vote boris but never in a million years was it positive .. look at the scum he has surrounded himself with ..

to argue as you appear to that cos the 'left' ( in this case KL) have let you down, and NO ONE disagrees that KL had become pro business, arrogent etc etc so therefore you must vote Tory is just nonsense, absolute nonsense of really the highest order ..

as dennis and all say actually there is really NO alternative to building popular organisations whether at work, where you live, based on your interests whatever, but just do it

 

[durruti02]

the only arse talkers I see on here are those who refuse to see that some types of identity politics have made things worse.

KJ, dennis does not in any way support the type of politics you are pinning in him here

.. the SP have ALWAYS correctly attacked the soft lefts identity politics

 

[durruti02]

Yup.




Couldn't agree more there.




The problem is ignoring this problem and writing all the white working class off as 'fash' as the SWP and others have done has encouraged people to support the bnp.

There are going to have to be hard choices made. Previously sacrosanct policies such as a totally needs based housing policy are gonig to have be abandoned or reformed so that those who are born here whatever theri religion or race are prioritised for housing. This is the way of things in other EU countries such as the Nederlands.

We cannot hope to build enough social housing in enough time to beat the fash. By the time homes are built for all we may have fash in significant numbers in the House of Commons.

The far left needs to abandon the mistaken and misguided policy of No Borders the existence and promotion of this policy by high profile Left groiups is another thng that is encouraging the bnp and further entrenching the view that the left don't care about the white working classes.

We need to get people working and get people housed. That is the way to kill off the fash not by piss poor demos or screaming 'racist' every time someone challenges you.

agreed KJ and poster .. so i presume then you will be getting involved with the Soclialist Party, IWCA or Hackney Independent or Haringay Solidarity Group?? and stop peddling the idea that is is right to vote tory

i do not deny your right to have a go at the cod or pollock left but there ARE alternatives .. do something positive

 

[brasicritique]

agreed KJ and poster .. so i presume then you will be getting involved with the Soclialist Party, IWCA or Hackney Independent or Haringay Solidarity Group?? and stop peddling the idea that is is right to vote tory

i do not deny your right to have a go at the cod or pollock left but there ARE alternatives .. do something positive

as always the consumate politician speaks

i think we need to get beyond the current definitions as i have said before class as a linguistic phase does not mean anything anymore in any case nlabour are going down the caermoon is a toff idea and it got them no where an boris elected

the paradigm has shifted - groups like the IWAC are worth while but all these groups use aesthtics and slogans from the 1970s-80 -they are not 'now' for example look at that wally who put time and effort into a class war stcker with that bishop in it what the fuck was the point of that ? do most people even know who that bishop was ?and that is why they remain very small

 

[durruti02]

1)as always the consumate politician speaks

2) i think we need to get beyond the current definitions as i have said before class as a linguistic phase does not mean anything anymore in any case nlabour are going down the caermoon is a toff idea and it got them no where an boris elected

the paradigm has shifted - groups like the IWAC are worth while but all these groups use aesthtics and slogans from the 1970s-80 -they are not 'now' for example look at that wally who put time and effort into a class war stcker with that bishop in it what the fuck was the point of that ? do most people even know who that bishop was ?and that is why they remain very small

1) fuck off with your snidey comments

2) you may well be right .. times/language/cultures do change .. so/but have you any suggestions then?

 

[123bpm]

2,000, or so. Many young people which is good [/URL]

Why is that "good". Are young people more prone to voting BNP than people of other ages?

123bpm

 

[The Black Hand]

as always the consumate politician speaks

i think we need to get beyond the current definitions as i have said before class as a linguistic phase does not mean anything anymore in any case nlabour are going down the caermoon is a toff idea and it got them no where an boris elected

the paradigm has shifted - groups like the IWAC are worth while but all these groups use aesthtics and slogans from the 1970s-80 -they are not 'now' for example look at that wally who put time and effort into a class war stcker with that bishop in it what the fuck was the point of that ? do most people even know who that bishop was ?and that is why they remain very small

It is clear the IWCA has never read any of my arguments for Autonomous Anti fascism.

Rather my suggestion that it is New Labour which is preventing the BNP getting in in many seats is a factual observation based upon obvious results. This is meant to stop the excesses of Ultra leftism that Butchers and others lapse into oh so repeatedly.

They have no answer to their minority status, and instead repeat 'holier than thou platitudes' of working class fundamentalism, and pretend that they are 'realistic'.

It would be tragic if it wasn't so funny.

 

[KeyboardJockey]

agreed KJ and poster .. so i presume then you will be getting involved with the Soclialist Party, IWCA or Hackney Independent or Haringay Solidarity Group?? and stop peddling the idea that is is right to vote tory

i do not deny your right to have a go at the cod or pollock left but there ARE alternatives .. do something positive

I've started to get back involved in community work after a gap. Sometimes continual defeats take it out on you .

