Why are the ‘lefts’ so pathetic?

[Threetune]

Why is there such little presentation by the western ‘lefts’ of any perspective for the defeat of imperialism? Why is there no relentless exposure of fascist imperialist warmongering as an insane ‘solution’ to the world economic crisis? And scant mention in their press of the dictatorship of the working class which is communism’s sane solution to the chaos of capitalism.

And nothing of note said to counter the brutal murderous Zionist killing of unarmed demonstrators that the world’s press say so little about and that the western ‘lefts’ also make none of their usual sanctimonious “condemnations” about.

Where are the ‘left’ calls for “regime change” in Zionland and why are the Zionist military dictators not being hounded, strafed from the air or dragged before the International Courts and charged with war crimes in the name of ‘human rights’ and ‘humanitarian aid’?

And why do the ‘lefts’ defend Barack Obama’s from charges of “fascist” when he openly boasts that he will strike anywhere against anyone who won’t do his bidding in complete violation of all joke ‘international laws’?

This is a question for the working class that will have to be tackled consciously and vigorously to further develop revolutionary theory.

[Tommy4ever]

There are no ''fascists'' in the mainstream of modern politics and therefore no ''fascists'' to expose.

I don't believe anyone has ever proposed war mongering as a solution to the economic crisis. Mabye some idiots like Donald Trump have'nt but no one important anyway.

The press doesn't support communism, so they obviously don't write about dictatorship of the proletariat. Why would they?

The Left is constantly talking about the Zionists. Perhaps too much as most people don't view Israel as being as bad as we say it is - Zionist propoganda is pretty powerful in the West.

The world's press says little due, in large part, to the powerful pro-Israel lobby in most Western countries. It is next to impossible for press to criticise Israel. For example, the BBC frequently faces hounding attacks for its attempts to have a 'neutral' line on the Israel-Palestine conflict and refusing to take sides. In the past this has forced the BBC to do things such as removing appeals for aid to the Lebanon when Israel was invading. The Guardian newspaper in the UK has almost faced major attacks after publishing some moderately anti-Zionist pieces that criticised the Israeli settlement policy in the West Bank and compared the West Bank to apartheid South Africa. They were viciously deflamed as anti-semitists etc etc.

Well, I'm not sure how regime change in Israel would actually help. They do have a democratically elected government - its just elected solely by the Jews. All major parties in Israel are pro-Zionist. How would this help?

Plenty of leftists attack Israel for its war crimes. Again, probably way too much.

Well, Barack Obama isn't a fascist ..... so no one calls him that. I don't know if you don't understand what a fascist is or you are just not very clued up on Barack Obama but he is in no way even close to a fascist. Its a pretty stupid thing to say and if you say that to people they will feel your either stupid or overly melodramatic and will be turned off from the left.

They questions are totally irrelevant. Each and every one. :)

[Blackscare]

What the fuck are you talking about threetune, do you read any 'lefts' press? What do you think that they write about all the time? What subjects would they be reporting on if not those that you just listed? Are you stupid? What do you read? List a few websites or something, I want to know if you actually have any idea what you are talking about or this is just inane ranting (I assume you're going by the assumption that if people actually reported on such things, they couldn't possibly continue to happen :rolleyes:).

Honestly, this is just confusing. Also, Obama may be a dillhole, but he isn't a fascist, claiming that he is a fascist only serves to highlight the absolute absurdity and arrogance of your post, assuming that nobody else on the planet "gets it" while you very clearly do not.


Also, how did you learn about all these issues that you're complaining go unreported in the first place? I'm assuming you didn't fly to Israel/Palestine yourself, so you must have read it somewhere.

[Threetune]

There are no ''fascists'' in the mainstream of modern politics and therefore no ''fascists'' to expose.

Hold on there. Imperialism is a dictatorship by force not consent. Capitalism is the violent and vicious dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, a fascist system of rule hidden by a pretty facade of pretend ‘democracy’ entirely dominated by money, bribery, media manipulation, election rigging and stitch-ups even in “peacetime” and always thrown aside for direct rule, martial law and direct intimidation-justified as “emergency” or “war conditions” – if the working class and poor rural masses are driven onto the revolutionary path.

And the essential fascist nature of imperialism is a description to which only the deluded and pampered petty bourgeoisies (especially the ‘lefts’) of the rich metropolitan countries ever raise any serious objection about, rowing-in behind the soft-headed delusions of the “democratic way”, “peaceful roadism” or “the fight for peace” (Stop the War Coalition) which the entire fake-left (including “hard nut” Stalinism) has subscribed to for decades, one way or another.
Ask the victims of Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Korea, Greece etc etc and the countless millions in every hellhole slum about your claim that -“There are no ''fascists'' in the mainstream of modern politics”, academic terminology. Why so wilfully blind and pathetic?

Imperialism is no “Paper Tiger” is it?

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Hold on there. Imperialism is a dictatorship by force not consent. Capitalism is the violent and vicious dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, a fascist system of rule hidden by a pretty facade of pretend ‘democracy’ entirely dominated by money, bribery, media manipulation, election rigging and stitch-ups even in “peacetime” and always thrown aside for direct rule, martial law and direct intimidation-justified as “emergency” or “war conditions” – if the working class and poor rural masses look are driven onto the revolutionary path.

And the essential fascist nature of imperialism is a description to which only the deluded and pampered petty bourgeoisies (especially the ‘lefts’) of the rich metropolitan countries ever raise any serious objection about, rowing-in behind the soft-headed delusions of the “democratic way”, “peaceful roadism” or “the fight for peace” (Stop the War Coalition) which the entire fake-left (including “hard nut” Stalinism) has subscribed to for decades, one way or another.
Ask the victims of Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Korea, Greece etc etc and the countless millions in every hellhole slum about your claim that “ There are no ''fascists'' in the mainstream of modern politics”, academic terminology. Why so wilfully blind and pathetic?

Imperialism is no “Paper Tiger” is it?

Fascism is a specific ideological current, not just any dictatorship or disagreeable political system. War, violence and oppression are not things unique to fascism. You can't just call anything fascism (I admit it has a very powerful ring to it, so it's easy to call things you hate fascist, but still). Your defintion of fascist nature has no real basis apart from you wanting to call disagreeable things fascist.

[Threetune]

Fascism is a specific ideological current, not just any dictatorship or disagreeable political system. War, violence and oppression are not things unique to fascism. You can't just call anything fascism (I admit it has a very powerful ring to it, so it's easy to call things you hate fascist, but still). Your defintion of fascist nature has no real basis apart from you wanting to call disagreeable things fascist.

So what do you call fascist?

[Tommy4ever]

@ Threetune: You're just using a word you don't understand for something you don't like and are making yourself look like a fool. Please, find out what the word fascism means before you start accusing people of it.

[danyboy27]

Hold on there. Imperialism is a dictatorship by force not consent. Capitalism is the violent and vicious dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, a fascist system of rule hidden by a pretty facade of pretend ‘democracy’ entirely dominated by money, bribery, media manipulation, election rigging and stitch-ups even in “peacetime” and always thrown aside for direct rule, martial law and direct intimidation-justified as “emergency” or “war conditions” – if the working class and poor rural masses look are driven onto the revolutionary path.

Fascism is an autocratic and totalitarian system defined by class collaboration, extreme nationalism, romanticism and futurism and agressive expensionism.

One of the easiest method to find out if a governement is fascist or not is by analysing how the governement in power conduct itself toward the population and the institutions of the state.

Usually your average dictator will mostly keep power within the hand of the natural elites; buisnessman, the clergy, bureaucrats and will do whatever they can to keep the people out of politics.


Fascist dictators on the other hand will do whatever they can to put their structure and elites instead of the natural one and make tremendous attempt to politicize the masses to make them participate to the great plan of the expension of the state.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

So what do you call fascist?

Fascist Italy laid the ground for what is fascist, though the initial leadership was quite unprincipled apart from the nationalist aspect, an ideology begun to form that depends on the support from what is essentially a petit-bourgeois mass-movement of sorts and a corporatist economic model with strong protectionist stance, that is the merger of business- and controlled worker unions into single bodies (thus the name corporatism) under control of the state in coöperation with private industry leaders. Nazi Germany was to some extent inspired by Italian fascism, but was less ideologically pronounced, more economically opportunist and maintained more private industry, not to mention more obsessed with races. Most importantly, any right-wing dictatorship is not fascist just because it is oppressive and war-like, repulsive though it might be.

[greenwarbler]

Pepsi Generation is a rather sectarian colored generation.

[Rooster]

How can you say "imperialism" and then say "fascist imperialist" if fascism is the same as imperialism to you?

[greenwarbler]

the word fascist, as everyone knows, is of italian origins, but has since taken on more broad meaning, which we can talk about

[danyboy27]

the word fascist, as everyone knows, is of italian origins, but has since taken on more broad meaning, which we can talk about

then the ''evolution'' of fascism have to be called something else.

i dont call my cofee pot tea pot beccause even tho both item serve a similar purpose they are still different in many way.

[Threetune]

If any of you saw the Obama demagogy to the British political class today and didn’t recognise a Master of Hounds ‘whipping-in’ the dogs of war ready for the hunt, you need your eyes testing. Hitler lost, but fascist imperialism survived under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’. Fascism by any other name now reeks of even worse death and destruction, than anything the Nazis could ever have dreamed of.

[Threetune]

What the fuck are you talking about threetune, do you read any 'lefts' press? What do you think that they write about all the time? What subjects would they be reporting on if not those that you just listed? Are you stupid? What do you read? List a few websites or something, I want to know if you actually have any idea what you are talking about or this is just inane ranting .

Go and check Socialist Worker, Workers Power, CPGB, CP, Socialist Party and you show me where they raise the issues that I did.

[Threetune]

Fascism is a specific ideological current, not just any dictatorship or disagreeable political system. War, violence and oppression are not things unique to fascism. You can't just call anything fascism (I admit it has a very powerful ring to it, so it's easy to call things you hate fascist, but still). Your defintion of fascist nature has no real basis apart from you wanting to call disagreeable things fascist.


So just give your crisp definition of fascism that doesn’t look like present day imperialist mayhem.

[Threetune]

@ Threetune: You're just using a word you don't understand for something you don't like and are making yourself look like a fool. Please, find out what the word fascism means before you start accusing people of it.

I think you and other lefts are misleading workers, sanitising imperialism by not exposing and attacking its essential fascist nature.

[Per Levy]

Why are the ‘lefts’ so pathetic?

because of people like Threetune who call everything and everone they dont agree with fascist.


I think you and other lefts are misleading workers, sanitising imperialism by not exposing and attacking its essential fascist nature.

uh hu, well how about we expose the imperialist nature of imperialism, also we have to fight for socialism, equality and stuff like that you know.


Go and check Socialist Worker, Workers Power, CPGB, CP, Socialist Party and you show me where they raise the issues that I did.

well all of these have seach functions, i just was on socialist worker and they had many articles on israel, but im not in the mood to read them all, do it yourself.


And why do the ‘lefts’ defend Barack Obama’s from charges of “fascist” when he openly boasts that he will strike anywhere against anyone who won’t do his bidding in complete violation of all joke ‘international laws’?

well obama isnt a fascist, we also "defend" obama from being called socialist/communist too, because he isnt that either.

[flobdob]

Go and check Socialist Worker, Workers Power, CPGB, CP, Socialist Party and you show me where they raise the issues that I did.

It's pretty clear why these "left" groups won't do anything you're saying.

It's because it would expose their servile attitude to the Labour Party - the same party which spent the last 13 years administering the apparatus of British imperialism.

[Threetune]

Fascist Italy laid the ground for what is fascist, though the initial leadership was quite unprincipled apart from the nationalist aspect, an ideology begun to form that depends on the support from what is essentially a petit-bourgeois mass-movement of sorts and a corporatist economic model with strong protectionist stance, that is the merger of business- and controlled worker unions into single bodies (thus the name corporatism) under control of the state in coöperation with private industry leaders. Nazi Germany was to some extent inspired by Italian fascism, but was less ideologically pronounced, more economically opportunist and maintained more private industry, not to mention more obsessed with races. Most importantly, any right-wing dictatorship is not fascist just because it is oppressive and war-like, repulsive though it might be.

Unlike the rest of the blather. at least yours is an attempt at an explanation.
The problem is, that it is entirely academic and vacuous, missing the essential VIOLENCE (which you didn’t mention) entailed in the forced implementation of all capitalism in Italy, Germany the USA and Britain in contrast to the FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY imperialism claims as its main principle, all the time pretending not to be ‘old school fascist’ because of some marginal insignificant historical or cultural differences.

And pretending that Italian or German fascism was more corporatist, or more violent and more racist than contemporary imperialism is just the kind of misleading argument I am talking about. To repeat, this is at best simply flee-cracking, and hair-splitting, at worst a cover for contemporary imperialist fascism.

[danyboy27]

If any of you saw the Obama demagogy to the British political class today and didn’t recognise a Master of Hounds ‘whipping-in’ the dogs of war ready for the hunt, you need your eyes testing. Hitler lost, but fascist imperialism survived under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’. Fascism by any other name now reeks of even worse death and destruction, than anything the Nazis could ever have dreamed of.

imperialism it is, but not fascism.

[#FF0000]

the word fascist, as everyone knows, is of italian origins, but has since taken on more broad meaning, which we can talk about

It has not taken on a more broad meaning the way you and threetune seem to think it has. It's become a political slur for autocracy and authoritarianism, which are traits that any political system may have.


because of people like this: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?t=154974

You literally never, ever made a coherent point in that thread. Until you do, shut the fuck up about it.

[#FF0000]

Why is there such little presentation by the western ‘lefts’ of any perspective for the defeat of imperialism? Why is there no relentless exposure of fascist imperialist warmongering as an insane ‘solution’ to the world economic crisis? And scant mention in their press of the dictatorship of the working class which is communism’s sane solution to the chaos of capitalism.

Because the "left" is tiny and weak. Just as the working class in general, right now, is weak.


And nothing of note said to counter the brutal murderous Zionist killing of unarmed demonstrators that the world’s press say so little about and that the western ‘lefts’ also make none of their usual sanctimonious “condemnations” about.

Communists and anarchists are quite vocal about their opposition to Israel.


Where are the ‘left’ calls for “regime change” in Zionland and why are the Zionist military dictators not being hounded, strafed from the air or dragged before the International Courts and charged with war crimes in the name of ‘human rights’ and ‘humanitarian aid’?


Well, because the "lefts" aren't in power, I guess?


And why do the ‘lefts’ defend Barack Obama’s from charges of “fascist” when he openly boasts that he will strike anywhere against anyone who won’t do his bidding in complete violation of all joke ‘international laws’?


He isn't a fascist, first off. Second, the "left", as far as communists and anarchists go, are extremely critical of Obama.

What exactly do you mean by "Left" though? Are you including the center-left in this?

[Threetune]

How can you say "imperialism" and then say "fascist imperialist" if fascism is the same as imperialism to you?


For the avoidance of doubt.

[RED DAVE]

Hold on there. Imperialism is a dictatorship by force not consent. Capitalism is the violent and vicious dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, a fascist system of rule hidden by a pretty facade of pretend ‘democracy’ entirely dominated by money, bribery, media manipulation, election rigging and stitch-ups even in “peacetime” and always thrown aside for direct rule, martial law and direct intimidation-justified as “emergency” or “war conditions” – if the working class and poor rural masses are driven onto the revolutionary path.Now that you've proved to us that you're a leftist, it's time to listen.

