Tigzy wrote: ↑Thing is, these people will not be told. Communism, any form of far-leftism, is becoming like a religion to these folks. I was arguing with a Commie on twitter a while ago. His position was that never mind the deaths, communism is inherently more moral than nazism because violence is intrinsic to nazi doctrine. I helpfully pointed out any number of the statements Engels made concerning how violence - or more to the point, the threat of it - is essential to both the revolution and the post revolution workers 'paradise',
but he just would not have it. Apparently, Engels was wrong because it did not accord with this dipshit's personal,
proper idea of what Communism actually is. Once again, we have the 'well, proper communism hasn't actually been tried yet' bumblefuckery. In all, It wasn't so far removed from arguing the existence of god against one of those Christians - yes Peter Hitchens, I'm looking at you - who has such a sui generis idea of the Christian god that attempting to point out such biblical nonsenses as the all-powerful creator of the universe having a bit of difficulty with iron chariots is inevitably met with the snort, 'Well that's not the god
I believe in!' The difference here, though, is that the religious types (even the muzzie ones) generally aren't as downright nasty as the lefties.
And now we have Corbyn. Jesus Christing Corbyn. Holy shit. The maudlin messiah of the Islington allotment set, proclaimed 'The Absolute Boy' by any number of bearded Ralphs and white-dreadlocked Rosalinds in sub Guy Ritchie mockney accents. Fucking walking grey turnip who, in his defence, at least manages to be even less objectionable than his deputies, tankie McDonnell and shit for brains retard 'I think it's err eleventy-eleven' shadow home secretary Abbott - but the buck stops with Corbyn, because he appointed these bags of human dross. I could honestly spend ages pointing out numerous examples of how reality simply just does not get through to Corbyn's cultists, but it can be summed up concisely enough by this fact: that they think their Absolute Boy scored some kind of victory in not doing as badly as they feared against
the most hopeless, clueless, fucktarded, hey-let's-run-an-election-campaign-where-we-do-everything-in-our-power-to-alienate-our-voter-base monging fucking mong tory administration in living memory. Fuck me. And you point this out to them...but they just will not be told.
Which is why I do spend an inordinate amount of time ridiculing these fools, because trying to reason with them simply doesn't work. Now sure, I accept I could be wrong, and the left, in all its present grotesqueness, could be right. But we aren't going to find out through reasoned discussion, are we - and tbh, I'm not greatly inclined to wait and see if Corb gets into power. But if their ideas are robust, then they'll survive the ridicule. And let's face it, the right
does have the better memes.
The problem here is that everyone is talking about Communism and Capitalism when nobody has a clue of what they're discussing. Pretty much no one of the colored-hair and hipster brigade actually WANTS communism, what they really want is some social democratic reform to take down the power of corporations in politics and have the government create Keynesian, New Deal-style policies like investments in education, welfare, healthcare and child and elderly care.
Talk with the Young Commies and pretty nobody of them wants collective ownership of the means of production. Many have never ever READ Das Kapital, let alone other communist literature. All they know is that they're in massive debt due to their student debt, that their jobs are precarious and don't pay enough to let them start a family or buy a house, that it's incredibly hard to find public nurseries, that banks don't give them credit, that they're seeing a class of rich corporate interests privatize everything from healthcare to prisons, etc.
They believe that the "communism" they want is more like Sweden on steroids than like Venezuela or North Korea. They've been convinced that Sweden, a country with a very open and active market, is "socialist" and the US, where crony capitalism reigns and corporations influence politics to an absurd degree are "capitalism" fully realized. Many right wingers in the US and elsewhere believe the same thing. In reality this is a superficial and rather stupid analysis.
The problem stems from the Reagonomics in the US, and Thatcher economics and the Blair "third way" in the UK, while in the rest of Europe the real source of trouble are the neo-liberal economic policies and austerity imposed by the EU authorities.
In the 30s, 40s and 50s governments in all of the "Western world" invested HEAVILY in the economy. Nobody in their right mind would call Franklin Delano Roosevelt or Clement Attlee "Communists", and yet they DID create jobs or services through the use of public money. Even in the '60s and '70s public investments to steer the market out of recessions and promote jobs or services weren't seen as the Red Devil, not even in the US.
But in the '80s, after the Oil Crisis and record expenses had started to mess up the public investment system, something changed. The Chicago School of Economics promoted the idea that growth was on its way if only people removed all the instruments to control and separate financial and commercial banks, lowered taxes on the wealthy and took the state out of the economy. Social democratic or simply Keyenesian politics were decried as "socialism" or "communism". The whole idea of trickle-down economics became THE dominant economic idea. "Get rich" was the motto of that age "greed is good".
And FOR A WHILE it worked. The financial bubble heavily improved the US economy. Reagan could say that it was "morning in America". Thatcher was elected under a similar program in the UK. The standards of living were raised, electronic gadgets were all the craze. The neo-liberal Chicago School of Economics seemed to have been proven right.
More or less at the same time the USSR collapsed, China opened to the market, the Warsaw Pact countries shook off communism. The Cold War had been won by the US, Francis Fukuyama wrote about the "End of History". Left-wing parties in the "west" turned more or less into variations on the "New Labour" under Blair.
Bill Clinton in the US got rid of the last elements of the New Deal, like the Glass-Steagall Act, and started a trend of privatizations that has been continued by Bush AND Obama. Blair did more or less the same in the UK. Eternal growth was seen as possible once one got rid of those pesky rules and regulations. Innovations in the "new technologies" would have made us all rich.
What happened next is that the trickle-down, New Economy bubble collapsed, and badly. The 2008 financial and housing crisis hit the US AND Europe badly. But while the US recovered from it by using those Evil, Evil Communist interventions in the economy like bailouts and stimulus, in Europe things went differently, and the recipe was STILL neo-liberal austerity.
Even when the economy recovered lots of people, especially in the younger generations or in depressed areas, were "left behind". The economic stimuli didn't get rid of the privatizations or of corporate power, they simply upped the ante of cronyism and de-regulation in favor of government cronies. The 1%, the rich, the Big Corps have gotten FILTHY rich, while the middle class and lower classes have suffered.
In Europe youth unemployement is a serious problem. In the US the transition to a new economic system has left the people in the "Rust Belt" with little in terms of jobs and perspectives.
And everywhere the neoliberal gamble to get young people great jobs by having loads of them go to college has FAILED miserably. Lots of young people have been left with massive student debt and pretty much ZERO actual marketable skills in a marketplace that favors low-cost employees and has no place for those who aren't the top of the top in high tech.
So there you have it. Young people feeling cheated because they don't have the money or the skills to live on their own, and are instead trapped in crappy jobs that don't let them pay their debts or save enough money to move out of their parents' homes and start a family. Their degrees more often than not are useless garbage. And they get to see the 1% party around, get bailed out every time they fuck up and move their money to tax havens while their generation is likely going to be poorer than their parents'
Is it any wonder that they're fed up with the neo-liberal system and wish for change? Add in old farts in colleges who preach a rainbows and unicorns version of communism, instead of letting young people understand things on their own, and voila, here's the recipe for the young left, for Corbyn and Sanders.
Because NOBODY in the political or intellectual establishment seems to challenge the (RETARDED) idea that ALL state intervention is "socialism" or "communism" and ALL corporations are for "capitalism" and "free enterprise and competition" and not for corporate interests and for stealthily getting government money, those are (sadly) the terms of the debate, and instead of talking about a Newer Deal, or social democratic reforms, or about ditching corporate politics, privatization and trickle-down failed experiments, we waste our time blabbing about "communism which has never been tried".
