[LBird]

YMS wrote:

Every corporation has a "brand"… IS, it's just a bunch of gangsters in the desert.

This only makes sense if you also insist that, for example, the RAF, doing their 'bombing' and 'machine-gunning' are similarly 'a bunch of gangsters in the desert'.Although, the RAF wanted to take things a step further in Iraq in the '20s: they wanted to use poison gas on the rebellious tribes.So, when ISIS explode a nerve gas bomb in London, we'll already know just who showed them the way: our 'bunch of gangsters'.The RAF's 'brand'? "Atrocities 'R' Us"?http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/apr/19/iraq.arts

[LBird]

Some sensible comment from Simon Jenkins in The Guardian:

Quote:

Think what your enemy wants you to do, and do the opposite. No maxim of war is so ignored…..Western leaders seem blind to reason.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/17/terror-cooperation-paris-attack-response-war-isisThe problem that Jenkins' liberal ideology doesn't identify is that it is entirely 'reasonable' to the ruling class.Not least, there's support for the rich in fear by the poor of 'the enemy', and profits for the rich in war, and regeneration of capitalism in spending on armaments.

[LBird]

robert.cox wrote:

…our response to the Paris atrocity: Neither God, nor State, but Humanity.

[my bold]But it's a section of 'Humanity' that is responsible for these atrocities (Paris '15, and others, like Paris '61), so lining up with an undifferentiated 'humanity' simply continues the pretence that "we're all in it together" and hides the truth that "the ruling class are responsible".Surely a socialist/communist slogan should read "Neither God, nor State, but Our Class"?Of course, it lacks the 'populist' touch, but whilst capitalism is popular, our message will continue to grate with the majority.But that's no reason to stop 'grating the minds of the majority' – we have to promote critical thought amongst workers, not tack with the media wind. Some will listen now, and as the 'remedies' of the Western governments make things worse, and cause yet more atrocities both in the Middle East and Europe, more will begin to listen, if there is a clear alternative.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

However, the French state did not kill those people in Paris, a bunch of brigands did. 

Yeah, 'the French state' didn't, in the same way that Adolf didn't kill those Jews in the death camps, a 'bunch of brigands' in the SS did.Of course, you're perfectly correct to say the French state didn't pull the triggers, but it created the trigger-pullers.

YMS wrote:

To that end, my duty is to constrain the capacity of the killing machine within my reach/means, the British state…

The sooner we tell workers in Britain that the British state is busy right now creating the 'trigger-pullers' of the next atrocity to happen in London, the better.The British state will be responsible. Not a 'bunch of brigands'.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Lbird,I'll note that America did not invade Syria.  America hasn't invaded Mexico, yet we still have similar outfits there.

But capitalism has 'invaded' both Syria and Mexico, YMS.And America is the most powerful economic, political and military, capitalist state.Perhaps your avoidance of 'capitalism' (the cause), and focus on ISIS (a symptom), is the problem.You seem to be aiming for 'nice capitalism': a world in which sophisticated Parisians are 'safe from terror', but billions of 'terrorist-supporting' workers aren't.We really should be saying that the French state murdered those innocents in Paris, rather than messing around with giving advice to government terrorists, on how to 'stop the killing'.

[LBird]

Matt wrote:

As for some motivation in Iraq of some ISIS fighters.http://www.thenation.com/article/what-i-discovered-from-interviewing-isis-prisoners/

Thanks for that, Matt.

Matts link wrote:

More pertinent than Islamic theology is that there are other, much more convincing, explanations as to why they’ve fought for the side they did. At the end of the interview with the first prisoner we ask, “Do you have any questions for us?” For the first time since he came into the room he smiles—in surprise—and finally tells us what really motivated him, without any prompting. He knows there is an American in the room, and can perhaps guess, from his demeanor and his questions, that this American is ex-military, and directs his “question,” in the form of an enraged statement, straight at him. “The Americans came,” he said. “They took away Saddam, but they also took away our security. I didn’t like Saddam, we were starving then, but at least we didn’t have war. When you came here, the civil war started.”This whole experience has been very familiar indeed to Doug Stone, the American general on the receiving end of this diatribe. “He fits the absolutely typical profile,” Stone said afterward. “The average age of all the prisoners in Iraq when I was here was 27; they were married; they had two children; had got to sixth to eighth grade. He has exactly the same profile as 80 percent of the prisoners then…and his number-one complaint about the security and against all American forces was the exact same complaint from every single detainee.”These boys came of age under the disastrous American occupation after 2003, in the chaotic and violent Arab part of Iraq, ruled by the viciously sectarian Shia government of Nouri al-Maliki. Growing up Sunni Arab was no fun. A later interviewee described his life growing up under American occupation…

