Are you a working class member or was eric arthur blair a working class member?
Actually i bought two books nobody gave them for free-

Are you a working class member or was eric arthur blair a working class member?

I suppose strictly speaking I am not working class, because I am unemployed at the moment. Presumably that makes me "lumpen-scum" to quote the SWP.

No, George Orwell was not working class. However, it does not detract from the point he was making in the quote. ie. that the far-left attracts loony-tunes and oddballs whether they are working class or otherwise (but usually middle class).

My problem is not so much with middle class people in the worker's movement, but with middle class ideas which they seem to equate with socialism. eg. most of the middle class, politically correct nonsense spouted by the SWP.

This is simply a desperate attempt by the steadily-failing Hard Right to paint their entire diverse, majority Opposition with a fine-tipped brush, manipulating the public's perception of us, because the Right knows full well it cannot address the concerns of an Informed Centre.

I would like to think that you were intoxicated when making your comment. For the comment is slapdash, divisionary and bigoted. The movement will be nothing if it is non-accepting. Non-accepting of progressive individuals from all spheres, and also those who are unaware of 'leftist' politics and only experience the breath of your text. The left, locally and globally, is split because of such an attitude that you have taken. Blaming the middle-class for a BBC documentary. What does the 'left' even mean? It is so broad and takes on so many different fronts of dissent and protest that a middle-class sandle wearing hippy may be part of such a movement, and who are you to say that he or she isn't because of their socio-economic position. Don't judge people on their background, judge them on their politics and action, otherwise you're arguments will be just as unfounded as those in authoritarion positions. Perhaps then, we can have a movement united in making positive change unblemished by classist judgements, which may be upwards, down, sideways and diagonal. Let's make change with those in agreeance, not make divides between those who choose to stand up. Perhaps we shall meet on the front-line, together in one class, that of a revolutionary character. peace.

ps...see above( its about the guy you quoted)

That silly old trout who used to bang on about women's equality, gay rights, poetry, drama and other countercultural shite in the 1920s. What was her name again? Oh yeah, that's it - EMMA bleedin' GOLDMAN. Only one of the last century's greatest revolutionaries.

The Left without counterculture is lifeless and disconnected. People are not classes, hate the system, not the people who are born into it.

Surely everybody compelled to work in order to survive is Working Class. This includes feminists, anarchists, trotskyists, stalinists, fascists, neofacists, ethnic minorities, the homeless, the asylum seekers, the factory worker, the agricultural worker, the economic migrants, journalists....

Anybody not compelled to work in order to survive is not working Class. That Class suffers poverty of imagination but no poverty of material things -anything they can, they do, steal from the Working Class, in taxation and profits for projects of no use to the Common Good.

And as for 1970's lefties - well the rampant strikes of the 1970's left the country with exactly the same "productivity" and "profit margin" as today so obviously they were mere collaborators. Couldn't be that capitalism is shit.

Brutus wasn't working class either, he was born to a 'good family', maybe you should rename yourself after someone more working class. If you think the words 'socialism' and 'communism' draw crackpots you should come along to an anarchist event.
If you met a fruitjuice drinking, nudist, sandal-wearing, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist and feminist wouldn't you try to bed her ? Many real working-class boys would agree after 'sex-maniac'.

The Orwell quote shows one of the problems with listing disparate groups you disapprove of as counter-culture nonsense - "loony-tunes and oddballs". Ideas that seem loony may in fact be sensible and desirable in time regardless of class. It's been a long time since fruitjuice drinking was seen as 'counter-culture' or middle-class. Even doleys get to taste fruit juice occassionally. If you campaigned to replace coke and pepsi machines in schools with free fruit juice then you might even be accused of being a socialist. The real trouble with lots of documentaries about struggles is they deliberately or accidentally pick the most embarrassing people that they can. Maybe it's just the type of people that would be happy appearing in a documentary tend to be embarrassing or unrepresentative. That's the real problem with all political parties too.

Tommy Sheridan has recently been sacrificied to the News of the World by the current 'feminist' SSP leadership for drinking too much fruit juice. This seems silly and prudish in a country ran for two months of the year by a deputy PM who screws employees in his offices and prostitutes himself in a cowboy suit. Georgeous George threatened to launch Respect north of the border unless they backed Sheridan but that was probably bluster. Still, never interrupt an opponents mistakes.