Oh god I am dealing with Thatcher/Bush's children.
Yes, it was much better than what they have now. Not exactly a paradise but a bit better than rapacious capitalism. They had warm homes, jobs and security. Cuba is well ahead of the game with regard to health (and in fact invented the vaccination for menigitis).
Now grannys are begging on the streets in Moscow. I hope you are not supporting the Ukrainian guy (just like Lech Walensa, remember what really happened with Solidaronsc please.) I know I sound like a tankie, but you appear to be supporting western capitalism. although it doesn't seem like that on the surface (democcracy etc, pls get a GRIP).
God these middle class anarchists... can't live with them, can't live without them.
I go away for a few days and you all become neo-liberals. Bloody hell.
Joe
Mate, I dunno what you think I'm taking, or how stupid I actually am. I was actually just trying to rein in your uncontrollable Trotskyism (or something), that was flying out of every orifice with no regard for fact or self-respect.
I'm not suggesting that either Cuba or the USSR were "better" under capitalism, but that doesn't mean we should whole-heartedly mimic their methods of revolution. Especially considering how this is an anti-authoritarian message board. I think you'll find most types here prefer a non-vanguardist and anarchistic (fuck it, most at least pay lipservice to anarchism) methodology. Although Jack will now doubtless try and be controversial by saying how awesome Lenin was or something. In which case I'll strangle him with his own stupid Trotskyist beard.
The 'class thing' isn't about a struggle between working and middle class but between working and ruling class.
Yes. The middle classes are merely the poor bewildered civillians, caught in the crossfire. Deprived of effective governance, due to the ideological conflict. They wander this way and that, listening to all the propaganda, and failing to understand. Poor blighters. There ought to be camps set up to recieve all the SUV driving mums, buying organic tofu, and three litres of sunny D from their out of town umbilicals.
Class is a useless concept unless rigidly adhered to by all involved. Since this isn't edwardian England, maybe it would be more helpful to think of the problems more in terms of ignorance and psychological conditioning.
Ed wrote:
The 'class thing' isn't about a struggle between working and middle class but between working and ruling class.Yes. The middle classes are merely the poor bewildered civillians, caught in the crossfire. Deprived of effective governance, due to the ideological conflict. They wander this way and that, listening to all the propaganda, and failing to understand. Poor blighters. There ought to be camps set up to recieve all the SUV driving mums, buying organic tofu, and three litres of sunny D from their out of town umbilicals.
Class is a useless concept unless rigidly adhered to by all involved. Since this isn't edwardian England, maybe it would be more helpful to think of the problems more in terms of ignorance and psychological conditioning.
Jesus fucking Christ, not another one. Jack forcefeed him Das Kapital or something.
Jeez...
I'm open to persuasion, but looking at the world through class tinted glasses seems a bit narrow to me.
It leads to the same entrenched rutts we've been in for more than a century.
What about some original thought?
Marx is dead. Really. He won't mind us ditching his dogma. When it has worked, unforseen dificulties arose. Did Marx envisage Kim il Sung?
I despair that anyone could swallow ANY established political stance without a hard look at history.
It's nothing personal. I just see through it.
Can we at least all agree that it is easier to simply adhere to concrete if possibly incorect notions of class and get down to the serious business of collecting guns? Jesus do you guys want to spend the rest of your life talking on enrager (oK so maybe we do but...) lets just say that teachers are middle class and start killing. I promise there will be a utopia at the end....or a lot of dead doctors? I mean there will at least be black flags all around and beer...but not the fancy shit. Come on, cant we all get togehter for some good old fashioned slaughter? You take all the fun out of the revolution with you god damend "theories" and "ideas" on stuff like "class" and "stuff". Lets just shoot the bastards. BANG BANG BANG In addition my class war skull tatoo is going to look silly in the face of more thoughtful anarchist politics and if you think I am going to look silly you are out of your fucking mohawked heads. I paid 75 for this and I WILL be fighting a working class only class war. Or you are giving me a refund. On that and all my old copies of CW. Seriously.
The actions of the middle class perpetuate the rule of the system.
The actions of the workers perpetuate the rule of the system.
Even the actions of tha anarchist, who cries "Smash the system" are used to perpetuate the rule of the system.
The actions of the arms dealers prepetuate the rule of the system.
These are ALL component parts of the system.
Where do you fit into this personally, where does your community fit into it, and most importantly what are you doing to oppose the system?
It's a military/industrial machine. Who cares what class of component you are. Overcoming the class hangup could make us more effective at disabling the machine. If We transcended such self imposed barriers, we may find it has a real advantage in the struggle.
famous mark steel retort!
