rodshaw
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Interestingly, I was talking to my wife's nephew about politics a few days before election day. He's doing a politics degree at York Uni and asked me what I thought about the election.So I told him I was a socialist etc. etc., and he fully understood what I was on about. He said, off his own bat, that what had happened in Russia and China had given socialism a bad name. This is from someone under 20. So maybe that politics degree is doing some good.
Young Master Smeet wrote:I did sayQuote:The cry of "The footballers are paid too much" is the cry of management.I didn't say it was workers against management, but the cry of management is a cry in the interest of the owners…
I don't particularly want to labour the point, but it was your first post I was commenting on:
Young Master Smeet wrote:Yes, they're rich, and if they don't piss their incomes up the wall, they'll become capitalists the second it hits the bank. But the fact remains they are workers, wealthy workers, and we're opn their side against the management.I think it's a bit misleading to say that socialists are on the side of the workers against management, most of whom are workers themselves, at least as I understand the term. It's workers against owners.
There's an article reporting an interview with Brand in The Times today. Some of the fatuous questions they ask him, although they don't surprise me, make me want to throw something at them.Would he miss his iPod if giant corporations were dismantled? As if a socialist society would turn back technology 50 years and wouldn't be able to make high-tech gadgets.If he supports the community, why does he live in a big house with a chauffeur and not on an estate? As if we didn't all have to live in capitalism and do the best we can for ourselves.What lack of imagination they show!
Part of the problem is that people are wrapped up in their everyday lives, trying to get through the next day, and mostly don't want to assimilate big ideas, especially when they think they might 'lose all they've worked for' when private property gets abolished. The idea of socialism either seems absurd or too invasive. It makes people insecure, and they back away.But it will happen, one day the tide will turn and people will wonder how on earth they could have been so stupid for not seeing the bleedin' obvious. Just keep plugging away.
It depends greatly on whose version of history you like, but, Utopia apart, wasn't More just an arch-conservative who felt insecure about the changes afoot? Principled he might have been, but he was, after all, responsible for a fair number of torturings of those nasty heretics.The fictionalised Mantel view is poles apart from the fictionalised Robert Bolt view. How close can we get to the 'true' view, if there is one?
They are having a 'democracy season' at present. How important Magna Carta was, etc. David Starkey interviewed a couple of people who said that our democratic rights won since Magna Carta are being eroded by the laws against terrorism. Then Starkey made some comment to the effect that our liberties need restricting when it comes to maintaining order.That's probably about as democratic as the BBC will get.Ho-hum.
SocialistPunk wrote:But another song I like by Black Sabbath is more appropriate to us lot, and the last line in the second verse sums up Dylan fairly well. But I guess Dylan is all grown-up and has left the politics of idealistic youth behind and focuses on the practicalities of the real world.That's a common problem – so many of these types "mellow with age" and see revolution or even protest against the status quo as the preserve of rebellious youth. When will they ever learn?
Ozymandias wrote:rodshaw wrote:Any film that acknowledges the distinction between proper socialism and what we are generally told is socialism/communism, and can present socialism clearly and convincingly as highly desirable. Not in some sci-fi film set in the distant future, but in a realistic fiction set in the present. In short, a film that makes people say, "We can have that now and we want it!"But we are never going to see a film like that are we? You can sneer all you want smart arse.
I beg your pardon? Who are you directing your smart arse comment to?
As socialists we have little time for the Great Man Theory of History but have there been any truly great men or women? If so, what defines greatness, and what makes some people stand out? Or is greatness simply not in our vocabulary?
Any film that acknowledges the distinction between proper socialism and what we are generally told is socialism/communism, and can present socialism clearly and convincingly as highly desirable. Not in some sci-fi film set in the distant future, but in a realistic fiction set in the present. In short, a film that makes people say, "We can have that now and we want it!"
SardaI quite agree. We in the Socialist Party say that socialism is intelligible to the vast majority – otherwise there'd be no point advocating it – so I think postings like #1 have to be taken for what they are – to be discussed by those who enjoy discussing such things (not me), and not to be thought of as essential reading for all.
