19 Year old girl kills gay man, will spend 2.5 years in prison

[Kalifornia]

A former public schoolgirl who kicked and stamped on a gay civil servant during a deadly homophobic attack has been jailed for seven years for his manslaughter.
Ruby Thomas, 19, hurled obscene abuse at 62-year-old Ian Baynham during the drink-fuelled assault in London's Trafalgar Square in September 2009.
Mr Baynham died 18 days later in hospital. Police found his blood smeared on Thomas's handbag and the ballet pumps she was wearing when she kicked him.

The Old Bailey heard how she screamed "f****** faggots", and smiled as she "put the boot into" Mr Baynham after he was knocked to the ground by another teenager, Joel Alexander.

Thomas's ex-boyfriend Declan Seavers told the court that the teenager, of Anerley, south-east London, was "not the type of girl" to have done it.
But jurors did not agree and convicted her of manslaughter, along with Alexander, now 20, of Thornton Heath, south-east London, at the end of their trial last month.

Alexander was jailed for six years while 18-year-old Rachael Burke, of Upper Norwood, south-east London, was given a two-year sentence after being found guilty of affray at an earlier trial.

Judge Richard Hawkins increased Thomas's sentence from six years to seven years because of the homophobic nature of the attack.

He said: "This was a case of mindless drink-fuelled violence committed in public."

Thomas turned and looked up towards supporters in the public gallery as she was led down from the dock to begin her sentence.

[khad]

Sociopathic violence like this needs to be tried for much more than mere manslaughter. I would also be inclined to treat public drunkeness as an aggravating factor rather than a mitigating one. IIRC, under Soviet law, while the standard homocide sentence was 10 years, homicide committed in a hooliganistic manner (a broad term covering things like public drunkeness and racial hatred) was subject to the death penalty.

While I'm not here to debate the merits of capital punishment, these stories where they mention that the perpetrator was drunk really strike me as ridiculous, as if that is supposed to make people sympathize with them.

More from that same article:


The mother, a legal secretary, had 'scrimped and saved' to send her to private school, Mr Sallon said. But after Thomas confided in a classmate about her father, she had been subjected to 'malicious gossip and terrible bullying'.
Mr Sallon said she had turned to drink while still a young girl to cope with her problems but had now engaged in the 12-step recovery programme.
So they could pay £12,000 a year to send this kid to prep school but couldn't teach her to behave like a decent human being.

I'm crying my eyes out here.

[Sasha]

Sociopathic violence like this needs to be tried for much more than mere manslaughter. I would also be inclined to treat public drunkeness as an aggravating factor rather than a mitigating one. IIRC, under Soviet law, while the standard homocide sentence was 10 years, homicide committed in a hooliganistic manner (a broad term covering things like public drunkeness and racial hatred) was subject to the death penalty.


(from an non-revolutionary perspective) i think the biggest problem here is the british law system, a friend of mine got killed in an gay bashing in london a few years ago. If such an incident happen in the netherlands you get prosecusted for "murder with hate crime" but if this cant be proven "murder" if not proven "manslaughter" if not proven "GBH with deadly results" if not proven "GBH" if not proven "assault" etc etc, so the prosecuter can put up subserdiary charges.
in GB the prosecuter needs to pick 1 charge and if thats not proven you cant try them again for an lesser charge.
So in the case of my mate the kids who killed him got prosecuted for "murder with hate crime", the judge ruled not guilty and the kids walked away because they couldnt be tried for manslaughter after an non-guilty for murder.
pretty fucked up.

[scarletghoul]

How common are murders like these ?? in London ? We do not hear about them much.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

(from an non-revolutionary perspective) i think the biggest problem here is the british law system, a friend of mine got killed in an gay bashing in london a few years ago. If such an incident happen in the netherlands you get prosecusted for "murder with hate crime" but if this cant be proven "murder" if not proven "manslaughter" if not proven "GBH with deadly results" if not proven "GBH" if not proven "assault" etc etc, so the prosecuter can put up subserdiary charges.
in GB the prosecuter needs to pick 1 charge and if thats not proven you cant try them again for an lesser charge.
So in the case of my mate the kids who killed him got prosecuted for "murder with hate crime", the judge ruled not guilty and the kids walked away because they couldnt be tried for manslaughter after an non-guilty for murder.
pretty fucked up.

So you're for the extension of the ability of the capitalist state to prosecute people?

[Kalifornia]

Well we are living under capitalism, so what should we do until we enter the socialist stage, not try and do anything about this kind of thing?

People get 25 years for robbing a bank because they are skint, yet a man who raped a 13 month old baby got 2 and a half years, It seems the only punishable crime, is a crime against capital, which underlines the moral degeneracy of society under such a rotten system.

[Widerstand]

So you're for the extension of the ability of the capitalist state to prosecute people?

I can't speak for psycho obviously (who by the way opened his post with a disclaimer about it being from a non-revolutionary perspective!), but personally I'd rather have the state spend it's resources on persecuting hate crime than on spying on and prosecuting leftists or migrants (for example).

[Manic Impressive]

The British legal system is a joke, the punishments handed out often do not meet the crime. For instance crimes against property can get longer sentences than murder or sex crimes. 15 years for armed robbery without hurting anyone and seven years for a murder. I remember a couple of years ago a woman got 15 years for killing someone in a road accident because she was talking on her mobile phone while she was criminally negligent it was essentially an accident but is obviously deemed by the courts as twice as punishable as kicking a man to death because of his sexuality. Fucking sick country.

[PhoenixAsh]

So you're for the extension of the ability of the capitalist state to prosecute people?


I cannot speak for Psycho...so this is my 2cts


The Dutch lawsystem hinges on what is provable in the crime. The judge evaluates the evidence. Evaluation of evidence is not solely up to the DA. If murder is not proven then this doesn't mean there is not a culpable crime for which an offender needs to be held accountable. As a system its not perfect. But it does mean that accountability is not as easilly evaded or that a perpetrator is convicted on poplar demand with evidence that does not fully support the charges.

In other words the case is veiwed from the point of the crime and not from the charges.

[Sasha]

So you're for the extension of the ability of the capitalist state to prosecute people?

like people pointed out there was disclaimer of sorts at the start of my post that should be an clear hint, but to answer your question, no i'm not.
but that doesnt exclude that i think that when i have to choose between two bads i prefer civil law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_law_%28legal_system%29) over common law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law), that i prefer profesional independent judges over jurys, that i detest the US and spain plea-bargain system etc etc
the fact that i'm verhemently opposed to "social-democratic" capitalism doesnt change the fact that i prefer it over a ton of even worse other possibilitys.
and its an sad fact we are not living in an revolutionary situation, and that a bunch of kids who murderd an mate of mine out of homophobic hate got told by the even faultier justice system in GB than the one in the NL that they can get away with shit like that.
dont think that that bodes well for the next gay guy they run into.

[Dimentio]

Sociopathic violence like this needs to be tried for much more than mere manslaughter. I would also be inclined to treat public drunkeness as an aggravating factor rather than a mitigating one. IIRC, under Soviet law, while the standard homocide sentence was 10 years, homicide committed in a hooliganistic manner (a broad term covering things like public drunkeness and racial hatred) was subject to the death penalty.

While I'm not here to debate the merits of capital punishment, these stories where they mention that the perpetrator was drunk really strike me as ridiculous, as if that is supposed to make people sympathize with them.

More from that same article:


So they could pay £12,000 a year to send this kid to prep school but couldn't teach her to behave like a decent human being.

I'm crying my eyes out here.

In Sweden, she would possibly get 2 years of prison (and be out after 8 months). Unless the victim had been a politician or businessperson. Then she would have got like 10 years.

[Kiev Communard]

In Sweden, she would possibly get 2 years of prison (and be out after 8 months). Unless the victim had been a politician or businessperson. Then she would have got like 10 years.

