SPGB Euroelection broadcast for Wales

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Sometimes the sheer absurdity of what I'm doing hits me - I'm arguing with Internet Mensheviks and crypto-Wohlforthites. Surely there is something more pleasant I could be doing. Like hammering nails with my eyeballs.

[robbo203]

I couldnt really be arsed to wade through the entirety of Vincent West's turgid and rambling diatribe - to be honest my eyes glazed over half way through - but what I managed to get from it only confirms my suspicion that what we have here is a complete fantasist whose idea of an argument is to studiously avoid addressing the point you are making in order to indulge his nasty and thoroughly dishonest habit of inventing some bizarre political view which he can then conveninetly foist on you -- even if it bears absolutely no relation to what you actually think.

I will leave others who have been similarly subject to this sort of disgusting treatment to deal with this clown after their own fashion. For myself I will confine myself to one or two of the comments he directed at me.

Firstly all that nonsense about "the family". I stand by my statement that to talk about "smashing the bourgeoois family" in a very short party political broadcast would be inadvisable not sot say downright stupid

How do you "smash" the bourgeois family and how do you convey that in the space of 2 mins 40 secs? I think the overwhelming majority of workers on hearing a slogan like that would immediately be turned off and simply dismiss you as a nutjob on a par with the Monster Raving Looney Party or whatever.


It would be far better to focus, I said, on the "big picture" in positive terms in the very short time available to you rather than risk say something that will amost certainly be misconstrued or misunderstood. That apart there is the question of what you mean by "the family" in bourgeois society. Queervanguard earlier made the frankly ridiculous claim that

The family came w/ property and will end w/ property. Simple. If the family continues to exist after the SPGB have their World Socialism take root --which a shit ton of them are probably hoping), it will be a sign we're nowhere near Socialism


I pointed out that this was absolute rubbish and anthropologically illiterate, that famility units clearly existed prior to emergence of property society in hunter gatherer bands and will probably continue in some form and to some extent after the disappearance of property society as well. It would amount to breathtaking arrogance - Vincent West is forever accusing others of "arrogance" but he takes the biscuit when it comes to arrogance - to assert that this cannot be so. You cannot legislate for how people order their living arrnangments in a future socialist society. If they chose to live in what are clearly consanguineal family units and to emotionally bond with other members of that family unit then that is their choice. You come across as a some kind of authoritarian social engineer in seeking to deny them that choice

I cannot believe that Mr West is so stupid as to not understand this point I was making. I can only conclude that, true to form, he is being thoroughly disinegenuous . According to him, it makes me some kind of right wing "family values bigot" if I dont like the idea of including the slogan "smash the bourgeois family" in a party political broadcast . Frankly the only bigot here is Mr West himself - and Queervanguard. To this pair of clowns , I repeat again the challenge. Go out into the real world of working class lives, not the fantasy world of facile political slogans that you inhabit, and tell your fellow workers that you are going to "smash" their familial set up and disperse their family members or whatever it is you have in mind for your post-family fascist utopia and they will overwhelmingly treat you with the contempt you plainly deserve. I am quite amenable to the idea that the form of the family will evolve and change in a socialist society and that there will be greater fluidity and variability in the way people live togther but to dogmatically assert that they will not live in familiy units at all becuase that " will be a sign we're nowhere near Socialism" is completely over the top and ridiculous beyond belief

Secondly , on the question of the SPGB and the Mensheviks . Here Mr West's virulently anti-communist pro-Bolshevik sentiments shine through. Some of his comments are so pureile as to be hardly worth dealing with. Apparently the "average SPGB member would have said as well, when the organisation was founded in 1904" that "gay slaves" would be hanged or imprisoned. Oh fuck off you stupid stupid little kid. You seriously need to do some growing up. Strikes me that you are just some attention seeking bigot wanting to say something controversial for the sake of it.

