Re: Barnes cult and antiwar protests

[Philip Ferguson <plf13@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

As Fred F noted, the Barnes' cult has decided that antiwar protests are
'petty-bourgeois' and the cult is building a 'proletarian' campaign
against capitalism and war.  This seems mainly to consist of turning up
to said 'petty-bourgeois' protests after everyone has done the work, and
parasitising off them with a literature table.  Other than that, the
cult's 'proletarian campaign' consists of business as usual.
Imperialist wars may come and imperialist wars may go, but 'Militant'
and Pathfinder sales, sub drives and fund drives are every day.

Every now and then, however, there is an interference on the cult
hotline and orders get misunderstood.  Perhaps the distance between New
York and Christchurch (NZ) makes the phone line especially prone to
static and instructions get garbled.

For instance, a week and a half ago, the sole YS member in Christchurch
(one of only two in the entire country) emailed me about meeting.  She
wanted us (*revolution* and the YS) to work together on a campus action
against the war threats.  She had heard we were planning a rally and
thought perhaps we could combine.  We said, 'sure', although we were
somewhat gobsmacked by them approaching us.

Anyway, the next thing we know there is a meeting organised with a range
of what Barnes and his 'proletarian campaign' would consider hopelessly
petty-bourgeois liberal speakers.  The YSer has set all this up, we've
just done a bit to advertise it.

Perhaps they have been stung by our criticism down here that they are
just a bunch of parasites on other people's marches and meetings and
hard work.  But if Jack gets to hear about this non-proletarian activity
their Christchurch comrades are involved in, I guess he'll soon whip
them back into line.

They'll then be doing what they did last year during the weekly marches
against the war on Afghanistan in town.  Just send a couple of paper
sellers and a literature table along to set up at the end.  They never
even made use of the open mike.  And when we went and did far-out stuff
like actually picket government MPs, they shied away totally and didn't
even send a paper-seller along.  Since they were calling for votes for
Labour, I guess they didn't want to picket the people they were voting for.

Philip Ferguson

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