[Debate] FW: Tariq Ali, "Born Again! George Galloway Stuns Labor, Shakes Up Britain"

LFC Scally lfcscally at hotmail.com
Mon Apr 2 12:00:50 BST 2012 

I don't think regroupment is happening I just think the SWP were late in recognising what was going on in Bradford (although not as late as sum lol) and certainly the result will mean that the Left has to get its thinking hat on.
Peter

> From: robhoveman at yahoo.co.uk
> Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2012 20:57:43 +0100
> To: debate-list at fahamu.org
> Subject: Re: [Debate] FW: Tariq Ali, "Born Again! George Galloway Stuns Labor,	Shakes Up Britain"
> 
> The SWP offered their support to the campaign and to my knowledge three members in the Bradford area did some activity. I personally didn't see anyone from Leeds SWP. On election day a Socialist Worker journalist and a central committee member turned up around noon for a few hours. There may have been one or two other members involved marginally but I can't, in all honesty, say that the SWP made much contribution to the election. In a subsequent article they have suggested the Bradford result should help build TUSC (the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition).
> 
> On 31 Mar 2012, at 13:04, Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Interesting that SWP members were involved in the Galloway campaign.
> > Regroupment already underway before it becomes public?
> > 
> > On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 7:53 AM, LFC Scally <lfcscally at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> 
> >> 
> >> ________________________________
> >> From: lfcscally at hotmail.com
> >> To: m_redmond at btinternet.com
> >> 
> >> Subject: RE: [Debate] Tariq Ali, "Born Again! George Galloway Stuns Labor,
> >> Shakes Up Britain"
> >> Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2012 11:53:17 +0000
> >> 
> >> The two reports from SW below seem very celebratory to me and, Rob H, will
> >> be able to confirm, I heard that SWP comrades from Bradford and Leeds did
> >> help out during the election?
> >> http://www.socialistworker.org.uk/art.php?id=28019
> >> http://www.socialistworker.org.uk/art.php?id=28021
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Peter
> >> 
> >> ________________________________
> >> Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2012 12:39:05 +0100
> >> From: m_redmond at btinternet.com
> >> To: debate-list at fahamu.org
> >> 
> >> Subject: Re: [Debate] Tariq Ali, "Born Again! George Galloway Stuns Labor,
> >> Shakes Up Britain"
> >> 
> >> I don't think the SWP specifically are celebrating. I think they lost a lot
> >> of money and assets through the whole Respect business and a large section
> >> of the SWP did not want anything to do with Respect from the word go. It was
> >> quite divisive. Just what I've heard over the years. No real evidence and I
> >> might be wrong.
> >> Megan.
> >> 
> >> ===============================================================
> >> I Support Hackney Community Law Centre. Legal Action for the Community!
> >> http://www.hclc.org.uk/
> >> 
> >> Become a Friend of Hackney Community Law Centre on Facebook
> >> Follow on Twitter: @FriendsofHCLC
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> ________________________________
> >> From: Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com>
> >> To: Debate is a listserve that attempts to promote information and analyses
> >> of interest to the independent left in South and Southern Africa
> >> <debate-list at fahamu.org>
> >> Sent: Saturday, 31 March 2012, 12:23
> >> Subject: Re: [Debate] Tariq Ali, "Born Again! George Galloway Stuns Labor,
> >> Shakes Up Britain"
> >> 
> >> I just think it's rather humorous that George Galloway is now
> >> apparently a hero of (former and current) Trotskyists again.  Winning
> >> does make a lot of difference.  If they are all angling to get on the
> >> Galloway bandwagon, though, their foreign policy will likely improve,
> >> so I'm not complaining.
> >> 
> >> On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 7:06 AM, m_redmond at btinternet.com
> >> <m_redmond at btinternet.com> wrote:
> >>> George Galloway doesn't cynically try to woo white voters like the leaders
> >>> of Lab/Lib/Con do by saying racist things or promising to be tough on
> >>> immigration and pull up the drawbridge of little britain and that is also
> >>> a
> >>> hopeful sign, for the economic times we are in are perfectly suited to
> >>> doing
> >>> just that.
