tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post6047965282529450225..comments2024-03-29T09:14:53.583+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: Aaron Bastani vs Smug CentrismPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-78430991691727998982019-01-10T13:18:58.790+00:002019-01-10T13:18:58.790+00:00Macron isn't fooling that many if you believe ...Macron isn't fooling that many if you believe the French polls ;)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-30475147452195587752019-01-09T18:29:16.346+00:002019-01-09T18:29:16.346+00:00Yes lets work with people who scream anti Semite i...Yes lets work with people who scream anti Semite in our faces all day long. Only a pro imperialist, drone supporting chauvinist like Boffy could call for that! He will be telling us to like BBC news Twitter reports before too long!<br /><br />We have been told for about the last 20 to 30 years that we must support the so called centre to stop the so called reactionaries. I wonder at what point it is proposed we stop this tactic?<br /><br />The difference between the so called centre and the so called reactionaries is so wafer thin they are almost barely distinguishable.<br /><br />As the world faces the twin barriers of ecological disaster and current consumption levels which equate to 1.6 planet Earths (and if Western values spread further you will be able to treble that shortly) then tactically supporting the slightly lesser evil is preposterous. Talk about not understanding historical conjunctures! Engels supported the bourgeois, do me a favour he advised the movement to vote down every single budget and act as a hostile entity in parliament! Boffy attempts to turn Marx and Engels into the liberal democrats!<br /><br />The left have to simply purge the pro war integrity Initiative left, such as Denham and Boffy (who can simply get on with the job of providing support for Yvette Cooper) and present to the masses a radical departure from capitalism based on sustainable development, the eradication of the market and the implementation of a communist society.<br /><br />And if people don’t like that then they vote for whoever. One thing is for sure Yvette Cooper does not represent the transition to socialism, she simply represents the transition to Le Pen. Yvette Cooper begets Theresa may begets Boris Johnson begets Yvette Cooper begets Theresa May.<br /><br />Macron might be able to fool people with his smart suits for so long but as sure as night becomes day centrists like him simply pave the way for the so called reactionaries to come.<br /><br />I mean people say the BBC is pasrt of the Tory media, I have said this myself but actually the BBC would have a collective orgasm if Yvette Cooper became prime minister. This tells you all you need to know about so called centrism and how it simply begets so called reaction.<br /><br />The so called liberal centre want war with Russia, instability on the Korean peninsula, turmoil and destruction in the Middle East, a mass surveillance state, indefinite imprisonment for whistleblowers, the purging from public life of anyone who supports the Palestinians, supprt attacks on the most vulnerable in society and demand neo liberalism for all.<br /><br />Forgive me but the quicker that kind of progressive politics is destroyed the better.<br />DFTMnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-83386198413760805352019-01-09T16:03:58.736+00:002019-01-09T16:03:58.736+00:00I wasn't speaking about the "Corbynite&qu...I wasn't speaking about the "Corbynite" Left. I was talking about those such as Counterfire that defend the yellow vests in terms of disdain for a liberal centre, as though, any disdain for the liberal centre whether it comes from a progressive direction or a reactionary direction is the same, which is the same logic that they apply when it comes to aligning themselves with reactionaries, and reactionary objectives when it comes to imperialism, or the EU etc.<br /><br />In large part, the "Corbynite" Left actually disagrees with Corbyn when it comes to many of not most of those issues. The Corbynite Left disagrees with Corbyn over Brexit, for example. The point that was being made was not in respect of the Corbynite Left but those sections of the Left, whoe politics does lead them to align with those reactionary elements be it in support for reactionary nationalist under cover of "anti-imperialism", or reactionary yellow vests, under cover of some vacuous disdain for metropolitan liberal values. Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-18109967791098776882019-01-09T10:46:21.404+00:002019-01-09T10:46:21.404+00:00Boffy - what point is being reinforced exactly? Th...Boffy - what point is being reinforced exactly? The fact that fascists have tried to hijack the yellow vest movement says nothing whatsoever about the Corbynite left.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11464135855185678187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-50705048489321674322019-01-08T04:26:04.159+00:002019-01-08T04:26:04.159+00:00The 'centrists' in the Labour Party have c...The 'centrists' in the Labour Party have consistently attacked Corbyn, rather curiously at the moment when the Tories have been the most dishevelled, and by trying to destroy the Labour party, have allowed the Tories free rein in doing what the hell they want, when the hell they want. The Chuka Ummunas, Lizzie Kendalls and Keir Starmers are as much the enemy of a genuine left wing opposition as the Tories are. Politically, they should not be forgiven.<br /><br />Time for people to get behind a left wing Labour party, and not a 'centrist' party for middle class metropolitan Londoners and Guardianistas.Tmbnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-16393011606180054602019-01-07T15:38:30.294+00:002019-01-07T15:38:30.294+00:00This Post, by Andrew Coates, about fascists dresse...<a href="https://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2019/01/07/far-right-gilets-jaunes-attack-railway-union-picket/" rel="nofollow">This Post</a>, by Andrew Coates, about fascists dressed up as gilets jaunes, attacking RMT pickets, I think reinforces the point, about "leftists" who jump on to populist bandwagons, which puts them into alliance with all sorts of reactionaries.Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-20046795557278901132019-01-07T14:18:02.759+00:002019-01-07T14:18:02.759+00:00Boffy, the 'sections of the left' that sup...Boffy, the 'sections of the left' that support Putin and the like are really vanishingly small. They exist, for sure, but in tiny, tiny, negligible numbers.