GhostofKinski
Well-known member
Maybe the NHS is not the best example then, lol. National Healthcare is a model that works reasonably well in plenty of nations though.nhs is being privatised here as well, it's actually nowhere near as rosy as British advocates would like to claim. endless waiting lists and takes an arm and a leg to get in person appointments.
That being said, I think you impute far too much weight to wokeism here. the UK didn't have anything like the same woke culture during the Corbyn era and democracy still managed to manufacture a labour antisemitism scandal (not saying there isn't antisemitism in the LP but the rise of islamophobia was opportunistically kicked down the curb). Democracy is not a ready made structure that the proles can just grab and bend to its will - it is, first and foremost, a form of the organisation of the dictatorship of capital.
One can only talk about a freedom of press and opinion in capitalist democracies in narrowly circumscribed bounds. The fact that opinions that don't conform to the right-centrist-leftist superstructure are confined to being crazy nitch ideas no matter how scientifically correct they are is not freedom, but expert and subtle containment. Ed Miliband's dad, funnily enough, is good on this. What may superficially appear as diversity (say between the Grauniad and the Telegraph) ends up being the regurgitation of the same in different garb - funny for conservatives to get het up about drag queens telling stories to their honey-tongued children when that is precisely how they consume news, and call it freedom of choice!
Liberalism always invalidates its own credo of all ideology and no organisation. In reality no ruling class could dominate for long like this, if it didn't also utilise aspects of the labour movement to discipline other aspects. Trade Unions, for instance, in the regular functioning of capitalism, are not organisations of attack but of brokerage.
It is concrete and achievable. All of the social safety nets that began during the New Deal and continued in the mid sixties got done pre-internet. Social security was drafted, went through the both houses & implemented in under a year.
Just FYI, even here, with full coverage that I have, which includes seeing specialists without a referral, also, despite the propaganda employed by the for profit system,…has waiting lists too. It can take months to see a doctor here too. Often it’s not even a doctor but a PA (physicians Assistant). I can’t call my doctor & have them say ‘sure, c’mon down.’at best they’ll be like, how’s the first week in July for you?
I enjoy reading your posts/insights 3rd. But, you lose me often. I get the impression (correct me if I’m wrong) it seems you subscribe to some form of internationalism.
Can this be described in the Trotsky type ballpark? I’m really not sure. Moreover, I (imho) find your style of verbiage not conducive to any mass appeal beyond an anointed few. Where I’m from/live, you might as well (at times, not always) be speaking Turkish. It just doesn’t resonate.
This is a common problem with most people on the so called left over here. The general reactionary working class response is: if you guys are so fucking smart, why do you lose so goddamn much? Where is the progress?
Why are we paying sales taxes for the necessities of life (bread, eggs, milk, what have you) while billionaires are making millions of transactions on the market daily tax free?
There’s a situation currently happening in our major cities around immigration. Just today in LA (kind of ground zero in this case) a sitting state senator was wrestled and handcuffed for trying to ask a question at a Dept. Of Homeland Security press conference. The guy is a liberal. Once he was removed from the room the DHS leader called him an anti American SOCIALIST! It’s bad here. And, people are suffering. As it stands, in reality.
All we (the people) have is the constitution.
And a majority of Americans are ignorant of that (with the possible exception of the 2nd amendment which tens of millions have memorized if not tattooed on their chest).
I have seen it. If anything that remotely benefits the WC is put forward that will cause the rich to pay a few more cents in taxes, they tell their minions in the corporate media to flip the script and only focus on a citizens group/politicians position on issues like LGBT+Q issues and put them on their heels.
Okay, an analogy: if you are a defense lawyer and the plaintiff introduces a ballistics expert to solidify their case. What do you do?
You cross examine the ballistics expert asking questions that have nothing to do with ballistics! And thereby trip him up on speculation.
Tony Montana: First you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the pussy
GhostofKinski: First you convince the people, then you get the power, then you shape the society you want to see
