shriekingviolet posted:previous tory minority was propped up with dup votes
this arrangement meant the dup got to play with the big boys, bypassing the power-sharing ni assembly which had collapsed in january 2017 in the wake of an inquiry into a comically corrupt renewable energy heating scheme that paid applicants more than the value of the woodchips they burned. 500 million pounds of public money were spent heating empty warehouses.
while initially a convenient and cosy arrangement they became a headache for teresa may, complicating the brexit negotiations as they would not accept a border through the irish sea, effectively one of the main points stalling the process. johnson promised to honor the same, but soon acquiesced to eu requirements in the latest iteration of the proposed deal. as per the good friday agreement a hard border between the north and south of ireland is not negotiable so the new customs/immigration controls will have to be placed elsewhere.
i think the dup's position is partially a necessary posturing, as to be seen as accepting a sea border disconnects them from 'the mainland' and cedes to republican goals of reunification. the direct line to parliament allowed them to push forward ni budgets etc during direct-rule and also be seen as blameless wrt to inevitabilities like irish sea border issue and the recent legalization of abortion in ni. some compromises.
while ni voted to remain (56%), the reality of how this develops will somewhat shift the political/economic situation in ni, even as stagnant as it is. the large amount of eu social/peace funding and agricultural subsidies will dry up, in its place large public/private initiatives might consolidate around new tax/import/export regulations. there's been some very recent investments in port service infrastructure. it all depends on how useful ni is to the uk as everything gets reconfigured, lots of theatre, with carrots and sticks behind closed doors. the shitshow that is ni politics is entrenched by design, and whatever egg is on their faces won't make much difference.
some of the irish posters on here will likely know more, but i don't think a border poll is any closer because of brexit, much less reunification. nor do i think it's likely either sinn fein or dup are in any rush to have powersharing restored anytime soon.
Edited by Gssh ()
drwhat posted:I'm not offended or whatever I just think that is ridiculous and funny, is the line now that anyone who touches current electoral politics is a fascist, it seems kind of exhausting. do i have to only subscribe to blowing myself up for Communism Now
i see the fascism label used a lot too, i usually have to reread Sakai's article on it so i don't fall into old habits
Fascism is a revolutionary movement of the right against both the bourgeoisie and the left, of middle class and declassed men, that arises in zones of protracted crisis. Fascism grows out of the masses of men from classes that are abandoned on the sidelines of history. By transforming men from these classes and criminal elements into a distorted type of radical force, fascism changes the balance of power. It intervenes to try and seize capitalist State power – not to save the old bourgeois order or even the generals, but to gut and violently reorganize society for itself asnew parasitic State classes. Capitalism is restabilized but the bourgeoisie pays the price of temporarily no longer ruling the capitalist State. That is, there is a capitalist state but bourgeois rule is interrupted. As Hamerquist understands, the old left theory that fascism is only a “tool of the bourgeoisie” led to disasters because it way underestimated the radical power of fascism as a mass force. Fascism not only has a distinctive class base but it has a class agenda. That is, its revolution does not leave society or the class relations of production unchanged.
Fascism has definite characteristics that are both so familiar and exotic, because it combines elements from all past human history in a new form that is startlingly brutal and dis-visionary. Indeed, fascism never appears in public as it’s secret parasitic self but always in some other grandiose guise. Like the original fascism of Mussolini’s Italy claimed to be the virile modernist recreation of the ancient Roman Empire . The Nazi Party claimed to be the recreation of the Nordic race of Aryan warriors (that never actually existed in human history, of course). The Taliban – who proudly brought order to the streets just as Mussolini’s first fascist regime did – claim to be the recreation of the original islamic followers of the days of the Prophet Mohammed. None of these guises are in the least bit true, of course, but are closer to political fantasy played with real guns for real stakes.
