Syriza moving towards split

[Sentinel]

Recent statements and developments seem to imply that a split of the party between Tsipras' right wing and the Left Platform of Syriza is closing in:


SYRIZA Left Platform Attacks Tsipras, Party Split ‘Unavoidable’

By Philip Chrysopoulos - Jul 22, 2015
182 63 Google +1 0 1 291
τσίπρας_βαρουφάκης_λαφαζάνης-610x380SYRIZA’s left platform attacked Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras for not having a Plan B and succumbing to creditors’ demands to sign a deal that goes against party policy.

With several SYRIZA MPs stating that they will vote against the second set of reforms on Wednesday, cohesion within the party is a thing of the past. “There are two views within SYRIZA, possibly a divorce is unavoidable, but there should be dialogue first,” government spokesperson Olga Gerovasili said on Alpha radio.

At the same time, Deputy Citizens Protection Minister Yiannis Panousis said on Vima radio that with 40 dissidents within SYRIZA, there are two different parties with opposing views. Adding junior coalition partner ANEL, there are three parties that govern, Panousis said.

Meanwhile, Justice Minister Nikos Paraskevopoulos who brought to parliament the new Civil Procedure Code to be voted as a bailout prerequisite, stated that he is against it but he is forced to vote for it otherwise Greece will go bankrupt.

Through an article in iskra.gr, the left platform’s website, the party dissidents accuse the prime minister and call him to take back his statements about purging those within SYRIZA who refuse to vote for the new bailout reforms. That, they say, means splitting the party in two.

The article says that the prime minister should have nationalized Greek banks immediately after coming to power and default on all loan payments before starting negotiations with creditors. Instead, the text says, Tsipras chose to repay the loans, thereby emptying state coffers without receiving any further financial aid. That brought the country to a dire position on July 12 and the prime minister surrendered to the blackmailing creditors.

Implying Panagiotis Lafazanis, Yanis Varoufakis and Zoe Konstantopoulou, the prime minister stated on Tuesday that those who oppose him “should not be hiding behind his own signature” and accused them for not having any alternatives to propose.

- See more at: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/07/22/syriza-left-platform-attacks-tsipras-party-split-unavoidable/#sthash.YsoOJ8yG.dpuf

Link (http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/07/22/syriza-left-platform-attacks-tsipras-party-split-unavoidable/)

Wonder what might happen next, if it comes to that? Could a pro-grexit alliance between Left Platform and KKE combating Tsipras' Syriza, Potami etc be even remotely possible?

Also, why is the majority of the CC of Syriza unable to oust Tsipras? Does anyone know more about the internal processes in that party?

[SocialRepublican]

This isn't exactly a surprising development, revolutionaries within Syriza have been anticipating a split with the reformists since day one. As for a coalition with Potami-effectively the offspring of Pasok-I cannot envisage a pro european party that has supported the austerity measures imposed on Greece forming an effective coalition of the left against austerity measures as they are much further to the right than the right wing of Syriza.
As for the KKE they have adopted a very sectarian, ultra leftist approach to all possible collaborators. In February Tsipras approached them first upon electoral success with proposals for a coalition and it was their refusal to even hold talks with Syriza which lead to Tsipras courting ANEL. If they had, working within the party in tandem with The Left Platform, there would of been much more pressure on Tsipras to push through radical legislation such as the nationalisation of banks and industries, rather than being allowed to foolishly attempt to reform the neo-liberal economic powerhouses of Europe. If history has taught us anything about social democratic parties it is that rather than reforming the capitalist system, the capitalist system has reformed them and Syriza is just the latest manifestation of this naive belief that if you ask nicely you'll somehow shatter the iron will of the bourgeois instiutions. Now, if the KKE had agreed to a coalition Tsipras would not have been able to push through either round of measures without losing government, considering that the threshold is a minimum of 120 and with the rebellion over the first bailout support amongst the coalition for the measures was only 123. If you were to minus from this n extra 15 MPs Tsipras would not of been able to pass the measures. In relation to a possible coalition between the Left Platform and the KKE I am highly sceptical of such a development as the KKE continue their campaign of hostile rhetoric against the Left Platform(and Antarsya for that matter) in recent announcements. On this, however, I would be delighted to be proven wrong, as much as I detest the KKE and their ultra leftism, such a coalition of the Left 'Troika'(Left Platform, KKE, Antarsya) seems to be our best hope of uniting and mobilising the Greek working

[N. Tweed]

Left Platform + ANATARSYA seems more likely to me. they would not do that well in snap elections, at least not right now. for whatever reason, Tsipras and the SYRIZA brand remand popular.

I doubt KKE would enter a coalition of any kind, except perhaps as a Senior partner, and they're a long way from that.

[Sentinel]

As for a coalition with Potami-effectively the offspring of Pasok-I cannot envisage a pro european party that has supported the austerity measures imposed on Greece forming an effective coalition of the left against austerity measures as they are much further to the right than the right wing of Syriza

What I asked, though was if the Left Platform and KKE might form a coalition combating, ie against Potami, Tsipras and the rest of the pro-euro establishment. ;)

I do share the concerns that KKE might continue their isolation despite a clear common goal. I hope it would not be do, but yeah.

ANTARSYA, of course more likely. Unfortunately they aren't as much of a force atm as the KKE is with their union connections.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

So, serious question: why would the KKE enter a coalition with elements of SYRIZA? Even if we assume everyone in the KEE is an opportunist in the colloquial sense, the KKE have gained a lot of support by opposing SYRIZA. To enter into a coalition with a split would be suicidal.

[Sentinel]

Well, if they were serious about achieving Grexit I suppose. Staying within the Euro was a main tactical difference as I've understood it, at least officially.

But you might as well be right, I have long lost hopes that the KKE would be interested in anything gaining others than themselves or sharing power/influence. I will believe any cooperation when I see it.

[SocialRepublican]

[QUOTE=Sentinel;2844431]What I asked, though was if the Left Platform and KKE might form a coalition combating, ie against Potami, Tsipras and the rest of the pro-euro establishment. ;)

yeah i realised after I posted, sorry about that

[Sasha]

Tsipras is proposing a internal referendum on his position for a Syriza congress upcoming sunday

[Philosophos]

So, serious question: why would the KKE enter a coalition with elements of SYRIZA? Even if we assume everyone in the KEE is an opportunist in the colloquial sense, the KKE have gained a lot of support by opposing SYRIZA. To enter into a coalition with a split would be suicidal.

Well I don't want to be mean, but most people don't really understand the differences between left parties or parties in general even if they are quite obvious :grin: . So even if KKE joins the most left part of ex-SYRIZA (for the sake of the argument I don't really believe they will do it) even when they have got differences or many things in common, most people wouldn't even notice.

Unfortunately, the last 15 years (maybe more, but I wouldn't know I wasn't even born or old enough) people in Greece tend to focus on the result and not so much on the reasons behind the results, with a great tendency of lost hope and shit like that.

So all in all if KKE finally gets some enlightment and joins a alliance/coallition or whatever, people wouldn't really think that the KKE became opportunist and stuff like that.

[PhoenixAsh]

Let's put this in some perspective.

SYRIZA lost 12% since the memorandum debate which is 3% down from the election results.

KKE won +1% compared to last month but is down 0.3% from the results of the elections.

GD won +1%since last month and is up 0.4% since last month.

The big winners are ND and POTAMI....although SYRIZA remains by far the largest party.

KKE is not doing well at all. They managed to recuperate a large part of the support they lost but right now...they are not even at the level of the elections.

[phantasm]

What I'm most worried about is the Greek populace looking at the failures of SYRIZA and deeming "socialism" or "leftism" as a failure and not viable. It's likely that another liberal government is to follow due to this "loss of hope."

Unfortunately, prospects of a KKE-Left Platform-ANTARSYA coalition are looking rather grim right now. Yes, Left Platform has a lot in common with ANTARSYA and the two would likely bolster the popularity of each other, but KKE seems quite unwilling to cooperate with any outside forces.

Now, I don't support the KKE, and while they have some good ideas, they've always seemed rather stubborn and I haven't really seen them do anything but just say "I told you so." It's just that such a coalition is the only way to put forth a better alternative to SYRIZA's errors and make such information readily available and accessible to the Greek populace. KKE and ANTARSYA are mostly looked upon as pariahs to anyone not in them, and a faction of SYRIZA joining them would do wonders to introducing the ideas they have.

[ChangeAndChance]

Now, I don't support the KKE, and while they have some good ideas, they've always seemed rather stubborn and I haven't really seen them do anything but just say "I told you so."

Is that in anyway surprising? When was the last time hardline Marxist-Leninists ever cooperated with any other radical left tendency? To them we're all evil revisionist Trotsky-loving capitalist roaders.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Well I don't want to be mean, but most people don't really understand the differences between left parties or parties in general even if they are quite obvious :grin: . So even if KKE joins the most left part of ex-SYRIZA (for the sake of the argument I don't really believe they will do it) even when they have got differences or many things in common, most people wouldn't even notice.

Unfortunately, the last 15 years (maybe more, but I wouldn't know I wasn't even born or old enough) people in Greece tend to focus on the result and not so much on the reasons behind the results, with a great tendency of lost hope and shit like that.

So all in all if KKE finally gets some enlightment and joins a alliance/coallition or whatever, people wouldn't really think that the KKE became opportunist and stuff like that.

See, this is definitely not the impression I get talking to people from Greece. They definitely can tell the difference between the KKE and SYRIZA. Perhaps they can't tell the difference between SYRIZA and ANTARSYA, but that's because the latter is the "left" tail of the former.

So why should the KKE enter into a coalition with elements from SYRIZA? If the Greek people genuinely can't tell the difference, it's all the same to them.

If the KKE is simply interested in winning votes, why would they help their rival? If the French PS were to split tomorrow, would you call on the PCF to fuse with some of the splinter groups?

But I don't think that's true. The KKE leadership might be cynical, but they've been talking left for a long time and they're bound to attract a lot of genuine socialists. And they were absolutely correct - as much as that infuriates RevLeft - they were absolutely correct to call for no confidence in a SYRIZA government. They were the only ones, along with some anarchists and our minuscule Trotskyist Group of Greece, to do so. Even the communisers went along with SYRIZA-fetishism. And now you're asking them to spit on that, to spit on the fact that they took the proper proletarian line on one of the most important questions of the last few years, and join with the next iteration of SYRIZA. Why? For many posters here, I suspect the answer is that they don't want SYRIZA to fail. So they're angry at the KKE for not going against everything they claim to stand for, and saving SYRIZA, in scenarios that range from the vaguely realistic to completely insane (KKE defense minister kissing up to Russia).

It's over. SYRIZA is over. If they had any principles they would disband, but they won't, they'll drag the carcass of populist social-democracy around some more before they peter out. And they deserve that.

[PhoenixAsh]

KKE is talking left and acting right.

Their position on SYRIZA can only be considered correct when you ignore the absolutely contradictory ideological position that goes with it and which in reality doesn't actually differentiate itself from SYRIZA when properly analysed.

Anti-Austerity buy staying in the EU, untill the revolution, after which socialism in one country is totally possible under the vanguard of the KKE.

Sounds r-r-r-revolutionary as fuck. But considering the fact that there is no workers movement in any meaning full sense and there is only an early pre stage of any development of class consciousness this revolution will take years and years....in the meantime the KKE position boils down to exactly what SYRIZA is doing.

[cyu]

Reminded me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workingmen%27s_Association

The anarchists grouped around Bakunin favoured "direct economical struggle against capitalism, without interfering in the political parliamentary agitation." Marxist thinking, at that time, focused on parliamentary activity.

[LeninistIthink]

in my view what will either happen is that the working class will move from syriza or left elements shall split and thus destroy their unity via syriza, after all why rejoin with stalinists anarchists, trotskyists etc when you've just gained organisational independence , or this splitting left will remain united or the current heads of syriza will be kicked from their positions by members of the party.

However this does imply the lack of actions of both the working class and capitalist class which will almost certainly occur but that is a thread for another day :)

[blake 3:17]

Here's a link to a recent interview with Alexis Tspiras some may be interested in: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/greece-memorandum-austerity-coup-tsipras-syriza-interview/

[Epictetus]

KKE is talking left and acting right.

Their position on SYRIZA can only be considered correct when you ignore the absolutely contradictory ideological position that goes with it and which in reality doesn't actually differentiate itself from SYRIZA when properly analysed.

Anti-Austerity buy staying in the EU, untill the revolution, after which socialism in one country is totally possible under the vanguard of the KKE.

Sounds r-r-r-revolutionary as fuck. But considering the fact that there is no workers movement in any meaning full sense and there is only an early pre stage of any development of class consciousness this revolution will take years and years....in the meantime the KKE position boils down to exactly what SYRIZA is doing.

You are oversimplifying KKE's position on the Euro and austerity, and you're also misleading other members by throwing in some stuff about the EU. The reason why KKE didn't and will not support a Grexit, similar to what the leftist faction of SYRIZA is proposing, is because it would be utterly pointless since it would in no way affect how the bourgeoisie of this country (and that of others) is exploiting the people; in other words it would be a switch from capitalism with euro to capitalism with drachma. It's pointless, and any will to embrace this drachma fever-dream is, in my opinion, fueled by a mystification of concepts such as resistance, the OXI, and attempts to save face by people who completely betrayed those who trusted them. A lot could be said about KKE's strategy; how it's opposing popular fronts, how it considers its plan to be the best, the only one, how it legitimizes bourgeois rule by taking part in parliamentary shenanigans, how its union and supporters are disruptive during demonstrations, etc. These are all valid reasons for someone not to support KKE and their antiquated version of communism, but to say that their position is not differentiated from that of SYRIZA is shows a fundamental lack of understanding when it comes to what the state of the Left is in this country.

[Philosophos]

See, this is definitely not the impression I get talking to people from Greece. They definitely can tell the difference between the KKE and SYRIZA. Perhaps they can't tell the difference between SYRIZA and ANTARSYA, but that's because the latter is the "left" tail of the former.

So why should the KKE enter into a coalition with elements from SYRIZA? If the Greek people genuinely can't tell the difference, it's all the same to them.

If the KKE is simply interested in winning votes, why would they help their rival? If the French PS were to split tomorrow, would you call on the PCF to fuse with some of the splinter groups?

But I don't think that's true. The KKE leadership might be cynical, but they've been talking left for a long time and they're bound to attract a lot of genuine socialists. And they were absolutely correct - as much as that infuriates RevLeft - they were absolutely correct to call for no confidence in a SYRIZA government. They were the only ones, along with some anarchists and our minuscule Trotskyist Group of Greece, to do so. Even the communisers went along with SYRIZA-fetishism. And now you're asking them to spit on that, to spit on the fact that they took the proper proletarian line on one of the most important questions of the last few years, and join with the next iteration of SYRIZA. Why? For many posters here, I suspect the answer is that they don't want SYRIZA to fail. So they're angry at the KKE for not going against everything they claim to stand for, and saving SYRIZA, in scenarios that range from the vaguely realistic to completely insane (KKE defense minister kissing up to Russia).

It's over. SYRIZA is over. If they had any principles they would disband, but they won't, they'll drag the carcass of populist social-democracy around some more before they peter out. And they deserve that.

Well I suppose we talk to different people then. For me they can't tell the differences (the main or the minor ones) because either apolitical or cynical with the left or they're not familiar with the left. The only difference they can tell is that KKE is ultra left, while SYRIZA is not... that radical may I say, not so... fanatic or whatever you get the main point. Most people voted SYRIZA because they were filled up with hatred against PASOK and New Democracy and because they thought that they were the lesser evil, not because they were politicaly enlightened or anything like that.

At the same time I agree with you on the part that KKE has predicted very accurately what would have happened if we got a SYRIZA government etc and also the part they have some really nice core of socialists in their party BUT they could do a much better job and they could also change some of their tactics to become more likeable and approachable.
Right here right now if a KKE member starts talking on the TV or somewhere else most people who don't know terms like capitalism, social-democrats etc won't even understand anything from him/her. Why? Because they use a wooden tongue and most of the times they just care of getting the approval from the inside rather than getting the approval on the outside (which is the main goal). Not saying that they should become opportunist or start saying nice things to the greek people so they can get votes.

Lots of communists make fun of the KKE for the things above and some other stuff. One more example is that people make lots of demonstrations and the KKE just goes there and says "Yeah now that demonstration is ours, just look at as so radical". I know it sounds rediculous and it might not even be true BUT that's what the majority of people believe so it kinda "becomes" the truth. So when I say that they should get in an alliance, I'm not saying that is should be 100% with SYRIZA or joining for the votes, but mostly to show people that they are not THAT fucking fanatical and obsessed with THEIR party and that they want to do the best for the people.

[Hatshepsut]

I admit I've posted some dumb things here and have difficulty navigating alphabet soups in politics. It does seem the small money has already fled:

"New car sales jumped by 47pc in April, suggesting Greek households pulled their cash out of banks and ploughed it into other goods and services. Sales in July fell 24pc."

-Chan Aug. 13, '15 in Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11800527/The-Syriza-effect-Greek-economy-grows-by-0.8pc-in-second-quarter.html

[RadicalKKE]

KKE would never join a coalition with Socialdemocrats, it is very, very unlikely that KKE would ally with the Left Platform if they do split a Left Platform-ANTARSYA alliance is more realistic. However, ANTARSYA are self-proclaimed Anti-EU, the majority of the Left Platform is Pro-EU, Anti-Grexit, i am not sure if they would accept a coalition.

[VivalaCuarta]

Greek leftists are leaving SYRIZA because they can't fool the workers anymore under the SYRIZA brand. The international left, which never learns anything, will try to help them betray the workers again under a new name.

From The Internationalist, "What Road for Greece: Perpetual Debt Peonage or Workers Revolution? (http://www.internationalist.org/whatroadgreeceperpetual1508.html)"


The bankruptcy of Tsipras’ policies is plain for all to see, and a split in SYRIZA seems inevitable. Now attention is focusing on the Left Platform, which made mild criticisms of the government line while doing nothing to block it. The best articulated expression of its policies comes from Stathis Kouvelakis, professor of political theory at King’s College London and member of SYRIZA’s central committee. Writing for Jacobin (3 August), Kouvelakis describes the Greek left as being in “post-traumatic shock.” He even admits that he “bear[s] part of that collective responsibility” for the disaster, and notes that “there have been enclaves providing bridges with sectors of the oligarchy inside Syriza, even before it came to power.” He argues that what has been defeated is not just Tsipras’ policies but the strategy of “left-Europeanism.” But what does he propose in its place?


