tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post8800395304509355590..comments2024-03-28T11:04:16.315+00:00Comments on Boffy's Blog: A Reply To Damon HoppeBoffyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-11282722933536546322023-12-16T16:11:07.558+00:002023-12-16T16:11:07.558+00:00Two years later, Corbyn became leader, and half a ...Two years later, Corbyn became leader, and half a million young workers joined the LP. It rather smashed to pieces all the arguments of the sectarians and opportunists who had jumped ship to the Liberals, then Greens in search of handfuls of others who agreed with them, as they threw out their dummies.<br /><br />No doubt when those that had done the hard work of staying and fighting managed to get that result, those with that mentality expressed in the comments above, were only to keen to return. The fact that Corbyn's own strategy, led by his Stalinist advisors brought its own tragedy does not change that.Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-20735148770517334842013-01-14T17:18:31.862+00:002013-01-14T17:18:31.862+00:00cont'd
Once again despite me repeating that m...cont'd<br /><br />Once again despite me repeating that my definition of “support” has nothing to do with voting, you continue to quite openly lie about my position on that. Clearly, you are so entrenched in the bourgeois mindset of electoralism that you cannot see any other form of political action other than voting. I repeat, my argument is for socialists to join the LP the better to be able to be in touch with workers and encourage them to engage in their own self-activity. It has nothing to do with calling on workers or anyone else to vote Labour! Its not me in a mess here, but quite clearly you. I do not need to slag you off, as you put it, certainly not in the way you have done from day one, because you have not only undermined your own position, but done so in such a blatantly obvious way that you have simply made yourself look silly.<br /><br />I have not slagged any workers off for refusing to be a member of the LP! I am happy to work with workers whether they are in the LP or not. It seems to be the other way around, that you will not work with workers who are members of the LP. As far as I am aware I have not accused you of being a member of a sect. The only thing I have challenged in that regard is your support for the Liberals and the Greens.<br /><br />Your last comment I think sums up what is wrong with your position. At every stage when people don't agree with you, your response is to withdraw from that arena. Unfortunately, given your electoralist politics, in which you expect some party, trade union or whatever to give you solutions that you can vote for, you will always end up being disappointed, because none of these organisations will have adequate politics for workers unless workers do what Marx and Engels advised, which is to take them as they are, and work to improve them. As for the idea of “not participating” in capitalism as a response, it certainly has nothing to do with either Marxism or reality. For so long as Capitalism exists, workers are forced to participate in it, in one way or another, if they want to live, and indeed, as Marx describes in order to create the conditions for Socialism. Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-46090630436731082452013-01-14T17:18:05.922+00:002013-01-14T17:18:05.922+00:00You have cut and paste nothing where I have said t...You have cut and paste nothing where I have said that Co-operatives or other such organisations are sectarian!!! How on Earth would I say such a thing given the amount of space in my blog given over to encouraging people to set up Co-operatives and other such organisations based on workers self-organisation? For example, here was my response to the situation Care Homes written a year ago, arguing for them to be occupied, and turned into Co-ops - <a href="http://boffyblog.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/occupy-care-homes.html" rel="nofollow">Occupy The Care Homes</a>. Your continued attempt to portray me as not supporting the establishment of Co-ops and other such organisations, is simply making you look more and more detached from reality.<br /><br />I have never referred to opposition to any other organisations other than “sects”, and it has been quite clear from what I have written exactly what I meant by sects i.e. organisations like the SWP. That is why I wrote,<br /><br />“And where have I said that I despise Co-operatives, for example. Do you not think the considerable amount of space devoted to Co-operatives on the blog page you have just commented to, disproves that rather silly allegation? Moreover, where organisations are truly created by the working class, I welcome them. The trouble is that many organisation that continually proclaim themselves to be the New Workers Party, are nothing of the sort, but only the latest sectarian venture by middle class dilettantes.” (6th January)<br /><br />What does a Co-operative have to do with those organisations such as the SP, which proclaims the creation of a New Workers Party.<br /><br />I further elaborated by talking about my own experience in such organisations.<br /><br />“I don't see why arguing that is undermining of NORSCARF any more than it would be for members of the SWP or the Socialist Party to encourage NORSCARF members to support or join their parties. As a former member of a Trotskyist group, I know that the main reason they engage in such activity is precisely for the purpose of “Party Building”. (7th January)<br /><br />As for attacking you that is rather rich given the history of this debate, and the way you have done nothing but attack me without even having bothered to actual know anything about my history in the labour Movement, bothering to actually read what I have written, and your continual misrepresentation of what I have said!<br /><br />Your charge that I have also only just mentioned the SWP also shows up the fact that you have not even read what has been said, as the above quotes demonstrate!Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-12054894895161951892013-01-14T13:01:54.232+00:002013-01-14T13:01:54.232+00:00This is a joke...I even went to the trouble of cut...This is a joke...I even went to the trouble of cutting and pasting exactly what you had said and my response to it....Now you deny having ever said it...<br /><br />To attempt to worm out of your own statements by attacking me exposes the hopelessness of your position.<br /><br />I never once mentioned the SWP and in fact you have only just mentioned them....So you would wish us to believe that everything you have said to me was aimed at them...? You are kidding me right?<br /><br />In your desperation to assert that we should all vote for the Labour Party you have thrown mud at everything that does not support the Labour Party or is supported by it. You have contradicted yourself at ever turn to justify this premise. That has got you into this mess and slagging me off wont get you out of it.<br /><br />When someone from the Labour Party (and any other party) approaches us we know not to trust them and you have only confirmed that fact.<br /><br />When a worker is telling you that he does not want anything to do with The Labour Party, a middle class capitalist organization that is the enemy of the worker all you do is slag them off, accuse them of being middle class, intellectual and a member of a sect.<br /><br />The only organizations I am a member of and actively support is trade Union (IWW) and a Co-operative. So which one of them is the capitalist middle class intellectual sect that you keep referring to me being part of?