Southpawpunch Comments - The best of my comments that I make elsewhere

I’m pleased to be making this week’s article a joint post with my new subsidary site Southpawpunch Comments.

Southpawpunch Comments will publish what I think are the most interesting comments that I make on other sites.

I’ve been thinking that some of what I write isn’t easily available to those who may wish to read it - unless they go to the same sites as I do.

And points I make elsewhere can be hard to find later - comments usually aren’t picked up by search engines and it can be hard keeping track of all the different threads to which I may post.

And let's be frank - many are sharp, acerbic, deal with difficult topics and are a lot bolder than the mush and mess littering both 'Marxist' and moderate sites. Maybe some of my comments are worth more than evaporating when the historical work of the reformist sites is finally done and they are forced off the stage of history.

Mainly from memory, I’ve collected a few of my previous comments (below) under the name of the blog where I first made them. (If you remember anything else you think worth including, please do let me know by sending me a link).

Next week I shall also publish some of my previous comments made on Southpawpunch and that are currently just hidden away in the comments boxes. Pulling them out to the main site will make them easier to find.

But in future I’ll be adding comments on a chronological basis, not by blog - I’ll post maybe a weekly article or a less frequent round-up (when I don’t say much) of my most recent comments at Southpawpunch Comments.

I won’t publish anything there until the original thread appears to have finished. Some comments that I will publish there will have minor edits - for clarity, spelling or grammar.

Of course, this is all rather one-sided. I will give a little background about the issue that was being discussed but I won’t be including the comments and the original posts of others - articles will just get far too long if I include everyone else’s text.

I also won’t be allowing comments on Southpawpunch Comments. I think debates read better when they continue where they started. I’ll publish a link (detailed links will be find on the Southpawlinks site) - if you want to make a point, or find out more, you can go to the original site.

I’d love to combine Southpawpunch, Southpawpunch Comments and Southpawpunch Life into one website with a multi-stranded front page that included all of these and more. If anyone knows how to do this, incorporating these blogs in a cheap (or free) and simple way, please do let me know.

I don’t know of anyone else who has published a site to report the comments that they make elsewhere. Can you copyright an idea like this? I’m sure many a multi-national has protected far more nebulous concepts. I intend ensuring that all the Southpawpunch sites are as innovative as the technology allows - this new site is one of the many new ideas that I try.

(Oh, and I’m looking forward to publishing my next article at Southpawpunch Life, my arts, culture & more site. I’ve written a full-length arts article, drawing on my visit last month to many Amsterdam museums. However an unexpected visit this week to Antwerp should give me a chance to look at their museum and maybe add some more to what I have drafted. I hope to publish this article in the next week).

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Southpawpunch comments:-

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Stroppyblog

Strappybird welcomes Paris Hilton’s re-imprisonment.

"100% wrong.

Socialists don't celebrate some person being sent to jail for 45 days for driving on a suspended licence.

Socialists don't dismiss out of hand any manifestation of mental illness as 'making it up'.

Socialists don't support unfair treatment of even the super rich for reasons like this - I read it's common for people to just serve 10% of their jail time because of prison overcrowding in LA.

I don't know that much about her but someone living the life she does probably would find prison especially harsh - a million miles away from the live she normally leads so it's not that surprising that it lead to tears, like a child. Liberate Paris (and on to Berlin!)

Your political trajectory is clear - Sussex Womens Institute beckons."

13 June 2007

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Louisefeminista looks back on 2006 and namechecks Southpawpunch as an ‘ultraleft’.

"Southpawpunch - Ultra-left adventurist or consistent revolutionary socialist who is not swayed by the vagaries of the ever-changing face of capitalist exploitation?

It’s interesting that you look back on your first year of blogging in which you have frequently looked askance at the ‘ultra left’ ‘Trotskyism’ of your ‘yoof’. From being an ostensible 4th to a ‘Labour Less Blairite’ is a long road but a path well travelled.

But how will you look back in 10 years?

‘Colleagues,

I’m sorry that this will be last annual review at the StroppyBlogLouiseFeminista Multimodal Communications Portal™ following our successful sale to Murdoch & Sons ‘WomenTalk2Women’ platform.

