Chomsky on Leninsism and State Capitalism

[vox]

Read it closely, folks.

http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/other/intellec...uals-state.html (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/other/intellectuals-state.html)

vox

[peaccenicked]

''The civil war lasted for three years. Although finally it had been won, the country was nevertheless torn apart from one end to another and, on top of everything else, stricken by famine. Production had come to a halt. The working class had been decimated: killed fighting at the front, massacred in towns taken by the whites, or driven back to the land by massive unemployment. In the one country on earth ruled in the name of the proletariat, the proletariat was hardly there.

Proposals to accomplish these tasks of reconstruction through the continuation and intensification of the measures associated with war communism were debated, but Trotsky's call for the militarisation of labour was defeated and a very different course was taken. Lenin's new economic policy carried the day, giving the regime another breathing space by making economic concessions. Restrictions on small business and private agriculture were relaxed in order to consolidate power and to increase productivity before embarking on a full programme for the socialisation of industrial production and the collectivisation of agriculture.''H Shenan
It is amazing what lengths anarchist will go to
to not explain the historical situation. Lenin at a time of
war and devastation was insisting on a temporary sacrifice of democracy to the needs of production.
Anarchists never seem to notice war and famine but insist on ideal forms at all times.

[peaccenicked]

Here is Lenin over two years later, in more 'normal' times
http://www.marx2mao.org/Lenin/TUTM20.html

(Edited by peaccenicked at 5:46 pm on Mar. 10, 2002)

[libereco]

Quote: from peaccenicked on 5:11 pm on Mar. 10, 2002
''The civil war lasted for three years. Although finally it had been won, the country was nevertheless torn apart from one end to another and, on top of everything else, stricken by famine. Production had come to a halt. The working class had been decimated: killed fighting at the front, massacred in towns taken by the whites, or driven back to the land by massive unemployment. In the one country on earth ruled in the name of the proletariat, the proletariat was hardly there.

Proposals to accomplish these tasks of reconstruction through the continuation and intensification of the measures associated with war communism were debated, but Trotsky's call for the militarisation of labour was defeated and a very different course was taken. Lenin's new economic policy carried the day, giving the regime another breathing space by making economic concessions. Restrictions on small business and private agriculture were relaxed in order to consolidate power and to increase productivity before embarking on a full programme for the socialisation of industrial production and the collectivisation of agriculture.''H Shenan
It is amazing what lengths anarchist will go to
to not explain the historical situation. Lenin at a time of
war and devastation was insisting on a temporary sacrifice of democracy to the needs of production.
Anarchists never seem to notice war and famine but insist on ideal forms at all times.





why do you in reply to that chomsky article that attacked Lenins theory quote some totally unrelated article and defend lenins actions?

[peaccenicked]

totally unrelated?
Where was the civil war in chomskys article.
It somehow disppeared down the ''memory hole''
of history.
The point is industry is indispensible especially in a war situation that devastates production. Democracy can be postponed.
If you want to destroy thinking about history objectively in favour of a method of pointing to state of very real and actual emergency and saying that was the bolshevik ideal, then do so but dont expect me to think that you have been in anyway fair minded about it.

[TheDerminator]

Chomsky: [Quote]
"The organization and the rule of society by socialist savants," wrote, "is the worst of all despotic governments." The leaders of the Communist party will proceed "to liberate [the people] in their own way," concentrating "all administrative power in their own strong hands, because the ignorant people are in need of a strong guardianship...[the mass of the people will be] under the direct command of the state engineers, who will constitute the new privileged political-scientific class." For the proletariat, the new regime "will, in reality, be nothing but a barracks" under the control of a Red bureaucracy. But surely it is "heresy against common sense and historical experience" to believe the "a group of individuals, even the most intelligent and best-intentioned, would be capable of becoming the mind, the soul, the directing and unifying will of the revolutionary movement and the economic organization of the proletariat of all lands." In fact, the "learned minority, which presumes to express the will of the people," will rule in "a pseudo-representative government" that will "serve to conceal the domination of the masses by a handful of privileged elite."...

I need not dwell on the performance of Bakunin's Red bureaucracy when they have succeeded in centralizing state power in their hands, riding to power on a wave of popular movements that they have proceeded to dismantle and finally destroy.

I might also mention in this connection the penetrating studies by the Dutch Marxist scientist Anton Pannekoek. Writing in the late 1930s and then under the German occupation, he discussed "the social ideals growing up in the minds of the intellectual class now that it feels its increasing importance in the process of production: a well-ordered organization of production for use under the direction of technical and scientific experts." These ideals, he pointed out, are shared by the intelligentsia in capitalist societies and by Communist intellectuals, whose aim is "to bring to power, by means of the fighting force of the workers, a layer of leaders who then establish planned production by means of State-Power." They develop the theory that "the talented energetic minority takes the lead and the incapable majority follows and obeys." Their natural social ideology is some version of state socialism, "a design for reconstructing society on the basis of a working class such as the middle class sees it and knows it under capitalism" -- tools of production, submissive, incapable of rational decision. To this mentality, "an economic system where the workers are themselves masters and leaders of their work...is identical with anarchy and chaos." But state socialism, as conceived by the intellectuals, is a plan of social organization "entirely different from a true disposal by the producers over production," true socialism, a system in which workers are "masters of the factories, masters of their own labor, to conduct it at their own will."...

Lenin proclaimed in 1918 that "unquestioning submission to a single will is absolutely necessary for the success of labour processes that are based on large-scale machine-industry...today the Revolution demands, in the interests of socialism, that the masses unquestioningly obey the single will of the leaders of the labour process"; "there is not the least contradiction between society (i.e., socialist) democracy and the use of dictatorial power by a few persons." And two years later: "The transition to practical work is connected with individual authority. This is the system which more than any other assures the best utilization of human resources."

Consider, in comparison, the following dictum:


Vital decision-making, particularly in policy matters, must remain at the top. God...is clearly democratic. He distributes brain power universally, but He quite justifiably expects us to do something efficient and constructive with that priceless gift. That is what management is all about. Its medium is human capacity, and its most fundamental task is to deal with change. It is the gate through which social, political, economic, technological change, indeed change in every dimension, is rationally spread through society...the real threat to democracy comes not from overmanagement, but from undermanagement. To undermanage reality is not to keep it free. It is simply to let some force other than reason shape reality ...if it is not reason that rules man, then man falls short of his potential.
In short, reason demands submission to centralized management: This is true freedom, the realization of democracy. Apart from the reference to God, it would be hard to tell whether the quote is from Lenin, or -- as indeed is the case -- Robert McNamara, a typical example of the scientific and educational estate in state capitalist democracy. [end of Quote]
[b]vox
The "worst of all despotic". Worse than Hitlerism?
Do you think so. You must since you leave no comment. Still, it is odious to compare levels of genocide, though that odium is implicit in the statement if it is made in retrospect as a summation of the history of the last century.
"Savants".. "liberate [the people] in their own way.
The indignity of it all! Marx providing leadership to international socialism" The indignity of it all Lenin providing leadership to the socialist revolutionary movement! The indignity! The outrage of it!
Outrageous! How dare Marx and Lenin, think they know better than everyone else! How dare they?!
What intellectual arrogance!
Just because they ramble on about dialectics, they think they know better than Joe Public with all his innate wisdom! Intellectual snobs! Elitist bastards! Undemocratic ****s! That man Bakunin is just as good as Marx or Lenin, his opinion is just as valid as the next mans or womans for that matter! Fucking real man of the people that man Bakunin, none of your fucking intellectual elitism about him. One of the people! Genuine! The salt of the fucking Earth!
Not like these fucking Communist bureaucrats, who think the people are stupid ignorant ****s just because they vote for the Republican Party or the Democrat Party or support the death penalty or believe in God. I mean academics can do that too, and it does not make them stupid does it?
These fucking ****s with their leadership want to tell everybody how to think as if we can't think for ourselves! They fucking insulting us, as if we are fucking stupid or something. That's what these intellectual snobs like Marx and Lenin think!
Bastards, they ought to let us do our own thinking, and stop trying to patronise us with their "guardianship". Red fucking bureaucrats. Fucking social engineers, just out for themselves! Haven't they heard the brothers and sisters can do it for themselves, just like they are doing it now! They don't fucking trust the salt of the Earth people like we do! Elitist ****s!
The minority is just going to always rule! I mean you cannot democratically elect a good leadership and expect them to operate democratically. That could never happen. That is fucking fantasy world that. I mean imagine having that **** Karl Marx as the leader of the world, "as well intentioned as he might be", I mean he's just going to turn into some version of Joseph Stalin. That is fucking common-sense!
I mean even if we can vote the **** out every five years he's still going to be apart of the same fucking elite of the most intelligent people in the world, and we do not want those bastards running the world for everyone else!
It goes against all fucking common-sense! Elitist bastards. I mean we don't want people stripped of leadership, just because they aren't in the so- called intellectual elite. One opinion is just as good as the next, and it is totally fucking undemocratic to think otherwise. I mean what about fucking equality. This Karl Marx bastard wanting to be the leader of the world.
Fucking ****. How equal is that?
We can all do it together one big fucking mass of us! What's wrong with that? Is real fucking democracy if you ask me! I've got equal fucking rights of Karl fucking Marx! You cannot trust these bastards. Even if we have a democracy when we can elect people who we want they are always going to be some kind of fucking elite. We have to share and share alike, becuase that is just commonsense socialism. Is what it is all about. None of that intellingent leadership shit!
They just want to replace old bossess with new bossess. I mean you can democratically run a factory and everybody can be the boss. Doesn't matter how big the factory is, does not matter if there is a million people in the factory, we can all be the boss, and democratically decide upon every decision in the factory.
Is fucking common sense. No indians and no chiefs, just everybody with different opinions coming to the democratic choice after a democratic debate about every decision. That is real workers control, and if other workers elsewhere do not like our decisions fuck them, it is our fucking democracy. Bastards cannot interefere with us. Want to dictate from outside. Don't know what decentralisation and true democracy is all about. Fuck the whole damn lot. We ought to be able to do things our way, not their way. ****s. Is our fucking work place we know it best! Always have done. Always will do! Power to the people! Is how it works!
I mean its all fucking State-control. Even if we demorcratically elect all the people in charge of the local communities. We just hand control over to the ****s, even though they are answerable to us. It is just electing the most managers, instead of letting us all manage simultaneously. I mean who do the fuck to the ****s think they are just because they have management degrees, as if they know how to better organise things than working people, who have just as good opinions as anybody. Fucking elitist scum. We can fucking vote on every fucking decision! That's democracy!
Even if we can elect our own people the bastards will just become a part of dominating intellectual elite who will just destroy what we build under previous times. Makes fucking commonsense that! Is fucking our fucking experience under the bosses and over in Russia that. Is fucking obvious. The ****s. Doesn't matter how political democratic things are does matter how much democracy is enshrined in the constitution, the bastards will always find some way to piss on the workers. Is fucking common sense and experience! Stupid ****s. We know better than that Karl Marx guy or that Lenin guy. Give us Bakunin and Chomsky any day!
They stand up for the power of the people. They are the genuine socialist democrats. They are fucking solid through and through. None of that intellectual elitist shit from them. They know the score! Fucking Marx and Lenin. Who the fuck they do they think they are compared to Bakunin and Chomsky! Fucking intellectual dwarfs if you ask me!
All this "single will" shit! Want to turn us into fucking zombies! I mean single will for the common good of humanity. Sounds totally fucking unthinking to me! Elitist ****s!
And individual authority! I mean just imagine it. You have this **** Karl Marx in charge of the whole fucking world and there is a split decision fifty-fifty in the top executive, and this **** has the casting vote. Instead of us all having the vote, we rely upon this **** to make the decision as if the **** knows better than whole fucking rest of us put together!
Arrogant elitist fucking bastard. Just because we elected the ****, and gave him power, it has gone to his fucking head, when we could all vote and come up with the right thing do, instead of that intellectual snob imposing his decision on us. Authoratarian bastard!
That's what its all about! We cannot have these self-styled fucking Karl Marx ****s as the boss of the factory. Just like the fucking old boss if you ask me, even if there is a political democracy. Is just the bastards running things for themselves and not for the greater good of humanity, although that is a bit of that one will shit. ****s are a like a fucking virus.
Yeah, everybody ought to be able to play fucking God, that is what democracy is all about! I mean everybody has equal organisational fucking skills. Everybody knows that. The bastards want to undermanage us and even if we could vote the bastards in charge of the economy out the bastards would still treat us like shit, because that his human nature. We all know what human nature is like. I mean its only fucking natural is it not. The most intelligent people are always going to treat the rest as if they are fucking dummies. Is only fucking natural. Can't trust any **** with power except ourselves. We know what do with power alright. That is our experience!
That fucking Pannekoek, was twice the man of Marx and Lenin, just like Bakunin, and Chomsky. He knew not to trust the Commie intellectual elite with power. I mean if you trust those bastards, you are not trusting yourselves, and whole fucking experience is trust no-one except yourselves. Is what we say! The ****s don't trust us to rule ourselves is the fucking bottom line is what I say! Fucking Karl thinks he knows better than everyone else! What total fucking intellectual arrogance!
Where the fuck did he get that idea from. Just because he messed around old redundant Hegel, he thinks he knows better than the rest. Hegel was a reactionary old ****, and even philosophy has moved on from that ****. Fucking Derrida can tell you that!
The bastards just want to dictate from a position of intelligence to the rest of us, is what I say!
I mean, them boss ****s have never got anything right in their fucking lives and if Lenin agrees with some **** representing the bosses, it just shows what a pure fucking **** he is. That only stands to reason!
And yeah, I mean it only stands to reason, that a lot of heads are better than one head, even if that head is the head of Karl fucking Marx, and the **** ought to be submissive to the majority who voted the **** to power instead of the majority being submissive to the ****. That's true fucking democracy! It stands to reason!
What the fuck is the matter with that? It is only fucking common sense. Fucking insulting us!
Durp!
Think we are stupid. Durp!
Got no respect for the people. Durp!
****s. Durp!
I would trade in anarchist workerism for elitist "Marxist" socialist authoratarian intellectual snobbery any damn day. I mean what the fuck did Marx and Lenin know? Stupid ****s. Scum!
All Hail Bakunin, Chomsky and Pannekoek, the real voices of socialist democracy! But let's not call them leaders. That would be taking the piss!
Respect. That is what it is all about! Respect. Respect and trust the people! Those whores Marx and Lenin knew nothing about the respect for real genuine salt of the Earth working people. Can't have respect for those ****s!
Er um...vox. You are peddling the castration of the socialist movement. You are peddling socialism without leadership. You are peddling well-meaning pseudo-democracy. You are peddling anarchist organisation rather than socialist organisation. It is the anathema towards leadership, it is the anathema towards "heirarchal structures".
You are peddling utopian anarchism, because a movement without an effective leadership, is the lamb to the slaughter, and it is the Peter Pan lamb. It is the movement, which can never realise adulthood. It is the dead phoetus inside the womb of advanced BORG society.
It is non-leadership against the leadership of the whole BORG political establishment, BORG media, and BORG cultural power. It is organised adults against unorganised infants.
It is the negation of leadership. The dereliction of leadership. It is anti-leadership, and it is ultimately the leadership of anti-leadership. It is as anti-intellectual, just as Pol Pot was anti-intellectual taken to an extreme.
The anarchists are not Khymer Rouge, but they wouldn't trust intellectuals as far as they could throw them either.
You are a utopian socialist unable to provide leadership. You can only vituperate poison about the "scum" and "****s" who do not accept your quasi-socialist anarchist version of democracy. That is all anarchism is, quasi socialist democracy with a utopian core.
You do not possess the spirit of socialism, you possess the spirit of utopian anarchism, and it is a primitive mindset. Even more primitive than the socialist theory of Lenin, which was a rejection of anarchism.
Rightly, socialist reject anarchism, and Marx would reject anarchism, as strongly as Lenin. It is ultimately the sell-out of the working class, because it leaves them without leadership against the power of the whole world hegemony of the BORGS and their minnions, who do most of the dirty work for the bastards.
Anarchism, is a fucking insult to the working class in the name of "democracy". It is extreme naivety, and it is primitive utopian socialism. All heart and no fucking brain.
Chomsky, has no real analysis of Marx, and says he does not really understand Marx. Just like yourself. Nor do you understand Lenin. You see, the difference, between anarchists and socialists is that we do trust people we democratically elect as leaders to act in our interests, and we would rather trust a Marx to cast his vote, than hold a referundum, because no one, no one, involved in the referendum, is going to make a more considered decision than Karl Marx, and that is why Marx could never never allow a dereliction of his own leadership, if he was elected democratically, the leader of our beleagured planet.
It would be a complete cop out.
A complete negation of his own judgement values, and only a naive egoist would take the decision away from Marx in the name of "world democracy". The bosses are not that stupid you know, and you can pick up any half-baked book on management, and find "no authority without responsibility".
A good leader delegates responsibility as much as possible, and with it hands down authority. That is the nature of power relationships. Democracy, decentralises that control as much as possible, and it deselects those not able to share control openly with people. There is always the power of the people, because they have the ultimate sanction of deselection of the leadership, and that is the heart of socialist democracy.
As much decentralisation as possible mixed with effective centralised accountable leadership. If the BORGS can entrench pseudo-democratic accountability in law; then socialist law can go much further to guarantee the accountability of all democratically elected representatives.
There is no contradiction. The greater good for humanity is a just common will.
vox like Bakunin, Chomsky and Pannekeok (a poor "Marxist") you have rejected the "system", but all you are doing is being an ineffective non-conformist, just like the latter three gentlemen. The system is not threatened by you. You are only an albatross around the neck of a paralysed socialist movement, because you divert people who abhor the system into a sterile flower.
The odour is naive "democratic" workerism and anti-intellectualism. It is the cry of the wounded snared animal unwilling to bite of its limb to free itself from its entrapment. There is no real will for the greater good. Only a voice of anguish at disempowerment. At the end of the proverbial day, it is not enough, and we are right to reject, your lack of socialist vision and negation of socialist leadership.

