Nip, tuck and more links for your buck

The Socialism Or Your Money Back blog has had a facelift, and it looks the business. You should check it out. (A few glitches here and there but it wouldn't be the SPGB if there weren't a few glitches.)

Recent posts of interest on the blog include:

Pocket Money - Tackling the taxation issue

The Stinking Rich - The Forbes Rich List needs an airing

Union busting - Lost in the supermarket.

12 Reasons Why The Zeitgeist Movement Could Fail - Some SPGBers are getting all giddy about the Zeitgeist Movement. I guess it happens.

The Great Money Trick - A classic passage from Tressell's Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.

And a regular feature of the Socialism Or Your Money Blog is the inclusion of articles from the Socialist Standard which have not previously been made available on the web.

Articles of note include:

Report on Clydeside - Posted on the blog in the aftermath of the recent death of Jimmy Reid, an article from the December 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Aneurin Bevan - Fifty years since the death of Bevan, and an article from the August 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard captures the charisma of the man.

Noam Chomsky - Rights & Lefties - And a more recent article from the August 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard. Not the total smackdown of Chomsky that some seasoned SPGB watchers might have expected. There are a few jabs in the piece but it's not wholly unsympathetic to Chomsky and where he's coming from. I guess the hostility clause was taking a time out that night.

Capitalism and Michael Moore

A short review of Michael Moore's 'Capitalism: A Love Story' over at the Socialism Or Your Money Back blog.

Apparently the review is going to be distributed as a leaflet when the film gets a nationwide release in the UK at the end of this month.

News from the shithouse

Is this response to a recent post on the Socialism Or Your Money Back blog, a strong early contender for blog comment of the year?:

"Thomas More speculated that chamber pots and Lenin that public urinals would be made of gold once money was abolished. Might work because of gold's anti-corrosive properties."

Surely Marx had a view on such weighty matters or did the carbuncles colour his judgement?

Truth that hurts

I'll hazard a guess that Alan J over at the SPGB blog, Socialism Or Your Money Back, got a few bound volumes for his Xmas 'cos he's been peppering the blog in recent weeks with reprints from the pages of the Socialist Standard.

If you ask him nicely he might post that classic mid-eighties review of Our Favourite Shop. In the meantime, here's a smattering of his reposts:

Communist Commotion (1957 article on the sorry history of the British CP.)

Walking the Plank (1932 article on the expulsion of JT Murphy from the CP.)

Is Nicaragua Socialist? (No, not Latin Quarter's follow up single to Radio Africa. A 1987 article from the Standard.)

Chile: myth and reality (An article from '73.)

Background to Cuba (An article from 1961. Kennedy in the White House and Paddy Crerand still at Parkhead.)

Russia's Afghan Hound (1980 article on . . . you can guess.)

Solidarity, the Market and Marx (As I posted yesterday about Ian Bone's youthful days in Solidarity in South Wales, I have to include this 1973 Socialist Standard article about Solidarity that was penned by a socialist originally from South Wales.)

There's a shed load more of old articles from the Socialist Standard over at the SOYMB blog, but as Kara just called and wants the kettle on, I'll let you find them for yourself.

A novel approach to politics

Back to the Socialist Standard.

There are long term plans to digitise every issue of the Socialist Standard going back to September 1904, in order that they can be made available online for anyone and everyone to read but, in the meantime, the work of posting articles of interest from old Socialist Standards falls on the shoulders of a few members who do the work off their own bat.

So, therefore, kudos to my old Central London Branch mucker Rob S for recently posting on the Socialism Or Your Money Back blog three old articles from the Socialist Standard on novelists and thinkers who have been of interest to socialists going back several decades:

From the March 1971 issue of the Standard, Robert Barltrop's review of the (then) recently published paperback version of the four volumed collected essays, journalism and letters of George Orwell: Coming up for Orwell

From the May 1987 issue of the Standard, Carl Pinel's Leo Tolstoy: author and anarchist

And from the November 1973 Standard, Paul Bennett's Camus: Portrait of a 'Rebel'

It'll come as no surprise to seasoned SPGB watchers that of three authors under discussion, Tolstoy comes out best from the three review essays. (Though with obvious qualification.)

To be honest, despite being a long term fan of Barltrop as a writer, I'm rather disappointed by the tone of his article on Orwell. A bit too sniffy and vinegary for my liking. Maybe, as someone who had just returned to the SPGB after ten years of other political activity, he was playing to a particular gallery a bit.

I much prefer both Brian Rubin's article on Orwell from the December 1983 Socialist Standard and (I believe) Les Dale's article on the Political Ideas of Orwell from the October 1986 issue of the Standard.

Of course Orwell knew about the SPGB. As an avowed anti-Stalinist writer and journalist in London in the 30s and 40s how could he have not crossed paths with the SPGB? There is the mention in passing to the SPGB in the aforementioned Collected Essays but it's also the case that I remember from a few years back a comrade mentioning that when he looked at Orwell's collected papers for research purposes in London they contained a number of SPGB pamphlets, with scribblings in the margins.

I wish now that I'd asked him what Party pamphlets were in Orwell's collected papers and what were those damn scribbles.

Listening In

Socialism Or Your Money Back blog carries a nice wee piece about the late, great Studs Terkel.

On a life support

The SPGB's blog, Socialism Or Your Money Back, has finally got round to reviewing Michael Moore's 'Sicko':

The American Patient

Next month will see an exclusive review of Dr Finlay's Casebook.