Surprise, surprise.It's not 'Islam' that's the cause, but Western destruction of their societies. These "27 year old men with two kids" are the 'scum' that were mentioned earlier.YMS's solution of cutting the oil profits from ISIS will not change Western foreign policy.Capitalism needs oil and its profits.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Lbird,pragmatically, you're right, the solution is political, not military.  ….But, my point was, within capitalism, there are choices and options of a non-military variety, that the workers movement can and should support to prevent more and more war.

But how can the 'solution' of 'cutting funds to ISIS' work, if the 'problem' is 'the funds available to the Western Powers'?Shutting down ISIS will merely displace the 'problem' to other groups.It's like using a mallet in a fairground to hit a puppet that pops up, now from one hole, now from another. It's never ending.Why pretend to workers that it is a 'solution', even a temporary one?The choice, if we're serious, is socialism, not capitalism.'Within capitalism', all so-called 'choices' lead to the deaths of workers. You seem to be suggesting that as long as 'Western' workers think that they are safe, that's all we should focus on, and simply ignore the destruction of the societies that workers live in, in the Middle East.I don't think you are suggesting this, but I think that you haven't thought it through enough.Our audience is the workers of the world, not simply 'British/US' workers.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

More importantly, cutting off the oil money would work a thousand times better than bombing them mercilessly.

'Cutting off the oil money' to the Western banks is the only solution. You're trying to solve a problem by attacking the appearances rather than the sources.The problem is 'Western Government Terrorism', not 'medieval businesses'.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Some quick theories. ….

These read like US underestimates of the Vietnamese in the 60s.Whatever happened then, when the 'militarily weak' weakened themselves militarily even further, and instead of 'staying alive', they got the overwhelming majority killed in action.The 'Tet Offensive', which was a military disaster for the Vietnamese.These wars are political wars, and a focus military issues always misses the point.The main political reality is that the capitalist powers of the US, UK, France and Russia constantly destroy the societies of the Middle East, and have been doing so, sometimes by themselves, sometimes by indigenous proxies, constantly since WW2. This societal destruction in the name of oil is the key political issue.The source of the instability, and thus the solution, lies in the US, UK, France and Russia, not in Syria.The source of the instability will always replenish ISIS (merely the current manifestation of the problem), no matter how many 'weak Rape/Murder gangs' are bombed.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

See Message #8, LBird, 

My apologies, alan, I didn't see your earlier post when replying to robbo's. Good to see that someone else has historical perspective.

ajj wrote:

But when police over-react and murder, it is not terrorism and not to be remembered 

My point entirely.Whilst robbo calls only one side 'scum', we should be aware that both are, and that the same 'security forces' now being lauded as 'our protectors', will be the same ones who toss innocents into the Seine after torture.Workers like us will be the ones trying to swim with broken arms.

[LBird]

Where these sort of events have led before:

Quote:

The Paris massacre of 1961 was a massacre in Paris on 17 October 1961, during the Algerian War (1954–62). Under orders from the head of the Parisian police, Maurice Papon, the French National Police attacked a forbidden demonstration of some 30,000 pro-National Liberation Front (FLN) Algerians. Two months before, the FLN had decided to increase its bombing in France and to resume the campaign against both pro-France Algerians and the rival Algerian nationalist organization, the Algerian National Movement in France. After 37 years of denial, in 1998 the French government acknowledged 40 deaths, although there are estimates of over 200.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961So, possibly the French police murdered 'over 200'. Puts the recent outrage into perspective.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

These scum seem to have lost the power of reasoning altogether.  Even in terms of their own sick agenda, this is stupidity in a grand scale.