Fascist, fascism, etc., are not curse words for capitalism. Fascism is a specific form of capitalist rule in which the state and the corporations are structurally fused, not working together but fused, civil liberties are denied, racism and genocide are open state policies, the left is banned and the labor movement has been destroyed. Generally, there are state labor federations.

That's fascism. It is a response to an aggressive working class, where the working class can't conquer power and the bourgeoisie can't contain the working class using normal, bourgeois democratic methods. We do not have this in any major capitalist country today.


And the essential fascist nature of imperialism is a description to which only the deluded and pampered petty bourgeoisies (especially the ‘lefts’) of the rich metropolitan countries ever raise any serious objection about, rowing-in behind the soft-headed delusions of the “democratic way”, “peaceful roadism” or “the fight for peace” (Stop the War Coalition) which the entire fake-left (including “hard nut” Stalinism) has subscribed to for decades, one way or another.
Ask the victims of Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Korea, Greece etc etc and the countless millions in every hellhole slum about your claim that -“There are no ''fascists'' in the mainstream of modern politics”, academic terminology. Why so wilfully blind and pathetic?Okay, again we know you're a leftist. Imperialism and fascism may go hand in hand or be separate the USA was/is imperialist but not fascist. Germany, Spain and Portugual were fascist and imperialist.


Imperialism is no “Paper Tiger” is it?No, imperialism is not a Paper Tiger. It is a very real monster that thinks nothing of killing or instigating the killing of millions. You don't have to be a fascist to be an imperialist. You can be a nice, "friendly" liberal and smile and get blow jobs while millions die.

RED DAVE

[Threetune]

Because the "left" is tiny and weak. Just as the working class in general, right now, is weak.
[/FONT][/COLOR]

I’ll hold back for the time being and give you time to think about your foul excuse for ‘left’ failings, .......by always blaming the working class! Wanker.

[Blackscare]

I’ll hold back for the time being and give you time to think about your foul excuse for ‘left’ failings, .......by always blaming the working class! Wanker.

He never did, idiot, those were two different clauses in the same sentence. The "lefts" are small and weak, they can do nothing but condemn, which they do.


You really have no ability to think rationally, do you?

[Threetune]

Now that you've proved to us that you're a leftist, it's time to listen.

Fascist, fascism, etc., are not curse words for capitalism. Fascism is a specific form of capitalist rule in which the state and the corporations are structurally fused, not working together but fused, civil liberties are denied, racism and genocide are open state policies, the left is banned and the labor movement has been destroyed. Generally, there are state labor federations.

That's fascism. It is a response to an aggressive working class, where the working class can't conquer power and the bourgeoisie can't contain the working class using normal, bourgeois democratic methods. We do not have this in any major capitalist country today.

Okay, again we know you're a leftist. Imperialism and fascism may go hand in hand or be separate the USA was/is imperialist but not fascist. Germany, Spain and Portugual were fascist and imperialist.

No, imperialism is not a Paper Tiger. It is a very real monster that thinks nothing of killing or instigating the killing of millions. You don't have to be a fascist to be an imperialist. You can be a nice, "friendly" liberal and smile and get blow jobs while millions die.

RED DAVE
What do you mean really by “fused”? How long were the state and corporations “fused” for in (1) Italy and (2) in Germany? And how long have the state and corporations been “fused” in the USA and Europe? - According to your definition of “fused” in the build-up or during WW II. As a 'leftist'-You get the point don't you?

[Threetune]

He never did, idiot, those were two different clauses in the same sentence. The "lefts" are small and weak, they can do nothing but condemn, which they do.


You really have no ability to think rationally, do you?

time waster

[#FF0000]

I’ll hold back for the time being and give you time to think about your foul excuse for ‘left’ failings, .......by always blaming the working class! Wanker.

I didn't blame the working working class. I stated a fact. The working class is weak right now. They are very much on the losing end of the struggle.


time waster

What?

[Threetune]

He never did, idiot, those were two different clauses in the same sentence. The "lefts" are small and weak, they can do nothing but condemn, which they do.


You really have no ability to think rationally, do you?

" Because the "left" is tiny and weak. Just as the working class in general, right now, is weak."

That's what he said. Live with it.

[Threetune]

I didn't blame the working working class. I stated a fact. The working class is weak right now. They are very much on the losing end of the struggle.


The ‘left’ LEADERSHIP of the class is weak and pathetic as I said, because it academically refuses to concentrate on agitating and propagandising – ATTACKING THE FASCIST REALITY OF IMPERIALIST WAR MONGERING… BECAUSE… CAPITALISM IS IN A TERMINAL ECONOMIC CRISIS. Are you awake!

[RedSunRising]

The ‘left’ LEADERSHIP of the class is weak and pathetic as I said, because it academically refuses to concentrate on agitating and propagandising – ATTACKING THE FASCIST REALITY OF IMPERIALIST WAR MONGERING… BECAUSE… CAPITALISM IS IN A TERMINAL ECONOMIC CRISIS. Are you awake!

So you think if only the perfect leadership would come along than everything would be sorted? Things dont work like that Im afraird, people need have confidence in their own power and belief that possibility of changing things really exists, neither of which are that common at all at the moment.

[Sasha]

I’ll hold back for the time being and give you time to think about your foul excuse for ‘left’ failings, .......by always blaming the working class! Wanker.


time waster

infraction for flaming

[Threetune]

So you think if only the perfect leadership would come along than everything would be sorted? Things dont work like that Im afraird, people need have confidence in their own power and belief that possibility of changing things really exists, neither of which are that common at all at the moment.



They are not “that common at the moment” as you say, because people like you, as I keep saying, are refusing to explain the fascist reality of the world imperialist order, and direct everyone’s attention to its destruction.

[Threetune]

infraction for flaming

Try again Troll
NB. Is it not time for the moderator to have a strong word with this lad. Get him a chance to improve his Leninist revolutionary grasp.

[#FF0000]

The ‘left’ LEADERSHIP of the class is weak and pathetic as I said

I don't think the role of the 'left' is to lead the working class like a general leads an army, tho

[Sasha]

Try again Troll
NB.[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]


If you insists, have another one...
infraction number two for flaming

[Threetune]

I don't think the role of the 'left' is to lead the working class like a general leads an army, tho

I know that the “role of the left” is not to lead, so what the fuck is it for?? We workers are looking for an understanding of the world and you say that that’s not your role. THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I HAVE BEEN SAYINHG. You ‘lefts’ are pathetic.

[danyboy27]

I know that the “role of the left” is not to lead, so what the fuck is it for?? We workers are looking for an understanding of the world and you say that that’s not your role. THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I HAVE BEEN SAYINHG. You ‘lefts’ are pathetic.

what...?

[Threetune]

The capitalist news propaganda is pumping out fascist Obamaism. What are you going to say?

[danyboy27]

The capitalist news propaganda is pumping out fascist Obamaism. What are you going to say?

well, all i wanted was a more elaborate explanation on your last post, but if you want to keep trolling and get banned in the process that fine by me, keep it up :thumbup:

[RedSunRising]

I know that the “role of the left” is not to lead, so what the fuck is it for?? We workers are looking for an understanding of the world and you say that that’s not your role. THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I HAVE BEEN SAYINHG. You ‘lefts’ are pathetic.

There is internment by remand in the British occupied six counties in Ireland. Intimidation of any political activist who questions the current order as well. What have you done about that? How many times have the piggies raided your place? Why are you so much better than the people or straw people you are attacking?

[Leftsolidarity]

Threetune, you are nothing but a sectarian and an overexagerator. Fascism is an ideology that you obviously are too lazy to research. Not everything that is a dictatorship or imperialist is fascism while fascism is always both. Using your ideas one could say something silly like, "fascists always use flags so if a country uses a flag it is fascist." While you are not saying that it is basically the gist of your argument.

That being said, the United States does RESEMBLE a fascist state.

Also, almost every leftist group condemns Israel very openly and frequently.

[RED DAVE]

What do you mean really by “fused”? How long were the state and corporations “fused” for in (1) Italy and (2) in Germany? And how long have the state and corporations been “fused” in the USA and Europe? - According to your definition of “fused” in the build-up or during WW II. As a 'leftist'-You get the point don't you?If you want a detailed discussion of fascism (a) start by reading Trotsky's Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944/1944-fas.htm) and (b) for greater details, read Franz Neumann's Behemoth. Then, (c) start a thread on fascism.

RED DAVE

[Threetune]

If you want a detailed discussion of fascism (a) start by reading Trotsky's Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944/1944-fas.htm) and (b) for greater details, read Franz Neumann's Behemoth. Then, (c) start a thread on fascism.

RED DAVE

OK, so I’ve read the Trotsky you recommended and disagree with it. I don’t accept that the petty-bourgeois have the capacity to peruse an independent fascist line against the working class, as the Trotsky article infers, without the support of the fascistic imperialist bourgeois throughout, together with the acquiescence of counter revolutionary social democracy.

BTW I did not start the argument about fascism as a specific subject separate from imperialism. Tommy4ever did. However, my OP was put in the wrong place by accident and because the moderator did not object at the time, I naturally assumed it was not a problem. I have no objection to it being moved to politics if that’s what you want.

Attempts to divide fascism from imperialism is how reformism attempts to sanitise imperialism.

[Leftsolidarity]

Attempts to divide fascism from imperialism is how reformism attempts to sanitise imperialism.


No, it is using terms properly.

[Threetune]

No, it is using terms properly.

Then explain how fascism can be separated from imperialist economic crisis management.

[Rooster]

Then explain how fascism can be separated from imperialist economic crisis management.

The New Deal? Was that fascist?

[Tim Finnegan]

The capitalist news propaganda is pumping out fascist Obamaism. What are you going to say?
What is this silliness, masquerading as a sentence? Come clean, vile nonsense-worm, and shed your graphemic skin!

[Leftsolidarity]

Then explain how fascism can be separated from imperialist economic crisis management.

First maybe you should go read about what imperialism is then read what fascism is then re-read it a couple times and then come back.

[Threetune]

[QUOTE=rooster;2129005]The New Deal? Was that fascist?[/QUOTE
Are these snippets from Wikipedia of any use to you.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt) became President of the United States in March 1933, he expressly adopted a variety of measures to see which would work, including several which their proponents felt would be inconsistent with each other. One of these programs was the National Recovery Administration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Recovery_Administration) (NRA), which, with its codes and industry organizations, was said by some critics to have a certain resemblance, as an economic institution, to Mussolini's corporatism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism).[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Deal_and_corporatism#cite_note-hoover-0)[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Deal_and_corporatism#cite_note-alpers-1)[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Deal_and_corporatism#cite_note-alperstext-2)[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Deal_and_corporatism#cite_note-payne-3)[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Deal_and_corporatism#cite_note-johnson-4)[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Deal_and_corporatism#cite_note-memoirs-5) This comparison was made at the time, and it was not always a critical one; even Winston Churchill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill) had praised Benito Mussolini (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini). Churchill controversially claimed that the fascism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_fascism) of Mussolini had "rendered a service to the whole world," showing, as it had, "a way to combat subversive forces" — that is, he considered the regime to be a bulwark against the perceived threat of communist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist) revolution. At one point, Churchill went as far as to call Mussolini the "Roman genius ... the greatest lawgiver among men."[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Deal_and_corporatism#cite_note-6)

FDR's personal letters reveal that he was impressed by what Mussolini was doing and said that he kept in close touch with that "admirable gentleman."[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Deal_and_corporatism#cite_note-7) Mussolini himself praised the New Deal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal) as following his own corporate state, as quoted in a July 1933 article in the New York Times (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times), "Your plan for coordination of industry follows precisely our lines of cooperation."[9] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Deal_and_corporatism#cite_note-edsforth-8)

Does that answer your question?

[Threetune]

First maybe you should go read about what imperialism is then read what fascism is then re-read it a couple times and then come back.

Thanks for that advice. So you yourself have no answers for me then. Is that what you are trying to say?

[Threetune]

What is this silliness, masquerading as a sentence? Come clean, vile nonsense-worm, and shed your graphemic skin!

Have you not seen, heard or read Obama’s speech to the British ruling class. I strongly suggest that you do. It is facsist. Oh and would you like to present an argument on the topic that is posted or are you a troll?

[Leftsolidarity]

Thanks for that advice. So you yourself have no answers for me then. Is that what you are trying to say?

No, I have already explained that they are not mutually inclusive but you didn't seem to listen so maybe you should just go read for yourself.

[Threetune]

No, I have already explained that they are not mutually inclusive but you didn't seem to listen so maybe you should just go read for yourself.

I am saying they are and you should research this.
When Franklin D. Roosevelt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt) became President of the United States in March 1933, he expressly adopted a variety of measures to see which would work, including several which their proponents felt would be inconsistent with each other. One of these programs was the National Recovery Administration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Recovery_Administration) (NRA), which, with its codes and industry organizations, was said by some critics to have a certain resemblance, as an economic institution, to Mussolini's corporatism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism).[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Deal_and_corporatism#cite_note-hoover-0)[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Deal_and_corporatism#cite_note-alpers-1)[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Deal_and_corporatism#cite_note-alperstext-2)[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Deal_and_corporatism#cite_note-payne-3)[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Deal_and_corporatism#cite_note-johnson-4)[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Deal_and_corporatism#cite_note-memoirs-5) This comparison was made at the time, and it was not always a critical one; even Winston Churchill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill) had praised Benito Mussolini (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini). Churchill controversially claimed that the fascism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_fascism) of Mussolini had "rendered a service to the whole world," showing, as it had, "a way to combat subversive forces" — that is, he considered the regime to be a bulwark against the perceived threat of communist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist) revolution. At one point, Churchill went as far as to call Mussolini the "Roman genius ... the greatest lawgiver among men."[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Deal_and_corporatism#cite_note-6)

FDR's personal letters reveal that he was impressed by what Mussolini was doing and said that he kept in close touch with that "admirable gentleman."[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Deal_and_corporatism#cite_note-7) Mussolini himself praised the New Deal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal) as following his own corporate state, as quoted in a July 1933 article in the New York Times (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times), "Your plan for coordination of industry follows precisely our lines of cooperation."[9] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Deal_and_corporatism#cite_note-edsforth-8)

Do you really have nothing to say about it? Are you still saying that imperialism and fascism and imperialism are not "mutually inclusive" when the historical and contemporary evidence prove they are.

[Leftsolidarity]

Great evidence there pal. You got one thing on wikipedia about one president's one policy. Why don't you go research what Imperialism and Fascism is now?

[Rooster]

Does that answer your question?

No. It doesn't say how they are similar. It goes not go into any detail.

[Threetune]

Great evidence there pal. You got one thing on wikipedia about one president's one policy. Why don't you go research what Imperialism and Fascism is now?

They were all at it then and they are all at it now. Prove me wrong rather than the cheep stunt of telling me to go and read, when all you really want is for me to go way because you can’t stand up behind you pathetic ‘left’ heckling.
Say something about the quote above so everyone can see you powers of analysis. That should be easy.

[Leftsolidarity]

They were all at it then and they are all at it now. Prove me wrong rather than the cheep stunt of telling me to go and read, when all you really want is for me to go way because you can’t stand up behind you pathetic ‘left’ heckling.
Say something about the quote above so everyone can see you powers of analysis. That should be easy.



