The Nasty Labour Party - what they really stand for.

I really don't see that I should be either hung or shot, Annie. According to you lot I'm one of the Comrades. So I'll be fine.

On the other hand, I do worry about the fascist thought police...

Maizie, I said ‘what a choice’ . As I have said before, do you want to be hanged or shot.

Oh you do use that Marxist blabla so so lightly.

Hobson's choice I said - and yet, if I had to choose between Marxism and Fascism (and we are getting VERY close to that) - I'd go for Marxism everytime.

But the UK deserves much much better than either.

Chomky though has got it right for privatisation - defund, demoralise, make people angry and use that to privatise. Then let shareholders get it for cheap, defrauding the tax payer, suck it dry, not invest or improve or maintain- then the tax payer picks up the bill to bail them out and make up all the deficiencies.

I mean it is so so brilliant as a technique- and it still works, every time- and people just can't or won't see it.

You don't seem too concerned about the swing to the right bringing in a fascist government, though Annie?

A swing to the left will bring in a Marxist government, what a choice , not.

Please do not panic - there is no danger of Britain having a Marxist government. There might be a possibility at the next GE of a bit of a swing to the left - and that is fair enough. The pendulum has swung too far one way and a bit of re-balancing might not come amiss.

Very funny Day6 Although, I think there will be some here who won't get the joke.

Haha, yes Day6 a good summing up on your part about how it sometimes gets on GN they will be comparing
Uni degrees next.
I should think most of us read books like the ‘ragged trousered philanthropist’ ‘down and out in Paris and London’ ‘the road to wigan pier’ etc when at school.
To say that life is much the same today in the UK is crazy.
You can always find examples here and there, but the difference is that back then it was commonplace, many, many people lived in abject poverty.
It’s a ploy of the extreme left to try and say that’s how it still is.

So glad you've found something to help with your insommnia, Day6.

type of control.

Oh and do desist from preaching in a superior manner MaizieD I am sorry if posts from those worried about Labour's far left regime irritate you. When I last looked we were free to air our opinions here.

Or would you prefer some thought of control - like thought police? I'd say Momentum and their deselection of Labourites who don't fit their bill is scarily close to intolerance of what people say, think or write.

Dangerous territory I'd say.

After Marx I found the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists nearer to reality.

And throw in Adam Smith for good measure!

Socialist bibles! Read by many, many people and lots of them not socialist or Marxists.

It's hilarious. Almost like a Peter Cook sketch!

They think they are bamboozling the poor dimwits who don't operate at their level - or like Corbyn and co. Thank you for the laugh!

Here, a whole lists. The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx is the obvious text, but there are more

From a gamers site - of all places - lots of reading recommendations about socialist revolution for you two. waypoint.vice.com/en_us

Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, Debt: The First 5000 Years, and The Utopia of Rules, by David Graber, for some relatively light reading about anarchism from an anthropological perspective

The Communist Manifesto 364 is a great place to start.

The Conquest of Bread 257 by Peter Kropotkin, one of the key texts of anarchist thought

Das Kapital 141 by Karl Marx, if you’re in for a doozy, this one’s long and split into three volumes (the link is only to the first), but is the foundation underpinning much of modern leftist thought.

Anarchism and Other Essays 175, by Emma Goldman, another leftist thinker who was huge in developing anarchist thought in the 20th century

They make Animal Farm seem a bit tame, don't they?

I am going to go with this recommendation for bedtime reading.

"I think Engels’ Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is peerless, and honestly a better intro read (imo) than the Manifesto. It traces the development of pre-Marxist socialist and communist thought, where Marxism breaks with and develops that thought, and gives a very good outline of dialectical materialism and of Marxist political economy."

Wow. I may have found a cure for my insomnia.

Oh and the Marxists.Org site is chock-full of similar scribblings.

You're welcome.

Just study economics for a bit, Day6. Start with searching on 'is a national budget like a household budget?'

And do stop your wild and vituperative accusations. They're very boring.

Why would one vote to be made poorer and lose vital public services just because one didn't like a party leader?

What an incredibly simplistic and smug soundbite MaizieD

I would vote for the continued economic security of the UK, which isn't a bad place to live, despite your incessant whining that everyone is suffering. A Marxist Labour Government as a panacea for all ills? I think not!

Your soundbite is a blatant lie. Tell us about a country where a socialist government has created a Utopia of security for every single citizen? A place where there is no hardship? A place where life isn't unfair?

Labour is likely to make ordinary people poorer and abysmal budgeting is unlikely to make public services any better than they are at present - unless of course Corbyn and Abbot (magic wand experts) find vast sums in their budget to plough into those services. Just pour money in - without thought to mismanagement, corruption and value for money.

One wonders how they would raise these vast sums. Many in the country including former Labour supporters would be extremely worried as to where that lover of the UK's enemies, Corbyn, would make his cuts.

He doesn't seem keen to defend the UK at any juncture.

Oooh, get back in the knife drawer missy!
I was at school at the time I read this book.However, on a personal note, my Grandma told me of those times round about 1912 , when she was growing up, the utter grinding poverty of it.You simply cannot state that things have hardly changed in 100 years in tbe UK and not be challenged on it
Maizie

If that's all you can remember about it then you clearly won't have a clue what I'm talking about.

It would be so much better if you were to confine your comments to things that you do have some knowledge of lemon.

Yes, a very long time ago, all I remember from the novel is
Something about a poor family and a clock, it stops working during the night and he tries to go to work in the middle of the night and is stopped by a policeman, and another character who finds a starving kitten.

To say that nothing much has changed in 100 years is just ridiculous. Even the author ( should he peek down from his Heavenly cloud) would agree with me.

^'very little has changed in a 100 years' you say MaizieD
really?!!^

Have you read it, lemon?

You don't have to have read Marx.

The bit I found interesting was his analysis of what I suppose one could call 'political economy'. The Communist Manifesto was idealistic but clearly flawed; if only because in the 20th century we already knew that, even when given the chance, human nature being what it is, people don't respond in the way Marx and Engels though they would. I think they should have studied the French Revolution a bit more closely.

You can't organise a whole society from scratch though you can certainly effect change if you take it incrementally and by consent.

I remember when I first read The Ragged Trousered Ps thinking how odd it was reading about utilities that were not publicly owned but that individuals were making profits from. "Not like that now" I thought.Just goes to show you never know-In the words of the song "Don't it always seem to go you don't know what you've got till it's gone."

'very little has changed in a 100 years' you say MaizieD
really?!!

so Capitalism isn't working MaizieD now, just interested, is that just here in the UK, or France or Germany or Italy, Spain, USA Canada Australia etc etc etc etc.

it would actually be better and honest of you, if you just said [as grannypauline has] that you consider Communism/Marxism to be the better options.

MaizieD- honest and true answer- no I didn't, first hand.

Of course it's working, Grandad! Lemon says it is...

After Marx I found the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists nearer to reality.

I really enjoyed that book but I don't think I could bear to read it again as very little seems to have changed in 100 years. Even the rhetoric and deep suspicion of anything that goes against the 'established order' is much the same. Too depressing to read it again...