tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post8879829822632082109..comments2024-03-27T09:14:27.496+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: In Defence of the Anti-Austerity DemoPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-41888847342421132422015-06-23T16:48:58.813+01:002015-06-23T16:48:58.813+01:00I think Trotsky would have a few issues with Liz K...I think Trotsky would have a few issues with Liz Kendall being the 'guiding light' of the 'movement'!<br /><br />New Labour of course represent the piston of capitalism as usual!!<br /><br />The anti Zionist part of anonymous's comment gave it away, no wonder anonymous lept to the defence of Aaronovitch!<br /><br />But your attempt to do it while posing as radicals are really those who support the status quo will not wash.<br /><br />But don't worry, New Labour can be relied upon as a staunch supporter of the racist Israeli state for many years to come, so rest easy, I mean who cares if they have capitulated to neo Liberalism when they can be relied upon to support whatever outrage Israel carry out next.BCFGnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-38298536456323389072015-06-23T15:20:45.000+01:002015-06-23T15:20:45.000+01:00"Labour lost big time (and I'm gutted abo..."Labour lost big time (and I'm gutted about that)"<br /><br />Then don't feel so gutted, because the idea that Labour lost big time is just Tory and Blairite spin!<br /><br />The last government had a majority of around 80. This government's majority has been reduced to just 12. How does that reflect the idea that Labour lost big time?<br /><br />Labour won as many additional seats in England as the Tories. The idea that Labour lost support is just factually wrong. In fact, Labour's vote share increased by a bigger proportion in England than that of the Tories by some margin.<br /><br />The truth is that Labour moved ahead strongly in England, whilst the Tories only moved ahead by taking the seats of their erstwhile Liberal allies.<br /><br />If we look at where Labour lost heavily it was in Scotland, where they suffered from having joined in the Popular Frontist "Better Together Campaign" with the Liberals and Tories - see the discussion above on why Popular Fronts will do that to you if you are a socialist!<br /><br />The SNP were able to present themselves as to the left of labour - even though they are conservative nationalists - in the same way that the Liberals were able to do that until they merged with the Tories in 2010.<br /><br />Similarly, the peasant parties such as the Greens were able to strike up a similar fake left pose, which took votes from Labour. The votes that Labour lost in England, apart from those scared by the nationalist bogeyman, were largely people who saw Labour as not being sufficiently left and radical.<br /><br />Some of those who voted for UKIP, even fell into that category. As with the fireman on the Labour leaders debate, who had voted UKIP as a protest because he was opposed to the cuts the fire service and others had suffered, and so could not vote Tory, but found Labour's opposition to the cuts not robust enough.<br /><br />Once again, it shows the problem of opposing cuts or other things, without putting forward a sharp clear programme as an alternative. It show the problem of lumping yourself in with the great mass in some Popular Frontist organisation, where clear socialist politics get drowned out.Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-62040851529043664332015-06-23T13:42:56.483+01:002015-06-23T13:42:56.483+01:00In Defence of David Aaronovitch.