This Left Platform leader argues absurdly that the calamitous experience of the last half year confirms the idea “that a unitary government of radical left forces is a necessary and tested instrument for approaching the question of power has been validated”! Since, as he spells out, the SYRIZA tops made “a clear choice in favor of continuity at the level of the repressive mechanisms of the state,” he adds: “It is obviously one thing to be the government and quite another to have power. The question is whether we are able to use the first to achieve the second, and if so how.” The answer, as revolutionary Marxists who have done their homework could tell him, is that this “question” has been answered many times over – with the spilt blood of millions of workers. The bourgeoisie brings leftists into government not to promote “democracy” but to do the dirty work for capital, paving the way for war, dictatorship and brutal anti-worker austerity.

[PhoenixAsh]

The word betrayal is ludicrously hyperbolic.

It suggests that a capitalist party is actually in a position to betray rather than that they execute a policy within capitalism as their intention. And you seem to be under the impression that the workers weren't fully aware they were voting and supporting a party whose stated goal was to maintain the capitalist system within the superstructure of the EU and monetary system.

Either you are having some very interesting positions on whether or not capitalist parties actually work to the benefit of workers....or that workers weren't smart enough to actually know what they were doing and are stupid enough to think they were voting for a party which wanted to do away with capitalism....even though the party platform has always openly been: stay within the EU...stay within the Euro...maintain capitalism....we are going to make a better deal

The workers got exactly what they voted for...and they did so because of sincere ideological position....and because under the current reality there was no alternative that addressed their immediate concerns and no workers movement. They haven't been misled. This was their ideological position.

Saying that they were betrayed is ignoring the fact that they aren't class consciousness and that this class consciousness can only be reached through their own struggle instead of external forces.

Now SYRIZA will fall. The entire political strategy of the EU is aiming for it to fall. It is the goal of the EU to substitute it for a more cooperative and more controllable government. It is in their imperialist interest to do so since SYRIZA poses a thread to them.

[Sharia Lawn]

Greek leftists are leaving SYRIZA because they can't fool the workers anymore under the SYRIZA brand. The international left, which never learns anything, will try to help them betray the workers again under a new name.

Yes, and we already see an excellent example of what that process will look like in the very next post:


The word betrayal is ludicrously hyperbolic.

It suggests that a capitalist party is actually in a position to betray rather than that they execute a policy within capitalism as their intention. And you seem to be under the impression that the workers weren't fully aware they were voting and supporting a party whose stated goal was to maintain the capitalist system within the superstructure of the EU and monetary system.

Either you are having some very interesting positions on whether or not capitalist parties actually work to the benefit of workers....or that workers weren't smart enough to actually know what they were doing and are stupid enough to think they were voting for a party which wanted to do away with capitalism....even though the party platform has always openly been: stay within the EU...stay within the Euro...maintain capitalism....we are going to make a better deal

The workers got exactly what they voted for...and they did so because of sincere ideological position....and because under the current reality there was no alternative that addressed their immediate concerns and no workers movement. They haven't been misled. This was their ideological position.

Saying that they were betrayed is ignoring the fact that they aren't class consciousness and that this class consciousness can only be reached through their own struggle instead of external forces.

Now SYRIZA will fall. The entire political strategy of the EU is aiming for it to fall. It is the goal of the EU to substitute it for a more cooperative and more controllable government. It is in their imperialist interest to do so since SYRIZA poses a thread to them.

Simple and honest question. What is your definition of the word betrayal?

[PhoenixAsh]

Yes, and we already see an excellent example of what that process will look like in the very next post:

Oh hey what a surprise to find you here :rolleyes:


Simple and honest question. What is your definition of the word betrayal?

An intentional breach of a presumed contract in its broadest sense by deviating from it relying on misleading the other party about your intentions.

This is lacking from what happened.

They did exactly what they promised.

[Sharia Lawn]

They did exactly what they promised.

Where did Syriza promise to pass an almost identical austerity package to the one that voters rejected? As a matter of fact, what do you think Syriza promised?

[Epictetus]

The word betrayal is ludicrously hyperbolic.

It suggests that a capitalist party is actually in a position to betray rather than that they execute a policy within capitalism as their intention. And you seem to be under the impression that the workers weren't fully aware they were voting and supporting a party whose stated goal was to maintain the capitalist system within the superstructure of the EU and monetary system.

Either you are having some very interesting positions on whether or not capitalist parties actually work to the benefit of workers....or that workers weren't smart enough to actually know what they were doing and are stupid enough to think they were voting for a party which wanted to do away with capitalism....even though the party platform has always openly been: stay within the EU...stay within the Euro...maintain capitalism....we are going to make a better deal

The workers got exactly what they voted for...and they did so because of sincere ideological position....and because under the current reality there was no alternative that addressed their immediate concerns and no workers movement. They haven't been misled. This was their ideological position.

Saying that they were betrayed is ignoring the fact that they aren't class consciousness and that this class consciousness can only be reached through their own struggle instead of external forces.

Now SYRIZA will fall. The entire political strategy of the EU is aiming for it to fall. It is the goal of the EU to substitute it for a more cooperative and more controllable government. It is in their imperialist interest to do so since SYRIZA poses a thread to them.

You are right about the worker's not being betrayed, but only partly so; the crux of SYRIZA's campaign was anti-austerity: "we will tear the memoranda; nullify them with a single law" and other such statements were made by them numerous times, and coupled with the pro-Euro stance (necessary for any Greek populist right now, although maybe not in the not so far future) convinced many people that there was an alternative to what ND had been doing. In that aspect they did, in fact, renege. Goes to show what a joke this party has been, doesn't it?
By the way, I wouldn't be too sure to talk about SYRIZA's future. If the government falls they may be re-elected: in the minds of many Greek voters there are very few alternatives to them right now, if any at all.

[Philosophos]

in the minds of many Greek voters there are very few alternatives to them right now, if any at all.

There are almost no alternatives. The ones that do exist (both left and non-left) are rather small parties that will be extremely happy to just make their way to the parliament, which getting more than 3% I think :(

[Sharia Lawn]

There are almost no alternatives. The ones that do exist (both left and non-left) are rather small parties that will be extremely happy to just make their way to the parliament, which getting more than 3% I think :(

This comment makes sense only to a person whose political universe extends as far as the walls of parliament. Revolutionaries think it's better to get .0000001% of any vote than it is to betray the working class. Sorry, I don't mean "betray." That's obviously too strong of a word to refer to being elected to stop austerity then facilitating it instead.

[Epictetus]

There are almost no alternatives. The ones that do exist (both left and non-left) are rather small parties that will be extremely happy to just make their way to the parliament, which getting more than 3% I think :(
This is why I think that the working class needs to look outside of parliaments and take matters in their own hands. I hope more people realize that the system has failed them, or rather, that it was never supposed to represent them in any way whatsoever. Of course, with KKE's parliamentary love affair, a lot of potential is being wasted.

[PhoenixAsh]

This comment makes sense only to a person whose political universe extends as far as the walls of parliament. Revolutionaries think it's better to get .0000001% of any vote than it is to betray the working class. Sorry, I don't mean "betray." That's obviously too strong of a word to refer to being elected to stop austerity then facilitating it instead.

Except that was not the election promise...and misses a few vitally important parts of the election platform in order to facilitate a hyperbole that seriously dilutes the reality of the working class in Greece.

SYRIZA ran on a platform the renegotiate the austerity measure with the EU while pledging to stay in the EU and the Euro and while openly professing support for the capitalist system. There has never been a promise to end austerity come all costs and regardless of what would happen.

They were wrong in just how much leverage they had and the EU won the negotiations with a few concessions...but this isn't betrayal and using such terminology does two things:

1). It supposes that the working class was promised a working class platform and denied this platform at the last moment.
2). It supposes that the working class operates as a class for the class rather than fully operates under the idea and wish to maintain the capitalist system, mode of production and international relations and treaties.

Neither of these is however the case.

And that means that the class won't take things into their own hand unless they become class conscious...

but there is also the following you seriously need to consider: whatever a revolutionary platform (that doesn't exist right now) can offer....it won't offer anything different than what SYRIZA is offering within the current reality. At all.

Tell me...suppose there was a revolutionary workers movement. What would you suppose that would have been different?

[Sharia Lawn]

Except that was not the election promise...and misses a few vitally important parts of the election platform in order to facilitate a hyperbole that seriously dilutes the reality of the working class in Greece.

SYRIZA ran on a platform the renegotiate the austerity measure with the EU while pledging to stay in the EU and the Euro and while openly professing support for the capitalist system. There has never been a promise to end austerity come all costs and regardless of what would happen.

They were wrong in just how much leverage they had and the EU won the negotiations with a few concessions...but this isn't betrayal and using such terminology does two things:

1). It supposes that the working class was promised a working class platform and denied this platform at the last moment.
2). It supposes that the working class operates as a class for the class rather than fully operates under the idea and wish to maintain the capitalist system, mode of production and international relations and treaties.

Neither of these is however the case.

And that means that the class won't take things into their own hand unless they become class conscious...

but there is also the following you seriously need to consider: whatever a revolutionary platform (that doesn't exist right now) can offer....it won't offer anything different than what SYRIZA is offering within the current reality. At all.

Tell me...suppose there was a revolutionary workers movement. What would you suppose that would have been different?

Oh, okay. You think the voters turned to Syriza because they thought that Syriza would renegotiate the austerity deal into a package that was basically the same as the one that had been on offer all along. I guess the referendum on what was in all essentials the austerity deal worked out by syriza, which voters rejected by a sizable margin, was the outcome of evil radicals fucking with the Diebold voting machines. Or maybe the Greek workers just didn't understand that why they really voted for Syriza was just to have the negotiation, regardless of how it turned out. Makes sense! I'm happy that there are leaders of the non-reformist, non-parliamentarist left forum to explain these things to me.

[PhoenixAsh]

Oh, okay. You think the voters turned to Syriza because they thought that Syriza would renegotiate the austerity deal into a package that was basically the same as the one that had been on offer all along. I guess the referendum on what was in all essentials the austerity deal worked out by syriza, which voters rejected by a sizable margin, was the outcome of evil radicals fucking with the Diebold voting machines. Or maybe the Greek workers just didn't understand that why they really voted for Syriza was just to have the negotiation, regardless of how it turned out. Makes sense! I'm happy that there are leaders of the non-reformist, non-parliamentarist left forum to explain these things to me.

I think the working class who overwhelmingly and vocally support the continued membership of the EU and the EURO currency and the capitalist system turned to SYRIZA to negotiate a better austerity package because they lack the consciousness to form a workers movement and because of that...there is no workers movement.

Use of the word betrayal becomes a hollow hyperbole in roughly the same vicinity as pointing towards a corpse and shouting "genocide" lacking a clear analysis and wiping out a whole lot of the equation because it seems more convenient to find an easy scapegoat than to face the reality of the situation.

I also notice that you did not answer my question what a mature workers movement in the current context would have achieved that is different from the platform of SYRIZA and what your revolutionary platform looks like as an immediate and intermediate term alternative in the current context.

I don't have to have details....just give me a rough sketch.

[Sharia Lawn]

I think the working class who overwhelmingly and vocally support the continued membership of the EU and the EURO currency and the capitalist system turned to SYRIZA to negotiate a better austerity package because they lack the consciousness to form a workers movement and because of that...there is no workers movement.

Mmmhmm. Only problem here is that what propelled syriza to control over the Greek parliament wasn't the issue of staying in the EU or its economic zone. Everybody else besides you knows that it was the issue of fighting austerity. You don't wan't to admit this because then you'd have to admit a betrayal, and that doesn't look good for your pet reformist project.


I also notice that you did not answer my question what a mature workers movement in the current context would have achieved that is different from the platform of SYRIZA and what your revolutionary platform looks like as an immediate and intermediate term alternative in the current context.

I don't have to have details....just give me a rough sketch.It's not even a matter of details. It's a matter of very basic principle, one that divides parliamentarists and reformists from revolutionaries. What the workers could have achieved through a movement independent of misplaced faith in Syriza, that they have not achieved now, is exactly what you are still trying to blind users of this forum from understanding: that stopping austerity could never be performed by bourgeois state managers. It can only be stopped by an independent working class mobilized against capitalism, the capitalist state, and the capitalist state's managers, including "nuanced" and "realistic" social democratic betrayers of the workers' movement.

You spend practically all of your time on this issue trying to blind people to who the bourgeois state really represents, what bourgeois elections really represent. It's shameful, and it shows that "anarchism" on this forum is just a all-encompassing label people default into if they reject Marxism and haven't done enough critical thinking to understand where they fit in on the rest of the far-left spectrum. As a result rad-libs like you perpetrate a great deception to the posters of the forum including those who actually are anarchists.

[Philosophos]

This is why I think that the working class needs to look outside of parliaments and take matters in their own hands. I hope more people realize that the system has failed them, or rather, that it was never supposed to represent them in any way whatsoever. Of course, with KKE's parliamentary love affair, a lot of potential is being wasted.

True that


This comment makes sense only to a person whose political universe extends as far as the walls of parliament. Revolutionaries think it's better to get .0000001% of any vote than it is to betray the working class. Sorry, I don't mean "betray." That's obviously too strong of a word to refer to being elected to stop austerity then facilitating it instead.

If the majority of Greeks right now were revolutionaries then I would comment differentely. From the moment they keep on wanting the parliament etc I have to talk about the alternatives inside the parliament.

[Sharia Lawn]

If the majority of Greeks right now were revolutionaries then I would comment differentely. From the moment they keep on wanting the parliament etc I have to talk about the alternatives inside the parliament.

"There is no alternative to parliamentarism!" - Every reformist ever

[Philosophos]

"There is no alternative to parliamentarism!" - Every reformist ever

Oh here we go again I missed that

[PhoenixAsh]

It's not even a matter of details. It's a matter of very basic principle, one that divides parliamentarists and reformists from revolutionaries. What the workers could have achieved through a movement independent of misplaced faith in Syriza, that they have not achieved now, is exactly what you are still trying to blind users of this forum from understanding: that stopping austerity could never be performed by bourgeois state managers. It can only be stopped by an independent working class mobilized against capitalism, the capitalist state, and the capitalist state's managers, including "nuanced" and "realistic" social democratic betrayers of the workers' movement.

Lol. This doesn't answer my question at all. But nice dodge there in avoiding to having to answer that you do not have a solution at all.

So no Izvestia. Actually it is you how shows a remarkable level of inability to understand that the working class is not in a position to do so because they are not at that level of consciousness. Nor would your revolutionary platform of blindly shouting "revolution now" have any alternative that would somehow change the contextual reality within Greece at the current moment.

Not only that but your political motive is simply for the working class to suck it up, die, starve and tie the belt a lot tighter until the revolution finally comes....in Greece...because apparently to the o so revolutionary Izvestia.... socialism in one country completely dependent on international trade for all most all of the bare essentials to keep a country running is totally possible.



You spend practically all of your time on this issue trying to blind people to who the bourgeois state really represents, what bourgeois elections really represent. It's shameful, and it shows that "anarchism" on this forum is just a all-encompassing label people default into if they reject Marxism and haven't done enough critical thinking to understand where they fit in on the rest of the far-left spectrum. As a result rad-libs like you perpetrate a great deception to the posters of the forum including those who actually are anarchists.

And yet you use words such as betrayal which shows how much you are beholden to the bourgeois elections and believe that it is absolutely possible for a workers platform to be carried by an openly bourgeois and capitalist party because if it couldn't (which is basically my argument) then it would not be betrayal. But since you are so fond of the use of the word you obviously are under that impression.

Now you have still not answered the question in the slightest. You have not explained to use how a revolutionary platform, right now, would have changed the contextual reality. A question which has been asked of you no less than 5 times in the course of the debate about SYRIZA by three different people and
avoid at all costs to have to actually address.

And before you actually do that you do not have an actual point.

[PhoenixAsh]

"There is no alternative to parliamentarism!" - Every reformist ever

Lol. Well look at the bright side....you certainly would have a very awesome future as the discount circus clown.

Let me try to phrase it differently:

1). There is no class conscious working class in Greece

2). Because the working class is not conscious they are not looking for an alternative outside of parliament.

3). The reality therefore is that there is no alternative outside parliament for the Greek working class.

4). LET ME REPEAT THAT: the working class doesn't see an alternative outside parliament because it hasn't created one because they aren't acting as a class for the class (<-- two Marxist terms/concepts right there) and because it hasn't there isn't one.

5). This alternative only starts to exist when the working class itself organizes through its struggles.

6). But before it is organized it doesn't exist.

7). And before it is organized the class needs to get class conscious through struggle.

8). And when it organizes the first platform in that step and process would necessarily be a radical reformist platform until the condition are met for a revolutionary one to be realized.

[Comrade Jacob]

KKE was right to not join the coalition. When an party allows both social-democrats and Marxists into one platform it will naturally split. (Let's not forget Tsipras purging the Marxists from the party)

[PhoenixAsh]

The KKE did not join the coalition because of opportunism. They have no alternative. They know this. Their platform comes down to doing nothing at all.

[Sharia Lawn]

Lol. Well look at the bright side....you certainly would have a very awesome future as the discount circus clown.

Let me try to phrase it differently:

1). There is no class conscious working class in Greece

2). Because the working class is not conscious they are not looking for an alternative outside of parliament.

3). The reality therefore is that there is no alternative outside parliament for the Greek working class.

4). LET ME REPEAT THAT: the working class doesn't see an alternative outside parliament because it hasn't created one because they aren't acting as a class for the class (<-- two Marxist terms/concepts right there) and because it hasn't there isn't one.

5). This alternative only starts to exist when the working class itself organizes through its struggles.

6). But before it is organized it doesn't exist.

7). And before it is organized the class needs to get class conscious through struggle.