I think that you're wrong here, robbo.These are pretty much 'standard guerilla tactics'.They know that, no matter how many innocents they murder, the response of The Real Terrorists in our world will be to murder even more of those from whom the 'guerillas' originate. Since that potentially supportive population will have already experienced much worse violence and many more deaths from murderous policies of The Real Terrorists, than happened in Paris, they will have little sympathy for those murdered in Paris.From this perspective, from that of the world proletariat, they are not any more 'scum' than are the French ruling class, their 'reasoning' is as sound as that of the French ruling class, and 'sick agendas' and 'grand scale stupidity' describe nothing more than capitalism itself.Capitalism is recruiting for a war. Calling only one side 'scum' is dangerous, and shows a bias to the ruling class.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

…capitalism throws up socialist/communist ideas independently of us.

This would be better phrased, ALB, as "…other workers themselves produce socialist/communist ideas independently of us already socialist/communist workers".Otherwise, it can seem to mean that something other than critical, creative workers produce 'ideas'.It allows Leninist (read 'materialist') interpretations of 'reality' (ie. 'capitalism speaks to them alone') to come to the fore.Of course, 'capitalism' does not speak to workers, and other ideas of it, other than socialist/communist ones, can just as easily be, ahem, 'thrown up'.There are plenty of hidden 'throwers' waiting in the wings for unwary workers. That's why workers who are already socialist/communist must propagandise actively amongst our class.'Capitalism throwing' is part of the class struggle, not a passive wait for being thrown a material bone.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

ALB wrote:

Yehudi Webster argued that the appeal to establish a world without commodities (goods produced for sale), wage-labour and money should be addressed to all humans appealing to their reason, not just to a section of them such as the working class (however defined).

I think there is some merit to this since some issues such as the degradation of the environment, threat of nuclear war and social alienation are cross-class issues. But that said, seeing as it is the working class that forms the vast majority and it is this class that reproduces capitalist socialist relations, it is still the workers that hold the pivotal position.

[my bolds]Webster seems to hold to the bourgeois ideological belief that 'reason' is a universal, eternal principle, shared by 'all humans'.But, DJP is much closer to the truth that, according to Marx, different modes of production, and differing classes within those modes, produce their own 'reason'. What is 'rational' to one class or society, is not 'rational' to another.We Communists must insist that only the 'vast majority' of humans (ie., the revolutionary, class conscious, proletariat) can be the determiners of 'reason', by means of a vote.Any other stance leaves 'reason' in the hands of an elite. We have that now, and look at their 'reasonable' results to our world, both social and natural.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

If 'free will' means the ability to break free from the casual laws of the universe and makes choices regardless of ones past, desires and inclinations then yes there is no such thing. But then the question is, if this where what 'free will' entails would we want such a thing anyhow? What's the freedom in randomly flapping about like a butterfly from one situation to another without any reason for our action?When we consider what people really mean when they talk about "free will" are they really talking about some proposed freedom from the laws of physics? For the most part it turns out that they are referring to nothing more than the capacity to regulate our behaviour and to act freely, without coercion, according to our desires, beliefs and values. I think this is the only meaningful way to go.

[my bold]DJP, you talk about 'the laws of physics' as if they are separate from the consciousness that creates them.Marxists disagree with that ideological belief.

Anton Pannekoek wrote:

Hence Historical Materialism looks upon the works of science, the concepts, substances, natural Laws, and forces, although formed out of the stuff of nature, primarily as the creations of the mental Labour of man. Middle-class materialism, on the other hand, from the point of view of the scientific investigator, sees all this as an element of nature itself which has been discovered and brought to light by science. Natural scientists consider the immutable substances, matter, energy, electricity, gravity, the Law of entropy, etc., as the basic elements of the world, as the reality that has to be discovered. From the viewpoint of Historical Materialism they are products which creative mental activity forms out of the substance of natural phenomena.

[my bold]The 'laws of physics' have a social origin, and are historical, because they change as society changes.If by 'free will' we mean the freedom to change our understanding of 'natural phenomena' (or, for Marx, metabolise 'material substratum' or 'inorganic nature'), then we have 'free will'. Without this, we cannot 'change', but can only 'interpret'.The 'laws of physics' are the social result of human 'theory and practice'.Unless one starts from the inseparable connection of 'being and consciousness', then one is lead astray, and is forced to depart from Marx and Pannekoek, and ends up with 'materialism', which is 'discovery science', not 'humans making their world'.

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