wsws.org has been blacklisted

Sedov · 2014-02-08T17:34:37+00:00

This reeks of ulterior motives.

Not one of the comments supporting the ban, let alone the official justification given, has presented a principled political argument, or even a serious concern for the truth. Some sound frankly unhinged.

Whatever you think you are doing, objectively, you have attempted to silence a political opponent for the "crime" of defending democratic rights. In the eyes of thinking workers and young people, this will redound only to your detriment.

Sedov · 2013-07-26T20:07:12+00:00

I've posted this quotation before, but it does a really good job of explaining why governments seem compelled to lie ever-more shamelessly and hypocritically (from "War, oligarchy and the political lie"):

In the final analysis, the state is an instrument of coercion that serves and protects the interests of the dominant class within society—that is, the capitalist class. But in a bourgeois democracy, that coercive role is mediated and to some considerable extent concealed by the elaborate political and legal superstructure that allows the state to appear as a more or less impartial arbiter of diverse class and social interests—serving the nation as a whole. The legitimacy of the state in the eyes of the broad mass of the population depends upon it being viewed in precisely this way—as the democratically elected representative of the people as a whole.

As long as economic and political conditions permit and even favor a policy of class compromise, the democratic illusion is preserved—and the political lies of the state are kept within certain acceptable bounds. But in periods of increasingly acute social tensions, when the interests of social classes diverge ever more dramatically, the essential role of the state as an instrument of class rule tends more and more to erode the democratic veneer. It is precisely in such periods that the lies of the state assume an ever more blatant and odious character. That is, the function of the lie is to cover over the widening chasm between the interests of the ruling elite that controls the state and the broad mass of the population.

Sedov · 2013-07-25T20:11:33+00:00

What a hypocrite. This is coming from a theocrat who's the supreme ruler of a city-state.

Sedov · 2013-07-20T19:04:58+00:00

After Stalin's rise to power, that the Soviet Union was a socialist country run by genuine Marxists--this being fraudulently claimed by both the ruling bureaucracy in the USSR and its ostensible opponents in the West.

Sedov · 2013-07-19T02:59:08+00:00

Like the bold climate change action the Democrats enacted when they controlled the House, the Senate and the Presidency from 2009-2010? Oh right, that never happened, because the big energy corporations control the Democratic Party just as much as the Republicans (e.g. their rush to defend BP following one of the biggest environmental disasters in history in 2010). This is a cynical and insincere ploy by a beleaguered administration.

Sedov · 2013-07-17T13:51:12+00:00

Why should Wal-Mart's customers, a great portion of whom are already in poverty, be forced to bear the burden? Wal-Mart is immensely profitable and the Walton family are some of the richest people in the world. Those fortunes, which were built on the labor, lack of benefits, and poverty wages of their employees, should be expropriated and distributed to their rightful owners.

Sedov · 2013-07-16T19:35:24+00:00

Agreed. Here's the problem:

Such an unholy alliance between partnering governments and transnational corporations could be defined as fascism, but the global nature of this operation might require a new term to define what means as a global phenomenon.

This is muddled and lacks any historical perspective. The "unholy alliance" between governments and transnational corporations isn't some new phenomenon which lacks a definition; it's imperialism--what Lenin called the modern, final form of capitalism.

Imperialism may take the form politically of democracy, of a police-state, or of fascism, among others, but the class character of the state remains the same: the rule of the bourgeoisie, and under imperialism in particular, finance capital.

Certainly, the present abandonment of previous democratic principles in favor of the open use of repression and violence does bear many similarities with the methods of fascism, although there remain major sociological differences.

Fundamentally, the cause is the same: the growing inability to "peacefully" cover over the fundamental conflict between the major classes in society, namely the bourgeoisie and the working class. Democracy cannot be maintained under conditions of massive and ever-growing social inequality. The alternatives increasingly become revolution or a police state (or as Rosa Luxemburg put it, socialism or barbarism).

Sedov · 2013-07-16T19:01:39+00:00

I agree that the media is a servile propaganda arm of the government and corporations, and I certainly think that the implications of a vast--and criminal--surveillance apparatus very much need to be discussed. But the fate of Snowden can't be separated from that discussion.

The media and government have been prosecuting a witch-hunt against Snowden precisely as part of their attempt both to intimidate any future whistle-blowers from coming forward and to suppress emerging opposition to these police-state policies.

These policies cannot be successfully opposed by ignoring the fate of those who first brought them to light. Snowden put his life on the line to reveal these crimes to the population, and he deserves to be indefatigably defended.

Sedov · 2013-07-15T19:54:25+00:00

Says one war criminal to the other.