However, I cannot let you get away with the rubbish ytou have written. You made a claim about the SPGB as follows:

Yes, they did, and don't pretend otherwise. If printing articles against the war means taking a stand against the British state - and it does - then printing Menshevik-whiteguard articles against the Bolshevik state means siding with the Mensheviks, with the Whites, with Kolchak and with the British.


I challenged you to provide evidence to back up your claim. As usual you squirmed out of it, preferring to plump for the "guilt by association" line of argument. The only article I know of which the SPGB published which was written by a Menshevik, was Martov's critique of the Bolshevik state on which he quite correctly pointed out that what had been established was not a dictarship of the proletariat but a party dictatorship over the proletariat. Only a complete fantasist could infer from this that that means the SPGB " siding with the Mensheviks, with the Whites, with Kolchak and with the British"

Unbelievably in response to my point

The SPGB incidentally was highly critical of the Russian government's agreement in 1920 to repay foreign property-owners their losses and allied Governments their “debts.” - those same governments. like the British, whose armies had invaded Russia . For the SPGB this meant "continued exploitation of Russian workers to pay foreign exploiters" http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/s...shevist-policy). Would such a sentiment be possible if the SPGB had sided with the British as you stupidly claim?

You say:

Yes, it would. In fact it was the only way for the SPGB to support the British.

Huh? What sort of idiotic argument is that???

Going back to Martov, it seems to me your are prepared to lie through your teeth to score a point. Martov was not a supportrer of the Whites but an oppnent of them but, of course, for you it is important to establish such an untenable connection sdo that you can by inference tar the SPGB with "supporting the british"

This is how your stupid logic goes

The SPGB published something by Martov attacking the Bolshevik state
Martov supported the Whites
Therefore the SPGB supported the Whites
Since the Whites were aided by the British, therefore the SPGB supported the British

This is laughable. Not even your prudent capitalist politician would stoop to such underhand and devious tactics but that does not stop you from doing it. I mentioned the SPGB published something by Karl Kautsky in 1906 - namely a pamphlet entitled "From handicraft to capitalism" http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/p...l-kautsky-1906. (I thinkl they might have also published something Kautsky wrote on religion). Your response to that is to call Kautsky an "honorary Menshevik". So we are back in the loop again. Because Kautsky is an
"honorary Menshevik" that means the SPGB...er... supported the British.

You cant seem to get it through your thick skull that it is entirely possiuble to agree with some ideas that a person holds while disagreeing with others. As I pointed out there is an UKIP politician who wrote a thesis on taxation that accords completely with Marx's views on taxation. Are you seriously suggesting therefore that becuase a Marxist on reading what this UKIP politician wrote about taxation and agreeing with it, must therefore be a supporter of UKIP.??? Dont be so stupid

Similarly the SPGB attitude towards the Mensheviks was throughly mixed. It did not support the Mensheviks as you claim but it went along with some of the ideas that some of the Mensheviks - like Martov - propagated

The very article you quote from the SPGB makes this clear

Thus the Bolsheviks aimed at political power, to be achieved by insurrection, to introduce democracy. The Mensheviks, while not opposed to insurrection, aimed at developing working class consciousness. It is all too easily assumed that the difference between Menshevism and Bolshevism was that between the reformist and the revolutionary position. Though those who were Revisionists and reformists were to be found amongst the Mensheviks, the disagreement was about the bourgeois not the socialist revolution.

As far as the socialist revolution was concerned there was no difference between the two wings. Up till 1917 the Bolsheviks were orthodox Social Democrats. They were members of the Second International. They accepted that Socialism could only be international, the materialist conception of history and Marxian economics. Like the Mensheviks they had a reform programme.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/e...ole-bolshevism

The Mensheviks were in the tradition of the reformist Second International which the SPGB had decisively broken with

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I will reply to the rest later, but for now, it's interesting to note that both robbo and Dave have not addressed the most important part of my posts. So, Dave B, do you think that gay people are not oppressed in modern Britain? And robbo203, where is that "nuanced and detailed" analysis of homosexuality and homophobia that the SPGB has made?

