Saturday, July 05, 2008
Fred Kite holidaying in Venezuela
At the time of writing, I believe the quotes below - and the article they're cut and pasted from - to be genuine, but apologies in advance if it transpires that I have fallen victim to a clever marketing campaign for Tariq Ali's sequel to his satirical novel, 'Redemption':
"Minutes later, president Chávez descended from the plane, greeting comrade Alan in the first place and exchanging a few words with him about the nationalisation of Sidor and other companies. He also mentioned the book Reformism or Revolution, making a complimentary comment. Turning to Nicolás Maduro, he said: "He has smashed Dieterich! Alan has a very sharp sense of humour"."During his speech he [Chavez] mentioned comrade Alan on five occasions, every time he referred to Marxism and nationalisations: "Here we have Alan Woods, from the International Marxist Tendency. Marxism has been brought back to life!". He mentioned that he had seen Alan's interview with Vanessa Davies the previous evening: "Alan made some criticisms, which I took note of. From a Marxist point of view and I have great respect for Marxist opinions" . . . At the beginning comrade Alan Woods was in another car a few hundred metres behind. But at a certain point a member of the presidential guard who was in the same car as Alan asked him: "Alan Woods? Is that you? A motorbike is coming to pick you up to take you to the car driven by president Chávez." So, a few minutes later a big bike picked up Alan and drove speedily, dodging the people and the other cars, until it reached the presidential car. Alan was lifted on to the car and he continued the caravan with the president. From the car it was clear how the revolutionary rank and file are still enormously enthusiastic towards comandante Chávez; men, women and children, all wanted to greet him warmly, showing their support for the revolution. During the journey, president Chávez talked to Alan Woods about several questions. In the middle of the fervour of the people, the president turned to Alan and said: "See, Alan, in spite of all the faults of the Bolivarian revolution, this revolution is still alive", something that could be clearly seen in the multitude which surrounded the car shouting "Viva Chávez!" . . . Then, with a gesture of frustration, Chávez said: "You see all this, and still we have not been able to win the governor here." And pointing at the candidate William Fariñas, he asked: "Alan, if this man is elected, what should he do?" To which Alan replied straight away: "He must listen to the people, understand their message and carry it out". "Precisely", said Chávez, "but that is the problem that we are facing. Some governors, after being elected lose contact with the rank and file. They surround themselves with rich people, beautiful women, etc. and lose contact with the people. This is an ideological problem. As long as we do not have governors who are ideologically prepared we will always have the same problem. We must win the battle of ideas. You are a good writer, why don't you write some pamphlets explaining the ideas of socialism in a simple way? Here we could distribute them massively." . . . . . . At this point, for the first time, the voice of the President sounded a bit tired: "I cannot do everything," he said. "It is absolutely necessary for the people to participate in this process and to take control in their own hands"."
It's years since I read 'Redemption', so I honestly can't remember if Alan Woods has a walk on part in that novel but those quotes above are pure comedy gold. I can't wait to read the sequel.
The Magazine Wrack and Gobby Bastards . . .
. . . are a couple of new sidebars that I've added to the blog. (Scroll down the page to see what I'm getting at.)
Pretty self-explanatory and they will be updated when the mood takes me.
King Suckerman by George P. Pelecanos (A Dell Book 1997)
"Cooper watched him walk - strut, really - toward the cinder-block bunker. The kid's left hand was cupped at his side, and he kind of swung it on the down-step. As the kid passed below the light of the floodlamp, Cooper could see the four-inch heels in the boy's stacks. Those platforms, the Afro, and the kid's street-nigger strut: a white-boy, wanna-be-a-black-boy cracker. He had the walk down, a little too much with the hand action for Cooper's taste, but not bad. And the kid was cooler than a motherfucker, too, the way he went straight through the door without knocking, not even looking around before he did. Cooper wondered, What's going to happen next?"
Friday, July 04, 2008
Quote of the Day . . . of any day
From Olly Onions Normblog profile:
Can you name a major moral, political or intellectual issue on which you've ever changed your mind?"I once loathed the Tories with unchecked enthusiasm; now they have reverted to putting up mediocre, over-privileged Etonites I despise them even more."