What I say is that you are very persistent at refusing to actually learning about what you are trying to talk about. I am not just heckling because I already explained myself but for some reason you refuse to acknowledge that. I am just waiting until you actually read about the terms that you are throwing around meaninglessly so that we may have a real discussion.

What you posted also has nothing to do with this.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I think you and other lefts are misleading workers, sanitising imperialism by not exposing and attacking its essential fascist nature.

No, imperialism is imperialism, not fascism. We expose the horrific imperialism of the US, NATO etc., and that is enough.

I think you seriously mis-understand what the word 'fascism' denotes, in terms of political philosophy, and you're starting to sound like a foolish demagogue. For your own sanity, I suggest you accept that the many here are correct. You cannot call every imperial war a fascist war, you cannot call every bourgeois politician a fascist; there is a clear difference between the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and fascist dictatorship.

Honestly, the hysterical mis-use and overuse of the term 'fascism' is a real hindrance to the left, it makes us sound hilariously out-of-touch with ordinary people and is a term best avoided for anything but the actual denotion of fascism itself.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The ‘left’ LEADERSHIP of the class is weak and pathetic as I said, because it academically refuses to concentrate on agitating and propagandising – ATTACKING THE FASCIST REALITY OF IMPERIALIST WAR MONGERING… BECAUSE… CAPITALISM IS IN A TERMINAL ECONOMIC CRISIS. Are you awake!

That's an inherently un-Marxist worldview.

As Marxists, we believe that Socialism nears, or potentially nears, as the incidence of class struggle increases. At the moment, it is a fact - fact! - that the working class is on the defensive, it is being attacked by the bourgeoisie and has been done for a while. The trade unions cannot stem the tide, and for sure the tiny, tiny left wing cannot.

It is not up to class conscious, left wing 'leaders' to stop the historical flowing tide of bourgeois oppression, it is up to the working class. ONLY when the working class become class conscious and then politically/revolutionary conscious, can Socialism come about. Until then, we can agitate, educate and propagandise, but little more, because the Socialist left is tiny and weak - it is not, as of now, actively backed by much of the working class.

I seriously don't think you can actually believe that somehow a more effective left-wing leadership would change much. Of course it might help, but it would push us nowhere near the critical mass of support and awareness that we need to put the bourgeoisie on the back foot.

[Threetune]

CHAPTER SEVEN


Who Financed Adolf Hitler?


“We know exactly who contributed, how much, and through what channels. It is notable that the largest contributors — I.G. Farben, German General Electric (and its affiliated company Osram), and Thyssen — were affiliated with Wall Street financiers. These Wall Street financiers were at the heart of the financial elite and they were prominent in contemporary American politics. Gerard Swope of General Electric was author of Roosevelt's New Deal, Teagle was one of NRA's top administrators, Paul Warburg and his associates at American I.G. Farben were Roosevelt advisors.

It is perhaps not an extraordinary coincidence that Roosevelt's New Deal — called a "fascist measure" by Herbert Hoover — should have so closely resembled Hitler's program for Germany, and that both Hitler and Roosevelt took power in the same month of the same year — March 1933."

You still say imperialism and fascism are separate? It’s you who should go and read.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

American conservatives have been trying to equate Keynesian economics, the "New Deal" and social-liberal or social-democratic economic intervention with fascism for ages, as well as communism and radical socialism. It doesn't mean its a true or a legitimate comparison. So the Herbert Hoover quote proves nothing. It sounds no more rational than one of the fellows from the Tea Party equating America's 2010 health care reform with Maoism or Naziism ... on the contrary, it's a politician's polemics against another and hardly credible in this context.

The only thing your quote from the head of GE and wall street firms shows is that fascism is one possibility which can be produced by a Capitalist economy. That doesn't mean all imperial capital is fascist. It's an incredibly reductionist argument to say "Well, Wall Street liked Hitler in 1933, that must mean all Imperial Capital in history is supportive of a Nazi-style political and economic model". By 1939, the divergences between the systems were much more distinct, hence the fact that both the UK and US found themselves so concerned with the nature of the fascist governments in Germany and Italy, and the supremacist militarists in Japan.

[Threetune]

That's an inherently un-Marxist worldview.

As Marxists, we believe that Socialism nears, or potentially nears, as the incidence of class struggle increases. At the moment, it is a fact - fact! - that the working class is on the defensive, it is being attacked by the bourgeoisie and has been done for a while. The trade unions cannot stem the tide, and for sure the tiny, tiny left wing cannot.

It is not up to class conscious, left wing 'leaders' to stop the historical flowing tide of bourgeois oppression, it is up to the working class. ONLY when the working class become class conscious and then politically/revolutionary conscious, can Socialism come about. Until then, we can agitate, educate and propagandise, but little more, because the Socialist left is tiny and weak - it is not, as of now, actively backed by much of the working class.

I seriously don't think you can actually believe that somehow a more effective left-wing leadership would change much. Of course it might help, but it would push us nowhere near the critical mass of support and awareness that we need to put the bourgeoisie on the back foot.

If you’re not going to provide revolutionary political leadership you might as well stay at home and read a novel. And how can you give revolutionary leadership without exposing and attacking the fascist nature of imperialism, the very system that is attacking the working class everywhere just as it did in the 1930s.

The working class is being misled by ‘lefts’ who are constantly telling workers to support reformism which only ever collaborates with imperialism. That’s its job, both ‘left’ and right reformism encourages workers to collaborate or acquiesce to imperialisms fascist domestic social policy (new deal, big society) and its warmongering international policy instead of calling it for what it is.

Of course the ‘left’ can’t lead anything except its own pathetic pessimistic factional infighting because it is wilfully refusing to face the reality of the depth of capitalisms crisis. The ‘left’ have no policy other than being embarrassed by its historical association with communism and its condescending, opportunist wish to be popular with “ordinary people”, as you put it.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

So, what are you doing, other than ranting, raving and providing isolated passages of spurious 'evidence', on some message board?:rolleyes:

You're being extremely unkind to the many dedicated Marxists who spend their lives fighting to radically improve the lives of the poor. Unless you have given your life to doing the same and can promote a more coherent critique of the modern left-wing (many critiques are available, we do a lot of introspection), then you are bang out of order attacking dedicated comrades.

[Threetune]

American conservatives have been trying to equate Keynesian economics, the "New Deal" and social-liberal or social-democratic economic intervention with fascism for ages, as well as communism and radical socialism. It doesn't mean its a true or a legitimate comparison. So the Herbert Hoover quote proves nothing. It sounds no more rational than one of the fellows from the Tea Party equating America's 2010 health care reform with Maoism or Naziism ... on the contrary, it's a politician's polemics against another and hardly credible in this context.

The only thing your quote from the head of GE and wall street firms shows is that fascism is one possibility which can be produced by a Capitalist economy. That doesn't mean all imperial capital is fascist. It's an incredibly reductionist argument to say "Well, Wall Street liked Hitler in 1933, that must mean all Imperial Capital in history is supportive of a Nazi-style political and economic model". By 1939, the divergences between the systems were much more distinct, hence the fact that both the UK and US found themselves so concerned with the nature of the fascist governments in Germany and Italy, and the supremacist militarists in Japan.

I note your grudging acceptance that some “imperial capital” is fascist, and that they were the leading and most influential in the imperialist US government at that time.
This answers the earlier question about the new deal.

[GallowsBird]

Why are the left pathetic? Because sadly the "left" seems to be made up of Middle-class teenagers who think it is "cool" and eventually grow out of it before contributing much to the leftist movement.
The other reason is that the various groups parties try to appeal to the wrong sources and thus over time just become another bourgeois party like Labour.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Why are the left pathetic? Because sadly the "left" seems to be made up of Middle-class teenagers who think it is "cool" and eventually grow out of it before contributing much to the leftist movement.
The other reason is that the various groups parties try to appeal to the wrong sources and thus over time just become another bourgeois party like Labour.

'Middle class'. What sort of bullshit term is that?

Maybe 'middle-class teenagers' (whatever you mean by that misnomer) get into left politics, and leave soon after because they see the negative, suspicious, defensive and sectarian attitude such as you display in the quoted post.:rolleyes:

[Rainsborough]

And while Rome burned, Nero fiddled. :laugh:

[Threetune]

So, what are you doing, other than ranting, raving and providing isolated passages of spurious 'evidence', on some message board?:rolleyes:

You're being extremely unkind to the many dedicated Marxists who spend their lives fighting to radically improve the lives of the poor. Unless you have given your life to doing the same and can promote a more coherent critique of the modern left-wing (many critiques are available, we do a lot of introspection), then you are bang out of order attacking dedicated comrades.

I and the rest of the working class are constantly being told BY THE ‘LEFTS’, like you, that ‘fascism’ is different, and worse than imperialist capitalism, when in fact it is the big capitalists who are always the ideological, philosophical, and economic organisers of fascism. The “passages of spurious 'evidence',” as you put it, are an answer to the challenge about the ‘New Deal’ not being fascist. It Was.

Even Shiva Trishula Dialectics now can’t help giving the game away – “That doesn't mean all imperial capital is fascist.” No, it means that the leading industrialists (capitalist imperialists) and their bought-and-paid-for government were. And the circles they spring from!

“The ***** that bore him is on heat again” Bertolt Brecht,

[Threetune]

I think it’s time that the moderator moved this debate to another place, like politics for instance.
Any seconders?

[Threetune]

'Middle class'. What sort of bullshit term is that?

Maybe 'middle-class teenagers' (whatever you mean by that misnomer) get into left politics, and leave soon after because they see the negative, suspicious, defensive and sectarian attitude such as you display in the quoted post.:rolleyes:


It would be helpful if you could adopt (even temporarily) a political position and argue it, instead of just heckling everyone.

[Threetune]

And while Rome burned, Nero fiddled. :laugh:

What's your point exactly?

[Leftsolidarity]

I and the rest of the working class are constantly being told BY THE ‘LEFTS’, like you, that ‘fascism’ is different


Maybe because it is true?

[Threetune]

Why are the left pathetic? Because sadly the "left" seems to be made up of Middle-class teenagers who think it is "cool" and eventually grow out of it before contributing much to the leftist movement.
The other reason is that the various groups parties try to appeal to the wrong sources and thus over time just become another bourgeois party like Labour.

OK, but Stalin's "peaceful coexistens" with imperialism needs some explaining don't you think?

The idea that there are good and bad kinds of imperialism is regretably sadly and tragicly not confined to the reformost and Trotskyist 'lefts'. It's time the 'hard nut', 'tanky' and 'papert tiger' revisionists of all stripes faced up to the past mistaks as well.

[Threetune]

Maybe because it is true?

OK mate, good look.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

It would be helpful if you could adopt (even temporarily) a political position and argue it, instead of just heckling everyone.

I have 1020 posts, mostly consisting of good, solid Marxist theorising and learning.

I doubt you've read any of them, though, so I don't know why you're questioning my intellectual or political-philosophy abilities.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I and the rest of the working class are constantly being told BY THE ‘LEFTS’, like you, that ‘fascism’ is different, and worse than imperialist capitalism, when in fact it is the big capitalists who are always the ideological, philosophical, and economic organisers of fascism. The “passages of spurious 'evidence',” as you put it, are an answer to the challenge about the ‘New Deal’ not being fascist. It Was.

Even Shiva Trishula Dialectics now can’t help giving the game away – “That doesn't mean all imperial capital is fascist.” No, it means that the leading industrialists (capitalist imperialists) and their bought-and-paid-for government were. And the circles they spring from!

“The ***** that bore him is on heat again” Bertolt Brecht,

Saying that fascism is worse than imperialist capitalism =/= imperialist capitalism is not bad.

Fascism is a separate political philosophy to the neo-liberal imperialism of the US, NATO and so on. It is related, in some ways, but different in that it has a strong emphasis on the dictatorship of one, rather than of the bourgeois class, and that it has a strong emphasis on explicit nationalism and scapegoating of a race or group of peoples.

Saying that the likes of Hitler are on a level with the likes of Brown, Cameron and Obama is actually something that I, as someone with jewish heritage, actually find extremely offensive.

[Threetune]

Maybe because it is true?

And that’s why most workers think the ‘lefts’ are pathetic at best, and sensibly ignore their advice that imperialism is in essence any different to fascism.

[Tim Finnegan]

And that’s why most workers think the ‘lefts’ are pathetic at best, and sensibly ignore their advice that imperialism is in essence any different to fascism.
I don't think that most workers actually have any theoretical position on fascism or imperialism..

[Threetune]

Saying that fascism is worse than imperialist capitalism =/= imperialist capitalism is not bad.

Fascism is a separate political philosophy to the neo-liberal imperialism of the US, NATO and so on. It is related, in some ways, but different in that it has a strong emphasis on the dictatorship of one, rather than of the bourgeois class, and that it has a strong emphasis on explicit nationalism and scapegoating of a race or group of peoples.

Saying that the likes of Hitler are on a level with the likes of Brown, Cameron and Obama is actually something that I, as someone with jewish heritage, actually find extremely offensive.

You’re also beginning to concede that “It is related, in some ways,” along with Shiva Trishula Dialectics grudging: “That doesn't mean all imperial capital is fascist”.

So, we are now left with = ‘some imperial capital is fascist and are related in some ways’.

You gave your explanation of how you thought fascism/imperialism were different, but you didn’t say how they were “related in some ways”. In what ways are they related?

[Threetune]

In rarefied, elite academic circles, you may have heard a critique of Hitler, Mussolini or Franco that focused on their economic policies but you’d be hard pressed to find it in any common or popular condemnations of fascism. No, what is universally understood about Hitler Mussolini and Franco is their brutal treatment of their opponents, and which main opponents did they all have in common - together with the other imperialist ruling capitalist of the USA that armed and financed them?

Answer: The working class and the communist workers in particular.

And if the modern ‘lefts’, for no other reason than self preservation, don’t understand it, see what a prominent member of the British capitalist class at the time had to say.

“Lord Halifax had already developed a good relationship with the German government. After his first visit to Nazi Germany (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERnazigermany.htm) he told his friend, Henry (Chips) Channon (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRchannonH.htm): "He (Halifax) told me he liked all the Nazi leaders, even Goebbels, and he was much impressed, interested and amused by the visit. He thinks the regime absolutely fantastic."
“In his diary, Lord Halifax records how he told Hitler: "Although there was much in the Nazi system that profoundly offended British opinion, I was not blind to what he (Hitler) had done for Germany, and to the achievement from his point of view of keeping Communism out of his country." This was a reference to the fact that Hitler had banned the Communist Party (KPD) (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERkpd.htm) in Germany and placed its leaders in Concentration Camps (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERconcentration.htm).”

The entire imperialist system was up to its armpits in fascist intrigue as an ‘answer’ to its economic crisis, and against the working class in general and communism in particular. And they are now, in an incomparably greater economic crisis!

[Rainsborough]

What's your point exactly?

I'm agreeing with you, while the Left argues definitions the working class burns.
We need to stop splitting hairs over the differences between fascist and imperialist and start focusing on the workers.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

You’re also beginning to concede that “It is related, in some ways,” along with Shiva Trishula Dialectics grudging: “That doesn't mean all imperial capital is fascist”.

So, we are now left with = ‘some imperial capital is fascist and are related in some ways’.

You gave your explanation of how you thought fascism/imperialism were different, but you didn’t say how they were “related in some ways”. In what ways are they related?

They are related because they both oppress the working class and are both opposed to Socialism.

They are related because many industrialists and capitalists would rather Fascism than Socialism.

