Oh yeah?!?!?! Take THAT...!!!!

They used to love us so much.

But not seen them around for a couple of weeks.

Hi

That's, like, a Star Trek thing, right?

Love

Chris

oh well. they go through their lives trying to make new friends all the time. But in the end no one wants to play with them or join their club. so they go away and look in new places. Shame really.

Some friendly individuals but generally a bunch of assholes. And its the first international thats more important to us isnt it?

no, it's the international workers association that's important foo'!

and the IFA

Yeah i knew that......

Knightrose: don't worry, we haven't gone away. We are still following these forums and will be returning to take up various issues, and we are still encouraging our sympathisers to do the same. There may be periods when we are less present for various reasons:

- we work collectively, and often prefer to have a discussion before firing off replies

- we do have quite a few other activities.

We noticed on the thread about the GCI - which is definitely something we will be coming back to - that one of your criteria for a group being positive was that it 'hates the ICC' (post of 29 September on the thread 'Another stupid question about another lefty group').

Do you have any arguments to support this as a way of judging an organisation? How does it connect with the task of establishing whether an organisation is an expression of the working class or not? Or do you think the latter question is not valid?

lol -- knightrose you're SUSSED

I only looked at this thread cos i thought it was about a 90's boy band

In no particular order:

I guess I judge an organisation by its practice. Does it set about to destroy the meetings of other groups? Does it send hit squads round to former members houses? Does it threaten former members with violence and then denounce them as enemies of the proletariat when they, in desperation, propose to call in the cops?

Does it bore the arse off everyone? Does it drop revolutionary positions to suck up to bigger groups in other countries?

Do you go beserk because during a meeting attended by three or four people, one visitor puts his feet up on another chair.

Does it make calculated decisions as to which groups are close to their politics and then buddy up to them for a while, before discovering that they have quite well worked out political lines and turning against them.

I've known you guys since JM and others were still members of Solidarity. Your politics, once refreshing, are now totally sterile. I've really nothing to say to you, you won't understand what I mean.

Early 1970s. World Revolution, just out of Solidarity, were heavily influenced by the German Left - KAPD etc. tehy ahd a position on the Russian Revolution that was very critical. Suddenly they discover Revoltuion Inetrnationale - a French outfit - they wnat to be part of an international tendency - overnight they drop the German left positions in favour of the much soggier, pro-Lenin views of the french and Italians.

It was all kind of sad at the time and accompanied by many embarrassed looks and overloud justifications.

Hi

I like Andy Anderson.

Love

LR

Hi

I like the ICC too.

Love

LR

Andy was a long term member of Solidarity and was very interesting before coming up with is rather unusual theories ....

The ICC didn't come out of Solidarity, World Revolution the british group that joined the ICC did. Not quite the same thing.

Hi

Do you think Anderson "lost it"? I agreed with the spirit of "The Enemy is Middle Class", at the time. But I find most of Openly Classist’s material impossible to defend, as John. will tell you.

Love

LR

I don't really go along with the idea that the middle class exists as a coherent whole particularly useful. There is no doubt there is one, but much of what supposedly comprises it are working people in white collar jobs and the like. Hence I found Andy's critique unhelpful, but to be honest I didn't spend a lot of time reading his stuff. I met him a couple of times whilst he was in Solidarity and liked the guy.

Oh no, not Solidarity again......you know my views on that.

Hi

Yes, I met him very briefly, in '87 I think. I can see how Anderson's position wasn't much help to a lot of people. It was the scandal I enjoyed, and that’s got to be worth something.

He must be getting on a bit, are we sure he’s still alive?

Love

LR

No, what are they .. or am I going to regret this?

Hi

Go on, you know I love gossip about Solidarity.

(Are we friends again now knightrose?)

Love

Danny Cohn Bendit

That's your choice. I didn't start the insults.

Hi

Are you wanting a public apology? I'm very, very sorry for upsetting you with my vulgar insinuations.

Love

Chris

No apology needed.

I'm not sure. I was a young callow faced youth in the SPGB at the time. I went to one London Solidarity meeting and found them arguing like crazy with Chris, Ken and the others about Marx and Cardan. To be honest, the proto-WR's made a lot more sense to me at the time - and probably still would when it comes to Cardan. It was obvious things weren't exactly happy as could be. Then we heard that they'd left and were setting up their own group - I think they initially called themselves Council Communism - though I'm a bit hazy on that and there's none of them left in the scene to confirm or deny. Later they went mental and became WR (to paraphrase things a bit!).

Hi

It won't go away will it. Are there any other Cardanists around? I feel well lonely.

Love

Chris

Sorry Chris, but I don't think you are a cardanist. From what i remember of Workers Councils and the Economics of a Self-Managed society, although he argued for equal wages, that was a very minor part of the text. Most of it was a way of explaining how self-managed councils could plan social production --- unless old age has so addled my brain that I've forgotten what it said. Sadly, it's one of the few texts I can't find on the net to reread. It had groovy cartoons though - drawn by one of the guys who went on to found World Revolution!

Are you joking? He's dead. And yeah a terrible shame he went so nuts

Hi

I should hope not, I'm sure Castoriadis would disapprove of such a potentially closed system of belief. I’d like to think Marx would probably have a problem with “Marxists” on similar grounds.

I wouldn’t be too quick to drive a wedge between Monsieur Cardan and myself. You know what a huge Brinton fan I am.

Love

LR

As a matter of fact, some of us involved in the split from Solidarity are still in the ICC. Knightrose is right that we formed a group which was for a short time called Council Communism, before we changed the name to World Revolution.

As for the rest of Knightrose's statements about the ICC, it would take rather a long time to answer all of them. But two points:

- the merit of the group that left Solidarity was that it was trying to be coherent. But we still carried our anti-Bolshevik prejudices with us while trying to take on board the implications of the political framework defended by Revolution Internationale and left communism. When we went to the Paris conference of 1974, we had arrived at the conclusion that because the Bolsheviks were agents of a state capitalist counter-revolution in 1917, all those who supported them were also bourgeois and counter-revolutionary. This description was 'logically' extended to Rosa Luxemburg and to the KAPD - a position which we defended in front of Jan Appel of the KAPD who was present at the conference. Not surprisingly, Appel and the comrades of RI very gently but firmly tore this nonsense to shreds and we were thankfully able to see that we were heading into a complete dead end. So much for 'capitulating' to other groups

- on the 'hit squads', people who love to use this episode against the ICC should have the honesty to ask themselves: why do they always accept the version of those who had been involved in stealing from us, or who justified it in various ways, like JM and 'Ingram'? When they left the ICC - influenced by the individual Chenier who was without doubt a very shady element - members of this 'tendency' used lies to obtain the keys to the home of a comrade and stole equipment belonging to the organisation. The ICC was perfectly justified in entering the homes of those involved in this sordid scheme and taking back its own stuff. Knightrose on the other hand puts himself on the same level as the thieves by justifying their attempts or threats to call the police on us - a practice which is totally at odds with all the traditions of the workers' movement.

Even if Knightrose insists that he doesn't want to discuss this with us, that he has nothing to say to us, we will continue to answer the slanders he is helping to spread, because they are still being used to poison the atmosphere of discussion today. And we challenge him to give proof that we have tried to sabotage the meetings of others.