It ’s time to look back. 6 promotions on the ‘Trot’ (sic) in the mid 00s enabled me to empower myself and set up in business as a ‘workers co-operative’ with Stroppy and establish ‘Revanch™ - by women, 4 women.’ No more exploitation of me by men!

The combination of woman manufactured product (sourced at 29c per hour in Uganda), women management through a workers co-operative (net profits of £1.3M each trousered last year by the co-operative - me and Stroppy) and our sassy initial marketing (following the trail of many successful Brighton gay entrepreneurs and that other Sussex woman who made a difference - Anita Roddick) we marketed initially to the BDSM crowd; greenies (all our rubber is sourced from land indigenous to native Indian tribes) and the ‘socially concerned’ through utilising our famous pledge ‘I promise to give to Oxfam every time Revanch™ makes me cum!’.

Now that I am a successful businesswoman whose microchipped sexual fulfilment tools can be found in the high street, from Mothercare to Starbucks, I have more time to return to my first love - radical politics!

So I am very pleased to confirm that, following my stellar performance as a Liberal peer, Lembit (as Prime Minister) has personally recommended me to replace his 7th wife, Lady Cheeky-Opik of Transylvania as Chair of the Blood Transfusion Service following the unfortunate theft of 2.3 million litres of donated blood serum by his 1st wife, the sister of the 7th.

So with your Revanch™ product in your bag and myself heading the Blood Transfusion Service, there really is no need for women ever to exchange bodily secretions ever again with men!!"

29 December 2006

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Dave's Part

Despite McDonnell’s humiliation, Labour Lefts play hard to get with desperate Reds.

“When I first moved to London long ago, my idiot North West friends and relatives asked, ‘isn’t it dangerous, when you go out to clubs and the like?

And I replied, no, it’s a lot worse in small town England. Places like Lefttown.

In London, there’s no history. You’re not going to come across someone who you had a fight with in the bus station a few years ago. There’s no chance that you will meet your Ex’s now b/f who you used to know from the terraces and who is after your blood. There’s also no chance that you will meet those renegades you expelled or have your former Bennite friends pretend that night together ever happened.

And you know you’ve got to stop going to those small town clubs. But still you go.

So now you may reckon your chances with Labour Left man or woman, hanging around near the dance floor. But they are only here, most probably temporarily, because the bouncers denied them entry into Gordon’s Wine Bar.

It’s too early to tell whether they will be let back in there later or are permanently excluded but that’s where they want to be. They hate slumming it here with you and whilst they may make conversation, any number you get from them will be fake.

They even tell you to your face ‘We're not joining in for some no-mark sex’. They wouldn’t if you were God’s Gift, either (a mass Left or even communist party). They’re incurable reformists. Go and chat up someone else."

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"I’d say Left Labour isn’t (at say 15,000) 10x bigger than the non-Labour left. Maybe 6000 in all other organisations. And the average SWP member, for example, works 3x as hard as a LP type. And how Left is the Labour Left that includes cuts-making councillors and where McDonnell’s platform was no more left than Meacher’s?

And sure, there are very few Lefts anywhere, but electoral support isn’t a perfect measure of this, e.g. richer parties have the resources to do better than they would.

And yes, Dave, the end of revolutionary socialism (like the once large Temperance movement) is more likely than John Rees, Peter Taaffe, Alan Clinton et al getting into bed together. The conditions of capitalism will always create a fightback although that doesn’t mean a thinking and organised fightback will exist.

I’ve written a strategy - Organisational unity for starters. Sure, no-one’s listening but how is LP membership a means to a socialist world?

It may feel like onanism at present, being a Red, but maybe some foreign siren - speaking French, Italian or Spanish maybe, - will be along to rescue us Reds if we just hold out."

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"What I meant by "It may feel like onanism at present, being a Red, but maybe some foreign siren - speaking French, Italian or Spanish maybe, - will be along to rescue us Reds if we just hold out." was the possibility that revolution or similar, in say Argentina, could come to the rescue of us very isolated British reds.

I thought that would be clear but maybe it wasn't."

26 May 2007

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Dave criticises Workers Power for being ultraleft

“I think Dave is correct in his criticisms of both the language and method that Workers Power are using.