This fascism has definite characteristics, whether in Nazi Germany or the Taliban’s Afghanistan or the u.s. Aryan Brotherhood: It taps into and is filled with revolutionary anger against the bourgeoisie, but in distorted form. There is a supreme leader over a State that is not merely hierarchical but that tries to absorb all other organized activity of society into itself. The reason that Mussolini coined the word “totalitarian” to describe his vision of the State-society; and the reason that the Nazi State banned all sports groups, unions, professional associations, women’s groups, lay religious societies, youth organizations, recreational groups, etc. except its own National Socialist forms. Same with the Taliban. It exults in the violent military experience that is said to be “natural” for men, while scorning the soft cowardly life of the bourgeois businessmen and intellectuals and politicians
cars posted:You can see that overtaking more critical people with Sanders too, even ones who aren’t particularly far left compared to him, like, I can’t really believe that Ames and Levine and Dolan don’t think they would be sharpening their knives again as soon as he took office. But right now, Sanders saying vague things that sound good has put him into the role of opposition, so both them and a bunch of self-described radical socialists have slid into position to defend him against the bad guys, the radicals inventing all sorts of fantastic ideas about seizing DSA and by extension the Democrats.
But this is the definition of recuperation. It’s literally what it was coined to mean, turning those signs and symbols and words into dollars for the bourgeoisie, whether in the store or for the campaign. It’s been done before and it’s happening again. Don’t feel too embarrassed if it gets to you at some point, because it wouldn’t be repeated so often as a strategy if it didn’t work.
my impression is that a lot of supporters see him as a New Deal Democrat who will keep his movement alive post election (unlike Obama who immediately tossed it aside) and use it promote other social democrats and target those who stand in the way. whether or not he actually accomplishes that, i don't know. his talk about nationalizations and strengthening cooperatives makes me think that he probably still has some radical tendencies in his bones but doesn't want to lose moderates. i don't think we'd see much of a change in foreign policy, maybe lifting the Cuba embargo? best case scenario is a slightly more progressive congress and maybe M4A.
I’m optimistic about socialism even in the imperial core. If you’re not, stop reading now.
do you mean the imperial core as it is now or a future West in severe decline? i think socialism in the latter is far more likely.
Synergy posted:i don't think we'd see much of a change in foreign policy, maybe lifting the Cuba embargo? best case scenario is a slightly more progressive congress and maybe M4A.
cuban politburo member saying pretty much the same:
http://nnoc.info/ricardo-alarcon-elections-in-the-us-trump-or-sanders/
lo posted:id like to hear more about how the election result might affect the situation in ireland, especially since the tories don't need the dup anymore
read a post from the other forums from someone who was visiting family in a loyalist area (the poster fortunately escaped that toxic culture) who is more optimistic than gssh but talked about the DUP and the paramilitaries organizing emergency meetings and plastering loyalist neighborhoods with posters
these meetings have been going on for more than a month. a typical one of these loyalist meeting posters:
https://i.imgur.com/eUrUdCm.jpg
Edited by trakfactri ()
The silver lining of Corbyn's loss, I think, is that he awakened a class understanding among a lot of people. He made it explicit with slogans like "For the Many, Not the Few," and the younger generation especially got onboard with that. Now that he lost, and brought that message to the people, when things get insanely worse under Boris Johnson I'm hopeful that there's a second follow-on class awakening, much broader and more radical next time.
By choosing to remain a key part of the imperialist Labour Party for decades, he remains complicit in many of the crimes committed by the Party.
"Corbyn’s attitude to Ireland is one of pacification. Despite the amusing accusations of IRA membership, he has largely played a role in terms of pacifying resistance to British imperialism and occupation in Ireland, encouraging the revisionist Gerry Adams leadership of the Provisional IRA/Sinn Fein to stand down and accept surrender and purely constitutional methods. Corbyn denounced attacks committed by the IRA with great frequency, a point many of his supporters are quick to raise in his defense.
