Foundation for Proportional Representation-based Socialism

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#195

From: "tigerfell" <ElectromatXL@...>
Date: Sun Jun 6, 2010 6:53 am
Subject: new 2010 Katrina promo CDs

tigerfell

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#196

From: Steve Wallis <revolutionarysocialiststeve@...>
Date: Tue Jun 15, 2010 6:11 pm
Subject: Future of Banking Commission - "risk-free" account con!

There is a�very interesting item on the BBC News website, about the Future of
Banking Commission, advising the UK coalition government but set up before the
general election, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10296669.stm�(or
http://bit.ly/d7FQ5b). On Sunday's Andrew Marr Show and in a video on that page,
Commission chairman David Davis warned that liabilities to British banks total
five times the country's GDP and warns that�UK plc would go "bankrupt" if
nothing is done by the time of the next crisis�(which some investors worry could
happen due to commercial property with similar total losses as sub-prime
mortgages!)
�
Contradictorially, Commission report co-author David Pitt-Watson (on BBC
Breakfast and also shown in a video on the page) suggested there should be
risk-free "absolutely 100% rock-bottom solid" bank accounts, where our money is
invested in government bonds (oops, Davis pointed out that British bonds are not
safe and what about Greek bonds?) or insured against collapse (oops, the US
government bailed out the largest insurance company in the world, Manchester
United sponsors, AIG).
�
A number of different options will be considered by the Commission, including
separating "investment banks" (which will be allowed to go bust) from high
street ones (which won't). Having banks that merely lend depositors' savings to
individuals and businesses is clearly the safest solution,�and we should put
pressure on�the government to�go down that road...
�
And be warned, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (guaranteed by the UK
government) supposedly protects up to �50,000 of our savings but it would not be
worth the paper it's printed on, even if the Tory/LibDem coalition wants to
honour Labour's pledge, if a big bank goes under, or a few smaller banks do
likewise. Even if savers eventually get their money back, the Questions &
Answers page on http://www.fscs.org.uk warns that you won't get your savings
back if the bank has any assets, so it may take months before you do.
�
It'd be remiss of me not to make suggestions of what to do with your savings to
protect them as much as possible, with such dire consequences on the cards.
Nationwide, by far the largest building society, is probably the safest of the
banks/building societies, with the possible exception of the Co-operative Bank
due to the latter's ethical investment strategy that probably precludes it from
buying the particularly risky sub-prime/commercial property packages, such as
structured investment vehicles (SIVs). Or National Savings with the post office
seems a reasonable suggestion. [I've got my savings with the Nationwide.]
�
--
Steve Wallis (Manchester, England)
Preferred email address: revolutionarysocialiststeve@...
Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/socialiststephen
Twitter page: http://www.twitter.com/socialiststeve
MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/galaxiasteve
Bebo page: http://www.bebo.com/SteveW519
Blogs: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/steve-wallis-socialist-blog,
http://blog.myspace.com/galaxiasteve
My socialist website: http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk [ Indian mirror
(containing same files): http://www.socialiststeve.in - note that neither have
publicly viewable statistics any more ]
New Good Intentions Manifesto:
http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk/good-intentions-manifesto.html or
http://www.socialiststeve.in/good-intentions-manifesto.html
Foundation for Proportional Representation-based Socialism:
http://www.PRsocialism.org
Revolutionary Platform Network Forum:
http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/newforum
My revolutionary socialist band, Galaxia:http://www.galaxiamusic.net,
http://www.myspace.com/galaxiamusic, http://www.bebo.com/galaxiamusic
My socialist band, Red Day: http://www.red-day.net,
http://www.myspace.com/reddayband
Author, "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist revolution
will never happen?": http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net

#197

From: "girliercchick" <girliercchick@...>
Date: Thu Jun 17, 2010 8:08 am
Subject: Click here to check out my new photos!

girliercchick

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#198

From: Steve Wallis <revolutionarysocialiststeve@...>
Date: Thu Jun 24, 2010 9:50 am
Subject: My analysis of Tory/LibDem emergency budget 2010

In the 22 June "emergency budget", UK Chancellor George Osborne claimed that
everybody would have to take some of the pain but the rich would take a wider
share of the burden than the poor. In terms of the figures presented at the
budget, he almost has a good point. The "red book" gives figures for 2012-13
which purport to support this claim, but this is before most of the welfare cuts
kick in and before the handout of �150 via child tax credits to the lowest paid,
costing �2 billion/year, is withdrawn (supposed to compensate for the freezing
of child benefit for three years).

There's a public sector pay freeze for two years but those earning under �21,000
(it's not clear if that's before or after tax) would get a flat �250 pay rise,
benefiting the very low paid disproportionately (but below the rate of inflation
even for the lowest paid). He's increasing capital gains tax from 18% to 28%,
but only for higher rate taxpayers. The personal income tax allowance will be
raised by �1,000 taking hundreds of thousands out of tax and providing a handout
to low paid and reasonably paid workers.

But these aren't the only giveaways. He's giving big ones to business, notably
reducing corporation tax by 1% a year for each of the next four years. The
"entrepreneurs relief" rate of capital gains tax of 10% on the first �2 million
of gains will be extended to the first �5 million. The small companies' tax rate
will be cut to 20%. People setting up new businesses outside London, the South
East and the east of England will be exempt from �5,000 of National Insurance
payments for the first 10 workers.

The attacks on the rich are more designed for public relations purposes than to
raise revenue. The bank levy, at 0.04% rising to 0.07%, would raise a mere �2.4
billion. Campaigners for a Robin Hood tax estimate that �20 billion could be
raised by taxing financial transactions, which additionally would do far more to
discourage speculation (thereby reducing the likelihood of a new banking
crisis). [Incidentally, taking action against "short-selling" (gambling on share
values or government bonds reducing in value), as proposed by Merkel and
Sarkozy, would also ease this risk.]

"Hang on a minute", I hear you cry! You thought this budget was to tackle the
deficit! Well, actually, the key figure mentioned was 25%. This is the amount
each department except for ring-fenced health and overseas aid would have to
find in "efficiency savings", and this figure would be a lot less if it wasn't
for the giveaways to the Tories' friends in business, including big business,
and to soften the pill for working class people. It would also be a lot less if
the government wasn't planning to make a massive �40 billion of extra
savings/year above that planned by Labour (which exposes as a lie Osborne's
claim that the rise in VAT is unavoidable due to Labour's mismanagement of the
economy).�Osborne commented that education (after all, with the "pupil premium"
giving extra money for poor pupils and new "free schools", it's going to be hard
to make 25% cuts there!) and "defence" (after all, the Ministry of War costs �25
billion a year and cutting
that by 25% would obviously allow those pesky Iranians to invade, wouldn't it?)
may have some sort of exemption, although he didn't say how this could be done.

Now, in terms of the other figures presented in today's budget, poor people
would not be too badly hit, unless they're unemployed of course which many more
will be as a result of the Tory/Liberal Democrat government's policies.
[Incredibly, the supposedly independent Office for Budget Responsibility,�made
up of government appointees of course,�producing the forecasts on which the
budget is based, predicts unemployment will fall apart from in the first year!]
But you can bet your bottom dollar that the 25% worth of cuts would hit those
who rely on the services far far far more than rich people!

The hard questions have been kicked into the long grass - the autumn. The
pensions review, where the coalition government's committee chaired by Labour's
John Hutton (yes, LABOUR'S John Hutton, a subtle ploy to spread the blame) will
report on how to massively cut the cost of public sector pensions in September.
There will be a spending review reporting in October, which is when we'll get
some idea what these 25% worth of cuts will be. That will be when "the shit
really does hit the fan". And will we take it? No! The question is not whether
the UK will emulate Greece with mass demos and strikes opposing the cuts, but
when!