<br /><br />Why am I subjecting myself to this abuse? <br /><br />You may have found it amusing to poke and prod me and have a good laugh at my response, but like capitalism the only appropriate possible response is not to participate.Damon Hoppehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07420992510254234587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-44404640291461952202013-01-13T19:52:39.369+00:002013-01-13T19:52:39.369+00:00Marx wrote a very detailed account of how capitali...Marx wrote a very detailed account of how capitalism works, and how it extracts Surplus Value. The book is called “Capital”. Nowhere in it, does he state that Surplus Value can only be extracted as a result of racism. You once again privilege race over class in your analysis. To say that Capital extracts profits as a result of race rather than class exploitation shows you clearly do not understand Marxist analysis. What is more you assertions simply do not stack up, particularly as regards Big Capital. Capital will use divisions such as gender or race, when it suits them as means of controlling working class resistance, but it is mainly small capital not big capital that uses such divisions on a routine basis, because it is simply inefficient for big, particularly multinational capital.<br /><br />As for all men being brothers I have not argued otherwise. You have switched to this argument from the argument about freedom and equality, presumably because you were unable to defend your former position. That is simply dishonest on your part. <br /><br />Your obsession with twisting what I have actually said is beyond belief, and simply leaves you looking very silly, given that your distortion is so apparent. Your repetition at the end of your rant about me supposedly believing that only members of the LP are working class does not become any more credible for having repeated it. I know that Goebbels talked about if you repeat a lie often enough people will believe it, but your accusation is so patently ludicrous that it simply once again makes you look ridiculous. The same is true about your equally ludicrous statement about me believing that it must be the workers fault if they come into conflict with New Labour. What basis is there for such a ludicrous comment in anything I have said? But, that doesn't apparently stop you throwing around such unsubstantiated garbage.<br /><br />If its on that basis that you engage in debate, then I agree there is no point in continuing to discuss anything with you.<br />Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-15428981698073567232013-01-13T19:52:00.020+00:002013-01-13T19:52:00.020+00:00I've never said that anyone who is not a membe...I've never said that anyone who is not a member of the LP is not a worker!!! Once again by failing to actually read what people say, you make yourself look silly. Nor have I said that activity outside the LP is doomed to failure. Quite the opposite, which is why I encourage workers to establish co-operatives, set up neighbourhood committees (which I have done by practical action as well as by exhortation), create their own defence squads and so on. The reason I encourage people to join the LP is the better to be able to use its resources and connections with the Labour Movement and working class the better to implement that strategy!<br /><br />I have never said that Co-operatives were failing because they were middle class and so on as you claim. Could you provide one instance of where I have said that? Once again you are making yourself look silly by simply not reading what people have written, and instead imposing your own preconceptions and prejudices and thereby imputing incorrect motives to people that you do not even know! On what basis do you describe a co-operative as a sect? I have never done so. When I refer to sects I am talking about groups like the SWP!<br /><br />Your support for the Liberals and Greens could be taken from what you said, especially as on each occasion you have made clear that your interpretation of “support” is limited to an electoralist one. That is whenever it has arisen you have always interpreted “support” as meaning voting for, even when I have stated clearly that I do not consider support for a party as limited in that way.<br /><br />It was your comments about how the Liberals were friends of the workers that led to my comment about you seeing it as a “stalwart”. As for your comments about the “New Greens” I'd refer you back to you misplaced faith in the Liberals, who were also committed on paper to a range of radical policies. Once again, it is a problem of your electoralist view of politics, rather than politics based on mobilising the working class for their own self activity.<br /><br />I've never suggested that Tony Blair is working class or that you should work alongside him. Once again try reading what I've written, and reply to that rather than making up versions of what you think I might have said, because that fits your prejudices and makes it easier for you to vent your spleen against it. I am suggesting working with all of those ordinary workers who are members of the LP, many also members of Trades Unions, Tenants and residents Associations, and yes, Co-operatives too, as well as all those workers who are members of none of these organisations, but whose continued view of the LP as their party means they can be more easily approached by people who are LP members, than is possible for people who are members of the SWP or some other sect.<br /><br />cont'dBoffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-79265790158065426882013-01-13T13:39:09.977+00:002013-01-13T13:39:09.977+00:00Your sophist attempts to argue that anyone who is ...Your sophist attempts to argue that anyone who is not a member or supporter of the New Labour 'one nation' Party is NOT a worker but are by your definition a member of a middle class, tiny ineffectual sect is just plain ridiculous.<br /><br />This claim that activity outside of the LP is doomed to failure is inexcusable and also demonstrates the direct contradiction in your argument.<br /><br />You claim that co-operatives are the way forward and then blame their failures on the fact they are middle class, tiny ineffectual sects that are doomed to failure. <br /><br />When I pointed out that the Labour Party was less radical than the LibDems Party ((at the time they opposed the war, tuition fees, tax cuts for the rich, welfare cuts, etc) does not in anyone indicate that I support them just that I would sooner vote for them than the Labour Party.<br /><br />The fact that the Labour Party has no more workers in it that the Liberal Party does not make the Liberal Party a stalwart socialist organization because anymore than it makes the Labour Party a socialist organization. That would be your case not mine!<br /><br />The New Greens though no longer anti-capitalist (hence my then attraction to Old Greens) are still more radical on paper than anything coming out of the Labour Party.<br /><br />Trying to convince me that people like Tony Blair are the working class and I should work alongside them is not very convincing as I am sure he would not want a filthy pleb like me alongside him.<br /><br />I must prefer the company of my supposedly middle class shelf stackers, etc than your heroic working i.e. Tony Blair.<br /><br />With regards to racism you really don't seem to understand what racism is and how it functions in our society.