"Even to those who still incorrectly cling to the hope of a Border Poll to solve Ireland’s, Corbyn offers little. He has stated on numerous occasions that he does not foresee a border poll in the near future. He eschews the naked colonialist rhetoric of the Tories and many of his Labour Party forerunners for a more insidious approach, one that can appeal to Irish constitutional nationalists, soft Unionists and British reformists alike. Even given that the mask can occasionally slip, as Corbyn this week used the release of a confidential report on Johnson’s Brexit deal as an opportunity to attack the possibility of a border at the Irish Sea, lamenting that this would leave the Occupied Six counties “symbolically separated from the Union” and would damage and disrupt Britain’s trade interests. While offering platitudes and vague assurances of border poll in the distant future, and to stick to the terms of the GFA, the British Labour Party is reinforcing and pledging support for the armed forces of occupation"
https://socialistrepublicanmedia.home.blog/2019/12/11/the-british-labour-party-and-imperialism-in-ireland/
Labor lost the working class so who is the actual audience for the new manifesto? Urban petty-bourgeois students, corporate workers and interns, and whoever else doesn't care if this stuff is actually possible. The good part of Brexit is it's allowed us to think in terms of the labor aristocracy again and the social basis of fascism. The "left" has spent the years since erasing that and turning it into an apolitical signifier of identity.
All the Jacobin pieces basically summarize this idea
https://jacobinmag.com/2019/12/labour-party-uk-brexit-jeremy-corbyn-general-election
https://jacobinmag.com/2019/12/labour-corbyn-election-johnson
And as “just another politician,” he seemed very bad at it. Always vaguely “in trouble.” Always “cocking it up.” The attack lines, which mattered less before, began to have a cumulative weight. Still, it does seem reasonable to say that the Brexit culture wars exacerbated this problem and split the Labour coalition. The leadership’s attempt to keep peace within the party and placate Remainers left it with a stance that looked “weak.” More broadly, the “People’s Vote” strategy pursued by the hard center in this country has rebounded horribly, uniting and motivating the nationalist enemy without seriously undermining its predicates.
Some of our failure can be blamed on the campaign itself. The lack of messaging focus. The too numerous policies for which groundwork had not been laid. The fumbled and hesitant unveiling of the Brexit line. Corbyn’s own nervousness and line-cleaving, in contrast to his previous “straight talking” promise — which is not unrelated to his attempts to sublate the Brexit contradiction. This campaign, despite the ambition of the manifesto, somehow just didn’t have the insurgent feel of 2017.
...
It’s important to avoid stereotype here, especially when there is so much talk of “lost Labour heartlands” — or criticism that Labour is now a party for Putney but not for Wakefield. Some soft-lefts now seem to be suggesting that we ought to have combined the bid to overturn Brexit with a harder line on immigration; on the other hand, leftist Remainers such as Paul Mason openly suggest that we should replace “racist ex-miners” with urban progressives. There are, indeed, millions of working-class people in London just as in ex-pit villages; a city like Liverpool, today among the strongest Labour bastions, has only fully been a real “heartland” since the 1980s.
This does not, however, imply that the particular cultural traits of any region or type of working person can be universalized as characteristic of the class in general, or that we can dispense with some in favor of others. Least of all does overturning the 2016 referendum result and holding a fresh plebiscite on this issue enhance the prospects of unity between them. Where in 2017 the outward commitment to fulfilling Brexit had allowed us to talk about the issues that could galvanize all working people of whatever region, industry or background — and detach opposition to the EU from anti-immigrant sentiment — this time, the Leave-Remain divide came first.
This is the British version of American politics, where everything is depoliticized and politics becomes a House of Cards strategy game of pure appearance. Jacobin of course never actually gets into the "predicates" of Brexit, both pieces have no analysis of what Brexit actually is. Instead, Labor would have won if not for being undermined, basically a conspiracy theory to explain why a manifesto that was supposed to appeal to the "working class" did not in reality (the point is not that this undermining didn't happen but is a social fact that in itself must be explained). I like that second quote since it shows that only Jacobin is delusional enough to think nothing has changed (the same was true after Brexit which was analyzed as an apolitical, impotent protest against the elites and neoliberalism that was accidentally in the language of racism and Empire) whereas liberals know full well what Brexit means, they are just reactionaries.
