Sunday, May 17, 2015

Labour’s rebirth requires a grassroots revolution, not more diktats and spin

Click here to access article by George Monbiot from The Guardian.

I am posting this as an excellent example of what passes as left politics (often referred to as "liberal" politics) in capitalist media. Because of the Tory victory in Britain's recent elections, widespread pessimism has engulfed British labor-oriented activists. This article is essentially a sop to those people. 

Monbiot uses the language of real revolutionary activists to advocate community organizing, but his meaning is very different from those activists. His use of a "grassroots revolution" clearly means local organizing within the interstices of capitalist societies to win elections and to alleviate the worst ravages of the system--nothing more. This is a form of conceptual co-optation used to convert revolutionary language into acceptable language that does not threaten the capitalist system. This treatment gives Monbiot and others like him access to major left-capitalist publications like the Guardian.