<br /><br />Racism allows labour to be exploited and stratified at what otherwise would be an unacceptable level. All the big corporations and big capital have a openly racist agenda because their wealth is based upon this racist exploitation.<br /><br />Racism and yes sexism, is now so embedded to the the bourgeois mentality I dont think reform is possible.<br /><br />It is the true socialist not the capitalist who argues that all men are brothers....<br /><br />Your obsession with the idea that only members the Labour Party are working class is beyond belief and you will twist everything to fit into the belief to the point that you contradict yourself.<br /><br />Clearly according to you if their is conflict between the workers and the New Labour Party it is the fault of the workers.<br /><br />I therefore see no point in continuing this conversation.<br /><br />Damon Hoppehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07420992510254234587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-84146828077575300982013-01-12T16:45:44.184+00:002013-01-12T16:45:44.184+00:00Incidentally, I take it from one of your previous ...Incidentally, I take it from one of your previous comments about the Greens having abandoned the positions that formally attracted you to them that you have also now decided that not only are the Liberals, who you previously advocated support for, but also the Greens, beyond the pale, and no longer pure enough for you to support.<br /><br />As you previously told us that the Liberals and Greens were stalwart socialist organisations that unlike the LP were stuffed full of workers, does this mean that you now hold those workers in contempt for no longer meeting your stringent standards?Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-70483155943892289442013-01-12T16:35:29.946+00:002013-01-12T16:35:29.946+00:00cont'd
Once again in your last comment you re...cont'd<br /><br />Once again in your last comment you reply to what you think someone has said rather than what they actually have said, and once again it makes you sound silly. Given the amount of column inches I have devoted to encouraging workers to establish co-operatives and so on, you do yourself no favours by proceeding with an argument predicated on the notion that I am in some way encouraging workers not to to do that! You confuse workers with the tiny number of – usually middle class, often students – people in these tiny ineffectual sects. My statement was not at all intended to be insulting, or to divide and depress. The people usually doing that are themselves those very sects, whose vitriol against each other increases in inverse proportion to their size, and is always more reserved for each other than against the real class enemy. It is they that continually divide on the basis frequently of personal antagonisms hidden under the rhetoric of non-existent political differences.<br /><br />As for contempt for the working class that is once again just an insult based on nothing. As someone who spent a lifetime as a worker, and as a Trade Unionist I can only treat it with contempt. Who really holds workers in contempt me who is prepared to work alongside them in the organisations they create warts and all, or you who runs away from them on the basis of your inability to accept the reality of the ideas held by real workers?Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-55724949837072891292013-01-12T16:35:06.028+00:002013-01-12T16:35:06.028+00:00Of course, under Capitalism exchanges are neither ...Of course, under Capitalism exchanges are neither free nor equal, but bourgeois ideology rests on the idea that they are! Anything that undermines the idea that workers and capitalists are free and equal partners entering into voluntary contracts with each other undermines Capitalism! Colonialism, and racism both openly admit that no such freedom or equality exists, and thereby undermine bourgeois ideology. Read <a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch33.htm" rel="nofollow"> Chapter 33</a> where Marx makes that clear.<br /><br />“an unmistakable relation of dependence, which the smug political economist, at home, in the mother-country, can transmogrify into one of free contract between buyer and seller, between equally independent owners of commodities, the owner of the commodity capital and the owner of the commodity labour. But in the colonies, this pretty fancy is torn asunder...<br /><br />In ancient civilized countries the labourer, though free, is by a law of Nature dependent on capitalists; in colonies this dependence must be created by artificial means.” <br /><br />Under Capitalism competition exists at multiple levels, but I think that you are placing the role of race above class. It is not race that is the main division in society but class. British Capital does not care whether it invests in a business owned by, or whose workers are black, white, yellow or any other colour. It is only concerned to make profits from that investment. Nor in reverse is it bothered whether the Capital raised for such investment comes from men, women, straight or gay, or whatever ethnic origin. Anything, which acts to create such divisions, and thereby put obstacles in the way of capital accumulation is against the interest of capital.<br /><br />As for the free movement of labour, and so on, it may have escaped your notice, but that is precisely what Capital has sought to do on a limited scope via the establishment of the EU. It is Big Capital that is complaining about the Immigration Cap implemented by the Tories. It is Capitalist farmers who are complaining about immigration controls preventing them recruiting migrant labour! It was the US, which was the biggest recruiter of foreign migrants for the purpose of meeting its needs for labour.<br /><br />Why do you say it is an unbelievable statement to say that Capital needs to believe that they are free and equal? That is exactly what Marx states Capital requires, and why so much of its ideological armoury is devoted to persuading them of that! Neither I nor Marx is saying that they are free or equal, only that that is what Capital requires them to believe. You really need to pay more attention to what people actually write before responding to what you think they might have writtenBoffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-47221398654353291112013-01-12T13:32:05.336+00:002013-01-12T13:32:05.336+00:00"There is no need for the LP to waste its tim..."There is no need for the LP to waste its time in conspiracies against the other groups you talk about. All these other groups are infinitesimally small and insignificant. Labour has no need to waste time trying to undermine them, because there is nothing to undermine. These groups are completely ineffectual to begin with."<br /><br />This last sentence designed deliberately to insult, divide and depress those who stand in opposition to capitalism. Is this all you have to say: Abandon your co-operatives, your unions, all forms of resistance/revolution for resistance itself is futile!!!<br /><br />I think this sums your position up perfectly behind all your rhetoric about Marx you not only have nothing but contempt for the working class but fear them. You are terrified of the workers uniting! Indeed no better instrument for dividing the workers against themselves and keeping them down than the Labour Party.<br /><br /><br />Damon Hoppehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07420992510254234587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-4386363066088982322013-01-12T13:19:16.798+00:002013-01-12T13:19:16.798+00:00"In fact, it is that very basis which at an o..."In fact, it is that very basis which at an objective level undermines racism, precisely because it is based upon the notion of free and equal exchanges between individuals."