There has been much speculation as to whether the government's policies will
lead to a double dip recession or depression. This seems highly likely (if
not�inevitable)�to me, especially with the crisis in the eurozone and many other
countries similarly�making savage cuts to�public spending, whether or not there
is massive resistance to the attacks on the living standards of ordinary working
and middle class people. It is not inevitable that the left will be able to take
advantage of the opportunities this will present us with; the right could
instead leading to more hatred (on the basis of nationality, race, religion,
sexuality, etc.) and terrorism, or perhaps�some sort of new (hopefully more
ethical) world order of capitalism, led internationally by Barack Obama.
Left-wing activists must take advantages of these opportunities to lead a swift
and thorough socialist transformation of society, i.e. a revolution, or we
should face the fact that
capitalism will be here forever!


The above message is available as a one-page document, suitable for printing out
and distributing, from my socialist website. Get it in Micro$oft Word format
from http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk/emergency-budget.doc or in PDF format
(suitable for Adobe Acrobat) from
http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk/emergency-budget.pdf.


--
Steve Wallis (Manchester, England)
Preferred email address: revolutionarysocialiststeve@...
Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/socialiststephen
Twitter page: http://www.twitter.com/socialiststeve
MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/galaxiasteve
Bebo page: http://www.bebo.com/SteveW519
Blogs: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/steve-wallis-socialist-blog,
http://blog.myspace.com/galaxiasteve
My socialist website: http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk [ Indian mirror
(containing same files): http://www.socialiststeve.in - note that neither have
publicly viewable statistics any more ]
New Good Intentions Manifesto:
http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk/good-intentions-manifesto.html or
http://www.socialiststeve.in/good-intentions-manifesto.html
Foundation for Proportional Representation-based Socialism:
http://www.PRsocialism.org
Revolutionary Platform Network Forum:
http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/newforum
My revolutionary socialist band, Galaxia:http://www.galaxiamusic.net,
http://www.myspace.com/galaxiamusic, http://www.bebo.com/galaxiamusic
My socialist band, Red Day: http://www.red-day.net,
http://www.myspace.com/reddayband
Author, "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist revolution
will never happen?": http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net

#199

From: Steve Wallis <revolutionarysocialiststeve@...>
Date: Wed Jul 21, 2010 11:01 am
Subject: On transitional programme as a socialist alternative to 25/40% cuts by UK goverment

A letter of mine to the Weekly Worker, edited a fair amount but well, has appeared on the letters page of the current issue (at http://cpgb.org.uk/letters.php?issue_id=826), headed "Nine points". A very good letter by Dave Douglass criticising heterophobia follows mine. You can read the full text of my letter at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PRsocialism/message/214, about cuts by UK's coalition government and how to oppose them with a socialist transitional programme - including taking "the banks under full social ownership and control" recouping bailout money, and closing tax havens and loopholes.

The text of the unedited letter is as follows:

Eddie Ford ('War on the working class', June 24) correctly says that "it was always going to be the working class that would have to pay the price" for the massive financial crisis when "catastrophe was only narrowly averted by frantic and massive state intervention". Under capitalism, there is no choice, especially with the mainstream parties needing to avoid clobbering largely middle class floating voters!

It is easy to say tax the rich and bash the bankers, and saying so is very popular at the current time, but what would be the consequences of doing so (more than the token �2 billion the coalition will raise from its levy on the banks which is chicken feed compared to the �375 billion bailout)? Companies and rich individuals would flood overseas. It is necessary to argue for the confiscation of their assets in this country if they do so, and to spread the revolution worldwide so there is nowhere to run to - but unfortunately few revolutionary socialists make such points even if they are aware of them. And if you don't make such points, you ultimately lose the debate - as Green MP Caroline Lucas (who calls herself a socialist but not a revolutionary) did on Question Time on June 24 and as Counterfire's Lindsey German (formerly of the SWP) did in a Radio 2 debate I heard on July 13.

Newsnight on the night of the budget pointed out that the Tories plan �40 billion per year more cuts than Labour did, showing chancellor George Osborne's claim that the VAT rise is necessary because of the deficit accrued under Labour to be an utter lie. So much for the debate during the election campaign over the mere matter of �6 billion of cuts and the Tories' claim that cuts will be achieved without hampering front-line services and would happen merely through not filling vacancies and cancelling IT contracts! Eddie is therefore correct to call the cuts "vicious" and point out that they don't need to be as high as 25%.

So how do the Tories and their Liberal Democrat allies plan to avert another economic meltdown? By lowering corporation tax, by 1% each year for four years, and by giving incentives for small businesses. Once again, it is easy to say they shouldn't help their business friends in that way but, under capitalism, they've got to do something (which means competing with other capitalist countries in a similar economic mess). After all, the Tories decimated manufacturing industry under Maggie Thatcher due to the unions being strong, and it has shrunk from 20% of the economy to a mere 12% under Labour. But it's desperate stuff, bound not to work in my opinion.

Eddie correctly points to the likelihood of a double-dip recession as a result of the cuts, and I'd add that a depression rather than merely a second dip is on the cards. He says "we need a strategy leading to an alternative society" [his emphasis]. So what strategy does he propose - "a united Communist Party, guided by a principled Marxist programme". Well, the Campaign for a Marxist Party didn't take off at all, and the Greek Communist Party has been leading the protests there, but what has been missing in Greece is an adequate programme. To me, that is more important than the precise form of party, although I'd recommend a mass revolutionary socialist or anti-capitalist party not tied to any particular ideology.

In the budget response special of the Scottish Socialist Voice, newspaper of the Scottish Socialist Party, Raphie de Santos proposes a nine-point transitional programme including: "We would take the banks under full social ownership and control - they have �560 billion in liquid cash and �5 trillion of assets. This would not only allow us to recoup the �375 billion that we have ploughed into them during the financial crisis but allow us to fund socially useful projects. An example of this would be a renewable energy programme. The design, administration, construction, maintenance, running, assembly, commissioning and servicing of the programme would create hundreds of thousand of jobs and apprenticeships for our young and old." (downloadable from www.scottishsocialistparty.org).

I see this sort of demand, alongside a call for closing tax havens and loopholes (which Raphie also calls for), as key to winning the struggle. Merely calling for a revolution is not enough, although it's important that some people do so!

--
Steve Wallis (Manchester, England)
Preferred email address: revolutionarysocialiststeve@...
Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/socialiststephen
Twitter page: http://www.twitter.com/socialiststeve
SoundCloud page: http://www.soundcloud.com/stephen-wallis
MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/galaxiasteve
Bebo page: http://www.bebo.com/SteveW519
Blogs: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/steve-wallis-socialist-blog, http://blog.myspace.com/galaxiasteve
My socialist website: http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk/
New Good Intentions Manifesto: http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk/good-intentions-manifesto.html
Foundation for Proportional Representation-based Socialism: http://www.PRsocialism.org/
Revolutionary Platform Network Forum: http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/newforum
My revolutionary socialist band, Galaxia: http://www.galaxiamusic.net/, http://www.soundcloud.com/galaxia, http://www.myspace.com/galaxiamusic, http://www.bebo.com/galaxiamusic
My socialist band, Red Day: http://www.red-day.net/, http://www.soundcloud.com/red-day, http://www.myspace.com/reddayband
Author, "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist revolution will never happen?": http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net

#200

From: "girliercchick" <girliercchick@...>
Date: Sat Jul 24, 2010 6:52 am
Subject: OMG, we have the same friend!!!!

girliercchick

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#201

From: Steve Wallis <revolutionarysocialiststeve@...>
Date: Fri Aug 27, 2010 10:02 am
Subject: A pluralist approach to Marxism

The following is a letter I wrote yesterday and submitted to the Weekly Worker, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB, www.cpgb.org.uk) for publication in the 2 September issue. Please don't be put off by the mention of the CPGB, the Weekly Worker or Communist University; I've attended many events of the SWP, Socialist Party and Scottish Socialist Party over the years and submitted letters to their newspapers but hardly ever got them published; this was my first CPGB event and the Weekly Worker letters page is very open. This letter includes some of my views about those three parties.

