Owen Smith and his fantasy league EU
Philip Roddis
Remember this man? It’s close to three years ago he split the delightfully small Anyone-But-Corbyn vote when Angela Eagle, too lacking in self awareness to see she was just a stalking horse, made her ridiculous bid for Labour leadership in July 2016.
I say ‘ridiculous’ advisedly, given her parliamentary history and embarrassing lack of bona fides. But it’s Owen not Angela I have in mind here. Yesterday the Guardian ran his piece, Face the facts … Lexit is dead.
Now I have a drop or two of sympathy with that sentiment, though for reasons far removed from his. I’ll get to those in a moment. First a reminder not to take the specifics of any attack on Jeremy Corbyn – with this piece an unusually sugar coated example – at face value. As with war on Syria, shooting terrorists for Laura, IRA funeralgate, Hamasgate, VirginTraingate, CrapDressergate and the antisemite slurs, Smith’s piece folds specific charges – by rightwing Labour members who may or may not believe them true but operate on a Needs Must When the Devil Drives basis – into the ongoing project to remove the first Labour leader in living memory to challenge ‘austerity’ in the name of social justice.
Smith begins:
The Labour party should have known which side it was on in this Brexit debate a long time ago. Our belief in equality, freedom and internationalism should have meant that we knew there could be no “jobs-first” Brexit, no Labour Brexit, or indeed any Brexit that we could accept. We should have been more passionate in the fight against a leave campaign that was always a project of the right, for the right and by the right. At times, we pretended there might be a deal that wouldn’t eat into the political and financial capital that a radical Labour government needs. We failed to mention that there were leftwing allies in Europe who could help us achieve our goals.
Two things about this paragraph. In its first sentence we see a dismissal of millions of Leavers, many in the Labour heartlands, as Wrongheaded Plebs whose views should not be given time of day. Smith – in bed with Big Pharma, and paid lobbyist for a biotech firm fined a cool three-quarter billion dollars for “pursuing profits at the risk of patient safety” – exudes the contempt, laced with revolving door venality, in which New Labour holds workers. Too clever to come out and say so, his opening shot is Graunspeak for Leave Voters Are Racists and Morons.
My second issue is with that little word, always, tucked into sentence three. This is where things get tricky. Precisely because the issue has been so damaging to the Tory Party, which of course is why we are where we are, the left case against the EU has not since the seventies been heard in the mainstream. While Smith alludes in his short piece to Tony Benn, he does so fleetingly:
For decades the EU has been viewed by some on the hard left as an obstacle to the socialist transformation of the UK. Tony Benn fought against the UK remaining part of Europe in the 1975 referendum. And his allies believed that the EU was undemocratic, a proxy for elitist neoliberal globalisation through alliances with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and others. That view soon became overtaken by the EU’s emergence as a defender of workers, human rights and the environment that made Boris Johnson boil with rage, first as a journalist and then as a Tory politician.
It’s a measure of Smith’s alignment with the Extreme Centre that he can refer to Tony Benn, a classic parliamentarian and old style fabian, as ‘hard left’ but I’ll let that pass. My objection is to that breezy depiction of the EU as “defender of workers, human rights and the environment”. Its cosmetic stances may indeed make Boris boil – or as I say, pretend to – but try telling Greeks on below subsistence pensions that the EU defends workers. Try telling those who fought to have the iniquities of TTIP exposed, while the EU did its damnedest to sneak them in, that it puts People Before Profits. And try telling Extinction Rebellion that the EU is serious about threats to our environment from the deadly laws of capital accumulation – laws that reward Smith but make a mockery of Brussels attempts to paper over widening cracks in the delicate ecosystems that make Planet Earth inhabitable.
As Upton Sinclair famously observed, it’s hard to get a man to see a truth his salary depends on him not seeing.
Smith makes no mention of such things. Nor does he counter those claims, with which I agree, that the EU allies with an IMF and World Bank that serve as outrunners for super exploitation in the global south, of which the Brussels bankers are prime beneficiaries. Rather, he leaves the claims dangling. Too ridiculous for words? Or marking the outer – there be dragons – limits of Smith’s comfort zone? Either way, this pretender was no more fit than Eagle to replace Corbyn.
And yet … there’s a scintilla of truth in that last cited passage, a scintilla he stumbles on in his claim that the “leave campaign … was always a project of the right”. Well it wasn’t always and isn’t the entire picture now but, that exercise in revisionism aside, I agree that its current form is so dominated by rightwing voices as to leave Lexit in the dust. Which is why I get stick from all sides on Brexit. In the run up to the Referendum I had long arguments with Lexiteers – some of them in Trotskyite splinter sects – armed with EU analyses far superior to those of mainstream Remainers and Leavers both, but unable to tell me just how a Brexit led by such throwbacks as Jacob Rees Mogg, and such rank opportunists as Boris, could in the current climate possibly be a gain for workers.
Of all the arguments I could make to show the lack of realpolitik here, let me cite two. One is the joy with which, on the morning of June 26 2016, Europe’s far right, from France’s National Front to Hungary’s Jobbik, reacted to the news from London. The other is that Yannis Varoufakis – a man who, having stared into the dead eyes of the EU in its cold, mercilessly neoliberal true form, has more reason than most to loathe it – sees no viable alternative to reform from within.
Now if you tell me Varoufakis, a man with a sound grasp of how the world works, is himself not realistic here – that an EU predicated on neoliberalism in a predatory global order can no more be reformed than can the US Empire – you’re preaching to the choir. For all his intelligence, and a command of history that puts Smith’s philistine ramblings to shame; for all his erudition and powers of analysis too, Varoufakis is open to the charge of whistling in the wind on this matter.
All the same, until I hear what I haven’t so far heard – the outlining of a convincing strategy for securing post-Brexit social justice in the current climate – I can’t, alas, take Lexit seriously. That this view coincides superficially with Owen Smith’s is regrettable, but I can live with the fact.
My vote on Brexit? None. Of. The. Above. Sorry about that. I don’t like it any more than you do.
I’ll work on it.
In the meantime, since his name has come up, I’m mulling on the words – as best I recall them – of one Leon Trotsky. The context was the sectarianism on the German Left which, eschewing tactical alliance with the Social Democrats, allowed Hitler to take office and then power.
Suppose two men are trying to kill me. One is armed with a revolver while the other slips small doses of arsenic into my daily porridge. How I respond is not a question of ‘lesser evil’ but the needs of the hour. My first act, surely, is not to neutralise the poisoner but to disarm the gunman and use his weapon to kill both of my would be assassins.
Say what you like about old Leon – a superb writer, by the way – he knew a thing or two about the difference between principles and priorities.
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It’s true!
Week after week, when Corbyn had to win his leadership for a second time, this boring creep was featured almost daily in The Guardian.
Every time he opened his mouth, someone from The Guardian was there to take down his undistinguished words and photograph him.
Pathetic. Obvious.
But that’s today’s Guardian, day-in, day-out.
https://sputniknews.com/business/201904091073949259-france-europe-usa-airbus-tariffs/
Dont worry folks you do get to leave the EU and with France no less. Cant wait to see Merkels face when she realises Macron is a US stooge whose job it is to deliver AirBus to the septic tanks. He is selling everything to them.
Not so fast – yesterday’s news are already obsolete.
Today we read that there will be an agreement between the EU (led by France in this case) and China on reforming WTO. That’s a good axis, from Le Havre to Shanghai and everything in between. Of course there will be more airbus sales when boeing has shot themselves in the foot. Trump had invited Macron to dinner in the WH and the real Emperor was there, too, Rupert M. But then Trump still slapped the tariffs on France and Macron has not been the same since. US and Brits go confrontational and noisy – Europeans and Chinese move forward quietly. The EU will survive and in 20 years time Britain will see it as advantageous to ask if they may rejoin.
https://tomluongo.me/2019/04/06/germany-dead-economy-walking/
The yellow vests and Brexit are a preplanned pincer designed to destroy the EU so that 10 kingdoms can rise in its place. Macron is doing his bit. And May is doing hers.