Oh? Is the Swedish legal system really that classist and irrational?

[Manic Impressive]

http://sydwalker.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/swedish_prison_cell-300x203.jpghttp://www.kriminalvarden.se/upload/bilder/pressbilder/Bostadsrum_300b.jpg
Swedish prison cells look nicer than my bedroom

[Sasha]

http://sydwalker.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/swedish_prison_cell-300x203.jpghttp://www.kriminalvarden.se/upload/bilder/pressbilder/Bostadsrum_300b.jpg
Swedish prison cells look nicer than my bedroom

wait till you are locked up in your bedroom for years and have no control about you comming and going, no way to have freinds over not even a chance to chat with your freinds or parents

[scarletghoul]

Is Sweden obsessed with furniture or something.

[Dimentio]

Oh? Is the Swedish legal system really that classist and irrational?

Basically, the penalty of murder and manslaughter is officially 10 years, but in practice, the judges could interpret the laws a little random (what is called a "teleological interpretation"). Usually, people are given quite low punishments, unless the victim is some hot-shot.

Kill a police and you get 15 years.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I can't speak for psycho obviously (who by the way opened his post with a disclaimer about it being from a non-revolutionary perspective!), but personally I'd rather have the state spend it's resources on persecuting hate crime than on spying on and prosecuting leftists or migrants (for example).

Unfortunately, you don't get to decide what the capitalist state does. Its purpose is to serve capital.

Even if you could though.. do you really think it's the job of "revolutionaries" to advise the capitalist state on the best way to enforce the rule of capital?


The British legal system is a joke, the punishments handed out often do not meet the crime. For instance crimes against property can get longer sentences than murder or sex crimes. 15 years for armed robbery without hurting anyone and seven years for a murder. I remember a couple of years ago a woman got 15 years for killing someone in a road accident because she was talking on her mobile phone while she was criminally negligent it was essentially an accident but is obviously deemed by the courts as twice as punishable as kicking a man to death because of his sexuality. Fucking sick country.

So, your main complaint about the capitalist justice system is that the state there doesn't lock up people enough?


Swedish prison cells look nicer than my bedroom

The defining characteristic of imprisonment is forceful isolation from the rest of society.

That the barbarous conditions of the prisons in some countries hark back to the days of medieval dungeons is but an additionally harsh aspect.


The Dutch lawsystem hinges on what is provable in the crime. The judge evaluates the evidence. Evaluation of evidence is not solely up to the DA. If murder is not proven then this doesn't mean there is not a culpable crime for which an offender needs to be held accountable. As a system its not perfect. But it does mean that accountability is not as easilly evaded or that a perpetrator is convicted on poplar demand with evidence that does not fully support the charges.

In other words the case is veiwed from the point of the crime and not from the charges.

I understand all of that, but it's really irrelevant my question. Unless you think advising the state on how to best dole out capitalist "justice" is a part of the fight for socialist revolution.


like people pointed out there was disclaimer of sorts at the start of my post that should be an clear hint, but to answer your question, no i'm not.

Well, it's a bit confusing. That's why I asked. If I preface my posts with similar disclaimers, is it alright if I then post my opinions on how the U.S. should best wage wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? :confused:


but that doesnt exclude that i think that when i have to choose between two bads i prefer civil law (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_law_%28legal_system%29) over common law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law), that i prefer profesional independent judges over jurys, that i detest the US and spain plea-bargain system etc etc

This sounds like liberal politics. Are we really reduced to choosing our method of preference for capital to carry out its own ends? Does it matter what we "prefer" anyway?

I mean... I can say I "prefer" that Donald Trump hang himself and will all of his real estate to the homeless of New York. So what?


the fact that i'm verhemently opposed to "social-democratic" capitalism doesnt change the fact that i prefer it over a ton of even worse other possibilitys.

I just think this is a huge waste of time. At best it's an aside that has nothing to do with revolution. At worst, it promotes illusions in "better" forms of capitalist rule and the idea that we can tweak capitalism to fit our preferences.


and its an sad fact we are not living in an revolutionary situation, and that a bunch of kids who murderd an mate of mine out of homophobic hate got told by the even faultier justice system in GB than the one in the NL that they can get away with shit like that.
dont think that that bodes well for the next gay guy they run into.

1. Harsh sentences don't necessarily prevent people from committing crimes. The United States has the death penalty and yet there are numerous capital offenses here every every year.

2. The capitalist state is what it is. The capitalist justice system, as a part of that, is aimed at keeping things going, not serving the interests of humanity.

The answer to things like homophobic murders certainly doesn't lie in adjustments of the capitalist state (especially ones aimed at strengthening it)!

[khad]

The answer to things like homophobic murders certainly doesn't lie in adjustments of the capitalist state (especially ones aimed at strengthening it)!
Workers shouldn't work either, because they're generating surplus value for capital. By feeding themselves for labor they are perpetuating the capitalist enterprises that are exploiting them. Unions are worthless too because they only achieve compromises with capitalists. It is wrong to demand anything that makes capitalist exploitation more tolerable! :rolleyes:

Look, when you make a stop in Britain with your revolutionary militia tasked with stopping hate crimes, then maybe I might actually listen to what you're blabbering on about.

Until then all I hear is ultraleft white noise.

Also, I've changed the title of this thread to reflect the reality of the situation. This prep school kiddie will get out in 2.5 years.

[Blackscare]

So, NHIA, what do you think would be best done in this situation? Do you think that people who murder homosexuals should not be punished, simply because the state that would be doing the punishing is capitalist?


Listen, the so-called "justice" system is usually used in a systemic way to protect capital, no one is arguing that, but if there's one thing that they should be doing it's punishing gay bashers and the like.


Why are you so against that?

[#FF0000]

Kill a police and you get 15 years.

Damn that's a relatively sweet deal. Kill a cop in America and you won't even make it to trial.


Unions are worthless too because they only achieve compromises with capitalists. It is wrong to demand anything that makes capitalist exploitation more tolerable!

Sort of off topic but this isn't what "ultraleftists" think about unions.

[Ravachol]

What I don't get is why some people don't have that much of a problem with expanding the state apparatus if it targets hate crimes and such, but react with disgust when a sexist rapist or gay basher gets kneecapped or kicked the shit out of him. I'm just curious..

[Blackscare]

What I don't get is why some people don't have that much of a problem with expanding the state apparatus if it targets hate crimes and such, but react with disgust when a sexist rapist of gay basher gets kneecapped or kicked the shit out of him. I'm just curious..

Not me ;)

[Princess Luna]

killing a human being? silly teenagers when are they going to learn , but at least she wasn't out doing something horrible like smoking pot in which case she would be put in jail for 10+ years.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Workers shouldn't work either, because they're generating surplus value for capital. By feeding themselves for labor they are perpetuating the capitalist enterprises that are exploiting them.

I'm not sure what "creating surplus value for capital" means, but workers have to work to survive. That has nothing to do with "revolutionaries" clamoring for the state to increase the punishment it hands out.


Look, when you make a stop in Britain with your revolutionary militia tasked with stopping hate crimes, then maybe I might actually listen to what you're blabbering on about.

So the capitalist state stops "hate crimes?"

...or it would if only it increased the punishments its doles out?

:confused:


So, NHIA, what do you think would be best done in this situation? Do you think that people who murder homosexuals should not be punished, simply because the state that would be doing the punishing is capitalist?

It doesn't matter what I think. I'm not a part of the capitalist state apparatus.

I'm neither judge, jury or executioner. And I don't want to be.

This is not a question of supporting or opposing but of understanding what is.

I will point out that no form of punishment will bring back the poor man who was killed. Nor will increased punishment prevent similar crimes from happen in the future.


Listen, the so-called "justice" system is usually used in a systemic way to protect capital, no one is arguing that, but if there's one thing that they should be doing it's punishing gay bashers and the like.