Anarch, one of my lecturers at uni used to lament with imcomprehension the fact that people didnt rise up and revolt when theyve been taught revolutionary theory and read marx, he asked this without a sense of irony! Boredom is always counter-revolutionary, and academia sucks the life from most things.
nuclearcivvy wrote:
Marx is dead.So's Einstein...so I guess you'll be denying the theory of relativity and that the nuclear bomb exists.
What a fucking stupid thing to say.
Hate to break this to you Alan, but some of Einstien's theories have been superceded by better ones.
What makes Marx immune to this process of development? Is it a sentimental attatchment, or do you have so much of who you are and what you believe invested in his theory that it feels like a personal attack?
Marxist theory is academic now.
Thora wrote:
I thought it was technology and abstract representation and language oppressing us...If you say that again, I won't let you touch me anymore.
Shut up! Wayne's not supposed to know about the touching! He's already pissed off enough about my lesbian dalliances...
Alan_is_Fucking_Dead wrote:
nuclearcivvy wrote:
Marx is dead.So's Einstein...so I guess you'll be denying the theory of relativity and that the nuclear bomb exists.
What a fucking stupid thing to say.
Hate to break this to you Alan, but some of Einstien's theories have been superceded by better ones.
What makes Marx immune to this process of development? Is it a sentimental attatchment, or do you have so much of who you are and what you believe invested in his theory that it feels like a personal attack?
Marxist theory is academic now.
Au contraire Chief Inspector, I'm one of the least Marxist people you'll encounter on this board. I only use his basic bourgeiosie/proleteriat theory as a blueprint. I don't go in for much else of it. And I agree that being dogmatically Marxist when capitalism (and the goalposts) have moved many miles in the last 150 years is dumb, but you're suggesting that we full out ignore him simply cos he's snuffed it. You haven't offered any critique of Marxist theory, your argument hinges on the fact that he's dead.
I'm probably gonna end up killing you this July in Gleneagles, does that make you time on earth irrelevant?? I sure as fuck hope so.
Right, I'm gonna be brief coz I'm a bit stoned and tbh the serious discussion seems to be quickly disintigrating into a surrealist parody of Monty Python. Anyway, here goes....
Yes, it was much better than what they have now. Not exactly a paradise but a bit better than rapacious capitalism. They had warm homes, jobs and security. Cuba is well ahead of the game with regard to health (and in fact invented the vaccination for menigitis).Now grannys are begging on the streets in Moscow. I hope you are not supporting the Ukrainian guy (just like Lech Walensa, remember what really happened with Solidaronsc please.)
Look mate, back when I was an authoritarian socialist I used to go for all this "Cuba's got great healthcare" stuff. Yeah, it's true. Cuba does have great healthcare and if I had to choose a 3rd World country to live in, it probably would be Cuba.
But economic freedom without social freedom is not proper freedom. Great, they can read, they can get treated for illness etc but they still can't speak out against the policies of their leaders - the people who make decisions about their lives, the people who profit from the lives of the Cuban working class aka the Cuban ruling class, Castro etc. Cuban political expression is held back (I'm talking about the non-Castroist left, libertarian socialists etc) and if you wanna talk about putting control in the hands of the working class, then Cuba fails there pretty flatly. It's not even democratic by bourgeois standards, let alone revolutionary socialist ones! Whatever happened to "all power to the people" and "workers' control"!?
For an example into the political repression in Cuba, think of this. The Cuban anarchist movement was one of the strongest in Latin America and had survived both Machado (I think that was his name) and Batista dictatorships. Almost a century of dictatorship. Cuban revolution, Castro in power, 5 months, anarchist movement crushed. That's nothing I want to support, no matter how many kids learn to read.
I've only discussed Cuba here, but we can do this with any Marxist-Leninist 'revolution'. That's just the nature of vanguardist politics. I mean, if your party is THE working class party, then of course the others must be anti-working class. And if they're anti-working class then part of the revolution is to defeat all these anti-working class parties. And if your party is the working class party, then when you take power, the working class take power coz the class and the party are interchangeable (as Lenin thought). Substitutionism is what I think it's called.
That said, your point still stands about middle-class-cum-good types. Marx, Bakunin, Kropotkin and Orwell all came from bourgeois backgrounds (Kropotkin was a frickin' prince ffs!) and came over to the side of the working class. Good on them. Better than them being fash.
Anyway mate, take care and hope you drop the dead-end Leninist politics 
Socialism will be free or it will not be at all (I can't remember who said that but it's cool nonetheless).