8). And when it organizes the first platform in that step and process would necessarily be a radical reformist platform until the condition are met for a revolutionary one to be realized.

Oh, look. Flaming from a moderator. I'm shocked!

Yeah, an independent workers' movement doesn't exist in Greece (though I would say a workers' movement with illusions in capitalism does). How do you start to build one? Certainly not by shilling for Syriza or other pro-capitalist reformist parties like you've been doing.

[VivalaCuarta]

In today's edition of "anarcho-pop-frontists say the darndest things":


The KKE did not join the coalition because of opportunism.

So apparently it is opportunist for a workers party to not join a popular front.

[PhoenixAsh]

In today's edition of "anarcho-pop-frontists say the darndest things":

So apparently it is opportunist for a workers party to not join a popular front.

The KKE is not a workers party but a parliamentarist shill in full cooperation with the capitalist system. In fact their entire platform is helping capitalism much more than SYRIZA because it effectively boils down to doing nothing but giving token verbal opposition. It poses no threat to the system what so ever and when push comes to shove the KKE has proven again and again to chose a path of deescalation and actively assisting the government in persecuting revolutionaries.

You have a fourth internationalist avatar. The KKE is a Stalinist party. Do you know how many fourth internationalists, Trotskyists they have beat up, assassinated and handed over to the cops in the last decades?

[PhoenixAsh]

Oh, look. Flaming from a moderator. I'm shocked!

Yeah, an independent workers' movement doesn't exist in Greece (though I would say a workers' movement with illusions in capitalism does). How do you start to build one? Certainly not by shilling for Syriza or other pro-capitalist reformist parties like you've been doing.

A flame? Where? I am giving you a compliment....and this is what I get :rolleyes:

Ah well....It isn't surprising really. Given your tendency of purposefully misrepresenting and straw manning what is actually being said....I should have known compliments are wasted on you. Tragically comical.

What is being said however is the following:

There is no workers movement. What little groups there are that offer resistance are either not working class or offer a platform without any solutions on the short and intermediate term and boil down to doing nothing with the current situation.

Within this context the only party that offers a workable platform for resistance and mass mobilization of a unconscious working class is SYRIZA which poses currently the best alternative in the given reality.

Not only that but with a class unconscious working class the maximum any revolutionary party could reach in this context would be a reformist policy for the short and intermediate term. A maximalist position simply won't gain support from a class unconscious working class....and boils down to waiting untill the class starts operating as a class and for the class which will take a bloody long time. Going by the time table of the Russian Revolution....a decade or two.

This is not shilling for SYRIZA this is an analysis of the current situation and what is happening right now in Greece.

And that this is truth simply requires you to look at the KKE which fronts on a maximalist program. Yet their working class support in their own unions voted for SYRIZA enmasse.

Any other alternative requires a workers movement which is at the current level of consciousness requires class consciousness to develop further. This only happens through continued struggle and mobilization by the working class itself. A struggle and mobilizations that necessarily and unavoidably will happen initially through capitalist parties.

But even if...and when the working class organises as a class the first unavoidable next stage will be a reformist platform to address the immediate and pressing concerns the class is faced with.

Again.....historically you can see this in almost every revolution including the Russian revolution....before the class itself can take over power on a maximalist platform.

Before that happens however the platform of SYRIZA is the maximum possible within the current political reality and level of class consciousness and has had more effect in mobilizing huge swats of the working class directly getting them involved in political stuggle.

This is why we object to your hyperbolic and almost hysterical terminology using words as "betrayal". That word is highly misleading because not only has that not happened but is play into a narrative that the working class can find support within an openly capitalist party if only it is a honest party and that it is simply a matter of finding the right party rather than the realization that there is no right party unless it is a party by and for the class.

But as said. SYRIZA hasn't betrayed. It has failed. It has failed because even in the best possible outcome it would have only managed to alleviate austerity. Going further would have meant an exit from the EU and Euro which is directly opposed to what the workers wanted and the mandate they gave to SYRIZA. It also scape goats SYRIZA. If only they were more honest...no! They have done what they set out to do. They failed. They will always fail. Nobody here wad under any impression they would advance the revolution in any way shape or form.

For me personally the Grexit would have been far preferable and the outcome I hoped for given the damage it would do to the EU economy and the resulting economic crisis which would have radicalized resistance in the north west (imo). But it would have been hugely devastating to the Greek working class.

Nobody here however is supporting SYRIZA as the solution. Not me, not Rafiq. We are however of the opinion that analysing the current reality and the current possibilities...SYRIZA is the maximum obtainable in the current context and the first stage of continued workers mobilization.

[Sharia Lawn]

A flame? Where? I am giving you a compliment....and this is what I get :rolleyes:

Ah well....It isn't surprising really. Given your tendency of purposefully misrepresenting and straw manning what is actually being said....I should have known compliments are wasted on you. Tragically comical.

What is being said however is the following:

There is no workers movement. What little groups there are that offer resistance are either not working class or offer a platform without any solutions on the short and intermediate term and boil down to doing nothing with the current situation.

Within this context the only party that offers a workable platform for resistance and mass mobilization of a unconscious working class is SYRIZA which poses currently the best alternative in the given reality.

Not only that but with a class unconscious working class the maximum any revolutionary party could reach in this context would be a reformist policy for the short and intermediate term. A maximalist position simply won't gain support from a class unconscious working class....and boils down to waiting untill the class starts operating as a class and for the class which will take a bloody long time. Going by the time table of the Russian Revolution....a decade or two.

This is not shilling for SYRIZA this is an analysis of the current situation and what is happening right now in Greece.

And that this is truth simply requires you to look at the KKE which fronts on a maximalist program. Yet their working class support in their own unions voted for SYRIZA enmasse.

Any other alternative requires a workers movement which is at the current level of consciousness requires class consciousness to develop further. This only happens through continued struggle and mobilization by the working class itself. A struggle and mobilizations that necessarily and unavoidably will happen initially through capitalist parties.

But even if...and when the working class organises as a class the first unavoidable next stage will be a reformist platform to address the immediate and pressing concerns the class is faced with.

Again.....historically you can see this in almost every revolution including the Russian revolution....before the class itself can take over power on a maximalist platform.

Before that happens however the platform of SYRIZA is the maximum possible within the current political reality and level of class consciousness and has had more effect in mobilizing huge swats of the working class directly getting them involved in political stuggle.

This is why we object to your hyperbolic and almost hysterical terminology using words as "betrayal". That word is highly misleading because not only has that not happened but is play into a narrative that the working class can find support within an openly capitalist party if only it is a honest party and that it is simply a matter of finding the right party rather than the realization that there is no right party unless it is a party by and for the class.

But as said. SYRIZA hasn't betrayed. It has failed. It has failed because even in the best possible outcome it would have only managed to alleviate austerity. Going further would have meant an exit from the EU and Euro which is directly opposed to what the workers wanted and the mandate they gave to SYRIZA. It also scape goats SYRIZA. If only they were more honest...no! They have done what they set out to do. They failed. They will always fail. Nobody here wad under any impression they would advance the revolution in any way shape or form.

For me personally the Grexit would have been far preferable and the outcome I hoped for given the damage it would do to the EU economy and the resulting economic crisis which would have radicalized resistance in the north west (imo). But it would have been hugely devastating to the Greek working class.

Nobody here however is supporting SYRIZA as the solution. Not me, not Rafiq. We are however of the opinion that analysing the current reality and the current possibilities...SYRIZA is the maximum obtainable in the current context and the first stage of continued workers mobilization.


Yeah, calling somebody a clown is a flame, not that anybody who knows how this forum works expects the moderators to abide by the rules, much less enforce them, except when it is a convenient pretext for them to get rid of peeps who expose their crap politics.

Repeating your argument doesn't make it true, and it certainly doesn't change that it's shilling for Syriza. I mean, how else are we to characterize your endless attempts at explaining that Syriza is the best the workers of Greece could get, and that Syriza didn't betray them? Not shilling? Okay, we won't call it shilling. We'll call it what it is: rank reformism.

[Philosophos]

Yeah, calling somebody a clown is a flame, not that anybody who knows how this forum works expects the moderators to abide by the rules, much less enforce them, except when it is a convenient pretext for them to get rid of peeps who expose their crap politics.

Repeating your argument doesn't make it true, and it certainly doesn't change that it's shilling for Syriza. I mean, how else are we to characterize your endless attempts at explaining that Syriza is the best the workers of Greece could get, and that Syriza didn't betray them? Not shilling? Okay, we won't call it shilling. We'll call it what it is: rank reformism.

Can you please tell me what's the best solution for Greeks RIGHT NOW, given the current political state of the country and its people?

[Sharia Lawn]

Can you please tell me what's the best solution for Greeks RIGHT NOW, given the current political state of the country and its people?

For a revolutionary, the goal should be to organize workers along revolutionary lines. A general strike might or might not be a possiblity. The reality is that with the working class's organizational capacity and its current illusions in capitalism, stopping austerity is not within the realm of the immediately possible. But why do workers have illusions in capitalism? Part of the reason is that we live in a bourgeois society where people are bombarded with capitalist propaganda. But another part of the reason, which should not be dismissed in the slightest, is people like PhoenixAsh who claim to be "anarchists" but who do their best to persuade workers and others interested in "leftist" politics that their interests lie in supporting a bourgeois political party.

That REINFORCES illusions workers have about supposed shared interests between them, and capitalism and its political representatives. The reason why workers are currently unable to defeat austerity is what is made worse by sell-outs and betrayers like Syriza and their online shills.

[Philosophos]

For a revolutionary, the goal should be to organize workers along revolutionary lines. A general strike might or might not be a possiblity. The reality is that with the working class's organizational capacity and its current illusions in capitalism, stopping austerity is not within the realm of the immediately possible. But why do workers have illusions in capitalism? Part of the reason is that we live in a bourgeois society where people are bombarded with capitalist propaganda. But another part of the reason, which should not be dismissed in the slightest, is people like PhoenixAsh who claim to be "anarchists" but who do their best to persuade workers and others interested in "leftist" politics that their interests lie in supporting a bourgeois political party.

That REINFORCES illusions workers have about supposed shared interests between them, and capitalism and its political representatives. The reason why workers are currently unable to defeat austerity is what is made worse by sell-outs and betrayers like Syriza and their online shills.

Right now what we are doing in Greece is to organize the workers and make strong workers' movements that are united, with one goal on their mind and wining even little by little what they want. We are trying to do it, we are not even close. All these workers' movements are completely opposite to each other and are filled up with pro-capitalist fuckers as the top-heads.

I (and I suppose the people here who "support"/ support SYRIZA) believe that the best way to START (not even create just start) creating this massive working movement is with SYRIZA (or at least I had higher hopes before all this split which was inevitable anyway).

People in Greece are by far very politically immature (especially talking for left-politics). All they knew in their entire life was "vote for PASOK, vote for ND, so my kid is going to have a better future in that position, not really working and taking loads of money".

It's not as you say Phoenix's Ash or whoever else's fault that with their false left politics makes them believe that there is a solution within the capitalist society, it's their fault and only their fault IMO. You can say that the parties and all the communists in these parties/organizations call them however you want, have played a huge part in the failure of creating this working movement, but you can blame them only for being useless (if not sell outs) not blaming them for the situation itself.

PS if I have any mistakes it's because of lack of caffeine peace and love :rolleyes:

[PhoenixAsh]

For a revolutionary, the goal should be to organize workers along revolutionary lines.

Well that is probably an ideological difference. I don't think it is a revolutionaries task to organize the working class but it is up to the class itself to organize themselves. The task of the revolutionary is to agitate and assist the class in that.


A general strike might or might not be a possiblity. The reality is that with the working class's organizational capacity and its current illusions in capitalism, stopping austerity is not within the realm of the immediately possible.

A strike is a possibility.

There have been a lot of strikes in the past...even general strikes. With varying degrees of success. But most of those successes have been by their very nature reformist gains. This is not problematic, because it can't be any other way in the political and economic reality.

The gains of having strikes are not in what they win concession they win. The gain is in the fact that it teaches workers to stand up and fight. And that is why there is as much value in a factory strike aimed to gain better work times, better wages, or a pension plan etc...as there is in workers rallying for a reformist party.


But why do workers have illusions in capitalism? Part of the reason is that we live in a bourgeois society where people are bombarded with capitalist propaganda. But another part of the reason, which should not be dismissed in the slightest, is people like PhoenixAsh who claim to be "anarchists" but who do their best to persuade workers and others interested in "leftist" politics that their interests lie in supporting a bourgeois political party.

And there you go again. You completely fail to comprehend the point I am trying to get across. It is the simple unavoidable analysis and objective fact that in the current context SYRIZA is the best available option for the working class and the most radical platform it will have inside the system and given the absolutely undeniable fact that there is no class conscious workers movement.

There is no convincing, there is no shilling....there is no support. These are all straw man you create in order to troll the debate and obfuscate the actual analysis.

What we say is purely and simply a matter of what is happening and explaining to you why it is happening...and that what is happening is both necessary and unavoidable and why it is that the so called r-r-r-r-revolutionary know-it-alls fail to connect with the working class and offer an alternative that mobilizes them.

And because of that reason we are objecting to your hollow phrases and empty rethorics which ultimately come down to hyperbolics that are downright misleading and create a false reality of the possible.


That REINFORCES illusions workers have about supposed shared interests between them, and capitalism and its political representatives. The reason why workers are currently unable to defeat austerity is what is made worse by sell-outs and betrayers like Syriza and their online shills.

Lol. Yesss....that is exactly the reason :rolleyes::laugh:

Perhaps you need to reread Marx and Lenin.

[PhoenixAsh]

Yeah, calling somebody a clown is a flame, not that anybody who knows how this forum works expects the moderators to abide by the rules, much less enforce them, except when it is a convenient pretext for them to get rid of peeps who expose their crap politics.

Repeating your argument doesn't make it true, and it certainly doesn't change that it's shilling for Syriza. I mean, how else are we to characterize your endless attempts at explaining that Syriza is the best the workers of Greece could get, and that Syriza didn't betray them? Not shilling? Okay, we won't call it shilling. We'll call it what it is: rank reformism.

You have problems reading. I never called you a clown. I said you had an excellent future as a discount circus clown.

This problem with you being unable to read and comprehend what is being said seems to be a persistent one.

Nobody here said SYRIZA is the best the workers could get.

Now...you still dodge the question of how you view a realistic short and intermediate revolutionary platform.

[Sharia Lawn]

Oh, the tried and true project of building a revolutionary movement by hitching workers to capitalist parties and reinforcing their illusions that progressive change comes from the bourgeois state and those managing it "progressively." I had never heard that argument before! Any examples of where it has turned out well?

There's literally not one argument that PA has used to shill for Syriza, that an american liberal couldn't use as an argument for why communists should vote for Hillary Clinton.

You don't build a revolutionary movement or improve workers' lives by crossing the class line and cozying up to the bourgeois state or any of the supposed "workers' parties" or "radical parties" that are managing it. That's the dividing line between a reformist and a revolutionary. Parliamentarism isn't a "stage" on the way to the revolution. It's a dead end that diverts workers from the path of revolutionary struggle. That this even needs to be said, not to mention repeated over and over again, and to the managers of "The Home of the Revolutionary Left," shows just what a terribly fucked up state revolutionary socialist politics is at the present moment. They have years and years on this forum, but haven't absorbed even the rudimentary principles of revolutionary class politics or the basic lessons of history.

[Sharia Lawn]

You have problems reading. I never called you a clown. I said you had an excellent future as a discount circus clown.

Oh, that obviously isn't a flame then! Clown versus future clown. How could I not have seen the qualitative distinction between the two sooner?


Nobody here said SYRIZA is the best the workers could get.

Really? That's exactly the conclusion you were dancing around here, but were too afraid to say so directly and explicitly:


but there is also the following you seriously need to consider: whatever a revolutionary platform (that doesn't exist right now) can offer....it won't offer anything different than what SYRIZA is offering within the current reality. At all.

[PhoenixAsh]

Oh, the tried and true project of building a revolutionary movement by hitching workers to capitalist parties and reinforcing their illusions that progressive change comes from the bourgeois state and those managing it "progressively." I had never heard that argument before! Any examples of where it has turned out well?

Deep sigh.

You do understand that workers hitch themselves to capitalist parties...right? This is after all why we have a concept that defines this: "false consciousness". Workers operate and develop their class consciousness in respect to the class consciousness of the bourgeoisie within the superstructure through the struggle against it. This struggle and increasing class consciousness unavoidably and necessarily leads through capitalist parties. And in the current context a reformist platform is simply the only platform and in itself can be radicalizing and revolutionary. When it STOPS being revolutionary is when the class can and is able to act as a class for and in itself.


There's literally not one thing that PA has used to shill for Syriza, that an american liberal couldn't use as an argument for why communists should vote for Hillary Clinton.

Except of course Bernie Sanders :rolleyes:


You don't build a revolutionary movement or improve workers' lives by crossing the class line and cozying up to the bourgeois state or any of the supposed "workers' parties" or "radical parties" that are managing it. That's the dividing line between a reformist and a revolutionary. Parliamentarism isn't a "stage" on the way to the revolution. It's a dead end. That this even needs to be said, not to mention repeated over and over again, and to the managers of "The Home of the Revolutionary Left," shows just what a terribly fucked up state revolutionary socialist politics is at the present moment.

Nobody said it was a stage on the way to revolution. Yet another straw man....or anther sign you keep confusing terminology.

Parliamentarism is however a stage on the way to class consciousness. And it is unavoidable, necessary and a simple undeniable fact. The working class will always start their radicalization and increase their class consciousness by moving (left) within the parliamentary democratic system (IF that is the system of the epoch and nation). It is ONLY through struggle induced emerging class consciousness that the working class will be able to reach a stage where they can begin organizing as a class for that class....and a maximalist platform will even begin to effectively mobilize the class.

This is rather pretty basic Marxism and Leninism.

The fact that you need so much time and effort to understand that the move of the working class from center and right wing politics towards SYRZIA is a sign of increased radicalization in and of itself....is mind baffling.

