Does the left understand the working class and how would they answer their concerns?

[LLETSA]

Don't workers share a fundamental common interest in higher wages and less hours despite being working in different restraunt chains, having different religions (or none), different groups of friends, tastes and nationality?

Isn't the the most central organisng force in the everyday life of proletarians all around the world, capital, not allah or jesus, their race or nationality and infact these ideologies only serve to pit workers against each other?

These are the very basics of internatioanlism and class struggle politics that need to be reasserted, not watered down or given up in order to appeal to the populism of the time. Without these principles there is fuck all point having influence or being relevant.

I know what the basics of internationalism and class struggle are. The trouble is that hey are not universally applicable. It would be nice to think so, but cultural and religious differences, among others, tend to get in the way, as past experience shows. Why do you think national factors distorted the character of Marxist regimes, imbuing them with all kinds of non-Marxist characteristics, for example? (It doesn't matter for the sake of the argument how you would personally characterise those regimes.) Why hasn't class struggle politics taken hold in vast areas of the world?

I don't give your brand of anarchism much chance in Bhutan, Congo or Tibet for instance.

 

[Stoat Boy]

These are the very basics of internatioanlism and class struggle politics that need to be reasserted, not watered down or given up in order to appeal to the populism of the time. Without these principles there is fuck all point having influence or being relevant.

But you, and it, aint relevant and have zero influence. And its getting less all the time.

 

[LLETSA]

In the case of the EU what you are seeing is a load of independent business owners coming together to increase their strength, this ofcourse doesn't mean they don't have little fallouts or haggle for greater influence within the common enterprise but instead these are meant to happen within the common structures so as to present a united face to rest of the market.

So?

 

[nightbreed]

So how do we solve this issue then?

My suggestion is for a large percentage of our lefty groups get jobs with the working class ie drop out of college, stop being social workers and civil servants and get training in construction or get cleaner jobs and organise their workplaces.

See not hard really.

You will then get a better understanding of how workers think and you can then base your 'finger-wagging, lecturing' on the basis of experience!!!

 

[CyberRose]

revol68, you are the perfect example of what I was saying in my original post, you don't have a clue what the working class want you only know what you think they want

All this stuff about "internationalism" might be good on paper but that is the exact opposite of what most of the working class actually want . You keep going on about esoteric teachings as if you're some kind of brainwashed religious fundamentalist but everything you say is completely alien and meaningless to the man on the street.

Until you can explain yourself to ordinary people you're just wasting your time and until you know what those ordinary people care about you won't be able to convince them of anything

 

[revol68]

But you, and it, aint relevant and have zero influence. And its getting less all the time.

Does it change the fundamental correctness of it?

Or do we just reduce politics to what is popular and give up all principles?

Of course the fact is that whilst cunts like Brown are happy to selll 'british jobs for british workers' shite their actions undercut that. Internationalism already exists in that the proletariat is intricately connected in the global production process, and whilst this might not seem to have much political articulation in the present it has done in the past and I'd be so bold to suggest that increasing globalisation of production will make it necessary for it to be affirmed even clearer in the future, that is if the working class is to sucessful fight back.

 

[Darios]

All this stuff about "internationalism" might be good on paper but that is the exact opposite of what most of the working class actually want . You keep going on about esoteric teachings as if you're some kind of brainwashed religious fundamentalist but everything you say is completely alien and meaningless to the man on the street.

 

[treelover]

Cyberose pwns Revolt, back to Lib Com methinks....

 

[FridgeMagnet]

revol68, you are the perfect example of what I was saying in my original post, you don't have a clue what the working class want you only know what you think they want

All this stuff about "internationalism" might be good on paper but that is the exact opposite of what most of the working class actually want . You keep going on about esoteric teachings as if you're some kind of brainwashed religious fundamentalist but everything you say is completely alien and meaningless to the man on the street.

Until you can explain yourself to ordinary people you're just wasting your time and until you know what those ordinary people care about you won't be able to convince them of anything

Only weird politicos say things like "I want an exclusionary nation state and immigration regulations X, Y and Z because they're intrinsically great". You're confusing implementation with motivations. Are people really worried about getting rid of the police because they like the police?

 

[revol68]

revol68, you are the perfect example of what I was saying in my original post, you don't have a clue what the working class want you only know what you think they want

All this stuff about "internationalism" might be good on paper but that is the exact opposite of what most of the working class actually want . You keep going on about esoteric teachings as if you're some kind of brainwashed religious fundamentalist but everything you say is completely alien and meaningless to the man on the street.

