A Global Social Media Experiment
Comrades,
We are informing you about an exciting new project. We urge you to become involved in it. If you know of others who might be sympathetic, even if they are not members of our organisation, encourage them to become involved as well.
Basically, this is an experiment. But it is an experiment on a large scale. In fact, it is the first serious attempt ever to organise the practical collaboration and cooperation of socialists right across the world. The purpose of the exercise is to significantly boost the amount of publicity that we, as a movement, receive by using the immensely powerful tool of the social media to draw attention to the literature, websites and existence of all the companion parties of the WSM.
The idea is very simple and it requires an absolutely minimal amount of effort on your part. That is why it is called the “Ten-Minutes-a-Month-for-Socialism” campaign. It will take up only 10 minutes of your time every month (although, of course, you are welcome to spend more time on it if you so wish!)
If you have internet access, the chances are you have a Facebook account. If you are on FB you are probably a member of several FB groups. There are, of course, countless thousands of FB groups but what is being proposed here is that you join a few of these that are of a political nature. It’s probably best to focus more on Left-leaning groups than others as the members of these groups are more like to be receptive to what we have to say.
Here are just a few random examples; you probably know many more:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/greatphilosophicalproblems/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/thespectreofcommunism/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1434654420087854/
If you are not on Facebook, and do not wish to be on it, there are many other forum websites to join such as Quora (where several of us are already active) or Reddit. If you don’t wish to reveal your identity, for whatever reason, it is very easy to use a pseudonym.
So how does this project work? The idea is so simple. Let us say you have joined 10 Facebook groups of a political nature. What you do each month is create a post with a link to a particular piece of socialist literature. Perhaps it could be a particular article in this month’s Socialist Standard. You can add a simple comment like “Great article!” or “This is interesting...”. You can then copy and paste your comment plus the link in all 10 of your Facebook groups - it would take about 10 minutes to do everything – and sit back and wait for the responses! That’s pretty easy, isn’t it?
The point is that anyone clicking on the link you posted will be directed to the SPGB’s website at https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/
Once there, the chances are they will begin to look around that site and read other material. The more of them who do this, the more publicity contacts we create. And the more publicity contacts we create, the greater the possibility of more individuals eventually coming to join our movement. We now know for a fact that, these days, internet is becoming more and more THE main route through which people come into contact with the socialist movement and join it.
Of course, we need to promote not just the SPGB but other Companion Parties too. These also have their own literature and websites. Linking to them will help to provide publicity contacts for these parties too.
Here is a list of them:
https://www.wspus.org/
https://www.worldsocialism.org/canada/
http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/
https://www.worldsocialism.org/nz/
As stated, this project or experiment, is the first serious attempt to mobilise possibly hundreds of individuals across the world in a coordinated attempt to promote our cause. As isolated individuals it is very difficult to make any kind of impression on public opinion. But, by working together collectively as a movement, we can benefit greatly from the Reinforcement Effect. We can begin to make serious progress in attracting more workers to the socialist cause.
“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”, as the saying goes. We strongly urge you to join with us in this collective effort
PS: If you do know of good websites on which to post links to WSM literature, let other people know! Contact your Party HQ and share the information. This will attract more people to use the website you recommend and, therefore, your own interventions on this website will become more effective through the power of reinforcement!
32 comments:
Good to see this being promoted! Any idea how it could be spread more widely throughout the socialist movement?
yes your harts in the right place , but you need to come down off your academic ivory towers
and stop talking down to common working class people. your pamphlets are patronising and over written. what working class people want to know is how to improve their lives.and gain more
dignity, they have to live in the real world, they dont have time to protest and join your
chummy groups. tell them how it is ,l think you will find they have had to handle the truth
a dam site more than you, but dont panic if you tell them common sense, they will listen.
Kind Regards Rod Glover
What are you on about we are just ordinary workers.
" The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves. We cannot, therefore, co-operate with people who openly state that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must be freed from above by philanthropic big bourgeois and petty bourgeois."(1879 Marx and Engels )
yes your harts in the right place , but you need to come down off your academic ivory towers
and stop talking down to common working class people. your pamphlets are patronising and over written. what working class people want to know is how to improve their lives.and gain more
dignity, they have to live in the real world, they dont have time to protest and join your
chummy groups. tell them how it is ,l think you will find they have had to handle the truth
a dam site more than you, but dont panic if you tell them common sense, they will listen.
Kind Regards Rod Glover
well you have just proved my point , common working class people would only understand
half of what you say , stop being academic its patronising to common people , bye the way
they are my people , tell me, how many coal mines have you worked down. Rod Glover
well you have just proved my point , common working class people would only understand
half of what you say , stop being academic its patronising to common people , bye the way
they are my people , tell me, how many coal mines have you worked down. Rod Glover
common working class people would not understand half of what you have said Matthew ,
stop being patronising, by the way Marx & engels were bank rolled by a rich capitalist.
keep smiling kind regards rod glover
common working class people would not understand half of what you have said Matthew ,
stop being patronising, by the way Marx & engels were bank rolled by a rich capitalist.
keep smiling kind regards rod glover
Matthew working class people would not understand half of what you have said your patronising them with clever words, by the waw Marx & Engels were bank rolled by a rich capitalist.
kind regards rod glover
I think you are patronising, if not demeaning, the working class by attributing below average understanding and intelligence. I would insist that workers can, do, and would understand, only too well the quote I gave.
