this is a conversation

Michael Schumacher is back!

On the last occasion on which I attended a Formula 1 race (have you ever read an article on a purportedly communist website starting with those words before? Neither have I… never mind, this is a site about 80s music, not politics), the 2006 French Grand Prix, Michael Schumacher won a stunning victory to pull further in on the championship lead of Fernando Alonso. Heralding his comeback after a poor start to the season, the crowd chanted “Schu-mach-er est de retour” (Schumacher’s back).

But now Michael Schumacher is “back” in a rather more literal sense, since this time he actually went away rather than just drifting off the radar of glory-hunting fans as he had three years hence. Having not raced since the end of the 2006 season, Schumacher will deputise for Felipe Massa, who was struck on the head by a 1kg spring during qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix last week, which tore through his helmet and cracked his skull. Ouch.

imperialism and populism in latin america: the case of peru 1968-1975

For many mainstream commentators, the clashes following the coup against soft-left Honduran president Manuel Zelaya fit into the usual analysis of a continent-wide battle between pro-US conservative parties and a radical “pink tide”.  It is indeed striking how prominently supporters of the Honduran military coup allege interference in the country by Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez, a theme also particularly commonplace in the political discourse of the right in Nicaragua, Ecuador and Bolivia. The Times[1] this week approvingly quoted one observer to the effect that “Chávism versus anti-Chávism is a new version of Communism versus anti-Communism”.

However, while the Venezuelan president is evidently an influential and controversial figure and the focus of much attention, we must go beyond the typical media epithets about his personality – ‘firebrand’, ‘outspoken’, and so on – and ask: what dynamics and social forces do these conflicts represent? Why has Chávism and anti-Chávism generalized across Latin America, how irreconcilable are the divisions, and to what extent are these questions of anti-imperialism and class struggle?

To understand what is taking place, it is important to contextualize the supposed “pink tide” led by Chávez in the history of Latin America, and in particular the continent’s many examples of ‘populist’ governments with supposedly ‘anti-imperialist’ and statist agendas. This article looks in particular at the case of the ‘Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces’, which governed Peru from 1968 to 1975.

’80s pop legends vow to clean up parliament

In the week that Elliott Morley was forced to resign over his dodgy expenses and Howard was booted off The Apprentice by Sir Alan (the tenth sacking on the show in as many weeks as the recession takes its toll on jobs), a new face put himself forward for the tough task of reviving the British economy and restoring faith in Parliament.

Well, not quite a new face. David Van Day, front man of 1980s pop duo Dollar and one-time member of Bucks Fizz, has announced his plans to challenge outspoken anti-abortionist Tory MP Nadine Dorries in her Mid Bedfordshire consistuency at the next general election.

Van Day had earlier put himself forward to the public vote in two previous ballots, namely the 2007 council election in East Brighton and the 2008 edition of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!

Standing as a Conservative (in the council elections, that is – I’m a Celebrity…, like the Libyan state, doesn’t allow political parties) Van Day found himself in hot water when he gave a speech after a performance by The Brighton and Hove Actually Gay Men’s Chorus. He commented that the members of the choir “bend over backwards for anybody” and that he didn’t want to “be behind them at the time.”

This type of comment detracts from the good work done by many in the ’80s pop restorationist movement, already long ignored by the left despite the strong correlation between militant strike action and the playing of the hits of Spandau Ballet (the figures for working days lost to strike action and the sales numbers for the cassette single of Gold both having declined by over 90% since the release of the latter on the eve of the 1984-5 Miners’ Strike).

Nonetheless, it is clear that communists can place no faith in the likes of Van Day – not only a one-time member of the Tories and apparent homophobe, but an unreconstructed apologist for Bucks Fizz.

Furthermore, we should realise that the problem with ’80s pop legends is not only that some are ‘corrupt’ ‘bad eggs’ and thus likely to fiddle their expenses, but that its representatives are tied by a thousand strings to the state bureaucracy, British capital and the standing army. They legislate in the interests of their corporate backers, not the movement as a whole, and are thus bound to let down their fans. The problem is not only Van Day himself – we could expect the same sort of behaviour from a Midge Ure or Tony Hadley if they are elected as No2EU members of the European parliament (*).

At best Parliament can be used for propaganda purposes, but it will never be the case that any viable form of ’80s pop will be introduced by predominantly Parliamentary methods – the kind of ’80s pop we envisage can only arise from below, through mass collective action (e.g. singing True Colors by Cyndi Lauper en masse at karaoke nights, as some of us encouraged during the Lindsey Oil Refinery wildcats despite protests from carping sectarian Trotskyites).