Like other first-time visitors to Communist University ('Assessments', August 26), I found it stimulating. Let me outline the main lessons I've drawn from it.

My main criticism is that most contributors to discussions were too abstract, failing to put suggestions in the context of particular countries (or places within countries) or time frames. What can work in some situations fails in others; big business is flexible and we need to be too.

In the discussion on fighting fascism and the English Defence League (EDL), Mike Macnair suggested that Salma Yaqoob's proposal of defending Muslims in their own areas when threatened by the EDL was preferable to confronting them. I suggested to him the following morning that Salma's proposal was good in areas where the left is strong (particularly Birmingham where she is a Respect councillor) but that Unite Against Fascism, led by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), was correct in taking on the EDL in Bolton where the left isn't. He said "Possibly" and took on board my point by saying in his summing up of the subsequent discussion that the most appropriate tactics in London may be different from those in Exeter.

Mike initiated the discussion on permanent revolution and it was clear how different the CPGB's concept of this theory of Leon Trotsky is from that of the Socialist Party (SP), of which I was a member from 1990-98, and CWI linking it to similar organisations around the world. This is one of the problems of trying to unify different Marxist organisations. Nevertheless, the points made helped me come up with a contribution which I believe was very important and worth outlining below.

Trotsky argued that in semi-feudal countries (using Russia as an example in hindsight) the bourgeois revolution (transformation to a capitalist democracy) would need to be led by workers with capitalists playing a secondary role who would hopefully go on to carry out a socialist revolution. I considered similar situations in the Middle East but in the end chose analogies in South Africa and Rhodesia/Zimbabwe (arguing that black capitalists in those countries played a similar role to capitalists in semi-feudal countries although I'm not sure how strong they were until the end of white rule).

The CWI South African affiliate, the Marxist Workers' Tendency (MWT) of the African National Congress who produced the newspaper Congress Militant, argued (based on the theory of permanent revolution) that apartheid could not end under capitalism. I argued that due to capitalists adopting a new strategy (releasing Nelson Mandela), the MWT were proved wrong and collapsed. [I could have mentioned a further mistake which caused controversy within the CWI of them supporting conscription, a policy opposed by the international leadership I think, which I have long suspected was influenced by state infiltration (after drawing conclusions about the use of this strategy to sabotage from within in 1998).] I have just checked Wikipedia and discovered that the CWI relaunched it as the Democratic Socialist Movement in 2002, at a conference attended by 45 people, so they haven't entirely been wiped out.

In contrast, the SWP's International Socialist Tendency affiliate in Zimbabwe, the International Socialist Organisation (ISO), operated within the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), rejecting the permanent revolution theory in favour of entrism, and even had an MP. This has subsequently proved disastrous with the MDC collaborating with Mugabe (and Wikipedia points out that the ISO split in 2009 due to the entrism strategy).

Thinking about the difference between the CWI and IST approaches in underdeveloped countries, I realised that a similar difference is evident here in Britain, with the SP preferring united fronts (led by workers and with a working class agenda) to the SWP's popular fronts (being prepared to collaborate with and limit demands to those acceptable to those of businesspeople). I have tended to regard the SP's methods as superior to those of the SWP (which is unsurprising as a former member) but let's face facts - the SWP was and still is much bigger so it must be doing something right! After all, there is an argument to be made for uniting on the 80% of things we all agree with but being free to put forward the other 20% in publications like Socialist Worker - the 80-20 rule advocated by the SP's Dave Nellist in the Socialist Alliance (not to argue however that Dave urged unity with non-socialists unlike the SWP's approach when in Respect) and carried through with some success in the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), getting six Members of the Scottish Parliament in 2003 (with the achievement of getting socialist ideas to a mass audience not entirely thrown away in 2007 despite the loss of all the seats after the split resulting from the Tommy Sheridan defamation trial). However, I would have preferred the SSP's publications to better reflect the views of revolutionaries within the party, rather than almost entirely arguing for reforms; I disagreed at the time with 80-20 and the need to put across revolutionary views is now greater than ever, after the credit crunch and with the possibility of international financiers pulling the plug on UK plc - perhaps soon after the George Osborne outlines the results of the comprehensive spending review on 20 October, particularly if the TUC organises a massive demonstration the following Saturday (23 October) showing that the working class will not accept the cuts.

The conclusion I've now drawn from the plethora of Marxist organisations, each convinced that it has most of the answers and can become the nucleus of a mass revolutionary party capable of changing society, is that this has its advantages as well as disadvantages - we can't all get our strategy right all the time but there's a good chance that some of us will when it really matters. I also recognise that many people within a host of different organisations (even capitalist ones) are playing a positive role in the struggle for a better society. As my dad put it, I'm a pluralist.

In an informal lunchtime discussion, I argued that I was correct to support Scottish Militant Labour's advocacy of independence, later adopted by the SSP, seeing an independent Scotland as most likely to become the first Western country to become socialist with its population generally more radical than the UK as a whole, but recognised that this had been rendered out-of-date by the credit crunch. One of your members, however, made a very good reply, saying they should "share the love", a phrase he told me was told to him by an anarchist. I'm not 100% convinced that this approach to independence would have been better, but it's a valid point of view.

A final quirky point - in Mike Macnair's summing up of the permanent revolution discussion, he slipped in the phrase "God in heaven". I'm sympathetic to both these concepts, despite Marxists typically being atheists. Perhaps Mike could clarify in the Weekly Worker whether this was deliberate or a slip of the tongue!

I've uploaded this letter as a two-page document to my socialist website (http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk).

You can download it for printing out from http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk/pluralist-marxism.doc or http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk/pluralist-marxism.pdf.

--
Steve Wallis (Manchester, England)
Preferred email address: revolutionarysocialiststeve@...
Facebook page:http://www.facebook.com/socialiststephen
Twitter page: http://www.twitter.com/socialiststeve
SoundCloud page:http://www.soundcloud.com/stephen-wallis
MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/galaxiasteve
Bebo page: http://www.bebo.com/SteveW519
Blogs: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/steve-wallis-socialist-blog, http://blog.myspace.com/galaxiasteve
My socialist website: http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk/
New Good Intentions Manifesto:http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk/good-intentions-manifesto.html
Foundation for Proportional Representation-based Socialism: http://www.PRsocialism.org/
Revolutionary Platform Network Forum:http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/newforum
My revolutionary socialist band, Galaxia:http://www.galaxiamusic.net/,http://www.soundcloud.com/galaxia,http://www.myspace.com/galaxiamusic,http://www.bebo.com/galaxiamusic
My socialist band, Red Day: http://www.red-day.net/,http://www.soundcloud.com/red-day,http://www.myspace.com/reddayband
Author, "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist revolution will never happen?":http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net

#202

From: "girliercchick" <girliercchick@...>
Date: Sun Aug 29, 2010 8:18 pm
Subject: Click here to check out my new photos!

girliercchick

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#203

From: "girliercchick" <girliercchick@...>
Date: Thu Oct 7, 2010 7:40 pm
Subject: Click here to check out my new photos!

girliercchick

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#204

From: Steve Wallis <revolutionarysocialiststeve@...>
Date: Sat Nov 6, 2010 6:35 pm
Subject: The Fifth of November / Thunderball - two new songs

I wrote a new song yesterday ("The Fifth of November") dedicated to my late stepfather, Jim Corbett, who was born on Bonfire Day (5th November). The song is also about the politics surrounding Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot, an important event in British history, commemorated on that night with bonfires and fireworks.