And pray tell, if QV and I are bigots, who are we bigoted against?

When the SPGB was founded, the penalty for homosexuality was imprisonment, when many of the original SPGB members were born it was death. Unlike Bebel, Liebknecht or Zetkin, the SPGB never opposed any of this, so it stands to reason that its members agreed with it.

[Red Deathy]

Why, on this thread we have robbo, openly admitting that the execrable SPGB propaganda doesn't address gay liberation because they want to attract bigots

robbo203[/B]]
How do you "smash" the bourgeois family and how do you convey that in the space of 2 mins 40 secs? I think the overwhelming majority of workers on hearing a slogan like that would immediately be turned off and simply dismiss you as a nutjob on a par with the Monster Raving Looney Party or whatever.

In no way could that be read as “wanting to attract bigots” without stretching the English language to breaking point and beyond. I think you do owe him an apology. I can only ask for this, and leave others to judge from your response. It’s your reputation, and up to you what you do with it.

Except, of course, it is more than possible for someone to "want the LGBTQ Wages Slaves [sic] to emancipate themselves" as workers, and for the oppression of LGBT people to continue. It isn't doable - because the oppression of gay people is intimately connected to the conditions of the reproduction of the proletariat - but the SPGB has never analysed this question.

Well, no, if they are still oppressed they are not emancipated, and the point of socialism is that the necessity for co-operation precludes oppressing minorities because the mutual interdependence required for our freedom.

However, if LGBTQ oppression continued despite the abolition of the wages system, then we would have to address that. But the Socialist Party is concerned solely with abolishing the wages system, in the same way the RSPB is solely concerned with protecting birds.

Reality does seem to have refuted your claims that capitalism requires LGBTQ oppression, having legalised gay marriage, made it illegal to sack people for being gay, etc.. Capitalism can continue very nicely without LGBTQ oppression. Nothing in this is to minimise, excuse or ignore the genuine oppression LGBTQ people suffer and have suffered, nor is it a claim that there doesn’t need to be LGBTQ campaign groups (indeed, there are some very good ones) but to say that the socialist party solely campaigns for the abolition of the wages system, and leaves those sorts of campaigns to dedicated groups who do it better.

[Red Deathy]

When the SPGB was founded, the penalty for homosexuality was imprisonment, when many of the original SPGB members were born it was death. Unlike Bebel, Liebknecht or Zetkin, the SPGB never opposed any of this, so it stands to reason that its members agreed with it.

Actually, if they opposed the state, the naturally opposed the death penalty.

Anyway, here's what one writer said about smashign the familly in 1910:

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/s...risies-exposed

[Q]

Very decent broadcast. Congratulations on making most use of a limited time on video.

[Dave B]

So, Dave B, do you think that gay people are not oppressed in modern Britain?

I assume the capitalist class do otherwise they wouldn’t send us on courses etc

I don’t know how old you are or what circles you mix in but things are much better than they were 20 years ago particularly amongst the lower working class.

Then, where I work, abusive racial language etc was common place amongst the shop floor workers and management; you only had to look at the graffiti on the back of toilet doors for that.

I work in the heartland of white north Manchester and not far from Bernard Manning’s notorious club.

All that kind of thing is much less fashionable than it used to be and although anything at all like that now and you would be in really deep shit with human resources, I don’t think it is just a matter of it going underground.

Peoples real attitudes have changed including some particular individuals I can think of who have been there as long as I have.

I can promise you I do not need to lectured to about that kind of thing from anyone.

[robbo203]

I will reply to the rest later, but for now, it's interesting to note that both robbo and Dave have not addressed the most important part of my posts. So, Dave B, do you think that gay people are not oppressed in modern Britain? And robbo203, where is that "nuanced and detailed" analysis of homosexuality and homophobia that the SPGB has made?

