ALB
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Darren redstar wrote:On urban 75 I posted a link to my blog about Russell Brand, which someone commented was "clearly written by a squeebygeebee". Made me feel quite proud.
I think it must be this bit. It's a bit of a giveaway:
Quote:For over a hundred years the cause of socialism has been dominated by the machinations of two statist creeds, social democracy and Leninism. These have fed off the discontent and aspirations of the working class to become alternative managers of Capitalism. Their heydays are long past; the labourites have long abandoned any pretence to 'reforming Capitalism' in favour of simply managing it, after the end of 'Communism' the Leninists have been reduced to mini sects which replicate within their own structures the regimes of the old Stalinist States in a homage to Marx's dictum, "first as tragedy, now as farce". Their aspirations have shrunk with their horizons, whilst they grandly imagine storming the winter palace and fantasise about bloody revolutions, in reality they have little or no belief in the working class ever rallying to their 'proletarian leadership', and even less in the ability of the working class to emancipate itself. They hide themselves in front campaigns for partial reforms, and embrace and promote a succession of 'Saviours from high' who they are sure will deliver us, until the inevitable betrayal, when they move on to the next. For these 'socialists' what Brand is for is unimportant,it is enough that He is. All previous revolutions have been the overthrow of one minority ruling class and the victory of a new one. Such revolutions have needed abstract slogans and ideals ( Liberté, Fraternité, Egalité, Peace, land, bread, ) in order to enlist the support of the masses. They have needed heroes and demagogues to inspire the majority to give their lives for the victory of new masters. The state socialists may talk about socialism, but in reality they wish to replace our present system of class exploitation with another, only with a new bureaucratic exploitative class. This is why they too need heroes, martyrs, demagogues and saviours, because they need to beguile the masses to support their revolution, to support another new ruling class. The socialist revolution can only take place when the majority of the working class not only understand that it is possible, but also desirable. It needs no abstract ideals to mask it's true purpose, no demagogues to beguile the masses. It needs no heroes.I remember now he stood as an independent candidate in Southwark at the last general election and got 120 votes:http://www.southwarknews.co.uk/news/00,news,19301,440,00.htmI think he's an LU infiltrator rather than an activist.
I think they take the historial revisionist Paul Le Blanc's view that Lenin was just another common or garden pre-WW1 leftwing Social Democrat and not the theorist and practioner of the vanguard party. I don't think this holds up though some of Lenin's pre-war general writings are not all bad.Incidentally, wasn't the WW originallly called The Leninist?But, to stay on thread, one section of the old IRA/Sinn Fein did embrace Leninism: the "Official IRA", also known as "the stickies":http://www.anphoblacht.com/contents/20677Present-day Sinn Fein are of course the product of the breakaway and ultimately more successful (and more Catholic Nationalist) "Provisional IRA".
Nick Clegg comes to Brand's defence:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/nick-clegg-defends-russell-brand-over-the-sun-hypocrite-claims-9903236.htmlActually, he makes a couple of good points.
In an article in today's Times by Ben MacIntyre entitled, echoing the that of one of our current talks, "Embrace the robots exterminating our jobs", writes (not echoing the content of our talk):
Quote:As machines increase productivity and profit, achieving higher output with fewer people, we may all have to work less and think more. With greater material comfort and more spare time, humanity can focus on creativity, imagination and thought. The Age of Enlightenment helped to forge the Industrial Revolution; the new industrial revolution could produce a new age of enlightenment.We've heard all this before. See this extract from an article in the Socialist Standard of fifty years ago:
Quote:A writer in Sunday Citizen (6 Dec. 1964), Mr. Stanley Baron, after he had talked "to the top brains in Britain; made the forecast that before the end of the century," in every industrial country, certainly in the West, most of the essential work will be performed by about 20 per cent of the people – chiefly the most intelligent. The rest of us will work only as much as we wish – or as much as society requires." This would, he wrote, call for new attitudes to work and leisure, new cities, new forms of educationThe whole article "Automation in Perspective" is well worth reading. Just change the title to "Robotisation in Perspective":http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1960s/1965/no-725-january-1965/automation-perspective
So we are all children of Israel and so the whole world is the common heritage of us all. That's a result
Another front page attack on Brand by the Sun:http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/6153586/Exclusive-Sun-poll-finds-nation-think-Russell-Brand-IS-a-hypocrite.htmlReminds me of the poem:
Quote:You cannot hope to bribe or twist (thank God!) the British journalist. But, seeing what the man will do unbribed, there’s no occasion to.All grist to the mill.
It's obviously a spoof on the equally nutty claims of the extreme Jewish nationalists. Unfortunately these nutters do have some support and are represented in the Israeli parliament and even government. Of course God didn't give Palestine to the Jews. Maybe their imaginary tribal god did, but didn't people like Winstanley say he really gave the whole of the Earth to the whole of Humanity?
And the risks of vegetable-eating:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/11/salad-and-sandwich-recall_n_4252859.htmlhttp://www.food.gov.uk/news-updates/news/2013/5797/sainsbury-ecoliEven "organic" ones are not safe:http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/10/us-ecoli-idUSTRE7591HW20110610
It's an article in this month's Socialist Standard here on this site:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2014/no-1324-december-2014/open-letter-russell-brand
The author, Clifford, intends to get it to him via his (RB's) father. Don't know if it's been done yet.
Impossibilist1904 has just put up the article that appeared in the Socialist Standard of the time on the Blackbird Leys riots of 1991, entitled "Dreaming spires and screaming tyres":http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.co.uk/It will eventually appear in the Socialist Standard archives section too.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Well, I think the party position (as such) would be that vegetarianism/veganism is not a question of individual morality, but will have to be a decision of the democratic production within socialism.The way you've put could be misunderstood. I'm sure individuals will still be able to decide what to eat in socialism and be vegetarians or vegans if they want. What will be the subject of a democratic decision will be what foods to produce and what farming practices to adopt. Which could/will be different in different parts of the world. I agree will Alan that the supply of tropical fruits (and tobacco) to the Northern parts of Europe might well be drastically reduced as the people living where they are currently produced decide to use the land to grow food for themselves.
That's not the case for vegetarianism, only for eating less meat, even only for eating less beef. I'd have thought that sheep and goats are ok as they can graze land that is not suitable for agriculture and is a more rational way of using land, while pigs and chickens are ok because they recycle human food waste in an efficient way.So generalised vegetarianism no, eating less meat yes. Of course individuals can, like Dan Read, adopt vegetarianism or veganism as a lifestyle choice even if they think they are pursuing some deep Marxist policy. I just wish they'd stop boring the rest of us by telling us that we should too..