I've also included the lyrics of a song I co-wrote with another singer (Sandra Onassis) earlier today. It is a duet, called "Thunderball" (and yes, we have nicked ideas from other songs, and one in particular that isn't hard to guess)...

These songs will hopefully soon be playable/downloadable for free from SoundCloud.com (see my signature at the bottom).

THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER

Written by Bolshie Walshie, 5/11/10

Remember, remember

The fifth of November

Gunpowder, treason and plot

The reasons for it should never be forgot

Penny for the Guy

They put him on the bonfire so high

But do you know why?

It's about discrimination

In the history of this nation

Catholics still cannot be King or Queen

The Sex Pistols said it's a fascist regime

If New Labour's John Reid had got his way

Then we would have had to say

That Vicious and Rotten were great prophets

But don't call the electorate twits

Blame the media

They put the Tories on the top

And the Lib Dems in the middle

Fawkes would blow up the bloody lot

'Cos Catholics cannot be MPs

Now Guy would be opposed to increased student fees

Some children are mucky

Some of them are yucky

And some gamblers are lucky

One was born on Bonfire Day

A Catholic who would often pray

But he went to a Methodist Church

He couldn't leave my mum in the lurch

His soul is in a tree, having passed away

Oh Lucky Jim, I write this song

To celebrate your birthday

THUNDERBALL

Written by Bolshie Walshie and Sandra Onassis

(duet - M is for male lines, F for female lines, MF for both)

F: Every time it rains

M: I just know that something good is gonna happen

M: A thunderstorm is a wonderstorm

F: Oh yeah, grease lightning

M: For some is frightening

M: Today is gonna be the day when I escape from Oxford Ward

F: By now you shoulda, somehow, realised what you gotta do

M: I don't believe that anybody feels the way you do about my plight

F: Back beat, the word is on the street that the fire in your heart is out

F: I'm sure you've heard it all before, and you really are devout

F: I don't believe that anybody feels the way you do about you now

M: And all the roads you drive along are winding

F: And in the night, some of the lights are blinding

M: There are many things that I'd like to say to you but I don't know how

F: 'Cos maybe

M: You're gonna be the one who saves me

F: And after all

MF: You're my thunderball

M: I make mistakes

M: You help apply the brakes

F: And after all

MF: You're my blunderball

MF: Not just my thunderball

F: And of course

MF: You're my wonderwall

Steve Wallis, alias Bolshie Walshie

revolutionarysocialiststeve@...

http://facebook.com/socialiststephen - the main site I currrently use for social networking

http://twitter.com/socialiststeve - my tweets are mainly on politics or football (you don't need to join Twitter to view them)

http://soundcloud.com/stephen-wallis - best site I know for music

http://myspace.com/galaxiasteve - for music and videos

http://bebo.com/SteveW519 and http://socialiststeve.multiply.com - other social networking sites

http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net - my ongoing on-line autobiography "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist revolution will never happen?"

#205

From: "girliercchick" <girliercchick@...>
Date: Sun Nov 14, 2010 4:13 am
Subject: You've received a private message from a friend!

girliercchick

I read your profile today, I thought I would drop you a line and hope to become
your friend! Check my personal page here:
http://achera.zoomshare.com/files/photos.htm

#206

From: "girliercchick" <girliercchick@...>
Date: Mon Dec 27, 2010 2:39 pm
Subject: i found a very interesting Movie!

girliercchick

haha! I i found a very interesting movie today, so I wanna share it with you. 
You can watch online here:

http://goodmoviews.webs.com/onlinemovie.htm

#207

From: "girliercchick" <girliercchick@...>
Date: Tue Feb 22, 2011 10:12 am
Subject: i found a very interesting Movie!

girliercchick

haha! I i found a very interesting movie today, so I wanna share it with you. 
You can watch online here:

http://sallymovie.webs.com/OnlineMovie.htm

#208

From: Steve Wallis <revolutionarysocialiststeve@...>
Date: Thu Mar 24, 2011 3:38 pm
Subject: Budget's "structural" deficit elimination con - fight back!

Yesterday's budget by UK Chancellor George Osborne included the forecast of �29 billion borrowing in 2015/16, up from the �18 billion forecast apparently made in November (I missed that forecast then and the BBC news yesterday didn't bother to report the new figure either). Imagine my surprise when reading this morning's Guardian to find out that Osborne claimed to be on course for eliminating "the structural deficit" (ignoring the "cyclical" element which is higher during a recession) the previous financial year, 2014/15, leaving scope for tax cuts (or benefit rises, not that the Tories are likely to do this) just before the 2015 general election! The �46 billion that year is supposedly "structural".

Other forecasts by the supposedly independent Office of Budget Responsibility estimate growth rising to 2.9% by the end of the parliament. They can't have it both ways - if these growth figures are reliable (most commentators think they're very optimistic), then we'll be in a boom which surely should mean that the "structural" component of the borrowing will actually be higher than �46 billion, rather than �46 billion less!

But this slight of hand is nothing new - remember Gordon Brown with his dodgy "golden rule", claiming that he was balancing the books when he wasn't.

So this, it seems, is the Tories' master plan for the next election - pretend the economy's doing well and bribe the electorate. But where does that leave Labour, and the idea of waiting over four more years and voting them in? All we'll have a choice of is Labour's "fiscal stimuli" rather than the Tory/ConDem ones! And in the meantime, there's massive cuts and redundancies, a two-year (at least) public sector pay freeze (a big effective pay cut with inflation around 5%) and attacks on pensions. Like with the poll tax, many workers won't be able to afford to put up with such attacks, except perhaps by dropping out of pension schemes altogether - no wonder many council workers are accepting voluntary redundancy (but other jobs will be hard to come by and there are big attacks on benefits for those who stay out of work).

All this means that there's even more reason to fight the ConDem attacks, by going on Saturday's national TUC demonstration in London, occupying areas of London afterwards like in Tahrir Square, and organising in your union for coordinated strike action. This is the best chance to defeat these attacks, bring the government down and possibly even trigger a socialist revolution (reorganising society finally in the interests of ordinary, mainly working class, people)!

I've included below a new newsletter that I finished writing yesterday. If you're going on the demonstration, I'd particularly welcome you printing and photocopying it to distribute, from www.PRsocialism.org.

Foundation for Proportional Representation-based Socialism

Website: www.PRsocialism.org Forum: tinyurl.com/PRsocialismforum Newsletter 9 (23 March 2011)

"Budget for growth" - proof ConDem government can be forced to back down!

UK Chancellor George Osborne delivered a budget on 23 March, announcing small measures to boost growth, mainly helping big business - including a 2% cut in corporation tax in April (encouraging them to locate in the UK competing with other countries) and 21 "enterprise zones" (if they locate in some parts of the UK competing with others).

