Red Flag. I absolutely agree that "the present crisis is qualatatively different to previous economic crisis", The biggest problem currently is the lack of class identity in that millions of workers have been removed from workplaces in the traditional capitalist world whilst new proletarian formations are arising at the other pole but without a tradition of class conscious struggle. We cannot say whether this might not be to their advantage in the future since the deadweight of social demoacracy turned out to be an impediment in the last revolutionary wave. But you are right too that we must not succumb to a philosophy of despair and work to counteract all the institutional arranegemtns the bourgeois state has in place to prevent the generalisation of struggles and that includes the unions and left parties.
Baboon has posted a lie. The CWO never published anyhting saying "Revolution Now". It is true that an eidtion of WV (no $ was hijacked by an advernturer who later ended up in Wildcat but when our EC saw it it was withdrawn from publication. On our forum Lone Londoner says the ICC do not consciously lie and corrects any errors. It took us years to persuade them to withdraw this slander but your website now reprints article repeating this slander without any note to explain that the ICC was mistaken at this time. It is also a lie that we define ourselves against the ICC (this offends the amour propre of some ICCers!). The ICC need decomposition to explain why their perspectives, which for decades said revolution was just around the corner, have come closer to ours but decomposition like decadence is only a concept. It does nothing and when people lazily try to say it is "because of decadence" or "due to decomposition" they are explaining nothing real (even though we think decadence is good way to sum up the current stage of capitalism).
Agree Jock that the unions and in UK the LP acts as counter revolutionary organisations. Just look at the counsell of despair that they spout that we should accept some cuts. Even with their improvement in the recent local elections the coucillors will still carry out with heavy heart the cuts and sackings. I suppose all revolutionaries can do is argue for independent struggles and try to get grass roots organisations in the workplaces.
Jock is correct to point out that the CWO have explained to us the circumstances in which the 'Revolution Now' slogan (in relation to the events in Poland) was published in Workers Voice. I don't recall whether they have publicly done this, and if so when, but I do think there was a long period in which this whole episode was not clarified. Baboon may not be aware of the circumstances in which that issue of WV was published - he is not a member of the ICC. We have not referred to this matter of 'Revolution Now' in Poland in our press for some years and we should have pointed this out to Baboon.
But you do have old articles on your website with the footnotes containing this error still uncorrected which pop up with surprising frequency. It would help if you changed them (although I know it is tedious to go through all old texts).
