An end to capitalism. An end to cash!
If we want to develop a more equal society, we must make radical changes to our political system, urges Susan Rosenthal in her latest book Rebel Minds.
Review by Tony Sutton
MAKING A DIFFERENCE: Members of the United Teachers of Los Angeles union rally to celebrate the end of their 2019 strike, in which they protested against low pay, large class sizes, inadequate support staffs of nurses and librarians, and the proliferation of charter schools.
The UK working class lost much sympathy after its stunning rejection of Jeremy Corbyn’s socialist manifesto in last December’s general election. That they chose to be influenced by a three-word slogan – Get Brexit Done – from a Tory party that had savaged them with a programme of vicious austerity over the past nine years was an indication of both a lack of political awareness and the crushing power of unrelenting right-wing media propaganda.
Similarly, the continuing support for Donald Trump, who was propelled to the US presidency by another vacuous slogan – Make America Great Again – hardly invites affinity for the working class in shattered US heartland states. In more enlightened times, those voters would have chased Trump and his cronies out of town; but it seems certain they will re-elect the orange oaf later this year.
Despite the working class’s flair for electoral self-flagellation, Susan Rosenthal, the Canadian author of Rebel Minds: Class War, Suffering and the urgent Need for Socialism, is firmly on their side.
A retired physician and avowed socialist, she opens Rebel Minds with the uncontestable assertion that “People all over the world want the same things: effective shelter, nutritious food, clean water, sanitation, and access to information”, along with societal needs, especially “to know that others will support us in times of need.”
“Capitalism”, she declares, “delivers the opposite: deprivation, disrespect, distrust, disconnection, discrimination, meaningless work, social insecurity, pain, disease, premature death, and fear for the future”.
As an alternative to the present economic system that, she says, is rigged against ordinary people, Rebel Minds offers a ‘Marxist method of analysis’, forged in the belief that working-class people could run the world much better than billionaire rulers, who “fear Marxism because it exposes them as a class who are leading humanity to extinction …”
If the system is so obviously flawed, then how does capitalism continue to get away with such shameless, self-centred behaviour? That’s the question that Rosenthal confronts in the early sections of Rebel Minds, where she analyses the physical and mental torment created by ever-increasing demands of profit-hungry bosses on workers who have become numbed by mindless and meaningless, drudgery in jobs that barely pay their bills.
This situation is aggravated when whole communities are ravaged by avaricious corporations that establish profitable industries, “destroy the environment in the process, then relocate to more profitable areas, abandoning entire regions to rot”.
Rosenthal offers Detroit, former heart of the US auto industry, and the US Rust Belt as examples of capitalist contempt for workers, while reminding us that every Western society has its own horror stories of the distress created when “good jobs and the dignity of work have been replaced by suffering, hopelessness and despair … the belief that people in power don’t care about them or their communities”.
The pain created by this devastation, she says, is one of the main causes of the trail of opioid addiction that has added even more misery and despair to the hardest-hit regions.
“Some will object to my blaming the capitalist class for human suffering”, says Rosenthal, “I say that they control society, so they are responsible for what happens. We are responsible for allowing them to keep us down and for liberating ourselves from their rule.”
Readers will be forgiven for wondering if anything but another major financial catastrophe can slow down the growth of a pernicious system that creates fantastic riches for the few while increasing poverty and despair for the rest of us.
Can the union movement revive sufficiently to even the odds around the bargaining table? I’m not so sure, given the response of many of the workers I meet in my local pub and coffee shop.
I’m a strong believer in the bargaining power of union solidarity, but many of them are blinded by the arse-about-face notion – encouraged by the tabloid media – that unionised workers are greedy because they are better paid and have greater job security than their non-unionised neighbours!
When I suggest that, instead of moaning, they should join a union that will fight for them, the discussion tends to end in heated words revolving around ‘Russia,’ ‘socialism’ and ‘commie bastard’…
Rosenthal is also a staunch union supporter, although not without reservations. She’s wary of their infiltration by a ‘manager class’ of leaders who are often more comfortable in the executive suite than the shopfloor.
However, to cement the case for union solidarity, she quotes from a report from the Economic Policy Institute that every worker should read before their first day on the job, “Compared with non-union workers, the average union worker in America enjoys 28 percent higher wages and is more likely to have medical insurance, paid leave, a pension, and other benefits”.
The second section of Rebel Minds is a harsh indictment of the role of psychiatry and the concept of mental illness – the theme of much of Rosenthal’s previous writing – which she says,
is unique to capitalism and . . . hides the role of the capitalist class in creating mass suffering.”
She illustrates practitioners’ inability to correctly diagnose ‘mental illness’ and ‘psychosis’ by recounting an experiment undertaken by Stanford University professor David Rosenhan who “sent eight volunteers to eight different psychiatric hospitals across the US.
All posed as people concerned about their ‘mental health’ because they heard noises and were admitted to hospital on that basis.
Immediately after being admitted, all eight volunteers reported that the voices had stopped, they had no other symptoms, and they felt fine. Nevertheless, seven were labelled with ‘schizophrenia’ and one was labelled with ‘manic depression’. They were kept in hospital for up to 52 days. After being released, none were considered cured; all were labelled ‘in remission’. During their time in hospital, no staff member discovered that any of the phony patients was an imposter, although some of the other patients figured it out.”
After this and a follow-up experiment, Rosenhan suggested that “we refrain from sending the distressed to in-sane places’ and focus instead on helping people to solve their problems.”
Rebel Minds also details the historical misery created by capitalism, including colonialism, racism, eugenics and genocide:
“Conquerors take what they want by force. Their moral justification is the racist belief that ‘savage barbarians’ are no more entitled to the land, or compensation for its loss, than animals in the forest … Since the beginning of colonisation, every capitalist regime has practiced racism, eugenics and genocide against populations who stand in the way of capital accumulation.”
That exploitation continues: we are subjected to an almost daily dose of TV news coverage of protests and demonstration around the world.
Much of that output, however, is stage-managed to emphasise the ‘battle for democracy’ in countries such as Hong Kong and Venezuela, while downplaying the fight against the sins of capitalism, evidenced by the near-total TV blackout of a year of increasingly violent government reaction to protests against the French state’s austerity measures.
What should the working class – and that’s what we all are, despite our cynical, corporate rebranding as ‘middle class’ – do to counter “the complex web of social institutions that keep the majority ‘in their place?”
After telling us that moral outrage, personal change and reformation of the present system won’t help us escape the societal ‘deep shit’ that looms, Rosenthal asks,
Will we stand by while the ruling class destroy everything that humanity has accomplished over millennia, or will we defend our right to a viable future? Undoubtedly, the majority choose to survive. The question is how?”
So far, I agree with most of Rosenthal’s analysis, but I discover I’m what she terms a ‘Pessimist’ when I dig into the final chapters of Rebel Minds, where she reveals how we can conquer the capitalist ogre, offering a disappointing and, I’m sure, thoroughly unworkable, solution to the problems confronting the 21st-century labour force.
Rosenthal states, “A successful socialist revolution depends on millions of workers rising together to remove the capitalists from power as quickly and painlessly as possible”, pointing out that, “A supremely organised working class could take power without using violence; workers would simply escort their supervisors, managers and bosses out the door. The violence comes when capitalists refuse to accept majority rule and try to regroup, rearm, and attack. We must anticipate and defend against this inevitability. The stronger the workers’ State, the less force will be required.
Then, a few pages later, we’re told, “Transitioning to a communist, needs-based economy will take time. In the meantime, people will need to be paid for their work. This will not be a problem”, she says, as the wealth accumulated under capitalism belongs to the working class, so workers “have the right to use it to launch the new economy…
When enough is being produced to meet everyone’s basic needs, money can be removed from the equation….
Imagine not having to worry about money: making it, losing it, keeping track of it, spending it, saving it, and never having enough! Making things free makes people free.”
There’s more along those lines as Rosenthal forecasts the eviction of greedy, rapacious capitalists, followed by the dawn of a brave new world, based on a revolutionary format that failed in 1917.
Yes, much has to be done to fix our unequal economies, but the solutions won’t be found in Rebel Minds. While Rosenthal adds to the debate about the in-justices of capitalism, her dream of a Marxist revolution and cash-free society will find little support in the pubs and coffee shops frequented by the workers she seeks to inspire.
They don’t want a revolution, just a fairer share of the contents of the corporate piggy bank.
REBEL MINDS: Class War, Suffering and the Urgent Need for Socialism, by Susan Rosenthal, is published by ReMarx Publishing and is available for purchase in the UK and Canada.
Tony Sutton is the editor of ColdType. Contact him at [email protected].
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The working-class-voting-Tory-because-they-want-Brexit is itself a mainstream media narrative and should as such immediately be handled with caution. Personally I find the idea that so many northern voters a) switched sides over a relatively subtle change in Brexit position by Labour between 2017 and 2019; b) signed up to vote by post; and c) voted for a smirking, shallow upper class git like Johnson, extremely suspect.
The real flagellation of the working classes is quite likely worse than what the author is suggesting – in that not only are they suffering a government they did not actually vote for but they will be blamed for it too, while our rulers tell the public and the world they have a ‘mandate’.
Financial Engineering has taken the wealth extracting class down for the count since the ushering in of the Great Financial Crisis March 10th 08 when Bear Stearns was murdered in the overnight REPO market which is dark to everyone except the Securities & Exchange Commission-SEC.
Rosenthal, S. has some very good outdated points but there is no need for anymore Marxist critique since the Financial Implosion of 08 empirically decided the fate of the wealth extracting corporatists in the pyramid of financial control worldwide.
Right now Berkshire Hathaway & Warren Buffett have pulled mega-billions of cash off the table for the NYSE given that they are waiting for nosebleed elevations of stocks to mean revert back to a more stable level playing field of valuations industry wide.
Since 08 any & all Mathematicians worth their salt have known that it is only a matter of time before the entire edifice of Ponzi fraud collapses under its own weight & lack of architectural strength.
There is no case to be made for supporting the notion that the people have to fight the elite wealth extracting class as that class has imploded before our very eyes since 08.
The rich wealth extracting class can only push on string for so long before the whole worldwide edifice of fraudulent wealth is exposed as hollow ether that melts away faster than you can say bullshit America is just another rotten TV commercial that rings hallow for everyone with half a brain since 08.
Probability of yet another systemic crash system wide is P=1.0 without equivocation.
MOU
Quite correct MOU, you are clearly privy to inside information about the 2008 disaster, especially Bear Sterns which negates any return to the outdated solutions of Red Russia, Red China or the extremes of the Khmer Rouge. It seems that the colour is constant and may reflect the origin of the emotions that Ms Rosenthal implies as even her name’s first syllable complements such a notion.
And I agree that most of the ‘wealth’ horded by the 1% is but virtual and likely to disappear in a puff of hot air once the next crisis materialises when the workers will be yet again left jobless. negating the need for a union of any sort.
So I guess you are in PMs and land etc.
No PMs or Real Estate/Land et cetera. I’m poorer than dirt with no assets aside from my brain & knowledge base in Finance/Macroeconomics. I am merely an Empiricist with a brain.
And yes I am privy to inside knowledge of what transpired but my stuff is proprietary and not for sale due to the cost being too expensive for the one per cent banksters & fraudsters.
Their collective greed & hubris is their undoing systemically. I have been analyzing the whole systemic crash since the day & hour it started.
It’s a Zero Sum end game.
MOU
Hey RW, it’s me – did you read my book? Good to hear from you and yes I do agree – it’s a zero sum game and greed & hubris are spectacular to see; surely it can’t be long now with Repo going mad and ZH saying that it could be hedge funds in trouble?
I started reading it and then got bored. I’ll continue reading it soon, don’t fret.
To be perfectly honest it is tiring to read stuff that I already know but I’ll read it to assist you as a Financial Analyst and Social Scientist of sorts.
And yes, the Hedge Funds are parasitically positioned for REPO overnight & term facility. This means that no stats will be forthcoming from the unethical & ever incompetent Fed Reserve Chair & Board.
MOU
Thanks a million MOU, I really appreciate your help and agree it is a tedious effort to read stuff with which you are familiar. I proof read for some colleagues occasionally so understand what you mean. As long as you feel that I haven’t got things obviously wrong and made embarrassing booboos.
Good to know ZH is on the case – standing by for possible fireworks. Cheers Peter.
Bravo MOU! One of your best comments so far! I totally agree with your assessment. The Ponzi scheme is collapsing before our eyes.
Thanks, Gall.
MOU
😎👍
Weird how the upvote thingy does not work here??????????
MOU
It’s flakey. Sometimes it does sometimes it doesn’t depending on some AI’s mood. You know Artificial Idiocy 😉
Possibly OT but I caught the latest edition of New Statesman and its cover story “Why The Left Keeps Losing” by trendy “nihilist” pop philosopher John Gray. I had a scan and it seemed the usual anti-progressive rant (“Stop believing you can make things better! Humans are just plain evil! Now pass me another claret!”). And then I lighted on a line about how Labour “must root out anti-Semitism and not just apologize for it”. Thus the bullshit witch hunt increases another notch.
It will NEVER end, now. Being a totally supine, arse-kissing, Sabbat Goy will be the supreme requirement for any public life. The merest hint, real or fabricated, of any lack of TOTAL servility will end careers. It is the most bizarre and monstrous imposition by one faction of one tiny community in a mass society that I can think of. The New Statesman has been peddling this phony ‘antisemitism’ cant for years.
My previous comment disappeared?
anti semitism is hate speech
even if it is fact that khazar ashkanazim are not semite.
you are new hitler
your words are logged tagged then erased
succumb why not pause refresh and enjoy your slavery
Admin, first paragraph
‘relenting ‘ – reads incorrectly.
Should that be either UNRELENTING or RELENTLESS ?
——-
As to the content – a failure to mention slavery as the founding principle of the USA, written into their pathetic constitution with the great lie ‘all man created equal..except SLAVES’.
Unionism is not marxist – the elites are nothing but ‘unions’ for their own interests. Masonic organisations were all about that.
Germany and other socialist mixed economies are highly unionised.
The strongest unions in the UK were broken but the ‘controlled’ ones have not been touched.
The Russians and Chinese are not Marxist are they? Putins speech published here just a few days ago shows the rewards of capitalism and socialism go hand in hand.
The Chinese with a population greater than the combined developed western nations, even more so.
Forget the bullshit left – right divide and control of that narrative.
It has ALWAYS been Top-Bottom.
Slave owner- Slave.
A mountain of humanity with the top being multiple pinnacles which compete to be the highest.
Finally NOT ALL British voters were fooled 10.5 million REAL voters did vote Labour despite the relentless monstering. Amounting to a third of the supposed total 31.5million voters.
Fully 40% of the total voters were postal votes!!!!
TWELVE MILLION?
Given it was 18% postal votes just two years previously (also a very unbelievable number) – that points to many millions of spooky votes.
It was a con setup and delivered as per Pompeo’s GAUNTLET and ballot fixing through the narrative of ‘it’s the postal votes innit’ as delivered by the gurning Kuenssberg.
That we have suffered a COUP at the heart of the Ancient world EMPIRE last month is now the elephant in the room.