The two above-mentioned similarities do not mean they are the same. Surely it doesn't take gold-medal standard mental gymnastics to figure that out?

[Threetune]

And what about the genocideal warmongering activity?

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Sigh ...

(1) Not every imperialistic war is "genocide". Genocide is the attempt to use systematic violence to liquidate a large number of people based on some in-group status. Hence, the attempt to wipe out the Jews by Germany was a genocide. This isn't to say a lot of civilians aren't being killed in a particular conflict, but the deaths of civilians alone doesn't make something a genocide.

(2) Not every action we call genocide has been pursued by fascists. Turkish Imperialists committed a genocide against Armenians, German Imperialists committed a genocide against Africans in Namibia, and the early USA committed genocides against Native Americans. Those governments all predated fascism and fascist ideology by a long time.


You may see it as "splitting hairs", but it is helpful to have a mature analysis which can reveal the practical distinctions between different ideological structures.

[Rainsborough]

You may see it as "splitting hairs", but it is helpful to have a mature analysis which can reveal the practical distinctions between different ideological structures.

Try explaining the theories to the worker awaiting job losses and all the acompanying crap. I'm sure they would see the relevance of the distinction.

[Leftsolidarity]

Try explaining the theories to the worker awaiting job losses and all the acompanying crap. I'm sure they would see the relevance of the distinction.

So do you want to spoon feed them bullshit or the truth? There is no practical reasoning to say that everything that is imperialist is fascist. I do talk to those kinds of people and they are not as dumb as you make them out to be and just jumping to common words that people associate with "bad" that actually don't apply is wrong and misleading.

[Threetune]

Sigh ...

(1) Not every imperialistic war is "genocide". Genocide is the attempt to use systematic violence to liquidate a large number of people based on some in-group status. Hence, the attempt to wipe out the Jews by Germany was a genocide. This isn't to say a lot of civilians aren't being killed in a particular conflict, but the deaths of civilians alone doesn't make something a genocide.

(2) Not every action we call genocide has been pursued by fascists. Turkish Imperialists committed a genocide against Armenians, German Imperialists committed a genocide against Africans in Namibia, and the early USA committed genocides against Native Americans. Those governments all predated fascism and fascist ideology by a long time.


You may see it as "splitting hairs", but it is helpful to have a mature analysis which can reveal the practical distinctions between different ideological structures.

So exactly what “practical distinctions” have you “revealed” with your “mature analysis”? You’re simply saying that fascists and imperialists have committed genocide – at sometime.

[Leftsolidarity]

So exactly what “practical distinctions” have you “revealed” with your “mature analysis”? You’re simply saying that fascists and imperialists have committed genocide – at sometime.

You are just ignoring every point someone makes and then continue to ask the same things over and over again.

[Threetune]

You are just ignoring every point someone makes and then continue to ask the same things over and over again.

I wasn't talking to you.

[Leftsolidarity]

I wasn't talking to you.

That doesn't change the fact that you are ignoring every point people make and continue to ask the same things over and over again that people have answered over and over again.

[Luís Henrique]

If you want to understand the difference between fascist and non-fascist bourgeois politics, you should read "Fascism and Dictatorship" by Nikos Poulantzas.

Luís Henrique

[Threetune]

That doesn't change the fact that you are ignoring every point people make and continue to ask the same things over and over again that people have answered over and over again.

Ok so you want ride to the rescue of Shiva Trishula Dialectics and El Granma. Now they say: ‘some imperial capital is fascist and are related in some ways’. So I’m asking you in what ways are they related?
Shiva Trishula Dialectics also says that “it is helpful to have a mature analysis which can reveal the practical distinctions between different ideological structures.” So can you cast some light on that high sounding but vacuous sentence and say exactly what“practical distinction” is being made. I look forward to your answers.

[Threetune]

If you want to understand the difference between fascist and non-fascist bourgeois politics, you should read "Fascism and Dictatorship" by Nikos Poulantzas.

Luís Henrique


Thanks for that. What is interesting is that few here give an answer without telling me to go and read something.

[Leftsolidarity]

Ok so you want ride to the rescue of Shiva Trishula Dialectics and El Granma. Now they say: ‘some imperial capital is fascist and are related in some ways’. So I’m asking you in what ways are they related?
Shiva Trishula Dialectics also says that “it is helpful to have a mature analysis which can reveal the practical distinctions between different ideological structures.” So can you cast some light on that high sounding but vacuous sentence and say exactly what“practical distinction” is being made. I look forward to your answers.

READ THE 5 PAGES OF COMMENTS YOU HAVE GOTTEN AND YOU HAVE ALL YOUR ANSWERS!!:cursing:

[Threetune]

READ THE 5 PAGES OF COMMENTS YOU HAVE GOTTEN AND YOU HAVE ALL YOUR ANSWERS!!:cursing:


How did I know you couldn’t do it? Never mind.

[Leftsolidarity]

How did I know you couldn’t do it? Never mind.

I'm done with you. You are clearly a moron.

[Threetune]

You are unable to escape the logic of your own admissions about the convergence of what you previously claimed were "separate" “philosophical” entities, ie, imperialism and fascism. They are nothing of the sort. Franco, Mussolini and Hitler were funded and taught everything they knew by imperialism and pre-WWII colonialism. Once that’s acknowledged the discussion can move on to post WWII imperialist fascism.

[bailey_187]

If Imperialism is fascism, how exactly did exist in say the late 1800s with the scramble for Africa? Surely u agree that those events predate fascism?

Or how exactly do u explain the fascists of Eastern Europe, many of which were in states unable to engage in imperialism? Or is it that all imperialists are fascists, but not all fascists are imperialists? maybe u are whitewashing fascism then, in the way that u accused others of whitewashing imperialism?

[bailey_187]

Threetune, so we can make some sense of this discussion, please could u give a brief definition of what u think both fascism and imperialism are

thanks

[Luís Henrique]

Thanks for that.
You are welcome.


What is interesting is that few here give an answer without telling me to go and read something.Well, I could pick Poulantzas book, and make an abstract of his arguments for you. And you would probably call me some names. So I am directing you to the source, so that you can save those names for Poulantzas, who is dead and cannot care.

Also I am interested in seeing Poulantzas being called a trotskyist or a revisionist. It would be entertaining.

Luís Henrique

[Coach Trotsky]

Or maybe it's because most people---even on the Left---seem to think fascism (specifically) is only really fascism when it looks like the villains in of a Spielberg film.

Here's a hypothesis: the bourgeoisie doesn't want to play games and end in up in precisely the same relations with the old-style fascists anymore, so nowadays they get the Right and Left misleaderships (including the 'mainstream' mass media) to perform all the critical functions and role of fascism WITHOUT allowing for too much of an independent mass leadership and mass mobilization on the part of the petty bourgeoisie and/or the proletariat. The bourgeoisie still retains essentially direct or proxy/puppet control of the bourgeois state, and NO ONE of the 'legitimate' 'relevant' Right or Left misleaderships dare raise their voices and certainly never a finger against the capitalist system, against the bourgeois state, nor against the ruling capitalist class itself...nor would they have any interest in doing so, since THEY BENEFIT in the role of capitalism's executioners, subjugators, struggle-killers, fellow exploiters (large and small), and slavery-justifying myth-makers!

What I'm saying is that there better be a damn good argument why we shouldn't treat ALL of this society's leaderships as enemies today, just as much as we would regard the old-school fascists. How exactly is the sellout union boss that suppresses struggle against the bourgeoisie somehow less an enemy than a fascist stormtrooper? Doesn't that union bureacrat sellout actually do MORE damage, precisely because he stabs you in the back rather than attacking you directly from the front?! And what should we think of those on the Left who apologize and rationalize these sellout leaders in the workers' movements, and who consent by silence and continued uncritical unprincipled collaboration with them, and who themselves sooner or later offer their own form of left-posturing treacherous misleadership in the form of attempting to persuade the working people to "support the lesser evil", rather than calling for a necessary break from the misleaders and the bourgeoisie whom they serve, and calling for independent workers' mass militant action/organization from which the workers can conquer power and actualize their own solutions?

[Threetune]

Threetune, so we can make some sense of this discussion, please could u give a brief definition of what u think both fascism and imperialism are

thanks


Fascism is (self proclaimed) rabid reactionary idealism within capitalist culture with emphasis on different things at different times as necessity requires, e.g. nationalism, racism, anti-this-that-and-the-other including anti-conservatism. Whatever claims modern capitalism (imperialism) makes to being the child of the ‘Enlightenment’, ‘free trade’, and ‘democracy’ etc, it has never abandoned its infatuation with irrational ‘idealism’ = the perfect STATE.

Fascism, in one form or another (before its modern usage - Italy 1920s) has been a major personality trait of capitalism throughout its entire colonial, imperial and post colonial history. Fascism is not a separate entity which has a separate existence from imperialism; fascism is imperialism’s atavistic snarl. Imperialism is fascist.

[Threetune]

You are welcome.

Well, I could pick Poulantzas book, and make an abstract of his arguments for you. And you would probably call me some names. So I am directing you to the source, so that you can save those names for Poulantzas, who is dead and cannot care.

Also I am interested in seeing Poulantzas being called a trotskyist or a revisionist. It would be entertaining.

Luís Henrique

I had a quick look at the name and a summary of his book. Thanks, I might get a chance to read it sometime.

[bailey_187]

Fascism is (self proclaimed) rabid reactionary idealism within capitalist culture with emphasis on different things at different times as necessity requires, e.g. nationalism, racism, anti-this-that-and-the-other including anti-conservatism. Whatever claims modern capitalism (imperialism) makes to being the child of the ‘Enlightenment’, ‘free trade’, and ‘democracy’ etc, it has never abandoned its infatuation with irrational ‘idealism’ = the perfect STATE.

Fascism, in one form or another (before its modern usage - Italy 1920s) has been a major personality trait of capitalism throughout its entire colonial, imperial and post colonial history. Fascism is not a separate entity which has a separate existence from imperialism; fascism is imperialism’s atavistic snarl. Imperialism is fascist.

heres the problem then. you have an very inchorent view on what fascism is that most on here would disagree with.

If fascism is simply a strand of idealism within capitalism that has alway existed, then do u not view the years of inter-war europe as anything significant historicaly?

Is this view of fascism your own, or are you influenced by another author?

[Leftsolidarity]

Or maybe it's because most people---even on the Left---seem to think fascism (specifically) is only really fascism when it looks like the villains in of a Spielberg film.

Here's a hypothesis: the bourgeoisie doesn't want to play games and end in up in precisely the same relations with the old-style fascists anymore, so nowadays they get the Right and Left misleaderships (including the 'mainstream' mass media) to perform all the critical functions and role of fascism WITHOUT allowing for too much of an independent mass leadership and mass mobilization on the part of the petty bourgeoisie and/or the proletariat. The bourgeoisie still retains essentially direct or proxy/puppet control of the bourgeois state, and NO ONE of the 'legitimate' 'relevant' Right or Left misleaderships dare raise their voices and certainly never a finger against the capitalist system, against the bourgeois state, nor against the ruling capitalist class itself...nor would they have any interest in doing so, since THEY BENEFIT in the role of capitalism's executioners, subjugators, struggle-killers, fellow exploiters (large and small), and slavery-justifying myth-makers!

What I'm saying is that there better be a damn good argument why we shouldn't treat ALL of this society's leaderships as enemies today, just as much as we would regard the old-school fascists. How exactly is the sellout union boss that suppresses struggle against the bourgeoisie somehow less an enemy than a fascist stormtrooper? Doesn't that union bureacrat sellout actually do MORE damage, precisely because he stabs you in the back rather than attacking you directly from the front?! And what should we think of those on the Left who apologize and rationalize these sellout leaders in the workers' movements, and who consent by silence and continued uncritical unprincipled collaboration with them, and who themselves sooner or later offer their own form of left-posturing treacherous misleadership in the form of attempting to persuade the working people to "support the lesser evil", rather than calling for a necessary break from the misleaders and the bourgeoisie whom they serve, and calling for independent workers' mass militant action/organization from which the workers can conquer power and actualize their own solutions?

Nobody said we shouldn't treat them as enemies but what we are saying is that they are not actually fascists. We can't go around calling everything we disagree with a fascist because it simply just isn't true.

[danyboy27]

Fascism is (self proclaimed) rabid reactionary idealism within capitalist culture with emphasis on different things at different times as necessity requires, e.g. nationalism, racism, anti-this-that-and-the-other including anti-conservatism. Whatever claims modern capitalism (imperialism) makes to being the child of the ‘Enlightenment’, ‘free trade’, and ‘democracy’ etc, it has never abandoned its infatuation with irrational ‘idealism’ = the perfect STATE.

Fascism, in one form or another (before its modern usage - Italy 1920s) has been a major personality trait of capitalism throughout its entire colonial, imperial and post colonial history. Fascism is not a separate entity which has a separate existence from imperialism; fascism is imperialism’s atavistic snarl. Imperialism is fascist.

Fascism isnt fascism without the politization of the masses and the endoctrination of the population to join the state goal of expension. Also, Fascist constantly seek to replace the conventional elite with their own, another distinguishing feature that is absent from most of autocratic regimes.

If you look at how France, england and other european powers back in the day, the main goal of the governement was to keep people out of politics, and the elite structure always remained classical in their composition and verry fews attempt where made to politicize them the same way a fascist governement would have done it.

[Coach Trotsky]

heres the problem then. you have an very inchorent view on what fascism is that most on here would disagree with.

If fascism is simply a strand of idealism within capitalism that has alway existed, then do u not view the years of inter-war europe as anything significant historicaly?

Is this view of fascism your own, or are you influenced by another author?

What's in it for you, to view 1930s European fascism as "special case"?

People have made some damn good arguments that the Tea Party is embryonic fascism, but because they don't look like Spielberg movie villains (and instead look more like the sort of all-American folks that belonged to the White Citizens Councils in the Jim Crow U.S. South), Leftists refuse to apply the mass militant workers' methods of fighting fascism to them. Speaking of which, if fascism was just some special case in 1930s Europe in your view, then are you saying that the Klan and the White Citizens Councils in the U.S. South weren't fascist?

There are people on the Left who say 'well, it's not really fascism if they don't call for a radical break with the current order'. But the Tea Party actually DOES both implicitly and explicitly call for such a radical break---they want an utterly non-unionized laissez faire capitalism and explicitly institutionally Christianized USA and believe that this will lead them back to the "good old days" period of generalized socioeconomic prosperity, to a huge propped up "middle class", and to an unchecked undefeatable US imperialism. Notice I didn't say that they authentically seek minimal "small government"...that is rhetorically nonsense and there is no way in hell that they would actually try to reduce the scope and power of the bourgeois state if their Tea Party held hegemonic sway within it, and the easiest way for them to sweep the whole 'small government' crap down the memory hole is to wage more imperialist war and/or to engage in a massive campaign of "anti-subversive" domestic suppression in the name of the US "national interests (a wee bit of the ol' witchhunting ---of both the Christian and McCarthyite flavors---combined with Cold War era patriotardism is straight up the alley of these Teabaggers). Sound familiar? Just add white robes and pointy hoods, and what do you have? The old-style Klan. When they mass mobilized and came out against the unions in Wisconsin and several other states, I finally realized what this Tea Party thing actually was.

