Former NSW Premier Bob Carr has a column in today’s OO which, on the basis of information in Mark Aarons’ new book The Family File, leads him to state:
But the bombshell revelation [by Mark Aarons] is the system of dual membership of the ALP and the CPA, something long suspected but now spelt out by the ASIO documents and Mark Aarons’s family familiarity with Australian communism… As a teenage Whitlam-ite I sat in the gallery of Sydney Town Hall and watched factional debates at the annual state ALP conference. I now know, courtesy of this book, the Left leaders carried Communist Party tickets. Their real loyalty was to the CPA, a party still loyal to Moscow.
Let me first correct Bob Carr on a question of fact.
The existence of a system of ALP/CPA dual membership is not a “bombshell revelation” by Mark Aarons, although his book undoubtedly adds to our knowledge of these matters. Less than a fortnight ago I referred to work in the public domain on this topic by Denis Freney and David McKnight. Denis Freney’s account was written in 1991 and David McKnight’s in 2000. There are obviously at least a couple of gaps to be filled in Bob Carr’s vast library.
The more important question is what we are to make of Carr’s claims of the heroic role of Labor’s anti-communist Right in resisting the, to use Bob Santamaria’s language, “pro-communist left”. Here we see that Carr is an exemplar of what I term “essentialist anti-communism”, which is a political praxis which does not simply oppose actual communist regimes on the basis of their actual oppressive character and policies, but opposes communism as a political movement and communists as political actors in any and every political context, in the belief that no matter what the circumstances, the success of the communists and the causes supported by communists is always already the worst possible outcome.
Now the problem is that context matters a great deal in determining whether or not anti-communism is a force for good. To be a dissident under a communist regime such as Vaclav Havel, the leaders of the Polish Solidarnosc movement and its associated bodies, the former Soviet dissidents and the current Chinese dissidents, or to be a social-democratic reformer of communism such as Mikhail Gorbachev and his allies, took, and takes, considerable courage and self-sacrifice, and also involves direct and effective resistance to a comprehensive system of injustice – resistance which, in the former USSR and Eastern Europe, was ultimately successful and, despite subsequent difficulties, generally beneficial.
However, to be an anti-communist in other contexts meant something quite different. To be an anti-communist in South Africa during the Cold War meant, for all practical purposes, to be pro-apartheid and pro- the incarceration of Nelson Mandela. To be an anti-communist in Indonesia between 1965 and 1999 meant being, at the very least, an accomplice in the slaughter of over 500,000 of your fellow citizens and the genocide of 200,000 East Timorese, and a supporter of one of the most notoriously corrupt dictatorships in the world.
So what about anti-communism in Australia? In many cases, as the anti-communist social democrat Robert Manne has noted, it meant shameful barracking for the crimes of the Suharto regime and a blind spot to injustices in Western societies including our own. In terms of effective resistance to the real crimes and tyranny of Stalinist regimes, being an anti-communist in Australia made about as much difference as throwing cream puffs at the Berlin Wall. However, in terms of Australian domestic politics, it often meant being objectively hostile to democratic institutions, liberal freedoms and accountable government. That was certainly the case if you were an anti-communist in Queensland for much of the Cold War.
As for the anti-communist Right of the Labor Party, its proud legacy is that it has basically made the Australian Labor Party, and especially its NSW branch and the current NSW State government, what they are today. People like Bob Carr who embrace this legacy do so, in my view, entirely at their own risk.
Carr’s “loyal to Moscow” trope is sensationalist.
But entrism (discussed in a recent thread) is the main point here. Entrism was, and is, against ALP rules.
The practical issue was how was it possible for the ALP to evict card-carrying commos?
Certainly, said card-carrying commos weren’t about to own up to their entrism.
So, boo hoo, Bob Carr. Politics is a filthy game. Get over it.
Carr’s “loyal to Moscow” trope is sensationalist.
But entrism (discussed in a recent thread) is the main point here. Entrism was, and is, against ALP rules.
The practical issue was how was it possible for the ALP to evict card-carrying commos?
Certainly, said card-carrying commos weren’t about to own up to their entrism.
So, boo hoo, Bob Carr. Politics is a filthy game. Get over it.
“However, to be an anti-communist in other contexts meant something quite different. To be an anti-communist in South Africa during the Cold War meant, for all practical purposes, to be pro-apartheid and pro- the incarceration of Nelson Mandela. ”
That is an outrageous claim, Paul. Mate, you’re trying to rewrite history to make your own past as an active communist seem less odious than it actually was.
“However, to be an anti-communist in other contexts meant something quite different. To be an anti-communist in South Africa during the Cold War meant, for all practical purposes, to be pro-apartheid and pro- the incarceration of Nelson Mandela. ”
That is an outrageous claim, Paul. Mate, you’re trying to rewrite history to make your own past as an active communist seem less odious than it actually was.
Absolutely, Salient. It’s a rare Communist who can conceive of his/her opponents – and their position – in terms other than a cartoon. For some, that’s its attraction.
Absolutely, Salient. It’s a rare Communist who can conceive of his/her opponents – and their position – in terms other than a cartoon. For some, that’s its attraction.
Which aspects of my past from 1984 to 1991 were odious? My active support for movements like Solidarnosc in Poland? My support for East Timorese independence? My collecting funds for the ANC? My publishing of articles by and interviews with Soviet and Eastern European dissidents and reformers in the CPA’s internal discussion bulletin? My participation in numerous protests against the National Party government in Queensland after I moved here in 1988? Can we be specific?
Which aspects of my past from 1984 to 1991 were odious? My active support for movements like Solidarnosc in Poland? My support for East Timorese independence? My collecting funds for the ANC? My publishing of articles by and interviews with Soviet and Eastern European dissidents and reformers in the CPA’s internal discussion bulletin? My participation in numerous protests against the National Party government in Queensland after I moved here in 1988? Can we be specific?
I think your contextual point is valid and it does highlight the problem of labels in various political environments. Certainly communists were subject to a singleminded attack both legally and politically dating back to Menzies which successfully painted communism as an ideology repugnant to almost Australians. In my mind Carr us simply maintaining the tradition of de-legitimising any communist ideas and preventing those ideas from entering into public discourse.
Unfortunately, he does have to refer to that which he is ideologically opposed to which does in turn invite speculation about what communism means and whether it might have something to offer Australians trapped in the capitalist system.
I think your contextual point is valid and it does highlight the problem of labels in various political environments. Certainly communists were subject to a singleminded attack both legally and politically dating back to Menzies which successfully painted communism as an ideology repugnant to almost Australians. In my mind Carr us simply maintaining the tradition of de-legitimising any communist ideas and preventing those ideas from entering into public discourse.
Unfortunately, he does have to refer to that which he is ideologically opposed to which does in turn invite speculation about what communism means and whether it might have something to offer Australians trapped in the capitalist system.
You are emaking fair and common sense distinctions Paul. If Carr was credible he might have been a bit more worried about the role of Richo and his associates whose attitude towards the Labor leftism of Peter Baldwin illustrates exactly the sort of gangsterism that has made the ALP what it is today.
You are emaking fair and common sense distinctions Paul. If Carr was credible he might have been a bit more worried about the role of Richo and his associates whose attitude towards the Labor leftism of Peter Baldwin illustrates exactly the sort of gangsterism that has made the ALP what it is today.
Anyone who refers to any of the volumes of Marx’s Capital as Das Kapital, unless they’re one of the Doug Anthony All-Stars, has forfeited the right to be taken seriously about Marxism or Marxists.
[whispers] and wait until he reads what it says about democratic socialisation right there on his Party card
Anyone who refers to any of the volumes of Marx’s Capital as Das Kapital, unless they’re one of the Doug Anthony All-Stars, has forfeited the right to be taken seriously about Marxism or Marxists.
[whispers] and wait until he reads what it says about democratic socialisation right there on his Party card
Paul,
The objective of communist groups, including the former CPA as stated in its own writings, is to foment revolution, that being a break down of society and civil war, with the extinguishment of class enemies and anyone deemed to be a fellow traveller or counter-revolutionary. Some type of paradise is then supposed to emerge out of ashes.
Anyone of adult age by the 1980s knew, or ought to have known, that communism simply did not work, and that it invariably led to oppression, death and poverty on a grand scale. By the 1980s we’d had several dozen communist “experiments in living” and the result was devastating to a greater or lesser degree in each case.
Paul,
The objective of communist groups, including the former CPA as stated in its own writings, is to foment revolution, that being a break down of society and civil war, with the extinguishment of class enemies and anyone deemed to be a fellow traveller or counter-revolutionary. Some type of paradise is then supposed to emerge out of ashes.
Anyone of adult age by the 1980s knew, or ought to have known, that communism simply did not work, and that it invariably led to oppression, death and poverty on a grand scale. By the 1980s we’d had several dozen communist “experiments in living” and the result was devastating to a greater or lesser degree in each case.
Carr as much as says that every supporter of the ALP Left, particularly in NSW, was actually a communist (in the sense of being a member of the CPA or another communist party) or a closet supporter of communists.
This is an outrageous slur and re-writing of history. The NSW ALP Left (known in the day as the Steering Commitee – an awful name) was a very broad church, certainly with some communists (one prominent union official who was big in the SC used to spend 6 months a year with his ‘friends’ in Moscow) but also genuine democratic socialists and social democrats who really only had one thing in common and that was that they could not abide the thuggery of the NSW Right.
The leader of NSW ALP Left for many years was the great Jack Ferguson (father of Martin and Laurie). Is Carr saying Ferguson was a comm? Is he really? Ferguson is dead so can’t speak back but Martin should publish a response in the OO putting Carr back in his box.
Carr as much as says that every supporter of the ALP Left, particularly in NSW, was actually a communist (in the sense of being a member of the CPA or another communist party) or a closet supporter of communists.
This is an outrageous slur and re-writing of history. The NSW ALP Left (known in the day as the Steering Commitee – an awful name) was a very broad church, certainly with some communists (one prominent union official who was big in the SC used to spend 6 months a year with his ‘friends’ in Moscow) but also genuine democratic socialists and social democrats who really only had one thing in common and that was that they could not abide the thuggery of the NSW Right.
The leader of NSW ALP Left for many years was the great Jack Ferguson (father of Martin and Laurie). Is Carr saying Ferguson was a comm? Is he really? Ferguson is dead so can’t speak back but Martin should publish a response in the OO putting Carr back in his box.
Furthermore, Bob Carr ought to take a leaf from his brother Michael Costa about playing around in other people’s anti-Communist battles—here is then Costa MLC eulogising John Ducker:
Furthermore, Bob Carr ought to take a leaf from his brother Michael Costa about playing around in other people’s anti-Communist battles—here is then Costa MLC eulogising John Ducker:
And what Sam said at #9.
And what Sam said at #9.
I heard or read via a Austalian Democrat that one could not mix with the ALP if a member of another Party and was in their rules.That is no marriages of two distinct memberships.Rather than consider Bob Carr behaving as he does to Communist thought or organization, perhaps he is just a plain old liar, suffering some type of self-preening disorder.
Fine thread starter from Paul, on the whole the posts have been constructive, but Salients vindictive nonsenses take us back to an era that should be dead by now; the McCarthyite ‘fifties.
As for “entrism”, I grew out of “commie plots” as means for explaining curent affairs forty years ago; where ARE some of you??
I heard or read via a Austalian Democrat that one could not mix with the ALP if a member of another Party and was in their rules.That is no marriages of two distinct memberships.Rather than consider Bob Carr behaving as he does to Communist thought or organization, perhaps he is just a plain old liar, suffering some type of self-preening disorder.
Fine thread starter from Paul, on the whole the posts have been constructive, but Salients vindictive nonsenses take us back to an era that should be dead by now; the McCarthyite ‘fifties.
As for “entrism”, I grew out of “commie plots” as means for explaining curent affairs forty years ago; where ARE some of you??
Carr’s historical comments could be interpreted as a defense of the NSW right. He is probably correct to say that the Labor right had to be pretty ruthless to do something about the the equally ruthless Victorian left whose behaviour was a major contributor to the long Menzies ascendancy.
However, the communist party threat has long gone in Australia. The question Carr should be canvassing is the extent to which the NSW right has become more and more like the old Victorian Left. The buzz that got Kevin 07 in to power was the impression that he was really going to do his best to use power to build a better, fairer Australia instead of the stale old “whatever it takes to stay in power” that we were getting from Howard and too many State and Federal Labor leaders.
Carr’s historical comments could be interpreted as a defense of the NSW right. He is probably correct to say that the Labor right had to be pretty ruthless to do something about the the equally ruthless Victorian left whose behaviour was a major contributor to the long Menzies ascendancy.
However, the communist party threat has long gone in Australia. The question Carr should be canvassing is the extent to which the NSW right has become more and more like the old Victorian Left. The buzz that got Kevin 07 in to power was the impression that he was really going to do his best to use power to build a better, fairer Australia instead of the stale old “whatever it takes to stay in power” that we were getting from Howard and too many State and Federal Labor leaders.
Salient #8:
Australia’s Security Appeals Tribunal found in 1983 (the year before I joined) that this was not the case (or was no longer the case) with the CPA.
Beyond that it would be good if people wishing to discuss the activities of the CPA or myself could engage with the facts of the period from 1984 to 1991 rather than recourse to essentialisms.
Salient #8:
Australia’s Security Appeals Tribunal found in 1983 (the year before I joined) that this was not the case (or was no longer the case) with the CPA.
Beyond that it would be good if people wishing to discuss the activities of the CPA or myself could engage with the facts of the period from 1984 to 1991 rather than recourse to essentialisms.
Bob Carr:
1. Whitlam as a person who “broke a few eggs to make an omelette”. Ironic.
2. Jim Cairns as a leader removed by a CIA plot. Ironic X 2!!
Bob Carr:
1. Whitlam as a person who “broke a few eggs to make an omelette”. Ironic.
2. Jim Cairns as a leader removed by a CIA plot. Ironic X 2!!
Salient could as well become familiar with the history of the Socialist Internationals within which broad conferences the vanguard revolutionary tradition and social democrat/labourist traditions saw each other as representing different approaches to advancing working class interests.
The essentialist anti-communism of Carr and the NSW Labor right has more to do with pre-modern grouper catholicism (whatever Carr’s religious beliefs) than with a genuine desire to advance working class interests by defending Australians from the evils of Soviet socialism.
Besides, Carr’s legacy to NSW is a barely adequate public transport system that barely functions and an ALP that is moribund. Oh, and a large number of new national parks that are little other than exhausted old growth logging areas so poorly managed by the state forestry department that they were made into national parks because nothing much else could be done thim. Essenjtially they are very large picnic areas accessible by soft road 4wd’s that allow Carr to advance his credentials as an environmentalist.
Salient could as well become familiar with the history of the Socialist Internationals within which broad conferences the vanguard revolutionary tradition and social democrat/labourist traditions saw each other as representing different approaches to advancing working class interests.
The essentialist anti-communism of Carr and the NSW Labor right has more to do with pre-modern grouper catholicism (whatever Carr’s religious beliefs) than with a genuine desire to advance working class interests by defending Australians from the evils of Soviet socialism.
Besides, Carr’s legacy to NSW is a barely adequate public transport system that barely functions and an ALP that is moribund. Oh, and a large number of new national parks that are little other than exhausted old growth logging areas so poorly managed by the state forestry department that they were made into national parks because nothing much else could be done thim. Essenjtially they are very large picnic areas accessible by soft road 4wd’s that allow Carr to advance his credentials as an environmentalist.
I wonder who Carr had in mind as the Australian Pinochet.
I wonder who Carr had in mind as the Australian Pinochet.
Other reading: Currency Lad.
Other reading: Currency Lad.
You gotta hand it to him – the man knows his HR.
You gotta hand it to him – the man knows his HR.
The real news in “Family File” is not about people such as Lloyd Ross or Jim Hill who were in both the ALP and secretly in the Communist Party. That is old news although “Family File” does provide extra detail.
No, the real news is Mark’s highlighting of the role played by the Taft faction in the CPA after 1971. It is usually considered that the pro-Moscow crowd left the CPA en masse and joined the SPA (Socialist Party of Australia) after the CPA denounced the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Mark, however, stresses that there was an organised pro-Soviet faction in the CPA even after the split with the SPA. It was led by Bernie Taft. In 1984 Taft’s faction broke away from the CPA and joined the Socialist Left in the Victorian ALP. An alumnus of this Taftite faction is none other than our new PM. That the real story coming out of “Family File”.
The real news in “Family File” is not about people such as Lloyd Ross or Jim Hill who were in both the ALP and secretly in the Communist Party. That is old news although “Family File” does provide extra detail.
No, the real news is Mark’s highlighting of the role played by the Taft faction in the CPA after 1971. It is usually considered that the pro-Moscow crowd left the CPA en masse and joined the SPA (Socialist Party of Australia) after the CPA denounced the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Mark, however, stresses that there was an organised pro-Soviet faction in the CPA even after the split with the SPA. It was led by Bernie Taft. In 1984 Taft’s faction broke away from the CPA and joined the Socialist Left in the Victorian ALP. An alumnus of this Taftite faction is none other than our new PM. That the real story coming out of “Family File”.
“I’ll see your Moscow gold and raise you all this Vatican gold.”
“I’ll see your Moscow gold and raise you all this Vatican gold.”
Katz
My uncle was a BLF official, a member of the CPA, the APP, and spoke fluent Russian, despite leaving school at 13. You do the math.
Katz
My uncle was a BLF official, a member of the CPA, the APP, and spoke fluent Russian, despite leaving school at 13. You do the math.
That should be ALP, not APP.
That should be ALP, not APP.
Paul says:
“Beyond that it would be good if people wishing to discuss the activities of the CPA or myself could engage with the facts of the period from 1984 to 1991 rather than recourse to essentialisms.”
Paul, I have no doubt whatsoever that you are, personally, just a big cuddly bunny. But the history of the 20th century teaches us that, in the majority of cases, the cuddly bunnies in communist movements tend to be swept aside by the scheming, paranoid and delusional misanthropes within the ranks whenever a host society becomes unstable.
Paul says:
“Beyond that it would be good if people wishing to discuss the activities of the CPA or myself could engage with the facts of the period from 1984 to 1991 rather than recourse to essentialisms.”
Paul, I have no doubt whatsoever that you are, personally, just a big cuddly bunny. But the history of the 20th century teaches us that, in the majority of cases, the cuddly bunnies in communist movements tend to be swept aside by the scheming, paranoid and delusional misanthropes within the ranks whenever a host society becomes unstable.
Salient, the point I’m making is that by the time I was a member of the CPA the cuddly bunnies were running the thing and I would not have become a member if I had not satisfied myself that that was the case.
Salient, the point I’m making is that by the time I was a member of the CPA the cuddly bunnies were running the thing and I would not have become a member if I had not satisfied myself that that was the case.
The wider point, Salient, as we head ever deeper into ecological crisis, is that environmentalists who accept the logic of the Carr’s of the world about the fitness of the labourist parties to lead in the name of all citizens on the basis of the labourism’s heroic anti-communism is that they (environmentalists) will be further up shit creek than they ever thought possible. That’s what happens when you imagine that the exhausted labourist party in Australia still has some life in it. It doesn’t. In fact the Labor right’s manipulations in getting rid of Rudd are an historic first moment in the creation of an end of the world historic bloc that consists of male workers, labor managerialists and the international ruling class. Instead of being able to tax coal to death while the nation reconstructs an energy policy to fit a warmed world we’ve got the ALP’s Mar’n Ferguson promising us that coal exports from the Hunter Valley will double in coming decades. And guess who will be getting in for their chop?
The wider point, Salient, as we head ever deeper into ecological crisis, is that environmentalists who accept the logic of the Carr’s of the world about the fitness of the labourist parties to lead in the name of all citizens on the basis of the labourism’s heroic anti-communism is that they (environmentalists) will be further up shit creek than they ever thought possible. That’s what happens when you imagine that the exhausted labourist party in Australia still has some life in it. It doesn’t. In fact the Labor right’s manipulations in getting rid of Rudd are an historic first moment in the creation of an end of the world historic bloc that consists of male workers, labor managerialists and the international ruling class. Instead of being able to tax coal to death while the nation reconstructs an energy policy to fit a warmed world we’ve got the ALP’s Mar’n Ferguson promising us that coal exports from the Hunter Valley will double in coming decades. And guess who will be getting in for their chop?
salient, did you see the bit where Paul mentioned the slaughter of 500,000 indonesians by anti-communists? Your moral high horse is a bit creaky there.
Also, isn’t there currently a world cup going on in one of those countries that was reformed by communism? I suppose the slaughter and fire and elimination of reactionaries can’t have been as bad as all that after all…?
salient, did you see the bit where Paul mentioned the slaughter of 500,000 indonesians by anti-communists? Your moral high horse is a bit creaky there.
Also, isn’t there currently a world cup going on in one of those countries that was reformed by communism? I suppose the slaughter and fire and elimination of reactionaries can’t have been as bad as all that after all…?
