Darren
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Weekly worker have printed my reply to one of the more overblown worshippers at the altar of Fidel http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1135/letters/
There already exists a tendency on social media which could described as 'alt-left' which displays many of the features of the 'alt-right'. It isn't very positive.I posted this on facebookThe Alt. Right in the United States reply to criticism of their use of Nazi and Fascist imagery, Racist language and rapist misogyny by claiming that they are merely doing so ironically, in order to get a reaction and create anger amongst the 'SJW', that is, everyone with an ounce of human decency.Of course, this is simply bollocks. A frail and cowardly attempt to pretend that they aren't a bunch Racist, misogynist fascist bastards. Unfortunately, it is also the case that a similar phenomenon has gained ground in Britain in recent years. But this time amongst people (though I have only encountered (white)men, I have not the evidence to say that women and POC aren't amongst this trend) who are nominally on the left. They produce a wealth of memes and posts praising the old Eastern Bloc regimes, glorying in the repressive machines of these states; KGB, Stasi and Gulag. They take great enjoyment in baiting the various adherents of their opponents ( especially the Trotskyists). Most extend their devotion to dead political psychopaths to support for modern 'anti Imperialist' murderers like Putin and Assad. They claim that they are real communists. But what they are really is worshippers of dictatorship, admirers of mass murder, they are a faecal stain on the left.
The CPGB as Kautskyites always brings me back to this article https://libcom.org/library/renegade-kautsky-disciple-lenin-dauve
It does appear that capitalist democracy is experiencing a crisis of popular confidence. Trump, and also Saunders, and Corbyn and Farage in the UK ( and in Europe ; the Front National, podemos, 5star, etc etc) have all gained support and electoral success through appealing to a deep seated distrust in the political 'establishment' and disillusionment in the rule of the 'elite'.but what is important is that this 'establishment' is not capitalism and the 'elite' isn't the ruling class.none of these movements, parties or platforms challenge the rule of capitalism; all seek Utopias- through an ethnically purified state or expansion of state capitalism.Whether left or right all seek greater power for the organs of the capitalist state.
I have a friend who has started collecting ephemera from these odd campaigns: yvette Cooper oven gloves, Owen Smith mug etc. His only problem is that the campaign will evaporate before the corporate crap is produced (he had to threaten a letter to his local trading standards to get his Angela Eagle t-shirt)
A brief read of this weeks weekly worker shows they still hang on, though why they bother even they don't know.
Many on the left have had sympathy for those who are fighting for their lives against ISIS; the Kurds and yazidis for example, they have led themselves to support the political and military organisations leading this resistance, most notably, the YPG/PKK ( and the YPG/PKK themselves espouse a politics inspired in part by Murray bookchin). However, the pressure of realpolitik is such that the imperial machinations cannot be blithely ignored by the participants in the conflict. Thus, the Kurdish forces, who have up to recently been receiving limited support from the US, have now been dumped in order to court continued US access to Turkish airbases. In response the Kurds have been actively courting Russian support (aided by the animosity between turkey and Russia), supporting the Russians means abandoning the Syrian opposition, who are Russia's main target in support of Assad.my friends who have been vocal supporters of the Kurdish resistance and Rojiva experiment, are now in the difficult position of finding that many of the Kurds who they have been supporting are now posting uncritical support for Putin and Assad. All this shows that the world socialists position is the only realistic one: no support for capitalist war. No war but the class war.
