Anti fascist and other resources

[Spion]

Yes, I do. Why, what do you think they were: sincere democrats? They had as much contempt for "bourgeois democracy" as the Nazis.
If the KPD had come to power in Germany in the 1930s then a one-party state would have been established, the trade unions would have been supressed or incorporated into the state, other parties would have been banned, sincere pro-working class KPD members expelled and jailed, a ruthless secret police set up, concentration camps established, show trials staged, etc, just like in Russia. You must be naive to believe otherwise. George Orwell describes the beginning of this process when the "communists" got hold of power in Spain. And this is precisely what the KPD did when they got into power in part of Germany after the war (they even kept open some of the Nazi's old concentration camps : Sachenhausen for instance, renamed Zonderlager No 7http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachsenhausen_concentration_camp). The same thing happened in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Rumania and Bulgaria after the war.

I have no doubt that the leadership of the KPD would have acted as you say - or at least there would have been a tendency in that direction. However, they also had a large number of rank and file members, with whom (when not doing stupid 3rd period nonsense) it would have been essential to work with against the Nazi's thugs.

I'm no fan of stalinism but to write off those parties and their mass memberships (in the past) as 'red fascists' is jsut stupid.

And all that dennis has said about your 'sincere democrats' (chuckle) I agree with

 

[mk12]

The anarchists were a very significant force in Russia, yes. And by the mid-20's questions of 'mass support' were almost irrelevant, as no one had it, but the trots were (seen as) in a position where they could threaten Stalin from within the bureaucracy - and, a little later, his theories of how to oppose fascism were (rightly) recognised as offering a very serious threat to the Stalinist orthodoxy.

All you seem to be doing here is trying to 'show off' that you aren't a trot any more. We know.

Stalin would have felt threatened by anybody who 'opposed' him. Dictators always do. I just don't believe the L.O. offered a genuine alternative and were never in a position (mainly due to the political bankruptcy of their ideas) to challenge the ruling group. But I guess the L.O. is a different subject.

It would have been interesting to see if the KPD ruled Germany in the same way as the Bolsheviks ruled Russia. Another one of those historical 'what ifs' I suppose.

 

[audiotech]

So you don't think that professional writing is political or contains the author's own ideas/history/politics; what a very old fashioned and ill informed positioned to take.

One of the things I'm working on at the moment are a set of activities, delivered via the internet which bring academic research skills to the health and social care workplace; they aim to help health and social care workers become reflexive critical practitioners, with a commitment to service user empowerment, who can make an ongoing contribution to the development of their professions and most importantly the services they provide.

Cheers - Louis (the professional is political) MacNeice

As someone who works at the bottom of the care sector, can I say that I've never read such a load of old bollocks as that highlighted. Do you get lots of money for writing that drivel?

 

[mk12]

edit: double post

 

[dennisr]

As someone who works at the bottom of the care sector, can I say that I've never read such a load of old bollocks as that highlighted. Do you get lots of money for writing that drivel?

*sits back, pulls up chair and opens popcorn* - this will be an interesting one - two folk i quite like about to have a proper spat

 

[Jean-Luc]

So you feel these 'red fascists' are worse than bourgeois democrats'

Yes, I do think they are worse than sincere democrats, ie people who support democratic principles and institutions even within capitalism, for instance some of those who supported the Popular Front government in Spain that Franco suceeded in the end in overthrowing.
Surely you don't think that it is better for the working class and people in general to live under a one-party totalitarian dictatorship as in Russia (and as still in North Korea) such as the KPD and other Communist Parties favoured than to live in a political democracy like Britain? Or do you. I think Trotskyists said they'd take the side of Russia in the event of the "Cold War" becoming a hot war. In which case your position is quite understandable. But it rather undermines your credentials to oppose the BNP on democratic grounds.

Remind us again what the bourgeois democrats did after the war exactly? (ie Greece, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Suez Canal, N. Ireland etc etc - leading up to Iraq in the case of the UK - lets not even begin on the other bourgeois democratic countries...)

I can do if you want but it's relevant to the point at issue, ie whether it's better for people to live in a political democracy rather than a under one-party dictatorship and so oppose not just "brown" fascism but "red fascism" too,ie in today's real world campaign equally against the tankies of the "New Communist Party" (who support the North Korean regime and are probably get funds from it) as against the BNP.
Supporting dictatorships in Spain, Portugal, Greece, etc and colonialism shows the people you mention not to be sincere democrats but cynical politicians just using the word "democracy" to disguise their imperialist agenda just as Russia and China used the word "socialist" to try to disguise theirs.