<br /><br />Eh? That sounds more like Adam Smith than Karl Marx. Under conditions of capitalism "free and equal exchanges between individuals." can not take place....The unfree and unequal exchange between classes is the basis of capitalism!!!!<br /><br />Under capitalism races, communities and individuals are pitted against each other in gladiatorial like competition. A struggle to the death both physically and psychologically. <br /><br />According to the Bourgeois Apex Predator this class stratification not only reflects the natural inequality between the races but through their use eugenics and epigenetics ultimately creates different species of man. That is the Homo Superior Bourgeois Apex Predator. This, we are told, is the destiny of all history to produce this Ubermensch and now the untermensch is to be discarded as the refuge of the past.<br /><br />These racists ideas have become the dominant ideology of capitalism, unquestioned and accepted by everyone!<br /><br />The worker comes to believe that those of other races should be paid less as their lives are worthless then theirs. Incredibly the false consciousness worker then wonders why they are unemployed and all the products are made in a foreign land.<br /><br />It is at that point that we should intervene a demand the free movement of Labour and Equal Pay for Equal work. Instead Bourgoise press and political parties convince the worker that his problem lies not with inequalities of racism and class but the fact he has permitted the "blood poisoning of the Untermensch" in his midst and has allowed him to breed!<br /><br />The Untermensch internalizes the description of himself as the living unworthy of his life and does not engage in the revolutionary activity that self respect/esteem demands!<br /><br />However I believe the different races are not a different species and thus the only real difference between a rich Aryan and a oppressed untermensch is an accident of birth. No amount of brain washing by the media will every get me to accept the racist myths that are the basis of this capitalist society.<br /><br />Unbelievably you state:<br />"Far from Capital needing workers to accept the notion of inequality, which was what was required by Feudal society, Capital needs for its existence that workers believe that they are in reality equal, and free, and that it is on this basis that they enter into contract with Capital. "<br /><br />The freedom you speak of here is the freedom to be unequal, to become a fettering Labour Aristocracy living off the exploitation of other workers. Nobody, other than maybe yourself, is under the delusion that they are entering into an equal contract with capital.<br /><br />Damon Hoppehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07420992510254234587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-29320590437625250752013-01-11T21:02:59.614+00:002013-01-11T21:02:59.614+00:00As someone who suffers with Depression I entirely ...As someone who suffers with Depression I entirely agree with your comments about the effects that Capitalism as a system can have on individuals. It was for that reason that I did not wish to perpetuate a discussion that seemed to be causing you distress. Nor would I want you to think that I was ignoring your comments, however, which is why I am responding to them.<br /><br />Actually, as Marx describes in Capital, what Capitalism relies upon is the fact that class relations are automatically reproduced by the workings of the capitalist economy. It is those relations, which naturally create and reproduce bourgeois ideology not just in the head of the bourgeoisie, but in the head of the workers too. In fact, it is that very basis which at an objective level undermines racism, precisely because it is based upon the notion of free and equal exchanges between individuals. As the black American Marxist, Oliver Cromwell Cox, theorised, racism actually develops under Capitalism as a means of rationalising Colonialism, which clearly breaches the notion of such free and equal exchange between individuals. But, in many ways just as Colonialism becomes a fetter on Capital Accumulation, and is replaced by Imperialism, so racism (and the same could be said about sexism, homophobia etc) becomes a fetter on Capital accumulation too, at the stage when advanced industrial Capital needs to establish a global economy, and ensure the free movement of labour and capital within it. That is one reason that the representatives of Big Capital complain about the Tories Immigration Cap.<br /><br />Far from Capital needing workers to accept the notion of inequality, which was what was required by Feudal society, Capital needs for its existence that workers believe that they are in reality equal, and free, and that it is on this basis that they enter into contract with Capital. That is one reason it inscribed on its banner the slogan “Egalite, Fraternite, Liberte”. Capital does not need racism to bring about division within the working class, the very operation of competition achieves that function.<br /><br />I did not suggest that you or any other particular individual would have to join a fascist party in the unpalatable situation I described, only that Marxists sui generis would have to find some way of intervening.<br /><br />There is no need for the LP to waste its time in conspiracies against the other groups you talk about. All these other groups are infinitesimally small and insignificant. Labour has no need to waste time trying to undermine them, because there is nothing to undermine. These groups are completely ineffectual to begin with.<br /><br /><br />Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-18183768381967973362013-01-10T17:12:20.634+00:002013-01-10T17:12:20.634+00:00"you are clearly in distress, I think it bett..."you are clearly in distress, I think it better that we leave the discussion there"<br /><br />Distress is the state of being under conditions of capitalism. We need to ackowledge that the intense pay and suffering of having to survive (because one can not live) under such unbearable conditions produces such distress and anguish that one finds it often impossible to argue from a deattached point of view.<br /><br />Marx himself was a far from happy chap!<br /><br />It is this pain that you seem to be somehow smoothing over with transcental lines of reason.<br /><br />As my pain seems to affect my ability to articulate what I mean maybe the words of others would be clearer.<br /><br />I think the Simone Weil put it best<br />“Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.” <br /><br />We can not attain serentiy...“In struggling against anguish one never produces serenity; the struggle against anguish only produces new forms of anguish."<br /><br />To be aware of our collective fate is like the Angel of History: "The face of the angel of history is turned toward the past. Where we perceived a chain of events, he sees a single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistably propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. The storm is what we call progress." Walter Benjamin<br /><br />“Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers' enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this apparatus and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others.” Simone Weil.<br /><br />As a Marxist I am sure you are familiar with their work and other similar Marxist but I would invite you to revist their writings in the light of this discussion.