tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post4491649430240664554..comments2024-03-28T11:31:11.928+00:00Comments on Penny Red: Resignations, rivalry and the future of the left.Penny Redhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07677315565893516941noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-51136045122497232542018-10-21T00:08:00.075+01:002018-10-21T00:08:00.075+01:00Invest in Ripple on eToro the World's Top Soci...<a href="http://forex.syntaxlinks.com/r/eToroRipple" rel="nofollow"><b>Invest in Ripple on eToro</b></a> the World's Top Social Trading Network...<br /><br />Join millions who have already discovered better strategies for investing in Ripple...<br /><br />Learn from established eToro traders <b>or copy their positions automatically</b>Bloggerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07287821785570247118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-84276897584404332832010-02-25T03:33:43.596+00:002010-02-25T03:33:43.596+00:00Leninist Trotskyist would be Marx Engels socialist...Leninist Trotskyist would be Marx Engels socialist.Doomed to failure for the adherance to higher control by a bourgeois vangaurd, and torch and pitchfork justice.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14065998094151426800noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-24519490941582485382010-02-21T01:09:00.822+00:002010-02-21T01:09:00.822+00:00I might be way off-piste here, Anonymous, in which...I might be way off-piste here, Anonymous, in which case, apols, but um....the Lib Dems? Are they not left-leaning?Elainenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-12791074877456549582010-02-20T13:40:21.306+00:002010-02-20T13:40:21.306+00:00Hey,
As one of those who left the SWP and a co-or...Hey, <br />As one of those who left the SWP and a co-organiser of Mutiny, I'd like to respond to the comments re: green politics. Nearly all of those who left are committed to engaging in anti- climate change protests and see hope in the revitalisation of the Seattle-type anticapitalist movements to combat climate change and demand system change. So no, we don't sneer at green politics. <br />Thanks for the support, Laurie, and hopefully work with you in the future on Mutiny ;) <br />Love,<br />A. MutineerUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03291700300850745555noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-45628573693933079702010-02-19T20:10:56.218+00:002010-02-19T20:10:56.218+00:00"radical politics, like romance, isn’t a thou..."radical politics, like romance, isn’t a thought or a feeling – it’s something that you do."<br /><br />love love love this quote. don't like the swp much, total opportunism on every cause that might vaguely be seen as left wing seems pretty unappealing to me, but never actually engaged with them so should probably shut up.Katenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-45683692446681737732010-02-19T16:55:23.828+00:002010-02-19T16:55:23.828+00:00Well, it certainly sad to see that the woman off o...Well, it certainly sad to see that the woman off of Big Brother is one of those to quit. Is she the last celebrity to leave the SWP? I think we should be told.<br /><br />The more famous names amongst the 50 quitters are the cheerleaders for the policy of joining Mr Galloway in cobbling together the most cynical and pernicious psuedo-progressive political organisation formed in the UK in my lifetime. <br /><br />The results speak for themselves.David Floydhttp://www.chartist.org.uk/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-32553860209955303822010-02-18T22:35:45.591+00:002010-02-18T22:35:45.591+00:00To be perfectly blunt, I have nothing but contempt...To be perfectly blunt, I have nothing but contempt for the SWP. It's always struck me as a rather weird gang of control freaks and oddballs obsessed with building their own little nest at the expense of pretty much everything else.<br /><br />As for the purging of Lindsey German...well, she's done her share of purging over the years. As you reap shall you sow, and all that.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-90991505234610241862010-02-18T20:36:18.803+00:002010-02-18T20:36:18.803+00:00Why do you keep talking about 'liberal' pa...Why do you keep talking about 'liberal' parties? This is not the United States; we have a politically organised labour movement home to social democrats, socialists and all manner of leftie radicals. We do not need to hide that it is egalitarian and collectivism, not middle-class hand-wringing, that unites and defines our left.<br /><br />Do not denigrate us with the term 'liberal'. I've never seen a liberal on a picket line.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-32994153667947657342010-02-18T15:27:38.610+00:002010-02-18T15:27:38.610+00:00@ James Mackenzie, eek, what a horrible thought! ...