After spat with SSP, Tommy Sheridan starts new party.

[Herr Magoo]

That splits a pretty fine hair when you end up getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for your lie.  A person who lies in order to steal money isn't a crook anymore?  What did Black do other than also lie to steal money?

[skdadl]

Oh, NoW deserve to get their money back, utter trash though they are and much as they caused this unnecessary mess in the first place.

I'm just sayin' that I don't think Sheridan was a threat to go on suing UK news outlets, whereas Black was certainly a threat to go on doing the things he did, with vastly greater damage.

[lagatta]

Oh dear. Before the sentencing statement came this on the conviction.

http://www.scottishsocialistparty.org/new_stories/statements/sheridan-conviction.html

I knew Frances and Rosie, and some of the other comrades involved. And the statement is the truth - they wanted no part of the suit, saying Tommy was taking that gutter paper far too seriously.

I also know that Tommy bullied a very fragile woman whom he knew had been through all manner of hardships and brutalities in her life - isn't this counter to what we put forth about feminism, socialism and fighting class oppression?

I'm not happy about anyone going to jail, and in the case of non-violent offenders, (whether Black or Sheridan, and our sorry tricksters Vincent Lacroix and Earl Jones) I don't think it is the best way of ensuring they repay at least some of the harm they did to people. But Sheridan did very real harm - it is not like someone who split on an ideological basis - he misused the trust of his comrades and colleagues.

This is a painful story for me. Lasses in tears about what Tommy did to them - nothing to do with sexual encounters.

Fuck, here is one story. He's a lying, opportunist bastard.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2010/12/26/former-msp-rosie-kane-on-tommy-sheridan-s-sex-lies-and-betrayal-86908-22807808/

[lagatta]

More from Rosie: http://www.scotsman.com/spectrum/Interview-Rosie-Kane-former-socialist.6693504.jp

[skdadl]

Good Lord, lagatta. What do you mean, "nothing to do with sexual encounters"? Rosie is all about extreme moralizing judgement against a guy who went to "sleazy" swingers' clubs.  She's also all about romanticizing herself (see the way she exploits her mother's story -- wtf has that to do with Sheridan's legal case?). That Daily Record link should tell people all they need to know about Rosie's logic, which is utterly irrelevant to anything that ever should have happened to Sheridan.

Really. Disney wouldn't have sunk so low. Sheridan may well be a bastard personally, and the double lie he stuck to publicly is subject to legal judgement, given the way he did it (both suing and lying in court), but the rest of that is utter trash. People like Rosie scare the hell out of me -- I would not let anyone like that anywhere near my own life.

[deBeauxOs]

*Real* socialism is not about profiteering from the work, the trust, the support of those in the party and in the movement.


Sheridan did that.  He was a profiteer.  It's really not about the sex, it's about the dishonesty and the venality of his abuse of power.


Sheridan may have told Kane about the clubs, calculating she might be a round-heeled gal who would go to the clubs with him.   But that's not the only thing what outraged her - it's the complicated structure of lies to protect Sheridan that required everyone's implicit or explicit collaboration, or else be cast out and shunned.  That is classic stalinism.

[skdadl]

deBO, I have no idea what that comment means, but it has nothing to do with sending someone to jail. Like, nothing.

[deBeauxOs]

Are the facts in the SPP statement incorrect then?   
 
Did Sheridan say to the members of a party who elected him as their leader and who gave time, energy, money and chunks of their lives to a dynamic movement they had created together: By the way, that crap in the tabloid?  It's true.  So what?  Let's get on with what we must do to create the just and rightful society we envision.
 
Did Sheridan not choose a course of action that required his colleagues in the party to believe him and to trust him blindly? Did he not lie to them and then pressure them to repeat his lies under their oath?  Did he not manipulate his colleagues and attempt to profit from their trust in his leadership? 
 
How are these actions consistent with *real* socialism?
 
If Sheridan was deliberately challenging the premise of an unjust legal system, why coerce colleagues to lie for him? Why didn’t he explain his strategy and respectfully obtain their fully informed consent?
 
Sheridan had (and still has) the right to act as he sees fit in pursuit of his own needs and pleasures.  But he didn’t have the right to equate his personal needs with the goals of the SSP.  The victory that he wanted to secure with his defamation case was not intended to advance socialism or the SSP but to serve the needs of Tommy Sheridan.  His decision displayed contempt for his colleagues.  In a desperate effort to control their loyalty he exploited specific terms in the language of labour actions to attack anyone who refused to support his strategy.
 
Is it *real* socialism to invalidate the genuine response of those distressed by Sheridan’s lack of personal accountability by equating it with bourgeois sin: the expression of an "extreme moralizing judgment”?

[skdadl]

deBO, you've just spilt a lot of ink misreading me entirely.

I never defended Sheridan's actual offences. I (1) questioned the legal penalty he is paying; and (2) questioned the slavishly bourgeois agreement of his former colleagues with the official penalty that has been imposed.

I don't understand people who are incapable of separating their personal feelings from questions of principle.

[lagatta]

A comment from Gregor Gall, biographer of Sheridan:

Comment: Real tragedy is the squandered credibility

Gregor Gall

The Tommy Sheridan narrative is a personal and political tragedy. For many, he was the pre-eminent “working-class hero” of his generation. He became the most widely acclaimed socialist tribune of the post-1979 period in Scotland when elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999. His clenched fist defiance at the swearing in ceremony became the defining and iconic image of the first Scottish Parliament.