> >>> 
> >>> I do watch and read Press TV, just as I watch and read various US
> >>> broadcasts. I don't support the death penalty in either country.
> >>> Megan.
> >>> 
> >>> ===============================================================
> >>> I Support Hackney Community Law Centre. Legal Action for the Community!
> >>> http://www.hclc.org.uk/
> >>> 
> >>> Become a Friend of Hackney Community Law Centre on Facebook
> >>> Follow on Twitter: @FriendsofHCLC
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> ________________________________
> >>> From: Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com>
> >>> To: Debate is a listserve that attempts to promote information and
> >>> analyses
> >>> of interest to the independent left in South and Southern Africa
> >>> <debate-list at fahamu.org>
> >>> Sent: Saturday, 31 March 2012, 11:32
> >>> 
> >>> Subject: Re: [Debate] Tariq Ali, "Born Again! George Galloway Stuns Labor,
> >>> Shakes Up Britain"
> >>> 
> >>> It sure will be.  George Galloway is the first MP in the UK who had a
> >>> regular show on Iran's public TV Press TV:
> >>> <http://www.presstv.ir/section/3510524.html>.
> >>> 
> >>> On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 6:04 AM, m_redmond at btinternet.com
> >>> <m_redmond at btinternet.com> wrote:
> >>>> 
> >>>> 
> >>>> ===============================================================
> >>>> I Support Hackney Community Law Centre. Legal Action for the Community!
> >>>> http://www.hclc.org.uk/
> >>>> 
> >>>> Become a Friend of Hackney Community Law Centre on Facebook
> >>>> Follow on Twitter: @FriendsofHCLC
> >>>> 
> >>>> 
> >>>> 
> >>>> ________________________________
> >>>> From: "grinker at mweb.co.za" <grinker at mweb.co.za>
> >>>> To: "critical.montages at gmail.com" <critical.montages at gmail.com>;
> >>>> "debate-list at fahamu.org" <debate-list at fahamu.org>
> >>>> Sent: Saturday, 31 March 2012, 10:28
> >>>> Subject: Re: [Debate] Tariq Ali, "Born Again! George Galloway Stuns
> >>>> Labor,
> >>>> Shakes Up Britain"
> >>>> 
> >>>> What makes me optimistic about this result is that it seems Galloway won
> >>>> both white working class and Muslim votes. It wasn't just an anti-war
> >>>> thing.
> >>>> Listening to (not enough) interviews on the radio, he  connected with
> >>>> white
> >>>> working-class people in a way that no other party, mainstream or
> >>>> otherwise,
> >>>> did. It was heartening that people united in their vote and did not
> >>>> splinter
> >>>> into Galloway - BNP/UKIP.
> >>>> 
> >>>> I admit some ignorance. Living in the South-East, the media treat
> >>>> anywhere
> >>>> north of Watford as far-flung and the news of regions in the UK is scarce
> >>>> and as full of stereotypes as any other, doesn't delve into the
> >>>> complexities.
> >>>> 
> >>>> Anyway, it will be interesting having him in the house in the run up to
> >>>> bombing Iran.
> >>>> Megan.
> >>>> 
> >>>> Very alternative view from Brendan O'Neill. No doubt this will drive some
> >>>> to
> >>>> the usual frothing his views provoke but I reckon this is an important
> >>>> issue
> >>>> for further debate.
> >>>> 
> >>>> ***
> >>>> 
> >>>> George Galloway's victory confirms the demise of the radical Left, not
> >>>> its
> >>>> resurgence
> >>>> 
> >>>> By Brendan O'Neill Politics Last updated: March 30th, 2012
> >>>> Comment on this Comment on this article
> >>>> George Galloway has described his victory in Bradford West as
> >>>> "sensational"
> >>>> and even as a "Bradford Spring". It was certainly sensational, but not
> >>>> for
> >>>> the reasons Galloway and his Left-wing cheerleaders believe. This
> >>>> stunning
> >>>> by-election turnaround was less a revolutionary-style "spring" and more
> >>>> an
> >>>> expression of the rot at the heart of mainstream British politics.