Not "usually." Always and only. The capitalist state does not exist to protect gay people. It exists to protect capital. A part of that is keeping things orderly and punishing those that break the rules (which themselves fluctuate according to the needs of capital). It can punish individuals accused of murder to any degree it sees fit at the time, but its actions reflect its interests, which are totally different from those of the working class.

When troops are sent in to some other country on "humanitarian grounds" it's because it serves capital, not because it serves humanity. The same principle applies here.


Why are you so against that?

Because it's beyond absurd to look to the capitalist state in search of justice. You expect "justice" from a ruling class drenched in blood? You expect it from the same bodies that break strikes, smash revolutionary organizations and jail millions forced into crime by the very system they rest on and defend?

No thanks. What's needed is for that state to be smashed, not strengthened. Only the abolition of class society and all the poison that comes along with it will allow us to become genuinely human. Only under those conditions will shit like homophobia and racism break down. They certainly won't be eliminated by dictate from the armed bodies that represent the same class that perpetuates the garbage to begin with!

***

I doubt I'll check back on this thread. Whenever questions like these come up on this board the worst sort of underlying conservatism emerges. If I want to attempt to debate with people who cheer on state-sponsored executions at the top of their lungs I can go to the nearest Tea Party meeting.

[khad]

Not "usually." Always and only. The capitalist state does not exist to protect gay people. It exists to protect capital. A part of that is keeping things orderly and punishing those that break the rules (which themselves fluctuate according to the needs of capital). It can punish individuals accused of murder to any degree it sees fit at the time, but its actions reflect its interests, which are totally different from those of the working class.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Chin

Vincent Jen Chin[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Chin#cite_note-chin83-0) (simplified Chinese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters): 陈 (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%99%88)果 (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9E%9C)仁 (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BB%81); traditional Chinese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_characters): 陳 (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%99%B3)果 (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9E%9C)仁 (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BB%81); 1955 – June 23, 1982) was a Chinese American (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_American) beaten to death in June 1982 in the United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States), in the Detroit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit), Michigan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan) enclave of Highland Park (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Park,_Michigan) by Chrysler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler) plant superintendent Ronald Ebens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Ebens), with the help of his stepson, Michael Nitz. The murder generated public outrage over the lenient sentencing the two men originally received in a plea bargain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plea_bargain), as the attack, which included blows to the head from a baseball bat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_bat), possessed many attributes consistent with hate crimes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_crime).
Ronald Ebens was arrested and taken into custody at the scene of the murder by two off-duty police officers who had witnessed the beating.[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Chin#cite_note-ChicagoTribune-4) Ebens and Nitz were convicted in a county court (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_court) for manslaughter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manslaughter) by Wayne County (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_County,_Michigan) Circuit Judge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_Judge) Charles Kaufman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Kaufman_%28judge%29), after a plea bargain brought the charges down from second-degree murder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-degree_murder). They served no jail time, were given three years probation, fined $3,000 and ordered to pay $780 in court costs. In a response letter to protests from American Citizens for Justice, Kaufman said, "These weren't the kind of men you send to jail... You don't make the punishment fit the crime; you make the punishment fit the criminal."[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Chin#cite_note-zia-5)What great heroes of the working class! Facing down the full weight of the oppressive capitalist legal apparatus and emerging unscathed. Double props go to Judge Kaufman who in refusing to sentence these working class heroes prevented the expansion of the capitalist state! (http://www.revleft.com/vb/judge-weinstein-takes-t135795/index.html)


Because it's beyond absurd to look to the capitalist state in search of justice. You expect "justice" from a ruling class drenched in blood? You expect it from the same bodies that break strikes, smash revolutionary organizations and jail millions forced into crime by the very system they rest on and defend?

No thanks. What's needed is for that state to be smashed, not strengthened. Only the abolition of class society and all the poison that comes along with it will allow us to become genuinely human. Only under those conditions will shit like homophobia and racism break down. They certainly won't be eliminated by dictate from the armed bodies that represent the same class that perpetuates the garbage to begin with!

Until you can reasonably demonstrate a single instance when your leftist fantasies have provided justice and restitution to cases of aggravated homicide, you should hold on to them until there's a worldwide proletarian revolution that installs a global classless, stateless socialist society overnight.

Otherwise, I'd choose to take the imperfect legal system or barring that the true proletarian justice of kneecappings and punishment killings.

[Toppler]

From what I know of the old legal system of CSSR, this guy would get death penalty. The system was really unfair to political prisoners, but far more just in any other case. Abusers and killers were given capital punishment, people who commited lesser crimes or wanted to complain in the court about something had far more chance of having their case treated fairly instead of more money -> leniency or lawsuit win.

[Joe Payne]

...the perpetrators in that hate crime were bosses murdering a chinese worker. The State gave them leniency because they were bosses murdering a chinese worker. That post does more to prove NHIA's point of the Capitalist system serving the needs of Capital only than it does disprove him, dude.

[Blackscare]

Until I hear some sort of alternative from him/her, all that NHIA is doing is opposing punishment for people who commit hate crimes. Which is, to say the least, disgusting.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Otherwise, I'd choose to take the imperfect legal system or barring that the true proletarian justice of kneecappings and punishment killings.

I know you will, because you're an open reformist with conservative tendencies. And to you class content doesn't matter. It's "imperfect" (in other words, in need of a little adjustment). So what?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Chin (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Chin)Thanks for providing yet another example that the capitalist state serves nothing but capital.

Your "solution" to this is to strengthen that very same state and expand its powers, which only lead to more Mumias and Saccos and Vanzettis, not less "hate crimes".

You're like the liberals in the U.S. who decry gun violence and then turn to the most heavily armed state in the history of humanity to regulate the individual ownership of firearms.


Until you can reasonably demonstrate a single instance when your leftist fantasies have provided justice and restitution to cases of aggravated homicideUnlike you, I'm not burdened with biblical notions of retributive "justice."


you should hold on to them until there's a worldwide proletarian revolution that installs a global classless, stateless socialist society overnight.Because that's exactly what I said. Thanks for providing the principled and thought-out response that I expected from you. You can always be relied on for a high level of discussion.

[Ocean Seal]

In Sweden, she would possibly get 2 years of prison (and be out after 8 months). Unless the victim had been a politician or businessperson. Then she would have got like 10 years.
For what its worth, in America. Murder equates to life in prison without the possibility of parole most times. However, the system tries to keep as many people in jail as it possibly can, so essentially any offense can give you as much as ten years of prison. But then again justice isn't blind here, pretty much if you kill a person "of worth" you're going away for life, but if you kill a kid in the ghetto, the police think that the killer magically got away. And further, I would think that this 19 yo girl could have gotten off scott-free simply because of the striking level of homophobia.
Hatefully motivated crimes should be prosecuted more thoroughly and justice even in a pre-revolutionary society should always be fought for.

[Joe Payne]

Well the alternative would be a counter-power organization that the proletariat can go to to deal with such things. Armed worker's themselves dealing with the needs of the working-class in regards to hate crimes, murders, etc. rather than having the agents of Capital (police) mishandle and free those that attack and murder fellow workers. You arm the proletariat Gay comunity to deal with Gay-bashers. You arm wimmin of the proletariat to deal with rapists. You arm chinese proletariat to deal with race-bashers. Direct proletarian community control over the areas of civil life specifically in regards to meeting our justice. That's one alternative. I think the Black Panthers were progressing towards something like thise, however such ideas can of course be modified to fit with a more libertarian (anarchist) model.

But that is certainly one alternative.

[khad]

NHIA, since you came back in this thread despite your proclamations that you wouldn't, could you stop being evasive and answer the question? FYI, deleting the question doesn't count as an answer.


Can you please follow up on your post in the gay bashing thread? I really want to know what you think should be done, or if you think gay bashers should go free.

Until I hear some sort of alternative from him/her, all that NHIA is doing is opposing punishment for people who commit hate crimes. Which is, to say the least, disgusting.

