[Dave B]

the Guardian on Douma from 8 months ago.

Lesson?

stop reading and funding it!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/02/chlorine-was-used-in-attack-on-syrian-rebel-town-of-douma-watchdog-says

 

[Dave B]

that story did break over two weeks ago.

 

it is a bit of a surprise that it has appeared anywhere in the nainstream media.

although hitchens in the mail for some reason is the only one who does this kind of stuff along with perhaps the Indepenant.

 

RT news has also been running it for a while.

Syria: OPCW Whistleblowers Confirm What We Already Knew. The OPCW Suppressed Evidence Regarding alleged Chemical Weapons Attack

 

 

 

[Dave B]

Lenin and the Bolsheviks in 1905 also

 

“said that capitalism must be developed in Russia and industry and technology built up to the level of western Europe. Then, and only then, would the working class grow and achieve the strength in numbers and the awareness to carry out a socialist revolution.”

 

etc

 

1. I. LENIN TWO TACTICS OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY IN THE DEMOCRATIC
   REVOLUTION

 

 

 

page 43

 

 

But it is entirely absurd to think that a bourgeois revolution does not express the interests of the proletariat at all. This absurd idea boils down either to the hoary Narodnik theory that a bourgeois revolution runs counter to the interests of the proletariat, and that therefore we do not need bourgeois political liberty; or to anarchism, which rejects all participation of the proletariat in bourgeois politics, in a bourgeois revolution and in bourgeois parliamentarism. From the standpoint of theory, this idea disregards the elementary propositions of Marxism concerning the inevitability of capitalist development where commodity production exists. Marxism teaches that a society which is based on commodity production, and which has commercial intercourse with civilized capitalist nations, at a certain stage of its development, itself, inevitably takes the road of capitalism. Marxism has irrevocably broken with the ravings of the Narodniks and the anarchists to the effect that Russia, for instance, can avoid capitalist development, jump out of capitalism, or skip over it and proceed along some path other than the path of the class struggle on the basis and within the framework of this same capitalism.

page 44

All these principles of Marxism have been proved and explained over and over again in minute detail in general and with regard to Russia in particular. And from these principles it follows that the idea of seeking salvation for the working class in anything save the further development of capitalism is reactionary. In countries like Russia, the working class suffers not so much from capitalism as from the insufficient development of capitalism. The working class is therefore decidedly interested in the broadest, freest and most rapid development of capitalism. The removal of all the remnants of the old order which are hampering the broad, free and rapid development of capitalism is of decided advantage to the working class. The bourgeois revolution is precisely a revolution that most resolutely sweeps away the survivals of the past, the remnants of serfdom (which include not only autocracy but monarchy as well) and most fully guarantees the broadest, freest and most rapid development of capitalism.

That is why a bourgeois revolution is in the highest degree advantageous to the proletariat. A bourgeois revolution is absolutely necessary in the interests of the proletariat. The more complete and determined, the more consistent the bourgeois revolution, the more assured will be the proletarian struggle against the bourgeoisie for Socialism. Only those who are ignorant of the rudiments of scientific Socialism can regard this conclusion as new or strange, paradoxical

 

 

http://marx2mao.phpwebhosting.com/Lenin/TT05.html

 

he repeated it in 1914;

 

Left-Wing Narodism and Marxism

Published: Trudovaya Pravda No. 19, June 19, 1914.

 

 

The economic development of Russia, as of the whole world, proceeds from feudalism to capitalism, and through large-scale, machine, capitalist production to socialism.

Pipe-dreaming about a “different” way to socialism other than that which leads, through the further development of capitalism, through large-scale, machine, capitalist production, is, in Russia, characteristic either of the liberal gentlemen, or of the backward, petty proprietors (the petty bourgeoisie). These dreams, which still clog the brains of the Left Narodniks, merely reflect the backwardness (reactionary nature) and feebleness of the petty bourgeoisie.

Class-conscious workers all over the world, Russia included, are becoming more and more convinced of the correctness of Marxism, for life itself is proving to them that only large-scale, machine production rouses the workers, enlightens and organises them, and creates the objective conditions for a mass movement.

 

When Put Pravdy reaffirmed the well-known Marxist axiom that capitalism is progressive as compared with feudalism,[1] and that the idea of checking the development of capitalism is a utopia, most absurd, reactionary, and harmful to the working people, Mr. N. Rakitnikov, the Left Narodnik (in Smelaya Mysl No. 7), accused Put Pravdy of having undertaken the “not very honourable task of putting a gloss upon the capitalist noose”.

