Many years ago I bought a book from the bookshop of the SWP called 'The Stalin School of Falsification' by Leon Trotsky and it is good to see that in the latest edition of International Socialism the SWP has learned well the lessons of the past. Alex Callinicos, the SWPs leading 'theoritician', and longstanding member of the party's central commitee looks at the collapse of the Respect project and Scottish Socialist Party- luckily it has nothing to do with him.
The son of the Hon. Ædgyth Bertha Milburg Mary Antonia Frances Lyon-Dalberg-Acton correctly points out that;
"In Britain first the Scottish Socialist Party and then Respect split: when the rival fragments ran against each other, both sides predictably suffered electoral eclipse."
but neglects to mention which organisation was central to the splits in both the SSP and Respect, and prime mover in the resultant splinters on both sides of the border whose candidates "predictably suffered electoral eclipse".*
One question immediatly springs to mind, if the defeat of you're comrades was so predictable, then why was so much of your party's resources and it's members energies expended in those elections?
* The SWP, in case you haven't guessed.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
As Queer as Volk
The welcome death of the Austrian Nazi Haider has taken an even odder turn, having wiped himself out driving his car straight into a wall at 90 miles an hour whilst pissed out of his head, it now appears that he spent his final hours partying away at a gay club and his former deputy fuerher, and now leader of the Nazi 'Alliance for Austria's Future' Party has revealled that he was for years his 'life partner'
"We had a special relationship that went far beyond friendship," Mr Petzner said in an emotional interview.
"Joerg and I were connected by something truly special. He was the man of my life," he added.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7685905.stm
There must be something about those leather lederhosen.
check out Johann Hari excellent post
"We had a special relationship that went far beyond friendship," Mr Petzner said in an emotional interview.
"Joerg and I were connected by something truly special. He was the man of my life," he added.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7685905.stm
There must be something about those leather lederhosen.
check out Johann Hari excellent post
Monday, October 20, 2008
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Monday, October 06, 2008
I didn't know there was a competition
The Americans are having one of their regular media circuses to discover the identity of the latest multi millionaire who will defend the interests of Americas richest for the next 4 years. this year has been somewhat enlivened by the one who isn't black appointing a mad woman as his potential vice president. Although Palin has the slight advantage over her 'Democratic' opponent Joe Biden, in that he is a old and balding politician and she looks like she just stepped off a MILF porn shoot, her associations with Alaskan separatists and funda-mentalist god bothering had marked her down as the looniest candidate since dan 'potatoe' quail.
"Mr Redstar You are a very naughty boy- I may have to spank you"
However, Americans do not like to do things by halfs, and it now seems that not to be outdone the US green party has trumped the Republicans with a candidate who out loons even Palin
the socialist unity site has reported how Cynthia McKinney, Green Party presidential candidate has claimed that the US government executed 5,000 prisoners and dumped their bodies in a swamp during the Katrina emergency. McKinney has form, she was previously a Democratic congresswoman and in the aftermath of 9/11 accused Bush of prior knowledge of the attacks, later becoming a early supporter of the 'Truther' cult.
However none of this dissuades the so called Green Left in Britain. Derek Wall said;
"I certainly backing Cynthia, good on ecology, peace and socialism as far as I am concerned, looks like she is the victim of smears….have listened to her speak she sounds sound to me, so I am happy to put this down as an out of context comment…’keep the oil in the soil’ and plenty of other stuff from her and Rosa mark them as powerfull candidates."
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Rage, rage against the dying of the light! pt.2
So, what to do?
Well to be frank, buggered if I know.
The anarchist's critisisms of state socialism are excellent, but wherever anarchism has moved beyond a peripheral cult and began to build a viable alternative it has been crushed by the state or, more commonly, by the state leftists.
Today anarchism is a ideology which is held by a terribly tiny number of people not even on the margins of the working class.
So what is the point?
Even though the left is dead, and the chances that anarchism could achieve a libertarian revolution is probably zero. that does not mean that you have to roll supinely onto your back and accept this pile of crap as the best that can be achieved. Instead my attitude is to take as example Dylan Thomas in his cry of anger against old age and death;
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I believe that one day we will rise again and sweep away the filth and the horror of class society, But I have no idea when that would be, in the meantime I will attempt to rage against the dying of the light, to tilt at the windmills of capitalism and its fake enemies. In opposing the capitalist state system I refuse to become the cheerleader for its 'opponents', those who would wish to replace one form of state oppression for another, even more savage. I have no illusions that my actions, my words will have any influence other than registering my own opposition and contempt for their system and values.
But perhaps that is enough.
Well to be frank, buggered if I know.