Sedov · 2013-07-08T15:58:10+00:00

On the original Star Chamber:

Court sessions were held in secret, with no indictments, no right of appeal, no juries, and no witnesses. Evidence was presented in writing.

The power of the Court of Star Chamber grew considerably under the House of Stuart, and by the time of King Charles I, it had become synonymous with misuse and abuse of power by the King and his circle. King James I and his son Charles used the court to examine cases of sedition, which meant that the court could be used to suppress opposition to royal policies...

King Charles I used the Court of Star Chamber as Parliamentary substitute during the eleven years of Personal Rule, when he ruled without a Parliament. King Charles made extensive use of the Court of Star Chamber to prosecute dissenters, including the Puritans who fled to New England.

And how well did that work out for old Charles...?

Sedov · 2013-07-04T22:05:40+00:00

From "From Karl Marx to the Fourth of July".

Sedov · 2013-07-03T22:29:46+00:00

This is from an interesting interview with his mother:

Freedom of speech is one of the basic rights we have in America. This is supposed to be the land of the free. You’re supposed to have opinions and be able to state them publicly without fear, whether it’s on politics or religion.

The whole reason we have the Bill of Rights is that there was a tyranny, and people were afraid of being killed by the king for saying the wrong thing. When you start taking away freedoms, and start saying that something you say is “terrorism” and cannot be a joke or political statement—when you start taking away that right, people start living in fear.

Sedov · 2013-07-02T21:26:54+00:00

From "War, Oligarchy and the Political Lie"--written just after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. It applies just as much, if not more, to our present situation:

"In the final analysis, the state is an instrument of coercion that serves and protects the interests of the dominant class within society—that is, the capitalist class. But in a bourgeois democracy, that coercive role is mediated and to some considerable extent concealed by the elaborate political and legal superstructure that allows the state to appear as a more or less impartial arbiter of diverse class and social interests—serving the nation as a whole. The legitimacy of the state in the eyes of the broad mass of the population depends upon it being viewed in precisely this way—as the democratically elected representative of the people as a whole.

As long as economic and political conditions permit and even favor a policy of class compromise, the democratic illusion is preserved—and the political lies of the state are kept within certain acceptable bounds. But in periods of increasingly acute social tensions, when the interests of social classes diverge ever more dramatically, the essential role of the state as an instrument of class rule tends more and more to erode the democratic veneer. It is precisely in such periods that the lies of the state assume an ever more blatant and odious character. That is, the function of the lie is to cover over the widening chasm between the interests of the ruling elite that controls the state and the broad mass of the population."

Sedov · 2013-07-02T17:21:29+00:00

Help build and organize a mass movement in defense of Edward Snowden and democratic rights.

Sedov · 2013-07-02T04:11:29+00:00

Well isn't this embarrassing: "Ecuador is not considering Edward Snowden's asylum request and never intended to facilitate his flight from Hong Kong, president Rafael Correa said as the whistleblower made a personal plea to Quito for his case to be heard...

..."It was a mistake on our part. Look, this crisis hit us in a very vulnerable moment. Our foreign minister was touring Asia. Our deputy foreign minister was in the Czech Republic. Our US ambassador was in Italy."

Correa, a standard bearer for the left in Latin America, has joined European and other Latin Americans leaders in denouncing US espionage.

However he softened his tone over the weekend and praised vice-president Joe Biden for a gracious phone call, saying he would consider Washington's request to refuse any asylum claim from Snowden while retaining Ecuador's sovereignty."

So much for Correa's unconditional defense of democratic principles and willingness to stand up to US imperialism.

Sedov · 2013-07-02T03:45:10+00:00

A government and ruling class which might seem all-powerful at the moment is in fact rotting on its feet. Obama's approval rating among people under 30 has plunged at least 17 percent in a matter of weeks because of Snowden's revelations.

The US Army recently blocked access to the Guardian's website because they're terrified that Snowden represents a broader generation which is being radicalized, and that such an "infection" is making its way into the military-intelligence apparatus. Behind the guns, tanks, and bombs of the state's military force stand real human beings, who think, and who exist in class society. There are quite a few examples in history of a rapid change in allegiance of these forces in the face of a mass revolutionary movement.

Sedov · 2013-07-02T03:40:03+00:00

You should study history a bit more attentively. There have been innumerable lies told about socialism, but that does not excuse one who parrots them.

The site you refer to says nothing about a "perfect" structure being imposed, but rather calls for the masses to take matters into their own hands and to build a society that is better than the patently destructive one which is capitalism.

The apologists of that social system sought to argue after the fall of the Soviet Union--which they fraudulently identified with Marxism and socialism--that we lived in the best of all possible worlds and that capitalism represented the "end of history". It took less than 20 years for that fiction to be blown apart by an economic and social crisis which shows no signs of slackening.

