Jealous much? Well, you should be. But don't imagine you can copy the Venezuelan experience where you live. It's strictly a one-off.
"Socialism in one country" - Trots
Ironicwarcriminal posted:Totally, I’m always shocked when I watch a ross kemp show with him walking around like a tough guy and he ends the show being empathetic and sensitive to the political situation. Ross Kemp FTW indeed.
Hes such a tough faggot. But hes a soft faggot to. Kind a like me lol.
animedad posted:sounds like you chums have a splendid time. cheers.
hahah lets kill em
the second most important thing, which seymore describes as a negative, is venezuela's foreign policy. of course a trot wouldn't understand the way cuba has fundamentally changed latin america over 50 years, chavez's anti-imperialist stance is the difference between a socialist in name and a socialist in reality.
none of this is new, the national liberation question was the difference between Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin and therefore the difference between success and failure. the question over algeria was the difference between maoists/third world revolutionaries who led the proletariat to defeat the imperialism of their day and liberals who turned to eurocommunism, revisionism, and defeatism. anti-imperialism still remains the question of our day, and only in the perverted mind of a trot could an year with the largest strike in human history, the defeat of international capital in Syria, and the immanent collapse of the euro and the world economy be a time for retreat and idealism.
I personally get mad about seymore cause he used to be at least tolerable, but since libya he's gone nuts and since then has been on the wrong side of every issue. someone who has the audacity to write this:
Some were perhaps given a moment’s pause by Chavez’s fairly disgraceful attitude to events in Libya, where he parroted various infamies against the Libyan rebels and defended Gaddafi to the hilt. He seems intent on pursuing the same course in the Syrian case, recently providing the regime with a shipment of oil. While consistent anti-imperialism is to be applauded, Chavez seems incapable of reconciling this commitment with recognition of the legitimate desire for an end to authoritarianism that is causing the convulsions in the Middle East and North Africa.
and write a book called "the liberal defense of murder" while being a liberal defending murder pisses me off. does anyone know any better blogs?
tpaine posted:What is trotskyism
babyhueypnewton posted:the defeat of international capital in Syria
what?
Ironicwarcriminal posted:babyhueypnewton posted:the defeat of international capital in Syria
what?
Syria was not bombed and invaded like Libya, and despite the situation escalating with Turkey and the constant stream of foreign fighters and weapons, the Assad regime will survive with a higher approval among the population than Obama.
animedad posted:mods change tpaine's name to The Full Trot
The World Is Trot Enough
babyhueypnewton posted:Ironicwarcriminal posted:
babyhueypnewton posted:
the defeat of international capital in Syria
what?
Syria was not bombed and invaded like Libya, and despite the situation escalating with Turkey and the constant stream of foreign fighters and weapons, the Assad regime will survive with a higher approval among the population than Obama.
Hmm ok but are Russia and China not part of international capital, and they’re supporting the regime?
Ironicwarcriminal posted:babyhueypnewton posted:Ironicwarcriminal posted:
babyhueypnewton posted:
the defeat of international capital in Syria
what?
Syria was not bombed and invaded like Libya, and despite the situation escalating with Turkey and the constant stream of foreign fighters and weapons, the Assad regime will survive with a higher approval among the population than Obama.Hmm ok but are Russia and China not part of international capital, and they’re supporting the regime?
Imperialism is the political expression of the accumulation of capital in its competitive struggle for what remains still open of the non-capitalist environment. Still the largest part of the world in terms of geography, this remaining field for the expansion of capital is yet insignificant as against the high level of development already attained by the productive forces of capital; witness the immense masses of capital accumulated in the old countries which seek an outlet for their surplus product and strive to capitalise their surplus value, and the rapid change-over to capitalism of the pre-capitalist civilisations. On the international stage, then, capital must take appropriate measures. With the high development of the capitalist countries and their increasingly severe competition in acquiring non-capitalist areas, imperialism grows in lawlessness and violence, both in aggression against the non-capitalist world and in ever more serious conflicts among the competing capitalist countries. But the more violently, ruthlessly and thoroughly imperialism brings about the decline of non-capitalist civilisations, the more rapidly it cuts the very ground from under the feet of capitalist accumulation. Though imperialism is the historical method for prolonging the career of capitalism, it is also a sure means of bringing it to a swift conclusion. This is not to say that capitalist development must be actually driven to this extreme: the mere tendency towards imperialism of itself takes forms which make the final phase of capitalism a period of catastrophe.