 

[audiotech]

*sits back, pulls up chair and opens popcorn* - this will be an interesting one - two folk i quite like about to have a proper spat

 

[dennisr]

Supporting dictatorships in Spain, Portugal, Greece, etc and colonialism shows the people you mention not to be sincere democrats but cynical politicians

I think you will find that most of the type of 'sincere democrats' you think of were cynical politicians.

Democracy had a role to play for them - when that democracy was threatened by different forms of democracy (say worker's democracy for instance...) it was soon dropped

I cannot really be arsed with the idea that because i point out the contradiction in you arguement about 'sincere democrats' i must therefore be an apologist for stalinist dictators

I mean who really give a flying feck what a couple of deluded old NCP members (an organisation with even less members than yours. probably) think? - it is neither here nor there really is it mate? What has that got to do with the price of fish or your childish caricature of of what 'fascism' is or is not. I would stick to your catholic conspiracy fantasies if I were you (from the other thread - you are one weird mother!)

you are just a weird liberal arn't you? i suppose it is easy to claim no responsibility for anything when you haven't done anything except sit in some weird 'moral judgment' world of your own making where everything slots into ready-made catagories such as 'trotskyist' which you can make the real world fit to. Like a sort of "If one does not do anything then one is not guilty of anything" way of viewing the world (personally I think that is completely false - I think people who are not completely ignorant are as responsible as anybody else - but hey, it makes folk feel better about themselves)

 

[Louis MacNeice]

As someone who works at the bottom of the care sector, can I say that I've never read such a load of old bollocks as that highlighted. Do you get lots of money for writing that drivel?

Who do you think I'm writing for MC5; yep that's right health care assistants who want to become registered nurses (overwhelmingly working class, predominantly female and disproportionately coming from ethnic minority backgrounds). The anonymous student surveys we run during the courses and post qualification show that your colleagues who use the materials I help produce don't agree with you. So I think I'll go with the informed opinion of those who have actually read and used what I have written rather than the uninformed sectarian spleen of an ageing swappie.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

p.s. would you rather have professional health and social care education which didn't have the aims I've outlined?

p.p.s. if you've really 'never read such a load of old bollocks' then you must have read very little that eminates from any local authority, health trust, trade union or revolutionary socialist party...or perhaps it was just another example of deeply ingrained kneejerk SWP hyperbole...you were just 'bending the stick' eh comrade.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

"One of the things I'm working on at the moment are a set of activities, delivered via the internet which bring academic research skills to the health and social care workplace; they aim to help health and social care workers become reflexive critical practitioners, with a commitment to service user empowerment, who can make an ongoing contribution to the development of their professions and most importantly the services they provide."

A quick translation: health and social care professionals need:

1. to be consistently reflecting on their own practice;

2. to be able to place that practice in the contexts provided by laws, finance and public discussion;

3. to always place service users at the centre of what they do;

4. to be able to help their chosen profession develop in ways that best meet points 1,2 and 3.

None of which strikes me as being a 'load of old bollocks'; a bit nebulous and waffly maybe but that tends to be the way of such condensed aspirational 'wish lists'. It's the way it gets played out in detail over the years of study which count, and as I pointed out above our students seem to think we do a rather good job of it when it comes to the detail.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

p.s. the SWP would give it's eye teeth for our retention rates!

 

[audiotech]

"One of the things I'm working on at the moment are a set of activities, delivered via the internet which bring academic research skills to the health and social care workplace; they aim to help health and social care workers become reflexive critical practitioners, with a commitment to service user empowerment, who can make an ongoing contribution to the development of their professions and most importantly the services they provide."

A quick translation: health and social care professionals need:

1. to be consistently reflecting on their own practice;

2. to be able to place that practice in the contexts provided by laws, finance and public discussion;

3. to always place service users at the centre of what they do;

4. to be able to help their chosen profession develop in ways that best meet points 1,2 and 3.

None of which strikes me as being a 'load of old bollocks'; a bit nebulous and waffly maybe but that tends to be the way of such condensed aspirational 'wish lists'. It's the way it gets played out in detail over the years of study which count, and as I pointed out above our students seem to think we do a rather good job of it when it comes to the detail.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

p.s. the SWP would give it's eye teeth for our retention rates!

