alanjjohnstone
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I think we have been inordinately fixated on this election.
It appears that regardless of the wonderful promises made by Labour, its reneging on complying with the referendum result and the smearing of its leader was the two primary motivations for the anti-Labour vote.
Neither really has any consequences for our own case for socialism. We can speculate on whether Brexit will bring about an escalation and intensification of the class struggle…or a continued passivity.
Nevertheless, it is acting as a distraction to what should be our main focus at this moment of history and that must be the current climate crisis.
Some may well be right that the environmental emergency is not an existential threat but we all accept that the ramifications of the projected effects of global warming will be serious ones which will bring social upheaval for many.
We also can see that unlike Labour’s manifesto wish-list, many of the climate campaigners if they follow the logic of solutions to the crises, they may recognise that their proposed options cannot be reconciled with the capitalist system, that capitalism is incapable of fixing the problem. For sure, not all involved, but a substantial number will potentially acknowledge the slogan “system change not climate change” is the only choice they are left with when COPs and carbon trading and all the rest fails to retard the progress of global warming.
I did not detect any such receptiveness to any form of revolution in the election that we could possibly attach ourselves to. So if we are going to discuss future strategies then we should be sure we know where our arguments will get a better response.
After reading this information, it occurred to me, since I have devious mind, that we may well be getting subjected to some deliberate dark propaganda ops.
By releasing such information it would cast suspicions upon the loyalty of the vice-president and others in the Maduro government. Who could he trust?
As you say, the logistics don’t match the threat.
Or a whole issue devoted to the media, ideology and the manipulation of minds, methinks
I’m very pleased to see the promising response to our insert. Needless to say, we should watch very closely the future behaviour of those expressing an interest by actually answering our ad and if it leads to closer contact.
Perhaps we can also investigate other newspapers where we can place similar inserts, particularly the local press so to give our waning branch strength a boost.
Maybe also an insert in conjunction linking to a local public meeting, for it seems they are unfortunately mostly member-only events with few non-members in the audience.
Because there exists a Scottish media, perhaps, ALB, and also the existence of a separate if not sovereign Parliament?
It may also have not been noticed down South but there has been very regular marches not just in the two main cities but in numerous provincial towns since 2014 – All Under One Banner. The result of the Independence referendum was not acquiesced to by all. Something the Remainers should note.
But let it not go unmentioned, the majority of Scots voters opted for pro-unionist parties.
But I accept your point.
In the world of advertising, campaigns and promotions can be very effective but are not all-powerful.
They sometimes fail and if they don’t succeed in selling their idea or image, the advertising team goes back to the drawing board to re-assess their approach for a new re-launch and a new re-branding…even a new name…hmmm…something just occurred to me
😈
In Scottish local politics, independence will still be debated regardless of the going-ons down in Westminster.
My disappointment is that with the present condition of our Party in Scotland, our voice simply is not loud enough to be heard.
Our focus should be on world politics, not parochial separatism, i.e. 2020 COP26 in Glasgow
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-record-of-predictable-failure.html
(copied and pasted and patched together from various Socialist Standard articles)
Mercenary army to intervene in Venezuela?
Erik Prince, founder of the private security firm Blackwater and prominent supporter of Donald Trump, made a secret visit to Venezuela last month.
In April, Reuters reported that Prince had proposed using a private army of 5,000 mercenaries to topple Maduro.
I was following Galloway’s West Bromwich election meetings on You Tube where he announced his intention of creating this new as yet unnamed party. He is a good speaker, if he does tend to repeat his best expressions. But what was his vote…487 – Second bottom.
He is a shameless left-wing British nationalist law and order candidate but I did agree with his anti-Scottish independence argument on how it weakens the UK working class.
Whatever happened to RESPECT?
This is doomed to be yet another failure.
But is it a vanity project for Gorgeous George? Or will it represent and collect around it a viable congregation, albeit a very small one.
We can expect RT to be promoting it
“An open letter too to Greta Thunberg?”