<br />Also, Keynesian economics can easily be seen (wrongly) as reactionary and nationalist, thereby smearing a central plank of centre-left policy ideas. Nevertheless, we need to return to a broadly Keynesian economic model (at least).Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11464135855185678187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-30488044076066063522019-01-07T13:26:04.055+00:002019-01-07T13:26:04.055+00:00That is why Trotsky and the Communist Internationa...That is why Trotsky and the Communist International developed the strategy of the United Front of "March separately, strike together."<br /><br />The trouble at the moment is that a) the left has serially collapsed into popular fronts such as Stop The War etc., rather than developing united fronts, and b) those with which it has allied, and subordinated its politics to, in those popular fronts, are more reactionary than the liberals you rightly denigrate. And, now, when the "Left" should not need a United Front, or Popular Front, because, in the shape of Corbyn, it heads a mass workers party of 600,000, it continues to subordinate its politics, in the same way, and instead of providing a principled lead, for example over Brexit, it continues to align itself with all of those reactionary forces, at least by omission, by failing to organise any kind of social movement against Brexit, which will be one of the most reactionary policies to have been inflicted on the working-class in decades, a fact that even the SWP seem slowly to be coming to realise.<br /><br />Who should the Left blame for the liberal centre being the head of one of the most progressive, most dynamic social movements of the day? We should blame Corbyn, and his reactionary Stalinist advisors, along with all of those reactionary nationalists hiding within the Left, under cover of their "anti-imperialism", who have left that ground open to them! They will be the ones to blame for the disaster, just as it was the Stalinists that were to blame for the victory of Hitler, of Franco et al.Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-67428580707151188992019-01-07T11:26:25.151+00:002019-01-07T11:26:25.151+00:00Boffey,the problem with trying to work with the li...Boffey,the problem with trying to work with the liberal centrists is they will not accept a junior role.They will only work with the left if they are in charge of direction and purpose. John thatcherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18115804661937991973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-29269215852427769672019-01-07T08:56:39.807+00:002019-01-07T08:56:39.807+00:00There is much in this critique of "liberalism...There is much in this critique of "liberalism" that I would agree with, and that I have written about for decades, predicting the inevitable collapse of that particular political centre. It bears responsibility for many of the problems that currently exist, including the rise of right-wing populism.<br /><br />The trouble is that out of this critique comes a sense that the poles outside that centre have themselves, therefore, some common ground between them, in opposing it. But, they don't. Much as I despise that centre ground, I would prefer it over Trump, Le Pen, Farage, Putin et al, any day of the week, and be prepared to give critical support, and engage in tactical alliances with it, to defeat the Right, just as Marx and Engels united with bourgeois Liberals to oppose reaction.<br /><br />Out of this mindset of opposing the liberal centre, and some kind of shared interests with the right has come, in the past, Stalinist Third Period idiocy, as well as more recently the kind of idiot anti-imperialism that linked up sections of the left with various reactionary states, movements and demagogues, whose viciously anti-working class, and anti-modernist ideas and actions were ignored in order to focus on their supposed "anti-imperialism". <br /><br />The same approach lies behind the otherwise unfathomable support given by sections of "The left" to the thoroughly reactionary, dictatorial regime of Putin. And the same applies to Brexit/EU, where for years, sections of the Left adopted the same reactionary nationalist outlook of the hard right.<br /><br />Clearly, its not just the far right that have been captured by, and are pursuing the ideas of National Bolshevism as developed by Strasser and his cothinkers, those ideas are infecting sections of the Left too.Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-85148501655269911362019-01-07T08:43:25.089+00:002019-01-07T08:43:25.089+00:00Bastani's contortions on the EU (and failure ...Bastani's contortions on the EU (and failure to turn up to a debate he'd agreed to where he promised to defend them) and wretched failure to defend his stance on Remembrance Day and poppies when on 'Any Questions' (he simply denied that he'd said what he said) mark him out as an ill-educated poseur with no serious principled base to his r-r-radical posturing. Whether the comments about his academic qualifications are true or not is neither here nor there.Jim Denhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01642992463679646250noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-6244103931928423232019-01-06T21:19:43.753+00:002019-01-06T21:19:43.753+00:00Copy-editing error in my previous post re:Jeremy D...Copy-editing error in my previous post re:Jeremy Duns and the possibility of external motivation. <br /><br />Par two, second sentence, should end "and with such confidence."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-79947028580453695062019-01-06T18:30:07.965+00:002019-01-06T18:30:07.965+00:00If I had to put money on it, I would bet a fair su...If I had to put money on it, I would bet a fair sum that Jeremy Duns was put up to this by someone with intelligence connections - and that's not something I've suspected about him before (despite his long history of writing articles debunking various myths about MI5, MI6, the SAS, etc).<br /><br />I can't put my finger on why, exactly. Perhaps it's the fact that he's over-reaching so dramatically, and with such. It's how one might behave if given a high-level steer from a spook for the first/second/third time. (The speed with which JD's argument has hit the rocks could also be interpreted as an indicator of that naivety, meaning that he was used to ""surface" a dodgy smear-story, and has now been hung out to dry as its sole author).<br /><br />Again, though, this is purely my own supposition and I have no objective evidence whatsoever to support it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com