I defend the rightness of voting Tory if it removes something worse than a Tory though.

When I was talking about a lack of alternatives there are I agree alternatives in the form of community action but when you are in an area or a situation where it is needed to remove a piss poor encumbent quickly and effectively then voting Tory may sometimes be the best way.

 

[dennisr]

KJ, dennis does not in any way support the type of politics you are pinning in him here

.. the SP have ALWAYS correctly attacked the soft lefts identity politics

And more than that - we have been viciously witchunted and attacked on the basis of a principled position re such rubbish identity politics.

In Liverpool the accusations and lies from such staunch 'supporters' of minority rights as the daily mail (sic...) about the left-wing, militant council's supposed 'racism' - filled their headlines for years and that of plenty of other national papers. Funnily enough, the building of more decent council houses than the rest of the country put together; sports centres and community never made a single headline. Weird that

At the moment the right-wing of Unison are using spurious 'racist' accusations in an attempt to witch hunt Unison branch leaders fighting for a decent class based programme (all SP members...)

The lie of identity politics is not the revelation to us that it seems to be to KJ and co...

I put KJs recently found excuse for attacking his fantasy left in the same catagory as the likes of the unison buearucrats and daily mail reporters - ie they could not really give a toss about real inequalities that do exist (let alone the specific situation faced by black and asian peoples in this country) - they have simply found a convenient slur to hide an attack on real class fighters

thats why I put KJ into the category of 'idiot' (becasue at least bureaucrats and right wing reporters are fighting for their own interests rather than somebody elses...

 

[dennisr]

I defend the rightness of voting Tory if it removes something worse than a Tory though.

"community alternatives" my arsehole

 

[butchersapron]

There's an interesting question - of the two big trot groups why have they had such different attitudes to identity politics (we'll ignore the SWPs occasional attack on ID politics in their more obsure joournals and look at their practice instead). Why the difference? What's it based on?

 

[dennisr]

There's an interesting question - of the two big trot groups why have they had such different attitudes to identity politics (we'll ignore the SWPs occasional attack on ID politics in their more obsure joournals and look at their practice instead). Why the difference? What's it based on?

class

 

[mk12]

Their links to the working class.

edit: dennis beat me.

 

[dennisr]

.. and lack of opportunism?


(lets see how that opinion goes down with the cynics here)

 

[cockneyrebel]

I think it's too simplistic to just say class. A lot of other trotskyist groups are oppossed to identity politics in the same way as the SP.

Not sure why there is a difference to be honest.

Also I don't know if the SWP have always had the same stance on identity politics but if they have they had just as many links if not more links to the working class in the 70s.

 

[KeyboardJockey]

KJ that really is ludicrous .. you could claim it was a 'negative reaction' to vote boris but never in a million years was it positive .. look at the scum he has surrounded himself with ..

Is it any different from the scum that Livingstone surrounded himself with. Still scum but with a different label.

 

[treelover]

MC5
2,000, or so. Many young people which is good [/url]

Again, it is not young predominately middle class young people you have to convince, but people like that lifelong LP voter in Last Orders, this is indicative of certains parts of WILOTL, the hard slog of convincing ordinary everyday people like the guy in LO who are unlikely to sign up to the SWP, etc organise gigs, become 'footsoldiers' etc is anathema to them.

 

[dennisr]

I think it's too simplistic to just say class. A lot of other trotskyist groups are oppossed to identity politics in the same way as the SP.

Not sure why there is a difference to be honest.

Also I don't know if the SWP have always had the same stance on identity politics but if they have they had just as many links if not more links to the working class in the 70s.

thats only because you ain't got none )

which brings us back to opportunism.

both of these organisations have been tested in major events now (Militant/SP - Liverpool, Poll Tax; SWP - ANL, STW Anti-War Movement) - In those events their principles were put to varying extents to a test. How did they both stand up to those tests?

 

[cockneyrebel]

Both imperialist lackeys

 

[ben foggle2]

This photo from redwatch is unbelievable (commies with huge stalin banner)
Those commies are not shy of their love for mass murderers are they?

 

[dennisr]

This photo from redwatch is unbelievable http://www.redwatch.net/08maylond4.jpg
Those commies are not shy of their love for mass murderers are they?

can you cut the link to this site cheers

 

[chilango]

There's an interesting question - of the two big trot groups why have they had such different attitudes to identity politics (we'll ignore the SWPs occasional attack on ID politics in their more obsure joournals and look at their practice instead). Why the difference? What's it based on?

My guess is that the SP has experience of growth/success via this route from earlier campaigns that ended up being community based whilst the SWPs successes have come via the other route so that's what both have kept doing.