I voted remain ostensibly on better environmental regulations (and worker’s rights) but this was before the Troika destroyed Greece and before I discovered Cory Morningstar’s meticulously researched blog – The Art of Annihilation, on the exploitation of good intentions… http://www.theartofannihilation.com/the-manufacturing-of-greta-thunberg-a-decade-of-social-manipulation-for-the-corporate-capture-of-nature-crescendo/
“On February 21, 2019, the European Commission was the latest to embrace and promote Thunberg: “The teenager opened a European Commission event in front of President Jean-Claude Juncker where she told politicians to stop ‘sweeping their mess under the carpet for our generation to clean up.’” Here again, Thunberg’s demands, on behalf of the youth participating in the climate strikes, are identified:
“We want you to follow the Paris agreement and the IPCC reports we don’t have any other manifests or demands. Just unite behind the science. That is our demand.” [Video]
Here we have three key players of capitalist hegemony, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum and the European Commission – all promoting Thunberg in unprecedented fashion. Institutions housing individuals that systematically pillage the planet in exchange for economic growth, power and profits have been magically moved to protect the planet.
What is unbeknownst to the populace is the fact that all three of these institutions are founding partners of the Climate Finance Partnership’s Blended Finance Taskforce. The Climate Finance Partnership was formed under the leadership of French President Emmanuel Macron who announced the partnership on September 26, 2018 at the One Planet Summit held in New York. Partners include the Governments of France and Germany.”
———–
I’m sure Extinction Rebellion were set up with the very best of intentions, as indeed are it’s worldwide participants. However, it has simply become a tool of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, which (as is always the case) ‘herds the cats’ in the direction of maximum benefit for those at the very top. Here, Cory reveals the last bastion of partially untapped public wealth – the $100 trillion USD pension pot.
“The Blended Finance Taskforce (ACT IV of this series) is comprised of fifty icons of finance including the MacArthur Foundation (World Resources Institute), the Rockefeller Foundation and ClimateWork Foundation. [Full list]
The same article sheds light on the “violent agreement” to unlock $100 trillion USD:
“A detailed analysis by the World Bank found that while $100 trillion is held by pension funds and other institutional investors, these same investors allocated less than $2 trillion over a 25 year period into infrastructure investment in emerging markets. And the fraction of that investment that could be considered green, clean, or climate-friendly was negligible.
So, what can be done? Whether you choose to look through the lens of unprecedented challenge or unprecedented opportunity, there is violent agreement that institutional capital needs to be “unlocked” (a favorite word on the climate conference circuit) and mobilized quickly and at scale.” [Emphasis added]
The foundations involved in climate policy from inception, that continue to work hand-in-hand with select NGOs and NGO leaders, are the same foundations to benefit from the Climate Finance Partnership. The roadmap to unlocking 100 trillion dollars is identified in pension funds. The roadmap to the privatization and financialization of nature, global in scale, is the interlocking directorate of the non-profit industrial complex, a matrix of overlapping highways of hegemony.
To be clear: The money for multi-billion-dollar corporations – to create privatized services and industries, under the guise of environmental protection, is going to be PAID FOR BY THE PUBLIC – BUT THE PUBLIC WILL NOT OWN THEM.”
Please read and share widely. http://www.theartofannihilation.com/
Just wondering how you voted in the 2016 referendum before the EU screwed Greece in 2015.
There’s a lot of interesting information about Gail Bradbrook at nowhere.news which I have been recently acquainted with.
Thanks, Nixon. Looks like just my sort of site – will keep me busy 😉
Truly, Owen Smith is the non-entity’s non-entity. A man so dull, paint watches HIM dry.
Hang on a sec – who was this article about, again? I’ve already forgotten.
He was an Ace Viagra Salesman.
Parliament, in which the bulk of the Opposition is in agreement with the government and opposed to carrying out the mandate of withdrawing from the EU, is part of the problem.
But the real problem is parliamentary fetishism itself. It might have been deduced that a referendum vote was necessary because the public distrusted Parliament and insisted on making its views clear in the face of Parliament. And that, because this was so, because the vote to Leave was so contradictory of the known and often expressed views of most MPs and of all major political parties-the leaders of which campaigned for the losing side, it might have been obvious that the time had come to take this matter to the streets, to build a mass movement around a platform of leaving the EU and taking concrete measures to transform society to replace an arrangement the majority rejected.
Instead not only has the matter been left in the untrusted hands of MPs but MPs known to have been determined to thwart the will of their own constituents-not to mention that of the people as a whole- were, thanks to the corruption of the system, re-nominated and re-elected to sabotage the wishes of their constituents.
The first question that ought to have been asked of, for example, any candidate seeking the approval of the Labour Party, should have been “Where do you stand on the question of leaving the EU?” Instead of which hundreds of candidates known to be wedded to the EU and opposed to the Party’s position of carrying out the will of the people, were allowed to disguise themselves as committed to the Party’s manifesto, and subsequently to reform as a Fifth Column within the PLP.
We are thus in a position in which the mass response, on the streets and elsewhere -strikes are an obvious course to take- is going to be taken not by the socialist Opposition-which has thrown away the sort of political opportunity that arises very rarely, to place itself at the head of a national movement in favour of radical change- but by tiny but well financed and very professional proto-fascist cadres, threatening to run away with a movement calling for democracy and equality and turn it into ultra right nationalism of the fascistic variety.
The matter of reforming the EU from within is no longer on the agenda- the people have spoken, so has the European Central Bank. The people in Labour constituencies have spoken very clearly, with the only opposition Brexit having faced coming from a Blairite faction opposed to democracy of all kinds- that is where the Kinnocks and Smiths are coming from. And what they have done, while the attention of the nation should have been focused on the future, the need to change and the challenges of building a new society, is to insist that, unless we are antisemitic, we should be cheering the IDF snipers in Gaza or bombing Syrian Army positions to facilitate the advance of jihadists financed by imperialism.
Thus it is that on the eve of a major crisis, which can easily be blown up by the ruling class into an economic storm, Labour has no viable plan to take advantage of a situation in which the country is calling out for new leadership and a passage into the future.
Instead it has a PLP in which the overwhelming bulk of the MPs are untrustworthy and disloyal-to their constituents- and committed to sacrificing everything to securing their individual futures. )To be honest many of them are too blinded by ideology to realise that this is their position but it adds up to the same thing.)
Principles and priorities: I can only speak for myself – because it is not part of the consensus criticism …but entropy renders the EU and globalisation – not as redundant – but as omnicidal and inimical to all life. I have provided more detailed analysis elsewhere – but EU/NATO Atlantic Integrationism is a prelude to perhaps the final act of humanity. As an oppositional force to Eurasian Integrationism – in the big non-nuclear proxy hybrid warfare for what material resources – particularly energy resources – that are left …well, we risk checking out as an unviable species – even is only by mistake.
The EU have usurped our sovereignty and unified our military under its own command and control structure – presented by Mogherini as a ‘fait accomplis’ – at the Munich Security Conference. We are now under a satrapy government of occupation – a peripheralised EU protectorate under the control of a foreign potentate.
Which foreign potentate is not entirely clear. What is clear is the EU’s civil military intention to form a ‘good cop/bad cop’ gangster protectioneering racket with NATO for foreign and City capital. There is no EU ‘Defence Union’ without our military involvement. We have – or we had – the bulk of the inter-operable forces and around 40% of the necessary manufacturing capacity. We have watched High Treason and Constitutional rape pass as Brexit negotiations.