And pray tell, if QV and I are bigots, who are we bigoted against?
.

Definition of Bigot


" a person who strongly and unfairly dislikes other people, ideas, etc. : a bigoted person; especially : a person who hates or refuses to accept the members of a particular group (such as a racial or religious group)"

(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bigot)

I consider your criticisms of the SPGB ( and I'm not even a member) and what it stands for are grotesquely unfair, totally unreasonable and utterly dishonest. There are legitimate criticisms that can be made of the SPGB - Ive made them myself - but no revolutionary socialist can fail to regard them as fully comrades in the struggle to achieve a genuine socialist society. Their contribution to the development of socialist ideas and socialist theory has been considerable but mostly unappreciated, ignored or wilfully distorted by ignorant bigots on the left such as yourself. We have seen this time and time and time again, how you have lied through your teeth , to foist on the SPGB a view they do not hold , so you can indulge your nasty and tedious little habit of knocking down straw arguments.

I also consider that the dogmatic and anthropologically nonsensical view held by QV and seemingly yourself too on the question of the family to be a clear case of bigotry. The family as an institution and marriage as an institution are not the same thing. It is bullshit to claim, as QV did, that the family as institution emerged with private property - families clearly existed long before private property - and it can only be a case of breathtakingly arrogant social engineering to insist that the family must as an institution disappear with the disappearance of private property itself. As QC said himself, as long as the family continues to exist after the SPGB have their World Socialism take root --which a shit ton of them are probably hoping), it will be a sign we're nowhere near Socialism . Ive never heard such absolute rubbish.

So here's a question for you to respond to rather than dodge as is your habit. Do you agree that individuals in a socialist society should be able to live in what are clearly consanguineal family units and to emotionally bond with other members of that family unit if that is their choice? If so , what is the point in calling for the "abolition of the family"? Particularly, I might add, in a very short party political broadcast in which it is most likely going to be misconstrued as meaning that your political party wants to break up the family, confiscate the kids and send them off to some state rehabiliation centre where they will turned into model citizens with no other loyalties than to the fascist state itself....

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Well, no, if they are still oppressed they are not emancipated, and the point of socialism is that the necessity for co-operation precludes oppressing minorities because the mutual interdependence required for our freedom.

Careful now, if you indulge in any more hand-waving you might just be the first person to fly without mechanical assistance. Obviously the "necessity for cooperation" does not necessarily extend to any single group - it is more than possible to exclude gay people from society.

Actually, if they opposed the state, the naturally opposed the death penalty.

It is possible to kill people without the state.

Anyway, here's what one writer said about smashign the familly in 1910:

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/s...risies-exposed

"And Balak said unto Balaam, What hast thou done unto me? I took thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast blessed them altogether."

I realise your position is untenable and you need all the "evidence" you can muster, even if you have to go back to over a century (now there's a frightening thought) ago, but perhaps you should have thought twice before citing as an example of progressive thinking an article that claims:

"The natural purpose for which men and women should mate is the perpetuation of the race and the incidental satisfaction of the sexual instinct."

And:

"With this freedom established, all human activities will depend upon their desirability and usefulness to those who perform them. Consequently our faculties will be devoted, unhampered by economic considerations, to their true purpose. When women have free access, as members of the community, to a sufficiency of those things necessary to a healthy and happy life, their genuine sex-nature will assert itself. When children are born with a similar birthright, the need for avoiding them or exploiting them for private ends will disappear also."

I consider your criticisms of the SPGB ( and I'm not even a member) and what it stands for are grotesquely unfair, totally unreasonable and utterly dishonest. There are legitimate criticisms that can be made of the SPGB - Ive made them myself - but no revolutionary socialist can fail to regard them as fully comrades in the struggle to achieve a genuine socialist society.

Revolutionary socialists like Dan, Martov, Portugeis and Zhordania, perhaps.

