Split in International Socialist Network

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

http://howiescorner.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/international-socialist-network-splits.html


International Socialist Network splits over sex acts


Trigger warning: Some readers may find the material offensive:

Until today I had never heard of "Race Play", a form of sexual activity that according to the Urban Dictionary (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Race%20Play) is defined thus:

An avant-garde, but increasingly accepted form of sexual role play in which people of different races consensually reject all political correctness (especially verbal) and propriety in favor of sexual pleasure and fulfillment.

An outline of what this involves can be found at Jezebel (http://jezebel.com/5868600/when-prejudice-is-sexy-inside-the-kinky-world-of-race+play)


Mollena Williams, who blogs at The Perverted Negress (http://www.mollena.com/), has done race-play both for her own pleasure and as a demonstration at kink conventions. She's also currently in a relationship with a "sort of white" man (he's also part Native American), where she's the slave and he's the master. Williams told me her interest in slavery started early. She remembers seeing Roots on TV at age eight and thinking to herself, "wow, I have fantasies about really bad things." When she became involved in the kink community as an adult, many other kinky black people were critical of master/slave relationships — some threatened violence toward anyone they saw treating a person of color as a slave. She describes this time in her life as "really difficult," but she ultimately said to herself, "I will not, after so many years of struggling, have someone who doesn't know me dictate my sexuality." She adds, "if you go back and look at what feminism is about, it's about us taking charge of our bodies and our destinies." And she sees her ability to choose a master/slave relationship "with intent" as "a mark of how far feminism has come."

This matter caused a row on a Face Book discussion that Richard Seymour of Lenin's Tomb (http://www.leninology.com/) and guru of the International Socialist Network (http://internationalsocialistnetwork.org/) had with a number of comrades who took exception to his seemingly "liberal" views on the whole question of whether "Race Play" was racist. According to the blog The Charnel House (http://thecharnelhouse.org/2014/01/23/live-by-intersectionality-die-by-intersectionality/):


“the whole of the ISN Steering Committee has turned on Richard Seymour, denouncing him as some sort of racist mansplaining pervert.”

The article gives a link to the entire argument, which before you try to plough through it is god knows how many pages long. However a poster at the Urban 75 chat room helpfully summarised the argument succinctly thus:


His argument was that "race play" carried out by two (or more) consenting adults doesn't necessarily make them racist or reproduce racism in day to day life. This seems like a pretty fair comment, whilst those jumping up and down accused him of being racist for having the audacity to disagree with some black people on the matter. The fact that some black people happily partake in race play apparently isn't something he can mention as to do so is to use black people as puppets for his own racism.



As a result the whole of the ISN is apparently in uproar, with some members quitting and defecting to the newer and possibly larger Revolutionary Socialism 21 organisation that has been formed from a more recent split in the Socialist Workers Party.


This must count as the most bizarre split in the Trotskyist milieu, like ever.


Personally I find the whole idea of "Race Play" somewhat distasteful like many other such practises that people indulge in like the "Donkey Punch", another act I had never heard of until the film of the same name came out.


But at the end of the day with so much injustice going on in the world I have to agree with comments made by Gene of Harry's Place who remarked that this argument was;


..about as far from the needs and concerns of ordinary people as it's possible to get.


Quite.



Well, it looks like there's a new split for John Sullivan to catalog.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Also let's not turn this into a discussion about race play, I'm only posting this because a lot of people are discussing the splits from the SWP and this is relevant to that.

[Taters]

What the fuck
This bullshit caused an org to split?

[ed miliband]

if john sullivan was around to write about this it'd sure be good. quite hard to top reality in this case, however.

for those unfamiliar, check out:

http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/critiques/sullivan/index.htm

it's a funny read.

[RedHal]

lol trots will split over the silliest things, yay another insignificant miniscule trot sect is born:grin:

[blake 3:17]

http://thecharnelhouse.org/2014/01/24/international-socialist-network-releases-statement-distancing-itself-from-richard-seymour/

It would appear that the IS Network Steering Committee is already looking to dissociate itself publicly from Richard Seymour, the group’s most visible supporter and recognizable member. After a tumultuous feud erupted on Facebook a couple days ago over the ideological implications of “race play,” the organization’s chief governing body is now taking steps to publicize and officially rebuke Seymour (along with Magpie Corvid, who actually holds a position on the Steering Committee) for expressing views deemed unacceptable by its leadership. These seem to represent a move to discredit or anathematize Seymour, in order to save face with the Network’s core supporters. Once again, the irony here is that Seymour has made an entire career out of “no platform”-ing and otherwise excommunicating various groups and individuals. (Mark Fisher once dubbed him, quite fittingly, “excommunicator-in-chief”).

