EDL watch
- Thread starter Das Uberdog
- Start date
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
thank you for revealing your inner pedant
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
thank you for revealing your inner pedant
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
which, if you believe that the world has less than 30 years before it is fucked, is frankly worthless. You may get your street tidied up, but the planet would still be fucked, including your street.
What do you think the solution to the climate crisis is? What action needs to be taken? By whom?
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Socialism. But if we need it in the next thirty years, we are fucked.
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
Do you really think the working class are only concerned with litter? I think there's a whole lot more going on than that.
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
p.s. what about the other parts of my post you chose not to respond to?
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
p.s. what about the other parts of my post you chose not to respond to?
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
No. But they are irrelevant if you think the world is about to end.
They weren't relevant to the point I was making.
Your argument is a bit of a mess, tbh. Ask the class what they want/need, but in such a way as to get the answer you want. Exactly the same as the 'trots' you are meant to be different to. YOU are saying you have the answer - which is to work locally on whatever the issue of the day is. Just like the SWP try and do on a national scale.
Which we're unlikely to get even a hint of while austerity persists. It is unlikely we will get much progress on the environment either while living under the kind of austerity that allows production and environmental degradation to accelerate with all the consequences unequally distributed as much as the benefits are in the opposite direction. Going back to your earlier post perhaps it is the wrong approach to focus solely on the climate issue when socialism is what's required. There bound up. Even under capitalism a government could choose to end austerity by putting a shit ton into building a renewables based infrastructure, better public transport etcthat would as well as probably improve the climate sitiation help with unemployment , improve growth and all that bollocks. Whether they'd be able to get it done is another question but a strong anti-austerity movement (and hopefully a lot more ambitious than that) possibly with environmental concerns (most people have them but have more immediate needs) would help them push it through against the objections of the vested interests. There's more that can be done than either putting everything into the climate movement or waiting for full communism to save us.
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
Are you ever right?
Last edited:
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Of course there is. But you still need to raise the issue, and if you are bound up in a methodology that will mean the issue is ignored, what do you do? Just go 'oh well, the method is all' or try and argue with people about why your priority should also be there priority?
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
1. So again do you think the world is about to end? What you actually think about this is very relevant to the point you were making (i.e. the way you ask questions shapes the answers you'll get); indeed if you definitely think the game will be up in three decades then as you have rightly pointed out you won't be fussing with litter...or maternity leave, or pay claims, or health and safety, or housing stock, or education, or health care...
2. The reason for asking questions on a doable scale, is not because I want there to be local solutions, let alone that all solutions must be local. It is because of what I see as the weak and fragmented character of the working class, its organisations and politics. It is all in little broken pieces which might be able to draw and hold together with the glue of small successes, but which cannot be reconstructed by pushing all the bits into a mold provided by opposition to climate change, or anti-globalisation, or transitional demands, the BRS or What is to be done.
On the one hand it is a very pessimistic outlook to take - i.e. let's go for little victories because that is all that is possible - but on the other, the ability to share, learn from and develop such little victories exists as never before.
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
1 - No I dont, but if I did, it'd be of clear vital importance to argue for it. There is actually nothing wrong with arguing for action around what you believe to be the most important issue of the day. Indeed, it is perfectly logical and sensible.
2. your error here is, i believe, shown in the following paragraph - 'that is all that is possible' That's not something I believe, altho if you start from that point, you will never, go beyond it.
2. your error here is, i believe, shown in the following paragraph - 'that is all that is possible' That's not something I believe, altho if you start from that point, you will never, go beyond it.
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
So what more is possible at present; what do you believe is currently the state of working class politics and organisation?
And why does starting starting with a small victory preclude the gaining of greater ones; indeed outside of the all or nothing world of the SPGB, is there any other way of proceeding?
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
WC politics - in the uk at least - is mindnumbingly weak, we all know that.
And, yes, of course you fight for small wins. But it's perfectly possible to do that and fight for big wins as well. You may not succeed, but, A, you might, and B, even when you dont, that joint struggle can help to change peoples minds on a range of issues, and show how individual issues are never really 'individual' issues, but are a systemic failing. Which means you are in a better position to fight the next cause, big or small.
A|ll of which is somewhat off the point I was originally trying to make, which is that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with arguing with people about you think the key political priorities are, at any given time. You might not convince people, in which case.... well, either you plod on alone or go along with the group, but, whichever you choose, it's still perfectly reasonable to have the argument in the first place.
And, yes, of course you fight for small wins. But it's perfectly possible to do that and fight for big wins as well. You may not succeed, but, A, you might, and B, even when you dont, that joint struggle can help to change peoples minds on a range of issues, and show how individual issues are never really 'individual' issues, but are a systemic failing. Which means you are in a better position to fight the next cause, big or small.
A|ll of which is somewhat off the point I was originally trying to make, which is that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with arguing with people about you think the key political priorities are, at any given time. You might not convince people, in which case.... well, either you plod on alone or go along with the group, but, whichever you choose, it's still perfectly reasonable to have the argument in the first place.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
My father (a working class Tory) never had any time for environmental concerns up until he realised just how much of his local coastline was being lost, and that the constant dredging of the sandbanks for sand eels was causing tidal effects. That sort of "turned him on" to the broader picture, as well as making him vociferous about the Tories skimping on maintenance of existing coastal defences.
Thunderfist
Well-Known Member
Permit me a moment's dry amusement at coming back from pushing a wheelbarrow around all day to find myself lectured on my disconnect from the working class by an academic and a librarian. "One of those Clapton fans"? Been sniffing the tippex again?
was the wheelbarrow empty or full?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Gentrification of allotments.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
What's your critique of librarianship btw?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
...and what is your wheelbarrow hiding?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
so you don't have to prioritise your work then.
Thunderfist
Well-Known Member
In the sense that I have to go and do it - yes I do. What's your point?
Which gardening centre were you examining the wheelbarrow in?
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
Where have I lectured you on your disconnect from the working class?
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
perhaps if you read my post which caused you such amusement you might see. and - as louis says above - i'd be interested if you could point to where i lectured you on this disconnect from the working class.
Thunderfist
Well-Known Member
Oh lads, you so desperatley want me to be an equal opportunities officer in a radical dance troupe or something don't you?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
no, you're quite capable of making an arse of yourself without needing to go to those lengths.
Similar threads