Be afraid, be very afraid...
Resitance is Futile!

May the Force with [b]U[b]!

derminated



(Edited by TheDerminator at 10:35 pm on Mar. 10, 2002)

[libereco]

Quote: from peaccenicked on 8:46 pm on Mar. 10, 2002
totally unrelated?
Where was the civil war in chomskys article.
It somehow disppeared down the ''memory hole''
of history.


it wasn't in there, because he wasn't talking about it. He was talking about Lenins ideology.

[peaccenicked]

lenins 'ideology'. It is a statement made in the midst of a civil war. Does that not mean anything.
Lets imagine if I pull a gun on you, and you pull a gun on
me and I tell my bullet maker to hurry up with the bullets.
You can go ahead and shoot me. While the bullet maker is questioning the need to make bullets in the first place.
Can you see any connection or you just refusing to do so because you think Chomsky is a brill guy.

[El Che]

Come on derminator, power must be legitimised by the will and the vote of the people. It must be so and it will be so. In this day and age no-one will have it any other way and thank god for that too.

Its a complex world out there, and its even more complex to try and change it. Things must be done openly.

[peaccenicked]

what chomsky and vox, dont seem to mention
is the intervention, It is a little matter that cuts accross the health of the revolution.
''The Russian Civil War, enormously complicated and exacerbated by the "allied intervention" – including that of the United States, created havoc in a Russia already suffering greatly from her participation in the First World War. Transportation and communication, except for the necessities of war, altogether ceased. The uprooting of people, the destruction of livestock and draught animals, the necessary consumption of seed reserves, and then the great drought of 1920-1921 – all practically destroyed Russian society. In the famine of 1921 alone, estimates are that some five million Russians perished. Most authorities place the total loss of Russian life for the years 1914 to 1922, the period of war and civil war, foreign intervention, drought and famine at 20 million. In addition, industrial production and capacity were driven back to levels existing prior to 1900.

Regardless of the social-economic system introduced ''
article from net.

[TheDerminator]

El Che,
Durp!

The vote of the people? Am I not saying there should be a democratic elected socialist leadership, and that leadership should be open to election and deselection at regular intervals every "four or five years"
What are you arguing for daily referanda?
A dereliction of leadership!
Resistance is Futile!
derminated

[libereco]

oh, so in good times he's no authorian leader, but in bad times the people need a strong hand?

[peaccenicked]

''power must be legitimised by the will and the vote of the people.''
The majority of the vote went to the bolsheviks.
The Soviets replaced the constituent assembly as the
Russias democratic institution.

[TheDerminator]

libereco,

Every advanced society is a complex society, and even in a socialist society, the unpredictable can occur, and disagreements over how to respond to the unpredictable can occur, and at such times, strong leadership, ought not to be anathema. You associate strength with Stalin and those of the same ilk, but it is an anarchistic knee-jerk reaction, and not just anarchistic, it is this old mythology, that strength of leadership = authoritarianism.
Reisistance is Futile!

derminated

[El Che]

No im not arguing any daily referendum. But if you are with me in chosing the democratic path then u must abandon this Leninist BS!

[El Che]

strong leadership my fat arse.

[libereco]

yes yes...the people don't know whats good for them, let them be ruled by a small elite that knows everything.

edit: and you're probably part of that elite, eh?



(Edited by libereco at 11:17 pm on Mar. 10, 2002)

[TheDerminator]

El Che,
Intelligent response. Well up to your usual standards!

Resistance is Futile!

derminated

[peaccenicked]

El Che why are you trying to impose your idea of democracy over my idea of democracy.
Is it not better to find out whose ideas are the better.
There is nothing in the theory of marx and Lenin that makes it undemocratic except what you imagine.
Even Chomsky and Vox, quote out of context to the actual events of the revolution. Everything in the State
and Revolution points to this as highly exceptional circumstances. To 'forgot' those circumstances is to lie by ommission.

[El Che]

lol... Look maybe fascism is justfied in catastrofical situations where there is no other option. But to study Lenin and to agree with him, is to chose the path of fascism, and even in the name of the most nobel of causes i wont follow that path. Because of a question of principals regarding that system, fascism, and also because I think it will not achive its goals. You, can see then, from what I have just said, that even if I thought Marxist-Leninism was a "quicker" way fowards socialism I would refuse it, due to the personal issue of principals. I could also speak of the dangers of vanguardism, but i dont think I need to do anything else than alude to the topic.............................



Abandon Leninism comrades!! Avante!

[El Che]

Democracy peace, isnt about electing socialist leadership, its about electing socialists or electing something else. This is "my democracy" anyway...

[TheDerminator]

Libereco

Durp!

At the end of the ole proverbial day, you are saying you would rather have a popular referandum to decide every issue, than an elected government, who represent all the people, and who possess the best leadership skills.
At the end of the ole day, you are saying leadership skills are a bad fucking joke, and your leadership has the equal value of a Karl Marx.
At the end of the day, you are putting your own petty arrogant egoism in your own capacities a head of the capacities of someone like a Marx. I do not know you, and at the end of the day, you could be in that ole leadership for all that I know. If you think we all have the same leadership skills, I can only imagine, you live in some time zone, that I have yet to reach.

Resistance is Futile!

derminated.

(Edited by TheDerminator at 11:36 pm on Mar. 10, 2002)

[El Che]

TheDerminator,

Durp!


"Leadership skills" must be judged by the will and the vote of the people.

Resistence is futile!

El Che.

[peaccenicked]

''yes yes...the people don't know whats good for them, let them be ruled by a small elite that knows everything.''
I think you completely missed the satire, of the Derminator.
This just a philistine, cop out for not, organising,
Oh he must be an elitist, big bad socialist who really wants to become the big boss. It is an anarchist mistrust that plays right into the hands of the capitalist.
Anybody who wants workers power to work must fight against capitalism and in practice we unite around workers committees, we seek election, of course we do.
The workers on strike are our friends. The ones that lose their jobs, they are not stupid by any means.
What do the anarchists want trust, well I dont trust them . They dont even stand for election. They think we are fools. We are not prepared to stand around in permnament opposition to power because it leaves it in the hands of the capitalists.
Those anarchists who want workers power are every
bit as open to the charge of elitism as socialists because it involves organisation, and that means gaining trust.
So in the end the workers dont get power because nobody trusts anybody.
It is absolutely nauseating nonsense that destroys the aspirations of working class liberation.

[libereco]

Quote: from TheDerminator on 11:33 pm on Mar. 10, 2002
Libereco

Durp!

At the end of the ole proverbial day, you are saying you would rather have a popular referandum to decide every issue, than an elected government, who represent all the people, and who possess the best leadership skills.
At the end of the ole day, you are saying leadership skills are a bad fucking joke, and your leadership has the equal value of a Karl Marx.
At the end of the day, you are putting your own petty arrogant egoism in your own capacities a head of the capacities of someone like a Marx. I do not know you, and at the end of the day, you could be in that ole leadership for all that I know. If you think we all have the same leadership skills, I can only imagine, you live in some time zone, that I have yet to reach.

Resistance is Futile!

derminated.




durp, durp, durp,.....fucking durp.

What I believe is that 1000 people are smarter than one when it comes to res publica.
What I believe is that I have a mind of my own and the ablility to think for myself, I am not willing to rule over others nor let others rule over me. I believe that a person shouldn't need to be a authority figure, nor need someone else to be one.

Does that make me an egoist? Hell no. I'm just against opression and against a dictatorship of know-it-alls that think they've got it all figured out.

if those people in power are really so superior, then there is no need for them to protect their power with guns and whatnot, it should justify itself.

durp, durp, fucking durp.

[peaccenicked]

El Che you counterpose repesentative democracy
with participatory democracy. Do you imagine a world wide horizontal structure that has no hierarchy, as far as I can see we have to vote for administrators at least.
How do you propose that a planned economy should be administrated, how can that be done only locally.
Surely in a participatory democracy(which I support), you have to vote for representatives of some sort.

[peaccenicked]

Libereco.
''I am not willing to rule over others nor let others rule over me.''
If you are a democrat, which means the rule of the majority over the minority.
Would that mean you would not accept majority decisions?
If there was a referendum on censorship, would you not vote against it? Would you not excercise the right to vote and if you won the vote would that not make you part of the rulers on that issue. I dont think you have thought this out.

[libereco]

i see consens as the optimum...not majority rule.

censorship is exercising authority over others in a extreme way, wheter or not the majority wants that doesn't matter - it is still not justified.

even if the majority of the people decide that i'm not allowed to have long hair- doesn't mean i'll cut it.

In practice that means that for example when i'm planning to do something with 5 people we often have long debates over whats we want to do. Of course we could go the easy route and have the majority of 3 decide what to do - and leave the other 2 unsatisfied. But we take the hard road of finding a way to please as many of us as possible.

[peaccenicked]

I see consensus as the optimum too.
This is my goal too.
Not majority rule, but I dont see anyway of reaching a consensus, unless we practice democracy first, how can we get rid of the captitalist they wont agree to go away.
It seem the majority must find a way to vote them out of power. Don't you think so. I too have a record of breaking unjust laws but not all laws are unjust, take the right to vote, freedom of assembly, the right to form a trade union, these exist in many countries. These are laws that the majority have won. Thus remain a part of majority rule, I use these laws and I would not like to see them voted away. I support the majority rule on this one. I think you might too. I accept majority rule here.ie rule over me. I agree with you on censorship.
I am asking not about what is the issue of vote but essentially would you use your power of vote, say the issue is capital punishment. If you voted against it and that won the vote, would you not have been a ruler in this decision.
I hope I have made myself clearer.