It’s strange that on this blog people talk about the record of communism as if it were the same people, in the same place and time, trying out a different ideology.
I guess that’s why Paul wrote that “To be an anti-communist in Indonesia between 1965 and 1999 meant being, at the very least, an accomplice in the slaughter of over 500,000 of your fellow citizens and the genocide of 200,000 East Timorese” – which is far too simplistic. People weren’t just neatly divided in two homogenous camps called ‘communist’ or ‘anti-communist’. Anti-communists weren’t necassarily involved in the slaughter of anyone.
It’s strange that on this blog people talk about the record of communism as if it were the same people, in the same place and time, trying out a different ideology.
I guess that’s why Paul wrote that “To be an anti-communist in Indonesia between 1965 and 1999 meant being, at the very least, an accomplice in the slaughter of over 500,000 of your fellow citizens and the genocide of 200,000 East Timorese” – which is far too simplistic. People weren’t just neatly divided in two homogenous camps called ‘communist’ or ‘anti-communist’. Anti-communists weren’t necassarily involved in the slaughter of anyone.
Nothing justifies murder and I hold Karl Marx in utter contempt because if he hadn’t invented his idiotic and rediculous ideology, millions wouldn’t have died in his name.
Nothing justifies murder and I hold Karl Marx in utter contempt because if he hadn’t invented his idiotic and rediculous ideology, millions wouldn’t have died in his name.
More’s the pity…
More’s the pity…
The three major differences between Communism and Nazism is that the Soviets helped defeated Nazism, and because they were on the winning side, the Soviets’ Gulags were not liberated for the world to see and the Soviet’s various racial and ethnic cleansing campaigns were not subject to the scrutiny that the Nazi’s received.
If the Russians had been subject to the same scrutiny as the Nazis I have no doubt that they and their supporters would be treated with the same justifiabe contempt.
The three major differences between Communism and Nazism is that the Soviets helped defeated Nazism, and because they were on the winning side, the Soviets’ Gulags were not liberated for the world to see and the Soviet’s various racial and ethnic cleansing campaigns were not subject to the scrutiny that the Nazi’s received.
If the Russians had been subject to the same scrutiny as the Nazis I have no doubt that they and their supporters would be treated with the same justifiabe contempt.
@30. It would be interesting to explore the idea that Stalinism and its variants were in direct contradiction to the tentative ideas Marx put forward for transcending capitalism, or even’s Lenin’s…
@30. It would be interesting to explore the idea that Stalinism and its variants were in direct contradiction to the tentative ideas Marx put forward for transcending capitalism, or even’s Lenin’s…
Geez, for a left of centre blog this joint has sure got mkore than its fare share of anti-communists. Keep up the cold war hatred. The irony, of course, is that actual members of left of the ALP parties in Australia probably know significantly more about the evils of communism because they actually bothered to engage with the history. But you Hill Song Church anti-communist evangelicals really make me laugh. It is like the highest of high moral ground is to hate poor old bloody Karl Marx. What a hoot. I’d take you seriously if any of you could show the least real knowledge of the history of communism.
Geez, for a left of centre blog this joint has sure got mkore than its fare share of anti-communists. Keep up the cold war hatred. The irony, of course, is that actual members of left of the ALP parties in Australia probably know significantly more about the evils of communism because they actually bothered to engage with the history. But you Hill Song Church anti-communist evangelicals really make me laugh. It is like the highest of high moral ground is to hate poor old bloody Karl Marx. What a hoot. I’d take you seriously if any of you could show the least real knowledge of the history of communism.
Like Guantanomo?
Like Guantanomo?
Nazi’s didn’t have to build walls to keep the general population in. Whereas Communists did, to prevent the population bailing out in favour of Capitalism. Ordinary workers were prepared to risk their lives escaping from Communism to Capitalist controlled territory.
When war began Nazi troops didn’t desert in wholesale quantities. Whereas Soviet troops deserted by the millions, before they even bothered to find out who the invader was. They reckoned anybody had to be better than Communism. Those who returned did so only as a last resort when the invader was butchering them for their trouble.
Nazi’s didn’t have to build walls to keep the general population in. Whereas Communists did, to prevent the population bailing out in favour of Capitalism. Ordinary workers were prepared to risk their lives escaping from Communism to Capitalist controlled territory.
When war began Nazi troops didn’t desert in wholesale quantities. Whereas Soviet troops deserted by the millions, before they even bothered to find out who the invader was. They reckoned anybody had to be better than Communism. Those who returned did so only as a last resort when the invader was butchering them for their trouble.
Anthony Nolan :34 Communism is Extreme Left. Left-of-Centre implies everything to the left of Centre, not just the Most Extreme Possible Left.
Anthony Nolan :34 Communism is Extreme Left. Left-of-Centre implies everything to the left of Centre, not just the Most Extreme Possible Left.
Helped?
The Eastern Front was where the Germans were defeated. Everything else was a side show.
They were. It just took longer. The archives have been open for 20 years. See the works of Robert Conquest and Anne Applebaum.
I can speak with a bit of familiarity about this, having had family members murdered by the Nazis during the war and by the Stalinists after it.
And, not to be picky, but Stalin was Georgian not Russian.
Helped?
The Eastern Front was where the Germans were defeated. Everything else was a side show.
They were. It just took longer. The archives have been open for 20 years. See the works of Robert Conquest and Anne Applebaum.
I can speak with a bit of familiarity about this, having had family members murdered by the Nazis during the war and by the Stalinists after it.
And, not to be picky, but Stalin was Georgian not Russian.
Anthony:
You can be left of centre and be anti-communist. That’s what I am.
Anthony:
You can be left of centre and be anti-communist. That’s what I am.
STAP, its diabolically hard to keep up with the latest in Rightwing thinking regading Stalinism and Nazism. One day Hitler and Stalin are ‘evil twins’, the next, as you claim, Stalinism is worse than Nazism…
I think you will find that thousands of German workers were prepared to pay for their lives, which they did, to resist Hitler’s rise to power. And they did so under the banner of socialist and communist parties.
German soldiers did not desert en masse because by then the social, political and ideological war had been won by the Nazi state. There is also the fact that Germany was at a historically much higher level of capitalist development and although it did undergo the carnage of the First World War was spared a brutal civil war and armed intervention by a dozen or so hostile powers.
Not, to excuse Stalinism though, of the most brutal and horrorific crimes. The Stalinist counter-revolution was the coup-de-grace in slow motion to the revolutionary process begaun in October 1917 in Russia. Stalin finished off the process set in train by world imperialism.
STAP, its diabolically hard to keep up with the latest in Rightwing thinking regading Stalinism and Nazism. One day Hitler and Stalin are ‘evil twins’, the next, as you claim, Stalinism is worse than Nazism…
I think you will find that thousands of German workers were prepared to pay for their lives, which they did, to resist Hitler’s rise to power. And they did so under the banner of socialist and communist parties.
German soldiers did not desert en masse because by then the social, political and ideological war had been won by the Nazi state. There is also the fact that Germany was at a historically much higher level of capitalist development and although it did undergo the carnage of the First World War was spared a brutal civil war and armed intervention by a dozen or so hostile powers.
Not, to excuse Stalinism though, of the most brutal and horrorific crimes. The Stalinist counter-revolution was the coup-de-grace in slow motion to the revolutionary process begaun in October 1917 in Russia. Stalin finished off the process set in train by world imperialism.
They did at the end of the war, when they were losing.
They did at the end of the war, when they were losing.
“To be an anti-communist in South Africa during the Cold War meant, for all practical purposes, to be pro-apartheid and pro- the incarceration of Nelson Mandela.”
Epic deductive fail.
It was quite possible to be against that vicious and violent regime without being a Communist… the DLP managed it quite competently, and did it before anyone else (if memory serves).
“To be an anti-communist in South Africa during the Cold War meant, for all practical purposes, to be pro-apartheid and pro- the incarceration of Nelson Mandela.”
Epic deductive fail.
It was quite possible to be against that vicious and violent regime without being a Communist… the DLP managed it quite competently, and did it before anyone else (if memory serves).
Should I be surprised a post about Communism adhere’s to Godwin’s Law?
Should I be surprised a post about Communism adhere’s to Godwin’s Law?
Luke, which DLP are we talking about?
Luke, which DLP are we talking about?
Oops, I’ll try again with the block-quotes…
Epic deductive fail.
It was quite possible to be against that vicious and violent regime without being a Communist… the DLP managed it quite competently, and did it before anyone else (if memory serves).
Oops, I’ll try again with the block-quotes…
Epic deductive fail.
It was quite possible to be against that vicious and violent regime without being a Communist… the DLP managed it quite competently, and did it before anyone else (if memory serves).
How many were there Paul?
How many were there Paul?
During the 1930s, capitalism was in deep crisis.
In fact, thousands of US citizens emigrated to the Soviet Union during the 1930s.
Even more emigrated from other “capitalist” countries bordering on the Soviet Union.
Not so many emigrated to Nazi Germany at the same time. Funny, that.
During the 1930s, capitalism was in deep crisis.
In fact, thousands of US citizens emigrated to the Soviet Union during the 1930s.
Even more emigrated from other “capitalist” countries bordering on the Soviet Union.
Not so many emigrated to Nazi Germany at the same time. Funny, that.
Luke, the initials “DLP” stand, in Australia, for Democratic Labor Party. Was there a party in South Africa with that acronym?
Luke, the initials “DLP” stand, in Australia, for Democratic Labor Party. Was there a party in South Africa with that acronym?
Maybe he means the party Helen Suzman was in, though that wasn’t abbreviated as the DLP.
Maybe he means the party Helen Suzman was in, though that wasn’t abbreviated as the DLP.
No, I mean the Australian brand, as surely discussions of the Giezelt brothers and John Ducker aren’t relevant to South Africa… a point so obvious I feel it shuldn’t need to be pointed out.
Or were you a South African ciitzen then Paul?
No, I mean the Australian brand, as surely discussions of the Giezelt brothers and John Ducker aren’t relevant to South Africa… a point so obvious I feel it shuldn’t need to be pointed out.
Or were you a South African ciitzen then Paul?
No. It was reformed by a multi-party coalition and became a democracy.
As such it avoided the horrors visited upon countries “reformed” by communism; Russia under Lenin, China under Mao, Cambodia under Pol Pot, Albania under Hoxha, East Germany under Honecker, Romania under Ceausescu and North Korea under the two Kims.
Your knowledge of recent history (and North Korea is an ongoing tragedy) is abysmal.
No. It was reformed by a multi-party coalition and became a democracy.
As such it avoided the horrors visited upon countries “reformed” by communism; Russia under Lenin, China under Mao, Cambodia under Pol Pot, Albania under Hoxha, East Germany under Honecker, Romania under Ceausescu and North Korea under the two Kims.
Your knowledge of recent history (and North Korea is an ongoing tragedy) is abysmal.
I also doubt that Donald Woods was a CPA’er.
I also doubt that Donald Woods was a CPA’er.
@45. That’s quite interesting Luke, as at the Catholic high school I attended there were two students whose family were involved in the DLP, with at least one being an NCC operative. They would stand up in class at the appropriate moment and denounce teachers who mentioned evolution or admitted to engaging in medidation. We, of course, did our best to encourage as a bullet to the brain was preferred to having to sit through a religous education class. The chaos that ensued was most hilarious.
But I digress…what I do distinctly remmeber was when they handed out leaflets condeming the two black South African students who were at our school on exchange from a sister school. The students were condemned for being members of the ANC, which I believe they were.
Odd, that the DLP would be anti-apartheid and yet also opposed to the organisation in the forefront of the struggle against it…
@45. That’s quite interesting Luke, as at the Catholic high school I attended there were two students whose family were involved in the DLP, with at least one being an NCC operative. They would stand up in class at the appropriate moment and denounce teachers who mentioned evolution or admitted to engaging in medidation. We, of course, did our best to encourage as a bullet to the brain was preferred to having to sit through a religous education class. The chaos that ensued was most hilarious.
But I digress…what I do distinctly remmeber was when they handed out leaflets condeming the two black South African students who were at our school on exchange from a sister school. The students were condemned for being members of the ANC, which I believe they were.
Odd, that the DLP would be anti-apartheid and yet also opposed to the organisation in the forefront of the struggle against it…
On the substantive point, of course it was possible for South Africans to be opposed to the apartheid regime without being communists. What I meant to say is that it was, in practice, impossible for someone who was an essentialist anti-communist – as defined above – to be effectively anti-apartheid given the important role of the South African communists in the ANC, and the central role of the ANC in opposition to aparthheid.
On the substantive point, of course it was possible for South Africans to be opposed to the apartheid regime without being communists. What I meant to say is that it was, in practice, impossible for someone who was an essentialist anti-communist – as defined above – to be effectively anti-apartheid given the important role of the South African communists in the ANC, and the central role of the ANC in opposition to aparthheid.
Not at all odd Chav – its called mental flexibility. False dichotomies abound, but that doesn’t mean one has to submit to them.
Not at all odd Chav – its called mental flexibility. False dichotomies abound, but that doesn’t mean one has to submit to them.
@51.
All those regimes have been deposed Greg, but who will save us from the legacy of Adam Smith!
@51.
All those regimes have been deposed Greg, but who will save us from the legacy of Adam Smith!
Paul @ 55, that comment is piffle. See my remarks about Donald Woods.
It’s like saying that one must be pro-Catholic in order to help the poor of Calcutta.
Paul @ 55, that comment is piffle. See my remarks about Donald Woods.
It’s like saying that one must be pro-Catholic in order to help the poor of Calcutta.
Of course that should read, Paul @ 54.
Of course that should read, Paul @ 54.
Carr is also wrong when he says that Tom Uren and Arthur Gietzelt were in Cabinet ministers in Bob Hawke’s governments.
Carr is also wrong when he says that Tom Uren and Arthur Gietzelt were in Cabinet ministers in Bob Hawke’s governments.
Yes indeed OB and SATP, one can be left of centre and anti-communist. You can also be left of centre and informed about what distinguished Australian communism from other forms. Australian communism was radically equalitarian, dissident, activist and drawn from the organic intellectuals of the working class. As radicals Australian communists made distinct contributions to Australian culture and history not the least of which was a sustained critique of the ALP. Rabid and ill-informed cold war anti-communism doesn’t really advance dialogue. The Australian left is impoverished by the absence of the sort of fighting, critical attitudes that were nurtured within the CPA.
Yes indeed OB and SATP, one can be left of centre and anti-communist. You can also be left of centre and informed about what distinguished Australian communism from other forms. Australian communism was radically equalitarian, dissident, activist and drawn from the organic intellectuals of the working class. As radicals Australian communists made distinct contributions to Australian culture and history not the least of which was a sustained critique of the ALP. Rabid and ill-informed cold war anti-communism doesn’t really advance dialogue. The Australian left is impoverished by the absence of the sort of fighting, critical attitudes that were nurtured within the CPA.
@55. So that’s waht they’re calling it now!
I’d be delighted if you could refer me to any literature on the DLP’s oppositon to apartheid. I might be pleasantly surprised.
Ah, of course, that’s it! The Orange Free Staters were incorrigible Protestants!
@55. So that’s waht they’re calling it now!
I’d be delighted if you could refer me to any literature on the DLP’s oppositon to apartheid. I might be pleasantly surprised.
Ah, of course, that’s it! The Orange Free Staters were incorrigible Protestants!
Luke, whilst the Australian Democratic Labor Party and Bob Santamaria’s National Civic Council aren’t identical, they were close enough that the position of the one could usually be inferred from the position of the other. Every statement on South Africa I read in Santamaria’s column, heard on Point of View or read in News Weekly was invariably more hostile to the ANC and Nelson Mandela than to the apartheid regime.
The fact is that throughout the 1970s and 1980s the position of right-of-centre forces throughout the English-speaking world (with honourable and regrettably rare exceptions such as Malcolm Fraser) was one of nominal opposition to apartheid combined with much more substantive opposition to all realistic alternatives to apartheid and promotion of collaborationist crooks like Buthelezi as the “authentic” voice of black South Africans.
Luke, whilst the Australian Democratic Labor Party and Bob Santamaria’s National Civic Council aren’t identical, they were close enough that the position of the one could usually be inferred from the position of the other. Every statement on South Africa I read in Santamaria’s column, heard on Point of View or read in News Weekly was invariably more hostile to the ANC and Nelson Mandela than to the apartheid regime.
The fact is that throughout the 1970s and 1980s the position of right-of-centre forces throughout the English-speaking world (with honourable and regrettably rare exceptions such as Malcolm Fraser) was one of nominal opposition to apartheid combined with much more substantive opposition to all realistic alternatives to apartheid and promotion of collaborationist crooks like Buthelezi as the “authentic” voice of black South Africans.
Bob Carr is appalling. He ran NSW into the ground. He ran a dishonest campaign against a bill of rights bringing up example after example which when checked were found to be false. Geoffrey Robertson shot him down in his book on why we need a bill of rights. These days he is a meeter and greeter down at the millionaires factory Macquarie Bank. WHat he does that is worthwhile is hard to understand. Some people could take the view that it is just a sinecure for services rendered but I of course would never suggest that.
Funny how we never seem to mind pollies cozying up to the big end of town or scream when the pollies jump
ship with their indexed super and go to work for them. Funny how we don’t worry about two politicians, one the PM (at the time ) the other the alternative having to don the hair shirt and be cross examined by a room full of agregious god botherers whose views are very much in the minority in this country. At that meeting the appalling Pell was railing aginst the Greens and any other progressive policy that was on the horizon. Funny how we don’t worry about Pollies making the pilgrimage to Israel to recite lines about the evils of Palestineans. Funny how we don’t mind the Member for Melbourne Ports confusing just which country he is supposed to represent. It just goes on and on. But a few old Lefties who dallied with the Comms have Bob in a twist. AT the time Bob’s mates in the Labor right were getting their riding instruction from Rome via its agents in this country. But that’s all right. All Bob’s article needed was for him to rehash Chris Mitchell’s (editor in chief of that rag the Oz) totally false story about Manning Clarke.
Bob Carr is appalling. He ran NSW into the ground. He ran a dishonest campaign against a bill of rights bringing up example after example which when checked were found to be false. Geoffrey Robertson shot him down in his book on why we need a bill of rights. These days he is a meeter and greeter down at the millionaires factory Macquarie Bank. WHat he does that is worthwhile is hard to understand. Some people could take the view that it is just a sinecure for services rendered but I of course would never suggest that.
Funny how we never seem to mind pollies cozying up to the big end of town or scream when the pollies jump
ship with their indexed super and go to work for them. Funny how we don’t worry about two politicians, one the PM (at the time ) the other the alternative having to don the hair shirt and be cross examined by a room full of agregious god botherers whose views are very much in the minority in this country. At that meeting the appalling Pell was railing aginst the Greens and any other progressive policy that was on the horizon. Funny how we don’t worry about Pollies making the pilgrimage to Israel to recite lines about the evils of Palestineans. Funny how we don’t mind the Member for Melbourne Ports confusing just which country he is supposed to represent. It just goes on and on. But a few old Lefties who dallied with the Comms have Bob in a twist. AT the time Bob’s mates in the Labor right were getting their riding instruction from Rome via its agents in this country. But that’s all right. All Bob’s article needed was for him to rehash Chris Mitchell’s (editor in chief of that rag the Oz) totally false story about Manning Clarke.
We are discussing political positions, and you can infer whatever you like (which given your biases might not be exactly objective) about the motivations and secret feelings of the DLP – the point remains they were anti-apartheid.
And, Paul, through much of the same period the attitude of Australian Communists was disgustingly unpatriotic and apologetic of unspeakably inhumane regimes.
I’ll take John Ducker any day.
We are discussing political positions, and you can infer whatever you like (which given your biases might not be exactly objective) about the motivations and secret feelings of the DLP – the point remains they were anti-apartheid.
And, Paul, through much of the same period the attitude of Australian Communists was disgustingly unpatriotic and apologetic of unspeakably inhumane regimes.
I’ll take John Ducker any day.
There wasn’t even that. The apartheid regime was held up admiringly as a “bulwark” against communism and anti-apartheid activists were denounced as communists because they were against apartheid.
There wasn’t even that. The apartheid regime was held up admiringly as a “bulwark” against communism and anti-apartheid activists were denounced as communists because they were against apartheid.
As for Donald Woods, when faced with the choice between being anti-apartheid and anti-communist, he was anti-apartheid. In fact he raised election campaign funds for an alliance (the ANC) which included communists. QED he was not an essentialist anti-communist.
As for Donald Woods, when faced with the choice between being anti-apartheid and anti-communist, he was anti-apartheid. In fact he raised election campaign funds for an alliance (the ANC) which included communists. QED he was not an essentialist anti-communist.
But neither was he a communist. And in Australian Labor politics at the time – which is where this started – one could be either a communist or an anti-communist.
I repeat – I’ll take John Ducker any day.