I can’t really see why anyone would advocate any sort of continued relationship with a failing, globalist, depoliticising, constitutional destitution that would ensure only poverty and immiseration in perpetuity for any constituent member. And we are not even constituent members – the City is – or at least that should become apparent when it writes itself its own dispensations (derogations) from whatever High Treasonous deal our corrupt and traitorous politicians encumber us with. We will be peripheral members of a Two-Tier (Two-Speed) EU with the Franco-German federation alone in the top tier. Probably to be joined by the City: with the appropriate ‘derogations’ (dispensations) from EU Treaty Law (such as the exemption from the Eurozone; etc).
As resources become scarcer, and more expensive to extract – due to thermodynamic entropy – capital will be forced to invest more capital in the protection and maintenance of markets – and less and less in the fabric and infrastructure of society. This is already apparent, and will become more or less inevitable as entropy increases. That means plenty of money for militarisation and market expansion, stabilisation, and neoliberal state building – and none for us. As entropy progresses further: the EU Eurodrones and attack helicopters under construction will find new domestic battlefields to police – deployed cross-border as the paramilitarised EURO-GENDFOR. ‘Lex paciferat’ – EU Treaty Law will bring peace. For the Banks.
If this seems a bit harsh portrayal of the EU: study entropy and capital. Anyone who thinks the EU is reformable – including the sheepdog Varoukafascist – is someway behind the curve. All the facts contained above are verifiable through the UK Column. The entropy analysis as the fundamental force driving the EU integrated, self-appointed ‘Superpower’ is my own.
So Lexit: this only really becomes a viable alternative if it is accompanied by a mass raising of the Precariat consciousness. The EU and globalisation present a clear and present danger to all life on earth. Translated into the only thing that makes the Precariat think – a threat to the value and quality of its collective living standard – being in the EU all but guarantees paramilitary enforced pauperisation. However, crashing out without a deal – which has always been the best option (see in empiric detail Bill Mitchell’s take over the last two years) – will only lead to Class Traitor’s Corbyn or (soon to be replaced) May – negotiating some other neoliberal humanity betraying treason to encumber us with. With traitors to the Left, and traitors to the Right – we have a Constitutional legitimation crisis. We are between a rock and a hard place.
But there only a small minority who see it that way. As I see it: the UK has two major priorities – food and energy sovereignty and justice. Tax and social justice are sub-sets of this. We need to cut back drastically on the resources we use: distributing them equitably throughout the reformed nation state – under our own regained sovereignty and Constitution. The world can no longer afford ‘haves and have nots’, privilege, and entitlement. We all must be universally humanised in an affordable and egalitarian manner. Anyone committed to equality, freedom and internationalism must understand what they truly mean in an entropic world. No more fantasy champagne socialist policies.
That said: the EU is locked into a death spiral of militaristic, sub-imperial, protectionist, and carnivore-culture ‘fight-to-the-death’ corporate and financialised mentality – primarily with Russia. It does not give a fuck about jobs – first, last, or ever. All it cares about is capital investment potential, protectionism, and peace – for the Banks. Nothing but a mass exposition and explosion of the myth of ‘jobs for all’ can alleviate the ineluctable descent into an entropic hell. The industrialised capitalist age has long ended. The financialised capitalist era is upon us, but can only be short lived. Subvention to federalised corporatist supranational state power regime and federalist, militarist, paramilitarist, infrastructure is like opening our arms to our own private fascist hell on earth. I better start self-basting, and setting the oven to roasting – for all we will be inviting.
As ever with your comments, BigB, there’s much food for thought. But allow me to make an observation as one who, a few fundamental differences with you notwithstanding, has long respected your sincerity and intelligence. It saddens me therefore to see you indulging in cheap ad hominems – “Varoukafascist”, “class traitor Corbyn” – more worthy of the juvenile minority here than of your normally mature prose.
Sorry Phillip: but given the level of betrayal that our so-called leaders are showing they are capable of – tensions are running high. They are with me anyway.
OK, ‘Varoukafascist’ is a cheap shot: but ‘class traitor Corbyn is not. From the long list of his betrayals of humanity – from supporting the White Helmets and regime change in Syria (by proxy support of the charity regime-change Jo Cox Foundation); made ambivalent by his public position of opposing intervention (characterised by his speech “Many more have been killed by the Assad regime than by ISIL itself” …three months before 163 children were blown apart by NATO proxies at Rashidin – as you must have seen me comment to time and time again.
He is not just confused: he has been playing a deliberate cat and mouse game with his adoring public – one I have been keen to draw attention to the discrepancy between his public persona – and his actual avowed position. Positions I maintain many are keen to turn a blind eye to. Child murder is hardly a vote winner.
The list goes on: through his major appeasement of political Zionism – and betrayal of the Palestinian cause – culminating in disowning Hajo Meyer’s “Never Again” anti-Zionism and accepting the IHRA. This was a major retrograde step in appeasement – betraying universalism and cementing an unworkable definition of race into the 21st century politico-ideological discourse. At a time when we should be moving toward a Universal Humanism – discarding race as a racist construct …for which I am in full concurrence with Lewontin’s sentiment. As I commented to under one of your previous articles.
I’ll skip through his support for the arch-imperialist Browder, and his racist Magnitsky Sanction regime; his avowed Russophobia and support of Navalny; his support of the NATO war criminals; his idiotic statements about Skripalgate: in order to get to the order of the day – his anti-Constitutional, post-truth, post-democracy Brexit betrayal.
There is a very clear Constitutional protocol in this country – we vote: the MPs are Constitutionally obligated to carry out our will. Anyone who does not is in abrogation of their oath to the Queen and duty to the public. Suffice to say: that includes Corbyn.
But not only is he not carrying out the will of the people – as he is obligated to – he is in open collusion with the EU to keep us in the Customs Union and Single Market. Or we vote again in a PV. No need to Labour that point, but that is keeping us in the EU.
If you are not aware of the implications of EU Military Unification: you might want to get up to speed over at the Column. You might then wonder what someone who characterised the Lisbon Treaty as an “EU Empire” and “military Frankenstein” in 2009 – is doing making that “military Frankenstein” an actualised entity? And ceding sovereignty that is not his to cede – betraying Parliamentary omnipotence – to a foreign potentate.
The EU is not as it is being portrayed. It is exactly as he foresaw it would be. Now that is a reality: he is actively betraying our Constitution and sovereignty to the EU Empire. What else shall I call a person who can so easily betray their own principles, their own vision, their own democracy, their own countries sovereignty, placing the Queen in perjury, and betraying their constituents to EU/NATO suzerainty. I can think of other words: but out of politeness and respect – I am sticking to ‘class traitor’.
No they’re not! Unfortunately, eg, the ‘Independent Group’. Unfortunately, the biggest ‘mistake’ the Momentum mob made was not fighting for selection/deselection at the local branch level to be mandatory. They’re all party nomenclatura, including JC, the whole fucking damn lot of them! They’ve betrayed the millions they claim to represent in order to hang on to their so-called power. It’s been this way for decades and the rest of the ‘left’ have gone along with it, aside from the scurrilous ‘Entryists’ and their sectarian, juvenile bullshit.
Once JC committed to the Election drive[l], game over. As I’ve said many times, JC is a ‘party’ man. The Labour Party comes first, hence his cowardice over Palestine, NATO, Syria, even bullshit Brexit, as his (alleged) positions on these issues got in the way of business. Call it Real Politik but that’s the Parliamentary game and always has been.
