ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
nino_savatte said:
Don't forget that "G-d" phantom. His followers have caused more death and misery (to their fellow believers and to non-believers) that Herr Marx's acolytes ever did.
Class System
- Thread starter Gmart
- Start date
Don't forget that "G-d" phantom. His followers have caused more death and misery (to their fellow believers and to non-believers) that Herr Marx's acolytes ever did.
nino_savatte said:
I love a challenge.
Start with these as I'm pushed for time now.
In 1975, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge created their Marxist Year Zero in Cambodia, two million were killed.
In 1974, Mengistu Haile Marian and his Marxist Dergue overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie in Ethiopia murdering millions more.
a good start or are you going to tell me they were corrupted and just calling themselves marxists
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
ViolentPanda said:
Oooops!
Very good point and thanks for reminding me. Almost all the wars prior to the so-called Modern era were waged in His name. Even certain members of the US military, like General William "God's on our side" Boykin, believe the US is waging a "holy war".
revol68
what, fucking what?
Blaming some grumpy old bastard who lived in the 19th century and who spent must of his time in Libaries or complaing about his boils, for the sin's of Stalin and Pol Pot is a bit like blaming Plato for the crimes of all states.
Now stop inflicting your ill thought out sub GCSE thesis's upon us, you fucking cretin!
Now stop inflicting your ill thought out sub GCSE thesis's upon us, you fucking cretin!
if this hypothesis was applied to race (why is it that there are so many poor black people? surely they only have themselves to blame ultimately....) it would have been jumped on
saying muslims are excluding themselves from society with these eccentric religious laws is completely off, but saying essentially, that poor people only have themselves to blame is fair do
saying muslims are excluding themselves from society with these eccentric religious laws is completely off, but saying essentially, that poor people only have themselves to blame is fair do
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
big footed fred said:
First, Pol Pot may have called himself a Marxist but he cannot be considered a marxist by any stretch of the imagination nor can Year Zero be considered an example of "Marxism in action". Kill all intellectuals? That doesn't sound too Marxist, nor does the killing of anyone who wears glasses.
Interesting how you mention Mengistu but overlook bought and paid for tyrants like Mobutu, whom the US supported until his death. Then there are all the proxy wars waged by the US on the continent in the name of "freedom and democracy"; Angola, Namibia etc.
While we're on the subject of the US propping up dictators, how about Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua? The latter was siezed by US marines in the early part of ther 20th century and handed over to the Samoza family. Now you can leap in here and shout "Sandanista butchers!" all you like but Samoza and his internal security apparatus was responsible for far more deaths than the civil war. Then there's the Contras: trained and funded by the US...but why stop there? There's Vietnam too: the French wanted to hang on to Indochina but the natives had other ideas; the French got beaten and called the Yanks...the rest is history.
Or how about the Spanish-American War of 1898, which set the US on the road to having a wee empire of its own? You realise that the US has been involved in some form of military conflict each decade since 1898. Was the US waging these wars in the name of Marxism? Furthermore, were any of these wars struggles for national liberation?
I could always add to this the Crimean War, the War of Jenkin's Ear, The Battle of Culloden, the Peninsular War, the Opium Wars (a proper capitalist war) the various Anglo-French Wars, the Suez Crisis, WWI and WWII. How about Britain's various military expeditions to Ireland? were they waged in the name of Marxism? Were the Black and Tans carrying out their orders with a copy of Das Kapital in their pockets?
How about the Iran-Iraq war, Fred? Was that caused by Marxism? It was supported by two capitalist powers who played off one side against the other. Guess which countries were the chief protagonists in this sorry saga? The US and Israel.
Got any more? I love a challenge, me.
The Class system in the UK is very strong....
The Education sytem channels people into their places with a minimum of meritocracy...
The legal establsihment is still dominated by the old boy network..
The armed forces the public services and the govt are all dominated by the kind of people whos parents sent them to private/public schools.....
The Orthodox Left is dominated by people who would rather the rich stayed in control of the education and legal system than anybody who would really rock the boat.......
The Education sytem channels people into their places with a minimum of meritocracy...
The legal establsihment is still dominated by the old boy network..
The armed forces the public services and the govt are all dominated by the kind of people whos parents sent them to private/public schools.....
The Orthodox Left is dominated by people who would rather the rich stayed in control of the education and legal system than anybody who would really rock the boat.......
tbaldwin said:
Yep, and with the left not having the billions of pounds needed to come up with decent media(movies, images, ads, books, tv spots) to deal with this...
Tho with computer animation possible on a desktop computer, and digital video camcorders being quite cheap, and software being widely available.... it maybe possible to raise awareness...desktop printing is extremely cheap, I could print 5000 news letters for about a tenner, and with email and the internet, it's very, very possible to create a mainstream working class newsletter, which could be a start in organising the whole country democratically from "below".....it's not like asking people to grow wings and fly....
tbaldwin said:
Perhaps it is a direct result of them being best for the job.
