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In Australia, they are very small and are an annoyance and/or joke. They play no role in anything at all, and criticise and condemn anything anyone does -- my experience of them at picket lines is simply them walking up and down trying to force their newspaper on every person while denouncing the union, and this a left union. They actually suffered a split -- of one -- a few years back after one member actually wanted to put their rhetoric about opposing police violence against Aboriginal people into practice and... *organise a demonstration*. Such capitulation to petty-bourgeois reformism was unheard of for a Spart, and so the member, who went on to form The Trotskyist Platform, was roundly denounced for appealing to petty bourgeois radicals. Seriously. He called the rally, and invited pretty broad array of speakers, for 11am on a weekday, so this was used as evidence about the "social layers" he was appealing to... which was quite clearly NOT the organised working class! Of course, it is pretty common for protests of the Aboriginal community to occur during the day time given the huge disenfranchisment of the community means the unemployment rate is very high. Leave alone the fact the rally was only ever going to attract a few dozen people -- or maybe 100 at most. Not that there is anything wrong with that -- that was a 100 people who wouldn't have been at a protest unless this guy had gone out and organised it, but it was, for the Sparts, a damning example of capitulation to social opportunism. And you know, of course, that was the exact language used... The main thing the Sparts do is come up to you at rallies and try to get you to get a copy of their paper by denouncing some reformist sell-out of the organisation you are in. I once tried to get myself quoted int he Spart paper as a self-confessed reformist. There were terrible floods in Queensland in 2011 (I think?) in which state assistance to deal with it was badly needed and the Socialist Alliance called for Australian troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan and sent to the flood zones to help people instead, which was denounced as a reformist strengthening of the capitalist state. I tried to tell the Spart I that I *agreed* it was reformist and that I was in fact a proud reformist and that he could even quote me in his paper on it. I wanted to give him my name and everything. But the just stalked off muttering "but we already know you are!" I was disappointed, as it would have made my life to be quoted in the Spart paper confessing to reformism, but on the plus side, I have been mostly left alone by them at rallies since. Stuart On 13 February 2015 at 11:59, A.R. G via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > ***************************************************************** > > They used to show up at Bard College and distribute newspapers. They seemed > like a standard left group to me. And no, that isn't a compliment. > > - Amith > > On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 6:43 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism < > marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > > > ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** > > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > > ***************************************************************** > > > > On 2/12/15 6:27 PM, Einde O'Callaghan via Marxism wrote: > > > >> One of their "endearing" tactics that I experienced several times was > >> heckling speakers and generally disrupting other groups' meetings until > >> they were physically ejected and then organising petitions against "the > use > >> of violence in the workers' movement"! > >> > > > > 20 years ago they were more "influential", to be more generous to them > > than they deserve. Doug Henwood touted their newspaper as did Alexander > > Cockburn. But they were ultimately up against a sea change that was > taking > > place in the post-Soviet where the whole Soviet mystique had lost its > > attraction. Their whole stance was based on "defending the Soviet Union", > > which meant supporting the invasion of Afghanistan. There's a residue of > > that in their perverse backing of the KKE in Greece. To a large extent, > > there's a large element of contrarianism in their politics. Like Spiked > > Online but more in an ultraleft direction. I doubt that they have much > > purpose today except "intervening" at a mass meeting on Syriza, etc., > which > > I suppose is all they need to keep going. Rather thin fare if you ask me. > > > > _________________________________________________________ > > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > > Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/ > > options/marxism/amithrgupta%40gmail.com > > > _________________________________________________________ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/stuartmunckton%40gmail.com > -- “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man Under Socialism “The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