Edited by babyhueypnewton ()
historically the labour party, in true democratic socialist fashion has always been terrible, the labour government under attlee which everyone on the british left looks up to as the gold standard of socialism or whatever certainly improved the material conditions of british working people with universal health care and nationalisation etc but it also sent british troops to Malaya and korea to kill asian workers fighting against colonialism and imperialism and engaged in clandestine operations to send fascist terrorists into albania to attack the communist government , the wilson government in the 1960s supplied the americans with weapons that it used in vietnam, the actions of tony blair require no introduction
every time the labour party has been in power, even during the supposed good old days of old labour, it has committed and supported violent reaction all over the world, obviously this isn't new or shocking to anyone here but i have been thinking about and i want to get it out of my system and i have typed this out already and i am pressing post!
babyhueypnewton posted:liberals know full well what Brexit mean
what does Brexit mean, materially speaking. because i have yet to speak to any brexit supporter who isn't fairly transparently supporting it in order to fight a culture war
littlegreenpills posted:babyhueypnewton posted:liberals know full well what Brexit mean
what does Brexit mean, materially speaking. because i have yet to speak to any brexit supporter who isn't fairly transparently supporting it in order to fight a culture war
Opinion surveys confirm that the main reason why a clear majority of voters opposed EU membership in the 2016 referendum was because they wanted to reclaim Britain’s sovereignty, in practice. The desire to take back full control over all immigration — whether motivated by xenophobic feelings or not — was a secondary reason, not the primary one.
Of course then the question is what is meant by "sovereignty" and how it relates to immigration. Saying that "identity" and "class" are different misses the point which is how class becomes articulated ideologically. Our job is to translate that language back rather than dismiss it which I think we've been doing pretty well. My point is that Corbyn refused to pick a side which made his promises meaningless.
The only confusion for me is why John McDowell and other progressives were pushing so hard for remain behind Corbyn's back. Did they really buy the liberal mythology that the vote wasn't real and the majority wants to remain even though this reactionary movement for "sovereignty" is a global phenomenon which, like the article says, repeatedly won every time it is put to the polls?
a labour victory would have taken the boot off the necks of our comrades in latin america, for instance, whereas a boris johnson government unshackled from the EU will be a stalwart financier of brutal imperialism, a wandering jerk who will be selling guns and funding contras to carry them into massacres. the last bulwark of progressive politics is in latin america and the caribbean; china is an imperfect supporter.
i don't know if all of you really understand/compute the global disaster that was this tory win (well, they likely rigged it) and gutting of labour. regardless of how you feel about electoralism or labour or whatever, this is an extremely bad sign that the imperial core has switched into meltdown-overdrive. while yes, we are all excited about the destruction of the core, bear in mind the people in the south would rather folks have gotten their acts together there instead of deal with the absolute massacre coming their way.
pogfan1996 posted:The personal inclinations of the appointed figureheads have a minimal effect on imperialist policy and practice. Class power and class conflict is the engine of history, and the British election represents a disagreement over how the spoils are distributed
sure. but elections are bell-weathers and indeed even part of class power and conflict nonetheless.
babyhueypnewton posted:People said the exact same thing about SYRIZA,
Not the exact same thing, no. Our new comrade jean rightly points out the material ramifications for the global south of the leadership of Britain specifically shifting in this way. I think she overstates it but nonetheless has a good point: this election will make some degree of difference in foreign policy in terms of enthusiastic bloodlust. In this regard Greece is practically irrelevant.
