Bijou Drains
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Sadly, in Dave Spart’s mind the world is full of Goodies and Baddies (he has admittted this himself). It appears to be difficult for him to conceive of a situation where there might be two sets of baddies.
He prefers to foam up in the mouth and continue being Putin’s lickspittle. Thankfully if he’s doing this to us where is is less likely to have any impact (as long as we keep challenging his anti socialist hogwash)
No doubt Dave Spart would also add to his list of “Goodies”:
Pol Pot
Hastings Banda
Mugabe
Gaddafi
Bokassa
Mengistu
Hoxha
Voldemort
and
Darth VaderAS- “Let’s not forget Comintern’s Third Period when all the “labour” parties became “social fascists”, placed on par with the Nazis.”
Dave Spart – “Alan just can’t help himself. If he’s not publishing lies from the Guardian he’s publishing lies from CIApedia.”
Actually The SPGB doesn’t need to rely on Wikipedia to know that the good people of the Communist Party of Great Britain smashed up and attempted to use the Nazi approach to intimidate political meetings in the UK, we were targetted as well!!
“This will be the fourteenth prime minister I will have served under – and I’ve been poor under everyone of ’em.”
1 Sunak
2 Truss
3 Johnson
4 May
5 Cameron
6 Brown
7 Blaire
8 Major
9 Twatcher
10 Callaghan
11 Wilson
12 Heath
13 McMillan
14 Douglas-HomeSame number as me, and (despite earlier promises) I’ve not retired. Maybe that’s why Chelmsford is so pissed off with Pensioners. I don’t even get a bleeding bus pass!
Chelmsford’s analysis of the group of pensioners who were backing Boris and enjoying their snifters at the Blue Boar, shows the weakness of using anecdotal evidence as opposed to accurate data.
Clearly the pensioners at the Blue Boar were doing ok in the current cost of living crisis, because they had the money to go out for a drink.
The ones who aren’t doing well and who are unhappy with the current situation weren’t there! It’s highly unlikely that those in food and fuel starvation were going to struggle across to a pub to go in and make their situation known.
On another point, surely making comments such as ” A pensioner would sell her soul for a bag of Werther’s originals.” and Lizzie45’s attempt to use age as a way to belittle the SPGB is in a small part of a process of demonising a part of the working class, just like racism, homophobia, sexism, etc. Would people be as comfortable to make a comment like “a Pakistani would sell his sould for a popadum”
It might seem a small point, but the callous attitude of some people (not least the government) to older people dying in droves was quite alarming at times. Comments like this can add to that overall process of scapegoating.
If you like an Anti Thatcher song this one was written in the late 80s
Martin Stephenson, Washington’s finest’s (Washington Tyne and Wear, that is) recorded “left us to Burn” about the deviation of the mining and shipbuilding industries in the North East of England.
Music and lyrics
It looks like Larry the Downing Street Cat is a shoe in for next Prime Minister. He’s clearly in a league of his own in terms of intellect, personality and competence, when compared to his other cabinet colleagues
Not my words DS, the words come from Fred Engels, you may have heard of him, you know, Karl Marx’s long term collaborator.
Still no word from you on the “go fund me” page. The button just needs to be pressed.
When you get to the front line, you might want to wear your brown trousers, I’m sure you’ll find them useful.
DS – I didn’t say we didn’t do revolutionary work, we are active in lots of different ways, organising, spreading socialist ideas, countering anti socialist ideas (like yours), being active in our unions, discussing ideas with fellow wage slaves, etc. etc. etc.
The revolution, when it comes, will not be created by the comic opera activities you suggest and certainly not be created by prediciting the end of captitalism whilst trying to usher in state capitalism.
We prefer to go with the advice that Engels himself wrote in 1895 –
“And, finally, the newly-built quarters of the large cities, erected since 1848, have been laid out in long, straight and wide streets as though made to order for the effective use of the new cannon and rifles. The revolutionary, who would himself select the new working class districts in the north and east of Berlin for a barricade battle, would have to be a lunatic.
