Plaid Cymru (The Party of Wales) offered to co-operate with Galloway's new Party as Socialists - which they have certainly been for the past fifty years to my knowledge.

Galloway rejected their offer unless they continued their betrayal of their Nation to the point of genociding their own nation.

To satisfy him it was not enough that Wales become a Province of Europe. He required they abandon the few national aspirations they still retain. He was adamant that he would only ally with a British Party.

Left me wondering why he isn't in the BNP, and whether he approves of the British Army shooting down Iraqi would be workers at the behest of Blair. - It is only about ninety years since the British Army was shooting down Welsh workers in Llanelli at Churchill's behest. - he must know about that, though he may not know why the Welsh call the English "The Bloody English" - when Llewelyn was caught and killed by the same trick as killed Zapata. Llewelyn's Army was then surprised and surrounded in a bad position, and presuaded to give up their arms and surrender. They did. Then the defenceless 2000 Welsh were slaughtered at no English loss.

That aside, the stage managed meeting was an SWP front, there was an SWP Chair, and at least half the undeclared speakers called from the floor were SWP, and I thought it probable from what they said that those who announced their Union (all TUC affiliated) membership might also have been mostly SWP. No non TUC affiliated Union was called, nor were any Anarchists. One Communist speaker was called and a Speaker for the Socialist Party had the guts to stand in front of the Platform and demand to be heard.. heard by popular (two or three noisy people in the 200 audience) demand.

It was very sad that there was absolutuely no proposal for any policy to deal with the very real problems now hitting society, and a complete unawareness of the problems that will overwhelm us in the future. All the political dogma proposals made would be counter productive and hasten disaster.

Nothing was said that might stop people voting for Joe Soap (The Anarchist Candidate who always stands) in even bigger numbers than they did in the last election. I await the dawn of Democracy: The day the Returning Officer declares that as more than fifty percent of the electorate refrained from voting, no Candidate is returned.

Actually what George Galloway said was that the left was uniting over socialist principles of wealth distribution, anti-racism, anti-imperialism, Plaid Cymru were welcome to join if they left their nationalism at the door. Galloway was arguing for class politics as opposed to petty-bourgeois nationalist politics.

Plaid Cymru began life as a fascist organisation run by Nazi sympathiser Saunders Lewis, and sent troops to fight for Franco in the Spanish Civil War.

Plaid Cymru is not a socialist organisation. Like most nationalist organisations SNP, Sinn Fein etc. it has a socialist wing. It's hammering at the last elections has led to a tension in it's ranks between those who want to push it in a socialist direction campaigning on issues of social justice and those who want to push the nationalist issue of independence.

'..there was an SWP Chair, and at least half the undeclared speakers called from the floor were SWP, and I thought it probable from what they said that those who announced their Union (all TUC affiliated) membership might also have been mostly SWP..'

They're everywhere I tell you! Your friends, your neighbours, even your family, they might look innocent but they too could be secret SWP! They even sneak into my room at night and whisper to me about Bakunin and Kronstadt...

Iolo, if you think that Welsh nationalism has nothing to do with class and is merely 'petit bourgeoise', then:

a) You are not fit to use that nom de plume

and

b) You must live in Cowbridge

So far I know of two Welshmen who went to fight in Spain for Franco. One unnamed from West Wales, and another named from Cardiff. I hear they went for the money.

So please name the welsh troops you claim went from Plaid Cymru to fight for Franco. Was one perhaps Sidney Argyle? Unlike the gutless pacifists in the stop the war but do nothing about it movement, those Plaid Cymru pacifist founders mentioned by our fraudulent Iolo Morgannwg, did burn a Bombing School. Though they were stupid enough to hold up their hands and say "we done it" after, in the NVDA tradition.

The nice thing about UK indymedia is that anyone can post any lie anonymously and blacken historical figures by misusing their name.

There are plenty of Plaid Cymru people who have relatives who went to Spain to fight against Franco and died there. There are plenty of Labour Party people in that category too, though many of them hide that their relative went as a CP member. the claim the credit for Labour.

Though the only person who apportions blame for Franco's victory accurately is ex Plaid Cymru - As was stated in the mixing area of the Welsh Assembly: The blame lies on the heads of the European Socialists and Trade Unions who did not make their countries ungovernable when their Governments refused to sell arms to the democratically elected Spanish Government under attack by part of it's own Army.

The same spineless millions as marched against the war in Iraq, and did nothing to stop it once it started. Perhaps they were controlled by the SWP which is doing the dirty work of the Labour Party. SWP are likely to follow Lenin : The best way to control the opposition is to lead them. The evidence is that the Thatcherites are also 'Leninists' who have moled Blair into the leadership of the Labour Party. And Brown!

Now the SWP are using Galloway as a front to try to gain political power. If not power, seats. Like all politicians they drool for the income, status and power involved in being an MP.

The SWP all talk Revolution. They do nothing practical. But they display all the traits of Fascism. So much so that the BNP gives them the Hitler salute in recognition when they make their street brawling anti BNP demos at BNP marches.

