Socialism

This Weekend We Shall be Mostly… Discussing Marxism

Activism, Anti-war, Dutch politics, Economy, Socialism
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As regular readers may know I’m a SWPer and Martin’s a Dutch SP member so of course there’s no way we’d miss Marxisme 2007, the Netherlands’ biggest annual event for the discussion of socialist ideas, theory and practice, which is being held this weekend the 20, 21 and 22 April, at the University of Amsterdam.

Speakers include

• Lindsey German (UK Stop the War Coalition)
• David Hilliard (Black Panther Party)
• Miriyam Aouragh (Together Against Racism)
• Hajo Meyer (Another Jewish Voice)
• Peyman Jafari (Internationale Socialisten)
• Ronald van Raak (Socialistische Partij MP)
• Bart Griffioen (Dutch Stop the War Coalition)
• Khaled Hroub (Author of “Hamas: A Beginners Guide”)
• Tofik Dibi (GroenLinks MP)
• Martijn de Rooi (researcher, Openness About Iraq)
• Susan George (Author of “Another World is Possible”)
• Geert Reuten (Head of Economics department, Universiteit van Amsterdam)
• John Rose (Autthor, “The Myths of Zionism”)
• Tariq Shadid (Dutch Organisation Of Palestinians)
• Donald Pols (Environmentalist)
• Pepijn Brandon (Editor of “De Socialist”)
• Dick Pels (Sociologist & Stichting Waterland)
• Mohamed Rabbae (One Land, One Unity)
• Jonathan Neale (Campaign Against Climate Change)
• Mohamed Waked (socialist from Egypt)

A lot of discussion will be in Dutch – but because we are internationalist, much will also be in English. Here’s registration details and directions in English:

MARXISME FESTIVAL 2007 registration

Register for the Marxism festival and buy tickets:

Entry prices:

– Friday: € 5
– Saturday: € 12,50 / € 10 *
– Sunday: € 10 / € 7,50 *
– Whole Weekend: € 20 / € 15,- *

* Savings for schoolchildren, students and those in reciept of state benefits.

Accommodation and childcare:

Free overnight sleeping places and childcare (daytime only) is available. To arrange contact the organisers direct.

Directions via public transport:

From Centraal Station by tram 4, 9, 16, 24 of 25: get out at the second stop at Spui. Bear left through Langebrugsteeg. Follow the Marxism placards.

It’s going to be good. We hope to see you there.

Martin you can’t miss, I’ll be in a vintage UK Marxism t-shirt of some description. Socialism is a little like SF fandom that way, when it comes to t-shirts, you gotta establish your seniority right from the start or you’ll get some spotty adolescent trying to teach his grandma to suck eggs about Gramsci, and that would never do.

Just look for red hair at a level about a foot and a half below a crowd of dairy-fed Dutch giants’ heads and that’ll be me. Say hello.

UPDATE: Via Dave Osler comes new that Lindsey German is also running against Ken Livingstone as Respect candidate for Mayor of London. Goodie.

Political Video Roundup – First The Snitty, then The Nitty-Gritty

Europe, Life under Capitalism, Socialism, US politics, Video, Wingnuts
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US humorist Lewis Black on being invited to host the annual White House Correspondent’s Dinner, via Avedon Carol

Then there’s CPAC: The Unauthorized Documentary, a tour of the US hairtrigger loony Right’s premier annual fundraising conference, from that very plucky and good-looking fella Max Blumenthal, of The Nation. Notable features are Michelle Malkin, unable to comprehend that if you have to issue an errata slip, it’s likely your work’s not exactly reliable, and David Horowitz, coming over in person as exactly as obnoxiously as one might expect.

All great fun, but it’s easy to forget when pointing and laughing at the ridiculousness of Washington and its voracious attendant suckerfish that the policies of the corporate right have real world consequences.

The last video is of Belgian firefighters in pitched street battles with the police last week: all over Europe, where the neoliberal economic policy of opening up public services to privatisation by multinational corporations like Group4, Wackenhut, Brown & Root, Serco…. the list goes on and on… is being vigorously resisted by normally peacable public servants. [Sorry about it being in German, it was the only embeddable clip I could find.]

If you’re a public servant and have ever wondered about the police’s loyalty to their fellow taxpayer-employed colleagues, wonder no longer. This is the purely market-driven world the US corporate right and their EU allies want for everyone and resistance will be met with force if necessary, as this video shows. Where public services like firefighting and justice are made subject to the rules of the free market the police will always act in their own interest and side with the highest bidder. Someone has to pay for all those nifty riot guns, paramilitary outfits, deadly anti-personnel toys and all that overtime.

Comment of the Day

Comment of the Day, Life under Capitalism, Socialism
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From a discussion at Lenin’s Tomb about why so many people who were so right-on when they were young become rightwing when reaching middle age, this comment by ant:

Psychologically speaking, i think that the phenomenon of the young middle class student radical who soons “outgrows” his early Leftism once his career becomes settled, can be explained in terms of the narcissism to which you rightly allude.

While “working class” proletarians know throughout their lives that they are just one of many workers, many “middle class” proletarians tend to remain in denial of this fact.

Thus the young student radical, on entering the world of work – say, in middle management or whatever – does not conclude that he is one of the working class and there is still a long way to go until the Revolution. Rather, he concludes – wrongly – that since the Revolution (with himself, of course, playing a key role) has not yet happened, then Marxism must be false.

Rather than saying to himself, “i am just another worker who must sell his labour power to a capitalist in order to survive”, he reasons to himself in the following way:

“i would never work for a capitalist (because i – unlike all those other people – am talented enough to be able to have the choice); therefore how do i explain the fact that i am clearly now having to look for work?; it must be because all that Marxism stuff was false, and hence entering this employment position is not entering into wage-slavery, but rather – as a talented and dynamic young person with highly sought-after skills – simply entering into free contract with another party.”

Hence while “working class” proletarians tend to see jobs as jobs, and themselves as workers, “middle class” proletarians tend to see jobs as careers.

On and On and On and On….

Blogs, Comment of the Day, Democratic (in)action, liberalism, Pointlesss centrism, Socialism, US politics
Published on 2 Comments on On and On and On and On….

on and on and on....

Which is better, New US Left or Old US Left? Bit of a pointless question, in light of the fact that what America considers ‘left’ is, by international standards, pretty right-wing and at best gradualist in tendency. So the spirited yet essentially empty discussion going on over at the News Blog re a blogspat between Max Sawickyand Steve Gilliard is being conducted somewhat in the manner of two bald men fighting over a comb.

The argument goes like this (and I’m paraphrasing madly): Max said the New Internet Left is just a money sucker for the Democrats, and Steve replied that Marxism is boring, Marx is irrelevant and the Old Left were a bunch of a hippie nutters who were dangerous with it, who set back the left’s cause for generations, and who should just shut up and let the New Blogging Vanguard get on with it.

But both fail to lift their eyes above the American horizon, both fail to notice that the Left is an international phenomenon and neither acknowledge that the use of modern technology as a tool for political organisation is not confined to middle-class reformist Americans. (I get the impression that in their heart of hearts they think the ‘free’ market will sort it all out if only the Dems can get elected. Then things can go on as normal and they won’t have to change their comfortable lifestyles at all. Change the system? Why… that’s crazy revolutionary talk!)

Both Gilliard and Sawicki seem to have internalised the reformist view that US voters just need to get rid of Bush, fiddle round the edges a bit and everything’ll be fine and dandy and politics can go on as usual.

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