[PhoenixAsh]

NHIA, since you came back in this thread despite your proclamations that you wouldn't, could you stop being evasive and answer the question? FYI, deleting the question doesn't count as an answer.


he never proclaimed such a thing. what he said was:


I doubt I'll check back on this thread.

O..and for the last part of your post: pot, cettle, black. Its the exact same thing you used on me on that other thread.

[Sir Comradical]

So you're for the extension of the ability of the capitalist state to prosecute people?

You'd have a point if in this case the legal system was being used by the bourgeoisie as a battering ram against working people, but no one here defends the capitalist class when they use 'the law' in that way.

[scarletghoul]

This is a terrible crime and I for one will not condemn retaliatory action taken against the perpetrator whoever its from, be it the bourgeois legal system, Taliban, vigilantes, IRA, velociraptors, whatever

[Pretty Flaco]

http://sydwalker.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/swedish_prison_cell-300x203.jpghttp://www.kriminalvarden.se/upload/bilder/pressbilder/Bostadsrum_300b.jpg
Swedish prison cells look nicer than my bedroom

At first I couldn't tell which was the bedroom and which was the prison. :blushing:

[PhoenixAsh]

At first I couldn't tell which was the bedroom and which was the prison. :blushing:


aren't they both prisons?

[Manic Impressive]

At first I couldn't tell which was the bedroom and which was the prison. :blushing:
They are both the prison ;)

[Hiero]

Unfortunately, you don't get to decide what the capitalist state does. Its purpose is to serve capital.

Even if you could though.. do you really think it's the job of "revolutionaries" to advise the capitalist state on the best way to enforce the rule of capital?


It is not as stagnent as that, and I would add you opinion that the state is stagnent is from a stagnent reading of Lenin, rather then a dynamic reading which would reveal the state as dynamic.

The state is the mediator of class struggle, the political arm of the ruling class. However just as the word struggle implies a backward and forward motion, the state does the same. Struggles can be won and lost and progressive reforms can be put into place. Quantiative change can still be a change for the good.

Because their has been no qualitative change in the USA for instance, your opinion would be that the state is still the same. Yet the state for instance does not enforce Jim Crow laws in any obvious sense (segregation has moved to other forms, like education and housing for instance). The state acts on changes in forms of capital and as forms of capital and generation of capital change new forms of struggle emerge. Such as the struggle for civil rights.

For instance the welfare state and state industries in the Australia and the UK did improve people's lives and provide some stabiliy. The state did serve capital, however their were concesions made towards the working class because of working class demands on the state.

Sorry had to rush off this post before work.

[Manic Impressive]

So, your main complaint about the capitalist justice system is that the state there doesn't lock up people enough?
No not at all you completely misunderstand me. My gripe is that sentences are disproportionate to the crime they lock up a young working class girl for 15 years for an accident and lock up an upper class girl for less than half the time for kicking a man to death because he is gay. Crimes against property can carry much higher sentences than sexual abuse. How can this be right? I would prefer the Dutch system of prosecuting for multiple convictions but only for violent crimes.




The defining characteristic of imprisonment is forceful isolation from the rest of society.

That the barbarous conditions of the prisons in some countries hark back to the days of medieval dungeons is but an additionally harsh aspect.
My point was that many people are living in worse conditions than a Swedish prison.

[Cheung Mo]

Oh? Is the Swedish legal system really that classist and irrational?

A guy got thrown in prison for 6 months for organizing a fucking Texas Hold'em tournament. Is that an example of a rational legal system in action?

[PhoenixAsh]

I would prefer the Dutch system of prosecuting for multiple convictions but only for violent crimes.



To clarify. The Dutch system allows the DA to prosecute under the full hierarchy of the crime. i.e. :

involuntary manslaughter, manslaughter, murder

Meaning that he can prosecute for murder and manslaughter. The conviction however is for only the one the judge finds to be proven.

This is not automatic. The DA still has to bring it into the charge. But it doesn't happen so very often since doing so sends a signal that the DA is not certain of his case for murder...which leads to the judge being extra careful in his or her judgement.

[black magick hustla]

i agree completely with nhia and not only in the question of whether the state should be handed out more power to fuckup people's lives but also on the idea of justice as vengeance. those who think that locking up 50 years a disturbed teenager will make the world better are not ready to imagine a world where prisons do not exist. i hope someday in the future we look at the past and say man we were dumb to think that caging people and treating them like animals was going to make the world better.

[black magick hustla]

ps: what makes a communist different from the latest liberal weakling is not the intensity of his outrage but the depth of his/her spine and his or her unwaving principles. the discussions on pedophilia, murders, violence etcetera a lot of the times filter those who are communists and those who are not. my cousin rotted in fucking prison for many years i do not want to see those miserable places standing erect in the formation of a world i am willing to endanger my neck for. i don't want to stand in a world where cops can make you dissappear and blast your brain into nothing in torture chambers. people who believe in this are not communists

[Queercommie Girl]

ps: what makes a communist different from the latest liberal weakling is not the intensity of his outrage but the depth of his/her spine and his or her unwaving principles. the discussions on pedophilia, murders, violence etcetera a lot of the times filter those who are communists and those who are not. my cousin rotted in fucking prison for many years i do not want to see those miserable places standing erect in the formation of a world i am willing to endanger my neck for. i don't want to stand in a world where cops can make you dissappear and blast your brain into nothing in torture chambers. people who believe in this are not communists

It's not about "strong" or "weak". That's such a macho stance on things.

It's about Justice. It's about people paying for the suffering they've made others endure. Why should the victims of a crime just "forgive" the people who hurt him or her so much? What if the victim simply don't want to forgive? Does he or she have no right to punish the criminal?

I am Chinese. Our ethical philosophy is different from that of Christian cultures. We don't "forgive" so easily. As Confucius said: "If you repay resentment with virtue, what would you repay virtue with?...One should repay virtue with virtue, and repay resentment with righteousness."

[black magick hustla]

It's not about "strong" or "weak". That's such a macho stance on things.

strength has nothing to do with masculine physical strength.



It's about Justice. It's about people paying for the suffering they've made others endure. Why should the victims of a crime just "forgive" the people who hurt him or her so much? What if the victim simply don't want to forgive?


to hell with justice or whatever we call justice. justice will not make me less miserable and justice will not make me regain my fucking species-being back. whatever men under the spiritually draining world we called class society think of justice generally reduces to getting drunk out of retribution.



I am Chinese. Our ethical philosophy is different from that of Christian cultures. We don't "forgive" so easier. As Confucius said: "If you repay resentment with virtue, what would you repay virtue with?...One should repay virtue with virtue, and repay resentment with righteousness."

i want the world to be remade i am not going to listen seriously to the quintessential ideologue of asiatic despotism

[Queercommie Girl]

to hell with justice or whatever we call justice. justice will not make me less miserable and justice will not make me regain my fucking species-being back. whatever men under the spiritually draining world we called class society think of justice generally reduces to getting drunk out of retribution.


That's what you think. You are entitled to your opinion. But many other people actually believe in some kind of retributive justice.



i want the world to be remade i am not going to listen seriously to the quintessential ideologue of asiatic despotism

Are the teachings of Jesus any better? At least Confucius' emphasis on justice beats the slavish ideal of absolute pacifism and "turn the other cheek" in Christian ethics.

When Engels talked about "Oriental Despotism", he was actually referring to the Abrahamic Religions. He said "God is the manifestation of Oriental Despotism". Marx and Engels didn't criticise Confucianism directly.

Truth is, both early Confucianism and early Christianity had partly progressive features for their time. Maybe you should read more widely, rather than just being a narrow ultra-left ideologue all the time?

[black magick hustla]

That's what you think. You are entitled to your opinion. But many other people actually believe in some kind of retributive justice.
not so many decades ago many people believed it was good to lynch any black person who dared to look at young white women. what many people believe is meaningless to what i believe.




