|
U-Know! Forum » Voting for the lesser of two evils |
Log In to post a reply
|
|
|
|
| Topic View: Flat | Threaded | |
|
Popel Vooje 5373 posts |
Sep 03, 2002, 15:22
|
||
I haven't totally ruled out the possibility of IDS getting in myself. I think it depends largely on how Blair handles his second term, and how IDS responds to his mistakes. Needless to say, it would be a disaster if he did get into power.
|
|||
necropolist 1689 posts |
Sep 03, 2002, 15:28
|
||
blair loses the euro vote (here's hoping)...then who knows what might happen, his whole government strategy would be f*&^ed, tho not half so much as gordon brown would be (hmmm, cynical thoughts...maybe that WOULD be what blair would want then)
|
|||
Merrick 2148 posts |
Sep 03, 2002, 19:06
|
||
|
The vanguardist stuff is a dead end cos it's just another version of the politican mantra of 'I have all the answers, put me in power'. The idea that *anyone* has it all sussed and all we have to do is centralise our power with them is nonsense. No governmental system can be fair or just if the people who take decisions don't have to live with the consequences; the flip side of that coin is no system can be fair if those who live with the consequences don't have full and direct influence on the decision-making process. So, whether it be Labour, Tory or SWP, anyone saying 'we know how to sort it out for you, hand your power to us' is either a power-hungry fraud or - at best - well-meaning but with a total lack of understanding of the effect of power.
|
|||
|
necropolist 1689 posts |
Sep 04, 2002, 11:33
|
||
|
i dont wanna start off a pointless debate about vanguardism (really really i don't) but... i totally agree with your point that no one has all the answers, and we shouldn't trust anyone who says they do. but not even vanguardists actually say that. 'learning from the class' is a central tenet of most marxist groups. now of course there are very very real questions about whether they actually do that - some are better than others,some are worse, but i don't think it is true that they have NO interest in learning from others. and it holds the other way round too, the vanguardists DO have a lot of positive things to give to the campaigns they are involved in that others would not do. 'The party' is suppossed to be the 'memory of the class', and far better than anyone else i think it is the far left that act in that way, that do recall previous struggles and try to learn from them, and apply lessons from them seriously. Which is vital for making sure struggles win. Rejecting the politics of an organisation has often (at least in the groups i've been involved in) led to people dismissing everything that members of that organisation have to say. Which is at least as bad (probably worse imo) than what the groups are being accused of themselves. Frequently 'anarchistic' rejection of anything the SWP (in particular) say or do, is a moronic and destructive influence which has fucked up lots of groups (equally the swp insisting only they can lead the struggle has fucked up a lot of groups too, wouldn't deny that for a minute) but we can, and should, learn from the vanguardists, there experoiences are jusr as real and valid as anyone elses and, just a little one, as i said before, i dont think its power that corrupts, its the utter LACK of power that corrupts, the impotence that follows from thinking you can change things, but actually can't drives people loony, and they try to do anything to hold on to whatever pathetic simulation of power they can.
|
|||
|
Merrick 2148 posts |
Sep 04, 2002, 12:49
|
||
|
I'm really impressed by your idea of it being the LACK of power corrupting - the toothlessness of any individual politician is screamingly obvious and so of course it's going to make them crave more power in the hope they'll get to a position of actual influence. Superb analysis and real truth there, Necro. I remember @ the Manchester Airport second runway campaign having a shouted with a bailiff ourtside the tunnel I was locked in. He said we should join political parties and try to change stuff that way. The two of us talking to him had been on the campiagn for 2 months, and in that time had both made national TV documentaries where we got to say exactly what we wanted - when was the last time *any* politician went on TV and spent 10 minutes saying exactly what they thought? Let alone the fact that it had taken them years, decades of gaggedness to get there! As Leonard Cohen said, 'they sentenced me to 20 years of boredom for trying to change the system from within'. But anyway. When I said 'have all the answers' I was exaggerating a tad. The fact remians that folks like the SWP run stuff by centralising power and have a ludicrously powerful central committee. When they talk of revolution and the need for strong leadership during and after it, who do we think they're picturing being those leaders? Whilst you're right that blindly dismissing anything an SWPer has to say is nonsense, I don't see anything wrong with people consistently rejecting their hierarchy and power structure. Much as the SWP like to pretend it's all down to individuals (placards about 'Blair's War', 'Legalise It Jack Straw'), it is these power structures that are the problem. (Incidentally, the politicians do that carttony thing too - the bombing of Belgrade was always called 'Bombing Milosovic', and now we need to 'Bomb Saddam' - just them, not the people in a blast radius of the cities in their country, you understand). I think the vanguardist parties do it for the smae reason as the politicians - to say that huge concentrations of power ren't a problem, as long as it's ME at the top. And yet the lesson is there to be learnt from every concentration of power: Animal Farm. A lot of anarchists I know have extremely good historical knowledge of struggle, and it's mostlyc those with the best knowledge that are the most distrusting of vanguard parties. When the 'replace old leaders with us as the new ones' people work alongside the 'do away with leaders and work for ourselves', after the victory the 'do away with leaders' folks are usually the first people their comrades put against the wall.
