The postal workers dispute and the role of the left

[merson01]

Britain: The postal workers dispute and the role of “leftâ€

[IWW Fellow Worker]

Not a bad article, but no so good as you needed to post it three times. Makes me glad I'm not a Trotskyist though. You'd fight each other in a burning house.

[norbet colon]

Not a bad article, but no so good as you needed to post it three times. Makes me glad I'm not a Trotskyist though. You'd fight each other in a burning house.

try having a Trotskyist with you 24/7 ,that was chalk & cheese , never again , better off in a Monastery !, they certainly love arguements those splitters

[IWW Fellow Worker]

Not a bad article, but no so good as you needed to post it three times. Makes me glad I'm not a Trotskyist though. You'd fight each other in a burning house.

try having a Trotskyist with you 24/7 ,that was chalk & cheese , never again , better off in a Monastery !, they certainly love arguements those splitters

Still, better them than the fash mate!

[Caveman]

Now that the left has been attacked, any chance of saying what you're doing to build the members for the coming pensions and local flexibility disputes? Or even attacking the Government and Royal Mail managment? Please? As a trot, I get sick of sects whinging at each other. Surely as lefties we argue firstly against the system? The other side is very well organised. Arranging coposite motions to conference? Members meetings? etc etc etc

[Tman]

Is anyone still being taken in by all this old toffee?
Is there anyone left who still thinks that the old Left wing sects like SWP etc are anything other than talking shops for the romantics and disaffected?
In fact, like the Flat Earthers, do they have ANY relevance as a political force in the 21 century, given that their aims are so divergent from just about everyone else in society?
The SWP were seen as laughable even back in the 1970s. The Austin All-aggro of political groups, no less.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

My personal opinion is with Labour coming out over the last few years and showing us their true colours, the left should be trying harder to overcome their differences and become true representatives of the working class. From an outsiders point of view most of the infighting seems to be about personalities and the method of change but the actual policies seem to be roughly the same.

[IWW Fellow Worker]

Now that the left has been attacked, any chance of saying what you're doing to build the members for the coming pensions and local flexibility disputes? Or even attacking the Government and Royal Mail managment? Please? As a trot, I get sick of sects whinging at each other. Surely as lefties we argue firstly against the system? The other side is very well organised. Arranging coposite motions to conference? Members meetings? etc etc etc

My own view is that Trotsky and Lenin were a couple of tyrants, but I don't see individual members of Trot groups as my enemy. I could say the same for disciples of Bakunin and Count Peter Kropotkin. No, the political enemies of the working class remain what they have been for generations - the capitalists and their lackeys in the Labour Party and the leadership of the Trade Unions, strike breakers, screws, so-called businessmen like the parasites we've got running Royal Mail, immoral industrial octopuses like Murdoch, racists, religious bigots, criminals and the like.
As for the left, once certain groups realise that not every campaign should be treated as a recruiting drive and every article should be seen as a points scoring opportunity (Merson!) we might start seeing a bit of co operation.

[Tman]

No, the political enemies of the working class remain what they have been for generations - the capitalists and their lackeys in the Labour Party and the leadership of the Trade Unions,

Bizzare thing to say. The unions and labour Party have done infinitely more for the working man than all the Far left dreamers put together, and then some.
In fact, I can't think of ANYTHING the SWP and other such groups have EVER achieved for the working man.
Still, talk is cheap, as they say.

[IWW Fellow Worker]

I can't even be bothered replying to anyone who still thinks Labour have anything to offer after the last ten years. I just can't take stooges like that seriously.

[Tman]

I can't even be bothered replying to anyone who still thinks Labour have anything to offer after the last ten years. I just can't take stooges like that seriously.

On reflection, I wish I hadn't replied and justified your post either, as you're either a wind-up-merchant or deluded, but in reply to the post of yours, (as quoted above), whatever you think of Blair or Brown is irrelevant as you stated originally that Labour and the union officials have been the "enemies" for "generations" ie decades, and New Labour haven't been in power for that long. Or is it a little goalpost realignment to cover the silly-bollix statement?
Maybe I'll be generous, and "deluded" it is then.

[IWW Fellow Worker]

My personal opinion is with Labour coming out over the last few years and showing us their true colours.

The Labour Party have quite a long history of showing their true colours. Going back to the 1930s, they expelled their members for volunteering to go to Spain to fight the fascists. In 1945, the newly elected Labour Government gave official recognition to the fascist Government of Franco, who was busy helping Hitler just months before. Their human rights record in former colonies is worse than even the Tories and Wilson gave aid to the USA during its senseless war against the people of Viet Nam (see the books of Mark Curtis). Then there was the social contract during the 70s. There's nothing new about New Labour. The Labour Party has been pandering to the middle-class for years and although it used to have some socialists in membership, it much prefers Shaun Woodward, Allan Leighton and backhanders from its millionaire mates.

[Tman]

The Labour Party have quite a long history of showing their true colours. Going back to the 1930s, they expelled their members for volunteering to go to Spain to fight the fascists. In 1945, the newly elected Labour Government gave official recognition to the fascist Government of Franco, who was busy helping Hitler just months before. Their human rights record in former colonies is worse than even the Tories and Wilson gave aid to the USA during its senseless war against the people of Viet Nam (see the books of Mark Curtis).

So, the hard fought battles the unions have engaged in for hundreds of years, and the advances secured by the Labour Party since it's formation, are all to be discarded and dismissed by snippets of alleged foreign policy failures or mistakes, and some bloke's book on Viet-Nam?
Now that IS bizarre!
Still, I'll play along. So, what have the Far left achieved in any of the various dreamy incarnations they've indulged themselves in?
I would be interested to know.
{BTW it's on record that Harold Wilson told LBJ to "piss off and fight his own colonial wars" when asked for help by the US when they were bogged down in Viet-nam, so is this another attempt by some hack (Curtis) to rewrite history?}

[IWW Fellow Worker]

I would advise posters to inform themselves of the facts rather than the opinions of right-wing apologists. The trade union movement as we know it only came about during the 1880s when 'new unionism' began to organise those outside of 'craft unions'. There is no "hundreds of years" history of trade union battles with employers. All the advances made by trade unions have come because of pressure from the rank and file and not because of the leaders of the movement. Anyone who is ill-informed enough to imagine Britiain's foreign policy under Labour was anything other than a disaster for millions of people from India to Ireland isn't to be taken seriously. All it takes is a visit to the library for anyone with more than a passing interest in Labour's role in the world to inform themselves of the facts. John Pilger's books are a good staring point. As for Viet Nam, Britain had 'military advisers' there from 1961 and by the mid-60s, the SAS were carrying out operations alongside US military personnel because the Labour Cabinet thought the war was "winnable".
We don't have to travel as far as Viet Nam to see how the Labour Party had dumped on the working class in these islands. We all know of school closures, ward closures, transport cuts, illegal wars, bungs from millionaire backers. Ignore the Labour Party stooges. There is enough information available for anyone to draw their own conclusions about Labour.

[Tman]

Yeah, you said.
Now, remind me again of the benefits so-called the Hard Left have ever achieved for the average Joe?
Note, providing a free supply of toilet paper nominally called the "Socialist Worker" doesn't count here.