And where have I been dishonest? I have cited numerous instances of the Menshevik organisation assisting the Whites, all with the acquiescence of your beloved Martov. And I have clearly specified the sources (in fact I have done so several times, because Dave, the last Menshevik truth-bender, constantly posts the same few articles and claims). You have not responded to this. The arrogant, dismissive and bigoted approach of the SPGB to the question of gay liberation has been demonstrated again and again, particularly when the spamgbots try to defend their beloved party and end up praising articles about how the "natural purpose" of sex is "the perpetuation of the race", or, like RD and Dave B, try to claim that gay people are not oppressed - I gleefully await their restriction given the precedent of Vanguard1917.

I also consider that the dogmatic and anthropologically nonsensical view held by QV and seemingly yourself too on the question of the family to be a clear case of bigotry.

Ha! Bigotry against who, the good bourgeois nuclear heterosexual family? I am guilty as charged, as any Marxists should be.

As QC said himself, as long as the family continues to exist after the SPGB have their World Socialism take root --which a shit ton of them are probably hoping), it will be a sign we're nowhere near Socialism . Ive never heard such absolute rubbish.

Well, the desire of many members of the SPGB family for the het family to continue existing in what they imagine to be "socialism" is obvious, and the incompatibility of any sort of family with socialism has been established already by Engels.

So here's a question for you to respond to rather than dodge as is your habit. Do you agree that individuals in a socialist society should be able to live in what are clearly consanguineal family units and to emotionally bond with other members of that family unit if that is their choice?

"Should" is not acceptable in Marxist vocabulary. We Marxists base ourselves on the concrete, material economic process, not abstract "rights". The family is incompatible with socialism - if the family exists, socialism does not. If socialism does exist, the family doesn't. There will probably be no need to prohibit the family, just as today there is no need to prohibit uji clans.

[The Idler]

Vincent West logic
SPGB = Opponents of the Bolsheviks = Mensheviks = White Guard = Supporters of the British state
Or as George W. Bush put it
"If you're not with us you're against us"

Bolshevism or White Guards, a false dichotomy if ever there was one.

Actions may speak louder than words, and by all means judge parties on what they do, but it doesn't mean what they say counts for nothing. Judging the Bolsheviks on what they did would be a good start.

[robbo203]

And where have I been dishonest?

Where to begin? There are so many examples to chose from! Perhaps we can begin with this example as an explanation of your rank dishonesty which I provided earlier

This is how your stupid logic goes

The SPGB published something by Martov attacking the Bolshevik state
Martov supported the Whites
Therefore the SPGB supported the Whites
Since the Whites were aided by the British, therefore the SPGB supported the British

When I said:

The SPGB incidentally was highly critical of the Russian government's agreement in 1920 to repay foreign property-owners their losses and allied Governments their “debts.” - those same governments. like the British, whose armies had invaded Russia . For the SPGB this meant "continued exploitation of Russian workers to pay foreign exploiters" http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/s...shevist-policy). Would such a sentiment be possible if the SPGB had sided with the British as you stupidly claim?

You responded

Yes, it would. In fact it was the only way for the SPGB to support the British.

So you clearly maintain then that the SPGB did in fact "support the British". This is a lie and a pretty stupid lie at that.

Need I go on?

Well, the desire of many members of the SPGB family for the het family to continue existing in what they imagine to be "socialism" is obvious, and the incompatibility of any sort of family with socialism has been established already by Engels.

You are getting pretty close to a position of expressing anti-heterosexual bigotry. Despite you idiotic comments regarding the arrogant, dismissive and bigoted approach of the SPGB to the question of gay liberation none of the SPGB comrades here have expresssed even the slightest bigotry towards gays. Indeed, some members of the SPGB are themselves gays. Forthright opposition to any kind of prejudice based on race, gender or sexual preference is part and parcel of the SPGB's outlook and rightly so. Such prejudice can only serve to divide workers and so strengthen capitalism.

