A design classic

Another cracking Socialist Standard front cover from the Lancaster chaps. 

Click on the picture to read this month's Socialist Standard, which has particular focus on the forthcoming General Election:

 

 

Heaven can weight

Even if I live to the ripe old age of 97, I'll still insist that life is too short to do ironing.

In fact, those will be my final words . . . those and 'What the hell were the Socialist Standard editors thinking with that Elvis Presley animal rights front cover?'

The Long Honeymoon

No idea when the January 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard is out so, in the meantime, a blast from the past with this Socialist Standard front cover from July 1979.

I know the front cover is referring specifically to the Tories but who knew thirty plus years on that Thatcher would still be the apple of the eye of so many tens of millions.

The Editorial Committee of the Standard certainly didn't.

Next month's Socialist Standard

Another classic from design peeps over at the Standard. Kudos to Paddy and Neil.

Don't worry. It's coming . . .

January's Socialist Standard will be with you shortly.

The St Genevieve Day Massacre?

OK, this is the set up. Since they got beat 1-0 by Seville in early December, R*ngers league form has been as follows:

12th Dec R*ngers 3-0 St Johnstone

15th Dec Dundee Utd 0-3 R*ngers

19th Dec R*ngers 6-1 Motherwell

27th Dec Hibs 1-4 R*ngers

30th Dec R*ngers 7-1 Dundee Utd

That's 5 victories on the bounce, with 23 goals scored and only three conceded. They're leading the SPL by seven points having played one game more than Celtic but also have a goal difference advantage of +16. And stats like that mean something in the SPL.

They're that rampant at the moment that even Kenny Miller is scoring goals. I repeat: KENNY MILLER is scoring goals. He was as surprised as the rest of us and needed to rest his studs on Darren Dods shins, thus missing out on today's match.

Oh yeah, about today's match. Despite Celtic going into today's match on the back of that great escape from Vienna and recent form of 5 wins and 1 draw in their last six home games, it doesn't look good for us. A defence that is currently auditioning for Danny Baker's next football blooper dvd, and Boruc with aspirations to take on the starring role in a film of this footballing legend of yesteryear all adds up to what couild be known in future years as the St Genevieve Day Massacre.

And yet? And yet I haven't been as excited about an auld firm game in a long, long time. Like a Socialist Standard front cover it could be a thing of brilliance or an absolute disaster. I'll be smiling whatever happens. The only thing that could have made today better is if it had been played at Ibrox.

Mid-Manhattan, here I come.

'In the game of life that is monopoly, the Labour Party should be given the boot' Professor Plum

Another cracking front cover for next month's Socialist Standard from Paddy and Neil. They'll be missed when they step down from doing the layout of the Standard.

(Click pic to enlarge.)

That Elvis Presley cover!

I'm still messing

The Socialist Standard is so last year

Don't mind me. I'm just messing.

Separated at birth?

". . . Otherwise we would be like the SPGB standing on the sidelines for a 100+ years saying 'abolish money' and wondering why folk walk on by slightly bemused . . . "

Thus spake a Millie cadre over at Urban 75 only the other day.

He was half right. According to next month's Socialist Standard front cover, what we actually do from the sidelines is scream and shout 'IT'S ALIVE! We have to kill money.'

Is it just me or does Godzilla's next nemesis on a street near you look like a distant relative of 'Ciao', the 1990 World Cup mascot?

Click on both pics to get the full flavour of what I'm wittering on about.

That month's paper sale went down a storm outside Toys 'R' Us

Probably my favourite Socialist Standard front cover from the 1990s.

The SPGB website is still down . . .

. . . so, another random Socialist Standard front cover to while away the time.

Random Socialist Standard Front Cover . . .

. . . whilst the SPGB website is down.

Next Month's Socialist Standard

Going by the front cover of next month's Socialist Standard, it looks like it's going to be a cracker. But I would say that, wouldn't I? Shit, sorry, that line is more '63 than '68. (Ask your Gran what I'm alluding to.)

Believe or not, from what I can gather from comrades of a certain vintage, the SPGB wasn't as buttoned down in the late sixties as you might have first presumed. SPGB members were getting articles published in the underground magazine, OZ, some did the 'teach in' bit, and it was even rumoured that a member in the provinces knew all the words to Strawberry Alarm Clock's 'Incense and Peppermints'.

Of course, they didn't always get it right. Reproduced below is a few SPGB slogans, chants and situationst type graffiti scribblings from the late sixties that sadly didn't catch on. Maybe in 2068?

'What do we want? Everything? When do we want it? When everyone musters under the Party's banner.'

