OT The ATC

You need a surprizing capacity for relaxation for target shooting or
you never become consistent.

 

Given the choice, I'd rather take my chances with the ATC: look what
the WI did to Blair.

 

`Women's rights and racial issues': you mean defending the rights of
workers who are discriminated against?

 

Skeet is a hoot and takes *a lot* of mastering.

I have often stood at one end of a London underground station and looked to
the white shell suits at the other and thought "Target rich environment"

 

Which is why I can't stick the communist party - there's probably a
teleprinter somewhere in Kings St. still churning out instructions.

The Leninist loyalty to the party is essential when mounting a revolution
comprising of poorly educated peasants and workers. It was honed to a
fine point as a Stalinist methodology of control.

There's the need for collective responsibility but the didactic approach
leaves me cold. It encourages unthinking stupidity (well, colour me
surprised).

I know but I suspect we aren't going to agree on the detail.

What needs to be remembered - in this context - the Labour Party is the
political wing of the Trade Union movement.

Trade Unions are by their nature political movements, not insurance
schemes. If you don't like the direction get involved and change it.
That's what I did.

I saw the leadership as arrogant, unthinking apologists who's industrial
and political actions were wanting.

 

Not sure what skeets are.

 

Something that needs to be fixed.
The politicisation of the TU movement is one of the barriers to our economic
success.

Erm why can't we have the German model?

I understand Germany exports more product than even the USA and that's from
a cold start in 1945.

 

But that's not how it works is it.
The big picture is the job of political parties.
Trade Unions should focus on the companies and jobs specific to their paying
members.
They currently do not and it's utterly fucked.

 

I fundamentally disagree with this (never mind the details!). Trade
Unions are political organisations charged with improving the lot of
their members.

To do so requires political intervention. The movement of capital is the
highest form of politics and labour is part of that capital so it is
utterly necessary for those who provide the labour to be involved.

What form that 'involvement' takes is up to you as a member of the Union.

 

I ask again about the apparently successful German model

 

So if workers, who happen to be women, are getting a raw deal, a union
should not try to defend them because that's `the big picture'? For
whom should a union stand up, then?

 

But when Britain was economically successful, the unions were more
politically active and had more control over the Labour party.

The basic programme of the DGB (roughly the German TUC) is here:

http://www.dgb.de/sprachen/englisch/grundsatz.htm

It talks about `shaping the economy' and `saving the social state'. It
doesn't look to me as if they only deal with their employers.

It has the world's biggest trade surplus and has a very strong,
politically active union movement.

An excellent recent book which looks at the `unionism' versus
`syndicalism' is `Live working or die fighting', Paul Mason from
Newsnight. He talks about the same issues you're worried about.

 

Could I not have him to run my union: he's improved the pay of his
members and made the union 50% bigger.

 

Couldn't possibly comment.

 

I think the point Hog is trying to make ("you are lost in a maze of
twisty logic, all alike") is that all workers should be treated equally
and it's irrelevent whether they are men, women or little green aliens
from Proxima Centauri..

Phil.

 

For free? FFS, I had to fly to Prague and then pay to
shoot some decent guns.

Guns don't kill people.

 

Neither my scout troup or ATC squadron were anything like this. We just had
a whale of a time. We had a Hunter cockpit turned flight sim as well.
TBF I did see other scout troups where smiling was frowned upon.

 

On one level, I agree with you, which I why I've never been involved
in any military or semi-military (like the Police) organisation.

However, what's the difference between the bloke with the stripes in
your above example, and your boss at work?

 

Ha I know the answer to this one.
"Get the bitch back in the bedroom"

 

I wasn't trying to suggest I knew the answers. I did mean it doesn't work
here and it does seem to work there. Can we take their prescription please.