There’s nothing wrong with ‘demanding’ but it’s not the best language to use unless there are lots of you and you are powerful enough to attempt to put your words into action. The desired outcome is reasonable enough - if you had muscle - and I don’t see anything wrong in having a goal but, yes, it’s currently unachievable and it reads silly to raise it like this. I think the WP comrades might (they might not) rethink their language if this was pointed out to them.

But I think it’s telling of comrades, to look at the sort of venom they will use against those who aren’t - in the whole gamut of politics, from fascism to communism - that far away from them.

In the same way that Right Labour or Centre Labour will act in way that shows they think Left Labour is from the Ark or beyond the pale, (e.g. I’ve seen them call Campaign Group types ‘mad Trot wreckers’, scum etc) so those commenting here who have made their peace with capitalism now sound just the same as the other commentators who have never contemplated the revolutionary alternative.

We’ve probably all worked in places where people have thought our politics are ‘mad’ - where we were very politically isolated - and I mean that for all of us, from Trotskyists to Labour types. I‘ve heard terms such as ‘bunch of kids’, ‘pathetic’, ‘saddos’ ‘hilarious’ used in my workplaces by the non-political against Labour party types who have argued for a trade union.

I think of all these terms used here, criticising people for being young or suggesting something must have been written by someone young (with the implication of them being gullible) debars that person from any description of them being a communist.

Workers Power argument is wrong, possibly ultra-left. But they acquit themselves a lot better, with this over enthusiastic dreaming, compared to the jaded and sneering cynicism displayed by so many here. That’s one of the reasons I’ve generally stopped commenting here. I need to go and wash out my mouth, there’s bad taste.”

19 May 2007

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Those wanted to be (and their sock puppets) the Labour candidate in Bethnal Green and Bow at the next election, scramble to anonymously slur their rivals.

“The above just says it all about Labour Party types.

Various acolytes of the 'important', here to dish the dirt on the 'opposition' or big up those that they hope will be or are in political relationships with them.

Meanwhile the hooded wannabe assassins look up to various careerist hopefuls who are scrambling overthemselves to see who can get the selection jackpot and its associated largesse.

Very little has changed since Hogarth drew it.

A pox on them all."

--

"How much effect has the (pitiful) minimum wage had in Tower Hamlets? Many of the employers would have to pay above this level anyway, in London, because of wage competition - even incl. people like McDonalds.

There are, of course, a fair number of people still working below the NMW level. As I - reported - numerous employers openly advertise non-NMW compliant jobs in ads, with little fear of enforcement so what chance for a worker toiling in a garment sweatshop of them getting his/her legal minimums?

But the big lie is about Galloway. He’s one of yours (an old style Labour left) than one of ours (a Trot) - as he’d be the first to point out.

It’s a shame that the SWP still give that opportunist cover he doesn’t deserve, and so tar all of us revolutionary socialists (he’s always mentioned to me as the number one example of what’s wrong with ‘far lefties’, like ‘Red Ken’ once was). If Trots do turn right wing, then criticise those right-wingers (such as Byers) but that’s no rebuttal to their politics 20 years previously.

What’s Labour ever done for Tower Hamlets? It’s a sea of poverty between two of the wealthiest places on the planet, the City and Canary Wharf. I don’t think you understand just how hated Labour are, and just that fact could get a Respect MP elected again.

I look forward to that, if only to put a spoke in the career aspirations of all those slugs scrabbling for selection. Or as they’d put it - feeling bound to put myself forward to see whether one might be of service?"

(Galloway claimed to be a ‘child of the 60s’)

“He is a child of the 60s in a Saturday Night, Sunday Morning way. That woman, from what I recall, was a child of the 60s in a Woodstock way. Whilst all the Easy Rider kids may have bought a Mondeo, there may still be one or two old style Labour MPs left with the Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.

But all those films are poor. We need a Battleship Potyomkin."

(One of the failed candidates, Rupa Huq, posts further - “I am prepared to say that I am resopnsible for comment at www.rupahuq.co.uk on it all”).

“But you're not though, are you?

Your post uses a very dishonest method of casting aspersions on the selected candidate. It’s as bitter as bitter can be, doubtless the frustration of thwarted career advancement. I’ve copied your post and would consider posting it on my blog if your career sensibilities kick in and you later remove it.