[PhoenixAsh]

I also must not yet again...that you still have not provided us with a r-r-r-revolutionary platform for the immediate and intermediate term and explaining how that offers anything more than reformism and doesn't amount to doing nothing at all.

See...you keep avoiding that question. And I wonder why that is (well...not really). After all...you seem to have the answer on how it shouldn't go and vehemently reject any analysis we make. This must mean you have the answer for a revolutionary program on the short and intermediate term and we are all dying to hear it.

So...

[Sharia Lawn]

I also must not yet again...that you still have not provided us with a r-r-r-revolutionary platform for the immediate and intermediate term and explaining how that offers anything more than reformism and doesn't amount to doing nothing at all.

See...you keep avoiding that question. And I wonder why that is (well...not really). After all...you seem to have the answer on how it shouldn't go and vehemently reject any analysis we make. This must mean you have the answer for a revolutionary program on the short and intermediate term and we are all dying to hear it.

So...

Seriously, what the hell are you even talking about? Every single time a revolutionary calls out the many, many reformists on this forum for their reformism, the response is always the same: "Well, there's no revolution happening tomorrow. What do you REALISTICALLY propose in the meantime?!?!?!" as if revolutionaries are proposing a total abstention from class struggle outside of an immediate seizure of power.

The answer, an obvious answer, is the same every time: struggling beside non-revolutionary workers at a grassroots level by attending demonstrations, participating in strikes, attempting to organize into revolutionary organizations. Basically EVERYTHING the reformist wants to do, with the notable exception of not selling out the class struggle by adding on a bunch of shit about how Syriza got the best that the workers could have hoped to achieve if they "had a movement," or how workers should calibrate their activities on the basis of what bourgeois state manager can pass which piece of legislation.

But the reformists don't want to acknowledge that that's the argument, because then their obscene reformism would stand exposed for what it is.

It's pretty striking that the same posters who foam at the mouth at the mere mention of Lenin, because - by god - that man was a substitutionist, are the same people whose idea of "revolutionary" analysis consists of literally, in the content of the analysis itself, asks people to substitute Syriza for a working-class movement ... as a rationale for why it was right to support Syriza.

[Philosophos]

Oh, the tried and true project of building a revolutionary movement by hitching workers to capitalist parties and reinforcing their illusions that progressive change comes from the bourgeois state and those managing it "progressively." I had never heard that argument before! Any examples of where it has turned out well?

There's literally not one argument that PA has used to shill for Syriza, that an american liberal couldn't use as an argument for why communists should vote for Hillary Clinton.

You don't build a revolutionary movement or improve workers' lives by crossing the class line and cozying up to the bourgeois state or any of the supposed "workers' parties" or "radical parties" that are managing it. That's the dividing line between a reformist and a revolutionary. Parliamentarism isn't a "stage" on the way to the revolution. It's a dead end that diverts workers from the path of revolutionary struggle. That this even needs to be said, not to mention repeated over and over again, and to the managers of "The Home of the Revolutionary Left," shows just what a terribly fucked up state revolutionary socialist politics is at the present moment. They have years and years on this forum, but haven't absorbed even the rudimentary principles of revolutionary class politics or the basic lessons of history.

OK, there is a very special mechanism in human learning and it's called "learning from your mistakes". If you believe in the begining that SYRIZA is a revolutionary party (revolutionary in any context) then you will vote for it.
Oh my God it wasn't a revolutionary party, maybe I should try this one.
Shiet that ain't too. Maybe I should go there.
Fuck that ain't too. What about this one?

Little by little you become more aware of what is going on around you and in politics. The same goes for each one of us. We go through changes in our personality and ideas/ideologies. We don't wake up one day and we are communists just like we don't wake up one day and we do the "righteous thing".

So if humans don't learn by their mistakes it's their fucking fault, not someone else's who tries to show them the truth through lies etc. If the workers got convinced that SYRIZA can find a solution inside the eurozone and without austerity and that everything will be just fiiiine inside the EU (gimme that cigarette tall crocodile, it's my turn to take a sip) IT'S PART OF THE PROCESS OF BEING CLASS CONSIOUS.

There are some ways to make the revolution come true for example making a strong workers' movement, as I said in a previous post. Even if people are not fully aware and class concious about what they are doing, taking part in such a thing it will make them even just a tiny little bit more aware and that's GOOD. You can't expect people to become class concious over a night and even though there have been many years since the first revolution and we didn;t quite learn from our mistakes suck it and MOVE ON!

You can't change people's mind if they also don't want to. Welcome to humanity 101

[Sharia Lawn]

OK, there is a very special mechanism in human learning and it's called "learning from your mistakes". If you believe in the begining that SYRIZA is a revolutionary party (revolutionary in any context) then you will vote for it.
Oh my God it wasn't a revolutionary party, maybe I should try this one.
Shiet that ain't too. Maybe I should go there.
Fuck that ain't too. What about this one?

Little by little you become more aware of what is going on around you and in politics. The same goes for each one of us. We go through changes in our personality and ideas/ideologies. We don't wake up one day and we are communists just like we don't wake up one day and we do the "righteous thing".

So if humans don't learn by their mistakes it's their fucking fault, not someone else's who tries to show them the truth through lies etc. If the workers got convinced that SYRIZA can find a solution inside the eurozone and without austerity and that everything will be just fiiiine inside the EU (gimme that cigarette tall crocodile, it's my turn to take a sip) IT'S PART OF THE PROCESS OF BEING CLASS CONSIOUS.

There are some ways to make the revolution come true for example making a strong workers' movement, as I said in a previous post. Even if people are not fully aware and class concious about what they are doing, taking part in such a thing it will make them even just a tiny little bit more aware and that's GOOD. You can't expect people to become class concious over a night and even though there have been many years since the first revolution and we didn;t quite learn from our mistakes suck it and MOVE ON!

You can't change people's mind if they also don't want to. Welcome to humanity 101

Learning from mistakes is how it is supposed to work, but then you have people like PhoenixAsh who would tell workers that the mistake wasn't a mistake because Syriza did everything their "non-existent" movement could have done (who cares about whether the workers themselves do it or if parliamentarians do it for them like a petty-bourgeois uplift project? it's not like these distinctions mean anything to a real revolutionary in PhoenixAsh land). Or you have people who tell workers that no mistake was made because the workers were not really betrayed, but only got what they were all expecting anyway, when Syriza was elected to put a stop to austerity then promptly passed an austerity package that differed only insignificantly from the previous proposals made by the parties defeated for making those very proposals.

Nobody is expecting workers to become class conscious in a night. That's a strawman. What I am saying is that PhoenixAsh's "analysis" blinds workers to the lessons and principles they need to learn if they are ever to become class conscious, even if in the distant future.

[PhoenixAsh]

Lol. Ok. So you have no platform. At all. How surprising that what all your criticism amounts to is exactly what we were saying all along...

Yet the one however who is blinding workers is you. Your hyperbolic narrative paints the idealist picture that a capitalist party can offer a working class solution if they remain "honest". You are peddling the tired old "honest politician" scam. The one who is supporting SYRIZA through your hollow phrases is you. Your use of the word "betrayal" and insistance on continue to use it peddles the notion that SYRIZA offered a solution untill they nefariously changed their minds....If only the party leadership had remained honest...sigh. It also scape goats SYRIZA, as the betrayers of the working class, rather than providing a correct analysis.

The workers struggle will lead invariably and inevitably through reformist parties. Why? Because reformism in the short term can be in and of itself a revolutionary act and catalyst. Why? Because there is NO revolutionary platform you can offer the working class that isn't reformist in nature within the current context and addresses their immediate concerns enabling them to mobilize at this level of rather rudimentary consciousnes.

And yes. SYRIZA did all it could do. They failed. You should realize that this wasn't because of betrayal.....but because it is the very reality of reformism and the logical outcome of maintaining a capitalist system. THAT is what the class needs to realize IF it is to become class conscious. Not because some r-r-revolutionary uses words of betrayal and obfuscate this very reality.

But even for all your bluster you admit that there is NO alternative at the moment to SYRIZA and no alternative platform within the current context that actually mobilizes the working class.

A mobilisation that is absolutely essential for any further progress.

You have no concept of the monumental shift and opportunity the mass support for a party such as SYRIZA entails. For the first time in decades the working class has abandoned traditional capitalism and actively mobilizes looking for alternatives.

Without SYRIZA the working class would have marched enmasse behind the GD.

[Ele'ill]

Whatever happened to the user Delenda Carthago, there are some good Greek threads from times past

[Sharia Lawn]

Every single time a revolutionary calls out the many, many reformists on this forum for their reformism, the response is always the same: "Well, there's no revolution happening tomorrow. What do you REALISTICALLY propose in the meantime?!?!?!" as if revolutionaries are proposing a total abstention from class struggle outside of an immediate seizure of power.

The answer, an obvious answer, is the same every time: struggling beside non-revolutionary workers at a grassroots level by attending demonstrations, participating in strikes, attempting to organize into revolutionary organizations. Basically EVERYTHING the reformist wants to do, with the notable exception of not selling out the class struggle by adding on a bunch of shit about how Syriza got the best that the workers could have hoped to achieve if they "had a movement," or how workers should calibrate their activities on the basis of what bourgeois state manager can pass which piece of legislation.

But the reformists don't want to acknowledge that that's the argument, because then their obscene reformism would stand exposed for what it is.


Lol. Ok. So you have no platform. At all. How surprising that what all your criticism amounts to is exactly what we were saying all along...

You're not reading my posts, are you? :rolleyes: The platform is class struggle for reforms, under the banner of revolution, with complete political independence from and no support to bourgeois political parties like Syriza.

[PhoenixAsh]

Hahaha. Yeah. :laugh:

Except that isn't a platform. It is a tactic.

And we already have established that that is not where the working class is and therefore doesn't mean anything. It is hollow. It isn't a platform. And it doesn't provide any solutions or alternatives that differ anything from what SYRIZA if offering.

Basically it boils down to: fuck your immediate concerns....starve untill you get class conscious. In the meantime please support your local reformists. That is exactly what it boils down to and what your position entails...and what has been addressed ad nauseum.

So don't give me that crap that we somehow are scared of acknowledgIng it. We have addressed this from the very start of this debate.

[Sharia Lawn]

Hahaha. Yeah. :laugh:

Except that isn't a platform. It is a tactic.

And we already have established that that is not where the working class is and therefore doesn't mean anything. It is hollow. It isn't a platform. And it doesn't provide any solutions or alternatives that differ anything from what SYRIZA if offering.

Basically it boils down to: fuck your immediate concerns....starve untill you get class conscious. In the meantime please support your local reformists. That is exactly what it boils down to and what your position entails...and what has been addressed ad nauseum.

So don't give me that crap that we somehow are scared of acknowledgIng it. We have addressed this from the very start of this debate.

Do you know what a class struggle platform is? Higher wages? Workplace and collective bargaining rights? Opposition to xenophobic immigration restrictions as a bourgeois tool? Decriminalization of drugs? Elimination of restrictions on a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy? These are all "immediate concerns," so I think you know where you can stick your strawman about any revolutionary saying "Fuck your immediate concerns."

I mean, I guess I could waste my time indulging you with forty different immediate demands that a revolutionary would fight for in Greece right now, but why bother? You'll respond with the exact same bullshit about how anybody who calls you out on your reformism has no interest in struggle for reforms, just because they don't capitulate to supporting bourgeois parties.

You're a joke that stopped being funny long ago.

[PhoenixAsh]

You do realize that that is the platform of SYRIZA right? You offer us NOTHING new and NOTHING we haven't already said ad nauseum.

Thread after thread you have derided us for reformism and what you eventually cought up is the exact same platform. Why? Because it is the ONLY platform in the current context.

O...you lace it with vague terms of "independence" to sound o so r-r-revolutionary....yadayadaya.... but this is a mere self masturbatory pipe dream at the current level of class consciousness.

Only THROUGH getting class conscious will that independent platform be created....ONLY through continued struggle. Not FOR the working class but BY the working class.

Pathetic. Go reread your theory.

[Sharia Lawn]

You do realize that that is the platform of SYRIZA right? You offer us NOTHING new and NOTHING we haven't already said ad nauseum.

Thread after thread you have derided us for reformism and what you eventually cought up is the exact same platform. Why? Because it is the ONLY platform in the current context.

O...you lace it with vague terms of "independence" to sound o so r-r-revolutionary....yadayadaya.... but this is a mere self masturbatory pipe dream at the current level of class consciousness.

Only THROUGH getting class conscious will that independent platform be created....ONLY through continued struggle. Not FOR the working class but BY the working class.

Pathetic. Go reread your theory.

This post of yours is the clearest, most succinct expression of confusion about the distinction between working-class action/demands/struggle and parliamentary proposals/platforms/parties. Workers going on strike for a higher wage is *not* the same thing as a parliamentary proposal to raise the minimum wage.

The distinction between the workers' movement and parliamentary responses to it represents the dividing line that separates a revolutionary who wants the working class to overthrow capitalism, and the reformist who tries to game bourgeois parliaments into doing various things for workers. Taken to its conclusion, the second position dovetails into the idea that the parliament can be used to grow over into socialism peacefully at some point in the indefinite future.

A bourgeois political party or election campaign is not a social movement.

But yeah, I'm the one who needs to "read my theory." Your politics represent a despairing abandonment of the working class in favor of reformist parliamentarism and middle-class parties that you hope can take the workers place until some unknown time in the future, when you declare workers have their own "movement."

[PhoenixAsh]

lol. And this is why I say you have a wonderful future as a discount circus clown.

Your inability to realize that the working class is doing this...that this is the level of consciousness of the working class and that before the working class actually gets class conscious the working class will organize within capitalism.

There is no revolutionary platform. There is no revolutionary platform because the working class isn't revolutionary.

You can demand one. Go ahead. The working class won't follow. Why? Because the simple fact is that the working class is not class conscious nor does it see capitalism as the problem.

Mainly that is because of role playing clowns like you prattling on about betrayal and peddling the pipe dream of the honest politician.

Your inability to understand reality, to understand how class conscious works, to understand history and your incessant need and urge to peddle the pipe dream of the honest capitalist party, the "betrayal of the working class" is showing is that you are not in fact a revolutionary but a role playing troll on this forum who will do everything in order to straw man the debate.

So let me repeat this once again for you:

Nobody but you is coattails parlamentarism here. Your peddling of the idea of the honest politicians while offering empty retorics and hyperboles.

Under the present conditions SYRIZA is mobilizing the working class and manages to get them politically active. The momentus shift from traditional parties to radicalizing opposition is by necessity the essential and crucial unavoidable first step in the process of class consciousness.

And unless the working class through their struggle gets class conscious they will simply ignore your impotent wind bag platform that fails to utterly connect with the working class on every level.

Nobody here is under any impression parliamentarism will usher in a revolution. We have said that from the start while you were bussy peddling your fabrication and obfuscation of the honest politician and how SYRIZA is responsible for all the woes in the world... we were arguing that SYRIZA was a capitalist party and that a capitalist party by definition will only offer capitalist reforms.

Yet those reforms are in and off themselves in the current reality and context the maximum that is possible. ONLY when the class starts organizing as a class and for the class will a maximalist program be even possible. And the class won't do that untill it is class conscious.

That consciousnes doesn't come from petulant condescending arrogant and blind rrrrevolutionaries like yourself who can't even analyse a situation correctly but from the working class itself.

Now to school you...

The platform you just posted was more or less the platform of the Bolsheviks under Kerensky. The demand for higher wages, the demand for beter food, better medical care, better everything.

There goes your entire argument of how this is not a revolutionary platform. Now go back to your study and read your theory again


End of story.

[PhoenixAsh]

O and to give you an impression of how well your maximalist platform is doing: KKE just sank to a record low in the July polls of 3.5 to 5.5 which in the respecting polling methods is in both cases down 2 entire % points. SYRIZA is up at 38.5%.

The KKE is viewed the least favorable amongst the working class...With PASOK being the only exception. Shortly followed by a slew of other revolutionary or radical parties. And ALL of them are surpassed by GD which is the 5th favorable party in the country.

No for all your bluster about SYRIZA. The fight against austerity comes mainly from within that party against the government. Perhaps you are wiser to not confuse government with a party.

Good luck with peddling your revolution at this current moment....However. I am sure the working class will listen.

[Sharia Lawn]

Two posts for one response? That's a new record, even for your disjointed incoherent ramblings. Are you trying to achieve Rafiq status?

You've demonstrated only a penchant for trying to cover up that our disagreement does not consist of whether to fight for immediate demands or not. We both want to fight for immediate demands (though you've tried to contest this, to no avail). Our differences consist in the fact that you think immediate demands are to be realized from On High by the Glorious Syriza Parliament.

I think demands are most effectively won by the class struggle independent of political support of bourgeois parties and politicians (and the state). Guess which happens to have been the position of the Bolsheviks, since that is the new straw you are desperately grasping at in your latest episode of rhetorical self-destruction?

Flame away, reformist scum.

[Philosophos]

Whatever happened to the user Delenda Carthago, there are some good Greek threads from times past

Yeah I also wonder from time to time what happened to that guy

[PhoenixAsh]

Two posts for one response? That's a new record, even for your disjointed incoherent ramblings. Are you trying to achieve Rafiq status?

You've demonstrated only a penchant for trying to cover up that our disagreement does not consist of whether to fight for immediate demands or not. We both want to fight for immediate demands (though you've tried to contest this, to no avail). Our differences consist in the fact that you think immediate demands are to be realized from On High by the Glorious Syriza Parliament.

I think demands are most effectively won by the class struggle independent of political support of bourgeois parties and politicians (and the state). Guess which happens to have been the position of the Bolsheviks, since that is the new straw you are desperately grasping at in your latest episode of rhetorical self-destruction?

Flame away, reformist scum.

Don't make me laugh.

You have spend all your energy in this and other debates on the subject to reject our notion and concept that the working class needs to organize as a class and for the class. You have repeatedly rejected that position and derided us for it.

On top of that you have peddled the bourgeoisie false narrative of the honest politician which actively pulls the wool over the eyes of the working class lending credence to the idea that somehow openly capitalist parties can propose a working class platform and can accommodate the class interests of the working class as long as they remain honest.