The British public does not YET believe their democracy is a lie.
When they DO there will be hell to pay.
The Slave Masters know they have over egged their pudding and are fearfully trying to maintain a narrative that is trying to bury that stinking pile of shittery – elephant poo is not so easy to cover up!
Even with relentlessness.
Yes, it should read ‘unrelenting right-wing media propaganda’ at the end of the first paragraph. Thanks for spotting my error. Tony Sutton
You are welcome Mr Sutton.
I was hoping for at least a short reply to my substantive points raised in response to your article.
Though am not demanding any and will be only mildly disappointed if you do not.
rosenthal A
i would say
2 many irish shaping
society
this lady is a friend of barbera lerner spector
another khazar paddy
what is it with all these micks in publishing
already
i heard that marx came from a long line of rabbi and was related by birth to the rothschild regime
shirley the kant bee truths
Many here see that capitalism was only used as a means to power and the the consolidation of that power will be replace capitalism with a fusion of energy and information or narrative control – that people will be willing to invite into their wills by framing it as getting rid of the bad, the failed, the evil and the unworthy. As this is the primary resonance of a negatively (fear) framed mind-split of dissociation from its own intent to eradicate the hated and feared – it operates as ‘one mind to rule them all – because it is one mind in terms of purpose.
I read a snip yesterday on the old Guild system that was part of British governance before it broke down to disproportionate wealth and power of some guilds over others – I know very little about it.
We are so conditioned to a corporately controlled dependency world that seeks ever more control. It’s a curious situation – apart from its nightmare.
The Rosenthal test was first performed by himself on the psychiatric institution. By falsely stated he heard a voice he was admitted, diagnosed and unable to then get out without playing the game of conforming to the diagnosis and process of ‘getting better’. Ticking the boxes of expectations and demands. I think that he published this and was dismissed as a fluke or aberration of the system. Then he sent a number of his team of coworkers to different psychiatrist claiming they heard the word ‘thud’as a voice in their head – nothing else. All were admitted and none again could get their release except by ‘playing the game’ of being mad to support of the ‘expert class.
When they all had returned the whole thing was published – and a major revelation of lack of substance. The Emperor had no clothes! – this embarrassment led directly to the ‘profession’ seeking a more ‘scientific’ basis for their diagnosis and prescribed and mandated treatments – which set the shift into psycho-pharmaceuticals for a disease model based on chemical imbalances – that could then be ‘blocked’ or forcefully countered with external intervention – all of which recondition the brain to actually effect a chemical imbalance such as to make a negatively operation addiction. Ie -many cannot get off them. The symptoms that show for many when changing or reducing or stopping to ‘balancing’ intervention – are then interpreted as a worsening or further development of the ‘disease’ – such as to up the diagnosis and drug intervention.
A few have bottomed out through such a hell of such experience to come through to a much clearer sense of responsibility – or sovereignty of consciousness – but perhaps not all free of a deep rage of grievance.
The many are in different states of degradation and dependency.
The pattern of this is transferable to a larger recognition than its specific – and becoming intuitively aware of the patterns is a different order of consciousness to analysis of believed meanings of a ‘real world’ that is in a sense really being acted out but under wishful or false premises – such as seeking ‘experts’ for external salvation from internal conflicts.
Not that we don’t need and give help when ‘stuff’ that we didn’t know was there is triggered and we no longer have a solid sense of our self or reality. But the ‘many’ are invested strongly in putting you back into what you were waking from and nailing down the lid. Not for your sake but because they want their lid to stay so shut that no lid is discernible. Thus the psycho-pathy is ‘seen’ in others by an exceptions that may ‘sympathise’ but only in order to confirm the diagnosis. While the patient is often wanting something to make the rising symptoms just go away – but without having to radically address their lives or change. A richer man may pick and choose a therapist seeking for a sense of relational honesty that inspires growing trust- for he is paying the piper for his tune, but the poor or the ‘protected poor’ are within the framework of an ‘officially settled ‘scientific consensus’ of ‘experts’. Who may an awful lot about a very specialised frame of focusing and take the role cast them by those who cast their hopes and fears on them such as to believe they know and so only ‘see’ through the frame of their judgements.
I see a lot of good commenting here – but there are times when I could say that if all the ‘psycohpaths’ and ‘Stockholm syndrome of support were vanished – what prospect of peace would there be if we were the ‘seed’ of a new culture? Identity conflict is when we are so identified with (or against) a belief or a view or ideological stance, that no communication raising it to re-vision-ing is possible. I’m not talking about opening our minds to an intent to undermine that merely pretends to allegiance or support, but rather the shut-mind of a narrative dictate that has no current intention or willingness to change and so is seeking instead to get others for reinforcement or blame them for failing to comply to expectations that are for the most part automatic, unconscious and defended against exposure by outrage, crying victim, or denials that erase the mind by mapping out a no-go area. The latter can remove the immediate pain, but at expense of giving up responsibility to fear and the management of fear.
The Technocratic NWO – is systemic conflict management from a presumption of the right to rule the diagnosis and mandate the ‘treatment’ of ‘a diseased and sick humanity that presents itself to such a driven need to change a world of others to meet their fantasy models of how things should be. For lovelessness begets itself in others – and those treated as unworthy tend to learn it under frameworks of coercion by induction – with never a conscious noticing of its inculcation.
Not that there isn’t a baby in the bathwater for both views. Our self has a valid function or purpose within the whole and the recognition of a Call for Help is our opportunity to release our ignorance and arrogance for a recognition of our self as the other – NOT a sympathetic projection of a superior.
The experience of another’s acceptance for our being, without attempt to ‘explain, fix or justify or mask apology for themselves in our presence is shared presence.
Political arrangements and organisations come from spiritual foundations or they come from the denial and evasion and usurpation of such foundations as the mask over conflicted purposes or minds – under a narrative ‘face’.
The idea that regime change in and of itself effects ‘answer’ is the idea through which a parasitical deceit thrives. The pattern is not capitalism – but vengeance, masked as whatever wins allegiance, trust, dependency and power. If you don’t ‘give it up to ‘the Lord’ it will ‘lord it over you’ as a driven and bitter hatred. If you have no sense of reconciliation or alignment in your Life – then its fire will burn while it yet receives feeding – whether rage be hot or cold.
Discerning the baby in the bathwater is on a different level to the framing of the problem in symptoms. I believe that we access this level by recognising ourself in another and releasing our use of them to serve a loveless script. Our judgements never really leave the mind that holds them – which becomes the lens through which we perceive and respond as a derivative experience set in place of true Currency.
Garbage in; garbage out – until the garbage out is recognised as faithful feedback to programming error.
I actually agree with the first sentence. I have working class family in England, who I like a lot, who voted against Corbyn because he was a “Red Fred” or anti-semite. They did not have the nouse to realise they were being lied to by the billionaire media. When they eventually realise they are slowly being screwed by the Tories they will get no sympathy from me. I don’t think I am a socialist. I don’t mind the principle of free enterprise and I can admire entrepeneurs who come up with ideas and make money from them. All I want from the rich is for them to pay their workers a decent wage, give them secure working conditions, respect the environment and pay proper taxes. In short, don’t be greedy bastards. Unfortunately, too many of them ARE greedy bastards. The US billionaire Nick Hanauer is correct. The billionaire class needs to change its ways, otherwise the pitchforks are coming.
(“The second section of Rebel Minds is a harsh indictment of the role of psychiatry and the concept of mental illness”). Thank you – I will look for this book.
– if you are interested in the dark underbelly of the – “role of psychiatry” – in the West, I can heartily recommend Stephen Kinzer’s latest book: “Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control.” It is a well documented non-sensational examination of just how deep the “banality of evil” runs not only within the our uber-corrupt institutions of State, but also within supportive elite “white collar” professions such as psychiatry.
“The UK working class lost much sympathy after its stunning rejection of Jeremy Corbyn’s socialist manifesto in last December’s general election.”
Who is this arrogant, ignorant tosser, who wrote this shite?
“lost much sympathy”????
FFS.
Tony
who
just another cohen
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/01/13/the-center-blows-itself-up-care-and-spite-in-the-brexit-election/?fbclid=IwAR1iltU9ldfpV_cv6ws2_b900UcOnHPcQmjslO780c7SuXYb15r8OLwRmbM
The Center Blows Itself Up: Care and Spite in the ‘Brexit Election’
David Graeber
‘…Politics, in wealthy countries, is increasingly becoming a war between the generations. While the support for smaller parties in the UK (Liberal Democrats, Greens, the Scottish National Party, even Brexit) is constant across ages, the split between Labour and Conservative is almost entirely based on age cohort:
Then, an excellent graph of the YouGov poll done post-election, of who voted what, by age, leaving Graeber’s conclusion obvious;
“….if only Britons over the age of sixty-five were allowed to vote, the Labour Party would be all but wiped out, whereas if only Britons under twenty-five were allowed to vote, there would simply be no Tory MPs whatsoever.”
I think that part of the reason is because the younger voters’ only experience of Labour is the Thatcherite New Labour created by Blair, with which they are profoundly disenchantened. The older voters who have experienced true Labour likely voted for Labour, realizing that Jeremy Corbyn actually represents true Labour and not New Labour.
The global establishment like to use the ‘Hegelian Dialectic’ (along with divide-and-rule, plausible deniability, secrecy & deception, propaganda, bribed & blackmail-able ‘representatives’, debt, etc) to gain their many goals and their ultimate hegemonic agenda:
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis
Problem, reaction, solution
E.g:
Global establishment creates rampant destructive capitalism/corporatism which subsequently causes chaos in so many ways to people so that they ask for alternatives which leads the global establishment to provide the answer of a technocratic centralised world government of peace and environmentalism.
* The outcome here produces the initial ultimate desire of the global establishment from the outset.
The Global Establishment has no growth aside from environmentalism which is a United Nations rollout helmed by Mark Carney & his corporatist fronted United Nations Environmentalism Bank that is currently stocked with $23 trillion USD [estimated-BofE]
and an industrial agenda to replace fossil fueled so-called ‘free markets’ with heavily regulated environmentally designed & carbon regulated commerce going forward.
USA ‘Capitalism’ is now known worldwide to be a fraudulent Ponzi that is imploding before our very eyes in 2020. Without synthetic growth models like ‘climate change environmentalism’ we would have nothing but Orange oaf Smoot-Hawley Act trade wars and petulant children like Orange Jesus pontificating into the twittersphere for validation in a world of invective, one-upmanship, & social strife.
USA is empirical toast just as the EU is too.
MOU
Is the ultimate goal of the global, supremacist establishment an incremental transition from our current system — corporatocracy — to ultimately a technocratic, centralised world government?
In my experience, researching deeply and widely helps you come closer to the answer. One of many good hubs to start the research is here:
https://www.technocracy.news/
And here is an interesting article: Who are the globalists and what do they want?
http://www.alt-market.com/index.php/articles/4026-who-are-the-globalists-and-what-do-they-want
Same article also here:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/who-are-globalists-and-what-do-they-want
Fun fact: Rik Mayall’s penultimate film acting-appearance (before he, sadly, passed away) was in a film called ‘One By One’..
The plot of one By One is about a woman (and her husband and her friends) going through the process of learning about the one world global governance/control system/depopulation agenda and the emotions and experiences she goes through (including cognitive dissonance). This film has been largely hidden away from the public’s eyes for such a high-profile actor e.gs it’s not clickable on wiki; no mainstream reviews; imdb does not list it unless you click on Mayall’s filmography; can (could?) only be bought direct from producer on eBay, etc which is interesting. If you can somehow manage to get hold of it, it is worth watching just for the subject matter.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2332735/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_3
“The UK working class lost much sympathy after its stunning rejection of Jeremy Corbyn’s socialist manifesto in last December’s general election. That they chose to be influenced by a three-word slogan – Get Brexit Done – from a Tory party that had savaged them with a programme of vicious austerity over the past nine years was an indication of both a lack of political awareness and the crushing power of relenting right-wing media propaganda…”
“Similarly, the continuing support for Donald Trump, who was propelled to the US presidency by another vacuous slogan – Make America Great Again – hardly invites affinity for the working class in shattered US heartland states. In more enlightened times, those voters would have chased Trump and his cronies out of town; but it seems certain they will re-elect the orange oaf later this year.
Forgive Tony Sutton: he’s from Toronto.
Both the statements regarding Brexit and that explaining Trump’s victory in 2016 are crude and shopworn interpretations of much more complex events.
What happened in the UK was that dozens of constituencies which had voted against the EU and in favour of the Socialist 2017 manifesto had reached the end of their tether by this December. These places had voted as much as 70% to leave the EU-and they had done so in the face of every expert and pundit that the Academy could throw at them. The discovery that the Labour Party has been wheedled into, effectively, slipping a Remain plank through the back door-all to appease a PLP dominated by Blairites – eas the last straw (in the tether that is). And those constituencies which formed the last of the three pillars of the Labour edifice- South Wales, Scotland and the North of England- not to have deserted in disgust at the treachery of a Party which has come to believe that it knows better than its constituents (just like Tony does), did not vote Labour.
I don’t blame them-most of the MPs were Blairite relics who had let down the voters systematically throughout their shabby careers. And insisting on the vote against the EU being honoured is just elementary democracy. And now the UK is due to leave the EU. And that is a good thing.
As to Trump’s election- the Democrats have also been letting down/betraying/selling out their working class support for decades. And since Carter it has become the rule rather than the exception. Trump won the election in the ‘rust belt’ where NAFTA has been the cause of job losses by the million. And where anti-union Hillary, refused to campaign- such is the Clintonite contempt for the working class. And what seems to have happened is not that the workers who live in Tony’s imagination voted to Make America Great Again, but that they didn’t bother to vote at all. They were uninspired. And who could blame them? Whether Trump is worse than Hillary would have been is moot, with the probabilities tipping slightly towards “probably not.”
As to the basic problem, it is that of political education, in the broadest sense of the term. In terms of political education- street level organising, shop floor activism, massive canvassing on a regular, not just electoral, timetable, a vibrant publishing sector, producing local leaflets, magazines, newspapers and scholarship, regular meetings and discussions of past and current events and the nature of capitalism- the left has been retreating since about 1903. The essence of political work for socialists is to build an edifice facing the capitalists’ which can become a siege engine to storm their stronghold. There is no point in whining that the capitalist press favours capital and uses every trick in the book to do socialists down. That is Class Warfare: that is why the capitalists have a Press.
There’s equally little point in whining about the “education system” unless you believe that public education was established to help people find the truth. It was not. It was established “to educate our masters” to believe in the right of the ruling class to rule.
But the heart of political education is the realisation that every voice must be heard and understood, that there are no greater experts on life than those who actually live it, and that knowledge is experience shared.
None of this is remotely novel. Every longhouse of the Iroqouians, or the people of Borneo, every village in the world understands these things- they have been known for millenia. What is new is class exploitation based upon intimidation and indoctrination. And the need for us systematically to organise ourselves and our resources to end it.
