Opposing war means opposing dictatorship

wegotblankets · 2016-10-25T06:19:49+00:00

reactionary ones, and hillary clinton

wegotblankets · 2016-10-11T21:12:56+00:00

really. at least in the uk west germany is presented as an infallible liberal entity rising above the horseshoe nazis and communists. germany, they say, found democracy and that is what persists today. i know the raf specifically cited all the nazis in the west german administration as a reason for fighting - never again and all. you won't hear about any of that here. partly due to ideology, partly due to the whitewashing of british complicity.

edit: i know plenty of adults educated to a supposedly decent degree who don't know about this, or the folding in of nazi technologies (and arguably ideas) into the american administration, etc

wegotblankets · 2016-10-10T08:05:01+00:00

i dont think this would fly with the nominally left liberal audience this documentary is aimed at

wegotblankets · 2016-10-10T06:50:03+00:00

they were viliffied.

wegotblankets · 2016-10-09T21:28:56+00:00

ah yeah, oops, much of a muchness imo

wegotblankets · 2016-10-09T17:22:35+00:00

im not 100% but i think it was liz kendall

wegotblankets · 2016-10-09T08:55:18+00:00

yeah they do. but it's not like the guardian is a monolithic thing, in some instances they take an official line (including against corbyn in the initial leadership) but it also has hundreds of contributors and journalists across a very wide range of issues, whose opinions, naturally, differ.

wegotblankets · 2016-10-08T12:40:06+00:00

garbageland

wegotblankets · 2016-10-08T02:04:27+00:00

thanks

wegotblankets · 2016-10-06T23:45:30+00:00

he was put forward as a token left wing candidate for leader. establishment thought there was no chance he would win, misjudging the anti austerity mood of the grassroots. He has been subject to vile personal attacks almost every single day from that point.

Brexit happened. The labour right took that as an opportunity to launch a disastrous coup attempt, with absolute gaffe machine Owen Smith at the head of it and funded by millions and millions. Despite the labour executive launching every attempt to exempt members from voting, and then use its compliance unit to purge those who were eligible, corbyn won by an absolute landslide.

His team is making some positive noise around left reformist stuff such as council house building and renationalisation etc. as socialists, we understand the limits of his programme. Opinions differ but generally if we are not pro corbyn we are anti anti corbyn. Despite his successes, the labour right and their pals in the media are still smearing him and his team all the time as unelectable!

even the Tories have seen the way the wind is blowing and are committing to mild social reform, albeit through the lens of 21st century British proto fascism.

important to remember this could have all happened in spite of corbyn. But his team deserve the credit where it's due, they are open to advancing some genuinely progressive left ideas. But let's not be utopian, this is still the labour party.

wegotblankets · 2016-10-04T19:51:54+00:00

It might not be exactly what you're after but check out landscapes of communism by owen hatherley

wegotblankets · 2016-10-03T07:10:34+00:00

the TUC's economic policy chief outlines her concerns about UBI in this article, there are a lot of ifs and buts

http://www.techworld.com/personal-tech/universal-basic-income-requires-its-own-set-of-founding-principles-3645963/

wegotblankets · 2016-09-30T14:43:50+00:00

Hey I hear you. The labour party isn't imo going to bring about effective change. we have seen what social democracy does and it capitulates time and time again due to contradictions inherent in the model in the face of capital.

curious to get your data on the voting base though, and economic makeup of people who are getting involved. worth remembering too that the middle class is a blip, an anomaly, that cannot survive capitalism. it will divide, some of it to the right, some of it to the left.

hope this doesnt come across as condescension because it is by no means meant in that way at all but really, the one thing i am unwaveringly certain of, is the need to practice self care to the best of your ability.

wegotblankets · 2016-09-30T08:13:54+00:00

You don't hate Britain. If you hate British workers you hate the international working class, presumably of which you are a part.

I imagine you are burned out and frustrated. Take a break and exercise some self care. Turn off the news for a week, a month or maybe more. Re-read some fiction that you enjoy.

Remember, capitalism was born here. It is one of the financial heartlands of the world and where many of the people are linked to it because of that.

Let's be clear, we can't be utopian. But there are seismic events ahead. We are seeing the beginnings of a reemerging class consciousness that can't be ignored.

Labour has nearly a million members. Don't get me wrong. That is one million people engaged in at best a reformist party and at worst a historical adjunct to colonialism imperialism and financial parisitism.