babyhueypnewton posted:People said the exact same thing about SYRIZA, where the right is actually connected to a fascist military junta. Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will in practice usually means goldfish memory but come on, we've done this song and dance before (arguably we had the same thing about Obama, his failure really made LF and the current community which makes it easy to forget he was genuinely supposed to be historic by virtue of being black, a secret socialist to his enemies, and the swan song for the Republicans and racism because of demographics). Just like propaganda about Libya is supposed to be immediately forgotten, people should actually go back and read what people were saying about Greece as the vanguard of a new pan-European left while the KKE was called "sectarian" and "dogmatic" at best for doing systematic analysis of what was possible and what would actually happen beyond rhetoric. This has actually happened time and time again but that's my reference point.
the election of obama absolutely correlated with stuff like occupy, black lives matter and standing rock, just as trump's election has so far correlated in a brutal and violent crackdown on all left organizing in the united states. yes, both governments are violently imperialist. you can't vote imperialism out of office. but you can look at "elections" as temperature checks for reality. you can actually assess their impacts in terms of left organizing. it's not rocket science to figure the cubans and venezuelans would much prefer corbyn over johnson.
Edited by babyhueypnewton ()
Petrol posted:Well you've just answered your question in the affirmative. Whether Corbyn would have been better in this regard than Johnson is purely hypothetical but I think the answer is a resounding "yes, maybe, a bit".
So let's not worry about hypotheticals, when has electing the more progressive imperial candidate led to sizeable benefits to the rest of the world?
The people of Venezuela, Libya, Syria, etc certainly didn’t benefit from the election of Obama.
jeantatlock posted:babyhueypnewton posted:People said the exact same thing about SYRIZA, where the right is actually connected to a fascist military junta. Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will in practice usually means goldfish memory but come on, we've done this song and dance before (arguably we had the same thing about Obama, his failure really made LF and the current community which makes it easy to forget he was genuinely supposed to be historic by virtue of being black, a secret socialist to his enemies, and the swan song for the Republicans and racism because of demographics). Just like propaganda about Libya is supposed to be immediately forgotten, people should actually go back and read what people were saying about Greece as the vanguard of a new pan-European left while the KKE was called "sectarian" and "dogmatic" at best for doing systematic analysis of what was possible and what would actually happen beyond rhetoric. This has actually happened time and time again but that's my reference point.
the election of obama absolutely correlated with stuff like occupy, black lives matter and standing rock, just as trump's election has so far correlated in a brutal and violent crackdown on all left organizing in the united states. yes, both governments are violently imperialist. you can't vote imperialism out of office. but you can look at "elections" as temperature checks for reality. you can actually assess their impacts in terms of left organizing. it's not rocket science to figure the cubans and venezuelans would much prefer corbyn over johnson.
You're just repeating the old eurocommunist arguments but now as farce given the impossibility of every minimal social democracy. Your efforts should be focused on where they can make a difference, and that is communist politics, solidarity with the third world, and scientific analysis. For something as abstract as parliamentary elections, in which every single communist in the UK voting would not make the slightest difference, we are limited to scientific analysis. Better or worse simply doesn't enter the equation given that the world is objectively unliveable not only for humanity but possibly all life on earth. Communism rejects what is possible in the world of appearance and creates what is possible beyond ideology.
pogfan1996 posted:So let's not worry about hypotheticals, when has electing the more progressive imperial candidate led to sizeable benefits to the rest of the world?
A good question.
pogfan1996 posted:Petrol posted:
Well you've just answered your question in the affirmative. Whether Corbyn would have been better in this regard than Johnson is purely hypothetical but I think the answer is a resounding "yes, maybe, a bit".
So let's not worry about hypotheticals, when has electing the more progressive imperial candidate led to sizeable benefits to the rest of the world?