"they are my people , tell me, how many coal mines have you worked down. Rod Glover "
You have a very narrow view of the working class if you think, only if we work down coal mines can we be politically authentic. It does not matter if you shovel shit or coal for a living, if we HAVE to work for a wage or a salary in order to live, whether we work by hands or by brain, then we are are part of the 90-95% world working class.
Rod, Relating to our fellow-workers with messages that resonate with them is indeed a difficult task. I know of no group, revolutionary or reformist that has succeeded in becoming the mass workers' party that is a pre-requisite for socialism, Rod.
Those who follow some of your advice and produce a menu of reforms with over-simplifications face the same recruitment problem as we do.
And the one-issue campaigning groups also have not made that transformation even when they try to relay the truth such as the serious and imminent threat of environmental catastrophe. For many workers a delay of their daily commute to their wage-slave jobs is sufficient to alienate them from any sympathy or understanding.
But credit where credit is due, ER have done well to promote the issue, even if Brexit and the problems capitalists directly face is still higher on the political/media agenda.
This project is a very small experiment. We hardly expect resounding results. The BBC,CNN and Fox cannot always win over their viewers all of the time.
A few more members - and hopefully younger, active ones - will be most welcome from this very minimum effort...10 minutes a month...not a week, not a day, not 24 hour saturation propaganda that the pro-capitalist media does...Hardly a demanding request.
As the post said, we also hope non-members like yourself who show you do comment on the web, to help by linking sometimes to the Party - even with critical comments, will increase traffic and visitors.
Can you in your own language and in your own style assist in putting forward the case for socialism? Even highlighting our existence and presence is an accomplishment.
thank you for your reply, yes l will put a case for socialism , the working class common people have been set up and shafted for generations and its our job to expose the cons that are still in force. dont pull any punchers, my hobby horse is the scandal of the private public schools, they give a unfair educational advantage over our kids, that,s immoral !!!!
all lm saying is just expose the scandals more, the worse thing they can do is lock you up in the tower of London and chop off your head . kind regards Rod Glover
why do you remove comments on my remarks Rod Glover
blog author stop removing comments , its demeaning Rod Glover
I cannot say why on the first but the second was me deleting a duplicate post. Your comments were appearing twice, as anonymous and as r glover. I deleted the anonymous, leaving the r glover. Nothing sinister involved. I'm guessing the same reason for why the other comment was deleted.
Look up World of free access Facebook. Or the SPGB 52 Clapham High Street London. on A World of Free Access in response to Best thing I've ever read. How do I join up?, by Anonymous.
And this comment somehow has not published
Any comments I delete are duplicates or in error. You only need to post once and they will eventually appear. As I am busy elsewhere I can't always see or tell if Alan has approved a post.
We haven't had any problems with your criticisms.
Mathew, thers working class and thers working class, by the way you use words that l can tell you dident come from the working class l came from ,l just want to go out and expose the filthy lies and cons capitalism has inflicted on my people, here is one for you Mathew,
the children of commissioned officers in our armed forces can get the fees paid to go to private public schools were as the children of the men in the ranks have to go to state schools, the cost is over 100 million !!!!! take care Mathew , kind regards Rod Glover
"Mathew, thers working class and thers working class, by the way you use words that l can tell you dident come from the working class l came from "
You can tell no such thing. You are just reproducing prejudiced assumptions.Hogwash.
Rod is saying that workers are too thick to understand what is written in the Socialist Standard and elsewhere. I just dont believe this. Let him produce the evidence. I think the literature of the SPGB stand out for being written in clear understandable English which any worker can understand. Compare what we produce with some of the stuff written by left wing groups which is full of jargon and obviously written by academics
I believe Rod also confuses the reaction that workers have to what we say with the way we say it. There is nothing wrong with how we say it. The problem is the prejudices we meet with When workers dismiss socialism as "pie in the sky" that is NOT a comment on our style of writing.
