[ni'k]

Originally Posted by Keeping It Simple

Bollocks.

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.

[Toilet & Bowels]

Originally Posted by ni'k

ok then, since you don't believe it, you won't mind me imagining what we'll all say about you in my impossible imaginary fantasy land that will never ever happen:

thank god those guys were so old, and died off sooner rather than later. oh how we miss their smug "realism"! isn't it such a waste of time to look back at the "dark days" between may 68 and whenever and say "why didn't those pathetic fucks even try? did they get stockholm syndrome so badly they enjoyed beating themselves up and keeping themselves down with the cop in thier heads?" oh well, fuck it, let's not waste time writing any books on it like they would have enjoyed doing. let's go use their corpses for compost and their bones for drum sticks. hey, later, why not go burn all the precious material remnants of their lives just to make sure they really were for nothing!

but i know you're citizens of the real world were capitalism isn't on the brink of collapse and will continue for ever without collapse and everythings fine in greece its just a few bad eggs like the bbc says its just their "independent greek spirit" and some "discontent" because the IMF hasn't given them enough money yet. and who would want it to stop anyway except some sort of nutter not living in the real world were we've had so many glorious years of it already that were so great for the planet and the species and it has to stretch on forever right?

and you can misidentify the material conditions of capitalist reality now for the real world, but its so obviously collapsing that that mightn't be a great idea. all i can say is thank fuck the real world is rumbling on without me. i must be in some spectral netherverse or something right now, what an amazing simulation, it seems so real!

now i remember 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.

but no, i'm sorry, there's no way you guys are like that. i was just being insulting, please ignore it.

tell again how the real world is one where capitalism isn't in its final days and not be a self defeating asshole who enjoys the smuggery of the knowledge nothing new will ever happen because i'm not prepared to even entertain the idea that it could. or don't actually, because as i said i could find better ways to spend my time than the aforementioned getting sucked down into energy sapping arguments with you two.

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.

[Pookie]

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".

[ni'k]

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.

[Pookie]

Originally Posted by ni'k

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.

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

[Glice]

Originally Posted by ni'k

tell again how the real world is one where capitalism isn't in its final days and not be a self defeating asshole who enjoys the smuggery of the knowledge nothing new will ever happen because i'm not prepared to even entertain the idea that it could. or don't actually, because as i said i could find better ways to spend my time than the aforementioned getting sucked down into energy sapping arguments with you two.

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.

[ni'k]

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

[Toilet & Bowels]

Originally Posted by ni'k

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.

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.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by Toilet & Bowels

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).

[Lurker]

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.

[Lurker]

Originally Posted by Glice

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).

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.

[ni'k]

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.

[Lurker]

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

[ni'k]

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.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by ni'k

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.

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

[Lurker]

Originally Posted by ni'k

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

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

Originally Posted by ni'k

you agreed with nick.

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).

Originally Posted by ni'k

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

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.

[Toilet & Bowels]

Originally Posted by Lurker

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.

[Toilet & Bowels]

Originally Posted by ni'k

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.

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.

[ni'k]

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.

[Lurker]

Originally Posted by Toilet & Bowels

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.

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