-Rosa Luxemburg
Syria is capitalist as well. However they have non-capitalist forms of social wealth, and being not subservient to the dollar and US hegemony are ripe for exploitation, robbery, and dumping over-accumulation on. Though superficially a victory for Russia and China, it was in fact the last chance of capitalism to avoid inter-imperialist conflict. I guess from a human cost it's not really a victory, the next decade will see terrible things greater in scale than either world war, but we need to be positive because the victory of socialism is the only way out of this terrible cycle of death. this is anti-imperialism 101.
babyhueypnewton posted:only in the perverted mind of a trot could an year with the largest strike in human history, the defeat of international capital in Syria, and the immanent collapse of the euro and the world economy be a time for retreat and idealism.
actually he didn't call for retreat at all. he said that there was a sort of unique contradiction within the bolivarian process which has kept it within the confines of a bourgeois state with a capitalist economy. but he says that the situation it has created it admirable enough given constraints that people shouldn't just slag it for being social-democratic. that is, they should take the tools that the revolution has built (such as the local councils) and try to radicalize them towards worker's self-organization of production.
one possible reason you might see that as a "retreat" is that you are essentially frozen into mao's revisionist new democratic theory. in this model, the success of a revolution is not gauged by the real activity of the proletariat, but rather a stand-in of the rhetoric of the national leadership, which, in a bourgeois-capitalist state, is the rule of the national bourgeoisie. in its most obscene moments it transforms into the three worlds theory and you get mao shaking hands with nixon. this right-wing theory is exactly equal to the socialism of red flags. and so maoist revisionism flows like water into capitalism, because if anything is socialist then you might as well support anything.
babyhueypnewton posted:the next decade will see terrible things greater in scale than either world war
nostradumbass
babyhueypnewton posted:Ironicwarcriminal posted:babyhueypnewton posted:Ironicwarcriminal posted:
babyhueypnewton posted:
the defeat of international capital in Syria
what?
Syria was not bombed and invaded like Libya, and despite the situation escalating with Turkey and the constant stream of foreign fighters and weapons, the Assad regime will survive with a higher approval among the population than Obama.Hmm ok but are Russia and China not part of international capital, and they’re supporting the regime?
Imperialism is the political expression of the accumulation of capital in its competitive struggle for what remains still open of the non-capitalist environment. Still the largest part of the world in terms of geography, this remaining field for the expansion of capital is yet insignificant as against the high level of development already attained by the productive forces of capital; witness the immense masses of capital accumulated in the old countries which seek an outlet for their surplus product and strive to capitalise their surplus value, and the rapid change-over to capitalism of the pre-capitalist civilisations. On the international stage, then, capital must take appropriate measures. With the high development of the capitalist countries and their increasingly severe competition in acquiring non-capitalist areas, imperialism grows in lawlessness and violence, both in aggression against the non-capitalist world and in ever more serious conflicts among the competing capitalist countries. But the more violently, ruthlessly and thoroughly imperialism brings about the decline of non-capitalist civilisations, the more rapidly it cuts the very ground from under the feet of capitalist accumulation. Though imperialism is the historical method for prolonging the career of capitalism, it is also a sure means of bringing it to a swift conclusion. This is not to say that capitalist development must be actually driven to this extreme: the mere tendency towards imperialism of itself takes forms which make the final phase of capitalism a period of catastrophe.
-Rosa Luxemburg
Syria is capitalist as well. However they have non-capitalist forms of social wealth, and being not subservient to the dollar and US hegemony are ripe for exploitation, robbery, and dumping over-accumulation on. Though superficially a victory for Russia and China, it was in fact the last chance of capitalism to avoid inter-imperialist conflict. I guess from a human cost it's not really a victory, the next decade will see terrible things greater in scale than either world war, but we need to be positive because the victory of socialism is the only way out of this terrible cycle of death. this is anti-imperialism 101.
I find this odd. The Greek state is a long way from "falling apart". The increasing reliance on Golden Dawn is a sign of trends within that state towards utilising extra-state forces, but this is the beginning of an arc of developments, not a completed process. States have long resorted to these kinds of manoeuvres to bolster their coercive power (and to shift patterns and idioms of consent). I would agree that Greece is further along the path of a Gramscian "crisis of authority" than any other advanced capitalist nation, and the growing influence and rootedness of the neo-nazis is deeply worrying, but actually most "usual" mechanisms of consensual and coercive control remain in place.
Even the rise of SYRIZA indicates the continued tenacity (however shallow and based in there being no confidence in an alternative political power) of bourgeois statal control of Greek society.