And I realized that the Left hasn't got a friggin clue these days about how to fight this REAL form of fascism today, BECAUSE much of the Left has been bourgeoisified and has been playing a similar role and service to that of fascism (with different arguments and different methods, amongst different segments of the population in the U.S. and inside other imperialist power centers). The so-called "progressives" have often been just as much foes of the proletariat as are the Rightwingers and straight up fascists, and BOTH have served their bourgeois class masters well. Class-collaborationists who posture Left (especially those at the head of the workers' movement and those at the head of bourgeois institutions) are today indeed performing essentially a similar role and service to the capitalists as fascism does, and it's about time that we quit evasively wiggling and denying this fact so we can maintain "good relations" with sellout union leaders, with media personalities (bourgeois propagandists), with 'progressive' academics (bourgeois apologists), etc. I'm not being sectarian, but I'm saying that Popular Frontist hold-hands-with-bourgeois-liberals reformist crap on the Left led to this situation. Decide which side of the class line you are on. Decide whether you want to maintain this society (though a bit reformed), or to overthrown and smash it root and branch and replace it with workers' power and the building of socialist society. You can't ride the fence---there isn't any middle ground. You either have both feet on our working people's side, OR ELSE---if you are in the slightest bit politically active in any sense in this society ---then you really have both feet planted on the side of the enemies of the working class, and now you re an obstacle to be overcome and defeated by the working people. The various Third Ways are still the capitalists' way. Vacillation just means you support capitalism essentially but ain't got the courage to publicly admit it to the working people struggling against it that you'd side against them if things came to blows (partly because you want to be on what you perceive as the stronger side, and partly because you want to maintain whatever "have-some" you still have under this system that keeps you from being a fully shafted part of the "underclass"). Ever noticed that the Tea Party leaders and the liberal-Left leaders tend to come from the same better-off enclave communities and similarly non-proletarian backgrounds, and they all preach some variety or another of class-collaborationism? Same shit, different packaging, and it all works out for the good of the bourgeoisie and those who provide sellout stab-workers-in-the-back services to the ruling class in exchange for a biggie-sized portion of the "American Dream" for themselves.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Fascism essentially revolves around a particular political faction with a particular message which they seek to impose on the owners of Capital and on workers alike. It emerges from those who see the unquestioned nature of liberal capitalism as a danger to tradition and that it causes society to progress in a dangerous manner; fascists acknowledge that it creates contradictions much like Marxists, but they see these contradictions very differently. For them, it is something to be chained and controlled by a wise, ruling center located, conveniently enough, in the hub of their own political faction. This ruling clique respects and honors particular cultural traditions etc that are unrelated or tangential to the primacy of Capital.

As such it is an inherently authoritarian system, as it encourages private capital and, sometimes even trade unions, as long as said organizations struggle alongside the party. Capitalists often approve of fascism because if they work within the fascist superstructure, they can still make tons of money. However, they are still constricted to working within this "Corporatist" model, whereby the Capital and the working class are supposed to be working together with the political authority.

Imperialism on the other hand, is a much broader concept and includes neoliberalism, 19th century liberalism, social democracy, and other decidedly non-fascist ideologies. (Now, of course both market liberalism and fascism, as well as other forms of capitalism, should be opposed by a socialist.) As an illustration of the difference, consider the US or UK; there, it is not the political power which tries to coerce capital and the working class to accept a united agenda. On the contrary, Capital pretty openly dominates the state. But in Germany and Italy, Capital was seen as a machine to be utilized by the state for the ends of the aforementioned political authority.

Now you mention Roosevelt's New Deal, which was really a fairly modest set of reforms which included some ideas pushed by the CPUSA. That's a system more of the social democratic orientation based on Keynesian ideas, which is similar to fascism in terms of its state involvement of the economy. However it involves itself in the economy for radically different purposes, and the state intervenes in a much more limited fashion. Some in America, like Glenn Beck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Beck), argue that progressive capitalism and fascism are the same (similar to what you're arguing actually!) based on their intervention in the economy, and that Obama and Roosevelt were in fact, surrounded by people with a fascist ideology (though he says they are "socialist revolutionaries" as well). In Social Democracy, the government intervenes in the economy to create a welfare state to preserve capitalism by reducing instability caused by poverty, recession and other problems. Contrast this with fascism where government intervention is used to enhance traditional orders and ideals and the social influence of the particular ruling clique.



Some advantages of fascism for Capital-
(1) it offers a predictable and stable social picture (though this is often illusory)
(2) it offers a more solid bastion against communist revolution than democracy
(3) it ensures that there is a singular set of political elites for them to deal with, not an amorphous grouping which has its own internal competition (like modern liberalism)

Some disadvantages for Capital-
(1) it massively hinders free trade, as fascist economies are deeply nationalist
(2) it discourages immigration, which isn't an issue when labor is in short supply like Germany but is more of an issue for Capitalists in modern Europe. related to this, fascist governments tend to be bad for companies that rely on skilled workers from minority ethnic groups
(3) there are unpredictable relations between fascists and neighboring governments
(4) crossing the government or factions of society closer to the government more or less means the end of your business

So all in all, fascism is a system which a capitalist might like, but there are certainly economic factors too which make fascism less appealing to capitalists

To sum up, liberalism is the ideology of the US, and UK, fascism is a reaction against both that ideology and communism. As Danyboy says, fascism is a politicized capitalist economy, which means it has a fundamentally different relationship between Capital and the government than many other types of Imperialist Capitalism. I haven't read the book Henrique recommended, but tbh there are much more detailed analyses of the ones we've given out there and a book like that would be a good place to start. Even wikipedia is a good place to look.



Lastly-I think we all agree that fascism can often be Imperialistic, but not that all Imperialistic states are fascist. It also doesn't mean that on occasion Capitalist governments won't take on tactics reminiscent of fascist regimes. Conservative Capitalists often do, of course, since their rhetoric to begin with is the least dissimilar from that of fascist ideologues. But it is unnecessary to conflate the two systems, considering they are both to be opposed and it is analytically helpful to have distinct concepts of these two movements. A more nuanced view lets you see how Capitalist systems change over time, and why these changes occur.

[danyboy27]

But the tea party have many clear, well defined similarity with fascism.

Symbolism is there, politization of the masses, extreme nationalism and also, a clearly defined politicized elite in place, the modification and corruption of current institution to fit their political fanaticism, blatant militarism, hatred for the left, and they also have a foothold in the electoral machine.

It dosnt mean all the member of this movements are fascist tho.

Hitler and musolini had the support of many non-fascist influent peoples; artists, conservatives, writters, athletes etc etc.

[Threetune]

heres the problem then. you have an very inchorent view on what fascism is that most on here would disagree with.

If fascism is simply a strand of idealism within capitalism that has alway existed, then do u not view the years of inter-war europe as anything significant historicaly?

Is this view of fascism your own, or are you influenced by another author?

Do you mean ’incoherent’.

1) I didn’t say fascism was “simply” anything.
2) You asked me to “give a brief definition”, which is what I did.
3) Yes the years of inter-war were something significant historically.
4) I am mostly influenced by Marx and Lenin’s writings.

By the way, while imperialist leaders like Roosevelt (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt), Churchill and Lord Halifax were praising fascism and the industrialists were funding it, this is what Mussolini was saying about capitalism. “It is not simply and solely an accumulation of wealth, it is an elaboration, a selection, a co-ordination of values which is the work of centuries. “ ...” Many think, and I myself am one of them, that capitalism is scarcely at the beginning of its story."

[Leftsolidarity]

What's in it for you, to view 1930s European fascism as "special case"?


The truth.


People have made some damn good arguments that the Tea Party is embryonic fascism, but because they don't look like Spielberg movie villains (and instead look more like the sort of all-American folks that belonged to the White Citizens Councils in the Jim Crow U.S. South), Leftists refuse to apply the mass militant workers' methods of fighting fascism to them

What are you talking about? First of all, one could make that argument (about the Tea Party being resemblant of fascism) but that is not what we are talking about. Secondly, what Leftists and what mass amount of militant workers? It is not as though we have a large following at all and the Leftists that we have do counter the Tea Party in words and actions. You are acting as though we have massive amounts of workers that would follow some "application" that your non-existant Leftist leadership would hand down.


Speaking of which, if fascism was just some special case in 1930s Europe in your view, then are you saying that the Klan and the White Citizens Councils in the U.S. South weren't fascist?


Umm....yes? Who does say that the Klan is a fascist organization? They are racist but that doesn't mean they are fascists.


There are people on the Left who say 'well, it's not really fascism if they don't call for a radical break with the current order'.

No, there are people on the Left who say, "Well, it's not really fascism because IT IS NOT ACTUALLY FASCISM!"


they want an utterly non-unionized laissez faire capitalism

Yeah, that is TOTALLY fascism. :rolleyes:


Sound familiar? Just add white robes and pointy hoods, and what do you have? The old-style Klan.

Great story but you didn't prove shit.


And I realized that the Left hasn't got a friggin clue these days about how to fight this REAL form of fascism today

What is this mysterious Left that you are talking about? Also, if you know so much more than every other Leftist why don't you lead this heroic fight against fascism? Summon the massive amounts of militant workers, disprove the powerful Leftist leadership, and save America from fascism.


The so-called "progressives" have often been just as much foes of the proletariat as are the Rightwingers and straight up fascists, and BOTH have served their bourgeois class masters well. Class-collaborationists who posture Left (especially those at the head of the workers' movement and those at the head of bourgeois institutions) are today indeed performing essentially a similar role and service to the capitalists as fascism does, and it's about time that we quit evasively wiggling and denying this fact so we can maintain "good relations" with sellout union leaders, with media personalities (bourgeois propagandists), with 'progressive' academics (bourgeois apologists), etc. I'm not being sectarian, but I'm saying that Popular Frontist hold-hands-with-bourgeois-liberals reformist crap on the Left led to this situation. Decide which side of the class line you are on. Decide whether you want to maintain this society (though a bit reformed), or to overthrown and smash it root and branch and replace it with workers' power and the building of socialist society. You can't ride the fence---there isn't any middle ground. You either have both feet on our working people's side, OR ELSE---if you are in the slightest bit politically active in any sense in this society ---then you really have both feet planted on the side of the enemies of the working class, and now you re an obstacle to be overcome and defeated by the working people. The various Third Ways are still the capitalists' way. Vacillation just means you support capitalism essentially but ain't got the courage to publicly admit it to the working people struggling against it that you'd side against them if things came to blows (partly because you want to be on what you perceive as the stronger side, and partly because you want to maintain whatever "have-some" you still have under this system that keeps you from being a fully shafted part of the "underclass"). Ever noticed that the Tea Party leaders and the liberal-Left leaders tend to come from the same better-off enclave communities and similarly non-proletarian backgrounds, and they all preach some variety or another of class-collaborationism? Same shit, different packaging, and it all works out for the good of the bourgeoisie and those who provide sellout stab-workers-in-the-back services to the ruling class in exchange for a biggie-sized portion of the "American Dream" for themselves.

Where the hell did this come from? I thought we were discussing fascism and imperialism. Also, it is pretty ignorant to say that anyone working even slightly with politics is an enemy of the working class. Get off your high horse and stop acting like you see things so much clearer than everyone else.

[danyboy27]

Do you mean ’incoherent’.

1) I didn’t say fascism was “simply” anything.
2) You asked me to “give a brief definition”, which is what I did.
3) Yes the years of inter-war were something significant historically.
4) I am mostly influenced by Marx and Lenin’s writings.

By the way, while imperialist leaders like Roosevelt (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt), Churchill and Lord Halifax were praising fascism and the industrialists were funding it, this is what Mussolini was saying about capitalism. “It is not simply and solely an accumulation of wealth, it is an elaboration, a selection, a co-ordination of values which is the work of centuries. “ ...” Many think, and I myself am one of them, that capitalism is scarcely at the beginning of its story."
but your brief definition was not even close of what fascism is actually.

Also, praising germany and the italian governement back then was something so many governement did without even knowing the full extent and impact fascism had on society has a whole. All they really knew was that, everybody got work, industries where soaring. Hitler and Mussolini did a pretty good job of showing only the good side of the story to foreign governements. The situation changed the day those conservatives governement noticed the instability fascism created and the control the governement had over the whole economic system.

Sure IG farben and the other fat cat got rich, but they had to play the rules of the game put in place with nazi germany, a game not all the buisness where willing or able to fallow. Small and medium sized buisness where often crushed or left behind in hitler germany.

[RED DAVE]

Then explain how fascism can be separated from imperialist economic crisis management.Simple example: the US was in a major economic crisis during the 1930s. It managed that crisis without resorting to fascism. 80 years later, with another such crisis, the US has still not resorted to fascism.

Somewhere, Trotsky refers to fascism as "the fighting weapon of the bourgeoisie." Fascism is not a curse word. It designates a specific strategy, wherein the bourgeoisie permits a radical, violent organization of the petit-bourgeoisie to use against the working class. You are correct in saying this is not an independent development: it would not have happened without the collusion, assistance and even leadership of the bourgeoisie that it ultimately serves.

RED DAVE

[Coach Trotsky]

So, you think we should hold hands with Democrat bourgeois politicians and union misleaders that kill workers' struggles such as in Wisconsin?

Is that what's meant by "unite the Left"?

You want to know where this comes from? This comes from guy who spend much of my adult life as revolutionary socialist activist in the USA involved in all sorts of struggles of the workers and oppressed. I saw vast majority of the Left-posturing leaderships therein betray these people and their struggles, while trying to get in (or stay in) good with the system and its ruling class. And what else did I see? Throughout this whole time, much of the 'far Left' kept their mouth shut IN PUBLIC AMONGST THE WORKERS IN STRUGGLE about the betrayals and misleaders. That silence was either cowardly or was implied consent. Either way, the end results were the same. The ostensibly revolutionary far Left didn't grow, didn't deepen their roots and real influence in the proletariat, didn't establish themselves and their politics as an alternative, and the workers suffered for it. The only reason the far Left perhaps became more proletarianized was because most of the "middle class" types abandoned it for the new reformist trendy Left game in town (Obamaites). You know of whom I'm talking about...the types that were against the wars in the Mideast until the Democrats won control of Congress in 2006, and who went full-on over to the bourgeois side with class-collaborationist liberal-Left crap when Obama looked like he had a chance to win the US presidency. THAT is where most of the Left liquidated into! They made their choice. They choose the capitalist class and the 'middle class" over the working class/"underclass". Has the proletarian revolutionary Left fully appreciated what this means? Have we reassessed ourselves, our perspectives, our policies, our strategies, our tactics and our methods, in light of this?

Workers are rising up in many places now, only to be left neglected or mislead by the Left. Do you realize what that tends to result in? Hey, just look at the state of mass consciousness in America today, just look at the rise of the Tea Party and similar mass movement developments in many of the crisis ridden imperialist powers. That's what happens when the Left fucks up, and when those who know better are too vacillating and too cowardly and too accustomed to doing things the useless loser way and unable to take a real bold principled stand in the interests of working people when it is 'inconvenient' and 'might burn some bridges'. It's precisely because of this that so many Leftists wonder what the value of Marxism is, and why the non-Marxist Left-posturers and Rightwingers get away with playing games and spreading lies about what we actually stand for....it's easy to get away with this when the revolutionary Marxist Left in practice is barely seen independently standing up for anything seriously anymore, when it really counts to be out there standing for it and fighting tooth and nail for its victory amongst the working people and their struggles (forget those middle class liberal-Left 'progressive' wienies and start focusing primarily on winning over working people who are trying to fight back and want to fight back to revolutionary socialism).

