Scum Politicians . . .

[maomao]

19th century Milk Maids. Marx's class enemy number one, some had two buckets and a stick.

View attachment 360925

It's a yoke not a stick. And she probably didn't own it. Hopefully she shook it off.

 

[A380]

and doubtless a spade

And a pack of these to stick in the top of the sandcastles made with those means of production:

 

[Pickman's model]

And a pack of these to stick in the top of the sandcastles made with those means of production:

sand great halls of the people if you please

 

[Raheem]

Is a milkmaid still a prole if she is skimming off her employer?

 

[Sasaferrato]

have you ever heard the term 'self-fulfilling prophecy'? of course you're never going to change the system from outside if you start with the belief that you are never going to change the system from outside.

Still doesn't answer the question of how you can change things if you are not prepared to engage with the current process.

 

[Pickman's model]

Still doesn't answer the question of how you can change things if you are not prepared to engage with the current process.

the same way eg politicians were persuaded to extend the franchise to women i suppose or that john major was persuaded to end the poll tax

 

[Karl Masks]

the same way eg politicians were persuaded to extend the franchise to women i suppose or that john major was persuaded to end the poll tax

Isn't happening though, is it

 

[danny la rouge]

Thanks for your reply. There's two points I'd like to pick up on.

First, lots of workers are employed in jobs which don't involved their direct exploitation by a capitalist employer, most obviously those in public services. As far as I'm aware, this category of employment didn't exist in Marx's time, at least to the extent it does today, but those workers still have the same basic material interests as those whose surplus value is extracted in the classic Marxist model.

Those employed in the public sector have a relationship with the means of production as if their employer were a capitalist. It’s the same relationship.

And second, I don't think saying that

or that

is particularly helpful. Even if that generalisation is correct (and I'm not convinced it is, at least not for all), people's class position isn't determined by how they see themselves, or what their aspirations are, but by their material reality, the basic need to sell their labour to support themselves.

The point is where they identify their interests as lying. Do they see their interests as being a proto-entrepreneur, or as aligned with those employed in a more formally proletarian occupation?



There’s a tendency in Latin America to use the term “working classes”, in plural. This is to ensure that the net is also cast around people who are not technically proletarian. This will therefore include peasantry, gig economy quasi self-employed and others.

 

[Rob Ray]

Still doesn't answer the question of how you can change things if you are not prepared to engage with the current process.

How's voting been going for you, feeling empowered yet? Enjoying those trade union rights that were won through extra-Parliamentary pressure and taken away and/or not returned by every set of MPs you've ever crossed a ballot for?

You talk about change by voting, but if you went to your local polling spot today you'd have exactly no votes on anything. You're sneering with nothing in your hands. And looking at the last 40 years of voting, it's achieved absolutely fuck all for the working class. Rights removed, benefits shafted, economy geared ever more heavily towards the rich, under both parties. And the one effort to  actually do something different was utterly destroyed, exactly as the anarchists predicted.

Don't bollock on as though you're practically minded, because you're not. You're the wishful thinker, parroting lines fed directly from the ruling class - which loses no opportunity to claim their policies are The People's Mandate.

 

[Pickman's model]

Isn't happening though, is it

it already has. women have the vote and the poll tax has ended.

 

[Rob Ray]

The idea that direct action doesn't achieve anything is palpably silly. Road protests in the 90s ended Thatcher's motorway dystopia. The Kinder Trespass won rights for walkers and ramblers. The RMT has held off massive cuts for decades by taking action rather than playing politics. Housing action groups save people from eviction. Squatters house people. It's only the very stupid or the wilfully disingenuous who'd suggest otherwise.

 

[Karl Masks]

it already has. women have the vote and the poll tax has ended.

Why would you so deliberately misrepresent what I said when you know full well i am talking about now. There has not been anything like that over the last 13 years and the tories have gotten away with all but murder. Clown

 

[Pickman's model]

Why would you so deliberately misrepresent what I said when you know full well i am talking about now. There has not been anything like that over the last 13 years and the tories have gotten away with all but murder. Clown

you're talking about now? have you missed the massive wave of strike action that's been going on the past few months? ffs catch yourself on you unobservant numpty

 

[Karl Masks]

How's voting been going for you, feeling empowered yet?

This seems disingenous. The main reason to vote, at least right now, is to get the Tories out. That is the only game in town and people who want to argue against that are just plain wrong

 

[Sasaferrato]

How's voting been going for you, feeling empowered yet? Enjoying those trade union rights that were won through extra-Parliamentary pressure and taken away and/or not returned by every set of MPs you've ever crossed a ballot for?

You talk about change by voting, but if you went to your local polling spot today you'd have exactly no votes on anything. You're sneering with nothing in your hands. And looking at the last 40 years of voting, it's achieved absolutely fuck all for the working class. Rights removed, benefits shafted, economy geared ever more heavily towards the rich, under both parties. And the one effort to  actually do something different was utterly destroyed, exactly as the anarchists predicted.

Don't bollock on as though you're practically minded, because you're not. You're the wishful thinker, parroting lines fed directly from the ruling class - which loses no opportunity to claim their policies are The People's Mandate.

Empty words, pointless rant. No answer.

 

[Sasaferrato]

Isn't happening though, is it

Nope.

 

[Rob Ray]

This seems disingenous. The main reason to vote, at least right now, is to get the Tories out. That is the only game in town and people who want to argue against that are just plain wrong

That's  your reason to vote, and it's wishful (while still being embarrassingly unambitious) thinking. Starkers won't fix any of the damage and in many cases has already pledged to extend it. You're complaining that direct action "only" achieves some things while urging us to achieve no things. It's pathetic.

 

[Rob Ray]

Empty words, pointless rant. No answer.

