Green Party's 'unapologetic, socialist broadcast'

[taffboy gwyrdd]

And the even funnier part is that the sort of behaviour he's bashing simply didn't happen on this thread. To roll out a pre-prepared rant like is more than a little arrogant/paranoid/stupid. And all without declaring his own green party membership.

My post was exactly in response to something said on this thread, by Dr Ringding, as quoted at the top of the post. It's a common enough denouncement on right and left.

There are tories and socialists alike who sneer at left-tilted folk who are identified as "middle class". It's incredibly narrow minded. Perhaps Dr Ringding isn't one of them, but the comment smacked of it.

I have never made a secret of my membership of GPEW, but don't see the need to declare it for every post either. I am an activist but I don't generally evangalise online, especially places like this. It would be mad to think that such behaviour would altar very much in the ballot box. I also believe that most important politics takes place beyond the ballot box, which is probably a shame.

My post doesn't flatter GPEW or attempt to. It does get sarcastic at presumably left wing people slagging off a party who have openly declared an intention to pursue some social democratic nationalisations. People can perceive the party as fundementally bourgeois if they like, it's quite a complex debate because so many policies are pro poor. But if socialists would rather GPEW have policies that are soft on banks and hard on the poor/ migrants then they should say so. There's that much doublethink about that it wouldn't surprise me.

Who complains about you not declaring any work you ever did with IWCA in any post? No one. It would be stupid.

 

[butchersapron]

My post was exactly in response to something said on this thread, by Dr Ringding, as quoted at the top of the post. It's a common enough denouncement on right and left.

There are tories and socialists alike who sneer at left-tilted folk who are identified as "middle class". It's incredibly narrow minded. Perhaps Dr Ringding isn't one of them, but the comment smacked of it.

I have never made a secret of my membership of GPEW, but don't see the need to declare it for every post either. I am an activist but I don't generally evangalise online, especially places like this. It would be mad to think that such behaviour would altar very much in the ballot box. I also believe that most important politics takes place beyond the ballot box, which is probably a shame.

My post doesn't flatter GPEW or attempt to. It does get sarcastic at presumably left wing people slagging off a party who have openly declared an intention to pursue some social democratic nationalisations. People can perceive the party as fundementally bourgeois if they like, it's quite a complex debate because so many policies are pro poor. But if socialists would rather GPEW have policies that are soft on banks and hard on the poor/ migrants then they should say so. There's that much doublethink about that it wouldn't surprise me.

Who complains about you not declaring any work you ever did with IWCA in any post? No one. It would be stupid.

Great. Ta. etc

 

[frogwoman]

That, too.

But also, oppose Trident to be a socialist.

The workers' bomb

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Know your history. Kropotkin was a ducal prince, that is, an aristo, not royalty.

But you've touched on something there, albeit unwittingly, which is that these "cuckoos in the nest" didn't attempt to impose their morality on us, they offered us their philosophy, and left us to choose whether we thought it had any merit.
Can the same be said of many middle-class left pundits or theorists? Monbiot for example; Laurie Penny; Owen "don't celebrate Thatcher's death" Jones?

Clearly there is substance to the issue, especially as class is increasingly amorphous to many people.
That latest 7 class structure from the academics is interesting but has more than a whiff of bullshit to it. You can be considered "higher" just for liking "classical" music - an incredibly patronising calculation.

As for your 3 cited "middle class lefties" - Monbiot may preach, but he also does a lot of research and writes it up well. Apart from Private Eye he was one of a tiny amount of people anywhere near the mainstream spelling out the detail of PFI nonsense in the early years. Few listened and now we are in the shit for just about ever.

Owen Jones has a good handle on left of Labour politics and a family background in many such organisations. He makes an informed case very well. I don't see why he should apologise just because he went to a top uni. Again, there is something patronising about the idea that socialists should limit their education and opportunities. It is surely what they do with those opportunities that count. Far better to go to Oxbridge and continue to argue for free education for all than do business studies somewhere more provincial and spout neoliberal cultist claptrap.