Here’s the message the IS Network Steering Committee just e-mailed out:

Excommunication
Writ of excommunication

Statement by the IS Network Steering Committee on the recent controversy
.
.
Dear comrades,

Some of you may have seen, on Facebook and elsewhere, that there has been a serious disagreement breaking out in some parts of the Network recently. Three members, including a steering committee member, engaged in a long argument with a number of people, including a number of black RS21 and IS Network members regarding “race play,” and many felt, including an overwhelming majority of steering committee members, that their opinions on the subject were deeply problematic with regards to racial and gender politics, and further than their tone and method of handling criticism was not in keeping with the spirit of allowing people to challenge their own oppression.

Furthermore, you may have seen circulating among RS21 and IS Network members a discussion between some IS Network members, including two steering committee members, about plans to leave the Network and join RS21. While this is a pity, and a failure on our part in some respects (given that we have a responsibility to all our members), we hope that any such a move can be done in as amicable and fraternal way as possible. Charlotte B., one of those steering committee members, has resigned already, so we felt the need to inform members as we don’t want to hide such disagreements.

To be clear, Charlotte was not involved in any of the arguments about race-play referred to above, but this was the context in which these divisions came to light. We remain committed to full transparency, and the right of minorities in the Network to express disagreements. We hope that other participants in that discussion will remain in the Network, and we welcome a recent platform document which hopefully will allow these discussions and debates to be conducted openly and in a serious and comradely manner.

IS Network Steering Committee
(Magpie C. dissented from
the above message and did
not support its circulation)

[Criminalize Heterosexuality]

Well, was it Jim Canon who once said that there are always two reasons for a split, the good reason and the true reason? It might have been some other Trotskyist figure. Anyway, behind most of these splits is simply politicking - someone wanted to be caliph instead of the caliph, and apparently they weren't picky about ostensible reasons for clamping down on Seymour.


if john sullivan was around to write about this it'd sure be good. quite hard to top reality in this case, however.

for those unfamiliar, check out:

http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/critiques/sullivan/index.htm

it's a funny read.

Oh yuck. Whether Sullivan is funny is subjective, but he does get facts wrong from time to time (e.g. concerning the Morenoists), and the homophobia that runs through his work is just disgusting. It's no wonder he expressed sympathy for Gerry Healy and predicted a long reign for the old bastard; both were miserable, "Old Left" dinosaurs.

[Skyhilist]

oh no shocking a trot group split

[blake 3:17]

What the fuck
This bullshit caused an org to split?

I don't think it caused a split. Seymour's on the outs for a heated FB discussion. For an expulsion from a concrete group -- yeah it'd be bullshit -- For sort of exclusion from some discussion -- whatevs.

[blake 3:17]

Also let's not turn this into a discussion about race play, I'm only posting this because a lot of people are discussing the splits from the SWP and this is relevant to that.

I was going to post on it too. But I wasn't even get into race play cuz I didn't know what it was & don't really care. Then I found out sort of -- I'm with Seymour -- consenting adults etc.

What's kinda good is that this shit doesn't really matter.

[blake 3:17]

To the SC and our comrades in the ISN

With great regrets, we are resigning from the ISNetwork. Many of us were involved in the setting up of the network, and we are very sad that it has come to this. We remain in full solidarity with ISN comrades, and look forward to working with them on campaigns.

Despite the repeated characterisation of us as a 'right bloc', we do not represent any unified political position beyond our concerns about both the political direction and internal culture of the ISNetwork. It has been clear for some time that our critiques put us in a minority: contrary to a common smear, we have always been willing to argue from this position, and welcomed this political debate. However, there has been an increasing breakdown of trust between us and various leading members of the organisation. It is now clear that we are not welcome in the ISN.