The anarchist's critisisms of state socialism are excellent, but wherever anarchism has moved beyond a peripheral cult and began to build a viable alternative it has been crushed by the state or, more commonly, by the state leftists.
Today anarchism is a ideology which is held by a terribly tiny number of people not even on the margins of the working class.
So what is the point?
Even though the left is dead, and the chances that anarchism could achieve a libertarian revolution is probably zero. that does not mean that you have to roll supinely onto your back and accept this pile of crap as the best that can be achieved. Instead my attitude is to take as example Dylan Thomas in his cry of anger against old age and death;
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I believe that one day we will rise again and sweep away the filth and the horror of class society, But I have no idea when that would be, in the meantime I will attempt to rage against the dying of the light, to tilt at the windmills of capitalism and its fake enemies. In opposing the capitalist state system I refuse to become the cheerleader for its 'opponents', those who would wish to replace one form of state oppression for another, even more savage. I have no illusions that my actions, my words will have any influence other than registering my own opposition and contempt for their system and values.
But perhaps that is enough.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light! pt.1
the Left is, to all intents and purposes, a dead duck. the entire socialist project has turned out to have lasted less than a century and, rather than liberating humaity from the tyranny of class oppression instead inaugrated new and exciting forms of tyranny. The domination within the workers movement of statist forms of socialism, both leninist and social democrat, ensured that the interests of working people have always been sacrificed in the interests of state, party or in support of 'progressive movements'- anti- imperialists, Islamists, Latin American populist presidents, national liberation movements, the Greens etc. etc. whose first acts when achieving power would be to inevitably to launch attacks upon the working class.
Over 100 years ago a Polish revolutionary active within the Russian movement, Jan Wraclaw Machajski, came to the conclusion that the Marxists of the RSDLP were not interested in promoting to power the working class,but were instead aiming to establish power for a very different class, the Intelligentsia. Machajski confined himself to critiquing the Russian and German social democrats, but these two movements became the templates for all the socialist parties over the next century, and the western equivalent of the intelligentsia, the educated managerial class has been the prime mover and beneficary of these parties, both 'reformist', Social Democratic, and 'revolutionary', Communist.
In the UK the 'hard left' has been synonymous with the contrasting ideologies of stalinism and Trotskyism, The trotskyists, who until the 1960s were miniscule in comparison to the monolith of the british Communist Party, had portayed themselves as a purified Leninism with all the strengths of the Russian revolution but without the downsides of Stalinist degeneration. However, they were essentially parasitic upon the CPGB and the larger Labour Left that it influenced, without the communists to critique, the trots, far from being able to put forward 'true leninism' instead peddled cheap knock off replicas of stalinist policies to a far smaller, and rapidly shrinking audience. When unexpectedly in 2003 they found themselves at the head of a genuine mass movement they did not hesitate for a moment and immediately and publically junked all the principles which had guided them for decades and launched themselves into alliance with Islamic fundamentalists whose politics were indistinguishable from fascism.
Today what remains of the left sects tear each other apart over how many bolshevik angels could dance on the head of a commissar Trotsky's knob and pretend that their pronouncements have any relevance to to real world at all.
Over 100 years ago a Polish revolutionary active within the Russian movement, Jan Wraclaw Machajski, came to the conclusion that the Marxists of the RSDLP were not interested in promoting to power the working class,but were instead aiming to establish power for a very different class, the Intelligentsia. Machajski confined himself to critiquing the Russian and German social democrats, but these two movements became the templates for all the socialist parties over the next century, and the western equivalent of the intelligentsia, the educated managerial class has been the prime mover and beneficary of these parties, both 'reformist', Social Democratic, and 'revolutionary', Communist.
In the UK the 'hard left' has been synonymous with the contrasting ideologies of stalinism and Trotskyism, The trotskyists, who until the 1960s were miniscule in comparison to the monolith of the british Communist Party, had portayed themselves as a purified Leninism with all the strengths of the Russian revolution but without the downsides of Stalinist degeneration. However, they were essentially parasitic upon the CPGB and the larger Labour Left that it influenced, without the communists to critique, the trots, far from being able to put forward 'true leninism' instead peddled cheap knock off replicas of stalinist policies to a far smaller, and rapidly shrinking audience. When unexpectedly in 2003 they found themselves at the head of a genuine mass movement they did not hesitate for a moment and immediately and publically junked all the principles which had guided them for decades and launched themselves into alliance with Islamic fundamentalists whose politics were indistinguishable from fascism.
Today what remains of the left sects tear each other apart over how many bolshevik angels could dance on the head of a commissar Trotsky's knob and pretend that their pronouncements have any relevance to to real world at all.
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