(Edited by peaccenicked at 1:22 am on Mar. 11, 2002)

[The Iron Heel]

Comksy does great work for the cause, no one will deny this. However, his theoretical outlook is inherently flawed & blatantly impractical due to its anarchistically-derived shortcomings, specifically, the absensce of coherently-defined organization. Chomsky believes that when the Revolution arrives everything will just magically work itself out. Of the ongoing post-revolutionary struggle he speaks little if anything.

Since there is no socialist-to-communist transition in the wroldview he promotes, we arrive at the final phase of communism (though anarchists may use a different term for this) in one single stroke, as if by magic.

Can any revolutionary gains be sustained, defended, retained, not to mention expand by the adoption of such a shortsighed approach? In my opinion, only in the realm of fantasy it can.

How does one get millions of people to choose wise policy choices during times of immediate struggle & emergency? How does one accomplish this under the banner of 'direct democracy' (as opposed to capitalistically-influenced liberal democratic electoral procedures) ? How would one even combat capitalistic influences if they believed that once the revolution arrives their class enemies will all tend to just dissappear, as if by an act of goat.

Sound like a very anarchical (& not a very well thought out) approach, as it should (the anarchical part at least :P ). But when the machinery of capitalism strikes back there will be little time to debate at length what do in this & that situation amongst the million of participants in the revolution.

The revolution (& post revolution!) are almost always times of emergency & great peril. Without a vangaurd the movement is doomed to defeat by the (therefore superior) organization of the ruling class (since the movement chooses to abandon effective organization).

(Edited by The Iron Heel at 6:56 am on Mar. 11, 2002)

[El Che]

Either im not being very clear or you people are not understanding what im writting down on this here virtual piece of paper.



El Che you counterpose repesentative democracy
with participatory democracy. Do you imagine a world wide horizontal structure that has no hierarchy, as far as I can see we have to vote for administrators at least.
How do you propose that a planned economy should be administrated, how can that be done only locally.
Surely in a participatory democracy(which I support), you have to vote for representatives of some sort.~


Where did I ever speak of direct democracy? I did not. It is not practical nore viable. Dont know where this is coming from but I can only deduce that you jumping to conclusions as to what my positions are. I speak not for "direct" democracy but for a representative one, in which, the hole of society is represented. Yes that means non-socialists too.



Comksy does great work for the cause, no one will deny this. However, his theoretical outlook is inherently flawed & blatantly impractical due to its anarchistically-derived shortcomings, specifically, the absensce of coherently-defined organization. Chomsky believes that when the Revolution arrives everything will just magically work itself out. Of the ongoing post-revolutionary struggle he speaks little if anything.

Since there is no socialist-to-communist transition in the wroldview he promotes, we arrive at the final phase of communism (though anarchists may use a different term for this) in one single stroke, as if by magic.

Can any revolutionary gains be sustained, defended, retained, not to mention expand by the adoption of such a shortsighed approach? In my opinion, only in the realm of fantasy it can.

How does one get millions of people to choose wise policy choices during times of immediate struggle & emergency? How does one accomplish this under the banner of 'direct democracy' (as opposed to capitalistically-influenced liberal democratic electoral procedures) ? How would one even combat capitalistic influences if they believed that once the revolution arrives their class enemies will all tend to just dissappear, as if by an act of goat.

Sound like a very anarchical (& not a very well thought out) approach, as it should (the anarchical part at least :P ). But when the machinery of capitalism strikes back there will be little time to debate at length what do in this & that situation amongst the million of participants in the revolution.

The revolution (& post revolution!) are almost always times of emergency & great peril. Without a vangaurd the movement is doomed to defeat by the (therefore superior) organization of the ruling class (since the movement chooses to abandon effective organization).

Organise your movements, whatever they may be, in whatever way you fancy. If you think something works best a certain way then do it that way. Or join those that do. I may agree or I may disagree. But you know what? that is totaly irrelevant. Yup. Drup! You see the problem arrises when you and yours want to impose an organisation on the rest of us. That is the issue. That is what is unaceptable. Contrary to human rights and common sense. I disagree with such a flawed political stance on such a wide variety of levels that it is really futile to enumerate them all. It is self evident I believe.


On a related note, how do you know that after socialism comes communism? maybe marx was wrong, maybe it wont happen that way. Maybe it will just get worked out as mankind progresses. Maybe just maybe my friend, history wont follow the path you have so meticulasly and so caculatedly layed out for it. Maybe to do so is in and of its self a mistake. Indeed. Meditate on these words, or better yet seak someone who can say it better, for what I am trying to tell you, in refering the folishness and indeed dangerousness of atempting to over determine what the future will be, how evolution should process its self and which is the path of true evolution, or even indeed if such a thing can be layed out, is that this will not only blind you the actual reality but also, more serious consequence this, besthou apon you an authority, as agent of human progress(this constituting a pseudo-scientific fact), that you do not indeed possess. This is where the vanguard gets its legitemacy from, legitemacy which in fact derives from the delusional/esquisofrenic state, believing they are the agents of human evolution scientificaly proved to have to conform to a certain model, setps, they have all the legitemacy to go above the opinions/votes of others, for these others either do not understand their proof or are members of the criminal class of previledge. Can it? I feel those who atempt to do this will inevitably fall prey to there own creations of what reality should be that they fail to see the actual reality they are creating differes alot from the mental idealisation of the same.





Things are not as simple as we would wish them to be.
Be humble, we dont know everthing.
Durp!

(Edited by El Che at 8:40 am on Mar. 11, 2002)

[TheDerminator]

El Che,

Your good! Your good!
That's right we organise any way we want to fucking organise. It is all the same! It does not fucking matter the way you do it! It is totally fucking irrelevant!
Who gives a shit about all that organisational crap! Is totally fucking irrelavant, and one way is as good as another. Everybody ought to be able to do what they want! That's fucking democracy! That's what its all about! Your good! Your good!
Yep. It is totally fucking flawed! It is totally fucking self-evident! You don't go around imposing shit on people from above! Arrogant intellectual elitist scum!
I mean. Fucking hell. Fucking Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gramsci and Trotsky, think they know better than all of us on how to organise, just because they have read some fucking obscure book by that reactionary **** Hegel on that elitist "dialectic" shit that no one can understand! ****s!
What the fuck do those bastards know that Joe Public does not know. It is a complete fucking insult to the people. It is totally undemocratic! Who the fuck do they think they are? Fucking playing God, the bastards!
We have all got commonsense! It is all commonsense we are talking! Just self-evident commonsense! None of that dialectical shit that is only for the elitist fucking snobs! Is fucking common sense that we need!
Is fucking self-evident! Your good! Your good!
I mean these ****s think they have a crystal ball! They think they can predict the future! Fucking astrologists, the whole fucking lot!
I mean all this "vision for the greater good of humanity" shit! As if you can predict that if there is a socialist society, the biggest tasks will be to end the uneven develop of the world and safeguard the ecology of the world. I mean what the fuck is that about? Who the fuck can predict that far ahead?
We make it all up as we go along! That's the way to do it! That's the way we've always done it! That's the real fucking world. Day to day practical fucking experience. Learn the fucking hard way! That is only fucking natural! None of this theory led practise shit. By theorists; for the fucking theorists is what I say!
That Karl Marx bastard was fucking blind! Your good! Your good! The bastards are not going over-determine fucking me! Your good!
That is right once you get that vision thing, you cannot see the fucking wood for the trees! Is fucking self-evident that! You become a big fucking authority knowing everything before it happens! Fucking astrologers! Fucking non-reality! Fucking hell! You can be hit by a bus tommorow! Try your astrology on that! Fucking get real. Anything can happen in the complex, world and we just make up all our responses as we go along! That's fucking life! Your good! Your good!
No fucking facts. It is only fucking a big fucking guess that we need to make ending uneven development our top priority with safeguarding the ecology of our planet.
I mean that is a totally irrational wild fucking guess! Based on what fucking facts! We need hard fucking facts! Absolute facts! It is only fucking commonsene!
We cannot act without the fucking facts! Your good! Your good!
You've got it my friend. You've got it! They are a bunch of illegitimate schizophrenic bastards! They are nutters! Power mad ****s! Especially, that Karl Marx ****! Workers of the world unite! Unite behind Karl Marx he meant! Power mad schizoid ****! A fucking loony mad bastard, if you ask me!
That's it! That's it! It does not matter how democratic the socialist world is, if we elect these ****s and we do not conform to their model of the world, even if we vote them out, we can never really get rid of the ****s! Fuck man. It is only self-evident commonsense! ****s are going to treat every non-conformist as a degenerate criminal. Is fucking obvious! Russia proves it! China proves it! Pol Pot proves it! Is fucking self-evident commonsense. We do not want these self-styled dialecticians in charge of the world. It is power to the fucking people, and that is what democracy is all about. Joe Public is the fucking equal of Karl Marx! And I would put my trust in Joe Public any day rather than that **** Karl Marx! What the fuck did that **** know? Was just a fucking economist! And his friend Engels had fucking business interests! Sums it all up! Hypocritical ****s!
Your good! Your good! There is a difference between idealist theoretical reality, and practical reality, and these bastards are living in some ivory fucking towers!
Your good! Fucking "well-intentioned" schizophrenics living in two realities! Your good! Your good!
I mean its only self-evident, it is only fucking common sense, that theory led practise is inferior to practise led theory. We can only make things up as reality happens and that is fucking reality! The hard fucking facts of life is what I call it! None of this socialist vision from above shit! They are making that up as they go along. Fucking uneven develop, fucking environmental disaster, what the fuck is all that about? Can't be living in our real fucking world!
These intellectual elitist ****s like Marx and Lenin, and even that Che Guevara one need some of our fucking common sense! I mean, fucking Fidel and Che leading the revolution. What was all that about? Fucking imposing their leadership on the Cuban people!
Fucking intellectual imperialism, is what I call it! Fucking imperialists! ****s! Power to the people! The overthrow of Batista did not need those ****s! Fucking schizophrenic ****s! No fucking respect for the people of Cuba!
Durp! Durp! Durp! Durp! Durp! Durp! Durp! Durp!
Your good! Your good!

Resistance is Futile!

May the Force be with U!

derminated

[Rosa]

Derminator, you’re talking like Che is some “anti-intelectual freak”:if he expressed skepsa about “changes guided by intelectulas”, than he must have some reason for doing that. Acctualy, I’m familiar with his attitude: look how that “ideas” are developed, or realised in “material world”: Nietzsche-nazism, Marx-stalinistic totalitrism, Rousseau-Pol-Pot (ism) etc etc.(can’t remember the author of liberalism theory, but he certainly didn’t had present capitalism to happen).
But yet, (even if I think that you’re bl. fuck. something that belongs to hell)(calm down peaccenick, it's nothing serious), i have to agree with you: human being is not the one that learns only in Pavlovljev’s way, we’re not like that lab-rats, and we can make predictions using logic, and we can make creations in world of ideas.
Che is cautious, and can understand him.
To El Che: don’t you think that all that bad interpretations of ideas were consequence of fact that common-people used (after they made such a bad interpretation) them and common people wanted to realise them? i think that that’s what happened, and think that common-people need education, not just learning facts, but (disagree with Heracllit) education in thinking. Bcs it’s (obviously)forgotten possibility of a brain. It can be done. But not by current-common-non-thinking-man. Not by brainwashed-common-people-elected dabya to decide about their education system, media that should provide them with informations and knowledge, and give the legitimicy of deciding what are estethic values to a members of his party (“reproduction of antique sculpture of godess of justice should have covered brests” bcs “it’s not estheticly valuable” the moron says and decides) Hope you understand me.

[TheDerminator]

Rosa,

I think you are being a bit naive. The reasons for the anti-intellectualism of vox, El Che and libereco are not just anti-Stalinism. I am an anti-Stalinist as even Moskitto can testify, and you can check that out on the thread about why Stalin was supposed be more advanced than Lenin, by some mindless Stalinist. I abhor Stalinism, but I know that the anti-intellectualism is not just Anti-Stalinism. It is engrained in pseudosocialist anarchism, as the quote from Chomsky proves beyond any doubt.
Chomsky gives the rationale reasons, and at the end of the ole day, you have to call a spade a spade as the saying goes.El Che by his own admission is coming from the "self-evident" "commonsense" of "totally irrelevant" organisation.
Totally irrelevant? Come on, that is infantile stuff, and you cannot gloss over its naivety. It is stripping the socialist movement of effective organisation.
Marx = Stalinism? Nietsche = nazism? Rousseau = Pol-Potism!
You may as well go in the hole hog and put in the "=" sign my friend, because that is the simplistic equation of the anarchists. All = totalitarian authoratarianism.
A BORG academic could write the same script, and it is equally simplisitic, and inequal insult to three philosophers. That includes Nietsche, who never extolled "the virtue" of the extermination of Jewish people. It is intrinisically ignorant to blame the philosophers, for these crude bastardisations of their philosophies. It is also convenient for the BORGS and even for the anarchist movement to make the same equation. I am not saying you make that equation Rosa, only that if you take the logic to its final conclusion you take the side of the pseudo-socialist anarchists.
As for Heraclitus, it seems to me that many many people with the BORG mindset have an adequate education in the industrialised nations. The broadsheet newspapers sell in millions, and you do not need to be university educated in order to read a broadsheet.
The so-called quality press appeals to a reasonably large section of these socieities, and you cannot doubt that among this section are some extremely well educated people.
Heraclitus, is right. Even a high level of eclectic education does not mean that even the academic involved understands there is a genocide of wanton neglect, or understands the evil that poverty represents or understands the necessity to replace global BORG society with a global socialist society.
There is no contradiction, education can be eclectic knowledege in social consciousness. Understanding of modern human conditions is socialist political knowledge. We cannot call the BORG academics uneducated, only lacking a political socialist consciousness.
A socialist can be (spot the irony) a security guard and have no formal qualifications, and understand more about the true nature of the world, than a BORG academic devoting her/his life to the study of symbolic logic, or even to the deconstructionism of Derrida, or the discourse of Haebermas, even though they have some leftist leanings.
Socialism, has always transcended class boundaries. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Gramsci, Che, Fidel, and many many others are all testament to that. If you want to educate people to leave their prejudices behind you have perhaps more chance with an illeterate with average intelligence, than some egocentric academic coming from forty different positions at the one time. Who knows? It all depends on the person, and you cannot equate illiteracy with a lack of intellect, only with a lack of an education, and these are not the same things. Knowledge only = understanding when it is true knowledge. Much knowledge = without a depth of true knowledge = BORG eclecticism.

