Exeter Socialists ARTICLES AND DISCUSSIONS INDEX Discussion forum: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ExeterSocialists/ Important Announcement: Our outgoing Treasurer has shown us a letter about the Exeter Community Centre (download). Please read this and, if possible, attend the
Devon County Council's Executive meeting on 23 September 2008. MEETINGS
at the Heavitree Room in the Exeter Community Centre, St David’s Hill. Next meeting: Thursday 13th November Topic: 'Re-localisation, Thursday 9th October The Topic for this meeting was to have been:'The politics of community care.' Unfortunately, the comrade who was to have introduced this discussion was unwell, and so the group discussed the current economic situation. Meetings prior to that were: Thursday 11th September, Topic: 'What is working class struggle?' *** Thursday 14 August, Topic: 'The Decomposition of Capitalism?' *** Thursday 3 July, Topic: 'How can workers in the (historically) industrial centres work with those in 'developing' countries?' *** Thursday 5 June, Topic: Anti-Zionism and Racism *** May 1 2008, Topic: 'The Ideology and Politics of Food production' *** April 10 2008, Topic: 'Can there be good as well as bad capitalism?' *** March 13 2008, Topic: 'Crime and Punishment' *** Thursday 7 February 2008 *** Thursday 6 December 2007, Topic: The History of Socialist Thought *** Thursday 1 November 2007, Topic: Recent events involving the SWP and Respect *** Thursday 4 October 2007, Topic: The Future of the Left *** Thursday 6 September 2007, Topic: Housing in Crisis: What Future for the 21st Century? At this meeting an outstanding matter of business was dealt with: the winding up of Exeter Socialist Alliance and closure of its bank account. *** Thursday 2 August 2007, Topic: The Labour Party, What's Left? *** Thursday 5 July 2007, Topic: Brazil
The speaker, BE, gave a fascinating talk, based on his paper on the Prestes Column. Questions and discussion followed. *** Thursday 7 June 2007, Topic: ‘Socialism and Health’ (paper by GB) *** Thursday May 3 2007, Topic: ‘Socialism and Climate Change’ see flyer (pdf download). Notes taken at this meeting have been written up, see link. Comments and corrections welcome. Also on this topic: Heat by George Monbiot. A very useful book on the subject of climate change. Prior to our next meeting, I thought it might be useful to give a link to some of George Monbiot’s articles on the subject, see: http://www.monbiot.com/archives/category/climate-change/ What Mobbiot advocates in Heat is summarised in a short article, here: http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2006/10/31/heres-the-plan/#more-1027 I find his arguments quite compelling. The point I have greatest difficulty with from a socialist perspective is the carbon rationing scheme for individuals (point 2) – although as he points out in Heat the effect would be redistributive in terms of wealth. cheers DP The Exeter Socialists group have returned to holding regular monthly discussion meetings. If you are interested in keeping in touch with socialist news and debate, I would recommend joining the Exeter Socialists discussion forum, to do this send an e-mail to: ExeterSocialists-subscribe@yahoogroups.com The list is open to all socialists – you don’t have to be a member or supporter of the Exeter Socialists. Previous meetings: Wednesday 4 April 2007, at City Gate, St Davids Hill, Exeter Save Sadiq Akabar Campaign 6/4/07 Protest against visit to University of Dr Stephen Cambone, aide to Donald Rumsfeld 23/3/07 Campaign for a New Workers Party What kind of new party do we need? Note: this site has been mothballed since the Exeter Socialists group ceased to meet on a regular basis, however occasional news items are being added, and there is some interesting past stuff on here, including articles below. ------------------ Last updated 24/2/06, see LATEST Site open to comments, ideas and contributions! Our next meeting: time and venue to be advised We need ideas for how to resume socialist activity and discussions in Exeter. Meanwhile, there is our discussion group, where we can explore 'What's caused this lull on the Left? How do we (or what needs to change to) get things going again?' It's not just our group, by the way...
