Young Master Smeet
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Just to point out: most scientists these days are proletarians…just saying, like. The working class runs society from top to bottom, but not in its own interest. The technical experts these days, the intellectuals, are workers.
Relevent to the debate:http://socialisteconomicbulletin.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/who-are-left-behind.html
Quote:The Table shows that the unemployment rate for people aged 16 to 24 is 14.4%, which compares to an unemployment rate of 3.3% for all those aged over 50 years. But in every age category Asian people are nearly twice as likely to be unemployed and in every age category black people are more than twice as likely to be unemployed. Put another way, if you are young and black you are more than nine times as likely to be unemployed as if you are old and white.So, Brexit, and Trump is not so much the immiserated workers, but the ones holding on, who currently have a stake.
Quote:On pay, it is also the case that workers who are not white are paid less than their white counterparts and colleagues, and that this pay discrimination increases with qualifications.Lets not forget, pay has not returned to parity with 2008, so even those in work are feeling the pinch, and can see the precariat below them…
Well, the relationships involved here are somewhat superficial, and w don't have the capacity for intensive therapy. I'd agree more frank communication is needed: I think we need more whim from the mods, and less retreat into convoluted rules and regulations. But, I think also avoiding the relationship and the source of conflict may aleviate some of the more immediate problems.
Wikipedia wrote:Each triangle has a payoff for those playing it. The antithesis of a drama triangle lies in discovering how to deprive the actors of their payoff.Tim Kilgallon wrote:I'm not sure how familiar cdes Marraty and the comrades who take the role of Mods are with Eric Berne's theory of psychological games. However they may find Stephen Karpman's development of this theory and in particular his concept of the "drama triangle" particularly enlightening.I've been reading up about this, and it's highly suggestive and useful. One thing I'd say is that we need to find a way to cut down on drama. Rules 14 and 15 provide one such route, asking would be "rescuers" to keep their nebs out. Generally accepting the omerta on moderation decisions may help any "victim" in the triangle to re-oriientate themselves as creators, focusing on creating socialist content, and seeing their challenge as to to not bring down the sanction of the moderator.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangleI think we all need to work together to get away from drama, nad back to socialism.
Quote:Individual departments have been busily developing their projects to implement Brexit, resulting in well over 500 projects, which are beyond the capacity and capability of government to execute quickly," it says. One ministry has said that it needs a 40 per cent increase in staff to cope with its Brexit workload. "Every department has developed a 'bottom-up' plan of what the impact of Brexit could be – and its plan to cope with the 'worst case'. Although necessary, this falls considerably short of having a 'government plan for Brexit' because it has no prioritisation and no link to the overall negotiation strategy," the memo, seen by The Times, says.Interestingly, the by-line is by the Times' defence correspondent: why? How? It's a post that will certainy have to deal with the intelligence services…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37983948"No plan for Brexit" what we all knew seems to be confirmed. As Paul Mason says "Key sentence of Times leak of Govt Brexit fiasco document. Even top civil servants cannot agree on what to ask for"
Hitler was also copying American electoral rallies (including borrowing the Roman salute). American extreme rightism has never gone as far as abolishing democracy, probably because it has never had to.
This article stands up well:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1930s/1933/no-344-april-1933/rise-hitler-warning-workers
Quote:The great lesson to be learned from the decline of the Social Democrats is the sterility of the policy of reforms and of reform parties. The day on which a reform party reaches power is the day on which the evil effects of capitalism begin to sap and undermine the strength of the party, turning the members' blind loyalty first into bewilderment and then into dissatisfaction, causing them to drift into new parties.The depths of mental bankruptcy of the reformists are shown by the comment of the Fabian New Statesman (London, March 11th, 1933). After explaining that Hitler scored because he appealed, with banners and uniforms and parades, to the electorate's love of glamour, the German correspondent of the New Statesman says that the Social Democrats should have done the same, and should have given more prominence to pageantry and less prominence to social reforms. In other words, the workers are to be enticed, not even by the old plan of "bread and circuses", but by circuses without the bread! This is what forty years of Fabian reformism has brought to the working-class movement!that's where we're at now.
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2016/Pres/Maps/Nov11.html#item-1It seems the big shift is the fall in voters: it seems the Dems lost because their vote fell. Also, the polls were callign it right, alatest results are putting Clinton ahead on teh total vote, so it was the electoral college that knacked her.
The electoral college was anti-democratic by design. Yes, 128.8 million Americans cast a ballot in 2016, out of 231 million eligible voters—a turnout rate of 55.6 percent. (Wikipedia): but a working class that doesn't vote, that doesn't exist as part of the electoral process is barely a class in itself, never mind a class for itself.People talk about voter supression,a nd there must have been a lot of that, also, there are forms of gerrymandering simply by being perceived to be ahead (I imagine in, say, Tennessee, some dems might not have bothered voting, likewise republicans in California).The section of the working class, skilled manual and skilled clerical, the "middle class" as defined by American folklore, seem to have veered to Trump, while some of the porest workers seem to have gone to him as well.
http://press.labour.org.uk/post/152943436809/statement-from-jeremy-corbyn-mp-leader-of-the
Corbyn wrote:“Trump’s election is an unmistakable rejection of a political establishment and an economic system that simply isn’t working for most people. It is one that has delivered escalating inequality and stagnating or falling living standards for the majority, both in the US and Britain.“This is a rejection of a failed economic consensus and a governing elite that has been seen not to have listened. And the public anger that has propelled Donald Trump to office has been reflected in political upheavals across the world.“But some of Trump’s answers to the big questions facing America, and the divisive rhetoric around them, are clearly wrong.[/corbyn]I'm not sure of this, much has been made of the middle to above average salaries of the apparent Trump supporters, nd, much like Brexiteers, seem to live in areas with low immmigration: it seems to be more of a fear of losing (wealth and status) rather than a call to arms for a different approach.http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/election-exit-polls.htmlSo, according to this exit poll, the poorest in society backed Clinton, what it looks like, though, is skilled workers ($30K+) went with trump. Also, notetrump is up 16% among the lowest group: some leftists are trying to spin against the 'Trump captured the poor' theme, but that's a huge grab of votes.Vaoufakis comments hre:https://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2016/11/09/trumps-triumph-diem25-on-how-progressives-must-react/He's right, there is a reactionary inernational being organised.
