I'll kick off with this and await a battering. I'm auld and daft enough to take it. I however think that this is an utterly brilliant analysis of the overall situation.
Brilliant but perhaps not to the liking of many. Truth sometimes is uncomfortable.
As ever, the outbreak of war has led to all manner of hypocrisy and propaganda from the agents of imperialism. Marxists must cut through this fog, and point out the real class interests at play. To end the horrors of war, we must end capitalism.
www.socialist.net
BIG G
I'll bite (as per usual!).
This article actually reminded me of that famous line in
Hamlet:
I do know,
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,
Giving more light than heat, extinct in both,
Even in their promise, as it is a-making,
You must not take for fire.
A load of angry shouting about "imperialist gangsters" etc. The usual lists of all the other lefties who're just
not quite right in their approach/thinking. And a lot of calls for "analysis", "exposing of hypocrisy", the "having of a class understanding", the "duty to tell the working class the truth" (because of course, the authors and their acolytes are just magically able to see that truth when no one else can), and the "preparation of the [presumably bovine] working class." In other words, the standard ranting Marxist playbook.
And what are these devastating truths? Nuggets such as "What determines the attitude of the imperialists is their material power, incomes, privileges and prestige" -- well, no shit, Sherlock! Incredible, that had never even occurred to me! Glad I had a Marxist to "explain" it to me. This is the level of "analysis" that can only be enabled by an "internationalist perspective." Honestly, geez peace.
They've furthermore got the front to claim that the pacifist approach is "completely utopian." Correct; however, pot, meet kettle. Because what is the
only alternative solution suggested in this article, like
literally the only thing that even approaches something remotely resembling an alternative proposition to any of the other approaches angrily trashed throughout:
"...a real, serious revolutionary social programme, capable of rallying the working class and the oppressed. The solution to the problem of war, of national antagonisms, and the crimes of imperialism, can only be found in the overthrow of capitalism, and the creation of a democratic World Federation of Socialist States. This is the only real, lasting solution to world problems and conflicts."
If that's not "utopian," then I don't know what is. Show me this programme, then? Because it's my understanding that Marxists/Communists/Leninists/Stalinists/Trotskyists/socialists/
whatever have been trying to find one that
actually works, and indeed doesn't (a) require slavish groupthink and (b) lead to a pile-up of bodies that would make the Nazis blush, for about 150 years now. The fact remains: Marxist theory and its attendant "revolutionary social programmes" simply can't account for and reconcile the inherent greed, competitive drive, and corruptibility of humans, as has been amply and ironically demonstrated by its most famous proponents down the years. It requires a perfect world of perfect moral actors, where everyone
wants to be perfectly equal. Good luck with that.
Want a
really uncomfortable truth? The further fact remains: on balance, the countries in which democratic post-war capitalism pertain -- including our own -- are as good as it's ever got, anywhere, any time, in the entire history of the planet in terms of peace and health. (Disagree? Then name your place and era in rejoinder.)
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying that this form of capitalism isn't nevertheless plagued with iniquity and injustices. It is. Nor that there aren't still a great many "losers". There undoubtedly are. Nor that war remains a reality. It does. Nor that I have the answers or hold the key to evolving it further to the good. I don't. I wholeheartedly wish I did, or that someone could come up with them.
But spare me the tired, simplistic old Marxist shite contained in that article -- it's never worked, will never work, and it doesn't actually help anyone to keep wishing it would, other than to afford its exponents the warm, fuzzy feeling of righteous moral superiority.