And where better...In Defence of David Aaronovitch.<br /><br />And where better to start defending Mr Aaronovitch than with a quote from Trotsky -<br /><br />"Without a guiding organisation, the energy of the masses would dissipate like steam not enclosed in a piston-box. But nevertheless what moves things is not the piston or the box, but the steam." (Preface History of the Russian Revolution.)<br /><br />So, who were the "pistons" on offer on Saturday?<br /><br />1. The SWP (Weyman Bennett) - Fell out with Respect big time and spat out Counterfire.<br /><br />2. Counterfire (John Rees) - Behind the People's Assembly but were the big honchos in the SWP CC at the time of the fallout with Respect and subsequently expelled.<br /><br />3. Respect. (Lee Jasper) - See above. Best known for George Galloway (loved by some and loathed by many).<br /><br />There are other pistons, of course, such as the Socialist Party (who didn't seem to have been invited to speak at this gathering).<br /><br />So, a lot of pistons (who don't get on) and a lot of steam generated on Saturday. <br /><br />So, where do they go from here?<br /><br />The big rallying cry for the Far Left at the moment is, of course, Jeremy Corbyn's Leadership bid. As I wrote over on "Shiraz Socialist" -<br /><br />"So, who’s backing Jeremy, then?<br /><br />Tories, Communists, Thatcherites, Trotskyists, Reaganites, neo-Trotskyists, Ukippers, cryto-Trotskyites, Islamists, ultra-left union leaders, anti-Zionists, Right-Wing weirdos, Guardianistas, Torygraph readers, Left-Wing weirdos, Guido Fawkes, Left Unity, Guido Fawkes’s cat, Bennites, Louise Mensch, Seamus Milne, Frank Field, Stop the War, George Galloway….<br /><br />and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all.<br /><br />And who’s opposing Jeremy?<br /><br />Anyone who wants Labour to have a chance to win the next election"<br /><br />Phil wrote in his article above re the views of the commentariat -<br /><br />"Parliament is the only sovereign decision-making body in the land. Politics is about presenting your wares at election time, getting voted in (or not), and then laying off until the next round of elections."<br /><br />I think that most people in the country do believe that Parliament is the only "sovereign decision-making body" in the land. Labour lost big time (and I'm gutted about that) but the Labour Party is not "laying off" as you put it. There is a Leadership election and a debate about where things went wrong and how best to try and win over Tory voters to win in five years time.<br /><br />As ever, there is a split between mainstream Labour and the Far -Left. The latter want believe that the most pressing issue is promoting their particular view of socialism (and there's a huge variety to choose from) and the former want to try and win elections even if it means a painful compromise with an increasingly, conservative, nationalistic (SNP, UKIP) electorate. I'm with the latter. The former just want to see reruns of 1983.<br /><br />At the moment, I'm with Nick Cohen on the Leadership election and inclined to vote for Liz Kendall. Why?<br /><br />1. She stands the best chance of L:about doing well in the next General Election.<br /><br />2. It will make my old mates in the Socialist Party very happy ("SEE! We told you so!") and would, hopefully lead to a greater exodus of the Far-Left from the Labour Party. This should even help Labour even more.<br /><br />Then the Trotskyists, Stalinists, Islamists, anti-Zionists, Gallowayites, Bennites, etc. etc. can all put their differences together under the Leadership of Jeremy Corbyn to put forward their "bold Socialist Programme" to the Electorate in five years time. Let's see how they fare.<br /><br /><br />John R<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-13982235041255630712015-06-23T11:24:07.618+01:002015-06-23T11:24:07.618+01:00Am I being thick or are there no comments on Satur...Am I being thick or are there no comments on Saturdays?<br /><br />Anyhow, why does your interviewee tweet from Pittsburgh with a beard? Do we have a scandal of another Councillor living abroad or is the link wrong?!<br /><br />It is instructive to compare the two demos. The Naked Cyclists are much more successful as a movement, and - with all the other cyclist activists - are slowly changing the culture. Their communications are not working though, since climate change is peripheral to the problem. If practical Zero Emissions vehicles, available now at reasonable prices and charged off solar panels, are around, the pollution and climate arguments evaporate. It has to be about lifestyle.<br /><br />But they have a working model to point out (Holland Holland Look at Holland - it is nice to bike, the children aren't fat, and slightly fewer people on bikes get killed).<br /><br />Equally they have proven strategies that will produce incremental change locally, and have been shown to do so in some places. It just needs 30 years of slogging and persuasion!<br /><br />For the other demo, where are the working models? And what happened to all the people?