And, one more thing, just as there is no Parliamentary Road to Socialism there is no road in a class society in which representative institutions are part of the supportive structure which does not pass through Parliament. In order to expose, as widely as possible, the reality that Parliaments are part of the velvet glove on the iron fist socialists have, without nourishing illusions, to test the system to the limit. Those who disagree will be among the small and silly minority who didn’t learn anything from watching the complex range of ruling class reactions to the Corbyn phenomenon. Those who don’t think that elections are important can’t have noticed the extraordinary, unprecedented lengths to which The Establishment from the media to the General Staff, went to fend off the rather gentle and pacific challenge personified in Jeremy Corbyn.
Corbyn was never the problem. It was the popularity of Corbyn that was the problem i.e. the fact that his rise indicated that a substantial number of the population believed there could be an alternative to neoliberalism. Of course vast numbers of this population probably did think that anyway – but they did not have a chance to be represented in parliament. The old notion of compromise between classes had been gradually eradicated from the official political spectrum. The emergence of Corbyn as an actual representative of this old notion raised the spectre of a re-introduction of this old notion into official circles and sent the neoliberal order into apoplexy. Hence the desperate measures taken against Corbyn – which would have been comic had the whole issue not been so important.
And it was all so well played by the Blairites with the Remain gambit so succesful in sabotaging Corbyn. Has there ever been another case of a party with an inner deliberate self-destruct faction?
Labour in 1931? Gaitskell in 1960?And the SDP in 1983?
Desmond Donnelly? Woodrow Wyatt? Kinnock at the US Embassy?
There is always a squad of determined saboteurs in the PLP-they used to be sponsored by the worst of the unions but there are plenty of other sponsors. And half the party bureaucracy spend their lives looking for people to expel and organisations to proscribe.
The only novelty about Corbyn was that by just squeezing onto the list of nominees in 2015 he became to one who got away, the escapologist who made it out-Houdini like- of the sealed tomb in which Mandelson, Blair and their gang of accomplices sought to confine socialists or even honest men.
The Blairites are Thatcherites – they are a infestation.
Had the SNP and LibDems not given into the goading of a xmas poll – we would by now be seeing the reselection process of all candidates completed.
As it is – now is the time to complete that process and implement an automatic by-election when the remaining tats jump ship to try and split the vote with the next chickenCoup or SDP3,4 ..,
All of Maggies greatest bastard achievements – OUT OUT OUT.
Thatcher herself called Blair her greatest acheivement. Perhaps he was her bastard son? Perhaps he actually IS her? Perhaps Icke is right and these are interdimensional reptiles reproducing by fission?
If you read ‘Indispensable Enemies’ by Walter Karp you will see that the Republicans and Democrats have often ‘run dead’ and allowed the other wing of the Bosses’ Party to win, if their party had been taken over by some popular insurgency. Hence the cheating of Sanders out of his victory in the primaries in 2016, and the frantic efforts of the Deep State to derail then dethrone Trump.
Shouldn’t we shun most of the systems that are forced on us in the mainstream, along with the notion that there is no alternative (TINA) to these systems? It is now starkly obvious that we have a group of power-mad, supremacist control-freaks who want to completely control the whole planet and all humans; and use the bad system: the representative/parliamentary ‘democracy’ system that purposely uses corrupted people — bribed careerists and/or blackmail-able people groomed and placed on the political conveyor belt — to so-called ‘represent’ us when in fact these corrupted people are used to further the global establishment’s world hegemony?
The solution is to set up within all our countries small local ‘cantons’ with participatory direct democracy where individuals have a say on everything: local, national and even international issues? Countries to become like the Swiss Confederacy (the two cantons, Glarus and Appenzell Innerrhoden still have genuine direct democracy) where local civic governance is key? Totally shun digital voting and keep the tried & tested Swiss-style ‘market square’ voting system with regular (monthly?) referendums etc? Note: digital systems are highly prone to hacking/manipulation most probably purposely so; they are not fit for purpose?
P.S.
For participatory direct democracy to work it must also go hand-in-hand with:
— a genuinely free, open, unbiased press/media/internet/moderation-system/tv/radi/publishing(including science) etc
— a proper education system that gives all people (not only children) a life long education especially the skills to think properly (e.g. critical thinking) and not just a system that puts most of its emphasis on rote-learning and memorisation of e.g biased so-called ‘facts’ that the estab wants us to learn in exams aka the current education system.
Agreed, I’m sure it’s no accident that critical thinking has no place in our curriculum.
Rosenthal looks like an elitist posing as a commoner, surprise, surprise ….. No cash!? Perfect for total State control of an enslaved population. Why should anyone trust this virtue-signalling bleating. To be successful Satan must imitate God. Putting a society at the total mercy of its banking classes will bring the stomp of Orwellian jackboots. Maybe they’re already here.
Why are you publishing this Culturally Marxist rubbish?
“Culturally Marxist”? It’s actually Marxist – which “Cultural Marxism” isn’t, the latter being yet another scarey bogey invented by the Right. But I don’t suppose you’d hear much about these matters above the bellowing psalm singing down your end.
Hee hee. … “bellowing psalm singing …” like it, George.
… CM is a different form of Marxism to economic M, but Marxism (i.e. fake equalitarianism invented by supremacists) all the same.
I’ve heard quite a lot about it actually, starting with the following article in 2009 (preserved on ‘Whale’):
http://www.whale.to/c/frankfurt_school1.html
Then there is E. Michael Jones:
Every kind of Marxism seeks to mislead and capture ‘Logos’ in service of the familiar top-down hierarchical tyranny. ‘Logos’ is the moral sense and inborn instinct for what some of us would call ‘the Divine Intention’ that resides in every human heart. Millions get duped. It is pretty clear that Marx himself recognised this, going by some of his poetry (please do read this):
Forty poems and the verse-drama “Oulanem” written by Marx have been found to date. In his little ditty “Der Spiel-mann” (“The Fiddler”), he admitted:
That art God neither wants nor wists,
It leaps to the brain from Hell’s black mists.
Till heart’s bewitched,
till senses reel:
With Satan I have struck my deal.
In another poem, Marx promised to lure mankind with him into hell in the company of Satan.
In “Human Pride” [published in “World Revolution” by Nesta Webster, p. 167], Marx told us what he really thought and reveals himself a true psycho. Like Bentham and ilk, nobody seemed to give a hoot about the core of these monsters.
With disdain I will throw my gauntlet
Full in the face of the world,
And see the collapse of this pygmy giant
Whose fall will not stifle my ardor.
Then I will be able to walk triumphantly
Like a god, through the ruins of their kingdom.
Every word of mine is fire and action.
My breast is equal to that of the Creator.
May God bless you George, whether you welcome those blessings or not.
Everything that is, whatever its nature, is affirmed under the Divine design.
Arguing with Marx’s poetry? Way to go, God-boy! Who needs to argue about the actual world and actual people and actual actuality? Who need to bother about all the REAL works of Marx? Hey let’s talk about poetic turns of phrase and vacuities about inner intentions and mysterious beings up there somewhere. Whateva!
Some of us ponder depths of meaning because we understand that if we don’t we’ll end up being tyrannised by shallow, self-seeking arseh*les like you, who understand nothing but their own ill-judged fantasies and their own rage.
Marxism came to the fruition intended by its creators in the Soviet Union. Idealistic followers were the useful idiots to those who busied themselves slaughtering not only opponents but also those educated middle-class types who posed a potential threat to their system.
In my own personal life I couldn’t help but notice that Communists were almost inevitably the last persons to put their hands in their pockets and buy their round, which made me suspect that at the subconscious level these people were more interested in displacing the rich than looking out for the well-being of everybody else.
On a theoretical note, any quality of the analysis is mere distraction if the solution (involving, uh-oh, a *ucking central bank) can NEVER be a cure.
Communism is the preferred system of the ruling plutocrats because wealth equates to control. If you control the world you own it all and this what these people intend to do. Grow up and educate yourself.
There is no communism. There are plutocrats. They are not communists. They are capitalists. They became plutocrats through capitalism. They will become fatter plutocrats through capitalism. Communism is their enemy. And what better way of protecting themselves than to spread the lie that they need communism?
Watch Norman Dodd being interviewed after he was instructed by the US Congress to lead an investigation into the ‘Financial Foundations’ in 1953 (Ford, Carnegie, Rockefeller etc ..).
He is an old man being interviewed years later but his findings were devastating to him and other members of his team … and never reported in the mainstream, nor properly published by US Congress … he exposed the long game that the international finance class were playing but no one got told about it. Today we see it playing out in front of our very eyes. Corporations have taken over the building of mass housing units for local Councils all over the UK, Europe and America [ isn’t this called ‘Fascism’?]. The elected Councils (hence, voters) are not involved. On the larger scale just about ALL countries are adopting the precepts of “Agenda 2030” (stated aims, no ownership of property or cars, depopulation … a world of serfs clustered into city hubs under mass electronic surveillance).
Don’t know if you think this is all good George. I don’t.
Yes I’ve encountered this G. Edward Griffin stuff before – via Taylor Caldwell’s “The Middle Class Must Not Fail Or All Is Lost”. This is the stuff that claims that Marx and communism are part of the plot of the bankers to enslave the planet. There is a transcript of the Griffin piece here. It seems to differ slightly from the spoken account:
http://www.supremelaw.org/authors/dodd/interview.htm
It is fascinating that this account is pleased to discuss the evils of communism but never mentions capitalism. (“Capitalism” is a gentleman who doesn’t want to hear his name mentioned” – Brecht)
What lies at the heart of all this is a presupposition that the (unmentionable) capitalism we are living under – and which is clearly failing the vast majority and will continue to do so in increasingly horrific ways – is not “true capitalism”. It is apparently “crony capitalism” or whatever other term they want to use to distant themselves from it. The biggest failing of this stuff – for which I think it was intended – is to stop people looking at capitalism itself i.e. to stop them from taking a good look at the system actively working around them every moment of their lives.
I’m probably more anti-Capitalist than you are. The problem is that Communism is not a solution because it is just a different system run by the same rulers, globalist international bankers. i.e. not, at its core, a different system at all.
We live in “democracies” wherein we “expend our energies fighting over issues of no importance”, as Montague Norman (Gov of Bank of England) said in 1924. This, he said, was the very purpose of the creation of the “party system”.
The system (unchanged since 1325 B.C.) as described by Russian professors to the FSB (KGB) sounds about right.
In my view the future is Voluntarian self-government by small communities created by agreement for a common purpose within which it is possible for everybody to be personally known by everybody else.
Top-down hierarchy by remote authority is our problem. It is a system designed by criminals, thieves and fiends to serve (primarily) their own interests. It has brought us continuing ongoing disasters and permanent instability. Such instability serves the interests of those who are always seeking something to gain. We must put an end to this folly.
Yes you’re solution is very attractive – but there is the problem of how you’re going to achieve it. Admittedly this is a problem with every proposed solution. The advantage of what might be called “Marxism” or “Historical Materialism” is that, taking its starting point from Hegel, it acknowledges that history is a never ending process in which things change all the time and nothing can be reinstated. Marx did not hate capitalism – he acknowledged its astonishing spur to productivity but felt that it had not only outlived its usefulness but that it was now doing more harm than good. Admittedly it always did an astonishing amount of harm when you consider the cultures trashed, the millions of lives wasted etc. but the effects are all around us and deliver indisputable benefits. The main thing is that you cannot simply undo all this. The technological advances (brought about by an unceasing drive for profit) are there and will not go away. This has inevitably caused centralization whereby a decreasing number of people own most of the wealth. How you can disperse this matrix to form these little communities is, to say the least, a challenge. But I don’t see how you can reinstall some presumably ideal community from before 1325 BC.
Maybe the new system installed by the Egyptian priesthood was much better than what existed before it. As you say, rule from above (capitalism or whatever) has delivered good things as well as bad.
Yes … “challenging”, to put it mildly.
I don’t imagine any such system-change can be enforced. It is more likely that there will be developments in our collective consciousness and understanding of reality that will make the creation of such a system inevitable. After all, humans are brilliant at proceeding intelligently from correct assumptions.
Our problem is that the current system is led by liars who achieve their goals by deception. All management systems work on pretexts that are ‘good’ when viewed in isolation. However the deeper purpose of any management system that I have looked at carefully is to serve the interests of whoever is at the very top directing the system itself. Because of the (almost always) idealistic pretexts, it is very hard for us to see this.
Our even bigger problem is that when we try to resist what we see as evils we get angry and this anger plays into the hands of the enemy and the system itself. We need to come to a clear understanding of what we are as human beings to begin to even think about this problem. Our rulers, I believe, understand (far better than ourselves) what we are.
Our rulers attack and disorientate our INNER selves in ways that are often transparently stupid. They tell us obvious lies BECAUSE this makes us angry. In this condition our ability to resist their agenda is hugely weakened. Anger is a manifestation of fear. We get in a rage because we are afraid of the consequences of policies and actions on ourselves , our friends and our children. However, the force that can easily defeat fear/anger is not more fear/anger (these people have armies of violent employees they can use against us) but LOVE.
We must ( I believe … and I am no example to anyone on this front. This is a rather recent realisation on my part) NOT get angry about the lies we are told nor the attacks carried out against us by powers-that-be.
We must learn to develop within ourselves a spirit of sufficiency and joy. We must laugh at and mock the narratives they create to control us. We must, though, refuse to conform to wickedness if commanded to do so.
(Hate to raise this to you … no offense … but they were very wise words): someone famously said the following:
“Know the truth and the truth will set you free”.
” Love your enemies”.
” Do not be angry”.
” Greater things than this shall you achieve”.
Our rulers know that our anger works to their advantage. We must not be angry either with them or fellow citizens who buy into the lies we are all told. Just keep working on and holding to the truth. Laugh at the lies. Be happy and eventually it will be obvious to everyone that the acceptance of remote hierarchy is the acceptance of rule by criminals (to use a kind word for these people).
If that sounds like something a mindless Hippie might utter after a trip, well … I’ve just had bacon sandwich. Base reality is extraordinarily magical and capitalists can’t do a thing about that.
I have no objection to Jesus personally. You can’t blame him for much that was done later supposedly in his name.
Great answer. See my website
1325 BCE? Why so specific?
… death of Akhenaten/Moses
Lecture to KGB by Russian prof:
My own coverage of the issues:
Akhenaton/Moses
same talk (more or less as Alexeyevitch:
capital ism
marx ism
trotsky ism
bolshev ism
rothschill ism
satan ism
zionism
all sides of the same beast system
all interconnected interbred interelated
init
The Cuckoo has landed!
Could not agree more. Who is down voting? They obviously cannot wait for prison planet and complete authoritarian control. They are already trying to ban cash in Oz so that it will all be captured in the banking system. Ideal for “negative rates” and “bail-ins”. The supposed excuse is to prevent “money laundering” but it did not prevent the banks here processing the proceeds from child porn and drugs. We need to combat the Anglo-Zionists AND the globo-Bolsheviks. They both want technocratic rule. See: http://www.biblaridion.info/blog
Well, could not agree more. They are trying to ban cash in Oz for “money laundering” yet the banks process drug money and child porn money. They want negative rates. They want bail-ins. They want prison planet and technocracy. The fact that you have five down votes demonstrates that something is seriously amiss. The Anglo-Zionists and the globo-bolsheviks both want technocratic rule. Whatever happens we are facing fascism of one type or the other. The UK has really gone down the tubes since I left. What a pity. Visit my blog and website.
