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| Politics Forum Index » Socialism Politics (Mao) Forum » SWP's John Rees overthrown, Labour conference,... |
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| Steve Wallis... |
 Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 1:37 am |
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The latest Weekly Worker has just gone on-line. For the third week in
a row, I've had a latter published (drastically edited this time but
making some important points and not distorted by editor Peter Manson
- I sent it yesterday so that letters editor Steve Cooke didn't edit
it first). The headline Peter chose for my letter is "Staying power".
Incidentally, John Bridge and Jack Conrad are both pseudonyms for the
CPGB's leader; I had previously pointed out in a letter that Peter
also published that an article of Peter's had said that Conrad had
repeated the same point several times. The overthrow of Conrad/Bridge,
the Stalin character in the CPGB, could transform the organisation
just like the SWP is getting much better with John Rees' fall from
leadership of Left Alternative (the SWP's splinter from Respect),
although I have heard that Rees is still on the SWP's Central
Committee.
I attended three days of the Covnention of Left in Manchester, as well
as handing out my Foundation for PR-based Socialism newsletter 4 (with
newsletter 1 on the back of some copies) - each of which is
downloadable from http://www.PRsocialism.org - to those attending the
Labour Party conference, including Charles Clarke MP, James Purnell
MP, David Lammy MP, Daniel Finkelstein (of The Times) and Tony Woodley
(general secretary of the trade union Unite). [I recognised them all,
which Finkelstein pointed out that this forced him to take my
leaflet.] I have now moved to Manchester from Glasgow (although I may
visit Glasgow again for a week or so in the near future).
Those of you on Facebook may be interested in groups I have set up to
call for Nicola Sturgeon to become First Minister of Scotland (Nicola,
the current Deputy First Minister, is much more left-wing than Alex
Salmond and as health minister is introducing a minimum price for
alcohol in supermarkets which will massively help the problem of binge
drinking) and Melissa Benn to be prime minister of the UK.
Melissa's speech was the highlight of last year's Labour conference in
my opinion; it even persuaded grandfather Tony (now President of the
Stop the War Coalition) to try to stand for parliament again. Melissa
is not currently an MP, and would become the youngest ever MP if she
overcomes a 8000+ Tory majority. [Electoral law stated you had to be
21 to stand at the time of the last general election, despite being
able to vote at 18 - clearly a measure to try to stop young radical
people from transforming parliament, just like you have to be 35 to be
US president; I don't recall any legislation being passed to change
the law (imagine the radicalising effect of publicising such an ageist
law especially with the granddaughter of Tony Benn seeking election)
so I thinkit was quietly decided to be changed anyway! In the current
and worsening economic climate, Melissa could well win her seat
bucking the national trend of a swing from Labour to the Tories, if
she puts forward a democratic (i.e. non-Marxist) revolutionary
socialist position in the election - but if there is a left-wing split
from Labour in the meantime, she could well join it! I didn't meet
Melissa in Manchester, but she is a friend of a friend of somebody I
talked to at the Convention so she will probably find out about the
group soon.
Search for "Nicola Sturgeon" or "Melissa Benn"at Facebook if you want
to browse/join one of the groups.
Anyway, I've included below the unedited letter I sent to Peter.
Download the whole newspaper - it looks really good this week with a
front-page headline "Bush administration rushes to save sick financial
system with trillion dollar bale-out. Drip-feed capitalism" - by going
to http://cpgb.org.uk/worker/738/WW738%20WEB.pdf. It should be
available in HTML soon at cpgb.org.uk.
In "Knitting" (September 1 , Robbie Rix says "we had 15,566 readers
last week - a bit of a drop from our previous high of over 40,000 and
something I can't really explain."
One reason for the fall could be the lack of articles on the Socialist
Workers Party and concentration on the miniscule and largely
irrelevant Alliance for Workers' Liberty. The main article last week
with "SWP dumps John Rees" as the front page headline could rectify
the situation". I tried selling your paper at the Convention of the
Left and somebody took the mickey out of having that headline with the
massive economic crisis going on. I showed my letter "Crisis" which
rectified that ommision.
Actually the SWP dumping of John Rees is far more important than any
points on the economy that the ridiculous and obfuscating Hillel
Ticktin could have made! You (editor Peter Manson) told me that the
sound quality on the interview with Ticktin was too bad to include
it).
The SWP's leadership has always been dominated by infiltrators on the
side of big business (eg in MI5 but perhaps sometimes outside the
realm of the state) sabotaging the struggle for socialism. I once met
"comrade" Rees and his manner (as well as speech at a meeting)
confirmed your assessment of him as a "control freak" and mind as an
agent of big business.
There are many good and genuine rank-and-file SWP members particularly
in Manchester but their deeply hierarchical structure enables agents
like Rees to rise to the top and stay there, like Bob Labi and Niall
Mullholland of the CWI and Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky in the USSR.
Could your Jack Conrad/JOHN BRIDGE be similar?
Maybe the SWP will transform itself into a genuine democratic
revolutionary socialist party - or maybe that is too optimistic! We'll
see!
Another reason for the decline in on-line readership could be the
massive extension of the surveillance state under New Labour (the
latest example of which is numberplate data from speed cameras being
kept for five years evne for those who haven't been speeding), which
is trying to prevent a socialist revolution from ever standing a
chance of happening. The economic turmoil and Brown's pathetic speech
in Manchester will ensure that New Labour doesn't get away with it. I
have a lot more accesses to my websites from other countries than the
UK, even though I largely talk abour UK politics; my Revolutionary
Platform Network Forum always gets more hits from the USA (over
100,000 one recent month) than anywhere else - Vietnam, Latvia and now
Argentina (the latter having a socialist president, Cristina Kirchner)
have been second!
People in the UK may have been scared of MI5 finding out that they are
radical! I even have the point of view that mind control could
effectively turn them into robots....
--
Steve Wallis (Manchester, England)
Preferred email address: revolutionarysocialiststeve at (no spam) yahoo.co.uk
Blogs: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/steve-wallis-socialist-blog,
http://blog.myspace.com/galaxiasteve
My socialist website: http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk
My pages at MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/galaxiasteve and Bebo:
http://www.bebo.com/SteveW519
Founder, Good Intentions Network: http://www.goodintentionsnetwork.org
Founder, Ethical Capitalism Network: http://www.ethicalcapitalism.net
Founder, Foundation for PR-based Socialism: http://www.PRsocialism.org
Founder, Revolutionary Platform Network: http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net
My socialist band, Red Day: http://www.red-day.net
Author, "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist
revolution will never happen?": http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net
For discussion of the credit crunch, go to
http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/forum/index.php?board=156
For discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories, go to
http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/forum/index.php?board=89 |
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