Anyone interested in Marxism and in the experience of the international working-class movement would do well to pander over this! One rarely meets with such amazing ignorance of Marxism as that displayed by Mr. N. Rakitnikov and the Left Narodniks, except perhaps among bourgeois economists.

Can it be that Mr. Rakitnikov has not read Capital, or The Poverty of Philosophy, or The Communist Manifesto? If he has not, then it is pointless to talk about socialism. That will be a ridiculous waste of time.

If he has read them, then he ought to know that the fundamental idea running through all Marx’s works, an idea which since Marx has been confirmed in all countries, is that capitalism is progressive as compared with feudalism. It is in this sense that Marx and all Marxists “put a gloss” (to use Rakitnikov’s clumsy and stupid expression) “upon the capitalist noose”!

Only anarchists or petty-bourgeois, who do not under stand the conditions of historical development, can say: a feudal noose or a capitalist one—it makes no difference, for both are nooses! That means confining oneself to condemnation, and failing to understand the objective course of economic development.

Condemnation means our subjective dissatisfaction. The objective course of feudalism’s evolution into capitalism enables millions of working people—thanks to the growth of cities, railways, large factories and the migration of workers—to escape from a condition of feudal torpor. Capitalism itself rouses and organises them.

Both feudalism and capitalism oppress the workers and strive to keep them in ignorance. But feudalism can keep, and for centuries has kept, millions of peasants in a down trodden state (for example, in Russia from the ninth to the nineteenth century,

 

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/jun/19.htm

 

the Bolsheviks supported the convocation of the constituent assembly throughout 1917 up until they seized power.

 

Lenin even dismissed the soviets in the middle of 1917 when they had no control over them;

 

 

1. I. LENIN THE STATE AND REVOLUTION [1917]

 

 

page 55

 

….This is so true that even in the Russian republic, a bourgeois-democratic republic, all these sins of parliamentarism were immediately revealed, even before it managed to set up a real parliament. The heroes of rotten philistinism, such as the Skobelevs and Tseretelis, the Chernovs and Avksentyevs, have even succeeded in polluting the Soviets after the fashion of most disgusting bourgeois parliamentarism and to convert them into mere talking shops….

 

http://marx2mao.phpwebhosting.com/Lenin/SR17.html

 

There were actually sort of two coups.

 

Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks justified the first one by claiming that the current provisional revolutionary government was going to cancel or not convoke the elections and the constituent assembly etc

 

 

Eg from Trotsky with his long live the constituent assembly.

 

 

 

………. If the propertied elements were really preparing for the Constituent Assembly in a month and a half, they would have no grounds for defending the non-responsibility of the government now. The whole point is that the bourgeois classes have set themselves the goal of preventing the Constituent Assembly …’

 

 

There was an uproar. Shouts from the right: ‘Lies!’

 

……….. The propertied classes, who provoked the uprising, are now moving to crush it and are openly steering a course for the bony hand of hunger, which is expected to strangle the revolution and the Constituent Assembly first of all.

 

 

http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1989/trotsky1/15-towards.html

 

 

and from Trotsy’s history and the immediate aftermath of the first coup;

 

 

 

…..The answer was, “Postponement is unfavorable just now. It will be looked upon as a liquidation of the Constituent Assembly the more so because we ourselves reproached the Provisional Government with putting off the Constituent Assembly.”….

 

 

The second coup was when they dissolved the constituent assembly using armed force a a few months later; in January 1918, which was planned.

 

…..“It is an open mistake,” he said. “We have already gained the power and now we have put ourselves in a situation that forces military measures upon us to gain the power anew.”….

 

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1925/lenin/05.htm

 

Claiming that the constituent assembly was now a talking shop as he said the soviets were 6 months earlier; when they had no control over them.

[Dave B]

Volume one is available in one doc at the link below that I found fairly recently.

 

It is useful for re finding or just finding stuff as you can do a word search with control F

 

http://www.turksheadreview.com/library/texts/marx-capital-1.html

 

[Dave B]

The best easily readable resume of the opening chapters of das capital in my opinion was in the opening chapters the Paul Sweezy book.

 

The Theory of Capitalist Development.

 

Where he just lays the groundwork before expanding on the ‘subject’.

 

Irrespective of where he goes with it later.

 

I thought the Kautsky thing was OK as well.

 

https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1903/economic/ch01.htm

 

 

 

There was also the first das capital for dummies by Deville which I transcribed from the French to English translation.

 

 

 

https://www.marxists.org/archive/deville/1883/peoples-marx/index.htm

 

 

although that maybe isn’t the easiest of reads either.

 

there are several difficulties.