May the Force be with U!

derminated

[libereco]

Quote: from TheDerminator on 8:03 pm on Mar. 11, 2002
The reasons for the anti-intellectualism of vox, El Che and libereco are not just anti-Stalinism.

so could you tell me why i'm "anti-intellectualist"?
Or is an intellectual an elitarian in your book?

Define intellectuals and anti-intellectualists please.

[The Iron Heel]

Things are not as simple as we would wish them to be. Be humble, we dont know everthing.

When humility turns into futility. When it turns into 'we can't know, so why try to elaborate on practical matters of great necessity', then you are entering into the realm of theology (or at best the simplistic 'common sense' of reactionary anti-leftist forces), as opposed to critical scientific thinking, sound analyses, and the determination to go beyond idle bourgeois intellectualism.

[TheDerminator]

libereco,

The anti-intellectualism, is fundamental to the anarchist position, which pretends a false equality in relation to leadership. Leadership is seen as anathema, and in the name of "democracy" the rule of the elected representatives of the socialist movement is seen as an elitist power structure, which does not share power with the people. El Che, would call it self-evident commonsense, as might vox, and from your previous post in this thread, unless I have compeletely misunderstood, you seem to share this anathema, for leadership.
Ultimately, it is still anti-intellectualism, because when you take it to its final conclusion, power transfers from the most skilled to the less skilled. That is not democracy, it is naive anti-intellectualism. International organisation of a vibrant socialist movement is a high skill, it is a complex approach, because it has to be simultaneously national and international.
The alternative is only national based socialist parties, and as patriotic as that sounds, it is a dreadful tactical error. It is the isolation, sectionalisation, and marginalisation of the socialist movement and is part of the paralysis of the socialist movement.
We can only be patriotic to the people of the world. All other patriotism, is primitive socialism at most, and "the last refuge of a scoundrel" at its worst.
Naive anarchist politics is a sell out of the working class, because it leaves them, without adequate leadership.
Define intellectuals?
Well intelligence is not too difficult an area to understand. People have various intellects. We are all are different people. We do not possess the same personality, and this includes intellects, since the brain is a complex mechanism, and what one person understands in one area, another understands in another, so there is no actual dividing line which measures levels of intellect, and the IQ Test is a complete fucking insult to people lacking education rather than intellect.
Still, although there are no concrete dividing lines, it is a bit idealistic to believe this means there is an equality in intellect between individuals. I have no qualms in saying that Marx, Einstein, Da Vinci, Shakespeare, Freud, Aristotle, Plato, Kant, Hegel, Nietsche, Rousseau, etc, were intellectuals, and that their intelligence was on a higher level than Elvis, Dan Quayle, Mike Tyson, Ted Bundy etc.
Come on, everyone is an intellectual? Is there really an equality?
I would not like to start classifying levels of intelligence too much, but it seems to me, that historical development shows that few people have a low intelligence. Most people believe they have a good common-sense grasp of the reality of the world, and though some people have no confidence in their intellects, they really are not people who are unfortunate enough to be born with a genetic reason which limits the capacity of their intelligence lower than most of the people on the planet. Such people do exist, and society has a huge responsibility towards them.
All the same, they are not on the level of even an Elvis, a Dan Quayle or even a Ted Bundy for that matter.
The latter three possessed various degrees of average intelligence.
You cannot draw an invisible line between low intelligence and average intelligence. People have various levels of knowedge, and some like Elvis may have had more skills than a Dan Quayle or just different skills, and some people with low intelligence can be very close to average intelligence and some can possess skills, that people of average intelligence do not possess. People with learning difficulties, can be very methodical in relation to understanding the functions of computers, and make fewer errors than those who do not learn with a slow methodology. More than a few people with average intelligence are intimidated by computers.
You have to be careful, how you categorise people, and where you draw invisible lines, because such lines are not easily quanitifiable.
Yet, I have worked with people with learning difficulties, and there is no real debate, they possess a lower intelligence of the vast majority.
Most people have average intelligence, and that is a high level of intelligence. Someone like a Dan Quayle can become a Vice-President, a lawyer, a doctor and so on. If you think average intelligence is at a low level, it seems to me, you have taken on board eugenics.
Most people have a high capacity as an infant, but that capacity is deroded when BORG society gives the infants an inequal starting point through institutionalised poverty. Some illeterate people could have went on to become doctors and lawyers given the same background as those BORGS with a similar capacity.
Few people have a higher than average capacity, such as Marx, Aristotle, Hegel, Einstein, Kant, Darwin, Plato, Lenin, Engels, Gramsci and so on. We know some of their names, although not them all, because capacities lay dorminant, and many potentials are never reached.
What is an intellectual? Seems to me an irrelevant question in the sense that average intelligence is a high intelligence, and at various degrees overlaps with high intelligence in relation to skills. It is irrelevant, because average intelligence is a high intelligence in its self, and on the level of intellectualism, it means most people are born with the capacity to read the broadsheets newspapers, and to appreciate a high level of culture, but are limited by upbringing. That is the scale of the tragedy. Most people are not dummies voting for imperialism, they are badly educated people with little confidence in their own intellects, and you meet more than just a few people in life, if you are not cocooned from reality.
What is "intellectualism" it seems to me, on the whole the superficial separation of people of average intelligence by dint of social and educational background.
It is not the discourse of the philosophers. It is a superficial societal label.
Nevertheless, it is appropiate enough to use anti-intellectualism, to describe part of the mindset of the Year Zero of Pol Pot, and it is appropiate to relate it to anarchism, because also within average intelligence there are various levels of intelligence, and we should always rely upon our most skilled to provide the best leadership available. Leadership is a skill, and and anti-intelluctualism does not recognise that skill, it only sees a psuedo-democratic equality, which does not exist in reality.
Where is the equality of intelligence? How can you say we are all made of the same stuff in the brain? Wish it were true, but history proves it untrue.

May the Force be with U!

derminated

[Rosa]

Dermy: 1)of course that I personally don't make equation betw. ideologies, and their "realisation", but it's a good reason for El Che to be suspicious about possibility of "right realisation of some system of ideas",okay?
2)About sufficient education of people with BORG mindset: your words are saying that you think that Borg mindset is the set that people have since they're born. And I know you don't think that.
3)Don't you understand, or do you read too fast (again)?
In next letter you say that intelligence is something that can be developed while growing (it's really the truth), so I wanted to say that society, or "social idealists like us" should do that kind of education.Education as developing intelligence of a child,it the meaning of that word is not only "filling with informations"... and of c:agree with you - developing consciousness(HAVE YOU READ THAT PROGRAM IN US SCHOOLS?,it's somewhere on this pages:they learn child to think that he is the most valuable person in the World...).
When that job(education) is done, democracy can be what it suppose to be.
P.S. Heraclit was wrong, for he says that "understanding can't be learned" (in extension of your citation)

[The Iron Heel]

Well said, commarde Edit: TheDerminator. I will add that having a good grasp in one area of specialization is does no qualify one for the same understanding in other fields.

The tendency (only a tendency) is that the more one becomes specialized on one particular field, the more they understand their limitation of other fields. Whereas those who lack a level of specialization in a specific field often lack that sort of intellectual humility.

So don't get me wrong, (intellectual) humility is a great asset to have. For example, I often have discussions with my phsyician about issues of historical, social, economic, etc. nature. He is quite ignorant, almost anti-intellectual even, when it comes to these matters, but that because he specializes in medicine whereas I specialize in 19th and 20th Century history. When we discuss chemistry, biology, etc. I am the one who is ignorant & almost anti-intellectual in this sense. But with the adoption of this aforementioned humility both of us can get a grasp of the other's field of specialty.

And now, let me throw this humility out the window with the following passage! :)

`This is, of course, no reflection on you,' Ernest said. `Every man to his trade. Only you stick to your trade, and I'll stick to mine. You have specialized. When it comes to a knowledge of the law, of how best to evade the law or make new law for the benefit of thieving corporations, I am down in the dirt at your feet. But when it comes to sociology--my trade--you are down in the dirt at my feet. Remember that. Remember, also, that your law is the stuff of a day, and that you are not versatile in the stuff of more than a day. Therefore your dogmatic assertions and rash generalizations on things historical and sociological are not worth the breath you waste on them.'

(Edited by The Iron Heel at 10:57 pm on Mar. 11, 2002)

[libereco]

Quote: from TheDerminator on 10:03 pm on Mar. 11, 2002
ibereco,

The anti-intellectualism, is fundamental to the anarchist position, which pretends a false equality in relation to leadership. Leadership is seen as anathema, and in the name of "democracy" the rule of the elected representatives of the socialist movement is seen as an elitist power structure, which does not share power with the people. El Che, would call it self-evident commonsense, as might vox, and from your previous post in this thread, unless I have compeletely misunderstood, you seem to share this anathema, for leadership.
Ultimately, it is still anti-intellectualism, because when you take it to its final conclusion, power transfers from the most skilled to the less skilled. That is not democracy, it is naive anti-intellectualism. International organisation of a vibrant socialist movement is a high skill, it is a complex approach, because it has to be simultaneously national and international.

So intellectualism means that the one with the highest intellect has the right to tell everyone else what to do?
Just answer this question, because if that is what it means , then you may call me anti-intellectualist.

I do recognize that not everyone has the same intellect. I never doubted that. But I don’t think that the person with the higher intellect has more rights than the person with the lower intellect. I don’t think that the person with the higher intellect can just claim a leadership role. If they’re smart and have a high intellect they will be able to do good to the community and people will listen to them anyway, no need to become our new führer.


The alternative is only national based socialist parties, and as patriotic as that sounds, it is a dreadful tactical error. It is the isolation, sectionalisation, and marginalisation of the socialist movement and is part of the paralysis of the socialist movement.
We can only be patriotic to the people of the world. All other patriotism, is primitive socialism at most, and "the last refuge of a scoundrel" at its worst.

Okay....how the hell did you get the idea that i’m a patriot? Or that I want Nationalist socialist parties?
I don’t believe in Nation States. I don’t give a damn about Patriotism. If I could I would give away both my passports and live nationless. (but i kind of want to be able to travel.)


Naive anarchist politics is a sell out of the working class, because it leaves them, without adequate leadership.

again you assume that a working class member doesn’t even have enough brains to live on his own without a leader!

Define intellectuals?
Well intelligence is not too difficult an area to understand. People have various intellects. We are all are different people. We do not possess the same personality, and this includes intellects, since the brain is a complex mechanism, and what one person understands in one area, another understands in another, so there is no actual dividing line which measures levels of intellect, and the IQ Test is a complete fucking insult to people lacking education rather than intellect.

Actually intellect does consist of knowledge as well. You’re thinking of intellegence wich the IQ tests are supposedly testing, and I agree that they are crap.

Still, although there are no concrete dividing lines, it is a bit idealistic to believe this means there is an equality in intellect between individuals. I have no qualms in saying that Marx, Einstein, Da Vinci, Shakespeare, Freud, Aristotle, Plato, Kant, Hegel, Nietsche, Rousseau, etc, were intellectuals, and that their intelligence was on a higher level than Elvis, Dan Quayle, Mike Tyson, Ted Bundy etc.
Come on, everyone is an intellectual? Is there really an equality?

You have the wrong idea of equality. Equality does not mean that we are all created equal and have the exact same intellect, character, looks or whatever. It means that we all have the same rights.
Even if somone is stupid you can still not boss him around!
If by some biological studies it were proven that Asians for example were slightly less intellegent than Caucasians, would that give us the right to claim leadership? (and I don’t think that anything like that is true, but it may well from a biological stand point)

I would not like to start classifying levels of intelligence too much, but it seems to me, that historical development shows that few people have a low intelligence. Most people believe they have a good common-sense grasp of the reality of the world, and though some people have no confidence in their intellects, they really are not people who are unfortunate enough to be born with a genetic reason which limits the capacity of their intelligence lower than most of the people on the planet. Such people do exist, and society has a huge responsibility towards them.

...