What you still dont seem to understand, however, is that the SPGB was not set up as a body to campaign/lobby for such things as legal rights for gays. Its sole purpose is to strive for socialism and nothing but. You also dont seem to understand the point that it is being made about gay liberation by the SPGB comrades here. No one is denying that there is still prejudice against gays; all that is being asserted is that there is no legal discrimination against gays any more. (if there is then show me an example) In other words, such prejudice continues to exist despite the absence of legal discrimination against gays. In other words this is an attitude problem which is not going to be solved by further legal reform but by changing ideas which is what the SPGB is in the business of doing

Finally, regarding your claim that the incompatibility of any sort of family with socialism has been established already by Engels. this is nonsense. Show me where Engels said such a thing . My guess is you are probably referring to his work "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State" and my further guess is that you imagine Engels is saying that these 3 institutions coincided in a temporal sense when they did not. This is no doubt is what led QC to infer that The family came w/ property and will end w/ property. Wrong


Engels is quite clear that the family as an institution long predated private property and was to be found in different forms in "primitive" society. These corresponded in his view to different stages. 1) the consanguine family 2) the punaluan family and 3) the pairing family. The monogamous patriarchical family developed out of the last of these and corresponded to the beginning of property society or civilisation.

It was this last form of the family - the monogamous patriarchical familiy that Marxists criticise, not "the family" as such. Whatever Engels may or may not have said on the matter - and his schema is based on Lewis Henry Morgan's work Ancient Society (1877) whose stagist approach has been shown to be somewhat questionable, modern anthroplogy clearly attests to the existence of distinct family units in "primitive" societies predating the emergence of private property (see my earlier quote)

If that is the case then there are absolutely no grounds on which to dogmatically assert apriori that if the family exists, socialism does not. If socialism does exist, the family doesn't This is just mindless dogmatism and very bad sociology, The form that the family might take will doubt be different to what it is today but families will continue to exist one way or another and they dont even necessarily have to take the form of heterosexual families either, incidentally....

[QueerVanguard]

You are getting pretty close to a position of expressing anti-heterosexual bigotry. Despite you idiotic comments regarding the arrogant, dismissive and bigoted approach of the SPGB to the question of gay liberation none of the SPGB comrades here have expresssed even the slightest bigotry towards gays. Indeed, some members of the SPGB are themselves gays.

"I can't be racist, some of my best friends are Black!!1!" And lol @ "anti-heterosexual bigotry". What's next? You people are gonna start saying "anti-racist is code word for anti-WHITE"

[robbo203]

"I can't be racist, some of my best friends are Black!!1!" And lol @ "anti-heterosexual bigotry". What's next? You people are gonna start saying "anti-racist is code word for anti-WHITE"

Nope. Anti-racist is not a code word for anti white and I would never suggest such a thing but if you imagine that just becuase someone is not white they cannot be racist (that in itself is a sort of inverted racism) then you are dead wrong. If course it happens. I came across a website some months ago run by a group of "black supremacists" - I wish I had the link now but cannot find it anymore - in which some pretty vile racists sentiments were expressed particularly towards white women, incidentally. Oh and gay bashing as well lives and thrives among some of these people. Check this out from Russia Today http://rt.com/usa/ayo-kimathi-wald-dhs-982/


Racism is not a one way street, you know, even if the victims of structural racism at least in place like the US or the UK are overwhelmingly black. Only a dyed-in-the wool liberal with his or her head firmly stuck in the ground would deny this. Revolutionary socialists attack racism whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head, regardless of the "race" of the racists in question.


