And what in the world is the “power criminal class”… do you mean the bourgeoisie?

“all you know about whose running for election is what the media tells you, or lies about.”

Right. You’re barking up the wrong tree, buddy; why don’t you take a good look around the site before you post.

If you wanted change, you’d have voted for Mike Gravel or Ron Paul – they’re not lying scumbag politicians, but all you know about whose running for election is what the media tells you, or lies about.

The miner’s strike predates New Labour’s total ascendency, back then even Militant Labour was nearing its peak. And of course Labour should’ve been more spirited against Thatcher, but that didn’t change the fact that the Keynesian model reached an impass in the 1970s. Even the Conservatives were wedded to it, which caused the spiraling inflation of the 70s in the UK.

There was also a groundswell of resentments against unions in the UK. So you had a combination of an electorate against you, the world economy against you, what where they suppose to do besides for figure out a way to get into office and figure out a model that attempted to at least preserve part of the aim of social justice but reconciled to neoliberal economic ideology.

Now we’ve seen a rejection of “third way” social democracy in Europe for a variety of reasons, there needs to be a left alternative, a post-capitalist one.

What could the Labour Party leadership have done? It could have supported the 1984-85 miners’ strike, for starters. While out of office it could have put up far more determined resistance to Thatcher’s desire to destroy the British labor movement. And in office the very least it could have overturned what are still the most restrictive labor laws in Western Europe. I don’t believe that it was an absolute necessity for the LP leadership to be so overtly hostile to the unions in order to govern. And even if it was, it was still a betrayal of the very basis of the LP.

Labour had to figure out how to cope with electoral failings, a vanishing industrial proletariat and the hegemony of neoliberal thought in an era of globalization. They had to move somewhere. I don’t blame New Labour; even though they happily embraced every morsel of neoliberal dogma, it’s not like they were marching out of step with the rest of the world.

The idea of deregulation and allowing markets to flow freely while using social taxation to maintain chunks of the welfare state appealed to the middle class.

With the collapse of state socialism and its utter discrediting what alternative did anyone really have? The left alternative didn’t exist, its was just a mere depoliticized mess of identity politics reacting to forces far beyond its power. And to be honest the left didn’t mind this position. In the same way it glorified any and all “resistance” movements under the sun, the whole postmodernist notion to “changing the world without taking power” all demonstrated an inability of the left to interpret the world and come up to protagonistic solutions. Instead the anti-capitalistic left today has basically accepted capital, the idea of the nation state, etc etc, and merely aspires to put up resistance to it and set up little zones of autonomy from it. Obviously resistance for resistances sakes reinforces the paradigm that we will aways be the oppressed and they the oppressors.

It’s not a matter of creating parties of the left, it’s about creating viable alternatives and rallying the elements of the left and the radical segments of the trade unionship behind these programs. The calls of the radical left are so vague right now.

Of course the center-left right now does have a program and is trying to sell that program — a sort of neo-keynesianism, fair trade, cap and trade. They have mainstream unions, think tanks, media elements all pursuing this aim and center-left opinion is relatively united across the developed world.

The neoliberals of course created the most dominant world ideology in history that absolutely changed the world by taking power. They reasserted class power and promised (and to an extent) delivered on a world predicated upon freedoms (as opposed to democracy).

Right-reactionaries are reacting to the expansion of EU, the turmoil of the markets, the influx of immigration, multi-cultural inroads with well… reactionary ideology.

What I’m trying in a round about fashion was there really was no left for the sons to go to. There needs to be a coherent, somewhat united democratic, egalitarian program.

At least in the 1930s they knew what they wanted to do. Overthrow the bourgeoisie with workers and soldiers, establish Soviets, nationalize everything into a planned economy, etc etc. The Soviet Union was the “example”, the alternative that many radicals admired and the ruling class feared. What do we have now? There’s a reason why Labour voters stayed home or voted Green even if at points during their lifetimes they identified as socialists, some even Trotskyists.

(This is more in reference for the European situation, as for the United States, I think I’ll settle for universal health care and some higher education subsidies and call it a day.)

British Labor politicians are cleverer and more articulate than U.S. Democrats but their very beautiful patter can be more content free than the breeziest Obama speech.

I don’t know how it is that sons of the late lamented Ralph Miliband grew up so pro-capitalist.

Speaking of Miliband his sons are New Labour and getting caught in that Gordon Brown fiasco. To their credit they are on the “left-wing of New Labor,” which I suppose is the center as opposed to the center-right.