Today, we commemorate the passing of Peadar O’Donnell, a man who dedicated his life to the cause of socialist-republicanism. While there is far too much to cover in such a short space, we will try to touch on the highlights.
Jacobin is not a socialist paper. It exists because the US capitalist media allows it. Their ideology is characterised by their inability to see beyond electoral politics even in the face of persistent failure, and their role as a mouthpiece of US imperialism. Despite their aesthetic, the “Brooklyn Socialism” of Jacobin amounts to little more than the same meek demands of democratic socialism, but in radical dress.
Why discuss a fictional group from a Japanese video game? Very simply because as the extraction of mako threatens the world of our characters, so too does the extraction and burning of fossil fuels threaten the death of our own. We see a similar trend among ecological movements here too. Groups such as Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion and Earth First!, though correct in their analysis that climate change is a matter that will have catastrophic effects on us all, have disconnected the ecological movement from the broader class struggle, missing the forest for the trees, if you’ll indulge me.
Whether by directly improving workers’ pay and conditions, promoting progressive legislation, or reducing economic inequality, being a member of a trade union provides a unique opportunity to proactively remedy social and economic inequity. Trade unions provide an avenue to dissolve the fetters imposed upon ordinary citizens by those who profit from their immiseration. They can help to build a foundation upon which society can be built anew.
The bogeyman of the welfare cheat is used to accentuate divisions among the working class and create a scapegoat which redirects anger away from the capitalist class. This myth is perpetuated by the capitalist class and their mouthpieces in the media and in government, through over the top articles, wasteful government campaigns and anti-working-class rhetoric.
Carl Friedrich wrote that a totalitarian party is one with “a totalist ideology, a party reinforced by a…police and monopoly control of…industrial mass society”. That is exactly what the party of the capitalist class in any capitalist nation is. It controls industrial mass society and the government of the capitalist nation and the working class are given no say.
“It is hard to watch things back home and see how they should be done, and how they could be done. Its not rocket science. The people and the party go hand in hand, and people do see the benefit of doing these things and that’s why they’re happy to do it”
In April 1989, Dynamo Dresden were playing in the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup. The GDR national team was set to qualify for the 1990 World Cup as they eliminated the Olympic champions, the USSR. If East German football was so strong, how is it almost non-existent in 2021?
The government has completely dropped the ball in its response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and pursued a reactive, rather than a proactive strategy. This is in marked contrast to the country at the epicentre of the pandemic: China
This “Super League” shows the consequences that out-of-control, deregulated capitalism has on a working-class sport. The news, which had so many football fans up in arms, should be seen in the context of the consequences of capitalism that will commercialise anything in society, even sports.