The result is in for the constituency where the SPGB stood a candidate for the London Assembly elections
I'm not really surprised that much by the percentage. If anything, I was expecting a lower vote for the Party but then they do say that the definition of a pessimistic SPGB member is someone who has been active on a previous Party election campaign. [Need to work on that line.]
Bill over at Vaux Populi promises anecdotes and analysis tomorrow morning. That's your time. Not mine.
Nobody likes a smartarse in football:
"During West Bromwich's visit to China he entered football history by, in reply to a question about the Great Wall, remarking "Impressive, isn't it? But once you've seen one wall, you've seen them all!". [Via his Wiki page.]
Granted, it's not on a par with the Arsenal Stadium Mystery but, because of my soft spot for this particular piece of brilliance that dates from my callow youth, I've always been intrigued by the Hawthorns Stadium Mystery.
Didn't you ever wonder what happened to the great West Brom side of the late seventies and early eighties? How did a team that included such class acts as Cyrille Regis, Bryan Robson, John Wile, Len Cantello, Tony Godden, Laurie Cunningham, Brendan Batson, Derek Statham, Peter Barnes, Tony and Ally Brown go from finishing 7, 6, 3 and 5 in the space of five years to being perennial mid-table mediocrities in the mid-eighties?
The official version is that the throstles got throttled when Ron Atkinson left to go to Old Trafford to mismanage Man Utd and when his great West Brom team broke up because of either retirements or big money transfers. However, I think the mystery has finally been solved and it's a music blogger, Any Major Dude, who has provided the photographic evidence.
Look at this panini sticker picture that dates from the early eighties. Who ate all the pies? Steve Mackenzie ate all the pies . . . and half of his team mates at West Brom by the look of that chin that he's hiding under his 'tash. How did he go from scoring the best goal in the 1981 FA Cup final to looking like Motorhead's roadie in the space of five years?
But it all makes sense now. I always wondered what happened to John Trewick after he left Hawthorns. Now I know: he never did leave West Brom.
PS - Also check out Any Major Dude's Perfect Pop - Volume 5 post. You can't go wrong with the Box Tops, Big Sound Authority, Thin Lizzy and Natalie Imbruglia.
Gourmet Peasant Maddy recounts her recent visit to the world famous Di Fara Pizza in Midwood, Brooklyn with Kara.
Yes, you really do have to wait two to three hours for your pizza but if it tastes half as good hot out the oven as it did when I ate the left overs the next day, then it's worth the wait.
And for those of you who click on the link and read the post, yes, Kara is pregnant. She's at the twenty weeks stage and we're both very happy.
I wasn't going to mention the matter on the blog until little Henry or Henrietta started community college.
Harry's Place moves addresses, and 'Harry' moves centre stage. (I guess this means that I can now delete this link from my bookmarks.)
Will's right: Harry is a bit of a disappointment as a sports writer. None of the wit and verve that he displayed when he was winding up the CPGB/Weekly Worker crowd over at UK Left Network (or the rest of us in his incarnation as 'Dave Dudley') is evident in his sports journalism, and I don't think Dave Zirin's gig as the pre-eminent radical sports journalist is under threat any time soon.
Will's post over at Drunk Sots provides a couple of links to old discussion boards where Harry discusses his Tankie past - and where he is discussed in turn - and I couldn't help but notice this passage from 'Harry' Simon that is dated 9/14/00:
"If for the sake of brevity I must find some neat expression to sum up the SL [Straight Left] strategy it would be “political sleepers”. I presume that most comrades here are familiar with the use of the term “sleeper” in relation to intelligence work (I am sure Guy and Kim are!) and the Artists (a number of whom were not without some knowledge/experience of intelligence work –allegedly) applied the same strategy to politics.It is, as Guy points out, superficially similar to the Trotskyist “entryist” strategy but there are crucial differences. For a start the project was carried out with subtlety. Did you ever see an Artist standing outside meetings with their paper? Did you ever see posters? There was a “fighting fund” of sorts but that too was discreet. The only time the group resembled an orthodox organised political unit was at the CPGB congress. Meetings were held prior to congress and efforts were made to gather the maximum number of votes for SL-backed candidates.
The sleeper strategy involved select individuals gaining key positions within certain bodies. But, and this another difference with classic entryism, the aim was not necessarily to take over but to take up a “holding position” and slowly build influence until the time came to activate those key people and those selected organisations. The activation might be done in a period of social unrest, a rise in militancy in the working class, or a threat to the peace during the cold war. In the meantime the short-term aim was to develop progressive policies and outlooks, that would assist the struggle for peace, oppose destructive forces and strengthen the broad left, while attempting some raising of consciousness.
This strategy necessitated a different approach to recruitment. If people were to be trusted with holding a sleeper position for a lengthy period of time, building relationships, both personal and political, then they must be reliable, intelligent and effective individuals. The Artists did not recruit openly, nor did they accept all those who wished to become part of their circle. They took the concept of a revolutionary vanguard seriously and were building an elite group of cadres. The Artists were rarely among the rank and file in any organisation they were involved in – they were invariably holding top positions, although not in the CPGB."
