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The Forum > Article Comments > Anzac Day diversions > Comments

Anzac Day diversions : Comments

By John Passant, published 23/4/2008

The first Anzac Day was an attempt to divert anger away from the capitalist class using the false idea of nationhood.

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".....Please! Give me a break."
Posted by sonofeire, Monday, 28 April 2008 12:16:42 PM

Very constructive ducky!

So?.. regarding your invitation;- what part of you would you like broken?
Posted by Ginx, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 1:08:03 PM
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So, "Ginx",

Do you think your own little smart-ass quip was any MORE constructive, "Ducky"?

I am 57 years old, I have traveled to many countries, and I have PERSONALLY witnessed several examples of the inevitably authoritarian nature of Marxist socialist experiments, including Cuba. They have ALL been brutal, they have all been paranoid, they have all been mindlessly inefficient, and, as far as individual liberty is concerned, they have all SUCKED. Unless you have had equivalent exposure to ACTUAL Marxist regimes, as opposed to Marxist theory, you are in no position to lecture me about "constructive" comment. That is analogous to listening to Rasputin lecture a tribe of Quakers about the virtue of chastity.
When I was a young history student at university in the 1970's, like a significant number of my contemporaries, I was a member of the radical (Trotskyist) Left myself. Fortunately, I managed to free myself of my Marxist delusions before being self-committed to an asylum for the criminally self-righteous. From my personal experience, those in the "intellectual" class who have been the most ignorant of Marxist theory AND Marxist reality have been the ones who considered themselves the most dogmatically "Marxist". They had little or no understanding of the continuous changing process of Marx's own thought throughout the course of his life, for the simple reason they were too lazy to read. All they did was recite slogans learned from their dilettante professors.
And, yes, "Passy", I'm sorry if I offended your tender sensibilities. I'm sure you are not an "imbecile" . . . simply one who, like my former self, is emotionally attached to an anachronistic, dangerous and simplistic ideology because it reinforces your self-esteem to imagine yourself as a "revolutionary" knight in the armies of proletarian "liberation". I did read your article . . . every word. I did not find it to be a profound analysis of the multi-faceted complexity of human behavior. I found it to be a tedious repetition of the same platitudes, cliches and slogans about the "ruling class" that I have heard since I was 13 years old.
Posted by sonofeire, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 6:02:38 PM
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Son of Eire.

I asked if you would respond to some of my points. Is my history incorrect? If my analysis is wrong, why? Words like tedious and cliché ridden are tedious and cliché ridden.

Your other comments give me some indication of your thoughts. Cuba is not socialist. None of the Stalinist regimes are or were. Neither was Russia in 1917, although there was a working class revolution there.

Trotsky's analysis of the USSR as a deformed workers state was wrong. Otherwise socialists would have to accept that you can export socialism through guns (eg from Russia into Eastern Europe) rather than through mass democratic working class revolution. Me, I'll stick to democratic revolution by the mass of the working class.

The working class played no role in the nationalist revolutions in places like China or Cuba so they can't be socialist.

Stalinism was a form of capitalism in which the state became the grand expression of capital and exploited workers and used the value they produced to further accumulate - in Russia's case to move from feudalism to mass industrial capitalism in a generation. This is something that took hundreds of years in England and Europe. The brutality of early capitalism over that period is if you like concertinaed into a few decades in Russia and the occupied Eastern European countries. As Marx wrote, "the history of capitalism is written in blood" and Stalinism is another example of that.

If you are interested read Tony Cliff on State Capitalism in Russia.

The revolutions in Eastern Europe and Russia overthrew the yoke of Stalinism and saw a jump from state capitalism to semi-state capitalism and a semi-free market.

The forthcoming revolution in China when Chinese workers overthrow the dictatorship and by doing so set up democratic organs of rule will show the truth of my analysis.

And just as the Stalinists paraded their weapons on 7 November in Red Square to celebrate that ruling class rule and create the lie of freedom and truth, ANZAC Day plays a similar (but not exactly the same) role here in Australia.
Posted by Passy, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 7:46:39 PM
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You are a child of the Universe!!

'Been there, done that, I'm right, you're wrong,...blah, blah, blaaahhhh.....'

It doesn't make you any less of a boring old fart.

I don't care where you've been;or what you've learned.
You have little intelligence if you presuppose by your arrogant little dirge,- that those you are condescending to have not had some of the life experiences that you have,-and then some.

Cut to the damn chase you little twerp;- I don't care what opinion you have arrived at, you are yet another vain and arrogant Right thinking plonker who thought you could lecture others who did not hold your views.

Enjoy them. Embrace them. But don't tell me how to think and what to believe. I have had a damn basin full of the self-serving arrogance of the Right, and their repeated criticism of the Left,-soft Left, or whatever.

It has been a really bad day, and I am in a bloody bad mood. I intend henceforth to hang you Right thinkers up by your grubby Y-fronts every time you spout more bullshet about those who disagree with you, who,- by virtue of that disagreement, must be on the so-called Left, with no experience of life etc.

Tell you what;-I'll get some rest, and see if you are any less obnoxious domani.

I doubt it.
Posted by Ginx, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 9:39:25 PM
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Ginx

In some sort of strange way I actually enjoy the abuse from the Right. It is usually mindless pap and so indicates to me that the various ideas the left put forward are superior. All the Right can muster in response is stereotypical arguments and personal abuse.

About the only area on OLO where the right has some (but not always) sensible commentators is in economics and I think we shouldn't leave the terrain to them there either as the financial crisis continues, as cost push inflation cuts into living standards, as the US enters into recession (or barely staves it off), as wars continue to destroy lives and economies around the world, and, in my view, the ultimate indictment of capitalism, the 2.5 bn on the planet who live on less than $2 per day face starvation. Certainly the 1 bn people who live on less than a dollar a day face real hunger every day and the food price increases of over fifty percent for them in recent times mean literally life or death.

We might disagree about Anzac day but that is a mere bagatelle compared to the threat capitalism now poses to large swathes of humanity. The system won't feed people, not because there is not enough food, but because 1 bn people are too poor to buy it. What sort of madness is this? What a criminal way to organise society.
Posted by Passy, Wednesday, 30 April 2008 2:08:22 PM
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It is always refreshing to see myself lacerated by the hysterics of Marxist apologists. It means that I must be doing something right . . . not "RIGHT".
Of course, anyone who describes a nation's citizens as "The Masses" . . . as if they are some sort of faceless blob . . . is not likely to have a fond appreciation of something called, "individual" liberty.
"Ginx", in all seriousness, am I really supposed to have a lot of intellectual respect for someone who makes egregious mistakes in spelling? Being called "arrogant", simply because I spoke of my own experience visiting several Marxist countries, is a bit amusing. Coming from someone with your degree of dogmatism, being called "arrogant" is somewhat akin to a megalomaniac like Stalin accusing Ghandi of egotism. The point is that, despite all their rhetoric about "learning from history", most Marxists have proven themselves repeatedly incapable of learning from the history of Marxism itself. And "Ginx", just EXACTLY what are the "life experiences" that you have that you insinuate challenge the validity of the lessons I have learned from my own experiences? I may very well be "an old fart" . . . although I didn't realize that 57 was all that old . . . but at least I'm no longer a naive YOUNG fart. I am sorry if you have no wish to learn from the experiences of those who might be older than you, but that's really not my problem. You know what's really funny? When I was a Marxist, I would often respond with the same hysterics as you did whenever someone questioned the "justice" of socialism.
Posted by sonofeire, Monday, 5 May 2008 4:06:37 PM
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