You have utterly failed to grasp the reality of the situation to such a comical extent that your entire post count here is based on straw man arguments. But the most hilarious thing is that again and again you had to eventually admit that we were right. Again and again you, when push came to shove and you were called out on your bullshit, needed to move your position and acknowledge the very facts you have spend so much time and energy into combating.

We have asked you repeatedly to counter pose a revolutionary platform within the current context for the immediate and intermediate term that was somehow different. What you came up with was reformist. It was also basically the same platform as the Bolsheviks held during the Kerensky bourgeoisie democratic government but also used reformist demands to organize before the first revolution. Why? Because it is inevitable that any demands in the current context will be reformist in nature. They can't be anything else within a capitalist system without massive support of the working class and even then they will be until they have reached a revolutionary potential.

Guess what, Izvestia! The working class isn't. It isn't class conscious. It isn't acting as a class. And it most definitely isn't acting for the class.

And that is plain and simple the reality of it. A reality you continue to fail to truly understand and grasp. A reality which means that the class won't organize independently until it reaches a required level of consciousness. A reality that means that the working class en masse isn't supporting maximalist groups. A reality that entails that even the workers who are members of maximalist unions and have been for years vote in droves for SYRIZA. The maximalists have utterly failed in the last decade to mobilize the working class in any meaningful way.

In the current context SYRIZA is the only party that is currently mobilizing the working class an drawing parts of the working class into active political struggle that were previously apathetic. And that is necessary. It is absolutely unavoidably and undeniably necessary that that happens if the working class is to get conscious enough to be able to organize independently. And it will do so by itself. But before that happens the struggle needs to mature and the class needs to get conscious.

And before that happens the faux revolutionaries that pull the wool over the eyes of the working class peddling the narrative that somehow they are betrayed and thereby perpetuating the idea that capitalist parties can be a platform for the working class as long as they remain honest need to shut the fuck up and let real revolutionaries give the correct analysis without peddling lies. The one we have been mentioning even before the January elections in that a capitalist party can only offer reform and can only advance the interests of the working class within a capitalist system through token restructuring.

Yet given the current context it is also undeniably the reality that SYRIZA poses the only alternative and that it's platform is the maximum obtainable within the current reality by any group be they revolutionaries or reformists. Why? Because the working class isn't class conscious enough for anything else. Anything more requires that the class organizes as a class and for the class. And that won't happen unless the continued struggle advances the consciousness of the working class. This has nothing to do with parliamentary roads to revolution or the overthrow of capitalism. This has everything to do with the level of class consciousness of the working class.

That is a simple factual analysis of the current reality.

Right now your little suggestion of "independent organizing" of the working class isn't going to happen. At all. Not only doesn't the working class listen to you. They actively move away from you.

But lets face it. We can kid ourselves all we want here.

You are not a revolutionary. You are just role playing one on an internet forum through hollow hyperbolic rhetoric and phrase mongering while shilling the bourgeoisie notion of the "betrayal myth" a position closer to fascist tactics and narrative than to communism. You fail to make simple rudimentary analysis. You fail to understand history and you fail to actually connect with the working class. You simply troll this forum. Because that is what you are...a simple troll trying to stir shit.

[PhoenixAsh]

Yeah I also wonder from time to time what happened to that guy

Our resident KKE propagandist left because he didn't feel welcome anymore because nobody accepted his fresh from the KKE politburo spin doctoring.

[Sharia Lawn]

Don't make me laugh.

You have spend all your energy in this and other debates on the subject to reject our notion and concept that the working class needs to organize as a class and for the class. You have repeatedly rejected that position and derided us for it.

A desperate attempt to lurch the conversation away from the main topic by introducing a blatant lie. I have never rejected that the working class needs to organize as a class and for the class. All I have said is that it doesn't need to do this in order to be considered a movement. You and your reformist comrade Rafiq deny the existence of a movement in order to justify playing electoral games with bourgeois parties as a substitute for what you claim is a non-existent movement.


On top of that you have peddled the bourgeoisie false narrative of the honest politician which actively pulls the wool over the eyes of the working class lending credence to the idea that somehow openly capitalist parties can propose a working class platform and can accommodate the class interests of the working class as long as they remain honest.Where have I said that Syriza proposed a "working class platform"? Where have I said that they represent the interests of the working class? I said that the working class, still operating with illusions in capitalism and its state, turned to Syriza to try to stop austerity -- and were promptly betrayed.

If anything, YOU are the person saying that Syriza is operating in the interests of the class, claiming that Syriza is "mobilizing workers" (!) You refuse to call what they've done a betrayal, and claim that Syriza is as good as the working class is going to get in the present circumstances. This whole thread is just you issuing apology after apology for Syriza. Then when somebody calls you on it, you make up lies to try to smear them. Hey, Phoenix, it's not anybody else's fault that you're a lying sleazy reformist too stupid to realize you're a reformist.


You have utterly failed to grasp the reality of the situation to such a comical extent that your entire post count here is based on straw man arguments. But the most hilarious thing is that again and again you had to eventually admit that we were right. Again and again you, when push came to shove and you were called out on your bullshit, needed to move your position and acknowledge the very facts you have spend so much time and energy into combating.What position have I "moved"?


We have asked you repeatedly to counter pose a revolutionary platform within the current context for the immediate and intermediate term that was somehow different. What you came up with was reformist. It was also basically the same platform as the Bolsheviks held during the Kerensky bourgeoisie democratic government but also used reformist demands to organize before the first revolution. Why? Because it is inevitable that any demands in the current context will be reformist in nature. They can't be anything else within a capitalist system without massive support of the working class and even then they will be until they have reached a revolutionary potential.And I gave you a platform that was different, because it was a platform that did not call on workers to support a bourgeois party or to turn to the bourgeois parliament.

See the post I made earlier in this thread, pointing out how pathetically sad it is that we have a manager of the "Home for the Revolutionary Left" who doesn't recognize the difference between these two platforms, and how that difference constitutes a traditional dividing between a reformist and a revolutionary. I'm sure you can guess whether the Bolsheviks had a platform calling on support for a bourgeois party or that said that their best hope for realizing reforms was through bourgeois elections.


Guess what, Izvestia! The working class isn't. It isn't class conscious. It isn't acting as a class. And it most definitely isn't acting for the class.You keep repeating this as if I haven't decisively rebutted it before. Even if we accepted all these premises, the goal for a revolutionary would be to get the workers moving as a class and to stimulate their class consciousness. You don't do that by shilling for bourgeois parties, or by conveying that their best hope lies in the bourgeois state.


And that is plain and simple the reality of it. A reality you continue to fail to truly understand and grasp. A reality which means that the class won't organize independently until it reaches a required level of consciousness. A reality that means that the working class en masse isn't supporting maximalist groups. A reality that entails that even the workers who are members of maximalist unions and have been for years vote in droves for SYRIZA. The maximalists have utterly failed in the last decade to mobilize the working class in any meaningful way.You will never get the working class moving independently if creatures like you had their way, and workers listened to your endless series of rationalizations of why workers should support traitorous bourgeois outfits like Syriza.


In the current context SYRIZA is the only party that is currently mobilizing the working class an drawing parts of the working class into active political struggle that were previously apathetic. And that is necessary. It is absolutely unavoidably and undeniably necessary that that happens if the working class is to get conscious enough to be able to organize independently. And it will do so by itself. But before that happens the struggle needs to mature and the class needs to get conscious.

And before that happens the faux revolutionaries that pull the wool over the eyes of the working class peddling the narrative that somehow they are betrayed and thereby perpetuating the idea that capitalist parties can be a platform for the working class as long as they remain honest need to shut the fuck up and let real revolutionaries give the correct analysis without peddling lies. The one we have been mentioning even before the January elections in that a capitalist party can only offer reform and can only advance the interests of the working class within a capitalist system through token restructuring.

Yet given the current context it is also undeniably the reality that SYRIZA poses the only alternative and that it's platform is the maximum obtainable within the current reality by any group be they revolutionaries or reformists. Why? Because the working class isn't class conscious enough for anything else. Anything more requires that the class organizes as a class and for the class. And that won't happen unless the continued struggle advances the consciousness of the working class. This has nothing to do with parliamentary roads to revolution or the overthrow of capitalism. This has everything to do with the level of class consciousness of the working class.

That is a simple factual analysis of the current reality.

Right now your little suggestion of "independent organizing" of the working class isn't going to happen. At all. Not only doesn't the working class listen to you. They actively move away from you.

But lets face it. We can kid ourselves all we want here.

You are not a revolutionary. You are just role playing one on an internet forum through hollow hyperbolic rhetoric and phrase mongering while shilling the bourgeoisie notion of the "betrayal myth" a position closer to fascist tactics and narrative than to communism. You fail to make simple rudimentary analysis. You fail to understand history and you fail to actually connect with the working class. You simply troll this forum. Because that is what you are...a simple troll trying to stir shit.Laugh. Anarchists for bourgeois electoral parties! Only on the "Home of the Revolutionary Left"!

[Philosophos]

Our resident KKE propagandist left because he didn't feel welcome anymore because nobody accepted his fresh from the KKE politburo spin doctoring.

Oh no :( I remember him: always ready to bash a head because he thought he said something a little bit different than him. I'm gonna miss him

[PhoenixAsh]

What is pathetically sad is that you do not seem to understand that the working class not only isn't actually following your platform but is actively moving away from it.

Your inability to grasp the fact that this is because the working class is not operating as a class and for the class, therefor doesn't constitute a workers movement in any meaningful sense....is beyond sad. A movement isn't a workers movement just because workers are involved. A workers movement is defined by the fact that workers are actively advancing their own class interests as a class. It requires a higher level of class consciousness than the working class currently has.

This is a simple reality.

This simple reality creates the utter undeniable truth, which you seem to have severe problems to accept, that the working class per definition will not organize on an independent platform. They can't because ideologically they are still well within the superstructure and therefor by definition will seek solutions within that super structure.

Within this reality the ONLY platform that is possible is a reformist platform.
Whether you are a revolutionary or not. The demands are necessarily reformist in nature until the level of consciousness creates the possibility of exceeding the superstructure and the class can and will organize independently.

This creates the reality that yes...SYRIZA is the best possible solution at the current moment. Why? Because the working class isn't ideologically able to do more until the struggle matures. You seem to have severe issues with understanding what "in the current context" actually means.

Again. This is a simple reality. A statement of fact.

And yes. It is obvious for everybody who isn't a complete tool that SYRIZA is able to mobilize the working class on a grass roots level. Denying this is akin to denying that humans need air to breath. It is so utterly and insanely idiotic that it baffles the mind how you can even dispute this fact. Only somebody who has been hiding under a rock doesn't see what is happening in Greece. Working class support stands at 65 to 75% for SYRIZA. It has managed to get more people involved in activism and protests than any other group. And yes...that is mobilization.

Now. As we have been saying from the start...back in January...SYRIZA is a capitalist party. A capitalist party can ONLY advance the interests of the working class through reforms. But within the current context reforms are in and of them selves a radical platform. Especially since there is NO other platform. Why is there no other platform? Because the working class isn't ready to organize as a class and for the class and isn't ready to abandon capitalism and seeks to actively maintain it. Why? Because they are ideologically within the superstructure.

Again...these are facts. Pure and simple. This isn't hard. This is basic Marxism...basic Leninism.

And while you prattle about the "job of revolutionaries" we are in fact talking about what the class is doing and why the class is doing that. And what the class is doing is supporting a capitalist party running on a reform platform because they are still well within the superstructure.

But anybody who doesn't have a hollow void where their brain should be understands that this is simply an unavoidable step on the way to class consciousness. ANY workers struggle will necessarily have its primary stage within the ideology of the superstructure.

It can ONLY advance away from the superstructure by continued struggle. A struggle which starts within that very same superstructure because, and again this is simply basic Marxism, the class consciousness of the working class can ONLY develop in the context of the class consciousness of the bourgeoisie.

And for it to advance one important factor is an accurate analysis of history. Again...this is basic Marxism.

An accurate analysis which you completely and purposefully obfuscate by employing the rather fascist tactic of the "betrayal" mythology. And this is problematic. You are so beholden to the notion of "betrayal" that you seem to be under the impression that there are in fact scape goats. Like the Jews, foreigners, immigrants, or whatever group you like to target you are creating the myth of the enemy. In your specific case this is SYRIZA. And you are willing to spoon feed the working class the notion that if only SYRIZA had been honest they would have helped the working class.

This is faux analysis of the worst kind. Why? Because it obfuscates the class reality and hides the truth of the situation which frustrates actual class consciousness. Above all it is most assuredly NOT a revolutionary tactic to employ false narrative. Which you aren't. So that figures why you are employing a fascist political tactic which puts you on ideological par with GD.

Betrayal is ONLY possible when a contract is purposefully broken with the intent to do so. We can discuss whether or not the inability to achieve an election promise depending on a rather huge host of other players can actually lead to betrayal. But that is not even the point.

The point is that the use of terms such as betrayal imply that reform actually offer the working class a platform for and by the class. It doesn't. What you call betrayal is actually what reforms mean. It presupposes that had the party managed to renegotiate the package to a greater extent the working class would have had no more problems. It presupposes that SYRIZA would have been the final stage if only they had remained honest. It is the rejection of the notion that the working class can actually benefit as a class from capitalism.
It is peddling the tired old narrative of the honest politician which completely rejects the notion that rather than politicians the superstructure is the actual issue.

And THAT Izvestia is what is the actual problem and THAT is what actual class consciousness means and entails. THAT is what the working class needs to realize. It doesn't need faux revolutionary idiots that tell them how they are betrayed by the politicians...or by minority groups...they have GD to do that for them. They need revolutionaries to give them a correct political analysis and explain them that what they will get from capitalists is reforms. Reforms that will ultimately not amount to anything because it perpetuates the superstructure.

And rather than bemoaning the fact that SYRIZA failed to achieve a greater level of reforms you should be happy it didn't and that it failed. There is NOTHING more effective in showing the shortcomings of reform than having it fail and disappoint. You should rejoice because if they had succeeded it would have taken that much longer for the working class to seek alternatives outside the superstructure.

Now...like I said...I am fully aware that you are in fact a troll and not a revolutionary and are only present on this board to start shit. So I fully expect your next post to be a rehash of your failure to actually apply theory as well as your unfounded straw man accusations. But who knows....maybe you will actually come up with a point that doesn't illustrate how ideologically devoid you are.

Ow...and the Bolsheviks not only called for elections, and not only advanced a reformist platform of demands....they did so while participating in a bourgeoisie democracy ;)

[Sharia Lawn]

Phoenix, you're going to keep repeating yourself to give the appearance that you have a decisive response to the thoroughly substantiated claim that you are a reformist.

That's fine. But I want everybody still paying attention to this thread to realize that PhoenixAsh, a moderator of the forum, thinks it is perfectly appropriate to lie about other people's positions -- not just mine (claiming I am opposed to immediate reforms, that I don't think it's important for a class to move as a class for itself, and so on) but also dead revolutionaries' positions (claiming the Bolsheviks supporting elections is the same as shilling for a bourgeois party or ever having as its primary immediate goal the winning of bourgeois elections). Slimy stuff, but to be expected when your politics are so horrible you have to stoop as low as possible to try to interject static into the debate.

Most telling of all, PA has not been able to point out to a single rationale he has employed in this thread that could not be employed by an American liberal arguing that communists in the USA should vote for Hillary Clinton.

He won't. Ever. Because there is no difference in political principle between his apologia for Syriza and a liberal democrat party patriot's apologia for Obama or Hillary. Instead he'll just do what he always does: respond with a wall of text to try to muddy the waters and give the appearance he is responding substantively instead of doing what he is actually doing: just repeating his lies and already-rebutted claims.

[PhoenixAsh]

hahaha

You realize that you just shat on basic Marxism right?

But that is not surprising for a fascist tactics peddling troll

:laugh:

Now kindly show where Rafiq or I said that the working class should vote for SYRIZA.

And also offer an explanation why the working class is actively moving away from your platform.

Now your analogy with Clinton is of course hilarious. And already shown why that is so. Your inability to distinguish contexts and your utter lack of actually being capable of making a correct analysis shows what a pathetic sad and ridiculous your position actually is.What a joke. :laugh:

So let me repeat this yet again: the class isn't capable of following your platform. Your platform doesn't offer them anything in the current context. It can't. It won't. Your platform is essentially the same as reformism. Which I exactly what SYRIZA offers but within the superstructure. Which is where the working class currently is.

You prattle on about the job of revolutionaries while spoon feeding the working class incorrect analysis and rehashing fascist tactics.

We are however not discussing the job of revolutionaries. They are irrelevant for the analysis why the working class is massively voting for parties like SYRIZA. They are irrelevant because it is the working class who is the actor, will always be the actor and which has to become class conscious.

This is the ONLY correct analysis...and the topic of the debate. You seem to be so devoid of any intelligent thought and so incapable of applying theoretical analysis that you confuse analysis with supporting SYRIZA.

:laugh:

[Sharia Lawn]

You've already slandered the Greek working class, lied about my position in several ways that I noted in my last post, lied about the Bolsheviks' politics, but why let that stop you from lying again? You're clearly on a roll. Now I am told by his Reformist Highness that I have "fascist tactics." Care to clarify what you mean by your latest slander?


Now kindly show where Rafiq or I said that the working class should vote for SYRIZA.

That's the beauty of your reformism. You hide it behind big blocks of text and never outright state "Hey, vote for Syriza!" because if you did that then you wouldn't have (the minimal amount of) plausible deniability. It's much easier for you to argue that Syriza was the best the workers in Greece could get, that they didn't betray their voters, and that if you disagree, you are "shitting on immediate demands" and "practicing fascist tactics." That way when people point out the obvious reformism of your politics, you can say, "hey! I never said the Greek workers should vote for Syriza!"

Whether that means you think the Greek workers should have voted for Syriza or not is pretty obvious. But you can continue being a political coward, hiding behind lies and smokescreens. This is how revleft has come to know you.

[PhoenixAsh]

Hey Izvestia.... Who the fuck said this? Who? Tell me!