Are the teachings of Jesus any better? At least Confucius' emphasis on justice beats the slavish ideal of absolute pacifism and "turn the other cheek" in Christian ethics.
i am not a christian so you are barking at the wrong tree miss




Truth is, both early Confucianism and early Christianity had partly progressive features for their time. Maybe you should read more widely, rather than just being a narrow ultra-left ideologue all the time?
1) early christianity has very little to do with the state religion we called christianity today which was manufactured in the early 5th century by constantine. it is true that early christianty had some progressive features because it was the language used by slaves to imagine a world were classes did not exist. however, i don't see why i need to relinquish myself to a religion that does not have any of those progressive features anymore.

2) i rather take the "narrow ultra-left" path than to bend myself to the prejudices of the time, those including getting drunk in blood of those who had their spirits deformed by a class society built upon violence.

[Vanguard1917]

Otherwise, I'd choose to take the imperfect legal system or barring that the true proletarian justice of kneecappings and punishment killings.

I'm glad you have such high hopes for the proletariat: a system of justice more degraded than that in many modern imperialist countries.

[Vanguard1917]

And yes, this was a terrible crime (as well as an extremely rare one, which is why it is so shocking to us). But surely that does not mean that we should suddenly become law-and-order fanatics and join the most backward political reps of the ruling class in demanding increases in state powers to police and punish? Which is what i think is the point NHIA is making.

[Queercommie Girl]

not so many decades ago many people believed it was good to lynch any black person who dared to look at young white women. what many people believe is meaningless to what i believe.


:confused: Huh? How is this related to the retributive justice I was talking about?

The example you gave is fundamentally unjust. I was talking about punishing criminals who really do deserve punishment.

I wasn't even talking about the death sentence, just sending criminals to prison.



i rather take the "narrow ultra-left" path than to bend myself to the prejudices of the time, those including getting drunk in blood of those who had their spirits deformed by a class society built upon violence.
So you think it's good to throw away every book that isn't based on a narrow interpretation of Marxism?

You will find a great comrade in Qin Shihuang, the First Emperor of China, who also burned away all "reactionary" books.

[khad]

I'm glad you have such high hopes for the proletariat: a system of justice more degraded than that in many modern imperialist countries.
How so? It has always been the case that when the legal system offers no recourse people have found the need to take things into their own hands. I'm merely offering the observation of fact.


not so many decades ago many people believed it was good to lynch any black person who dared to look at young white women. what many people believe is meaningless to what i believe.
I love how escapism into moral relativism defines the nature of debates on revleft. I remember when I mentioned a community org threatening to shoot a drug lord, someone had to make this argument too, that the high-level pusher trafficking 3kg of cocaine per week was somehow the moral equivalent of a lynched black man in the Deep South circa 1890.

[brigadista]

there is a difference between justice and vengeance

[black magick hustla]

:confused: Huh? How is this related to the retributive justice I was talking about?

The example you gave is fundamentally unjust. I was talking about punishing criminals who really do deserve punishment.


well you were trying to use the tired and dumb and nonsensical democratic argument, "ad populum", by saying that "that is justice to me" but that many people believed otherwise. you are the one that opened the can of worms of moral relativism, not me.




So you think it's good to throw away every book that isn't based on a narrow interpretation of Marxism?


who the fuck said that. i simply said that i am not going to bend to the moral prejudices of the present time, one of them is caging people like animals.

[black magick hustla]

I love how escapism into moral relativism defines the nature of debates on revleft. I remember when I mentioned a community org threatening to shoot a drug lord, someone had to make this argument too, that the high-level pusher trafficking 3kg of cocaine per week was somehow the moral equivalent of a lynched black man in the Deep South circa 1890.

my analogy was used as an argument against saying that heh just because the mayority of people agree on something that something is right. but idk if that will get into your head because you clearly are steeped in 19th century positivism and cannot imagine that there is more to "justice" than kneecapping drug dealers and steppin up the cred of state thugs.

[Queercommie Girl]

well you were trying to use the tired and dumb and nonsensical democratic argument, "ad populum", by saying that "that is justice to me" but that many people believed otherwise. you are the one that opened the can of worms of moral relativism, not me.


It isn't a "democratic argument" at all intrinsically, since we are talking about two issues which are light-years apart: racist killings that are completely unjust and reactionary and just punishment for genuine criminals. They are completely unrelated things.

And actually objectively speaking bringing in some democracy into the legal process isn't such a bad thing anyway. Morality is never metaphysics, no-one holds the "truth" but generally speaking I'd trust the majority more than the minority. (There are exceptions though)

You may have a sibling who had being a criminal before, but you obviously don't know what it is like to be the victim.



who the fuck said that. i simply said that i am not going to bend to the moral prejudices of the present time, one of them is caging people like animals.


Ok, but then in a democratic socialist society, political and legal matters are democratically decided, no? So if the majority of people support some kind of legal punishment for criminals, then that's what it will be. Whatever you think is irrelevant.

Personally I don't advocate locking criminals in cages like animals, but actually re-educate them. But then on the other hand, if nothing is done to criminals at all, it's socially very irresponsible, they would just harm other people. It's also socially irresponsible to the criminal as well. Genuinely re-educating the criminal, through a re-education and labour program, (not the hypocritical stuff in some Stalinist states) is also objectively good for the criminal himself/herself.

[khad]

my analogy was used as an argument against saying that heh just because the mayority of people agree on something that something is right.
I like how NHIA is passive aggressively thanking all your posts, since neither you nor he has offered an alternative system of criminal justice instead of criticizing any call to prosecute hate crimes a tool of bourgeois class rule.

but idk if that will get into your head because you clearly are steeped in 19th century positivism and cannot imagine that there is more to "justice" than kneecapping drug dealers and steppin up the cred of state thugs.
Right, stepping up the cred of state thugs. That drug lord in question was rolling in money, with multiple properties and cars valued at over a million pounds. He was precisely untouchable by the state because of his high class status. When the state's justice system cannot address concerns such as this, it is perfectly legitimate for communities to take action on their own behalf.

It makes me question where so-called revolutionary leftists' sympathies lie when they view something as starkly cut along class lines as this as irredeemably "barbaric."

[Pretty Flaco]

Sure, there are a lot of things currently wrong with prisons, but it's better than having some fucker get away with hurting innocent people.

[black magick hustla]

I like how NHIA is passive aggressively thanking all your posts, since neither you nor he has offered an alternative system of criminal justice instead of criticizing any call to prosecute hate crimes a tool of bourgeois class rule.
its not my "job" to tell the state what to do. anybody who thinks otherwise isn't probably a communist. its not my "job" to tell the state how to finetune its mechanisms of repression so that they are more "just" or more "humane". i would understand this concern if one were a social democrat but i am not.

[Queercommie Girl]

its not my "job" to tell the state what to do. anybody who thinks otherwise isn't probably a communist. its not my "job" to tell the state how to finetune its mechanisms of repression so that they are more "just" or more "humane". i would understand this concern if one were a social democrat but i am not.

Actually according to the Trotskyist transitional programme and the general strategic outlines of entryism within social democratic political parties, it is important to fight for economic, democratic and legal reforms in the progressive direction within the current system, rather than just wait for some future "grand revolutionary day" like how Christian fundamentalists wait for the "second coming of the messiah".

The Marxist tradition is "legal when possible, illegal when necessary" and "peaceful when possible, violent when necessary". Push for genuine reforms while prepare for revolution.

[black magick hustla]

Sure, there are a lot of things currently wrong with prisons, but it's better than having some fucker get away with hurting innocent people.

except caging people like animals does not lower crime rates, at all. the US has one of the most overpopulated prison systems and people are still shooting each other for smack. i imagine the source of the problem is not this "inhuman" people but something deeper that entails a deeper solution than throwing all the baddies inside a shithole.