How do we change this pathetic situation? Wait for the bastards to die off! So give it another 10-15 years minimum until a new generation matures hopefully without the dead hand of the hacks. In the meantime focus on developing a viable alternative and for example, try to guide the mis-guided Extinction/Rebellion posse in the right direction. After all, they’re puttig their arses on the line, literally. As for the ‘real’ lefties, well ’nuff said.
“charity regime-change Jo Cox Foundation” what’s that? Just interested
https://www.mintpressnews.com/jo-cox-assassination-white-helmets-humanitarianism-regime-change/246646/
Entropy news at peakprosperity.com if anyone not already reading about this angle.
As the Ghawar oil field enters permanent decline and the shale oil starts to dry, as more and more people wake up to the increasingly obvious Federal Reserve manipulations of the bond and stock markets, as a whole generation of young people start to conclude that there is a much harder future of survival awaiting them we see the emergence of societal collapse consciousness. This is characterised by three responses : (1) a double down denial which sees a system merely in need of ‘adjustments’, (2) a magical thinking of techno-utopian psuedosocialism which just ignores the realites of entropic arguments; or, (3) despair.
None of them are that useful.
I think that many amongst the elites know what is coming and are getting prepared, whilst few among us really consider the wider picture when discussing Labour, Brexit….
….or Venezuela:
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/venezuelas-collapse-is-a-window-into-how-the-oil-age-will-unravel-f80aadff7786
When I’ve tried to engage Leftists on the issue of declining EROI I’ve found the same dismissal and accusation of ‘crankery’ as when other subjects are broached (State Crimes Against Democracy for example). How many articles mention it on OffG ?
The test of a good theory is its ability to make reliable predicitons. The thinkers who have understood and theorised around the role of energy in the economy (and therefore in politcs) have been shown much more reliable in predicting the unfolding events of the 21st century than those who don’t -on the whole. Yet they are still mostly ignored.
It’s not good.
Gail Tverberg predicted the collapse of ‘Fanny and Freddie’ (Mae and Mac) a year or so before it happened – using biophysical analysis. I’ve listened to her ever since: though I can’t quite capitulate to the neo-nihilist “We’re doomed …we’re all doomed” conclusion she has drawn.
And therein lies the problem – the scenario is bleak. Time and entropy are inexorable. It is easier to do fantasy negentropic economics – toward the idealised future, where poverty, disease, environmental catastrophe, gender politics and breast-feeding shaming are all fixed by exponentially increased wealth …a fantasy hopium Esperanto that is extant only in the collective pseudo-socialist imagination.
There is an undeclared element of time-symmetry (time is reversible and can flow either way) – pull a few economic levers and we will be back in a fully employed, trade unionism mediated, workers paradise of the post-war Keynesian “Trente Glorieuses”. Is that the workers fully realised vision: socially stratified class relations forever? Because ‘Clause IV’ is a quasi-paleolithic item in the British Museum now.
The aporia is that the longer entropy is under-realised, and not part of the political debate – not only is all political debate rendered a null hypothetique – but also, obviously, we are drastically curtailing any positive mitigation policies arising. The mitigation policies arising are all capitalised – addressed toward the privatisation and financialisation of the environment that is already underway – and true, socialised alternatives are yet to emerge. Humanity is sleepwalking into a corporatised, privatised, monetised present-future scenario – best described by Wolin’s ‘inverted totalitarianism’ – privatised democracy inc.. Or fascism and cultural genocide administered from the cognitive elite social strata – as a top-down processing by depoliticised bureaucratic fiat. And the pseudo-socialists are leading the way.
Anyone committed to equality, freedom, internationalism, and universalism – if these are the core socialist values – will have to redefine what they mean – to fully account for entropy. Growth is over. Cheap prosperity is over. Continued growth, unequally distributed, is a core imperialism. The biophysical finitude and limitational biocapacity of the ecosphere has been exceeded. A biocapacity of 1.7 planets is a dangerous overshoot that must be returned to 1.0 – better still, 0.85. The dangers of expanding exponential fantasy economics to push the planetary biocapacity to 2.0 planets – is not only dangerous …but omnicidal.
Reducing the throughput economics inline with entropy and breached biocapacity – reducing the world economic output by half – is going to take a MASSIVE shift in consciousness; applied to a whole new set of solutions that are unique to the 21st century. A 21st century politics that has yet to emerge, let alone come up with socialised Universal Humanist solutions. Meanwhile, we are doing 18th century politics subjected to 40 million year old limbic fear-first responses. Time and entropy are moving on without us. Capitalism is buying up the planet, lot by lot.
Aside from the big nuclear sendoff the ABM and INF tear-ups foretell – the other solutions are equally unconscionable. Pseudosocialism is unwittingly delivering us to corporate fascism – by not accounting for thermodynamics.
If there are any real socialists left: now would be a good time to come up with Universal Humanist solutions that forestall the capitalised monopolisation and privatisation of humanity and nature. Cos that is not a world I want to be part of. And I must admit to getting a bit Cranky myself with those who are unconsciously welcoming humanities nihilation in.
There is only enough energy (exergy) for a transversalisation (along the horizontal axis) and universal equalisation of civilisation. Under new management and common ownnership. Transferring that dwindling exergy into a corporatist supranational superstructure is fascistic and omnicidal. And that is exactly what the pseudosocialists are planning to do.
https://longhairedmusings.wordpress.com/2019/03/20/free-market-capitalism-its-their-future-i-had-a-brilliant-idea-for-21st-century-economics-a-live-streamed-dialogue-on-money-banking-and-political-economy-tina-the-village-bike-or-templ/
The its left its right , in or out is best leaves the meat of the whole subject unbothered by and serious questioning.
1. The Military Industrial Complex
2. The Money Power
3. The Corporate revolving door
4. United States Dollar hegemony ( Peanac)
5. Oceana or Eurasis
6. Brave New World for the 3%
7. 1984 for the 97%
https://longhairedmusings.wordpress.com/2019/03/12/the-military-industrial-complex-and-brexit-a-hypothesis-eumilitaryunification-brexit-brino-jocox-annalindh-olofpalme-tina/
THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX AND BREXIT. A HYPOTHESIS. #EUMILITARYUNIFICATION #BREXIT #BRINO #JOCOX #ANNALINDH #OLOFPALME #TINA
Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate
Through me you go to the grief wracked city; Through me you go to everlasting pain; Through me you go a pass among lost souls. Justice inspired my exalted Creator: I am a creature of the Holiest Power, of Wisdom in the Highest and of Primal Love. Nothing till I was made was made, only eternal beings. And I endure eternally. Abandon all hope — Ye Who Enter Here
https://longhairedmusings.wordpress.com/2018/07/29/hope-without-an-object-cannot-live-circular-economy-energy-and-debt/
https://bit.tube/play?hash=QmWLhEhdZPvTaL4dyF4XQ4do32pVaB1UWh3YUjvAYvegg1&channel=285685
This is a project I am involved in looking to provide tools for Canton Model direct democracy to work bu using a Wiki and a Dapp on the Open Source Web. ( Web 3)
https://bit.tube/play?hash=QmZHYQMmid5R26qos1wE8mTmkT2wXLxoazX46m4ZH4YN3r&channel=285685
In a democracy to talk of left Brexit or Right Brexit is playing the age old game that disenfranchises the vast majority of people. Oversight and accountability are what keeps any consented to governing institutions from going against its electorate. The EU and the House of commons are both rogue and illegitimate in that respect.
The EU by Tony Benn’s own tests is far worse.
“What power have you got?”
“Where did you get it from?”
“In whose interests do you use it?”
“To whom are you accountable?”
“How do we get rid of you?”
To step outta babylon
http://www.suesupriano.com/audio/RichardMoore01.mp3
Lets unify and stand aligned stepping outta Babylon
http://www.suesupriano.com/article.php
Labels die and go out of fashion. Liberty and the Idea of freedom and justice live forever,
Its a question of Emergence not emergency of Free will and not determinism.
