SWP “rape” dispute on Youtube
The SWP crisis, caused by their leadership’s dreadful mishandling of rape allegations against “Comrade Delta,” has now reached Youtube, thanks to a dissident young comrade (who is, it has to be said, a terrible singer):
Meanwhile, here is The Leadership’s response to the allegations and criticism…
Shiraz Socialist 
Roger McCarthy (@RF_McCarthy) said,
January 30, 2013 at 1:23 pm
You know a relationship is in real trouble when an argument over a quite specific thing turns into a long vituperative ‘and another thing’ litany.
And this is precisely what Callinicos is doing – he can’t defend the indefensible so he goes into a general attack on the rest of the left (now including the internal SWP opposition such as it now is) designed to challenge the very idea that they have a right to criticise.
But at one level I almost sympathise.
What drives me to despair is precisely the left’s inability to transcend what Carl Schmitt calls political romanticism: the striking of grandiose rhetorical attitudes which cost nothing and produce not any real change in the outside world but a warm sense of personal self-satisfaction that one can care and feel so deeply,
And as if I understand him correctly (and I am sure our Gelid Comrade can put me right if I don’t) Zizek argues the one thing Leninism is not is romantic in Schmitt’s sense.
On the contrary it takes responsibiliity and does things – sometimes terrible and monstrous things – but things that do change the world for better or worse,
And for all its absurd rodomontades and literally fantastic sense of its own world-historic significance because it is an undemocratic Leninist cult the SWP can (or at least once could) make some real dents in the world – not big and decisive changes and certainly not always positive ones – but changes nevertheless that can only be achieved by people who get off their arses, leave the keyboard behind and go out in the streets and attend boring business meetings and above all obey orders.
The same was true of the CPGB which was precisely why the middle class entrists who captured it in the eighties dissolved it as a Leninist party (using of course the very tools of Leninism itself to do so) and reconfigured it as a series of pressure groups and think tanks in which they could comfortably debate and research and make secure careers for themselves without ever having to get up early to sell newspapers or stand on a picket line or attend a boring union meeting.
And Callinicos will it seems accept any merely personal injustice to prevent his party from going down that road – and if this is his position as somebody who has a cushy academic job and can walk away without serious consequences how much further must the hard core of paid apparatchiks who have no lives and no future outside of the party be willing to go to preserve it?
Andrew Coates said,
January 30, 2013 at 5:16 pm
ANy sympathy I might have had for any of the CCdried up a few minutes ago when I read a pathetic attack from somebody in the SWP in one of their bulletins on our local Trades Council, including the President, who died last year.
Good AWL piece by Martin (which I linked to).
My latest.http://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/swp-callinicos-wrong-on-nouveau-parti-anticapitaliste/
Andrew Coates said,
February 1, 2013 at 11:31 am
This is what I was referring to: http://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/swp-fighting-the-socialist-party-ipswich-trades-council-and-the-dangerous-left/
As they become cornered this anti-trade union behaviour by the SWP may well become more and more common.
Boleyn Ali said,
January 30, 2013 at 1:38 pm
Best point on the SWP stuff so far from Paul Anderson
“The SWP left Respect and jettisoned the two leading figures most responsible for the Islamist turn, John Rees and Lindsay German, who now run a website-cum-party called Counterfire”.
That You Tube thing is utter crap
daggi said,
January 30, 2013 at 8:10 pm
“Website-cum-party”?
Is that an event on at Firebox, attendance only to those on the “fuck circuit”?
Monsuer Jelly More Bounce to the Ounce (Much More Bounce) said,
January 30, 2013 at 1:48 pm
The twat behind that yootube deserved to be expelled from the SWPPIEz
cjcjc said,
January 30, 2013 at 5:09 pm
The bourgeoisie will take a great deal of comfort in knowing that this is the sort of “revolutionary” they will be up against!
Starsqui Hutch (@starsqui) said,
January 30, 2013 at 5:49 pm
I don’t understand why he starts singing all of a sudden. Is this something from Les Miserables, with adapted lyrics?
My favourite bit is when he fears that leaving the SWP might condemn him to political irrelevance.
daggi said,
January 30, 2013 at 8:11 pm
I assumed that was irony. Oh, hang on….
Michael Ezra (@MichaelEzra) said,
January 30, 2013 at 6:05 pm
We want more!
Jim Denham said,
January 30, 2013 at 6:17 pm
I just knew that clip would go down well in all sorts of quarters, and for all sorts of reasons…something for everyone, eh?
Zarathustra said,
January 30, 2013 at 6:21 pm
Admirable sentiments. Pity about the singing.
Matilda (@felis_tillus) said,
January 30, 2013 at 7:09 pm
I agree, this is excellent and bizarre in equal measure. We want more!
daggi said,
January 30, 2013 at 8:13 pm
Will he join the WRP? In the “Newsline” recently they complained that Equity Central London branch was prevented by the union leadership from passing a motion to politically and financially support one of their “Councils of Action” to fight capitalism, the state, and hospital cuts.
The Equity member quoted, disagreeing with the union leadership, was called Charlie Chuckes. It certainly made me laugh (a little bit).
One of the Chuckle Brothers a Trot?
Uncivilised Servant said,
January 30, 2013 at 11:19 pm
Encore!