For my one reader in Norfolk:
Showing posts with label Socialist Party Meetings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Socialist Party Meetings. Show all posts
Friday, October 08, 2010
Saturday, September 04, 2010
SPGB Meeting: Hunter, Fisherman, Shepherd and Critic
One for your diary:
And the accompanying blurb:
Hunter, Fisherman, Shepherd, Critic: Karl Marx's Vision of the Free IndividualA lot of nonsense is talked about Karl Marx, most of it from people who have never read him.
Many consider his work to be discredited by the dictatorial regimes that were set up in his name. But what did Karl Marx actually have to say?
Was he in favour of dictatorship? Did he think that the state should impose dull uniformity, rigid regimentation and boring work on its citizens? Did he think that human nature and talents should be suppressed in the name of equality and altruism and for the benefit of a collectivity?
No. In fact, Karl Marx's driving passion his whole life was the free development of the individual. Karl Marx was not opposed to the capitalist ideas of choice, liberty and individual freedom. He supported the ideas, but opposed the society that prevented them becoming a reality.
He wanted to be able "to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic".
In this talk, we will consider whether Karl Marx's vision of the free individual is just an idle dream, or something that could actually be achieved. And if so, how?
Speaker: Stuart Watkins
All welcome.
Free entry. Free discussion. Free refreshments.
I'm sure it will be an excellent talk. The speaker at the meeting is an excellent writer for both the Socialist Standard, and his personal blog, Big Chief Tablets.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Business Growth in Conflict With the Environment
Film of a Socialist Party talk given by Glenn Morris in London on the 3rd July 2010. You can access all five parts of the talk here.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Socialist Meeting in London: Class struggle and climate change
SPGB public meeting
"Class struggle and climate change - the politics of personal consumption."
"We keep being told, these days, to reduce, re-use and recycle, to cut down on the meat, the car, the pets and the foreign holidays, to turn down, switch off, unplug and stand-by. The moral pressure-front of climate change is firmly upon us, yet when we take a look at the figures we find that the domestic share of consumption and waste is a small part of the overall picture, and that the lion's share is neither in our control nor even in the control of governments. It is in the hands of the tiny percentage of the Earth's population whom luck or inheritance have made into the super-rich. These are the people defecating on the global doorstep and then blaming the rest of us for the smell.
It's enough to make any class-conscious worker spit and say to hell with recycling. But that would be a big mistake."
Speaker: Paddy Shannon
Saturday, June 19th
6pm
The Socialist Party Head Office,
52 Clapham High Street,
London SW4 7UN.
(nearest tubes: Clapham North and Clapham Common.)
Sunday, April 11, 2010
"Click on the links or I drop the doll!"
Weekly Bulletin of The Socialist Party of Great Britain 145
Dear Friends,
Welcome to the 145th our weekly bulletins to keep you informed of changes at Socialist Party of Great Britain @ MySpace.
We now have 1565 friends!
Recent blogs:
Working for a different and better world Election Madness How would you like your capitalism served?
Coming Events,
all open to the public:
Can politicians save the planet?
- Election Forum with Frank Simpkins, Vincent Otter, Glenn Morris and Danny Lambert.
Saturday 17 April, 6.00pm
The Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High St, London SW4 7UN.
The Election: which way to vote?
Saturday 17 April, 1pm - 4pm
Room 7, City Library,
33 New Bridge Street, Newcastle, NE1 8AX (two minutes walk from Monument Metro)
The Election: what's wrong with politics?
- Speaker: Adam Buick
Tuesday 20 April, 8pm
Committee Room, Chiswick Town Hall,
Heathfield Terrace, London W4.
Elections: do they have to be like this?
Saturday 24 April, 1pm - 4pm
Albert Room, Victoria Hotel,
Great George St, Leeds, LS1 3DL
Discussion on Poverty
Monday 26 April, 8.30 pm
Unicorn,
Church Street, Manchester City CentreInformal chat / branch business
Saturday, 8th May, 12pm - 4pm
Quebec Tavern, 93-97 Quebec Road,
Norwich NR1 4HY
Capitalism isn't working for you - is there an alternative?
