GAUCHE: ANOTHER LEFT IS NECESSARY

11 October 2004

ANOTHER LEFT IS NECESSARY - 1

I've refrained so far from commenting on the European Social Forum beano coming up in London next weekend, in part because I can't see the point of it, in part because it looks balls-achingly dull, in part because the sectarian manouevring around it has been so poisonous, in part because I've an important appointment with Ipswich Town FC.

But, as the MC5 had it, the time has come for each and every one of you to decide whether you're gonna be the problem or you're gonna be the solution . . .

I'd be the first to admit that I've not been at the centre of the events leading up to the event. But according to the pretend-CPGB's Weekly Worker (click here), it's not looking good. Hardly anyone is going to show up, it says, despite Ken Livingstone's generous offer of a free Travelcard for the first 20,000 who register. The worst of the local fuck-wit Trots and Stalinists - Socialist Workers' Party, Communist Party of Britain and Socialist Action - have stitched up the agenda, which looks distinctly lacking in detail (click here for the official website). And someone is going to have to pay for using the Millennium Dome as a doss house.

We shall see.

No comments:

'Moscow Gold? The Soviet Union and the British left by Paul Anderson and Kevin Davey is a fine little book you can read in a day. Anderson and Davey have taken advantage of the vast amount of research into communism since the end of the cold war. They wear it lightly, and refreshingly, are open about their political position. As members of the democratic left, they believe that communism was a disaster for left wing politics. It tied the left to tyranny and the lies and disillusion that went with it.'
NICK COHEN

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