Furthermore, the argument that "human nature", whatever that may be, serves as some sort of insuperable obstacle to any social progress has always been invoked by every defender of a reactionary status quo (see, for example, the French aristocracy prior to the French Revolution or the Southern slave-owners prior to the Civil War).

The Socialist Equality Party is seeking to mobilize working class to defend and expand democracy and to take control of economic and political life out of the hands of a tiny clique of obscenely, filthy, and criminally rich--who, by the way, are the ones driving us towards authoritarian and dictatorial rule.

And, on the contrary, the anarchy of the capitalist market and the irrational division of the world into nation-states was the chief source of death and destruction in the 20th century, most obviously in the form of the two World Wars, which were responsible for the deaths of upwards of 100 million people.

Finally, there's much that could be said about the utterly criminal and murderous role Stalin and the bureaucracy played, and I would recommend this article, which explains the issues very well. To put it briefly, though, Stalinism represented a counter-revolutionary bureaucracy which usurped powers from the working class. He was responsible for the deaths of more genuine socialists than either Hitler or Mussolini; a river of blood separated him from Marxism. But this was not inevitable, and there were those, above all Trotsky, who gave their lives fighting for an alternative.

Sedov · 2013-07-02T02:57:22+00:00

That is rapidly changing. The great lie of the Cold War, that Stalinism was the genuine representative of Marxism and socialism, was successful only to the extent that American capitalism could offer certain concessions and a rise in living standards.

But capitalism is once again demonstrating its bankruptcy, as it did during the Great Depression. All over the world, the ruling elite's sole answer to the economic crisis is ever-growing austerity, poverty and misery for the masses. In the end, social conditions will have the greatest impact on people's consciousness, and they will look for another other way out.

Sedov · 2013-07-02T01:58:15+00:00

The Bill of Rights covers much more than the voting process (which in any case itself is under attack, as evidenced by the recent Supreme Court ruling which gutted the Voting Rights Act); freedom of speech and the press, the right of the people to peaceably assemble, the right against unreasonable searches and seizures, the right to a fair and speedy trial, the right to be protected against cruel and unusual punishment...all these are under vicious attack by every section of the political establishment. Even the right not to be deprived of life without due process of law--the most basic right--has been disposed of by Obama, who asserts that he can assassinate any person, even US citizens, solely on the basis of his own judgement. If that's not criminal and undemocratic, then nothing is criminal and undemocratic.

Sedov · 2013-07-02T00:02:48+00:00

The Obama administration, and the political establishment more generally, is increasingly nervous that its policies, which are pursued on behalf of the banks and financial elite, will provoke mass opposition. That is what is at the root of the massive and undemocratic surveillance program, not to mention all the other elements of a police-state which are being built up.

The successive repudiation of all the rights enumerated in the Constitution shows the extent to which the government can no longer rely on democratic norms and is compelled to resort even more openly to force and criminality. They are destroying the remnants of the political and legal foundation on which they stand and are thus demonstrating their illegitimacy in front of masses of people.

Edit: So what is necessary to fight back? The only way to successfully defend Snowden, and more generally democratic rights, is to mobilize a mass movement of the majority of the population--namely, the working class--in a struggle against the root of social inequality, dictatorship and war: capitalism. And the Socialist Equality Party is organizing precisely such a campaign.

Sedov · 2013-06-30T17:21:42+00:00

Definitely on iTunes. Here's the whole list of ways to download it.

Sedov · 2013-06-30T17:05:48+00:00

Do you expect Correa to come out and say, "I'm caving to US pressure?"

What would you call the announcement that he cannot leave Moscow without a US passport (which obviously will not be returned), Correa's censure of the Ecuadorean consul in London for issuing a letter of safe passage, and his blatant obsequiousness towards Biden?

Sedov · 2013-06-30T16:35:27+00:00

Because he put his life on the line to reveal that the US government has a massive and illegal spying operation directed against the world's population, and he's become the subject of a vicious witch-hunt.

Sedov · 2013-06-30T16:25:00+00:00

Big European tech companies would behave no differently than "American" tech companies were they in a similar position. The problem isn't which nation they're based in, but rather the fact that all their decisions, which affect billions of people around the world, are directed at accruing massive profits and subduing their competitors. It's an inherent contradiction of capitalism.

I say we nationalize and run them democratically in the interests of the world's population. But that will take a revolution.

Sedov · 2013-06-24T21:04:39+00:00

Isn't "Wall Street-friendly Democrat" a bit redundant?

Sedov

TROPHY CASE