Comments for FightBack

Comment on GREEN IS RED: The case for eco-Marxist politics by Ian Anderson

Ian Anderson — Tue, 21 May 2013 22:49:36 +0000

“I’d question the very idea of “revolutionary cadre”. Isn’t the subject of history the working class, the masses of people? “Revolutionary cadre” can not overturn hierarchy and exploitation and remake human society’s relationship with nature; people, acting and deciding collectively, can.”

Agreed in part. Revolutionary cadre on their own can’t overturn this system.

However, part of capital’s power is ideological / structural / hegemonic. Organisation for improved conditions becomes bureaucratic; struggle for political power falls under the wing of the state; capitalism remains intact.

People also don’t just come to revolutionary ideas without revolutionary theory (at the risk of tautology). Without organised revolutionaries acting as a “memory of the class,” without preparatory work, revolution won’t just happen.

Wrote something on this a couple of years ago that might be of interest, some of the comments with Grant and Daphne (who weren’t in Fightback at that point) are interesting:
http://fightback.org.nz/2012/01/18/on-the-party-question/

Comment on GREEN IS RED: The case for eco-Marxist politics by Gabriel Levy

Gabriel Levy — Tue, 21 May 2013 12:02:04 +0000

Thanks for this useful article. I agree with you that it is no good just “adding ecological demands to our existing Marxist programmes”. In order to avoid that pitfall, we need to think seriously and deeply about much of the underpinning of our socialist ideas. Over the last couple of years I have been trying to develop some discussion on relevant issues at http://www.peoplenature.org. Please visit! For example, while I agree with you that productivism is a bankrupt ideology, there are many other issues that we need collectively to work on: about socialist approaches to technology (the “productive forces” that socialists used to so love picturing as an automatic driver towards revolution), about exactly HOW capital distorts the relationship with nature (and the fact that such distortions long pre-dated the emergence of capitalism and were also present in pre-capitalist hierarchical societies). About organisation, I’d question the very idea of “revolutionary cadre”. Isn’t the subject of history the working class, the masses of people? “Revolutionary cadre” can not overturn hierarchy and exploitation and remake human society’s relationship with nature; people, acting and deciding collectively, can.

Comment on GREEN IS RED: The case for eco-Marxist politics by Ben Watson

Ben Watson — Tue, 21 May 2013 10:53:39 +0000

Working with the great theorist of the biosphere, Vladimir I. Vernadsky – a liberal who fled the 1917 revolution but returned when he saw that Lenin was no monster – Lenin helped set up the world’s first ever nature reserve, an area of land where no capitalist exploitation was permitted. Of course, all this was lost in Stalin’s counter-revolution. Vernadsky’s book “The Biosphere” was republished in an English translation in 1998 by Copernicus. It shows what truly cosmic ideas (i.e. scientifically grounded yet more mind-expanding than any drug or postmodern fantasy) were generated in Russia at that time, ideas utterly travestied by the “Leninism” of Stalin and the “burn-you-out” sects with immoveable leaders …

Comment on Wellington event: Conference fundraising gig by Ian Anderson

Ian Anderson — Mon, 20 May 2013 00:59:17 +0000

There will also be a dinner on the Saturday night for conference attendants to catch up, which will be all-ages.

Comment on Wellington event: Conference fundraising gig by cruelt

cruelt — Sun, 19 May 2013 22:44:50 +0000

Sadly no. In the sense that -18ers can attend by themselves.
But if people are underage they can come with their parents.

Comment on Wellington event: Conference fundraising gig by Don Franks

Don Franks — Sat, 18 May 2013 07:09:22 +0000

all ages gig?

Comment on Name the Date – Stop Work / Stop National by Unionist

Unionist — Fri, 17 May 2013 02:17:16 +0000

So it seems the CTU National Affiliates Council meeting yesterday could not agree on a national day of action. But some unions will be going ahead with stopwork meetings and encouraging others to join them. If you’re in a union, contact your delegate or organiser and ask them what your union is doing!

Comment on Politics and the mental health consumer movement by Paula

Paula — Thu, 16 May 2013 03:45:43 +0000

Excellant article. Taking a holistic approach to mental illness and the stigma society places on it and the burden that places on individuals should be more understood by all.

Comment on SWP: Sexism on the left by Grackle

Grackle — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:19:18 +0000

Yeah, it only concerns a whole half of the population, why is anybody wasting their time with women? (Shut up, Linda.)

Comment on Politics and the mental health consumer movement by Unionist

Unionist — Sun, 12 May 2013 22:54:35 +0000

“The British Psychological Society’s division of clinical psychology (DCP) will on Monday issue a statement declaring that, given the lack of evidence, it is time for a “paradigm shift” in how the issues of mental health are understood. The statement effectively casts doubt on psychiatry’s predominantly biomedical model of mental distress…

Dr Lucy Johnstone, a consultant clinical psychologist who helped draw up the DCP’s statement, said it was unhelpful to see mental health issues as illnesses with biological causes.

“On the contrary, there is now overwhelming evidence that people break down as a result of a complex mix of social and psychological circumstances – bereavement and loss, poverty and discrimination, trauma and abuse,” Johnstone said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/may/12/psychiatrists-under-fire-mental-health