The joy of sects (again)

Anyway, outside Kentish Tahn co-op Respect were holding a petion/stall (I think the WRP had just finished their shift, it's a regular political marketplace outside Kentish Tahn co-op). I couldn't resist - I asked if they were going to defect to the Tories if elected. The respectoid laughed, and said she's only just heard of the story herself - she tried to pass it off as the swings and roundabouts of electoral politics - she knew the *other* three councillors, and they are sound - so that's allright then. But from the SWP to the Tories? not since Hyndman - that's a hell of a record to be breaking.

Anyway, the Ingrate links to the greatest peice of trainspottery for somewhile: Mark Steel has left the SWP (according to Derek Wall).

I've been surprised by the resiliance of SWP members, and the fact that the party hasn't gone into meltdown after the failure and ructions of Respect - maybe this has begun, now.

How significant would this be? Well, their profile is enormous. My friends always thought I was out selling Socialist Worker and in the Socialist Workers Party - now matter how often I'd try to correct them. Basically, the far left peopel on street corners were Socialist Worker, and you'd have to be a trainspotter to know any different. Everyone has heard of them, especially if they've been through university.

I won't rehash their record in trashing the Socialist Alliance, Scottish Socialist Party and, bizarrely, Respect, but it's well known. Mind, I've been predicting the WRPisation of the SWP since Tony Cliff died, so what do i know...

Update: When I posted this, I had a sneaking suspicion I was repeating a joke: it turns out I posted an article with an identical title almost exactly two years ago (The joy of sects). Should I be worried? Or glad? Anyway, compre and contrast, comrades.

In God's own Kingdom

I read in the most recent Tribune that a woman in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to 200 lashes for the heinous crime of being gang raped by 7 men. The actual charge is that of being alone with a man who is not a relative.

She was raped 14 times.

This sentence is handed down after she appealed the original sentence of 90 lashes.

This is not, as it would be for some, an anti-islamic posting, nor an anti-arab - this is a reminder to the Decent Left that the war in Iraq was fought in part to help prop up the vile, priest infested tyranny of Saudi Arabia and its rancid piggy faced ruling familly. The Kingdom with whom we share, apparently, so many values, and lets not foget that for the decents national interests and values coincide.

Idle bugger

I've been full of cold - that's my excuse.

Anyway, I'll try and fit in some posts about Venzuela and Pakistan in the next week or so (there, I've committed myself, I have to do it).

But first, given that it seems that the SWP are going to be holding the "constitutionally convened" Respect conference, and Galoway's mob are holding a rival one (because they lost the packing war) I take it that means that, all importantly, the SWP is going to be able to retain the respect brand, and - vitally - the registration with the Electoral Commission.

They can add it to their collection, because they currently own the registration for Socialist Alliance (the last front they trashed). I wonder whether, when they split with Tommy Sheridan they will keep the Solidarity registration? Perhaps they collect them? Are the SWP scalp hunters?

I'm surprised, to be frank, that no one is running round accusing the SWP of being an MI5 front, after all, they ahve systematically trashed everything on the left for years and years. No one has, and that would be absurd, because, everyone knows that, like the scorpion in the story, it's what they do.

Their baleful influence illustrates clearly that we all need to learn a lesson, that open, democratic movements that are impervious to their conspiratorial take over techniques.

p.s.

Unrelated, but fascinating article over at Socialist Unity about Cuba's (enforced) post oil economy.

Neo-tankies

The blessed Martin Rowson in a recent copy of Tribune coined a useful neologism. Neo tankie as a splendid term for the so-called pro-war left, or at least, significant elements of it. The likes of Aaronovitch (former communist) and Hitchens( former Trotskyist - and current admirer of the old butcher of Krondstadt) - comparing the former far leftists with the tankies of yore who supported the export of their revolution by the tanks that went into Budapest.

They haven't, really, changed. Still authoritarian and still in worship of the powerful, justifying death in the name of their current messianic creed.
Neo-tankie, it rolls off the tongue and places the likes of Harry's Placers quite nicely.

Stop using pro-war left, break out the neo-tankie jibe.

Let loose the blogs of warrrrrr!

Norm is considering his reply - not a problem, this is a part-time blog anyhow.

I was going to post on the relations between the war in Iraq, and the US civil war - hold that thought, it's one for more time, I think.

I just want to ruminate now on the extent of controversy in the blogosphere over the Iraq war - there do seem to be two quite distinct and hostile parties forming over this issue - whyfore?

My first answer could well be the ol' Hegelian identity of opposites malarky. See, conservatives don't find the war controversial, 'My country über alles, right or wrong!', only ultra-nationalists with a beef about 'natioinal sovereignty' might have any conservative doubts, but alea jacta est, they'd say. Neo-liberals are in fact, erm, Liberals, and form a part of the 'progressive' identity I'm examining here.

War and anti-war progressives are trying to occupy the same ideological space, and this war is turning into a measure of delineating what that space is, and the identities of these progressive camps.

Both sides are reduced to an emotional stance, a chasm of meaning over which they cannot communicate reduces them to an emotional semaphore. There are no longer common premises. Once the empirical has been thoroughly investigated (although there are still areas of empirical dispute) they are left with a pro-anti war feeling.

Unsurprisingly, I blame the left. Specifically, the anti-war left. The pro-war left enjoy the same advantages here that conservatives do - defending the actual. Their version won, they are defending something tangible and real. The anti-war left are defending a what if, what might have been.

Further, their tactics were ultimately of opportunism. They promoted the anti-war feeling - the SWP and its famous anger - it wants the workers to feel. They reduced the argument to an emotional content, to build a bigger movement, rather than try and build around a rational course.

Were I a reformist, I think I would have wanted to promote a rational political outcome of the anti-war protests, not an anti-Blair-lets-change-leaders feeling. Perhaps the example of revolutionary Spain. A law making a referendum required to be called before the country could go to war (with them as vote for the motion being conscripted first). A practical, tangible response, that could have garnered support from all sides, convinced they'd win the vote, but ultimately robbing lying, cheating politicians of the decision.

Of course, I don't believe I fall in either camp, and I'm not a reformist. I am not part of the warring identity, Impossiblists opposed the war as war, not any side of it, and oppose support for the resistance/insurgents/whatever now. I think the tangible opposition to war is socialism as an immediate and practical alternative. I'll continue to post about the war, for a while, developing this distinctive position, but I'll break out sometime soon.

Sheesh, and this was supposed to be a short post.