That's because the reality of what he's saying is depressing.

no it won't.

do you even know what the cuts are? an estimated 1 in 10 public sector workers loosing their jobs is not going to look good to people.

is that much different to what happened to the miners in that 80s?

infact it will probably be much less dramatic as the livelihood of whole communities won't be at risk, and the tories will sell a bloated public sector an expensive and unneccessary remnant of an unpopular labour government

The dramatic cuts to the public sector have been happening for some time now.

i know there have been a lot of cuts because of the olympics

yes, when there are estimates of up to 30% cuts to public sector spending it's going to be a lot different.

i dont think you guys want anything to change.

i wrote a long reply to demonrail and tb but as a typed my furious bile it got me onto a different subject and i started thinking instead.

so eventually i will have a blog post up dealing with liberal individualism and its relation to the production of worldviews that overestimate the conservatism of the masses which will be a more useful thing to think about and you can even read it if you want.

Seeing how that plays out will be really interesting. It's going to be hard for a government set on such a dramatic programme of cuts to justify the millions that'll be spent putting on an olympic opening ceremony.

I will read it and, believe it or not, I actually agree with a lot of what you're saying here, at least in principle. I just don't see how it corellates with the way average voters appear to be acting or have acted, at least in my lifetime. I may be completely wrong here, but from what I can see, if the masses aren't all that convinced by for the tories, they're even less convinced by the kind politics that you seem to be endorsing.

I'm aware of the arguments given as to why this is the case but the evidence seems to suggest that it is the case, and until the average voter is able to genuinely relate to the kind of politics you're talking about, it's likely to stay that way.

if i develop it right i could make the link with how people are likely to vote but there are still some flaws to the argument.

i think the masses are definitely more prone to the "let's burn this shit down argument" than "let's try to pretend their are merits to tory policy". far more.

i think everyone massively underestimates the anger there is. there is a tremendous effort in the media to trap our thinking in a reality wherein there can only be subjective individual truth which is apparently so strong and important as to override material conditions. bullshit of course.

i'm very optimistic because there is a material truth to how people are being exploited under capitalism and no amount of suppression will ever take that away. you unlock that and you show it to people and they aren't going to go back to their previous ways of thinking or behaving.

you can be sold a false sense of optimism which will burn you out, or you can get hyper excited about the prescription nihilism that is the dominant expression of culture now. either way there's no escaping the truth that we are coming to the end of capitalism.

man i love life now, i love the oppurtunities to think about this and develop theories and read and imagine a future and i love how we are being driven to a point were the creation of a new social movement is the only way to actually survive. pessismistic i am not. making dire forecasts about how people will behave under a tory government is not what i see as useful. i only see this forecast as the excuse people use to vote tory and remain inactive and resigned to their reality.

when people stop focusing on developing an individual liberalism in the space of a false interiority that is not there but only an illusion of our forced isolation as consumers then they will stop overestimating the conservatism of the masses. because the actions of the masses only appear as a conservative average because its a space wherein my individualism is impotent and absent. so i mistake it as "everyone must be so conservative deep down except me and my beautiful soul" when it's really - everyone is acting so conservative because they are only concerned with preserving their cherished individualism and beautiful liberal soul. this soul is fed on a load of narcissism about what my self would potentially do in situations it will never have any power in. you get arm chair generals and noone doing anything in the community.

and in a way this is useful because you're individualism acts as a tool to navigate commodity society and select relevant information and open up new ways of thinking to you. so it is in some sense very useful. but its a by product of a time, the 90's, when it really did seem like we would have capitalism forever and there could be no alternative. that time is long gone but none of us can really let go of it.

people are not conservative because conservatism is wrong and its a lie. it doesn't work. its an error in thinking and a mistaken worldview. it arising from fear and guilt and results in some of our worst interpretations of the world. the masses aren't right wing because it is not in their interests to be so! it's not in their interests to stick with capitalism, to fight its wars and waste their lives being exploited as labour to keep things going smoothly for the ruling elite.