Does the reader now understand why the ruling classes, by hook or by crook, would get us where the rifle pops and the sabre slashes? Why, today, do they charge us with cowardice because we will not, without further ado, get down into the street where we are sure of our defeat in advance? Why are we so persistently importuned to play the role of cannon fodder?
The gentlemen are wasting their importunities as well as their provocations all in vain. We are not quite so silly. They might as well ask of their enemies in the next war to face them in the line formation of Frederick II, or in the columns of whole divisions a la Wagram and Waterloo, and with the old flint-and-pan gun in hand, at that. The time is past for revolutions carried through by small minorities at the head of unconscious masses. When it gets to be a matter of the complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must participate, must understand what is at stake and why they are to act. That much the history of the last fifty years has taught us. But so that the masses may understand what is to be done, long and persistent work is required, and it is this work that we are now performing ”
Changing the subject slightly, regarding that “go fund me” page, do you want me to set it up for you?
Dave Spart wrote – ““In the Soviet Union for example state enterprises were required by law to generate profits or could be penalised if they did not.”
Entirely different to capitalist profits which are for the capitalist or paying out in dividends to investors. Do read more”
Can I suggest you start your reading here:
TS (aka Dave Spart) thinks that Britain is on the edge of revolutionary outbreaks “People are getting cold and hungry. Soon they’ll be angry and in a revolutionary mood.” This exposes him clearly (if any other evidence was needed) as a comic opera revolutionary. The people of Britain are worried about the cost of fuel and the cost of living generally, but “in a revolutionary mood”? There was more chance of a revolution kicking off about the football (soccer to you) being cancelled for Liz’s funeral!!
He then criticises us for not joining up in his imaginary revolution! Yet Dave Spart is unwilling to get off his backside and volunteer for the “anti nazi crusade” that Putin is undertaking in Ukraine.
If is because you haven’t got the airfare, DS, just let me know. I’ll set up a “go fund me” page like a flash and I’m pretty sure you will be on that plane quicker than you can say “imperialist lackey”. I’ll even throw a few quid in myself. Send us a picture of us in the front line.
PGB states that there is a Certain logic to the comparison made between Putin versus Zalensky and Bugs Moran versus Al Capone. However, PGB thinks we as socialists should support Zelensky and Ukraine because Putin’s Russia was the aggressor.
Taking this point further, does PGB think that the SPGB should have supported Bugs Moran and his North Side gang in his dispute with Al Capone and the South Side gang because the South Side gang was the aggressor. The logic is the same
“I support the victims of imperialism not its proponents.”
But in another thread you stated you supported the Chinese communist Party and the current Chinese regime, the imperialist force that annexed the de-facto independent country of Tibet. Presumably that was to protect the poor citizens of Tibet from that well know Nazi, the Dalai Lama
TS’s response to any media story which doesn’t fit his pro Putin narrative is to cry “fake news”.
I wonder where he got that technique from?
The point is, TS, the SPGB protest about both sides, not cheerleading one set of gangsters against the other.
The problem isn’t ultimately about NATO, or for that matter Putin’s war machine. The problem is the social system from which war, the system of private property, buying and selling commodities etc. derives. You might try thinking about this, it’s a viewpoint that’s known as Marxism.
From this (Marxist) viewpoint, attempting to alter the effects of the system is futile, the thing to do is to remove it.
To try and explain this to you from your simplistic world view of a movie populated with goodies and baddies, what we’re saying is that there are two sets of baddies and the movie’s shit.
What TS has not said is that in Germany, for instance, the protests have been organised by the German Right wing Populist party, the AFD, often described as being neo Nazi.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-far-right-demo-protests-russia-sanctions-energy-policy/a-63380291
The same AFD “Neo Nazis” that have arranged visits to the Russian Duma:
German far-right MPs to visit Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine
The links between the ADF are allegedly long standing with some of the racist propaganda such as the “liza Story, used by the ADF being supported by the likes of Sergie Lavrov.
https://theconversation.com/how-russians-have-helped-fuel-the-rise-of-germanys-far-right-105551
The so called struggle by Putin to get rid of the Nazis is clearly a hollow claim.
