Harry’s Place

what is the ’sixteen days campaign’?

From googling, it seems to be a campaign around gender based violence.

I have no idea of its politics, or its content, or what it hopes to achieve.

But isn’t this precisely the point about Union based activism, on issues which have nothing, or only tenuously something, to do with the education system?

The UCU has been pulling itself apart over the effing I/P issue, is chasing away many of its Jewish members and those who won’t stand by while a small number of extremely driven people, try to turn the UCU into a launchpad for their own bugbears.

Stephen,

Back when we counter-demonstrated in 1999, it was called something like “16 Days of Action Against Violence Against Women and Children” (It looks like it’s “16 Days of Activism” now).

This included a group called SWAP (Scottish Women Against Porn). They were advertised (by the Council at taxpayer expense) as holding a “Pornfire” after the march. A few of us, including local authors Charlie Stross, Ken MacLeod, and Iain Banks, decided that we wouldn’t let book-burners in Edinburgh go unanswered.

Sixteen days may also have involved “The Z Campaign” which was active here at the same time. This was a group paid 30,000 Pounds by friends on the Council’s “Women’s Committee” to put up posters demonising men. “99.999% of Men Eat Babies Whole When Women Aren’t Looking” (*) and that sort of thing.

I have a report I wrote of this back in 1999. Some of you would most likely be amused. I’ll ask Harry if he can find somewhere to put it…

Cheers

Mike

* Parody courtesy of a friend of mine.

That left-wing union members are intolerant bigots when it’s people they don’t agree with is hardly news, though, is it Mike?

I can remember Mike Holmes (FoFP) from Usenet in the mid-90s where he was a very consistent libertarian.

Ixyzzy: t really is my first experience with union activism, so I concede that it’s quite possible this sort of thing has happened before to others.

I must point out though that I’ve also met some very rational and reasonable left-wing people there who could not at all be described as bigots. We can’t tar everyone with the same brush.

Oh that’s where I recognise the name and email address from! Hello Mike!!

Mike: thanks for this - while people like you are around, its actually worth belonging to the UCU. God only knows how many times I thought of resigning.

“The UCU has been pulling itself apart over the effing I/P issue, is chasing away many of its Jewish members and those who won’t stand by while a small number of extremely driven people, try to turn the UCU into a launchpad for their own bugbears.”

Yes indeed. A relatively small group of profoundly illiberal, closed minded, manipulative blowhards do seem to have taken over. And the core purpose of the union is likely to be of little interest to them. They have done quite a good job of ejecting all those who would argue against their agendas, and they are feathering their nest in the time honoured way.

It doesn’t just happen in unions, or parties. It happens whenever human beings subscribe to any organisation that does not have a clearly restricted role set out in a simple constitution. So it is happening in charities, churches, quangos, councils, unions, professional associations, newspapers, and, no doubt, websites. If you see the character of, for example, an environmental charity, changing over a period of time- someone is in there changing it.

It takes a highly disciplined approach to avoid this, most of us just don’t expect any special interest group to get re-targetted anyway. It comes as a surprise when we find out that the allotment society has sprouted a foreign policy, a code of conduct, or a diversity co-ordinator.

Thanks for the education folks. I’ll teach myself how to deal with the disillusionment…
Mike

-

Well said, Mike.

Hypotheses: could the drive to get the UCU judenrein be motivated by paranoia regarding the person[s] leaking UCU list info & emails to eg HP????

AHEMMMM!!! NO nononononono NO.
I’m on that list too, dear Mike, and whilst in part I agree with your analysis of the people on that list I’d like to make the point that you’re not quite as “harmless” as the “pretty much apropos of nothing” explanations would have one think. Some responses to you have been silly, and over the top, and there are bullies on that list. (I too find some of them so unbearable that they make me want to puke - I am sure you know who I mean). But you are not a little innocent libertarian on that list. You do not innocently say hardly anythign, you do NOT only make innocent little light-hearted remarks. You’ve made me scream “oh shut it you muppet” at my desk. (That’s NOT censorship though. Just MY sensibilities being provoked by YOUR politics. Please do go on posting until the cows come home). I agree with your view on censorship (censorship - boooh), but I don’t agree with your easy use of the word libertarian as if it freed you from the esponsibility to argue soberly. And on that note, you were *NOT* accused of promoting child pornography, you just took it that way. You should at least be fair in your representation of that list of nutters (yes which includes me as well as you, although i rarely post)
I’m a union member. I’m left-wing(ish). I bloody hope that I’m not a bigot, but if I am one then not because I don’t agree with you that unions must be completely a-political apart from on work-related issue.