the price for sticking with it now, seems to be the entitlement/sentence that you manage your own suicide. that's all it really offers us now, that and a now unproductive and dying reality system that's of little use to us.

there isn't really much of an anti capitalism that can feed/clothe/allow you to survive better yet, but there will be. there will have to be. we get to start planning for it. what a beautiful oppurtunity!

my ideals are probably about as leftwing as yours, but unlike you i realise that puts me in a tiny minority. plus there's no point getting excited about something that isn't going to happen.

you're not in the minority. the majority think the same thing if they think about it at all.

and hey, we're gonna make it happen.

i'll believe it when i see it

that's why you'll never see it.

anyway i could waste time better some other way. hope you enjoy your misery!

I think your delusion is a symptom of spending a lot of time talking with like-minded people.

And while there is obviously nothing wrong with that, in the meantime the real world rumbles on without you.

I sort of agree, but also disagree, a bit

I'm flattered that the revolution you're planning hinges upon my belief in it

I didn't vote conservative. Do you love me?

Bollocks.

Uncharacteristically vague. Are you alright?

This is worth a listen if you haven't already: :eek:.

ok well enjoy your real world were capitalism isn't on the brink of collapsing and never will. i guess i'll kick back in this spectral netherverse i must be in and go do something else.

on an unrelated note, i have suddenly remembered why i came back here, it was to get sucked down into energy sapping "discussions" with smug cynical arseholes only interested in carving out their own solpsistic niche of ignorance wherein they rule supreme and can decide when to switch to simple name calling or try to show off how much they know but always simply to make sure in the end they leave having affirmed they are the king of message board and lord of their own ignorance. unfortunately i can't handle anymore of this exquisite pleasure for today.

sparky, judging by a few of your posts recently, i have to ask, are you under the illusion anyone would do you the favour of trying to argue back or engage with you seriously in any way? because i'm sorry, but you don't get that. you just get shit on. because you are the boards masochistic cum bucket and we all know you love it. you get told to fuck off and then you try to troll people down with your failed attempts at provocation that are never ever, ever witty. and then we shit on you, if we so choose to do you the favour of even acknowledging you, and you slurp it down, and you love it. but please don't pretend it's anything more. kthanx.

I'm not saying capitalism won't end, the cracks are there for all to see. I just don't think there will be any kind of end in sight until everyone in the West bar the ruling class is struggling to eat, that is the point at which people will become desperate enough to actually do something, and that just does not seem to be foreseeable at the moment.
Lest we forget, Marx & Engels were eagerly anticipating the imminent downfall of capitalism in the mid 19th Century.

I wish I could find a Ray Lowry I remember seeing in the NME many years ago.

A man is standing in a library and the librarian is pointing and saying "Revolutionary socialism is where it's always been, just around the corner".

was that a typo or did you mean to say "until everyone in the west bar (of) the ruling class is struggling to eat"? i dont know what the west bar is.

if you meant the proles struggling to eat, well that's happening now in the first world, and is about to get a far, far worse unfortunately.

im not even talking about revolutionary socialism. im talking about post capitalist communalism of some kind, which is obviously on the way, whatever form it may take.

but yeah, like i said, other things to do. now go get the last word in.

"Bar" means except for (barring if you will).

Capitalism has gone through many changes. As has democracy. It isn't a single-use social operation, or a homogeneous, unitary edifice. I'd have no problem with 'the end of capitalism' - I just can't see anywhere where the simple exchange of capital doesn't take place; neither can I see anywhere where the efforts to resist capitalism didn't fall under capitalism's auspices.

Das Kapital, or the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, were both reactions to material conditions under capitalism; many of the issues outlined in both have been consolidated into capitalistic 'dialogue' (though using the word dialogue is a bit presumptuous). Trade Unionism isn't the issue it was, and it's largely been elided in the UK, but as a movement it's a reaction to failures within capitalism that now take the position of being considered by capitalism. There wasn't a break from capitalism, but there was revolutions within trades, and capitalism takes on a new form. Further back, was there really no basic, grounding antagonism of material and exchange in all but the most isolated agrarian societies? Atavism much?