You state a 'Mike Smith' (who he?) answered a survey that includes allegations of privileged access to membership lists and other inane slurs such as 'having appeared on screen in tacky underwear'. Anyone reading this will presume these comments are about the successful candidate.

After reporting all this, you sign off with the incredibly weasel words - 'Dunno if I agree with all of the above but undoubtedly Rushanara will make a brilliant candidate and MP.'

If you are going to make allegations, put your name to them. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if they are all true and that there are similar black marks against all the candidates.

And how close are you to BGB Bitch? Are you BGB Bitch?

If I may offer you some advice, if you want to advance your LP career you obviously need to play even dirtier than your opponents, in future.

I mean you're no worse than the rest. But revolutionary socialists will always oppose you and your ilk. Those who offer no more than a few temporary reforms when there is a whole world to be won.”

16 April 2007

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Dave Osler compares the Red Army Faction (often called the ‘Baader-Meinhof’ gang) and the IRA.

“It’s misleading to compare the two - the RAF and the IRA. One was a ‘communist’ fighting group, the other is/was the main component of a national liberation movement.

The former included a few who believed pretty much in the (anarchist) theory of ‘propaganda of the deed’ - their actions would be a catalyst for communism; the latter were (and are) a mass movement who believed in the Armalite and the Ballot Box to remove the remaining part of Ireland from British control.

So it’s not surprising that revolutionary socialists have different views on each organisation - we would point out the limitations of the former (as the RAF claimed wrongly to be communists) but also not be displeased by their execution of a few oppressors. We would defend the actions of the latter.

Revolutionary socialists support national liberation struggles despite the politics of those leading them. If Congress had taken up arms against the British in India, their liberal support in the UK would have fallen away but they would have achieved their aims a lot quicker - Afghanistan spent little time then under imperialist rule because of its violent resistance.

It’s always been the excuse of hand wringing spectators to say - ‘labour can’t wait’ or ‘you’re not proper socialists’ or to vaguely quote Marx out of context, ‘the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the workers themselves’. Marx (and Trotsky) were clear in their support for violent Irish nationalists.

Being a communist means supporting many things that may not be core to the class relations of society. We support the rights of gays for full equality but it isn’t because that necessarily relates to socialism - a capitalist society could treat gays completely equally.

We support gay rights simply because this equality is just. And if the only way gay equality could be achieved was to shoot e.g. those who hang homosexuals (in some countries) then we would support this violent tactic.

It’s silly to suggest that the politics of the RAF may lead to fascism. Many of the former members of the Weather Underground (the nearest US equivalent) are now greeny types.

But it’s good to know where types like you stand. As the bullets fly and the bombs explode; as Iraqis and Afghanistan’s desperately seek to expel the foreign occupier; you appear to be telling them to go read their, I don’t know what, Labour Left Briefing? And learn about socialism.

Communists don’t take that view, we take sides. We said victory to the IRA and we now say victory to the Iraqi and Afghani (and Iranian?) resistance.

My current article happens to deal with just this issue. Click my link if you want to read more."

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"There's nothing wrong with a word like 'just' (I didn't use the word 'justice').
You're right that some Trots may think such terms are 'moralism' or similar but I demur. Some would argue that we fight against e.g. racism because to do so is to attack capitalism. Again, I demur, you could have a non-racist capitalism (but never had had).

These struggles are 'just'(and, yes, also attack present day capitalism). Marxists are the best democrats, the most fervent partisans against inequality.

Killing industrialists in 1970s Germany did little, as I stated. But some of it e.g. killing NATO functionaries was, indeed, justice.

Anyway who supported the IRA needs to support it as a whole. So on e.g. Warrington I would have taken the view that I'm sure the IRA took. It would have been regrettable either that they screwed up or the state ignored the warning. It sounds blasé to say there will be civilian casualties in war, but it's true.

And indeed you don't need to take sides in a war. You can just leave people to die in the street. You can just stroll on by. I recommend that course to you."

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"It's funny how only Republican 'atrocities' get remembered.

You know as well as I do that IRA policy has never been killing people for 'mixing' or other such reactionary reasons. It's a complete red herring.