Saturday 8th May from 1pm to 5pm
Community Central Halls,
304 Maryhill Road, Glasgow
(During the afternoon free light refreshments will be available.)
1pm The Basic Cause of Present Day Problems, Vic Vanni (Glasgow)
2.15pm The Failure of Reformist Solutions, John Cumming (Glasgow)
3.35pm The Socialist Alternative, Paul Bennett (Manchester)
Future Visions - The Socialist Party Summer School
23rd - 25th July, Fircroft College, Birmingham.
Quote for the week:
"All forms of the state have democracy for their truth, and for that reason are false to the extent that they are not democracy." Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, 1843
Continuing luck with your MySpace adventures!
Robert and Piers
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Radical Film Forum - 'Matewan'
From John Sayles's book, 'Thinking in Pictures: the making of the movie Matewan (1987)
Why Matewan?
There's no place in America like the hills of West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. There'll be a river, usually fast running and not too wide, and on the flatland along its banks a railroad track and maybe a little town, only two or three streets deep before the land starts rising up steep all around you. You've got to look straight up to see the sky and often there's a soft mist shrouding the holler. The hills hug around you - stay inside of them for a while and a flat horizon seems cold and unwelcoming. It's always been a hard life there, with not enough bottomland to farm and no easy way to get manufactured goods in or out of the area. The cash crops had to be torn out from the ground, first timber and then coal. It's a land that doesn't yield anything easily.
In the late sixties I hitchhiked through the area several times and most of the people who gave me rides were coal miners or people with mining in their families. They spoke with a mixture of pride and resignation about the mining - resignation about how dark and dirty and cold and wet and dangerous it was and pride that they were the people to do it, to do it well. The United Mine Workers were going through heavy times then. Their president, Tony Boyle, was accused of having his election opponent, Jock Yablonski, murdered. The coal companies and most of the political machinery that fed on them and even the UAW hierarchy denied even the existence of black lung disease and refused any compensation for it. All this was added to the usual mine accidents and disasters and wild fluctuations in coal prices. But every miner I talked to would shake his head and say, "Buddy, this ain't nothin compared to what used to go on. I could tell you some stories." The stories would be about their grandfathers and uncles and fathers and mothers, and the older men would tell their own stories from when they were young. The stories had a lot of Old West to them, only set in those embracing hills and coffinlike seams of three-foot coal. It was a whole hunk of our history I'd never heard of, that a lot of people had never heard of.
In 1977 I wrote a novel called Union Dues that begins in West Virginia coal country and moves to Boston. Before I wrote it I did a lot of reading in labor history, especially about the coal fields, and that was when I came across the story of the Matewan Massacre. In a book about the Hatfield and McCoy feud in Mingo County, there was a mention of a distant cousin of the Hatfields named Sid, chief of police of the town of Matewan, who was involved in a bloody shoot-out in 1920, during the mine wars of the era. It got me interested, but accounts of the incident were few and highly prejudiced. The rhetoric of both the company-controlled newspapers of the day and their counterparts on the political left was rich in lurid metaphor but short on eyewitness testimony. But a few characters stuck in my head - Sid Hatfield; the mayor, Cabell Testerman, who wouldn't be bought at a time when the coal companies routinely paid the salaries of public officials and expected their strike breakers to be deputized and aided in busting the union; a man known only as Few Clothes, a giant black miner who joined the strikers and was rumored to have fought in the Spanish-American War; and C.E. Lively, a company spy so skilled he was once elected president of a UMW local. Aspects and details of other union showdowns in the area also began to accumulate - and transportations of blacks from Alabama and European immigrants just off the boat to scab against the strikers; the life of the coal camp and company store; the feudal system of mine guards and "Baldwin thugs" that enforced the near slavery the miners and their families lived in. All the elements and principles involved seemed basic to the idea of what America has become and what it should be. Individualism versus collectivism, the personal and political legacy of racism, the immigrant dream and the reality that greeted it, monopoly capitalism, at its most extreme versus American populism at its most violent, plus a lawman with two guns strapped on walking to the centre of town to face a bunch of armed enforcers - what more could you ask for in a story? And yet it was a story unknown to most Americans, untold on film but for a silent short financed by the UMW in the aftermath of the massacre. The movie was called Smilin' Sid and the only known print was stolen by coal company agents and never seen again.