The people of Venezuela, Libya, Syria, etc certainly didn’t benefit from the election of Obama.
actually, the leadership of venezuela have been quite clear on the fact things have been much worse under trump. after all, it was under a trump government that the core was able to cut off all CITGO revenue and ramp up sanctions as well as promote a fake president and stoke a contra army on their borders with colombia. cuba additionally had a massive source of foreign currency cut off when the trump government ramped up the blockade and slammed the doors shut on P2P visas. syria has permenant US military bases now after trump directly shot at syria with hundreds of tomahawk missiles. there's a general from fairfax rolling around libya as we speak. this is not in any way to absolve obama for his crimes against humanity, but it is to point out that there are both quantitative and qualitative differences between the obama and trump administrations (yes, even clinton and george w) that are hard to deny.
babyhueypnewton posted:jeantatlock posted:
babyhueypnewton posted:
People said the exact same thing about SYRIZA, where the right is actually connected to a fascist military junta. Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will in practice usually means goldfish memory but come on, we've done this song and dance before (arguably we had the same thing about Obama, his failure really made LF and the current community which makes it easy to forget he was genuinely supposed to be historic by virtue of being black, a secret socialist to his enemies, and the swan song for the Republicans and racism because of demographics). Just like propaganda about Libya is supposed to be immediately forgotten, people should actually go back and read what people were saying about Greece as the vanguard of a new pan-European left while the KKE was called "sectarian" and "dogmatic" at best for doing systematic analysis of what was possible and what would actually happen beyond rhetoric. This has actually happened time and time again but that's my reference point.
the election of obama absolutely correlated with stuff like occupy, black lives matter and standing rock, just as trump's election has so far correlated in a brutal and violent crackdown on all left organizing in the united states. yes, both governments are violently imperialist. you can't vote imperialism out of office. but you can look at "elections" as temperature checks for reality. you can actually assess their impacts in terms of left organizing. it's not rocket science to figure the cubans and venezuelans would much prefer corbyn over johnson.
You're just repeating the old eurocommunist arguments but now as farce given the impossibility of every minimal social democracy. Your efforts should be focused on where they can make a difference, and that is communist politics, solidarity with the third world, and scientific analysis. For something as abstract as parliamentary elections, in which every single communist in the UK voting would not make the slightest difference, we are limited to scientific analysis. Better or worse simply doesn't enter the equation given that the world is objectively unliveable not only for humanity but possibly all life on earth. Communism rejects what is possible in the world of appearance and creates what is possible beyond ideology.
i'm not going to get into a pissing contest here. my only advice is to be in the world but not of the world.
jeantatlock posted:pogfan1996 posted:Petrol posted:
Well you've just answered your question in the affirmative. Whether Corbyn would have been better in this regard than Johnson is purely hypothetical but I think the answer is a resounding "yes, maybe, a bit".
So let's not worry about hypotheticals, when has electing the more progressive imperial candidate led to sizeable benefits to the rest of the world?
The people of Venezuela, Libya, Syria, etc certainly didn’t benefit from the election of Obama.actually, the leadership of venezuela have been quite clear on the fact things have been much worse under trump. after all, it was under a trump government that the core was able to cut off all CITGO revenue and ramp up sanctions as well as promote a fake president and stoke a contra army on their borders with colombia. cuba additionally had a massive source of foreign currency cut off when the trump government ramped up the blockade and slammed the doors shut on P2P visas. syria has permenant US military bases now after trump directly shot at syria with hundreds of tomahawk missiles. there's a general from fairfax rolling around libya as we speak. this is not in any way to absolve obama for his crimes against humanity, but it is to point out that there are both quantitative and qualitative differences between the obama and trump administrations (yes, even clinton and george w) that are hard to deny.
IDK Jean, the consensus is that Trump is following the same path as Obama as it pertains to Venezuela
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/01/when-it-comes-to-venezuela-trump-follows-in-obama-footsteps/
And Maduro certainly doesn't seem to agree with you
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-usa-trump-idUSKBN15101M
Edited by pogfan1996 ()
Settlers has good discussions, obviously these represent the most extreme polemics against the comintern line which can look a bit silly when the Red Guards declare a "boycott" of the election, but I think most here intuitively know electoral politics is merely maneuvering what is possible within the impossibility of capitalism. And the collapse of the USSR and eurocommunism should be a teachable lesson.
Edited by babyhueypnewton ()