Agnosticism and Atheism are workable in our human psychology but to abandon hope
is ill advised and perhaps not really possible.
Work without Hope
BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Lines Composed 21st February 1825
All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair—
The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing—
And Winter slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.
Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an object cannot live.
This SNL sketch is blocked in some browsers in Europe.
I wonder why?
I don’t see Britain’s trading relationship with the EU as being a political hill worth dying on and I doubt many other people do if they are honest. Polling ranking voters’ concerns on the eve of the 2015 election ranked the EU 19th out of 20 listed issues. However, a democratic vote was taken – the biggest in national history – and every angle discussed ad infinitum in the months leading up to the referendum. The only sensible course is to honour the referendum result in the same way the 1974 referendum result was honoured, without more ludicrously prolonged delay. Otherwise the suspicion will grow that an anti-democratic stich up is at hand.
“Otherwise the suspicion will grow that an anti-democratic stich up is at hand.”
that boat sailed on the 29th March
Good work Mr Roddis. We need to have this discussion because this is where the vast majority of people in Britain that we would hope to be receptive to left of centre views are at – and we need to engage with them, however difficult, and fraught that will be.
Agree entirely with ‘none of the above’ and like the clarity of the Trotsky quote – just struggling to work out which revolver to grab first – disarm the hard brexiteers to avoid neo liberalism on steroids or grapple with the drift towards fascism that will be exacerbated by anything from soft to no Brexit.
It seems that there is nothing new under the sun. Mr Roddis’ arguments seem to be a rerun of the lesser ‘evilist’ school of political expediency. Let’s go around the circuit again. You join the Remainer campaign in order to reform the EU from within. But of course you don’t really believe that this is possible (and you’d be very foolish to do so); however you have to keep mum and pretend that it is, hoping for a few crumbs along the way. Then you believe you will have your victorious moment when the inevitable failure takes place: you will have been exonerated and proven to have been right all along. Unfortunately by then it will be too late; you will have effectively been integrated into the political establishment just like Tspiras, and Syriza or the ‘left’ (sic) German Greens, the most vociferous pro-EU NATO party in Europe, Cohn-Bendit being the archetype from poacher to gamekeeper, Danny the Red, to Danny the Rat. This is what happens to people who try to reform the system from within. You will be seen quite rightly as liars and hypocrites. All rather like the imperative of joining the Labour and Democratic parties to convert them to left of centre views. And the evidence for outcome of this tactic? Clinton, Trump and Blair.
How many more times is this tried and failed strategy going to be repeated?
Away with this double-speak, party politics and adaptationism. Incremental reforms has failed, is failing and will continue to fail. Genuine change will come about when the mass of the people actually want it, not because of political jockeying and intrigue.
“On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right?
There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.”
Martin Luther King Jr. BTW
You quoted well know spy and all round charlatan Leon Trotsky! What the actual fuck!?
The first few albums were great but he started to lose me after Blood and Chocolate.
Bill Mitchell and Thomas Farzi have imo naild why the EU can’t be reformed in simple easily understandable terms: https://braveneweurope.com/thomas-fazi-and-william-mitchell-the-eu-cannot-be-democratised-heres-why
“To conclude, any belief that the EU can be ‘democratised’ and reformed in a progressive direction is a pious illusion. Not only would this require an impossible alignment of left movements/governments to emerge simultaneously at the international level. On a more fundamental level, a system that was created with the specific aim of constraining democracy cannot be democratised. It can only be rejected.”
I don’t even know why we are having this discussion.
Er, because Britain stands toxically divided?
Writer Roddis – Britain stands toxically divided because there are still so many who rely on the MSM presstitutes for their daily brainwash.
Whilst searching for Brexit opinions I happened upon ”Grassroots Out” and don’t understand why more wasn’t been made of this movement.. Even here on Off G.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8cF93B58Vw
Here is how Brexit should have been handled – cross party.
I have been very wary of Farage and Galloway, believing them to be just too honest? But now I see that they are ‘exactly’ what our country needs to get back on track.
I would like to see Jeremy Corbyn with them, but sadly feel he has lost his way.
Farage Honest?
Really?????
Roddis, UK divisions have exactly zero bearing upon the impossibility of reforming the Fascist EU from inside.
John Doran.
Correction: The EU is not fascist, it’s imperialist.
Nope. The EU works on the exact same lobbying system as the US. Money buys govt.
It’s both Fascist & Imperialist.
A perfect part of the Western Rothschild Bankster Empire.
JD.
So whichever we look, we’re fucked! We’re fucked if we stay and we’re fucked if we leave! It’s not only the dead hand of neoliberalism but the dead end of the Western ‘left’. We’re reduced to relying on the young to confront the hideous truth of capitalism’s assault on the planet! Yes, we may finally wake up but in all likelyhood it’ll be too late by then to do anything about it.
If they’re is a future for the human race, our descendents will curse us for our short-term greed that puts profits before the planet. I’m glad I’m at the tail-end of my life but I feel nothing but shame for bequeathing this rotting carcass to our descendents.
the dead end of the Western ‘left’
Perhaps it’s appropriate to consider the idea that if the Western “left” has ended up in a dead end, somebody might have deliberately steered it in that direction. Identity Politics, in particular, seems so miraculously expedient for elite interests, that it’s unlikely to have arisen by accident.
Steered it? So you’re saying that it’s somebody else’s fault? Who exactly? The ‘left’ doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it’s an intrinsic part of our society and it reflects the dominant ideology of capital, patriarchy, racism, the whole nine yards!
The ideas that are predominant in the Western “left” are disseminated through three main avenues: academia, NGOs, and (allegedly) alternative media. If one were to investigate how the comfortable middle-class careers of the people who run these industries are paid for, the funding sources would turn out to be other than proletarian. The Ford Foundation and Soros are only the first “philanthropic” sponsors that come to mind.
Not very surprisingly, identity politics gets funded, whereas revolutionary anti-capitalism does not. Aspiring “left-wing” functionaries become aware of this reality shortly after arriving at university, and are free to choose their political opinions accordingly. One set of choices leads to money, social status, and a comfortable middle-class existence; the other results in ostracism, ridicule, and a drastic restriction of employment opportunities. One does not even need to be smart enough to consciously understand this; it is sufficient to simply feel it, which happens quickly in such intellectual environments.
And now, after half a century of such ideological pressure, here we are. As an obvious example, to witness the way the Respectable Left vilifies and sneers at anybody who dares to question the official 9/11 faery tale, is to understand everything. The Western “left” is the best opposition that ruling-class money can buy.
Absolutely! But the real question is, in the words of a ‘professional revolutionary’, ‘What is to be done?’ We’re rapidly running out of time.
The first thing to be done, is to recognize dead ends for what they are, discard the assholes who led you into them, extricate yourself, and start travelling in a different direction, while advising other well-meaning people to do the same.
The next thing is to consider an alternative.
I would suggest direct democracy.
People complain that you cannot ask the people to decide on complex issues.
I would beg to differ.
In Switzerland a few years ago, the boss of the Swiss air force asked for some new planes. And they take defence very seriously. There was a referendum asking if he could have some new planes. The people said yes. The second question was what sort of planes should be acquired. There were 3 options, from America, Sweden and Russia. The answer was yes, get the American ones.