The best will always rise to the top and recreate a new class system even if the lefty nutcases manage to kill the ones we have now.
Commies in russia had a good old pop in 1917 but after a few million dead the best still came out on top and a new capitalist society emerged to restore order.
Ninjaboy said:
Is that taking into account the private education system and the types of people who sit in the top jobs which pay hundreds of thousands a year......And that families struggling with finances are going to be a lot more stressed, more likely to suffer breakup, family breakdown, fights, violence and are going to suffer all sorts of health problems, live in areas whcih are extremely violent, rundown, have poor local services, poor libraries, health services, transport, be forced to eat crap food because they can't afford to eat proper organic food grown in their own garden or from decent farms....
poor people will go to crap schools and get manufactured to enter crap jobs or through good luck may get into a decent comprehensive school full of rich, priviliged kids and teachers, then get socially excluded, looked down on and pushed to the back of the class, so they still get pushed into a crap job
saying essentially, that poor people only have themselves to blame is NOT fair do
Fruitloop said:
Blair was elected so you can't count him.
big footed fred said:Blair was elected so you can't count him.
does that count the amount of votes which were rigged? and the proportion of the population who refused to vote because they knew it's just voting between which buisness puppet is going to stab you in the back?
No he wasn't voted in....
clmk said:Is that taking into account the private education system and the types of people who sit in the top jobs which pay hundreds of thousands a year......And that families struggling with finances are going to be a lot more stressed, more likely to suffer breakup, family breakdown, fights, violence and are going to suffer all sorts of health problems, live in areas whcih are extremely violent, rundown, have poor local services, poor libraries, health services, transport, be forced to eat crap food because they can't afford to eat proper organic food grown in their own garden or from decent farms....
poor people will go to crap schools and get manufactured to enter crap jobs or through good luck may get into a decent comprehensive school full of rich, priviliged kids and teachers, then get socially excluded, looked down on and pushed to the back of the class, so they still get pushed into a crap job
saying essentially, that poor people only have themselves to blame is NOT fair do
exactly, so many people on 'the left' have abandoned class politics cos identity politics is a lot easier, especially on this board. the fact that this thread wasn't flamed to bits is a sad sad indication
i
Politics based around race, ethnicity, sex, religion, caste, sexual orientation, physical disability, maybe easier to get involved in but it doesn't make it, in my mind, more important than what affects the actual majority of the population as a whole, which is "the class/economic system"
Fragmenting the left into smaller, less significant issues, economic "class" disadvantage affects, females, ethnic minorities, homosexuals, the disabled, the aged, in fact more so.....
I've met very rich and priviliged people who didn't embrace their own class views, who should have supported the smashing down of public services, and wages and cramming the poor into as little space as possible by rocketing house prices....they fully supported raising living standards for everyone as a whole, they didn't agree with pitting one national workforce against another through the free flow of capital/production, they didn't support the occupation in Iraq ... the same way I don't spit on a homeless person on the street or look down my nose at a so called "chav" or a "junkie" spiralling out of control.......
Fragmenting the left into smaller, less significant issues, economic "class" disadvantage affects, females, ethnic minorities, homosexuals, the disabled, the aged, in fact more so.....
I've met very rich and priviliged people who didn't embrace their own class views, who should have supported the smashing down of public services, and wages and cramming the poor into as little space as possible by rocketing house prices....they fully supported raising living standards for everyone as a whole, they didn't agree with pitting one national workforce against another through the free flow of capital/production, they didn't support the occupation in Iraq ... the same way I don't spit on a homeless person on the street or look down my nose at a so called "chav" or a "junkie" spiralling out of control.......
clmk said:
word
specially since race politics are pretty redundant when compared to class generally. there are plenty of 'nice middle class kids' of all ethnicities, just the same as there are plenty of working class kids from all ethnicities who are completely disenfranchised
Gmart
Well-Known Member
I think the class divisions which used to apply have broken down now. It is much more a division between those who believe in society and those who don't, especially with the rich poor gap getting ever bigger, and the maintainance of such regressive tax systems as the Council Tax which reinforces the gap between those who own and those who don't.
We are getting a mix of dualities, rather than a three class division.
We are getting a mix of dualities, rather than a three class division.
Gmarthews said:
that's an illusion tho, if you have no money society is irrelevent
our notion of society is a sham, if you are stkint you don't get to benefit from it, only serve it
the dualities oyu talk about are just a way for those with power to divide the working class and forget that they hold the power ultimately
like this whole thing to divide the working class from the 'underclass'. the underclass doesn't exist, it is a perpetuation of the myth that the working class has only themselves to blame for not being clever and rich like the middle class
good prole/bad prole
Gmart
Well-Known Member
Ninjaboy said:
That's a bit dramatic ain't it? After all benefits are available to all, as are many services.