And your friend’s parody was banal.

There’s a certain amount of beating around the bush here. Do UCU activist list members think that there is a concerted effort by anti-Israel campaigners to drive those who oppose them from the union?

“It comes as a surprise when we find out that the allotment society has sprouted a foreign policy, a code of conduct, or a diversity co-ordinator.”

Heh. Thanks for the chuckle.

Call an organisation a Union and latter-day Jacobins are attracted to it as Islamofascists are attracted to Mosques. Despite scarcely having graduated from the power politics of the playground (i.e. bullying), these people want power in the workplace (as a bridge to power in the State), primarily so that they can enforce their nostrums on those who are not politically motivated.

The irony, which I suspect few of them appreciate, is that to their heroes (like Foucault, Benn, Chomsky and other nutters), power is itself the ultimate political illegitimacy, rendering Conservatives, Israelis and Capitalists the betes noir of the “progressives”. To such people it is worse to be powerful than to be wrong. Such thinking is as old as Sir Thomas Moore, and I am sure there are examples in most ancient cultures.

The only solution is to keep the power structures small and fragmented, as in the most effective democracies.

“I’m sure I’ve only experienced a tiny part of that harrassment felt by the Jews and supporters who felt forced out of UCU, but I’m no longer at all confused about their reasons. I have no doubt at all they were quite simply bullied out. Just another minority to get rid of like the BNP supporters, no doubt by people who congratulate themselves regularly on their unwavering support of “minorities”.”

I think it’s a significant misrepresentation of what tolerance and “the support of minorities” is to liken the rejection of BNP supporters to the concerted harassment of persons, some of whom are Jewish and some who aren’t, for defending the State of Israel’s right to exist. The New Democratic Party (Canada) continues to prohibit persons who are members of other political parties from becoming members of the NDP as did its predecessor the CCF, which did so back in the 1930s to keep the fledgling democratic socialist party from being taken over by the Stalinists. Either you stand by the NDP’s founding principles or you’re not an NDPer.

I am not familiar enough with the BNP’s policies to be able to cite any that are contrary to the UCU’s charter and bylaws, but expect that the two are quite incompatible (or should be if the UCU is a union of academics), the BNP being the xenophobic outfit that it is.

That would be BNP members for anyone who missed it. I’d always known that the anti-fascist left had become ever more fascist themselves in their zeal, but it was my first up-close viewing of it. The BNP have odious views but in a free society people are entitled to hold their own views without persecution.

Disclaimer: I do not, have not, nor will I ever support the BNP or vote for them.

When one attempts to cure the maladie ( Far right) by curbing basic democratic principles such as the right to privacy and the right to promote differing points of view peacefully and free from intimidation, you will eventually arrive at a cure, but at the price of killing the patient.

The biggest threat to basic freedoms is now from “The Left” who behave like inquisitors, who expound a narrow Doctrine of the Faith, and who declare all those not sufficiently pure as heretics (fascists), heretics whose lives should be ruined and whose careers should be assassinated.

“You’ve made me scream “oh shut it you muppet” at my desk. ”

hahaha!

The problem is that the UCU List has become a sort of cross between a blog and a Students Union meeting. It is filled with these tedious prating ideologues, and acting like nutters.

But there’s no need for the UCU to have a policy on I/P or abortion, or pornography, or anything like that. I have VERY strong views on all these subjects, but what the feck is the point of an academic union debating them at all? Sure, they can, but all you’ll get is hysterics screaming at each other.

If you want that, come here!