I think one needs to be careful in not confusing a deep crisis of the political class and some institutional aspects of Greek state power with an actual unravelling of the state in any serious sense. I'm not saying it can't/won't happen, just that I think you're overstating the meaning of these developments at this time.
If you're right then it's game over because the rise of the radical Left is suitably limited and reformist in its shape so that it will be unable to rise to the challenge of the conjuncture as you spell it out. If you're wrong then this kind of overstatement can easily lead to seeing such limited and reformist developments as necessary evils to be supported rather than building revolutionary consciousness and organisation in the practical struggles around these issues. In other words, the task for revolutionaries becomes to support reformist politics because of the urgency of the situation.
I appreciate the thought you've put into this, but it's just a rhetorical extravagance: I'm not literally saying the Greek state will collapse tomorrow, but simply leading with this dysfunction, this administrative chaos, the defunding of legitimating services, the polarisation within the repressive apparatuses, the increasing decomposition of parliamentary parties, the gridlock of parliament, etc etc., as the main condition for the growth of fascism, for the productive role of fascist violence as far as state apparatuses and large sections of the population are concerned. It explains why, far from costing them, the Nazis' violence is helping them.
As for the politics of this, it doesn't at all lead to the idea that one must support reformist strategies as a least bad option. Plausibly, my position could be construed as, one should support reformist forces as part of a revolutionary strategy, but this is not contingent on an over-estimation of the state's crisis. The real deviation threatened here is not reformism but ultra-leftism. If the state was literally about to collapse and fascists ready to take power tomorrow, then the only option would be to militarise the struggle. And that, I admit, would be quite a dangerous step at this point. So let me be clear and underline again that this is quite deliberately an impressionistic montage whose culmination is plausible but not yet a reality.
A dangerous topic to engage in rhetorical extravagance over. "The Greek state is falling apart" is, I think, a thoroughly disorienting way to talk about this stuff. precisely because of those "organisational reserves" Gramsci spent so many years .
I also think that characterising the main possible deviation as "ultra-leftism" is problematic because overstating the crisis of the state can equally lead to seeing reformist strategies of RE-stabilising the state in the face of these problems until the radical Left is up to a more transformative project can become very attractive. i.e., "if we get SYRIZA in government to deliver some basic protective reforms to workers it will weaken the Right".
I think you have to make room, especially in blogging, for incompletely formed thoughts, emotionally potent impressions with a rational core, etc. For one reason or another, this post has been widely shared. I doubt it is because people draw any firm strategic conclusions from it. I think it is because the warning, the note of alarm, resonates. So I'm not overly concerned about disorienting anyone.
Typical trot idiot and coward.
getfiscal posted:babyhueypnewton posted:the next decade will see terrible things greater in scale than either world war
nostradumbass
politics is the art of predicting the future, any romney/obama advisor will tell you that. parties can be wrong, it can even be the difference between the maoists in china and the maoists in indonesia. perhaps we could say that the incorrect predictions of the bolsheviks led to the failure of the revolution to spread to germany and the failure of the world communist revolution. regardless, even the most idealist socialists make predictions about the future and a better society. fear of making any prediction at all is some kind of depression or something, it's inhuman.
Come on people, it's like you all know and agree with everything I say, but when I say it (or rather, when someone actually has political convictions instead of empty cynicism and self-hatred) you recoil in horror.
getfiscal posted:3:30am. alarm clock goes off. spring out of cot. first run of the day: 3 miles. get the blood flowing. shower. breakfast: 2 fried eggs over some rice. rifle disassembled. rifle cleaned. rifle reassembled. recite one line from little red book. brief meditation. decrypt email. orders received. target: donald. crime: retreat and idealism. judgment: summary execution. smile. the sun rises in the east.
Ironicwarcriminal posted:What would you say fuels your zeal BHPN
obviously i come across as zealous because why would i come here to talk about my life, my friends, my sex life, my job, and the dumb chit chat that makes up most of the noise on this forum? im the incarnation of my ideology taken to the extreme because at one time thats what lf was, and it was the initial shock of an overwhelming consensus of revolutionary leftism which was more informed, more correct, and more interesting than the rest of the internet (esp D&D) which jolted my ideology into change. it's too bad lf doesnt exist anymore and no one reads this forum (and the other one is shut off from the public), because lf was a great service and changed the culture of SA (and arguably the entire internet). i linger around here because i still feel grateful for that, even though lf is gone for good and this place is only a shadow.
and thats my summary of lf