Proof that something is really wrong: Why do I not even know of any serious organization consistently and effectively fighting for revolutionary Marxism in the struggles of the workers and oppressed in the USA today? Can someone show me one stand-out distinct revolutionary example of a Marxist organization that is fighting to win in the USA?

[Threetune]

So, you think we should hold hands with Democrat bourgeois politicians and union misleaders that kill workers' struggles such as in Wisconsin?

Is that what's meant by "unite the Left"?

You want to know where this comes from? This comes from guy who spend much of my adult life as revolutionary socialist activist in the USA involved in all sorts of struggles of the workers and oppressed. I saw vast majority of the Left-posturing leaderships therein betray these people and their struggles, while trying to get in (or stay in) good with the system and its ruling class. And what else did I see? Throughout this whole time, much of the 'far Left' kept their mouth shut IN PUBLIC AMONGST THE WORKERS IN STRUGGLE about the betrayals and misleaders. That silence was either cowardly or was implied consent. Either way, the end results were the same. The ostensibly revolutionary far Left didn't grow, didn't deepen their roots and real influence in the proletariat, didn't establish themselves and their politics as an alternative, and the workers suffered for it. The only reason the far Left perhaps became more proletarianized was because most of the "middle class" types abandoned it for the new reformist trendy Left game in town (Obamaites). You know of whom I'm talking about...the types that were against the wars in the Mideast until the Democrats won control of Congress in 2006, and who went full-on over to the bourgeois side with class-collaborationist liberal-Left crap when Obama looked like he had a chance to win the US presidency. THAT is where most of the Left liquidated into! They made their choice. They choose the capitalist class and the 'middle class" over the working class/"underclass". Has the proletarian revolutionary Left fully appreciated what this means? Have we reassessed ourselves, our perspectives, our policies, our strategies, our tactics and our methods, in light of this?

Workers are rising up in many places now, only to be left neglected or mislead by the Left. Do you realize what that tends to result in? Hey, just look at the state of mass consciousness in America today, just look at the rise of the Tea Party and similar mass movement developments in many of the crisis ridden imperialist powers. That's what happens when the Left fucks up, and when those who know better are too vacillating and too cowardly and too accustomed to doing things the useless loser way and unable to take a real bold principled stand in the interests of working people when it is 'inconvenient' and 'might burn some bridges'. It's precisely because of this that so many Leftists wonder what the value of Marxism is, and why the non-Marxist Left-posturers and Rightwingers get away with playing games and spreading lies about what we actually stand for....it's easy to get away with this when the revolutionary Marxist Left in practice is barely seen independently standing up for anything seriously anymore, when it really counts to be out there standing for it and fighting tooth and nail for its victory amongst the working people and their struggles (forget those middle class liberal-Left 'progressive' wienies and start focusing primarily on winning over working people who are trying to fight back and want to fight back to revolutionary socialism).

Proof that something is really wrong: Why do I not even know of any serious organization consistently and effectively fighting for revolutionary Marxism in the struggles of the workers and oppressed in the USA today? Can someone show me one stand-out distinct revolutionary example of a Marxist organization that is fighting to win in the USA?

There's you for a start. Greetings Commrade. You'v got amessage.

[Threetune]

Simple example: the US was in a major economic crisis during the 1930s. It managed that crisis without resorting to fascism. 80 years later, with another such crisis, the US has still not resorted to fascism.

No it went to war like the rest of the rival warmongering imperialist states and ‘resorted’ to bombing the feck out of Japan and nearly everyone else since. “ Not resorted to fascism”?, what do you think Zionland is, a feckin garage sale.





Somewhere, Trotsky refers to fascism as "the fighting weapon of the bourgeoisie." Fascism is not a curse word. It designates a specific strategy, wherein the bourgeoisie permits a radical, violent organization of the petit-bourgeoisie to use against the working class. You are correct in saying this is not an independent development: it would not have happened without the collusion, assistance and even leadership of the bourgeoisie that it ultimately serves.

RED DAVE

Do you have any idea how lame that sounds? It’s a broken bottle in the gob, that’s what all fascist imperialism is if you’re on the business end of its “foreign blitzkrieg policy”!

[Coach Trotsky]

Thank you. Although I mentions that I was looking for revolutionary examples in the USA, of course I'm interested in finding anywhere in the world revolutionary socialist working class forces who are making a fightback and haven't given up.

Those of you still out there striving for the proletarian revolutionary win will be the reason WE WILL WIN in the end. Don't let this year be like the last several. Don't hold back. Don't wait...especially if you ain;t really got much to lose. Ain't no saviors coming from on high to save us...we workers have to got to do the hard work of securing emancipation and a better world ourselves. Anyone who comes telling us that we can't...we need to respond "oh yes we can!" and show that we mean it through our actions (independent of need for 'official permission' from the pro-system establishment Left/labor leaders). That will sway far more of the working people over to revolutionary socialism than a million liberal-appeasing Left-posturing system politicians and no-struggle union bureaucrats ever could.

[Coach Trotsky]

Yes, Trotsky was right to say that fascism was the fighting weapon of the bourgeoisie. And since then, obviously, the bourgeoisie has increased both the quantity and variety of its "fighting weapons".

Who did Trotsky say was chiefly responsible for the successful emergence and wielding of the fascists as a "fighting weapon of the bourgeoisie"?
Are those same faux-Left misleader forces STILL playing the same distasterous role now? In fact, are they even COMPLICIT in it nowadays? Are the liberal-Left and the faux-Left careerist posers also serving in the role as 'fighting weapon of the bourgeoisie' against the interests of working people today? And if you and I don't say so to the workers engaged in struggles, aren't we also guilty of misleading and complicit in the betrayals and certain defeats which the working class will suffer as a result of following the fake-Left?

[Threetune]

Fascism isnt fascism without the politization of the masses and the endoctrination of the population to join the state goal of expension. Also, Fascist constantly seek to replace the conventional elite with their own, another distinguishing feature that is absent from most of autocratic regimes.

If you look at how France, england and other european powers back in the day, the main goal of the governement was to keep people out of politics, and the elite structure always remained classical in their composition and verry fews attempt where made to politicize them the same way a fascist governement would have done it.

This is just not true. The whole drive of capitalist ‘parliamentary democracy' is to draw ever wider circles of the proletariat into the parliamentary racket.
The recent example of this trick was the Obama stunt in the states. A gigantic fascist swindle if ever there was one.

[Leftsolidarity]

So, you think we should hold hands with Democrat bourgeois politicians and union misleaders that kill workers' struggles such as in Wisconsin?

Is that what's meant by "unite the Left"?


First of all, how did you pull that out of your ass like that? Seriously, good job at completely changing the subject. That being said, no I don't think that and I never said anything along those lines. I don't know of any Leftists who actually consider Democrats part of the Left so of course that's not what is meant by "unite the Left". Also, I live in Wisconsin and was at the protests in Madison so you don't need preach to me about that stuff.


Throughout this whole time, much of the 'far Left' kept their mouth shut IN PUBLIC AMONGST THE WORKERS IN STRUGGLE about the betrayals and misleaders.

Maybe some far Left groups have failed to speak up enough at some points but like I already said we are actually not large at all in the USA. To go back the the Wisconsin thing again for a second, the far Left was hardly silent. I couldn't keep track of the number of socialist/anarchist/communist groups that were there handing out literature and trying to organize people.


That silence was either cowardly or was implied consent. Either way, the end results were the same. The ostensibly revolutionary far Left didn't grow, didn't deepen their roots and real influence in the proletariat, didn't establish themselves and their politics as an alternative, and the workers suffered for it. The only reason the far Left perhaps became more proletarianized was because most of the "middle class" types abandoned it for the new reformist trendy Left game in town (Obamaites). You know of whom I'm talking about...the types that were against the wars in the Mideast until the Democrats won control of Congress in 2006, and who went full-on over to the bourgeois side with class-collaborationist liberal-Left crap when Obama looked like he had a chance to win the US presidency. THAT is where most of the Left liquidated into! They made their choice. They choose the capitalist class and the 'middle class" over the working class/"underclass". Has the proletarian revolutionary Left fully appreciated what this means? Have we reassessed ourselves, our perspectives, our policies, our strategies, our tactics and our methods, in light of this?

What does this have to do with anything? Once again, if you know so much better than all the other Leftists why don't you do anything instead of *****ing about it on a forum that was discussing fascism and imperialism?


Workers are rising up in many places now, only to be left neglected or mislead by the Left.

Actually most of the protests and stuff are organized by Democrats or other capitalist groups. You still haven't said who this mysterious Leftist leadership is that you are so upset with.


Proof that something is really wrong: Why do I not even know of any serious organization consistently and effectively fighting for revolutionary Marxism in the struggles of the workers and oppressed in the USA today? Can someone show me one stand-out distinct revolutionary example of a Marxist organization that is fighting to win in the USA?

Umm, there are many Marxist organizations out there like the WWP but like I said there is not even a massive amount of Leftists in the USA.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

This is just not true. The whole drive of capitalist ‘parliamentary democracy' is to draw ever wider circles of the proletariat into the parliamentary racket.
The recent example of this trick was the Obama stunt in the states. A gigantic fascist swindle if ever there was one.


Yes "parliamentarians" want to convince proletarians to vote for them (fyi the US has a bicameral republican system, not a parliament). Lying to voters or misleading them is what every politician does, but that's not what fascism is at all. I already explained the difference between social democracy, liberalism and fascism, and how Capital gains distinct unique advantages and disadvantages from a fascist system over a liberal one. Now, in the fascist system, the state would try to marginalize all opposition ... on the contrary, the Republican opposition is quite well established, and remains in competition with Obama. This competition between different parties ensures that they remain weak enough for Capital to manipulate, as opposed to fascism where on the contrary it is capital which is manipulated by the party.


No it went to war like the rest of the rival warmongering imperialist states and ‘resorted’ to bombing the feck out of Japan and nearly everyone else since. “ Not resorted to fascism”?, what do you think Zionland is, a feckin garage sale.Going to war or using bombs=/=fascism ... the USSR dropped bombs on Afghanistan

I would also not call the US support for Zionism to mean that the USA is a "fascist" country any more than American support for Saudi Arabia makes the US a Salafist theocracy.

[Threetune]

[QUOTE=Leftsolidarity;2136226]


What does this have to do with anything? Once again, if you know so much better than all the other Leftists why don't you do anything instead of *****ing about it on a forum that was discussing fascism and imperialism?[QUOTE/]

Wrong, this thread is about Why are the ‘lefts’ so pathetic? (http://www.revleft.com/vb/why-lefts-so-p2136226/index.html#post2136226) It says so at the top! So what’s your excuse now for?

1) Being wrong about the point of the thread, which I have proposed moving by the way.
2) Not reading the thread before mouthing off.
3) Whining about how small the left are without giving a serious political opinion.

No wonder you can’t get a hearing in the workers class when you make pathetic interventions like that. Get a grip mate!

[Leftsolidarity]

[QUOTE=Leftsolidarity;2136226]


What does this have to do with anything? Once again, if you know so much better than all the other Leftists why don't you do anything instead of *****ing about it on a forum that was discussing fascism and imperialism?[QUOTE/]

Wrong, this thread is about Why are the ‘lefts’ so pathetic? (http://www.revleft.com/vb/why-lefts-so-p2136226/index.html#post2136226) It says so at the top! So what’s your excuse now for?

1) Being wrong about the point of the thread, which I have proposed moving by the way.
2) Not reading the thread before mouthing off.
3) Whining about how small the left are without giving a serious political opinion.


That might have been the title but for about 5 pages people were discussing fascism and imperialism and so was Coach but then he just jumped and changed the topic.
Also, I've been on this thread since it was posted so I don't know what you are talking about about me not reading it.
I'm not whining about it, I was just pointing out that we are small in numbers and Coach is talking as if we have some massive following or even a leadership in general. What serious political opinion was I supposed to give about that? It is just how it is.


No wonder you can’t get a hearing in the workers class when you make pathetic interventions like that. Get a grip mate!

lolz

[Threetune]

Yes "parliamentarians" want to convince proletarians to vote for them (fyi the US has a bicameral republican system, not a parliament). Lying to voters or misleading them is what every politician does, but that's not what fascism is at all. I already explained the difference between social democracy, liberalism and fascism, and how Capital gains distinct unique advantages and disadvantages from a fascist system over a liberal one. Now, in the fascist system, the state would try to marginalize all opposition ... on the contrary, the Republican opposition is quite well established, and remains in competition with Obama. This competition between different parties ensures that they remain weak enough for Capital to manipulate, as opposed to fascism where on the contrary it is capital which is manipulated by the party.

Going to war or using bombs=/=fascism ... the USSR dropped bombs on Afghanistan

I would also not call the US support for Zionism to mean that the USA is a "fascist" country any more than American support for Saudi Arabia makes the US a Salafist theocracy.

I understand that you find it difficult to deviate from your rote learned academic texts Shiva, but your flea-cracking pedantic lectures aren’t teaching you anything and you're only confusing yourself. To say that capitalism is manipulated by a fascist party, or any party, is just..well…quaint really.

You think that the dictatorship of the capitalist class can be overturned by, or run by a fascist party, or do you mean something else by “manipulated by”? Capitalism is always in the driving seat and will steer right or left according to the conditions. You really think that Mussolini or Hitler would have lasted one day if their paymasters in the banks and major industries had decided to organize against em. The Italian and German imperialists wanted their places in the sunshine and mineral mines of Africa, the Middle east and India ( Lebensraum ) along with or without the rest of the fascist imperialist rat-pack and war was the price they were willing to pay. Pity for them that the mighty Soviet Union spoiled their plans.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Sigh ... I already explained how Capitalists can also profit off of a fascist system, and therefore why they might support it in certain circumstances. That's the problem with you, any answer we give you promptly forget.

[Leftsolidarity]

Sigh ... I already explained how Capitalists can also profit off of a fascist system, and therefore why they might support it in certain circumstances. That's the problem with you, any answer we give you promptly forget.

I think we should abandon this thread. It is getting rather repetitive.

[Threetune]

Sigh ... I already explained how Capitalists can also profit off of a fascist system, and therefore why they might support it in certain circumstances. That's the problem with you, any answer we give you promptly forget.



It is not a question of “why they might support it in certain circumstances” it is a fact of economics, politics, and history that a fascist state can’t exist without a capitalist base and capitalist support.

The fact that capitalism and capitalists don’t always push fascist states policy to the fore and instead make other bogus state arrangements like ‘constitutional monarchies’ ‘parliamentary democracies’, ‘democratic republics’ etc as they see fit for exploiting the working class, does not in any way mean that they are not always both preparing or deploying openly fascist state methods somewhere in some part of their imperialist world order.

Hitler and his pack learned everything from capitalist colonialism which was nothing but a gigantic dictatorial “corporative”, “militarist”, “racist”, “classist”, “misogynist”, “in-group” “sectarian” “apartheid” “slave colony” “prison camp” “flogging” “lynching” “raping” “genocidel” “anti-communist” fascist imperialist rampage with clergy, lawyers, press, ‘radical academics’, ‘Labour and union leaders’ making it all look ‘civil’. And you think imperialism now is different to that and "might support it" (fascism) only "in certain circumstances."

So please, no more hedging around, what "certain circumstances." are you hinting at. The ones that are emerging everywere again with the imperialist economic meltdown or do you have something else in mind perhaps?

[Threetune]

I think we should abandon this thread. It is getting rather repetitive.

