Subject: M-I: Re: Labour means business
From: jschulman-AT-juno.com (Jason A Schulman)
Date: Fri, 07 Mar 1997 22:50:16 EST


Points well taken, Nick.  One question.  You wrote:

>In the main, the rank and file would probably have joined a broad
"Defend Militant" 
>campaign. The evidence for this is that when the LP banned the
Trotskyist newspaper, 
>'Socialist Organiser', and the paper responded with an "End the Ban"
campaign, many LP 
>lefties, who were not readers or supporters of the paper, joined it, and
campaigned 
>against the ban. They weren't successful, however, and selling or
writing for SO became 
>an offense punishable by expulsion.
>
>The Militant, however, responded to the threat, not by setting up a 
>broad campaign, but by alternately denying that 'Militant' even existed
as an 
>organisation, and then launching screaming attacks on the Labour Party
for being so hostile 
>to them. They tacked from one approach to another in a centrist fashion,
and 
>ultimately alienated most of those who might otherwise have supported
them. Rather than 
>challenge the LP leadership by continuing to operate inside it (which
they claimed to 
>still believe was the right place to be) they tried to make a virtue out
of a necessity 
>by "splitting" with the Labour Party, and pulling comrades out of the
Labour Party 
>rather than have them stay in and get expelled. This led to the split
between the 
>Militant and the Socialist Appeal group (led by Ted Grant) who stayed
behind.

I was already aware of "Socialist Appeal."  I'm curious if there is any
cooperation between them and the rest of the far left which remains in
the Labour Party (Socialist Outlook, Alliance for Workers' Liberty, etc.)
 Are these groups finding ways to overcome their differences or are they
still throwing epithets at each other?

-- Jason
______
"In fact, there is clear evidence of black intellectual superiority: in
1984, 92 percent of blacks voted to retire Ronald Reagan, compared to
only 36 percent of whites."
Barbara Ehrenreich, "The Unbearable Being Of Whiteness" (1988).


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