I rarely find myself outright trembling with rage and fear. This, though, managed it:

Could they have found a more unreconstructed example of steaming, greasy excrement? The idiocy on display is commonplace Republicanism; peace through violence, defence through bombing cities full of children to dust, the usual. But the boldness of the hypocrisy took my breath away. Just listen to the smug shitmouth:

Interviewer: Are you worried about the escalating costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, I mean, how would we pay for it?

Delegate: We should plant a flag, take the oil, take the money, we deserve reimbursement.

Reimbursement? Reimbursement for what, precisely? You invade a country citing your own country’s defence from weapons you claim an undemocratic dictator foisted on that people; you also claim you’ll shunt off that dictator. You mercilessly bungle that war, to the tune of some 85,000 civilian deaths and leave it with streets dominated by theocratic militias. In short, you do the job for yourself and you do it badly. You have no right to reimbursement.

And the flow of filth goes on unabated. Schwartz feels that it makes perfect sense to actively bomb Iran - that is, take a step past threatening to bomb - on the grounds that Iran might threaten Israel. Note that he doesn’t even try to frame his viciousness as a defence of the bombed, this time; there’s no mention of brutal theocracy as there is by anti-war projects such as HOPOI. He simply sees people he’s never met and likely doesn’t understand, who happen to have been born on the wrong side of the border, and decees they must be flattened. It’s naked, undisguised jingoism.

Politicians are often more restrained by their partisan supporters than by the electorate themselves. Those supporters put the politicians where they were. In McCain’s case, they nominated him. If not for their support, they wouldn’t even be before the electorate. They have to listen to them, day after day, month after month - a practise they only have to repeat for the voters every four years. So, when McCain’s supporters demand the outright obliteration of the Middle East, we know how little restraint he might face should he win the election; none. Isn’t that terrifying?

(Hat-tip: Mr. Eugenides.)

I can’t decide who I want to lose.

May they die in each others arms. Soon.

Iranian distributer of The Satanic Verses has his potential deportation halted.

Why it was going to occur at all is beyond me, though.

(Or: SES at Marxism 2008, part 2)

This time around I managed to gather myself from slumbers early enough to show up in time for considerably more sessions than the day before, albeit not nearly as early as the brisk 10.00 start that the meetings began with. I actually underestimated my lateness and ended up ploughing into what I thought was Labour and Alienation soon after starting but which was in fact Historical Materialism about to finish. Consequentially entry was a matter of ease; although in hindsight I probably left a SWP doorperson or two baffled.

I honestly can’t remember a lot about historical materialism, but as far as I can tell there was somehow a conversation about ethics going on, which was topically innappropriate but entertaining all the same, if only for a chap with shoulder-length dirty blonde hair who took to the floor and began talking about Kronsdat.

Now if I was looking for a sharp start to my day here it was: once this world was uttered things seemed to ripple and the effect was as delightful as I had imagined ennounciating such syllables in a room full of Trotskyites would be. Indeed, I merely deemed it a pity that I hadn’t beaten the chap to the bunch.

He was immediately followed by a bleached-blond lass who would later turn out to be somehow important who gave it some typical blather. Safeguarding the Revolution and so on, you know the drill. Never mind that their hero had overseen and executed the crushing of the epitome of the revolution, had to be done to protect a structure that they didn’t even agree with, see? The alternative being a far more popular brand of socialism than the Bolsheviks seeing control of the country and that…Uhm…Anyway…

The room was still left unsettled. The topic moved on and it was about some other stuff, with my recollection failing me over the materialism stuff. What was interesting was that as he was headed out of the room the chap who had asked was verbally hailed by a pair of Marxism “Staff” t-shirt wearers from behind a table, who wanted to give him the Kronsdtat Chat. I stuck around to hear this and the first man was firm and pulled away quickly by duties while the second was softer but spoke to us for longer, accompanying us to the lift and staying with us for a while.

Their arguments seemed to consist of a mixture of emphasising the importance of crushing the Kronsdtat threat, claiming that there were none of the original Kronsdtat sailors left owing to attrition from the revolution(s) against the Csar and the heavy losses of the Civil War (concerning this, as with all other matters of detail, you must consult Douglas or some other historian who is of this field rather than early Medieval as I am) , launching ad hominems (those that bring this up are bourgeois or anarchists aiming to discredit Trotsky rather than achieve anything productive) and talking about how the Bolsheviks agonised over the decision.

They also stated that the Kronsdtat make up was Socialist Revolutionary rather than Bolshevik, and this irked me: even I am aware that when Lenin briefly allowed an experiment in democracy the very reason he rejected the outcome was that the SRs won in a landslide, crushing the Bolsheviks electorally and demonstrating a level of support for the militants of an immensely smaller scale than they liked to presume. This considered, that there were plenty of Kronsdtat sailors Social Revolutionaries is hardly surprising at all.

Unfortunately all Bolshevik apologists dislike you bringing up their almost total absence of mandate about as much as Trots do his authoritarian atrocities. So we didn’t get far but the people we spoke to were perfectly friendly and their response seemed more an earnest attempt to explain their position rather than intimidation or anything of the sort. As ever the SWP seemed like a misguided but ultimately lovely bunch.

As we headed outside I encountered a large number of groups that thought otherwise. This was a set of people who’d cleared off before I arrived yesterday and were in some ways who I was there for. The SWP I’d already heard plenty from and now it was time for The Rest of The Left.

(more…)

Bold words. But given the continuing mystery over Israel’s strike on Syria late last year they might not be wise.

My my…

Reformists not allowed to stand in Iranian elections, you say? Who would have thought!

It is as if they are going out of their way to do those Iranian Marxists work for them…