<br /><br />I hope one does not need to feel as distressed as me and even them to appreciate thier writings (they both committed sucicide).<br /><br />I hope they can help you see that which I have failed to elucidate.<br /><br /><br /><br />Damon Hoppehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07420992510254234587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-15625259549793803122013-01-10T16:36:45.584+00:002013-01-10T16:36:45.584+00:00I don't accept what you say about LP people in...I don't accept what you say about LP people infiltrating other organisations for the sake of disrupting socialist opposition rather than fighting the Tories.<br /><br />Hmm, I was not expressing an opionin I was stating fact based on personal experince of myself and others. In fact it is the basis of much hostility that people feel towards the LP.<br /><br />Of course you could argue their actions are not offically sanctioned...However that would leave you the problem of explaining away Jim Murphy.Damon Hoppehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07420992510254234587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-55926925564977110012013-01-10T16:30:50.455+00:002013-01-10T16:30:50.455+00:00"You say Capitalism cannot survive without ra..."You say Capitalism cannot survive without racism. I see no objective reason why that has to be the case. More importantly, there are plenty of people who are anti-racist, and yet very pro-Capitalist. Obama for one!"<br /><br />Disagree<br />I would of thought this was obvious.<br />Captialism relies on the false consciouness of the worker in order to survive. <br />It creates the false concept that their is an Ubermensch (ruling class - Aryan) and a Untermensch (lower working class blacks, semtites , white trash, etc). By virtue of which the class inequality is legimated and accepted as natural by the claim of genetic stratefication.<br />Thus the the untermensch is poor by virtue of his bilological inferoirty not his oppression. It is claimed that society must be cured of this 'blood posioning' and thus Ghettoisation, Concentration, enslavement and ultimitly extermination is inevitable.<br />This has the added benefit of dividing the working class against itself and encoruages the working class to oppresses and exploit a section of itself thus tieing it more closer to the capitalist system economically and ideologically.<br />If people accepted that all people are equal then this gross injustice would not be accepted let alone demanded!!!<br />Obama anti-rascist? What has he done to liberate the black man?<br /><br />"Actually, I've argued in the past, that under some terrible circumstances, where the BNP was the party where the majority of workers gave their support, it would be necessary for Marxists to find a way of working inside it,..."<br /><br />hmm, mayube a failure of imagination on my part because I can not not see how as they would beat me up before I could get near a joining form.<br /><br />Damon Hoppehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07420992510254234587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-5466333851232168782013-01-08T14:18:02.358+00:002013-01-08T14:18:02.358+00:00It is not my job as a Marxist to GIVE you anything...It is not my job as a Marxist to GIVE you anything. It is my job to convince you and other workers to do things for yourself, to engage in self-activity. If there were a better way of me doing that rather than utilising the opportunities the LP provides as the Workers Party I would use them. There are not, and the only way workers will provide themselves with a political alternative is by building their own Party. For now that is the LP warts and all, just as before it, it was the Liberal Party. The difference between us remains that you see politics in terms of voting, and therefore of someone providing you with a candidate you can support, whereas for me is that I see politics in terms of working-class self activity, and voting is really a bit of a sideshow. Voting will only take on a different importance when we have large scale workers self activity, when it has massively raised working class consciousness, and when that has become reflected in the Workers Party, and the candidates it then puts forward.<br /><br />I have no idea what you mean by thinking that I blame the working class for the current situation. Nothing I have said supports such a belief. The working class are the victims. If I were to blame anyone, it would be Marxists themselves, or at least those that call themselves Marxists, because for more than 100 years they have actually bowdlerised Marx's teaching, and have undermined the building of a class conscious, independent, working class.<br /><br />I'm glad you are in favour of building Co-operative structures, and to me that is more important than if someone votes for or even joins the LP. But, given that you are clearly in distress, I think it better that we leave the discussion there.Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-22891178540993707422013-01-08T14:13:40.176+00:002013-01-08T14:13:40.176+00:00You say Capitalism cannot survive without racism. ...You say Capitalism cannot survive without racism. I see no objective reason why that has to be the case. More importantly, there are plenty of people who are anti-racist, and yet very pro-Capitalist. Obama for one!<br /><br />If in a particular LP the candidate is racist that implies that the Party itself in that instance has a majority of racists within it. Of course, there is a discussion to be had about the nature of this racism. For example, I believe that Immigration Controls and Import Controls are racist, but are those who support such policies necessarily racist? I don't think so. Either way, the job of a Marxist is to join with workers to challenge those ideas within the local party and thereby to remove any openly racist candidates. The difference here is over the word “support”.<br /><br />Back in the 1980's, I stood for selection against a sitting right-wing Labour Councillor. I lost, but having lost through myself into campaigning for the election. Many people said to me on the doorstep, we never see Labour Councillors, we disagree with this, that and the other. I and others said, we agree with you. We want to change things, but to do so we need people like you to join and help us do it. Over the next couple of years, many of them from that election campaign, we recruited lots of people, and we did change things. What “support” here means is support in an abstract sense of support for the Party as a Workers Party, not support for its leadership, its particular candidates, or its specific policies at any one time. There have been some pretty appalling unions in the past, but the starting point of transforming them, still remains the need for workers to “support” the union, to join it, despite how reactionary it might be. It does not mean support for the reactionary policies or leaders.<br /><br />Actually, I've argued in the past, that under some terrible circumstances, where the BNP was the party where the majority of workers gave their support, it would be necessary for Marxists to find a way of working inside it, just as Trotsky advocated in relation to Italy in the 1920's. It would be necessary to do so to speak to those workers, and to break apart the necessary contradictions that exist within such a party, by for example, emphasising the anti-capitalist elements of its programme.<br /><br />Who is saying anyone should accept racist attitudes? The whole question is about the best way to challenge them.<br /><br />I don't accept what you say about LP people infiltrating other organisations for the sake of disrupting socialist opposition rather than fighting the Tories. If anything, the opposite is true, and many LP members can be faulted for simply relying on electoral opposition to the Tories rather than engaging in campaigning activity.Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-29032467255555395552013-01-08T13:30:55.544+00:002013-01-08T13:30:55.544+00:00Sorry