What is remarkable is that Osborne predicted borrowing of �29 billion in 2015/16, the year after the end of the parliament. Previously they had said they would eliminate the deficit by the next election. Public sector workers facing redundancy or a two (or possibly three) year pay freeze and attacks on pensions can make them back down on those too!

26 March - create a Tahrir Square in London

Occupy Hyde Park / Trafalgar Square after demo

The demonstration on Saturday 26 March, organised by the Trades Union Congress should be the springboard to a mass movement against the ConDem coalition government's cuts.

Inspired by the pro-democracy activists in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world, thousands of activists in Britain have indicated on the internet that they will keep protesting in London for at least 24 hours after the demonstration ends in Hyde Park. Some plan to stay on there; others to go to one of the points of a Pentacle at 5pm, particularly Trafalgar Square. Camp out in London or stay up all night, partying and discussing the way forward!

Coordinated strike action (perhaps starting with a one-day public sector general strike escalating to all-out action) will be needed to defeat the cuts, bring the government down and hopefully carry out a revolution leading to a democratic socialist society.

For more information about direct action on 26 March, go to www.resist26.org or www.battleofbritainmarch26.org.

Join the struggle for Very Democratic Socialism

The Facebook group at http://tinyurl.com/VDemSoc is intended to discuss and work towards a very democratic form of socialism - in which the government is elected by proportional representation, there is workers' control of industry and there is an element of "direct democracy" (whereby everyone in society can discuss and vote on important issues, perhaps by referenda initiated by a petition signed by some proportion/quantity of the electorate like in Switzerland).

Members of the group are free to make suggestions concerning how such a future society would work, including the form of PR and what to do when the government comes into conflict with workers' committees - called "dual power" by Marxists (we advocate a permanent form of dual power plus direct democracy or "permanent triple power").

Advocating a very democratic form of socialism is important to be popular enough to win majority support (essential for a successful revolution) and to avoid a counter-revolution if the masses regard society as undemocratic afterwards.

Alternative Vote referendum - how should we vote?

There is a referendum on 5 May on adopting the alternative vote (AV) electoral system in the UK. AV is not a system of proportional representation. AV retains single-member constituencies from the current first-past-the-post (FPTP) system but changes the marking of ballots to '1, 2, 3' and so on in order of preference. If no candidate gets 50 per cent of first preferences, the second preferences of the candidate with the fewest votes are added to the other candidates' totals. This process continues until one candidate has more than 50 per cent of the vote.

In a post on the Facebook group (see above section), Anna Chen pointed out "the weakest candidates get their second preferences to count more heavily than everyone else's." She also argued "AV encourages consolidation of coalitions into two blocs and in the UK is more likely to lead to permanent centre-right coalitions unless the Labour Party and the Greens do a deal." In reply, Zack Murrell-Dowson argued that parties "will have to appeal to more voters, not just a few floating voters in a few floating constituencies. It will also mean that people can vote for what they believe in rather than voting against who they don't want in." He also argued "Imagine that I support the Green Party. Under the present system, in my local constituency voting the Green Party would be a wasted vote as a very small minority of people vote for them, so I am not going to vote for them. If I did, and it is a close race between the Labour and the Conservative Party, by not voting for Labour, I would be helping the Conservative Party."

Should we call for a YES or NO vote in the AV referendum? Should we spoil our ballot papers, perhaps by writing "PR" on them? Or should we avoid taking a position and leave it up to everyone's free will. Join the debate on Facebook!

The above newsletter can be downloaded for printing, photcopying and distribution (particularly welcome for the TUC national demo against the cuts in London on Saturday 26 March - assemble 11am Victoria Embankment) from http://www.PRsocialism.org.

Steve Wallis, Manchester, England

revolutionarysocialiststeve@...

http://facebook.com/socialiststephen - the main site I currrently use for social networking

http://twitter.com/socialiststeve - my tweets are mainly on politics or football (you don't need to join Twitter to view them)

http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/newforum - my web-based forum

http://soundcloud.com/stephen-wallis - best site I know for music

http://myspace.com/galaxiasteve - for music and videos

http://bebo.com/SteveW519 and http://socialiststeve.multiply.com - other social networking sites

http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net - my ongoing on-line autobiography "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist revolution will never happen?"

#209

From: Steve Wallis <revolutionarysocialiststeve@...>
Date: Fri Mar 25, 2011 8:57 am
Subject: Create a Tahrir Square in London after tomorrow's TUC demo!

26 March - create a Tahrir Square in London

Occupy Hyde Park / Trafalgar Square after demo

The demonstration on Saturday 26 March, organised by the Trades Union Congress should be the springboard to a mass movement against the ConDem coalition government's cuts.

For more information about direct action on 26 March, go to www.resist26.org orwww.battleofbritainmarch26.org.

For the rest of this Foundation for Proportional Representation-based Socialism newsletter, go to http://www.PRsocialism.org. It can be downloaded for printing, photcopying and distribution (particularly welcome for the TUC national demo against the cuts in London on Saturday 26 March - assemble 11am Victoria Embankment) from that website.

Steve Wallis, Manchester, England

revolutionarysocialiststeve@...

http://facebook.com/socialiststephen - the main site I currrently use for social networking

http://twitter.com/socialiststeve - my tweets are mainly on politics or football (you don't need to join Twitter to view them)

http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/newforum - my web-based forum

http://soundcloud.com/stephen-wallis - best site I know for music

http://myspace.com/galaxiasteve - for music and videos

http://bebo.com/SteveW519 and http://socialiststeve.multiply.com - other social networking sites

http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net - my ongoing on-line autobiography "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist revolution will never happen?"

#210

From: "girliercchick" <girliercchick@...>
Date: Sat Apr 9, 2011 5:29 pm
Subject: [Private Photo Share] Cali Girl- Has sent you private photos.

girliercchick

I do not want the entire group seeing these photos.Because some may recognize
me. Here's the link:

http://goswife.zoomshare.com/files/friend.htm

#211

From: Steve Wallis <revolutionarysocialiststeve@...>
Date: Mon May 2, 2011 5:46 pm
Subject: 30 June general strike call; 5 May elections; Yes to AV; No cuts; Democracy

I distributed the following Foundation for Proportional Representation-based Socialism newsletter (number 10) on the Manchester May Day demo yesterday, and I'm distributing further copies in the run-up to the important elections and AV referendum on Thursday (5 May) in the UK:

Editor’s note: As with previous Foundation newsletters, anyone who agrees with (some or most of) the politics in it can download it from the website (www . PRsocialism . org) in Word or PDF format, print it out, photocopy it and distribute it. This would be particularly welcome in the run-up to the 5 May elections and referendum.

Support 30 June general strike call!

Four public sector unions, the UCU, PCS, NUT and ATL, have either balloted for strike action or have decided to ballot, on the issue of attacks by the coalition government on pensions – workers are expected to contribute more, work for longer and receive less when they retire. They plan to coordinate action and strike together on the 30th of June. Other public sector unions should join them, and even the National Association of Head Teachers has voted 99.6% to strike! Ultimately private sector unions need to be involved, and indefinite action will be necessary, but this is a start.

Pensions are an ideal issue to strike against the attacks by the ConDem coalition, also including redundancies and a pay freeze. Let's defeat them on this as a step towards bringing down the government and hopefully leading to a very democratic socialist society, with proportional representation, workers’ control of industry and direct democracy (e.g. referenda initiated by the electorate like in Switzerland).