I am not fully abreast of the range of denouncements of Ms Pennie that exist, their credibility or her general output.

 

[DotCommunist]

I wonder who would win in a fight between owen jones and articul8. Owens not built like a brick shithouse but bantam weight bastards are deceptively quick handed. Would need to see the weigh-in to make a confident spend at william hill.

 

[brogdale]

Know your history. Kropotkin was a ducal prince, that is, an aristo, not royalty.

But you've touched on something there, albeit unwittingly, which is that these "cuckoos in the nest" didn't attempt to impose their morality on us, they offered us their philosophy, and left us to choose whether we thought it had any merit.
Can the same be said of many middle-class left pundits or theorists? Monbiot for example; Laurie Penny; Owen "don't celebrate Thatcher's death" Jones?

I wouldn't say that any of Marx, Bakunin or Kropotkin limited their activity to political philosophy with a take it or leave it attitude; surely all of them were engaged to varying degrees in structures and organisations dedicated to imposing ideas upon society.

I bet if Bakunin had had access to Twitter etc. there'd have been some corkers.

 

[butchersapron]

I wonder who would win in a fight between owen jones and articul8. Owens not built like a brick shithouse but bantam weight bastards are deceptively quick handed. Would need to see the weigh-in to make a confident spend at william hill.

They'd just pretend to fight and give your money to miliband.

 

[articul8]

I've got a good height, reach and weight advantage. But I hope it doesn't come to that

 

[butchersapron]

I've got a good height, reach and weight advantage. But I hope it doesn't come to that

You're on the same side after all.

Found wandering post-79:Twats. Pair of. Can only survive in certain environments.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Clearly there is substance to the issue, especially as class is increasingly amorphous to many people.

People claiming to be this or that class, or declaring how class doesn't explain them, are increasing. Class itself is still as plain and non-amorphous as ever.

That latest 7 class structure from the academics is interesting but has more than a whiff of bullshit to it. You can be considered "higher" just for liking "classical" music - an incredibly patronising calculation.

Except that what they're actually saying is a lot more contingent - it's that if you like classical music, you may also acquire a small amount of cultural or social capital.
And the seven-class structure still reduces to the old trpartite split, when all is said and done.

As for your 3 cited "middle class lefties" - Monbiot may preach, but he also does a lot of research and writes it up well. Apart from Private Eye he was one of a tiny amount of people anywhere near the mainstream spelling out the detail of PFI nonsense in the early years. Few listened and now we are in the shit for just about ever.

I'm not into giving someone who's obviously a classist (see the thread about him and his visit to his local GP surgery) a free pass because he did some good once, and can write a decent story.

Owen Jones has a good handle on left of Labour politics and a family background in many such organisations. He makes an informed case very well. I don't see why he should apologise just because he went to a top uni. Again, there is something patronising about the idea that socialists should limit their education and opportunities. It is surely what they do with those opportunities that count. Far better to go to Oxbridge and continue to argue for free education for all than do business studies somewhere more provincial and spout neoliberal cultist claptrap.

He's got such a good handle on left-of-Labour politics that he supports Labour "with no illusions".

I am not fully abreast of the range of denouncements of Ms Pennie that exist, their credibility or her general output.

She thinks she's part of a vanguard of people like her.

 

[butchersapron]

Clearly there is substance to the issue, especially as class is increasingly amorphous to many people.

What does this mean? On what basis is "class is increasingly amorphous to many people"? What do these terms mean in this post?

 

[ViolentPanda]

I wouldn't say that any of Marx, Bakunin or Kropotkin limited their activity to political philosophy with a take it or leave it attitude; surely all of them were engaged to varying degrees in structures and organisations dedicated to imposing ideas upon society.

I bet if Bakunin had had access to Twitter etc. there'd have been some corkers.

Imposing ideas is somewhat different to imposing rule, to be fair.

Bakunin tried, in a very limited way, but Marx believed that Communism was inevitable (even if he did like the idea of forcing the issue a bit) and the prince preferred propaganda to force, once he got past his youth.