But neither was he a communist. And in Australian Labor politics at the time – which is where this started – one could be either a communist or an anti-communist.
I repeat – I’ll take John Ducker any day.
Given everything we now know about communist regimes anywhere and everywhere, I cannot believe anyone is having this discussion with a straight face. Opposing apartheid (great!) doesn’t absolve tens of millions of deaths in the name of this monstrous ideology.
Given everything we now know about communist regimes anywhere and everywhere, I cannot believe anyone is having this discussion with a straight face. Opposing apartheid (great!) doesn’t absolve tens of millions of deaths in the name of this monstrous ideology.
All of them chav? What news do you bring us from Pyongyang? I must have missed that bit about the Dear Leader running to his bolt-hole in Macao.
And I haven’t seen anything recently about China holding free and fair multi-party elections. What have I missed there?
As for the rest- why oh why do you think they were deposed?
All of them chav? What news do you bring us from Pyongyang? I must have missed that bit about the Dear Leader running to his bolt-hole in Macao.
And I haven’t seen anything recently about China holding free and fair multi-party elections. What have I missed there?
As for the rest- why oh why do you think they were deposed?
Luke Walladge:
“the attitude of Australian Communists was disgustingly unpatriotic”
Such as?
Luke Walladge:
“the attitude of Australian Communists was disgustingly unpatriotic”
Such as?
Yes, I agree with Paul Norton’s comments re being anti communist and still “left”.
We’d need to know what #39 OB’s concept of “communism” is before we could go further with it. Does OB mean “communism” of the West European kind ( Gramschi; Frankfurt school of pol philosophy ), or Stalinism, or any thing right of the ALP NSW Right/ DLP, as some posters here probably see it?
Chav,# 53; was coming here after walking the dog, in mind of former Labor politician Joan Coxshedge’s claims of infiltration from the Right, including foreign powers, in the eighties, also.
I wonder what sort of “entrism”, if you’re a Rightie trade union offical, for instance, and recruited by offshore intelligence or business agencies keen to know about and disrupt any change in the status quo here in Australia?
Yes, I agree with Paul Norton’s comments re being anti communist and still “left”.
We’d need to know what #39 OB’s concept of “communism” is before we could go further with it. Does OB mean “communism” of the West European kind ( Gramschi; Frankfurt school of pol philosophy ), or Stalinism, or any thing right of the ALP NSW Right/ DLP, as some posters here probably see it?
Chav,# 53; was coming here after walking the dog, in mind of former Labor politician Joan Coxshedge’s claims of infiltration from the Right, including foreign powers, in the eighties, also.
I wonder what sort of “entrism”, if you’re a Rightie trade union offical, for instance, and recruited by offshore intelligence or business agencies keen to know about and disrupt any change in the status quo here in Australia?
Anthony Nolan @ 69,
Taking orders from Moscow at the height of the cold war doesn’t bother you?
Anthony Nolan @ 69,
Taking orders from Moscow at the height of the cold war doesn’t bother you?
Oh no, now someone’s quoting Joan Coxhedge… her of the tinfoil hat craziness and support for the Iranian Revolution. Are there no depths to which some people will not stoop?
Oh no, now someone’s quoting Joan Coxhedge… her of the tinfoil hat craziness and support for the Iranian Revolution. Are there no depths to which some people will not stoop?
Luke, I’d be fascinated if you could provide me with a link about the DLP’s role in the opposition to the Springbook tour and Bjelke-Petersen’s State of Emergency in Queensland in 1971. I certainly didn’t notice too many of them in anti-apartheid circles in Sydney in the 1980s.
Luke, I’d be fascinated if you could provide me with a link about the DLP’s role in the opposition to the Springbook tour and Bjelke-Petersen’s State of Emergency in Queensland in 1971. I certainly didn’t notice too many of them in anti-apartheid circles in Sydney in the 1980s.
So one has to have marched in Brisbane under Joh to be anti-apartheid, Paul @ 73?
So one has to have marched in Brisbane under Joh to be anti-apartheid, Paul @ 73?
Except that being anti-communist at the time meant a whole lot more than just being against the communists. It meant being in favour of the Vietnam War, support for fascist military dictatorships around the world, and a whole lot more besides.
Hence, the anti-anti communists. You didn’t have to be a comm to be outraged by Pinochet.
Except that being anti-communist at the time meant a whole lot more than just being against the communists. It meant being in favour of the Vietnam War, support for fascist military dictatorships around the world, and a whole lot more besides.
Hence, the anti-anti communists. You didn’t have to be a comm to be outraged by Pinochet.
Not necessarily, but one has to have done something which is on the public record and which is more substantial than a pious resolution on the subject.
Not necessarily, but one has to have done something which is on the public record and which is more substantial than a pious resolution on the subject.
Sam @ 75,
Thats just defining the issue the way you think suits your argument best. There were many, many people who were neither Communists nor in favour of any of the things listed.
False dichotomies are all the rage today, aren’t they?
Sam @ 75,
Thats just defining the issue the way you think suits your argument best. There were many, many people who were neither Communists nor in favour of any of the things listed.
False dichotomies are all the rage today, aren’t they?
Or by Vince Gair, or Joh, or Bob Santamaria, or Douglas Darby, or Eric Butler, etc.
Or by Vince Gair, or Joh, or Bob Santamaria, or Douglas Darby, or Eric Butler, etc.
FFS Walladge, get your numbers right.
That should be ‘Sam @ 76′
FFS Walladge, get your numbers right.
That should be ‘Sam @ 76′
Paul,
I think the one silver lining of the rise of Communism is that it led many on the political right in Western countries to support a welfare state and some rights for trade unions in order to stop the working class being radicalised. But the price paid for that silver lining is too hefty for any ethical person to take comfort.
Paul,
I think the one silver lining of the rise of Communism is that it led many on the political right in Western countries to support a welfare state and some rights for trade unions in order to stop the working class being radicalised. But the price paid for that silver lining is too hefty for any ethical person to take comfort.
OTOH OB, idiots can always find another idiotic ideology to follow.
And so they have.
OTOH OB, idiots can always find another idiotic ideology to follow.
And so they have.
Luke Walladge:
“taling orders from Moscow at the height of the cold war”
Who? What orders? To do what? Proof please?
“doesn’t that bother you?”
The absence of patriotism of the reactionary forces (Liberal) who sent more than 400 young Australians to die in the US colonial misadventure in Vietnam bothers me more, Luke.
Luke Walladge:
“taling orders from Moscow at the height of the cold war”
Who? What orders? To do what? Proof please?
“doesn’t that bother you?”
The absence of patriotism of the reactionary forces (Liberal) who sent more than 400 young Australians to die in the US colonial misadventure in Vietnam bothers me more, Luke.
Who’s defending that, Anthony @ 83?
I suppose though, you think that people who were members of the CPA while keeping it hidden and secret, took holidays in Moscow to visit their ‘friends’ and all the rest of it were merely well-meaning patriots?
Spare me.
Who’s defending that, Anthony @ 83?
I suppose though, you think that people who were members of the CPA while keeping it hidden and secret, took holidays in Moscow to visit their ‘friends’ and all the rest of it were merely well-meaning patriots?
Spare me.
And goodness knows we can’t have that!
A very revealing analysis there Salient. Reformism as the bulwark against revolution. You’ll be very unpopular here if you continue down that road of analysis, you know.
Thanks also for acknowledging, if indrectly and I’m sure involutarily,the pivotol role played by the working class in revolutions.
And goodness knows we can’t have that!
A very revealing analysis there Salient. Reformism as the bulwark against revolution. You’ll be very unpopular here if you continue down that road of analysis, you know.
Thanks also for acknowledging, if indrectly and I’m sure involutarily,the pivotol role played by the working class in revolutions.
Luke W, could you please point to some sources that back up your claim that the DLP were anti-apartheid?
Luke W, could you please point to some sources that back up your claim that the DLP were anti-apartheid?
anthony nolan
Nothing personal, but as a life long Leftist, and Labor supporter, I’m pushed to think of anything I hate more than Communism.
anthony nolan
Nothing personal, but as a life long Leftist, and Labor supporter, I’m pushed to think of anything I hate more than Communism.
Paul, you are accusing me of false dichotomies, yet it was you who said “in Australian Labor politics at the time – which is where this started – one could be either a communist or an anti-communist.”.
The Steering Committee, about which I wrote earlier, was anti-anti communist, and that wasn’t because its members were pro-communists (though some, a minority, were).
Amongst the anti-anti communists were very cleared eyed people who were under no illusions whatsoever about the nature of Soviet Communism, because they had lived under it. But they had also lived under regimes who were defined by their anti-communism, as if that could justify any and every abuse of human rights and the crushing of political dissent.
Paul, you are accusing me of false dichotomies, yet it was you who said “in Australian Labor politics at the time – which is where this started – one could be either a communist or an anti-communist.”.
The Steering Committee, about which I wrote earlier, was anti-anti communist, and that wasn’t because its members were pro-communists (though some, a minority, were).
Amongst the anti-anti communists were very cleared eyed people who were under no illusions whatsoever about the nature of Soviet Communism, because they had lived under it. But they had also lived under regimes who were defined by their anti-communism, as if that could justify any and every abuse of human rights and the crushing of political dissent.
Sam, you mean Luke rather than me, don’t you?
Sam, you mean Luke rather than me, don’t you?
Edited for accuracy.
Edited for accuracy.
Paul, yes I did.
BTW, when are you regale us with stories about what the Prime Minister did at the AUS 1982 national conference after she’d had a few drinks too many (or even better, a few cones too many)?
Paul, yes I did.
BTW, when are you regale us with stories about what the Prime Minister did at the AUS 1982 national conference after she’d had a few drinks too many (or even better, a few cones too many)?
Paul Norton
The spaminator trapped one of my posts could you release it please
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/07/03/is-julia-gillard-the-new-bob-hawke/#comment-897092
Paul Norton
The spaminator trapped one of my posts could you release it please
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/07/03/is-julia-gillard-the-new-bob-hawke/#comment-897092
Sam, I can only report that the Prime Minister really was a good person to have a beer with in those days in spite of my differences with her, so it’s not just latter-day spin, but I’m not aware of any reports of her having a few too many. As for cones, you’d need to make contact with a Labor factional comrade of hers from Gippsland who had some notoriety in those days as a purveyor thereof.
Sam, I can only report that the Prime Minister really was a good person to have a beer with in those days in spite of my differences with her, so it’s not just latter-day spin, but I’m not aware of any reports of her having a few too many. As for cones, you’d need to make contact with a Labor factional comrade of hers from Gippsland who had some notoriety in those days as a purveyor thereof.
@69. Apologies Greg M, an error of omission. Of course the DPRK is firnly under the heel of the North Korean Stalinist clique and their terror state.
I’m surprised that you still see China as ‘communist’. You might want to have a word to the rest of the conservative movement in Australia who seem more than happy to conduct incredibly lucrative busines deals with such an evil regime.
As for why the other regimes were deposed, well, who likes living under a dictatorship no matter what flag it flies?
Speaking of which, its a neat ideological trick that conservatives use to label still existing and former Stalinist regimes as ‘socialist’ or ‘communist’, even when such regimes blatantly contradict every possible idea that Marx, and yes, even Lenin had regarding how capitalism could be transcended. In their defence the conservatives will claim the regimes attach this label to themselves and yet surely it would, as in almost every other sphere of life, lead to greater accuracy in political analysis if we labelled regimes by what they do rather than what they themselves calim to be?
@69. Apologies Greg M, an error of omission. Of course the DPRK is firnly under the heel of the North Korean Stalinist clique and their terror state.
I’m surprised that you still see China as ‘communist’. You might want to have a word to the rest of the conservative movement in Australia who seem more than happy to conduct incredibly lucrative busines deals with such an evil regime.
As for why the other regimes were deposed, well, who likes living under a dictatorship no matter what flag it flies?
Speaking of which, its a neat ideological trick that conservatives use to label still existing and former Stalinist regimes as ‘socialist’ or ‘communist’, even when such regimes blatantly contradict every possible idea that Marx, and yes, even Lenin had regarding how capitalism could be transcended. In their defence the conservatives will claim the regimes attach this label to themselves and yet surely it would, as in almost every other sphere of life, lead to greater accuracy in political analysis if we labelled regimes by what they do rather than what they themselves calim to be?
Sam #41
Not to the Soviets they didn’t.
Sam #41
Not to the Soviets they didn’t.
This reminds me of a cartoon I saw as a small child in a book of cartoons from The Age that my older brother had. It depicted the then PM Harold Holt and some of his senior Ministers (Billy McMahon, Gordon Freeth, etc.) walking along a yellow brick road with a sign along it saying “When is an enemy not an enemy? When he’s your fifth best customer.” Now the fifth best customer is our best customer and no longer regarded as an enemy.
This reminds me of a cartoon I saw as a small child in a book of cartoons from The Age that my older brother had. It depicted the then PM Harold Holt and some of his senior Ministers (Billy McMahon, Gordon Freeth, etc.) walking along a yellow brick road with a sign along it saying “When is an enemy not an enemy? When he’s your fifth best customer.” Now the fifth best customer is our best customer and no longer regarded as an enemy.
Katz #47:
Nowhere in there Katz is there any reference to the Capitalist countries, despite “deep crisis”, having to build walls to keep their people in?
Concurrent to Capitalism’s “deep crisis” just how was the Soviet Union coping at that time? Starving to death in wholesale numbers, and destroying their food producing capacity. The migrants to the Soviet Union required about 10 days to realise they had been sold a pup & were in fact far worse off under Communism.
Katz #47:
Nowhere in there Katz is there any reference to the Capitalist countries, despite “deep crisis”, having to build walls to keep their people in?
Concurrent to Capitalism’s “deep crisis” just how was the Soviet Union coping at that time? Starving to death in wholesale numbers, and destroying their food producing capacity. The migrants to the Soviet Union required about 10 days to realise they had been sold a pup & were in fact far worse off under Communism.
Luke Walladge @34: evidence based opinion has some merit otherwise it is all hot air. These rumours about Moscow directives have been around for years with little to suggest that Australian communists were unpatriotic. I knew a bloke, one of the few, a merchant seaman who was sponsored to study Marixsm/Leninism in North Korea someitme in the early 60′s. He said that the place was “spooky” (as you can imagine) even then. However, no-one would suggest that his peculiar visit to N-K is evidence of Kim il Sungism (or whatever).
I think your somewhat panicked manner is responding to this topic is evidence of Paul Norton’s originla argument which is that (in my view) the cold war has cretaed a potent culture in Australia of anti-communist essentialism. It differs from anti-communism in so far as Carr (and you it seems) are opposed to the sorts of people who had the sheer spine, rebelliousness and effrontery to stand on two legs and question the dominant order. See, one of the hidden injuries of class is that it robs people of genuine independence of mind. So, without that, the spinless line up with those who appear to be powerful instead of thinking things through for themselves.
As to the absence of cold war patriotism: it was a coldwar so the issue of national loyalties didn’t arise. Aligning yourself with an international proletarian movement was a sign of loyalty to class that transcended the boundaries and ideological grip of the national bourgeoisie.
So, you’d line up with the international ruling classes then would you?
Luke Walladge @34: evidence based opinion has some merit otherwise it is all hot air. These rumours about Moscow directives have been around for years with little to suggest that Australian communists were unpatriotic. I knew a bloke, one of the few, a merchant seaman who was sponsored to study Marixsm/Leninism in North Korea someitme in the early 60′s. He said that the place was “spooky” (as you can imagine) even then. However, no-one would suggest that his peculiar visit to N-K is evidence of Kim il Sungism (or whatever).
I think your somewhat panicked manner is responding to this topic is evidence of Paul Norton’s originla argument which is that (in my view) the cold war has cretaed a potent culture in Australia of anti-communist essentialism. It differs from anti-communism in so far as Carr (and you it seems) are opposed to the sorts of people who had the sheer spine, rebelliousness and effrontery to stand on two legs and question the dominant order. See, one of the hidden injuries of class is that it robs people of genuine independence of mind. So, without that, the spinless line up with those who appear to be powerful instead of thinking things through for themselves.
As to the absence of cold war patriotism: it was a coldwar so the issue of national loyalties didn’t arise. Aligning yourself with an international proletarian movement was a sign of loyalty to class that transcended the boundaries and ideological grip of the national bourgeoisie.
So, you’d line up with the international ruling classes then would you?
With good reason, considering the 2-3 million Soviet soldiers who died in German POW camps (not of natural causes) not to mention to 20 or 30 million Russian civilians who had died at German hands.
But my point was that the German soldiers (apart from the SS) at the end of the war behaved like the Soviet soldiers at the beginning.
With good reason, considering the 2-3 million Soviet soldiers who died in German POW camps (not of natural causes) not to mention to 20 or 30 million Russian civilians who had died at German hands.
But my point was that the German soldiers (apart from the SS) at the end of the war behaved like the Soviet soldiers at the beginning.
Paul Norton says:
“Now the fifth best customer is our best customer and no longer regarded as an enemy.”
That’s right, Paul. One of the great beauties of capitalism, especially when combined with democracy, is that it is the great force for peace. As any student of war will tell you, capitalist societies are far more peaceful than than their predecessors.
Paul Norton says:
“Now the fifth best customer is our best customer and no longer regarded as an enemy.”
That’s right, Paul. One of the great beauties of capitalism, especially when combined with democracy, is that it is the great force for peace. As any student of war will tell you, capitalist societies are far more peaceful than than their predecessors.
Oh yeah. And what is the rate of incarceratrion in the USA? And what is the ethnicity of those incarcerated per capita? And who is on death row? Peaceful my arse.
Oh yeah. And what is the rate of incarceratrion in the USA? And what is the ethnicity of those incarcerated per capita? And who is on death row? Peaceful my arse.
This has to win the prize for stoopid comment of the day.
World War I was fought between capitalist countries.
Then there’s World War II. Of the big players: Germany, the USSR, the UK, Japan, Britain, Italy, all but but one were capitalist.
This has to win the prize for stoopid comment of the day.
World War I was fought between capitalist countries.
Then there’s World War II. Of the big players: Germany, the USSR, the UK, Japan, Britain, Italy, all but but one were capitalist.
Let’s ask Bob Carr’s historical interest society. United States or Confederacy; which was more capitalist, which was the aggressor?
LP amateur-history war-tutorial discussion time on.
[Rushes to the sideboard for historically appropriate bourbon, pours it neat, drinks it with muddy boots and a five-week beard]
Let’s ask Bob Carr’s historical interest society. United States or Confederacy; which was more capitalist, which was the aggressor?
LP amateur-history war-tutorial discussion time on.
[Rushes to the sideboard for historically appropriate bourbon, pours it neat, drinks it with muddy boots and a five-week beard]
And with that comment I will also not be satisfied until everyone in this discussion gets disrespected by JPZ.
And with that comment I will also not be satisfied until everyone in this discussion gets disrespected by JPZ.
@ .03.
Liam I would argue that the Union was the more capitalist of the two, the Civil War in essence being the completion of the bourgeois democratic revolution of 1776.
The North’s economy was more firmly based on exploiting wage labour whereas the South was based primarily on slavery. Although of course it was integrated, and perhaps even driven by, the world market to whom it sold its primary commodities.
@ .03.
Liam I would argue that the Union was the more capitalist of the two, the Civil War in essence being the completion of the bourgeois democratic revolution of 1776.
The North’s economy was more firmly based on exploiting wage labour whereas the South was based primarily on slavery. Although of course it was integrated, and perhaps even driven by, the world market to whom it sold its primary commodities.
Norto, your apologetics for your communist past just struck a new low
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Suzman
Norto, your apologetics for your communist past just struck a new low
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Suzman
@ 97.
Perhaps the wall was economic. How many inhabitants of the ghettoes of Detroit and Chiocago could afford a ocean liner ticket to Petrograd?
@ 97.
Perhaps the wall was economic. How many inhabitants of the ghettoes of Detroit and Chiocago could afford a ocean liner ticket to Petrograd?
Chav, there is more to the Capitalist world than Detroit & Chiocago. Most of Europe could have walked to the Soviet Union if they had the urge.
None of the escapees risking their lives to escape from Communism were cashed up & just bought themselves a ticket to a Capitalist country. They faced harsher economic barriers than their Capitalist-oppressed brethren, plus the added burden of land mines, machine-guns, stiff legal penalties (lifetime in gulag etc)
Nobody from Detroit was likely to be hauled off for a 40-year stretch in Leavenworth if they were using their leisure hours talking about boarding a ship in Halifax.
Just one of those, you know, subtle differences.
Chav, there is more to the Capitalist world than Detroit & Chiocago. Most of Europe could have walked to the Soviet Union if they had the urge.
None of the escapees risking their lives to escape from Communism were cashed up & just bought themselves a ticket to a Capitalist country. They faced harsher economic barriers than their Capitalist-oppressed brethren, plus the added burden of land mines, machine-guns, stiff legal penalties (lifetime in gulag etc)
Nobody from Detroit was likely to be hauled off for a 40-year stretch in Leavenworth if they were using their leisure hours talking about boarding a ship in Halifax.
