ALB
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What a despicable bunch of chancers not to say blackmailers. They knew that the Labour Party under its new leader would do all it could to avoid being accused of anti-semitism and played thus to the full, walking away quite a bit richer.Nice one.
I was referring to the situation if a conflict should develop between two sections of the working class over eg jobs and crumbs that fall from the capitalists’ table.
Obviously we are not against, even welcome and support, movements for equal respect and civil rights for any group of workers denied them. And we combat racism and racist attitudes via meetings, leaflets and pamphlets as a party and as individuals calling out work colleagues and relatives who express or entertain them.
Where we draw the line is when such movements demand social reforms for their group only such as quotas, positive discrimination, reparations, etc. How can we support such sectional demands any more than we can defend the position of a section that already benefits from some?
Since we are committed to defending the interests of the working class as a whole there is no way we can support the demands of one section against another or take sides in such sectional disputes.
But aren’t reformist politicians and Trotskyist infiltrators playing the “black card”, respectively to get votes and hi-jack the movement?
How can we as socialists take sides between two sections of the working class? We have no alternative but to assert the common interest of the working class irrespective of language, state nationality or skin colour.
Exactly what is to be expected. Those who play the black card should remember that it can always be trumped by the white one, if only because there are so many more. It’s what minority IdiotPol inevitably risks. The card to play is the worker’s card.
According to yesterday’s papers the Labour MP Lloyd Russel-Moyle has had to resign from Labour’s front bench”after the Sunday Times unearthed Facebook messages in which he called Zionism a ‘dangerous nationalist idea’”.
But that’s what it is ! And why Socialists, including those of Jewish background, were opposed to it from the start. Of course we were also opposed to all nationalism. Irish nationalism, Scottish nationalism, Welsh nationalism and other minority and breakaway nationalisms are equally “dangerous” as they set worker against worker.
Of course his pathetic attempt to play the anti-cahmmunist card probably won’t find much of an echo these days, but unfortunately his view that blacks can only advance at the expense of non-blacks will.
In so far as demanding an equal distribution of unemployment and the other things workers suffer from under capitalism is a demand of the BLM, there is some truth in his claim. For example, since capitalism requires a given rate of unemployment and if (as is the case) there is a higher than average rate amongst black people this anomaly, injustice or whatever you want to call it can only be rectified under capitalism by making more non-blacks unemployed. The same goes for bad housing, ill-health, etc.
The BLM is good as a general expression of the fact that black people are of equal worth but the moment it gets involved in reformist demands for equalising poverty, quotas, reparations etc it opens a can of worms by allowing the likes of Giuliani to play the “white card”, unfortunately, I fear, to some effect.
The only way out of this dilemma is, quite literally, socialism. If the BLM embraces that they would justifiably be able to be labelled Marxist.
That sort of thing might go down well in the “exceptional” (exceptionally backward on religion) USA but will be laughed out of court here and in the rest of Europe.
As to the “fruits of labour” argument, that can easily be turned into an argument for socialism.
So if that’s the best counter-attack that defenders of capitalism can come up with, bring it on. We have nothing to be afraid of.
It’s not just a question of these groups being proportionately represented (by those promoting the idea of course) at the top of the power structure but also at the bottom. Unemployment, bad housing, poor education and ill health are to be proportionately shared out too, but this can only be done by making some non-black people worse off. Obviously they are not going to stand for this and so a squabble, in fact a nasty internecine struggle, will inevitably develop between two sections of the working class. White identity politics is already beginning to get a wider hearing.
The present situation or this are the only alternatives under capitalism and why the way out can only be socialism where there will no poverty and misery to share out evenly.
It is hard to imagine a more blatantly divisive and anti-working-class political doctrine and practice than IdiotPol or misidentity politics. Socialism, on the other hand, promotes working class unity to end capitalism.
Just heard on the news that non-entity who took over when Boris was in hospital (I think he’s called Raab) denounce the Russian state for trying to get hold of the research for an anti-Covid-19 vaccine:
”While others pursue their selfish interests with reckless behaviour, the UK and its allies are getting on with the hard work of finding a vaccine and protecting global health.”
He makes it sound as if an attempt had been made to hinder research that was being carried out on behalf of humanity. But as the headline makes clear it would have been an attempt to “steal” research results ie to get access to information that was secret and was in fact being carried out not to help humanity by “protecting global health” but to make money even if out of doing this. The situation is that rival capitalist groups are in a race to be the first to find and no doubt patent an effective vaccine and to make a profit from it.
So if anyone “steals” these research results and makes the public they would be doing humanity a favour. Even if the Russian state was doing it to get access to the vaccine more cheaply than otherwise to deal with cases in their part of the world that wouldn’t be pursuing their “selfish interests” any more than those who are keeping their research secret.
I think this has been mentioned here before but methane is only more “potent” than CO2 in a particular defined sense. See:
The other side of the coin is that as it only lasts in the atmosphere for 12 or so years (while CO2 lasts for much longer) its effects are easier to reverse. It’s CO2 emissions that are the biggest problem.
Revealing comment by an unnamed Cabinet member in today’s Times which shows that the decision to make masks compulsory has not been taken entirely on scientific medical grounds:
”Downing Street had insisted previously that shops did not require the same rules as trains and buses, but a cabinet minister said that encouraging the use of masks would also help to bolster public confidence as the government tried to tempt people back to work.”
It wasn’t “Europeans” who were to blame for the slave trade of course but capitalism and individual capitalists from Europe. The mass of people in Europe were as innocent of this as the mass of Africans were of selling slaves to the traders.
Someone has sent an email drawing this article from a Jamaican newspaper to our attention;
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/focus/20151025/africas-role-slavery
I didn’t know all that. I knew that African rulers sold slaves to be shipped across the Atlantic but not that they lobbied against the abolition of the slave trade nor that they carried on until the 1880s.
Comment from a comrade in the south of Ireland:
”I read a little about the Green Party going into Government but to be honest I don’t think there’s a hugely significant amount of politics in this. They’re a centrist, capitalist party with an emphasis on the environment; nothing that the system can’t accommodate.”