 

The major one is that people think the opening chapter is about capitalism when it is not.

 

It starts with, private labour or the “self employed”, something later on referred to as simple commodity production

 

Eg artisans and small peasant farmers etc

 

eg from Kautsky.

 

…..until commodity production became production carried on by private individuals working independently of each other, and owning the means of production and the products of their labour as private property. What we design to make clear is that commodity…..

 

 

https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1903/economic/ch01.htm

 

and from Engels.

 

 

……….This makes clear, of course, why in the beginning of his first book Marx proceeds from the simple production of commodities as the historical premise, ultimately to arrive from this basis to capital — why he proceeds from the simple commodity instead of a logically and historically secondary form — from an already capitalistically modified commodity. To be sure, Fireman positively fails to see this…..

 

 

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/pref.htm

 

 

 

in fact wages are mentioned once in the opening chapter thus!

 
<ol start=”15″>

[Dave B]

Well there is a long section on it in capital.

 

So it is included in Marxist theory.

 

There are some really interesting succinct quotes somewhere on it from FED reserve bank chairmen and there ilk.

stating that it is done as a deliberate and necessary policy etc etc eg unemployment driving down cost of wages etc

 

 

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch25.htm#S3

[Dave B]

I am here

[Dave B]

“We” and our “fellow travellers” have been spending 100+ years campaigning for the end of capitalism on the basis of a better but no necessarily necessary alternative.

 

Now we have something else which is the end of capitalism as a necessity that goes beyond a better than something better.

 

It is not often that you get stuff like the below in the reformist and policy tweaking guardian?

 

 

“…..Ending climate change requires the end of capitalism. Have we got the stomach for it?

Policy tweaks won’t do it, we need to throw the kitchen sink at this with a total rethink of our relationship to ownership, work and capital…”

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/18/ending-climate-change-end-capitalism

[Dave B]

It is a hazardous project going into Hitler as a person as it can start down the line popular materialism and individuals shaping history.

 

I was aware of the quote and that link because there is some cross over with ‘his’ ideas on religion with those of Nieztche, and Stirner, for that matter.

 

I started writing something on it last night but got bored with it.

 

As a child he had sympathetic a kind good ‘jew’ doctor who looked after his beloved mother.

 

During the war the precursor of the CIA or whatever it was called asked psychoanalysts to profile Hitler.

 

They wanted to get an idea about how he might start to behave as things started to go pear shaped.

 

The psychoanalysts were reluctant at first as remote psychoanalysis was heretical at the time, but they did quite a useful job on it.

 

They had his childhood doctor who had escaped in time to America and dozen people who knew him well.

 

He was rejected from Art school in Vienna as a crap drawer and painter by ‘Jewish’ art critics.

 

Apparently he was recruited by the German state to spy on fascist groups and ended up being converted.

 

The Italian fascists had been a bit different?

 

…. Indeed, prior to 1938 and the Pact of Steel alliance, Mussolini and many notable Italian fascists had been highly critical of Nordicism, biological racism, and anti-Semitism, especially the virulent and violent anti-Semitism and biological racism found in Nazi Germany. Many early supporters of Italian fascism, including Mussolini’s mistress, the writer and socialite Margherita Sarfatti, had in fact been middle class or upper middle class Italian Jews. Nordicism and biological racism were often considered incompatible with the early Italian fascist philosophy; Nordicism inherently subordinated Italians and other Mediterranean people beneath the Germans and Northwestern Europeans in its proposed racial hierarchy, and early Italian fascists, including Mussolini, viewed race as a cultural and political invention rather than a biological reality….

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_racial_laws

 

There was a lot of anti-capitalist stuff in early Nazi ideology.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strasserism

 

I think this is why what our anti coybynista anti anti-semitism people are playing with fire.

[Dave B]

It looks like Deutsche Bank are in trouble; there has been some talk about that for a few years eg that they were effectively already insolvent and bankrupt.

 

If they go down it could be like another Lehman Brothers thing and they will take down several others with them no doubt.

 

As well as perhaps the president Trumps empire.

 

Rumour has it that he financially he is a man of straw, mortgaged up to the hilt and in negative equity eg owing more than he is worth.

 

Including several hundred million to Deutsche Bank.

 

If they go under the new owners of his debt may foreclose on him.

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-deutsche-bank-mueller-2017-12?r=US&IR=T

 

[Dave B]

I think this anti-semitism thing is of itself; is beneath contempt as a deliberate ploy by the deep state actors to discredit the left.

 

Irrespective of our opinions of the Corbynista’s.

 

There was yet another article on it by Jonathan cook recently.