All the same, they are not on the level of even an Elvis, a Dan Quayle or even a Ted Bundy for that matter.
The latter three possessed various degrees of average intelligence.
You cannot draw an invisible line between low intelligence and average intelligence. People have various levels of knowedge, and some like Elvis may have had more skills than a Dan Quayle or just different skills, and some people with low intelligence can be very close to average intelligence and some can possess skills, that people of average intelligence do not possess. People with learning difficulties, can be very methodical in relation to understanding the functions of computers, and make fewer errors than those who do not learn with a slow methodology. More than a few people with average intelligence are intimidated by computers.
You have to be careful, how you categorise people, and where you draw invisible lines, because such lines are not easily quanitifiable.
Yet, I have worked with people with learning difficulties, and there is no real debate, they possess a lower intelligence of the vast majority.
Most people have average intelligence, and that is a high level of intelligence. Someone like a Dan Quayle can become a Vice-President, a lawyer, a doctor and so on. If you think average intelligence is at a low level, it seems to me, you have taken on board eugenics.
Most people have a high capacity as an infant, but that capacity is deroded when BORG society gives the infants an inequal starting point through institutionalised poverty. Some illeterate people could have went on to become doctors and lawyers given the same background as those BORGS with a similar capacity.
Few people have a higher than average capacity, such as Marx, Aristotle, Hegel, Einstein, Kant, Darwin, Plato, Lenin, Engels, Gramsci and so on. We know some of their names, although not them all, because capacities lay dorminant, and many potentials are never reached.

What is an intellectual? Seems to me an irrelevant question in the sense that average intelligence is a high intelligence, and at various degrees overlaps with high intelligence in relation to skills. It is irrelevant, because average intelligence is a high intelligence in its self, and on the level of intellectualism, it means most people are born with the capacity to read the broadsheets newspapers, and to appreciate a high level of culture, but are limited by upbringing. That is the scale of the tragedy. Most people are not dummies voting for imperialism, they are badly educated people with little confidence in their own intellects, and you meet more than just a few people in life, if you are not cocooned from reality.
What is "intellectualism" it seems to me, on the whole the superficial separation of people of average intelligence by dint of social and educational background.
It is not the discourse of the philosophers. It is a superficial societal label.


...

Nevertheless, it is appropiate enough to use anti-intellectualism, to describe part of the mindset of the Year Zero of Pol Pot, and it is appropiate to relate it to anarchism, because also within average intelligence there are various levels of intelligence, and we should always rely upon our most skilled to provide the best leadership available. Leadership is a skill, and and anti-intelluctualism does not recognise that skill, it only sees a psuedo-democratic equality, which does not exist in reality.

i’ll make this clear to you: Intellectuals != Leaders
to be against leaders doesn’t mean that one thinks that noone is smarter than anyone else.

As you mentioned Einstein as an Intellectual i’ll quote him: „It is not enough for a handful of experts to attempt the solution of a problem, to solve it and then to apply it. The restriction of knowledge to an elite group destroys the spirit of society and leads to intellectual impoverishment.“ – Albert Einstein

Where is the equality of intelligence? How can you say we are all made of the same stuff in the brain? Wish it were true, but history proves it untrue.

I never said that. How can you say you have the right to tell your neighbor what to do just because you may have a slightly higher intellect than he does?





(Edited by libereco at 10:58 pm on Mar. 11, 2002)


(Edited by libereco at 10:59 pm on Mar. 11, 2002)

[peaccenicked]

It was Gramsci who came up with this formula.
"A psuedo intellectual obscures reality
An intellectual clarifies reality.
Chomsky, in one of his brighter moments when asked what intellectuals should do said
''Be honest, expose lies, tell the truth."
What is an anti-intellectual is basically someone who rigidly narrows the scope of the labour movement.
The idea that intellectuals per se can not be trusted
because they think most people are stupid is like burying a major source of education. These people are not a stones throw away from Pol pot.
I know I am trustworthy.
Vox says I am not trustworthy because I am 'scum'
He seems to go along with the logic that I am scum
because I claim to know better than the workers and want to tell them what to do.
I know I am not like that, I only know what I have studied and it is all open to question, I would like other workers to study what I study and I have only had little authority as an elected representative, chair meetings,
that allow each to raise their agenda and address that agenda to their satisfaction. So I know I do not impose my beliefs on others.
Vox says he knows me, I am'scum".
He strongly implies he knows me better than I do,otherwise what authority does he have to call me 'scum'.
He also treats me as though I think it is right to impose my will on others, because of something lenin did in the course of the civil war and US and allied invasion of Russia. As if I identify the huge 40 or more volumes of
Lenin's work with an undemocratic act in a State of emergency. He assumed my position on this was that Lenin did this out of power seeking and not of desperation in a worn torn country.
Therefore he knows me better than I know myself, therefore I am 'scum'
And it is the anarchists and 'democratic' marxists, who know that all Leninists cant be trusted.
They seek power.
I know I do not seek personal power, I seek power for the working class.
Vox has called me a 'failed academic'
Yet is him who knows who I am with such confidence he can call me 'scum'
So he is trying to tell me I am stupid and that he is an intellectual superior.
All the while it is me that is being accused of thinking I
know better than the workers and thinking workers are stupid.
Yeah run that by me again, It is stinking hypocrisy.
This drags anti capitalist 'intellectualism' through the mud.


(Edited by peaccenicked at 11:13 pm on Mar. 11, 2002)

[libereco]

Quote: from peaccenicked on 11:07 pm on Mar. 11, 2002
He also treats me as though I think it is right to impose my will on others, because of something lenin did in the course of the civil war and US and allied invasion of Russia. As if I identify the huge 40 or more volumes of
Lenin's work with an undemocratic act in a State of emergency. He assumed my position on this was that Lenin did this out of power seeking and not of desperation in a worn torn country.[/b]

well, chomsky quoted bakunin. Do you think bakunin would have acted like lenin when put into his shoes? No? Then he has a right to critisize him.
Do you think chomsky would have acted like lenin?


p.s. I'm going to sleep now, big ass physiks exam tommorow morning - so nyah.


(Edited by libereco at 11:14 pm on Mar. 11, 2002)

[peaccenicked]

The question of criticising Lenin holds no problems
for me. He may have been wrong but what I do criticise
is that He did this because he saw it as a matter of personal power. His position is industry is indespensible to the war effort democracy is not.
That does make some sense.
If that is the position that is wrong. that is the position that should be criticised. It hardly shows to me that this position was his rigid position and it was not, it was a flexible position in a worn torn country which was experiencing industrial collapse.
This is all open to question to me still and I hardly think
that is grounds for calling Lenin scum.
Chomsky and Bakunin, of course can not be placed in Lenin's position, there is no argument here.
The argument is can democracy be postponed in times of dire necessity. World war two was not known
for its questioning of authority. It was all national unity and everyone round the war effort. Do socialists conduct wars differently. Ideally socialist dont conduct wars at all but it was their own country invaded by over ten foriegn armies,including the US its all. A problem that Chomsky or Bakunin really have never had to face.
Why does the civil war go down the 'memory hole'
when this question is adressed.
No one has shown me that this is an unfair question.
Where is chomsky's honesty here.
Is he really telling the truth when he misses out such
an important 'detail'?

[El Che]

"When humility turns into futility. When it turns into 'we can't know, so why try to elaborate on practical matters of great necessity', then you are entering into the realm of theology (or at best the simplistic 'common sense' of reactionary anti-leftist forces), as opposed to critical scientific thinking, sound analyses, and the determination to go beyond idle bourgeois intellectualism".

By all means, be active. Just dont try and impose your views on the rest of society. You see the difference here? You have no right. Fascism i say. And will continue to say until the day I die.


"El Che by his own admission is coming from the "self-evident" "commonsense" of "totally irrelevant" organisation.
Totally irrelevant? Come on, that is infantile stuff, and you cannot gloss over its naivety. It is stripping the socialist movement of effective organisation."

Lol, I think your replies are infantile. You toke what I said out of context, what i was infact saying, was that to the point I was making, the point of democracy VS fascism, your bullshit about organisation necessity, power and democratic centralism are irrelevant. Because what concerns us is not the power structure of any given movement, but the power structure of society. Either you are not understanding this very simple premiss or you are just being infantile.


"To El Che: don’t you think that all that bad interpretations of ideas were consequence of fact that common-people used (after they made such a bad interpretation) them and common people wanted to realise them? i think that that’s what happened, and think that common-people need education, not just learning facts, but (disagree with Heracllit) education in thinking. Bcs it’s (obviously)forgotten possibility of a brain. It can be done. But not by current-common-non-thinking-man. Not by brainwashed-common-people-elected dabya to decide about their education system, media that should provide them with informations and knowledge, and give the legitimicy of deciding what are estethic values to a members of his party (“reproduction of antique sculpture of godess of justice should have covered brests” bcs “it’s not estheticly valuable” the moron says and decides) Hope you understand me."
Well personaly I dont like the term "educate", doesnt sound right. Sounds as if we know everything, as if we cant be wrong. Again this is a flawed position, both in life and where politics are concerned. But yes i think there is much to be done towards a society that makes closer atention to their own rights. Political participation is a right of the people that has been taken away by the corrupt political class of today, that pushes the people away from politics. Politics are not for politicians, they concern us all, we need to get people active, thinking about the problems of their society and how to resolve them. We need serious informational services and we need the TV to be less futile and more educative. We need a hell of alot of things.

(Edited by El Che at 7:52 am on Mar. 12, 2002)


(Edited by El Che at 7:55 am on Mar. 12, 2002)

[TheDerminator]

Rosa,
[1] I only think the suspicion is borne out of having no confidence in a inherently democratic international socialist movement, because mutant forms of primitive socialism that went before, were not part of a large democratic international socialist movement. Unless, I missed that in historical studies, but I don't thinkso.
[2].
There is nothing innate or natural in the BORG mindset, but what is a mindset except a philosophy of "commonsense". We should not make the word "philosophy" esoteric. All it means is a way of thinking, and if the first words an infant is learning from a sibling is crude sexual metaphors, it reflects a crude common philosophy in society in general.
Philosophy is not in the books of the philosophers, it is in all the religious writings, and is refected in culuture.
It does not matter your age or level of intelligence. If you possess conscious thought you possess some form of philosophy. No matter how simplistic that philosophy maybe, there is always some degree of ethical judgement values, as to the difference between right and wrong.
Are people born with the BORG mindset? No, it is not in the genes, but as soon as consciousness interacts with society one of the first thing many children become aware of is "God", and if you do not think objectivie philosophy can produce a definitive proof, what chance has an under five year-old! It is a bad joke. The mindset is indoctrinated and even the cultural relations of a small child beginning to understand the world is entrenched in the ways of thought prevalent in society, possessed by the parents, other adults and in other children. The mindset is not natural or innate, but it is ludicrous to believe that it can be escaped by the child alone.
Set in people since they had social consciousness, my friend.
3.
Er um. I do not consider myself a social idealist, and the example you quote about the Program in the US is just a reflection of the poverty of the mindset. The most valuable person is the self? Really? No, my friend, no. Have self-respect, but of equal spiritual value should be everyone else, and you have to teach that simultaneously in a socialist society.
The example you give, relates to ethos. It relates to respect and self-respect. It relates to value judgements. These can be taught to children, but there is a difference between teaching, what is a proper understanding of ethos and teaching an inadequate understanding. You can learn understanding. Heraclitus was right. You can learn a higher form of social and political consciousness, even if you are an academic! You make the separation yourself, of information from "developing consciousness". The information is a developed consciousness. Subjectively, developed consciousness. We cannot say top BORG academics do not have a developed consciousness. They just possess on the whole a lousy form of developed consciousness. The difference is understanding what is objective consciousness in relation to political and social development. Much learning does not create understanding in itself, if the form of learning is detached from objective socialist consciousness. You are making an error, the top BORG academics are very learned people. They just do not possess understanding.

