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

[revol68]

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

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

It is this repulsive oppurtunist approach to politics that has created the perfect breeding ground for the BNP.

The Third way of Giddins begetting the Third Position of Codreanu.

 

[_pH_]

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

still no answer to this.

 

[CyberRose]

The Third way of Giddins begetting the Third Position of Codreanu.

Mate, it's gibberish like this from the left that's helping create a breeding ground for the BNP!

 

[revol68]

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...

If I had some 'Get an Insurrectionary International Proletariat Quick' I'm sure I could tell you. As it is I don't and so I can't make history bend to my whim and neither can any slogan, position, or strategy no matter how perfect.

What I can do is be honest about my politics when discussing them with people, refuse to water them down in the name of populism and try and make them relevant to situations and struggles as they arise. I've also outlined reasons as to why and how proletarian internationalism is both necessary and could arise.

As it is you are just a gobshite throwing out questions from the previleged postion of 'nothing', you don't have the balls to stand behind any principles or position and so can skirt around the issues like a smug sopohist shit. Mind if I ask you what your politics are and how they relate to the wider class and how you plan on making them do so?

 

[Carousel]

Mate, it's gibberish like this from the left that's helping create a breeding ground for the BNP!

Yeah well. Advocating a watered down version of the BNP's programme minus the racist motivation renders your premise similarly academic.

 

[revol68]

Mate, it's gibberish like this from the left that's helping create a breeding ground for the BNP!

You are on a politics forum discussing fascism and internationalism, so don't play the populist 'anti intellectual' card. Self education and learning should be and have been in the past hallmarks of any working class movement worth it's name.

Instead of making snidey remarks perhaps you could have even went so far as wiking the 'gibberish' and improving your own political education, you afterall are part of the working class.

 

[Carousel]

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.

Hold on. In what way are your ideas better than the BNP's? Or even different? (Because the invisible mental motivation, as far as the punters is concerned, truly is irrelevant).

 

[Darios]

You are on a politics forum discussing fascism and internationalism, so don't play the populist 'anti intellectual' card. Self education and learning should be and have been in the past hallmarks of any working class movement worth it's name.

D'oh.

And the point of this thread is how to better communicate with working class voters. Is more intellectualism really going to help you forge simple, straightforward messages that are easily marketed and understood?

 

[revol68]

still no answer to this.

Well no, I have no easy 12 step plan, however knowing what you want would most likely be the first step and on that score I am one step ahead of you, cyberose and every other pathetic populist.

If you don't respect yourself your own politics how can you expect anyone else to?

 

[Carousel]

Makes you wonder what core principles shouldn't be sacrificed in the name of popularity. Oh, a bit like Labour's 1997 dilemma all over again.

 

[DotCommunist]

Hold on. In what way are your ideas better than the BNP's? Or even different? (Because the invisible mental motivation, as far as the punters is concerned, truly is irrelevant).

I would have thought the ole racism plays a major part in the difference tbf.

 

[revol68]

D'oh.

And the point of this thread is how to better communicate with working class voters. Is more intellectualism really going to help you forge simple, straightforward messages that are easily marketed and understood?

Straigthforward messages that are easily marketed and understood wil only ever be those that confirm or sit alongside peoples own assumptions. Those that seek to question them will always be hard to digest.

I just wanted to make a little poetic point.

It is also incredibly patronising to think of the working class as simple fucks only capable of reading a tabloid headline and have to thirst for learning themselves.

A vital part of class struggle isn't about handing people politics on a place but about their own development, and a wider development for a thirst for knowledge within the class. In 1930's Spain where millions were illiterate the CNT put up posters proclaiming the revolutionary power of books, in the UK in the 00's too many who proclaim to have the interests of the working class at heart treat books and knowledge and general with contempt.

 

[DotCommunist]

Makes you wonder what core principles shouldn't be sacrificed in the name of popularity. Oh, a bit like Labour's 1997 dilemma all over again.

'New Labour'? Sold out any pretense to giving a shit about the working class in favour of Smiley and his continuation of thatcherite neoliberal practise

 

[revol68]

I would have thought the ole racism plays a major part in the difference tbf.

Italian fascism didn't start out racist, infact it's mass base stemmed from sections of the labour movement that rejected internationalism in the name of pragmatism.

 

[Darios]

It is also incredibly patronising to think of the working class as simple fucks only capable of reading a tabloid headline and have to thirst for learning themselves.

Its less about being patronising and more about dealing with the reality of the MSM environment you find yourself in.

 

[Carousel]

I would have thought the ole racism plays a major part in the difference tbf.

Oh please. As if the invisible motivations inside people's minds matter. Like I say, where's the programmatic difference?