I'm not talking about that tired 'Russia failed' thing, but just that I can't see, I don't have the optimism for, a break with the existing, fundamental (but contingent, a posteriori) human edifice of exchange. Capitalism isn't falling apart, it's re-grouping. There's a massive amount of arrogance about that, but there was arrogance in 1929. There was arrogance in Cote D'Ivoire, the Opium wars, the Dutch East India Trading Company. Zimbabwe, of all places, has yet failed to dissolve into civil war. Capitalism is a cunt, but it's a pugnacious, resilient cunt, not an instable, transitional model.

Have you read Atalli's noise? You might like that.

oh ok. well yeah that's already happening, and will get a lot worse. look at the tent cities. the infastructure of some american cities is crumbling to the point of "looking more like the 3rd world conditions than the 1st" according to some guy i cant remember the name of who spoke about it on democracy now.

im off now

Ok firstly this:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bar
–preposition 34. except; omitting; but: bar none.



Secondly, i didn't say there aren't people struggling to eat now, but until the people struggling to eat form a majority there will be no significant change of economic system in sight.

Thirdly, the Paris commune supports what I'm saying, there was a majority in Paris that wanted significant change and were prepared to take up arms to do so. Do you have a job? How many of your colleagues are prepared to take up arms against the government at the moment, or at any point during the course of the oncoming public spending cuts? Probably none.

Just as an aside to this, I'm aware that there is quite a bit of meaningful, articulate and nuanced resistance going on; however, I do think the RATM for Christmas #1 pretty much represents the status of popular resistance in the UK at the moment. I know a few squatters (of the three major flavours - old-school, skag-dens and ex-law students) but they're so far in the minority as to be entirely alien to society, relative to free party-ers and yoghurt-weaving organic capitalists (and I should note, the latter two are very much a minority relative to homeowners and business people, who would be very well-served by the Tories).

I know a squatter. And once accompanied this person to a squatters meeting. such revolutionary actions as glueing up the doors of estate agents were discussed. They basically just seemed like pathetic people.

But these people might consider RATM for Christmas NO.1 as pretty much the level of resistance that is needed. Not everyone is a communist/socialist/anti-capitalist.

i reply to glice when i get the time.

if the paris commune was bigger and more joined it could have worked. of course i dont have a job, and that analogy is just stupid and proves nothing. im done replying to tb.

Typical. It's only the jobless that seem want a communist revolution.

im sorry but im not going to reply to a fucking moron who considers dawkins and hitchens to be britains only worthwhile intellectuals either. you agreed with nick.

you don't have a fucking clue what you are talking about and it shows.

no more replies to anyone other than glice.

Let me know about that PM as well (he says coquettishly).

HAHAH! No I don't! I think when I mentioned those people I was giving examples of public intellectuals.


Are you referring to my signature? That was joke. I was referring to how Gordon Brown kept saying he agreed with Nick in the first television debate (which I actually didn't watch).




Yes I do. All the socialists/communists/anarchists/anti-capitalists I've ever met are jobless and living off benefits. They're often dirty and dress in a way that is clearly an attempt to make themselves look uglier. It's Nietzschean ressentiment. The strong try to look good and work and do well for themselves; these weak reverse that.

None of the socialists I know live off benefits, and they present themselves as well as anybody else. And they're generally a good bunch of people to party with.

Why of course don't you have a job?

The Paris Commune, what if? what if? what if?

Anyway, FYI, I would cream my pants harder than you if there was some kind of left wing revolution with all the attendent glory and sending capitalists to kangaroo courts, etc, bearing in mind that I work for a living and have my soul ground to cinders, and my dignity crushed under heel on a daily basis.

browns going, but not till autumn. he should go NOW. let milband take the reigns. let him have whats left of his soul utterly destroyed.

looks like a maybe lib/lab deal thankfuckfully.

Fair enough. I haven't come across many of them yet.