Posted in Ideology

Red scare: could a socialist break through in Seattle?

SawantMuch of the UK coverage of America’s off-year elections has focused on the results coming from the East Coast. The election of a Democrat Mayor of New York (and a pretty left wing one at that) for the first time since 1993. The re-election of New Jersey Governor, and potential GOP presidential candidate, Chris Christie. The victory of moderate Democrat Terry Mcauliffe over a Tea Party insurgent in Virginia.

What has passed with little remark has been the tightly contested City Council race in Seattle which sees long term incumbent Democrat Richard Conlin under threat from socialist Kshama Sawant. Continue reading →

Len responds to the media witch-hunt of Unite

Targetting Len McCluskeyThis is an abridged version of a speech delivered today to Unite’s industrial conference in Brighton at which 1200 trade unionists from across all twenty Unite industrial sectors will gather this week.

Today, we meet in the middle of a vast media witch-hunt against our union, reminiscent of the 1970s and 1980s.  We are facing unscrupulous smears from both media and politicians.  Every day we read statements and press articles about Unite which do not come within hailing distance of the truth. This shows one thing above all: Unite is making a difference.

We have served notice on the establishment that fighting trade unionism is back – and the elite don’t like it. They see Unite as too big for its boots. A union not prepared to play by the cosy consensus rules which sapped the life out of our movement for so long. A union that is about action, and not just rhetoric.

Of course, there is another agenda behind these attacks too.  We are a proxy for smearing the Labour Party and Ed Miliband, since the same elite is now worried that a Labour government which may itself not play by the old rules is a possibility. They will continue because that is the Lynton Crosby agenda – the genius behind the racist “go home” vans touring our cities; the man who believes the Tory path back to power lies in demonising the poor, the disabled, the vulnerable; the man imported by David Cameron to poison our national life so he can get a new tenure on Downing Street.  Continue reading →

Žižek on ideology

Slavoj_ZizekI have finally got round to reading Žižek’s The Sublime Object of Ideology and it is absolutely fascinating. I’d like to share this very short extract because a) I’m too lazy to blog properly tonight and, b) I’ll never look at ideology the same way again. Some context is necessary.

The traditional Marxist understanding of ideology – and by traditional I mean dominant – positions it as a sort of naive consciousness. That is people under the spell of ideology misrecognise the true state of affairs. They cannot identify their real position in the order of things, nor apprehend society as it really is – a stratified social formation in which the majority are exploited by a tiny but immensely powerful ruling class, who rest on their private ownership of the economy’s commanding heights. Continue reading →

Why the Blairites are wrong about Ed’s energy freeze

mandelsonThe great thing about Peter Mandelson is that he constantly gives one confidence in one’s own views when one finds he’s on the other side. This is scarcely surprising when his philosophy (‘New Labour is studiously relaxed about people becoming filthy rich’) and his methods (briefing dirt and lies to the press about anyone he disapproved of in the party) are now so passé.

He’s still in denial about the financial crash of 2008-9, which destroyed New Labour’s market fundamentalism. And still, in the face of all the evidence, he staunchly defends its fundamental tenets – unfettered markets, deregulated finance, unrestrained corporate power, and as far as possible trade unions bound hand and foot. Continue reading →

Common-sense socialism – the way forward?

Kilburn1As the Party Conference season draws to a close, the disconnect between the politics of the Westminster bubble and the rest of us couldn’t be more obvious. Besuited figures, mostly men, addressing other besuited figures, mostly men, given huge chunks of airtime. All while party membership figures plummet and the great unsayable for the political class, that fewer and fewer can be bothered to vote at all scarcely gets a mention.

Stuart Hall was one of the founders of the 1950s British New Left. Decades later, he looked back in an autobiographical essay to explain why the New Left took popular culture seriously:

Continue reading →