Another inspring example of the anger that is out there…
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Read this comment today on the Guardian website. Written in response to an article by Paul Mason about the hopeless plight of students in their hopes of being exploited for the rest of their life terms. I thought it was excellent.
Yet another recent Guardian article was a very insightful and encouraging read, quoting Paul Lafargue and Oscar Wilde on work and question where did the hopes of the leisure future from automation disappear to http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/01/why-are-we-working-so-hard The party may still being ignored but certainly many of the ideas that we advocate are constantly reaching the media But unfortunately lacking the political proposals to achieve them thus keeping them in the sphere of utopia instead of practical policies and achievable aims. That should become a priority in our propaganda, outlining the possibility of the realisability of what some consider utopia by political and social actions. To use the hackneyed phrase, enough interpretating and talking , we have to demonstrate the ways and means to change the world and encourage confidence in its success. Not devising recipes for the cook-shops of the future but at least listing a menu to whet our appetites.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/04/the-return-of-marxism The Guardian giving the SWP and its Marxism Week some free publicity. But at least it does not say that Marxist ideas is in its death throes but actually having a resurgence of sorts. Who Ranciere is and why he deserves special mention by the author, i have no idea. I may investigate him later. Plenty in the article for those with access to the Guardian comments facility. Once more it demonstrates that the party should have a press officer who can respond immediately in the name of the party with the hope (forlorn, i accept) of a reply letter printed or even a comment is free article.
alanjjohnstone wrote:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/04/the-return-of-marxismWho Ranciere is and why he deserves special mention by the author, i have no idea. I may investigate him later.I wouldn’t bother if I were you. Jacques Rancière is an ex-maoist and ex-devotee of Althusser and so never did know anything about Marxism. In the 1970s he did write some interesting stuff on mid-19th French auto-didact workers, but later became a “philosopher”, which in France means someone who can speculate without having to base their conclusions on any empirical research.If true, this Guardian report would be rather disturbing as it suggests that Leninism as well as Marxism is enjoying a revival. That would be terrible.Ironically since I don’t think he claims to be a Marxist, the only person interviewed to talk some sense was Owen Jones when he said:
Quote:“There isn’t going to be a bloody revolution in Britain, but there is hope for a society by working people and for working people,” he counsels. Indeed, he says, in the 1860s the later Marx imagined such a post-capitalist society as being won by means other than violent revolution. “He did look at expanding the suffrage and other peaceful means of achieving socialist society. Today not even the Trotskyist left call for armed revolution. The radical left would say that the break with capitalism could only be achieved by democracy and organisation of working people to establish and hold on to that just society against forces that would destroy it.”The trouble is that he’s a leftwing Labourite and, while it’s true that the Trotskyists don’t actually call for an armed revolution (or engage in weapon training), they are still committed to it in theory and do argue against Marx and us on the possibility of an essentially peaceful capture of political power for socialism via mass democratic organisation and the ballot box.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Once more it demonstrates that the party should have a press officer who can respond immediately in the name of the party with the hope (forlorn, i accept) of a reply letter printed or even a comment is free article.Isn’t that one of the functions of the Media Department which appears to have been moribund for so long?
My fault for not paying any attention to the numerous e-mails messages on the triennial report on the references for committees to actually not know who has the remit. Damn my anti-bureaucrat dna But if it is to be done well, i think it is important it should be a dedicated task since it means daily survey of the media and blogs and requires sole attention to those involved. These things can be delegated, spread around and shared and made easier by google alerts. Robert Stafford has shown how it is possible to accumulate relevant data and can offer advice on following up with e-mails to those reviewed in the Socialist Standard, for instance. We do possess a yahoo list which could provide the basis for, SPGBMEDIA, which is sadly under-used and neglected by many of us and i plead guilty of it, too.http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spgbmedia/ As i have often said for the blog, the volunteers for a press officer or committee need not require to be UK-based or members of local branches since much can be done by internet and email. I would like to see a monthly report to the EC to be part of the process, for press statements issued on specific events or in response to newspaper stories or articles in other magazines are monitored and given rubber-stamp of approval so no wayward declarations are made – an issue i am only so aware of by doing the blog – fighting the urge to express personal opinions rather than present the party-case. As the blog is public i expect members to oversee content (as has happened when i erroneously posted a draft which included the original source reformist conclusions and swiftly received a WTF!! from a member) but if a press officer fires off a unpublished or personal email to a particular person, we have no idea what is being said in the name of the party. Since most of it be a matter of email easy enough to CC each email and provide the EC member with the folder for their perusal. A matter of just a few clicks, nothing labour-intensive. I suppose there maybe an occasion that snail-mail will be used but i doubt it will be often. No – i am not submitting an application for the job. As been often commented upon, i am too wordy in responses. There are a number of well-qualified members who could undertake the task, i think recently retired members with time on their hands would be ideal. Thats the trouble with the Guardian, Adam. The journalists pet authors get all the mentions and the more obscure, the more kudos i guess the reporter gets for being “knowledgable”. Hopefully, a Press officer will co-ordinate on the theoretical stuff with other members who are perhaps better read on special subjects and use that background info in responding.