[Queercommie Girl]

except caging people like animals does not lower crime rates, at all. the US has one of the most overpopulated prison systems and people are still shooting each other for smack. i imagine the source of the problem is not this "inhuman" people but something deeper that entails a deeper solution than throwing all the baddies inside a shithole.

That's because the capitalist prison system is largely hypocritical. There is no re-education or welfare program at all for the criminal, and the prison officers treat criminals quite badly in general, so obviously no-one ever gets reformed in prison and become good citizens.

[Pretty Flaco]

except caging people like animals does not lower crime rates, at all. the US has one of the most overpopulated prison systems and people are still shooting each other for smack. i imagine the source of the problem is not this "inhuman" people but something deeper that entails a deeper solution than throwing all the baddies inside a shithole.

That's very true, but I'm mostly talking about rapists. In the USA I know you can easily get more jail time for slinging drugs than for raping women.

[StalinFanboy]

Well we are living under capitalism, so what should we do until we enter the socialist stage, not try and do anything about this kind of thing?

People get 25 years for robbing a bank because they are skint, yet a man who raped a 13 month old baby got 2 and a half years, It seems the only punishable crime, is a crime against capital, which underlines the moral degeneracy of society under such a rotten system.

We're communists, not super heroes. Why do we need to be out there trying to save every fucking person?

[Queercommie Girl]

We're communists, not super heroes. Why do we need to be out there trying to save every fucking person?


How can you win people over to socialism if you don't do anything positive in the society you live?

Every struggle for economic, democratic and legal rights within the system is important.

[Widerstand]

How can you win people over to socialism if you don't do anything positive in the society you live?

Every struggle for economic, democratic and legal rights within the system is important.

I'm afraid I have to disagree. I agree in as much as that I think interacting with people (on an equal basis!) and acting in solidarity with them, supporting or helping where desired, possible and appropriate, is of utmost importance. I disagree however that "every struggle for [...] rights within the system is important". There's no justice to be found in a system of class justice, and to seek it through legalistic means only means to nourish false hopes and illusions.

[Queercommie Girl]

I'm afraid I have to disagree. I agree in as much as that I think interacting with people (on an equal basis!) and acting in solidarity with them, supporting or helping where desired, possible and appropriate, is of utmost importance. I disagree however that "every struggle for [...] rights within the system is important". There's no justice to be found in a system of class justice, and to seek it through legalistic means only means to nourish false hopes and illusions.

I disagree because I'm a supporter of the Trotskyist strategies of transitional programmes and entryism in social democratic parties.

Both parliamentary and street struggles are important for Trotskyists.

I'm not a formal Trotskyist, but in this I do largely agree with them.

In the case of LGBT politics, you simply cannot dispute that legal equality does change things a lot for LGBT people. My girlfriend was fired from a Chinese teaching company in Shanghai a while ago explicitly on the grounds that she is trans, in China there is nothing she can do because there are no anti-discrimination laws for LGBT people. But if the company was based in the European Union, they wouldn't be able to fire her just like that, because there are explicit anti-discrimination laws.

I care a lot about the interests of the LGBT community, and not just about abstract revolutionary socialism. So I am involved in struggling for more democratic and legal rights for LGBT people, and I won't stop doing it just because some revolutionary dogmatist claims any reformist struggle within the current system is useless.

I care more about human rights in the real concrete sense than abstract ideological dogmas.

[Wanted Man]

Why is a 19-year-old woman a "girl" anyway?

[brigadista]

the biggest sentences are given to those who follow capitalist practices outside capitalist law, their class also matters regarding where they get incacerated eg: in the UK those convicted of white collar crimes often are imprisoned in open prisons to serve their sentences along with convicted politicians in better prison conditions -however it is usual for working class people to be not given a fair trial and to be steoreotyped.

We should resist and fight for the rights of working class people who are not given access to capitalist law just because it exposes the capitalist system.

to condone the practices of capitalist law and incarceration is collaboration and we want something better.

seeking vengeance is also collaboration because it supports the unequal system of capitalist law and punishment

[Orange Juche]

Sort of off topic but this isn't what "ultraleftists" think about unions.

Well I wouldn't say that they're COMPLETELY wrong... modern unions are reactionary and, while far more beneficial than if they didn't exist, support compromise over revolutionary change. In my opinion, that is unacceptable.

[Widerstand]

Well I wouldn't say that they're COMPLETELY wrong... modern unions are reactionary and, while far more beneficial than if they didn't exist, support compromise over revolutionary change. In my opinion, that is unacceptable.

Not only that, they have a history of actively opposing strikes (that they didn't sanction) and factory occupations.

[Queercommie Girl]

Not only that, they have a history of actively opposing strikes (that they didn't sanction) and factory occupations.

That's only true for the top layers of the trade unions.

Trade unionism itself is still extremely important, I'm on the side of the entryist Trotskyists on this one. But socialists should fight for democratic trade unions, where ordinary members can democratically control the union leaders.

The only reason why union leaders sometimes oppose such strikes is because there is no such union democracy.

[TC]

I support uniformly lowering prison sentences for all varieties of crime - they mostly just serve revenge. I don't think people here have a conception of just what it means to go to prison for years - the hell of each day the same as the one before except when spiked with random and unpredictable violence - the total lack of privacy and choice - it is to be reduced to subhuman - it is horrible...and I don't see how longer sentences serve any purposes except to make it harder for the convict to rejoin society as a greater chunk of their life has been extinguished. Prison is a type of death sentence where people aren't physically killed but their lives are over (and try getting employment afterwards!). The call for longer sentences is reactionary.

If we were concerned with protecting society from violent people we would designate exile zones instead where violent people could be deported to. The only point of the current system is revenge.

[StalinFanboy]

How can you win people over to socialism if you don't do anything positive in the society you live?
It is ironic that you consider principled communists like Maldoror of being a Christian, yet you think socialism is a matter of converting people.

I think the primary engine of pushing people to communism is the actual material conditions of their daily lives, not a bunch of wingnuts.

Anyway, I never I said don't do "anything positive" where I live, nor did I suggest that people not do any of that. But I think that being a communist means something, and that as a communist I try to stick to my principles as often as possible while still saying extremely open to new tactics and strategies.


Every struggle for economic, democratic and legal rights within the system is important.
No. Trotsky was wrong. Liberal reforms in capitalism have nothing to do with communism. If you want to work on reforms, then by all means, do so, but don't come around here talking about how it makes you a communist. And communism isn't just a more efficient, friendly version of capitalism, so I fail to see how pushing for reforms will bring us any closer to it.

[StalinFanboy]

I care a lot about the interests of the LGBT community, and not just about abstract revolutionary socialism. So I am involved in struggling for more democratic and legal rights for LGBT people, and I won't stop doing it just because some revolutionary dogmatist claims any reformist struggle within the current system is useless.


No one is moralizing this issue, it's just a matter of those reforms being useless for communism. Do what you want with your life, but don't say a dormouse is a lion.

[not your usual suspect]

What is the purpose of prison? "Justice" isn't actually a purpose, because it sending someone to prison can not make "right" what was "wrong" (an example of this sort of thinking from a propertarian point of view: "if I steal from you, justice can be served by you getting back from me what I stole, plus something to compensate you for not having access to your things while I did").
The main reasons people want prisons are: "revenge" or "retribution", "rehabilitation", and "to keep those dangerous people away from the rest of society" (with a minor dose of, "to everyone else, this is what happens when you break the rules").
In this case, I doubt very much that this women will be "rehabilitated" (i.e. think that killing a gay man was wrong, and that it would be wrong to do so in the future -- as opposed to merely thinking, it was wrong to get caught, and don't do it again, because you might get caught again). It is also obvious that sending people to prison does not deter crime, even violent crime such as murder (this case is a case in point). So, that leaves us with "keep this dangerous person away from the rest of society", and "revenge/retribution". Most people in this thread seem to be arguing the later. Yet, I wonder what they would be thinking if it was a couple of drunk anti-fa who kicked to death an old NAZI for being, simply, a NAZI?
To be consistant in their views from a capitalist/state perspective, they should also call for the two young anti-fa to be locked up, and the key thrown away. Yet, I would think that most would applaud giving the old NAZI a good kicking (though they might think the two should have killed the fash), or even, applaud the killing of the fash!
I suggest that, as others, though few, in this thread have already suggested, revolutionary leftists should not be appluding the legal ("injustice") system of the state! We don't need to provide an alternative to reject it, either! (An obvious alternative though, stop treating humans as humans treat cattle.) If you are against war, what is the alternative? Well, peace. If you are against injustice, what is the alternative? Well justice. Something that the capitalist state cannot provide.