Iron Heel,
Not sure "humility" is the right word. People have being eating humble pie for too long! However, I know what you mean. Modesty. We all have to be aware of our own limitations.
The way Aristotle looked on it, is that the general practionioner has no real bulls eye, so the person never goes into depth in any one specialist field, and that it is only when you possess a bulls eye can you reach a greater truth, because new truth stems from a deep understanding.
Ofcourse, Scott Fitzgerald made a similar judgement in his Tender is the Night. "The general practioner is someone, who knows something about everything, but who specialises in nothing." Still, it does not mean we do not need general practioners in medicine! A practical necessity!
libereco,
The same "rights"! The same rights to be a brain surgeon! Very democratic of you! Impressive!
No need to become Fuhrer! Everyone will listen! Great of them! Fucking magnimous to the core! They listen, and then decide in a democratic vote on each issue. That is the essence of democratic leadership eh? All the same rights to be leaders! Why not brain surgeons. Anybody can have the same skills too!
Your good! Your good!
So fucking democratic! It is not about "claiming" the leadership role, it is about democratically entrusting it to people who possess a high level of organisation skills, and at the same time realising they are democratically accountable.
Well, my friend, glad to hear you are not a "patriot" to some nationality, but time for a reality check. Internationalism, is a huge organisational task, and it has to be centralised to meet the needs of that task. If you are only for decentralisation, how far do you take your "democratic" decentralisation in relation to being an internationalist? What is your practical foundation for that organisation? It does not exist. It is only fragmented decentralisation.
I assume nothing. Leaders can come from any class, and if they have the brains to have high organisational skills they ought to be providing leadership from whatever class.
Intellect consists of knowledge? Seems a simplistic truism. Political and social consciousness, can be gained by someone with a lower intellect than someone with a higher intellect, who does not possess the same understanding of knowledge. Intellect can = knowledge, but intellect does not = understanding.
Equality = Equal rights.
Equal rights to be a brain surgeon!
Equal rights to be a nuclear physicist?
You should possess the right my friend, but you ought to see the bad fucking joke! You may not possess the where-with-all! Equal rights to possess organisational skills? Same thing.
Let's face it some left-wing groups struggle to organise a meeting! I recall going to one, and finding out they could not get the fucking key to the meeting place! A slight hiccup! I would not trust that lot to organise on an international level. Call me undemocratic, but I know extremely poor organisational skills when I see them. And hey do we really need live in a cocoon within the left-wing?
I mean look around at business organisation around the world. Some of these bastards have billions invested, and sometimes the organisation is woeful, even though they hire highly qualified professionals.
There are more than a few examples of large corporations making errors in strategy and not far from where I am the large Marks & Spencer chain store has mutli-storey shop, and it is struggling to overcome its image as being out of touch in popular fashion. Last time I looked their stuff, was still pretty awful, so it is in the balance whether or not they can overcome their image. Just because they are aware of the problem does not mean, they will be able to remedy the situation too easily. They made a very costly error, and you can give example after example even more extreme, including the "success" stories such as Murdoch, who was only saved at one point, because his outfit owed so much to the banks, that the banks had bailed the guy out. Murdoch perhaps made the calculation, but it was not without a very big risk, and it is not something he could repeat, because the banks have wised up a bit. Corporations will continue to make large mistakes, and some advertising campaigns are extremely poor. Money down the tubes.
Organisational skills are not evenly spread, and even when there are large teams of so-called professionals with access to all the latest market research, and all the latest market analysis, it is a complex world, and the bastards have no real blueprint on which to guarantee continuous success. If the best can screw up big style, the worst may never get the chance, unless they win the national lottery, and decide to start up their own company. Money does not buy a person a high level of organisational skills, nor can it make them a brain surgeon or a nuclear physicist.
You do not see that organisation requires a high skill factor, and it is not the error of the corporations, only the error of naive wishful thinking ultra democratic anarchists.
"To be against leaders does not mean no one is smarter than anyone else" Translates as anyone can be a leader. Nope. Just like not everyone can be a brain surgeon.
I do not disagree with Einstein, I disagree with you. You see, every skill including nuclear physics schould not be restricted in access to an elite. Access is not the problem, the problem is application of the knowledge, and you are not capable of admitting that some people can apply skills and knowledge better than others.
You may or not become another Einstein, but whatever, you may or not become a top consultant in business strategy. Who knows. They are different skills, and Einstein may or may not have been able to become a top business consultant, because they rely on interpersonal skills, and that is not particulary the speciality of the top scientist. Two very different spheres.
Complex industrialised civilisations are not small isolated communes. They require a high degree of organisation. You do not seem to recognise the level of organisation that is required on a global scale. Hope, its nice nice to be nice in your commune, and that everyone listens!
Er um, if my neighbour is shitting in the communal entrance, I have the right to tell the person, that this is unacceptable behaviour, and if the bastard doesn't clean it up, I will report the ignorant bastard to the council. Not going to lose any sleep over that one! Had some real fucking awful neighbours, and their manners were a lot fucking worse than people I met with a much lower intelligence.
Rights should be based upon ethos, equality should be based upon ethos, not upon ultra democratic primitive veiws of innate rights. All rights are social rights. The right to possess leadership skills, is as banal as the right to possess an understanding of nuclear physics.
It is banal, because it is not a right of access in the end, it is a right of human capacity, and if you do not have the capacity, you can never never possess the right. It is a mythological right. I do not possess the right to be a brain surgeon, because I do not possess the capacity to be a brain surgeon, and if you want me to operate in your brain, you are in a fucking bad state, that is only going to get worse after I am finished!
Nope, not everyone has the capacity to lead, and you think this capacity is equal shared amongst us. Nope. The Corps will want to see your business degree or see your resume from experience. Fair dinkums. It is a tough market.
Bakunin in the shoes of Lenin. Do you think Bakunin could organise a revolution? I know I don't.
El Che,
Iron Heel, as far as I know is democratic socialist, and hence the majority has the right to impose its way of doing things on the minority. Ways of doing things is a way of thinking and that is the nature of all democracy. The will of the majority is imposed upon the will of the minority. The minority need not change their views, but there is still a bit of imposition, because everywhere they go, the culture of the majority imposes itself upon them. That is the situation of the left-wing minority in BORG society. The imposition is everywhere.
The power structure of society, and the power structure of organisation are interrelated, and if you use the Bolshevik revolution as an example, could there be any greater example of organisational structure becoming the basis of a State structure, since the democratic centralism, became undemocratic centralism.
If we are democratic socialists the organisation of an internationalist socialist movement is a reflection upon its commitment to democracy in the world. There is a separation between a Party and a State, but if the Party is in control, its inner democracy is not unimportant and not irrelevant to the nature of the State.
All things you desire are what we all desire, but you deny even the "education" of Rosa never mind my belief, that we can gain an objective understanding of the world.
You contradict yourself a little when you say we need "TV" to be less futile and less educative". Is this BORG TV we are talking about never noticed an anarchist channel, never mind a socialist one. As Marx, might have asked "who is educating the educators?"
Nope, a lot of learning does not teach understanding, and it does not necessarally teach leadership skills either! As peaccenicked would say, it sounds like you are obscuring reality, rather than clarifying it.
Durp!

Be afraid, be very afraid...

Resistance is Futile!

May the Force be with U!

derminated

[El Che]

"El Che,
Iron Heel, as far as I know is democratic socialist, and hence the majority has the right to impose its way of doing things on the minority. Ways of doing things is a way of thinking and that is the nature of all democracy. The will of the majority is imposed upon the will of the minority. The minority need not change their views, but there is still a bit of imposition, because everywhere they go, the culture of the majority imposes itself upon them. That is the situation of the left-wing minority in BORG society. The imposition is everywhere.
The power structure of society, and the power structure of organisation are interrelated, and if you use the Bolshevik revolution as an example, could there be any greater example of organisational structure becoming the basis of a State structure, since the democratic centralism, became undemocratic centralism.
If we are democratic socialists the organisation of an internationalist socialist movement is a reflection upon its commitment to democracy in the world. There is a separation between a Party and a State, but if the Party is in control, its inner democracy is not unimportant and not irrelevant to the nature of the State.
All things you desire are what we all desire, but you deny even the "education" of Rosa never mind my belief, that we can gain an objective understanding of the world.
You contradict yourself a little when you say we need "TV" to be less futile and less educative". Is this BORG TV we are talking about never noticed an anarchist channel, never mind a socialist one. As Marx, might have asked "who is educating the educators?""


My word man, you must learn to write smaller posts. You say the party structure is relevant to the nature of the state? How is this so? This would only be so, if the party became the state its self, then in that case the nature, the structure of one would indeed afect the other no? But, if rather, the party, whatever its internal structure, is a part of another structure, the legal and institutional structure of a representative democracy, then the structure of one is independante from the structure of the other no? Because the latter does not limit the possible structures of the former. If the kkk want to participate in the election, the latter does not limit it on the basis of its internal structure correct? No where do you show that the nature of one is relevant to the nature of the other. Unless of course if party having arrived at power where to change the power structure of its society.

Hence to the question of democracy, what is important is only that it remain a democracy, and not the whatever changes you would aply to the vanguard that any party constitutes.

I said "we need the TV to be less futile and more educative. " Education in the sense of school education, like say bbc learning. Not indoctrination.

(Edited by El Che at 2:58 pm on Mar. 12, 2002)

[The Iron Heel]

My word man, you must learn to write smaller posts.

Comeon, what sort of a retort is that. The man spends time elaborating on his posts, he takes the time to explain himself, and you dismiss it off hand in that manner. Perhaps we should leave our socialist education to the bbc and deem every Marxist that hasn't become a social democrat as a fascist. Then we can change the name of the forum to the 'right-wing intepreted CHE forums' where brief posts and simplicity reigns. For shame.

[libereco]

i think if the Derminater would derminate himself a bit and stop repeating everything over and over, and maybe even cut the personal insulsts, the showing off of his intellect and the "durps" then his post size would reduce greatly.

That said I'll take my time to reply to your post sometime later. Have to study for my Chemistry exam tommorow.

[The Iron Heel]

Snuh!

Don't blow anything up :) .

[El Che]

Iron Heal I always respond to the points brought up against me, its just some friendly advice if you will. And since we are on the topic of satisfactory responses, maybe you would care to articulate a more comprehensive reply to the points I raised against your reasoning. Page 4 I believe.

(Edited by El Che at 9:20 pm on Mar. 12, 2002)

[The Iron Heel]

I'll look into it, I have to get going now though. But if you would be so kind as to copy the exact excerpt of what you would most like me to address, that would be helpful & would save me some time.

[El Che]

Comksy does great work for the cause, no one will deny this. However, his theoretical outlook is inherently flawed & blatantly impractical due to its anarchistically-derived shortcomings, specifically, the absensce of coherently-defined organization. Chomsky believes that when the Revolution arrives everything will just magically work itself out. Of the ongoing post-revolutionary struggle he speaks little if anything.

Since there is no socialist-to-communist transition in the wroldview he promotes, we arrive at the final phase of communism (though anarchists may use a different term for this) in one single stroke, as if by magic.

Can any revolutionary gains be sustained, defended, retained, not to mention expand by the adoption of such a shortsighed approach? In my opinion, only in the realm of fantasy it can.

How does one get millions of people to choose wise policy choices during times of immediate struggle & emergency? How does one accomplish this under the banner of 'direct democracy' (as opposed to capitalistically-influenced liberal democratic electoral procedures) ? How would one even combat capitalistic influences if they believed that once the revolution arrives their class enemies will all tend to just dissappear, as if by an act of goat.

Sound like a very anarchical (& not a very well thought out) approach, as it should (the anarchical part at least :P ). But when the machinery of capitalism strikes back there will be little time to debate at length what do in this & that situation amongst the million of participants in the revolution.

The revolution (& post revolution!) are almost always times of emergency & great peril. Without a vangaurd the movement is doomed to defeat by the (therefore superior) organization of the ruling class (since the movement chooses to abandon effective organization).

Organise your movements, whatever they may be, in whatever way you fancy. If you think something works best a certain way then do it that way. Or join those that do. I may agree or I may disagree. But you know what? that is totaly irrelevant. Yup. Drup! You see the problem arrises when you and yours want to impose an organisation on the rest of us. That is the issue. That is what is unaceptable. Contrary to human rights and common sense. I disagree with such a flawed political stance on such a wide variety of levels that it is really futile to enumerate them all. It is self evident I believe.


On a related note, how do you know that after socialism comes communism? maybe marx was wrong, maybe it wont happen that way. Maybe it will just get worked out as mankind progresses. Maybe just maybe my friend, history wont follow the path you have so meticulasly and so caculatedly layed out for it. Maybe to do so is in and of its self a mistake. Indeed. Meditate on these words, or better yet seak someone who can say it better, for what I am trying to tell you, in refering the folishness and indeed dangerousness of atempting to over determine what the future will be, how evolution should process its self and which is the path of true evolution, or even indeed if such a thing can be layed out, is that this will not only blind you the actual reality but also, more serious consequence this, besthou apon you an authority, as agent of human progress(this constituting a pseudo-scientific fact), that you do not indeed possess. This is where the vanguard gets its legitemacy from, legitemacy which in fact derives from the delusional/esquisofrenic state, believing they are the agents of human evolution scientificaly proved to have to conform to a certain model, setps, they have all the legitemacy to go above the opinions/votes of others, for these others either do not understand their proof or are members of the criminal class of previledge. Can it? I feel those who atempt to do this will inevitably fall prey to there own creations of what reality should be that they fail to see the actual reality they are creating differes alot from the mental idealisation of the same.

[The Iron Heel]

That's the difference between us, El Che. I follow dialectical thinking whereby there is niether ultimate determinism nor indeterminism. We don't know if the next socialist experiment would lead to communism. We don't know if it will take one hundred or one thousand years of failed experiment to achiece this.

What we do know is that the anarchists abandon any thoughts about this whatsoever. The revolution to them exists in the realm of meditation, they have made no plans of how to try to practically hold on to revolutionary gains, nor how to expand these. For them everything will simply work itself out, and if not, oh well.

Naturally we Marxists object to that position, we find it unscientific and impractical. One should at least study historical, social, economic, etc. forces and get a grasp of those realities, specifically, physical reality. So long as there is no mass telepathy the chnace for a successful revolution led by anarchists, and moreover, one that retains its gains and expands upon these remains in the realm of fiction. Again, this is because anarchists make no plans, many do not even bother to read Marx (not to mention Lenin who they consider a devil of some sort), they walk blindly with utter indeterminism. They fail to grasp the dialectical nature of reality or the practical necessity of organization, and this is why their vision never got off the ground and its future prospects seem equally detached from reality.