Though there were familiar Western elements to the story, it had a unique character because of its setting. The hills of West Virginia, the people and the music have a mood and rhythm to them that need to be seen and heard to be felt completely. There is a cyclical sense of time there, a feeling of inescapable fate that in the story resists the optimism and progressive collectivism of the 1920s workers' movement. Politics are always at the mercy of human nature and custom, and the coal wars of the twenties were so personal that they make ideology accessible in a story, make it immediate and emotional. It was this emotional immediacy that made me think of making a movie about the events in Matewan.
If storytelling has a positive function it's to put us in touch with other people's lives, to help us connect and draw strength or knowledge from people we'll never meet, to help us see beyond our own experience. The people I read about in the history books and people I met in the hills of Kentucky and West Virginia had important stories to tell and I wanted to find a way to pass them on.
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Socialist Meeting in London: Social Change and Class Interest
Socialist Party public meeting
Social Change and Class Interest
Speaker: Pat Deutz
Sunday, October 4th
6pm
The Socialist Party Head Office,
52 Clapham High Street,
London SW4 7UN.
(nearest tubes: Clapham North and Clapham Common.)
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Somebody's been reading Marcuse . . .
Socialist Party public meeting
“The free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves”
Speaker: Danny Lambert
Sunday, September 6th
6pm
The Socialist Party Head Office,
52 Clapham High Street,
London SW4 7UN.
(nearest tubes: Clapham North and Clapham Common.)
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Socialist Meeting in London: Marx, Myth and Money
The Socialist Party
Presents
Marx, Myth and Money
Speaker: Pat Deutz
Saturday, August 29th
7pm
The Socialist Party Head Office,
52 Clapham High Street,
London SW4 7UN.
(nearest tubes: Clapham North and Clapham Common.)
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Socialist Meeting in Glasgow: Why the SNP Must Fail
Glasgow Branch of the Socialist Party
Presents
Why the SNP Must Fail
Speaker: Vic Vanni
In his talk the speaker will look at the birth of the SNP and why it’s nickname was "The Tartan Tories” and he will explain how the SNP was transformed from the mere handful it had been until the late 1950s to the major political force it is in Scotland today.
The speaker will also look at the conflict which raged in the SNP for decades between the traditionalists and the pragmatists and why the triumph of the latter paved the way for this rags-to-riches transformation.
The SNP can hardly wait for the next General Election when it expects to make the substantial gains, probably at the expense of Labour, which it hopes will be a major step towards their goal of a fully independent Scotland.
Could this happen at some point in the future and would it be in the interests of the working class in Scotland if it did?
Wednesday, August 19th
8:30pm
Community Central Halls,
304 Maryhill Road.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
'(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Socialist Understanding?'
The Socialist Party is standing a full list of 8 candidates in the London Region in the coming elections to the European Parliament on 4 June.
Two meetings have been arranged so far.
SUNDAY 17 MAY at 6.00pm
YOUR CHANCE TO VOTE FOR WORLD SOCIALISM
Speakers: Tristan Miller and Danny Lambert (candidates)
at 52 Clapham High Street, SW4 (nearest tube: Clapham North). All welcome. Refreshments available.
TUESDAY 19 MAY at 8,00pm
EUROCAPITALISM OR WORLD SOCIALISM?
Speakers: Adam Buick and Simon Wigley (candidates)
Committee Room, Chiswick Town Hall, Heathfield Terrace W4 (nearest tube: Chiswick Park)
You can follow the progress of the campaign via our election blog, Vaux Populi.
Our election manifesto can be read at the following link.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Capitalism in Crisis: A May Day School for Socialism
The Socialist Party is holding a dayschool on the current crisis this Saturday 2 May at its offices at 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 (nearest tube: Clapham North).