Just one of those, you know, subtle differences.
Sam #99. Bang on all you like about German soldiers “deserting en masse” to the Allies (with the notable exception of the Soviets) after it was clear the war was about to end.
The full quote you selected from was:
Just one of those, you know, subtle differences.
Sam #99. Bang on all you like about German soldiers “deserting en masse” to the Allies (with the notable exception of the Soviets) after it was clear the war was about to end.
The full quote you selected from was:
Just one of those, you know, subtle differences.
Helen Suzman was a good ‘un, no question. If there had been more like her then apartheid might have ended sooner and there might have been less of a mess to clean up.
But there weren’t. The ANC, which did had have communist elements, was the only effective alternative.
Helen Suzman was a good ‘un, no question. If there had been more like her then apartheid might have ended sooner and there might have been less of a mess to clean up.
But there weren’t. The ANC, which did had have communist elements, was the only effective alternative.
Stalin wasn’t much kinder to returning soldiers freed from German POW camps.
Mustn’t corrupt the proletariat with unapproved knowledge.
Stalin wasn’t much kinder to returning soldiers freed from German POW camps.
Mustn’t corrupt the proletariat with unapproved knowledge.
Yeah, SATP, re the poor in the US fleeing to the USSR…I was kidding…
Yeah, SATP, re the poor in the US fleeing to the USSR…I was kidding…
Yes, Stalin was a mass murderer.
In other news, the sky is blue.
Yes, Stalin was a mass murderer.
In other news, the sky is blue.
Helen Suzman wasn’t anti-communist. She voted against the banning of the Communist Party, for instance.
Helen Suzman wasn’t anti-communist. She voted against the banning of the Communist Party, for instance.
Huh?
Since when does anti-communist equate to fascist?
Huh?
Since when does anti-communist equate to fascist?
Ok…so, theoretically if Nestor Makhno had a disagreement with Antonie Pannekoek would that make him an anti-anti-Communist-communist-anarcho-communist? More importantly, would Emma Goldmann have danced with either of them and who would have Stalin had shot first?
Ok…so, theoretically if Nestor Makhno had a disagreement with Antonie Pannekoek would that make him an anti-anti-Communist-communist-anarcho-communist? More importantly, would Emma Goldmann have danced with either of them and who would have Stalin had shot first?
Liam: “Rushes to the sideboard for historically appropriate bourbon, pours it neat…”
Nah mate, ya don’t drinks yer historical bourbon neat, ya drinks it with branchwater. Or just “branch”, as they say in old Kentucky.
Now, on to the level-two question: why on earth am I reading a thread about Bob Carr?
Liam: “Rushes to the sideboard for historically appropriate bourbon, pours it neat…”
Nah mate, ya don’t drinks yer historical bourbon neat, ya drinks it with branchwater. Or just “branch”, as they say in old Kentucky.
Now, on to the level-two question: why on earth am I reading a thread about Bob Carr?
Should there be capitalist-inspired retaining walls? I guess many of those Americans who emigrated to the Soviet Union during the 1930s were, in current day parlance, “right-sized”?
Why on earth would capitalist regimes want to hang onto folks who’d been “right-sized”? It just doesn’t make sense.
In any case. the point of comparison was between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. For much of the 1930s huge numbers of folks were trying to leave Nazi Germany. And again, the Nazi regime was happy for them to leave. hey too were “surplus to requirements”. One of those folks was Albert Einstein. Name ring a bell?
Unfortunately, however, most would-be refugees from Nazi Germany had not won a Nobel Prize in fields related to nuclear physics. They weren’t welcome in the West.
Nevertheless, some of these folks did get out of Germany despite the hard-heartedness of host nations. Some of them can thank evil “people smugglers” for that.
BAAAAD people smugglers!
Should there be capitalist-inspired retaining walls? I guess many of those Americans who emigrated to the Soviet Union during the 1930s were, in current day parlance, “right-sized”?
Why on earth would capitalist regimes want to hang onto folks who’d been “right-sized”? It just doesn’t make sense.
In any case. the point of comparison was between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. For much of the 1930s huge numbers of folks were trying to leave Nazi Germany. And again, the Nazi regime was happy for them to leave. hey too were “surplus to requirements”. One of those folks was Albert Einstein. Name ring a bell?
Unfortunately, however, most would-be refugees from Nazi Germany had not won a Nobel Prize in fields related to nuclear physics. They weren’t welcome in the West.
Nevertheless, some of these folks did get out of Germany despite the hard-heartedness of host nations. Some of them can thank evil “people smugglers” for that.
BAAAAD people smugglers!
I should have guessed, JPZ. I’ll head to my nearest branch, unfortunately, I think it’s the Cooks River. I suppose it’ll be historically accurate for the Tennessee River c.1860.
Because this thread has everything so far: spies, Party splits, mutual historical recrimination, religious sniping and bitter disagreement about just how compromised the Left was in the 20th century, and why.
How could we stay away?
I should have guessed, JPZ. I’ll head to my nearest branch, unfortunately, I think it’s the Cooks River. I suppose it’ll be historically accurate for the Tennessee River c.1860.
Because this thread has everything so far: spies, Party splits, mutual historical recrimination, religious sniping and bitter disagreement about just how compromised the Left was in the 20th century, and why.
How could we stay away?
I predict that this thread will once and for all work through the demons of the Cold War, and see us all liberated to bring our minds to bear on contemporary challenges.
I predict that this thread will once and for all work through the demons of the Cold War, and see us all liberated to bring our minds to bear on contemporary challenges.
If we are going to discuss Michael Danby, i would like to note that his son works for the National Endowment for Democracy. Make of that what you will.
If we are going to discuss Michael Danby, i would like to note that his son works for the National Endowment for Democracy. Make of that what you will.
#115 Jason Soon, too often it seems (anti communist equates with fascist)?
#115 Jason Soon, too often it seems (anti communist equates with fascist)?
I am so glad the communists were defeated in Vietnam. If they had won then the whole of south east asia would have fallen domino like to those filthy marxists.
Far better we mined and napalmed them and I hear Agent Orange has a truly beneficial effect on food production.
There is a lot to be said for propping up corrupt imperialist regimes that bend over backwards to allow filthy rich capitalists like the US to wage war on their own population. Keeping the rest of the world safe from the tyranny of communism and let’s not forget our own humble contribution to the US efforts. Hip Hip Hooray!
I am so glad the communists were defeated in Vietnam. If they had won then the whole of south east asia would have fallen domino like to those filthy marxists.
Far better we mined and napalmed them and I hear Agent Orange has a truly beneficial effect on food production.
There is a lot to be said for propping up corrupt imperialist regimes that bend over backwards to allow filthy rich capitalists like the US to wage war on their own population. Keeping the rest of the world safe from the tyranny of communism and let’s not forget our own humble contribution to the US efforts. Hip Hip Hooray!
Sam says:
“This has to win the prize for stoopid comment of the day.
World War I was fought between capitalist countries. ”
I expected that comment. It has been widely acknowledged that the 20th century was the most peaceful thus far, notwithstanding WWII. Do try to keep up, champ.
Capitalism is a force for peace because most countries now realise that trade is a much cheaper and surer way to fill one’s treasure chest with bootylicious bounties. Alternately war is very expensive and the outcome always uncertain.
Sam says:
“This has to win the prize for stoopid comment of the day.
World War I was fought between capitalist countries. ”
I expected that comment. It has been widely acknowledged that the 20th century was the most peaceful thus far, notwithstanding WWII. Do try to keep up, champ.
Capitalism is a force for peace because most countries now realise that trade is a much cheaper and surer way to fill one’s treasure chest with bootylicious bounties. Alternately war is very expensive and the outcome always uncertain.
FDB wrote:
Not until those brave, brave libertarians busy skewering former commos are finished with their self-righteous smugness FDB, despite none of them being old enough to have witnessed the fall of the Berlin wall. I predict a long wait.
FDB wrote:
Not until those brave, brave libertarians busy skewering former commos are finished with their self-righteous smugness FDB, despite none of them being old enough to have witnessed the fall of the Berlin wall. I predict a long wait.
Does that have anything to do with capitalism as a cause though Sam? Or is it just the lengthening experience with war, and its industrialized forms, that did it?
Maybe Nobel was right, and his invention did convince people to go to war less. It just had to kill a lot of people first.
Does that have anything to do with capitalism as a cause though Sam? Or is it just the lengthening experience with war, and its industrialized forms, that did it?
Maybe Nobel was right, and his invention did convince people to go to war less. It just had to kill a lot of people first.
Hmmm, to a suggestion that at least Capitalist countries did not have to fence their people in to prevent them decamping for the benefits of Communism, Katz replies that several thousand people did move from Capitalist oppression to the Worker’s Paradise.
When it was pointed out that this is hardly a refutation of the original point, Katz bangs on about how lots of people left Nazi Germany and why would capitalist countries want to hang onto people who preferred to live under communism.
Katz & I should shake hands, having been in 100% agreement all the way.
Silly me, Katz wasn’t refuting a point, but confirming it.
Hmmm, to a suggestion that at least Capitalist countries did not have to fence their people in to prevent them decamping for the benefits of Communism, Katz replies that several thousand people did move from Capitalist oppression to the Worker’s Paradise.
When it was pointed out that this is hardly a refutation of the original point, Katz bangs on about how lots of people left Nazi Germany and why would capitalist countries want to hang onto people who preferred to live under communism.
Katz & I should shake hands, having been in 100% agreement all the way.
Silly me, Katz wasn’t refuting a point, but confirming it.
Salient has the original story wrong in any case. It’s supposed to be democracies that don’t go to war, at least not with each other. Of course the world did not have many democracies until the second half of the twentieth century, and it’s only in the last 20 years that democracy has become the norm throughout Europe and South America, so we’ll have to wait and see whether that holds true or not.
Georgia and Russia (both sort of democracies) getting it on a couple of years ago didn’t help the theory.
As for capitalist countries not fighting wars because it’s easier to trade, somebody forgot to tell the Germans and English in 1914, who had been doing plenty of trading with each other. Readers can provide other examples as homework exercise.
Salient has the original story wrong in any case. It’s supposed to be democracies that don’t go to war, at least not with each other. Of course the world did not have many democracies until the second half of the twentieth century, and it’s only in the last 20 years that democracy has become the norm throughout Europe and South America, so we’ll have to wait and see whether that holds true or not.
Georgia and Russia (both sort of democracies) getting it on a couple of years ago didn’t help the theory.
As for capitalist countries not fighting wars because it’s easier to trade, somebody forgot to tell the Germans and English in 1914, who had been doing plenty of trading with each other. Readers can provide other examples as homework exercise.
Salient @ 23 said “Capitalism is a force for peace because most countries now realise that trade is a much cheaper and surer way to fill one’s treasure chest with bootylicious bounties.”
Except when a Super Capitalist nation has an exploitative empire which needs protecting from disgruntled exploited States.
Salient @ 23 said “Capitalism is a force for peace because most countries now realise that trade is a much cheaper and surer way to fill one’s treasure chest with bootylicious bounties.”
Except when a Super Capitalist nation has an exploitative empire which needs protecting from disgruntled exploited States.
Congratulations. It took only four posts for you to work this out. Is that a PB?
Congratulations. It took only four posts for you to work this out. Is that a PB?
Wow, What a bizarre and long bow to draw. No mention of religion, ethnic issues and the more obvious military power plays involved. I doubt a year 7 history student could come up with more simplistic conclusion to such tragic events.
What next to have to look forward to, “the Depression was because lots of people didn’t have any money”
ALthough, I do enjoy the revisionist history going on here.
Wow, What a bizarre and long bow to draw. No mention of religion, ethnic issues and the more obvious military power plays involved. I doubt a year 7 history student could come up with more simplistic conclusion to such tragic events.
What next to have to look forward to, “the Depression was because lots of people didn’t have any money”
ALthough, I do enjoy the revisionist history going on here.
Wikipedia on CPA reports:
This point has both personal and political pertinence, as is obvious from the heated to-and-fro in comments. Lot of exposed nerves needled, closeted skeletons being rattled, worm-filled cans being up-turned.
The CPA might have had any number of ideologically correct positions of apartheid (why is that the acme of political morality?). But its effect on domestic politics was toxic, as it greatly retarded the development of a national social-democratic Left.
AUS Left suffered a long period of exile from ALL tiers of government from the late forties through early seventies, approximately the time period of the high Cold War. Which exile ended with Nixon-to-China, detente and generational change in communist leadership at home and abroad.
Paul Norton’s period in the party appears to fall under the heading of “youthful indiscretion”, albeit a rather lengthy one. Obviously an extended adolescence. He should not be beaten up too badly for it. OTOH, its nothing to write home about.
Wikipedia on CPA reports:
This point has both personal and political pertinence, as is obvious from the heated to-and-fro in comments. Lot of exposed nerves needled, closeted skeletons being rattled, worm-filled cans being up-turned.
The CPA might have had any number of ideologically correct positions of apartheid (why is that the acme of political morality?). But its effect on domestic politics was toxic, as it greatly retarded the development of a national social-democratic Left.
AUS Left suffered a long period of exile from ALL tiers of government from the late forties through early seventies, approximately the time period of the high Cold War. Which exile ended with Nixon-to-China, detente and generational change in communist leadership at home and abroad.
Paul Norton’s period in the party appears to fall under the heading of “youthful indiscretion”, albeit a rather lengthy one. Obviously an extended adolescence. He should not be beaten up too badly for it. OTOH, its nothing to write home about.
I was never a communist, despite plenty of McCarthyite accusations. However, from the outside it always seemed to me that the movement contained three elements:
1) The largest group (at least when I was around) of people who supported the goals of communism in terms of socialising the means of production, but were opposed to the methods used by the Soviet and Chinese regimes
2) A smaller group who believed the methods were justified in order to achieve those goals.
3) A still smaller group who didn’t really support the goals, but seemed rather fond of the methods.
Admittedly by the time I was around to observe most of group 3) had left the movement and were now denouncing their former comrades. I don’t know if Gillard was ever part of group 3), but as noted above, she was certainly allied with them politically.
I was never a communist, despite plenty of McCarthyite accusations. However, from the outside it always seemed to me that the movement contained three elements:
1) The largest group (at least when I was around) of people who supported the goals of communism in terms of socialising the means of production, but were opposed to the methods used by the Soviet and Chinese regimes
2) A smaller group who believed the methods were justified in order to achieve those goals.
3) A still smaller group who didn’t really support the goals, but seemed rather fond of the methods.
Admittedly by the time I was around to observe most of group 3) had left the movement and were now denouncing their former comrades. I don’t know if Gillard was ever part of group 3), but as noted above, she was certainly allied with them politically.
I believe it was Harold Holt who rejoiced in 500,000 Indonesian communists being “knocked off”, as he put it.
Good cold war anti communists like Holt felt no need to use weasal words like “tragic events”.
I believe it was Harold Holt who rejoiced in 500,000 Indonesian communists being “knocked off”, as he put it.
Good cold war anti communists like Holt felt no need to use weasal words like “tragic events”.
On the topic of the DLP. When I was at university the Democratic Club, which was certainly aligned with the DLP, made no secret of the fact that it regarded any sins the Apartheid regime might have as being minor compared to the evils of the ANC.
Heroic figures like Suzman and Woods were certainly not communists, but they were not anti-communists in the sense Paul means, as they didn’t regard their opposition to communism as an reason to go easy on human rights abuses from an anti-communist regime. It’s not something that could be said of the DLP.
On the topic of the DLP. When I was at university the Democratic Club, which was certainly aligned with the DLP, made no secret of the fact that it regarded any sins the Apartheid regime might have as being minor compared to the evils of the ANC.
Heroic figures like Suzman and Woods were certainly not communists, but they were not anti-communists in the sense Paul means, as they didn’t regard their opposition to communism as an reason to go easy on human rights abuses from an anti-communist regime. It’s not something that could be said of the DLP.
On what measure? Not on absolute deaths, on which is easily surpassed any previous century. On deaths per head of population it’s probably not top, but I’m fairly sure it would do a lot worse than the 19th Century for a start.
On what measure? Not on absolute deaths, on which is easily surpassed any previous century. On deaths per head of population it’s probably not top, but I’m fairly sure it would do a lot worse than the 19th Century for a start.
“It has been widely acknowledged that the 20th century was the most peaceful thus far, notwithstanding WWII.”
A curate’s age: peaceful in parts.
“It has been widely acknowledged that the 20th century was the most peaceful thus far, notwithstanding WWII.”
A curate’s age: peaceful in parts.
I reckon Bob Carr couldn’t care less that some of the Left were communists, it was that they had dual party membership that really rocked him. In politics every principle, idea and creed can be sacrificed except loyalty to the tribe – the idea of belonging to more than one is simply unthinkable.
I reckon Bob Carr couldn’t care less that some of the Left were communists, it was that they had dual party membership that really rocked him. In politics every principle, idea and creed can be sacrificed except loyalty to the tribe – the idea of belonging to more than one is simply unthinkable.
Sam says:
“As for capitalist countries not fighting wars because it’s easier to trade, somebody forgot to tell the Germans and English in 1914 …”
You’re not the brightest bulb in the electrical fitting, are you sport. My statement was comparative- pre-industrial societies including feudal, horticultural and h-g societies were relatively more war-like.
Sam says:
“As for capitalist countries not fighting wars because it’s easier to trade, somebody forgot to tell the Germans and English in 1914 …”
You’re not the brightest bulb in the electrical fitting, are you sport. My statement was comparative- pre-industrial societies including feudal, horticultural and h-g societies were relatively more war-like.
So to be an anti-communist in some contexts was beneficial, in others not, according to Paul Norton. This means that its universalist one-size-fits-all prescription – on which all else depends – is rubbish. Now consider that the arbitrary murder, vilification and social disenfranchisement that communism depended upon – not an aberration, not “difficulties”, like a mobile phone out of range – but central to the project discredited it utterly.
Let’s talk about South Africa’s Communist Party: “Workers of the world unite and fight for a white South Africa”. And as for Indonesia, the idea of giving communists credit for all activity against Suharto is an absolute slander. If you believe that action in Indonesia against insurgents in the name of anticommunism in the mid ’60s was a hysterical overreaction, you must also accept that communists don’t deserve credit for acting against or bringing down Suharto.
Being an anticommunist in China meant you disappeared and were never heard from again. You can make excuses for the excesses of anticommunism, but there were no excesses in defence of communism – there was only doing what had to be done, up to and including opening the Berlin Wall as an expression of failure.
It was a very, very good thing that we were never governed by the Aarons family (the Aarons family, geddit? diddly-dum, click click! diddly-dum, diddly-dum, diddly-dum, click click!). Mark Aarons’ writing shows an overreliance on adverbs and skating over “difficulties” shows a feeble mind marinated in communist literature. He is absolutely the moral equivalent of Jim Saleam and damn them both.
This brings us to NSW Labor: coulda been worse, but that isn’t he point. Carr and Michael Easson and others are engaged in the coprophilia of Labor history and have each come up with anticommunism. That’s the best you can do? Reds under beds which have long ago been made and laid in? Well, whoopee doo – anticommunism didn’t save Billy McMahon in 1972 and it won’t help you now, boys.
So to be an anti-communist in some contexts was beneficial, in others not, according to Paul Norton. This means that its universalist one-size-fits-all prescription – on which all else depends – is rubbish. Now consider that the arbitrary murder, vilification and social disenfranchisement that communism depended upon – not an aberration, not “difficulties”, like a mobile phone out of range – but central to the project discredited it utterly.
Let’s talk about South Africa’s Communist Party: “Workers of the world unite and fight for a white South Africa”. And as for Indonesia, the idea of giving communists credit for all activity against Suharto is an absolute slander. If you believe that action in Indonesia against insurgents in the name of anticommunism in the mid ’60s was a hysterical overreaction, you must also accept that communists don’t deserve credit for acting against or bringing down Suharto.
Being an anticommunist in China meant you disappeared and were never heard from again. You can make excuses for the excesses of anticommunism, but there were no excesses in defence of communism – there was only doing what had to be done, up to and including opening the Berlin Wall as an expression of failure.
It was a very, very good thing that we were never governed by the Aarons family (the Aarons family, geddit? diddly-dum, click click! diddly-dum, diddly-dum, diddly-dum, click click!). Mark Aarons’ writing shows an overreliance on adverbs and skating over “difficulties” shows a feeble mind marinated in communist literature. He is absolutely the moral equivalent of Jim Saleam and damn them both.
This brings us to NSW Labor: coulda been worse, but that isn’t he point. Carr and Michael Easson and others are engaged in the coprophilia of Labor history and have each come up with anticommunism. That’s the best you can do? Reds under beds which have long ago been made and laid in? Well, whoopee doo – anticommunism didn’t save Billy McMahon in 1972 and it won’t help you now, boys.
