3 responses to “Comments”

1. 

   ID

   June 22, 2009 at 9:03 am

   I actually fail to see how (DELETED – My house. My rules – LIAM) constitute personal abuse. Those are political criticisms which Liam deleted and marked as ‘abuse’.

   I also know for a fact that I am not the only one who holds that view of Mark P. Not by a long chalk!

   This discussion has become quite heated, but actually there has been hardly any profanity or cursing. Certainly none from me.

   Liam is a just a bit soft, and doesn’t like things getting too heated. It’s his blog, and its his right to moderate things that way, but lets not pretend that this is about violations of any policy forbidding personal abuse. Its about political conciliationism.

   Liam is being a bit of a hippy here, that’s all;-)

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2. 

   Duncan Chapel

   June 23, 2009 at 11:55 am

   Ian, one alternative strategy would be to engage with Mark’s arguments, rather than to suggest that his arguments can discredited because of him, his work, what sort of view you have of him.

   Fundamentally, these are personalised attacks which mean nothing to the many people who will never meet Mark. I would, I think, not recognise him. He might not put it this way, but his politics are informed by the experience of the Popular Front, the heritage of Marxism Today and the notion of hegemony. In this world-view, politics is about cohering and activating a majority of the progressive pole in society, and therefore advancing a different kind of practice, much less advanced demands, and a longer and slower approach, than most of us in Respect favour. That’s a different political strategy from, for example, producing a party which is the political expression of the awkward squad.

   It really is possible to debate those differences without even mentioning Mark’s name, let alone demonising him, and it would help you to explain your view more clearly and to convince others.

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3. 

   ID

   June 23, 2009 at 1:15 pm

   Hm, its very rare in these blog discussions for anyone’s ideas to be discussed without mentioning them by name.

   I’ve been attacked here not for any current views, but for views I held decades ago. I’m only criticising Mark P for what he argues now.

   I’m not so sure that Marxism Today’s politics are the politics of the Popular Front, in any case. Popular Fronts classically were governmental alliances between reformist workers parties and smaller bourgeois parties, that implemented a programme limited to what was acceptable to the smaller bourgeois parties and demobilised a radicalising workers movement. But they did not typically liquidate the workers parties themselves.

   The politics of Marxism Today went much further than popular frontism. They involved the complete liquidation of working class organisations. As epitomised by Sue Slipman, the Eurocommunist who joined the SDP and who memorably and accurately proclaimed ‘I have not changed my politics’.

   That dovetails very well with Blairism and Blair’s view that the Labour Party should never have been formed, and it was ‘tragic’ that there was ever a split with the Liberals in the first place. That’s why so many Euros became fellow travellers of Blairism.

   There was a little smidgeon of Popular Frontism about the North West regional No2EU list – which had a maverick Liberal Party councillor on its slate. Mind you, that seems to have been a local anomaly – it did not happen anywhere else in the country. It showed there is still some support for popular frontism among the ‘tankie’ types who are involved in No2EU.

   But despite this little bit of contamination, No2EU was still a class initative, and hence gained the undying enmity of MP.

   In any case, I have replied to his points. Not in the manner he would like, but if you read my contributions, every point he made is addressed in some way.

   Its good to see Duncan addressing these issues of tone though, because it underlines the fact that, contrary to what Liam asserted, I did not in any way ‘abuse’ Mark P. I made characterisations of attitudes which I believe reflect a particular class standpoint on his part. This is entirely in the Marxist tradition. It is also not something I do very often. In fact it’s not something you come across on the left that often. But sometimes it is appropriate to draw attention to such a thing. In my view this is one of them.

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