Until you can explain yourself to ordinary people you're just wasting your time and until you know what those ordinary people care about you won't be able to convince them of anything

No, I know what I want as a working class person, I think I have a fair idea what is needed if the working class is to fight back against capital in any substantial manner.

I'm not blind to the fact that most working class people at present do not share my politics, or indeed even think of themselves part of a collective working class in any real meaningful sense, but that is a problem facing everyone, including you who talks about the working class as a homogenous entity that 'thinks this or that'.

I'm afraid it is you that projects your own beliefs onto the working class, or rather what you believe the working class believes onto a massive divergent class. You treat the working class as some sort of external object with homogenous concerns and in turn you talk about the left as some sort of Social Worker whose job it is to take on board and understand these concerns.

I don't pretend that the vast majority of working class people share my views even though I think the growth and development of these views within the rest of my class are vital for a serious opposition to capitalism. You on the otherhand are so arrogant that you feel you can proclaim to speak for the concerns of all the working class, mudh like the Communist Party in the USSR, the views of cyberrose are the views of the class and the views of the class are those of cyberrose.

 

[revol68]

Cyberose pwns Revolt, back to Lib Com methinks....

What you mean he points out that explicit proletarian internatioanalism isn't exactly the talk of the town?

Woah what a fucking insight, he's really showed me, I was under the understanding that all my neighbours were having blazing rows over Negri and Hardt's "Empire".

What he hasn't done is shown how any serious opposition to capitalism can develop without the development/popularisation of a internationalist perspective.

 

[CyberRose]

What he hasn't done is shown how any serious opposition to capitalism can develop without the development/popularisation of a internationalist perspective.

Because Nick fucking Griffin did that on Sunday which is the whole bloody point of this thread!!!

 

[revol68]

Because Nick fucking Griffin did that on Sunday which is the whole bloody point of this thread!!!

Nick Griffin and thr BNP are a serious opposition to capitalism?

Am I fucking missing something?

Do you have any idea what fascism is and how it arose?

You don't seem to understand that socialism that rejects an internationalist perspective is the building block of popular fascism.

Of course it is no threat to capitalism, or was I Holohoaxed into believing that Mercedes and BMW did incredibly well out of the concetration camps?

 

[revol68]

Because Nick fucking Griffin did that on Sunday which is the whole bloody point of this thread!!!

So if the BNP are an opposition to capitalism without an internationalist perspective and you are arguing that an international perspective is pie in the sky irrelevant nonsense that stops the left being relevant, why don't you just fuck off and vote BNP then?

 

[frogwoman]

Nick Griffin and thr BNP are a serious opposition to capitalism?

Am I fucking missing something?

Do you have any idea what fascism is and how it arose?

You don't seem to understand that socialism that rejects an internationalist perspective is the building block of popular fascism.

Of course it is no threat to capitalism, or was I Holohoaxed into believing that Mercedes and BMW did incredibly well out of the concetration camps?

why the fuck does everyone slag you off all the time? your posts on this topic are actually fucking amazing !!!

im being serious btw

 

[CyberRose]

why the fuck does everyone slag you off all the time?

Sometimes I lie awake at night asking myself that same very question

So if the BNP are an opposition to capitalism without an internationalist perspective and you are arguing that an international perspective is pie in the sky irrelevant nonsense that stops the left being relevant, why don't you just fuck off and vote BNP then?

But I quickly fall asleep in no time

 

[revol68]

why the fuck does everyone slag you off all the time? your posts on this topic are actually fucking amazing !!!

im being serious btw

As my boy Ronaldo said

"I don't why when Cristiano is involved is it always polemic?
...Maybe because I'm too good. I don't know."

though the fact some people will miss the tongue in cheekness of this post is possibly another reason.

 

[revol68]

Sometimes I lie awake at night asking myself that same very question


But I quickly fall asleep in no time

Right so you aren't interested in actual discussion.

Maybe you can sue West Ham for getting your ass kicked all over this thread.

 

[CyberRose]

Right so you aren't interested in actual discussion.

Maybe you can sue West Ham for getting your ass kicked all over this thread.

Hope you're paying attention frogwoman, some good answers to your question right here!

 

[revol68]

Hope you're paying attention frogwoman, some good answers to your question right here!

You can take comfort in the Stalinist logic that Cyberose expresses the will of the class and the will of the class is the will of Cyberose.