A cashless society is essential for centralisation, global technocracy and global governance. I cannot urge people strongly enough about the importance of researching the United Nations’ Agenda for Global Governance, Agenda21/2030/2050, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the UN’s manifesto, etc. These are all part of an environmental Trojan horse. Read these UN documents along with the many different analyses of them.
The conclusions many of us have come to after many years of study is that the aim of the UN agendas isn’t to improve/help/protect the environment in order to improve/help/protect the health and comfort of humans as is the official line, but an insidious ruse to incrementally control humans and insidious depopulation (as well as control of all resources: all the land, food, water, materials, etc). Don’t believe me (yet), well, I dare you to do extensive research especially beyond the mainstream using critical thinking and evidence-based techniques. I shunned these notions when I first heard about UN Agenda21 in the mid 2000s before researching everything widely and intensely over the last 12 years or so. It took me a lot of time before I was convinced we are already in ww3 – we are in a silent war using quiet weapons. What convinced me the most was the insiders’ work: speeches, documents, books, videos, quotes (much of it planned over many, many decades). Please look have a look yourselves.
As I repeatedly say, don’t take my or anyone else’s word for it – do your own due diligence; do the extensive research from different angles using critical thinking. If you don’t go on the long study-journey yourself (esp. using critical thinking methods) it will be almost impossible to get closer to the truth for we live in a world saturated with propaganda, confusing messages, distraction, contradictory ‘studies’ side-by-side to purposely confuse, outright lies, disinformation, misinformation and omission.
This is the most important subject in our modern era and the one we need to stop from happening; if people don’t get up to speed on this our children and grandchildren (the ones that are allowed to survive) may end up living in a totally controlled neo-slavery system. There is an alternative – we could protect our environment hand-in-hand with helping people without enslaving them, but will the global establishment listen to us?
P.S.
Keeping in mind what I wrote above, it is interesting that the UN manifesto is almost a replica of the Communist manifesto – make of that what you will…
Capitalism and the UN’s covert communism are two sides of the same technocratic, globalist coin?
“We are in the midst of a silent war. They’re not going to fire a shot folks…….they’re going to cook you, and they’re going to do it using invisible radio-frequency emissions that you’re addicted to and in love with because your junk works, no matter where you go”.
The Fullerton Informer, on 5G
People don’t care. They don’t want to listen. I have been banging on about 9/11 for so long now, and people just don’t give a shit. They’re too fuckng stupid and self-absorbed. Instead they use it as an excuse to mock and ridicule and sit on their perch
Agree. Visit my blog
Why the people do not react? Why, instead, do they resort to a behavior that in fact supports that which they complaint?
“Learned helplessness, in psychology, a mental state in which an organism forced to bear aversive stimuli, or stimuli that are painful or otherwise unpleasant, becomes unable or unwilling to avoid subsequent encounters with those stimuli, even if they are “escapable,” presumably because it has learned that it cannot control the situation.
The theory of learned helplessness was conceptualized and developed by American psychologist Martin E.P. Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania in the late 1960s and ’70s. While conducting experimental research on classical conditioning, Seligman inadvertently discovered that dogs that had received unavoidable electric shocks failed to take action in subsequent situations—even those in which escape or avoidance was in fact possible—whereas dogs that had not received the unavoidable shocks immediately took action in subsequent situations. The experiment was replicated with human subjects (using loud noise as opposed to electric shocks), yielding similar results. Seligman coined the term learned helplessness to describe the expectation that outcomes are uncontrollable.
Learned helplessness has since become a basic principle of behavioral theory, demonstrating that prior learning can result in a drastic change in behaviour and seeking to explain why individuals may accept and remain passive in negative situations despite their clear ability to change them. ”
Source:
https://www.britannica.com/science/learned-helplessness
Martin Seligman was one of the leading lights of the torture claque of psychologists who advised the US authorities on ‘ enhanced interrogation’ techniques after 9/11. It was his doody as a good Zionist, Israel being the leading experts on mass torture of Moslems, specifically forced nakedness, sexual humiliation, the use of dogs and stress positions etc.
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/oms_summary.pdf
The sooner this site removes the ridiculous assumption that an upper middle class champagne socialist is an appropriate mentor to the working class the better.
I know a bit about doctors purporting to be socialists. My sister is one. She has never been a socialist, she is an old school fascist who believes that doctors should engage in MK-Ultra-style mind control, that absolute control of their underlings (they define underlings, despite their underlings needing to be stolen from every year to update the ignoramus’ total lack of knowledge about anything outside the control freak world of gassing people) is their right to take advantage of.
It is absolutely imperative that upper middle class do-gooders are told to learn how to behave before they are allowed to pontificate.
Stop claiming that self-serving avaricious power seekers are socialists. They are not.
They are simply those who are narcissistically in need of a way to expiate all the appalling sharp-elbowed tactics they used destroying others to rise up the greasy pole.
It should come through the honesty of ‘I am a repulsive, self-serving, power-obsessed destroyer of other people’s freedoms.’
Then they could join an honest party promoting such goals and see how many votes they actually got.
It would be very, very few, which is why they have to lie in perpetuity to maintain their absolutely disgusting moral values until they die.
The stark choice we are facing is a dystopian, dickensian, feudal hell, with rampant death and disease, or a socialist system based on people first, based on humanity, and in harmony with the environment – and not on the bottom lines of the parasitic 0.01% who rake in many billions at the expense of the vast majority of mankind, and who are raping this planet.
“Meanwhile, income and wealth inequality
is rising to stratospheric levels; workers
worldwide are experiencing a decline in
material conditions (economic, social and
ecological) and the entire Planet as a place
of human habitation is in jeopardy. All
this is the result of a system geared
toward the most egregious forms of
exploitation, expropriation, waste, and
predation on a world scale”.
John Bellamy Foster
‘Absolute Capitalism’.
And let’s be really honest here. There will be no parliamentary, electoral road to Socialism.
The ruling elites will not allow that to happen, and they will not willingly give up their power and wealth. Ever.
Look at what’s happening in France right now. Do you see Macron and the State handing over power? Non.
What is being handed over is the clenched fist of the French State directed at the many brave protesters.
Look at what happened to Salvador Allende in Chile. Look at the huge betrayal of Syriza in Greece.
The entire economic system needs to be overthrown.
Neoliberalism alienates and atomises us and instills a cult of greed is good.
We need to rediscover community and solidarity, and link up with other like minded people who also oppose the destruction of our society and our environment by the psychopaths who don’t give a flying fig about the rest of humanity.
If the system is so obviously flawed, then how does capitalism continue to get away with such shameless, self-centred behaviour?
Because people are cunts. That’s how.
In the UK, socialism still exists. BUT Labour’s policies were mental AND they decided to ignore democracy and ignore the Brexit vote. If they had accepted Brexit, they would have got the landslide vote that Boris did and we would be on the first step of the journey to utopia (even with the controlling, mental policies). In the USA, the Dems have similarly gone mental and leave no option but to vote Trump. An example of what I think is mental are hate speech laws and taxing poor people for their carbon footprint. The left are already eating their own tail as they seem not to be in the same reality as everyone else.
You are partly right. Corbyn’s rep for integrity doesn’t really stand up though, when he campaigned for remain, when his sympathies are with a UK outside of the EU.
Corbyn gave a mixed message on Europe, and paid the price.
“The UK working class lost much sympathy after its stunning rejection of Jeremy Corbyn’s socialist manifesto in last December’s general election.”
I lost interest after this patronising, I know better than you comment
The truth hurts, I guess, bob. What the author writes here is spot on. The working class of the UK has just voted in yet another Rothschild stooge, they just voted for their enemy, again, because they’re too stupid and brain-trained to work out what is really going on on the world, because they are incapable of critical analysis and they are brainwashed by their enemy. Corbyn’s UK was laden with hope FOR THEM, although the scum would most likely have countered his premiership with a lot of false flags and dirty disruptive tactics to ensure his failure.
Brexit incoming, this country won’t know what’s hit it and millions will be scratching their heads asking “what have we done?”, when the grim reality of this situation plays out and the penny drops. I still haven’t been made aware of any tangible benefits of Brexit that will actually benefit the people.
Brexit = less immigration. Dream on. EU immigration will be supplemented by immigration from other parts of the world, where most of UK immigration comes from anyway.
Brexit = taking back control of laws. No it doesn’t, it means even more control gifted to the USA and Israel with zero protection for everyday peoples’ rights. Who in their right mind would hand over such massive levels of power to the genociders on the right of the UK/US/Israeli political spectrum. Oh that’s right, the dumb UK working class, that’s who.
Brexit = massive infrastructure spending. Yes, but the Devil is in the detail. What you will see is a conversion of our towns and cities to even more Nazified, ultra high-tech smart cities, designed in Israel, made in China (to quote Brendon O Connell. I urge readers to visit his Youtube channel and watch his latest offerings). 5G a go-go. Frightening in the extreme.
The next time you hear a Brit whingeing about socialism and commies and all the other implanted bullshit that pollutes their tiny minds, remind them that the NHS is pure socialism. Then watch them dribble and listen to their pathetic, ill-conceived response.
“Oh that’s right, the dumb UK working class, that’s who.”
It’s not just the working class, it’s the whole population. The people of the UK range from the Bulldog bigots to the nauseating, clueless, Guardian-reading twats in Brighton and everything inbetween. All the corporate, hive-minded Emma Barnett types. The upper classes. The landlords (sick bag please Matron, I just visualised Britains’ landlord class). The list goes on.
Have you finished attacking everyone yet? Or is it just the people who have the audacity to disagree with how you wanted things to be. I have been a Labour voter most of my life but this last time they lost the plot – free broadband when free school meals would be more useful – continue to ignore the predominantly moslim rape gangs in the mostly northern towns and cities (still going on now) and recoil into their Londoncentric bubble. How bad did the Labour Party have to be for working class people to vote Tory – well now we know. The present Labour leadership race is hilarious and will no doubt keep them out of power for 15 to 20 years. Who is left for a socialist to vote for?
Damn straight Jim! Bloody Mosslim rape gangs bloody attacking little kids everywhere you go! Bloody immigrants! Bloody no respect for our bloody fantastic culture! And I’m a bloody Labour voter too and I know what’s what about bloody bloody ….
If you are taking the piss because you think that I have made that up then check the governments own figures (19000 girls affected by this grooming in 2018/19 year). It has been covered up for at least 15 years so far. Maybe you agree with Naz Shah (Labour MP) who retweeted a quote ‘Those abused girls in Rotherham and elsewhere just need to shut their mouths. For the good of diversity’. I knew that this subject would trigger this response so deliberately spelt moslem incorrectly just to add to the honey.
Yes there’s a lot of triggering going on here. And I refuse to take the bait.
Labour refused to have a viciously racist and Islamophobic policy, so you were pissed off. They were better off without you. Call yourself a ‘ socialist’-a National Socialist, surely.
You’re right, I feel dirty. I prostrate myself before you and your woke alter. Please sneer at me as I am a white male (there are millions of us) and should not have an opinion. So, Brexit was a viciously racist and Islamophobic policy? Wow, just wow. You may be interested to know that my best pal Tommy Robinson has just got a journalism award and has been invited to speak in the EU Parliament. You may have assumed things about me – not my problem. You are the new dinosaur, you just don’t know it yet
Narcissistic paranoia is truly hilarious. I’ m a black, white and yellow, transgender hermaphrodite, a victim of the perfidious Dr. Moreau, but by my good right claw, I declare that I hold you gorgeous white males no animus, or anima, whatsoever. You’ re just too, too, entertaining for that.
I listen to Brits’ conversations all the time. Most of the time it involves talking about people they know, behind their back, taking the piss out of them and giving them a good slagging off. They love nothing more than to sit in the pub, belittling and gossipping about their social circle, with their patronising expressions of either fake concern or jubilance about other peoples’ misfortunes. Then if someone walks in who doesn’t look just like them, this is another opportunity to start judging and guessing, always in the negative, what this character is like. This constant sneering means they get to give themselves a big ego boost and feel very important. I am convinced that the reason people engage in this process of belittling and spreading rumours and mocking is because they gain a sense of superiority in doing so. Also, be sure not to let your eyes drift anywhere near their precious little children, because you will immediately be earmarked as a paedophile.
Here is an example of how pathetic the English mind has become. One time, in a pub, I was plugged into my laptop, using the music software, headphones on. Totally public space. Probably bobbing my head in time with the beat, just slightly. Next thing I know, two Police officers tap me on the shoulder to inform me I have been reported for suspicious behaviour. I’m not sure if the rocking motion led them to believe I was wanking under the table or something like that, but this was a serious compaint. I showed them the music software and explained my “suspicious behaviour”, at which point they apologised and left. I shit you not. Don’t get me started about the UK’s paranoid snitching culture, cultivated in no small part by the Police.
If a conversation accidentally veers into current affairs and politics, typical opinions are formulated from reading too much of the Sun and watching too much of the BBC. The bullshit fountain that is their mouth sprays the air with the mist of lies that fogs their mind. It’s typically a showcase of the blind leading the blind, a kind of open forum Chinese whispers. But the political conversation never lasts more than about a minute anyway, because at least one member of any given group will suddenly become very hostile about political conversation, making it clear that politics is not something that should be discussed, so it’s back to the subject of how many billions Jose Mourinho is going to spunk on a new defender for Tottenham Hotspur. That’s better
Absolutely spot on , I’ve posted that on here and everywhere else , that’s all the imbeciles can talk about, football , watching multimillionaires kicking a ball around who couldn’t give a shit for them, they can tell you any score from whatever date, wearing their ridiculous silly shirts on with number 5 or which is popular at the time, but couldn’t name a single shadow cabinet member, worst still any of the slobs cabinet.
Excellent.
FOOTBALL – being a religion and MORE important than Life & Death.
The Slave owners being few, have always strived to control their multitudinous slaves by self – imposed mental chains.
The last hundred years has seen the move from fragmented pulpit Christianity to mass media & electromagnetic channels of distributing self imposed slavery.
Football (& other non-elite sport) was used – the bought politicians allowed it to be taken from the free to air tv’s and handed it to the Dirty Digger – an Empire psycho ceo – to mould a propoganda delivery machine around that bait.
And hasn’t it worked accordingly!
Most who claim to not care of politics, care a LOT about FOOTBALL. The best coverage comes with the regular ‘News’ spots on TV and Headlines and Lies in their Sport rags.
You’re right of course, but the slob didn’ t get elected without them, that’s for sure
“ultra high-tech smart cities”.
Yes, the beloved EU would never sign-up for neo-slavery smart cities! They already are, naive commenter!
“The European innovation partnership on smart cities and communities (EIP-SCC) is an initiative supported by the European Commission that brings together cities, industry, small business (SMEs), banks, research and others.”
https://ec.europa.eu/info/eu-regional-and-urban-development/topics/cities-and-urban-development/city-initiatives/smart-cities_en
Example: Barcelona is a leading city in the process of becoming a Smart City (one example among numerous EU cities).