Very very few of those 500,000 were in shape or form communists.
Very very few of those 500,000 were in shape or form communists.
I see that the Clinton show via being so very important persons are having words about Russia and two small areas of that land of whatever achievement Georgia!? And if anyone heard PM ABC Radio won would think there is still a communist Left faction,as Rockerfeller Rothschild groper Colvin did his very best to shit on everyone.So if Bill “the wink” Clinton was in his formative years a Marxist Preacher from Arkansas, then the Communist now control the U.S.A. And with that dinky oil spill measured in a comparison with the 365 cubic miles of Mount Everest asa volume within the cubic measures, then ,we have no reason to actually think Carr is a valid person on matters of Communist influence. from Rense.com and wiki.answers.com
I see that the Clinton show via being so very important persons are having words about Russia and two small areas of that land of whatever achievement Georgia!? And if anyone heard PM ABC Radio won would think there is still a communist Left faction,as Rockerfeller Rothschild groper Colvin did his very best to shit on everyone.So if Bill “the wink” Clinton was in his formative years a Marxist Preacher from Arkansas, then the Communist now control the U.S.A. And with that dinky oil spill measured in a comparison with the 365 cubic miles of Mount Everest asa volume within the cubic measures, then ,we have no reason to actually think Carr is a valid person on matters of Communist influence. from Rense.com and wiki.answers.com
“Australia’s Security Appeals Tribunal found in 1983 (the year before I joined)”
You voluntarily joined the CPA in 1984? I’m kind of speechless……
“Australia’s Security Appeals Tribunal found in 1983 (the year before I joined)”
You voluntarily joined the CPA in 1984? I’m kind of speechless……
Andrew, Aarons is a left-wing academic, Jim Saleam served time for insurance fraud and assault. If there’s moral equivalence I can’t see it.
Andrew, Aarons is a left-wing academic, Jim Saleam served time for insurance fraud and assault. If there’s moral equivalence I can’t see it.
Urrgh, haven’t the stomach to go through all the comments so far, but I’ll make some points addreesing the article which I read today in an old tree edition of the Oz at my local cafe. These are all points from memory, without reference to the article or to other (more reliable) sources:
(a.) Carr says that one of the Gietzelt brothers was a dual member of the ALP/CPA, and that an ASIO informant(!?) claimed Tom Uren was the same. Carr makes the leap of logic to therefore claim the leadership of the Labor Left must have been controlled by the Communists before Whitlam.
(b.) IIRC only one Gietzelt is alleged to have been a crypto by Carr. There were of course two Gietzelt brothers in senior positions within the Labor Movement of the time.
(c.) If Tom Uren’s memoirs are correct then Uren was actually politically apathetic until several years after returning from the war. He was a middle class guy who’d been an officer in the war (I stand to be corrected on his military rank, but I know for a fact he was an affluent white collar worker—a department store manager.) If Uren was never a communist during his youth during the Deporession then he was never a Red anytime during his life. Full stop. You only need a basic understanding of history to know that once you read his autobiography.
(c.) Carr makes no reference to the non-communism of Lionel Murphy, Jack Ferguson, or any other major figures in the NSW Left at the same time as the one Red Gietzelt. He makes no reference to the non-communism of interstate Left figures such as Chamberlain or Cameron (Clyde Cameron identified as a Henry George socialist, fer chrissakes. That nineteenth century ideology is pretty incompatible with the 20th century communist parties).
(d.) Did Bob just write that Arthur Calwell was in bed with the anti-bases push within the ALP of the sixties? How does this square with Calwell pushing for the party to support the Northwest Cape base in 1963?
This is bad. This is very bad. A dreadful hack job, totally not in keeping with the more nuanced writings of Carr in his book ‘Thoughtlines’.
Is this rubbish a symptom of relevance deprivation syndrome?
(Disclaimer: I fully support the idea Whitlam was possibly the most important anti-communist leader of the ALP, it’s just I disagree at arriving at that conclusion through baseless redbaiting.)
Urrgh, haven’t the stomach to go through all the comments so far, but I’ll make some points addreesing the article which I read today in an old tree edition of the Oz at my local cafe. These are all points from memory, without reference to the article or to other (more reliable) sources:
(a.) Carr says that one of the Gietzelt brothers was a dual member of the ALP/CPA, and that an ASIO informant(!?) claimed Tom Uren was the same. Carr makes the leap of logic to therefore claim the leadership of the Labor Left must have been controlled by the Communists before Whitlam.
(b.) IIRC only one Gietzelt is alleged to have been a crypto by Carr. There were of course two Gietzelt brothers in senior positions within the Labor Movement of the time.
(c.) If Tom Uren’s memoirs are correct then Uren was actually politically apathetic until several years after returning from the war. He was a middle class guy who’d been an officer in the war (I stand to be corrected on his military rank, but I know for a fact he was an affluent white collar worker—a department store manager.) If Uren was never a communist during his youth during the Deporession then he was never a Red anytime during his life. Full stop. You only need a basic understanding of history to know that once you read his autobiography.
(c.) Carr makes no reference to the non-communism of Lionel Murphy, Jack Ferguson, or any other major figures in the NSW Left at the same time as the one Red Gietzelt. He makes no reference to the non-communism of interstate Left figures such as Chamberlain or Cameron (Clyde Cameron identified as a Henry George socialist, fer chrissakes. That nineteenth century ideology is pretty incompatible with the 20th century communist parties).
(d.) Did Bob just write that Arthur Calwell was in bed with the anti-bases push within the ALP of the sixties? How does this square with Calwell pushing for the party to support the Northwest Cape base in 1963?
This is bad. This is very bad. A dreadful hack job, totally not in keeping with the more nuanced writings of Carr in his book ‘Thoughtlines’.
Is this rubbish a symptom of relevance deprivation syndrome?
(Disclaimer: I fully support the idea Whitlam was possibly the most important anti-communist leader of the ALP, it’s just I disagree at arriving at that conclusion through baseless redbaiting.)
Hmmm, have just reread the article online, and it seems I’m only mistaken on point (d.). Carr was only writing about the anti-nuclear policy Calwell (did he have any choice?) allowed be adopted by the ALP, he isn’t implying Calwell was secretly against, or hypocritically for, the NW Cape base.
Very very interesting that it’s still-living ex-Senator Arthur Gietzelt who is supposed to have been a cryptocommunist, not trade union secretary Ray Gietzelt. Also interesting that still-living Bob Hawke is referred to as believing Gietzelt and still-living Uren were cryptocommunists. Apparently none of this is worth suing over!
The real truth of the matter is that the Labor Left of the fifties and the sixties were in a kind of popular front with the CPA and its successor parties—but the terminology ‘popular front’ was never used in this context, as it actually would have denoted that the local communists were just as weak and unable to effect change as they had been everywhere (outside of Russia) during the thirties. See Spain, Civil War, the West’s reaction to.
Hmmm, have just reread the article online, and it seems I’m only mistaken on point (d.). Carr was only writing about the anti-nuclear policy Calwell (did he have any choice?) allowed be adopted by the ALP, he isn’t implying Calwell was secretly against, or hypocritically for, the NW Cape base.
Very very interesting that it’s still-living ex-Senator Arthur Gietzelt who is supposed to have been a cryptocommunist, not trade union secretary Ray Gietzelt. Also interesting that still-living Bob Hawke is referred to as believing Gietzelt and still-living Uren were cryptocommunists. Apparently none of this is worth suing over!
The real truth of the matter is that the Labor Left of the fifties and the sixties were in a kind of popular front with the CPA and its successor parties—but the terminology ‘popular front’ was never used in this context, as it actually would have denoted that the local communists were just as weak and unable to effect change as they had been everywhere (outside of Russia) during the thirties. See Spain, Civil War, the West’s reaction to.
What’s this supposed to prove? The SACP was, in the early 1920s, white supremacist, like the Australian Labor Party. Unlike the ALP, the SACP had become a majority-black organisation that fought for majority rule by the end of the 1920s, and, as everyone who knows anything about South Africa knows, was a crucial component of the anti-apartheid social alliance, centrally involved in all the major struggles. As was accurately pointed out in the post, to be a political anti-communist in South Africa during the anti-apartheid struggle was to fight for the suppression of the anti-apartheid movement. Really.
What’s this supposed to prove? The SACP was, in the early 1920s, white supremacist, like the Australian Labor Party. Unlike the ALP, the SACP had become a majority-black organisation that fought for majority rule by the end of the 1920s, and, as everyone who knows anything about South Africa knows, was a crucial component of the anti-apartheid social alliance, centrally involved in all the major struggles. As was accurately pointed out in the post, to be a political anti-communist in South Africa during the anti-apartheid struggle was to fight for the suppression of the anti-apartheid movement. Really.
Had to laugh at this from OB, way back @30:
Wow. I dread to think what’s your opinion of Jesus?
Had to laugh at this from OB, way back @30:
Wow. I dread to think what’s your opinion of Jesus?
Well spotted, Merc – that one made me splorf as well but I didn’t manage a response.
Well spotted, Merc – that one made me splorf as well but I didn’t manage a response.
Indeed. Since we’re impugning intellectuals for deaths that occurred decades after their own, I would like to indict Dmitri Mendeleev as the author of the Bhopal chemical disaster
Indeed. Since we’re impugning intellectuals for deaths that occurred decades after their own, I would like to indict Dmitri Mendeleev as the author of the Bhopal chemical disaster
There is the oft-quoted “Karl Marx would be appalled if he could rise from his grave in Highgate and see what’s been committed in his name” but there’s no way of knowing wether he really would be appalled.
Like I said, nothing justifies murder.
There is the oft-quoted “Karl Marx would be appalled if he could rise from his grave in Highgate and see what’s been committed in his name” but there’s no way of knowing wether he really would be appalled.
Like I said, nothing justifies murder.
Arthur Gietzelt speaks for himself in today’s OO. If what he is saying is correct, ASIO’s evidentiary basis for the claims of his communist past consists of his having had a meeting with two people who led the CPA’s opposition to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and the Moscow line generally, in order to celebrate the election of Bob Hawke as President of the ACTU. Why doesn’t such news evoke images of the dungeons of the Lubyanka and the screams of its unfortunate inmates?
Perhaps we really are in Manning Clark Order of Lenin territory.
Arthur Gietzelt speaks for himself in today’s OO. If what he is saying is correct, ASIO’s evidentiary basis for the claims of his communist past consists of his having had a meeting with two people who led the CPA’s opposition to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and the Moscow line generally, in order to celebrate the election of Bob Hawke as President of the ACTU. Why doesn’t such news evoke images of the dungeons of the Lubyanka and the screams of its unfortunate inmates?
Perhaps we really are in Manning Clark Order of Lenin territory.
Salient:
If that exemplifies the general standard of critical political thought within the Greens then we really are effed.
Would you like to distinguish between:
i) trade
ii) capitalism
iii) imperialism
iv) colonialism
v) the centre/periphery or North/South divide?
What percentage of the US annual GDP is devoted to military expenditure? Does it matter to you what is traded ie, armaments or or rice?
Salient:
If that exemplifies the general standard of critical political thought within the Greens then we really are effed.
Would you like to distinguish between:
i) trade
ii) capitalism
iii) imperialism
iv) colonialism
v) the centre/periphery or North/South divide?
What percentage of the US annual GDP is devoted to military expenditure? Does it matter to you what is traded ie, armaments or or rice?
Who exactly do you think is attempting to justify murder here?
By the way, OB, do you have permission from The Greens to use their logo as your online avatar?
Who exactly do you think is attempting to justify murder here?
By the way, OB, do you have permission from The Greens to use their logo as your online avatar?
Yes, I was wondering about that one too, TigTog. Unless OB has such permission, it is one remove from spoofing, because he or she is verballing The Greens.
Yes, I was wondering about that one too, TigTog. Unless OB has such permission, it is one remove from spoofing, because he or she is verballing The Greens.
When people excuse or justify Lenin’s regime or its behaviour, they are excusing its oppression and murder of opponents. Why are Lenin’s crimes during the Revolution OK?
We don’t justify the French Reign of Terror after all.
I’m a Greens supporter. Like i said earlier, you can be left-wing and anti-communist
When people excuse or justify Lenin’s regime or its behaviour, they are excusing its oppression and murder of opponents. Why are Lenin’s crimes during the Revolution OK?
We don’t justify the French Reign of Terror after all.
I’m a Greens supporter. Like i said earlier, you can be left-wing and anti-communist
“We don’t justify the French Reign of Terror after all.”
‘We’ don’t have to: a walk around the Versailles Palace and grounds provides all the justification you would ever need.
“We don’t justify the French Reign of Terror after all.”
‘We’ don’t have to: a walk around the Versailles Palace and grounds provides all the justification you would ever need.
OB #154, a lot of people who post and comment here are Greens supporters, so welcome to the club.
However, use of the Greens logo is AFAIK something which requires express permission from the Greens and implies that whatever is being said has the explicit endorsement of the Greens. As this is an election year it may also be entangled with the electoral laws. Perhaps you might like to find another, more personalised, image for your gravatar. In fact as moderator of this thread I request that you do so.
OB #154, a lot of people who post and comment here are Greens supporters, so welcome to the club.
However, use of the Greens logo is AFAIK something which requires express permission from the Greens and implies that whatever is being said has the explicit endorsement of the Greens. As this is an election year it may also be entangled with the electoral laws. Perhaps you might like to find another, more personalised, image for your gravatar. In fact as moderator of this thread I request that you do so.
I think it’s the people who are attempting to exonerate the anti-communist Suharto regime, its anti-communist supporters and functionaries, and their anti-communist backers in Australia and the US over the deaths of more than 500,000 Indonesins and 200,000 East Timorese.
I think it’s the people who are attempting to exonerate the anti-communist Suharto regime, its anti-communist supporters and functionaries, and their anti-communist backers in Australia and the US over the deaths of more than 500,000 Indonesins and 200,000 East Timorese.
Paul,
I’ve gotten rid of the gravatar.
Anthony: Why are killings justified because the perpetrators are left-wing?
Paul,
I’ve gotten rid of the gravatar.
Anthony: Why are killings justified because the perpetrators are left-wing?
I just turned it off at en.gravatar.com. I just replace it now
I just turned it off at en.gravatar.com. I just replace it now
It should be showing a picture of the 6th Doctor from Doctor Who now – i just uploaded it
It should be showing a picture of the 6th Doctor from Doctor Who now – i just uploaded it
Thanks OB!
Thanks OB!
Arthur Gietzelt has always been a bit of a character. During the Fraser years, at one time he lost his place in the shadow ministry (this was when the front bench was elected by caucus). He had been shadow minister for agriculture. He took a bunch of files to the new shadow minister, who asked him, “what am I supposed to do with these?”
Gietzelt replied, “you can shove them up your arse”.
Arthur Gietzelt has always been a bit of a character. During the Fraser years, at one time he lost his place in the shadow ministry (this was when the front bench was elected by caucus). He had been shadow minister for agriculture. He took a bunch of files to the new shadow minister, who asked him, “what am I supposed to do with these?”
Gietzelt replied, “you can shove them up your arse”.
OB:
“Anthony: Why are killings justified because the perpetrators are left-wing?”
It is historically contextual. A walk around the versailles Palace and some study on the phenomenal wealth and privilege enjoyed by the French aristocracy while vast numbers of other people living in the same regions routinely starved allows you to understand the outrage that fuelled the executions of the ruling classes. I don’t attempt to justify those executions but can certainly understand how the masses could reach the conclusion that their ruling elites had to be got rid of. In the same spirit I can also understand how the people of Romania tried, executed and then televised the execution of Nicolae Ceau?escu and his wife.
OB:
“Anthony: Why are killings justified because the perpetrators are left-wing?”
It is historically contextual. A walk around the versailles Palace and some study on the phenomenal wealth and privilege enjoyed by the French aristocracy while vast numbers of other people living in the same regions routinely starved allows you to understand the outrage that fuelled the executions of the ruling classes. I don’t attempt to justify those executions but can certainly understand how the masses could reach the conclusion that their ruling elites had to be got rid of. In the same spirit I can also understand how the people of Romania tried, executed and then televised the execution of Nicolae Ceau?escu and his wife.
This is what Harold Holt had to say:
This is what Harold Holt had to say:
It was widely reported during the ’60s that the number of Indonesians killed was over 1,000,000. in the name of a purge of communists. When was this figure halved?
It was widely reported during the ’60s that the number of Indonesians killed was over 1,000,000. in the name of a purge of communists. When was this figure halved?
OB, you are not getting it. People can support the socialist ideology of a worker’s state without supporting Leninist/Stalinist totalitarian atrocities. Just like not every Catholic either at the time or now was/is a big fan of the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition – abuses committed by extremists should not nullify the moderate exercise of an ideological position.
OB, you are not getting it. People can support the socialist ideology of a worker’s state without supporting Leninist/Stalinist totalitarian atrocities. Just like not every Catholic either at the time or now was/is a big fan of the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition – abuses committed by extremists should not nullify the moderate exercise of an ideological position.
I wish that were so, Ronnie @136.
However, Bob Carr goes out of his way to traduce Jim Cairns, a hero of the Labor Left, by calling him the potential Salvador Allende of Australia.
This is nothing less than a libel of two dead men.
1. Cairns was never a communist.
2. Cairns forced the ALP to examine its conscience over Vietnam. I presume that Carr preferred Australia to continue to be America’s Step’n'Fetchit in that immoral, illegal and militarily absurd war. Where was Carr when hundreds of thousands of Australians followed Cairns onto the street to insist on Australian withdrawal from Vietnam?
3. Allende achieved leadership of Chile by constitutional means.
4. Allende was deposed and assassinated, in the manner of South Vietnam’s Ngo Dinh Diem, under CIA orders. Does Carr’s support for the American alliance extend to support for murder?
I endorse Nickws’ exposure @143 and 144 of Carr’s lies.
Does Bob Carr have a shred of dignity or common decency?
I wish that were so, Ronnie @136.
However, Bob Carr goes out of his way to traduce Jim Cairns, a hero of the Labor Left, by calling him the potential Salvador Allende of Australia.
This is nothing less than a libel of two dead men.
1. Cairns was never a communist.
2. Cairns forced the ALP to examine its conscience over Vietnam. I presume that Carr preferred Australia to continue to be America’s Step’n'Fetchit in that immoral, illegal and militarily absurd war. Where was Carr when hundreds of thousands of Australians followed Cairns onto the street to insist on Australian withdrawal from Vietnam?
3. Allende achieved leadership of Chile by constitutional means.
4. Allende was deposed and assassinated, in the manner of South Vietnam’s Ngo Dinh Diem, under CIA orders. Does Carr’s support for the American alliance extend to support for murder?
I endorse Nickws’ exposure @143 and 144 of Carr’s lies.
Does Bob Carr have a shred of dignity or common decency?
In fairness I must acknowledge one very positive consequence of anti-communism in Australia. It lent itself to a much more humane engagement by the Fraser government with Vietnamese and Cambodian boat people in the late 1970s than what we have seen from subsequent governments in relation to subsequent boat people.
In fairness I must acknowledge one very positive consequence of anti-communism in Australia. It lent itself to a much more humane engagement by the Fraser government with Vietnamese and Cambodian boat people in the late 1970s than what we have seen from subsequent governments in relation to subsequent boat people.
I recall a conversation in 1987 with one of Carr’s contemporaries at Sydney University in the 1960s who claimed that Carr was actively campaigning at the time in support of Australian participation in the war.
I recall a conversation in 1987 with one of Carr’s contemporaries at Sydney University in the 1960s who claimed that Carr was actively campaigning at the time in support of Australian participation in the war.
Is that so? Fascinating.
How much blood do you have on your hands, Bob Carr?
Is that so? Fascinating.
How much blood do you have on your hands, Bob Carr?
It’s peculiar, Paul, in the light of that comment, that the unpopularity of the Taliban and the Tamil Tigers hasn’t translated into a more welcoming policy towards Afghan and SL asylum seekers.
It’s peculiar, Paul, in the light of that comment, that the unpopularity of the Taliban and the Tamil Tigers hasn’t translated into a more welcoming policy towards Afghan and SL asylum seekers.
Regarding the Indonesian mass killings of 1965-66: they were a product of enormous social tension that had built up in the last years of the Sukarno regime. They were primarily carried out by Muslim groups, with the facilitation and encouragement of the Army. The Muslims took the opportunity to eradicate anyone they didn’t like for whatever reason, including Chinese, Christians, school teachers, squatters, and so on.
Australian and US leaders may have been rather callous about the killings, but they could have done nothing to stop them. They were fundamentally a product of local politics, not the Cold War.
To have been an anti-communist is not necessarily to have condoned those killings, any more than to have been a communist is necessarily to have condoned Stalin. I suppose that is PN’s point.