If “repartition” is what it takes to develop skill and theory, (I’m told by wiser people than me that it is,) then let’s have more repetition of the understanding that imperialism is in a flat spin promising only war and poverty as a ‘solution’ rather than your pessimistic defeatist abandonment.

The working class, as a class, will have to become conscious of its need to become the ruling class if it is to fight and defeat imperialism. For that we need the best theoretical understanding of everything, don’t you agree?

[Sasha]

If “repartition” is what it takes to develop skill and theory, (I’m told by wiser people than me that it is,) then let’s have more repetition of the understanding that imperialism is in a flat spin promising only war and poverty as a ‘solution’ rather than your pessimistic defeatist abandonment.

The working class, as a class, will have to become conscious of its need to become the ruling class if it is to fight and defeat imperialism. For that we need the best theoretical understanding of everything, don’t you agree?

agree, but you can spin it anyway you want but the fact remains that imperialism doesn't equal fascism so the premisis you keep on defending in this thread is contra productive to get the best theoretical understanding

[danyboy27]

This is just not true. The whole drive of capitalist ‘parliamentary democracy' is to draw ever wider circles of the proletariat into the parliamentary racket.
The recent example of this trick was the Obama stunt in the states. A gigantic fascist swindle if ever there was one.


parlementary democracy is a relatively new concept. back then only property owner where able to vote or being elected, they didnt wanted the worker to care about politics.

Modern parlementary politics are an adaptation of democracy.
It was performed in masse after ww1 beccause the bourgeois had no choice but to find a way to integrate worker into the political system , so many people died for the many existing states, not doing so would have probably created an explosive situation, they had to do it. Rationning, conscription, so many sacrifice where made by the working class.

and it happened, universal suffrage was slowly implented trought europe. It was still the game of the bourgeois tho.

it didnt changed much tho, the current parlementary systems are still build to keep the working class away. the decorum, the complexity ofthe language used, the inaccesibility of the parlement, the complexity of getting information from the governement are all determiing factor almost deliberately implented to keep the working class away.

[Threetune]

parlementary democracy is a relatively new concept. back then only property owner where able to vote or being elected, they didnt wanted the worker to care about politics.

Modern parlementary politics are an adaptation of democracy.
It was performed in masse after ww1 beccause the bourgeois had no choice but to find a way to integrate worker into the political system , so many people died for the many existing states, not doing so would have probably created an explosive situation, they had to do it. Rationning, conscription, so many sacrifice where made by the working class.

and it happened, universal suffrage was slowly implented trought europe. It was still the game of the bourgeois tho.

it didnt changed much tho, the current parlementary systems are still build to keep the working class away. the decorum, the complexity ofthe language used, the inaccesibility of the parlement, the complexity of getting information from the governement are all determiing factor almost deliberately implented to keep the working class away.

Ok I agree with that and I'm not saying in any way that the parliamentary racket genuinely brings the workers closer into governing in any way, just the opposite. It was Lenin who pointed out that parliamentary democracy was the best shell for the capitalists; it gives the appearance only, of participation but in fact is only a cover for the dictatorship of the capitalists.

The voting figures in Britain with its “mother of all parliaments” have been plunging since WWII in both national and local elections. At the last General (national) election there was a remorseless campaign to get workers to vote because even the dogs in the street were barking about the lying, thieving corruption of the “honourable” members of parliament who are forever telling us that they will clean up their act if we pay them more. Most people are contemptuous of the whole racket.

It has always been a gravy train for buying the loyalty of ‘radicals’ and ‘left’ opportunists, but still the left rrr-revolutionist socialists’ keep telling workers to vote for Labour party MPs and expect to be taken seriously.

So as this thread asks “why are the Lefts so pathetic” on this parliamentary racket?
All 57varieties of the British ‘lefts’ with their pretty red top papers have been utterly confused by both ‘Trotskyist’ and ‘Stalinist’ traditions, the first completely disorganised by “entryism” (joining with reformists so that they can get on the inside) and the second by supporting the reformists union leaders to promote peace and peaceful coexistence with capitalism and all saying “don’t expose the rackets or talk about revolution and the dictatorship of the working class”. The Leninist revolutionary tradition was almost completely rubbed out in the working class by this garbage.

Only the fight for Leninist revolutionary perspectives in open struggle everywhere will redress this limp defeatist opportunism.

Edit:
Oh and the Obama stunt supposedly answering the demands of the poor, blacks, whites and Latinos, the ‘radicals’ the feminists the pacifists and union workers, was of the same strip. A giant con-trick which many ‘lefts’ haven’t finished falling for, even watching Obama with his (lovely wife, children and dog) trying to bomb the resistance out of half the planet with the other half on his list. And they tell us not to talk about revolution.

[Threetune]

agree, but you can spin it anyway you want but the fact remains that imperialism doesn't equal fascism so the premisis you keep on defending in this thread is contra productive to get the best theoretical understanding

Fine, but I’m not saying that imperialism equals fascism I’m saying fascism is a consistent carictaristic of imperialism. ‘Institutionally’ fascist if you like and what is as interesting is the response that runs - “oh dear, call off the strike, pull down the barricades, hand in your weapons and return to you branches, some worker just called imperialism fascist."

Is it “spin” as you put it, to say that the occupied north of Ireland was a clear example of a British fascism state. It had so many of the characteristics that everyone has been insisting on, that it looks like the mould from which others might have been made. It was even brought into existence by a British an army mutiny at Curragh in 1914.

[danyboy27]

Ok I agree with that and I'm not saying in any way that the parliamentary racket genuinely brings the workers closer into governing in any way, just the opposite. It was Lenin who pointed out that parliamentary democracy was the best shell for the capitalists; it gives the appearance only, of participation but in fact is only a cover for the dictatorship of the capitalists.


humm, you did this in that sentence.


This is just not true. The whole drive of capitalist ‘parliamentary democracy' is to draw ever wider circles of the proletariat into the parliamentary racket.
The recent example of this trick was the Obama stunt in the states. A gigantic fascist swindle if ever there was one.

[danyboy27]

Fine, but I’m not saying that imperialism equals fascism I’m saying fascism is a consistent carictaristic of imperialism. ‘Institutionally’ fascist if you like and what is as interesting is the response that runs - “oh dear, call off the strike, pull down the barricades, hand in your weapons and return to you branches, some worker just called imperialism fascist."


what you just said dosnt make sense at all.

if fascism is consistent with imperialism, then every imperialist movement is fascist.

but has we demonstrated earlier, this is completely false.

moving on.

[Coach Trotsky]

Ok I agree with that and I'm not saying in any way that the parliamentary racket genuinely brings the workers closer into governing in any way, just the opposite. It was Lenin who pointed out that parliamentary democracy was the best shell for the capitalists; it gives the appearance only, of participation but in fact is only a cover for the dictatorship of the capitalists.

The voting figures in Britain with its “mother of all parliaments” have been plunging since WWII in both national and local elections. At the last General (national) election there was a remorseless campaign to get workers to vote because even the dogs in the street were barking about the lying, thieving corruption of the “honourable” members of parliament who are forever telling us that they will clean up their act if we pay them more. Most people are contemptuous of the whole racket.

It has always been a gravy train for buying the loyalty of ‘radicals’ and ‘left’ opportunists, but still the left rrr-revolutionist socialists’ keep telling workers to vote for Labour party MPs and expect to be taken seriously.

So as this thread asks “why are the Lefts so pathetic” on this parliamentary racket?
All 57varieties of the British ‘lefts’ with their pretty red top papers have been utterly confused by both ‘Trotskyist’ and ‘Stalinist’ traditions, the first completely disorganised by “entryism” (joining with reformists so that they can get on the inside) and the second by supporting the reformists union leaders to promote peace and peaceful coexistence with capitalism and all saying “don’t expose the rackets or talk about revolution and the dictatorship of the working class”. The Leninist revolutionary tradition was almost completely rubbed out in the working class by this garbage.

Only the fight for Leninist revolutionary perspectives in open struggle everywhere will redress this limp defeatist opportunism.

Edit:
Oh and the Obama stunt supposedly answering the demands of the poor, blacks, whites and Latinos, the ‘radicals’ the feminists the pacifists and union workers, was of the same strip. A giant con-trick which many ‘lefts’ haven’t finished falling for, even watching Obama with his (lovely wife, children and dog) trying to bomb the resistance out of half the planet with the other half on his list. And they tell us not to talk about revolution.
This post is so packed with TRUTH that it should be mandatory for all ostensible Leftists to read it, discuss its validity as evident in their own experiences, and then sum up what we're going to do to change the 'pathetic' state of the Left today. We have to diagnose the problem in order to get to solutions.

The only thing that I feel needs to be clarified in this post is that there are "Trotskyists" and then there is consistent Leninism/Trotskyism. Entryism was NOT just the idea of getting in mass Left/labor organizations, holding hands with reformists and bureaucratic leaderships atop these orgs, and then keeping your mouth shut while tailing the prevailing leaderships to stay "on good terms" or to "unite the Left" (on the basis of the lowest common denominator possible---what old-time Trots called Popular Frontism). Most "Trotskyists" unfortunately bought this liquidationist bastardized version of entryism, and pretended that anything else would be 'sectarianism'. They pretended that attempting to use united front tactics to expose the vacillations and betrayal of reformist bureaucratic Left/labor leaders and calling for the independence of workers from such sellout leadership to come over to a consistently revolutionary socialist leadership was 'sectarianism' ...yet that is exactly what Lenin and Trotsky did themselves and what they call on all revolutionary socialists to do. Lenin and Trotsky didn't tell revolutionary socialists to "be easy on the reformist leaderships", to suppress public criticisms of these leaderships, to reject any idea of trying to get workers to break from these false misleaders, and certainly they didn't call on revolutionaries to merely tail the reformists and build them up with a silly smile on their face. Lenin and Trotsky constantly said that such behavior was capitulating on the need for a revolutionary vanguard party and a revolutionary socialist program. That is precisely what most "Trotskyists" did...following in the footsteps of the degeneration and ultimate betrayals of the Second and Third Internationals. What makes this so damn tragic is that Marxism, Leninism and Trotskyism is the only basis upon which to build and advance a consistently revolutionary socialist politics today---and yet most ostensible 'Leftists' have rejected or abandoned it, or are struggling to find a new way apart from that basis (usually saying that 'that Leninist-Trotskyist stuff is out of date' or assuming/pretending that it is fundamentally similar to capitulating degenerated expressions of modern-day "Trotskyists").

Easiest way to expose the modern-day fake-Trots is to pull out a copy of the Transitional Program and of State and Revolution, ask a revolutionary to look it over, and then ask them if these latter day "Trots' essentially resemble what is argued for in those two key documents in their word and in their deeds. How shocked they tend to be when they see that the so-called "Trotskyists" today have deviated so far from the central arguments and practical guidance of Lenin and Trotsky! Then, ask them to compare these modern "Trotskyists" with the Social Dems and the Stalinists, and ask "does this look basically familiar?" They will recognize the true essential nature of the modern-day 'Trotskyists". They will recognize just how deep and how far the political degeneration has gone, and then the organizational/ practical behaviors and political rationalizations for opportunism of the modern-day "Trots" finally can be understood. The crisis of leadership facing mankind is chiefly the crisis of leadership within the forces (if not now, at least, once upon a time) claiming to adhere to and strive for the cause of the Fourth International.
It is this crisis which WE must strive to resolve.

[RED DAVE]

Fine, but I’m not saying that imperialism equals fascism I’m saying fascism is a consistent carictaristic of imperialism.If that's true, then every example of imperialism should include fascism.

Now, it's a little confusing: I'm assuming you mean fascism in the imperialist country. And this is demonstrably untrue. None of us has wet dreams for the USA, but it is not a fascist country.

One more time, fascism is a very specific historical phenomenon. It does not equal: authoritarianism, dictatorship, repression, etc., but it includes all of these. Unless there is an independent fighting force, fighting in the service of the bourgeoisie, not part of the state, there is no fascism.

Also, there are countries, such as Romania and Hungary, which were not imperialist, which had their own, native fascist movements.

Are ready to admit that you have been blowing hot air, threetune? Or do we have to go round the mulberry bush a few more times?

RED DAVE

[Rainsborough]

But surely we come back to a game of semantics, does it realy matter if someone refers to an imperialist as a fascist?
Are we to halt a revolution for the sake of a definition?
All we have to do is hang a sign from the barricades instructing revolutionaries in the proper form of address when referring to the other side. :lol:

[Coach Trotsky]

If that's true, then every example of imperialism should include fascism.

Now, it's a little confusing: I'm assuming you mean fascism in the imperialist country. And this is demonstrably untrue. None of us has wet dreams for the USA, but it is not a fascist country.

One more time, fascism is a very specific historical phenomenon. It does not equal: authoritarianism, dictatorship, repression, etc., but it includes all of these. Unless there is an independent fighting force, fighting in the service of the bourgeoisie, not part of the state, there is no fascism.

Also, there are countries, such as Romania and Hungary, which were not imperialist, which had their own, native fascist movements.

Are ready to admit that you have been blowing hot air, threetune? Or do we have to go round the mulberry bush a few more times?

RED DAVE

So then, what do you expect fascism in the USA would actually look like, and what would its basis be? What role would "the Left" (including the union bureaucrats) play in the emergence of fascism in America? What can be said of the so-called 'progressive' liberal-Left establishment (including left-posturing Democrats, since they seem to be the center of gravity around which most of 'the Left' orbits in the USA) relationship to an emergent actual fascism in the USA?

Don't you think the bourgeoisie has a better "crisis game plan" that has summed up the lessons of the 30s and 40s and drawn more effective (though more complex) contingencies? Sorry, but I don't think the bourgeoisie is going to rely on the likes of the NSM or similar types this time around, the way it seems most of 'the Left" assumes. Look around you in this society today...you'll see where fascism will actually emerge this time, and in which form and capacity, if you dare to see it.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

It is not a question of “why they might support it in certain circumstances” it is a fact of economics, politics, and history that a fascist state can’t exist without a capitalist base and capitalist support.


It's also a fact of history that fascism is only supported by a faction of the bourgeois and petit bourgeois against other factions of the bourgeois and petit bourgeois.

Consider this. Why, if fascism is merely a bourgeois institution, did Hitler target the Jews, who were quite likely to actually be members of the bourgeois and petit bourgeois? Why did he take businesses away from the Jews, if he was such a fundamentalist Capitalist? Hitler did not want a liberal capitalist economy where success in business is based on the assumed value of competition, as in the USA and the UK. They wanted a Capitalist economy controlled by a cohesive political sect and conservative social order that could ensure the perpetual stability of the nation.

This is why state capital and monopoly capital played a much bigger role in Germany than it did in the contemporary USA or UK. It was fundamentally different from other Capitalist states in how it viewed the rights and obligations of enterprise. Of course, this doesn't mean their system wasn't Capitalist or didn't utilize Capitalist property relations. But it does mean that the capitalism pursued by fascism was distinct from that pursued by the social democrats and the liberals.



The fact that capitalism and capitalists don’t always push fascist states policy to the fore and instead make other bogus state arrangements like ‘constitutional monarchies’ ‘parliamentary democracies’, ‘democratic republics’ etc as they see fit for exploiting the working class, does not in any way mean that they are not always both preparing or deploying openly fascist state methods somewhere in some part of their imperialist world order.


Do you think there's some cabal of Capitalists where they conspire to work out the next most profitable political order? Every Capitalist needs economic and political policies unique to the material conditions of its own business, there is no universal interest compelling all Capitalists as your argument here implies.

