Left vs pseudo left

Analysing the pseudo-left - The fact that any sort of genuine left (however defined) is currently absent is what makes it possible for people with fundamentally reactionary politics to be mistaken for "leftists" merely by using a thin veneer of "left language". But that absence is not the cause of the reactionary politics nor is the pseudo-left the reason for the absence of a genuine left. I'm delighted to see Harry again using the term "pseudo-left" as widespread adoption of that term will help clarify a lot of things. But it simply doesn't make sense to hope that the likes of Monbiot finally realizing that they are not opposed to capitalism could be a step towards the emergence of a left that isn't pseudo.

We need Marx because he understood some things and said some things better than anyone else has since. It's important to read the original because people who call themselves marxists have always been in violent disagreement with what it means. If you don't read the original then you have no chance of working it out for yourself.

Fascism and the Left - "A major theme in left wing propaganda is opposition to fascism. Quite often relatively moderate opponents of the left are described as "fascists". Yet scratch a "Communist" and one quite often finds a fascist underneath...The degeneration of Communist Parties in power is a separate problem calling for a separate analysis. But what about the degeneration of parties holding no power?"

What's wrong with the Left? Peter Tatchell says "When human rights violations are perpetrated by people who happen to be non-white, much of the left runs a mile. They are fearful of being accused of racism and neo-colonialism. Does that help oppressed people? Of course not! Their oppressors rejoice. Mugabe must be thrilled that the international left has not campaigned to isolate him. He can point the finger and say, it is only the western colonialists who oppose them."

SOME QUESTIONS from 1973

IT IS RIGHT TO REBEL

The Left and the Gulf War - During the [1990-91] Gulf War the pseudo left gave one of the most spectacular displays of its ability to get things wrong. They thought they were on a winner. Here was a chance to relive the Vietnam antiwar movement. But of course that fell flat when the Americans creamed the Iraqis in a matter of weeks, with the minimum of US body bags.

1993 review of "Imperialism, pioneer of Capitalism" - Bill Warren's book, Imperialism, Pioneer of Capitalism, performs a useful service by refuting much of the mythology that the left has embraced in the name of 'anti- imperialism'.

Barry York: Not in your name, indeed - It is too late for the so-called Left in Australia to stand anywhere but condemned for its failure to support the successful war to liberate Iraq. It stood on the side of reaction, and the history books must place its leaders alongside the British pacifists of the '30s who, as George Orwell pointed out, gave comfort and objective support to Hitler. The pseudo-Left proved not just that it can be wrong but that in the name of anti-Americanism it can support fascism.

Hegel and the Pseudo-Left - Three postings discussing Hegel's 1886 statement "All that is real is rational; and all that is rational is real", in relation to current pseudo-left ideology.

Hitchens on Blair

a Couldn't we live perfectly well without money? "I think that the problems with money are more or less self-solving. Marx explained this long ago, that the whole development of commodity production leads to the development of wage labour and capital, which leads to a deeper and deeper concentration of property in the hands of a few, and a larger and larger working class which has no stake in the present society and nothing to lose but their chains. That is the history of modern capitalist development, and it is the history of why Marx was so enthusiastic in his praise for the corrosive effect of money on the old communities."

The murder of Hadi Saleh – why are you silent? An open letter to the leaders of the Stop the War Coalition.

And now for the good news

The functions of Nihilism

Support for Iraqi Democrats

Red Politics

Discussion of Postrel's book: "The Future and its Enemies" - Postrel divides the world into dynamists and stasists - dynamists support evolution and the processes of variation, feedback and adaptation - stasists supports stability. "Do we search for stasis - a regulated engineered world? Or do we embrace dynamism - a world of constant creation, discovery and competition?"

Joan Baez and Me

Once all was lost, but now there's hope

Albert Langer: Latham v reality: the looming crisis

The enemy is not America - Why is international public opinion not outraged at the treatment of women in Islamic fundamentalist societies? Why is it easier for millions of people around the world to see America as the great evil, rather than the countries in which governments ignore such horrific abuses of women?

Nine Red Herrings: How the Western 'Left' has Misread Iraq

Engels on Hegel - all that is real is rational; and all that is rational is real. "Just as in France in the 18th century, so in Germany in the 19th, a philosophical revolution ushered in the political collapse. But how different the two looked! The French were in open combat against all official science, against the church and often also against the state; their writings were printed across the frontier, in Holland or England, while they themselves were often in jeopardy of imprisonment in the Bastille. On the other hand, the Germans were professors, state-appointed instructors of youth; their writings were recognized textbooks, and the termination system of the whole development — the Hegelian system — was even raised, as it were, to the rank of a royal Prussian philosophy of state! Was it possible that a revolution could hide behind these professors, behind their obscure, pedantic phrases, their ponderous, wearisome sentences? Were not precisely these people who were then regarded as the representatives of the revolution, the liberals, the bitterest opponents of this brain-confusing philosophy?"