‘Smart Cities’ is part of the UN Agenda21/2030/Global Governance/SDGs/UN Manifesto – and most countries/ states including the EU which always been inextricably part of this global governance/control plan!
You can add the 100 Resilient Cities Initiative started 6 years ago by The Rockerfeller Foundation to that list Tallis
https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/our-work/initiatives/100-resilient-cities/
Thanks, TheThinker. Good link!
Welcome, I have like you read Agenda 21/30 and the Smart SuperCity approach of cramming in millions in what I can only see in my own mind (like the original Total Recall) People of the future will be assigned a designation and place of work and home will be at that designation. Crammed in to the Cities, whilst the rest is hived off, only for the Elite to have access to and privatised – everything a human needs to live will be commoditised and if you can’t afford it tough.
I see this also with the Climate Agenda – Individuals being told they must take less flights to lessen their Carbon Footprints – but others like De Caprio for example flying all over the place in a private jet with a Carbon Footprint for 10 thousand people or more etc – I wonder why all these plane companies are going out of business – I wonder if the Billionaires are phasing out Passengers planes so only the super rich can travel (Re: Carbon footprint I’ve only taken a no longer than 3 hr flights x 3 in 20 years, so mines not so bad!
Another link for you in case you have not seen it. It adds to the understanding of where these people wish to take the world – after they have destroyed Individual Nation States and their sense of Democracy, by instilling a new Governance Model. These will be unelected people (not by us anyways) to run those Smart Cities negating the need for National Governance (parliaments as they are now)
https://globalparliamentofmayors.org/
Agree with all you say here! Thank you for the link – I will definitely check it out.
Talking of aeroplanes, believe it or not, I’ve only ever been on one plane journey (when I was a toddler so I don’t even remember it)! I haven’t travelled very much (especially as an adult) and only by train, car, ferry and coach. I hope I can get the chance to take a flight somewhere one day soon before they restrict them to the establishment (hopefully this never happens of course)!
Tallis, I hope you find the opportunity to do that. Its an interesting experience. And, I agree, hope the barrier to travelling never happens or at least other ways to do so become available. Interestingly, the article is 3 years old, but I had the notion to check as I always thought there were a lot less people travelling via flight than we think. And the recent bad press about Boeing, perhaps they are being got at in terms of its stock and market competition or other reasons..
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/07/boeing-ceo-80-percent-of-people-never-flown-for-us-that-means-growth.html
Won’t be long before the planes are electric and polluting will be in the deciding of what type of electricity generation is used.
Re: smart cities, head over to Brendon O Connell’s channel on YT, watch his totally cutting edge, 10/10 documentary, number 22 in his list, only out for a week or so. It has a smart city element to it, plus so much more, delving deep into the open yet hidden relationship between Israel, Russia and China, the ties with Iran, the Belt and Road project, the history of this and most of all, the transfer of high-technology infrastructure from the USA to China and Israel and who has orchestrated this. Up there with War By Deception in terms of importance.
Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour was offering FREE FIBRE BROADBAND for all. This would be a major spanner in the works to 5G. He couldn’t come out and say it as such, because it was too much of a can of worms, but this was possibly touted in defiance of the smart city/5G agenda?
Agenda 21, coming in 2021. Brace yourselves, and get your tin foil hat ready, you might just need it this time hahaha. I’m joking, but what is coming was conceived in the darkest cavities of Satan’s rectal passage and will smell as such, like the smell of a new electric bus offending your every sense.
R.I.P. Barcelona. so very sad to see such an amazing place being flushed down the toilet to make way for the evil of modern technology. The people of Barcelona would be well advised to quit with the independence movement for now and focus on the far more pressing job of turning over this leader of European technology status, which is in the process of destroying a truly electrifying place and will render many a victim.
What has happened to our supposed survival instincts?
I get it about the EU, it’s another Satanic, good for no-one entity, I’m just not seeing the gain in leaving, the guaranteed economic downturn, to dance directly with the evil that is the USA and Israel? I honestly cannot see any.
The only gain I can see is that it cuts a major chain of power and Brits can vote in someone decent to guide them. Back in the real world though, please refer to the General Election that just passed.
Please enlighten me as to what you believe the clear-cut, tangible gains of Brexit will be.
BREAKING NEWS
BBC: bacteria and algae in freshwater lakes and rivers are causing climate change. They’re reporting that 25% of global CO2/methane emissions comes from fresh water. OK, I’m done, this is too much. People, you have to see through this shit. Please wake up. and quickly. You are being shafted by systems of pure evil. Wake up! Stop being mind controlled by this.
Hi Mucho,
Thanks for your reply (I’ve only just seen it).
Concerning your question about why people back Brexit/Lexit: many of us think about the “tangible” long-term and geopolitical ramifications of staying in the European Union; the knowledge that this entity was set up as a super-state pilot for world federalism. Basically, the EU is just the first example of one of the supranational unions that will help the global establishment incrementally gain complete centralised global technocratic governance of the planet. The other supranational unions planned include an African Union, a Pacific Union and American union (among a tiny handful). We think the EU is a neo-liberal/technocratic, imperial, anti-democratic, ultimately unaccountable, sovereignty-depleting federal state/superstate and no doubt the other unions will be the same; none of us want to be part of the process of a centralised, technocratic one world government for obvious reasons!
Re: Jeremy Corbyn’s LP and the Free Fibre Broadband policy – I am in complete agreement here – it would have been a master-stroke, I agree with what you said: “This would be a major spanner in the works to 5G. He couldn’t come out and say it as such, because it was too much of a can of worms, but this was possibly touted in defiance of the smart city/5G agenda?”. Sadly, it would only be a master-stroke if the LP had been part of a real democratic election – but no, the LP (especially Corbyn et al) were instead cheated out of government in the completely corrupt election (not just the usual dirty tricks,smears & propaganda but also the most obvious,transparent and despicable use of rigged postal ballots. I am still so angry that this has happened and no one seems to be really fighting the in-your-face filthy corruption. I know that the real result was close and would have been another hung parliament (similar to 2017 but probably even narrower where the tories would probably have needed to bribe the DUP again?). As I’ve said in a comment I wrote before: I think that in the last election the establishment have used their secret services & other lackeys to help in some way engineer the landslide result (postal ballot rigging). On the day of the election many people observed and commented on the huge queues in the poll stations and seeing so many young people voting like never before (including many photos on social media). Also the percentage of postal ballots in the previous elections were much much less than this time round?! Lord Ashcroft revealed that an astonishing 38% of all votes cast at the 2019 general election were postal votes. This compares with a figure of 15.3% in 2010, 16.4% in 2015 and 18% in 2017. The result does not seem plausible and the status quo has/had so much to lose.
I wonder when my anger about all this corruption and fury at how Jeremy Corby has been so abysmally treated will ever lessen; I desperately hope some people in power and/or the general public organise successfully to stop all this unfair chaos in its tracks before it consumes all that is good in our country (and beyond). We need a fair country where truth, justice, peace and empathy prevail.
They rigged it alright, this is like a routine procedure for them, a walk in the park, a painless, cheap as chips, almost invisible process which costs them nothing but wins them everything. A tiny investment for a massive return, with no-one to police them. Even if they get caught (which they have been), it makes no difference. A few people work it out…..ok what are you going to do about it? This is why control of the press is so important, it’s a massive cover-up scam.
Brits are stupid. They just go along with whatever shit sandwich the Establishment serve them, and think themselves lucky to have it. They have been trained to act this way for generations, probably centuries. I have something I call “dog theory” – say you get a Jack Russell, bred for ratting. Put it in a ratting situation, even though you haven’t trained it to do the ratting, it will instinctively know what to do……it’s in the blood, hard-wired. People are the same, we are the product of previous generations, and somewhere in our make up, we inherit memories and habits. We know we can’t mess with them, we know we can’t beat them.
We’re all just actors in a big fucked up play, and they write the script, they give you your part, your cues and your lines. It’s all so transparent once you see it, but most don’t, because that’s the role they’ve been given, to be stupid
I agree with your first paragraph, but I disagree with your thoughts on the Brits/people in general. I think you are underestimating (by a country mile!) the palpable fury at the establishment by the general public out there since the completely & transparently corrupt election. Don’t forget we have only had the internet since the late 1990s; the first time that the public have had access to huge amounts of real information, news and knowledge beyond the usual establishment’s official narratives (historically in their uber controlled media forms of limited press, tv radio, magazines, books, etc) — and already people have had their eyes and minds’ opened to how the world really is run, and who runs it, and also why (in this short space of time since only the ’90s). I reckon it will take just a teeny while longer before the lid comes off; before the public organise enough (inside and/or outside of the Corbyn movement LP) before something changes to stop all this despicable corruption.
The combination of the internet and the Corbyn Movement has happened and this cat (to complement your dog analogy!!) can’t be put back into the bag now; the movement will only grow. The big question now is – what will the cornered establishment (Komodo Dragon!!) do in response, if my hopes are right and the estab. know this state of affairs?
Brits don’t care. The Corbyn movement will not grow any further, they’ve just killed the Corbyn movement, now the burial process is underway. If Corbyn starts his own party, maybe there is a glimmer of hope, but Labour is dead, it’s infested with wrecking balls and clueless cocksuckers, as are UK parties in general. The establishment are just too good at this shit. They spend billions of taxpayers’ money honing systems of control, they have developed these systems over centuries and they have a system of surveillance which is so intrusive and all knowing it’s beyond a joke (much of this surveillance hardware is designed in Israel. The UK is a massive cash cow for Israel’s security/tech industry. It’s already gone beyond a joke, and now Bojo , another Rothschild stooge, is in power and Brexit is going through, guess what this massive investment in infrastructure will bring? More Israeli designed, fully backdoored and compromised security hardware. Smart this, smart that, all designed in Israel. “But what about Huawei?” they cry. That’s one big gut laugh of a diversion from the real issue here. Joy of joys, and the dumb Brits will welcome it with open arms, they love feeling secure, even if it means being irradiated……phrases like “you can’t be too careful” spring to mind. Classic Brit-think. 7/7, Israeli operated CCTV in all the critical places like on the bus and the trains mysteriously fails……hello massive national security breach, why is Israel operating surveillance in UK critical infrastructure? Why do we accept that it failed. Move along nothing to see here……ok then , whatever you say).
They know what you’re thinking, they know who is in your friends network, they know everything about you. They have a file on you, a file on me, a file on your mum, a file on everyone. They have this shit licked. What do Brits have to say about this? Fuck all, that’s what, cos they’re too fucking stupid and braintrained to see through it and demand change. They believe all the terrorism crap is what they say it is, they believe in the establishment, they believe in the monarchy, they are signed up to the system, lock, stock and barrel. If you try to enlgihten them, they mock, ridicule and close you down. The day Brits question 9/11 en masse and demand answers is the day I will have sympathy with your points, but there is no sign of that on the horizon, internet or no internet. Ryan Dawson and Chris Bollyn publicly solved 9/11 about 10 years ago, and what has changed since? Nothing, that’s what. If it gets too heavy, the establishment will act accordingly. They are always three steps ahead of the game, which is why they keep winning, over and over again. Those who frame the establishment as incompetent are just not getting it. They are not incompetent, they rule, and they always have done, they are the masters of control. They have no morals, no low is too low, threaten them and you’ll get nowhere, they will make sure of that. It’s pure fascism, but try telling a Brit they live in a state of pure fascism. They’ll just laugh at you.
One trick they play is to constantly bombard the population with propaganda to show them how shitty life is in other parts of the world, and on balance, there is a truth in this, we have it pretty good here compared to other places……if you are void of spirit, that is and you only value material benefits. Brits are wedded to materialism. This all changes with 5G though, because 5G is a programme of mass slaughter. Brits don’t care though, just give me those faster downloads, so consumed by their phones as they are.
You say anything to an average Brit about how bad things have become, their standard reaction is to say something sanctimonious like “go and live in China then, close the door on your way out. Bye”.
There may be fury among your social circle, but they are not representative of the average Brit I’m afraid. Society is structured in such a way that makes change nearly impossible, because they keep a critical mass of happy, well fed little fat pets. If people start rebelling properly, they’ll just lock them up and use them as an example to not rebel. Kettling, anyone? No thanks. The harder the rebellion, the harder the punishment. But Brits already know this, instinctively, because it has been bred into them to know this, as I mentioned, which is why they keep schtum. Good old “Stiff upper lip”……..do not be yourself, do not show your emotions, do not react, just obey, obey, obey. That’s how they achieve this.
I just linked to some of the most important info out there in cyber world coming from Brendon O Connell and Jeremy Rothe Kushel, on this site, supposedly read by enlightened souls, yet all I get are downvotes and that pellet Dungroanin writing negative bullshit, even though he hasn’t watched the material. Not one person has written one single comment about how interesting and well researched Brendon’s work is, how critical this info is. Not one. We’re fucked, and it’s because we have been designed to be fucked, by those who control the world.
I know how powerful the estab is (I would not underestimate them but they are not all-powerful), but I think you hugely underestimate the British public. Also, your comments make you seem extremely defeatist? There is still hope with the Corbyn Movement; it has not stopped, in fact I reckon the corrupt election has increased our resolve. There is also a good chance for other anti-estab movements, and even future new parties if it comes to that in the end.
In general, the public seems to be up for the fight after talking to people in my local community (not just in my small circle); and after my scouring of the internet: social media, blogs, news forums – MSM as well as alternative (and the gate-keeping ‘alternatives). I don’t think the Brits are going to let this corruption lie. Only time will tell of course …
To be frank, I have observed that many people on this site seem distrustful of links to other sites (including myself), I think we probably rightly assume that this site is crawling with secret services and other estab lackeys so tend not to trust other commenters very much including their links. People do probably look but do not leave comments in reply a lot of the time? I occasionally do that when I’m too busy which is sadly the case most of the time for me lately.
Well, after saying all the above, I do understand your frustrations because of all the power the estab have – not least because of their 5G tech and all the surveillance details you have mentioned; I totally agree it seems like the road ahead is too difficult with such enormous obstacles, but I think that the public will ultimately rail against it all — now that the MSM have lost the trust of the public by and large; we now know democracy was an illusion; because we out-number the estab; and with the fact that we now have hope due to the movement that Corbyn initiated — and I really do think we, the public are/will be a force to be reckoned with.
Another key thing for hope is the armed forces and police – they may have the role of protecting the estab but their family and friends and local communities are part of the general public (and not the estab) so as history shows in many cases, there could be mutinies in their ranks which could ultimately lead to these groups backing the general public. All this is possible?