 

[DotCommunist]

I bet if Bakunin had had access to Twitter etc. there'd have been some corkers.

13th pint, you are in me

 

[butchersapron]

Did you know that water doesn't exist. It's true. It comes in many forms and sometimes changes. So it doesn't exist. It's class is increasingly amorphous to many people.This is what taffboy has on his leaflet for an inner city mancs ward.

 

[articul8]

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

What does this mean? On what basis is "class is increasingly amorphous to many people"? What do these terms mean in this post?

What I meant was that there's quite a lot of stuff to "unpack" (hateful word but gets point across) in the seemingly commonly held perception that middle class people really shouldn't be "left wing". It's a silliness that unites many a Daily Mailer and soap box proletarian socialist.

ViolentPanda is fair enough in saying that class, to many who understand it at least, is no more amorphous than ever it was. But it is perceived that way.

I've long thought that Marxists focused overbearingly on the bourgeois in a way that alienated some of them un neccessarily. This view is supported by a look at the backgrounds of so many leftists.

I'll just re-iterate a couple of things that muddy the issue:

Even if we see class as a social relationship predicated on economics and ownership of means of production, there are many out there who don't. They think one middle class for liking theatre (not least Brecht for example) and "own" a house in the form of death-grip bank leverage.

So many "middle class" people own next to knacker all in regards to the means of production. Their "middle class" status is predicated on their employment. The fact that they would lose much of that status without the employment makes them working class IMO. Why distance them and lose their potential support?

What makes a person more truly bourgeois in my opinion is that they consider their interests lie with the status quo, whether or not they actually do. One aspect of the current grand heist is that the poor only have, by definition, a very limited amount of capital to be screwed out of. Therefore it becomes necessary for the middle class to be massively ripped off as well, hence more need for the elite to try and convince the middle class that it is the poor who have caused the problems (as Mark Steel puts it so well, telling people that the poor that the poor have got all the money)

It is the elite who are the problem, they are consolidating and becoming more remote and globally dominant. It's horrendous. The US middle class especially are going to get shafted, complicit though they may be in their own demise.

This is somewhat off topic of course, but it boils down to the common idea that GPEW are unworthy because they are "middle class". Not only is this simplistic, it is vapid. It is policy and practice on which a party should be critiqued, not the narrow prejudice of social background of membership. There is enough GPEW practice to have a go at, some of which may be linked to a middle class aspect I daresay (some naive liberal pushovers who would run a squillion miles from a fight for example, or a bizarre notion that we ought to behave like the mainstream to behave like the mainstream - as if there aren't bigger richer parties to choose from who already do that very well), but the main point should still be the behavior, not speculation regarding socialogical / psychological motivations for it.

Sorry if I'm being convoluted and rambling. It's all first draft bilge and I'm in a hurry.

 

[butchersapron]

What does this mean?

ViolentPanda is fair enough in saying that class, to many who understand it at least, is no more amorphous than ever it was. But it is perceived that way.

Do you see what you've said?

 

[newbie]

Porritt was bessie mates with Prince Charles.

oh he's undoubtedly posh, but being "a tory" is more than being born posh, it's a positive ideological choice.


Is there any evidence that Porritt was an actual tory?

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Sorry if I'm being convoluted and rambling. It's all first draft bilge and I'm in a hurry.

It's utter drivel

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

It's utter drivel

So you've never seem people sneered at for being both "middle class" and "left wing"?

You've never seen people cited as "middle class" based on how they sell their labour?

You don't think the middle class risk being shafted and probably have far more in common with the working class than many of either class think?

You should check out society and commentary thereon, some of it can be interesting.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

So you've never seem people sneered at for being both "middle class" and "left wing"?

You've never seen people cited as "middle class" based on how they sell their labour?

You don't think the middle class risk being shafted and probably have far more in common with the working class than many of either class think?

You should check out society and commentary thereon, some of it can be interesting.

I'm not sure what you're saying here as it doesn't really make sense, however the post above by you is utter drivel, I've no idea what it's about it's just a stream of conciousness, I've read Thundercats fanfiction that made more sense.

