The Mirage of Unity?

Dave Osler has a wee bit of news.

http://www.davidosler.com/2009/06/swp_and_no2eu_prospects_for_le.html#comments

The SWPpies offer open palms to the menagerie of far left grouplets and seek unity/temporary alliance/cardboard front.....again. The proclaimed ignition is the BNP breakthrough, though I suspect the relative financial clout of the CPGB/SP/RMT hook up, the insultingly named No 2 EU, may have something to do with it. The SWP have been the forefront (or vanguard) far left group for much of my political life. Far better for the arch-entryists to get in now to any emergent organisation from the wreckage than be late for the bus.

Frankly, trusting the SWP CC is quite an audacious starting point. Their record on alliance building, fucking over 'fellow' socialists, passionately carnal about Islamists, Communitarians and corrupt Hypocrites, managing to drive a mass movement numbered in the millions into the dust in barely three years, is......erm......poor/fucking amazing. Yet with the deep desperation on the left over the future 'beyond Labour', however, they have been greeted fraternally.

These are a few ideas that will never ever be taken up, but I believe they might help avoid both the mistakes of shack ups past and offer a better run at a society and an electorate much changed since far leftist doctrine was anything other than ossified dogma.

1-Get a Name and stick with it. Brand recognition et al. Why should a movement that changes names more than it changes program be taken more seriously that the provisional Natural Law Party (Militant Yogic faction) or Witch Hunting God Botherers R Us. And try not to fall for some quasi-LOLz slogan. Just because its easy to text, don't make it any good. No 2 EU indeed.

2-Never mention Marx, Engels, Gramsci's breakfast or that mass murderer Lenin. Add to historical materialism or the classic critique, but merely mentioning the holy names long since past on is part secular magical litany part passive aggressive nonsense. There is a case for Socialism, let us and our words, not Charlie's, make it.

3-Make your program possible. Unless you can demonstrate how via real life political action, the cash nexus will disappear and thus make everybody both well fed, hooked up to broadband and Fishing Philsophers, why mention a pipe dream? There are thousands of possible small and inherently socialistic reforms and measures that can produce massive relief for the poorest and most vunerable in society. The 'Socialism of Small things' if you will; making sure that poor kids get a healthy school dinner, that local 'parish level' democracy has a real and meaningful say in planning issues or policing, providing first class in and out of job training. This connect our ideology of collective action and emancipation with the everyday and the urgent requirements of non-politicos.

4-Cost your policies. One might say 'but that's just playing the capitalist's game'. Well until some genius demonstrates how to get from here to free association, it is the game we have to play. Refried Bernstein, I know, but between the choice of doing something within the game or waiting all saintly on the sidelines of real politics and policy, the need for reform, relief and change is too desperate for 'objective conditions to align. Political action is limited by those factors, not precluded or inherent 'reactionary'. By demonstrating a costed set of policies, a workers' party demonstrates that it is serious in it's intent and it's will to carry them out. It would be a clear sign that it is not still a bunch of dreamers.

TINAs fuck me off no end, with their arrogant a-historic presumption that there can be no improvement. It is insulting to the potential of those unborn and their problems and solutions. However, one cannot ignore there is no socialist equivalent to the truely explosive power of the capitalist system (yet). By which I mean, a system of economics that can so effectively and rapidly respond to preceived need. On this matter, my problem with Capitalism is that its preception of need is linked to an insulting picture of human nature and thus devoid of a motive beyond elementary want. By putting forward a case for a human-centric management of capitalism and exploring and experimenting with ways to transcend it, a Workers' party would again demonstrate it is at 'peace' with today and looking forward to new solutions

5-Balance the budget. I have never understood why balancing the expenses of government with its revenues is somehow unsocialistic. In the spirit of the greatest economists to walk the earth, the countless mothers and housewives of the poor, counting every farthing and every ounce of bread, a socialist government needs to live within its means. As a party of the poorest, that means prioritising the policies that benefit those at the bottom over others. It is no cop out, rather a massive realignment within what we have. Again, if someone is keeping the secret of 5 percent growth outside the cash nexus and without the need for fiscal responsibility, please share and I shall welcome withdrawing this missive.

6-Decentralise, decentralise and just for the sheer fun, some more decentralisation. Labour lost its mandate from heaven' because it's centralised solutions were either clumsy, corrupt or aggravated the problem yet more. By making these things a local concern, the emphasise to solve solutions is placed at the foot of the citizenry themselves. No calls for five year plannage. The centre, more often than not, is blind and as a result arrogant and ignorant. If council or parish level democracy are left to find solutions, then those solutions can either remain particular or if they have the legs, general. Yet the responsibility is taken out of the hands of politicos and returned rightly to those who it effects most.

7-The flipside. Take constitutional reform seriously. If we have yet to find how to transcend the Liberal state in practical rather than wide eyed fantasy terms, then we can still make it live up to its promises. The Liberal state declares itself representative, humane, fair and responsive. Where it fails, a serious Socialist movement must, like the Chartists, seek to uphold it to its rhetoric. The failures might be systemic, but by providing socialistic answer, maximising citizen power, placing the state, even in legalistic terms at their behest. If the failures are truely systemic, then a socialist party passionate about the rights denied will again and again be proved right. If there is a possible evolutionary path, the same party is taking the first steps towards their telos. Rights are far to important to leave to the sons of de Robespierre, the black corps of Lawyers. Socialist rights now!

8-Change the rhetoric on class. The popular perception of class has evolved, almost into something unrecognisable. Yet within this new framework, there remains the possibility of communicating the very real nature of class struggle and conflict. Let's use it. Few areas of lift are so fused with class bitterness and division than the service industry, yet within it, the left can only use the old tired responses and thus has be near invisible. Ditch Proletariat, it means nothing today for the majority of the poor in the west. Ditch worker as well, as few of the poor are left in the traditional work place attached that label. Mockingly use the slave names given to those toilers in service, 'Server', 'Team member', 'Sales Executive', 'Account Manager', empty them of their nauseating faux unity. Make them into what they are, other words for Robota, the Drudge, the Serf renumerated to be dehumanised. This, the sheer atomisation, the stark alienation, the constant metaphorical spiting into the faces of the poor. What could be more 'energising'. More relevant than terms build along side HMS Dreadnought

There is a tagline to the original Clerks, 'Just because I serve you, doesn't mean I like you'. I don't propose a manifesto for rudeness. Rather a wider realisation of the nature of the service industry and indeed the cleaning industry, by both the servitors themselves and those they serve, mostly fellow Robota.

9-Tell the theocrats and sky pixie fetishists plus their corrupt enablers to fuck right off

10-Disband the SWP, have other groups bid for members who have been hard working clear headed comrades, send the rest to work in ASDA :)

Even if, and that is an if going on defo, I'm wrong on all counts, a practical, mature socialism, one that reacts to the conflicts of base and nature of superstructure on the poorest is needed. Weather this is another rectal roar form the SWPpies or the first steps in something important, we shall see. There is an urgent need