One of us is a woman sex-worker and bdsm practitioner. After many years of self imposed isolation from politics, she believed she had finally found a space where even those comrades who disagreed with her positions would discuss controversial topics of sexuality and desire in respect and comradeship. Instead she has been browbeaten, patronised, marginalised and moralised against, and the topics she wishes to discuss with her comrades dismissed as, in the words of one SC member, self-evidently 'sordid.' She has been made to feel so unwelcome that she feels forced to leave the SC and ISN.

The SC has put out a statement strongly implying racism and claiming 'inappropriate' argumentative techniques against three of our members. We entirely reject these insinuations and urge anyone interested to examine the threads in question https://www.facebook.com/magpie.corvid/posts/250619165114541 & https://www.facebook.com/tim.nelson.7777/posts/10202283062751796 and judge for themselves. That they are over a controversial and charged topic -and one on which the signatories to this letter do not necessarily agree- is not in doubt: however, if there is a single statement made by any comrade that can reasonably be judged 'inappropriate', let alone racist, we urge their accusers to state it.

It is claimed, on the basis of a leaked email thread of a private conversation, that we have been politically dishonest, and set out to split or even destroy the network. This is wholly untrue. As has been made clear in this week's bulletin, we had intended to launch a platform within the ISNetwork in order to argue for our position. However, recent events had given us an increasing sense that we might not be able to remain members, due both to legitimate political differences and to the personalised politics of vituperation at the brunt of which we have felt. Accordingly - as is explicitly allowed in the ISN constitution – we have been discussing among ourselves to work out how best to argue our position within the network, our chances, and our contingency strategies if we felt unable to continue.

At issue here is not just the conduct or content of recent discussions or even the political direction of the ISN, but the question of making a habitable culture of discussion on the Left. When some of us recently wrote an article criticising a politics of anathema within the ISN, we were derided by opponents who denied any such thing exists. Unfortunately, it does. One SC member has recently publicly insisted that 'no one is being targeted personally'. The very same SC member recently seconded a denouncement on Facebook, by another SC member, of several of us as 'arrogant fucks' and 'bad rubbish' to whom 'good riddance'. One leading member expressed a desire on Facebook to strangle one of us - referring to her as a 'nauseating tosser' - and not one of the SC members to whom she said this suggested it was an inappropriate comment to make. Several SC members openly expressed their agreement with a status referring to us as 'parasites'. Another SC member wrote 'they should count themselves lucky they haven't been expelled' – particularly galling to two of the 'Facebook Four' involved in our thread. There are further examples, but this culture is one in which we can no longer work: we also would like comrades to consider whether left organisations can hope to attract a new generation of members if they treat each other in this way.

We look forward to working in a left culture that has ended certain practices inherited from the SWP. These include moralistic browbeating; the implicit claim that various controversial topics are inappropriate for discussion; that certain comrades can not be argued with on them; and that dissenters from these nostrums deserve to be attacked in personalised terms. We know many ISN members look forward to this with similar enthusiasm.

Jamie A
Magpie C
Kieran C
A. M.
China M
Richard S
Len T
Rosie W

[FSL]

There might have been other reasons contributing to whatever it is that happened (not quite sure or interested) but what I find shocking is that someone would defend "the practice" or the "concept" of something like that.

If a woman loves the husband that beats her, is that a concenting adults thing?
How about the billions of workers who idolize their bosses, are they consenting adults?


Behaviours such as these obviously stem from the millennia of class/patriarchal/racist ideas, born from the messed up societies we've lived in.
You can't of course go after the people who think like that but how could you defend the concept?

[Per Levy]

There might have been other reasons contributing to whatever it is that happened (not quite sure or interested) but what I find shocking is that someone would defend "the practice" or the "concept" of something like that.

If a woman loves the husband that beats her, is that a concenting adults thing?
How about the billions of workers who idolize their bosses, are they consenting adults?


Behaviours such as these obviously stem from the millennia of class/patriarchal/racist ideas, born from the messed up societies we've lived in.
You can't of course go after the people who think like that but how could you defend the concept?


there is nothing to defend here, if the peeps in question like it and get off on it id say have fun, its sex. its the same with any sexual practise that isnt "normal" like bdsm or stuff, i may not like but if the people who do like it come together and practice it its all good in my view.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

I was going to post on it too. But I wasn't even get into race play cuz I didn't know what it was & don't really care. Then I found out sort of -- I'm with Seymour -- consenting adults etc.