I am sorry if my pain and anguish may of dr...Sorry<br /><br />I am sorry if my pain and anguish may of driven me to sound aggressive or even sectarian to your mind but this is not the case. I just cant take the pain and hurt anymore.<br /><br />I am desperate to find a space, any space, free from the daily uninterrupted violence of capitalism.<br /><br />So I am sorry if at any point I have added to your pain...If at any stage my pain has blinded me to a vital point you made...<br /><br />Until I can transcend this pain I will forever be in bondage to it...<br /><br />Sorry maybe its to late for me, maybe the pain is so great I can't function anymore...When ever I hear of the Labour Party and their Tory/corporate/banker mates all I can do is scream!!!!<br /><br />I am sorry if this debate has been more of me screaming than anything else....<br /><br />I cant take it anymore!<br /><br />I am not dying I, and many others, are being murdered albeit slowly!!!<br /><br />This is nothing more than our dying pains....Damon Hoppehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07420992510254234587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-17637391348903403462013-01-08T13:28:14.404+00:002013-01-08T13:28:14.404+00:00"I argued that simply putting forward the ide..."I argued that simply putting forward the idea of “Anti-Racist/Anti-Fascist” activity is meaningless unless it is in the context of a socialist political response of solutions that workers can mobilise around, which is far wider than simply being “anti”. In fact, history has proved that right in a certain sense."<br /><br />Agree<br /><br />Though you seem to miss the point that capitalism can not survive without racism and therefore to be truly anti-racist is to be, even if unconsciously, anti-capitalist. <br /><br />"I was advocating that people support and join the LP, and that implies voting for its candidates at elections, even where you disagree with the platform they are standing on."<br /><br />Disagree<br /><br />If you believe that working within the Labour Party to support workers in their struggle as difficult as that maybe then I support you 100%.<br /><br />However you have to accept their is absolutely no argument that you can make to me to convince me support a candidate and party that is racist as part of an anti-rascit platform...<br /><br />Though I am sure you will argue that the Labour Party is less openly racist then the BNP and therefore it does not matter...<br /><br />I don't accept the argument that because I live in capitalist society I should accept some degree of racism. As I am on the receiving end of some of these racist attitudes you are not going to be able to convince me otherwise.<br /><br />Your broader problem is that people from the Labour Party keep coming to meetings/infiltrating groups (hiding the fact they are Labour Party) to disrupt their activities because we are seen as being critical of Labour Party policy. This just plan wrong and you know it.<br /><br />Therefore we are not going to trust the Labour Party and by extension you because the main activity of the Labour Party is not to fight the Tories et al but to sabotage any socialist political response or solutions that workers can mobilise around.<br /><br />You need to modify your program to one of supporting elements within the Labour Party that we can trust, which are working for the workers interests, like yourself as a distinct activity separate from voting for candidates and policies that are enemies of the workers simply because they wear a Labour Party rosette.<br /><br />If you want me to vote Labour give me someone or something I can vote for!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <br /><br />This is not some intellectual or abstract debate you are dealing with very deep emotional pain and hurt that has been inflicted upon the most vulnerable in society by an organization that pretended to be their friend to get into power.<br /><br />Whenever I hear the word Labour Party a huge amount of pain, hurt, trauma and agony is forced to the surface as they destroyed me and the people I love.<br /><br />It sometimes seems that the only political question left to us is one of suicide.<br /><br />As I am sure you can understand under these circumstances we shall have to leave this debate as one of agree to disagree on this point.<br /><br />You also seem to blame the working class for this state of affairs, yet the working class are denied a voice and are generally unwelcome within main stream political parties.<br /><br />At present like many people who are working class I will not be voting in the elections and that is not going to change until the political parties change which is not going to happen.<br /><br />This may not be a such a bad thing because now people realize that their is no point voting and that if we want to survive we need to create co-operative structures as an alternative to being part of the capitalist system.<br /><br />If you are able to put aside trying to get us to vote Labour you are more than welcome to help in this endeavour.Damon Hoppehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07420992510254234587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-53536566621349334992013-01-07T22:36:34.219+00:002013-01-07T22:36:34.219+00:00But I do think that NORSCARF should encourage peop...But I do think that NORSCARF should encourage people to support the LP. Why wouldn't I think that. I think Marxists should encourage workers and socialists not only to support, but to join the LP. That doesn't change when I am active in NORSCARF anymore than it changes in any other area of political activity. People are free to disagree with my opinion, and if they do it will not stop me from working with them in an organisation like NORSCARF, any more than it would stop me from working with even Tory members of my Trade Union Branch! That is part of the difference between us. When people in a Workers Party like the LP or in a Trade Union do not agree with you, you see it as a reason to abandon those workers, and go off to create your own alternative and irrelevant alternative. That has been the history of sectarianism in Britain for more than 100 years.<br /><br />I don't see why arguing that is undermining of NORSCARF any more than it would be for members of the SWP or the Socialist Party to encourage NORSCARF members to support or join their parties. As a former member of a Trotskyist group, I know that the main reason they engage in such activity is precisely for the purpose of “Party Building”. In actual fact, having read what Trotsky wrote about the United Front, if anything my position would be harder today. Trotsky argued that there was no reason for Workers Parties that had the support of the large majority of workers to form United Fronts with minor organisations. My position today would be more that the LP should simply take on itself the job of being the main opposition to the racists and fascists. If all the other irrelevant little organisations wanted to support its activities they would be welcome to do so, but I see no reason why these irrelevant sects should be given more credibility than they deserve by having a say in it.