Wez
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TM – Does the Chinese route to capitalism really matter? The fact is, like the rest of the world, it now conforms to the capitalism that was developed in Europe, and it is the study of that development that is, in retrospect, of primary interest to socialists.
Lizzie45 – ‘reformism is the only game in town’.
No it’s not – if it were then you would not have this forum on which to make such a statement. Even if it were ‘the only game in town’ the winning or losing of it would make no difference to the history of the outcome. It is only infantile impatience and self indulgence that fuels political reformism.‘One cannot have civilization without authoritarianism or probably even a society for that matter.’
This is by far the most revealing of all of the TrueScotsman’s pontifications. It reveals how trapped he is within bourgeois ideology without the merest glimmer of socialist consciousness. He will never understand this but I use it as evidence that the left can be just as reactionary as the right.‘Organise an anti-NATO protest of your own if you think the others too “right wing”. You’ve an entire “party” apparatus at your disposal do you not? Mobilize your members, hit the streets, call for the heads of the NATO warmongers to roll! Or, as I suspect, are you all just a bunch of do nothing posers?’
Really, that’s the best advice you can give us and the working class TS? I seem to remember 1 million on the streets protesting the Iraq war – and that really made a lot of difference didn’t it? You’re just an old fashioned juvenile leftie who loves the self indulgence of slogans and demos.
ALB – Perhaps the US empire is a bit like the old Austro-Hungarian empire and sabre rattling because of perceived internal weakness and by the humiliation of Afghanistan? Let’s just hope that it doesn’t lead to the same catastrophic ending!
TM – Do you not believe that there was a loss of material culture in Europe after the fall of the western Roman Empire? An example of this is the crusaders’ lack of medical knowledge compared with that of their Muslim opponents? Also didn’t the crusaders see the Mongols as an incarnation of ‘Prester John’ who would save the Kingdom of Outremer?
I remember watching this TV series many years ago – it made me reassess the ‘Dark Ages’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FlbP20Ex9c&list=PLBOXjuzxIKcom1QRkE0y62DyEt_4jkKw4
What are your thoughts on the ‘Enlightenment’? Is it essentially bourgeois ideology or a triumph of reason and science?
Crikey, what a dedicated revisionist you are TM. You’ll be rejecting the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages next. Be careful you don’t throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Do you see the 20th century, as I do, as a true ‘Dark Age’ with the rise of the Fascist and Bolshevik varieties of capitalism?
‘Is there any news source we can go to which isn’t biased?’
rodshaw – would you say that the contents of the Socialist Standard are biased? A Marxian analysis would insist that we have a working class bias because their/our perspective is progressive and represents the future. The perspective of the ruling class is biased in representing their interests – which, of course, is sometimes hotly disputed between sections of that class.‘No, just an anti-imperialist.’
TS – History shows us that all capitalist states are ‘imperialist’ when given the opportunity.alien1 – I have indeed made a study of events in the area and would agree with a lot of your analysis. At the last count (by Wikipedia) there were about 150 ongoing struggles for independence in the world and most of them contain horror stories of oppression. As we’ve seen in the past that even if these struggles are successful having an ‘indigenous’ ruling class never ends the problems that fueled the rebellions in the first place. We must never support the struggles for new nation states because they and their elites will cause the same problems. Nationalism (tribalism) is the greatest enemy of socialism not least because it enables the ruling class to convince the working class that they should murder each other. Zelenski and Putin are killing nobody – it is our own class killing each other. Socialists say f**k all leaders and their interminable quest for power.
‘Socialists should be interested that workers/people are dying and why they are dying.’
They are dying because they are murdering each other in the name of one capitalist regime or another. Hard to put it more clearly.