What's kinda good is that this shit doesn't really matter.

To be honest I'm not well read enough to have an opinion on it, maybe when I read some Andrea Dworqin and the Intercourse and other feminist works I'll be able to have a bone in the discussion. But even though I disagree with the theory and praxis of these groups I don't think it's be productive or healthy to talk about that aspect only because I know it would just end up as sectarian shit spewing.

[blake 3:17]

To be honest I'm not well read enough to have an opinion on it, maybe when I read some Andrea Dworqin and the Intercourse and other feminist works I'll be able to have a bone in the discussion. But even though I disagree with the theory and praxis of these groups I don't think it's be productive or healthy to talk about that aspect only because I know it would just end up as sectarian shit spewing.

Fair enough. I don't have much time for Dworkin or radfem politics, though I do think they have some insights & have made some useful contributions.

If you go to the charnelhouse links, there's a document of Seymour's "terrible" behaviour -- his only mistake was writing too much too fast on FB. Some of the responses were totally BS identity politics.

Could be better with those folks doing their own thing.

[Red Commissar]

I'd been seeing rumblings of this on the internet but I was confused like the author of the article of what "race play" was which seems to be one of the issues at the center of this spat.

I don't really understand still though- was this because of race play or because these arguments got too heated, and ended up being seen by the public at large along with the other stuff leaked? Only thing I'm taking away from this right now beyond the usual jokes about politics is that FB might not be a good place for party organization and discussions.

[DaringMehring]

Sad. The personal-life-regulation stuff is easy fodder for the bourgeoisie to break any socialist group using agent provocateur or two. We've got to learn how to stop this otherwise we're just sitting ducks.
Shouldn't it be enough to say each can have their own opinion?

As previous posters say, it probably only activates already existing personal issues that are the true cause of the split. I've seen several small groups split simply because people don't get along.

[Mather]

This is just comical and absurd on so many levels, beyond anything in Monty Python's Life of Brian. Satire really is dead!

The world is currently experiencing the biggest crisis in global capitalism since the Great Depression, ruling classes the world over are launching sustained and brutal attacks on the working class and their conditions, conflict and unrest now engulfs the Middle East and Europe, fascism is on the rise in several countries and sectarian and nationalist hatreds are flaring up all around us yet these clowns (on both sides of this ridiculous fallout) see fit have a debate about this nonsense as their first order business. It is exactly this type of crap that condemns the revolutionary left to a state of utter irrelevance and derision.

One last point, what started this whole charade in the first place? Given that the ISN is newly formed organisation, why was "race play" even brought up?

[Mather]

Sad. The personal-life-regulation stuff is easy fodder for the bourgeoisie to break any socialist group using agent provocateur or two.

You could be right. It is a well known fact that agents of the state (police and the intelligence services) infiltrate the revolutionary left and nonsense such as this would give them the perfect opportunity to sow discord and division amongst whatever organisation they were infiltrating as well as (in this particular case) making the organisation in question look completely ridiculous to anyone standing on the outside.

Then again, the revolutionary left can and do make a complete fool of themselves without any outside help so either possibility is plausible.

[Tim Cornelis]

There might have been other reasons contributing to whatever it is that happened (not quite sure or interested) but what I find shocking is that someone would defend "the practice" or the "concept" of something like that.

If a woman loves the husband that beats her, is that a concenting adults thing?
How about the billions of workers who idolize their bosses, are they consenting adults?


Behaviours such as these obviously stem from the millennia of class/patriarchal/racist ideas, born from the messed up societies we've lived in.
You can't of course go after the people who think like that but how could you defend the concept?

False equivalence. One is a social relationship, the other a fetish. Some get off on employer-employee role play, no sane person would say it reproduces capitalism. Certainly no reason to split over.

[Q]

lol trots will split over the silliest things, yay another insignificant miniscule trot sect is born:grin:


oh no shocking a trot group split
While I tend to sympathise with this sentiment, please keep your posts substantial and non-inflamatory.

Consider this a verbal warning.

[blake 3:17]

As previous posters say, it probably only activates already existing personal issues that are the true cause of the split. I've seen several small groups split simply because people don't get along.