If an IRA volunteer did it, then I hope s/he was shot for such a sectarian act. And even if it happened (rather than just reported like that in the Daily Mail), it would be one of a few grim examples amongst many killings of perfectly ‘legitimate targets’.

And on 'legitimate targets' - why was the woman killed? I recall someone like that - maybe her - who was killed for 'assisting the enemy' or similar in the Divis Flats, I think - although she may not have done so at all.

If people do collaborate, if they do inform, it would be good to imprison them. But in a guerrilla campaign, you can only kill them (or sometimes exile, in minor cases). And that's just.

Oh how you exTrots slip away in national chauvinism as LP members and as your retirement from revolutionary politics lengthens.

But, kids, it wasn't always so. Some of these 'reds' once were in organisations with principled anti-imperialist lines. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Red_Mole.jpg
I hope any youth reading will seek to maintain the continuity of revolutionary support for those who realise that just writing petitions will get them nowhere."

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"Indeed I do mean the Taliban and all the others even when they would (and do) fight one another.

Victory to the resistance is the correct slogan. It means victory to the resistors - as a group - against occupation.

'Troops out' would be fine, and I would use any tactic to get them out but I would rather see the imperialists defeated, like in Vietnam.

In the same way that the French resistance contained everyone from Trotskyists to Royalists, so does the 'resistance' in Iraq (although doubtless no Trots).

Communists obviously never offer political support for the Taliban but offer military support in this period. And once the occupiers are gone, the Taliban, Mahdi army, etc becomes the/a main enemy.”

12 February 2007

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Does Britain need nuclear weapons?

"Ditto Alex on GDP - and - it's a long way down the reformist path to argue about who deserves a seat on the UN.

And it's not the case that we don't not want nukes because 'Britain's place in the world is diminished'. We don't want the bosses to have weapons because they may use them against our brothers and sisters in Iran, N Korea, etc. They would use them against us, if they could, as well. Basic, ABC, revolutionary socialism.

The UK's nuclear strategy also seems very odd. They are going to stick them all on three submarines, one of which may be seaborne at any one time.

So if anyone is going to attack then just find (hard, I know, but surely not impossible) the sub and sink it and nuke Portsmouth(?) to destroy the other two.
I hope it's the French who work this out first - 35 hour weeks, decent food, better football team, women who don't buy their underwear in Asda."

11 November 2006

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On supporting anti-imperialist resistance

"Look, what I'm arguing is pretty standard Trotskyism i.e. revolutionary socialism (and that's in London, Leeds or Luanda).

I can appreciate the arguments of genuine pacifists - you punch me in the face, I won't punch back - but find the hypocricy of the rest of you breathtaking.

You support imperalism directly or you take a 'plague on both their houses' position - which means in short, we'll look the other way while the e.g, Brits et al (and certainly not just the USA - I've no time for anti-Americanism) kick in your door.

But we've had this debate before, repeatedly. I'm sorry it's come to dominate this post - my fault - and will say no more or indeed take up the cause of Marxism on this issue, on this blog for some time. I only post in the hope that a few (young, probably) socialists may be amenable to communism and repulsed by the pro-imperialist, Labour supporting talk here.

There is an alternative - a route to human liberation. "Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."


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I’m taken to task for arguing for the road that leads to ‘heaven on earth’.

"Ed -‘heaven on earth’ I mean it in a few ways.

As a reverse to religious doctrine - especially to those that tell you to be content with your lot on earth, as your labour will be rewarded in the afterlife.

And I do think life on earth could be ‘heavenly’ in the way that life now would seem like this to someone from 1000AD. For example, I think the scourge of AIDS would be eliminated a lot quicker with one, international medical research charged with finding the answer, rather than many competing pharmaceutical companies currently duplicating each others work in the race to find a cure that works and makes money (which is why there is not yet a malaria cure).

I don’t mean that things will be all fluffy and we will be sitting around playing lutes all day but I also mean it a riposte to those with a corrosive cynicism. There is a big picture that many have lost sight of over time. It’s a shame, sometimes, that commentators here will praise the music of their youth but are embarrassed by their politics from then.

The situation is now as it was and their politics should have remained the same. Distant as the prospect may be, advances are possible – even revolution. I may not agree with the politics of this group but they are at least trying.