G8 Blockades - special report by J.O. with links to photos - 14 July 2005 SWP and Gilad Atzmon – DP (29 June 2005) Report of meeting, May 10th 2005 We had a lively discussion on the results of the General Election, including 'Election as Myth' and an analysis of the results from a Leftie perspective; see GB's comments on 'Interpreting a Candidate's Votes'. We discussed the reasons why votes for the Left were so low, and how this could change by the next significant election. Would an economic downturn, making people feel insecure and dissatisfied, incline them 'Leftwards'? How would a crisis of oil getting seriously expensive due to being past-its-peak and/or more obvious climate change affect capitalism and the political climate? What vision of an alternative socialist society have we to offer anyway? More questions than answers, but a stimulating exchange of views and ideas. Comrades have their say (do contributors want their names used?) G.B. on 'Interpreting a Candidate's Votes'. (11/5/05) A topical contribution from 'B.E.' entitled 'Did You Know?' (22/3/05) For further contributions, see below. Report of Exeter Socialists meeting at 7:30pm Tuesday, April 12 There was discussion about the current low level of interest in the Left (not only affecting our group) and what we should do about it. It was felt that part of the problem is not really having a vision of future socialist society to offer, so we intend to have discussions on this topic, within the group initially, and then in an advertised public meeting with an invited speaker. We also talked about capitalism encountering a crisis due to the depletion of oil and other resources, which can be seen as invalidating some socialist ideas about how the transition to socialism will come about. (See 'Potential Abundance?') Report of Exeter Socialists meeting at 7:30pm Tuesday, March 22 Dave and Bill reported back on the Socialist Alliance Democratic Platform Conference on March 12. 50 comrades from various Left groups around the country attended, and several motions were debated and voted on. The main agreement reached was to set up a 'Provisional Socialist Alliance' as a step towards a new SA which will be launched at a Conference in the autumn. A press release was issued following the event. Report of Exeter Socialists meeting at 7:30pm Tuesday, March 8 We met to discuss strategy for the forthcoming elections. It was evident that we don't have sufficient support for putting up a parliamentary candidate (see 'Socialist Challenge' below). However, we feel a responsibility to voters to field socialist candidates for local elections, and we will meet that as best we can. Further discussions will take place at our meeting on March 22nd. We discussed the apparent downturn in interest in the Left, and felt that sectarianism is part of the problem. A representative of our group will be going to the Conference on March 12th 2005, where 'organising for a mass workers’ party' is the primary focus: see Discussion Bulletin and Latest news above. A Socialist Challenge at the General Election in Exeter? The General Election will be upon us very soon - should there be a socialist candidate standing in Exeter? Should there be a socialist challenge to the neo-conservative politics of New Labour? Who are the 'Exeter Socialists'? Who are the 'Exeter Socialists'? The 'Exeter Socialists' are backing a Conference on March 12th 2005 in Birmingham at which a new Democratic Socialist Alliance will be launched. There has never been a greater need for a socialist alternative to 'New Labour'. In Scotland almost the entire Left is united in the 'Scottish Socialist Party' - in England the Left is fragmented across numerous competing groups all of whom pose as 1917-style Bolshevik parties. We bleieve the working class needs a new democratic socialist party - a pluralist socialist party with room inside for all the existing socialist groups. Fot a time the 'Socialist Alliance' looked as if it could have been the precursor to a united socialist party in England. Instead, after 10 years in existence, it was shut down in favour of the SWP's project, the 'Respect Unity Coalition'. A substantial part of the 'Socialist Alliance', notably almost all the independents, opposed this development. The 'Exeter Socialists' was formed in 2004 by independents from the 'Socialist Alliance'. We see ourselves as a continuation of the spirit of the 'Socialist Alliance' and if anything we are now a broader and more diiverse movement that is subversive and liberating and above all extremely democratic. Do Join Us! We have meetings for discussion and business at We plan to have a Study Group meeting once a month. Globalisation, war, under-development, climate change: these are all features of modern capitalism. The Study Group aims to grapple with theoretical critiques of capitalism by studying the original: 'primary', Marxist texts* , with a view to understanding the capitalist world today. * Suggested texts for individual, or future group, study. email: davep@exeterleft.freeserve.co.uk Articles and Discussion hand-outs or notes Our regular, twice monthly, meetings have generally been a mixture of discussion and business. Some of these have been captured as hand-outs or notes, including: 'Marx and Marxism' hand-out 20 July 2004 Further contributions: NB: These talks reflect the interests of individual members and do not necessarily reflect shared beliefs or ethos of the 'Exeter Socialists' group. If anyone has more notes of these or other discussions they'd like added to the site, please let me have them, preferable by email, or typed for scanning in, but I'll type them up if they're interesting. CM The Exeter Socialists web site has been transferred from http://www.exeterleft.freeserve.co.uk to a new site currently managed by Chris Marsh. The site is - conspicuously, I hope - not yet designed. My guidance so far has been: 'No flashy gizmos, make it new, keep it up-to-date.' So please contact me with design ideas, especially urls of sites we could emulate/ learn from, but most importantly with MATERIAL: events, articles, reviews, commentary on current events etc. etc. One idea for the web site is for comrades who don't have their own web site to have their own page here - to their own design - with the address www.exetersocialists.org.uk/marysmith.htm Marxist Study Group – Suggested Texts What I've prepared here, is a selection of predominately 'marxist' texts, aiming at an all round and general scope of marxian study. Obviously, this is just a suggestion, and can be totally discarded if needs be. Others: b) Critique of the State Karl Marx : Others : c) Marxism and Philosophy Obviously, the selection here is virtually unlimited. But there are, of course, certain things, which stand out. Personally, I have relatively little grounding in philosophy and its history. So, it might be a good idea to get one's head around a few things first: It seems that there are a few major writers on 'dialectics'. A few suggestions: Hyppolite, Adorno, Lukacs, Marcuse, JP Satre, Horkheimer , Lenin&Trotsky, Dunyevskaya ...and so on. Other topics that could be considered? Useful resources: |