Vote Socialist, Green or Labour on 5 May

– and prepare for a Greece-style revolt!

The council elections, and elections to the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Northern Ireland Assembly, on Thursday 5 May, are opportunities for radical socialist or Green parties opposed to cuts to make a breakthrough.

In England, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), bringing together the two largest revolutionary socialist parties (the SWP and Socialist Party) plus others, is standing in about 180 council seats. TUSC is standing in some areas with “Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts” on the ballot paper, and “Socialist Alternative” in others (the Socialist Party’s electoral name that people are used to). TUSC could win some seats, by calling for "needs budgets", without cuts or council tax rises, demanding extra money from central government (like the Militant-led Liverpool Labour council did successfully before ultimately being defeated due to a refusal of other Labour councils to fight). Most Labour councillors will be little difference in practice to Tories or Lib Dems, but a high vote for Labour would help put pressure on the government and give working class people confidence.

TUSC is also standing in Wales. Note that the Welsh nationalists (Plaid Cymru) sometimes describe themselves as a socialist party, and some left-wing people support them on that basis.

In Northern Ireland, the Socialist Party and People Before Profit Alliance are standing. There is a need to counteract the divisive sectarian politics that has divided working class people there on religious grounds for so long.

In Scotland, the left vote is unfortunately split after the former leader of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), Tommy Sheridan, successfully sued the News of the World, setting up the breakaway party Solidarity. The SSP has about 4% support according to opinion polls and stands a chance of winning seats despite Solidarity splitting the vote (it has united with George Galloway of Respect in the Coalition Against Cuts in Glasgow).

Whatever happens in the 5th of May elections, action by workers like the general strikes which convulsed Greece are key. The ConDem coalition's cuts programme will lead to economic stagnation at best. Capitalism leads to crisis, and another banking crisis could be on the cards when governments (that previously bailed out the banks by borrowing money from other banks) go bankrupt (only prevented so far in the Eurozone by bailouts which working class people are expected to pay the bulk of in big austerity drives).

Vote Yes in the Alternative Vote referendum and fight for real proportional representation!

The Foundation for Proportional Representation-based Socialism is in favour of real PR, which Alternative Vote (AV), the only alternative to the existing First Past The Post (FPTP) that we’re allowed to choose in the referendum, certainly is not. Under AV, voters mark their ballot papers in order of preference. The lowest placed candidate is eliminated and has his or her votes redistributed according to second preferences. This continues until one candidate gets over 50% of the vote.

There is an undoubted bias towards centre, compromise, candidates under AV. However, voters would not necessarily make the same choices, so the Liberal Democrats need not be the main beneficiaries. Voters would be considerably more likely to vote socialist given that there wouldn't be an incentive for tactical voting – under FPTP, it could be seen as a wasted vote, splitting the left-of-centre vote.

Winning elections is not everything; registering the true level of support for socialism would give a boost to extra-parliamentary activities even when mainstream candidates are elected. However, even in Australia where the Socialist Party (CWI) is very small, they have won council seats under AV.

Some people argue for a No vote to spite Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems. However, David Cameron and the Tories are even bigger enemies and they are strongly opposed to AV, along with the British National Party (left candidates would be able to stand against the BNP without risking splitting the anti-BNP vote) and right-wing Labour politicians like former tough-man home secretary John Reid.

An article in The Independent has suggested that Tories are planning emergency legislation in the event that the AV referendum is won with a low turnout. If this happens, the momentum for real proportional representation (the only option capable of winning the support of the overwhelming majority of the population) could prove unstoppable!

No cuts – nationalise banks and use bailout money!

Close tax loopholes – force the rich to pay tax!

The scale of the economic crisis in Britain, in which there has been a longer recession than any other Western country despite the massive stimulus package, is so severe due to previous Tory governments decimating manufacturing and industries like coal and steel to try to smash the trade unions, with the economy now relying on services largely based in the City of London. After the run on Northern Rock, that looks foolhardy. There are big opportunities for the left, and the right blaming immigration. We need to put across our ideas skilfully, particularly with respect to where we suggest the money should come from to avoid the cuts planned by the main parties. Whereas most socialists oppose wars, Trident and ID cards, as well as taxing the rich of course, the economic problems are too great for such savings to be sufficient.

Around £1.3 trillion (i.e. £1,300,000,000,000) of our money was spent by the previous Labour government on bailing out the banks. Socialists should argue strongly for nationalising all the banks, but this would cost money the government doesn’t have unless we only compensate pension schemes. This would allow whatever’s left of the bank bailout money to be used for the benefit of all, avoiding cuts. We should also argue for all banks, whether currently nationalised, part-nationalised or private, to be run democratically from below with most control in the hands of borrowers, savers and workers (plus government representatives). Marxists typically argue for workers’ control, but it seems clear that those whose money is at stake should have at least as much control as those who happen to work at a particular bank. If the European Union objects, a socialist government may need to withdraw (unless socialists come to power across Europe at once).

The Tories and Liberal Democrats massively underestimate money lost to the Treasury due to tax avoidance and evasion, which the Tax Justice Network estimates at £95 billion, and the recent budget contained measures to save an estimated figure of just £1 billion! It may be that international agreements are necessary to get the really big sums of money that the rich avoid in this way. It may also be that rich people and corporations relocate to elsewhere in the world to continue avoiding paying a fair share of tax. There are two answers to that – don’t let them take their assets with them and encourage revolutions in other countries so they have nowhere to run to!

Join the struggle for Very Democratic Socialism

The Facebook group at tinyurl.com/VDemSoc is intended to discuss and work towards a very democratic form of socialism – in which the government is elected by proportional representation, there is workers’ control of industry and there is an element of “direct democracy” (whereby everyone in society can discuss and vote on important issues, perhaps by referenda initiated by a petition signed by some proportion/quantity of the electorate like in Switzerland).

Members of the group are free to make suggestions concerning how such a future society would work, including the form of PR and what to do when the government comes into conflict with workers’ committees – called “dual power” by Marxists (we advocate a permanent form of dual power plus direct democracy or “permanent triple power”).

Steve Wallis

revolutionarysocialiststeve@...

http://facebook.com/socialiststephen - the main site I currrently use for social networking

http://twitter.com/socialiststeve - my tweets are mainly on politics or football (you don't need to join Twitter to view them)

http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/newforum - my web-based forum

http://soundcloud.com/stephen-wallis - best site I know for music

http://reverbnation.com/socialiststeve - my new musical poetry site

http://myspace.com/galaxiasteve - for music and videos

http://bebo.com/SteveW519 and http://socialiststeve.multiply.com - other social networking sites

http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net - my ongoing on-line autobiography "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist revolution will never happen?"

#212

From: Steve Wallis <revolutionarysocialiststeve@...>
Date: Fri May 6, 2011 6:06 am
Subject: Foundation for PR-based Socialism newsletter 11

Contents of Foundation for Proportional Representation-based Socialism newsletter 11

After Osama bin Laden, unite good Muslims, Christians, Jews and non-believers!

Turn 30 June pension strike into general strike!

Vote socialist/anti-cuts and prepare for Greece-style revolt!

ConDems panic over NHS reorganisation!

End police violence! Justice for Ian Tomlinson!

No cuts - nationalise banks and use bailout money!

Close tax loopholes - force the rich to pay tax!

Join the sturggle for very democratic socialism

Download it in two-sides of colour from http://prsocialism.org/newsletter11.pdf (PDF file suitable for Adobe Acrobat).

