Darren redstar
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Haters are gonna hate. Pediiga the front national and the other xenophobic rabble rousers were peddling their bile before the Paris attacks, and getting significant support both on the street demonstrations and in the ballot box. The attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the supermarket may have hardened the support which they receive, but it is too early to say whether it has boosted it. Mme. le Pen and the FN were frozen out of the Je suis Charlie protests which have be presented as a display of french nationalism, secular and republican.in the uk the openly fascist and racist groups have shrunk dramatically, as their potential base has been hoovered up by the growth of UKIPs respectable face of xenophobia.i was heartened to see a map produced by one of the campaign group showing the number of attacks on Muslims following the Parisian events. Made to highlight the 'explosion' of Islamophobia it listed only a dozen or so incidents, half of which were graffiti. In a country the size of France, where the FN got the highest vote in last years euro poll this does not seem that many.
The publication toady of Charlie hedbo was an interesting display of the hypocracy of the british press. Half a week denouncing the murderers and trumpeting the inalienable right to free speech, and then terrified and censorious in the face of a rather mild front page.
Sorry alb. I am off my game, had to delete myself from facebook because too many are see what they want to see rather than reading what people actually write. Then I go and do exactly the same!
Let's be clear though, Islamism is not the same as islam. The irrationalist belief in a monotheistic deity shared by millions across the globe is very different from the violent advocacy of a authoritarian idealist political system. Both are enemies of socialism, one can be overcome through the common class interests of all workers across sectarian divides, the other seeks the physical destruction of all workers organisation.
I believe that the veterans of the war for Algerian independence were the victims of the Charlie Hedbo massacre not the perpetrators
Zizek makes some good points, but probably means he's a racist like mehttp://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2015/01/slavoj-i-ek-charlie-hebdo-massacre-are-worst-really-full-passionate-intensity
It's a shame really, I was quite interested when they said they were standing. A Impossibilist candidate with the spectacle of the CW glory days would be a treat. However, the ream of 'policy' /slogans was off putting, and then came the volte face over the scottish referendum, with bone announcing a victory party in Trafalgar square (it was opposing this that got me kicked off their facebook group.) petty nationalism and sub Trotskyist reformism, a sad end.
I have just had a very ill tempered discussion with an old friend on facebook. She had posted the Fisk article, and I questioned its assumptions. Fisk as well as so many on the british left can not accept that the reason for Islamist attacks is Islamism. A political theory based upon the necessity of recreating a mythical idealised Ummah. They are determined to impose upon the actions of the Islamists their own interpretation, their own justifications, whether it be Israel/ Palestine, racism, the 'war on terror' or whatever. they thus deny the terrorist their own voice, in some ways as racist a response as that of the Front Nationale or the other bigots.my insistence that the blame for the attacks has to be found in the statements and acts of those who committed them, resulted in her declaring that I'd said all Muslims were responsible, and her husband joining the discussion, they were both Trotskyists in the swp back in the 90s, and I know had been organisers for Respect in South London.. As he vilified me for failing to agree with him, I was standing alongside le pen and worse than the edl apparently, he revealed that he'd converted to Islam over a decade ago.didnt Tariq ali write a book in the 90s about Trotskyists whose Lenin God had failed all joining the worlds religions instead?
I have just been having a discussion with vice. I had assumed that the self quote had been taken from a couple of years back. It seems that after the shooting, vice approached him for a comment, and he repeated his previous statement. Which is pretty amazing, if Charlie Hebdo don't count as genuine satire, and thus aren't covered by Selfs definition of free speech, are they somewhat to blame for their own murders?to be frank I am constantly surprised how low the anti imperialist left can sink.
In just a few days my facebook has morphed from plenty of 'Je suis Charlie' to 'anti imperialist' justification and whattaboutery, where the religious background of one of the murdered policemen is interpreted as meaning he had to be opposed to Charlie Hebdo but died defending it, ( a rather racist assumption) and will self comments a couple of years ago in which he questioned whether it was right to print the Mohamed cartoons "the test I apply to something to see whether it truly is satire derives from H. L. Mencken's definition of good journalism: It should ‘afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.’ The trouble with a lot of so-called ‘satire’ directed against religiously motivated extremists is that it's not clear who it's afflicting, or who it's comforting." I think that self is wrong, unless free speech includes freedom to offend and even disgust it means nothing at all. Those happily quoting him do so in order to justify refusing to defend or support those butchered in Paris, because their idiot anti imperialism places them in the same camp as the murderers.
I would love to think of my old comrade ian bone as an election advisor, if it wasn't for the rather dismal reformist sludge th class war party has adopted.
I have read Orwells Ingsoc as his criticism of both fascism, communism, and labourism- Orwell was influenced by the former Trotskyist James Burnham who had written a small book "the Managerial Revolution" which claimed that capitalism was being superseded by a new system of bureaucratic collectivism both East and west. Burnham ended up a paeleo conservative and cheerleader for reaganite republicanism.
I agree that our opposition to Brand should not be greater than our opposition to the coalition, but I do think we should oppose him, not simply because of the failings of his message; which is idealist in the scientific materialist sense, or in the company he keeps; which is suspect in the extreme, rape promoters, fascists and anti Semites, but chiefly because Socialism must be the self emancipation of the working class, and this cannot be achieved by celebrity endorsement and a new range of snake oil products.I hope all comrades have had a safe and happy holiday, for a socialist new year