The truth for me personally is that I am totally split in my mind about whether ultimately the ‘good’ will win over the ‘bad’ here in Britain (and in the wider world) because of some of my knowledge that I’ve gleaned over the last 12 years (and yes, there is much more to learn) – I have no idea what the result will be for the world (a good result or bad), but as I’ve said many times before, I will (like many other people) fight for what is right even if the situation is futile (almost certain failure) but what else can we do if we don’t fight for our freedom, our future world and the next generations? Hackneyed or not, it is true that many of us would rather die fighting than live on our knees. We cannot afford to be defeatist…
P.S. I’m interested in what you think about this article and the astute comment beneath it (see link below) – the author outlines a few things I have also stumbled on in my research journey e.g. the sacrificing of not just the Western developed countries but also the plan from the outset of using Israel as a sacrificial pawn for the ultimate hegemony agenda? Basically, I would like to know if others agree with a few or most of the points she makes. Would appreciate any feedback – thank you in advance.
https://steemit.com/news/@francesleader/armageddon-a-predators-final-solution
Why do you think that simple, fact-based, science, is pure ‘evil’?
Couldn’t agree more, I told friends in the pub who voted leave “you don’t understand what you’ve just done” I’m no great political animal , but a fuckin imbecile could see what was about to happen, do they really believe the hairy arsed slob, johnson is going to make their lives better? oh I forgot, we can always vote them out, ha ha ha ha haha dream on zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Spot on. In a democracy, there is no higher authority than the electorate.
What the hell is that even supposed to mean? No higher authority than the ones pumping out sufficient brain rot to momentarily sway the soap watchers? In a true democracy, the population should be given more control than a pathetic pseudo-choice relayed via pathetic pseudo-issues every few years.
What an idiot lie-the highest authority is the owners of the society, the capitalist parasites. The plebs count for nothing but cannon fodder.
Excellent progression …that gets close, but perhaps not close enough?
Socialism is universal: the underprivileged in class solidarity and the internationale to end wage slavery. The global compassionate mind is something I just made up to represent these value-rational truths. Which is a level and smooth plane of equality and immanence where no thing is over-valued, privileged, or has exceptional and entitled status. Which exposes the falsity of the premise of ‘workers’ and ‘unionised jobs’. In a depleting and poison ravaged planet: pro-industrialisation is pro-imperialism …taking from others, forcing them into underprivileged and maldeveloped underclass status. So we can have unions and jobs in a developed set of imaginary bourgeois social relations: divorced from the global immiseration and ecological desolation this causes.
In short: if this is the depth of our insight – we are no different from the ‘bosses’ who take the lion’s share. Only our deprivation and forcing into immiseration is exported and invisibilised. This is the state of the socialist revolution in the developed world. People who think they are socialist – indeed communist – are in fact capitalist and imperialist. They just employ effective screening discourses to erect a veil of ignorance (meaning to ignore rather be stupid – they are not stupid) around their bounded mentality and assumption of a symbolic proletariat victimhood.
This is the state of socialism in the UK too. We have become divorced from where our wealth really comes from and obsessed about how badly it is distributed. And it is badly distributed. But we become hypocratised when we highlight austerity and foodbanks for nurses if we do not also recognise that at least we have foodbanks. The rest of the world: who we derive our Eurocentric wealth from and deprive them of the materials that could be a local, not a forced exported source of wealth …leaving them resource cursed in a depth of poverty much deeper than our own. They have no foodbanks or free NHS, and have to walk 30 miles a day to get some bilharzia typhoid water …which kills the infants. For which we, the unionised emancipated workforce, will continue to offer charity and aid? This is not emancipation, its a pseudo-enlightened imperialism.
As Samir Amin said: we need an international ‘labour theory of value’ (ILTV) that accounts for ‘imperial rent’ – which is the maldistribution of surplus value North to South. Workers do not get a homogenised share of the total value createdas abstract labour – ‘socially necessary labour time’ – is not the same for the barista in Dulwich as it is in Jakarta. The ILTV has been skewed and becomes another character masking discourse. Materials that are extracted at minimal cost – read slave wages – in the South, become highly valued commodities in the North. This is hidden in what Odum called ‘ecological unequal exchange’. Which is itself hidden by the ‘universal equivalence’ of ‘general purpose money’. Which means the money form – being a homogenised value form of exchange value – masks the fact that the exchange is unequal …because it seems all labour is socially equivalent. It is not.
So, hidden from the gross inexactitude of value-distribution – the North become ‘enbourgeoisied’ by its own autonomised and Fetishised commodity exchange. We develop a set of predator/prey localised grievances and maldevelopment discourses that in turn mask the gross injustice of the global class struggle. Our industrialised workforce pseudo-politics is in fact a legacy of a new colonialism …invisibilising the dehumanised worker and excluded humanity exported ‘over there’. Out of site is out of mind.
So we develop, as the global consumption and pollution bourgeoisie, as an assumed ‘symbolic proletariat’. Our ‘struggle’ – though the local inequality is real – amounts to an ‘en haute en bas’ status and privilege struggle which is internal to the bourgeois consumption class we find ourselves in. Our struggle has more to do with ‘post code/tax code’ social relations than it does with global class struggle.
So when will the horizon of socialist solipsism set on the Empire state of mind? Fanon pointed out a generation ago that our Eurocentric wealth is not our own. Every factory is built on a foundation of dead African slaves. Not from the 19th century: but now.
Bear that in mind. When the global proletariat escort their oppressors from the factory grounds …you might find yourself out in the cold. With 30 miles to go to the nearest bilharzia water.
Still recycling that old shite? Well it doesn’t surprise me given all the other ancient bullshit memes shamelessly regurgitated (e.g. little moustachioed German screamers and ovens, the demonisation of Russia without communism to serve as an excuse etc.) Although the real issue is why this crud is swallowed by a population who were never even alive during the actual existence of the offending regimes. The only thing I can think is that the big easy-to-read comic book of the media really is The Holy Bible for most.
As for people posing as mental health cases being diagnosed as such, the mental health industry is as much a con as everything else. It finds “genuine cases” because that’s what it’s there for – like inspectors who must report failing services because, if they don’t, it doesn’t look like they’re doing their job. One of the biggest cons is the sentiment, “If they thought they wouldn’t get paid, they’d do a better job” No – if they thought they wouldn’t get paid, they’ll dish up whatever shit they think is needed to keep them in a job.
I think we can dispense with the “painlessly as possible”. That’s not going to happen. We should all know by now that the ruling class will stop at nothing to keep their position and that, if they can’t have a world in which they are top dog, then they will have no world at all – and they will ensure that no-one else does ether.
Unfortunately true. But not for the reason stated. I think that EVERYONE wants a revolution but no-one wants the pain and indeed horrific cost of it – for the cost WILL be horrific. It will be the biggest and nastiest confrontation in the entire history of the earth up till now. The irony is that, without a revolution, things are going to get horrifically nasty anyway.
Not having read Rosenthal’s work, from what the reviewer reports though, there doesn’t appear too much wrong (in general or in essence) with what she says:
1. That by overwhelming force of numbers, the revolution will minimise violence and bloodshed, most of which stems from the overthrown rulers’ efforts to regain power;
2. The trade union bureaucracy is a major roadblock to workers making the unions work effectively in their own interests, and ultimately serving the working class’s historic role making a revolution;
3. That eventually when all human needs are satisfied, there will be little need for money/currency in the transition to communism.
The problem with this review is that the reviewer appears to be quite unfamiliar with Marxism — evidenced by the casual discounting of the possibility of revolution “based on a revolutionary format that failed in 1917”, and that any “dream of a Marxist revolution and cash-free society will find little support in the pubs and coffee shops frequented by the workers she seeks to inspire”.
If the reviewer were familiar with some Russian history, they might understand and recognise that there were very real and material reasons for why the Russian revolution of 1917 succeeded and why ultimately it ‘failed’ when finally overthrown, in 1991-92.
First, it was most certainly “the format of 1917” that led to the successful overthrow of the Russian capitalist class and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat — the only ‘format’ in the over 100 years since that has successfully carried out a workers revolution. This ‘format’ was laid out by Lenin and is ever more relevant to the decaying capitalism system thrashing around its death throes today: the burning need for a disciplined revolutionary party of the Bolshevik type that will lead the working class to making a revolution that sweeps away the capitalist class by expropriating it, a revolution that stops at nothing short of replacing capitalism with a collectivised, democratically planned economy based on a state of workers councils (soviets).
Second, the rise of Stalin and the eventual undoing of the USSR had little to do with this ‘format of 1917’, although every bourgeois historian and ‘pundit’ will point to the ‘original sin’ of Bolshevism as the revolution’s ‘undoing’. But Marxists have a more scientific, materialist and somewhat less religious understanding of what actually happened.
At the outset, Lenin and Trotsky realised that the revolution in backward Russia would come undone if it didn’t spread to an advanced country. They thought that counterrevolution and capitalist restoration would engulf the soviet state if help didn’t quickly arrive from a successful revolution in an advanced capitalist country (eg, Germany, which they pinned their hopes on). Tsarist Russia was militarily defeated, > 85% peasant (many in uniform) with an advanced working class, and after Tsarism was overthrown, a government that couldn’t solve any of the problems that confronted Russia. The Bolsheviks were the only political force with a program that could.
The Bolshevik revolution, indeed because of the force of numbers, was itself carried out with little bloodshed, unlike its aftermath. This aspect of the ‘format of 1917’ conforms with point 1 above. The ensuing Civil War of counterrevolution unleashed by the Whites and their imperialist supporters unleashed much bloodshed and more, and only through the heroic efforts and sacrifice of the most advanced Soviet workers, did the Soviet workers state survive — but at great cost. And the failure of the revolution to spread only exacerbated the situation. The result was the rise of Stalin and the Soviet bureaucracy, not a capitalist restoration as first feared but, as Trotsky eventually characterised it, a ‘soviet Thermidor’.
Stalin led a political counterrevolution, whose first targets were the old Bolsheviks, but not a social counterrevolution where the socialised property forms and central economic planning remained; the soviets were emasculated to become rubber stamps, with workers democracy essentially smashed; and bureaucratic rule and political repression prevailed. The revolution had degenerated, not unlike the French revolution — from overthrowing an aristocracy to crowning its own emperor, France remained capitalist and emperor Napoleon spread capitalism throughout Europe as best he could, in his own fashion.
Despite the soviet bureaucratic caste administering the Soviet planned economy in its own incompetent and corrupt way and where possible in its own interests, and despite the USSR’s isolation, economic planning showed its worth in propelling Russia out of feudalism and improving living standards far more effectively and quickly than capitalism ever could. The fact that in the ensuing seven decades the Soviet working class had little to no say in how their state and society was to be run led to a fundamental erosion of socialist consciousness — to the point that by 1991-92 capitalist counterrevolution was finally ‘achieved’ with little bloodshed.
The soviet working class felt they had no ‘skin in the game’, and certainly had no experience in exercising their own power politically, and consequently were far more easily defeated than what was needed during the (failed) Civil War. 1991-92 was a historic defeat for the working class the world over, and socialist and working class consciousness around the world regressed and has yet to recover. This is history, not some ‘format’.
Let’s now examine why backward workers in the local pub, or their ‘betters’ sipping their lattes in coffee shops snidely discounting the soviet ‘experiment’, wouldn’t countenance a Marxist revolution or a society without cash.
Apart from the vast ideological apparatus that shapes, conditions and molds working class consciousness in general to maintain and reinforce in it a backward bourgeois worldview, this backwardness is quite understandable if one also considers the role and function of the Labour Party (or of equivalent social democratic reformist workers parties in most capitalist countries bar the US); and also of the trade union bureaucracy.
In the immediate sense of quelling any potential for workers struggles and uprisings, these reformist workers organisations serve the vital role as ‘labour’s lieutenants’ of capital. The trade union bureaucracy, which for its fealty is rewarded crumbs from the bourgeoisie’s feast of profit bloat, is very adept and willing at stabbing strikes and other working class struggles in the back, and at scapegoating cheap ‘foreign’ labour, for example, to divert attention from the real causes of unemployment, de-industrialisation, etc. And the social democratic parties always step into the breach to manage a crisis by taking the reins of government if need be to better manage any potential social unrest.
The most important role of the typical trade union bureaucracies and reformist workers parties, however, is to thoroughly demoralise the working class into not struggling, to making it believe fervently that class struggle is futile, that it is powerless and to place its faith in its ‘betters’, in peaceful, legal reformism. Above all the working class must never be allowed to discover that it has a historic role to play in liberating humanity from the current impasse — because of its real social power in stopping and starting production and distribution.
These are the social and political roots of backward consciousness within the working class. The fact the the workers down at the local pub give ‘little support’ to a revolution doesn’t make the latter a mistaken ‘notion’ or them ‘right’. All it shows is that they’ve been successfully propagandised into a false consciousness. Like most fish being unaware of the water they live in, the vast majority of the population, and most significantly workers, aren’t aware that another world is possible, is necessary, or that indeed a ‘format of 1917’ is key to changing it all. Once working class consciousness is transformed from being a ‘class in itself’ into being a ‘class for itself’, invariably in struggle, and it realises its power and carries out a revolution, then the future organisation of society will follow fairly naturally. To the point that automation creates plenty, making the notion of cash rather antiquated. And the latter is already becoming under capitalism.
Finally, given that the reviewer didn’t go ballistic about Rosenthal stressing a need for a Bolshevik party to split the working class away from its present misleaders and to lead and win it over to carrying out a socialist revolution (despite the stricture against the “the format that failed in 1917”), one might guess, from the left rather than from what the denizens of the local may think, that Rosenthal’s work doesn’t pose much of a threat to capitalism. Always happy to proven wrong.
Rosenthal doesn’t sound like much of a threat to capitalism because she doesn’t think about why the workers don’t just go ahead and have a revolution. This is the big mystery. Perhaps capitalism is kept stable through constant statecraft ( i.e. conspiracies ) despit being inherently unstable.
”Stalin led a political counterrevolution, ………. the soviets were emasculated to become rubber stamps, with workers democracy essentially smashed; and bureaucratic rule and political repression prevailed”
No, Lenin and Trotsky had already done all this! cf J.D. White ”Marx and Russia: the Fate of a Doctrine” for how the Leninists departed from Marx. There was nothing left for Stalin to betray. This is the hoary old myth of Stalin as ‘the diabolos ex machina of the Russian Revolution’. We will get not an inch forward by recycling all this empty rhetoric from the past. We need new concepts and ideas relevant to the contemporary world. To be refighting all those old battles of the Russian revolution is today reactionary, as Marx himself observed in his day of all those French socialists refighting the battles of the French Revolution!
Maurice Brinton, in his 1970 pamphlet The Bolsheviks and Workers Control documented the progressive emasculation and dissolution of soviets; the appointment from above of administrators and managers; the general advocacy of Taylorism and one-man management, often by the same ‘man’ who bossed the workers around before the revolution; the dissolution of the factory committees; and attempts to turn the trade unions into organs of state discipline.
The demise of the factory committees in particular likely removed a potential barrier to bureaucratisation, which was occurring out of brute necessity: to secure state power and to resuscitate production as quickly as possible under conditions of utter economic collapse and chaos in a huge backward country ruined by imperialist war and then by Civil War.
However, the factory committees (and some soviets), also were seen as potential barriers to reviving production and to overall economic planning and prioritisation, which can only come from a central all-of-state level. Some factory committees and some soviets were actual sources of sabotage. The actions of the Menshevik-influenced telephone exchange and railway workers union early in the revolution weren’t good portents. And Menshevik and SR-run soviets would have invited the bourgeoisie back into power and become the organising centres of counterrevolution.
