Comments in the press
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From the ‘Western Mail’ (June 6th)
Sad so many buy in to confidence trick
“SIR – The ancient meaning of jubilee meant a time when debts were cancelled, land was redistributed and slaves freed.
With the Queen’s Jubilee we have a time of forced austerity when debts are increased (as wages and benefits are cut), very few people can afford to buy a house (let alone land) and wage-slavery/exploitation is the name of the great capitalist game.
As the Queen and the aristocracy sail down the Thames in their golden barge (waved on by those duped by patriotism) we should take note of the famous phrase “bread and circuses”. What better way to deflect people’s attention, albeit briefly, from the greatest swindle of history?
If exploitation through wage-slavery weren’t bad enough, the ruling class rub salt into our open wounds when they spend millions of pounds on the Queen and the aristocracy to keep them in a life of leisure and luxury.
Not for Mrs Windsor the weekly giro and hassle to find a job or the daily hardship to make ends meet. No, she gets a fortune on a plate, not because she was democratically elected but because of an accident of birth or the fact “God” ordained it.
How the aristocracy came to power over the years has been based on violence and blood. Whether it was the expulsion of the peasantry from the land to accommodate the lucrative Flanders wool trade or the clearing of the Highlands, one thing is absolutely certain, they empower themselves at our expense.
Those that glory in the union flag should look at the history of “our” Empire and weep. It’s so sad that so many good people have bought into this great confidence trick.
TERRY BANFIELD
(Anarchist Federation)”
And in ‘The Scotsman’ (June 6th)
“Jubilee fever may make the republican ideal seem unattainable, but Brian Wilson argues we should still aim for reform.
Somewhere between Tom Jones and Shirley Bassey, I was trying to define my attitude towards monarchy and my thoughts turned, improbably, to the old Socialist Party of Great Britain who used to put up a candidate in Partick and get about 80 votes.
The SPGB were defined as the “impossibilists” of the British Left. Their considered view was that aspiring to social reform in one country was a waste of time which would only delay the revolution. Socialism could only prevail when 51 per cent of the world’s people were prepared to vote for it.
Since there was no immediate prospect of this happening, they could get on with their lives undisturbed while observing the frailties of humanity from their lofty ideological peak. The great advantage of impossibilism was that it allowed its adherents to feel intellectually superior without the requirement to actually do anything. In fact, doing anything would be counter-productive.
It occurred to me that my attitude to monarchy has morphed into the impossibilist tradition – I’m against it, but since not a lot of other people are, there isn’t really much point in worrying about it until they change their minds. On the basis of this week’s evidence, that is not going to be any time soon. So chill out, watch the concert and have a G&T.”
http://www.scotsman.com/news/brian-wilson-time-to-concentrate-on-the-possible-1-2339030
The second letter is a terrible indictment of the SPGB, being a member of the SPGB is an excuse to do nowt!? If that is the case then the the party has lost it’s way.
A Labour politician (ex-MP and ex-Minister) who knows something about us. I thought that breed had died out. In a sense it’s comforting to know they haven’t.
I replied to the Scotsman article in comment 1″Should the SPGB feel flattered by Brian Wilson’s cliched canards about it and the dismissive tone? They do say any publicity is good publicity, after all. Being a Labour politician and functionary he can always feel self-satisfied and smug because he did “try” and do “something” without facing up to the reality of his own “impossiblism” of actually making any real fundamental difference to peoples everyday lives. Is he really suggesting that “reforming the House of Lords, abolishing the class-based Honours system, dispensing with titles, taking land reform seriously, demanding an egalitarian system of educational access” will demolish the class pyramid? Perhaps he has never travelled to countries that have done exactly as he advocates and never ever encountered their still-existing elite capitalist class! It takes more than tinkering with the system to replace it. I am also reminded how Tom Johnston in later life, when he was comfortably enscounced in the Establishment, scurried around bookshops trying to buy up all the copies of his Noble Families, facing the embarrassed contradiction of finding himself being an apologist for them. Brain Wilson is already an apologist for a party that openly represents the interests of the ruling class.”For those who don’t know Tom Johnston was a Red Clydesider also mentioned in the article who wrote a excellent book on the Scottish aristocrats and land-owners but regretted his earlier radicalism when he became minister of state under Labour and actually did go around second-hand bookshops trying to buy up all the copies of the book, hence its relative scarcity
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