No U

 

[Puddy_Tat]

It's a technical definition. There's a difference between a housecat and a tiger, they have very different relationships to humans, but both are cats. "Proletariat" is a relationship to the means of production, not necessarily a definition of how powerful you may or may not be in economic terms.

don't you mean proletaricat?

 

[Karl Masks]

That's  your reason to vote, and it's wishful (while still being embarrassingly unambitious) thinking. Starkers won't fix any of the damage and in many cases has already pledged to extend it. You're complaining that direct action "only" achieves some things while urging us to achieve no things. It's pathetic.

This is just childish.
I didn't make any claims as to what Starmer can do , but if you think he is equal or worse than the Tories then you aren't equipped for this conversation

 

[Rob Ray]

This is just childish.
I didn't make any claims as to what Starmer can do , but if you think he is equal or worse than the Tories then you aren't equipped for this conversation

Of course you did. The only logical reason to remove the Tories in favour of Labour is if you think the latter will improve matters. And the fact is you  know the outcome, which is business as usual giving a Responsible breather between stints for the natural party of government. The direction of travel remains as long as the ruling class faces no pressure to change it.

You can whine about anarchists being naive, unequipped, just plain wrong blah blah but that's been the case as long as you've been alive.

 

[Pickman's model]

This seems disingenous. The main reason to vote, at least right now, is to get the Tories out. That is the only game in town and people who want to argue against that are just plain wrong

On the grounds that...

 

[Pickman's model]

This is just childish.
I didn't make any claims as to what Starmer can do , but if you think he is equal or worse than the Tories then you aren't equipped for this conversation

You're certainly not equipped for it as a knowledge of shammer's career or indeed the history of the Labour Party in government seem absent from your posts

 

[Karl Masks]

Of course you did. The only logical reason to remove the Tories in favour of Labour is if you think the latter will improve matters. And the fact is you  know the outcome, which is business as usual giving a Responsible breather between stints for the natural party of government. The direction of travel remains as long as the ruling class faces no pressure to change it.

You can whine about anarchists being naive, unequippe, d, just plain wrong blah blah but that's been the case as long as you've been alive.

Again, childish. The claim is never that the opposition will do much. They don't have to do much. They just have to not be the Tories. Fortunately, they aren't, and no amount of childish so called radical hyperbole is going to change that. I make no claims about Starmer that aren't obvious to anyone capable of objectivity. Clearly that's not you as you seem willing to facilitate a Tory return as that's the only alternative on offer. I'm all for direct action and street action, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting

 

[Pickman's model]

Again, childish. The claim is never that the opposition will do much. They don't have to do much. They just have to not be the Tories. Fortunately, they aren't, and no amount of childish so called radical hyperbole is going to change that. I make no claims about Starmer that aren't obvious to anyone capable of objectivity. Clearly that's not you as you seem willing to facilitate a Tory return as that's the only alternative on offer. I'm all for direct action and street action, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting

If you haven't noticed the numerous occasions shammer has stated quite unambiguously that he doesn't have objections to so many of the policies of the tory government, just the half-arsed way they've been pursuing them then there's no fucking hope for you. He has stated in ways only the wilfully ignorant could miss that he will be like the tories only more efficient. Perhaps you could be for paying attention for a change instead of coming out with vapid wank that would shame a teenage trot

 

[Karl Masks]

You're certainly not equipped for it as a knowledge of shammer's career or indeed the history of the Labour Party in government seem absent from your posts

The history of the Labour party, does that include the 2000s when waiting lists were much lower and people could see a doctor?

You're not getting it are you. NO one is making the claim Labour hasn't done bad things, or that they wont'. of course they will. The alternative is demonstrably worse and if you can't see that then you are lying to yourself.

 

[danny la rouge]

Again, childish. The claim is never that the opposition will do much. They don't have to do much. They just have to not be the Tories. Fortunately, they aren't, and no amount of childish so called radical hyperbole is going to change that. I make no claims about Starmer that aren't obvious to anyone capable of objectivity. Clearly that's not you as you seem willing to facilitate a Tory return as that's the only alternative on offer. I'm all for direct action and street action, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting

Oh dear. You’ve got things exactly the wrong way around.

 

[Rob Ray]

Again, childish. The claim is never that the opposition will do much. They don't have to do much. They just have to not be the Tories. Fortunately, they aren't, and no amount of childish so called radical hyperbole is going to change that. I make no claims about Starmer that aren't obvious to anyone capable of objectivity. Clearly that's not you as you seem willing to facilitate a Tory return as that's the only alternative on offer. I'm all for direct action and street action, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting

Yes we've established that you think I'm childish and I think you're pathetic. Moving on.

They don't "just have to not be the Tories." Nigel Farage is "not the Tories." You don't vote for the latter because it's not an improvement, and you vote for the forner because you think it is. But it's not. It's an interregnum that legitimises the Tories' claim that Britain is a functional democracy while doing nothing to change the direction of travel. And that's the best you can manage with voting.

As for waiting - what are you doing right this second? Because again, what you are not currently doing is voting.

 

[Karl Masks]

If you haven't noticed the numerous occasions shammer has stated quite unambiguously that he doesn't have objections to so many of the policies of the tory government, just the half-arsed way they've been pursuing them then there's no fucking hope for you. He has stated in ways only the wilfully ignorant could miss that he will be like the tories only more efficient. Perhaps you could be for paying attention for a change instead of coming out with vapid wank that would shame a teenage trot

You're makign the claim a Starmer led government would be worse so cite some evidence to prove this.

We know what the Tories will do if they continue. I'm not prepared to let the NHS die. You on the other hand seem ok with that because you can't hold your nose and vote. Well done you, have a gold star and go to the top of Anarchist Class

 

[Supine]

I know which i prefer