Now that he is beginning a jail term for perjury, many of those who lionised him will now think he has regrettably become a “working-class zero” because he has squandered the credibility and support he so astutely built up for socialism. But, worse than that, he did so on issues that were not concerned with the fight for socialism.

His political career now lies in tatters. Electorates can usually forgive, if not quite forget, those who get caught out. But voters are usually less willing to forgive hypocrites and liars.

When he comes out of jail, Sheridan’s socialist message may still be the same but the willingness of people to listen will be very much diminished. For the radical socialist left in Scotland, this is the continuation of a fratricidal nightmare. While the position of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) on “Tommygate” may be vindicated, the party is but a shadow of its former self. It will not suddenly regain lost ground just because of the verdict.

Sheridan split the most successful socialist party in the post-war period in Scotland just when it had gained that most precious of commodities, a mass following. He wanted the SSP to lie for him. When it would not, he set up a rival but identical party – Solidarity.

The result was both parties were wiped out from having a presence in the Scottish Parliament. The electorate looked at both and saw them as a plague on both their houses. Sheridan fell along with the five other socialist MSPs. It has been said that this is the one crime Sheridan will never stand trial for.

For Sheridan, spending most of the past six years fighting former comrades and preparing for a perjury trial meant not only that he trained only a fraction of his firepower on the enemies of capitalism, neo-liberalism and the political associated with both, but he missed out on leading the attack at a time when these enemies were in their gravest crisis. This is the tragedy of Tommy.

Gregor Gall, professor of industrial relations at the University of Hertfordshire, is writing a biography of Sheridan

excerpted from here: http://www.heraldscotland.com:80/news/politics/brought-down-by-out-of-control-ego-1.1082219

[skdadl]

A genuinely ironic follow-up to this story: the News of the World may get their (filthy) money back from Sheridan, but they are now in trouble up to their necks in a much bigger scandal, the phone-hacking scandal, which has already reached into Number 10. Looks good on them.

[deBeauxOs]

deBO, you've just spilt a lot of ink misreading me entirely.

I never defended Sheridan's actual offences. I (1) questioned the legal penalty he is paying; and (2) questioned the slavishly bourgeois agreement of his former colleagues with the official penalty that has been imposed.

I don't understand people who are incapable of separating their personal feelings from questions of principle.

I understand people who are capable of separating their personal feelings from questions of principle.  It's a skill, not a virtue.
 

... The SSP statement also seems to me just plain mean, but then their role in the original case seemed weird to me too. Sheridan's reaction to stupid gossip and moralizing was doubly stupid, but the original case was stupid. He handled it wrongly, but I don't see why it ever should have started. The UK press are toxic on stories like this, much more than here; neither Sheridan nor the SSP should have paid them any attention at all.

The opinion you expressed with respect to Sheridan, and his former colleagues in the SSP was clear from the beginning.  I got it. 
 
I responded to your questioning whether he deserved the legal penalty he is paying

Sheridan just was not in that class of crook. He was a liar, but not a crook. Black was a crook.

and to the judgment you pronounced on the SPP statement issued by his former colleagues, as well as to your remarks directed at Rosie Kane.
 
edited to correct judgment (not jugement).

[skdadl]

I understand people who are capable of separating their personal feelings from questions of principle.  It's a skill, not a virtue.
 

Well, no. It is a social and political virtue, and not only that; it is a socially and politically necessary virtue. Democracy cannot survive if people go on witchhunts against their personal enemies. Democracy absolutely depends on being willing to defend people you don't like.

If I were a sentimentalist like Rosie, I could claim, eg, that one of the political allies I split with decades ago was a major cause of the suicide of a friend. I could claim that, and maybe briefly, in my first bitterness, I was tempted to. But I'm just not that emotionally stupid, and however much I dislike the other guy, I can't hold him responsible for someone else's suicide.

[deBeauxOs]

Well, no. It is a social and political virtue, and not only that; it is a socially and politically necessary virtue. Democracy cannot survive if people go on witchhunts against their personal enemies. Democracy absolutely depends on being willing to defend people you don't like.

 
I am not advocating that "people go on witchhunts against their personal enemies".  One can defend the right someone has to a fair trial without having to lie to defend them.
 
ETA: aargh! returned to insert missing quote code

[skdadl]

Um, this is going in circles. I've said repeatedly that I'm not defending the specific offences Sheridan was undoubtedly guilty of. The lawsuit and the perjury are legal offences, although I do question whether those should lead to three years in gaol.

That isn't what people have mostly been writing about though.

This is beginning to remind me of the impeachment of Bill Clinton. To begin with, I detest both Clintons, and as a feminist I think the boss-junior relationship there was wrong, although I'm not sure it should be criminalized. But that isn't what the House impeachment was about; they moved on his perjury, and I more or less agree -- the guy lied, although very cleverly.

So for that he should be removed as president? When no one has moved to impeach Bush or Cheney or Obama for that matter of far worse offences? Or even Clinton of far worse offences? The Senate of the day sensibly concluded that they should not convict.

Marcy Wheeler actually said that on MSNBC one night -- Congress will go after someone for a blow-job, but they won't go after war criminals. Immediately the anchor-airheads fell all over themselves saying "Oh, I'm sure Marcy didn't mean that word," which really annoyed her. Of course she meant that word.

Western culture is extremely strange. The older I get, the more I realize I just plain don't belong to it.