Programme with approximate timings:-
10.30 Welcome visitors
11.00 First session with Brian Gardner - Capitalism and Economics
- Chair Richard Field
11.45 Discussion
12.45 Lunch
14.00 Second Session with Gwynn Thomas -- Capitalism, Resources & the Environment
- Chair Fraser Anderson
14.45 Discussion
15.45 Tea Break
16.15 Third Session with Simon Wigley - Capitalism and Society
- Chair Tristan Miller
17.00 Discussion
18.00 Close
ALL WELCOME.
ADMISSION FREE
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Socialist Party debate: 'Should capitalism have a future?'
PUBLIC DEBATE
Thursday 23 April, 7.30
Yes: John Meadowcroft (Author of 'The Ethics of the Market')
No: Richard Headicar (Socialist Party)
Thursday 23 April, 7.30
SHOULD CAPITALISM HAVE A FUTURE?
Yes: John Meadowcroft (Author of 'The Ethics of the Market')
No: Richard Headicar (Socialist Party)
Brockway Room, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Socialist Party Public Meeting
The next in the fortnightly series of films and talks at the Socialist Party's Head Office, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 will take place this Saturday, 28 February, at 6pm.
It will be a showing of a short, 20-minute film "The Story of Stuff". Afterwards Pat Deutz will open a discussion on how to organise the production and distribution of "stuff" directly for use without markets or money instead of, as a present, for sale on a market with a view to profit.
Everybody is welcome and admission is free. The nearest tube is Clapham North on the Northern Line.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
St Valentine's Day Mass'concur?
Socialist Party debate with the UK Independence Party
Saturday 14 February, at 6pm
52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN
(Nearest Tube Stations, Clapham North and Clapham Common.)
"British Jobs for British Workers?" will be a topic of debate on Saturday 14 February between Magnus Nielsen, of the UK Independence Party, and Danny Lambert, of the Socialist Party which has its offices at 52 Clapham High Street where the debate will take place.
UKIP wants Britain to leave the EU. The Socialist Party wants a world without frontiers. Elections to the European Parliament take place on 5 June.
Magnus Nielsen will be arguing that everyone in Britain has a common interest and should go it alone against the rest of the world. Danny Lambert will be arguing that workers in this country have more in common with workers in other countries than with employers in Britain, and that there is no national solution to global problems such as the environment, wars and, now, the world-wide depression.
The debate starts at 6pm and admission is free.
For more information, contact spgb@worldsocialism.org or visit the SPGB website.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Have we evolved to make money?
ON SATURDAY, 22nd NOVEMBER AT 6.00PM
'Have we evolved to make money?'
Bill Martin of the Socialist Party debates with Dr.Terence Kealey (Author of Sex, Science & Profits)
BIRKBECK COLLEGE, (Room 407)
Malet Street, London. WC1
(nearest tubes: Goodge St & Russell Square)
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
A rolling Bone gathers no Moss
The title of the post comes courtesy of Robert of MySpace SPGB fame (as does the links below).
In 8-parts, the links to the YouTube clips of the Socialist Party's 20th October debate with Class War's Ian Bone on the subject of 'Which Way to Revolution?'
Debating for the Socialist Party was Swansea Branch's Howard Moss and in the chair for the meeting was a fellow SPGB blogger. (Mentioning no names. Providing no links. You'll have to guess for yourself.)
I've yet to watch the debate in full myself but I thought I'd post it up asap because H over at Cactus Mouth Informer was asking after it a few weeks back.
You can also download an audio version of the debate over here if you're more the iPod type of armchair activist.
Pt.1 'Which Way to Revolution?'
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Radical Film Forum - 'The Corporation'
Sunday 26th October at 4pm
The Corporation
A film critical of the modern-day corporation, considering it as a class of a person and evaluating its behaviour towards society and the world at large as a psychologist might evaluate an ordinary person. This is explored through specific examples.
A Season of Free Film Evenings
From Sunday 14th September to Sunday 23rd November
Radical Film Forum - 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 (nearest tube: Clapham North)
- Tired of mainstream films?· Bored of the blockbuster?