There’s no denying soviet workers had very legitimate grievances, otherwise some of them wouldn’t have been so easily incited into actions against the Bolshevik government. Given the abject and baleful state of the Russian economy, just about every soviet worker had legitimate grievances, but the majority also knew that huge sacrifices were necessary to secure the revolution. Revolution in Germany was seen as the salvation but it never came.
Put yourself in the place of the Bolsheviks: you’ve just taken state power in a huge country with an economy in ruins, with sabotage and the very real prospects of further sabotage and counterrevolution coming from all directions, internally and externally, and not knowing from where the first counterrevolutionary blows will come. You have no historical precedents except for the Paris Commune, and all manner of plots can be envisaged emerging from all the chaos. Preserving the revolution in such circumstances of necessity would be harsh, although in Russia in some cases they should been harsher, for example shooting some of the Tsarist generals captured early in the Civil War rather than take them on their recognisance.
A lot of bureaucratism was emerging before the Civil War commenced in 1918. But the measures the Bolsheviks took overwhelmingly were to try and revive production ASAP, for example by using existing management who knew not only how production was run in individual enterprises (as did the factory committees), but also of all the connections the enterprise had with suppliers, customers and financial resources, which the factory committees didn’t necessarily know since they did not and could not know nearly as much about such extra-enterprise affairs that were now also the rightful domain of the new workers state. Syndicalists like Brinton et al. seem to equate workers management at the enterprise level with ‘socialism’, and discounted or downplayed the absolute need for a workers state to suppress counterrevolution and to take charge of the direction of society as a whole, at a national level.
This isn’t to rationalise Lenin and Trotsky’s ultimately wrong positions on the trade unions, that they be transformed into organs of state discipline against the workers rather than retain their essential and independent role as organs of workers class defence. Let alone Trotsky’s attempts to militarise the working class through conscription measures and the like. And strong arguments can be made for preserving factory committees to perform the many of the roles of enterprise-level management, as would more easily be achieved in a revolution occurring in an advanced capitalist country. In the Russian situation the heterogeneity of the factory committees and of the conditions of the enterprises themselves would have been overwhelming. It can be argued that more efforts be made to have the more advanced factory committees at least serve a role, but their role was also seen as potentially counterrevolutionary.
All the measures taken by Lenin and Trotsky were exigencies to revive the economy and forestall counterrevolution in the hope that revolution in Germany would come to the rescue. They saw the Russian revolution as a holding operation. The German revolution didn’t materialise (especially in 1923), and scarcity remained the order of the day. As a consequence, Stalin and his faction institutionalised and greatly expanded the extant bureaucracy (eg, the ‘Lenin Levy’), and enshrined it in the anti-Marxist ideology of ‘Socialism in One Country’. None of this was inevitable, and world history would have been very different, particularly if the events of October 1923 in Germany had gone differently. The Bolsheviks of Lenin and Trotsky didn’t kill most of their central committee, execute the cream of the Red Army officer corps or cause the deaths of millions of peasants during the forced collectivisation of the late 1920s. So they were a teensy-weensy bit different from the bureaucratic heap that Stalin sat atop.
It’s not about “refighting all the old battles of the Russian revolution”. Rather than “tired rhetoric”, it’s about understanding properly and concretely what happened with the Russian revolution, the only workers revolution in history that successfully overthrew capitalism — what to do and what not to do. Unfortunately, there aren’t any other workers revolutions to ‘refight’ and learn from. And in over 100 years since the Russian revolution no “new concepts and ideas relevant to the contemporary world” have emerged at all that will lead to the overthrow of capitalism. Where are they? What are they? Talk of such is nothing more than empty rhetoric that’s a cover for despair. “Tired rhetoric” is preferable to empty rhetoric. To paraphrase George Santayana, “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”.
On the Slogan for a United States of Europe, Lenin wrote,
”Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone. After expropriating the capitalists and organising their own socialist production, the victorious proletariat of that country will arise against the rest of the world.”
Seems he might have got this idea from Kautsky.
”cause the deaths of millions of peasants during the forced collectivisation of the late 1920s” Who then caused the great famine of 1921? Anyway the argument you present here is that of the Ukrainian Nazis and has been refuted by the research of the likes of Wheatcroft and Mark Tauger, so much so the Robert Conquest, the very right wing ideologue in charge of black propaganda at British intelligence against the Soviet Union, who had himself propagated this view, ultimately accepted that the famine was mainly the result of environmental factors. I suggest you study Tauger’s research. You do realise that you are gleaning in the propaganda furrows ploughed by Goebbels?
Mark Tauger’s research, especially “Modernization in Soviet Agriculture” (2006); “Stalin, Soviet Agriculture, and Collectivization” (2006); and “Soviet Peasants and Collectivization, 1930-39: Resistance and Adaptation.” (2005), all available on the Internet. More of Tauger’s articles are available at this page: https://www.newcoldwar.org/archive-of-writings-of-professor-mark-tauger-on-the-famine-scourges-of-the-early-years-of-the-soviet-union.
‘And in over 100 years since the Russian revolution no “new concepts and ideas relevant to the contemporary world” have emerged at all that will lead to the overthrow of capitalism.’ Try Cockshott and Cottrel’s ”Towards a New Socialism” And how about the Cuban electoral system? I think you would be more accurate in stating ‘no new concepts and ideas relevant to the contemporary world that will lead to the overthrow of capitalism have emerged from Trotskyism. The Leninist concept of the leading role of the party is historically proven bankrupt. People are looking for other answers, as we see in France with the demands for direct democracy, the only kind there is, where the people govern themselves. The Leninist party is an oligarchy: thus its persistent failure. Recall the joke: ”Leninism is the transitional period between capitalism and capitalism’!
First on Stalin’s forced collectivisation. The immediate and catastrophic fall in agricultural productivity was a direct consequence of: (i) no industrial capacity to produce and supply the mechanised agricultural equipment so necessary for the large scale agriculture of the sudden appearance of newly collectivised farms; (ii) since the kulaks and middle peasants saw themselves as being expropriated, they sold whatever equipment, stock and seed they had on hand before going into the collectives, and consequently they essentially stopped producing. The fall in grain production, around 16%, didn’t match the decimation of livestock: 55% of horses, 40% of cattle, 55% of pigs, 66% of sheep. And of course the millions who died as a result of the collectivisation’s brutal, forced-march character. Of course unfavourable crop yields and natural variations in weather and climate, etc, always play their part, always have, always will, but the outcomes of these ‘natural causes’ were only exacerbated by the blindly stupid and panicky adventurist measures of Stalin.
Stating such facts shouldn’t somehow qualify one to be smeared as repeating the arguments of the Ukraine fascists or Goebbels, just as agreeing with them that water is made up of one atom of oxygen and two of hydrogen doesn’t. In the same vein, it carries no utterly weight to claim that Lenin may have got some ideas from Kautsky. So what? This type of argumentation doesn’t even make it into the straw-man class. It’s simply red-herring arguments: ‘someone bad said the same thing you did, therefore you’re as bad as they’. Stalin perfected this form of ‘argumentation’.
Now to the so-called ‘new’ ideas of Cockshott and Cottrel. On the key issue of the form of political regime of the post-capitalist society, their main thesis is that soviets are ‘dangerous’ because: (i) they’re insurrectionary organs only, with no viable longterm existence; (ii) they’re hierarchical (ie, collegiate); and (iii) representatives to them are elected (ie, electoral). Because of these ‘bad’ characteristics, soviet democracy must be junked and rule carried out by a combination of ‘direct democracy’, in a so-called acephalous (headless) state supplemented by citizens committees (‘demarchic councils’) chosen by lot (ie, a lottery, not election); and by democratic decision making by ‘experts’ (epistocracy). The general populace votes (via electronic means, ie, atomised) on general issues like economic direction, policies, etc, while the ‘experts’ vote on the measures to carry these out and consult with the demarchic councils.
But where have we heard of these notions before? Of course ‘direct democracy’ comes from ancient Greece, as outlined by Cockshott and Cottrel. That idea’s 2,500 years old. And where does epistocratic rule come from? From Saint-Simon for one, and numerous others. And from Plato of course.
Moreover, whenever such ‘ideal’ systems of rule are proffered, invariably neglected is elephant in the room, the state, that nasty repressive instrument of force, of class rule carried out by bodies of armed men (and women) in the interests of a ruling class and its property forms. Such bodies are inherently hierarchical, even when the outcome of a socialist revolution, even when subject to the will of a soviet or some other democratic organ.
On the Gilets Juanes, how can their example of yearlong weekend traffic disruptions serve as any kind of template for revolution? Not only are they leaderless, they also have no real social power. Because the working class is full of misleadership, including that of the trade unions running the French ‘general’ strike, doesn’t mean that all leadership is bad and therefore should be rejected, as the anarchists would have it. And as Cockshott and Cottrel admit, the Portuguese pre-revolutionary situation of 1975 got no further precisely because the nascent soviets that had formed were without a revolutionary leadership.
As to the claim that “The Leninist concept of the leading role of the party is historically proven bankrupt”, how has it been ‘proven’ bankrupt? In all of politics program and leadership is crucial, and to make a revolution, never more so. Lenin’s model is the only one to have successfully overthrown capitalism with a workers revolution (ie, relevant to modern societies where the majority population is working class). And don’t kid yourself that the post-capitalist societies to emerge from peasant guerrilla warfare weren’t also led by disciplined cadre, including in Castro’s Cuba. Such regimes never had workers democracy but nonetheless set up socialised economies (and therefore should be defended from counterrevolution and imperialist attack).
Finally, post-Trotsky Trotskyism certainly has added ‘new ideas’ to the Marxist canon, particularly with new understandings of the post-capitalist societies that have emerged from non-proletarian uprisings and civil wars (eg, Yugoslavia, China, Cuba, Vietnam); by its further debunking of social democratic theories of ‘state capitalism’ and ‘bureaucratic collectivism’ (propounded by the likes of Tony Cliff, Max Shachtman, et al.) especially in light of the 1956 Hungarian uprising; by coming to an understanding of how and why the USSR was finally destroyed in 1991-92; by developments in understanding the black question in the US; and by advances on the national question as applied to interpenetrated peoples (eg, Northern Ireland, Israel).
Stephen, I do not think we can continue this discussion here any longer, for there will be no end to it. I shall make the following points:
1) You obviously avoid the question of responsibility for the 1921 famine. Is that because it cannot be laid at Stalin’s door?
2)” And of course the millions who died as a result of the collectivisation’s brutality.” Okay, you did not care to study Tauger. Here is a question: why did not these starving peasants eat all these dead animals? Why are there no famines subsequent to collectivisation despite Russia’s long history of such?
There was for example a mass famine in 1924. For a closely argued account of Soviet industrial revolution cf R.C. Allen ”Farm to Factory” (2003). The restoration of capitalism post 1990 led to a demographic catastrophe. No talk of Yeltsin starving the citizens to death ( Gudarov ”Probuzhdenie” Moscow 2001 P 167 for the decline in food consumption, worse that in tsarist times!).
3)” carries no utterly weight to claim that Lenin may have got some ideas from Kautsky.” Agreed. I merely mention this to point out that Stalin did not invent the idea of ‘socialism in one country’.
4)”Of course ‘direct democracy’ comes from ancient Greece, as outlined by Cockshott and Cottrel. That idea’s 2,500 years old.” A non-sequitur. Dialectics are also from Ancient Greece and even older! As Aristotle points out it is quite inadequate to define democracy as the rule of the majority and its opposite oligarchy as the rule of the few; rather democracy is the rule of the poor, those who have to work to live, oligarchy is the rule of the rich. The mark of a democracy is selection of the government by lot; the mark of an oligarchy is election by ballot, which the rich will usually win, thanks to their superior wealth and education.
4)” Lenin’s model is the only one to have successfully overthrown capitalism with a workers revolution ” Well, how come Russia is now capitalist again? The Lenin museum in Moscow has been closed and a new museum opened to the Tsar, whom the Russian Orthodox Church has declared a saint! Had there ever been genuine democracy in Russia this would not have happened. Political parties are oligarchies. Trotsky himself had some inkling of this ( ‘Our Political Tasks’), but he disavowed such insights when he embraced Leninism with all the fervour of a latter day convert. People are rightly disillusioned with politicians, who are seen as self-serving.Genuine democracy offers an alternative. How come socialism keeps failing? Ah yes! Stalinism- that explains everything by explaining nothing. I recommend you read Aristotle’s ”Politics”, paying close attention to the section that explains how oligarchies and democracies maintain their power. The Soviet Union was destroyed because it was run by oligarchs ensconced in the “Communist Party”!
1. Your question ‘Who then caused the great famine of 1921?’ is yet another red herring. There’s nothing at all controversial about the 1921-22 Povolzhye famine. The main natural cause was the drought of 1921, the second in a row. The Volga basin breadbasket was severely affected: 100,000 people from affected areas were evacuated to Siberia; the tax in kind lifted on affected peasantry; and Herbert Hoover’s American Relief Administration was allowed to minister to the affected areas.
The famine was the main underlying factor prompting the ending of War Communism, which was absolutely necessary to win the Civil War, but Lenin’s turn to the New Economic Policy (NEP) to revive production was key to preventing a peasant-based counterrevolution.
The compulsory grain requisitioning during the Civil War by the Bolsheviks (and by all sides) who offered little or nothing in return was always going to disincentivise the peasantry and encourage hoarding and selling any surplus on the black market, and so on. As a result, compulsory requisitioning became increasingly more severe and this vicious cycle of ‘War Communism’ couldn’t last. The NEP was to short circuit that.
One can weigh up ad infinitum who and what was to blame blame for the famine, but the famine’s main signal to the Bolsheviks was that if you make a revolution in a backward country full of peasants on whom you depend for food, then you don’t have a lot of choice than to eventually cater to their interests.
I’m not sure what point you’re trying make about the restoration of capitalism in the USSR. Of course it was a complete disaster. There’s no debate there. All workers states, degenerated (USSR) or deformed form birth (the rest) must be defended from imperialism and counterrevolution. Their bureaucracies must be replaced by soviet or commune democracy in a political revolution.
2. I made no arguments against collectivisation per se. Collectivisation is necessary. It was the manner of collectivisation that was so moronic and counterproductive. Of course collectivisation is essential to increasing agricultural productivity, and the best way to do it is in a planned and rational manner, by for example providing the peasantry positive incentives to join the collectives. If peasants saw their peers living better on a collective farm than before or compared to them, then that’s all that was needed. But this was predicated on having the industrial capacity to provide for the mechanisation of the collective farms, which wasn’t there to meet the demands of such sudden and brutal collectivisation. Most of the agricultural and human losses occurred during the catastrophic first three years or so of the collectivisation, not after its establishment. It’s thus pointless debating about this new red herring about who did and didn’t eat dead horses. The numbers of stock losses speak for themselves as to the stupidity of how the collectivisation was carried out. And it’s pointless talking about each and every famine (eg, 1924). Of course collectivisation is the best way to organise agriculture to minimise the effects of natural climatic variation on output.