Regarding the Indonesian mass killings of 1965-66: they were a product of enormous social tension that had built up in the last years of the Sukarno regime. They were primarily carried out by Muslim groups, with the facilitation and encouragement of the Army. The Muslims took the opportunity to eradicate anyone they didn’t like for whatever reason, including Chinese, Christians, school teachers, squatters, and so on.
Australian and US leaders may have been rather callous about the killings, but they could have done nothing to stop them. They were fundamentally a product of local politics, not the Cold War.
To have been an anti-communist is not necessarily to have condoned those killings, any more than to have been a communist is necessarily to have condoned Stalin. I suppose that is PN’s point.
The issue of the role of South African liberals in opposing apartheid is touched on by Denis Freney in a map of days. In the 1960s he was sent to South Africa by the Trotskyist organisation he was a member of in order to develop contacts with the corresponding Trotskyist group there. He found that the SA Trotskyists were in an alliance with SA liberals in an anti-apartheid grouping which also disdained the ANC because of the role of the SACP within the ANC. He also found that the Trotskyist/liberal alliance, whilst possessing the best of intentions, was basically marginal within the overall anti-apartheid movement, that the ANC was central to it, and that the Trots’ and liberals’ shared fastidiousness towards the SACP had, in practice, achieved nothing except their own marginalisation.
The issue of the role of South African liberals in opposing apartheid is touched on by Denis Freney in a map of days. In the 1960s he was sent to South Africa by the Trotskyist organisation he was a member of in order to develop contacts with the corresponding Trotskyist group there. He found that the SA Trotskyists were in an alliance with SA liberals in an anti-apartheid grouping which also disdained the ANC because of the role of the SACP within the ANC. He also found that the Trotskyist/liberal alliance, whilst possessing the best of intentions, was basically marginal within the overall anti-apartheid movement, that the ANC was central to it, and that the Trots’ and liberals’ shared fastidiousness towards the SACP had, in practice, achieved nothing except their own marginalisation.
Marx was a scribbler in a library who never hurt a fly.
Whitlam’s substitution of the leadership of Australia’s Catholic schools (via massive bribes) for Victorian Communist fifth columnists was what won the 1972 election for Labor.
Whitlam’s vaporising the Aussie-accented (though fluent in Russian)Kremlin yes-men from the ALP was the game changer that dealt the ALP back into political relevance in this country.
That is, Catholics trump Communists.
From knowledge gleaned from my extended family’s historical involvement in the CPA, there is just so much few Australians realize about what a treasonous low-life cabal they were, whose god was Moscow.
Menzies was wrong to try to outlaw the CPA. He should have had them all charged with treason, and hanged, as was legal in those days.
Marx was a scribbler in a library who never hurt a fly.
Whitlam’s substitution of the leadership of Australia’s Catholic schools (via massive bribes) for Victorian Communist fifth columnists was what won the 1972 election for Labor.
Whitlam’s vaporising the Aussie-accented (though fluent in Russian)Kremlin yes-men from the ALP was the game changer that dealt the ALP back into political relevance in this country.
That is, Catholics trump Communists.
From knowledge gleaned from my extended family’s historical involvement in the CPA, there is just so much few Australians realize about what a treasonous low-life cabal they were, whose god was Moscow.
Menzies was wrong to try to outlaw the CPA. He should have had them all charged with treason, and hanged, as was legal in those days.
Regarding South Africa: was there any way to predict back then that the ANC would eventually turn its back on the SACP, and embrace liberal democracy?
Had South Africa ended up in anything like the Mugabe, or, God forbid, the Pol Pot regime, Western SACP supporters might not now be quite so proud of their efforts.
Regarding South Africa: was there any way to predict back then that the ANC would eventually turn its back on the SACP, and embrace liberal democracy?
Had South Africa ended up in anything like the Mugabe, or, God forbid, the Pol Pot regime, Western SACP supporters might not now be quite so proud of their efforts.
The French Revolution has nothng to do with Communists, nor was it left-wing. It was a bourgeois revolution.
The French Revolution has nothng to do with Communists, nor was it left-wing. It was a bourgeois revolution.
Paulus, the ANC hasn’t turned its back on the SACP.
Paulus, the ANC hasn’t turned its back on the SACP.
PN: I admit I haven’t followed South Africa that closely, but I’ve read articles making the complaint that the ANC is now a pro-business party, whose leaders are living the good life and doing little for the poor. From the wiki page on the ANC, “The ANC has reportedly wasted over R1 billion of taxpayers’ money over the past eight months on luxury vehicles, expensive hotels, banquets, advertising and other ‘wasteful expenditure’.”
Is that how genuine communists behave when they take power? (Well, perhaps it is!)
PN: I admit I haven’t followed South Africa that closely, but I’ve read articles making the complaint that the ANC is now a pro-business party, whose leaders are living the good life and doing little for the poor. From the wiki page on the ANC, “The ANC has reportedly wasted over R1 billion of taxpayers’ money over the past eight months on luxury vehicles, expensive hotels, banquets, advertising and other ‘wasteful expenditure’.”
Is that how genuine communists behave when they take power? (Well, perhaps it is!)
Paulus, here’s Wiki on the SACP and the current state of relations between the ANC, SACP and COSATU.
Paulus, here’s Wiki on the SACP and the current state of relations between the ANC, SACP and COSATU.
Just as a matter of interest I’d be fascinated to read some of those here on LP who identify as leftists explain what are their points of reference as leftists if they disavow any or all of socialist history. I’m a little puzzled, as a post-marxist, as to what it is exactly that others use to get their bearings on ‘being left’ if it isn’t something embedded in the socialist tradition. Short: if you disavow socialism what philsophy is it that defines you as a leftist?
Just as a matter of interest I’d be fascinated to read some of those here on LP who identify as leftists explain what are their points of reference as leftists if they disavow any or all of socialist history. I’m a little puzzled, as a post-marxist, as to what it is exactly that others use to get their bearings on ‘being left’ if it isn’t something embedded in the socialist tradition. Short: if you disavow socialism what philsophy is it that defines you as a leftist?
Anthony, that’s an interesting and important issue but I’m inclined to think it might warrant a thread of its own, which I might be able to write.
Anthony, that’s an interesting and important issue but I’m inclined to think it might warrant a thread of its own, which I might be able to write.
AN
MY leftism is about:
1. Making sure that the bottom 30% or so of Australian people have enough money to live a life free from perpetual misery, drugs, crime, violence, dissolution, and ignorance.
2. Moving heaven and earth to ensure the children of the dissolute are not abandoned to relive their parent’s lives.
3. A democracy which is more direct than the purely representative one we have now.
4. To allow individual initiative to flourish, by dismantling state institutions controlling so much decision-making over people’s live. The state should be pared back more to allocating cash.
5. To recalibrate the understanding of ‘citizenship’ more towards a responsibility than an entitlement.
AN
MY leftism is about:
1. Making sure that the bottom 30% or so of Australian people have enough money to live a life free from perpetual misery, drugs, crime, violence, dissolution, and ignorance.
2. Moving heaven and earth to ensure the children of the dissolute are not abandoned to relive their parent’s lives.
3. A democracy which is more direct than the purely representative one we have now.
4. To allow individual initiative to flourish, by dismantling state institutions controlling so much decision-making over people’s live. The state should be pared back more to allocating cash.
5. To recalibrate the understanding of ‘citizenship’ more towards a responsibility than an entitlement.
Briefly in response to one of Ossie’s comments further up the thread, by the time Gough Whitlam intervened against the Hartley hard left leadership of the Victorian ALP, the Moscow-liners either had split or were in the process of splitting from the CPA to form the pro-Soviet Socialist Party of Australia, and the sympathies of Hartley and his associates were definitely with the latter. Hartley and his associates spent a good deal of the next 20 years bucketing the CPA as “right-wing” and “controlled by the Zionists” to anyone who’d listen.
Briefly in response to one of Ossie’s comments further up the thread, by the time Gough Whitlam intervened against the Hartley hard left leadership of the Victorian ALP, the Moscow-liners either had split or were in the process of splitting from the CPA to form the pro-Soviet Socialist Party of Australia, and the sympathies of Hartley and his associates were definitely with the latter. Hartley and his associates spent a good deal of the next 20 years bucketing the CPA as “right-wing” and “controlled by the Zionists” to anyone who’d listen.
OK Paul. Just askin. Ossie’s response is interesting: points 1) and 2) are reasonable program points for a whole range of social philosophy; 3) is tending to anarchism; 4) is anarchist and 5) is non-communitarian liberalism. A grab bag.
OK Paul. Just askin. Ossie’s response is interesting: points 1) and 2) are reasonable program points for a whole range of social philosophy; 3) is tending to anarchism; 4) is anarchist and 5) is non-communitarian liberalism. A grab bag.
How very undergraduate.
How very undergraduate.
Points 2) and 4) are in direct conflict with each other when you’re talking about actual child protection policy.
Points 2) and 4) are in direct conflict with each other when you’re talking about actual child protection policy.
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anthony
1. My politics are driven by knowing full how disgustingly rich we are, and how many people’s lives are miserable, tawdry, and just so unnecessary. I am not, not, not, a “socialist” or any of your labels. All I care about it is RESULTS.
2. My politics acknowledge the bleedin’ obvious uniqueness of the state among human insititutions:
(a) Its monopoly on the legitimate use of violence;
(b) Its unparalleled coordination abilities
(c) It ain’t going nowhere. So let’s use it intelligently.
3. I said a more direct democracy. Not mobs in Martin Place using thumbs up or down on whether some guy gets to become local dog catcher or fed to the lions.
I have no idea what your 5) is an do not want to know, either!
anthony
1. My politics are driven by knowing full how disgustingly rich we are, and how many people’s lives are miserable, tawdry, and just so unnecessary. I am not, not, not, a “socialist” or any of your labels. All I care about it is RESULTS.
2. My politics acknowledge the bleedin’ obvious uniqueness of the state among human insititutions:
(a) Its monopoly on the legitimate use of violence;
(b) Its unparalleled coordination abilities
(c) It ain’t going nowhere. So let’s use it intelligently.
3. I said a more direct democracy. Not mobs in Martin Place using thumbs up or down on whether some guy gets to become local dog catcher or fed to the lions.
I have no idea what your 5) is an do not want to know, either!
Paul
I would wager you knowledge of the minutiae of the politics in that particular period is far greater than mine. So I’d like to discuss it more. But right now, I have to eat!
Paul
I would wager you knowledge of the minutiae of the politics in that particular period is far greater than mine. So I’d like to discuss it more. But right now, I have to eat!
tigtog
Very, very disappointed on so many levels. The least of which, there is no connection whatsoever. Hey, I just noticed if you square every prime placed vowel in Larvatus Prodeo it…….
Why did you even post that? Weird?
tigtog
Very, very disappointed on so many levels. The least of which, there is no connection whatsoever. Hey, I just noticed if you square every prime placed vowel in Larvatus Prodeo it…….
Why did you even post that? Weird?
Jeez Liam, sorry for having a go by responding immediately to anthony’s question.
After lunch, I’ll try and post a 234,678 footnoted and qualified manifesto, if you’d like.
Jeez Liam, sorry for having a go by responding immediately to anthony’s question.
After lunch, I’ll try and post a 234,678 footnoted and qualified manifesto, if you’d like.
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Lol.
OB would have us still living under feudalism.
Unfortunately, violence is sometimes necessary, as when a people revolt against injustice and the powers that be attempt to stop them and take back their privileges.
For example, the Russian revolution of was relatively bloodless and Lenin argued that those who violently opposed it, the Cadets, should be turned loose on the promise they would not stir up counter-revolution. He argued that in the face of strident opposition from his own party.
The Cadets went on to foment a civil war, with the help of the West and Japan, that killed over a million people.
Perhaps Lenin was wrong for being so merciful?
Lol.
OB would have us still living under feudalism.
Unfortunately, violence is sometimes necessary, as when a people revolt against injustice and the powers that be attempt to stop them and take back their privileges.
For example, the Russian revolution of was relatively bloodless and Lenin argued that those who violently opposed it, the Cadets, should be turned loose on the promise they would not stir up counter-revolution. He argued that in the face of strident opposition from his own party.
The Cadets went on to foment a civil war, with the help of the West and Japan, that killed over a million people.
Perhaps Lenin was wrong for being so merciful?
TT, I’m a bit surprised that you put the email details there. The form does say “Email (will not be published)”.
Chav:
That’s possibly the most bizarrely sickening thing I’ve ever seen written on this blog. And I say this as someone who’s relatively sympathetic to the February revolutionaries.
TT, I’m a bit surprised that you put the email details there. The form does say “Email (will not be published)”.
Chav:
That’s possibly the most bizarrely sickening thing I’ve ever seen written on this blog. And I say this as someone who’s relatively sympathetic to the February revolutionaries.
Hm, I think I’ve come across rather stronger than I intended. I think I’ll lay off the angry pills for the rest of the afternoon, sorry all.
Hm, I think I’ve come across rather stronger than I intended. I think I’ll lay off the angry pills for the rest of the afternoon, sorry all.
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Liam, I did not publish his email address. I published two words that are part of it. That’s a very different thing, and I challenge anybody to actually deduce what the real email address is from those two words alone.
Liam, I did not publish his email address. I published two words that are part of it. That’s a very different thing, and I challenge anybody to actually deduce what the real email address is from those two words alone.
Paulus @ 172
This contains the counter-factual implication that they may have wanted to stop the massacres. In fact, as has been well documented, the US was entirely complicit – providing hit lists to Suharto and his subordinate murderers and using US military communications to help coordinate the killings and suppress resistance. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_killings_of_1965%E2%80%931966
Paulus @ 172
This contains the counter-factual implication that they may have wanted to stop the massacres. In fact, as has been well documented, the US was entirely complicit – providing hit lists to Suharto and his subordinate murderers and using US military communications to help coordinate the killings and suppress resistance. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_killings_of_1965%E2%80%931966
Tigtog says:
“Liam, I did not publish his email address.”
You’ve clearly breached netiquette and betrayed the trust placed in you as a moderator, tigtog. You should delete the offending details.
Tigtog says:
“Liam, I did not publish his email address.”
You’ve clearly breached netiquette and betrayed the trust placed in you as a moderator, tigtog. You should delete the offending details.
In another stoush in another thread Ossie wondered why I suggested that (s)he had admitted (s)he wasn’t any kind of leftist. There was plenty enough for me to quote, but I do not the above observation:
Ossie thus asserts that judicially sanctioned political murder is compatible with being a leftist. Perhaps that anticipates Ossie’s answer to Anthony’s question about what people not of the Marxist framework think leftism entails. Ossie favours “what works” without mentioning that it matters whom it works for. In this case, it was OK if it worked for Menzies, but not for Jacobins or Stalinists.
For me, words and phrases need to be used in their everyday sense or be qualified to avoid confusion. The concept of “being a leftist” is not, at least for me, the least bit confusing. At a minimum, leftists favour equitable collaboration between human beings and by extension, all programs that efficiently predispose that goal. Leftists oppose social inequality because this subverts the possibility of equitable collaboration. Favouring equitable collaboration and social equality entails resisting arbitrary asymmetries of power between different citizens or groups of citizens, especially where these can be shown to subvert equitable collaboration. For this reason, leftists are predisposed to seek solutions that are communitarian both in end and in means.
Coercion of any kind is therefore something leftists are predisposed to resist in all circumstances where it is not demanded by the preceding goal of equitable collaboration. Having a state with the power of life and death over the citizenry, and particularly in circumstances where the state is the expression of massive asymmetries of social power cannot be reconciled with being a leftist, at least not within the ordinary meaning of the term.
It is true that one need not be any kind of Marxist to qualify as a leftist. One cannot however, be a leftist and and advocate usages that subvert equitable collaboration or buttress or apologise for lethal coercion by the socially privileged. Those who do are advocates of reactionary policies.
In another stoush in another thread Ossie wondered why I suggested that (s)he had admitted (s)he wasn’t any kind of leftist. There was plenty enough for me to quote, but I do not the above observation:
Ossie thus asserts that judicially sanctioned political murder is compatible with being a leftist. Perhaps that anticipates Ossie’s answer to Anthony’s question about what people not of the Marxist framework think leftism entails. Ossie favours “what works” without mentioning that it matters whom it works for. In this case, it was OK if it worked for Menzies, but not for Jacobins or Stalinists.
For me, words and phrases need to be used in their everyday sense or be qualified to avoid confusion. The concept of “being a leftist” is not, at least for me, the least bit confusing. At a minimum, leftists favour equitable collaboration between human beings and by extension, all programs that efficiently predispose that goal. Leftists oppose social inequality because this subverts the possibility of equitable collaboration. Favouring equitable collaboration and social equality entails resisting arbitrary asymmetries of power between different citizens or groups of citizens, especially where these can be shown to subvert equitable collaboration. For this reason, leftists are predisposed to seek solutions that are communitarian both in end and in means.
Coercion of any kind is therefore something leftists are predisposed to resist in all circumstances where it is not demanded by the preceding goal of equitable collaboration. Having a state with the power of life and death over the citizenry, and particularly in circumstances where the state is the expression of massive asymmetries of social power cannot be reconciled with being a leftist, at least not within the ordinary meaning of the term.
It is true that one need not be any kind of Marxist to qualify as a leftist. One cannot however, be a leftist and and advocate usages that subvert equitable collaboration or buttress or apologise for lethal coercion by the socially privileged. Those who do are advocates of reactionary policies.
Is there anybody else wondering if their privacy will be breached by tigtog’s desperation to make a point? With respect, tigtog, as a moderator you have a duty not to use private information provided by commenters in any argument you may wish to fashion against them. Your behaviour in this instance is absolutely reprehensible and you should apologise forthwith to all of us. A guarantee such a breach of trust will never happen again would also be nice.
Is there anybody else wondering if their privacy will be breached by tigtog’s desperation to make a point? With respect, tigtog, as a moderator you have a duty not to use private information provided by commenters in any argument you may wish to fashion against them. Your behaviour in this instance is absolutely reprehensible and you should apologise forthwith to all of us. A guarantee such a breach of trust will never happen again would also be nice.
@ 195. Where can I get some angry pills!
@ 195. Where can I get some angry pills!
@salient, my position is that where an email address is a “handle” that does not include any real name, that handle is not liable to as much protection as anything that appears to be an actual name. To use some extreme examples, if someone is posting with a handle such as “hitlerwasright@nazisrule.com” and advocating pacifism or “ilovethebieber@justinforever.org” and advocating the muzzling of adolescent pop stars, I do think that their choice of handle may be relevant to how their opinions should be evaluated and that this is information which is fair to share – but even then I would only mention that words expressing approval of “hitler” or “bieber” formed part of the handle, rather than giving out the full address.
@salient, my position is that where an email address is a “handle” that does not include any real name, that handle is not liable to as much protection as anything that appears to be an actual name. To use some extreme examples, if someone is posting with a handle such as “hitlerwasright@nazisrule.com” and advocating pacifism or “ilovethebieber@justinforever.org” and advocating the muzzling of adolescent pop stars, I do think that their choice of handle may be relevant to how their opinions should be evaluated and that this is information which is fair to share – but even then I would only mention that words expressing approval of “hitler” or “bieber” formed part of the handle, rather than giving out the full address.
P.S. I am willing to reconsider my position on this after some time for reflection.
P.S. I am willing to reconsider my position on this after some time for reflection.
Personally, TT, unless there were some way of identifying the person or their email from the information you gave I would not say you had breached privacy. I’m inclined to doubt that anyone can use what you have to track trhe person down, and I doubt anyone would be interested, but I can’t say for sure.
However that may be that’s not the same as saying I would have posted as you did above. Perceptions count, and it will be tempting for some to form the impression that you have sailed as close to the wind as you have as a consequence of your attitude to the views of this interlocutor. I wouldn’t share this inference, but it would be hard to refute and as the argument is not worth having … –>
Personally, TT, unless there were some way of identifying the person or their email from the information you gave I would not say you had breached privacy. I’m inclined to doubt that anyone can use what you have to track trhe person down, and I doubt anyone would be interested, but I can’t say for sure.
However that may be that’s not the same as saying I would have posted as you did above. Perceptions count, and it will be tempting for some to form the impression that you have sailed as close to the wind as you have as a consequence of your attitude to the views of this interlocutor. I wouldn’t share this inference, but it would be hard to refute and as the argument is not worth having … –>
Fran: the leftism you propose, one that actually sees “equitable collaboration” at the core of human social life rather than incessant competition (as per Hobbes),has roots in Marx and Engels approach to human “species nature”. That is, that it is quite obviously primarily collaborative, co-operative and hence social rather than individually competitive.
The point remains, however, that Marx and Engels were among the most significant of those philosophers who emphasised human sociality.
The purpose of my initial question above as to what informs non-socialist leftism was to was to shine a light on the fact that so much of what the non-socialist left imagines as its philosophical foundations is in fact derivative of a long converstaion within the socialist tradition.
Unless you are aware of significant pre-marxian sources emphasising human social co-operation? Otherwise I cannot see how you can justify your argument that leftism does not engage with Marxism.