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“For over 30 years, the British people have been the victims of a giant swindle, a swindle supported by all the major parties, a swindle based upon a lie. The lie that if we encouraged the rich to create wealth, then the whole country would benefit. Since 1980, our governments have done all they could to help them. They privatised every state industry, they lowered the top rates of tax, they allowed tax avoidance/evasion, they encouraged non-dom residency, they lowered corporate tax rates, they de-regulated, they crippled the unions, they subsidised low pay via the welfare system and they even bailed out the banks.
The result? All they have achieved is a vast transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.
We fell for this fraud because they deluded us into believing that we’d never had it so good. It was bullshit. Peoples lifestyles were fuelled by easy credit and an unsustainable housing bubble. Credit, twinned with inflating house prices, funded the illusion of prosperity for decades. However, with the collapse of the giant Ponzi scheme that was the financial markets, this façade has now been shattered. Nearly all of us are deep in shit. Average household debt now stands at nearly £60,000. Total personal debt stands at over £1.5 Trillion, a figure which will only increase as a whole generation leaves University/college already heavily in debt.
Through debt, they have allowed us to own homes, they have allowed us to own cars, they have allowed us to go on holiday.
This myth of prosperity is illustrated by the sobering fact that If the Government enacted a law today, that all personnel debt, all mortgages, car loans etc. had to be paid off within the next month, millions would be homeless, millions would lose their cars, millions would be penniless. 90% of us would be bankrupt.
Let that sink in, amid the realisation of how badly we have been shafted..
This is where Neo-liberalism, supported by every successive Government since Thatcher, has brought us. Massive debt and worsening living standards for the many, immense wealth for the few. But these greedy bastards still want more. They keep taking, and like fools, we keep giving. The ruling elite already have our land, gas, electricity, railways and water. They already own our politicians, our media and our Police. But it’s never enough. They are now coming for our pensions, our NHS, our roads, our schools and our green spaces.
Under the pretext of ‘austerity’, they are making it easier to sack us, making us work longer hours for less pay, forcing our kids to work for nothing, raising the retirement age whilst cutting our pensions and weakening our health and safety laws. They have begun a systematic assault on the sick, the poor and the disabled, slashing welfare budgets, forcing people off benefits and removing every support structure a civilised society should provide. But the rich? They avoid paying billions in taxes, and hide billions more away in tax havens, despite that we keep cutting their tax rates. Their pay is now hundreds of times more than their workers. Executive pay has increased by 49% in the last year alone. That one fact tells you all you need to know about who is in this ‘all together’. The very people who have gained the most from the last 30 years are immune to the mess they have created, the very people who have gained the least are paying the biggest price. Frankly, it’s obscene.
For years, we have had to listen to their lies, the lies that we’d never had it so good, the lies that capitalism is the only way to create wealth, the lies that private sector is so efficient, the lies that we have to tax the rich less to encourage ‘entrepreneurs’ and the lies that we need these people to give us jobs. And now we have the lies about the country being bankrupt, the lies about ‘austerity’, the lies about ‘welfare scroungers’ and ‘benefit cheats’ and the lie that ‘we are all in this together’.
They keep telling us these lies because they believe we are all idiots, and will fall for any shit they feed us. And most of the time, they are right. We do.
But not always.
To paraphrase Lloyd George whilst talking about the Great War:
“If the people really knew the truth about what was happening, it would be ended tomorrow, but they must never know.”
Well, eventually, people will know, and when the truth dawns on them, that 99% of us are in this all together, whilst 1% are only in it for themselves, we can begin to put an end to this nightmare of a society that we have allowed them to create at our expense.”