That socialists shouldn't have got involved with the Russian soviets because many members were racist and sexist?
I think this is where our cross purposes lie.
In your recent posts you've been describing involvement in struggle in terms that could have been written at any time over the recent decades, the contemporary gig economy campaign example being substituted for whatever was fresh at the time.
Earlier in this thread I thought you were talking about something much more specific, which is why I've been putting questions around actually getting directly involved with the soviets, or their rhetorical modern proxy, the 'social movement' actively pushing for, and organising around, Brexit. Because that is where the most effective w/c opinion forming action has been taking place over the last few months, those are the groups whose campaigning swung the referendum in w/c communities across the country. Those are the groups organising to be ready to resist backsliding and, just in case, preparing for "
the most protracted, bitter, potentially endless conflict in British society and politics", as my noble
notfriend put it. They reach into, and influence, the w/c communities at the heart of this period in ways the gig economy campaign can only dream about. In another time and another place they're the sort of groups that could become soviets, albeit in this case rightwing ones.
I thought you were advocating getting on board with the soviets. That's what I've been trying to discuss, but it's become apparent you're talking more of general involvement with class struggle, using the gig economy campaign as a example. Which is fair enough, but we've been at cross purposes.
what exactly are you objecting to about that quote of Glaberman?
It's essential to reject the idea that nothing can happen until white workers are no longer racist. I don't know what anybody thinks the Russian workers in 1917 were. They were sexist. They were nationalist. A lot of them were under the thumb of the church. But they made a goddamn revolution that began to change them. Whether there's a social explosion or not doesn't depend on any formal attitudes or supporting this particular organisation or that particular organisation.
the treble negative for a start!
Keep the above in mind, that I thought you were saying 'our' (general us) energy should be put into the specific, Brexit, 'social explosion'. The one that is explicitly nationalist and has controlling immigration as one of it's key themes. And has a symbiotic relationship with the alt-right.
Try reading that quote in various w/c voices, including those of asylum seekers, economic refugees and bargaining chip Europeans, all of whom are currently living here with uncertain status. Or as an Asian living in Rochdale, or a BLM activist. Each voice telling other people to accept racism. I imagine half of the voices you hear are female, each telling other people to accept sexist attitudes. I don't know how you detect gay, disabled or Muslim voices, but you get my drift.
Makes perfect sense when read by each of those voices, does it? Of course not, you hear them falter because it raises such immediate suspicion of entitlement and division.
I guess the author is a white man? As I said previously, the intended audience is obviously white men. Whatever he thought it was like when he wrote it, the modern working class isn't just about white men. The alt-right thinks it should be.
In the context of a (relatively safe space) gig economy campaign those voices may feel they have nothing to genuinely fear from what the quote says, when read with the most abstract, nebulous and woolly interpretation. I thought you were advocating all of us, including the people with those voices, getting involved with the social explosion, because that's the struggle which has recently changed, and continues to change, peoples attitudes and/or circumstances like no other. In that context, posted and read this week, it is not abstract. Many of them (of us) have every reason to be wary.
or, as
todays front page says
“When language around ‘taking our country back’ and ‘making America great again’ is coupled with proposals to treat EU migrants like bargaining chips or to ban refugees on the grounds of religion, it fosters deep hatred and mistrust and sends a strong message that some people are entitled to human rights and others aren’t,” said Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty International UK.
“Have we forgotten that human rights protections were created after the mass atrocities of the second world war as a way of making sure that ‘never again’ actually meant ‘never again’?”
The warnings are coming thick and fast at the moment that at some point we may have to choose which side we're on.
I have a low personal stake in the
end justifies means argument in that quote. For some other people the stakes are much higher. I think it's unnecessarily divisive drivel. You'll have to ask them what they think. I certainly wouldn't be waving it around on a stick.
Well a debate is a two way process, if your reasoning isn't open for discussion then why bother.
I'm happy to debate, that's why i initially posted on this thread, but with a question not because I had anything I particularly wanted to say.