Anyway, why are you trying to divert attention from your foolish comments on the question of the family and private property which were earlier demolished and which i note you have made no effort to defend

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Vincent West logic
SPGB = Opponents of the Bolsheviks = Mensheviks = White Guard = Supporters of the British state
Or as George W. Bush put it
"If you're not with us you're against us"

You could have mentioned either Bush or Mussolini - you chose Bush. Interesting. This is besides the point, but I have to admit my eyes roll a little whenever someone compares a figure to Bush. It's been, what, five years? Get over it already. The man was a bog-standard bourgeois politician who got a bog-standard imperialist power involved in a few bog-standard imperialist wars. This obsession with Bush as the Worst President Ever (TM) is simply a way for people to support his successor, who most American "socialist" groups tailed.

In any case, perhaps, along with Jesus, you think that "whoever is not against us is with us", but that sentiment is, to put it mildly, not applicable to a revolutionary civil war, when all the contradictions of class society are expressed in the most antagonistic form.

Bolshevism or White Guards, a false dichotomy if ever there was one.

To be fair, there were also the peasant insurgents and bandits of the Makhnovshchina and the Antonovshchina. But these three - and the Central Powers - were the only serious contenders for power in that situation.

Actions may speak louder than words, and by all means judge parties on what they do, but it doesn't mean what they say counts for nothing. Judging the Bolsheviks on what they did would be a good start.

What people say counts for nothing if they have no intention of carrying it out.

So you clearly maintain then that the SPGB did in fact "support the British". This is a lie and a pretty stupid lie at that.

I have explained how the SPGB supported the British, which you haven't addressed.

Also, I'm still waiting, where is that "detailed and nuanced" SPGB analysis of homophobia?

You are getting pretty close to a position of expressing anti-heterosexual bigotry.

Cry us a river, straight people.

What you still dont seem to understand, however, is that the SPGB was not set up as a body to campaign/lobby for such things as legal rights for gays. Its sole purpose is to strive for socialism and nothing but.

And what you don't seem to understand is that gay liberation is inseparable from the struggle for socialism - of course, not the sort of "socialism" Wohlforthite family-mongers like you desire.

You also dont seem to understand the point that it is being made about gay liberation by the SPGB comrades here. No one is denying that there is still prejudice against gays; all that is being asserted is that there is no legal discrimination against gays any more. (if there is then show me an example) In other words, such prejudice continues to exist despite the absence of legal discrimination against gays. In other words this is an attitude problem which is not going to be solved by further legal reform but by changing ideas which is what the SPGB is in the business of doing

First of all, your friend Dave never mentioned legal discrimination but relations in the workplace. So your attempt to salvage the situation has failed, and I still await his restriction. It would only be fair. Second, "attitude problem"? Oh fuck of, straight. We are talking about structural, systematic violence and you reduce it to an "attitude problem".

Finally, regarding your claim that the incompatibility of any sort of family with socialism has been established already by Engels. this is nonsense. Show me where Engels said such a thing . My guess is you are probably referring to his work "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State" and my further guess is that you imagine Engels is saying that these 3 institutions coincided in a temporal sense when they did not.

No, I do not imagine that they did, having actually read the work (which, as you note, is dated - in fact I would say the entire concept of primitive communism is on uncertain ground). And even if they did, that would prove nothing. The primitive classless society was not some primitive theophany of future communism, but a society that was too primitive - in terms of the development of the means of production - for classes. History is not T-invariant, and the only commonalities between communism and the primitive classless society will be the absence of classes. One might as well say that cities appeared with property (which they did), so cities will not exist in communism (which is blatantly incorrect).

The point is that Engels analyses the family, not as some abstract form, but in its economic role. Families ensure inheritance and create a supply of unpaid domestic and reproductive labour preformed by individual women. In socialism, there is no inheritance, and all labour is preformed socially. There is no material basis for the family, then.

[Dave B]

Today, LGBT citizens have most of the same legal rights as non-LGBT citizens and Britain provides one of the highest degrees of liberty in the world for its LGBT communities. In ILGA-Europe's 2014 review of LGBTI rights, Britain received the highest score in Europe, with 82% progress toward "respect of human rights and full equality."[2]…………LGBT rights organisations and very large LGBT communities have been built across the length and breath of Britain, most notably in Birmingham, Blackpool, Brighton, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester and Newcastle, which all host annual pride festivals.




