Lansbury's Lido

 

The people say no!
Are the people finally rising up and throwing off their capitalist overlords? Says communism but smells like capitalism, a controlling class milking the workers for all their worth. Sounds familiar?

 

Stallman: Facebook IS Mass Surveillance — RT
via rt.com

Top man! Knows his onions when it comes to software freedom.

 

Segestria Florentina

 Bit of a move away from politics and faith to spiders. Was rummaging through some old pics and came across these that I took one Sunday afternoon a few summers ago. Three spiders, all different.

First off a little green fella scuttling across the garden table. Taken with macro and came out pretty reasonable. No idea what his name is.

Next we have the common fat garden spider, tucking into some kind of wasp. You'll also see through the window the debris from Sunday lunch which I was tucking into earlier.

And lastly there is the big black beasty which I noticed as it was scurrying towards the back door. Gave it a poke with a twig and it promptly rolled over and played dead! Clever girl! It's a Segestria Florentina or a Tube Web Spider. These are fairly recent immigrants which have made their homes in the Southern parts of these Isles. A bite similar to a bee sting apparently. And looking at it I can believe it.

(download)

 

Am I A Socialist?

Civ

 

Been a lot of things whizzing through my head recently about what I see as my identity in politics. I've always considered myself to be a socialist. Not a Social Democrat but a Democratic Socialist.

What that means for me in practice is a political outlook and agenda that calls for nationalisation of key industries and services; the defined role of trade unions; the state as a benevolent concept that protects the working class from capitalist exploitation; putting to practice Labour's now defunct Clause IV; the state turning away from aggressive wars and seeking to meet the defence of the country and people rather than imposing capitalism on other countries; equality and acceptance of all people; an international rather than national outlook; the preservation of this world and its natural resourced from destructive and selfish capitalism. And a few other things as well.

Recently I've been reading Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed and some of my thinking has been changed by what I've read. In some ways I've been nostalgic for the now defunct Soviet Union, I saw good in there but also wrong. Now I read through Trotsky quite how wrong things were - the rise of a parasitic bureaucratic class (just like the UK now!), the cult of personality, the repression of revolutionary ideas and the concept of 'revolution in one state'.

Yet I also read things that concern me about what 'Socialism' means to many others who describe themselves as Socialists. Trotsky gives me a general understanding that the immediate aim of any 'socialist' state is to raise industrial output and scientific progress to match the capitalist countries. Which seems to me to say that socialism must extract more value from the working class if it is to meet people's expectations. Is this a road to consumerism with the working class paying the price? Is socialism in direct competition to the role of the trade unions? Perhaps this explains why we read little of trade unions in 'communist and socialist' countries like the Soviet Union, Vietnam, Cuba? In fact we perhaps read more about the repression of independent trade unions than we would like to.

Maybe any identity which looks upon itself as the state and takes control of national aspects is doomed to be in constant conflict with the working class, maybe it's a fact which cannot be changed given human nature.

Things aren't helped by me now starting to read Des Warren's The Keys To My Cell. I've only done the intro but the Labour Party and the Communist Party GB haven't fared well so far!

Am I A Socialist? I know that I'm not a capitalist nor a Stalinist or in tune with what I have read from Trotsky so far, that's for sure.

Filed under: communism socialism soviet union trotsky
 

Why?

Indeed, why?

Why, if I had a double barrelled surname would I drop one of the names?

Why, if I lived in a posh and highly sought after part of Chelsea would I be vague about listing where I lived, and making it seem less 'exclusive'?

Why?

Filed under: elitism labourhasntchanged professional politicians
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