<br /><br />As far as I have always been concerned “supporting Labour” has never been a matter of voting Labour. I am a revolutionary not an electoralist. Supporting Labour as far as I am concerned has always been about precisely what I have set out, which is using it for the purpose of practical activity by workers themselves. Its precisely on that basis that I argued that simply putting forward the idea of “Anti-Racist/Anti-Fascist” activity is meaningless unless it is in the context of a socialist political response of solutions that workers can mobilise around, which is far wider than simply being “anti”. In fact, history has proved that right in a certain sense. The BNP got stuffed in Stoke as a consequence of the LP getting its act together to an extent, and starting to go out and campaign in the community. Its not providing the solutions I would recommend, but even so it is enough to have stopped the BNP.<br /><br />Read your original comments about the Liberals. Such as “The liberal democrats are probably the most sympathetic to workers of the mainstream parties.” Or “Thus supporting the Liberals may be far from ideal it is far better than supporting the Labour Party.” <br /><br />I was advocating that people support and join the LP, and that implies voting for its candidates at elections, even where you disagree with the platform they are standing on. The whole basis of workers democracy is that we will belong to organisations be they parties, unions or co-ops that will have positions we disagree with. That is inevitable given that the vast majority of the working class continues to be dominated by bourgeois ideas. The whole point of the idea of “winning the battle of democracy” as Marx put it, is to continue to support workers in their struggles despite their adherence to those ideas, and thereby to win them away from those ideas. The more we work in those organisations alongside those workers in that way, and orient them to self activity and self-government, the more we change the material conditions faced by the workers, and thereby create the conditions for also transforming their ideas. Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-20421167091035052832013-01-07T19:26:22.933+00:002013-01-07T19:26:22.933+00:00It seems the problem stems from the fact that you ...It seems the problem stems from the fact that you have forgotten the substance of the original email in which I objected to the idea that NorSCARF should urge people to support the Labour Party.<br /><br />This was something that upset me very very deeply at the time and was undermining NorSCARF's creditability as an anti-racist/fascist organization. i.e. people saw it as a Labour Party front.<br /><br />That is what we have been arguing over all this time....doh! <br /><br />As people attempted to defend NorSCARF becoming closely associated with the Labour Party the tone of the conversation moved onto the reasons why the Labour Party were not the answer.<br /><br />That was why I was saying voting Labour and campaigning for it was no better than campaigning for any other party because their was a false view that fighting racism meant voting Labour.<br /><br />Therefore I dont know where you get the idea I support the Lib Dems from. I did claim that the Labour Party was no better than the Lib Dems which by no means implies I support them. <br /><br />Maybe it was because of the fact I pointed out at the time the Lib Dems (under Charles Kennedy) where standing up for ideas like universal education whilst the Labour Party was seeking to exclude working class people from the education system. Or was it where we digressed into a conversation about the Liberal Party in which I asserted that the argument for forming a Labour Party, rather than working through the Liberal Party, back then now applies to the New Labour Party now? I just was not in anyway supporting the Lib Dems.<br /><br />Anyway thats not important. As you jumped in supporting the Labour Party with everyone else I may of assumed you were advocating their view of uncritical support for the New Labour Party.<br /><br />As you state: "At no point in the original discussion did I say anything about the need to vote for or support the policies of New Labour." <br /><br />If this is a true statement guilty of making that false assumption that you were. I therefore offer my apologies. But you must accept that as you leaped in to defend people who were saying this it was an easy assumption to make.<br /><br />My then support for the Greens was based upon their Manifesto For a Sustainable Society which I still believe in. However the Green Party has now abandoned its radical agenda to get votes. So, yes maybe I was guilty of being politically naive for advocating them as an alternative to Labour. After the then Labour Party had so cruelly betrayed me and the working class in general I wanted to believe their was a place for radical politics somewhere in the world. <br /><br />Though simply stating their radical policies at the time were both utopian and reactionary at the same time is not an approach one can take seriously. You should site these utopian and reactionary policies....As they have now ditched them its probably not a debate worth having but you must understand why someone might be attracted to Party offering a radical ecological agenda of doing away with capitalism when all the other parties standing at election are openly in league with capitalism.<br /><br />In essence if you had said you held the view that you DISAGREED with the Labour Party and it was okay to NOT support or vote for the Labour Party but rather individuals may work within the structures of any potentially effective political party to achieve a better world for everyone then we would never of had this conversation as this is what I was trying to get you to accept.<br /><br />Just in case I have misunderstood could you confirm that is what you are and have always been saying?<br /><br />If it is we both look very silly and I apologize for my role in this silliness.<br /><br /><br /><br /> Damon Hoppehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07420992510254234587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-59941562045611530072013-01-06T19:30:35.945+00:002013-01-06T19:30:35.945+00:00cont'd
Nowhere did I say that anyone who disa...cont'd<br /><br />Nowhere did I say that anyone who disagrees with the LP's policies is sectarian! I disagree with most of the LP's policies for goodness sake. What I said was, and continue to say is that it is sectarian to refuse to work in the LP or TU's, and thereby cut yourself off from the mass of workers, because you disagree with those policies!<br /><br />It may be because you have a tendency to simply repeat these unsubstantiated charges of what someone's position is rather than deal with what their actual position is that led me to discontinue discussion. For example your argument in relation to support for the War in Iraq is ridiculous, because like many other LP members I opposed that War, marched against it, and so on. So how could your charge be valid???<br /><br />And where have I said that I despise Co-operatives, for example. Do you not think the considerable amount of space devoted to Co-operatives on the blog page you have just commented to, disproves that rather silly allegation? Moreover, where organisations are truly created by the working class, I welcome them. The trouble is that many organisation that continually proclaim themselves to be the New Workers Party, are nothing of the sort, but only the latest sectarian venture by middle class dilettantes.