That makes sense and I don't that's a terrible thing. Why spend time with people you dislike? A friend & comrade was trying to get involved in an interesting left project, but it was small and involved people I don't want to be in the same room with.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Well, time to close the forum, the cause is lost, the labor movement is dead, the vanguard has split, time to hang it up boys.


lol trots will split over the silliest things, yay another insignificant miniscule trot sect is born:grin:

You think a couple reenacting the historical sexual assault of slave women by their slave masters is "silly"? Wtf? This shit isn't cool and that's saying a lot coming from me.

[RedHal]

the whole BDSM subculture is fucked up, sexual violence and torture is a historical reality like slavery, but as long as it's between consenting adults in their private, whatever.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

the whole BDSM subculture is fucked up, sexual violence and torture is a historical reality like slavery, but as long as it's between consenting adults in their private, whatever.

Pretty simplistic/inaccurate summation of bdsm. Why are you conflating the two?

[The Idler]

That makes sense and I don't that's a terrible thing. Why spend time with people you dislike? A friend & comrade was trying to get involved in an interesting left project, but it was small and involved people I don't want to be in the same room with.
Transfer to another branch if you can't get along. People shouldn't join socialist parties to make friends.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

Surely if this continues they're going to have to start splitting with themselves, and then we'll have to deal with hordes of foot-high trotskyites handing out tiny newspapers. A truly chilling thought.

[Skyhilist]

While I tend to sympathise with this sentiment, please keep your posts substantial and non-inflamatory.

Consider this a verbal warning.

Was my post really any less substantial than the one-liners that tend to get the most amount of "thanks" on this forum? Less clever maybe, but still.

[E-Shock Executioner]

Wow

Words don't even describe how damn stupid this drama is

[blake 3:17]

Transfer to another branch if you can't get along. People shouldn't join socialist parties to make friends.


I live in Canada. Joining "another branch" -- of which there aren't any -- involves moving hundreds or thousands of kilometers.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Ever wonder what trots look like under a microscope?

http://www.csulb.edu/~zedmason/emprojects/Tara/00-spt-m.jpg

SCIENCE SLAM!

[blake 3:17]

Ever wonder what trots look like under a microscope?

http://www.csulb.edu/~zedmason/emprojects/Tara/00-spt-m.jpg

SCIENCE SLAM!

Verbal warning

[Sentinel]

Verbal warning
I'm extending it to a general verbal warning for all posters in this thread.

Really, just like Q said. Yes it's tragical/amusing how many trotskyist split groups there are. But if the derailment of this thread goes on after now two (2) verbal warnings about the same thing by moderators, infractions will be issued directly.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

in our defence i'm not sure what else there is to do given the apparent inevitability of Trotskyist groups splitting over seemingly minor issues other than wonder if they're gambling on the hope that eventually everyone on earth will belong to equally intransigent one-person splinter groups. If I might quote the article it's stuff like this which reinforces the idea that the modern left is (to lift a quote from the article) "about as far from the needs and concerns of ordinary people as it's possible to get." Given that Trotskyist groups seem to be the most active/visible leftist groups in the anglophone world it's not surprising that so many people see the left as an impotent morass more concerned with internicine bickering and denouncing each other over minor variations in theory (if that, it seems) assuming that they get past the idea that we're all raving bloodthirsty lunatics who want to put tapestries of Lenin on Buckingham Palace or something.

I realise that the jokes being made are useless to discussion and in any case are beating a life-impaired horse but honestly, I'm not sure if there's much discussion to be had over the SWP diaspora.

[Bea Arthur]

Good for the ISN! Racist, sexist "role playing" has no business in any group that deems itself progressive. If you eroticize racism and sexism, you place yourself on the opposite side of people who desire freedom.

[Queen Mab]

Are other Marxist tendencies really any different to Trots? Aren't there several successors to the CPGB, and two tiny Left Com orgs that would probably be better off together?

[Art Vandelay]

Are other Marxist tendencies really any different to Trots? Aren't there several successors to the CPGB, and two tiny Left Com orgs that would probably be better off together?

The history of post-Trotsky Trotskyism is pretty awful and seems to contain a absolute ridiculous amount of splits, but you make a valid point and any of the left-com groupsicles out there, or the various other splintered sects on the left, who think they're doing any better, or aren't as irrelevant and marginalized, are delusional.