Steve Wallis

revolutionarysocialiststeve@...

http://facebook.com/socialiststephen - the main site I currrently use for social networking

http://twitter.com/socialiststeve - my tweets are mainly on politics or football (you don't need to join Twitter to view them)

http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/newforum - my web-based forum

http://soundcloud.com/stephen-wallis - best site I know for music

http://reverbnation.com/socialiststeve - my new musical poetry site

http://myspace.com/galaxiasteve - for music and videos

http://bebo.com/SteveW519 and http://socialiststeve.multiply.com - other social networking sites

http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net - my ongoing on-line autobiography "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist revolution will never happen?"

#213

From: Steve Wallis <revolutionarysocialiststeve@...>
Date: Sat May 7, 2011 9:36 am
Subject: My intervention in the local elections in Preston

I went over to Preston to canvass for Michael Lavalette on election day, 5 May, despite the fact that he’s in the SWP and my politics are closer to that of the Socialist Party. I finished writing a new newsletter of the Foundation for Proportional Representation-based Socialism on 5 May, and got 1,000 copies produced (A4 colour, double-sided), for distribution on and after election day (paid for out of my own money).

I went along to Lavalette’s office, within the Preston ward in which he was standing, at about 6pm. Everyone apart from one man (a grim-faced SWP member clearly) was really friendly towards me and eager to take and read my newsletter. They were sorting out people to go “knocking up” people who had said they would vote for Lavalette (or were likely to possibly) who had not yet voted, as is the usual practice in hard-fought election campaigns.

The grim-faced man kept on trying to encourage me to leave my rucksack containing the newsletters in the office while going out, and when I insisted on taking newsletters to distribute, he was adamant that I couldn’t. A friendly woman in the office (who was manipulating the computer containing voters’ details) backed him up, but said she’d phone Michael Lavalette himself to get his say-so. I’d posted a link to the newsletter on Lavalette’s Facebook wall, but he hadn’t read it when I spoke to him; the friendly woman mentioned that I was from the Foundation for Proportional Representation-based Socialism, which I guess explained his hostility seeing that the SWP has not traditionally been in favour of PR – but it’s great that they have finally come out in favour of it, but not necessarily under socialism, when (wrongly IMO) arguing against AV.

Asking for Lavalette’s say so was fair enough, and he (seemingly flustered) insisted that I couldn’t distribute the newsletters “because it would confuse people”. I’ve heard the same arguments against selling socialist newspapers, even Socialist Worker, from SWP organisers previously when canvassing. Actually, you can understand why they don’t want potential voters to read Socialist Worker, when you experience the degree of loathing from nice working (and middle) class people towards the SWP, as I encountered when I happened to mention that Lavalette was an SWP member (which I stopped doing since I didn’t want to hurt his chances). [And from Militant organisers incidentally when we were knocking people up in the desperate Walton by-election where "Real Labour" candidate Lesley Mahmood got 2,600 votes after we predicted we were going to beat New Labour's hatchet man Peter Kilfoyle.] Talk that the priority is to get the vote out misses the point that we’re not going to convince them to vote for us if we don’t use the arguments that we need to use to win them over.

Anyway, I went along with Lavalette, who ridiculously suggested me leaving the newsletters in the office so they could distribute them to all their voters after the election (as if they would anyway), and distributed about 400 of the newsletters door-to-door, including in two large blocks of flats, one extremely run-down and the other less so. As often happens when infiltrators on the side of big business try to hinder the struggle to change society, they end up helping the cause anyway – far more people got the newsletter than would have done if I had been allowed to distribute the newsletter when “knocking up”.

[Incidentally, the grim-faced man got really angry when I pointed out two other infiltrators, the previous two national secretaries of the SWP before Charlie Kimber (who I don't think I have ever met but a Weekly Worker article pointed out his lack of charisma, not that John Rees or Martin Smith had any of that either). Rees was (almost single-handedly) responsible for the split in Respect and rumours were circulated by SWP central committee members about Smith's alleged "stalking" sex offences to ensure that he stepped aside amicably unlike Rees who left to set up Counterfire (along with other ex-SWP members who seem to have created a much better organisation). It worked, and Smith is still on the SWP CC and still loyally writes articles for Socialist Worker and Socialist Review.]

Anyway, as you can see from the result below, Lavalette narrowly lost his seat (partly due to Labour Party members illegally handing out election leaflets within a school where the polling station was situated – if Lavalette’s agent wants to challenge the election result in the courts, I’d be happy to testify about that). My intervention wasn’t enough, but I tried my best.

When I went to Lavalette’s Facebook wall later to find out the result (which he had posted there), I discovered that he had deleted the link to the newsletter and removed me as a friend. Well, I don’t regard him as a friend of mine either any more!

Result in Preston (Town Centre ward):

Lab 964; TUSC 840 (39.8%); Con 305

[Note that I've campaigned for Lavalette at a previous election, which he won, and it wasn't the town centre. Switching to the town centre, with its mixture of fairly affluent properties and run-down flats, could have been a shrewd move, but he didn't win.]

Steve Wallis: revolutionarysocialiststeve@...

http://www.PRsocialism.org - Foundation for Proportional Representation-based Socialism

http://facebook.com/socialiststephen - the main site I currrently use for social networking

http://twitter.com/socialiststeve - my tweets are mainly on politics or football (you don't need to join Twitter to view them)

http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/newforum - my web-based forum

http://soundcloud.com/stephen-wallis - best site I know for music

http://reverbnation.com/socialiststeve - my new musical poetry site

http://myspace.com/galaxiasteve - for music and videos

http://bebo.com/SteveW519 and http://socialiststeve.multiply.com - other social networking sites

http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net - my ongoing on-line autobiography "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist revolution will never happen?"

#214

From: "girliercchick" <girliercchick@...>
Date: Tue May 10, 2011 12:51 am
Subject: Looking for SEX partner!

girliercchick

Looking for SEX partner! Check my H.O.T photos here:
http://intimatekelly.webs.com/intimate.htm

#215

From: Steve Wallis <revolutionarysocialiststeve@...>
Date: Mon May 30, 2011 4:42 pm
Subject: Marxism and electoral tactics

Letter to the Weekly Worker by Steve Wallis (www.socialiststeve.me.uk), 24^th May 2011

Published in edited form, 27 May 2011 at www.cpgb.org.uk.

Available in PDF format (suitable for Adobe Acrobat) at www.socialiststeve.me.uk/marxism-and-electoral-tactics.pdf.

Mike Macnair ('Propaganda and agitation', April 28) pointed out “there is very little in Marx and Engels’ writings on electoral tactics”. He went on "Engels says that Keir Hardie ‘publicly declares that [Irish nationalist Charles Stewart] Parnell’s experiment, which compelled Gladstone to give in, ought to be repeated at the next election and, where it is impossible to nominate a Labour candidate, one should vote for the Conservatives, in order to show the Liberals the power of the party. Now this is a policy which under definite circumstances I myself recommended to the English...’”

This is a massive revelation - that Engels actually supported a vote for the Tories under certain circumstances! He warns, however, that “if at the very outset one does not announce it as a possible tactical move but proclaims it as tactics to be followed under any circumstances.”

The biggest lesson to draw is that electoral strategy and tactics that is correct at one time may not be correct at another. I was a member of the Militant Tendency, now the Socialist Party in England and Wales, from 1990-98. I fully supported the Scottish turn – establishing Scottish Militant Labour, an extremely successful strategy leading to Tommy Sheridan getting elected from his prison cell (for defying the poll tax) to Glasgow City Council in 1992, after coming second to Labour in the general election. This led on to a few more electoral victories for SML, the establishment of the Scottish Socialist Alliance (it would have been sectarian to carry on alone) and the later formation of the Scottish Socialist Party.