Employing methods which fascists also use doesn't make the system fascist, any more than having a public library makes a system socialist.



Hitler and his pack learned everything from capitalist colonialism which was nothing but a gigantic dictatorial “corporative”, “militarist”, “racist”, “classist”, “misogynist”, “in-group” “sectarian” “apartheid” “slave colony” “prison camp” “flogging” “lynching” “raping” “genocidel” “anti-communist” fascist imperialist rampage with clergy, lawyers, press, ‘radical academics’, ‘Labour and union leaders’ making it all look ‘civil’. And you think imperialism now is different to that and "might support it" (fascism) only "in certain circumstances."


My tabby cat is a lion.... "whiskers" "fur" "claws" "teeth" "eyes" "legs" "tails" they are clearly the same thing, look at all these common features! Nobody is saying Imperialist countries don't often utilize racism, misogyny, etc. Not at all. But the motives behind the misogyny and racism, and the nature of the policies themselves, tend to differ. Fascism isn't a disconnected string of pejoratives, it is a very specific ideology with a very specific effect on the social and economic conditions of a society. To understand the differences between fascism and other types of capitalism or imperialism (which have already been explained in this thread), you can't just list a string of superficial traits that both systems might have and claim them to be the same. You have to understand why those traits are connected and where they are coming from.

You will find that various so-called "Socialist" movements have resorted to similar tactics ... consider the collective punishment of ethnic groups whose members allegedly collaborated with external enemies and the use of prison camps in the Soviet Union. Or consider the blatant homophobia of the Stalinist and Maoist states. Does this also make the USSR, Vietnam or PRC fascist?


So please, no more hedging around, what "certain circumstances." are you hinting at. The ones that are emerging everywere again with the imperialist economic meltdown or do you have something else in mind perhaps?


I already said those circumstances. I also listed the disadvantages of fascism to Capital.

Are some of those circumstances emerging again? Yes. Are all of them? No. For one, the 2008 recession was nowhere near as destructive as the 1928 one, and for another thing, countries are not just getting over a massively destructive world war. And is fascism the only response to those circumstances? Well, only if you think FDR was a fascist (which, it seems, you do, but I think that idea has been debunked ... )

[Rainsborough]

Originally Posted by Shiva Trishula Dialectics http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2136617#post2136617)
You will find that various so-called "Socialist" movements have resorted to similar tactics ... consider the collective punishment of ethnic groups whose members allegedly collaborated with external enemies and the use of prison camps in the Soviet Union. Or consider the blatant homophobia of the Stalinist and Maoist states. Does this also make the USSR, Vietnam or PRC fascist?

Does it not?

[RED DAVE]

But surely we come back to a game of semanticsNot quite.


does it realy matter if someone refers to an imperialist as a fascist?No. But is does matter if we confuse imperialism with fascism. Fascism represents a higher stage of class antagonism than imperialism. Fascism comes about when imperialism is failing and the ruling class can not longer placate the workers. So it adopts a "revolutionary" movement of its own to counter the revolutionary actions of the proletariat.


Are we to halt a revolution for the sake of a definition?No, but to use the same tactics against imperialism and fascism is a disaster.


All we have to do is hang a sign from the barricades instructing revolutionaries in the proper form of address when referring to the other side. :lol:Not quite.

The ongoing dispute in this thread is real. It involves, among other things, the proper definition of fascism, which Maoists and Stalinists have never dealt with. It also involves a young, or young acting, Comrade trying to act leftier-than-thou.

RED DAVE

[Threetune]

humm, you did this in that sentence.

I stand by every word and I'll add some.

The whole drive of capitalist ‘parliamentary democracy' is to draw ever wider circles of the proletariat into the parliamentary racket.

I'm not saying in any way that the parliamentary racket genuinely brings the workers closer into governing in any way, just the opposite.

What it does do is encourage the idea or hope that the ‘people’ are governing through their ‘representatives’ when in fact the real business of government is being done in the boardrooms, clubs, mansions, of the fat-cat bankers news media moguls and generals. Most workers know this instinctively even when they can’t quite put their finger on it and say "they are all the same".


Also encouraging the false idea that parliamentary reformism is of any use are the SWP, SP CPGB, WP, CP and the entire opportunist army of fake ‘lefts’ who are so entranced by the trapping of government and demoralised by their own sceptical and cynical world view that they tell workers to vote for Labor MPs like Dian Abbot.

[Leftsolidarity]

The ongoing dispute in this thread is real. It involves, among other things, the proper definition of fascism, which Maoists and Stalinists have never dealt with. It also involves a young, or young acting, Comrade trying to act leftier-than-thou.

RED DAVE

I agree with 2/3rds of what you said but I don't understand how you are connecting the confusion to Maoists and Stalinists. Please explain if you could. (I'm not either one so I am actually just curious)

[Threetune]

If that's true, then every example of imperialism should include fascism.

Now, it's a little confusing: I'm assuming you mean fascism in the imperialist country. And this is demonstrably untrue. None of us has wet dreams for the USA, but it is not a fascist country.


In case you mised it.

Is it “spin” as you put it, to say that the occupied north of Ireland was a clear example of a British fascism state. It had so many of the characteristics that everyone has been insisting on, that it looks like the mould from which others might have been made. It was even brought into existence by a British army mutiny at Curragh in 1914.

What?

[Threetune]

Not quite.

No. But is does matter if we confuse imperialism with fascism. Fascism represents a higher stage of class antagonism than imperialism. Fascism comes about when imperialism is failing and the ruling class can not longer placate the workers. So it adopts a "revolutionary" movement of its own to counter the revolutionary actions of the proletariat.
RED DAVE

exactly

[Threetune]

The only thing that I feel needs to be clarified in this post is that there are "Trotskyists" and then there is consistent Leninism/Trotskyism. Entryism was NOT just the idea of getting in mass Left/labor organizations, holding hands with reformists and bureaucratic leaderships atop these orgs, and then keeping your mouth shut while tailing the prevailing leaderships to stay "on good terms" or to "unite the Left" (on the basis of the lowest common denominator possible---what old-time Trots called Popular Frontism). Most "Trotskyists" unfortunately bought this liquidationist bastardized version of entryism, and pretended that anything else would be 'sectarianism'. They pretended that attempting to use united front tactics to expose the vacillations and betrayal of reformist bureaucratic Left/labor leaders and calling for the independence of workers from such sellout leadership to come over to a consistently revolutionary socialist leadership was 'sectarianism' ...yet that is exactly what Lenin and Trotsky did themselves and what they call on all revolutionary socialists to do. Lenin and Trotsky didn't tell revolutionary socialists to "be easy on the reformist leaderships", to suppress public criticisms of these leaderships, to reject any idea of trying to get workers to break from these false misleaders, and certainly they didn't call on revolutionaries to merely tail the reformists and build them up with a silly smile on their face. Lenin and Trotsky constantly said that such behavior was capitulating on the need for a revolutionary vanguard party and a revolutionary socialist program. That is precisely what most "Trotskyists" did...following in the footsteps of the degeneration and ultimate betrayals of the Second and Third Internationals. What makes this so damn tragic is that Marxism, Leninism and Trotskyism is the only basis upon which to build and advance a consistently revolutionary socialist politics today---and yet most ostensible 'Leftists' have rejected or abandoned it, or are struggling to find a new way apart from that basis (usually saying that 'that Leninist-Trotskyist stuff is out of date' or assuming/pretending that it is fundamentally similar to capitulating degenerated expressions of modern-day "Trotskyists").

Easiest way to expose the modern-day fake-Trots is to pull out a copy of the Transitional Program and of State and Revolution, ask a revolutionary to look it over, and then ask them if these latter day "Trots' essentially resemble what is argued for in those two key documents in their word and in their deeds. How shocked they tend to be when they see that the so-called "Trotskyists" today have deviated so far from the central arguments and practical guidance of Lenin and Trotsky! Then, ask them to compare these modern "Trotskyists" with the Social Dems and the Stalinists, and ask "does this look basically familiar?" They will recognize the true essential nature of the modern-day 'Trotskyists". They will recognize just how deep and how far the political degeneration has gone, and then the organizational/ practical behaviors and political rationalizations for opportunism of the modern-day "Trots" finally can be understood. The crisis of leadership facing mankind is chiefly the crisis of leadership within the forces (if not now, at least, once upon a time) claiming to adhere to and strive for the cause of the Fourth International.
It is this crisis which WE must strive to resolve.

Now that’s a proper political response from a revolutionary worker struggling for understanding, not some academic know it all with concepts and formulas neatly packaged with a red ribbon.
There looks to be plenty here to agree with and argue about, so first off I’ll re-read Trotsky’s Transitional Program which I used to carry around and read with mates on the sites until each of at least three copies fell apart. (Along with the fake leadership) You ‘Stalinists’ should get in on this. My guess is that honest polemic from revolutionary communists would be welcomed. We'll see.

[Leftsolidarity]

Now that’s a proper political response from a revolutionary worker struggling for understanding, not some academic know it all with concepts and formulas neatly packaged with a red ribbon.


Why don't you 2 just make out already? :tt1:

Edit: Also, you talk about proper political responses while spewwing anti-intellectualism

[danyboy27]

I stand by every word and I'll add some.

The whole drive of capitalist ‘parliamentary democracy' is to draw ever wider circles of the proletariat into the parliamentary racket.

I'm not saying in any way that the parliamentary racket genuinely brings the workers closer into governing in any way, just the opposite.

No, they dont really want us to participate. has i pointed out earlier, great efforts are made to block the accessibility of sensitive documents to the people, the language used within the structure is also verry hard to understand, and the access to those ''public places'' is also verry complicated. they dont want us to participate, they put a democratic structure in place not beccause they wanted to, but beccause they had to, beccause of the circumstances and pressures that came from the population after ww1 made them do it. they dont care about us and if we could just watch tv and not care about the structure, they would be even happier.




What it does do is encourage the idea or hope that the ‘people’ are governing through their ‘representatives’ when in fact the real business of government is being done in the boardrooms, clubs, mansions, of the fat-cat bankers news media moguls and generals. Most workers know this instinctively even when they can’t quite put their finger on it and say "they are all the same".

Politics are more complicated than that my friend. many layers of society use parlementary politics to get their pieces of the cake, but lets not forget the oppositions various social group have against eachother within that system. Petty bourgeois against bourgeois, petty bourgeois against other petty bourgeois, bourgeois against bourgeois, working class against bourgeois, etc etc.

In all case, the capitalist system is preserved.



I stand by every word and I'll add some.

Also encouraging the false idea that parliamentary reformism is of any use are the SWP, SP CPGB, WP, CP and the entire opportunist army of fake ‘lefts’ who are so entranced by the trapping of government and demoralised by their own sceptical and cynical world view that they tell workers to vote for Labor MPs like Dian Abbot.

parlementary Politics have its use, an extremely limited one i give you that, but it can be useful now and then.

I dont think that beccause x political movement decide to work within the political system mean that this movement is composed of ''fake left'' people.

if you want to achieve an end, you must be able to consider all the mean to get there.

Radical leftist party will never, ever be able to win the elections, but they can use the structure to point out flaws and gain visibility.

if they are doing it all wrong it only mean they are not able to use the mean (parlementary politics) efficiently.

[Rainsborough]

Why don't you 2 just make out already? :tt1:

Edit: Also, you talk about proper political responses while spewwing anti-intellectualism


They probably can't be bothered to respond to schoolboy comments.
So are you now making anti-gay jokes comrade?

[Threetune]

Well I’m satisfied at winning the arguments so far, so if no one has anything to add I’m content to move on. And thanks for your contributions they have been instructive even when they were wrong.

[Leftsolidarity]

They probably can't be bothered to respond to schoolboy comments.
So are you now making anti-gay jokes comrade?

How would that be an anti-gay joke? They just seem to be going back and forth with each other like "oh yeah everything you said was so awesome, you are SOOO communist". Also, I don't even know if they are male or female.

[Tim Finnegan]

So are you now making anti-gay jokes comrade?
How are you inferring that, exactly? :confused: It seemed a pretty obvious reference to the "slap slap kiss (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SlapSlapKiss)" cliché; the gender of the posters really isn't relevant.

[Coach Trotsky]

But that's just it: do modern-day "Leftist" parties in bourgeois state politics expose capitalism and the nature of the state, expose the misleaders, and call for independent workers' mobilizations and organs of workers' power to take power into their own hands and secure solutions in their own interests?

That's what Lenin and Trotsky said that revolutionary socialists intervening in bourgeois state elections were supposed to do, right? So what happened?
Ah, yes, what happened in that "the Left" suddenly discovered some "progressive good guy" capitalists to side with against certain "reactionary bad guy" capitalists (hint hint: remember WWII anybody? Oh, the "good guy" imperialists won, instead of the "bad guy" imperialists!) And it's been the same spin from the 'Left' ever since, especially in Popular Frontism.
Of course, the bourgeoisie figured out that the Popular Fronts could be turned into its bureaucratic tools, weapons against the workers, and distracting playthings...and this is even more true in this late vicious globalized stage of capitalism.

[Leftsolidarity]

[QUOTE=Coach Trotsky;2137201]But that's just it: do modern-day "Leftist" parties in bourgeois state politics expose capitalism and the nature of the state, expose the misleaders, and call for independent workers' mobilizations and organs of workers' power to take power into their own hands and secure solutions in their own interests?
QUOTE]

Yes, almost every far-left party does.

[danyboy27]

Well I’m satisfied at winning the arguments so far, so if no one has anything to add I’m content to move on. And thanks for your contributions they have been instructive even when they were wrong.


you have been proven wrong many time so far pal.

[Leftsolidarity]

Well I’m satisfied at winning the arguments so far, so if no one has anything to add I’m content to move on. And thanks for your contributions they have been instructive even when they were wrong.

:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

[Threetune]

Just started reading the TP and although Trotsky could not have known about the post WW11 inflationary boom, it did throw up a set of conditions that revolutionary workers had to deal with( in Europe and the USA in particular) that gave the appearance of capitalist revival. This colours the reading of the program from the start.
“The Comintern has set out to follow the path of Social Democracy in an epoch of decaying capitalism: when, in general, there can be no discussion of systematic social reforms and the raising of the masses’ living standards; when every serious demand of the proletariat and even every serious demand of the petty bourgeoisie inevitably reaches beyond the limits of capitalist property relations and of the bourgeois state.” (From the Transitional Program)

[Threetune]

you have been proven wrong many time so far pal.

oh,go on then

[danyboy27]

oh,go on then

what is the purpose of this thread if you are unwilling to repond to the post adressed to you?

[The_Outernationalist]

I personally think the left is pathetic these days because our "vanguard parties" (lol) are so obsessed political correctness and identity politics that these become the main issues of these parties and that alienates the other 95% of proletarians who could care less or who have more pressing matters than the proper use of personal pronouns when addressing someone.

Seriously, the leftist parties have become a joke unto themselves, and they almost seem to shun anything which capitalism embraces, which isn't a winning strategy for gaining in support, as it just makes us look like bitter people who'd rather shout at ourselves in the corner than actually try to win over the masses.

[Threetune]

you have been proven wrong many time so far pal.

do a list

[Leftsolidarity]

do a list

how about you read the 9 pages worth of comments that have proved you wrong

[Sasha]

i think this thread ran its course and for the last 8.5 pages havent been about the arab-world protests in which sections it is at all....

so, closed