[Queercommie Girl]

It is ironic that you consider principled communists like Maldoror of being a Christian, yet you think socialism is a matter of converting people.


It's a matter of influencing people to one's views. The difference is that while Christianity is an idealistic religious tradition, Marxism is a materialistic scientific one.

My point to Maldoror was that you can't just wait for the "grand day of revolution" like how you would wait for the "second coming of christ". This is why transitional programmes are important.



I think the primary engine of pushing people to communism is the actual material conditions of their daily lives, not a bunch of wingnuts.
This is true to some extent. But don't you think women face sexism, ethnic minorities face racism, LGBT people face homophobia and transphobia, on a daily basis? You are coming from an exclusive white male stance where the only meaningful "day-to-day struggles" are economic struggles.

So in this sense how is fighting against sexism, racism and homophobia/transphobia any different from fighting against wage reductions and the worsening of working conditions? Don't you believe that in a communist society there should be no sexism, racism and homophobia/transphobia? Both economic and democratic struggles are important.



Anyway, I never I said don't do "anything positive" where I live, nor did I suggest that people not do any of that. But I think that being a communist means something, and that as a communist I try to stick to my principles as often as possible while still saying extremely open to new tactics and strategies.
If being communist means the rejection of Trotskyist programmes like transitional strategies (not opportunistic) and entryism, then I'm not a communist.

You don't monopolise what being a "communist" means.



No. Trotsky was wrong. Liberal reforms in capitalism have nothing to do with communism. If you want to work on reforms, then by all means, do so, but don't come around here talking about how it makes you a communist. And communism isn't just a more efficient, friendly version of capitalism, so I fail to see how pushing for reforms will bring us any closer to it.
You are an idiot. No-one here is calling for "liberal" reforms. Fighting for basic democratic rights isn't "liberal", because Marxism isn't just about transforming the economic base, it's also about transforming the political superstructure.

You can have a completely economically equal society, that's still not communism. As long as workers don't have full democratic rights, it's a badly distorted form of communism, like Stalinism was.

Communism isn't just about economic equality, by the way.

If a communist society is where there is still homophobia and transphobia, then yes I'm not a communist. You can go and stuff your "communism" in your own face.

[Queercommie Girl]

No one is moralizing this issue, it's just a matter of those reforms being useless for communism. Do what you want with your life, but don't say a dormouse is a lion.


You don't know how real communism works, that's why you reject the transitional strategy.

Which is why "principled" dogmatists like you will never have any real influence in the real world. You just like to have the egoistical feeling of being a communist, how honourable that feels. But real politics is not about some abstract sense of honour, it's all about what works on the ground.

So go ahead and stay in your ultra-left ghetto, while I'm going to continue collaborating with socialists and communists whose ideas and actions actually have some real impact on the ground.

[StalinFanboy]

My point to Maldoror was that you can't just wait for the "grand day of revolution" like how you would wait for the "second coming of christ". This is why transitional programmes are important. Yeah... we actually don't have any real say in when the revolution will happen. That's not up to us. That's not up to politicos, or ideologies. How're you gonna talk about materialism, and then say this stuff?


This is true to some extent. But don't you think women face sexism, ethnic minorities face racism, LGBT people face homophobia and transphobia, on a daily basis? You are coming from an exclusive white male stance where the only meaningful "day-to-day struggles" are economic struggles.

And you're coming from an exclusive douche bag stance. Maybe where you live, all white people live separate from everyone else, but where I live, I see the daily struggles of people of color, of women, and of queer people. I have helped in various projects aimed at this, and it is from this experience that I have come to the conclusion that without relating this struggles immediately back to class they can only end as single-struggle issues (plus I have no desire to organize for some reform that makes it easier for gay people to support the imperialist war machine or makes it easier for black people to becomes CEOs or Presidents).

I've also come to the conclusion that having the "privileges of White Male-ness" haven't actually made my life that sick, and from this I can say that bourgeois notions of "racial and sexual equality" are bogus and have nothing to offer the working class, because all that shit ever means is complete assimilation into the capitalist machine.


So in this sense how is fighting against sexism, racism and homophobia/transphobia any different from fighting against wage reductions and the worsening of working conditions? Don't you believe that in a communist society there should be no sexism, racism and homophobia/transphobia? Both economic and democratic struggles are important. Elevating Brown people to level of White people, Women to Men, Queer people to straight people, etc etc, economically and politically in capitalism won't bring about communism. It is about destroying all of these imposed identities.


If being communist means the rejection of Trotskyist programmes like transitional strategies (not opportunistic) and entryism, then I'm not a communist. Ok. You're not a communist. Glad we are in agreement.



You are an idiot. No-one here is calling for "liberal" reforms. Fighting for basic democratic rights isn't "liberal", because Marxism isn't just about transforming the economic base, it's also about transforming the political superstructure. You understand determinism, yes? In Marxism, the economic determines everything, to put it simply. The changes in the political superstructure are determined by changes in the mode of production. And the changes in mode of production are caused by class violence. In the case of communist revolution, it'll be through the subversion of private property through the absolute communisation of the means of production. We as pro-revolutionaries play an incredibly small part in this, and that part is certainly not trying to seize the bourgeois state.


You can have a completely economically equal society, that's still not communism. As long as workers don't have full democratic rights, it's a badly distorted form of communism, like Stalinism was. The USSR was not a communist society at all. Again, bro, communism is not simply a sicker version of capitalism and workers power is not simply calling the shop foreman "Comrade."


Communism isn't just about economic equality, by the way.It isn't at all about economic equality. It's about destroying the economy.




If a communist society is where there is still homophobia and transphobia, then yes I'm not a communist. You can go and stuff your "communism" in your own face.

:confused:

[Queercommie Girl]

Yeah... we actually don't have any real say in when the revolution will happen. That's not up to us. That's not up to politicos, or ideologies. How're you gonna talk about materialism, and then say this stuff?


Actually it is up to us. A revolution is NOT just a spontaneous mass movement. Nothing in this world just happens spontaneously or "naturally". It's something people would have to work for.

E.g. The October Revolution in 1917 was not "spontaneous" at all. It only happened because the Bolshevik party planned it.



And you're coming from an exclusive douche bag stance. Maybe where you live, all white people live separate from everyone else, but where I live, I see the daily struggles of people of color, of women, and of queer people. I have helped in various projects aimed at this, and it is from this experience that I have come to the conclusion that without relating this struggles immediately back to class they can only end as single-struggle issues (plus I have no desire to organize for some reform that makes it easier for gay people to support the imperialist war machine or makes it easier for black people to becomes CEOs or Presidents).
Stop putting words into my mouth. When did I say purely single-issue struggles that are not class-based? When did I ever say anything about giving any support to an ultra-rich gay CEO??? Fact is, the majority of ethnic minorities, women and queer people are working class, so even from a collectivist single-issue perspective (e.g. someone who is only working for queer rights), socialist working class politics would make sense.

But the crucial thing here is the class-character, not just trying to make every worker follow your dogmatic ultra-leftist line.