'Get out of your head and into your branch meeting.'

'If you're going to San Francisco Clapham High Street, be sure to bring back some bound volumes for the branch.'

'The personal is political . . . and I'm laying an action detrimental on your arse.'

'Power to the parliamentary majority.'

'Under the pavement lies a bevvied up Glasgow Branch member.'

'Be realistic, demand only six Socialist Standards to sell next month.'

'Run, comrade, the branch treasurer is behind you!'

'Those who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring to that Conference Resolution from 1907 have to submit an item for discussion for the next Autumn Delegate Meeting.'

To talk with the taste of a corpse in one's mouth means that we really should change pubs for future branch meetings.'

'Turn on, tune in, fall asleep during an EC meeting.'

'You can no longer sleep quietly once the delegate from South London branch gets onto the subject of the aristocracy of labour.'

'I've looked under chairs. I've looked under tables. I tried to find the key to the literature room. They call me The Seeker. I've been searching low and high. I won't get to get what I'm after until the Head Office Organiser gets back from the Manor Arms.'

'Before writing, learn to think. Before thinking, do you want to write next month's Socialist Standard editorial?'

'Are you a consumer or a participant? Do you want to buy the Socialist Standard or sell it?'

Comrades, 5 hours of sleep a day is indispensable: we need longer EC meetings.'

'We don’t want to be the watchdogs or servants of capitalism, but please do sign me up for the Standing Orders Committee.'

'Form dream committees. Let's try again to come up with a Party logo.'

'When the last sociologist has been hung with the guts of the last bureaucrat, the Central Organiser will have to wind up Lancaster Branch.'

'Politics is in the streets. Let's head back to Head Office for a cup of tea and a natter.'

Where have all the good jokes gone?'

'Take revolution seriously, but don’t take yourself seriously.'

Oh wait up, the last one was a genuine piece of graffiti from Paris in '68. Pseudo-revolutionary middle class bollocks.

Further Reading:

From the Bureau of Public Secrets - MAY 1968 GRAFFITI

From the December 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard - Hippies: An abortion of Socialist Understanding

Resting, Not Absconding

The lack of picture in the top left hand of the blog is due to the fact that the World Socialist Movement website is currently down. I'd love to claim sabotage or an exceeded bandwidth has temporarily crippled the cause of impossibilist socialism, but it's probably more down to a "The cheque is in the post" type scenario.

In case some SPGB anoraks are suffering withdrawal symptoms, I thought I'd post an old Socialist Standard cover as a stop gap. It holds a special vice like grip on my heart, 'cos it was the first Socialist Standard I ever got my grubby little mitts on.

The little matter of a three line advert in the back pages of the New Musical Express, coupled with the mid-eighties being a shit time for music - "Mmm, will I read a three page article on the Age of Chance or write off for a introductory pack about a political party I've never heard of?" - led me to the fateful decision that day of dipping my toe into the murky waters of abstract propagandism. Falling in - and never learning to swim - I've been waving and drowning in equal measure ever since.

OK, I need to get back to working on that time machine to take me back to that fateful day in 1986 but, in the meantime, here's a couple of articles from the above issue and an mp3 from the same month that fuelled the teenage political angst:

'Jewish Anarchists'

'Bar Room Rebels'

The The - 'Heartland' mp3

Socialist Standard Gets a Revamp

January 2008 brings with it a revamped and expanded Socialist Standard. Check it out now, 'cos you never know when I will get round to posting the contents on the blog.

Beyond Photoshop: The Socialist Standard Cover is For Real

Weekly Bulletin of The Socialist Party of Great Britain (23)

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the 23rd of our weekly bulletins to keep you informed of changes at Socialist Party of Great Britain @MySpace.

We now have 1033 friends!

Recent blogs:

Reformism or Socialism?

Saving Earth or saving Profits

The BNP: a product of reformism's failure

This week's top quote:

"Nature builds no machines, no locomotives, railways, electric telegraphs, self-acting mules etc. These are products of human industry; natural material transformed into organs of the human will over nature, or of human participation in nature. They are organs of the human brain, created by the human hand; the power of knowledge, objectified. The development of fixed capital indicates to what degree general social knowledge has become a direct force of production, and to what degree, hence, the conditions of the process of social life itself have come under the control of the general intellect and been transformed in accordance with it." Karl Marx, The Grundrisse, 1857

Continuing luck with your MySpace adventures!

Robert and Piers

Socialist Party of Great Britain

Random Socialist Standard Front Cover On A Sunday Morning

August 1981

Random Socialist Standard Front Cover On A Wednesday Morning

Socialist Standard November 1984