This is said with ridiculous pretentiousness, and is patently wrong. “Reversion” to parliamentarianism, forsooth! Perhaps there is already a Soviet republic in Germany? It does not look like it! How, then, can one speak of “reversion”? Is this not an empty phrase?
Parliamentarianism has become “historically obsolete”. That is true in the propaganda sense. However, everybody knows that this is still a far cry from overcoming it in practice. Capitalism could have been declared—and with full justice—to be “historically obsolete” many decades ago, but that does not at all remove the need for a very long and very persistent struggle on the basis of capitalism. Parliamentarianism is “historically obsolete” from the standpoint of world history, i.e., the era of bourgeois parliamentarianism is over, and the era of the proletarian dictatorship has begun. That is incontestable. But world history is counted in decades. Ten or twenty years earlier or later makes no difference when measured with the yardstick of world history; from the standpoint of world history it is a trifle that cannot be considered even approximately. But for that very reason, it is a glaring theoretical error to apply the yardstick of world history to practical politics.

Is parliamentarianism “politically obsolete”? That is quite a different matter. If that were true, the position of the “Lefts” would be a strong one.

[PhoenixAsh]

Kind of ends the debate on the validity of your position. Especially on the Bolsheviks.

[Sharia Lawn]

Leave it to PhoenixAsh, who recommends others read up on theory, to drop a blockquote of Lenin excoriating left-communists for saying that revolutionaries should not participate in parliamentary elections as evidence of the Bolsheviks' parliamentarism and reformism. I guess you think I have been arguing that revolutionaries should take a principled stand against running in bourgeois elections or takings seats in bourgeois parliament in the event of victory? As I said, it's clear you aren't even reading my posts.

Yeah, your blockquote does kind of end the debate, but not the one you had in mind. It ends the debate on whether you have any idea what the fuck you are talking about. You clearly don't.

[PhoenixAsh]

Lol. You do realize that that "block quote" is from a polemic in which Lenin completely dismisses your position. Right? And you do also realize that it is theoretically word for word what Rafiq and I have been arguing? Of course you don't. Because like I said...you have no fucking clue what the fuck you are even talking about.

Lets see what else he has to say:


Everything goes to show that this statement is far too sweeping and exaggerated. But the basic fact set forth here is incontrovertible, and its acknowledgment by the “Lefts” is particularly clear evidence of their mistake. How can one say that “parliamentarianism is politically obsolete”, when “millions” and “legions” of proletarians are not only still in favour of parliamentarianism in general, but are downright “counter-revolutionary”!? It is obvious that parliamentarianism in Germany is not yet politically obsolete. It is obvious that the “Lefts” in Germany have mistaken their desire, their politico-ideological attitude, for objective reality.


Ow...snap. Ouch That must hurt Izvestia. Right there....that is the basis of our argument. A basis which you fought tooth and nail. And to think that it is Lenin making that exact same argument which you so clearly were dead set against and dismissed as reformist. Well...imagine that. Calling Lenin reformist scum. Lets see...what is the very first line after that?

That is a most dangerous mistake for revolutionaries to make.


Wauw. Who would have thought. So what should revolutionaries do in Lenin's opinion?


Whilst you lack the strength to do away with bourgeois parliaments and every other type of reactionary institution, you must work within them because it is there that you will still find workers who are duped by the priests and stultified by the conditions of rural life; otherwise you risk turning into nothing but windbags.



Hahahaha. Lenin just called you a windbag. :laugh:


The conclusion which follows from this is absolutely incontrovertible: it has been proved that, far from causing harm to the revolutionary proletariat, participation in a bourgeois-democratic parliament, even a few weeks before the victory of a Soviet republic and even after such a victory, actually helps that proletariat to prove to the backward masses why such parliaments deserve to be done away with; it facilitates their successful dissolution, and helps to make bourgeois parliamentarianism “politically obsolete”.


O really? Well this sounds completely and utterly different than your position Izvestia. Quite contrary to it actually. So were the Bolsheviks in favor of parliamentarism? Even when they were relatively small?
Lets find out:


We Bolsheviks participated in the most counterrevolutionary parliaments, and experience has shown that this participation was not only useful but indispensable to the party of the revolutionary proletariat,


In fact...Lenin goes on to argue that even when the working class isn't prepared to overthrow bourgeoisie democracy even when it is constituted as actively counter revolutionary then it serves as the ground for political struggle preparing the working class for organization. So how does that go when social democrats dominate the parliament? Well...here is what Lenin says about anti parliamentarism in such cases:


It would, however, be not only unreasonable but actually criminal to yield to this mood when deciding how this generally recognised evil should be fought (...) It is very easy to show one’s “revolutionary” temper merely by hurling abuse at parliamentary opportunism, or merely by repudiating participation in parliaments; its very ease, however, cannot turn this into a solution of a difficult, a very difficult, problem. It is far more difficult to create a really revolutionary parliamentary group in a European parliament than it was in Russia.


And there you go:


To attempt to “circumvent” this difficulty by “skipping” the arduous job of utilising reactionary parliaments for revolutionary purposes is absolutely childish. You want to create a new society, yet you fear the difficulties involved in forming a good parliamentary group made up of convinced, devoted and heroic Communists, in a reactionary parliament! Is that not childish? If Karl Liebknecht in Germany and Z. Höglund in Sweden were able, even without mass support from below, to set examples of the truly revolutionary utilisation of reactionary parliaments, why should a rapidly growing revolutionary mass party, in the midst of the post-war disillusionment and embitterment of the masses, be unable to forge a communist group in the worst of parliaments? It is because, in Western Europe, the backward masses of the workers and—to an even greater degree—of the small peasants are much more imbued with bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary prejudices than they were in Russia because of that, it is only from within such institutions as bourgeois parliaments that Communists can (and must) wage a long and persistent struggle, undaunted by any difficulties, to expose, dispel and overcome these prejudices.


Yet another block quote which completely reduces your position to the trash heap where it belongs. So yeas...you have been disproven....quite satisfactory actually.

[Sharia Lawn]

No, actually he doesn't "dismiss my position," because my position is not that revolutionaries do not run for parliamentary office or utilize the parliament if victory is attained. That is the position you've made up and assigned to me in order to try to shift the discussion away from your crystal-clear reformism.

My position is that revolutionaries do not ever give support to bourgeois political parties, that the success of the working class struggle is never the result of parliamentary maneuvering (though such maneuvering, when done by actual revolutionaries -- not pseudo-leftist rad-libs like you or the vast majority of Syriza -- can assist a working class movement in limited ways), and that revolutionaries do not have the attainment of parliamentary control or victory in parliamentary elections as their primary goal, the goal they structure their immediate platform or program of action around.

For the millionth time, stop blatantly lying about people's positions. It's despicable how you are trying to use Lenin to support a position he did not have, in order to attack a position he actually did have. It shows what a duplicitous and vile, ignorant little creature you really are.

[Art Vandelay]

I'm honestly contemplating at this point PA, whether you seriously have no clue what Izvestia's stance is, whether you have no idea what Lenin was on about in the text you've just quoted, or whether it is some combination of the two. Whatever is the case, it's quite clear to anyone with even a rudimentary grasp on Lenin's politics, just how far out to lunch you are on this one. I could honestly care less about this debate - and certainly wont be dragged into some never ending back and forth with you, I have better things to do with my time - but don't drag Lenin into it, since his views couldn't be any further from the position advocated by yourself and Rafiq.

[Sharia Lawn]

I'm honestly contemplating at this point PA, whether you seriously have no clue what Izvestia's stance is, whether you have no idea what Lenin was on about in the text you've just quoted, or whether it is some combination of the two. Whatever is the case, it's quite clear to anyone with even a rudimentary grasp on Lenin's politics, just how far out to lunch you are on this one. I could honestly care less about this debate - and certainly wont be dragged into some never ending back and forth with you, I have better things to do with my time - but don't drag Lenin into it, since his views couldn't be any further than the position advocated by yourself and Rafiq.

Sadly I think option #3 is correct: Phoenix has not really been reading my posts and has just been scouring for quotes on the web where Lenin is talking about revolutionaries legitimately using parliament, without really understanding what Lenin's position is. This is obviously his idea of "reading theory."

[PhoenixAsh]

No, actually he doesn't "dismiss my position," because my position is not that revolutionaries do not run for parliamentary office or utilize the parliament if victory is attained. That is the position you've made up and assigned to me in order to try to shift the discussion away from your crystal-clear reformism.

My position is that revolutionaries do not ever give support to bourgeois political parties, that the success of the working class struggle is never the result of parliamentary maneuvering (though such maneuvering, when done by actual revolutionaries -- not social democrats like you or Syriza -- can assist a working class movement in limited ways), and that revolutionaries do not have the attainment of parliamentary control or victory in parliamentary elections as their primary goal, the goal they structure their immediate platform or program of action around.

For the millionth time, stop blatantly lying about people's positions. It's despicable how you are trying to use Lenin to support a position he did not have, in order to attack a position he actually did have. It shows what a duplicitous and vile, ignorant little creature you really are.

Hahaha.

Well I do understand that you feel completely and utterly frustrated when the vast majority of your arguments against Rafiq and me are completely and utterly trashed by this one polemic by Lenin. Especially considering that it directly carries what we have been saying all along.

This was exactly your position when you started your slanderous straw man attack on Rafiq and me when we provided you with a clear concise Marxist analysis of how and why things are happening and what the role of reformism is in class consciousness and how parliamentarism is essential in the formenting of a workers movement.

You now try to hide it and scramble to find some weaseling nuance but you won't get away that easy. But Lenin quite clearly stated that you are in fact a windbag....even on that my position has been supported by Lenin. Which is hilarious.

[Sharia Lawn]

Phoenix, I'm not frustrated, though it is telling when somebody I am "debating" feels compelled to make up about three of four lies about my position in the span of just ten or so back-and-forth posts. It shows the kind of low-grade human material I'm working with.

Nobody is hiding anything. You have only yourself to blame for not understanding what people's positions are before attacking them or blockquoting them.

The difference between on the one hand shilling for syriza's bourgeois rad-libs, and on the other hand saying that revolutionaries run for office in order to propagandize for revolution and the overthrow of capitalism, and utilize it to block anti-worker measures if they are victorious in their campaign, is only a "nuance" (as you call it) to somebody who is steeped in social democratic reformism. You know, somebody like you. Revolutionaries recognize it as a class line.

[PhoenixAsh]

Phoenix, I'm not frustrated, though it is telling when somebody I am "debating" feels compelled to make up about three of four lies about my position in the span of just ten or so back-and-forth posts. It shows the kind of low-grade human material I'm working with.

Nobody is hiding anything. You have only yourself to blame for not understanding what people's positions are before attacking them or blockquoting them.

The difference between on the one hand shilling for syriza's bourgeois rad-libs, and on the other hand saying that revolutionaries run for office in order to propagandize for revolution and the overthrow of capitalism, and utilize it to block anti-worker measures if they are victorious in their campaign, is only a "nuance" (as you call it) to somebody who is steeped in social democratic reformism. You know, somebody like you. Revolutionaries recognize it as a class line.


I understand your posts quite clearly and see your position and arguments for what they are: trolling to the point where you need to straw man the fuck out of people in order to prove your own rrrevolutionary credentials without actually realizing what you are doing is counter analytical.

When it comes to understanding what is being argued you are clearly the one who does do not seem to be able to wrap your head around what Rafiq and I have been saying nor do you even begin to grasp where the polemic from Lenin disproves and utterly trashes your position.

Yet while you were busy straw manning the fuck out what we were saying, purposefully misquoting, purposefully misrepresenting and purposefully trying to slander us...we were actually applying Marxist and Leninist analysis to explain what is happening and how this situation can be beneficial. Now you are confronted with your ineptitude you suddenly have many words to speak about respectfulness and about twisting somebodies position. And I guess that it surely must suck when you are on the receiving end of exactly the tactics you employed previously...except of course...we don't misrepresent your arguments since those arguments were opposed to exactly the position Lenin puts forward when you positioned yourself against us. But it is food for thought. If you want to have a respectful debate then you should consider your own fucking attitude and shy away from straw manning people.

In other words our position was...basically what Lenin and Marx said and you failed to pick up.

Because you seem to think that it is about who and when and why revolutionaries work in parliament...but that only illustrates how much of that polemic you have missed and ignored nor do you seem to be able to place it in the wider theoretical context of Lenin's works nor that of Marxism in general.

The course of action you suggest. Building an independent working class party is nice and well. But this independent revolutionary party is actually, within Marxist theory, the highest stage of class consciousness when the class starts to act as a class for the class. You have completely ignored these principles time and time again but they are actually the basis of WHY we argue that the class is not in fact at the point to abandon bourgeoisie parliament nor capitalism and exactly why at this stage (a very important part which you continue to conveniently leave out when you slander us and misrepresent our position and arguments) SYRIZA is in fact the best option for the working class.

There is NO argument against this. It is an absolute truth.

You can argue till you are blue in the face but the reality in the current context is that the class is NOT capable of anything else and NOT capable of forwarding more progressive demands.

It is the same as asking a 2 year old to do complex mathematics and calculate a cosinus without a calculator. One day they might be able to do so. But before that day comes the child will not be able to do so. It is limited because it hasn't matured enough and not learned how.

Where YOU go wrong and seriously misrepresent us is when you started to present our argument as pertaining to the position of the revolutionaries. It doesn't. It pertains to the class.

What you fail to realize when we say that a reformist platform even [I]when fielded by a capitalist party[/quote] can be within a capitalist context and the context of the level of class consciousness the maximum obtainable is based on the wider works of Lenin where he repeats those words almost exactly. It pertains to the class.

And it is the class who is at the core of what is happening. Not the revolutionaries. As Lenin said the thoughtless polemic against parliamentarism and the overuse of wishful thinking leads to wind baggery and is almost criminal in its very nature. It completely ignores the class and tries to enforce the view of the revolutionary by ignoring the consciousness of the class.

Now for everybody who has followed the developments of SYRIZA it should be quite obvious that you make another fatal error. You equate the government with the party. I can understand this mistake if you are an American. Yet the party is NOT interchangeable with the government.

Nor is SYRIZA a traditional political party. SYRIZA is a coalition between various political groups. And right now what is happening in SYRIZA is an increasing radicalization of a large part of that party. Not only is the government not supported by the majority of local representatives but it is rapidly losing its parliamentary members that are willing to support the current direction...and are calling for increasing radicalization of the position and platform. And it is exactly this radicalization that is interesting and makes SYRIZA such a valuable tool to advance working class struggle at a point where the working class is actively moving away and rejecting maximalist platforms. Of course this happens within the unions where most of SYRIZA is active. But whether you want to acknowledge it or not a large part of the left platform are Bolsheviks (of various plumage), Maoists, Marxist-Leninists etc. Those are currently radicalizing and very influential in the unions.

Your further consistent mishap is your insistence of hyperboles such as betrayal. I can repeat this to you ad nauseum but you will not get it....I doubt you ever will. Simply put it is a fascist tactic of creating a theoretical enemy by adopting a false narrative of the honest politician and placing the blame on a scape goat.
That is serious misleading shit...and you clearly do not grasp the magnitude of the error you are making here. It is in it's very core antithetical to the very concept of class consciousness and historical awareness that is essential to it.

This should be obvious to anybody. Betrayal is not what is actually happening. Whether you like SYRIZA or not failure to achieve a promise is not betrayal nor is it analytically accurate to speak of betrayal at all.

And that you fail to grasp the severity of your error is obvious when you use the criticism that is rightly directed at you for using the hyperbole as an argument that this is somehow shilling and apologizing for SYRIZA. It isn't. It is calling you out on purposefully using emotional language to mislead the working class in creating a false narrative of the honest politician....rather than the correct analytical line to show the historic bankruptcy of the bourgeois parliamentary system and the inherent limitations of demanding solutions within a capitalist system. It is exactly this what Lenin means when he says that you use bourgeoisie democracy to show it's failure....that the working class can not and will not achieve it's class interests and class aspirations not be able to fulfill it's historic role through the bourgeoisie systems. The use of hyperboles confuses this message greatly.

And now...I am done with you.

You have been proven incorrect, wrong and your arguments are completely void. Next time when you enter a debate with me think twice about your behavior and stop straw manning the fuck out of people when it is quite clear that you have no idea what the fuck you are talking about and completely and utterly fail to understand what is being said.

[Sharia Lawn]

No, you don't understand my posts quite clearly. Nor do you understand what Lenin was saying.

You have wrongly faulted me for disregarding immedate demands, lied in implying that I have an abstentionist position from parliament, lied about Lenin's position on parliamentary participation (claiming that it was consistent with your claims about Syriza)... the list goes on and on.

Let's clarify a few of the main points here for people who dont want to wade through your confused ramblings.

*You think Syriza, elected on a platform of opposition to austerity and the hopes that they would curtail austerity, did not betray Greek workers by capitulation to an austerity package that was nearly identical to the ones proposed by their defeated opponents in the last election.

*You claim that Syriza's various parliamentary maneuvers were the best that workers could hope to achieve the past several months.

*You think a bourgeois party (Syriza) is "mobilizing the working class" in a direction of greater class-struggle militancy pointing toward the workers becoming a class for itself.

*You fail to see the difference between a bourgeois party in parliament making a proposal, and a mobilized working class struggle for a change at the grassroots level independent of the bourgeoisie.

*You think Lenin's chiding left-communists for refusing to run for parliamentary office, as revolutionaries, is a confirmation that he would have supported your position on Syriza (a bourgeois party).

I mean, how many more absurdities and lies can we add to this already long list?

All that we can really conclude is that you have no idea what you're talking about, your politics are hopelessly reformist, and your penchant for deliberately lying about people's positions shows what Internet sewage you are.

Good Grief.

[PhoenixAsh]

O god jezus you are still talking. What a shame.



No, you don't understand my posts quite clearly. Nor do you understand what Lenin was saying.

You have wrongly faulted me for disregarding immedate demands, lied in implying that I have an abstentionist position from parliament, lied about Lenin's position on parliamentary participation (claiming that it was consistent with your claims about Syriza)... the list goes on and on.