 

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51867.htm

 

Norman Finkelstein did something recently on the same thing on Rt News ‘renegade inc’ episode.

 

Both his parents where caught up in the holocaust his father being part of the Warsaw uprising and a survivor of Auschwitz.

 

“….Norman’s father, Zacharias Finkelstein, active in Hashomer Hatzair, was a survivor of both the Warsaw Ghetto and the Auschwitz concentration camp…^.”



He has no extended family from either of his parents; as none survived.

 

The interest in the subject is sort of more secondary nature as a significant or critical mass of the UK population realise that is a WMD type hoax and the media including the BBC and the Guardian are discrediting and exposing themselves as lying lackeys of the ruling class.

 

I suppose we can welcome that.

 

The potential dark side of it, as Finkelstein said on RT, is the majority of the ‘Jewish’ community appear to be supporting this project.

 

And that it may come to pass that people will say the ‘Jew’s’ in support of and conspiring with the capitalist class attempted to discredit the working class left.

 

And as the outraged Norman Finkelstein said;

 

not me,

 

“they will be right”

[Dave B]

John Chrysostom on The Rich and The Poor”

From Homily XXXIV on I Corinthians 13: 8

 

A 4^th century proto revolutionary two class [city] analysis ???

 

And that thou mayest see it more clearly, let us suppose, if it seem good, two cities, the one of rich only, but the other of poor; and neither in that of the rich let there be any poor man, nor in that of the poor any rich; but let us purge out both thoroughly, and see which will be the more able to support itself. For if we find that of the poor able, it is evident that the rich will more stand in need of them.

 

Now then, in that city of the affluent there will be no manufacturer, no builder, no carpenter, no shoe-maker, no baker, no husbandman , no brazier, no rope-maker, nor any other such trade. For who among the rich would ever choose to follow these crafts, seeing that the very men who take them in hand, when they become rich, endure no longer the discomfort caused by these works? How then shall this our city stand? “The rich,” it is replied, “giving money, will buy these things of the poor.” Well then, they will not be sufficient for themselves, their needing the others proves that. But how will they build houses? Will they purchase this too?

 

But the nature of things cannot admit this. Therefore they must needs invite the artificers thither, and destroy the law, which we made at first when we were founding the city. For you remember, that we said, “let there be no poor man within it.” But, lo, necessity, even against our will, hath invited and brought them in. Whence it is evident that it is impossible without poor for a city to subsist: since if the city were to continue refusing to admit any of these, it will be no longer a city but will perish. Plainly then it will not support itself, unless it shall collect the poor as a kind of preservers, to be within itself.

 

But let us look also upon the city of the poor, whether this too will be in a like needy condition, on being deprived of the rich. And first let us in our discourse thoroughly clear the nature of riches, and point them out plainly.

 

What then may riches be? Gold, and silver, and precious stones, and garments silken, purple, and embroidered with gold. Now then that we have seen what riches are, let us drive them away from our city of the poor: and if we are to make it purely a city of poor persons, let not any gold appear there, no not in a dream, nor garments of such quality; and if you will, neither silver, nor vessels of silver. What then?

 

Because of this will that city and its concerns live in want, tell me? Not at all. For suppose first there should be need to build; one does not want gold and silver and pearls, but skill, and hands, and hands not of any kind, but such as are become callous, and fingers hardened, and great strength, and wood, and stones: suppose again one would weave a garment, neither here have we need of gold and silver, but, as before, of hands and skill, and women to work.

 

And what if one require husbandry, and digging the ground? Is it rich men who are wanted, or poor? It is evident to every one, poor. And when iron too is to be wrought, or any such thing to be done, this is the race of men whereof we most stand in need. What respect then remains wherein we may stand in need of the rich? except the thing required be, to pull down this city. For should that sort of people make an entrance, and these philosophers, for (for I call them philosophers, who seek after nothing superfluous,) should fall to desiring gold and jewels, giving themselves up to idleness and luxury; they will ruin everything from that day forward.

 

https://earlychurchtexts.com/public/john_chrysostom_on_rich_and_poor.htm

[Dave B]

There was another on recently.

 

 

People will say we have had this kind of stuff eg the coming ice stuff and free nuclear energy in the 1980’s .

 

But that was all minority speculative material jumped on by the media as good stories.

 

This stuff is of a different and more consensus orientated.

 

There is a very small possibility that it is bollocks, or it is being improperly calculated as a risk, but the ‘hazard’ as they say couldn’t be more serious.

 

 

https://www.globalresearch.ca/beyond-climate-tipping-points-greenhouse-gas-levels-exceed-stability-limit-greenland-antarctic-ice-sheets/5681653

 

[Dave B]

As regards Celsum and Celsus and the nominative and accusative in Latin.

