The funny thing is how people like Richard Seymour now write that it happens more often that general members have no idea what's going on (e.g. about important coalitions) because the leadership does not inform them at all. Yeah, THAT'S YOUR STRUCTURE! How can this surprise you (oh, the naughty leadership did not inform its members, but clings to its own power)??? And although the IS here in the Netherlands is much more open than the SWP, here it's exactly the same: when I was in the IS general members had NO FUCKING CLUE what was going on in their name, how coalitions were formed, what discussions were going on, etc. Only that which was found important enough by the benevolent leaders was passed on to the members, with the leadership using its information position as a power tool. The sad part is that there are so many great, passionate young IS/SWP members, with all their trust in their new-found friends who do something against racism, war, inequality. Sadly they have no idea how they are kept in the dark and what actually goes on. Other members in general have NO WAY to contact all other members for discussion, except via leadership channels, making critical information difficult or impossible to spread - outside of the yearly bulletin, in which they can send their attacks dogs to destroy your article before others can even read it.
It's just so sad how many people have to find out about the fucked up structures of such groups. The question now is, will the members question the structure that causes such rifts (like they rightfully do with capitalism), or will they just see it as an aberration?
The funny thing is how people
The funny thing is how people like Richard Seymour now write that it happens more often that general members have no idea what's going on (e.g. about important coalitions) because the leadership does not inform them at all. Yeah, THAT'S YOUR STRUCTURE! How can this surprise you (oh, the naughty leadership did not inform its members, but clings to its own power)??? And although the IS here in the Netherlands is much more open than the SWP, here it's exactly the same: when I was in the IS general members had NO FUCKING CLUE what was going on in their name, how coalitions were formed, what discussions were going on, etc. Only that which was found important enough by the benevolent leaders was passed on to the members, with the leadership using its information position as a power tool. The sad part is that there are so many great, passionate young IS/SWP members, with all their trust in their new-found friends who do something against racism, war, inequality. Sadly they have no idea how they are kept in the dark and what actually goes on. Other members in general have NO WAY to contact all other members for discussion, except via leadership channels, making critical information difficult or impossible to spread - outside of the yearly bulletin, in which they can send their attacks dogs to destroy your article before others can even read it.
It's just so sad how many people have to find out about the fucked up structures of such groups. The question now is, will the members question the structure that causes such rifts (like they rightfully do with capitalism), or will they just see it as an aberration?