Trouble At Th'Mill

Taking a breather from writing a multi-part blog on the question of Co-ops, I was scanning the left sites, when I spotted this by Robin Sivalapan of the AWL. Robin was the comrade, from the AWL, who put the call out for a picket of the UNITE offices to demand the refinery strikes be called off.

"I just want to sum up my little journey - I'll try and be brief. I'm going to leave out things that incriminate my own organisation, because apparently that's what we do, apart from when it concerns me (and that's the least of the group's political problems)."

His post was very long, meandering, and I was left at the end of it wondering what the point of it was. See: here . How he thinks the Transitional Programme might have helped in this situation I really don't know. He needs to read a piece Sean Matgamna wrote 20 years ago that picked up on Trotsky's suggestions to his followers entitled "Learn to Think", not look in the textbooks for ready made demands to pull out. How he thinks the AWL's demand of "Work or Full Pay", provides any answer for workers here too is hard to fathom. Who is going to force the bosses, or their state, to provide it? The strikes this week were great; to see workers once again get off their feet - though the AWL and others at first didn't seem to think so, as, concerned about their periphery, they were keener to attack the reactionary nature of the strikes than support workers in struggle. But, those strikes are a far, far cry from the level of class struggle that would be needed to get the bosses or their state to concede the AWL's utopian suggestion. As usual they combine sectarianism towards the actual struggle, with maximialist demands that offer the real working class nothing.

But,the interesting point about his post was those couple of sentences, and in particular the phrase, "I'm going to leave out things that incriminate my own organisation, because apparently that's what we do, apart from when it concerns me" Do we take it that,as the AWL rowed backwards, faster than Pincent and Redgrave (Steve not Vanessa)in reverse, as their initial position was seen to be so palpably wrong, that Comrade Robin, feels that he was hung out to dry by his own organisation, as it sought to shift responsibility from itself on to a single comrade? Old Uncle Joe was a past master at that tactic. Yet another indication of the rapid degeneration of what was once a decent organisation. Something Comrade Robin seems to be coming to an understanding of when he admits "(and that's the least of the group's political problems)."