thirdform

pass the sick bucket
third, with all due respect you seem to criticize everything. maybe everything does suck, or have its unique faults. no perspective or political position is 100% "good".

what, in your mind, is the ideal?

I don't have ideals. I don't have a programme that I want to personally establish. that will be a collective work involving millions, if not billions.

My ideals are pretty banal when it comes to it, ensuring the minimising of disability/race/gendered discrimination, ending the interminable process of being left jobless, forging tighter and less alienated bonds in the community, avoiding socially harmful and wasteful production and by that end struggling for a lifestyle that isn't so predicated on a wage to survive, basic stuff that seems really simple but under capitalist configurations becomes a virtual impossibility.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
If only you could break out of your Marxist mental prison, you'd be a superb aphorist. There's a Nietzschean desperate to burst free here.

did that when i was 19, took too much speed and smoked loads of skunk, wrote about 10 essays on Nietzsche and got bored of him really quick. no idea how so many history people invest so much effort in him. he was a literary master, i agree, but a real cunt when it came to philosophy or history.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
OK, forget about the Nietzsche bit, it was a red herring, what about composing some non-Marxist aphorisms?
 

craner

Beast of Burden
that will be a collective work involving millions, if not billions

You'll never get them to agree with each other. Zhao tried that once, and it ended up in genocidal biosphere.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
You'll never get them to agree with each other. Zhao tried that once, and it ended up in genocidal biosphere.

Zhao's politics are basically imperialist = bad anti-imperialist = good but America still has a right to exist. I'm actually far more dictatorial than that. abolish that country.
 

Leo

Well-known member
I don't have ideals. I don't have a programme that I want to personally establish. that will be a collective work involving millions, if not billions.

My ideals are pretty banal when it comes to it, ensuring the minimising of disability/race/gendered discrimination, ending the interminable process of being left jobless, forging tighter and less alienated bonds in the community, avoiding socially harmful and wasteful production and by that end struggling for a lifestyle that isn't so predicated on a wage to survive, basic stuff that seems really simple but under capitalist configurations becomes a virtual impossibility.

these ideals are great and agreed upon by many people. are there any political means to achieve them, or are we all just having a collective pipe dream?
 

luka

Well-known member
Thirds not stupid dont goad get the best out of him he's not a bear to be baited
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
these ideals are great and agreed upon by many people. are there any political means to achieve them, or are we all just having a collective pipe dream?

depends on A) the type of agreement, B) which people corresponding to what sort of relation agree C) whether the agreeing itself is holistic or has unspoken assumptions. D) how we are going to get to that level and whether we will end up still agreeing on the same core principles. E) whether we have organisational capacity that has rigid criteria for functioning. variables that no individual can decide on their own. It's not that I'm abdicating responsibility, it's just not possible for me to comprehend global capitalism in its totality. it's not possible for any individuals or small mystically defined groups of individuals, even the capitalists themselves.

That's why i'm not into politics. it's bigging up your tribe. i'm not about that.
 
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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
I really think this quote is relevant, hence why i don't really care for eat the rich. get rid of the rich more like.

"Whereas, on the basis of capitalist production, the mass of direct producers is confronted by the social character of their production in the form of strictly regulating authority and a social mechanism of the labour-process organised as a complete hierarchy — this authority reaching its bearers, however, only as the personification of the conditions of labour in contrast to labour, and not as political or theocratic rulers as under earlier modes of production — among the bearers of this authority, the capitalists themselves, who confront one another only as commodity-owners, there reigns complete anarchy within which the social interrelations of production assert themselves only as an overwhelming natural law in relation to individual free will."
Marx - capital vol 3.

Here he ain't saying that capitalist production is inherently anarchic, that it is disorganised, here he is saying that to the proletarians it appears as strict centralisation. the complete process is centrally planned and hierarchised. however the capitalists are incapable of seeing it that way, because their profits are determined by fluctuations in labour composition, technology and competition with other companies. the proletarians only have competition amongst themselves in periods of unemployment or perpetually relative to that reserve army of labour. that chronic unemployed mass. this is we say the working class itself must be gotten rid of, because it is nothing but a class of capitalism. technology should not either be given a primary importance. if it's more profitable to manufacture in a sweatshop than a factory, a company will do so despite the superior advantages of mass scale manufacturing technology. that is the anarchy that is being spoken of here.