[TheDerminator]

El Che,
Perhaps I missed the thread. I thought we were relating things to historical examples, and the prime example being used was the Boshevik Revolution. Herein, I think you will agree, the party structure, was central to the State structure.
I am not going to disagree that the Party structure of say the Tory Party is different from that of the structure of the British State, but it is not as simple as that. The so-called "neutrality" of the BORG State is a complete mythology.
The State requires some form of government, and political government is the head of the State. It matters to some extent what set of functionaries are in power, but only to some extent, and as soon as the issue of the Euro is resolved in Britain, all that will separate the three main parties will be the colours of their ties. More or less. Every political pundit recognises that the main political parties are very close in they packages being offered to Joe Public. It is fast becoming the competition on the foundation or ground of style over content.
I do not mind make lengthy posts since less haste more speed.
You see El Che it was the inner-party mechansim, of the Tory Party, that got rid of Magaret Thatcher, not an election. There is still a connection, between the internal Party and the State, when the Party is at the helm of the State. There is relevance in practical politics, and the Bolshevik example is the one that shows the greatest relevance.
We "remain a democracy" is the only thing that matters. Goodness. Is handing over power to the functionaries of various BORG parties, democracy? Not my idea of democracy! No relevance to "vanguard" parties. I am sure vox would disagree with you on that, as might libereco, because the whole debate is about the democratic manner in which the socialist movement organises itself, and you seem to have lost sight of why vox created the thread. Others have not.
School education is not "indoctination"! Did you get that one from the Jesuits El Che? How can you be so naive? The History taught to me at a shit school, was the BORG version of history. Complete indoctrination!
libereco,
You never said anything different from what Chomsky stated in his anarchist analysis. It was the exact same stuff, and I repeated the exact same stuff in my response, because your logic led to the exact same position taken by Chomsky. I make no apologies.
I mean El Che, made no attempt to respond whatsover to my post about his "self-evident" "common-sense, " and "totally irrelvant" contribution. It is still being harped on about in the response to Iron Heel. I cannot win either way! Do I need to repeat all of that to El Che? Durp!
Insults? I don't thinkso. You just need read vox and all the poison poured out on the "scum" who support democratic centralism to see that there is a bit of satire on the mentality of vox in my response, which takes the position of the Devil's Advocate, and takes the logic to its absurd conclusion. I make no apologies for that. As for "durp", I mean I am having to repeat myself a bit, and you still have not answered the points raised, although I recognise your studies should come first. "Durp!" is just a value judgement on your anti-intellectualist standpoint. Fair dinkums.
El Che, is just repeating the same hollow psuedo-psychological argument to Iron Heel and I have responded to it already, so I am not bothering to answer some not willing to engage in exchange of ideas.
Iron Heel,
Erum, your determinism, and indeterminism is a way of the mark. The Internationalist Socialist movement cannot offer a "maybe" as an alternative the BORGS Planet Grime. Nope. We have to offer a workable viable alternative, and be confident that this is one hell of an improvement, that will take Humankind into the future.
One thousand years of "failed experiment"? Goodness! No my friend the transition of socialism into any higher form of socialism is never a failed experiment, it is a process of continuous improvement, and the process is one of increasing success. You do not start at the end. You do not start with "we are a failded experiment, but we will fail for one thousand years if necessary!" Kind of a morale destroyer, man!
You are right, the anarchists are divorced from practical reality, and their plan is so self-evident in commonsense, that it is totally irrelevant!
Kind of says it all! They are calling us schizophrenic, when they are on Planet Zog! Must admit I am not a "revolutionary". Seems to me undemocratic! I do not see that as being ultra-democratic. Just confident that if there was an International Socialist movement worthy of the name, it could carry the majority, without the need to resort to revolutionary conspiracies.
Revolution is for where there is no democratic avenue.
No wonder the vox's of the world are so confused, when Marxist-Leninists are still spouting about revolution, and not moving socialist theory into the modern world. Times have changed, and the socialsist revolution in an advanced bourgeios democratic country is a non-starter. Time to leave dogmas behind, whether be Marxist or anarchist.
We have to centre ourselves in the modern world, and not be trapped in some past time zone. You are much closer to reality than vox, libereco or El Che, but I hope you can ditch the revolutionary dogma, my friend, because the world revolution can never occur, only the irresistible force of International Socialism, that leaves Planet Grime behind. That force has to be so momentous, that is the driving force of the wheels of history, and that is why it can never be born on the back of conspiracies. It has to born of concrete foundations, it must be the will
of the people.

Be afraid, be very afraid...

Resistance is Futile!

May the Force be with U!

derminated

[libereco]

bold italics = The Derminator

The same "rights"! The same rights to be a brain surgeon! Very democratic of you! Impressive!

was I talking about brainsurgeons? I was talking about politics. This is something that concerns everybody – the analogy of a brain surgeon comes out of nowhere.
Actually I don’t care if anyone becomes a brain surgeon – I just won’t let him do anything to my brain.
But that let aside your example doesn’t hit the core of the problem, because EVERYONE has a right to decide on their own what to do, as long as it doesn’t hurt others. And taking this right away from people because they are „stupid“ and not „intellectuals“ is just sick.
Even a „stupid“ farmer, who has never read a book in his life has the right to decide for himself what is best for him!


No need to become Fuhrer! Everyone will listen! Great of them! Fucking magnimous to the core! They listen, and then decide in a democratic vote on each issue. That is the essence of democratic leadership eh? All the same rights to be leaders! Why not brain surgeons. Anybody can have the same skills too!
Your good! Your good!
So fucking democratic! It is not about "claiming" the leadership role, it is about democratically entrusting it to people who possess a high level of organisation skills, and at the same time realising they are democratically accountable.

I’ll reply with another quote by the intellectual Albert Einstein:

„Second, socialism is directed towards a social-ethical end. Science, however, cannot create ends and, even less, instill them in human beings; science, at most, can supply the means by which to attain certain ends. But the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals and—if these ends are not stillborn, but vital and vigorous—are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society.
For these reasons, we should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organization of society. „ Einstein – Why Socialism?


Well, my friend, glad to hear you are not a "patriot" to some nationality, but time for a reality check. Internationalism, is a huge organisational task, and it has to be centralised to meet the needs of that task. If you are only for decentralisation, how far do you take your "democratic" decentralisation in relation to being an internationalist? What is your practical foundation for that organisation? It does not exist. It is only fragmented decentralisation.

I don’t see why everything has to be centralized....I think it’s dangerous to entrust to much power to a small group of people.


I assume nothing. Leaders can come from any class, and if they have the brains to have high organisational skills they ought to be providing leadership from whatever class.
Intellect consists of knowledge? Seems a simplistic truism. Political and social consciousness, can be gained by someone with a lower intellect than someone with a higher intellect, who does not possess the same understanding of knowledge. Intellect can = knowledge, but intellect does not = understanding.
Equality = Equal rights.
Equal rights to be a brain surgeon!
Equal rights to be a nuclear physicist?
You should possess the right my friend, but you ought to see the bad fucking joke! You may not possess the where-with-all! Equal rights to possess organisational skills? Same thing.
Let's face it some left-wing groups struggle to organise a meeting! I recall going to one, and finding out they could not get the fucking key to the meeting place! A slight hiccup! I would not trust that lot to organise on an international level. Call me undemocratic, but I know extremely poor organisational skills when I see them. And hey do we really need live in a cocoon within the left-wing?


I fail to see why leaders are necessary in order for organisation to work....people can organize themselves without leaders. All it requires is that they think for themselves and get involved.


"To be against leaders does not mean no one is smarter than anyone else" Translates as anyone can be a leader. Nope. Just like not everyone can be a brain surgeon.

I don’t think you translated that correctly ;)
If I am AGAINST leaders, how do I suggest anyone should become one?

I do not disagree with Einstein, I disagree with you. You see, every skill including nuclear physics schould not be restricted in access to an elite. Access is not the problem, the problem is application of the knowledge, and you are not capable of admitting that some people can apply skills and knowledge better than others.
You may or not become another Einstein, but whatever, you may or not become a top consultant in business strategy. Who knows. They are different skills, and Einstein may or may not have been able to become a top business consultant, because they rely on interpersonal skills, and that is not particulary the speciality of the top scientist. Two very different spheres.

Yes, but our everyday live, our society concerns all of us, not just a few people who are rhetorically superior.

Complex industrialised civilisations are not small isolated communes. They require a high degree of organisation. You do not seem to recognise the level of organisation that is required on a global scale. Hope, its nice nice to be nice in your commune, and that everyone listens!
Er um, if my neighbour is shitting in the communal entrance, I have the right to tell the person, that this is unacceptable behaviour, and if the bastard doesn't clean it up, I will report the ignorant bastard to the council. Not going to lose any sleep over that one! Had some real fucking awful neighbours, and their manners were a lot fucking worse than people I met with a much lower intelligence.

but if they just shat in their own house you wouldn’t have a right to tell them what to do, right? Even though you might know better that it’s unhygienic (this must be spelled wrong :o)


Rights should be based upon ethos, equality should be based upon ethos, not upon ultra democratic primitive veiws of innate rights. All rights are social rights. The right to possess leadership skills, is as banal as the right to possess an understanding of nuclear physics.
It is banal, because it is not a right of access in the end, it is a right of human capacity, and if you do not have the capacity, you can never never possess the right. It is a mythological right. I do not possess the right to be a brain surgeon, because I do not possess the capacity to be a brain surgeon, and if you want me to operate in your brain, you are in a fucking bad state, that is only going to get worse after I am finished!
Nope, not everyone has the capacity to lead, and you think this capacity is equal shared amongst us. Nope. The Corps will want to see your business degree or see your resume from experience. Fair dinkums. It is a tough market.

I don’t think all this is really related to the topic.
I have the right to decide on my own how to live my life. and I don’t care if some specialist might know better! I am a free human being, not a lab rat damnit.
There is no person skilled enough to take responsiblity over all of humanity.

Bakunin in the shoes of Lenin. Do you think Bakunin could organise a revolution? I know I don't.

well the anarchist have proven often enough that they can fight united against opression.

The problem is that usually afterwords some power hungry leader smashes all efforts and takes over.

[The Iron Heel]

TheDerminator, you're puting words in my mouth, and you are making assumptions about my position in areas I have yet to address.

Let me demistify some of these so as to clear some of these ambiguities:

"Erum, your determinism, and indeterminism is a way of the mark. The Internationalist Socialist movement cannot offer a "maybe" as an alternative the BORGS Planet Grime. Nope. We have to offer a workable viable alternative, and be confident that this is one hell of an improvement, that will take Humankind into the future. One thousand years of "failed experiment"? Goodness! No my friend the transition of socialism into any higher form of socialism is never a failed experiment, it is a process of continuous improvement, and the process is one of increasing success"

Yes. But, failed experiments (it was plural, was just a typo) may occur. True we have a plan, true we are confident that eventually it will succeed. No, we do not know whether the next wave of socialist revolutions will
truimph in this, or whether it may happen after many failed attempts in which the capitalists will win and we will begin again. But not anew, it is a process of improvement, we do attempt to learn from any shortcomings, but history is not static, historical circumstances change, tactics may also change, but the approach remains the same. An interim socialist phase is necessary to arrive at the phase of communism. My statement as to the dialectical nature of reality, specifically in/determinism has to do with the specific circumstances the movement may face, not the general strokes of the plan, the prerequisites for the transition to communism.

"You do not start at the end. You do not start with "we are a failded experiment, but we will fail for one thousand years if necessary!" Kind of a morale destroyer, man!"

Never have I said we are a failed experiment. Never have I said that it's not worth to try simply because the attempt may not workout to our favour in our lifetime. I say may because there is nothing predetrmined when it comes to such predicitons, they belong in the realm of prophesies, while we attempt to remain grounded to the earth. We shouldl neither be overly optimistic nor pessimistic, though we should strive to be well-informed optimists, but again, in context. Some may see this as a hinderence to moral, fine. I do not view that way at all though.

"You are right, the anarchists are divorced from practical reality, and their plan is so self-evident in commonsense, that it is totally irrelevant!
Kind of says it all! They are calling us schizophrenic, when they are on Planet Zog! Must admit I am not a "revolutionary". Seems to me undemocratic! I do not see that as being ultra-democratic. Just confident that if there was an International Socialist movement worthy of the name, it could carry the majority, without the need to resort to revolutionary conspiracies.
Revolution is for where there is no democratic avenue.
No wonder the vox's of the world are so confused, when Marxist-Leninists are still spouting about revolution, and not moving socialist theory into the modern world. Times have changed, and the socialsist revolution in an advanced bourgeios democratic country is a non-starter. Time to leave dogmas behind, whether be Marxist or anarchist. "

Revolution is the only way, whether you are an orthodox Marxist or a Marxist-Leninist (as I am), though some of revisionists choose social democratic routes. There is no way the capitalist class will relinquish their ownership of the earth, even if the electoral results are in our favour. I hope you are not maintaining such a position since to me it seems fantastic. If that is what you think, take a close look at picture of Allende in my avatar (I know it's small) and reflect again on the folly of that approach. And the revolution does not need to be centred around conspiracies, granted that tends to play a role to an extent, but same with our class enemies. Concpiracies also play a role in how the capitalist class holds on to its power, but on this front I will agree with Chomsky: conpiracy (theories,approaches, etc.) do not form the basis for the operation of the capitalist class (though again, they play a certain role) and we should not investigate their actions through a concpiracy theory medium. And I will add to that that the same applies to the vanguard in socialist revolutions. Marxist-Leninists have advnced over the classical Marxists, we live in a different economic era: that of imperialism & monopoly capitalism not industrial capitalism, and of course, we do not attempt to arouse revolutions in developed nations, we understand the welfare state compromises and realize that it is not realistic. But also , returning to my prior point, there is nothing predetrmined here. Who knows what the next periodical collpase will bring. Again, we attempt to remain grounded in reality whilst developing our theories in accordance to which (and not vice versa), we remain committed to praxis and not a superimposed model. This is something, I believe, both Marx and Lenin would still be arguing had they been alive today. Not only is it time now to leave dogmas behind, it is always time to leave dogmas behind. Being dogmatic does nothing but retards the movement, at the same time, beyond that general truism (at least I view it as such) there is the intellectual & practical efforts to discern what is dialectical and, by contrast, what constitutes superimposed-no-longer-relevant notions which in turn become dogmatic in chacarter.

So yes, it is a process of self improvement, and yes the overall transition from socialism to communism continues to retain it Marxist identity, but at the same time, there are also no gurantees of short term successes. We must struggle with our eyes wide open even at the cost of some demoralization, but our hope in our ultimate triumph (again, perhaps not in our or our children's lifetime. perhaps so, who knows) should remain nonetheless fixed.

