Are many of you interested in joining far-left parties?

[Darren J. Prior]

No offense Prior but you are making an ad hominem attack on the SWP and SP by claiming their members are either angry and pyscologically scarred or just angry but not scarred. You're implying that working class activists are all scarred and ergo don't possess the necessary compos mentis for public office.

No I said that from my experience the average SP activist, not including their youth wing, is scarred from my experience. From what I have heard, I have never known any of their members, SWP members generally aren't. Richard Boyd-Barrett doesn't seem to me.

[Darren J. Prior]

THat would seem accurate, in my experience, though I don't see the cinnection between scarring and class in this context.

Poverty breeds a lot of anger and in the SP it was the poor members or members from poor backgrounds who are the scarred. People with more money are generally less scarred than people without it. I am talking about absolute poverty more than general poverty here.

[LeDroit]

I'm not sure if I want to join. Send me a list of members names, addresses, alarm codes and I'll think about it.

[borntorum]

I'm not sure if I want to join. Send me a list of members names, addresses, alarm codes and I'll think about it.

And photos. No point joining a far left party if there isn't a sufficient quantity of hot, sexually 'liberated' females

[Expose the lot of them]

Back in the 60s & 70s there were a number of Trotskyite groups (Trots) around Dublin (they possibly had a presence outside Dublin but I can only speak from experience of Dublin. They generally had the word socialist somewhere in the name of the organisation to distinguish themselves from the Communist Party which they regarded as Stalinist. The Trots were generally middle class students whereas the CP and its youth wing, the Connolly Youth Movement had a more working class membership base. That it not to say there were no working class Trots there were. Charlie Bird was a Trot back in those days and I think but stand to be corrected on this I think Kevin Myers was also one. Manus O'Riordan was in the CP. Ah the good old days, anti-Vietnam marches on Saturday, protests about the destruction of St Stephens Green on other days and the Dublin Housing Action campaign which brought hugh numbers out on the streets to demand decent housing.

I tend to agree with the OP when he says that he found Joe Higgins nihilistic, I would add totally unrealistic to that but I must say his speech in the Dail when Bertie declared himself a socialist was one of the most entertaining speeches I have every heard.

In answer to the question, no I don't join parties, it only encourages them.

[j26]

And photos. No point joining a far left party if there isn't a sufficient quantity of hot, sexually 'liberated' females

You're in for a land!

[LeDroit]

And photos. No point joining a far left party if there isn't a sufficient quantity of hot, sexually 'liberated' females

Now, now comrade. A free choice of sexual partner is soooo bourgeois. The collective will decide based on your physical attributes whether you can mate, in the common good an dat.

[galleyslave]

see, my issue with the far left is they're only interested in destroying everything in the name of their creed. I can't abide that

[charley]

I think I must be some sort of capitalist socialist. I would like to be rich but I don't want to see anyone downtrodden for that to happen . Is this an uncommon ideal?

[Darren J. Prior]

If far-left Socialist parties weren't Communist and weren't anti-capitialist they would, in theory, appeal to a lot more people. They aren't though and they won't change I suspect.