(Yeah, I know, “internationalism”…)

Someone on the list did insist that Mike had given no logical and consistent argument as to why the freedom to to produce and promote pornography - “presumably including child pornography” - was more important than the right of women to not be abused and exploited. In fact he hadn’t even tried - he had been explicit that he was against both rape and child pornography because they were non-consensual. But this was ignored.

I’m not surprised he felt accused. A better discussion would have set out to convince Mike (and the rest of us) of an inevitable link between pornography and child pornography. Some research findings wouldn’t have gone amiss. This at least would have been some demonstration that libertarians don’t know how to stand up for women - only people.

Oh well, another UCU debate down the pan.

Those guys on the sex-offenders register need to shake their ideas up and sort out their policies on the MMR triple vaccine, and nuclear power stations.

Sonja apparently screams at her computer when I post, but says:

“but I don’t agree with your easy use of the word libertarian as if it freed you from the responsibility to argue soberly”

I may not always be sober when I post, but I do manage to eschew childish name-calling and hopefully argue consistently and logically. I do not at all imagine that libertarianism, or indeed any kind of poilitics, frees anyone from doing that.

Given the name-calling, I’ve sometimes wondered if, rather than arguing with academics, I’ve been tricked, through computers left logged in, into arguing with their rather backward teenage children.

Here’s the quote of that post:

“You have not expressed any logical and consistent argument, as to why you think that the freedom to produce and promote pornography (presumably including child pornography) is more important than the right of women to not be abused and exploited”

I’ll not attribute it, in order to protect the guilty. Now I suppose with a careful parsing it might be construed as merely accusing me of supporting the right to promote child-pornography. However, the argument is that the list is a workplace, and it’s certainly a workplace list. In the current climate, such accusations are dangerous to anyone’s career and the person making it undoubtedly understood this.

I’m well aware that the people who support censorship simply can’t help themselves but level it when it comes to the pornography debate. I’m even aware of the Dworkin-McKinnonite analysis which gives an intellectual pretence often used as a cover for conflating adult and child pornography in order to do so.

That’s beside the point though. My contention is quite simply that since everyone was well aware my concern was consensual adult pornography (it was stated in the posted report from 1999 which I gather will apear somewhere here soon, and my accuser had quite clearly read that) my accuser should have had the wit required to stick to the point and desist from such a low and reprehensible tactic given its import.

There’s also the side implication that in supporting people’s (and that include’s women) right to choose their own career and reading material than I must therefore support women being abused an exploited. Apart from the unwarranted slur, it’s a logic error known as “the law of the excluded middle”.

I support consenting adults (as in not children, because they’re not adults and they cannot legally consent) right to choose their career, even one in pornography, and their right to read whatever they please without someone with an over-aggrandised view of themselves doing it for them. I also support the right of anyone (not just women see?) not to be abused or exploited.

If you think that the union shouldn’t concern itself only with work-related issues, have at it in the argument. I wouldn’t for a nanosecond think you a bigot merely because you disagree with me.

Lynne T: I agree that UCU, being a private club, has the right to kick out whomsoever it pleases - I’m a libertarian see.

However, I believe it against natural justice to want to kick out people summarily and without appeal, whatever they are accused of.

My real beef though is that the people promoting persecution of BNP members aren’t happy with the notion of just kicking them out of their union. They want to have the government pass legislation so that they can be persecuted in every union. It’s that impulse which marks them as fascists.

As for your contention that persecution of one minority (the BNP) isn’t the same as persecution of another (Jews), I simply disagree. It stems from the same drive to use groupthink and political power to bully.

I see the argument that the BNP are reprehensible, but as I said, it’s no less fascism if nobody else likes your victims either. Would the Holocaust have been OK if a lot of Germans didn’t like the Jews?

Sure, the BNP would very likely like to do precisely what’s being done to them. It’s one of life’s ironies that they must still be defended. If you allow laws which permit one minority to be persecuted, then when someone malicious gets power, they don’t need to seek permission to persecute their favourite minority, they just need to add them to the little list that’s already present.