(Edited by The Iron Heel at 10:51 pm on Mar. 13, 2002)

[TheDerminator]

libereco,

William Saffire writes "Just because something is a right, does not make it right"

The "right" you are saying is an undeniable right is still an ultra-democratic "right", because you are not seeing the parallell. You are not seeing that organisational leadership is a skill.
"As long as it does not hurt others" is naive. The general practitioner, as well as intentioned as she/he mabye is not a specialist, and you can unintentionally hurt others by being ineffective or incompetant. Do such people not exist?
A stupid farmer ought to be able to decide what is best for him and to take away the right is sick?
No, my friend. Whatever, level of intelligence the farmer possesses, the farmer is not an isolated individual. This farmer has a responsibility to the community, and what the farmer decides can have an impact in that community, so if his organisational skills say to him/her that his way to organise is better than experts in agricultural organisation I am afraid the community is being let down by this persons petty egoism, that he/she knows best.
You can transfer that to the question of leadership too. If someone with no or little knowledge of organisational skills demands the right to do things their way, the society in general suffers, because it is not the best practise. What is the problem with always finding out the best practise, from your best experts in whatever field? Not to do so, is petty egoism.
I do not agree with Einstein.
What are these ends?
They are objectives. Why cannot we create objectives on a theoretical foundation?
What is the artificial barrier libereco? It only exists in the head of Einstein, because he could not see, how scientific analysis could be applied to the societal superstructure. That was the fault of Karl Marx, but it is only a question of methodological approach, and if you are interested in Objective Methodology, you can check out my website.
The societal objective is the group interest, and we can give these objectives a scientific foundation. The dialectic of Marx provides a basis for a scientific objective methodology, and the thoroughness of his approach to the economic infrastracture gives an insight into the power of the method to provide that objective foundation.
What is a scientific approach? No, it is not empiricism. It is objective methodology, and it can do anything empiricism can do, in greater depth.
You see, Einstein is taking a Darwinistic approach to human development. The slow evolution of history. Well, think about that one. The first undisputed civilization is the Sumerian, although there is a theory that an earlier civilisation existed in what has become Pakistan several thousand of years earlier.
Nonetheless, it took tens of thousand of years to evolve a civilisation, but perhaps only just over four thousand years to develop from Sumeria to our times.
One of the most telling facts is the fact, that Aristotle was the greatest philosopher of antiquity, and due to the fossilisation of progress by the catholic church it was not until Kant, that we had a philosopher of a similar stature. If Kant had immediately followed Aristotle we could chalk off two thousand years!
If you think of the epochs, before the BORG epoch, the latter is only about 300 years old, and even there more so only in England. Modern historical development, has not been all that slow.
You see, it is not saying that organisation, should be "only" in the hands of experts, but that democratic organisation filters organisation through society through delegation and is always accountable at every level of government. The "only" only exists in the head of Einstein.
You do not see the need for "centralisation". This is your problem. We live in a complex industrialised world, and we have huge tasks infront of us, and your response is decentralised power sharing. It is inadequate for the task. Democracy, is not blind trust. It is trust based upon accountability. The entrusted, are only entrusted, because they must act in the interests of the majority.
They are entrusted because of that accountability within democracy, and because we trust people who are more expert than ourselves to expertly organise the movement in a manner that is capable of overcoming the mass media of the BORGS and the influence of BORG culture. We have huge forces stacked against us my friend, and to answer them with decentralised power sharing is still ultra-democratic naivety.
All organisational skill is about is people thinking for themselves and getting involved!
Ooof!
Come on, my friend. Don't kid a kidder. I've been around a while. The international socialist movement is paralysed, and the anarchist movement is equally marginalised. Get a grip on reality!
Put one of the fingers you are pointing at the so-called movements. They represent non-movement!
That is what we have! Fucking non-movement!
A child can see it!
No, my friend, the proof is in the pudding, the proof is in the non-movement. The proof is in, what we do not possess. The proof is fucking screaming out at us! Non-movement! Non-movement! Non-movement!
Thinking for yourself, and getting involved is not fucking enough. We need people with the skills to create movement out of non-movement. You my friend are part of the non-movement, more so than myself, or Iron Heel, peaccenicked or Rosa. We want a movement. You want ultra-democratic non-movement. Because a movement without a good leadership is ultimately a non-movement. It will never be capable of tackling the huge forces aligned against the socialist movement. Never.
I translate you faithfully. To believe anyone can be a leader is anti-leadership, because the person lacking leadership skills is a woeful leader, and believe it or not thinking involved people can lack leadership skills. That truism is completely lost on you.
You can not reduce organisational skills to "rhetoric" my friend. There is a lot more to it than that. Indeed, because it involves the whole of society, it requires democratic control of the whole of society, and I have not arguments with that.
You see if they shit in thier own house, and boast about it to me, I would not necessarally report them to the council, I would approach them directly and say to them, you have to live in that shit, and if they had children I might take greater steps, but if they were two adults, I would say to them that shitting in their own communal entrance is not unlawful, but that it is not entirely desirable for their own quality of life. It goes against their own self-respect, and even though they have the right, it still does not make it right to treat themselves as if they are a subhuman species.
I am sure if everyone they met said the same thing, they would more than likely clean up the mess, but say they just persisted despite everyone in the community saying that the action was lacking self-respect. Can't you see that the lack is fundamentally self-harm, and that there is a community responsibility, not to allow self-harm. People can commit suicide, but you do not make it a constitutional right!
"I have the right to decide on my own how to live my own life"!
Extreme individualism. The community has rights, and you better not fuck with our rights.
An elected political organisation. You are not fucking free. You are a fucking guinea pig in BORG Society, and the experiment has turned you into a non-conformist ineffective anarchist.
Anarchists can fight, but they do not win that often, you know. The proof is in the pudding. Welcome to the global BORG empire apart from Cuba!
You are on Planet Zog. A power hungry leader. Primitive socialists, not democrats. You know nothing about real democracy, you are merely repeating anarchist dogma, about ultrademocratic rights of "equals" like a sick parrot.

Be afraid, be very afraid...

Reisistance is Futile!

May the Force be with U!

derminated

[peaccenicked]

What no vox.
Is this this the guy who baits the capis with their inability to reply?
Maybe it is in the offing but is it not strange for our intellectual hero and swashbuckling Blade to hesitate.

[TheDerminator]

Yep, peaccenicked,
Still no vox...
Be afraid, be very afraid...
vox seems to be scared shitless. I mean, it seems extremely odd to me to start a new thread, and not make post one response. Maybe vox just viewed as Guest hoping for libereco or El Che to provide an opening, rather than taking the debate to its absurd conclusion in relation to the internal logic of the anarchists.
If Chomsky is all vox has to offer to the international socialist movement, it kind of says everything about this particular brand of Marxism.
It is all voxism, and Marx would have said "All I know, is that I am not a voxist."
To reject democratic centralism, is to reject Internationalism, because Internationalism transcends national organistion with central International organisation.
Our voxist, does not understand the necessity for Internationalist organisation, and it is no wonder this chameleon is dodging the issue. On the issue voxism is anarchism, not "Marxism" and Marx would have treated the anti-Leninism, with the contempt that it deserves.
Lenin made serious errors, but his was an honest attempt in the spirit of Marx, whereas the anarchism of voxism, is anti-Marx in its spirit. Rightly Marx regected anarchism and for vox to try to smuggling into "Marxism" isn't even the consistancy of libereco or even the honest confusion of El Che, it is bringing in the enemy as a friend to stab him in the heart.
voxism is anti-Marx, and not just anti-Lenin. It sides with the BORG and anarchist interpretation of the Bolshevik revolution, and together they are one on this account. It is no wonder that vox prefers the BORGS.
And if I were a BORG, I would prefer the ineffective confused voxists of the world to socialists. As this thread has show their ultra-democratic psuedo-socialism is based upon a poverty of thought and is the derelection of the leadership role within organising against the huge forces available to the BORGS.
The silences speak volumes. They have run out of ideas to back up their dogmas.

Be afraid, be very afraid...

Resistance is Futile!

May the Force be with U!

derminated

[El Che]

"That's the difference between us, El Che."

The difference isn`t much, we agree on many things. We agree on Marxism and the validity the reivindications that are fundamented upon it. Legitimized by socialist theory are our goals. However I reject the socialist theories that defend fascism as a means to an end. Hence our difference. Maybe I am wrong, it could be so, but with me it is a question of principals. One i shall never abdicate of.


"The so-called "neutrality" of the BORG State is a complete mythology."

How you identify only one state, this is beyond me, you are one to speak of my confusions. Indeed. Of course the state isn`t neutral, a tory state takes positions that say a lib dem state would not. Each takes a stand, none is neutral. But niether are they the same state. The same state you in your confusion identify as brougeois. You dont seem to want to realise that each party is a state in potential, each with his on unneutal stance on ever matter, no you only recognise one state of all potentials and that state you say is bourgeois in nature. You are of course wrong.

"It matters to some extent what set of functionaries are in power"

To you parties are not potential states but "functionaries". You are of course wrong.

"Every political pundit recognises that the main political parties are very close in they packages being offered to Joe Public. It is fast becoming the competition on the foundation or ground of style over content."

Your point?


"You see El Che it was the inner-party mechansim, of the Tory Party, that got rid of Magaret Thatcher, not an election. There is still a connection, between the internal Party and the State, when the Party is at the helm of the State. There is relevance in practical politics, and the Bolshevik example is the one that shows the greatest relevance."

Your example, I take it, is supost to ilustrate the "conection" between an un elected party and "the state", the same single state you wrongly identified above. Your example of course shows non of this and your premiss of a single state within current democratic contries is wrong. Furthermore you call in the "bolshevik example" , that you say show relevance... I dont a clue as to what you are talking about there.

"We "remain a democracy" is the only thing that matters. Goodness. Is handing over power to the functionaries of various BORG parties, democracy? Not my idea of democracy!"

As I have shown this is a claim based on false premisses, there for it is a wrong conclusion upon which it is not necessary to comment on. (borg democracy eh?)


"No relevance to "vanguard" parties."

Vanguard parties, I.e leninst,are but fascist states in potential.

" I am sure vox would disagree with you on that, as might libereco, because the whole debate is about the democratic manner in which the socialist movement organises itself, and you seem to have lost sight of why vox created the thread. Others have not."

Yes what i am discussing is not inner party organisation, why do you say that i should not speak of something else? perhaps it is because you are losing the arguement. You would rather confine the discussion to "democratic centralism" and "beurocratic centralism" because you are less confortable defending your own position that the imposition of a given party apon a society is justified. Well what can I say... Sorry, but I will discuss what I chose to.



"School education is not "indoctination"! Did you get that one from the Jesuits El Che? How can you be so naive? The History taught to me at a shit school, was the BORG version of history. Complete indoctrination!"

Hmm education is indoctrination? hmm maybe, maybe to some extent, depending on the level of education in question, the teacher, the contry etc. Your point!? Education is essential, more than essential, much more. That is one of the things essential for the construction of a new society. Educated majority means serious political discussion and choice as opposed to bad political discussion and choice. Education in general, education in all things, broad culture. Not education confined to socialism. Try and understand me man.


"
I mean El Che, made no attempt to respond whatsover to my post about his "self-evident" "common-sense, " and "totally irrelvant" contribution."

What are you questions? objections? indicate them to be and i promise you i`ll respond to evey single one of them. Which is more then i can say for a few others.

(Edited by El Che at 11:24 pm on Mar. 15, 2002)

[TheDerminator]

I reject your definition of "fascism" it is an insult to Lenin.

I am not wrong about the State. The political government is the head of the State.
It requires a government, and as long as the party is acting in the interests of the BORGS the identity of that party is relatively redundant though not completely so.

Why are parties acting in the interests of the BORGS more than functionaries of BORG society. You just state "You are of course wrong". Very nice of you to point that out. Why am I wrong?

No, the Tory Party was in power when Thatcher was deposed. My example is merely showing that how a Party operates once at the helm of the BORG State is not unconnected to practical politics.
As for the example of the Bolsheviks. You support demoratic centralism, rightly in my view, but the point is that democratic centralism mutated into dictatorial centralism, because the Bolshevik revolution was born out of conditions wherein the minority were leading the "dictatorship of the ploretariat."
The vanguard party transmogrified itself into Stalins elitist "Communist Party" acting in the interests of that elite rather than in the interests of the Soviet people.
The example shows that our socialist movement has to be founded in an internal democratic process, and that internal democracy is a reflection upon a commitment to democracy in society in general.
You seem to detach democratic centralism from Leninist "fascism" in a way that vox would find laughable. For vox, democratic centralism is at the core of the Bolshevik "fascism".
I must admit, that vox is a bit more self-consistent on this point than you, to say the least. vox is taking the ultra-democratic position of anarchists such as libereco and Chomsky. In my view, your position is much better, but at the same time, you are denying the history of the Bolshevik Party, you are denying Lenin's origination of democratic centralism, and you are not differentiating between the democratic centralism of the Bolsheviks under Lenin and Stalinist dictatorship.
You are swallowing the same anarcho-BORG lie that Lenin = Stalin, and that is my main difference with U.

El Che, I am trying to understand you, but I think you are still being a bit naive.
"dending on the level of education, the teacher, the country"
Come on. Hegemonistic BORG culture is omnipotent, because it rules the world. Gramsci, gave a big emphasis to the role of culture in creating a hegemonistic "commonsense" neophobic mindset.
Only socialists teachers are free from that mindset!
Who is educating the educators?
Education is necessary for changing society, but unless ethical consciousness is attached to that education we have to ask what social and political attitudes are attached to that education. Because, if all the answer = the mindset of the BORG culture, then serious political discussion and real political and social choice is going to be bent in the shape that the hegemony dictates, and such is the nature of the beast at this moment in time.
I will edit this with my questions and my objections, when I paste in the relevant quotes from the thread.
Unlike vox or libereco, I am not hiding and U should know me by now, I like to be as thorough as possible.
Less speed, more haste!

May the Force be with U!

derminated