In the USSR the exact opposite happened. A industrial and later post-industrial working class was created under revolutionary rhetoric, not abolished. It doesn't matter to the worker if the state is the capitalist or the boss. the same class relation still exists, and even these days companies deligate many executive functions that were classically bourgeois to the salaried bourgeois. the bourgeoisie as a personal class rendered superfluous. the state and the totalised corporations become the total capitalists, and individual capitalists themselves only act as *personifications* of this fact.
 
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Leo

Well-known member
depends on A) the type of agreement, B) which people corresponding to what sort of relation agree C) whether the agreeing itself is holistic or has unspoken assumptions. D) how we are going to get to that level and whether we will end up still agreeing on the same core principles. E) whether we have organisational capacity that has rigid criteria for functioning. variables that no individual can decide on their own. It's not that I'm abdicating responsibility, it's just not possible for me to comprehend global capitalism in its totality. it's not possible for any individuals or small mystically defined groups of individuals, even the capitalists themselves.

all true, agree. so, it does appear it's all a pipe dream!
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
you're saying that disparagingly. myths and dreams have motivated people to do both great and terrible things in the past. i wouldn't be so dismissive personally. A lot more human behaviour is based on myths and mystical insights than positivists and scientism types would grant. And you know I say that as a total materialist and a rationalist.
 
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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
The early muslims believed in a myth. the early christians believed in a myth. doesn't make what they did any less real or heaven forbid 'batshit.' then you just turn into Dawkins. This is why i can't be atheist in an ideological sense. people say that ideological atheism can avoid scientism and a purported idea of rationality but it always ends up defaulting to that. I believe I can live without God so I'm only really atheist practicaly. and this doesn't diminish my appreciation for sages and prophets and mystics of all kinds, though I will of course quibble over many things.
 
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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Sure, at the moment i would agree it's a pipedream, but many non-political things are as well.

Just because it's a pipedream at the moment doesn't mean in the future it will always be so, though of course it always remaining a pipedream is a very likely possibility. no revolution was or will ever be an inevitable natural law.
 

Leo

Well-known member
actually, it was said facetiously as opposed to disparagingly, hence the ! at the end. probably should have stated that more clearly.

best part is you've stated a positive view, one based on hope.
 

Nina

Active member
It's a bit of an assumption that they are even in London though? (I have no idea if they are or are not and can't be arsed reading it all tbh so maybe there is reason to suspect they are)

I think it's quite naive to think that they will out themselves in a public place at a time you have specified.

Possibly they believe that very bad things will happen to them if their identity is revealed. Or possibly they just like taking a pop at people on the internet without any accountability.

I am guessing that nobody has turned up mob handed to any of your recent public appearances where they would have had you on the back foot, so I can't understand why they would bother with this but maybe I am wrong.

Being a boring lefty I would suggest that you ask for a meeting with the people at The Wire and also contact the NUJ if you are a member.

I have offered to pay for the train ticket of whoever wrote the Open Letter if they are not in London. I also don't actually expect whoever wrote it to actually turn up, but that's part of the point - what kind of world do we live in if people can post stuff online anonymously and try to wreck people's lives and jobs when they wouldn't or couldn't say it to their face? I would personally talk with anyone who wanted to attack me for things I've said or done - I have nothing to hide and if I've been wrong I would admit it. if we disagree we can talk about it. I have no desire to hurt anyone and I am not a violent person (though I would defend myself or otehrs if they were being attacked). You write 'perhaps they just like taking a pop at people on the internet without accountabilty' - well, it looks like it doesn't it! Great for them if they get a kick out of it, but what about the people they're attacking? Does their enjoyment outweigh our right not to be accused of things we haven't done, or our desire to keep our jobs?