Just as freedom of speech means defending people who you think only have stupid or obnoxious things to say, freedom of association means you have to defend the rights of BNP members.

In fact, when you think about it, it’s always going to be that way. People aren’t going to be queueing up to persecute The Rotary Club.

People aren’t going to be queueing up to persecute The Rotary Club.

Aha!! That’s what you think, Mike. Check out Article 17 of the Hamas Charter.

I wonder whether the activist who made this apparently bizarre leap of logic

“You have not expressed any logical and consistent argument, as to why you think that the freedom to produce and promote pornography (presumably including child pornography) is more important than the right of women to not be abused and exploited”

was the same one who composed this extraordinary sentence (quoted on Engage a while ago).

The subject of the sentence seems at first to be anti-boycott members (ie a group which includes me, a culturally Christian atheist) but by the time we get to the full stop it’s morphed into being Israeli settlers …

“One of the most astonishing things about the whole debate, over many years, is that defenders of Israel’s activities seek recourse to law in preference to seeking justification in ethical principle and through moral argument (whilst perpetrating illegalities such as the ’security fence’, the disproportionate use of force, the perpetuation of ‘Greater Israel’ as incremental reality through settlements….).”

John: I couldn’t tell whether you were joking, so I looked up the Hamas Charter. You’re right. Sure enough, Article Seventeen, they have it in for The Rotary Club.

It’s like something out of “Life of Brian”. Sometimes you just couldn’t make this shit up.

JR: ‘Do UCU activist list members think that there is a concerted effort by anti-Israel campaigners to drive those who oppose them from the union?’

- certainly off the activists list. Just read Engage and David Hirsh’s blow by blow account if you want more details.

As for people resigning from the Union, I take it this is what Mike Holmes refers to with his paraphrase: ‘Go. Good riddance’

Now who was it who said words to that effect. Perhaps a list member could do the honors?

Mike:

I’m not a member of the UCU, but would have thought that the UCU is a professional association that represents the employment rights of its members who are, ostensibly, faculty and staff employed by various post-secondary educational institutions in Britain.

And how exactly does refusing to consort with fascists, who fundamentally oppose such rights as that of workers to organize for the purpose of bargaining collectively with an employer make one a fascist?

The BNP’s right to exist as a law-abiding political organization is one thing, but wouldn’t the BNP itself close party membership to persons or the deny the right to run for public office under the BNP banner to persons they deem undesirable?

And how exactly does refusing to consort with fascists, who fundamentally oppose such rights as that of workers to organize for the purpose of bargaining collectively with an employer …

Really?

I’m not sure how refusing to admit workers with reactionary views helps a union collectively represent a workforce in negotiations with an employer, nor why what the BNP may or may not believe should determine the policies that UCU upholds.

well John Little, the end result of the atmosphere in UCU and these motions is to create a climate where Jews are leaving UCU in droves, surely the BNP would welcome such a state of affairs?

I would have thought that the very idea of a Jew-Free union should set alarm bells ringing amongst any decent trade unionists (or human being for that matter)?

John Little:

From the Marian Webster dictionary, the definition of fascism:

1often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control

I’d say holding such views is so contary to the purposes of a democratic union as to undermine its very existence.

Lynne T - persuading members to “hold views” is not the purpose of a union, and if UCU believes it is, then it’s hardly surprising that it’s become ineffective if not a laughing stock. The purpose of a union is to represent the collective interests of a workforce. By excluding members who don’t “hold views” that a minority of left-wing activists believe to be crucial, you simply weaken the ability of the union to negotiate with an employer and create incentives and recruits for scabbing. This is very, very basic stuff, the ABC of union organisation.

modernity - another non sequitor of a post from you in response to one of mine, it’s getting to be a habit. Discipline yourself to just respond to the points I make rather than launch off into one, mate.

John Little,

why not discipline yourself to the idea, that UCU might end up as a Jew free union, if not by intent, but as a consequence of the climate within the Union?

and then ask yourself, why would such a thing happen? and whether or not, you agree with Jew free Unions?

why not discipline yourself to the idea, that UCU might end up as a Jew free union, if not by intent, but as a consequence of the climate within the Union?