 

I actually did Latin at o’level and got a grade A in it.

 

It is a superior language as it avoids ambiguities as it is clear from the word ending who is doing what to whom.

 

So much so that you can place the word and verb order in any way you want without loosing clarity.

 

It is like classical Greek apparent, which is why the intellectuals used to use to use them and Germans could read stuff the English had written.

 

I have read Contra Celsum from beginning to end ; it is a big book.

 

I think I introduced Kautsky’s stuff on it on this Forum a few years ago.

 

I don’t remember taking ;

 

“….I like Celsus’ critique of the Christians’ anthropocentrism (shared by many socialists). He writes that if the other animals are here for us, as the Christians maintain, then when a lion eats a man, it must mean that we are here to feed lions!……”

 

from it, but that is not to say it wasn’t there.

 

In that period even the more respectable intellectuals, Plato or Aristotle?, had strange ideas on animals. One of them thought birds [ that were actually migrating] were metamorphosing into something or other I don’t know frogs maybe?

 

To explain their periodic disappearance.

 

In the Epistle of Barnabas which advocates communism and understands exploitation of the labourers; it says weasels have oral sex and therefore you shouldn’t eat them.

 

But that stuff was common then.

 

 

I have no interest in defending that late Christian .

 

On Chrysostom’s on slaves as in homily of 1st Corinthians thing.

 

However there is stuff in here really about workers, out of surplus value, creating and pandering to the consumption fund of the ruling class?

 

“….So, why do you have many servants? Since as in our case we ought to follow only our need, and in our table, so also in our servants. What is the necessity then? None at all; for, in fact, one master only needs to employ one servant; or rather two or three masters one servant. But if this is too difficult, consider those that have none and enjoy more prompt attendance. For God has made people in such a way that they can take care of themselves, or rather even their neighbour. And if you do not believe it, hear Paul saying, “These hands ministered to my necessities, and to them that were with me” [Acts 20:34]. After that he, the teacher of the world and worthy of heaven, did not care to serve many others. Do you then not consider it shameful to have whole herds of slaves, not knowing that this truly is what most of all brings shame upon you? Did God not provide to us then both hands and feet for this reason that we might not stand in need of servants? Since the class of slaves is not there due to necessity, for otherwise even Adam would have had a slave formed for him, but it is the result of sin and the punishment of disobedience. But when Christ came, He put an end also to this.

 

For in Christ Jesus there is neither slave nor free [Gal. 3:28]. Therefore, it is not necessary to have a slave. And if it is at all necessary, let it be about one only, or at the most two. What is the use of swarms of slaves? For as the sellers of sheep and the slave-dealers, so do the rich among us take their round, in the baths and in the forum.

 

However, I will not be too exact. We will allow you to keep a second servant. But if you collect too many, you do not do it for the sake of basic human need, but in self-indulgence. Therefore, if it is in their aid, I ask you not to assign any of them in ministering to yourself, but when you have purchased them and have taught them trades whereby to support themselves, let them go free. But when you threaten them, when you put them in chains, it is no more a work of philanthropy. …”

[Dave B]

Celsum , a vicious pagan critic of Christianity from circa 180AD, makes it clear that the constituency of Christianity was;

“….foolish and low individuals, and persons devoid of perception, and slaves, and women, and children….”

Thus;

BOOK III.

CHAP. XLIX.

This statement also is untrue, that it [as Celsum says] is “only foolish and low individuals, and persons devoid of perception, and slaves, and women, and children, of whom the teachers of the divine word wish to make converts.” Such indeed does the Gospel invite, in order to make them better; but it invites also others……….

 

It is a theme that runs through Celsum’s critique of Christianity.

 

Eg Jesus was low born ,bastard child of a prostitute, former economic migrant [in his youth spent in Egypt] and his mother a common weaver etc etc.

 

It would be peculiar for an ideology, eg Martin Luther King, to desire to attract the oppressed by endorsing the oppression?

 

Again the contemporary Celsum, from circa 170 AD, fully affirms the historical Jesus, even physically describing him according to his sources as a ‘dwarf’, physically deformed in some way or another and looking like a ‘criminal’.

 

The Christian Origen responded that he his was aware of stuff about Jesus being a ‘dwarf’.

 

 

But felt he wasn’t in a position to contradict it.

 

Origin seems to ignore the physically deformed stuff but pointed out that according to prophesy he would be no oil painting and would not look like Robert Powell.

 

 

And that he didn’t look like a criminal.

[Author]

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