'New Labour'? Sold out any pretense to giving a shit about the working class in favour of Smiley and his continuation of thatcherite neoliberal practise

Thus winning the popularity competition. So it was presumably the right thing to do. I mean, their hearts were in the right place: not like those nasty proper Tories were they. They were like gay and everything. A bit like the new socially liberal Tories actually. This is just a melodramatic take on the fact that the application of the science of public choice in contemporary democracy yields centralist policy. No biggy.

 

[revol68]

'New Labour'? Sold out any pretense to giving a shit about the working class in favour of Smiley and his continuation of thatcherite neoliberal practise

They dropped the pretense because they saw that the working class no longer believed in it itself.

 

[_pH_]

So you don't actually have any idea about communicating your ideology to the 'working class' and getting them to accept your way of thinking? Thought not. In which case, everything you've said on this thread is academic.

 

[DotCommunist]

Italian fascism didn't start out racist, infact it's mass base stemmed from sections of the labour movement that rejected internationalism in the name of pragmatism.

Well it has been argued that fascism was a marxist heresy, given how many former marxists were involved in the early stages of fascist theory.

But that was then and this is now. The BNP are pretty solidly racist from where I'm standing, and a great many significant inner party members haven't been averse to worshipping at the altar of Nazism.

 

[revol68]

Its less about being patronising and more about dealing with the reality of the MSM environment you find yourself in.

You don't aim yourself at the ost backward elements of the working class, you start with the best and get it to filter down.

If you are looking to aggravate for industrial action in a workplace do you go to the most backward reactionary lackeys or do you talk to those with wit and a bit of willing first?

Also to liken working class culture to MSM reveils more about your own elitism than anyone elses.

 

[DotCommunist]

Oh please. As if the invisible motivations inside people's minds matter. Like I say, where's the programmatic difference?

Thus winning the popularity competition. So it was presumably the right thing to do. I mean, their hearts were in the right place: not like those nasty proper Tories were they.

I don't think you believe that any more than I do.

 

[revol68]

Well it has been argued that fascism was a marxist heresy, given how many former marxists were involved in the early stages of fascist theory.

But that was then and this is now. The BNP are pretty solidly racist from where I'm standing, and a great many significant inner party members haven't been averse to worshipping at the altar of Nazism.

Do you think that if they ever become a massive party on the verge of power they will have got there on the back of racism alone?

Anyway my worry isn't simply against the BNP but about the growth of national chaivinism within the working class as an organised political force.

 

[Darios]

Also to liken working class culture to MSM reveils more about your own elitism than anyone elses.

Oh that old chestnut. You inserted the likening to "working class culture" there pal. Perhaps you should look to yourself first before pointing the finger?

The MSM is what it is and my point had little to nothing to do with "working class culture". Simple messages stick, complex ones don't.

 

[Carousel]

I don't think you believe that any more than I do.

On the contrary. Both Labour and Tory political elite have perfectly normal levels of personal integrity. They believe in their own righteousness. They have a different take on fair, a different idea of justice, from yourself perhaps. But it's just as viable and just as "popular". If not more so.

 

[revol68]

I don't think you believe that any more than I do.

He doesn't beleive it, he is presuming you do on basis of following through on your own logic.

 

[revol68]

Simple messages stick, complex ones don't.

Well it's a good job I don't see my role as that of a school teacher then, thankfully I think that struggle can create circumstances where people are not only open to new ideas but actively seek them out themselves.

 

[Carousel]

Simple messages stick, complex ones don't.

God save the Queen.

 

[DotCommunist]

Do you think that if they ever become a massive party on the verge of power they will have got there on the back of racism alone?

.

Of course not, the votes they have gained come from far varied sources than that and the issues they raise clearly resonate with voters in some regions (upper prole/lower middle is my understanding). Issues that aren't being addressed by the centrists or the leftists (save perhaps the good work of the SP in some areas and TU disputes)


Half the problem is a complete disengagement with the process that cuts across the class spectrum. Most people think that parliamentary politics is a fucking crock, and it's hard to argue that they are wrong. Holding the BNP up as bogeyman doesn't work either, the cunts went to Burtons and got suits while quietly dropping the overt fash elements.

 

[DotCommunist]

On the contrary. Both Labour and Tory political elite have perfectly normal levels of personal integrity. They believe in their own righteousness. They have a different take on fair, a different idea of justice, from yourself perhaps. But it's just as viable and just as "popular". If not more so.

See, I was under the impression that they are in the majority money grubbing cunts with an interest in career over principle.

 

[Carousel]

Half the problem is a complete disengagement with the process that cuts across the class spectrum

Half what problem? The popularity of the left is not a problem for the working class.