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Posts from September, 2008

Karl Marx was a clever bloke, and Freud

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

Today in the Telegraph Philip Johnston writes about Marx. Now most right wingers who write about him in these terms haven’t read a word of the source material and get their ideas from other writers who write about him and haven’t read much of of it either. So it’s probably just an impression. He argues that we should not let the left win the argument. Sorry matey but it is the greedy bankers what lost the argument, not the loony left. The system has imploded and left a residue of smelly stuff in the wake of all the bankers, brokers and sundry corporate reptiles who are now gloating on the beach. They won’t be reading Karl Marx.

Karl Marx
Karl Marx

Surely he protests too much? Marx was pretty astute. He understood that humanity would win out and that capitalism was simply a stepping stone on the path to humanism. The problem that Popper and other philosophers have with Marx is that he attempted to formulate what would come after capitalism and that National Socialism and Communism were born. However this divergence from the path does not make him wrong in his analysis that capitalism would implode.

It’s not the markets stupid, it’s alienation. Alienation from the product of our labour and each other.

We just don’t care about each other, or ourselves, any more. Hiding in our houses, scared to go out at night, wishing we didn’t have to go to work, having to fill in endless forms and comply with hundreds of annoying rules. It’s this that Marx could see. He didn’t predict half the population would be so depressed that they’d comfort eat themselves to death mind. Freud did, nearly, his idea of over civilization and mass neurosis is bang on the money.
Greedy Banker
Greedy Banker

Where Marx went wrong was trying to extend the logic of his argument beyond his brilliantly intuitive analysis of capitalism. Because of the brilliance of his analysis and the fact that most who study his ideas of alienation empathise with them led those same folk to credit his arguments in favour of socialism/communism with the same brilliance and embrace it. Hence Popper and other philosophers reject his historicism and socialism as nothing more than scientist, which it is.

It will be interesting to see what will actually emerge from this and where the path will lead.

Boris Johnson’s wrong-headed parable of the innocent banker

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

Boris Johnson writes in the Telegraph today, he seems to be seeking to excuse the behaviour of dodgy bankers. No not the Tories’ fund raisers but actual bankers. He seeks to use a parable (he’s related to God) to compare being bitten by a random dog with the alleged dishonest conduct of many banks. In other words it’s all just a rather nasty accident that’s no one’s fault, a bit like a rapist thinking no means yes I guess. Check out the story here.

I think it means we need less wrong-headed politicians and a few with brains. The reason for banks closing is greed on the part of politicians just as much as bankers.

The parable is daft, there is nothing accidental in banks colluding with valuers and brokers to push up values and make borrowing easier; it was done to generate commissions and charges. The writing was on the wall fo them when folk took the law into their own hands and started issuing proceedings to recover dishonestly high bank charges. Again the politicians collude in defence of this by kicking the cases into the long grass for years.

Coincidence and accidents? Not likely fella.

Boris Johnson strikes me as Caliban to Gordon Brown’s Prospero, not sure who David Cameron would be.

Banks on the Brink of Bankruptcy – Get Your Money Out Now!

Thursday, September 25th, 2008

Head for the Hills
Head for the hills, get your cash out now

Even if you have less than £35,000 in the bank get it out now. Why? Do you know how long it will take to get your cash off the Government? Let’s face it they’re bust as well. You know there is a problem when the Sky News people are trying to sell nationalisation in the US. The people with savings are the losers if the bail out fails. The ones with the debt win. It’s the end of capitalism. Marx and Engels were right. Once you get production controlled by too few folk there is a natural tendency to exploit the monopoly – look at oil. I believe that it is humanity at work. When kids are dying for want of a fifty pence vitamin the race will react unfavourably. I think it laughable to see George Bush desperately trying to give all that money to Banks. And why? So they keep getting paid. It’s not about you or me, or jobs or mortgages. It’s about keeping power and stopping natural redistribution.

Contribute to the fiasco, even if you only have fifty quid in a bank take it out now.

Gordon Brown to guillotine Proportional Representation through Parliament

Friday, September 19th, 2008

 Jeff Randall, writing in the Telegraph today, reckons that Gordon Brown and LAbour are doomed:

“There’s no contrition, no admission of fallibility, no recognition of blunders – and most certainly no apology. This isn’t clever. It insults the electorate’s intelligence and helps explain why, like AIG, he’s doomed.” (Randall, J. Telegraph, 19.09.08)

He seems to be saying that Tony Blair wasn’t so bad. But of course he was. He bottled it and did as the yanks told him. So the public loathed him for his spineless connivance in war crime activities, torture and killing. Gordon Brown has the power, the time and the cheque book. The electoral system is completely undemocratic. This is why his only hope is to bring in PR. There are precedents for doing so in Scotland and the European elections. The House of Lords has been fixed, they have a healthy majority. The Queen would sign the bill. The Tories would be finished, for good. The time for gloating is not yet nigh.

So I think it’s premature to write off Gordon Brown completely. As for Labour, like I say,  they have the power and the cheque book, so they could yet fix it. One way of course is to guillotine through proportional representation for the next election. A list system would mean he could buy off all the plotters with a high place on the list. Of course the Lib Dems would have a Damascean vision, and see the virtues of New Labour’s electoral reform ideas. Errant Labour MPs would also see the wisdom of Gordon. As for the Tories, well, they’d never see the inside of Downing Street again, ever.

It is interesting to note that the Tory revival is coterminus with David Cameron disappearing into the undergrowth, along with fellow prefect  and TUC shop proprietor George Osbourne. As soon as they start gloating (they won’t be able to resist) the public will turn on them.

Envy, it’ll do for the toffs everytime.

The British love an underdog, especially the possibilities of “comebacks” – look at Tim Henman mania and now Murray. We love it. Brown has carefully positioned himself as the underdog. There was little he could say while capitalism crumbled – gloating would be counter-productive – making excuses would just grate. So getting fit, losing weight and keeping schtum were good moves. I remember Jim Callaghan and have loathed the useless slime ball since I sat one Christmas Day wishing the electricity would come back on so I could watch the tele. It would be fatal for Labour and Gordon Brown to let the unions mess it up. PR is the only way. He won’t do it though.

Stock up on candles for this winter. And get some thermals.

Forum active at last

Thursday, September 18th, 2008

After months of delay I have finally gotten round to installing a forum. I haven’t set up the boards yet but will be doing so today, hopefully. Anyway the idea is to have boards dealing with work shopping poetry, flash, short stories, novel extracts, chapters, prologues, plot ideas, character sketches and so on. I am also going to include some boards to discuss Philosophy Literary Theory and Literary Criticism, Book Reviews, Politics, Current Affairs and general chit chat. The last time I created a forum it was deluged by spammers posting crappy links to crappy porn sites. I’ve used Simple Machines this time and it seems better at stopping that rubbish. If you have any ideas for additional boards just let me know.