An illustration of social attitudes towards homosexuality in the UK was provided in May 2007 in a survey by YouGov. The poll indicated that legislation outlawing discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation was supported by 90% of British citizens. It also showed positive public perceptions of gay people in particular, but recognised the extent to which prejudice still exists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_ri...United_Kingdom







It isn’t hard to find is it?


For what it matters some of the worst examples of persisting homophobia etc are found in Britians ‘ethnic minorities’.

Which part of the world do you live in Vincent?

[robbo203]

I have explained how the SPGB supported the British, which you haven't addressed.

You havent "explained" how the SPGB supported the British. You lied about the SPGB supporting the British. And you continue to lie about it. You are a lying little toerag who doesnt have a shred of personal integrity in your whole body. And most amazingly of all you continue to dig yourself ever deeper into a hole of your own making.

Your pathetic idiotic "explanation" consists in asserting that the SPGB supports the Mensheviks the Mensheviks supported the Whites and the Whites had the support of the British. Therefore the "SPGB supported the British". Every one of the links in this so called argument are false apart from the last one about the Whites and the British.

The SPGB did not and does not support the Mensheviks. It agrees with some of the analyses presented by some Mensheviks like Martov on the Bolshevik state capitalist dictatorship (which you support). The Mensheviks have been viewed by the SPGB in much the same light as they viewed the Second International in general - as irredeemably lost to the socialist cause having embraced reformism.

It was same with the SPGB view of Kautsky. The SPGB sussed out pretty early on that Kautsky had abandoned his revolutionary socialist postion. Neverthless he wrote some stuff of considerable value from a revolutionary socialist point of view - particularly his historical material such as the pamphlet I referred to which the SPGB published.

Can you not get it through your thick skull once and for all that because somebody writes something that you approve of that does not mean you endorse everything that person has ever said. Is that really so hard to understand or are you really as stupid as you appear to be?

[Rugged Collectivist]

I might be a little late on this one, but if class society is the material basis that props up the family, why address it specifically? It follows that the destruction of class society will precede the destruction of the family, so why agitate for something that can't happen until after the revolution anyway? And before someone tries to say "Then why should we agitate for the end of racism, or sexism, or homophobia?" we should agitate for these things because they can be helped (not cured, but helped) now, and they divide the working class against itself. Despite whatever delusions QV might hold, the vast majority of people are absolutely not opposed to the nuclear family. Again, this doesn't mean that we should support the family as an institution, it means that advocating the destruction of the family right now is premature. And if you think the absence of a "and we're gonna destroy the family!" (a demand which most people wouldn't even understand at this point) in this ad makes it unredeemable and useless, then you're the one with misplaced priorities and you're the one who's a bigger problem than the SPGB.

[Hrafn]

Someone please do remind me how the conflict between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks is in any way relevant to the SPGB's involvement in the European Parliament elections. I lost track somewhere inbetween all the vicious accusations and underhanded insults.

[Dave B]

Well it is quite simple really.

Orthodox Trotskyists like the Socialist Equality Party are also standing in the election.

Anybody who opposes them, like the SPGB, are deemed White-Guardist crypto-gaybashing Mensheviks who would be shot should they seize power.

[Lord Testicles]

The family is incompatible with socialism - if the family exists, socialism does not. If socialism does exist, the family doesn't.

Why? What is the reasoning which has brought you to this conclusion?

There will probably be no need to prohibit the family, just as today there is no need to prohibit uji clans.

Maybe today there isn't a need to prohibit clans but it's not like the clan system melted away with the approach of modernity. The Scottish clans at least had to be stomped out of existence by the British establishment after the Jacobite risings.