I think you must be confusing me with another poster because your responses seem to have nothing to do with anything I posted. I’m quite sure that it has been fanatical left-wing activists, and not the BNP, which has poisoned the atmosphere in the UCU list against Jews. I really have no idea why you imagine I’m disputing that. It’s quite striking that your responses to me don’t ever seem to cite what I have written — a bit of a giveaway that you aren’t engaging in a debate but just venting.

Not merely was Mike a constant, and enjoyable, figure on uk.various in the eighties and nineties with whom I crossed swords once in a while, David Boothroyd sent me a copy of `Legitimate Lobbying’ which I refer to when writing letters to MPs and I met S– Bl——- socially a few times back in the day. It’s a small world, isn’t it? All we need now is for Dave Brock and the ghost of Robert Anton Wilson to turn up and it’ll be quite like old times.

I’m not terribly interested in some anachronistic or petty argument over these points, this topic is too important for that.

I’m more concerned to inquire if the reality of Jews leaving UCU in droves has struck home to those vociferous UCU activists?

And whether or not this question has been asked of them:

as an activist, do you want your political legacy to be the fact that you help to make UCU a Jew free trade union?

This is the type of question that should be asked of these activists on the UCU list, should they be proud of driving Jews out of UCU and weakening the Union?

Mike Corley!!!!!!!!

Danny: re: doing the honours.

Re: leaking from the list. Not me, sorry. There is a right to privacy for the list, though quite clearly it doesn’t work very well. I agreed to the post of my particular rant after it had been leaked anyway, and on two conditions. One was (vanity) my typo be corrected. The other was that my quoted paragraph from another list member either get specific permission, or be elided and I instead state the context. I had the bargaining position though and whether it’s a good decision to have given my permission for my own particular rant to be copied here rests with me and not with anyone else on the list, irrespective of whether I agree or disagree with them.

In fact I do believe members of the list ought to have the right to believe it is private. If you folks believe in free speech, then I believe it incumbent on you to believe in private speech.

It’s obvious there’s someone on the inside. I can live with that. I’d like to think I post anywhere what I believe and think and will stand by it whatever, even in person. There are plainly people here who have encountered my witterings at least a decade ago who can make a more unbiased judgement.

There’s a more interesting question here for those of us who do believe in free speech: at what point is it simply spying to discover what speech is offered in private?

I’d like to hope that nobody here wants government tapping of their email? Their phone calls?

Right. So how legitimate is it to have an insider copy what some believe to be messages restricted to a specific private group.

I’m not offering a ruling I’m afraid. I do believe it’s a tricky question. Over to you….

Lynne T:

“And how exactly does refusing to consort with fascists, who fundamentally oppose such rights as that of workers to organize for the purpose of bargaining collectively with an employer make one a fascist?”

It doesn’t. Refuse to drink with them. Refuse to meet with them other than in professional situations.

However: persecuting them as a minority with lesser rights is what marks people as fascist.

There’s nothing a real fascist government would like more than a Little List ready and waiting. They only need to add another line, and that’s another minority up against the wall.

Of course we’ll never vote in such awful people.

Then again, that’s what Germans thought.

If you want to be seriously anti-fascist, just don’t enable fascism.

Lynne T ponders:

“The BNP’s right to exist as a law-abiding political organization is one thing, but wouldn’t the BNP itself close party membership to persons or the deny the right to run for public office under the BNP banner to persons they deem undesirable?”

Really Lynne. We learned at Age Three that “They did it too!” is not an excuse.

xyzzt: there was a very excellent Hawkfest this summer and a great new Hawkwind tour in December. There’s some new (well, of previous concerts) DVD’s and CD’s coming out/

Still, if you want a true anthem for Free Speech, I very much believe you won’t do better than Hawkwind’s “Right to Decide”.

The great part is it even had a third verse that’s missing (sung at occasional concerts) as a result of a press outcry.

It’s on “Electric Teppee” though I imagine all you young whippersnappers will dowload it on this new-fangled web thingummyjig.