<br /><br />Parliament Square holds 20-25k, even being generous about people not there, they overestimated by 5-8 times. I'd expect a double claim, but I'd say they are deluding themselves as to the size of their silent support - an important point as you identify.<br /><br />More strategically, what are they going to do if Osborne and Duncan-Smith make the project work, and in a few years there are a mass of small businesses, less than 1 million unemployed, and a strengthening of prosperity in the North?<br />Matt Wardmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-91233073344663894662015-06-22T16:59:08.042+01:002015-06-22T16:59:08.042+01:00Positive solutions were put forward, many of them ...Positive solutions were put forward, many of them classically socialist or at the very least classically social democratic. Boffy either wasn’t listening or just falling back into his dogmatic handbook which says demo = anti something.<br /><br />While this March will have little immediate affect ona Tory party that has shown itself to be thoroughly debased it does tell us that there is a sizeable bloc of people who have not bought into the propaganda of the BBC, the Sun and the Mail (let us add Sky news into this abysmal mix), it also boosts Corbyns profile and reminds the New Labour cabal that they have at least to pay attention to social democratic voices.<br /><br />Incidentally, from my point of view the Tories do not represent the small business owner in particularly but they reflect the consciousness of the manager class. I was looking at some savings suggestions today and was interested by those from middle management. One example was (I paraphrase) <br /><br />“We should consider not paying sick pay as this will save money and encourage people to not stay off as long. This is a real problem in my service area“<br /><br />What a one sided view! Firstly, what the manager wants is people to work when they are sick, which could have all sorts of long term costs – lower productivity, exhausted workers, deteriorating long term health, higher turnover of staff etc etc etc.<br /><br />And secondly, the manager hasn’t stopped to think that the reason for high sickness may be their bad management!<br /><br />This is a classic managers view of workers and one reflected in the Tory party.<br />BCFGnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-27322582627896242652015-06-22T10:00:26.861+01:002015-06-22T10:00:26.861+01:00Phil,
I agree with the general thrust of what you...Phil,<br /><br />I agree with the general thrust of what you say, but I think that the WW critique is also valid. That is basically:<br /><br />(1) The 2 million on the Iraq demo of which I was one, didn't stop the ensuing Wars(s). <br /><br />(2) Repeated demonstrations over cuts for as long as I can remember, going back to the 1970's, have not prevented governments introducing them. <br /><br />(3) Part of the problem of these types of demo (1) and (2) is precisely that they do draw in a wide variety of participants, i.e. they are vague in their objectives, and popular frontist in their politics - the former being a necessary condition determined by the latter.<br /><br />(4) the vagueness is most clearly represented by the fact that the only message that can be discerned is that those involved in it are once again "anti" something, rather than being actually for something. Popular Fronts can never actually be "for" something, because the reality is that all those varying political forces involved are actually "for" different and conflicting things. That will be seen most clearly in the upcoming EU referendum where the SWP and SP will be making common cause with UKIP and the Tory Right to withdraw from Europe, even though these political forces claim to be "for" completely different political objectives.<br /><br />Having said that, I thought the numbers on the march this soon after the election were impressive. But, the point is rather like Marx's argument in "Value, Price and Profit" in relation to strikes they are a necessary minimum, even though they change nothing in practice. They are a necessary minimum as a means of rallying workers and putting to them a positive alternative to just doing the same old ineffective thing over and over again.<br /><br />The problem for organisations like the SWP and SP and their various splinters, is that they have no real vision as an alternative to workers other than doing these same things over and over again, because the reality of their vision is only to "build the party" member by member, from these various popular fronts.<br /><br />The consequence is, as with Respect that the politics to the extent they existed to begin with get blurred, and then dragged down to those of the most reactionary elements of the popular front.<br /><br />To move forward clear politics are required, based not on being "anti" whatever it is, but on being positively for a socialist solution.<br /><br />Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-8981945529357622182015-06-22T08:28:18.431+01:002015-06-22T08:28:18.431+01:00Varying degrees of democracy, like class struggle,...Varying degrees of democracy, like class struggle, happen all the time.WillORNGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03759801640058517521noreply@blogger.com