And if you also think that curing AIDS, stopping all preventable diseases, taking music and art to unheard of levels are targets to be aimed for, I would suggest to you that reformism has never got anywhere near this, only revolutionary socialism would take us towards this."


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Red Squirrel's Lair

Korakious argues against the Union of England & Wales and Scotland. I disagree.

“Your argument appears to be (‘by extension’) that if parasites like the CE of Tesco’s are unionists, them Marxists should be opposed to unionism. That’s no argument, I can think of many issues on which Marxists and millionaires are agreed - e.g. the world is round.

You are simply reversing that which you mock - ‘if the bourgeoisie wants something, there is zero chance that the working class might benefit for it.’

It’s just wrong to argue that the RBS would benefit from an independent Scotland. It is the biggest bank in Scotland but it’s also the 2nd biggest bank in the UK. It might benefit from better access to the ‘levers of power’ in an Edinburgh based state but the vast majority of its UK customers are in England. It would lose some weight if lobbying Whitehall as a foreign bank.

You make only a (flawed) case for why an independent Scotland would be better for some Scottish capitalists but none about why it would be better for Scottish (and indeed British) workers.

Nationalism, for those other than oppressed nationalities, is poison. Socialists don’t want people wrapping themselves in the Saltire anymore than the want them to drape the Union Flag.

Scots aren’t oppressed nationally; they’re not denied democratic rights anymore than someone English, and unlike how the Irish were. They don’t yet (although may yet do) have a majority support for independence that is being denied.

In these circumstances, I’m as oppressed identically in London by the rate on my RBS Credit Card, or by my Hull headquartered employer, as is a worker in Lossiemouth or Lockerbie.

It makes absolutely no sense for workers to break up a cross-national united fightback against Capital. Let’s expropriate RBS together. Indeed I also look forward to British workers unity being subsumed into European, if not World Workers Unity.”

30 April 2007

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And then, more in the next post

“Comrade,

That was an interesting article.

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I first wanted to say that I know the mood must be pretty downbeat in Scotland after the recent elections.

But I still feel that you have made that quantative step forward, ahead of the rest of Britain, and you should seek to maintain that.

I’ve been arguing with English comrades for a while that there is no place for Lefts in the Labour Party.

When, as expected, McDonnell doesn’t get on the ballot paper (or does, and is crushed) a lot of those people, I think will say - what are we doing in Labour?

But they will also think that there is nothing outside Labour (in England and Wales) to join. They see Respect (somewhat understandably) as beyond the pale.

It’s to our disadvantage that there isn’t an English Socialist Party (or rather better a British Socialist Party, or even better a Word Socialist Party) like there is the SSP (and rather that than Solidarity).

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On the article

You say (I) understood that (your) rationale was that if large capital is in favour of the union, then we should be against it. I don’t think I do say that but people can read your previous article and make up their own minds.

I would agree with independence as a tactic if it were demonstrably clear that the Left movement in Scotland was being held back a more right wing England but I don’t see any great proof that there is much red water between the level of political and socialist support in the two countries.

Yes, there may be a far greater concentration of Labour MPs in the Central Belt than England as a whole but I imagine the area shares the similar characteristics to say London or the North East. It was only 50 years ago or so that, I believe, Scotland had a majority of Tory MPs.

You state by first attempting to knock down the usual ‘Left Unionist’ arguments. Although you make the case for independence later it’s noticeable you can’t make the case for separation when you deal with these initial matters.

I thought your summing up of the usual case against nationalism was correct (e.g. The most common points Brit lefties...) save Lefts do support the rights of oppressed nations to secede e.g. Chechnya.

But I’d also say British capitalism (and, even more so, Scottish capitalism) is a misnomer - they are just subsets of international capitalism with the differences being deleted daily.

There’s not much, looking around my desk, that hasn’t been produced by a Multi National Company (MNC) rather than a ‘British’ company.

I very much doubt that the Scottish economy is based on ‘small to medium sized businesses’. I think it’s based on the public sector and then MNC oil, transport, banking, food and drink, media and other large companies employing the large majority of workers. I’m going to guess that even in tourism a large number of workers are employed by MNCs.