It certainly wasn’t exploited by elite interests by accident,though its existence was not in in the elites gift,it arose out of genuine need.But it is hardly the first time an inherently “progressive” idea was exploited by such an elite is it.
its existence was not in in the elite’s gift
Don’t be so sure about that; for example, see below.
it arose out of genuine need
So did the Orange Emperor, out of a need to be rid of the Clinton-Bush-Obama apparatus. It’s quite possible for something to arise out of a genuine need, without in any way fulfilling it, or even being an authentic expression of it.
it is hardly the first time an inherently “progressive” idea was exploited by such an elite
There is nothing inherently progressive about identity politics. It is precisely the centuries-old ruling-class strategy of Divide And Conquer, cleverly rebranded so it can be sold to self-serving “left-wing” careerists, and anybody else who is dumb enough to get their ideas from them.
Agreed. It’s interesting how it’s mostly confined to metropolitan areas and a few trendy towns, the same places that spawned hipsters and gentrification. Brighton should be the capital of faux left, trendy green identity politics, a million miles from Socialism and intrinsically linked to the remain campaign.
Yes, the people of Brighton…….oh wow! Closed, Guardianised minds galore, each and every one of them is like the hive minded offspring of a broom cupboard fling between Johnathan Freedland and Zoe Williams. Many of them look deceptively similar to people who might have open minds. They don’t, anything but. The buses in Brighton have big signs in them to let you know that if you are in any way insulted or offended by anything, whatever it is, you should call the police to report a hate crime.
Barovsky – I used to feel like that, until I read ‘The Secret’ and now am a total believer in the power of the Universe, and completely trust that we will get what we collectively desire. That means putting aside all negative thoughts or predictions, and concentrate totally on the positives and the strength of people like this:
Like him or loathe him, he ALWAYS speaks positively.
barovsky, do you not see that capitalism died 2008 when the big banks did not die?
When our spineless politicians deemed the monster predators “Too Big To Fail”
they tipped our financial system into Fascism, surely?
John Doran.
Surely not. Fascism is the last resort of capitalism, though it’s true to say that we appear to heading in that direction but it’s not the fascism of Nazi Germany, perhaps closer to its roots in Mussolini’s Italy with our corporate-security state. But Mussolini banned trade unions, the communist and socialist parties, we haven’t reached that point yet. But it’s true that big business and the state are now inextricably intertwined. Goodbye social contract between (organised) labour and capital (Keynesism). It’s a return to the naked capitalism of the 19th century, liberalism.
barovsky, in my book capitalism is when weak companies fail & go broke.
Fascism is when business is in control of the govt, & that sure looks to me where the West is now.
John Doran.
What you said doesn’t make any kind of sense at all
& why not, pray? You have to expand that slightly, surely?
A network of 147 corporations control about 40% of global business.
That UK & US govts are bought & paid for is now surely obvious?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/bankers-rule-the-world-the-network-of-global-corporate-control/28235
What is Fascism if not money in control of govt?
In the 1930s Banksters used Hitler to overrun countries with his tanks.
Now they’re using debt to strangle countries via The World Bank & The IMF. Read or youtube John Perkins The Economic Hitman.
John Doran.
“And try telling Extinction Rebellion that the EU is serious about threats to our environment”.
Glyphosate – found to be a substantial factor in causing a man’s cancer last month by a jury in San Francisco – is approved for agricultural use by the EU until 2022.
Yes, admittedly the choices are rather distasteful, such is the nature of politics. What the writer is actually suggesting, however, is that we endorse a policy which we know will fail. (In the famous phrase of Trotsky’s attributed to the socialist deputy in Italy, signor Turati during the rise of fascism, who opined that ‘we must have the courage to be cowards” and choose the parliamentary road to socialism.)In short we lie to the very people that we are trying to convince that this is possible.
This seems a very dubious policy. Speaking from personal experience I remember back in the early 70s when I was a member of a far left group that joining the Labour party and working within trade unions was the way to go; everything else was sectarian nonsense. At the time his seemed to be a very plausible argument. The long march through the institutions. It didn’t work. We ended up with Blair and neo-liberalism! Is there any reason to expect this policy will work this time around? You know how the saying goes: ‘Doing the same thing and expecting different results …. etc.
Choosing a path between sectarianism and opportunism is indeed fraught with pitfalls and dangers; the genuine left must always keep an ideological distance from the pseudo-left otherwise it will be co-opted and infiltrated by Soros and his minions and useful idiots. Unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be a viable bridge between what I would call the genuine and unashamed real left and the ‘pale pink humbug’ (Orwell’s phrase) of Parliamentary Labourism. No ILP, no 2-1/2 International.
The Labour party itself is a pillar of capitalism and imperialism as are all social-democratic parties; always has been, always will be. It is incapable of being anything other. I would argue it is a CIA asset. When its sells out, as it always does, how exactly are we to explain away the latest capitulation and our endorsement of it?
So we seem to be in a rather difficult Scylla and Charabdis position. More discussion and more new thinking needed.
Your first paragraph, ridiculously, puts words in my mouth I never uttered. Your final sentence on the other hand is precisely my point. I hope we can agree that not being in possession of solutions is no excuse for not articulating the problem.
So, Francis,
What is your answer? Who are we to trust with our vote? Or are you suggesting we just opt for more Capitalism/War and Poverty?
Please share your vision of the future to keep our children safe?
When people finally realise that WE THE PEOPLE have NO enemies, and have everything in common with the manufactured bogy men – Russia/China/Japan/Korea/South America/India/Pakistani/Eastern Europe/Muslims/Buddhists/Christians and ALL… because we are each and every one of us is being shafted by the Elite Corporate Vampires and their lackeys the CIA/MI6.
WE THE PEOPLE are free to travel and make friends and are welcomed by all people of the world.. because we the people don’t want to steal anything from them.. We are kindred spirits.
We need to awake and realise that WE have more in common with ‘foreigners’ than we do with our own government, and refuse to be divided like sheep.. then and only then will we have the government we deserve.
We need to be rid of PARTY politics, because they do not work for US.
They are simply having a champagne party at our expense… and the sickening irony of it is – we stand for it.
The EU cannot be reformed from within. It is a vast enterprise, set up over many generations with its decision making process designed to be as complex and opaque as possible.
And what a ludicrously deceptive piece this is – as if quoting Trotsky, a mass murderer, justifies any moral course of action. We are not facing a choice between Jean-Claude Junker and Adolf Hitler. The idiociy of such an analogy is beyond words.
As much as i agree with your disdain for Trotsky you’ve called yourself tsar Nicholas whinhas a body count way higher than Trotsky (and Trotsky has a much bigger body count than Stalin. Stalin 799,000 executions throughout the entire Stalin period against Trotskyists few millions during the civil war and a few thousands during the anarchist revolt)
799,000 executions throughout the entire Stalin period
You forgot about the Gulag Archipelago. Being shot in the back of the head in a basement, seems positively humane compared to being worked, starved, and frozen to death in a Siberian slave labour camp.
Voline — The Unknown Revolution, 1917-1921
The Zionist Bolsheviks did much worse than that. A particular favourite of the Zionist butchers was to cut open the belly of their victims, nail part of their intestines to a tree, then whip them round and round the tree till the victim’s intestines were all wrapped round the tree. Charming old chap, Trotsky and his chums.
In the century of Tsarist rule prior to the Zionist Bolshevik take over, there were a few thousand executions for all reasons. There were probably far more in the USA.
Any source for this intestine/tree story? The most I have managed to find is in Victor Serge’s “Memoirs of a Revolutionary” in which he recounts the story coming from Maxim Gorky (AKA Alexei Maximovich). Here is the relevant passage:
“Alexei Maximovich (i.e. Gorky) spoke to me of strange tortures rediscovered for the benefit of “Commissars in remote country districts, such as pulling out the intestines through an incision in the abdomen and coiling them slowly around a tree. He
thought that the tradition of these tortures was kept up through the reading of The Golden Legend.’”
This last named is apparently a thirteenth-century “Lives of the Saints.”