<br /><br />The fact that some workers support other parties is irrelevant, because the fact is that the vast majority of workers support the LP rather than these other organisations. If that were not the case, if it were a hundred years ago, or so then like Engels I would argue for relating directly to the workers via the Liberal Clubs. The idea that anything I have said implies opposition to working with people who do not support the LP is ludicrous. I was a founder member of NORSCARF with five other people, back in the 1970's, and from the beginning that involved working with people from other organisations. That is besides the point. The point is that working through the LP is the best means at the moment we have of mobilising large number of workers within communities and on a wider scale on the basis of their self-organisation.Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-12864877521755399482013-01-06T19:30:13.232+00:002013-01-06T19:30:13.232+00:00Damon,
My position is no different today than it ...Damon,<br /><br />My position is no different today than it was four years ago. Though it would be interesting to know if your faith in the Liberals remains so strong! The reply I gave is no different to what I would have given back then. I have no idea why I didn't reply at the time other than my Mother was, as it turned out terminally ill, and I had just started a detailed discussion on some similar points with Mike McNair of the CPGB. I was only drawn back to the thread by pure chance.<br /><br />At no point in the original discussion did I say anything about the need to vote for or support the policies of New Labour. Quite the contrary. The whole basis of my argument then as now, and it is spelled out explicitly in the responses I gave to you, was that the LP like the Trades Unions is merely the vehicle for organising alongside the working-class in order to further that very self-activity described in relation to creating co-operative forms. Being a member of the LP does imply campaigning for a Labour vote, that is true, but doing so does not at all mean calling for a vote for all those things socialists disagree with. In 1979, for example, as a supporter of Socialist Organiser, we organised the Socialist Campaign for Labour Victory, which put forward a Socialist Programme for the elections – far more socialist than anything the Greens and certainly the Liberals have proposed – and used it to mobilise workers to fight for such solutions inside and outside the Party. I proposed a similar approach for 2010.<br /><br />But, the whole point is that Historical Materialism teaches us that it is idealist and utopian to believe that workers inside or outside the LP are going to spontaneously arrive at a socialist consciousness – which is why the majority support the bourgeois policies not only of the LP, but even the Liberals and Tories and UKIP – without a change in the material conditions. Believing that you can achieve that by setting up some alternative Party that has no resonance with the working class is thoroughly Idealist and Utopian. That is why your call to support and faith in the Liberals of yesteryear looks so ridiculous today! It is why the Greens five years on still have not won anything like a sizeable support amongst the working class, and why indeed they are trailing by UKIP.<br /><br />I have not said that the Greens are not a Capitalist Party. They are, just as much as the Liberals and Tories. I didn't say ecology was irrelevant, I said that many of the positions of the Greens and Environmentalists are reactionary, a position I maintain.<br /><br />cont'd<br /><br />Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263577133333272085.post-68374165798156409022013-01-06T15:46:21.156+00:002013-01-06T15:46:21.156+00:00I was quiet surprised to receive a reply so long a...I was quiet surprised to receive a reply so long after the original...<br /><br />Thankfully you have modified your position radically in this time and actually agree with everything I was saying....<br /><br />"If you understood Historical Materialism, and Dialectics, you would understand that workers can only break out of that consciousness when their material conditions change, and when, therefore, they are able to develop a new consciousness based on the idea of creating and developing their own co-operative property in opposition to Capitalist property. And, those material conditions can only change when they begin to develop If you understood Historical Materialism, and Dialectics, you would understand that workers can only break out of that consciousness when their material conditions change, and when, therefore, they are able to develop a new consciousness based on the idea of creating and developing their own co-operative property in opposition to Capitalist property. And, those material conditions can only change when they begin to develop their own co-operative property and the social relations built upon it, in opposition to capitalistic relations."<br /><br />I could not of put it better...<br /><br />No mention of having to vote and campaign for the Labour Party and support its policies of opposing co-operative property in that statement.<br /><br />You no longer claim that Greens are CAPITALIST to say that the the eco-system is material basis of any society. Dismissing ecology as irrelevant is something that no Real Marxist would of done. So I am glad you no longer say this...<br /><br />Alas unfortunately your reply then turns back to the original argument stating that anyone who disagrees with the Labour Party and its policies is being sectarian.<br /><br />You have an irreversible ideological commitment to the idea that someone who does not support the New Labour Party i.e. the War in Iraq, etc is someone who "...despises organisations the working class has created – the Trades Unions and the LP"<br /><br />You ideology leaves you to despise organisations the working class has created – co-opertatives, non-Labour Party Unions (e.g. IWW), occupy Wall Street, etc anything which and anybody who may not declare uncritical and swerving support for the New Labour Party, its leadership and the "middle" that it represents.<br /><br />It is such a shame that someone who is obviously intelligent and has even understood the need for real action falls into this sectarian we must ALL support the Labour Party mantra.<br /><br />This almost arbitrary privileging of the Labour Party as being the Vanguard of the Working Class just does not make any sense. I mean workers vote and even join the LD, BNP, Tory, Socialist, Green, parties? What basis do you have for selecting the Labour Party other then what it stood for a century ago? This arbitrariness really lets you down....<br /><br />Its a shame because if you were more willing to work with people who do not support the Labour Party and its policies you might be able to get more down...<br /><br />Afterall you have got to accept no one outside the Labour Party is going to invite your meetings if ALL you have to say is I oppose everything you are doing because you dont support the Labour Party.<br /><br />Maybe if we can leave it a year or two you will come to accept that supporting the Labour Party is not the unquestionable doxa that you make it out to be....<br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Damon Hoppehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07420992510254234587noreply@blogger.com