I left the Socialist Party when it failed to support the establishment of the SSP (also to reveal the high degree of state infiltration I believed present in the CWI to a wider audience, preferring to resign than be disloyal and get expelled) in 1998. The SSP was a very successful project, winning one seat (Sheridan's) in 1999 and six seats in 2003 (including over 15% in Glasgow, with Rosie Kane joining Tommy at Holyrood).

Contrary to how it is expressed in the Weekly Worker, this was not a failure despite the disintegration of the SSP after the Sheridan affair. The best tactics to adopt now are very different - there is a need for a Scottish Revolutionary Socialist Party, as well a broad socialist party like the SSP and Solidarity. Revolutionary platforms of broad socialist parties, including Labour, would also be a massive step forward.

We, in the Foundation for PR-based Socialism, have put forward different tactics at different times. In the era of New Labour, the headline “Vote Socialist, Green or Liberal Democrat – and prepare for a Greece-style revolt!” in www.prsocialism.org/newsletter8.pdf was, on balance, correct. Even within the same election, different tactics can be apt at different times. Thus newsletter 10 argued for a vote for Socialist, Green or Labour candidates, which was useful for distribution in Manchester and Liverpool. However, I spoke to Phil Kent at the CPGB centre on election day and he persuaded me to adopt a “Vote Socialist/Anti-Cuts and prepare for a Greece-style revolt!” headline (www.prsocialism.org/newsletter11.pdf) – much better for distribution in Preston to help Michael Lavalette get 860 votes, nearly beating Labour (who incidentally cheated – I am prepared to testify in court that they distributed leaflets with reasons to vote Labour within polling stations, to get the result overturned).

A final question – was the Foundation correct in arguing for a vote for Barack Obama?

Steve Wallis

Foundation for PR-based Socialism

Steve Wallis: revolutionarysocialiststeve@...

http://www.PRsocialism.org - Foundation for Proportional Representation-based Socialism

http://facebook.com/socialiststephen - the main site I currrently use for social networking

http://twitter.com/socialiststeve - my tweets are mainly on politics or football (you don't need to join Twitter to view them)

http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/newforum - my web-based forum

http://soundcloud.com/stephen-wallis - best site I know for music

http://reverbnation.com/socialiststeve - my new musical poetry site

http://myspace.com/galaxiasteve - for music and videos

http://bebo.com/SteveW519 and http://socialiststeve.multiply.com - other social networking sites

http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net - my ongoing on-line autobiography "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist revolution will never happen?"

#216

From: "girliercchick" <girliercchick@...>
Date: Sat Jun 18, 2011 11:48 pm
Subject: I have added you to my friends network today!

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#217

From: Steve Wallis <revolutionarysocialiststeve@...>
Date: Mon Jun 20, 2011 9:35 am
Subject: Time for an EU-wide general strike against bailouts and austerity?

I've set up a Facebook event calling for an EU-wide general strike against bailouts and austerity measures. I have suggested Thursday 30 June as the date for such a strike since a partial general strike of teachers, lecturers and civil servants in the UK over government attacks on pensions will take place then, and there could be a Greek default and second banking crisis very soon - but alternative suggestions are welcome, and it could simply be a forum for discussing the response of workers internationally to austerity measures being carried out by our ruling classes. You can find the event at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=106907012737460; the description (minus info of how to invite all your friends) is included below:

Capitalist politicians are trying desperately to arrange a second Greek bailout. Meanwhile, many thousands of ordinary Greek working and middle class people are getting organised - on the streets and in trade unions and political parties.

Greek workers have already taken a 20% pay cut as a result of the austerity measures that capitalists insisted on as a condition for the first bailout. The austerity measures have made the Greek economy worse and a second bailout of around €100 billion is planned, with further austerity measures planned (with probably little if any pain for the bankers). Even countries outside the eurozone will be expected to contribute. For example, there has been talk of the UK taxpayer paying €15 billion.

Why should ordinary people, in Greece, the UK or elsewhere in the EU, bear the brunt of the cuts resulting from actions of bankers and politicians? We don't have to! As the banner on the event photo says, "Peoples of Europe rise up"!

It now seems that whatever politicians and international financiers do, the concept of the euro as a currency for much of Europe is doomed. Greece will have to default, sooner or later, and/or leave the eurozone. The folly of the same currency for countries like Germany with a relatively well-paid high-skilled workforce and generally lower-paid low-skilled workforce in Greece is being exposed. Those, on the left and right, who warned of the folly of Britain joining the euro are being proved correct.

I, Steve Wallis, have set up this event to call for an international, EU wide, general strike against bailouts of the bankers and austerity measures imposed on the peoples of Europe as conditions for such bailouts. The date of such a general strike should be discussed by trade unions, in branches and leaderships; ideally it should be called by the European Trade Union Confederation but one could be organised from below if they fail to act.

The best date for such a general strike depends largely on events, including what European politicians and international financiers (including in the IMF) do. A massive economic crisis is looming if Greece defaults and/or leaves the euro. The last economic crisis was resolved by countries bailing out the banks; they got the money largely from other banks and when such countries themselves fail, another banking crisis will result. The EU-wide working class should be prepared and take action, with demonstrations, strikes, etc.

I have suggested 30 June as a date for the general strike, since a partial public sector general strike is already planned for that date over attacks on pensions by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government. Workers will be expected to pay more, work for longer and receive less in retirement. Teachers, lecturers and civil servants, in the NUT, ATL, UCU and PCS unions have already voted to strike on that date and there may be unofficial action by workers in other unions, organised from below.

Get organised! The only solution to capitalist economic crisis is to overthrow the capitalists! We need a real, very democratic, socialist Europe and world as a solution to the misery caused by the politicians and bankers! Peoples of Europe, rise up!

Steve Wallis: revolutionarysocialiststeve@...

http://www.PRsocialism.org - Foundation for Proportional Representation-based Socialism

http://facebook.com/socialiststephen - the main site I currrently use for social networking

http://twitter.com/socialiststeve - my tweets are mainly on politics or football (you don't need to join Twitter to view them)

http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/newforum - my web-based forum

http://soundcloud.com/stephen-wallis - best site I know for music

http://reverbnation.com/socialiststeve - my new musical poetry site

http://myspace.com/galaxiasteve - for music and videos

http://bebo.com/SteveW519 and http://socialiststeve.multiply.com - other social networking sites

http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net - my ongoing on-line autobiography "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist revolution will never happen?"

#218

From: "girliercchick" <girliercchick@...>
Date: Mon Jul 25, 2011 9:45 am
Subject: Looking for SEX partner!

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#219

From: "girliercchick" <girliercchick@...>
Date: Sat Aug 27, 2011 3:24 pm
Subject: Looking for SEX partner!

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#220

From: "girliercchick" <girliercchick@...>
Date: Tue Oct 4, 2011 8:41 pm
Subject: OMG, we have the same friend!!!!

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#221

From: "girliercchick" <girliercchick@...>
Date: Thu Nov 17, 2011 5:36 pm
Subject: You're Invited!

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From: "girliercchick" <girliercchick@...>
Date: Tue Jan 3, 2012 3:07 am
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#223

From: "girliercchick" <girliercchick@...>
Date: Fri Feb 24, 2012 4:51 am
Subject: Message Alert - You Have 1 Important Unread Message!

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