The Bolsheviks were not Zionists. In a world in which malicious propaganda-for example all these statistics of executions and massacres put together by anti-communist , white Russian and fascist individuals and groups- pollutes everything we discuss surely there are some basic facts which it would be sensible to observe.
But I forget, like the Zionist fascists in Israel you use the words Zionist and Jewish as if they were synonyms. In other words you lie, as you spew out fascist talking points.
Yes Bevin – and just as there are attempts to call the Russian Revolution a Jewish plot, there are also attempts to invalidate creditable conspiracy theorists by linking them with UFOs, lizards from outer space and genuine anti-Semitism. Divide-and-rule has always been the most powerful strategy to maintain power and the expression “anti-Semitism” is perfect since it always provokes extreme reactions. Whenever I find an article that is careful to point out who is Jewish and who isn’t then I know it’s part of an effort (witting or unwitting) to link the aforementioned creditable conspiracy theory with white nationalism, Nazism and genuine anti-Semitism.
You are talking rubbish, complete rubbish. The number of executions carried out under the last Romanov was (on a per capita basis) lower then the United Kingdom during the same period. It was also lower in absolute terms than the United states, despsite the much higher population of the Russian empire.
There was a lot of black propaganda around in the capitalist West during those days, because the Tsar was unwilling to open up his country to capitalist exploitation. The result was regime change, with Lenin receiving money from the Germans, and Trotsky in the pay of the British.
The result was regime change, with Lenin receiving money from the Germans, and Trotsky in the pay of the British.
It seems that a lot of the impetus, and funding, for regime change came from other interests than those, which may help to explain the mediaeval barbarism of the regime which was subsequently installed.
Ron Unz — The Bolshevik Revolution and Its Aftermath
Tsar Nicholas, both Communism & Fascism were funded by Banksters: Brit, European & US.
Both wars & reconstructions are done on interest bearing loans & the Banksters go “Hooray: more, more, more.” The taxpayers, vanquished & victorious pay through the nose, for decades.
Book, by WWII Canadian naval intelligence officer, William Guy Carr:
Pawns In The Game, 1955.
From the English Civil War to today.
EG: 1917, in the middle of WWI, Kuhn-Loeb bank of New York credited, on behalf of a consortium of banks, the murderous pair, Lenin & Trotsky, $50,000,000 in a Swiss bank, to pursue the Bolshevik Revolution.
Page 107/8, Chapter 9, Political Intrigue 1914 – 1919.
Read for free, using the http://www.duckduckgo.com search engine.
Or buy the book, perhaps?
John Doran.
“1917, in the middle of WWI, Kuhn-Loeb bank of New York credited, on behalf of a consortium of banks, the murderous pair, Lenin & Trotsky, $50,000,000 in a Swiss bank, to pursue the Bolshevik Revolution.
Page 107/8, Chapter 9, Political Intrigue 1914 – 1919.”
Do you actually believe this stuff?
bevin, I’ve checked the book out with a couple of individuals, & one site labels it “Must Read” status, veteranstoday.
A Pakistani physics Prof. has com to almost identical conclusions as William Guy Carr: Mujahid Kamran, on VT.
I have no reason to doubt Carr.
For backup, try youtube & BILL STILL MONEY MASTERS
3.5 hrs.
For further backup, try The Creature From Jekyll Island, by Blogger
G. Edward Griffin. The chapter summaries can be read in about an hour.
http://www.needtoknow.news
History is written by the winners, & so far, since the Bank Of England Charter, the Banksters have had it all their own way.
John Doran.
The Tsar was unwilling to open up his country to capitalist exploitation.
He might have been unwilling but by the time his rule ended capitalist investment dominated the economy. And even in the peasant agricultural sector Stolypin’s ‘reforms’ were breaking up the ancient village collectives in the interests of the capitalists. One of whom was Trotsky’s father!
& by 1924 Lenin had to give an individual plot each to peasants because his beloved collective farms system was not working.
The Czar had earned the undying enmity of the Banksters by preventing the breakup of the US. During the US “civil war” he had stationed ships off both East & West coasts to blockade the Brits who feared a monolithic US.
Lincoln kept the Union together & the order for the execution of his family came from New York.
John Doran.
John – Don’t leave out BLIAR and the Imbecile BUSH who were solely responsible for the murder of 1.5 MILLION innocent women and children in IRAQ alone, with their sanctions and illegal warfare, which the evil soulless harridan Madeline Albright said was worth it to get the oil.
Exactly as they are trying to do in Venezuela now?
How much field combat have you see , Tsar Nick? I’m 66 but haven’t seen a single day – a fact many Remainers, in a textbook case of confusing correlation with causation, attribute to the EU.
I’m not here to defend Trotsky. Unlike me, however, he had to make unenviable decisions in an appalling situation. Revolutionary Russia, in the four years of so-called civil war – actually no more a civil war than Syria’s – was blockaded, starving, invaded by no fewer than fourteen nations and facing crack, battle hardened, cossack-led counter revolution. To borrow from Freewheeling Bob, it was a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it. In his own words, Trotsky had to “make myself a monster”. He used decimation, summary execution and ruthless suppression at Kronstadt. This was no armchair seminar on humanitarian values.
That said, and you of course were under house arrest at the time, I’m sure you’d have combined military genius with compassion incarnate, had you only been there to build and lead the Red Army.
haven’t seen a single day – a fact many Remainers, in a textbook case of confusing correlation with causation, attribute to the EU.
in that case, they must be either f***ing blind, paralytically stupid, or just paid-for disinfo shills.
ruthless suppression at Kronstadt
It often turns out that what most requires ruthless suppression, is the threat of a good example.
Voline — The Unknown Revolution, 1917-1921
milosovic: This is the problem; the ‘left’ still living in 1917 (or thereabouts) without learning a single lesson from it! Still going on about Trotsky and Kronstadt, who killed the most, on and fucking on. Have you noticed that we’re living in the 21st century?
Do you think that it is the ‘left’ which is ‘still living in 1917’?
Almost all the comments here have come from the fascist inspired right, recycling old lies about the Revolution in order to promote the idea that socialism and democratic movements are dangerous and lead inevitably to bloody massacres. Always omitting to mention that the massacres in question are invariably caused by the violent reaction of propertied classes to egalitarian policies.
Bevin, I’m not referring to the screwballs here.
Trotsky had to make unenviable decisions in a situation he brought about himself. Actually, they weren’t unenviable decisions because many on the left admire – and presumably therefore – envy his bloodletting, and clearly wish they could do it now.
Roddis, who pressganged Trotsky into leading a murderous revolution, financed by Banksters?
John Doran.
Worst case scenario? Hitler in a heartbeat. I most definately would.
There is no evidence at all that Trotsky was a “mass murderer”. And given the competition at the time, he would have had to be responsible for the deaths of millions to come close to imperialists such as King Leopold, Generals like Haig or French, or strategists like Lloyd George, Churchill and Kemal.
As to the Tsar’s record on capital punishment, apoloigists always leave out the many executions carried out by his forces, the Black Hundreds and others licensed to massacre Jews, for example.
Nuanced and insightful piece, thank you. Be prepared for mocking and spiteful sneering from the large contingent of rigid binary thinkers on here who have convinced themselves that they have it all figured out.
Of all the commentators and pundits offering their two shillings, Yannis Varoufakis has the most unsentimental and clear-eyed take on the EU/Brexit situation. I watched on YouTube a talk he gave recently and, contrary to what his critics say, he does not think the EU can he reformed from within and explicitly stated that most likely his Diem25 project will not succeed in its goal of democratizing the European Union. But the only other options, as he sees it, are doing nothing or sniping impotently from the sidelines. So he has chosen instead to pursue a project that, while likely doomed to fail in its ultimate goal, can nonetheless bring together like-minded people and their ideas and keep alive and active a left-wing embryo for a thriving Europe that can potentially outlive the nearly dead horse of the neoliberal technocrats and and the deformed, and equally doomed, beast currently being resurrected by the crypto fascist ethnic nationalists.