Mister Corley: We’re from the BBC. You may have noticed we’re switching from analogue to Digital TV. We just need to make some adjustments to your receiving equipment. Our technicians can call at any time to do this necessary work…

Yeah, by the way. The poster of the original “Sixteen Days” spam isn’t a supporter of it and they just spanked me for saying so.

I was wrong. I unjustly accused them. It just got passed on as one of those ads.

Best note though that I am fully and totally in support of “Right To Decide” as a free speech anthem. This isn’t just one of those ads.

In fact it’s annoying that death got in the way of a potentially great single. Just like Urban Guerilla when those Irish halfwits blew up The Tower in 1973. Hawkwind must be the only band ever to have singles banned and see them fail. Never mind it happening twice.

“You can’t do this, you can’t do that….”

Mike: ‘In fact I do believe members of the list ought to have the right to believe it is private. If you folks believe in free speech, then I believe it incumbent on you to believe in private speech.’

- Mike I think I’m right in saying that there’s something like 700-800 people on that mailing list. So whatever you’ve said on there has clearly reached a lot of people (even if not all of them read it). This is not private correspondence between two individuals we’re talking about here.

Another point, it’s a mailing list for Union members so you could ask the question should it only be available for UCU members? At what point do people on the outside like us have a right to know what’s being said on there? Clearly the answer can’t be never.

The UCU has the same problem as the NUJ if you ask me. Namely, that it’s a union for workers… and their employers.

I was only ever a post-grad tutor type. Technically, we were all allowed to join the union. Just imagine

Tutors : “hey isn’t this whole university only operating because of the insanely long hours and hard work of very badly paid student-staff who are doing this cos they are desperate and it’s important if you ever want a proper job?”
*tumbleweeeeeeed*
UCU : “So, about Jewish pornographers then…”

Oh yeah and YAY!!!! HAWKWIND!!!! YAY!!!!! (and RAW and Illuminatus! SMI2LE etc).

They’re playing the Astoria on Tuesday 12th December I think. Yes that’s right. I think. No, for some reason I’m not going to open another tab to check.

Danny: You make fair points and obviously I’d be retarded to think a message to a mailing list is like a message between two people. Nevertheless, I think if it’s “private” to 700 people then they should have the right to keep it that way. Clearly in the real world that’s just a bit unrealistic. Note though that there are undoubtedly some people who will be more guarded about what they say once they know that their audience won’t be limited to folks on the list.

I just have to decide whether or not I’m one of them.

As to whether you have the right to know what’s going on in an UCU list. I don’t really think you do. Why would you have that right any more than for The Rotary Club? Private organisations are just that.

Trust me, it’s not quite as exciting as The World Patriarchal Conspiracy, who really are quite good at keeping their email private.

King Creole: You know, that was so offensive it caused me to chuckle. I’ll have you know that my student assiistants are in fact paid quite well.

If you imagine for one hot second that the students are more serious in their discussions than their teachers, then hie thee to a students association meeting. You’ll quite quickly be disillusioned. They’ll quite happily spend an hour or three discussing Nestle’s foreign policy before exacting their revenge on their constituents by forcing them to buy only Fair Trade coffee. If I recall correctly, we can’t buy copies of Playboy either, By Order of the People’s Committee.

Our last big censorship fight here concerned the Christian Union and their “PURE” course (I’m sure some kind reader will find the links..). Apparently this taught that homosexuality was the root of all evil and that God had a cure. The homosexuals and their fellow travellers naturally got their panties in a bunch over this and there was a bunch of skirmishes over whether PURE could be run on university terriitory.

Yours Truly tried to convince the gays that if the revolution ever came they’d be first up against the wall and that they therefore might consider being a little more open to free speech. Not a bit of it though. Once the student pols had the CU firmly in the crosshairs, they went at it with a determination that would have made the Militant Tendency proud.

As I recall, the university authorities came to a surprisingly sensible decision in the end. They weren’t entirely robust, but some spine was definitely visible.

Mike, thanks for your response. I don’t entirely agree.