Fran: the leftism you propose, one that actually sees “equitable collaboration” at the core of human social life rather than incessant competition (as per Hobbes),has roots in Marx and Engels approach to human “species nature”. That is, that it is quite obviously primarily collaborative, co-operative and hence social rather than individually competitive.
The point remains, however, that Marx and Engels were among the most significant of those philosophers who emphasised human sociality.
The purpose of my initial question above as to what informs non-socialist leftism was to was to shine a light on the fact that so much of what the non-socialist left imagines as its philosophical foundations is in fact derivative of a long converstaion within the socialist tradition.
Unless you are aware of significant pre-marxian sources emphasising human social co-operation? Otherwise I cannot see how you can justify your argument that leftism does not engage with Marxism.
@180..Andrew Bolt says I am.
@180..Andrew Bolt says I am.
“significant pre-marxian sources emphasising human social co-operation?”
Christianity?
“significant pre-marxian sources emphasising human social co-operation?”
Christianity?
Ahhh, The Old Testament? I gues I meant credible modern philosophy not insitutionalised delusion.
Ahhh, The Old Testament? I gues I meant credible modern philosophy not insitutionalised delusion.
Then again it was very prescient and progressive of the Old Testament Joseph to impose an Agriculture Super Profits Tax on Egyptian farmers and invest it in a Future Fund, laying the groundwork for the subsequent socialisation of the Egyptian economy.
Then again it was very prescient and progressive of the Old Testament Joseph to impose an Agriculture Super Profits Tax on Egyptian farmers and invest it in a Future Fund, laying the groundwork for the subsequent socialisation of the Egyptian economy.
Anthony said:
That was never my project. Plainly though, there is a considerable difference between engaging with features of human social solidarity noted by Marxists and being a Marxist.
Attempts at equitable human collaboration obviously predate industrial society by a very long time. They were a feature of a great many hunter-gatherer and even subsistence agriculture societies (I’m thinking of the Moriori here).
One might note also that the first iteration of the left-right divide predated Marx by a long time — it was a reference to arrangements in the assembly in revolutionary France, which was ultimatley mapped onto the popular struggles of the mid-19th Century.
Sidebar: According to biblical lore, God sorted the sheep to his right and the goats to his left. Those goats were ltierally and figuratively the catspaws of sinister forces. (La sinistra = the left)
I’m not sure if this is why the CPGB used to call their paper the Morning Star, but I’d like to think it was.
Anthony said:
That was never my project. Plainly though, there is a considerable difference between engaging with features of human social solidarity noted by Marxists and being a Marxist.
Attempts at equitable human collaboration obviously predate industrial society by a very long time. They were a feature of a great many hunter-gatherer and even subsistence agriculture societies (I’m thinking of the Moriori here).
One might note also that the first iteration of the left-right divide predated Marx by a long time — it was a reference to arrangements in the assembly in revolutionary France, which was ultimatley mapped onto the popular struggles of the mid-19th Century.
Sidebar: According to biblical lore, God sorted the sheep to his right and the goats to his left. Those goats were ltierally and figuratively the catspaws of sinister forces. (La sinistra = the left)
I’m not sure if this is why the CPGB used to call their paper the Morning Star, but I’d like to think it was.
AN – were Marx’s ideas uninfluenced by Judiasm and Christianity?
AN – were Marx’s ideas uninfluenced by Judiasm and Christianity?
Rousseau was the progenitor of all modern collaborationist thinking, including Marxism.
Discourse on Inequality, 1754
Rousseau was the progenitor of all modern collaborationist thinking, including Marxism.
Discourse on Inequality, 1754
Ah Katz in fact Locke in his Treatises on Government, no matter that he emphasised individual property, also railed against the crime of “engrossment” by which he meant the keeping of more fruits of the earth than can be usefully utilised by the keeper.
That notwithstanding, you source ypour leftism in Rousseau then, do you?
Ah Katz in fact Locke in his Treatises on Government, no matter that he emphasised individual property, also railed against the crime of “engrossment” by which he meant the keeping of more fruits of the earth than can be usefully utilised by the keeper.
That notwithstanding, you source ypour leftism in Rousseau then, do you?
Katz …
One of my favourite Rousseau quotes:
Katz …
One of my favourite Rousseau quotes:
Don’t mistake alienation with engrossment.
Locke opposed the latter. Rousseau opposed both.
No, I abhor Rousseau. Any system of thought that pines for a return to the Year Zero is as dangerous as any system of thought that looks forward to the end of the world.
Don’t mistake alienation with engrossment.
Locke opposed the latter. Rousseau opposed both.
No, I abhor Rousseau. Any system of thought that pines for a return to the Year Zero is as dangerous as any system of thought that looks forward to the end of the world.
So, no ignoble savages for you then. What philosophy informs your irrascible humanism then?
So, no ignoble savages for you then. What philosophy informs your irrascible humanism then?
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Sympathise with the peaceful against the bellicose.
Sympathise with the defenders against the aggressors.
Sympathise with the doubters against the doctrinaire.
Sympathise with the truth tellers against the liars.
Sympathise with the weak against the strong.
Sympathise with the poorer against the richer.
Be as sure as you can be that the fight you choose you can win.
Otherwise, strive to live to fight another day.
Sympathise with the peaceful against the bellicose.
Sympathise with the defenders against the aggressors.
Sympathise with the doubters against the doctrinaire.
Sympathise with the truth tellers against the liars.
Sympathise with the weak against the strong.
Sympathise with the poorer against the richer.
Be as sure as you can be that the fight you choose you can win.
Otherwise, strive to live to fight another day.
Good grief, are we on to Rousseau now? This just gets funnier and funnier.
“A CHILD ASLEEP IN ITS OWN LIFE”
(Stevens)
Among the old men that you know,
There is one, unnamed, that broods
On all the rest, in heavy thought.
They are nothing, except in the universe
Of that single mind. He regards them
Outwardly and knows them inwardly,
The sole emperor of what they are,
Distant, yet close enough to wake
The chords above your bed to-night.
– from “Late Poems”
Good grief, are we on to Rousseau now? This just gets funnier and funnier.
“A CHILD ASLEEP IN ITS OWN LIFE”
(Stevens)
Among the old men that you know,
There is one, unnamed, that broods
On all the rest, in heavy thought.
They are nothing, except in the universe
Of that single mind. He regards them
Outwardly and knows them inwardly,
The sole emperor of what they are,
Distant, yet close enough to wake
The chords above your bed to-night.
– from “Late Poems”
Katz’s work here is done. He’s needed elsewhere; wherever outlaws rule the West, wherever innocent women and children are afraid to walk the streets, wherever a man cannot live in simple dignity, wherever a people cry out for justice…
Katz’s work here is done. He’s needed elsewhere; wherever outlaws rule the West, wherever innocent women and children are afraid to walk the streets, wherever a man cannot live in simple dignity, wherever a people cry out for justice…
Bullshit Liam. It’s about a 52 year old woman with 3 children who works at Coles for 38 hours a week, who only earns $29,000 a year. She’s never been on a holiday to Bali, spent a day in beauty salon, or spent $200 on a new dress.
Four times a year she has to say No to her kids request to go on a school excursion. Her kids to go to the public comprehensive high school in the local area. She cried for a week when her daughter asked to enrol in the local tutoring college to prepare for the selective school exam.
For reasons, which are her own, she knows her second eldest daughter would thrive at the catholic school 2 train stations away. The fess are $1,354 a year.
She can only afford chuck steak once a month. The pain and guilt of not being able to satisfy this most banal of wishes for her daughter breaks her heart, and torments her in her dreams.
Bullshit Liam. It’s about a 52 year old woman with 3 children who works at Coles for 38 hours a week, who only earns $29,000 a year. She’s never been on a holiday to Bali, spent a day in beauty salon, or spent $200 on a new dress.
Four times a year she has to say No to her kids request to go on a school excursion. Her kids to go to the public comprehensive high school in the local area. She cried for a week when her daughter asked to enrol in the local tutoring college to prepare for the selective school exam.
For reasons, which are her own, she knows her second eldest daughter would thrive at the catholic school 2 train stations away. The fess are $1,354 a year.
She can only afford chuck steak once a month. The pain and guilt of not being able to satisfy this most banal of wishes for her daughter breaks her heart, and torments her in her dreams.
More heat than light here. But the unusual feature of Australian labour history is that unions tended to be on the left of the ALP, unlike in Britain, and this gave the CPA as a party of union officials some influence on the ALP. UK style Labor right wingers like Don Rawson and James Jupp were unhappy about this. There were true believers in the USSR in the ALP like Jack Ferguson but they didn’t have to be secret Communists.
More heat than light here. But the unusual feature of Australian labour history is that unions tended to be on the left of the ALP, unlike in Britain, and this gave the CPA as a party of union officials some influence on the ALP. UK style Labor right wingers like Don Rawson and James Jupp were unhappy about this. There were true believers in the USSR in the ALP like Jack Ferguson but they didn’t have to be secret Communists.
Liam: “wherever innocent women and children are afraid to walk the streets, wherever a man cannot live in simple dignity…”
Oh, so you just mean Detroit. Yes, I think that Katz and all leftists would gain a great educational advantage, not to mention accomplish mighty things, by living six months or more in America’s greatest city.
Excelsior!
Liam: “wherever innocent women and children are afraid to walk the streets, wherever a man cannot live in simple dignity…”
Oh, so you just mean Detroit. Yes, I think that Katz and all leftists would gain a great educational advantage, not to mention accomplish mighty things, by living six months or more in America’s greatest city.
Excelsior!
[Splits an angry pill in half, ingests with a cool calm glass of water]
Ossie, I was trying to inject the sublime whimsy of Sherriff Bart and the Waco Kid but if you prefer the stoush, I’m your man.
You’ve cited your nominal battler’s life story and I agree that all of its features are an indictment against capitalism. However, according to your five-point plan, what do you propose to do about her situation—and what does it have to do with anything I’ve said?
[Splits an angry pill in half, ingests with a cool calm glass of water]
Ossie, I was trying to inject the sublime whimsy of Sherriff Bart and the Waco Kid but if you prefer the stoush, I’m your man.
You’ve cited your nominal battler’s life story and I agree that all of its features are an indictment against capitalism. However, according to your five-point plan, what do you propose to do about her situation—and what does it have to do with anything I’ve said?
And speaking of Westerns and sublime ridiculousness, JPZ, there was a modern Western while back set in Detroit which had Andre 3000 and Mark Wahlberg in it, wandering around in leather jackets and avengin’ stuff. Wasn’t a great fillum but damn it made Detroit look cool.
And speaking of Westerns and sublime ridiculousness, JPZ, there was a modern Western while back set in Detroit which had Andre 3000 and Mark Wahlberg in it, wandering around in leather jackets and avengin’ stuff. Wasn’t a great fillum but damn it made Detroit look cool.
Liam I was challenging you to a duel. But fiven how unreserved you’ve been about crapping on my own outline of my left-wing commitments, tell me about yours.
1. Your upbringing
2. Your utopia
3. What is achievable in the medium term?
I read on this blog, you work for the ALP. Are you foe or enemy?
Do you think Jules is a move forward?
Liam I was challenging you to a duel. But fiven how unreserved you’ve been about crapping on my own outline of my left-wing commitments, tell me about yours.
1. Your upbringing
2. Your utopia
3. What is achievable in the medium term?
I read on this blog, you work for the ALP. Are you foe or enemy?
Do you think Jules is a move forward?
I meant NOT challenging……:)
I meant NOT challenging……:)
Oh dear. 20 questions ossie style.
“Are you foe or enemy?”
You think?
“Do you think Jules is a move forward?”
Depends on which direction you’re facing.
Maybe you should concentrate on your PHD.
Oh dear. 20 questions ossie style.
“Are you foe or enemy?”
You think?
“Do you think Jules is a move forward?”
Depends on which direction you’re facing.
Maybe you should concentrate on your PHD.
I don’t sympathise with the uncomprehending.
And yes, I have lived for more than six months in several great American cities, but not, alas, in the hometown of The Doctor.
I don’t sympathise with the uncomprehending.
And yes, I have lived for more than six months in several great American cities, but not, alas, in the hometown of The Doctor.
Hey it’s prole-cred Perfect Match! Dexter, let’s introduce contestant number one. His name’s Liam, he wears a beret in the winter without any fashionable sense of irony, he loves turning unrelated threads into discussions about himself, and he’s here to answer your questions!
1. Your upbringing
Sydney middle class whitey with an Arts degree. Inner West represent.
2. Your utopia
Bottle of Toohey’s Old, last night’s spaghetti bolognaise, and thou.*
3. What is achievable in the medium term?
Somewhere between democratic socialisation of production, distribution and exchange, on the one hand, and on the other bits of good policy negotiated with difficulty through layers of interested activism, public service, different levels of elected government, entrenched ignorance in the media, business greed and intransigence, apathy, and the electorate’s own well-demonstrated venality.
In the meantime, arguing with strangers on the internet. Resistir es vencer, as La Pasionaria cynically urged.
4. Do you think Jules is a move forward?
Actually, yes. I don’t think she’s as black as she’s damned in terms of policy, she’s quite capable of smashing Abbott in August or whenever, and she’s by far a better negotiator with Labor’s internal stakeholders than Rudd ever could have been. As for everyone else, the next three months will tell.
*Wasn’t talking to you necessarily, but let me finish my beer and we’ll renegotiate
Hey it’s prole-cred Perfect Match! Dexter, let’s introduce contestant number one. His name’s Liam, he wears a beret in the winter without any fashionable sense of irony, he loves turning unrelated threads into discussions about himself, and he’s here to answer your questions!
1. Your upbringing
Sydney middle class whitey with an Arts degree. Inner West represent.
2. Your utopia
Bottle of Toohey’s Old, last night’s spaghetti bolognaise, and thou.*
3. What is achievable in the medium term?
Somewhere between democratic socialisation of production, distribution and exchange, on the one hand, and on the other bits of good policy negotiated with difficulty through layers of interested activism, public service, different levels of elected government, entrenched ignorance in the media, business greed and intransigence, apathy, and the electorate’s own well-demonstrated venality.
In the meantime, arguing with strangers on the internet. Resistir es vencer, as La Pasionaria cynically urged.
4. Do you think Jules is a move forward?
Actually, yes. I don’t think she’s as black as she’s damned in terms of policy, she’s quite capable of smashing Abbott in August or whenever, and she’s by far a better negotiator with Labor’s internal stakeholders than Rudd ever could have been. As for everyone else, the next three months will tell.
*Wasn’t talking to you necessarily, but let me finish my beer and we’ll renegotiate
…hey wait a minute ossie, do I know you?
Are you by chance a lifelong devotee of thrash and heavy metal?
…hey wait a minute ossie, do I know you?
Are you by chance a lifelong devotee of thrash and heavy metal?
Fran Barlow @ #202 said:
The problem with this definition of Leftism is that it does not exclude a large number of, what would normally be called, “Rightists”. Many Right-wingers would be all in favour of equitable collaboration so long as it came about through voluntary consensual agreements. Lots of families and households are examples of “equitable collaboration”.
My definition of the ideological polarities has, may I humbly suggest, better predictive legs:
The lower-status include businessmen, workers, women, atheists, gays, coloreds, indigenes, animals and even some plants. These groups will invariably align with the party of the Left.
The higher-status has traditionally included males, whites, straights, officers, land-owners, priests, merchants, scholars. These groups will invariably align with the party of the Right.
This conceptualisation is not perfect as there are ideological anomalies when social status is at odds with economic status. The more ones economic status exceeds ones social status, the more Right-wing one will be.
Thus one sees academics with high social status but mediocre economic status identifying as Left-wing. Whilst self-made businessmen have lower social status but high economic status, identifying as Right-wing.
Fran Barlow @ #202 said:
The problem with this definition of Leftism is that it does not exclude a large number of, what would normally be called, “Rightists”. Many Right-wingers would be all in favour of equitable collaboration so long as it came about through voluntary consensual agreements. Lots of families and households are examples of “equitable collaboration”.
My definition of the ideological polarities has, may I humbly suggest, better predictive legs:
The lower-status include businessmen, workers, women, atheists, gays, coloreds, indigenes, animals and even some plants. These groups will invariably align with the party of the Left.
The higher-status has traditionally included males, whites, straights, officers, land-owners, priests, merchants, scholars. These groups will invariably align with the party of the Right.
This conceptualisation is not perfect as there are ideological anomalies when social status is at odds with economic status. The more ones economic status exceeds ones social status, the more Right-wing one will be.
Thus one sees academics with high social status but mediocre economic status identifying as Left-wing. Whilst self-made businessmen have lower social status but high economic status, identifying as Right-wing.
Katz @ #232: Your second sentence confounds your first, if you know what I… oh forget it, it’s clear you don’t.
ossie #229:
“1. Your upbringing.
2. Your utopia.”
Moderator, will you please stop channelling the late George Carlin and Bill Hicks, the goofiness here is getting to be too much for my satellite dish, I’m afraid the State Troopers will arrest me fer laffing too hard…
Liam: It’s not clear to me how Mark Wahlberg and Andre 3000 could make *any*thing look cool; but if you must check out the height of Detroit hipsterdom, look no further than “A Fistful of Yen” which contains the greatest deadpan of all time, yea even one which trumps (though I tremble to admit it) the mighty supernatural deadpan of the great Chris Walken Himself… How such a thing could be, I know not.
Katz @ #232: Your second sentence confounds your first, if you know what I… oh forget it, it’s clear you don’t.
ossie #229:
“1. Your upbringing.
2. Your utopia.”
Moderator, will you please stop channelling the late George Carlin and Bill Hicks, the goofiness here is getting to be too much for my satellite dish, I’m afraid the State Troopers will arrest me fer laffing too hard…
Liam: It’s not clear to me how Mark Wahlberg and Andre 3000 could make *any*thing look cool; but if you must check out the height of Detroit hipsterdom, look no further than “A Fistful of Yen” which contains the greatest deadpan of all time, yea even one which trumps (though I tremble to admit it) the mighty supernatural deadpan of the great Chris Walken Himself… How such a thing could be, I know not.
Liam
You said a lot there that can be the basis for some worthwhile debate, and agreement.
Liam
You said a lot there that can be the basis for some worthwhile debate, and agreement.
JPZ, call my tastes low-rent but add a Browning HP, a chase scene and sepia tone and you’ve made my evening in. Cast Adam Sandler and J-Lo in it, I’m not fussy.
JPZ, call my tastes low-rent but add a Browning HP, a chase scene and sepia tone and you’ve made my evening in. Cast Adam Sandler and J-Lo in it, I’m not fussy.
Japerz, the minimum audience (n) for a private joke is n > 1.
Japerz, the minimum audience (n) for a private joke is n > 1.
In other news, it’s all a communist plot.
In other news, it’s all a communist plot.
Paul, I doubt that. NSW Young Labor honcho Bob was one of Whitlam’s backers, I don’t think he would have done anything to endanger Dear Leader’s hedging position on the Vietnam War.
(But I suppose that get’s to the root of most of the historical discontent over this subject, doesn’t it?)
Anyway, as to Gietzelt’s very plausible defence of himself today:
Of course I agree with the disdain for Carr’s reductio ad absurdum, i.e. that Aarons’ hearsay somehow confirms that the old ALP Left was a puppet of the Reds.
But there is something else here I think is missing: just what is up with you old communists and your erstwhile allies?
Face it, before Carr lowered his standards for the Oz (and I do believe he lowered his intellectual—if not party political—standards here, regardless of what people on the revolutionary Left say) this was obviously a shit fight within your broader ideological tribe, it had nothing to do with the dreaded groupers or whatever.
Tell us all about the vicious low stakes fight being fought out here by ex-reds and friends, please.
Paul, I doubt that. NSW Young Labor honcho Bob was one of Whitlam’s backers, I don’t think he would have done anything to endanger Dear Leader’s hedging position on the Vietnam War.
(But I suppose that get’s to the root of most of the historical discontent over this subject, doesn’t it?)
Anyway, as to Gietzelt’s very plausible defence of himself today:
Of course I agree with the disdain for Carr’s reductio ad absurdum, i.e. that Aarons’ hearsay somehow confirms that the old ALP Left was a puppet of the Reds.
But there is something else here I think is missing: just what is up with you old communists and your erstwhile allies?
Face it, before Carr lowered his standards for the Oz (and I do believe he lowered his intellectual—if not party political—standards here, regardless of what people on the revolutionary Left say) this was obviously a shit fight within your broader ideological tribe, it had nothing to do with the dreaded groupers or whatever.
Tell us all about the vicious low stakes fight being fought out here by ex-reds and friends, please.