I can get on board with that. It avoids the trap of self-deluded sentimentality and magical thinking as well as the dead-end horror show of giving up the ghost and succumbing to terminal apathy and despair. Given the circumstances, pursuing a productive long term project that probably won’t succeed in usurping the EU but just might outlive it, and the toxic neo fascist alternative being prepared in the wings, is perhaps the most hopeful and realistic option available to us.
Varoufakis is right to be skeptical about EU reform. I’ve been challenging dozens of ‘Remain And Reformers’ with the simple question of ‘How’ and DiEM25 have been the only group to offer anything at all coherent.
As quoted above, Owen Smith says “We failed to mention that there were leftwing allies in Europe who could help us achieve our goals.” which again begs a simple question “Who?”. (Another question I’ve been putting to the left remainers). In too many countries there simply isn’t any progressive left to speak of – Hungary, Poland, Finland, Slovenia, Belgium, the Baltic States and others have none at all. The ‘allies’ he speaks of are mostly a load of complacent and shrinking left centrist parties who have shown no inclination at all towards reform.
Staying in will expose us to all sorts of TTIP2.0 threats and we’ll be able to do little inside when a corporation can cry off to the ECJ – the bogeyment of ReesMogg and Bojo should not fear us – and even if they do take control it will be at the head of a dismantled UK. This latter point remains one of the strongest arguments for Brexit of any kind – the shrinking and isolation of the Westminster Establishment is a very good thing indeed.
Eric, I apologise for misrepresenting Varoufakis – God knows I could say a few things on how that feels!
Yannis (and come to that, Leon!) were intendex as minor notes here but he has my respect and I will look more closely at Diem25.
I wish Mr Varoufakis luck, there is something to be said for waiting for the EU to fall apart and be ready to pick up the pieces. At some point the euro will collapse, in the meantime they will press ahead with federation to prevent that. At that point I see the partial break up, with maybe the original 6 becoming a federation and the rest, second class client states, not a pretty outcome. So I’d prefer we got out now, as we’ll never vote for federation.
PS. I think a lot depends on France, post Macron. If the country becomes more nationalist, it could scupper federation.
Roddis doing sanity… Always refreshing.. The unfolding fiasco, left uncorrected, will have close to zero chance of uplifting the lot of ‘everyman’, the actors tainted with greed and unthinking self promotion. To think that “whats in it for me” will lead to a compassionate society is madness. For a snapshot of real leadership, unrehearsed yet true, try
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-shooting/111873366/jacinda-arderns-pitch-perfect-leadership-was-no-performance
Pax David K
Regardless of the sincerity or not of Ardern’s performance there is a very sizable body of opinion around the Muslim world which saw it as just more of the same old same old. 70 mostly dusky Muslims killed in a mosque and all their own overseas mainstream media can get from New Zealand media is massive coverage of a non-Muslim white woman exuding a grief that, if not calibrated for the media still might have been for all anyone at the tv receiver end could know (Ms Ardern appears in other contexts to be a woman of rapidly changing affect depending on whether she has to lecture, charm or negotiate with her audience on topics of social and political sensitivity).
But almost no coverage of the true subjects of the “news”, the 70 ultimate victims, or the scores of traumatized others and their families or the thousands or tens of thousands or tens of thousands of those more remote from the scene.
Edward Said’s understanding of “Orientalism” is still very clearly not even within the vocabulary of the average New Zealand “reporter”, or – as a cogent interviewee on Al Jazeera put it – “if an anti-Muslim atrocity in a mosque can produce only yet another white redeemer then ‘thanks, but no thanks'”.
Me, I think she should have stayed mostly at home, or at least told the press and editors off-camera that the last thing her public appearances were about on that occasion were her and they should treat them as such.
This post, incidentally, is a report on the widespread note of unease Ardern’s performance and her fellow New Zealanders’ response to it elicited outside her remote, white colonial circle, not an opinion piece. Even the Guardian managed to report on it, in the form of an opinion piece. I think that, if I were a Muslim from outside New Zealand, I might well consider the shooter’s live Facebook stream to be the most honest New Zealand media account of the event. (As for Ms Ardern’s immediate refusal ever to mention the shooter’s name, I do believe she needs to tread very lightly if the subject one or another of the world’s several “Unknown Warriors” ever comes up. History which is not as dispassionate as an autopsy is nothing more than Not-History).
Of course the EU is capable of reforming itself.
Look! A flying pig!
Labels die and go out of fashion. Liberty and the Idea of freedom and justice live forever,
Its a question of Emergence not emergency of Free will and not determinism.
Agnosticism and Atheism are workable in our human psychology but to abandon hope
is ill advised and perhaps not really possible.
Work without Hope
BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Lines Composed 21st February 1825
All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair—
The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing—
And Winter slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.
Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an object cannot live.
This SNL sketch is blocked in some browsers in Europe.
I wonder why?
https://bit.tube/play?hash=QmWLhEhdZPvTaL4dyF4XQ4do32pVaB1UWh3YUjvAYvegg1&channel=285685
This is a project I am involved in looking to provide tools for Canton Model direct democracy to work bu using a Wiki and a Dapp on the Open Source Web. ( Web 3)
https://bit.tube/play?hash=QmZHYQMmid5R26qos1wE8mTmkT2wXLxoazX46m4ZH4YN3r&channel=285685
In a democracy to talk of left Brexit or Right Brexit is playing the age old game that disenfranchises the vast majority of people. Oversight and accountability are what keeps any consented to governing institutions from going against its electorate. The EU and the House of commons are both rogue and illegitimate in that respect.
The EU by Tony Benn’s own tests is far worse.
“What power have you got?”
“Where did you get it from?”
“In whose interests do you use it?”
“To whom are you accountable?”
“How do we get rid of you?”
To step outta babylon
http://www.suesupriano.com/audio/RichardMoore01.mp3
Lets unify and stand aligned stepping outta Babylon
http://www.suesupriano.com/article.php
https://longhairedmusings.wordpress.com/2019/03/20/free-market-capitalism-its-their-future-i-had-a-brilliant-idea-for-21st-century-economics-a-live-streamed-dialogue-on-money-banking-and-political-economy-tina-the-village-bike-or-templ/
The its left its right , in or out is best leaves the meat of the whole subject unbothered by and serious questioning.
1. The Military Industrial Complex
2. The Money Power
3. The Corporate revolving door
4. United States Dollar hegemony ( Peanac)
5. Oceana or Eurasis
6. Brave New World for the 3%
7. 1984 for the 97%
https://longhairedmusings.wordpress.com/2019/03/12/the-military-industrial-complex-and-brexit-a-hypothesis-eumilitaryunification-brexit-brino-jocox-annalindh-olofpalme-tina/
THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX AND BREXIT. A HYPOTHESIS. #EUMILITARYUNIFICATION #BREXIT #BRINO #JOCOX #ANNALINDH #OLOFPALME #TINA
Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate
Through me you go to the grief wracked city; Through me you go to everlasting pain; Through me you go a pass among lost souls. Justice inspired my exalted Creator: I am a creature of the Holiest Power, of Wisdom in the Highest and of Primal Love. Nothing till I was made was made, only eternal beings. And I endure eternally. Abandon all hope — Ye Who Enter Here
https://longhairedmusings.wordpress.com/2018/07/29/hope-without-an-object-cannot-live-circular-economy-energy-and-debt/