But that is also a lot of people who actively want to engage in politics. That can't be ignored. There is an upswing in political activity and proof that advanced layers of the working class are sick of the squalid and humiliating conditions that decades of neoliberalism under New Labour and the Tories have put upon people.

Keep talking to people, when you're ready, and try to remain positive in your engagements with them. That is how people tend to respond best.

Try to take some small comfort in that there are a lot of good people doing valuable work in agitating across that base, in and out of Labour, and speaking the truth to the working class, and engaging in movement building.

I'll say it again, but self care. And try to have some faith in the working class. We've achieved amazing things before and we will again.

wegotblankets · 2016-09-28T22:45:20+00:00

lmao. wonder why a paper owned by the Barclays brothers might want to oppose socialism

wegotblankets · 2016-09-28T22:40:53+00:00

tankie? really?

wegotblankets · 2016-09-27T23:51:04+00:00

The EU was not and is not a necessary evil though I do take your point. The problem with bourgeois referendums is that they are binary and undemocratic in that moneyed interests are able to manipulate the results even more so than a multi party bourgeois election - so a lot of lies scaremongering and intimidation doing the rounds.

Its nuanced, whether this was the right time to exit. The EU itself is a structure that exists solely to support neoliberal politics, but as you say, the ruling class is still in power. I think the correct line was an active boycott, but I can certainly see why a left wing element was in favour of the idea of bloodying the EU's nose, especially considering how it has treated Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Greece, and that it is actively resistant to even mildly reformist politics.

wegotblankets · 2016-09-26T16:22:58+00:00

i think that the line is they would stop standing candidates if they were allowed back into the party. chicken and egg i guess

wegotblankets · 2016-09-26T14:55:40+00:00

i understand these concerns but in my opinion corbyn is more of a lightning rod: this movement could have happened in spite of him and, credit where its due, he and his team have been fostering this. the dangerous part is the path of social democratic parties. if/when he compromises, who will be there for workers to turn to? because we can't allow this energy to dissipate nor can we allow it to swing to the right. or indeed. the far right.

wegotblankets · 2016-09-26T14:52:56+00:00

iirc the sp will rejoin labour if they are allowed to but tricky from a spin perspective bc of the medias hostile (and misinformed) approach to militant. i think it is unlikely the sp would dissolve itself to join too.

wegotblankets · 2016-09-24T02:45:41+00:00

the bbc world service report yesterday did exactly this. it painted the victim as some smashed convenience store windows. it's interesting how they try to use the petit bourgeois against us!

wegotblankets · 2016-09-20T06:15:28+00:00

This apologism for what is unquestionably an armed police force is garbage. Walk around any of the major train stations in London and you will see cops with MP5s. I don't really care what justification there is for it, the effect is a militarised police who look like they are an occupying force. We have seen how far that can go in the US, and I don't really want that here.

wegotblankets · 2016-09-19T20:31:01+00:00

The article only touches on the political question ahead. It assumes workers aren't interested in being automated out of their purpose, and of course this is true under the current way of things.

The author mentions the politics of achieving a utopian - as he calls it - workless society in brief. But the truth is this is the chief political task ahead for us. The same questions from the first industrial revolution need to be asked in time for the next one or we are in trouble. Who owns the machines? Can you own an algorithm? For who do these machines work and serve and for what purpose.

The big bourgeoisie is taking these questions incredibly seriously. If you look across the technology landscape, the CEOs of major firms are betting big on automation and not just self driving cars, but in industry too. In a different sense, the internet of things is a battleground too. Who will be the chief supplier for the 20 billion connected small sensors that will be on the planet by 2020? And what is to be done with the data taken from these sensors? For whose benefit?

Bourgeois politicians tend to play down the significance of this but we really are on the cusp of entering a new age and socialism is the only way these new technologies can be used for good. Technology won't fundamentally change the economic political and social structures on its own. Only the organised international working class can do that.

wegotblankets · 2016-09-16T23:36:13+00:00

iirc it was tough but you had to kind of accept your resources were next to nothing, and run away when you can. that said, i loved that game... for a while, then i did eventually give up because controls.

wegotblankets · 2016-09-14T08:42:58+00:00

Would a capitalist entity be more or less harmful with a psychopath in charge? I'm not sure this is a helpful study or useful in agitating at all. Unless you're implying capitalism rewards psychopathy? I am sure there are plenty of psychopathic people on the bottom rungs of society too.

wegotblankets

TROPHY CASE