for lefties too stubborn to quit
In the Weekly Worker from the -erm… CPGB, there’s this useful analysis of M5S (actually I’ve always liked the CPGB outfit and more from them during the week). Got to be honest, I think M5S is a most curious operation, and this hasn’t changed my mind in the slightest.
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The Cedar Lounge Revolution
The M5S is an odd outfit whose main ideology seems to be the techno-managerialism of Silicon Valley where everything would be fine if enough people had the right IT system so they could participate in an unmediated process, cutting out the `politics’ to get to `what works’. They can be deeply unpleasant on some things, and have no problem accepting one-time Fascists into the movement.
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Susan Watkins seemed a bit more positive about them in this essay from the current New Left Review. An essay worth reading.
https://newleftreview.org/II/98/susan-watkins-oppositions
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That is so, and thaks for that. But here’s what the CPGB author stated in their article:
“In particular Tariq Ali of New Left Review, the lead speaker at an anti-European Union rally in London on June 13 2016. Although the lead article, ‘Oppositions’, in New Left Review (March-April 2016) was written by his wife, Susan Watkins, it is hard to imagine that comrade Ali did not have a serious input into its general line.”
What condescension!
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Yeah, that’s pretty poor, to put it mildly.
I like the Susan Watkins piece, but it did strike me watching it how she doesn’t address the phenomenon of Ciudanos which reminds me of M5S, albeit it is much more clearly right of centre.
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I read the article twice and have to say that I found it somewhat superficial and tendentious. Probably because of the usual rupturist (vis-a-vis the EU) subtext. Not up to the usual NLR standards.
Unlike the CPGB author, I am in no position to judge whether the source is Ms. Watkins or Mr. Ali.
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Mrs Roddy has “a serious input ” into everything I post here!
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https://thisishell.com/interviews/905-david-broder
How the radical left lost Italy’s anti-establishment vote.
JUN 18
Episode 905: Beyond Bars
905davidbroder
In Italy, the idea of direct democracy was never associated straightforwardly with anti-austerity movements, in the way we’ve seen in other countries. It’s more a rejection of existing political structures, but often more posed as distaste for establishment corruption. This kind of call for democracy doesn’t have any necessary leftist or progressive content.
Live from Rome, historian David Broder surveys the rise of Five Star Movement (M5S) in contemporary Italian politics – as a reaction against not only political corruption, but immigration and the public sector – and explains how the success of M5S’s reactionary, sometimes fascist-inclusive brand of direct-democracy points towards a failure of the radical left to link popular anti-establishment anger with an alternative vision of an Italian future based on solidarity and the common good.
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The 5 star movement has gained in popularity in Italy because of its anti-corruption and anti-politicians wasting public money on inflated salaries and because it stretches out a helping hand to ordinary people etc.
I can understand where people are coming from when they are worried about the 5 star movement’s rightist inclinations. https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2014/10/16/ukips-european-parliament-group-collapses/
However, whatever the origins of the idea, I have no doubt the 5 star movement activists and elected politicians are truly convinced they are engaged in a “clean-up public life in Italy” campaign and are working to improve living conditions in the country.
And they are acting sincerely in this belief.
For example a percentage of TDs salaries is put into a fund to create credit for micro-working set-ups for ordinary people who do not have access to credit e.g. a dressmaker or dry cleaners and so forth
Here’s what happened in Tarquinia (near Rome) http://www.tarquinia5stelle.it/i-consiglieri-regionali-del-m5s-restituiscono-750mila-euro-su-un-fondo-per-il-microcredito-ad-aziende-e-famiglie/
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Italy is a total basket case in terms of left politics. The Italians I know are in despair about the situation there.
It just struck me that, although there is clearly no appetite for a new PD crowd in Ireland a 5-Stars-like outfit could prosper. I don’t believe Ireland has become any less corrupt under the FG/Lab dispensation.
If they named names on corruption and had deep pockets to pay the libel lawyers.
Alternatively some of the left parties could start using Dáil privileges to the same effect.
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