As with Brexit, the disturbing thing is thre is no discernable working class movement, except in asserting nationalist rights: repatriate the jobs that the Otehr has taken away. It really does call into question whether the working class is the agent of sociealism. Should we then, as Paul mason suggests today, tail end liberalism as a lesser evil?
Old William Morris nailed it:
News from nowhere wrote:"Well," said he, "let us take one of our units of management, a commune, or a ward, or a parish (for we have all three names, indicating little real distinction between them now, though time was there was a good deal). In such a district, as you would call it, some neighbours think that something ought to be done or undone: a new town-hall built; a clearance of inconvenient houses; or say a stone bridge substituted for some ugly old iron one,—there you have undoing and doing in one. Well, at the next ordinary meeting of the neighbours, or Mote, as we call it, according to the ancient tongue of the times before bureaucracy, a neighbour proposes the change, and of course, if everybody agrees, there is an end of discussion, except about details. Equally, if no one backs the proposer,—'seconds him,' it used to be called—the matter drops for the time being; a thing not likely to happen amongst reasonable men, however, as the proposer is sure to have talked it over with others before the Mote. But supposing the affair proposed and seconded, if a few of the neighbours disagree to it, if they think that the beastly iron bridge will serve a little longer and they don't want to be bothered with building a new one just then, they don't count heads that time, but put off the formal discussion to the next Mote; and meantime arguments pro and con are flying about, and some get printed, so that everybody knows what is going on; and when the Mote comes together again there is a regular discussion and at last a vote by show of hands. If the division is a close one, the question is again put off for further discussion; if the division is a wide one, the minority are asked if they will yield to the more general opinion, which they often, nay, most commonly do. If they refuse, the question is debated a third time, when, if the minority has not perceptibly grown, they always give way; though I believe there is some half-forgotten rule by which they might still carry it on further; but I say, what always happens is that they are convinced, not perhaps that their view is the wrong one, but they cannot persuade or force the community to adopt it.""Very good," said I; "but what happens if the divisions are still narrow?"Said he: "As a matter of principle and according to the rule of such cases, the question must then lapse, and the majority, if so narrow, has to submit to sitting down under the status quo. But I must tell you that in point of fact the minority very seldom enforces this rule, but generally yields in a friendly manner.""But do you know," said I, "that there is something in all this very like democracy; and I thought that democracy was considered to be in a moribund condition many, many years ago."The old boy's eyes twinkled. "I grant you that our methods have that drawback. But what is to be done? We can't get anyone amongst us to complain of his not always having his own way in the teeth of the community, when it is clear that everybody cannot have that indulgence. What is to be done?""Well," said I, "I don't know."Said he: "The only alternatives to our method that I can conceive of are these. First, that we should choose out, or breed, a class of superior persons capable of judging on all matters without consulting the neighbours; that, in short, we should get for ourselves what used to be called an aristocracy of intellect; or, secondly, that for the purpose of safe-guarding the freedom of the individual will, we should revert to a system of private property again, and have slaves and slave-holders once more. What do you think of those two expedients?""Well," said I, "there is a third possibility—to wit, that every man should be quite independent of every other, and that thus the tyranny of society should be abolished."He looked hard at me for a second or two, and then burst out laughing very heartily; and I confess that I joined him. When he recovered himself he nodded at me, and said: "Yes, yes, I quite agree with you—and so we all do.""Yes," I said, "and besides, it does not press hardly on the minority: for, take this matter of the bridge, no man is obliged to work on it if he doesn't agree to its building. At least, I suppose not."He smiled, and said: "Shrewdly put; and yet from the point of view of the native of another planet. If the man of the minority does find his feelings hurt, doubtless he may relieve them by refusing to help in building the bridge. But, dear neighbour, that is not a very effective salve for the wound caused by the 'tyranny of a majority' in our society; because all work that is done is either beneficial or hurtful to every member of society. The man is benefited by the bridge-building if it turns out a good thing, and hurt by it if it turns out a bad one, whether he puts a hand to it or not; and meanwhile he is benefiting the bridge-builders by his work, whatever that may be. In fact, I see no help for him except the pleasure of saying 'I told you so' if the bridge-building turns out to be a mistake and hurts him; if it benefits him he must suffer in silence. A terrible tyranny our Communism, is it not? Folk used often to be warned against this very unhappiness in times past, when for every well-fed, contented person you saw a thousand miserable starvelings. Whereas for us, we grow fat and well-liking on the tyranny; a tyranny, to say the truth, not to be made visible by any microscope I know. Don't be afraid, my friend; we are not going to seek for troubles by calling our peace and plenty and happiness by ill names whose very meaning we have forgotten!"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/News_from_Nowhere/Chapter_XIV