Yesterday Once More
The 5P music blog brings the blogosphere news of why July 3rd, 1982 was the most important day in the history of eighties:
Best album of the eighties reached its rightful place. Best number one single of the eighties drove a welcome wedge between Stevie Wonder (with Macca) and Survivor stateside.
On the same day, a Norwich band by the name of The Happy Few did a Peel Session - which you can hear here - and I thought I was Eder* when kicking a ball six hours a day . . . and I probably needed my haircut.
A day late but that don't matter: what the hell ever happens on July 4th anyway?
Footnote
*July 3rd 1982 was the day after Brazil had dismantled Argentina 3-1, to put the holders out of the World Cup. July 5th was still to come.
Insert punning headline here
Once upon a time Wired magazine hit upon the winning idea of asking various writers to come up with a six word short story. I mentioned it in passing on the blog in more than six words . . . naturally.
Now, Dave O has had a similar idea to Wired magazine on his blog, but this time it's not a short story he's asking readers to try their hand at but political fiction. In his own words, ' . . . can you encapsulate what Gordon Brown is supposedly all about, in seven words or less?'
I could only think of two:
Standard editorial: The return of bleak times James Maxton's biographer; The Labour Party's undertaker
Granted they're nothing more than blatant spamming of the Socialist Standard on the one hand and me pretending that I used to read books once upon a time on the other hand, but maybe you can do better.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
The dvd from netflix is sitting on top of the telly.
When is a film review not a film review?
When it's a film review that is published within the pages of 'Revolutionary Perspectives', the journal of the Communist Workers Organisation.
Nipped into St Marks Bookshop the other day whilst Kara was getting her hair cut to see how the Socialist Standards were doing. (Put it this way, the issues hadn't leapt from the shelves and they weren't feeling lonely.) Took me about seven seconds to find them because someone had decided to hide them behind the latest issue of 'Revolutionary Perspectives'.
Can you believe that? Thirty seven different variety of Leninist, Trotskyist and Social Democratic journals on display on the same rack and East Village's only IBRP supporter decides what's most important is that s/he obscures the Socialist Standard from view. If it was such a big deal, the 'Left Numpty' should have went the whole nine yards and bought up all the copies of the Socialist Standard to stick under his or her futon. That's how you ensure working class NYC doesn't get a dose of impossibilism.
Anyway, I got my revenge by sticking the last copy of 'Rev Specs' inside a bound volume of the Sparts 'Hate Trotskyism, Hate the Spartacist League—a bulletin series of opponent material'. Expect a Spart pamphlet denouncing the Left Communist tradition within 72 hours of a leading ICL cadre finding the CWO propaganda hidden inside their literature.
Before I cast the issue into the realms of RobertsonLand, I had a quick flick through. Used to subscribe to the magazine back in Britain, and always thought it was a good and interesting read. Though they share the same political terrain as the ICC, they've never been as heavy handed as the latter when it comes to the jargon laden polemics and, refreshingly, they're not as quick off the mark with the scattergun denunciations.
Therefore I was pleased to see that they had published a review of Persepolis in the latest issue. Bit of a result. We'd just got the DVD of 'Persepolis' via Netflix a few days before, and since Pauline Kael died I've been on the look out for a good Left Communist Film reviewer.
I flicked to the inside back page to see what cultural communist insight they might have about the film (or the graphic novel) - which I could then pass off as my own to Kara when we watched it later - and what I found instead was a review of a review of the film. It gets worse. A review of a film review that originally appeared in the Socialist Worker, of all places. I'm thinking to myself: 'surely it's just the opening couple of paragraphs and then they'll fast forward to a review of the film itself', but nope, a whole page on what the SWP thought of the film.
What the hell was that all about? Ex-Swoppie now within the ranks of the CWO, and their parting shot is s/he sticks the boot in over the SWP's take on a film? And it doesn't help me any. Whose opinions am I going to borrow when passing judgement on the film? The Swindon Film Club better hurry up and show the film in the next 24 hours, otherwise I'm toast.