> >>>> Traditional politics is now so bereft of meaning and substance, so
> >>>> lacking
> >>>> in moral purchase, that voters are willing to vote for a helicoptered-in,
> >>>> ideas-lite maverick rather than any of the parties that have been around
> >>>> for
> >>>> eons. This was less a vote for Galloway than it was a two-fingered salute
> >>>> to
> >>>> the political class.
> >>>> Galloway and his dwindling online fanclub would have us believe that this
> >>>> was a vote for a clear, Left-wing, anti-war agenda. It wasn't. It was not
> >>>> any political virtues on the part of Galloway that won him the election
> >>>> but
> >>>> rather the absence of virtue, and of vision, amongst today's mainstream
> >>>> parties, particularly Labour. Galloway is merely a beneficiary of the
> >>>> decay
> >>>> of politics as we knew it, which means that, far from representing a
> >>>> surge
> >>>> in radical Left-wing sentiment, his victory isn't that different to when
> >>>> a
> >>>> member of the BNP wins a seat on a local council or some UKIP suit gets
> >>>> sent
> >>>> to Brussels. In all these cases, the vote tends to be less a positive
> >>>> endorsement of any clear-eyed political agenda than simply a "screw you"
> >>>> to
> >>>> the three big parties which once claimed to represent the political
> >>>> spectrum.
> >>>> Indeed, Galloway's victory points to the further denigration of radical
> >>>> Left-wing politics rather than its meaningful revival. It shows how far
> >>>> the
> >>>> radical Left has been "Islamicised", where, having utterly abandoned the
> >>>> allegedly feckless and thick working classes, the radical Left has become
> >>>> increasingly reliant upon alienated Muslim communities for support. From
> >>>> the
> >>>> anti-war movement to Ken Livingstone to Galloway, as all the big players
> >>>> on
> >>>> the modern Left have drifted away from their traditional constituency –
> >>>> the
> >>>> working class – so they have ended up "speaking for" Muslims. It is a
> >>>> rather
> >>>> sad, somewhat unholy marriage of convenience, where Muslims who are not
> >>>> represented by the political mainstream feel flattered by the attentions
> >>>> of
> >>>> old Leftists, while old leftists who feel (and are) unloved by the masses
> >>>> exploit the alienation of Muslim communities in order to cultivate new
> >>>> constituencies for themselves.
> >>>> Galloway's victory also shows how unsubstantial and apolitical anti-war
> >>>> sentiment is these days. Galloway sought support, and seems to have won
> >>>> it,
> >>>> largely on the basis of his opposition to "illegal, bloody, costly
> >>>> foreign
> >>>> wars". Yet this was not any old-fashioned, positive anti-war sentiment,
> >>>> driven by firm convictions about the rights of foreign peoples, so much
> >>>> as
> >>>> it was yet another expression of suspicion of "Them" who rule over us.
> >>>> Today, being anti-war is really just another way of being anti-politics,
> >>>> another way of expressing your belief that all politicians are liars,
> >>>> that
> >>>> they never listen to us, and that they're rotten, oil-grabbing bastards.
> >>>> Galloway's surge to victory on a tidal wave of anti-party feeling and
> >>>> anti-war sentiment shows how far the anti-war outlook has been emptied of
> >>>> principle and meaning, and is now just another mechanism for say "meh" to
> >>>> the political class.
> >>>> But probably the most worrying thing about Galloway's victory is that it
> >>>> confirms the further splintering of Britain into "identities", where
> >>>> people
> >>>> no longer conceive of themselves as belonging to a class or a political
> >>>> set
> >>>> but rather to a fixed, culturally determined "identity". Muslims vote one
> >>>> way, the white working classes vote another, and so on. What is remotely
> >>>> positive about the demise of an old politics that was at least based on
> >>>> the
> >>>> idea of shared interests and its replacement by a new politics based on
> >>>> shared cultural characteristics? In going for "the Muslim vote", just as
> >>>> Livingstone recently did in a speech at North London Central Mosque,
> >>>> Galloway actually further exposed the dearth of principle on the modern
> >>>> Left.
