rodshaw
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We could also be said to be attempting to radicalise young people because we are attempting to radicalise the whole working class.
Just think what governments would be trying if the world socialist movement were bigger, a small but significant minority, say 3 or 4 percent of the population. I had always thought that would be the time to fear clampdowns, but it could be happening much sooner.On their own, Cameron and his cronies could turn out to be particularly nasty, but there you are, workers, you get what you vote for.They have been on the news saying they want to appeal more to the average working person. Then in an amazing feat of doublespeak, in the same news programme, they announce they want to introduce measures to limit the right to strike.Coupled with their stance on extremism and their desire to abolish the Human Rights Act for something more 'British', they are certainly hitting the ground running.
If the Money Free Party are in fact anything like the SPGB, as has been suggested in another thread, then maybe we can use them as a gauge of how socialist ideas spread without the use of the S-word. See how many Facebook followers they get compared to us, etc.
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?