No I haven't. You were doing exactly that. Quite clearly. And you seem to understand shit about what Lenin was saying in his polemic. Because it isn't merely a factor of parliamentary participation. But yeah...then again...you seem to be very good at missing the point. Don't ever become a circus knife thrower. This will end badly.


Let's clarify a few of the main points here for people who dont want to wade through your confused ramblings.

Lets


*You think Syriza, elected on a platform of opposition to austerity and the hopes that they would curtail austerity, did not betray Greek workers by capitulation to an austerity package that was nearly identical to the ones proposed by their defeated opponents in the last election.

Nope. The use of the word betrayal is hyperbolic emotional rhetoric that peddles the fascist tactic of the honest politician and the scape goat. This has been explained to you. You should by now understand how monumentally antithetical to class consciousness your position is.



*You claim that Syriza's various parliamentary maneuvers were the best that workers could hope to achieve the past several months.

Yes. I do. And the reason why this is the case is because the class isn't capable to go beyond the superstructure because it isn't acting as a class for the class.

This is quite simply basic Marxism.



*You think a bourgeois party (Syriza) is "mobilizing the working class" in a direction of greater class-struggle militancy pointing toward the workers becoming a class for itself.

This is two components in one. The first component is yes. SYRIZA is mobilizing the working class. And only an idiot would deny that. O hey...hi there Izvestia.

The second part is a complete misrepresentation of what has been said and where you fail to grasp how class consciousness works and how the working class struggle develop. Again this was covered by Lenin if you actually comprehend what he is saying.

Unavoidably a non class conscious working class will rally behind a bourgeoisie party. It is why the working class is unconscious after all...the attachment to the super structure is pretty much what defines that. This is however an essential stage in developing class consciousness through the struggle because it is where the struggle will per definition start.

That you fail to comprehend this basic Marxist truism is baffling.


*You fail to see the difference between a bourgeois party in parliament making a proposal, and a mobilized working class struggle for a change at the grassroots level independent of the bourgeoisie.

No. You fail to see that that working class grassroots level independent organization is what the class does when it is class conscious.

And we have already established that the class is far from class conscious. So that makes it not an option in the current context because of the simple fact that the class is not moving outside of the superstructure.


*You think Lenin's chiding left-communists for refusing to run for parliamentary office, as revolutionaries, is a confirmation that he would have supported your position on Syriza (a bourgeois party).

No. I think what Lenin wrote in the entire polemic means that YOUR position on what is happening is completely and utterly wrong. Perhaps you should actually read it and try to comprehend it.


I mean, how many more absurdities and lies can we add to this already long list?

Well aside from the fact that none of these are absurdities and all of them are pretty much buck standard Marxist and Leninist analysis....we can indeed add a whole lot of other points where you were utterly wrong and lying through your teeth.


All that we can really conclude is that you have no idea what you're talking about, your politics are hopelessly reformist, and your penchant for deliberately lying about people's positions shows what Internet sewage you are.

Again. I am not lying about your position. You have taken this position over several threads while you were bussy straw manning the fuck out of everything being said. Not only have you proven yourself to have no understanding of even the rudimentary principles of Marxism, and are completely and utterly incapable of correctly analyzing what is happening but on top of that...

.....you peddle a fascist tactic as leftwing revolutionary tactic. You have been disproven, discredited and you have straw manned the fuck out of this debate and lied and slandered your way through it. Now of course you are weeping because you are totally called out on your bullshit.

But ultimately, what is the most hilarious of all, it is you who is even proactively called a wind bag by Lenin. Ha! Awesome balls :laugh:

I am sorry Izvestia. But quite clearly you seem to have fuck all theoretical understanding....on top of that you peddle fascist tactics and advocate actively misleading the working class into believing in the mythology of the scape goat in direct opposition to the Marxist and Leninst position on class consciousness. Maybe you should move your sorry troll ass to Stromfront they will love you there. They have a whole lot of threads where they repeat your criticism of SYRIZA as well as your narrative of betrayal almost verbatim.

[Sharia Lawn]

Ok, Phoenix, you have the last word. Happy?

[PhoenixAsh]

Ok, Phoenix, you have the last word. Happy?

Yes very.

[Sharia Lawn]

Yes very.

Good, as we all know, having the last say means you're right.

[PhoenixAsh]

Good, as we all know, having the last say means you're right.

Good of you to admit that. Thanks.

[blake 3:17]

Greek crisis: Syriza rebels break away to form Popular Unity party
MPs angry at what they consider a betrayal of anti-austerity principles announce decision in letter to parliament, the day after Alexis Tsipras’ resignation

Rebels within Greece’s ruling party, the leftwing Syriza movement led by the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, have announced they are breaking away to form a separate entity called Popular Unity.

Angry at what they see as a betrayal of Syriza’s anti-austerity principles, the 25 MPs announced their intention to form a new party in a letter to parliament the day after Tsipras resigned to pave the way for snap elections next month.

Led by the former energy minister, Panagiotis Lafazanis, the new movement will be the third-largest group in the Greek parliament and could conceivably receive a mandate to try to form a new government.

Tsipras announced his resignation in a televised address on Thursday night. He said he felt a moral obligation to put Greece’s third international bailout deal, and the further swingeing austerity measures it requires, to the people.

Last week he piloted the punishing deal through the Greek parliament, but suffered a major rebellion when nearly one-third of Syriza MPs either voted against the package or abstained. Tsipras is gambling that he will be able to silence the rebels and shore up public support for the three-year bailout programme.

Full article: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/21/greek-crisis-syriza-rebels-break-away-form-popular-unity-party

[PhoenixAsh]

Awesome balls.

According to the logic of my argumentative line this means that it is simply another bunch of (radicalizing) capitalists perpetuating the superstructure by exploiting false narrative.

According to the logic of the other argumentative line this means that these are revolutionaries employing the same narrative that is supposed to get the class conscious.

Yet clearly this is not the same as your entire argument substitute support for capitalists and reformists....such as Hillary Clinton :laugh:

:laugh: Who is propping what now? :laugh:

[Sharia Lawn]

MPs angry at what they consider a betrayal of anti-austerity principles announce decision in letter to parliament, the day after Alexis Tsipras’ resignation

Well, they should sign up to revleft then. I'm sure a couple of participants here would assure them that the party they're MPs for did not betray anybody. What is the appropriate expression here? "More Catholic than the Pope," or in this case "Bigger booster of Syriza than a Syriza MP"?

[PhoenixAsh]

Basically...

There is the ultimate proof that you can swap your argumentative line for that of a bourgeoisie democratic party in full support of capitalism.

"O but PA's argument could be applied to Hillary.....so there you go he is reformist scum"

And now we have an actual situation where your arguments are repeated verbatim by a bourgeoisie democratic party in full support of capitalism to gain electoral support for a reformist platform....

Hypocrisy much?

[Sharia Lawn]

Still unable to understand written English, I see. For your sake, I hope you're trolling and aren't genuinely this mentally defective.

The claim I made about your argument was that if we took the political principles you used to justify Syriza's betrayal and how workers in Greece should relate to it and the party that performed it, those same political principles can be used to concretely justify any other number of sell-outs, like a communist supporting Hillary. The issue I was raising was with the political principles, which as expressed in your argument were not limited in any way to Syriza but instead were about any situation in which a nominally "progressive" party was articulating demands that workers in their own party might be focusing on winning immediately. This isn't a one-off thing. There was a thread a while back where you gave shamefaced support to the Dutch SP. There's not a bourgeois or reformist party it seems you won't support. How to betray the working class? Let PhoenixAsh count the ways...

And yeah, my argument about Syriza betraying the working class is actually being repeated by a Syriza MP. Which basically shows that you are to the right of those MPs.

What does it say when a manager of the "Home of the Revolutionary Left" is on the right of a bourgeois party, and disagrees with its left wing? Something revealing, I'd say.

[PhoenixAsh]

Still unable to understand written English, I see. For your sake, I hope you're trolling and aren't genuinely this mentally defective.

The claim I made about your argument was that if we took the political principles you used to justify Syriza's betrayal and how workers in Greece should relate to it and the party that performed it, those same political principles can be used to concretely justify any other number of sell-outs, like a communist supporting Hillary. The issue I was raising was with the political principles, which as expressed in your argument were not limited in any way to Syriza but instead were about any situation in which a nominally "progressive" party was articulating demands that workers in their own party might be focusing on winning immediately. This isn't a one-off thing. There was a thread a while back where you gave shamefaced support to the Dutch SP. There's not a bourgeois or reformist party it seems you won't support. How to betray the working class? Let PhoenixAsh count the ways...

And yeah, my argument about Syriza betraying the working class is actually being repeated by a Syriza MP. Which basically shows that you are to the right of those MPs.

What does it say when a manager of the "Home of the Revolutionary Left" is on the right of a bourgeois party, and disagrees with its left wing? Something revealing, I'd say.

Lol. No you idiot.

It means you peddle the same tired old bourgeoisie and fascist narrative to blind the working class for what is actually happening and in direct opposition to class consciousness. It is quite obvious....it is literally spelled out right there....black and white. And STILL you try to weasel and slither your way out of it and try to maintain to be a revolutionary :laugh:

And yes. Indeed. The SP here was at that time the best a class unconscious working class can hope for. If they want something more they need to advance their struggle and get more class conscious.

It really is THAT simple. Basic actual Marxism.

[Sharia Lawn]

My narrative has always been that Syriza is unable to fight austerity because it is a bourgeois party that is attempting to fight austerity through a bourgeois parliament, and bourgeois parliaments are in their essence servants of the ruling capitalist class and that class's austerity projects, whatever good intentions MP's might have. The election of Syriza to stop austerity was bound to result in betrayal.

Is this a bourgeois narrative? Who in Syriza has ever conveyed this narrative?

Or are you now, in yet another act of blatantly dishonest trolling, implying that agreement on one characterization (the obvious statement that Syriza's austerity package was a betrayal of the workers) means complete and total agreement with a party's platform or propoganda?

It's really not possible to have a discussion with somebody whose every post is an endless series of lies designed to hide the obvious. You'd make Joe Stalin blush.

[Fourth Internationalist]

I'm honestly contemplating at this point PA, whether you seriously have no clue what Izvestia's stance is, whether you have no idea what Lenin was on about in the text you've just quoted, or whether it is some combination of the two. Whatever is the case, it's quite clear to anyone with even a rudimentary grasp on Lenin's politics, just how far out to lunch you are on this one. I could honestly care less about this debate - and certainly wont be dragged into some never ending back and forth with you, I have better things to do with my time - but don't drag Lenin into it, since his views couldn't be any further from the position advocated by yourself and Rafiq.

Indeed. Lenin was clearly polemicizing against left communist anti-parliamentarianism, which is quite different from the position Izvestia is arguing (a position the "Lefts", as Lenin called them in the quotes PA posted, would disagree with).

[PhoenixAsh]

Indeed. Lenin was clearly polemicizing against left communist anti-parliamentarianism, which is quite different from the position Izvestia is arguing (a position the "Lefts", as Lenin called them in the quotes PA posted, would disagree with).

You two have clearly missed the point where Izvestia denounced parliamentary politics downright and derided us on it and basis his straw man accusations largely on that very issue. As well as missing the point of Izvestia calling for extra parliamentary and independent organization at this point in the class struggle when the class is not at all class conscious.

Clearly these points are well and truly dismissed as wind baggery, and downright criminal in the text by Lenin. If you don't understand why something is quoted then ask.

Not to mention that I could quote other texts by Lenin in which he clearly aligns the interests of the working class with capitalist liberal allies in bourgeoisie parliament as a valid tactic.

Now if you haven't read Lenin and haven't actually understood what he was on about...and if you don't understand why something was quoted and against what position.... then fine. But in this case you are both wrong.

[PhoenixAsh]

My narrative has always been that Syriza is unable to fight austerity because it is a bourgeois party that is attempting to fight austerity through a bourgeois parliament, and bourgeois parliaments are in their essence servants of the ruling capitalist class and that class's austerity projects, whatever good intentions MP's might have.

O really? Since this is verbatim what we said since January your opposition to us is kind of weird if you hold the exact same position.


The election of Syriza to stop austerity was bound to result in betrayal.

No. This is a perpetuation of a tired old bourgeoisie mythology. There is no betrayal. The truth is that the working class holds mutual contradictory demands while trying to maintain in the superstructure. The failure to reach a better negotiation and the necessity to implement austerity packages result not from betrayal but from the fact that within a capitalist system reform demands are subservient to the class interests of the capitalists and can and will never result in serving the class interests of the working class beyond token reforms.

If you use the term betrayal you imply that capitalist parties CAN be a platform for the working class as long as they are carefully watched and remain honest. This is antithetical to each other.

A capitalist party advances the interests of capitalism. Per definition. It can, as Lenin wrote, advance the interests of the working class because the interests are up to a point intrinsically linked. But they can never serve the interests of the class beyond mere reform and the perpetuation of class society.

This is a historic materialist realization that the class needs to make if it is to fulfill their full class aspirations and reach class consciousness.

The betrayal myth is peddled by bourgeoisie parties and fascist parties in order to obfuscate just this realization. It is a dangerous hyperbole which is exploited in order to elicit an emotional response and restore faith in the system and the superstructure.

"You didn't get what you want because they betrayed you....but you can trust us"


Is this a bourgeois narrative? Who in Syriza has ever conveyed this narrative?

Yes. It is. I have no idea who in SYRIZA but I can mention several other parties who regularly use this mythology. In Holland there are at least three who use this. In Greece there are four.

It is not betrayal. And that is what the class needs to realize.


Or are you now, in yet another act of blatantly dishonest trolling, implying that agreement on one characterization (the obvious statement that Syriza's austerity package was a betrayal of the workers) means complete and total agreement with a party's platform or propoganda?

No. This isn't about you agreeing with SIRIZA. This is about you using mythology rather than historical materialist analysis.

But you previously have done exactly this.


It's really not possible to have a discussion with somebody whose every post is an endless series of lies designed to hide the obvious. You'd make Joe Stalin blush.

Exactly. And I am mirroring your tactics here. We didn't have a debate. You were holding one of their show trials in order to slander rather than to understand our position...while straw manning the fuck out of it and purposefully misrepresenting it. I simply returned the favor.

BUT since you state here that your position is essentially the same as our position the tone you took wasn't warranted. And it is exactly that tone as well as the attacks against the position you now say you held exactly the same as us...that lends credibility to the conclusion that if you oppose us on this position...then you are against that position.

[Sharia Lawn]

Phoenix, I've already explained to you yesterday that I am not going to indulge your never-ending rehearsal of the same tired lies and misrepresentations on behalf of bourgeois and reformist politics. There's nothing in either of our posts today that breaks new ground on our positions.

Three different people, including me, have explained very clearly to you how you are either lying or badly misinterpreting the various positions you are trying to address in your posts. Like your equally reformist and equally defective comrade Rafiq, you are congenitally incapable of admitting when you fuck up and will destroy multiple threads -- the forum itself -- in order to get the last word or muddy waters enough that you hope people will forget how clearly wrong you have been shown to be on any given issue.

Give it a rest. My post, which has caused you to kick back into psychopath mode, pointed out the hilarity that Syriza's betrayal is so obvious that even some of its own MPs acknowledge it, and they have every conceivable reason to deny as they are the ones who bear responsibility for it as an organization. Revolutionaries also recognize it (while rejecting Syriza MPs reformist understanding for why the betrayal occurred and what should be done about it). The only people who don't want to acknowledge it are people who are still carrying water for Syriza's increasingly rightward-bound reformism. People like you, who have removed second-international reformism's traditional association with diffuse propagandizing for the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism, and grafted it onto diffuse propagandizing about "anarchy" and "liberation." The content of the politics remains the same.


You two have clearly missed the point where Izvestia denounced parliamentary politics downright.

They missed it because this denunciation exists only in your imagination. You certainly haven't provided any textual evidence for it. Another similarity you have with Rafiq, a bizarre obsession with inventing arguments to attack that nobody has made because you would fail miserably at trying to address the points they have made.

[Fourth Internationalist]

You two have clearly missed the point where Izvestia denounced parliamentary politics downright

He did not do this though, and others in this thread are pointing this out again and again to you.

[PhoenixAsh]

He did not do this though, and others in this thread are pointing this out again and again to you.

The others in this thread pointing this out to me would be you....and given how you and I stand seeing your post in that other thread...I am not really thinking very much in the way of your explanations of this Trolls position.

And he did exactly this in this thread and in others.

[Fourth Internationalist]

The others in this thread pointing this out to me would be you....and given how you and I stand seeing your post in that other thread...I am not really thinking very much in the way of your explanations of this Trolls position.

And he did exactly this in this thread and in others.

9mm also pointed it out. And I don't know what post or other thread you're talking about. Regardless, it has no bearing on this thread.

[PhoenixAsh]

Phoenix, I've already explained to you yesterday that I am not going to indulge your never-ending rehearsal of the same tired lies and misrepresentations on behalf of bourgeois and reformist politics. There's nothing in either of our posts today that breaks new ground on our positions.

No it indeed doesn't. You are a fascist narrative peddling troll who doesn't know how to make an accurate analysis and who relies on straw man and red herrings in order to stir shit without actually understanding what you are saying and doing or what it is we are actually debating. Your entire tactic from the day you signed a member ship registration here is a prosecutionist bullying tone that isn't aimed at having a debate. Now I am not mr nice guy and I can take as good as I give but you mr. Izvestia are here to stir shit and only for that reason in order to prove your own rrrrevolutionary status. Yet you cry like a little whining baby how others misrepresent your position and how unfairly you have been treated.

So cut the fucking victim act and take some responsibility.


Three different people, including me, have explained very clearly to you how you are either lying or badly misinterpreting the various positions you are trying to address in your posts. Like your equally reformist and equally defective comrade Rafiq, you are congenitally incapable of admitting when you fuck up and will destroy multiple threads -- the forum itself -- in order to get the last word or muddy waters enough that you hope people will forget how clearly wrong you have been shown to be on any given issue.

I am not misrepresenting your position nor your intentions on this forum Izvestia...everybody can read this thread. When it comes to misrepresenting positions you still hold the gold star for that.