:red: (hmm, we need a stoned smilie!)
Can't be bothered posting a long reply, but it has to do with the dialectic (of course). And thanks for your reply, I do think about these things...
Personally, I think economics are more important than being able to 'speak out against the government', yes really. I am sure that a warm, well-fed person in the west would not think this way, but I think a home, food in your belly etc is more important. If you permit 'speaking out' in the midst of rapacious capitalism, guess what happens? And yes, not sure how long this situation has to pertain, as it is not ideal (would prefer reasonable economic conditions and freedom of speech).
Don't know about the anarchist stuff you referred to re Cuba, will see if I can find out.
Also, speaking of Einstein - and his famous 'god doesn't play dice' quote. Turned out to be wrong.
And Marx is God.
Personally, I think economics are more important than being able to 'speak out against the government',
Right. Don't know where to start really! So you think the state providing a bare minimum overides said state's reppression of those organising independent working class institutions to improve the conditions of their existence. I mean really, while Castro lives in a palace (watch the step, comrade 
) he provides a bare minimum for survival for the Cuban people (admittedly, this is more than most other 3rd World dictatorships) and when they try to organise independantly of state bodies to improve their position, he bans them. And how does any state enforce laws? Well in Castro's case it'll be the workers' truncheon as opposed to the mean, totally different, capitalist truncheon.
That said, I don't mean to say that social and political freedom without economic freedom mean anything either. You need the two together. "Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice. Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality" (Man, I love Bakunin). Yeah, I'd say being subject to the whims of a completely unnaccountable authority whose wealth is only gained through expropriating the fruits of your labour and any attempt by his subjects to alleviate themselves from this position through institutions other than those specifically designated by said authority is ruthlessly crushed is tantamount to slavery and brutality. Even if he does give them three bowls of rice a day.
And yes, not sure how long this situation has to pertain, as it is not ideal
Aye, 46 years is a bit of a long transitional period. Ah well, at least it's not the longest transitional period following a Leninist revolution.
Anyway mate, that's all for now.
:red: 
Personally, I think economics are more important than being able to 'speak out against the government', yes really. I am sure that a warm, well-fed person in the west would not think this way, but I think a home, food in your belly etc is more important. If you permit 'speaking out' in the midst of rapacious capitalism, guess what happens? And yes, not sure how long this situation has to pertain, as it is not ideal (would prefer reasonable economic conditions and freedom of speech).
You're acting on the assumption that true socialism can happen without libertarianism and I don't think that industry can be socialised without 100% involvement, which would require libertarianism.
Over 14 million people could find themselves in fuel poverty in the near future, if new figures from gas giant Centrica predicting a 70% rise in gas prices prove accurate - nearly a quarter of the population.
Distorted by the bourgeois press, reduced to a mere 'race riot' by many on the left, the L.A. rebellion was the most serious urban uprising this century. This article seeks to grasp the full significance of these events by relating them to their context of class re-composition and capitalist restructuring.
Organisational notes on the French communist groups Socialisme ou Barbarie, ICO and Echanges et Mouvement, by Henri Simon in 1998
First issue of an irregular workers' bulletin put together by users of the website, libcom.org. This issue focuses on the 2008 pay dispute over sub-inflation pay offers.
The dangers of being a drunk anarchist 
Or was that something else?
This is probably true although revolutions have often been led by middle class intellectual folk made good despite themselves. (Che, Lenin, etc) Oh no. I'm not meant to mention these on here am I?
Actually the Cuban revolution was initially a nationalist one, which developed rapidly.
Also, some good news for Cubophiles:
Castro Announces Crude Oil Discovery
The Guardian
Sunday December 26, 2004 12:16 AM
HAVANA (AP) - President Fidel Castro said a crude oil
deposit has been discovered off Cuba containing up to
100 million barrels, good news for a country that
imports about half the petroleum it needs.
``This is the first discovery since 1999,'' Castro
said Friday in a speech to a closed session of the
National Assembly. His comments were aired on state
television Saturday.
Castro said the deposit was located off the coast of
Santa Cruz del Norte, east of Havana, during an
exploratory drilling. He said production at the site
could begin during 2006.
Cuba currently produces 75,000 barrels daily, about
half of what it needs. It imports most of the rest,
much of it on favorable terms from political ally
Venezuela.
Oil specialists believe Cuba's waters in the Gulf of
Mexico could contain large quantities of crude, just
as those of Mexico and the United States do. Earlier
explorations turned up only modest discoveries.
Time for an invasion methinks (maybe they'll wait till he dies). Or is it state capitalist people???!
JH