As Bucks Fizz themselves sang in their 1981 Eurovision-winning song Making Your Mind Up, we can rely on no heroes and leaders, but ourselves and our own organisations alone, “Trust your inner vision/Dont’ let others change your mind/Do not let your subjectivity succumb to the interference of reactionaries/Basically they’re just paper tigers anyway”.

(*) At the time of going to press, rumours that the two were standing for the RMT-Morning Star-Socialist Party electoral alliance were still unconfirmed.

The London Drinker: scratch a sectarian, find an opportunist

‘Economy and ideology. The claim (presented as an essential postulate of historical materialism) that every fluctuation of politics and ideology can be presented and expounded as an immediate expression of the structure, must be contested in theory as primitive infantilism, and combated in practice with the authentic testimony of Marx, the author of concrete political and historical works.’ – Antonio Gramsci

Communists argue that the struggle to revolutionise society is not only a ‘political’ affair at the level of the state or an ‘economic’ struggle in industry, but also a thoroughgoing ideological battle against the ruling class. It is in this sense that we should welcome the publication The London Drinker, organ of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). Marxists should take ideas seriously, and such a publication can facilitate communication between the class and vanguard elements well-schooled in our collective tradition.

However, communists also realise that their role is not merely to highlight a variety of campaigns or class battles, but to point to the movement as a whole a strategy for moving forward to create a different form of societal organisation. For this very reason, when reading The London Drinker we can discern the fundamentally sectarian mores of CAMRA, who seek not to advance the wider movement but rather to promote their own particular shibboleths and to build their own organisation.

Maoist review of “Blades of Glory”

by Maoist Internationalist Movement

Under the joint dictatorship of the proletariat we won’t need this movie. The plot is too trite and backward. The good guys overcome obstacles to win skating contests; the bad guys cheat and try to murder their way to the same goal–bad. It’s just a comedy with various sexual overtones it is true, and useful for considering in mass entertainment more broadly, not for promotion to the public.

What is worthwhile discussing about this movie is character development. Despite being the heroes, champions Chazz (Will Ferrell) and Jimmy (Jon Heder) pursue their goals thinking nothing of murder plots against them along the way.

The sort of hard-driving characters we see in “Blades of Glory” give the world a sense of how it is that the bourgeoisie can have a peculiar interest in northern Korea. Northern Korea is interesting because it says something about how two skating stars can profit. It is reminiscent of Lenin’s comments about capitalists selling the rope contract for their hanging.

“I went to see High School Musical 4. I loved the tunes but it failed to pose the need for a revolutionary party”…

AWL Review of “In the Loop”: example of rubbish ‘Marxist’ pop-culture analysis.

The plot of In The Loop rushes along like an unstoppable current, with the frantic bumbling and dodgy-dealing characters bobbing on it towards a seemingly inevitable decision to go to war in the Middle East.

The characters, who are either high ranking US state department officials or their British counterparts, are either immoral and get the things they want, or immoral, consistently embarrassed and hapless, and don’t get the things they want. The glimpses of opposition to the War (clearly Iraq) from the key characters are immediately undermined by their own careerism.

In defence of Comrade Neckbeard…

During January’s Gaza war a comrade in The Commune, who writes under the name Joe Thorne and comments as “c0mmunard”, wrote an article on ‘Anti-semitism and the assault on Gaza’. Amidst accusations that a previous article by this comrade lauding the smashing-in of a Starbucks at a demo was a “call for a new Kristallnacht” (!), the article made quite clear that we wanted to drive anti-semitism out of the anti-war movement and that opposition to the Israeli government has nothing to do with attacking Jewish people.

Three months later, someone who had commented on the article at the time wrote a reasonably dry and sane response questioning the author’s terminology, which was then picked up on by a certain “Will”, who runs a one-man “Internationalist Workers’ Tendency” and enthusiastically reported on the critique of the article. I am happy to defend the content of the original piece – although I had not written it – but surely attacking my lovely (it really is lovely) beard is a bit, err, below the belt (to mix metaphors slightly…)

Will wrote:

The Human League…

I had previously hosted a blog “Whatever Happened to Leon Trotsky?” at www.trotskyist.blogspot.com, a blog address which fitted rather better when I was a member of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty than now. The site also fell into ‘disrepair’ as I stopped giving it any attention.

My articles about the labour movement and ‘big politics’ are all at The Commune, but I also wanted to have a space for my more asinine musings on ‘popular culture’ and sectariana (i.e. the popular culture of some terrifying dystopia where the British left is important or powerful).

Furthermore, one of my main ambitions is to feature lots of crudely ‘Marxist’ cultural reviews, in the style of Monkey Smashes Heaven and the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Movement, such as “The Jokers of the world will never destroy the system. Only communist revolution will destroy Batman and the system he represents once and for all.”

The site will also feature a lot of gossip about the far left; YouTube videos of 80s pop hits; and reports on trips to Wetherspoons.