 

[butchersapron]

So you've never seem people sneered at for being both "middle class" and "left wing"?

You've never seen people cited as "middle class" based on how they sell their labour?

You don't think the middle class risk being shafted and probably have far more in common with the working class than many of either class think?

You should check out society and commentary thereon, some of it can be interesting.

Find it happening beyond you insisting that it does on this thread - go on, do it right now. And when you come back being unable to, just say so, don't waffle on for baals sake.

 

[newbie]

Spanky, you claimed "The Green Party was launched by rich ex-Tories". Who were you thinking of?

 

[frogwoman]

so blind to your own fucking bigotry. so blind to how you come across to others.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Spanky, you claimed "The Green Party was launched by rich ex-Tories". Who were you thinking of?

PEOPLE

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Find it happening beyond you insisting that it does on this thread - go on, do it right now. And when you come back being unable to, just say so, don't waffle on for baals sake.

You believe in Baal? That is a revalation.

The last time I saw someone specific derided for being middle class and left wing was in the Daily Mail last week related to one of the organisers of an anti thatcher thing.

The last time I saw it generally was on this thread in something I cited during my first post when you failed to notice that I had cited it.

If you don't think people are ever ascribed a class based on how they sell their labour then you are purporting that teachers and solicitors are never described as middle class on that basis and you are being more than a bit silly and obtuse, not so unlike you perhaps.

The notion that working class and middle class interests coincide more than many suspect is more contestable, but the middle class are being shafted in a variety of ways by the finance elite. See the various mis selling scandals going back decades for starters, or the erosion of savings via below inflation savings rates, the inflation being kept articifically low not least to fuel cheap finance speculation. It would be fair comment that the middle class in turn shaft the working class, but with the current heist there is an increasing propensity for the former to be shafted nonetheless. Their status in the traditional "1st world" is increasingly precarious, thus their interests coincide increasingly with the working class. Most typical are those of the younger generation incurring £50,000+ in debt via HE with the prospect of minimum / zero wage jobs waiting at the other end.
By all means engage with substance, but do try and refrain from attempted slap-downs which are as haughty as they are too often vapid. As useful as it is to be challenged to flesh things out, the style gets wearing as the years drag by.

 

[newbie]

PEOPLE

come on, you must have had some reason for writing it.

 

[butchersapron]

You believe in Baal? That is a revalation.

The last time I saw someone specific derided for being middle class and left wing was in the Daily Mail last week related to one of the organisers of an anti thatcher thing.

The last time I saw it generally was on this thread in something I cited during my first post when you failed to notice that I had cited it.

If you don't think people are ever ascribed a class based on how they sell their labour then you are purporting that teachers and solicitors are never described as middle class on that basis and you are being more than a bit silly and obtuse, not so unlike you perhaps.

The notion that working class and middle class interests coincide more than many suspect is more contestable, but the middle class are being shafted in a variety of ways by the finance elite. See the various mis selling scandals going back decades for starters, or the erosion of savings via below inflation savings rates, the inflation being kept articifically low not least to fuel cheap finance speculation. It would be fair comment that the middle class in turn shaft the working class, but with the current heist there is an increasing propensity for the former to be shafted nonetheless. Their status in the traditional "1st world" is increasingly precarious, thus their interests coincide increasingly with the working class. Most typical are those of the younger generation incurring £50,000+ in debt via HE with the prospect of minimum / zero wage jobs waiting at the other end.
By all means engage with substance, but do try and refrain from attempted slap-downs which are as haughty as they are too often vapid. As useful as it is to be challenged to flesh things out, the style gets wearing as the years drag by.

So, beyond the one line that had nothing to do with the thread, it hasn't happened on this thread. But you want to roll out your pre-baked arguments so insist that it has been happening on this thread and it if hasn't then it bloody well should have been. Joker.

 

[newbie]

so blind to your own fucking bigotry. so blind to how you come across to others.

me?

 

[frogwoman]

me?

no, not you.