@ James Mackenzie, eek, what a horrible thought! Maybe I'm paranoid, but I got the distinct impression that the SWP looked down their noses at Greens and wanted to smear us.Vanilla Rosehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07946634138308342764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-18195014173683590392010-02-18T12:57:33.551+00:002010-02-18T12:57:33.551+00:00I remember the fun I had with the SWP/SWSS when I ...I remember the fun I had with the SWP/SWSS when I was at University, and to me this reminds me very much of the attitudes I saw back then. SWP had three modes of operation it seemed: 1/. lockstep thinking; 2/. complete disassociation or 3/. claiming leadership of any campaign they were even marginally involved in.<br /><br />But on campus, they were it as far as the Left were concerned and so that's where I went to get involved. I let my membership lapse after the first year though...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-9923784802914539392010-02-18T12:26:55.353+00:002010-02-18T12:26:55.353+00:00The absence of any reference to the main elected l...The absence of any reference to the main elected left-of-Labour alternative is strange. Greens - on the London Assembly, in the European Parliament, in the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Irish Assembly, countless councils and soon, hopefully, Westminster.<br /><br />Heaven forbid those fleeing the SWP decide a spot of Green entryism is the thing, though..James Mackenziehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07707473889170111139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-32536082937004390992010-02-18T11:31:41.147+00:002010-02-18T11:31:41.147+00:00Maybe I'm paranoid, but I've never got on ...Maybe I'm paranoid, but I've never got on with the SWP. One of them falsely accused me of racism and refused to apologise when I pointed out that he had misheard me. It was a long time ago, but if he'd just said sorry, I'd have put it behind me and shrugged it off.Vanilla Rosehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07946634138308342764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-76625964575920308172010-02-18T00:08:47.266+00:002010-02-18T00:08:47.266+00:00thanks for the insight into this. cadres, faction...thanks for the insight into this. cadres, factions: so much a part of the left and far left.<br /><br />progressive lefties love them some ideology. wait. off to listen to some b bragg. sheesh....Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04336286974067459325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-37403439852681004622010-02-17T23:38:17.400+00:002010-02-17T23:38:17.400+00:00I have a lot of sympathy with where you're com...I have a lot of sympathy with where you're coming from, Laurie, and share your frustration at the left's inability to get its act together. Sometimes I feel we've missed our window.<br /><br />As far as the specific question goes, though... I spent longer than I care to remember in the SWP, and have been pondering <a href="http://splinteredsunrise.wordpress.com/category/far-left/" rel="nofollow">at inordinate length</a> about the failures of the further left, because we do have this serial problem in that you've got a lot of talented people fired up to change the world for the better, and we keep making a terrible hash of it.<br /><br />There are plenty of things wrong with the SWP specifically, but introspective infighting is not one of them. This is an outfit that's had two contested elections to its leading committee in the last thirty years - the recent dispute is very very unusual, and a bit more argumentation on a regular basis would probably do them the world of good. Your broader point about petty infighting <i>in the left as a whole</i> holds good, though.<br /><br />We have, as I see it, two problems. One is that the left is too small, weak and fragmented to make a meaningful impact on society. The other is that so many people on the left are in the habit of behaving like dicks, and that this is learned behaviour. I can't help thinking the two things are connected. But I don't have an easy answer to this, except to hope that if we do useful things and try to behave like decent human beings, we might start to get things right.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-72387174078144938222010-02-17T23:13:07.437+00:002010-02-17T23:13:07.437+00:00There is a tradition in the Bolognese left known a...There is a tradition in the Bolognese left known as transversal politics. It basically emphasizes coalition building rather than fractionalising because of what are often minute differences. There is a really good introduction here at http://www.amielandmelburn.org.uk/collections/soundings/12_94.pdf<br /><br />Secondly, there is a real need for taking up "systemic practice" in the left as a means to reunify fractured relationships and networks - which are very similar to transversal politics - one of the starting points is the concept of individual views being partial - and the importance of using "multiple partial views" to rebuild a bigger picture. Google Peter Checkland and Stafford Beer for a "soft systems" perspective. There is also a good bit on the Open Universities website since they have a diploma course that runs on the subject.<br /><br />x<br /><br />ShoeShoehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14090768549182973598noreply@blogger.com