> >>>> Where once the Left saw it as its mission to unite people who had more in
> >>>> common than they thought they did (remember "workers of the world
> >>>> unite"?),
> >>>> now it happily feeds off community disintegration and even segregation
> >>>> for
> >>>> short-term political gain. If it helps to get them into power, it seems
> >>>> radical Leftists don't have a problem with the political ghettoisation of
> >>>> certain communities in Britain, or with the further tearing-apart of man
> >>>> from fellow man that is at the heart of identity politics.
> >>>> ________________________________
> >>>> From: critical.montages at gmail.com
> >>>> Sent: 2012/03/31 01:36:54 AM
> >>>> To: debate-list at fahamu.org
> >>>> Cc:
> >>>> Subject: RE: [Debate] Tariq Ali, "Born Again! George Galloway Stuns
> >>>> Labor,Shakes Up Britain"
> >>>> ________________________________
> >>>> It's good that George Galloway won, which shows that there is
> >>>> aconstituency
> >>>> for a pro-labor, pro-immigrant, & anti-war party, butdoesn't Tariq Ali
> >>>> sound
> >>>> too excited? After all, few on the Left areas good public speakers as
> >>>> Galloway. . . .WEEKEND EDITION MAR 30-APR 01, 2012Galloway: “The most
> >>>> sensational victory in British political history.”Anti-war pro-jobs
> >>>> message
> >>>> wins sensational 36% swing from Labour toRespect in Bradford
> >>>> by-electionBorn
> >>>> Again! George Galloway Stuns Labor, Shakes Up Britainby TARIQ
> >>>> ALILondonGeorge Galloway’s stunning electoral triumph in the
> >>>> Bradfordby-election on Thursday 29th March has shaken the petrified world
> >>>> ofEnglish politics. It was unexpected and for that reason the
> >>>> Respectcampaign was treated by much of the media (Helen Pidd of The
> >>>> Guardianan honorable exception) as a loony fringe show. The BBC toady,
> >>>> ashamelessly partisan compeer on a local TV election show, who tried
> >>>> tomock
> >>>> and insult Galloway should be made to eat his excremental words.The
> >>>> Bradford
> >>>> seat, a Labour fiefdom since 1973, was considered safeand the Labour
> >>>> Leader,
> >>>> Ed Miliband, had been planning a celebratoryvisit to the city till the
> >>>> news
> >>>> seeped through at 2 am. He is now onceagain focused on his own future.
> >>>> Labour has paid the price for itsfailure to act as an Opposition,
> >>>> imagining
> >>>> that all they had to do waswait and the prize would come their way.
> >>>> Scottish
> >>>> politics should haveforced a rethink. Perhaps the latest development in
> >>>> English politicsnow will, though I doubt it. Galloway has effectively
> >>>> urinated on allthree parties. The Lib-Dems and Tories explaining their
> >>>> decline by thefact that too many people voted!Thousands of young people
> >>>> infected with apathy, contempt, despair anda disgust with mainstream
> >>>> politics were dynamised by the Respectcampaign. Galloway is tireless on
> >>>> these occasions. Nobody else in thepolitical fields comes even close to
> >>>> competing with him. Not simplybecause he is an effective orator though
> >>>> this
> >>>> skill should not beunderestimated. It comes almost as a shock these days
> >>>> to
> >>>> a generationused to the bland untruths that are mouthed every day by
> >>>> governmentand opposition politicians. It was the political content of
> >>>> thecampaign that galvanized the youth: Respect campaigners and
> >>>> theircandidate stressed the disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan.Galloway
> >>>> demanded that Blair be tried as a war criminal, that Britishtroops be
> >>>> withdrawn from Afghanistan without further delay. Helambasted the
> >>>> Government
> >>>> and the Labour Party for the ‘austeritymeasures’ targeting the less well
> >>>> off, the poor, the infirm and thenew privatizations of education, health
> >>>> and
> >>>> the post office. It wasall this that gave him a majority of 10,000.How
> >>>> did
> >>>> we get here? Following the collapse of communism in 1991,Edmund Burke’s
> >>>> notion that “in all societies, consisting of differentclasses, certain
> >>>> classes must necessarily be uppermost” and that “theapostles of equality
> >>>> only change and pervert the natural order ofthings”, became the
> >>>> common-sense
> >>>> wisdom of the age. Money corruptedpolitics, big money corrupted
> >>>> absolutely.