I agree that the haves are trying to blame the havenots (and vica versa), but this is all due to the lack of equal opportunity. We should all stop trying to blame each other for the system we have left over from the ironically titled 'Glorious Revolution', and start to create a system which can work towards equality of opportunity, rather than fall into the trap of blaming everyone we don't know again.
no offence like, but that argument is like some 19th century industrialist saying "well we build factories for these people to work in..."
the people clinging on to power deserve contempt, the illusion of some abstract or moral justification for why some people have more opportunities than others dissappears very very quickly when there is any small threat that the situation might be reversed
if the class divide was a purely fictional thing there would be no need for a policce force
the people clinging on to power deserve contempt, the illusion of some abstract or moral justification for why some people have more opportunities than others dissappears very very quickly when there is any small threat that the situation might be reversed
if the class divide was a purely fictional thing there would be no need for a policce force
Gmarthews said:
But the have's are viciously, violently, ruthlessly making sure that the so called "have not's" which is 99% of the world's population never, ever, have anything. And so the "class" war goes on..."class" has a really horrible image attachment to it. Rather "And so the fight between the greedy, vile, nasty, shitheads and the beaten, battered, poor goes on..."
The Black Hand
Unclean
Gmarthews said:
Blairite twat! Or is it Brown (nosing) twat? Which Labour 'leader' do you follow maffews?
Gmart
Well-Known Member
Class War Anarchists trying to label everyone again.I never said i was Labour, nor implied it, but you felt the need to attack me so you can take your rolley eyes and...
Meanwhile concerning the class issue:
Ninj - i appreciate your points, and certainly business employs a lot of people. This enables people to raise families which is a good thing, and is why governments always end up in bed with business. I am merely stating that society has to have equality of opportunity, otherwise it divides. As clmk says the haves do cling to their power like leeches, and i am trying to find a way to prevent this, and to bring a more equitable, meritocratic method for dealing with this.
I appreciate that if there were no class divide we wouldn't need a police force, and this is what i am aiming at.
For example a case could be made for higher inheritance tax, to ensure that wealth is not passed down the line so much, or for a land tax to ensure that the haves cannot just hold land whilst they wait for the market to go even higher (or just out of laziness). One could also argue for more localism such as in Europe, but usually everyone suddenly starts to defend the UK system if anyone dares to suggest that Europe might have a point (ie subsidiarity).
First and foremost i am looking for systems which address these issues without going down the totalitarian path of certain people who just want to replace the existing authoritarian system with another which is what usually happens.
subsidisation is at the expense of africa, no way can any farm compete with the eu since a farm doesn't even have to make a profit in europa
it's a harsh fact, but our lives are paid for by the poor, and if their was ever true equality we wouldn't have such an easy time of it
it's a harsh fact, but our lives are paid for by the poor, and if their was ever true equality we wouldn't have such an easy time of it
Ninjaboy said:
No.....People in the 3rd world can be given decent working conditions, wages, hours, a decent infrastructure, at hardly any expense to our lifestyles.... if any....There is more than enough resources for the "3rd world" to live just like the "1st world"......They're being conciously held back, and beaten into extremely horrible conditions......
The Black Hand
Unclean
Gmarthews said:
I never said i was Labour, nor implied it, but you felt the need to attack me so you can take your rolley eyes and...
Meanwhile concerning the class issue:
Ninj - i appreciate your points, and certainly business employs a lot of people. This enables people to raise families which is a good thing, and is why governments always end up in bed with business. I am merely stating that society has to have equality of opportunity, otherwise it divides. As clmk says the haves do cling to their power like leeches, and i am trying to find a way to prevent this, and to bring a more equitable, meritocratic method for dealing with this.
I appreciate that if there were no class divide we wouldn't need a police force, and this is what i am aiming at.
For example a case could be made for higher inheritance tax, to ensure that wealth is not passed down the line so much, or for a land tax to ensure that the haves cannot just hold land whilst they wait for the market to go even higher (or just out of laziness). One could also argue for more localism such as in Europe, but usually everyone suddenly starts to defend the UK system if anyone dares to suggest that Europe might have a point (ie subsidiarity).
First and foremost i am looking for systems which address these issues without going down the totalitarian path of certain people who just want to replace the existing authoritarian system with another which is what usually happens.
Keep up! I am not in the Class War Federation anymore!! Dress the rest up how you want Brown nosing Twat, when you can actually get an answer out of New labourites or other social democrats as what socialism really is, you get an answer the same as yours, a 'level playing field', equal opportunity... Here's a clue, its bollocks. Try looking for an anti system (anarchism) that removes the structures that create a system and the possibility that some can take power, and you'll have an easier job than trying to make capitalism fair (in short, its impossible).
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