3. Lenin also asserted that “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country” in a similar vein. Clearly he wasn’t referring to actual communism, just as he wasn’t referring to ‘the victory of socialism’ in this or that country, as the expected stage of post-revolutionary economic development when a classless society has been attained. As was his bent, in his campaigning, agitation and advocacy, Lenin invariably made his points as strongly and as angularly as possible. Clearly these quotes contradict his carefully constructed definitions and arguments about the differences between proletarian dictatorship, socialism and communism in his State and Revolution.
Stalin’s ‘Socialism in One Country’ was a completely different animal. It was not simply and ‘idea’ that Lenin somehow held to, but a fully developed theory and program that represented a fundamental shift from communist internationalism. ‘Socialist’ autarky was the order of the day, and ‘Socialism in One Country’ really meant ‘Socialism in One Country Only’. This manifested in conscious sabotage of revolutions from China in the 1920s to the Spanish Civil War, where CPs around the world served as border guards for the USSR and no more.
Socialism in One Country meant appeasement of imperialism with slogans like ‘peaceful coexistence’, reaching its nadir when Stalin signed his pact with Hitler. Stalin seriously believed Germany wouldn’t invade the USSR — little wonder he was in shock when Operation Barbarossa was unleashed. To cap it off, in 1943 Stalin dissolved the Comintern, which from a communist perspective was the ultimate appeasement of imperialism. Lenin would have just loved that, the junking of the Comintern that he spent so much effort and time in building.
And of course the pernicious reformism, the popular frontism, the eternal seeking of fictitious ‘progressive’ wings of the bourgeoisie with which to bloc, lived well beyond Stalin. Now zombie CPs routinely sit on government benches in Europe. Poor Lenin.
4. No non-sequitur there, just presentation of evidence for the non-originality of the ideas of Cockshott and Cottrel. Your counter that dialectics is even older is the actual non-sequitur here. As for elections, if a candidate with a better program and policies that I prefer to see enacted is running, then I want to vote for them. And if they have the energy and ability to carry it out, then all the better. I certainly don’t want some random clown put into a position who’ll enact a program that I oppose. Moreover, this notion of lots can only assume that fundamental decisions have already been made. How? By whom? It’s a nonsense.
5. Stalinism was the symptom and product of economic backwardness and isolation when capitalism is overthrown in a backward country and revolution isn’t spread to an advanced country. It’s doesn’t take rocket science to understand that the countries subject to imperialism don’t have the privilege of developing unhindered the way the imperialist centres in their own histories did. Their bourgeoisies are weak and hold a compradore status in relation to their imperial overlords who’ve already taken the resources of the subject country and, along with their rivals, most of rest of the earth. Consequent to the weakness of the bourgeoisie of backward countries, revolutions are easier to make in a backward country than in an advanced capitalist country with a far stronger, more dominant and entrenched bourgeoisie, but the path toward socialism is infinitely more difficult. In advanced countries, the converse applies.
As Trotsky outlined in his theory of Permanent Revolution, in the epoch of imperialism the basic tasks of a bourgeois revolution in a backward country can only be carried out by a workers revolution. But once done, if the contradiction between economic backwardness versus the rapid need for advances in productivity isn’t resolved, a Thermidor will ensue, as outlined in his Revolution Betrayed.
Lenin’s Bolsheviks overthrew capitalism with a workers revolution. No-one else has. That is a real success, as yet unreplicated. What you keep referring to are the end results (and it’s like saying the French revolution was horrible and should never have happened because the guillotines produced Napoleon). If you read more carefully what I’ve already tried to describe above about the subsequent course of the Russian revolution, or infinitely better Trotsky’s Revolution Betrayed, then from a materialist, Marxist perspective, it’s not difficult to understand that the ‘original sin’ argument explains nothing. History is more complicated than religious mythology — which Trotsky also realised — but in the absence of reaching such an understanding, this particular mythology does effectively propagandise people into thinking that the Bolshevik approach is wrong and to be avoided at all costs.
”1. Your question ‘Who then caused the great famine of 1921?’ is yet another red herring. There’s nothing at all controversial about the 1921-22 Povolzhye famine. The main natural cause was the drought of 1921, the second in a row.” Okay, but 1932 Ukrainian agriculture was also hit by a series of environmental disasters, including drought, fungal disease and infestations of mice and insects. Why is the one uncontroversial but not the other?
” Stalin seriously believed Germany wouldn’t invade the USSR ” Are you serious?
”infinitely better Trotsky’s Revolution Betrayed” I quote from this work:”Marxism sets out from the development of technique as the fundamental spring of progress and constructs the communist programme upon the dynamic of the productive forces. If you conceive that some cosmic catastrophe is going to destroy the planet in the fairly near future, then you must reject the communist perspective…..By the lowest stage of communismMarx meant…a society which from the very beginning stands higher in its economic development than the most advanced capitalism” (Pp 45-47). Well, the cosmic catastrophe is upon us: global warming. Outproduce the U.S.? Sorry, there is the little matter of geophysics. Soon I fear we will require the severest rationing so that some few might survive the ecological collapse of the capitalist system.
”non-originality of the ideas of Cockshott and Cottrell” I believe that they along with others such as G. Michaelson are building on their earlier work ”Classical Econophysics (2009) to create a 5 year plan for a socialist economy along ecological lines. I do not pretend myself to understand the science involved, but they assert it is a monumental task and demands several collaborators. If you have anything original yourself to contribute, I am sure they will be only too glad to hear of it.
Below I post part of the difficulty faced by the ‘unoriginal’ Cockshott and co. A pioneer in integrated planning was the great Russian Marxist Bogdanov, who at one time led the Bolshevik party with Lenin, but whose work was supressed by Lenin and in fact was imprisoned by Lenin, Trotsky and comrades. He demanded to be interrogated by the head of the Cheka, Dzierzzynski. They had once shared a Czarist prison cell. Bogdanov’s supposed crime? Fomenting workers’ strikes!
.
”I have now reached the stage where I can build realistic linear
optimisation models of the UK economy at the level of detail
given by the UK input output tables.
As a test run I am evaluating a 5 year plan to shift the composition of industry and output to produce a reduction in the trade deficit.
The resulting linear programme in .lp format occupies a file of about 28MB and has about half a million occurences of variables.
The format is verbose based on the product code names used in the UK io tables. For instance a typical inequality in the model looks like
outputOfMANUFACTUREOFRUBBERANDPLASTICPRODUCTS_Yr4 <=
2365.2 flowFor_MANUFACTUREOFRUBBERANDPLASTICPRODUCTS_Of_MANUFACTUREOFFURNITURE_Yr4
+2365.2 importsFor_MANUFACTUREOFRUBBERANDPLASTICPRODUCTS_Of_MANUFACTUREOFFURNITURE_Yr4;
I suspect that this may be too large for lp-solve to evaluate in a reasonable time. I have been running it for a few hours now without an answer.
I find this rather disappointing as it means that I will face the rather more challenging task of rewriting the harmony algorithm for planning to handle the additional constraints implied by imports and exports which have so far been left out of consideration in the planning proposals the Allin Cottrell and I have developed.
Until this basic framework is working fast, we can not progress to the creation of the more disaggregated input output tables that we will need for environmental planning.
Greg Michaelson How about going back to the original matrix solving techniques? They're far less efficient in the sequential case but easier to parallelise.
Paul Cockshott Greg Michaelson will try coding it to use harmony algorithm, basically non linear potential function being optimised using Newton style gradient descent, the thing i have to think through is how to express tradedeficit constraints. We have always dealt with closed economy models till now.
Greg Michaelson When we built our parallelising SML compiler, we wanted to predict costs of necessarily sequential components, so we used a GA to fit coefficients to semantic rule counts in equations very like those for IO tables. The GA gave highly stable coefficients compared with Singular Value Decomposition but was staggeringly slow. And we only had a few hundred coefficients. A GA might work for IO if you know that most of the table won't change much year on year.''
I now end further discussion.
I think you are completely right about how the Labour Party and the unions have effectively nullified any possible socialist consciousness in the workers – but then again, these organisations were all about protecting capital by ensuring at least the appearance of bigger crumbs for the workers.
I’m not sure if I understand your last bit:
If Rosenthal and the reviewer are happy to stress “a need for a Bolshevik party to split the working class away from its present misleaders”, doesn’t that indicate that Rosenthal and the reviewer DO pose a threat to capitalism?
I should have expressed myself more clearly. I meant to convey — since I haven’t read Rosenthal’s book — that based on the reviewer not going ballistic about it, that Rosenthal then wasn’t advocating building a Bolshevik party by splitting the working class from its current misleaders, and therefore that what she was saying was no threat to capitalism (since such a split would be the first step in the working class becoming a class for itself). Sorry about that.
The first paragraph was enough for me. It was the reviewer rather than the book itself which I found particularly offensive. This sounded like a typical ‘Remainer’ bemoaning the fact that these bloody proles don’t know what is good for them and its all their fault that we are stuck with a Tory government. In point of fact it was – to use Sunspeak – the second referendum wot done it. On the Brexit issue the centre-left went missing, as has been the case all over Europe. The crass opportunism of the PLP and the prospect of being under rule of the bureaucratic neo-liberal elites ensconced in Brussels was enough to swing the vote. The political classes are in control of the political system; a cosmopolitan, globalizing class that thinks it can run the system better than the traditional ruling class. But liberalism is a double edged ideology. It has been presented as an unwavering force for good:“We all tend to associate liberalism with Locke and Mill, with such admirable values as personal liberty and the ‘open society’, rather than with Malthus and the New Poor Law … Liberalism is thought of as a benign creed … but there is a dark side to liberalism: the harshness of its economics, its blind attachment to private property, its typically bourgeois fear of the ‘masses’, and even democracy itself”.
As has been pointed out, by authors such as Wolfgang Streeck, John Mearsheimer, and even George Orwell, nationalism is a powerful force, for good or evil, but unfortunately the centre-right has been given the space to control the movement whilst the parliamentary (woke) left was musing on identity politics, cosmopolitanism, and post-modernism. Little wonder we lost.
So instead of liberalism from Brussels we now have liberalism from Washington?
That should actually read: “So instead of neoliberalism from Brussels we now have neoliberalism on steroids from Washington.”
Hey but as long as those Brexiteer proles get to wave their little Union Jacks!
Yes, those damn proles/deplorables. They should be disenfranchised. Right now for another Peterloo massacre, that’ll teach them.
We get our neo-liberalism from both the EU, which is essentially a system of American vassal states, and Washington. This arrangement being a sort of monkey/organ-grinder relationship.
The assumption that the last election in the UK was fair, is a pretty strong assumption, being that 40% of the votes were postal votes. Unfortunate that the author doesn’t mention this and just assumes that working class people are idiots.
Also the idea that unions can break austerity is a strong assumption. Although I am sympathetic with the idea of a Union, fighting for better wages of their members, there is this correlation that wages only go up if inflation goes up. And then there is also this unfortunate correlation of Union leaders who sell themselves out to political parties, careerists that they are. This is also not discussed.
In terms of the televised demonstrations over the world; I disagree. The yellow vests are hardly televised, and if demonstrations are televised it is usually with a lot of bias, demonizing the demonstrators.
All in all, this article appears to me to be a limited hangout in its message, because abovementioned issues are not discussed, even though they are crucial in understanding in what type of world we are living.
Well said!
The means by which the ruling parasites get the plebs to vote against their interests are plain enough. First, half the population is of below median intelligence, many far below, pig ignorant, metabolically deranged on junk food diets, slowly dementing from early adulthood and alive only in the sense that they could fog a mirror. Many happily vote to harm others, rather than for them and for all society. Just so long as they think they are ‘winners’, they do not give a toss what happens to ‘losers’ like the poor, homeless and disabled. Second they are relentlessly brainwashed by a system of MSM, Internet, PR and, perhaps most pernicious of all, advertising, from birth. Divide and Rule, most recently in its Identity Politics incarnation, sets group against group against group. And the dullards get exactly the same vote as those with some nous and knowledge, who do not hate and fear others. Then there are all the mechanism of vote-rigging, MSM bias, election tampering, micro-targeting, gerrymandering, FPTP voting, voluntary voting etc. This is democracy in propaganda lies only.
‘First, half the population is of below median intelligence’
You can’t blame them for that, as it is in the definition.
And then there is also this issue of what ‘intelligence’ is.
I think most people can see through most bullshit. That is why you can make so much money by professionally spinning reality.
I meet people every work day, from a mostly working-class demographic. Most would not know that a tram was up them till you rang its bell. Many are nice enough people, but more and more, as the years roll by, are as selfish and nasty as they are stupid and ignorant. Homo boganensis.
I like your style RLS – and I’m afraid I’m drifting increasingly towards misanthropy myself. Although I don’t think it is a case of people being stupid as in knowing full well that they can do nothing against the system individually and forming a unity is almost impossible to even imagine. Therefore everyone has developed an “I’m alright Jack” mentality for the simple reason that they see no alternative.
I’ m not so much a misanthrope as a realist. I mix with people every day in my work, and they are getting dumber, greedier and more happily ignorant as the years go by. I do not blame them-I blame the free market capitalist system and those in the MSM and advertising sewers who do the social brainwashing. And metabolic derangement. You can see the evidence in their blood, urine, faeces and MRI scans, if necessary. With a lot, you can hear their brains rattle if they shake their heads.
It might be a good idea for you to consult the worldly wise (unfortuately late) German playright Bertolt Brecht on this issue.
Neal Ascherson wrote: “After the East Berlin rising in 1953, Bertolt Brecht is supposed to have made the ironic suggestion that the Communist regime should dismiss the people and appoint a new one.” (“Are we the electorate they deserve?” 23 March). There’s no supposed about it. These words are to be found in one of Brecht’s most famous poems, “The Solution”:
”After the uprising of June 17th
The Secretary of the Authors’ Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Which said that the people
Had forfeited the government’s confidence
And could only win it back
By redoubled labour. Wouldn’t it
Be simpler in that case if the government
Dissolved the people and
Elected another?”
Yes, clearly we need to elect a ‘new electorate’ who would vote the right way. You might possibly need to ask why they voted the ‘wrong way’ in the first place. Perhaps it might have something to do with not giving away their country’s sovereignty to an unelected, faceless, undemocratic and immovable bureaucracy in Brussels. I think that their instinct was sound. This view was always consistent when the Labour party was the Labour party and not a Blairised neo-liberal party. Anthony Benn, Peter Shore, Barbara Castle, Bryan Gould and even Corbyn were intellectual titans compared to today’s pathetic offering.
It’s the same with Australian Labor. Whitlam had a Cabinet of real intellectual giants, and figures of real human distinction, forged in the Depression and War. Today, the ALP is a sheltered workshop for Rightwing union time-servers and Catholic reactionaries and homophobes, chancers on the look for opportunities to rat on the Party and sell their sorry arses to the highest business bidders, ‘ protected assets’ of the US Embassy, boot-lickers to Israel, and plain imbeciles.
Perhaps we need to outslogan the parasites.
#endcorporaterule
#diecorpara$ite$
#sharethewealth
#fuckwageslavery
Etc etc.