David Attenborough 5 Park Road, Richmond Surrey, United Kingdom
Our blog has always had David Attenborough’s views in its sights,
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2018/11/there-is-no-over-population-problem.html
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2013/01/david-attenborough-is-wrong.html
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2019/07/stop-blaming-overpopulation-on-too-many.html
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2009/05/overpopulation-bugaboo-and-biological.html
Certainly, some of us can escape the tentacles of capitalist indoctrination. But what produces a mass anti-capitalist movement?
Certain Eastern Europe rejected their rulers propaganda but they didn’t reject the countervailing propaganda from the West that “free enterprise” was the way forward.
We have also always said the inevitable class struggle will result in resistance to the ruling class and holds the potential of an opposition to the capitalist system, itself. That consciousness still awaits. Indeed for many of our fellow-workers even trade-union consciousness is something to be fully realised.
I think if a time-line is made, we see the anti-Semitism smears were just the latest in a series. It began with him being a terrorist sympathiser, went on to Corbyn being a KGB agent, and when that mud didn’t stick then they settled on anti-Semitism.
Nor should we forget the “enemy within”. The Blairites determined to sabotage Corbyn even at the cost of the Labour Party vote.
I think the delighted response of the stock-market and the rise in shares was not solely about Brexit going to get done but also Labour’s redistribution policies and spending plans were no longer going to be a threat. Investors are sure the Tories promises are not going to be implemented but just didn’t know if Corbyn’s might have kept his pledges (unlike ourselves who did believe he would break them).
Do you really think the likes of the Daily Mail and right-wing Tories had any concern to protect the Jewish community from anti-Semitism that motivated the campaign of lies? So we are left with the reason for the witch-hunt is Labour’s reforms, imho.
Anyways we need to tap into that early optimism of change that Corbyn brought to politics that the young embraced and flocked to join the Labour Party and it is an enthusiasm that the Friday for Climate school strikers and XR now exhibit. Shouldn’t we interacting and making a connection with them before they too become subject to similar media distortion. I already detect the beginnings of that.
This is our task…to see what lessons we have to learn.
“who put them in power? And why did they put the in power? The idea that workers just mindlessly and mechanically obey the dictates of a system that benefits those in power in effect portrays the former as just putty in the hands of the latter.”
Once again we must remind ourselves of the power of the capitalist ideology.
“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.”
I think no-one can deny that the media conducted a campaign of lies and smears against Corbyn from the very day he became the leader of the Labour Party. It was not to put Johnson into power as it began long before he became Tory leader and prime minister but to ensure Corbyn was kept out of power. Any Tory would have done and if they could have, any Labour member who could have dislodged Corbyn. Corbyn was the Devil-Incarnate and it is no wonder voters viewed him with suspicion and distanced themselves from him. The Corbynistas were a genuine movement at the time of his election to the Labour Party could not grow. Who can forget the rousing reception Corbyn received at Glastonbury. That was what had to be undermined and, in my mind, it became the priority of the media, both right-wing and liberal.
I thought that was Cook’s real point that we are indeed putty under the hands of the ruling class control of the media? They set the issues and they select the personalities and they choose what should be the “correct” answers to political questions. How we respond and act is drummed into us until we are regimented into accepting the views and opinions of our ruling class.
Gramsci despite his many flaws and faults does try to address the issue about how the working class can try to break through the hegemony of the control of ideas. We require more than a simple political movement and indeed we did have class movements they did encompass, cultural, social, sporting, literary expressions of working class daily life.
When the ruling class feel threatened in those times where there is a dramatic sea change in ideas and when they fail to oppose it, they feverishly scramble to co-opt it…and they usually prevail. They place the blinkers upon the revolutionary vision we need to inspire. St. Corbyn of Glastonbury had to be defeated by demonising him and they succeeded. We should never underestimate the power of the media because if we ever begin to grow, it will be turned upon us and we urgently must build the media tools to protect ourselves.