You took issue with an analysis. You took issue with exactly the position you now say you hold. You took issue with the fact that there is no workers movement in any meaning full sense. You took issue with the clear fact that the working class beholden to the superstructure will not find solutions outside the superstructure and the best they can get will be reformism. All that you took issue with. You took issue with parliamentarism. You claimed that the Bolshevisk would not support parliamentarism or work through bourgeoisie parliament. Don't try to fucking weasel your way out of this.

Now I don't care what your friends point out. If these two people actually understood Marxism and Leninism and had a honest bone in their body they would have told you by now how you are misrepresenting, straw manning your way through this debate....and how you are taking a shit on revolutionary theory and praxis and are totally mis-analysing the current status.

Nor am I hiding my position in any way shape or form. Now if YOU can't understand that the working class is not class conscious enough to organize independently nor class conscious enough to make more advanced demands than reform than this is fine by me. I don't care how misguided you are. But you do NOT get to straw man the debate with your trolling accusation tactics in order to try and shut it down.



Give it a rest. My post, which has caused you to kick back into psychopath mode, pointed out the hilarity that Syriza's betrayal is so obvious that even some of its own MPs acknowledge it, and they have every conceivable reason to deny as they are the ones who bear responsibility for it as an organization. Revolutionaries also recognize it (while rejecting Syriza MPs reformist understanding for why the betrayal occurred and what should be done about it).

Yes we can reread your betrayal narrative on storm front and we get this spoon fed to us by just about every new politician and political party. So I am totally aware that you seem to be under the impression that what you are doing here is in your mind not simply rehashing bourgeoisie narrative in lieu of revolutionary analysis.

This is indeed obvious. Now you keep peddling the notion that there actually was betrayal and that this had nothing to do with mutually exclusive demands. While you are at it you might want to blame the jews and immigrants as well.

But while you are bussy peddlig bullshit to the working class and actively obstructing the class being able to make correct realizations and getting class conscious could you kindly not pretend to be a revolutionary?


The only people who don't want to acknowledge it are people who are still carrying water for Syriza's increasingly rightward-bound reformism. People like you, who have removed second-international reformism's traditional association with diffuse propagandizing for the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism, and grafted it onto diffuse propagandizing about "anarchy" and "liberation." The content of the politics remains the same.

SYRIZA increasingly rightward bound reformism means that you are not actually following what is happening.

The rest of this paragraph is as usual full of wind bag bullshit


They missed it because this denunciation exists only in your imagination. You certainly haven't provided any textual evidence for it. Another similarity you have with Rafiq, a bizarre obsession with inventing arguments to attack that nobody has made because you would fail miserably at trying to address the points they have made.

lol

I asked you previously to post specifically where I was supporting SYRIZA and saying the working class needed to vote for them. I am still waiting and in fact you acknowledged that you couldn't. Yet clearly now textual evidence is required in order for an accusation to be substantiated or else it is false.

Really? You don't seem to be able to hold a consistent position. And basically that is what makes you hypocritical filth. Let me repeat this again: reexamine your own pathetic, filthy behavior before you put on the victim act and cry like little fucking infant over how wrongly you have been treated.

[Sharia Lawn]

Notice that amid all the excessive flaming and shit-flinging, in violation of the rules he is supposed to uphold (but which everybody on the forum knows doesn't really apply to the mods), he doesn't provide a shred of evidence for this imaginary categorical denunciation of parliamentary politics I supposedly made.

This is how PhoenixAsh operates in thread after thread after thread...

[PhoenixAsh]

But you want textual evidence...fine. Here is one...of the four I can give you. This one will perfectly suffice:


And I gave you a platform that was different, because it was a platform that did not call on workers to support a bourgeois party or to turn to the bourgeois parliament.

See the post I made earlier in this thread, pointing out how pathetically sad it is that we have a manager of the "Home for the Revolutionary Left" who doesn't recognize the difference between these two platforms, and how that difference constitutes a traditional dividing between a reformist and a revolutionary. I'm sure you can guess whether the Bolsheviks had a platform calling on support for a bourgeois party or that said that their best hope for realizing reforms was through bourgeois elections.

And here is another one:


(claiming the Bolsheviks supporting elections is the same as shilling for a bourgeois party or ever having as its primary immediate goal the winning of bourgeois elections).

[Sharia Lawn]

But you want textual evidence...fine. Here is one...of the four I can give you. This one will perfectly suffice:

Now fuck of you lying fucking hypocrite.

As can be seen by anybody who is actually capable of reading, and isn't viewing everything through the lens of sociopathic point-scoring, the bolded parts are referring not to participation in parliament or running for parliamentary elections in general. The quote specifically renounces a particular kind of parliamentary politics, where the parliament - rather than working class struggle against the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois state - is viewed as "the best hope for realizing reforms."

The bourgeois parliament is not something that revolutionaries "turn to" or depend upon as the focal point of their short-term, medium-term, or long-term political strategy.

[PhoenixAsh]

As can be seen by anybody who is actually capable of reading, and isn't viewing everything through the lens of sociopathic point-scoring, the bolded parts are referring not to participation in parliament or running for parliamentary elections in general. The quote specifically renounces a particular kind of parliamentary politics, where the parliament - rather than working class struggle against the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois state - is viewed as "the best hope for realizing reforms."

The bourgeois parliament is not something that revolutionaries "turn to" or depend upon as the focal point of their short-term, medium-term, or long-term political strategy.

Ah right "in general"...sure :laugh: Back peddling to save your fucking hide there. Now you don't seem to mention the second quote NOR do you seem to mention it in the context of your arguments that have been running through three threads. Regardless of your backpeddling....exactly this point was addressed in Lenin's polemic and exactly this position your peddle here is rejected. And exactly the call for independent organization when the class isn't ready is rejected as the primary goal or revolutionaries.

Now any more lies and twists and back peddling you want to offer to us?

Or maybe you have found another fascist narrative you want to sell to the working class?

[Sharia Lawn]

This is what I mean when I tell people you clearly aren't even reading my posts. I say that my statements you quoted didn't refer to participation in parlimanetary politics in general, and you respond by sarcastically saying "Ah right 'in general'...sure" like you think that "in general" was the meaning I was defending. It's the meaning I was rejecting. You take things so personally that, in addition to obsessively trying to swamp the forum in trollish back-and-forth and excessive flaming with anybody who shows up your transparently reformist politics, you don't actually bother to familiarize yourself with the content of a post or what specifically a person is saying before going on the war path with a barrage of slander.

No, pointing out the obvious meaning of a quote is not "lying," "twisting," or "backpeddling."

That these are the two most "damning" quotes you could contrive, that both very clearly convey a position at odds with the one you attributed to me, and that you haven't even attempted to defend an alternative interpretation, conclusively puts to rest the question of who in this thread has been lying.

[PhoenixAsh]

This is what I mean when I tell people you clearly aren't even reading my posts. I say that my statements you quoted didn't refer to participation in parlimanetary politics in general, and you respond by sarcastically saying "Ah right 'in general'...sure" like you think that "in general" was the meaning I was defending. It's the meaning I was rejecting. You take things so personally that, in addition to obsessively trying to swamp the forum in trollish back-and-forth and excessive flaming with anybody who shows up your transparently reformist politics, you don't actually bother to familiarize yourself with the content of a post or what specifically a person is saying before going on the war path with a barrage of slander.

I don't take it personal Izvestia.

I just plainly don't like you. I think you are pure filth and lying straw manning troll who is not here to have honest debates. This is clear from your entire attitude, as I have explained to you earlier, from the day you signed up for this forum. This dislike is simply caused by your own attitude and flaming and style of flaming that entirely revolves around your persecutionist mentality and post style devoid of any form of decency or willingness to engage honestly.

I am just returning exactly how you treat me. And you seem to react by taking a whining infantile position of how badly you are treated....so you don't seem to like being exposed to the same treatment you liberally afford others. Yet clearly it is everybody's fault but poor old little Izvestia.

On top of that your positions and arguments are abysmal and lack any valid analysis of the situation. You fall short on theory and praxis and you hide that by simply straw manning and purposefully misrepresenting the position of others without truly trying to understand what is being said.

Now I have read your posts and your position has been thoroughly trashed. Simply because it is based on false information, fake analysis, obfuscation and above all complete and utter inability and unwillingness to engage discussion honestly.

The position you claim to take is however by and large the same position we took when you completely and utterly rejected that very same position. On top of that you counter posed an argument that defies reality and theory. You try to weasel your way from under those simple facts by post fact hasty back peddling and post fact clarifications. But the truth is that you don't afford or accept any explanations or clarifications from anybody but those who engage in your self-masturbatory expositions here.

So why should I afford you courtesy which you utterly refuse to extend me?

Again this is simply you being a pathetic little infant and behaving like a petulant child. Take some fucking responsibility and examine your own behavior here.



No, pointing out the obvious meaning of a quote is not "lying," "twisting," or "backpeddling."

Yes it actually it when you post fact try to disengage it from the collective discussions on this very topic.

Lets see which positions you riled against:

1). The working class is not conscious enough for independent organization therefor the working class is still operating within the superstructure
2). The working class will necessarily support solutions within the superstructure and the working class will not support a revolutionary platform at the current level of consciousness
3). This leads to a context where the best the working class can hope for is a reform platform simply because they are not able to demand more.
5). There is no revolutionary platform currently available
6). There is no workers movement in any meaningful sense of the word other than movements in which workers are active.
7). The only party currently footing reforms is SYRIZA and SYRIZA is mobilizing the working class. Both away from the traditional capitalist parties, the far right as well as mobilizing them in action through their unions (and yes...that is actually happening...if you had bothered to familiarize yourself with the situation), grass root campaigns and other initiatives and they do this more so and in greater numbers than any other organization.
8). Until the class is strong enough to organize as a class for the class a reform platform will be a necessity
9). Capitalist parties are per definition capitalist and can only bring the working class reforms yet this is necessary at the current context and doesn't deviate from revolutionary tactics perse.
10). The massive support for reforms and mobilization of the workers into political activity by SYRIZA is a first unavoidable stage towards class consciousness
11). The working class is making mutually exclusive demands that are irreconcilable with each other.
12). A road through parliament is unavoidable in the current context
13). A revolutionary platform can only be fielded by a working class movement which requires the class to develop a higher stage of consciousness which it will only acquire through continued struggle. This struggle will start based on reforms.
14). In the current context a revolutionary party will not be able to field other immediate and intermediate demands than reforms.
15). SYRIZA is a capitalist party openly expressing the desire to maintain capitalism, maintain the EU and maintain the EURO. In that context the best they can offer are reforms but given that at the current level of consciousness there is no revolutionary alternative or possibility for independent organization, nor would there be any difference in the actual demands...this is what we have to make do with until the class realizes the limitations of these reformist platforms.

THAT is the position you attacked. NONE of this says workers should vote for SYRIZA. NONE of this is shilling for SYRIZA. It is the clear and utterly undeniable analysis that at the current level of class consciousness and in the current context there is nothing more that the class can either expect or do...and that means by default that SYRIZA is the best option and alternative at this very moment for the short and intermediate term. This not even says SYRIZA is a good option. Which is apparently what you seem to extract from this analysis. It is simply the ONLY option.

Now...all of these points have sound theoretical founding in both Leninist analysis and praxis as well in Marxist theory.

You prattle on about the "task of revolutionaries" and how we should organize the class independently. Yet you clearly miss the fact that we are not talking about revolutionaries....we are talking about the class. And the class isn't ready for independent organizing. You can't handle this fact. So you shoot the messenger.

But those key points are what you rile against when you muddle the debate by your straw manning and purposeful misrepresentation.

We also have the HUGE disagreement of your use of hyperboles. Which is a bourgeoisie tactic, is antithetical to class consciousness and is contradictory to historical materialist analysis as it peddles a false narrative of the honest politician. This is explained to you. It is explained to you why this is dangerous. The correct analysis is explained to you. Yet you still wish to disagree. Which is fine. But a separate issue...what is not a separate issue is that you yet again straw man the fuck out of that and purpose fully misrepresent that as well.

We then have you saying that Bolsheviks never pushed parliament or trying to win bourgeoisie elections (which is in and of itself a statement which absolutely shows your disdain for parliamentarism and which proves clearly that you are lying) I quoted you on that before....but I will repeat those words again:

(claiming the Bolsheviks supporting elections is the same as shilling for a bourgeois party or ever having as its primary immediate goal the winning of bourgeois elections).

And clearly they have. Both parts of this. So you are wrong there to.



That these are the two most "damning" quotes you could contrive, that both very clearly convey a position at odds with the one you attributed to me, and that you haven't even attempted to defend an alternative interpretation, conclusively puts to rest the question of who in this thread has been lying.

Only in the mind of somebody who is completely deranged are those quotes anything different than what I say they are. Especially taken into consideration your entirety of arguments on the issue over the three threads we are having it in.

Now kindly provide the quote where I say workers should vote for SYRIZA.

Because that is what you have alleged time and time again and failed to produce. So stop being a fucking hypocrite. Take some fucking responsibility. And stop being a lying, straw manning, fascist narrative peddling troll.

[Sharia Lawn]

Strange that you still cling to the position that I just "back peddled" and shifted my position away from total abstention from bourgeois parliaments, when almost a month ago I made a post in a debate I was having about Syriza in which I specified how revolutionaries use and engage with the bourgeois parliament (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2845119&postcount=66 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2845119&postcount=66):)):


Marxists understand that the purpose of running for bourgeois parliamentary offices is not ever to win -- not as a minimum demand, a transitional demand, a maximum demand or any demand in between. Winning might be the result, a sign of successful mobilization of workers in actual class struggle on the ground. This is different than making it the goal . the second that happens you are entering a process that only rewards people who play the bourgeois game and you will compromise your program accordingly. You know, by doing things like sticking a knife in the back of Greek workers in order to maintain power.


It's the same position I've always expressed on this forum, this thread being no different. Coincidentally, it happens to be the position that the Bolsheviks had toward bourgeois parliaments. You don't understand this because, as others have pointed out in this thread, you have no idea what you are talking about. But that doesn't stop you from lying and filling the forum with shitposts.

[PhoenixAsh]

Strange that you still cling to the position that I just "back peddled" and shifted my position away from total abstention from bourgeois parliaments, when almost a month ago I made a post in a debate I was having about Syriza in which I specified how revolutionaries use and engage with the bourgeois parliament (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2845119&postcount=66 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2845119&postcount=66):)):

It's the same position I've always expressed on this forum, this thread being no different. Coincidentally, it happens to be the position that the Bolsheviks had toward bourgeois parliaments. You don't understand this because, as others have pointed out in this thread, you have no idea what you are talking about. But that doesn't stop you from lying and filling the forum with shitposts.

Is it? Because that clearly merely shows what an inconsistent little troll you are.

[Sharia Lawn]

Is it? Because that clearly merely shows what an inconsistent little troll you are.

I do believe your latest post is itself trolling and as such violates the forum rules that never seem to be enforced on moderators, just as moderators seem to be exempted from the notion that this is the Home of the Revolutionary Left (rather than the Home of the Syriza-Shilling Reformist Left).

[PhoenixAsh]

I do believe your latest post is itself trolling and as such violates the forum rules that never seem to be enforced on moderators, just as moderators seem to be exempted from the notion that this is the Home of the Revolutionary Left (rather than the Home of the Syriza-Shilling Reformist Left).

You posted it as if it had meaning. I simply drew the right conclusion from it that was a reaction based on the content and therefor not trolling.

Now of course you will continue down the road of playing the sniffling little victim when basically the entirety of your post history is nothing but inflamatory, flame bait trolling.

You have no position here. Which is why you, after having liberally flamed, baited and trolled yourself, usually start crying over how much other people violate forum rules and treat you so badly. Hypocritical through and through because you feel the rules do not apply to you and behave accordingly.

It is fucking pathetic and shows exactly what kind of low life you are.

Now you want to be treated better and not have me apply the exact same tactics you use against me and others? Start with your own behavior.

If you haven't noticed I am mirroring my tone, content and tactics to yours. If you start out nice then I start out nice. If you start trolling, straw manning, flaming and flame baiting I will do exactly the same. If you change your tone in the middle of that...I do exactly the same.

The only differences between you and me in this is that I mirror you and you don't hear me crying about it like a little sniffling dog trying to get some advantage.


Now do you want to go back through this thread and see who was insulting who first? Let's make a deal....the first one to actively try to insult the other will get an infraction fro every post until the other one responds with an insult....ok? Deal? I will even call in an admin to notarize this.


http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2848281&postcount=32


And you have kept that up throughout this debate...while I was still being respectful to you. I can cite several repeating posts after that in which you simply create ad hominem attacks and are purposefully escalating the debate. Four in fact before I even gave you that discount circus clown compliment. Which of course resulted in you immediately crying foul. Again...this shows what a fucking hypocrite you are and how you behave like a sniffling little fucking infant.

Don't you ever dare trying to play the fucking victim again...

[Sharia Lawn]

Well, I presented a quote from a month ago where, when arguing the exact same position on the exact same issue, I gave a general pronouncement on how revolutionaries are to use the bourgeois parliament. You expect people to believe, on the basis of quotes that show me stating the exact same thing, that I reversed course to say that revolutionaries don't use the parliament at all.

Is it any wonder that this thread, as so many of your other threads, degenerated into you refusing to read posts, while making mind-numbingly repetitive claims about how right you are, sandwiched between huge swaths of text containing little else but excessive flaming and trolling?

Can we please get a mentally stable moderator to come in and clean this thread up please?

[PhoenixAsh]

Read my previous post.

Never dare play the victim here again. Never dare to deny the fact that you were flaming from the very start of this thread and never pretend again that you were actually interested in an honest actual debate.

K. Thanx.


And to protect you from harming yourself. I will now close this thread. After all we don't want you exposed to being treated so very unfairly.

thread closed

[PhoenixAsh]

Dear Tim,

I am not taking your extremely bad form personally.

However I am going to give you a warning for purposefully posting in a closed thread as well as deleting the offending post.

A friendly reminder that MOD disputes are generally discussed in either the BA forum or through PM and not in open forum.

Since this is obviously an important issue I will address your post content as well as it's form through PM.

PA.

Thread closed

again