Many people are deluded by the dogmatic Marxism of the SWP. They are impervious to reality, and have become the dogmatic Marxists Marx warned against. They are main agents of the traitors to socialism in the Labour Party. The SWP told people to vote Labour because "Plaid Cymru is a fascist Party". There was a united front of Labour and the SWP presenting that lie to make a good Labour showing in the last election.

This time, Galloway is being presented to split the socialist vote in Wales so that the fascists in the Labour Party the SWP told us to vote for last time shall retain power.

The anti-Welsh "internationalism" of the Labour Party betrayed the Labour comittment to Home Rule for Wales that should have put a socialist Government into Wales at the time of Ramsey MacDonald's Government. And we could have been Socialist ever since.

"Internationalism" in Wales is a con trick to prevent Socialism in Wales. Its prime objective is the genocide of the Welsh nation and the corruption of the Welsh people so they betray both their nation and socialism. The main aspiration of Welsh nationalists is to participate in full in the International Community of Nations. As equals, not as gutless conquered cowards. Nor as imperial dominants living high off artificial debt imposed onto other nations.

No true welshman can want otherwise until there are no nations in the world.

Dear oh dear oh dear.

"The same spineless millions as marched against the war in Iraq, and did nothing to stop it once it started."

Shame on you millions for marching against the war! You should have all stormed Westminster and installed a Plaid Cymru government!

"Perhaps they were controlled by the SWP which is doing the dirty work of the Labour Party."

Christ! That takes paranoid conspiracy to a new level, until...

"The SWP all talk Revolution. They do nothing practical. But they display all the traits of Fascism. So much so that the BNP gives them the Hitler salute in recognition when they make their street brawling anti BNP demos at BNP marches."

I think that the nazi boneheads are in the business of giving Hitler salutes to any and all opposition they encounter, if the police prevent them from attacking them.

Its hardly out of "recognition". And when's the last time you saw a bunch of weedy student SWPers "street brawling"? Waving ANL lollipops from behind polis barriers, more like.

"Its prime objective is the genocide of the Welsh nation"

Nobhead. Genocide is the murder of a people, not the alteration and possible dilution of its supposed "culture". How dare you cheapen the term.

Now take your phony notion of what it is to be Welsh and sod off, you numpty.

I bring you news that traitor and villian to this country has been sent to the tower. He tried to make a last effort to save his own skin by trying to make peace with him.

Were there any questions/criticisms of what Galloway said? I would be nice if those were recorded and published alongside this speech.

" Genocide is the murder of a people, not the alteration and possible dilution of its supposed "culture". "

Claptrap. There is :

Genocide by murder (e.g. Nazis v. Jews, Zionists v. Palestinians)
Genocide by forced transfer of population (e.g. Stalin v. well, just about every non-Russian race in the Soviet Union, "Britain" v. Ireland)
Genocide by undermining a nation's culture and identity to such an extent as to terminally weaken them (e.g. "Britain" v. Cymru)

National identity will always have a stronger pull on people than some woolly-minded BS about 'class'. Where was the "solidarity of the working class" in 1914? Where was it in 1939? Where was it in the 60s & 70s when the "British working class" (including trade unionists) were spending their time and money sunning themselves in Spain while Franco was still in power?

It is the oppressed nations of the world who have provided, and will continue to provide, the hope for the future of all nations. The nations of the Baltic coast and central Europe were liberated by the energy of national identity, not by some spurious notions of 'class'. A large part of Ireland was liberated from Brit colonialism by national ideals, not by the mythical "class consciousness".

If it were otherwise, why do you think that empires take such care to undermine the identities of the nations they occupy and oppress? They wouldn't make the effort otherwise. And the Brit left, with it's blather about 'class' has always helped that process, just as Noo Labour and its fellow travellers in the SWP and other irrelevant groups are still doing.

And, by the way Jones, why do you say "supposed "culture"" when referring to our nation's identity? Are you just another of those self-loathing "Welsh" who believe that the way to freedom is by pretending to be English?

There were lots of questions, including critical ones, to all the speakers including George Galloway. You can find a few more details in the short text of my previous posting (below the photos of the meeting). In fact, I recorded the whole 2-hour session to minidisc but current technology makes it impossible for me to make this available here. The consequence is that I was obliged to pick out a highlight of the meeting, namely George's speech, because of limitations of capacity/bandwidth. Unfortunately, these technical/practical considerations are one reason why all the media, even Indymedia volunteers, end up distorting what happens and inadvertently focusing on 'celebrities'.

But our national identity is bound up in the roots of proletarianism, class struggle, and the division of labour. We existed simply to feed the hungry mouths of the Norman overlords and later the furnaces of the English industrial revolution. Rhondda-Cynon-Taff, Torfaen, the Swansea valleys are all as they are as a direct result of class and nationality. The Welsh are (predominantly) working class and (generally) socialist exactly because our sole purpose in the great scheme of things was to break our backs so the Saes could break his bread. Our nascent nationalism was born of middle-class romanticists, but bred of the blood of the poor, from Tonypandy and Llanelli to the modern day Cynon. (Ladies clothing played a part also, but coming from a country which holds the leek dear, cross dressing insurrectionists should come as no surprise). Cymru am byth.