You can't read the CWO's review of 'Persepolis' here.
Tweaking the template
Apparently - if you look right - you can now subscribe to my blog. Why you would want to, I have no idea. Maybe you're a relative, or an SPGB spotter or maybe you have impeccable taste in popular music. Thing is, I've just described someone who doesn't ring any bells.
And it gets better. You can now subscribe to all the comments on the blog. Yep, all seven of them. Just read one a day, and that way you can drag things out for the full week.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Panini-Zufallsbekanntschaft #12
Weekly Bulletin of The Socialist Party of Great Britain (53)
Dear Friends,
Welcome to the 53rd of our weekly bulletins to keep you informed of changes at Socialist Party of Great Britain @ MySpace.
We now have 1272 friends!
Recent blogs:
The Bin Man (Garbage Collector) Joe Hill : Songwriter to the Working Class Did Communism Collapse?
Top quote for this week:
[From the Socialist Party lecture, 'What Marx Should Have Said to Kropotkin'."Three things:
1. "Don't call me a State Socialist! I was putting forward a case for abolishing the State while you were still a toddler".
2. "With regard to paying people in labour-time vouchers in the early days of Socialist society, you were right and I was wrong. This was a silly, unworkable idea".
3. "Like me, you're a Socialist. We both want a stateless, moneyless, wageless society. Why then do you feel you have more in common with non-socialist opponents of the State than with me? After all, your disagreement with them is over ends, while you're disagreement with me is only over means".
Adam Buick
Political anecdote of the day
A funny anecdote concerning Arthur Scargill via a comment by 'Adamski' in response to a so-so post on Socialist Unity blog about Spain winning the European Championship:
"There is an anecdote about Arthur Scargill & the miners of South Wales that perhaps puts things in the correct perspective:
In 1972, Arthur Scargill rang Dai Francis the leader of the South Wales miners and said, ‘Look, Dai, we need pickets up at Saltley, in Birmingham.’
Dai said, ‘Where’s that?’ Arthur explained.
‘Yes, we can organise them. When do you want them?’
‘Tomorrow, Saturday.’
Dai paused.
‘But Wales are playing Scotland at Cardiff Arms Park.’
There was a silence, and Scargill replied,
‘But Dai, the working class are playing the ruling class at Saltley.’
Needless to say a big delegation of miners from South Wales were present at the Battle of Saltley Gate.
I have a wee difficulty imagining Arthur Scargill saying the above. Not because I don't think he's capable of such dry wit. I still remember that classic reply of his in the BBC documentary, 'True Spies', to the disclosure that during the 1970s, senior Trade Union leaders were talking and co-operating with Special Branch in the state's operation against what they considered 'subversives' within the trade union movement:
- BBC Interviewer: Does that surprise you, over 20 trade unionists, senior members of the trade union movement talking to Special Branch?- Scargill: Yes it does surprise me, I thought it would be many more than that.
No, I am wee bit surprised because if the anecdote was truly verbatim, surely it would have read as follows:
‘Look, Dai, Arthur Scargill says that we need pickets up at Saltley, in Birmingham.’
Dai said, ‘Where’s that?’ Arthur explained.
‘Yes, we can organise them. When do you want them?’
‘Arthurs Scargill says Tomorrow, Saturday.’
Dai paused.
‘But Wales are playing Scotland at Cardiff Arms Park.’
There was a silence, and Scargill replied,
‘But Dai, Arthur Scargill says that the working class are playing the ruling class at Saltley.’
Only three people will get that joke, but it's the same three people who actually read this blog.
Further Reading:
Quote of the Day
“Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes.” Jack Handey
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
The ink's still wet
Quick one
If you cast your eyes to the right hand side of the blog, you'll see a new Socialist Standard front cover. The July issue has hit the news stand, and if you click on the image it will take you to the contents page of the current issue.
Give me a couple of hours days weeks and I'll have a post up on the blog with the details of another stupendous addition to the socialist canon.
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