So far people haven't attacked me at any events I've done, no, though giving talks has become more anxious. I would respond as calmly and reasonably as I can to any criticism and attacks, but mainly people don't seem to do this in person. They just at a distance cut you out, ignore you, post stuff about you behind your back, or write to employers and organisers to get you removed. It's cowardly as hell. On The Wire front, there's no point in asking for a meeting - they refused to respond to all of my last emails calling for clarification and I had to get the editor I know best to personally confirm I'd been dropped. There's no way they'd agree to a meeting. They didn't even thank me for any of my work over the years, it was just like, 'if we ignore her, perhaps she'll go away!'
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Well if the point is to invite people who won't come then I guess it will be very successful. Then you can claim the moral high ground, probably.

[...]

I wasn't going to mention this but in the 1990s Andy Martin published an edition of his fanzine which was a 32 page rant about his misfortunes throughout his life. It concluded with an invitation to several of the former teachers at his secondary school to fight him outside Centerprise bookshop on a particular date and time. If I recall correctly he even sent several copies of the zine to his school. Of course they didn't show up, so he was able to denounce them as cowards in a future issue. It looked a bit mental to be honest, but the one positive thing that came out of it was that it was actually a damn fine piece of writing which has stayed with me.

There isn't going to be a heroic showdown at high noon where you persuade people of your honour and your detractors are revealed as deformed evil fairground owners. The only route you have out of this is to keep writing, Nina - wherever it takes you. That's what you can do better than the anonymous bloggers, and most people here most definitely including me, and plonkers you seem to want to share stages and vidcasts with.

But not for The Wire. I'm assuming that you weren't on a contract or anything with them so there is little that can be done if they don't wish to discuss it. You know better than I do that this is a profound downside to the generally shit situation of precarious employment. And why it's naive to think that you can be a free unbounded thinker-commentator with no consequences. Cf your yank lecturer mate who said the weird stuff about abortion and necrophilia.
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich
On The Wire front, there's no point in asking for a meeting - they refused to respond to all of my last emails calling for clarification and I had to get the editor I know best to personally confirm I'd been dropped. There's no way they'd agree to a meeting. They didn't even thank me for any of my work over the years, it was just like, 'if we ignore her, perhaps she'll go away!'
Wow, that is pathetic.
 

Nina

Active member
Well if the point is to invite people who won't come then I guess it will be very successful. Then you can claim the moral high ground, probably.

Similarly, it's good that you don't see yourself as being a violent person. But you are the only member of this forum that I have seen commit an act of violence.

I wasn't going to mention this but in the 1990s Andy Martin published an edition of his fanzine which was a 32 page rant about his misfortunes throughout his life. It concluded with an invitation to several of the former teachers at his secondary school to fight him outside Centerprise bookshop on a particular date and time. If I recall correctly he even sent several copies of the zine to his school. Of course they didn't show up, so he was able to denounce them as cowards in a future issue. It looked a bit mental to be honest, but the one positive thing that came out of it was that it was actually a damn fine piece of writing which has stayed with me.

There isn't going to be a heroic showdown at high noon where you persuade people of your honour and your detractors are revealed as deformed evil fairground owners. The only route you have out of this is to keep writing, Nina - wherever it takes you. That's what you can do better than the anonymous bloggers, and most people here most definitely including me, and plonkers you seem to want to share stages and vidcasts with.

But not for The Wire. I'm assuming that you weren't on a contract or anything with them so there is little that can be done if they don't wish to discuss it. You know better than I do that this is a profound downside to the generally shit situation of precarious employment. And why it's naive to think that you can be a free unbounded thinker-commentator with no consequences. Cf your yank lecturer mate who said the weird stuff about abortion and necrophilia.

I have zero moral high ground. I don't claim to be a good person or to have never done anything wrong. I don't even think I'm right about half the things I say. I'm just fucking sad about everything and wanted to sit in the park with people. I'm just sick of the internet and this person trying to destroy my life and other people going along with it. Thanks for the nice comments about the writing, and I'm pretty sure the guy I jokingly hit on the bus was ok with it, as we often messed about like that. I think people used to do more of that sort of thing. Andy Martin sounds like a good guy.
 
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