I don’t know the exact membership figures for UCU, but say it’s over 100,000. Presumably each and every member of UCU is entitled to know what’s said on that mailing list. They all pay union fees and they all vote in Union elections (well I think at least 10+% do).

Again, I don’t know how you join this list but if someone is a member of the UCU and they vote for a candidate then surely they should be entitled to know the full extent of that person’s views. If a member of the NEC says something on that list that they strongly disagree with then as a Union member they should surely have the right to know what it is (and of course the opportunity at some point, should they so wish, to vote for someone else). So I don’t see why ‘private’ here can’t be extended from 700 to 100,000.

As for keeping things ‘private’ among list members or UCU members, what if things that are said on that list are in breach of the law? Or border on incitement? Keeping silent in those circumstances would make someone complicit in protecting the Union’s dirty secrets.

On UCU confidentiality:

http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=2071

What a stupid discussion, no Jews have been harassed or forced out of the UCU. If this were true, they would have taken legal action with the help of Anthony Julius. Not one has.

The UCU is well rid of those who deny human rights to Palestinians.

resistor with his antisemitic crap yet again. What a surprise.

I’m always grateful to halfwitted fascists like this because they allow us to show our commitment to free speech in letting them witter without suppression.

Danny: yes, of course the dues-paying members have a right to see what’s on the mailing-list and what their representatives have to say there, and they do!

All that’s needed to sign up fo the list is an UCU membership number.

I’m with you as far as exposing criminal intent goes, but I disagree on the rest. The list belongs to the members and they have the right to private discussion. If 100,000 folks really are fascinated by UCU’s discussions, perhaps there could be some sort of associate membership which would allow them to read the list. Perhaps someone should approach the UCU leadership and ask for this.

the question of fascists and Unions can be broken down:

1) the notion that fascism is completely incompatible with trade unionism;

2) that as a result of the above, whether or not it is acceptable, or desirable, to have the power to strip fascists of trade union membership;

if you accept that fascism IS completely incompatible with trade unionism then the second point would probably follow, unless you believe that NO ONE under any circumstances can be banned from membership of a trade union (or similar organization)

as far as I can see that’s the nub of it.

Modernity’s analysis is good as far as it goes.

If someone is in the BNP then we can debate whether ot not that makes them a fascist (could for example someone be a member just because they thought it the best party to help leave the EU?).

However, what if a fascist can’t be recognised by their affiliations? What if they can be recognised only by their actions?

Let’s say someone is on the journey from democratic socialism to national socialism. They’ve gone as far as adopting the whole strength through solidarity groupthink and have begun to bully others who refuse to share in that. Let’s say that they’re now looking to persecute minorities, such as BNP members.

How would one go about convincing them that they are by now themselves a fascist and should therefore feel bound by their own views that fascists should leave a trade union?

I think it really isn’t such an easy task. The BNP are in my view much less worrisome because they’re so easily identifiable. The proto-fascists on the journey above are more hidden and more powerful. I suspect they have the ear of officers in many trade unions, and most likely the ear of some in the Labour Party and government.

Those fascists are a lot harder to identify and stop.

“They’ll quite happily spend an hour or three discussing Nestle’s foreign policy before exacting their revenge on their constituents by forcing them to buy only Fair Trade coffee. If I recall correctly, we can’t buy copies of Playboy either, By Order of the People’s Committee.”

Christ. Still? I was vaguely involved in NUS politics — one of the fringe benefits of doing my A Levels at a city centre technical college rather than a suburban sixth form was NUS membership — in about 1982. I went to a national conference, even, where I made a desultory attempt to seduce a very nice girl from my college to the strains of The Teardrop Explodes _and_ had a No Platform standing order raised against me. It was a good thing, really, because it meant by the time I was an undergraduate a few years later I could concentrate of women, booze, films and Unix internals, all of which have stood me in good stead in a way that The Next Step could never have managed.

Nestle and porn? Just like old times.

It’s if anything worse than it was in 1982. I was a student the year before that at a University more or less run by the Conservative Club. I was a bit of a leftie back then and we picketed some event that the Conservative Education Minister (Rhodes Boyson?) was attending. By we, I mean all three of us. We were standing out in the rain with a placard just getting wet and sorry for ourselves.