Don't keep bringing the SWP into it. As I've said umpteen times before, I've not been a member of said party for 18 years now. I'm not a social worker either, if that was your next question?

I do have a worthless degree in social policy though, so I'm used to the nebulous waffle academia spews forth, which if I came out with, to the people I meet every day, they would look at me as if I was from another planet.

On the ground it's a different story - a bloody crisis in fact - not much of that information given to "critical practitioners" is it?

"Empowerment"? There's hundreds of thousands of people who can't even get basic care at the moment, nevermind the time to think about the latest academic buzzword. "Empowerment" in this context is putting more pressure on already stressed out carers and services that are limited.

As for workers being "reflective"? Do me a favour, they don't have the bloody time.

"Place the service user at the centre"? The centre of what? A huge waiting list?

As for "condensed aspirational 'wish lists'"? Sounds like something you put in a cup of coffee ffs. Wish lists stay as wish lists usually. It's filthy lucre and political will that make your wishes come true Louis.

Please, get out of your ivory tower, stick the academic waffle where the sun don't shine and then take a long hard look at the reality of care.

I've news for you too, it's gonna get a hell of a lot worse.

Telling that to your "reflexive critical practitioners"? No, of course you're not.

 

[Jean-Luc]

I think you will find that most of the type of 'sincere democrats' you think of were cynical politicians.

There must be some sincere democrats about, otherwise what's the point of your New Workers Party and appealing to people to oppose the BNP because it's against democracy?

you are just a weird liberal arn't you?

I can live with that, but is it worse or better than being an arsehole? But what does that make you? A perfectly normal advocate of a dictatorship over the proletariat as under Lenin and Trotsky who set it all up for Stalin?

 

[durruti02]

Well, as George Santayana said (to paraphrase), "those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it".

indeed yes THAT is true!

 

[durruti02]

Yeah, funny that. Me living in Durham (the mining county par excellance), and me also working with Durham miners

???? are you serious???? there is no more than a couple of drift mines in durham afaik and the local num has 30 members .. please tell us differrent .. so what exactly is it that you do? i presume you involved with a retired/unemployed miners welfare programme .. tell us more ..

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Don't keep bringing the SWP into it. As I've said umpteen times before, I've not been a member of said party for 18 years now. I'm not a social worker either, if that was your next question?

I do have a worthless degree in social policy though, so I'm used to the nebulous waffle academia spews forth, which if I came out with, to the people I meet every day, they would look at me as if I was from another planet.

On the ground it's a different story - a bloody crisis in fact - not much of that information given to "critical practitioners" is it?

"Empowerment"? There's hundreds of thousands of people who can't even get basic care at the moment, nevermind the time to think about the latest academic buzzword. "Empowerment" in this context is putting more pressure on already stressed out carers and services that are limited.

As for workers being "reflective"? Do me a favour, they don't have the bloody time.

"Place the service user at the centre"? The centre of what? A huge waiting list?

As for "condensed aspirational 'wish lists'"? Sounds like something you put in a cup of coffee ffs. Wish lists stay as wish lists usually. It's filthy lucre and political will that make your wishes come true Louis.

Please, get out of your ivory tower, stick the academic waffle where the sun don't shine and then take a long hard look at the reality of care.

I've news for you too, it's gonna get a hell of a lot worse.

Telling that to your "reflexive critical practitioners"? No, of course you're not.

MC5 keep up the uninformed ranting and ignore what I've actually posted it makes you look really sharp.

Alternatively have a think about what I've actually posted (rather than your feverish imaginings of my ivory tower academic life). Don't you think that health care assitants, the service user panel, the NMC, our service user writers, external examiners et al would be quite capable of pulling us up if we were as wide of the mark as you seem to suppose?

As for the questions of waiting lists, limited resources and workload pressures they are the bread and butter of what I write about you nit (how could nurses and social workers be genuinely critical otherwise); indeed the idea of helping to develop a profession that is service user centred and able to fight its corner in this context is crucial.

Cheers - Louis (from his ivory tower two up two down terrace) MacNeice

 

[The Black Hand]

So you don't think that professional writing is political or contains the author's own ideas/history/politics; what a very old fashioned and ill informed positioned to take.

One of the things I'm working on at the moment are a set of activities, delivered via the internet which bring academic research skills to the health and social care workplace; they aim to help health and social care workers become reflexive critical practitioners, with a commitment to service user empowerment, who can make an ongoing contribution to the development of their professions and most importantly the services they provide.

