******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. *****************************************************************
I have just finished my morning's trawl though Twitterdom and discovered that the English local election results are depressing. On twitter I do Aaron Bastani and James Butler from Novara Media. Paul Mason, and Richard Seymour, Eoin Clarke, and George Galloway. I occasionally look up George Eaton but his Blairism irritates me beyond measure. I used to do Owen Jones but he sold out on Corbyn and I have no time for traitors. I have not totally in thrall to Twitterdom for I am also reading Michael Lowy on Jewish Libertarian thinkers and Enzo Traverso's book on Left wing melancholia and mining Bloch's *Principle of Hope*. Richard Seymour is a titanic intellectual. I have no doubt about that. But his pessimism leaves me breathless with despair. His site has a picture of the meltdown in the Arctic and the caption - <https://twitter.com/leninology> *"I'm just pointing out, as gently as I can, that we've missed our shot. The world is dying"* Thank you Richard! I tweeted him to take down that picture in the name of Jayzuss. But he ignored me, of course. I am due to give a talk on British Politics to a handful of young revolutionaries. I will try to be realistic but what is more important it is vital to keep alive the spark of hope for a better world. I am convinced or partly convinced that somewhere soon there will be a break through. Yet, the Arab Revolution has been drowned in blood. Sanders and Corbyn have been surrounded and contained. Trump is in the White House. That piece of filth, Vladimir Putin is ensconced in the Kremlin. May will continue to be in No 10 and in all likelihood the odious Macron will be residing in the Élysée Palace. I won't mention China. Its leadership is too low even to curse. But still surely that cannot be our future. I am much attracted to the Messianic thinking of Buber, Rosenzweig and Benjamin. Both Benjamin wrote of the future not as 'a homogeneous and empty time... For in it every second was the narrow gate, through which the Messiah could enter'. Rosenzweig talked of the 'greet deeds of liberation' as in indispensable preconditions' for the advent of the Messiah and the Kingdom of God. For me, naturally, the socialist revolution is the equivalent of the Kingdom of God on earth. I will have no personal truck with god bothering but am sympathetic to radicals who do. But my faith and it is faith in a possible future break in the status quo brings to mind Trotsky's testament where he writes "My faith in the communist future of mankind is not less ardent, indeed it is firmer today, than it was in the days of my youth." That is possibly the best antidote to the current state of affairs revealed by my morning visit to Twitterdom comradely Gary _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
