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rockhopper 275 posts |
Apr 01, 2012, 01:25
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Aye. Seconded. Get real folks. Politicians good nor bad control fuck all. Big business is in charge, and has been for years. They control what wars take place, when, and where. And if anyone thinks an X on a piece of paper is going to make a scrap of difference, think again. Galloway, Cameron, and who's that other c**t? There's so many of them. Impotent, useless, diversionary tactics to keep us all amused while big business does it's exploitative best. Why do you think petrol is over 6 quid a gallon?
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PMM 3155 posts |
Edited Apr 01, 2012, 01:40
Apr 01, 2012, 01:39
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Why do you think petrol is over 6 quid a gallon? Because we're past Hubbert's Peak?
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stray 2057 posts |
Edited Apr 01, 2012, 04:15
Apr 01, 2012, 03:44
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Thanks Myers and MrsSevenrealms, this whole event to me is extremely important, and its a worrying setback. PMM wrote: Regardless of Galloway, it's still good in my opinion that voters have bothered to turn out and vote for a radical alternative. No PMM, it isn't, not where Galloway is concerned. You do know about the regimes he's supported and some of the crap he's come out with in the past right ? The thing is we are, as far as I'm concerned, living in a very critical time. This is especially true for anyone or any party espousing a radical alternative as you say. Having the spotlight on the antics of this prick during this time is going to be as hugely damaging for the revolutionary left (or any radical) as the spotlight on Hatton was in the 1980s. Any political group has to acknowledge this, and try to put as much distance between him and themselves as possible. I say start a campaign against him before the right does, because my god, think about it, this is a gift to Cameron and his cabinet heading into a summer of olympics, protests and strikes. They've now got their performing self interested demon to nail all the upcoming crap on (and Respect will get it too as much as Uncut will and anyone else who doesn't start making some distance from this guy now). Do you all want to keep your head down and just hold onto your friends like in the 1980s again ? I'm not going to play that bloody game again. Yes, people will vote for a radical alternative now, thats a good thing, but thats in Bradford. I can't see it happening nationally, thats silly talk. I can however see; a good wave of national protests, actions and new parties, new strategies, new networks of activists and new ideas forming in the coming year or so. Thats the proper focus, not bloody by-election hiccups. Come on, we may all be ridiculously desperate to see something, anything positive at all right now, but lets not act like it.
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PMM 3155 posts |
Edited Apr 01, 2012, 04:45
Apr 01, 2012, 04:43
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I wonder how Respect would have fared in the polls if they'd fielded a less high profile candidate? I think making a direct comparison with Hatton and Sheridan is also a little unfair. Both of them were prepared to put their liberty at risk for what they believed in. I'm not sure Galloway would be prepared to do so. But there is certainly common ground in that whenever some charismatic figure on the left appears, the media are more than happy to give them all the rope they need. So Liverpool, in the minds of the great unwashed became all about some scouse wide boy, preaching revolution with a rolex on his wrist, rather than the houses and schools built, or even the fact that they were standing up to the government, instead of acquiescing. Others, such as Tony Mulhearn and Terry Fields were just as radical but were never going to provide such an easy mark for the right wing press. I got involved because they offered an alternative. I didn't really get involved because of Derek Hatton, although I became aware of what was happening partly because of the media coverage that he courted. Hope is not the same thing as expectation. I hope that at least some of the disillusioned, the apathetic, the defeatist, the cynics who insist that all politicians are the same will be prepared to get off their arses and campaign for Respect, or the SLP or whatever, or even if they don't, perhaps they will be prepared to turn up at a polling station and vote for something other than the 3 centre right options. Not because of George Galloway. Because a corner of the curtain has been lifted on the idea that anything else is a wasted vote.