The 'Artists' that Harry Simon is referring to is Straight Left members. Love the following nugget from piece quoted above:
"This strategy necessitated a different approach to recruitment. If people were to be trusted with holding a sleeper position for a lengthy period of time, building relationships, both personal and political, then they must be reliable, intelligent and effective individuals. The Artists did not recruit openly, nor did they accept all those who wished to become part of their circle. They took the concept of a revolutionary vanguard seriously and were building an elite group of cadres . . . [My emphasis.]
And some people wonder why I have an issue with the 'generals without armies' crowd. Pompous and elitist blowhards one and all.
But it does conjure up the fascinating thought that 'Harry' might still sleeping. I wonder if David T, Gene and the other HP regulars ever ask themselves that. Like they give it shit.
Quick, I need to blog about this.
I wonder if I can find 'Machine Stops' online?
Popping along to Union Square this afternoon for the May Day rally, to show my solidarity, dish out some leaflets and flash the Socialist Standard and the World Socialist Review at indifferent punters and surly hot dog vendors.
I was heartened to see that a couple of activists from Break The Chains were interviewed on the local TV station, New York One, this morning in anticipation of the march, and that the station's reporter, Roger Clarke, was prepared to give them both the time and space to make their case.
I was impressed by the contributions from both Mika Nagasaki and Tosh Anderson of Break The Chains, who both stated that the explicit purpose of today's march was to make the case of working class solidarity between undocumented immigrant workers and American workers. They also made noise about the need to recognise our common cause and, in Mika Nagasaki's case, she made reference to the historical roots of May Day and its importance to the Labour Movement.
Hopefully their appearance this morning will ensure a few more people attending the marches and demonstrations in both Chinatown and Union Square this afternoon.
But of course, I've also got one eye focused on what's going on back in Britain, and I've especially curious about what will be the outcome of the Mayoral and London Assembly Elections.
Will it be Red Ken or Clownish Boris? Who between Galloway's Respect or John Rees's Left List will get to claim the bald man's comb? Will the fragrant Sian Berry win a seat? Will the impossible happen and the noxious and fascistic BNP fail to win a seat? The heightened sense of excitement (and accompanying dread for the latter) is really too much and, depending on which blogger you pick for your version of truth, it's still up for grabs as to who will be smiling come May 2nd.
Of course, it's a given that the SPGB is never smiling the day after an election but I do have to give a shout out for the SPGB comrades in London who have contested the seat of Lambeth and Southwark. The Party's candidate is Danny Lambert, and from what I understand twenty members and sympathisers have been involved in the election campaign. (no doubt, some more than others.)
Friendly critics of the SPGB have been known to scratch their collective heads in bemusement when it comes to the matter of revolutionaries contesting elections in the here and now and I'll put my hands up to the fact that I share some of those misgivings but I do like what Bill has written over at the Vaux Populi blog, which goes some way in answering the grumbles of the 'cold water brigade':
"What matters for us is not the nose count (although we're always happier with more votes) but the number of people reading, discussing and agreeing with us. We don't want passive voters, but people to join us, or at least join the debate. Politics should be a two way process, not the passive spectator sport of the professionals in the mass media.Here's something I wrote on this topic a while ago:
It's no wonder that people feel no pragmatic connection between their voting preferences and the outcomes; and no wonder that people feel so little connection with any of the parties. All these become are technocratic career structures for advancing politicians, a platform from which to project policy ideas to be reflected off the undifferentiated mass, which has no control over what is projected, beyond passive reflection.This process of “mass culture” has, of course, been assisted by the spread of the mass media. The social relationship is the same, a few technocratic broadcasters/media barons, projecting images and ideas to be passively reflected by a land mass of consumers. Indeed, representative politics follows the same course. Instead of abstractedly measuring response in terms of money, it reads response in terms of flat votes, formally equal but failing to register differences in value or quality.
Hence why I'm happy to sprey leaflets around the place, and on new streets, to try and see if we can reach a new person and light the spark that sets them arguing." [The Last Leg]
At first glance, it appears to be such a minor political ambition but, in truth, it's asking far more of people than the current 4 year merry-go-round that passes for political democracy. As the old election slogan goes, we should vote for ourselves for a change . . . and then some.
I was momentarily taken with the idea of Fergie's alleged Trotskyist-Anarchism but, all in all, Louise Taylor's article in yesterday's Guardian - where she attempts to draw parallels between Alex Ferguson's ever changing line up and tactical formations at Man Utd these past nine years (since they last won the European Cup) and Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution - is a bit of a stretch.
*Man Utd, through to the Champions League final, will be playing Chelski in Moscow. Geddit? Not really. I always associated Trotsky more with St Petersburg/Petrograd.*
The article does however beg one question: which Trot group was Louise once a member of? (Who else would reach into their bag of journalistic tricks and comes up clutching Lev Bronstein and his Perm Rev?)
The conspiracy theorists over at the comments section of the Guardian footie blogs maintain that Louise is a partisan Sunderland fan. That doesn't help me when trying to second guess her former political affiliations. Sunderland has never fertile soil for the generals without armies down the years.