It doesn’t advance things when you say - don’t worry, if we part, the unions will stay united (well they may not - there are UK and Ireland unions but also purely Irish unions and purely Scottish unions) but that’s not an argument saying why there should be a parting - what advantage is there to trade union organisation in Scottish independence?

You claim “Nationalist groups are a small minority in the independence movement” That’s hard to swallow. What is the independence movement if it is not a nationalist movement? I accept it doesn’t indulge in anti-English rhetoric but again your noting a problem that doesn’t exist makes no movement in arguing the case for.

So what is the reason that many Scottish workers support independence? I suspect few think they may be better off in an independent Scotland. I suspect a lot feel that they are somehow disadvantaged, discriminated against or oppressed by ‘England’ and doubtless it’s mixed with some (non aggressive) national pride of a Tartan Army type.

It’s not a national feeling, but you will get a resonance of that view expressed by people in places like the North East of England or even in my home place of Manchester (‘them down in the Smoke’) where they will see their region as ignored or discriminated against by the capital dwellers.

But that’s all a big con. It’s like when the workers in a regional office complain to the management and are fobbed off. Their local bosses say, ‘don’t blame us, head office just make the decisions and we have to implement them - whether they are right or wrong.’ Scottish bosses, with independence leanings, are leading Scottish workers’ anger down a blind alley.

All national identities are ‘artificially constructed’. As I recall, English national identity was most made in the (9th Century?) by Alfred the Great. I imagine the Scottish nation was formed at about the same time - although the Shetlands and Orkneys didn’t join the country until 1468.

And just because (and only arguably) British national identity was established by a ‘conservative ruling class that was threatened by both the radical elements of the bourgeoisie’ makes it no better or worse a national feeling.

The article is correct in saying ‘the links that English, Scottish and Welsh workers have built in decades of struggle are not subject to the existence of the British repressive apparatus’.

Agreed, although presumably it could become harder (e.g. through increasing different legislation) but how does break-up move forward, in any way, such struggles?

You claim ‘Setting up an independent Scottish state would give us the chance here (provided of course that we are actively involved) to establish an apparatus that is far more representative and with considerably less authoritarian powers, thus providing considerably more fertile ground for socialists to organize and agitate.’

No such event took place when most of Ireland wasn’t just given its independence, but took it. Such a scenario, as you envisage, is possible but the most likely scenario would be just Scotland detaching as it is - with no major representational changes in either country. I’m not aware that the end of Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia led to any more democratic regimes in any of the successor countries.

The loss of, perhaps, a seventh of the UK’s economy if Scotland seceded - and when the USA’s economy is seven times that of Britain - is no great potatoes. It may reduce Britain in the GDP rankings down two places to below France and Italy.

Once Britain would have directed the use of Australian troops. The fact that both countries now do this independently makes no difference to the actual outcome.

So Scotland could go a Scandinavian or Irish route (which isn’t neutral - they’re NATO members) but it would hardly affect the balance of forces.

As you say ‘The movement for Scottish independence must have a specifically defined goal of setting up a republic that is not servile to imperialist interests, a republic that adopts radical solutions to poverty and other social ills; a social republic if you will.”

Agreed. And if it were tactically easier to do this on a Scottish basis than a British basis, then I would support Scottish independence.

But I’m not convinced at all you have outlined that it is - a more likely outcome is to unleash the poison of nationalism.”

13 May 2007

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Shiraz Socialist

In response to Alliance for Workers Liberty arguments on Palestine/Israel - and then onto the Malvinas/Falklands.

"I was also as a member of Socialist Organiser a bit before this time I do remember how this programme that you claim Sean Matgamna was supporting had it fact changed a lot from supporting the Hunger Strikes etc and national self determination to eventually the two state stuff that it is now.

So Matgamna would now see the national rights of the 43% of NI that is Catholic and the population of the South being subverted by the Protestant population of the North (in broad terms). Maybe they would support a White State in parts of South Africa, too.

And so with Israel. Is there any other state in the Middle East that comprehensively discriminates against a section of its population (the Arabs) with many theocratic underpinnings, is built on land stolen from those still alive and displaced, regularly attacks neighbours with overwhelming brutality and still seeks to conquer new territory (e.g. with the wall). Even a Shia'a in Saudi or in Saddam's Iraq would be unlikely to get his house bulldozed or denied the right to internal travel

To allow Israel to continue would have been like sending NI on a course from the late 60s in which the B Specials weren't disbanded but furnished with jet fighters, in which Republicans had their houses burnt down and were kicked across the border or shot, where the SDLP was banned and Iain Paisley's church took over the education system.