When the Minister arrived, he greeted us politely and strolled on in. He then sent out a round of beers for us. We went into conclave; ruled that he wasn’t such a Capitalist Pigdog after all,and headed to the pub for more beer.

Where I am now appears to be run by watermelons(*). They choose their candidates for the unions, the rectorship and whatnot and caucus politics does the rest. Labour and the Tories don’t seem to have been making much headway, but I don’t pay much attention really unless there’s a censorship issue.

* I’m indebted to someone from a TV crew at Glastonbury for this one: “Watermelons are green on the outside, but the same old red underneath”.

On the universities and censorship thing, there is something you folks might advise me on.

We’ve had a few fights over the years (though when I say “we”, more often than not that amounts to “me” - I’d consider myself fortunate to get a picket of three people these days). Highlights were the banning of the Scientologists from campus; the PURE affair and of course the Chris Brand IQ Scandal - the first time I really saw the nazi thugs at Socialist Worker do their stuff.

Anyway. The idea I had was that in order to save me some effort next time (and there will undoubtedly be a next time) I could start a student free speech society. Odds are I’d need to spring the cash for some advertising and a couple of hundred for free beer (apathy is by far still the most popular movement) to get some students into a meeting hall. Then hopefully I’d persuade some of the brighter students to get themselves elected onto a committee; write a constitution (opr possibly have that written and ready?); do the form-filling, and then hopefully we’d have a bunch of folks who’d feel obliged to put down their beers and stand up for truth, justice and the American way whenever someone is being gagged.

Thoughts anyone? Is this feasible or would I just be financing a free pissup? Has anyone ever actually done anything like this and could offer some tips?

Mike Holmes wrote:

“I think it really isn’t such an easy task. The BNP are in my view much less worrisome because they’re so easily identifiable. The proto-fascists on the journey above are more hidden and more powerful.”

fair point, but that’s not the issue I was pointing to, as I wrote “[for trade unions] to have the power to strip fascists of trade union membership” that does NOT mean they will use those powers, but that they have them when needed, it is optional

defining whether or not a particular trade unionist IS a fascist would be a political judgment and as such may vary on a case by case basis

it is not an impossible task rather one requiring a degree of history and understanding about the motivations, actions and tactics employed by fascists, given the past 80+ years, it is not as if such a political judgment would be starting from scratch

UCU at my university is offering a reduction in membership to people who are already members of other unions.

The university rep claims not to know a thing about the persistent and illegal attempts to boycott of Israeli academics or the acrimony against people like David Hirsh (who exposed this as racist) and Mira Vogel. Nor could the rep tell me how many people left or felt forced out of UCU as a result.

Either this rep is profoundly ignorant or mendacious. Either way, it doesn’t augur well for my university to have such a UCU rep.

Saywhat??,

you might want to remind the UCU rep that poaching members from other unions is against the inter-union Bridlington agreement

Sorry, I didn’t make myself as clear as I thought, modernityblog - the reduced membership is a joint membership one.

Lynne T @ 21 November 2008, 5:39 pm

“if the UCU is a union of academics”

It isn’t. It is a Union of Lecturers. That is, employees of FE Colleges and of Universities who are employed on lecturers terms and conditions. In many UK Universities that incluldes quite a lot of Liabrarians, IT staff and managers.

I keep making this point and live in hope that HP posters will understand it.

Most of us understand it, Alan ;-)
I used to be a NATFHE member. I wouldn’t have called myself an academic just on the strength of that.
Looking at the calibre of many UCU members, e.g. that Slovenian surfer of neo-Nazi websites whose name I’ve forgotten, I suspect that some of them might be underqualified to file correspondence.

Just to point out that I wrongly inferred that the member who posted the “16 Days” ad to the list was a supporter of the 16 Days campaign.

It seems that I jumped to conclusions and that it was passed to the list at the behest of others, whose reasons for wanting it on an UCU list are currently unknown to me.