I'll hazard a guess that Louise is ex-SWP, but only if she is graduate of Durham University.
Hat tip to Normblog.
The following is cut and pasted from the World Socialist Party of the United States website and, if I was hazarding a guess, I'd say was the transcript of this talk that was previously advertised on the blog.
We’re celebrating the 122nd anniversary of a General Strike held to win the 8 hour work day. That General Strike of May 1, 1886 was called by the forerunner of the American Federation of Labor and organized throughout the Canada and the US.
On that day 300,000 to half a million workers set down their tools and marched in the largest industrial cities in North America. 80,000 in Chicago, 10,000 in Detroit, New York, St. Louis, etc. In an action of this size happened today, 4 to 6 million would be on strike and 100s of thousands in the streets.
In Milwaukee 7 strikers and witnesses were killed by State Militia and 4 more by Police in Chicago.
On May 4th a rally was held to protest the shootings itself turned violent when police waded into a peaceful crowd and someone threw a bomb into the police line. Shooting broke out and 7 police and at least 4 workers were dead. According to contemporary newspaper reports, most of the police dead were caused by other police fire.
In the aftermath, 7 labor leaders who organized the rally, were arrested for murder of the police. Because of the men’s anarchist politics 6 were sentenced to hang and 4 were executed, including one who had been at home with his children at the time of the rally. This Haymarket Affair and subsequent trial was followed throughout the world. It is widely held as one of the worst cases of judicial injustice in American history.
In 1890, Sam Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) requested that the Socialist International call an international day of action agitating for an 8 hour work day. The International agreed and call for international rallies to be held on May First to commemorate the strike of 1886. This is the origin of Mayday as International Labor Day.
Which Labor Day?
Many incorrectly claim that Mayday is the original Labor Day as opposed to the one held on the first Monday of September in Canada and the US. The September Labor Day had been celebrated for at least 4 years previous to the General Strike of 1886. It was developed by US rank and file unionists from the inspiration from a strike for the 8 hour day held in Toronto in the 1870s (see section on Canada).
So both have much in common and both should be considered as legitimate since both were motivated by a desire to have “8 hours of work, 8 hours of rest and 8 hours for what we will” (from a labor song “Eight Hours“).
The beasts that graze the hillside, And the birds that wander free, In the life that God has meted, Have a better life than we. Oh, hands and hearts are weary, And homes are heavy with dole; If our life’s to be filled with drudg’ry, What need of a human soul. Shout, shout the lusty rally, From shipyard, shop, and mill. Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest Eight hours for what we will; Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest Eight hours for what we will.In other words, both Mayday and Labor Day should be reminders of the need of working people to try and capture the good things in life.
What happened?
The strike of 1886 was a flop. While hours dropped to 40 hours a week in some skilled trades where unions could control job conditions easily, the increase in unskilled factory work kept working hours at 50-60 per week until the 1930s. It took the desire for post-World War 2 industrial peace to establish the 40 hour week for some years in the 1950-60s.
Today the average workweek in the US is 46 hours and there is an increase in poorer workers working multiple jobs just to get by. This explains which nearly a third of Americans work more than 50 hours a week. Compare this to the legal maximum of 45 hours the British Empire established for Plantation slaves.
Read it and weep
On average, modern Americans work longer than plantation slaves in the 1800s. Families need close to 2 wage workers to survive vs. 1.3 in the 1880s. So the total amount of work needed to maintain a household has risen. It’s taken us 128 years to lower the working week from 60 hours to 46. That means it will take us another 54 years to reach the 8 hour day. Using the “Unskilled Wage Index” the $175 a year factory workers earned in 1886 Chicago would be equivalent of $22,180 today or slightly more than what American Axle Company is offering it’s workers currently on strike. Conclusions?
Why is it, that despite all the struggles, the marches, the organizing, we are more or less in the similar place as in 1886?
The WSP argues it is because we haven’t learned the lessons of the first Mayday and Labor Day. We cannot get the ‘life’ our class wanted in the 1880s by confronting the bosses with petition, pickets, pistols or pipe bombs. Each of those strategies assumes we need bosses and they can be intimidated into lessening our poverty.
As Marx first showed, and we have argued since our inception as a political movement, in capitalism, the rich grow richer and all workers can do within capitalism is slow that process down. It is capitalism as a whole system - wages, profits, markets - which needs abolishing. The murder or intimidation of one ruthless boss won’t help. Nor will the formal change of the social structure at a particular workplace into a collective, etc. We need to see the enemy as entirety, only then can we make decisions to free ourselves and the world.
Mayday 2008
In 1886 strikers carried banners which stated a simple truth:
“Labor creates all wealth, All wealth belongs to labor”
Working people need to learn and understand that truth. The capitalists need us, capitalism needs us, we do not need it.
The rich will continue to get richer and we will continue to march on Mayday until a majority of us decide that enough is enough. Sure, let’s support those who try and defend or increase their wages, but let’s face facts, in the long term they aren’t going to be any more than what it takes for us to merely survive.
Capitalism is killing us and it is killing the world.
There is enough for all and a decent life can be had only when socialism is established.
Abolish the Wage System!
FN Brill