It is sad that Rod seems to think this must somehow be the case and that we must believe our critics are right when they dismiss the case for socialism as "pie in the sky"> Just because this comment from a worker doesn't make it right , In fact that would be a form of reverse snobbery to suggest that it did. Our fellow workers are just as capable as the capitalists of holding appalling bigoted views
The point is to confront and challenge the worker who says socialism is "pie in the sky" not just meekly accept this claim. Does Rod do this? How does he do it. I for one would be interested to hear he deals with people who claim socialism is pie in the sky which is basically the "human nature argument" that some people make against socialism, It is pretty easy to demonstrate this argument is false. Over 98% of our time on this planet we have live without classes, wages , money, the state and so on. Therefore none of these things are part of our so called "human nature"
I dont believe for one moment that our literature is "patronising" and Rod has produced no evidence to back his claim. On the contrary I think our literature is exceptional for being clearly written and accessible to all workers. He is confusing the reaction of workers to the socialist case itself with the style in which it is presented. Workers are fully capable of being bigoted and prejudiced like anyone else and it is a form of reverse snobbery to suggest that they can't be . I want to know what Rod says when he is confronted when confronted by a worker who says socialism is "pie in the sky". Does he meekly accept this point of view and think therefore that socialists must be wrong to advocate socialism or does he challenge it by demonstrating as socialists have done that the whole argument socialism being "against human nature" is false. Over to you Rod, What exactly do you say to these workers you are talking to?
Mathew lm so glad you are getting angry, socialists should be angry!but dont turn it
on your fellow socialists ,turn it on the capitalists they are the ones who deserve our anger.
l think l may have shocked you out of your middle class apathy, lm so glad you have made my
day. keep the good work up. kind regards Rod Glover
> Mathew lm so glad you are getting angry,
I am rarely angry.
> socialists should be angry!but dont turn it
> on your fellow socialists ,turn it on the capitalists they are the ones who deserve our anger.
The hell they do.The capitalist class have no other option but to play the good hand they are dealt.
> l think l may have shocked you out of your middle class apathy, lm so glad you have made my
> day. keep the good work up. kind regards Rod Glover
The cheek of you. I've been active in working classpolitical activity for over 45 years. There is no such social class as the 'middle class'.They became the capitalist class absorbing the aristocracy etc.
If someone HAS TO work for a wage or a salary they are working class, however well paid they may seem. Even if they send young Dimkins to private school and own, probably a mortgaged piece of property and have 'notions of upperosity'. They are three salary checks away fom a foodbank..
The majority of people must sell their ability to work in return for a wage or salary (who we refer to as the working class.)
Capitalism is the social system which now exists in all countries of the world. Under this system, the means for producing and distributing goods (the land, factories, technology, transport system etc) are owned by a small minority of people. We refer to this group of people as the capitalist class.
If someone does NOT HAVE TO work for a wage or a salary, because of their ownership of resources as above, in stocks shares or inherited wealth, although they may choose to do so, they are members of the capitalist class.
The working class are paid to produce goods and services which are then sold for a profit. The profit is gained by the capitalist class because they can make more money selling what we have produced than we cost to buy on the labour market. In this sense, the working class are exploited by the capitalist class. The capitalists live off the profits they obtain from exploiting the working class whilst reinvesting some of their profits for the further accumulation of wealth.
This is what we mean when we say there are two classes in society. It is a claim based upon simple facts about the society we live in today. This class division is the essential feature of capitalism. It may be popular to talk (usually vaguely) about various other ‘classes’ existing such as the ‘middle class’, but it is the two classes defined here that are the key to understanding capitalism.
It may not be exactly clear which class some relatively wealthy people are in. But there is no ambiguity about the status of the vast majority of the world’s population. Members of the capitalist class certainly know who they are. And most members of the working class know that they need to work for a wage or salary in order to earn a living (or are dependent upon somebody who does, or depend on state benefits.)
Great idea. I'll give it a go.
Hi all, well well well if ther is one thing that brings joy to my hart other than BREXIT
is to get a crowed of champagne socialist hot under the collar, to read the emails telling me off, has given me and friends some greet fun, the thing we all agree with is you just dont get it ! your emails sound like a preacher giving a sermon in a pulpit, you say your pamphlets get the message across perfectly clear, well you would do wouldent you, have ever heard of the saying horses for courses , put it to the acid test, give some of your pamphlets to friends who are not part of your political scene and ask them to read them, then ask them to give you a a honest appraisal, come on show me that you have the balls.
l would very much like to hear ther views. kind regards rod glover
The working class have narratives and opinions- they are not empty vessels- Locke might say no, but look at the control, alienation, and ignorance he has woven about us.
We are full of ideas, of culture, and more- we have life and meaning in spite of power over ideas putting a boot in our faces, calling us small and empty. I agree with Matt, it is not his high horse- it is the waft of BS that says we are vessel needing to be filled- I am full of meaning, and socialism supports me.
L.B
Glover, Is this debate going to help- you seem so angry, like that man in Canada: Patterson. This division is not good for socialism- and the reality is, we can read the pamphlets, and we need credit for being able to read and spell a little.
I was not part of the political scene Alan and Matt are- until recently... but they have been understandable, and encouraging.
Contribute to the debate, leave division to the capital agenga- no insulting the common cause.
Be kind and not cruel,
L.B
L.B. He is just a one trick troll pony. He is acting 'thick'.
If workers do not gain sufficient theoretical understanding, not too heavy, as he or she implies, they will be cheated as they have been in the past, by charlatans and scoundrels ofering to lead them and pandering to perceived present needs, overriding the need for workers themselves to make the revolution.
Great🥰💐
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