This does not mean that the US and NATO are without blame in the development of the war.
However this gangster turf war is not in the interest of the workers of the West or of the Eastand suggesting that Socialists should take sides is like Socialists being asked to take sides between Al Capone and Bugs Moran.
My two penny’s worth is that the current situation is a very violent version of the situation that occurred re Brexit. The US capitalist class is not a homogenous entity and different sections have different objectives. As tax is a levy on capital, some sections of the capitalist class prefer spending on some areas of the state, others prefer different types of expenditure and others don’t want to spend anything.
Small capitalists, that generally have home based markets don’t want to be taxed to pay for armaments and war weapons, when it doesn’t favour them (or like the Brexiteers, who don’t see the need for the cost of European regulation when they don’t trade in continental Europe). Other sections of the big capital (and also multinational) Capitalist Class, have a desire for expansion, in this case being Eastern Europe, and see the growing power of China (coupled with their acolytes Russia, Syria, Iran, et al) as a big threat. So spending on defence (aka attack) suits their situation.
The Democrats are currently the Party of Big Capital, the section of capital who are happy to spend on defence, big infrastructure, worker welfare (to a point), and expansion in the East, because it increases their profitability. The Trumpian Republicans and their ilk, are now in the thrall of Small Capital (despite their claims to the contrary), who make their money within the North American markets.
The MAGA movement, generally and ironically, would like a return to the US being a very much North American and South American, protectionist economy (going back to the 1920’s and 30’s. In contrast those who finance the Democrats see the US state as being the collective vehicle (financed by tax on general capital) created to ensure that the US multinationals continue to be top dog (following on the path of the 1940-onwards with the Marshall Plan, etc.)
I also think that this section of the US and European Capitalist Class have been emboldened by the outcome of the Ukrainian War. The big bad wolf in recent years has been the threat of a growing Russian military threat. In reality the Russian Military threat appear to be far less of a threat (in conventional terms) than was previously thought.
In terms of military hardware, for example, much of the recently developed Russian equipment has shown to be less potent than was “originally advertised”. The Russian main battle tank The T-90 has performed far less well than predicted. There are reports of the loss of 29 Russian T-90s (26 T-90A: 12 destroyed, 2 abandoned, 12 captured and 3 T-90M/MS: 1 destroyed, 1 abandoned, 1 captured). Taking into account that these figures may well be inaccurate, this must be balanced with the fact that the Ukrainians have shown several examples of what appear to be captured T-90s.
This compares very poorly to the performance of other main battle tanks such as the Challenger 2, the M1 Abrahms and the French Leclerc. The “hawks” may think that they still have the upper hand, at least in terms of equipment. (The performance of Russian aircraft appears to be similarly underwhelming).
They also may be starting to think that the highly praised Chinese military hardware may of a similar quality (Hence the hawkish response to Chinese expansionist policies).
Of course a similar dynamic is going on within the Russian capitalist class. Those sections of Russia’s Capitalist Class, who made their money in the international trade area will be less than happy that their nice little racket is being disrupted and long for a return to the Vodka Cola years.
The Putin party in contrast, like sharks in the sea, originally sensed the US-Western European alliance at a weak point, following the Afghanistan withdrawal. The knives may well be out as the Putin Party and those billionaires who made their money trading with the west, begin to create common cause.
Of course the Working Class of either side have as much interest in the wellbeing of each side in the debate as the slaves of the American South had in a dispute between the plantation owners who enslaved them.
Looking at the ongoing slaughter of workers, the whole Leninist concept of Imperialism is of course some kind of sick joke, which has the punch line that we should support the Capitalist class of Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and Syria, in order to weaken the ruling class of the US, the UK, the EU, Japan, et al.
To quote Shakespeare “a plague o’ both your houses”