[Thirsty Crow]

You think a couple reenacting the historical sexual assault of slave women by their slave masters is "silly"? Wtf? This shit isn't cool and that's saying a lot coming from me.
What does this, it isn't cool, actually mean?

That you wouldn't be comfortable in doing that? Okay, I wouldn't be either. But that's not what's at stake here.

The real problem is that this is claimed as strengthening racism. The logic behind this assessment is ludicrous.

So to unpack it, this rests on an idea that communicating this sexual preference somehow aids racism. The bit about communicating is necessary since it would be entirely mysterious how a couple doing their thing in the bedroom can possibly affect what is dependent on communication in the first place - and social power relations are.

This in turn rests on normative notions applied to personal matters outside the scope of political activity. As such it is no more than policing people's sexual preferences and imposing a morality, a set of prescribed conducts. This line of reasoning reaches its ultimate point in a possible absurdity of women who have been rape victims engaging in forms of behavior which can be called "rape fantasies" been told that they aid rape culture by doing so, disregarding the significance this might have for the person.

It's paradoxical how noble anti-authoritarians blatantly reproduce dominant mechanisms of judgement and practice:


Good for the ISN! Racist, sexist "role playing" has no business in any group that deems itself progressive. If you eroticize racism and sexism, you place yourself on the opposite side of people who desire freedom. Not to mention that this implies that it is actually desireable for a political group to police their members sex lives. But yeah it seems that folks might be completely oblivious of the birth marks of social relations based on capital and exploitation in their own reasoning (and consequently, practice; what follows practically from this attitude? - the creation of an interpersonal relations where there can be no confidence in sharing one's life - and yes I do think this has its role in radicals' political organizing -, and when coupled with broader demonization of certain behaviors, this could indeed lead to all sorts of nasty psychological consequences for said people; further, if one dares to talk about that, the only possible immediate reaction would be one of said demonization, and as our user claims above, expulsion without regard for the contributions of the people to organization's work)

Now, as for my take on this kind of sexual activities, at best this can be judged as possibly indicative of a problem with said persons in their a) understanding of racism and b) actual commitment to struggle against it.

This doubt is not, and cannot, be resolved by such moralist posturing. We have bourgeois commentators and priests for that kind of policing, eh?

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

warn me all you like but this is truly embarrassing.

leave leninism in its ashes and move on to the 21st century. please.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Can't we analyze certain kinds of sexual relations as based on a culture of domination and exploitation without making moralistic criticisms of those involved? This kind of fetish is obviously based on a historical legacy of racism but at the same time it's obviously not helpful to just shout at people who participate in it.

It's also a shame that Trotskyist sects can't have a rational debate on these subjects without resorting to sectarian splits. It seems part of the problem stems from dogmatism, whereby the various Trot groups presuppose a certain theoretical perspective and assume that any group which differs from it in any way must be reactionary. If ideological differences can't be resolved, and are really deep, then a split is sensible, but I find it sad that it is so often the solution of first resort. I guess it's easier to have a "democratic centralist" group when all people in the movement agree on everything already, and there is no need for internal dissent and debate.

[blake 3:17]

It's also a shame that Trotskyist sects can't have a rational debate on these subjects without resorting to sectarian splits. It seems part of the problem stems from dogmatism, whereby the various Trot groups presuppose a certain theoretical perspective and assume that any group which differs from it in any way must be reactionary. If ideological differences can't be resolved, and are really deep, then a split is sensible, but I find it sad that it is so often the solution of first resort. I guess it's easier to have a "democratic centralist" group when all people in the movement agree on everything already, and there is no need for internal dissent and debate.

It seems there may be things other than a tendency/ factional/ ideological dispute , the resignation letter from Seymour China M etc http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2713367&postcount=11

I'd see one of the problems with the SWP's ban on tendencies (or what they'd call "permanent factions") is that when people are finally allowed to actually have some real discussion, they're discovering differences they didn't know they had.

For common action there's a number of possibilities -- where I was impressed by Seymour in this was that he was mostly saying "I don't know".

An old comrade once told me the value of a socialist organization was its ability to generalize knowledge for the struggle. When groups are very small and marginal and are only part of particular social mileus, that ability is very very limited and a lot of the time we need to be honest with ourselves and each other and admit to uncertainty.

[brigadista]

Just spent the day with a lot of people who had their benefits sanctioned - seems like the real world is far away from the minds of the left -