Well scratch a nationalist and you'll find a fascist, as "The Judge" so amply proves.

a) "National identity will always have a stronger pull on people than some woolly-minded BS about 'class'."

So in Germany in the 1930s you'd have backed the "strong-minded" national socialists against the "woolly-minded" Communist and socialist parties then? Interesting.

b) "There is : Genocide by murder (e.g. Nazis v. Jews, Zionists v. Palestinians)
Genocide by forced transfer of population (e.g. Stalin v. well, just about every non-Russian race in the Soviet Union, "Britain" v. Ireland)
Genocide by undermining a nation's culture and identity to such an extent as to terminally weaken them (e.g. "Britain" v. Cymru) "

That specious argument is ENTIRELY A MATTER OF OPINION. In this case an opinion held by very few, mainly those who want to add emotive language to a rather threadbare cause. And, as I originally said, those who would cheapen the original and truer definition.

Culture changes over the centuries. Get used to it (if you consider yourself "progressive.")

Oh - and Claptrap yourself.

c) "Are you just another of those self-loathing "Welsh" who believe that the way to freedom is by pretending to be English?"

Best of all. I love your co-opting of the right wing Zionist "self-hating" crap. Apart from being a load of bollocks, use of the "self-hating" tag merely identifies you as somebody who regards disagreement with your dogma as a symptom of mental or psychological disorder.

There are plenty of Genuine Welsh people who don't buy into your brand of bitter, hateful nationalism - they're no less Welsh than yourself. Get used to that too.

If you were to ask people in any country which they would fight for in a crisis of survival, their nation or their 'class', don't count on the majority marching behind the Fled Rag. People's loyalties are to their families first, then to their (geographical) communities and then, by extension, to their nation as the community of communities. This is merely an observable historical and human fact, and one which a no amount of Spartist frothing can counter.

You seemingly also deny the fact that genocide can be carried out by anything other than pure physical annihilation. Do you regard what has happened to, say, the Native Americans in our time as not being genocide simply because the white man has stopped actually killing them? When you undermine a nation's culture, you start wiping that nation out as sure as with guns, tanks or smallpox-impregnated blankets.

Yes, culture changes. But there is a clear difference between change which happens organically as part of that culture's natural interaction with others and the change which results from being buried by a 'culture' which has a state, an armed force, compliant media and sheer economic brute force behind it.

Or are you actually one of those Brit liberals who believe that this doesn't happen in such a 'nace' country as Britannia? Some of the worst anti-Cymric racists in these islands are devout readers of the 'liberal' press.

You missed the ironic intent behind my use of the term "self-hating", but I should have expected that.

"There are plenty of Genuine Welsh people who don't buy into your brand of...[blah, blah, blah]"

Yes. To be kind, I call them "serfs". You can see them waving the gaudy rag of the "Union" whenever the latest inbred princeling comes driving by in a limo. People without a real sense of identity, who don't know who they really are. The five-day-a-year Millenium Stadium patriots in all their glory.

Cymru could have been a socialist state and still could be, but the apathy and stupidity of these serfs has meant that we don't yet have a state. We're a colony of Anglo-American trash capitalism. Get used to *that*, butt.

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/01/284326.html

I doubt anyone is still reading this thread by now, but just in case:

I really can't be bothered to deal with all the lies spread by several of the contributors here, but one is really easy and will hopefully undermine the kneejerk anti-swp braindead sentiments of the first poster: the chair was Nuala Young, a CNDer, and about as far from the SWP as you could get (the first post claimed she was SWP). In fact in the past she was in print extremely hostile towards at least one SWP member. She has now thankfully put sectarianism behind her in order to get on with actually trying to achieve the goals which many of us have in common...

Sadly unlike some of the f*ckwits here.

Ben K

Ben indicates that I may have been misinformed of the politics of the Chair in Cardiff. I relied on the word of a politically aware person from that area.

Irritated seems to miss that "Had the Labour Party honestly fulfilled its promise to the people of Wales, Plaid Cymru would not exist. Ramsey MacDonald would have put up a Home Rule bill giving real power to a Welsh Parliament." and Wales would have been Socialist ever since.

The problem is whether they would then have the fascist "Socialism" of the Westminster Labour Party, or, the Socialism of the Unofficial Reform Committee of the South Wales Miners' Federation.

There has been a lot of offensive language thrown about, but no sensible proposal of policy showing awareness of the big problem now facing people.

Our "class warriors" are intent on their war, they have no idea how to abolish the Class System. No suggestion of abolishing the slavery of the Wage System. They still run on C19th blueprints.

I think you're talking about two different meetings. The thread was started as a recording of Galloway's speech in Oxford, but Ilyan went on to talk about a meeting in Cardiff.

So Nuala (non-SWP) chaired the Oxford meeting, but the Cardiff meeting had a SWP chair.