> >>>> Throughout the heartlands ofcapital we witnessed the emergence of
> >>>> effective
> >>>> coalitions: as ever,the Republicans and Democrats in the United States;
> >>>> New
> >>>> Labour andTories in the vassal state of Britain; Socialists and
> >>>> Conservatives inFrance; the German coalitions of one variety or another
> >>>> with
> >>>> theGreen’s differentiating themselves largely as ultra-Atlanticists,
> >>>> theScandinavian centre-right and centre-left with few
> >>>> differences,competing
> >>>> in cravenness before the Empire.In virtually each case the
> >>>> two/three-party
> >>>> system morphed into aneffective national government. A new market
> >>>> extremism
> >>>> came into play.The entry of capital in the most hallowed domains of
> >>>> social
> >>>> provisionwas regarded as a necessary “reform”. Private finance
> >>>> initiatives
> >>>> thatpunished the public sector became the norm and countries (such
> >>>> asFrance
> >>>> and Germany) that were seen as not proceeding fast enough inthe direction
> >>>> of
> >>>> the neo-liberal paradise were regularly denounced inthe Economist and the
> >>>> Financial Times.To question this turn, to defend the public sector, to
> >>>> argue
> >>>> in favourof state ownership of utilities, to challenge the fire sale of
> >>>> publichousing, was to be regarded as a dinosaur.British politics has been
> >>>> governed by the consensus established byMrs. Thatcher during the locust
> >>>> decades of the 80’s and 90’s. Once NewLabour accepted the basic tenets of
> >>>> Thatcherism (their model was theNew Democrats embrace of Reaganism).
> >>>> These
> >>>> were the roots of theextreme centre that encompasses both centre-left and
> >>>> centre-rightexercises power, promoting austerity measures that privilege
> >>>> thewealthy and backing wars and occupations abroad. President Obama isfar
> >>>> from isolated within the euro-American political sphere. Newmovements are
> >>>> now springing up at home, challenging politicalorthodoxies without
> >>>> offering
> >>>> one of their own. Little more than ascream for help.Respect is different.
> >>>> It
> >>>> puts forward a left social-democraticprogramme that challenges the status
> >>>> quo and is loud in itscondemnation of imperial misdeeds. In other words
> >>>> it
> >>>> is not frightenedby politics. Its triumph in Bradford should force some
> >>>> to
> >>>> rethinktheir passivity and others to realise that there are ways in which
> >>>> theOccupiers of yesteryear can help break the political impasse.TARIQ
> >>>> ALI’s
> >>>> latest book “The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, WarAbroad’ was
> >>>> published
> >>>> by Verso.-- Yoshie
> >>>> Furuhashi_______________________________________________Debate-list
> >>>> mailing
> >>>> 
> >>>> 
> >>>> listDebate-list at fahamu.orghttp://lists.fahamu.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/debate-list
> >>>> 
> >>>> _______________________________________________
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> >>>> 
> >>>> 
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> >>>> 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> --
> >>> Yoshie Furuhashi
> >>> <http://mrzine.org/>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Debate-list mailing list
> >>> Debate-list at fahamu.org
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> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> _______________________________________________
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> >>> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> --
> >> Yoshie Furuhashi
> >> <http://mrzine.org/>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Debate-list mailing list
> >> Debate-list at fahamu.org
> >> http://lists.fahamu.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/debate-list
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
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> >> 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > -- 
> > Yoshie Furuhashi
> > <http://mrzine.org/>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Debate-list mailing list
> > Debate-list at fahamu.org
> > http://lists.fahamu.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/debate-list
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