Cheers - Louis (the professional is political) MacNeice

DOh! Of course you have input. But I am not interested in writing you get time and money to produce as part of your profession (as a researcher you know this skews the wicket), I would rather read what voluntary interesting politics you have. If any.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

DOh! Of course you have input. But I am not interested in writing you get time and money to produce as part of your profession (as a researcher you know this skews the wicket), I would rather read what voluntary interesting politics you have. If any.

You really are strange (and not in a good way). You're not interested in what I write as part of the profession I have chosen to pursue because it's something I value and see as a good way of me using my skills and experience to a socially and personally useful end; that's just plain stupid.

I guess it's it's just as well I'm not writing to interest you, but rather to help protect and improve the health and social care services; the services I care deeply for based on my personal/familial experience and political commitment.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[Louis MacNeice]

DOh! Of course you have input. But I am not interested in writing you get time and money to produce as part of your profession (as a researcher you know this skews the wicket), I would rather read what voluntary interesting politics you have. If any.

Can't you get someone to pay you to write?

Cheers - Louis (the wage slave word smith) MacNeice

 

[The Black Hand]

DOh! Of course you have input. But I am not interested in writing you get time and money to produce as part of your profession (as a researcher you know this skews the wicket), I would rather read what voluntary interesting politics you have. If any.

You know, I have wide ranging interests - Crime (pigs/prisons - organised crime/white collar crime etc), monarchy, anti fascism Working class and labour history (18th, 19th and 20th century class struggles), the state and the state debate, New Deal -the attack on welfare, miners, Miners Strike 1984/85, The poll tax, railwayworkers, Thatcherism and unemployment, Marxism - British Marxist historians and Autonomist Marxism, Fordism/post Fordism (technological change/labour process), dual power/class justice, hunting (!) and more.

Yet you managed to find something I have no interest whatsoever in. Well done.

 

[The Black Hand]

Can't you get someone to pay you to write?

Cheers - Louis (the wage slave word smith) MacNeice

I do Picked up a fat check only today

 

[butchersapron]

No you didn't.

 

[The Black Hand]

No you didn't.

What planet are you on? Wierdo!!

 

[The Black Hand]

No you didn't.

Why are you following me around, stalking me, day after day after day posting rubbish, lies and so on?

 

[lights.out.london]

If social work and care are instruments of control and social engineering, what does that make a member of the Fourth Estate who makes money from writing about it?

they aim to help health and social care workers become reflexive critical practitioners, with a commitment to service user empowerment, who can make an ongoing contribution to the development of their professions and most importantly the services they provide."

Technically known as Bolloxology.

 

[butchersapron]

If social work and care are instruments of control and social engineering, what does that make a member of the Fourth Estate who makes money from writing about it?



Technically known as Bolloxology.

Wow

 

[The Black Hand]

If social work and care are instruments of control and social engineering, what does that make a member of the Fourth Estate who makes money from writing about it?

Technically known as Bolloxology.

 

[butchersapron]

And the circle closes - yanks and free-marketers. The people he's now sticking his tongue up. Why? Why has be been forced into these reseveres?

 

[audiotech]

MC5 keep up the uninformed ranting and ignore what I've actually posted it makes you look really sharp.

Alternatively have a think about what I've actually posted (rather than your feverish imaginings of my ivory tower academic life). Don't you think that health care assitants, the service user panel, the NMC, our service user writers, external examiners et al would be quite capable of pulling us up if we were as wide of the mark as you seem to suppose?

As for the questions of waiting lists, limited resources and workload pressures they are the bread and butter of what I write about you nit (how could nurses and social workers be genuinely critical otherwise); indeed the idea of helping to develop a profession that is service user centred and able to fight its corner in this context is crucial.

Cheers - Louis (from his ivory tower two up two down terrace) MacNeice

Uninformed, I don't think so. Why don't you dump the waffle and just call me a 'thick cunt'.

Who knows, I may have even got your "critical thinking" moving in another direction?

 

[Louis MacNeice]

If social work and care are instruments of control and social engineering, what does that make a member of the Fourth Estate who makes money from writing about it?



Technically known as Bolloxology.

I'm not a member of the fourth estate; the bolloxology is all yours.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[lights.out.london]

And the circle closes - yanks and free-marketers. The people he's know sticking his tongue up.

What? lmao