 

[Carousel]

Let us consider for a moment - and not through rose tinted spectacles - the average middle-aged working class voter today (it matters little in this respect whether he votes 'Conservative' or 'Labour'). He is probably hierarchy-conscious, xenophobic, racially-prejudiced, pro-monarchy, pro-capital punishment, pro-law and order, anti-demonstrator, anti-long haired students and anti-drop out. He is almost certainly sexually repressed (and hence an avid, if vicarious, consumer of the distorted sexuality endlessly depicted in the pages of the News of the World). No 'practical' Party (aiming at power through the ballot-box) would ever dream of appealing to him through the advocacy of wage equality, workers' management of production, racial integration, penal reform, abolition of the monarchy, dissolution of the police, sexual freedom or the legalisation of pot. Any one proclaiming this kind of 'transitional programme' would not only fail to get support but would probably be considered some kind of a nut.

The irrational in politics.

 

[CyberRose]

You can take comfort in the Stalinist logic that Cyberose expresses the will of the class and the will of the class is the will of Cyberose.

I don't express the "will of the class" and of you weren't so thick or angry you'd be able to differentiate between identifying what the working class wants and what the working class needs. The two seem to be synonymous to you.

Internationalism might benefit the working class, but thinking that means they want internationalism is just detached from reality

I doesn't take a rocket scientist to have a good go at identifying what the working class wants or needs, what does take skill is persuading the working class to want what you think they need

Nick Griffin has just showed that he and his BNP are a hell of a lot more successful at that than you or the rest of the left...

 

[Carousel]

But as revol points out, it's not a popularity competition. What do you really stand for? The left is and has always been a bourgeois institution. I mean, Fabianism isn't exactly news. Good grief, you'll be cheerleading the Queen in a mo.

 

[_pH_]

I don't pretend that the vast majority of working class people share my views even though I think the growth and development of these views within the rest of my class are vital for a serious opposition to capitalism. You on the otherhand are so arrogant that you feel you can proclaim to speak for the concerns of all the working class, mudh like the Communist Party in the USSR, the views of cyberrose are the views of the class and the views of the class are those of cyberrose.

I may have missed it, but you still haven't explained how you're going to achieve this. Have you?

 

[CyberRose]

But as revol points out, it's not a popularity competition. What do you really stand for? The left is and has always been a bourgeois institution. I mean, Fabianism isn't exactly news. Good grief, you'll be cheerleading the Queen in a mo.

What do you mean it's not a popularity competition?!

It's the biggest god damned popularity competition there is!!!!

 

[revol68]

I don't express the "will of the class" and of you weren't so thick or angry you'd be able to differentiate between identifying what the working class wants and what the working class needs. The two seem to be synonymous to you.

Internationalism might benefit the working class, but thinking that means they want internationalism is just detached from reality

I doesn't take a rocket scientist to have a good go at identifying what the working class wants or needs, what does take skill is persuading the working class to want what you think they need

Nick Griffin has just showed that he and his BNP are a hell of a lot more successful at that than you or the rest of the left...

So is internationalism what the working class needs or not? If it's what it needs then it can be hardly be jettisoned in the name of populism?

The fact that a party pimping nationalism as the answer the problems of global capitalism has more success in finding an audience receptive to its ideology than those of us arguing for the need for an internationalist approach within a culture deeply engrained with nationalism is hardly suprising.

Some people seem to forget that radical politics means to question the very roots of society and as roots run deep is never going to be an easy task to dig them up.

 

[Carousel]

Revol's right. Once you take the communism out of the left, it may as well be the BNP. His point about war time Fascism developing out of pandering to popular chauvinism is quite correct.

 

[CyberRose]

So is internationalism what the working class needs or not? If it's what it needs then it can be hardly be jettisoned in the name of populism?

But the point is, how do you go about convincing the working class that your ideas are better than the BNP's? So far the left has failed miserably and that is my reason for starting this thread. Look at what the working class want and how to deal with it...

 

[_pH_]

revol68, you are the perfect example of what I was saying in my original post, you don't have a clue what the working class want you only know what you think they want

All this stuff about "internationalism" might be good on paper but that is the exact opposite of what most of the working class actually want . You keep going on about esoteric teachings as if you're some kind of brainwashed religious fundamentalist but everything you say is completely alien and meaningless to the man on the street.

Until you can explain yourself to ordinary people you're just wasting your time and until you know what those ordinary people care about you won't be able to convince them of anything

This, sadly, is what revol can't get to grips with.

 

[Carousel]

It's the biggest god damned popularity competition there is!!!!

I dunno. There's nothing more middle class than yearning for relevance. An authentic working class perspective has a confident swagger able to combat reactionary forces within its own ranks. What's this popularity for? If the only thing wrong with the BNP's programme is their racist motivation, well, that's the most metaphysical and bourgeois angle imaginable.