Ok. You're not a communist. Glad we are in agreement.
Yes, and from my perspective, you are not a communist either. Only those who accept the basic line of Lenin and Trotsky in the 1910s is a communist.



You understand determinism, yes? In Marxism, the economic determines everything, to put it simply. The changes in the political superstructure are determined by changes in the mode of production. And the changes in mode of production are caused by class violence. In the case of communist revolution, it'll be through the subversion of private property through the absolute communisation of the means of production. We as pro-revolutionaries play an incredibly small part in this, and that part is certainly not trying to seize the bourgeois state.
The economic base does not only determine the political superstructure, but the political superstructure also counter-acts on the economic base. It's not just an one-way mechanical relationship, it's a two-way dialectical one.



The USSR was not a communist society at all. Again, bro, communism is not simply a sicker version of capitalism and workers power is not simply calling the shop foreman "Comrade."
I guess you reject Leninism as well.

I can't agree with you here. I think the USSR was a deformed worker's state. It had a socialist economic base to a significant extent despite the severe deformations in the political superstructure.



:confused:I don't automatically assume that racism, sexism and queer oppression will all magically evaporate once capitalism is completely and genuinely overthrown.

[Luís Henrique]

Why is a 19-year-old woman a "girl" anyway?

I don't know if it is the case in the UK - or of this specific case -, but in Brazil the press uses to call middle class criminals "rapazes" (boys), while it calls criminals of the lower classes by much stronger terms.

Luís Henrique

[Patchd]

Well we are living under capitalism, so what should we do until we enter the socialist stage, not try and do anything about this kind of thing?

As socialists we certainly do not have to offer capitalist alternatives if that's what you're asking. That job's for the bourgeois ideologues. We all know the problem here lies further than a rigid and crude judicial system which seeks not to rehabilitate, but to seek retribution for the victim and bourgeois society, so why do we dumb down our own arguments?


People get 25 years for robbing a bank because they are skint, yet a man who raped a 13 month old baby got 2 and a half years, It seems the only punishable crime, is a crime against capital, which underlines the moral degeneracy of society under such a rotten system.Exactly, its fine to use the current judicial systems as examples of how rotten capitalist 'justice' is, let's not give our interpretations on how it should be run.

[StalinFanboy]

Actually it is up to us. A revolution is NOT just a spontaneous mass movement. Nothing in this world just happens spontaneously or "naturally". It's something people would have to work for.
Apparently you have misread what I said. Revolution is not some decision that pro-revolutionaries make. It's not a matter of getting enough communists in one space.

The communization of the means of production will very much be a conscious choice by former proletarians. My whole point however is that our role as pro-revolutionaries is many times smaller and more irrelevant than you think.


E.g. The October Revolution in 1917 was not "spontaneous" at all. It only happened because the Bolshevik party planned it.
I would hardly say the October Revolution was a communist revolution, despite there being a few positive aspects of it. And wasn't Trotsky who said that the working class was always miles ahead of the Party?

In any case, I think it's incredibly problematic to think that future revolutions are going to look like ones that happened almost 100 years ago. And I think it's even more problematic to look at revolutions that brought about capitalism as blue prints for a future communist one.


Stop putting words into my mouth. When did I say purely single-issue struggles that are not class-based? When did I ever say anything about giving any support to an ultra-rich gay CEO??? Fact is, the majority of ethnic minorities, women and queer people are working class, so even from a collectivist single-issue perspective (e.g. someone who is only working for queer rights), socialist working class politics would make sense. If you don't support struggles that are not class based, then why make a distinction between "racial" struggles and "class" struggles? Why talk about them as if they are separate things?


But the crucial thing here is the class-character, not just trying to make every worker follow your dogmatic ultra-leftist line. What is funny is that out of all the various groups I've worked with, it was the Trotskyist group Social Organizer that did the most to get people to bend to their Party line.

When I'm talking to people, or involved in some sort of project or local struggle, I don't talk to people about left-communism. I don't talk to them about the Party. I talk to them about concrete tactics that I feel would be appropriate to the situation based upon my understanding of capital and history.


Yes, and from my perspective, you are not a communist either. Only those who accept the basic line of Lenin and Trotsky in the 1910s is a communist. That was 100 years ago, bud. The point of communist theory isn't to try to adjust your activities to some shit some dead guys said 100+ years ago. It is to look to the ever-changing horizon of class struggle, using the analyses (by using I mean, of course, taking what is still relevant, updating what can be updated, and tossing what isn't useful or relevant) laid out by theorists and your own experience.


The economic base does not only determine the political superstructure, but the political superstructure also counter-acts on the economic base. It's not just an one-way mechanical relationship, it's a two-way dialectical one. Give me an example of the political superstructure being the cause of a change in the mode of production.


I guess you reject Leninism as well. Yep


I can't agree with you here. I think the USSR was a deformed worker's state. It had a socialist economic base to a significant extent despite the severe deformations in the political superstructure.
"Let us be quite clear, the groups with which we are in dispute do not state that state capitalism is already socialism, but fall into saying that it is a third and new form between private capitalism and socialism. They say in fact that there are two distinct periods: that in which “the state has more of the older policing function than that of involvement in the economy”, and that in which “it gives the maximum power to the exercise of force specifically to protect the economy centralised in it”. We say that in these two formulae, which are more or less faithfully reproduced, and even more so the two historical periods, that capitalism is the same, the ruling class is the same, and the historical state is the same...

stop presenting the bureaucracy as an autonomous class, perfidiously warmed-up within the proletariat, and instead consider it as a huge apparatus linked to a given historical situation in the world-wide evolution of capitalism. Here we are on the right track. The bureaucracy, which all class societies have known, is not a class, it is not a productive force, it is one of the “forms” of production appropriate to a given cycle of class rule...

capital can easily get rid of liberalism without changing its nature. And this is also clear: the direction of the degeneration, the degeneration of the revolution in Russia does not pass from the revolution for communism to the revolution for a developed kind of capitalism, but to a pure capitalist revolution. It runs in parallel with world-wide capitalist domination which, by successive steps, eliminates old feudal and Asiatic forms in various zones. While the historical situation in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries caused the capitalist revolution to take liberal forms, in the twentieth century it must have totalitarian and bureaucratic ones."

If your socialism is simply the transfer of the ownership of the means of production from the bourgeoisie to the Party, then count me the fuck out. I am not down in any way with self-managed exploitation.


I don't automatically assume that racism, sexism and queer oppression will all magically evaporate once capitalism is completely and genuinely overthrown.
Of course it's not a matter of magic. But if you understand that these oppressions stem from alienation and exploitation of the working class, then you would understand that the self-organization of the proletariat into a force capable of overthrowing capitalism necessitates the destruction of imposed bourgeois identities.

[Queercommie Girl]

I would hardly say the October Revolution was a communist revolution, despite there being a few positive aspects of it.


There we disagree significantly. I don't believe Leninism is "perfect" of course, but it was indeed in the large part a communist revolution.



If you don't support struggles that are not class based, then why make a distinction between "racial" struggles and "class" struggles? Why talk about them as if they are separate things?


Because it's not so simple. Maybe you don't realise this from your white male cis-hetero privileged stance, but most female, coloured and queer workers have their own issues specific to their sub-community which must be properly dealt with, if we are going to make the slogan "worker's unity" more than just a hypocritical empty abstract slogan.



When I'm talking to people, or involved in some sort of project or local struggle, I don't talk to people about left-communism. I don't talk to them about the Party. I talk to them about concrete tactics that I feel would be appropriate to the situation based upon my understanding of capital and history.


Good for you.



Give me an example of the political superstructure being the cause of a change in the mode of production.


Stalinism. It had a socialist economic basis to a significant extent, but a counter-revolution was inevitable due to the severe distortions in its political superstructure. It's a classic case of the superstructure degenerating long before the base.

But obviously you won't agree with such a point.