The comment I made earlier regarding ossie was a moment of tetchiness at life in general that overcame my better judgement and has since been deleted, as have some but not all subsequent comments referring to it. I believe that I did stay just the right side of the netiquette line, but only just marginally, and I accept that that’s not good enough. I stand by my argument at #205 that there may be occasions when a “handle” that has been chosen by a poster might reveal an attitude at odds with their statements that is worth revealing and exploring (without revealing a full email address), but this was not one of those times.
ossie, despite appearances I don’t have any particular animosity towards most of your points of view. Your style of presenting your views at times irritates me, and this time you caught me in a bad moment and I succumbed to petulance. I shouldn’t have. My apologies.
The comment I made earlier regarding ossie was a moment of tetchiness at life in general that overcame my better judgement and has since been deleted, as have some but not all subsequent comments referring to it. I believe that I did stay just the right side of the netiquette line, but only just marginally, and I accept that that’s not good enough. I stand by my argument at #205 that there may be occasions when a “handle” that has been chosen by a poster might reveal an attitude at odds with their statements that is worth revealing and exploring (without revealing a full email address), but this was not one of those times.
ossie, despite appearances I don’t have any particular animosity towards most of your points of view. Your style of presenting your views at times irritates me, and this time you caught me in a bad moment and I succumbed to petulance. I shouldn’t have. My apologies.
Thank you for that tigtog. And you apology is unreservedly accepted.
Thank you for that tigtog. And you apology is unreservedly accepted.
I don’t agree with much Bob Carr says, but I don’t see why the Left need be defensive about Carr’s article.
The facts are the facts: too many people people on the Left were wrong – horribly wrong – about Communism. But there were also large numbers of honourable exeptions. Many of the horrors of Stalinism were actually uncovered or publicised by the anti-Communist Left – people like Orwell, Camus, hundreds of others.
I think, too, that the Left has learnt its lesson: the strongest advocates of human rights are to be found on the Left (Chavista or pro-Cuban articles in Green-Left Weekly notwithstanding).
I’m just thankful that the cold war is over and the Left is a much more comfortable place for people like me. Now, if only Carr could write an article about how the pre-GFC NSW Right got it horribly wrong on unregulated markets and The Australian can do a little self-flagellation on all those right-wing fellow travellers of Fascism.
I don’t agree with much Bob Carr says, but I don’t see why the Left need be defensive about Carr’s article.
The facts are the facts: too many people people on the Left were wrong – horribly wrong – about Communism. But there were also large numbers of honourable exeptions. Many of the horrors of Stalinism were actually uncovered or publicised by the anti-Communist Left – people like Orwell, Camus, hundreds of others.
I think, too, that the Left has learnt its lesson: the strongest advocates of human rights are to be found on the Left (Chavista or pro-Cuban articles in Green-Left Weekly notwithstanding).
I’m just thankful that the cold war is over and the Left is a much more comfortable place for people like me. Now, if only Carr could write an article about how the pre-GFC NSW Right got it horribly wrong on unregulated markets and The Australian can do a little self-flagellation on all those right-wing fellow travellers of Fascism.
Strocchi @235 said:
In the long run I think it does, though we might have an argument about that. Sooner or later, the attempt to iterate the rightist view of “consensual” would involve the fiction that socially unequal parties were engaged in socially equitable transactions — a substitution of the de jure for the de facto. The family is not a bad example of just this tension.
Consent presumes social equality. The further the departure from that, the more frivolous are assertions of equity, and at some point the assertion is not merely perverse but a grave offence to what is plain and obvious to all — something deserving of the kind of comdemnation in Orwell’s Politics and the English Language.
People like our common acquaintance Terje of the LDP do that all the time.
I’d be happy to argue the toss though.
Strocchi @235 said:
In the long run I think it does, though we might have an argument about that. Sooner or later, the attempt to iterate the rightist view of “consensual” would involve the fiction that socially unequal parties were engaged in socially equitable transactions — a substitution of the de jure for the de facto. The family is not a bad example of just this tension.
Consent presumes social equality. The further the departure from that, the more frivolous are assertions of equity, and at some point the assertion is not merely perverse but a grave offence to what is plain and obvious to all — something deserving of the kind of comdemnation in Orwell’s Politics and the English Language.
People like our common acquaintance Terje of the LDP do that all the time.
I’d be happy to argue the toss though.
Fran the problem with your definition of Leftism is it doesn’t say anything, is full of jargon, implies no action, says nothing about your target audience, and sends people to sleep.
Fran the problem with your definition of Leftism is it doesn’t say anything, is full of jargon, implies no action, says nothing about your target audience, and sends people to sleep.
nickws #241:
Nick, unfortunately I don’t quite qualify as an old communist, being just 31 when the party folded in 1991. Also, whilst I knew and worked with several members of the Aarons family, I’ve never met Mark and would not presume to have any insight into his motives for writing his book, beyond what can be taken at face value. Likewise, whatever relations existed between Arthur Gietzelt, Bruce Childs, the Aarons family, Bob Carr, Paul Keating, etc., is largely before my time. The only light (if you can call it that) that I can shed on this subject is that there was a member of the CPA Sydney Construction Branch who had a similar, but not identical, name to that of a left-wing Labor parliamentarian, and there was gossip to the effect that the Construction Branch member and the parliamentarian were one and the same person. I subsequently learned that this was not the case in the course of a chance conversation in 2003 with a building unionist who knew the CPA member in question.
nickws #241:
Nick, unfortunately I don’t quite qualify as an old communist, being just 31 when the party folded in 1991. Also, whilst I knew and worked with several members of the Aarons family, I’ve never met Mark and would not presume to have any insight into his motives for writing his book, beyond what can be taken at face value. Likewise, whatever relations existed between Arthur Gietzelt, Bruce Childs, the Aarons family, Bob Carr, Paul Keating, etc., is largely before my time. The only light (if you can call it that) that I can shed on this subject is that there was a member of the CPA Sydney Construction Branch who had a similar, but not identical, name to that of a left-wing Labor parliamentarian, and there was gossip to the effect that the Construction Branch member and the parliamentarian were one and the same person. I subsequently learned that this was not the case in the course of a chance conversation in 2003 with a building unionist who knew the CPA member in question.
Ossie claimed as follows:
The problem with your response, Ossie, is that you have no access to data about the wakefulness of others, and still less what factors predispose it. Nearly as badly, your response betrays intellectual indolence and/or vacuity and a near complete failure to grasp the point of establishing what a leftist paradigm might look like.
Ossie claimed as follows:
The problem with your response, Ossie, is that you have no access to data about the wakefulness of others, and still less what factors predispose it. Nearly as badly, your response betrays intellectual indolence and/or vacuity and a near complete failure to grasp the point of establishing what a leftist paradigm might look like.
Fran @248
What you said.
Fran @248
What you said.
Paul, I’m assuming you read the piece by Mark Aarons in the Murdoch broadsheet today, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/holes-in-carrs-revisionist-history/story-e6frg6zo-1225888685802,.
What struck me is that while he disagrees with the central logical logical fallacy of Carr’s article, Aarons isn’t actually endorsing an anti-anti-communist view of Labor history.
There is the typical historically inaccurate claim of Santamaria being the entirety of the ALP Right faction that was thrown-out starting in ’55 (Santa was, at best, first among equals while the militant anti-communists were in the ALP tent—it’s only when they heaved off into a separate party that the Santamarian agrarian Catholic fantasy received a political vehicle all its own). Okay, that’s standard Australian Leftliberal/official labour historiography, Russell Braddon territory, nothing new there.
But there are a couple of almost throwaway lines that really struck me as odd coming from a former communist.
Wow. That goes much further than what a progressively soft anti-communist like myself would claim about the dynamics of the era. Whenever I use the term ‘Revolutionary Left’ it’s because there were eventually so many factions of the communists here in this country alone, not because I think any of them were particularly good enough at revolution to implement any change to the ALP. Certainly not after the Cold War swept away the era of good feelings towards Mother Russia.
(I hold to the theory that the CPA were in decline within organised labour by the time of the Split, and that whatever brief victory they experienced thanks to Evatt never changed this. The communists’ political defeats, from Hungary and the Secret Speech onwards to their own Split, only accelarated an existing decline.)
I haven’t read his book, so I don’t know to what extent he attributes this kind of malevolent power to fifties Australian communism (does Aarons say every Red not in his father’s revised CPA was always a Stalinist?). But that one sentence above is as provocative as anything Carr published the other day.
Strewth, this could be the late Donald Horne writing this.
This man sounds more like a PK loyalist than a sentimental Marxist.
Paul, I’m assuming you read the piece by Mark Aarons in the Murdoch broadsheet today, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/holes-in-carrs-revisionist-history/story-e6frg6zo-1225888685802,.
What struck me is that while he disagrees with the central logical logical fallacy of Carr’s article, Aarons isn’t actually endorsing an anti-anti-communist view of Labor history.
There is the typical historically inaccurate claim of Santamaria being the entirety of the ALP Right faction that was thrown-out starting in ’55 (Santa was, at best, first among equals while the militant anti-communists were in the ALP tent—it’s only when they heaved off into a separate party that the Santamarian agrarian Catholic fantasy received a political vehicle all its own). Okay, that’s standard Australian Leftliberal/official labour historiography, Russell Braddon territory, nothing new there.
But there are a couple of almost throwaway lines that really struck me as odd coming from a former communist.
Wow. That goes much further than what a progressively soft anti-communist like myself would claim about the dynamics of the era. Whenever I use the term ‘Revolutionary Left’ it’s because there were eventually so many factions of the communists here in this country alone, not because I think any of them were particularly good enough at revolution to implement any change to the ALP. Certainly not after the Cold War swept away the era of good feelings towards Mother Russia.
(I hold to the theory that the CPA were in decline within organised labour by the time of the Split, and that whatever brief victory they experienced thanks to Evatt never changed this. The communists’ political defeats, from Hungary and the Secret Speech onwards to their own Split, only accelarated an existing decline.)
I haven’t read his book, so I don’t know to what extent he attributes this kind of malevolent power to fifties Australian communism (does Aarons say every Red not in his father’s revised CPA was always a Stalinist?). But that one sentence above is as provocative as anything Carr published the other day.
Strewth, this could be the late Donald Horne writing this.
This man sounds more like a PK loyalist than a sentimental Marxist.
nickws, I’m also yet to read Mark Aarons’ book, but I’ve just re-read his uncle Eric’s autobiography, What’s Left, which also reflects critically and self-critically on the policies and actions of the CPA in the period in question, including fanciful beliefs about the possibility of revolution in Australia and mistaken attitudes towards the ALP. It’s well worth a read whilst you’re waiting for Mark’s book to reach the bookshops.
As I understand it, Mark Aarons is now a social democrat and has been for quite some time (he actually left the party in 1978 or 1979). He is certainly not the only erstwhile CPA member to move in this direction. The views that you cite are entirely consistent with such a perspective.
As for myself, I have written here more than once that on all the defining differences between 1921 (or 1917 if you like) between communists on one hand, and democrat socialists and social democrats on the other, history has found in favour of the latter, and that in a sense movements such as Eurocommunism in the West (including the CPA’s orientation from 1968 onwards) and glasnost and perestroika in the East represent a protracted acknowledgement of historical defeat.
nickws, I’m also yet to read Mark Aarons’ book, but I’ve just re-read his uncle Eric’s autobiography, What’s Left, which also reflects critically and self-critically on the policies and actions of the CPA in the period in question, including fanciful beliefs about the possibility of revolution in Australia and mistaken attitudes towards the ALP. It’s well worth a read whilst you’re waiting for Mark’s book to reach the bookshops.
As I understand it, Mark Aarons is now a social democrat and has been for quite some time (he actually left the party in 1978 or 1979). He is certainly not the only erstwhile CPA member to move in this direction. The views that you cite are entirely consistent with such a perspective.
As for myself, I have written here more than once that on all the defining differences between 1921 (or 1917 if you like) between communists on one hand, and democrat socialists and social democrats on the other, history has found in favour of the latter, and that in a sense movements such as Eurocommunism in the West (including the CPA’s orientation from 1968 onwards) and glasnost and perestroika in the East represent a protracted acknowledgement of historical defeat.
I can’t find Aarons’ book in any bookshop, and am beginning to think it doesn’t exist.
Nickws, I’m not sure that you are entirely right about the CPA’s declining influence in the labour movement. Prominent CPAers ran the metal workers union into the 80s; also the BWIU, the Seaman’s Union and the Miscos (if Ray Gieltzelt was indeed CPA), and smaller unions as well.
Of course, some big prizes: the ironworkers, the clerks, the shoppies, the vehicle builders and the AWU, eluded them.
I can’t find Aarons’ book in any bookshop, and am beginning to think it doesn’t exist.
Nickws, I’m not sure that you are entirely right about the CPA’s declining influence in the labour movement. Prominent CPAers ran the metal workers union into the 80s; also the BWIU, the Seaman’s Union and the Miscos (if Ray Gieltzelt was indeed CPA), and smaller unions as well.
Of course, some big prizes: the ironworkers, the clerks, the shoppies, the vehicle builders and the AWU, eluded them.
Sam, I had a look for it yesterday and the online vendors were saying it’s not available yet.
CPA people were in a left coalition in the AMWU leadership with ALP people and non-party lefties, although what can certainly be said is that the CPA people and various left intellectuals around the CPA did much of the intellectual heavy lifting which informed AMWU strategic thinking.
The BWIU in the 1980s was mainly run by the Association for Communist Unity, although CPA people were also involved and had good relations with the ACU people such as Pat Clancy, Stan Sharkey and Tom McDonald. CPA people were more prominent in the FEDFA which eventually merged with the BWIU as part of the process which created the CFMEU.
The Seaman’s Union leadership tended to be aligned with the SPA. In the Waterside Workers Federation (which eventually merged with the SUA to form the MUA) the CPA activists were involved in the “Wharfie” faction which was one of several contending groups aligned with one or another communist current.
CPA people were also prominent in the teachers’ and public transport unions in the 1980s.
Nonetheless we applauded when Lindsay Tanner sorted out the clerks.
Sam, I had a look for it yesterday and the online vendors were saying it’s not available yet.
CPA people were in a left coalition in the AMWU leadership with ALP people and non-party lefties, although what can certainly be said is that the CPA people and various left intellectuals around the CPA did much of the intellectual heavy lifting which informed AMWU strategic thinking.
The BWIU in the 1980s was mainly run by the Association for Communist Unity, although CPA people were also involved and had good relations with the ACU people such as Pat Clancy, Stan Sharkey and Tom McDonald. CPA people were more prominent in the FEDFA which eventually merged with the BWIU as part of the process which created the CFMEU.
The Seaman’s Union leadership tended to be aligned with the SPA. In the Waterside Workers Federation (which eventually merged with the SUA to form the MUA) the CPA activists were involved in the “Wharfie” faction which was one of several contending groups aligned with one or another communist current.
CPA people were also prominent in the teachers’ and public transport unions in the 1980s.
Nonetheless we applauded when Lindsay Tanner sorted out the clerks.
I knew a bloke who was in the CPA and was an organiser with the Transport Workers. He had to keep his political affiliation very quiet or he would have lost his job immediately.
I knew another bloke who was a prominent comm and was an official with a teacher’s union. He went on holiday once to the US and the FBI followed him everywhere. They were very open about it and very courteous.
I knew a bloke who was in the CPA and was an organiser with the Transport Workers. He had to keep his political affiliation very quiet or he would have lost his job immediately.
I knew another bloke who was a prominent comm and was an official with a teacher’s union. He went on holiday once to the US and the FBI followed him everywhere. They were very open about it and very courteous.
At #253 I forgot to mention the Miners’ Federation (also now rolled into the CFMEU) which had a long history of CPA involvement amongst its leaders and activists which continued into the 1980s.
At #253 I forgot to mention the Miners’ Federation (also now rolled into the CFMEU) which had a long history of CPA involvement amongst its leaders and activists which continued into the 1980s.
Ah, the miners’ federation! An official of theirs told me once that the workers were on strike so often, and so not get paid,
that when they were negotiating wage claims they had to push for really high wages for the times the workers actually worked.
You don’t see trade union militancy like that anymore.
Ah, the miners’ federation! An official of theirs told me once that the workers were on strike so often, and so not get paid,
that when they were negotiating wage claims they had to push for really high wages for the times the workers actually worked.
You don’t see trade union militancy like that anymore.
Us kids grew up being told almost as soon as we could speak, never to mention to our friends, and especially their parents, or our teachers, about our uncles’ being prominent Australian communists. Instead, ‘they worked helping people to build houses and offices’ – that’s BWIU to the rest of us.
One Sunday, on the way home from a family day outing, we dropped into our aunt’s and uncles for a visit. This was pre-mobile days, so they did not know we were coming.
When we arrived, the place was full of men swearing and very angry. My uncle was in bed with a bandaged head, a black eye and one arm in a sling. A few of the other men were also pretty bruised and bloody.
It was the most surreal scene as the only woman present – my aunt – shuttling between the kitchen and the bedroom with cups of tea, biscuits, and bottles of Vodka, muttering “don’t worry hun, we’ll get the bastards, while this room of Aussie blokes swore and drunk like sailors – well building workers actually.
As soon as they noticed us ‘little ones,’ the swearing largely stopped, except then they started babbling in some foreign language I didn’t understand. It was Russian.
Us kids grew up being told almost as soon as we could speak, never to mention to our friends, and especially their parents, or our teachers, about our uncles’ being prominent Australian communists. Instead, ‘they worked helping people to build houses and offices’ – that’s BWIU to the rest of us.
One Sunday, on the way home from a family day outing, we dropped into our aunt’s and uncles for a visit. This was pre-mobile days, so they did not know we were coming.
When we arrived, the place was full of men swearing and very angry. My uncle was in bed with a bandaged head, a black eye and one arm in a sling. A few of the other men were also pretty bruised and bloody.
It was the most surreal scene as the only woman present – my aunt – shuttling between the kitchen and the bedroom with cups of tea, biscuits, and bottles of Vodka, muttering “don’t worry hun, we’ll get the bastards, while this room of Aussie blokes swore and drunk like sailors – well building workers actually.
As soon as they noticed us ‘little ones,’ the swearing largely stopped, except then they started babbling in some foreign language I didn’t understand. It was Russian.
Own it and be proud of the heritage Ossie. It is no small thing. Yr rellos stood up.
Own it and be proud of the heritage Ossie. It is no small thing. Yr rellos stood up.
ant
I love my uncles. I was just doing sharing here, and adding more data to the complex and passionate history. No judging.
ant
I love my uncles. I was just doing sharing here, and adding more data to the complex and passionate history. No judging.
Sam, compared to the forties, communists were much less influential in the broader trades halls organisations and the ACTU in the fifties. Though of course they were still prominent in certain Left unions.
Aarons isn’t even talking about what was going on in the industrial wing of the Labor Movement, he’s talking about the CPA’s ability to seize the Left within the ALP as if that was possible. It wasn’t.
I’m really surprised that he holds to the view that the CPA was serious or capable of taking over the political Labor Left in the same way Santamaria had designs on the ALP.
My response to the allegations about either the fifties CPA or the Church part of the Victorian militant Right was that it doesn’t matter what political fantasies Lance Sharkey or BA Santamaria had, neither of those groups had the power that Aarons’ attributes to them. They weren’t actually the competing sides of the Split.
Fwiw Murray in his book about ’54/’57 has an interesting account of the views of the one communist who served on the Queensland central exective of the ALP (a man whom I think was the only open communist to sit on any Labor Party council anywhere in the country). He opposed the efforts to expel Vince Gair and ministers from the Labor Party as he thought they weren’t that bad a government.
I think that speaks to the CPA’s coherence in the face of events back then. They weren’t taking over any major party anytime soon, regardless of the desire many of them had to be seen as dark conspirators.
Sam, compared to the forties, communists were much less influential in the broader trades halls organisations and the ACTU in the fifties. Though of course they were still prominent in certain Left unions.
Aarons isn’t even talking about what was going on in the industrial wing of the Labor Movement, he’s talking about the CPA’s ability to seize the Left within the ALP as if that was possible. It wasn’t.
I’m really surprised that he holds to the view that the CPA was serious or capable of taking over the political Labor Left in the same way Santamaria had designs on the ALP.
My response to the allegations about either the fifties CPA or the Church part of the Victorian militant Right was that it doesn’t matter what political fantasies Lance Sharkey or BA Santamaria had, neither of those groups had the power that Aarons’ attributes to them. They weren’t actually the competing sides of the Split.
Fwiw Murray in his book about ’54/’57 has an interesting account of the views of the one communist who served on the Queensland central exective of the ALP (a man whom I think was the only open communist to sit on any Labor Party council anywhere in the country). He opposed the efforts to expel Vince Gair and ministers from the Labor Party as he thought they weren’t that bad a government.
I think that speaks to the CPA’s coherence in the face of events back then. They weren’t taking over any major party anytime soon, regardless of the desire many of them had to be seen as dark conspirators.
New post: http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/07/10/angela-shanahans-bizarre-footnote-to-the-carr-version-of-the-aarons-thesis/
New post: http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/07/10/angela-shanahans-bizarre-footnote-to-the-carr-version-of-the-aarons-thesis/