|
|||
grufty jim 1978 posts |
Sep 04, 2002, 13:03
|
||
|
> 'The party' is suppossed to be the 'memory > of the class', and far better than anyone else > i think it is the far left that act in that way, > that do recall previous struggles and try to > learn from them > So what happens if you're not part of "the class"? My big problem with the far left is this bloody obsession with "the working class". I was born into a working class family in a less than splendid area of Dublin. By the time i was 12 my father (ambitious guy that he was back then) had improved our economic situation drastically and i was living in a massive house in an exclusive area of Athens. What does this say about me? That i was working class, but then became upper-middle class? And if so, what the hell relevance does that have given the fact that i had nothing to do with it? Am i a class traitor at age 12 'cos of what my Dad did? Should my back be against the wall come the revolution? Or is the whole notion of "class" merely a way of creating divisions between people, lowering the overall levels of empathy within our society, and introducing artificial social boundaries designed precisely to prevent "the working class" from getting 'ideas above their station'? The working class is simply a progression of serfdom. The whole 'class' structure is a painfully divisive construct. And it doesn't exist for the benefit of those on the "lower" tiers. If being part of a social revolution means having to self-apply a 'class label', means accepting that human beings can be classified in such a way, then it ain't a revolution i want any part of. Look at history... look at the failure of all the socio-political systems we've put in place thus far. There are two lessons i have learnt from that. Firstly; organising society by the rules of an economic system is utter madness (market capitalism and Marxism are both essentially about wealth distribution... which would be great if wealth could be shown to make people happy and fulfilled). Secondly; that any successful method of running society needs (perhaps more than anything else) to be as inclusive as it can. It needs as few imposed divisions between human beings as possible. And any revolution that gets us there will have to abandon adherence to a class, and will have to focus less on the "means of production" and more on the value of human life. So when you tell me that "the party is the memory of the class", you are telling me that i'm not invited 'cos of how my Dad chose to live his life. Jeez... what's the difference between that and an aristocracy? I went through a full-on Marxist / leftist thing when i was a student (i think it was a requirement of my philosophy degree actually). But i have since realised that if we're looking for inspiration on how to organise our society, then perhaps we should be heeding folks like the Dalai Lama rather than Karl Marx. But that's just me being an idealist (as well as trying to get across my dismay at our willingness to subject our lives to economics). I certainly don't want to get into an argument about left-right politics... they never really achieve anything, i don't think. oh, and this is all just my opinion. I'm not claiming "The Truth", and though i'm sure my rhetoric gives that impression at times - it's just a writing style.