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stray 2057 posts |
Edited Apr 01, 2012, 05:19
Apr 01, 2012, 05:17
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Hatton revealed himself to be what he always was at the end. I can't believe anyone still thinks he had beliefs or any real passion for the cause. Anyroad, you're talking to the wrong guy here, I've no time for reformist or entryist strategies. I never really have. Getting into parliment is not going to fundamentally change anything, no matter how many of you there may be, its a flawed tactic. We'll agree to differ I guess. Never liked Militant, they were just part of the problem that eventually became the scapegoat and the excuse for Labours vicious swing to the right. They did about as much good for this countries politics as the Kodak strike did for the Trade Union movement. I would like to point out though I said nothing negative about hope. I'm full of optimism personally about the next year or two, but I'm not going to waste time trying to measure the genuine mood and state of the country by looking at election results. Thats just a navel gazing game. Elections have become nothing but job interviews to those who take part, they stopped being part of a real political process some years ago. In much the same and entirely related way that large sections of society have stopped voting in them. To make elections actually worth something to people again you've got to do a hell of a lot more than just wheel out a charismatic individual whose good at 'talking left'. Myself, I think we've reached the point where all good left and revolutionary left politics have become bankrupt to most people. The tactics of such groups and parties don't seem to work or resonate with people anymore. They don't even work within the groups themselves, who seem to have lost the ability to recognise the difference between a Popular Front organisation and a United Front organisation. Its only in the anarchist groups creating autonomous spaces, and the occupy movement thats created a free university etc, etc, that I see anything approaching something tangible that just.. er... doesn't sound tired or dead.
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PMM 3155 posts |
Apr 01, 2012, 05:56
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Just to clarify. "Entryism" is the tactic of joining a mainstream party in the hope of influencing the political process as a whole by influencing that party. "Reformism" is the belief that the status quo is essentially OK, as long as we tinker with it a bit to get rid of the worst excesses of injustice. The opposite of Reformism is the belief that what is needed is radical or revolutionary change to something different. So in a sense, electing radical and revolutionary MPs to parliament is in itself an entryist tactic. That's how I understand the terms.
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rockhopper 275 posts |
Apr 01, 2012, 09:56
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Or perhaps petrol is the most profitable form of locomotion? Anyone remember tub thumping firebrand Geoff Rooker? Whatever happened to him? That's politics for ya!
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stray 2057 posts |
Edited Apr 01, 2012, 10:53
Apr 01, 2012, 10:41
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Yes. But a revolutionary has no place standing for, or being within, parliment. Or did that part of revolutionary theory change recently ? If you enter parliment, or stand to enter parliment you are following a reformist tactic. I think the problem of understanding between us is that your understanding of the tatics and methods of a revolutionary are more akin to those that Militant used to espouse, an unquestionably entryist and by default therefore a reformist party. Heheheh, but this is all just mad semantics that could dissolve this thread into a bumper pack of old school lefty Sectariana. Which is odd as I'm not a member of any party at all anymore, and I dunno if you are and I don't mind. At the end of the day we probably have similar, or even identical, visions for a good and equitable political system and society. So we'd be doing noone any favours thrashing these issues out.
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PMM 3155 posts |
Edited Apr 01, 2012, 10:44
Apr 01, 2012, 10:43
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As I understand things, we tend to pick the low hanging fruit before we go and fetch the ladder. The crude we obtained because it spurted out of the ground from natural pressure is going to be cheaper than the crude we get from drilling a hole in the seabed 1,000 miles from land and 10,000 feet below the earth's crust. Are the oil companies profiteering? I'm sure they are, but the motorists lobby are a pretty powerful bunch. Look at how they brought the country to a stand still a decade ago by blockading the refineries.
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rockhopper 275 posts |
Apr 01, 2012, 12:14
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What I was getting at was there are other methods of powering a vehicle other than petrol, but which would not generate nearly as much revenue. As we put people on the moon 44 years ago I find it inconceivable that a more efficient alternative to petrol has not been found. We're all slaves to the oilmen, whose dominance is total. (no pun intended)
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