- Want more than just passive consumption?
Friday, October 24, 2008
Profit versus the Planet
Via the SPGB website:
*Launch of new pamphlet -- Saturday 25 October*
Saturday 25 October, 6pm
Speakers: Brian Morris (guest speaker) and Adam Buick (Socialist Party)
Chair: Gwynn Thomas (Socialist Party)
Forum followed by discussion.
Socialist Party Head Office, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 (nearest tube: Clapham North).
Questions regarding the environment are constantly in the news. If it's not global warming and climate change, there is concern over future energy resources and rain forest depletion. The environmental list seems never-ending with the increasing human impact making serious inroads on finite resources. Hardly a day goes by when politicians, economists, environmentalists and the scientific community are not voicing their opinions and offering various explanations for the continual global degradation. The Oscar winning film by Al Gore, 'An Inconvenient Truth' exemplified not only these concerns but also the solutions on offer. Without exception none of the solutions query the root cause of global environmental destruction. Consequently, all of the solutions are pro-market and pro-profit and the degradation continues unresolved.
Obviously, what is needed is an alternative solution outside of the capitalist mindset and one that takes into consideration the ownership and control of our productive processes; in short the social ownership of the means of life. Only then will we be able to address solutions which will not only benefit all of humanity but also the global environment. To this end the Socialist Party have recently published a pamphlet: 'An Inconvenient Question - Socialism and the Environment' .
You are cordially invited to attend the official launch of the pamphlet at our head office at 52 Clapham High Street, Clapham, London, on Saturday the 25th of October at 6 pm. The guest speaker, Brian Morris is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London and is well known for his fieldwork on human interaction and the environment. The Socialist Party speaker, Adam Buick, has written many articles on the environment, human behaviour and political economy. With both speakers holding different political perspectives, the launch promises some lively discussion on what positive action is required to replace the market incentives of putting profit first and the environment second. If you acknowledge that we are just as much dependent on the environment as the environment is dependent on us you will find this discussion forum educational and engaging.
Free refreshments and free literature.
New Pamphlet
An Inconvenient Question. Socialism and the Environment
In recent years the environment has become a major political issue. And rightly so, because a serious environmental crisis really does exist. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat have all become contaminated to a greater or lesser extent. Ecology - the branch of biology that studies the relationships of living organisms to their environment - is important, as it is concerned with explaining exactly what has been happening and what is likely to happen if present trends continue.
Since the publication of our Ecology and Socialism pamphlet in 1990 environmental problems facing the planet have got much worse. We said then that attempts to solve those problems within capitalism would meet with failure, and that is precisely what has happened. Recent research on increasing environmental degradation has painted an alarming picture of the likely future if the profit system continues to hold sway. Voices claiming that the proper use of market forces will solve the problem can still be heard, but as time goes on the emerging facts of what is happening serve only to contradict those voices.
In this pamphlet we begin with a brief review of the development of Earth and of humankind’s progress on it so far. We then examine the mounting evidence that the planet is now under threat of a worsening, dangerous environment for human and other forms of life. The motor of capitalism is profit for the minority capitalist class to add to their capital, or capital accumulation. Environmental concerns, if considered at all, always come a poor second. The waste of human and other resources used in the market system is prodigious, adding to the problems and standing in the way of their solution.
Earth Summits over the last few decades show a consistent record of failure - unjustifiably high hopes and pitifully poor results sum them up. The Green Party and other environmental bodies propose reforms of capitalism that haven’t worked or have made very little real difference in the past. Socialists can see no reason why it should be any different in the future. Finally we discuss the need, with respect to the ecology of the planet, for a revolution that is both based on socialist principles of common ownership and production solely for needs, and environmental principles of conserving - not destroying - the wealth and amenities of the planet.
Contents
Introduction
What is ecology?
Earth under threat
Profit wins, the environment also ran
The waste of capitalism
Earth Summits - a record of failure
Green reformism
Socialism - an inconvenient question?
To get a copy by post send a cheque or postal order for £2.50 (made out to “The Socialist Party of Great Britain”) to: The Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN.
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