|
|||
|
necropolist 1689 posts |
Sep 04, 2002, 14:08
|
||
|
class is a reality, like it or not. you sell your labour, or you exploit other peoples labour, simple as that. some people get reasonably well paid to sell there labour (like your dad it sounds like), others get paid shit (like the majority of us sadly). that doesn't FUNDAMENTALLY alter the class position (c'mon, you were a marxist for at least a few years, you must remember this stuff). In the (classical) marxist analysis there is no such thing as 'middle-class', thats just a sociologists description (and fuck sociologists, what did they ever do for us eh?). Of course with the change in ones wealth standing, one may well change ones general political and social views and attitudes, in fact it probably is the norm to do so - but it's not necessary. As you say, working-classdom is a progression from serfdom, it is another division within our society that we should be aiming to get rif of, but that doesn't mean we can just pretend it isn't there! our lives are still ruled by class (the ruling-class most especially of course), and that decides a hell of a lot of our position in much of life, our job, our home, our friends, or bloody lifespan. and its thru class action i think we can change trhings - cos to change society we have to look at where power actually lies. and here, it's in the workplace, where the bosses - those people who really control the world - make there money. and so that's where we are in the best position to attack them. we may well want a world where the central values we are concerned with are human dignity and the value of life, but we don't have one yet. and until there is a fairly equal distribution of wealth, there isnt going to be such a world. sure a few of us in the well off west can pretend to live that life - ignoring the vast majority of the worlds (and even 'our own' countrys') population who arent in such a fortunate position. thats why the first task is to create an economic system where there is a real chance of such equality. and THAT is how we may get to abolish class - something that yes, desperately needs to be done, cos there are far far more than enough divisions in this world already. don't get me started on the dalai fucking llama, piece of fucking shit scum who should be fucking shot (and yes i would very gladly do it myself). worse than fucking thatcher. love peace and fuck (the dalai llama;) rich
|
|||
|
grufty jim 1978 posts |
Sep 04, 2002, 14:26
|
||
|
well, it looks like we'll be on opposite sides of the barricades come the revolution. The working class is the tool used by the elite to perpetuate the global capitalist system that is destroying the planet. You're welcome to it. Join with your comrades in the factories and the offices and rejoice at your role in the despoiling of the planet. Pump more effluent into our rivers and claw more coal from the ground to fill our skies with toxic chemicals. And do all of this safe in the knowledge that the fat white men at the very top of the chain aren't even being made all that happy by the wealth you're generating for them. The working class is a product of industrialism and capitalism in the same way as serfdom was a product of feudalism. To find solidarity in class is to perpetuate a system that i genuinely believe is slowly killing the planet we live on. You say that "class is a reality". Yeah, well so are lots of things that i believe are bad for humanity, and bad for the planet. I don't choose to aid in perpetuating them just because they exist. That's plain ludicrous. It is my honest opinion that if we are to avoid a global catastrophy over the next couple of decades that we need a complete shift in the way we look at the world. And at each other. We need to forget about class division, about historical grievances, about ethnic differences and religious intolerance. We need to completely restructure the way we run our world. And this cannot be done by "the working class". It has to be done by us all. By the professionals; the doctors and engineers. By the scientists, the farmers, the artists and the financiers. It won't happen of course. Not a fucking hope. We'll just keep trundling along towards the cliff on a bus belching burnt petrol. And when we get there; all your cries of class struggle will be just part of the cacophany of division. Along with jewish fanatics baying for arab blood, islamic fanatics baying for jewish blood, serbs and bosnians, hutus and tutsis, protestants and catholics. ===================== i speak not The Truth just my opinion |
|||
|
necropolist 1689 posts |
Sep 04, 2002, 14:41
|
||
|
cheers dood. think i'd agree with most of what you'd say there too. it always really bugged me that the SWP would criticise those who 'over-simplified' and'or promoted the 'great indivviduals' theory of history, and then do exactly the same thing re Bush's War etc. Bloody stupid. Anarchists tho....hmmmmm...Yes of course there are many who I have a great deal of time and respect for (Direct Action was another of the groups i used to be in), but they can easilly be just as bad as the trots. Many have, as you say, an excellant view and knowledge of history, many (probably the majority i meet sadly) have difficulty what they had for breakfast. And historically, anarchists have been just as bad as the commies. Nestor Makhno was an utter shit, very happilly wrote in his diaries at his joy in seeing more reds strung up. Proudhon and Kropotkin were hardly much better either.
|
|||
FourWinds 10943 posts |
Sep 04, 2002, 14:43
|
||
|
I have always had a problem with the concept of class. I think it has been said already that it was a system created by the 'upper' fuckers - the 'lower' ones being the ones who are getting fucked by them! My folks too were working class and did well for themselves (mainly through not persuing the classic 'working-class' habits of drinking, smoking and gambling) and now own a nice farm house in Wales. I have benefitted enormously from their good planning and 'sensible' living. However, I do not consider myself or my parents to have ever been working class - nor do I think of them as 'upper', 'middle', 'upper-middle' or anything else for that matter. To accept a place on this crap scale of social class is to bow down to those that consider themselves on the higher tiers of society. Well, fuck them! At the very least I am their equal (in everything apart from money), but in reality I am superior in that I do not need to impose or adhere to a stupid social stratafication system for protection from the problems in the world. When the upper fuckers look at the poor they can absolve thier guilt by thinking (and/or saying) "Oh, it's alright. They're working class. Of course they're poor!" Anyone who subscribes to a class system is a fool, in my opinion. Subscribing to it is accepting it. How will it disappear if it is accepted by those that it is in place to demoralise. Yes, it exists - this stinking class system exists - but you don't have to join in.
|
| Pages: 12 – [ Previous | 1 2 3 4 5 6 | Next ] | Add a reply to this topic |
|
|
|
| U-Know! Forum Index | |
