If Brad wants people to listen or read carefully perhaps he ought to read carefully himself.
>People get killed. The whole political spectrum lurches to the right.
was the most 'hysterical' thing I said. I did not predict an imminent fascist takeover.Presumably Brad is confident and can reassure us that people will not get killed. As for the suggestion that the whole political spectrum now lurches to the right, is that too controversial?
Brad:
>5) The independent/"Trotskyist" Left should not fall
>into the trap of "taking responsibility" for Jospin's
>defeat. Instead, it must take responsibility for the
>fact that it now, collectively, has a mass base of
>support by forming a united front among themselves,
>to present a show of unity to their supporters.
Not only should they take responsibility, as the arithmetic shows, but Brad has just pointed out how in his opinion they should take responsibility!
>The struggle to abolish capitalism is not risk-free -
>that is why fascism comes into existence. But
>accomodation with capitalism also carries the risk of
>paving the way for fascism as well - look at Venezuela
>today. But this is definitely NOT the case in France.
>"The danger of fascism remains everywhere under
>conditions of bourgeois democracy", is an empty
>abstraction only implicitly true of capitalism in
>general, and not just those of "bourgeois democracy".
>It is not true in every concrete instance, and it is
>not true in the present instance of France.
But no mere abstraction.
> A fascist takeover is not imminent in France. The
>hysterics are rhetoric as empty as the abstractions
>deployed to buttress it.
Perhaps Brad could quote from the post where I said a fascist takeover is imminent in France. What is the point of arguing with a different position to that of your opponent if you want to oppose him or her?
Brad's own post, despite his words, suggests that even the ultra-left should take some notice of what has happened.
>The reference to Dimitrov was hopefully in jest.
Then why is Brad saying that the small ultra-leftist parties should indeed be responsible enough to take lessons from this triumph of Le Pen and form a "united front"?
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/
While appearing to address the issues IMO Brad's post muddles them up by innuendo, and is not internally consistent in its principles.
Chris Burford