With no concessions at all to the anti-semites and those who really would want to push the Jews into the sea, a democratic and secular (and hopefully socialist) state is what we should argue for.

--

Always supporting national groups' or more famously the Kelpers in the Malvinas - hence my exit from SO.

Indeed Lenin did as you say, he supported the national rights of the Irish minority in the (then) UK of GB and Ireland to achieve national independence, not 26/32 independence. Remember the comments of Trotsky (and Lenin) on 1916.

I don't think for a moment that you think that people who argue like me are anti-Semitic or anti 'Unionist people' but you are very flawed when you argue there are 'people' we don't much like - e.g. Israelis, White South Africans as though there is some bigotry.

Naturally we don't like Israeli bosses or indeed Arab rulers but have every degree of worker solidarity and think equally of Jewish workers as of the Arab 'in the street'. I am sure that 'two-state' people do, too.

But in the same way that we would have supported every progressive struggle of Dixie whites against their employers in the USA, we would have also needed to oppose our class brothers and sisters when they acted as a 'national group' (and of course, in concert with their 'own' national group rulers) in asserting their 'independence' from (in their eyes)a different national group, e.g. burning out blacks or lynching them.

--

It’s kind of interesting how a few innocuous comments provoke such debate.

Kelpers aren’t a nation in themselves but British and the conflict was Britain and it’s desire to maintain its colony v Argentina. It wasn’t 1500 Kelpers v Argentina. The Malvinas are like if some Spanish Costa, full of Fish ‘n’ Chip pubs, suddenly declared itself a detached part of Essex.

As you are no doubt proud, the AWL is far removed from most of the left on these issues. Have you ever thought that your distance from the rest of the pack is not clever foresight but an ever increasing flawed deviation from the collective wisdom of most revolutionary socialists?

So Workers Liberty’s current front web page starts well - Stop the Israeli assault on Gaza and Lebanon! But then, in an incredible article, directs most of its fire on Hamas and Hezbollah. What’s the current Palestinian and Lebanese v Israeli death toll since the first prisoner capture?!

The article includes ‘Hamas would rather play with the lives of Palestinian people’ Any organisation that follows a military strategy “plays with the lives of … people”. Only a pacifist can have a problems with this although all note it with regret. Israel is hardly going to take notice of polite requests and whilst it would be welcome, Palestinians can’t wait for mass action by Israeli workers in their support.

The article also states, “Once again senseless small-scale provocative guerrilla action by the militias of Hamas and Hezbollah.” Capturing Israeli soldiers is a good strategy. Past experience suggest the Israelis will pay a high price of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange. Or should Palestinian prisoners be left to rot?

As you head where Jane Ashworth (There’s a name I never thought I would hear again) and the like have trail blazed the path for you, spare a thought for people like me who never mention their once membership of SO because I then have to spend a further ten minutes explaining they were very different then and distancing myself from your current politics."

Monday, July 17, 2006

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Nation of Duncan

On killing

"I'm not aware of instances of IMG members celebrating deaths of soldiers - it would be an unsocialist thing to do - but they certainly, and correctly, supported the IRA in their fight.

And in the same way, I want the defeat of the occupiers in Iraq which means, sadly, I want US and British troops to be killed.

So whilst I am pleased with any military successes of the resistance, I don't in anyway celebrate the deaths of the troops.

I can't speak for Workers Power, etc but I agree with their slogan and have never met any of them - or other lefts - who actually revel in the deaths of soldiers.

c.f. that to some footage I have seen of former British squaddies, speaking years after the events, mocking or laughing about the dying moments of IRA volunteers or relating how they would taunt they as they lay dying whilst denying them medical aid. Of course such a squaddie may have seen his friends killed the week before.

I can't say a Provo would never do that but I have never seen any say they had - in fact, the reverse, they have said they said prayers for them as they died, etc.

Very grim either way, of course, but I differentiate completely between the violence of the oppressor and that of the oppressed."


March 08, 2007