2nd interview :)

Here I interview the excellent socialist blogger Choler.I first met him in late 2008.

Describe your political views…

I am a socialist who comes from the Trotskyist tradition…of course terms like ‘socialist’ and ‘Trotskyist’ are open to the widest (and occasionally murderous) possible debate! But they’re as good a place to start as any.

How did you become a socialist?

Initially it grew out of a combination of factors. My 1960s hippy-dippy Christianity. A sense that the world was broken and deeply unfair. My very poor working class background, and opposition to the war in Vietnam. All against the background of a radicalised decade. However this built into a rather ‘liberal’ Christian Socialism and didn’t really evolve into anything harder until:
a) I lost my faith (aged about 14), and
b) Lost my Stalinism (I had been influenced a lot by Mao) when I joined the Trotskyist Wrokers Revolutionary Party after I had left school in October 1974 (a very political year with a miners strike, energy crisis, a panicking Tory government and two General Elections).

The WRP was and remains the biggest single influence in my life.

Tell me about your time in the WRP

I was a member of the WRP (the Workers Revolutionary Party, the British section of the International Committee of the Fourth International. It’s trade union section the All Trades Union Alliance, and it’s youth section the Young Socialists) for a very brief period of my life, but was profoundly influenced by that period. That’s because my time there was so intense. The Party would later admit that they burnt out activists with too much work and a typical day might include: receive a phone call at work (I was then a lowly bank clerk) and after work go to a Young Socialist branch meeting (not my own) to speak and perhaps organise a paper sale. Then return to the Party HQ for a meeting of the leaders of the three branches in the Brixton area. These meetings were full of criticism and self-criticism and quite intense (there’s that word again). Then I might sleep over and be woken up in the early hours before being driven to Oxford where we would sell papers outside the car plant, and be driven from there back to work.

Party work was very much seven days a week and I remember having to ask once for an hour and a half off on a Saturday (usually paper sales outside Brixton tube station in the day followed by pubs in Lambeth during the night) so I could watch West Ham play in a FA cup final.

The longest lasting effect of my time in the Party was the education I received there. It was a basic tenant of the W RP that everyone should receive instruction in Marxist philosophy. And the classes were frequently given by Gerry Healy the party’s (now controversial) leader. These classes weren’t just about the politics of the day but the complex ins and outs of Dialectical Materialism. And for this I am very much grateful for the time I spent in the party. They sharpened my mind and turned it into a weapon…which is kind of the point of a revolutionary party.

I left mentally and physically exhausted after just one year, but nothing I have ever done has changed me as much as that time. And much of the man that I became (for good or bad) was forged then.

Thanks. Let’s now talk about some current issues. What do you think of the coalition?

I hate it with a fiery fucking passion! And blame the Lib Dems totally for everything that has happen since it came to power. The Tories did not win the last election…given how shite Labour was perhaps they should have, but they didn’t! Cameron and Osbourne owe their power to Lib Dem votes. And only those votes are keeping them in power. Everything that the Tories do…the cuts and everything that has followed can be laid at that utter scumbag Nick Clegg’s door (along with dog turds and IEDs*).

Indeed my angry and sarcastic socialist blog (choler.co.uk) is my attempt to get back into political activity and is massively inspired by my hatred of Nick Clegg! And if you are interested and forget the word choler then google ‘I hate Nick Fucking Clegg’ (or similar) and you’ll sure to find me.

*I would like to make it clear that I am currently not suggesting that you blow up the Deputy Prime Minister…that would be illegal. Please assume that I’m being satirical…or something!

What are your views on the riots?

Too complex a subject to be dealt with here. I could be glib and say it has economic causes and leave it at that or direct you to a couple of articles on the riots on choler. The first by my beloved comrade girlfriend (writing as ‘Harpy’) http://choler.co.uk/?p=1233 or my own poor scribblings http://choler.co.uk/?p=1242

Views on hackgate?

I want to see Rupert Murdoch and his entire criminal crew strung up by the ankles in much the same way as Benito Mussolini was*. Also http://choler.co.uk/?p=1143 and http://choler.co.uk/?p=1093

*See the starred footnote above…satire blah blah blah.

Finally, you always seem to be bitching about liberals! Why do you hate them so much?

From the very beginnings of working class radicalism the Liberals have been seen as the dishonest enemy, always likely to stab the class in the back. And this has never been more true today. i detest the lying hypocritical DOG SHOOTING scumbags. I could mention the Great Reform Act (which disenfranchised the few workers who had the vote), or Tower Hamlets racism, or the the Jeremy Thorpe case http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xi-agPf95M but will instead concentrate on their homophobic election campaign in South Bermondsy. Simon Hughes (yes, he) ran a campaign against Peter Tatchell that in no way was different from that ran by local fascists. And I saw evidence of it as I worked in the area at the time.

SCUMBAGS!!!

First interview!

I met ML in late 2007 at a club in Cambridge. He’s currently about to start a physics PhD. He’s a member of the Green party and has contributed to changing their science policy.

Me: How would you describe your political views?

ML: Very left-wing is probably the simplest description. I’m in favour of what might be called socially liberal policies, like decriminalizing drugs, permitting gay marriage, unrestricted abortion and so on, but am more authoritarian on economic matters. So I’d be keen on, for instance, nationalizing a very wide range of industries, limiting wages to fall within a very small range, capping prices for all sorts of goods and services or providing them directly by the state, free of charge. I’m not quite in favour of a Stalinist-style command economy; my ideal state would have a lot of automated planning of infrastructure and production details, using the best computerized simulation and modelling available at the time, rather than having to give too much power over specifics to corruptible or under-informed individuals or committees. Another very important factor in my views is environmental sustainability, so I support things like ending the pursuit of constant economic growth, reducing the population (especially in developed countries), reducing consumption and waste of many types of resources, reducing greenhouse gas production, reversing environmental degradation of many kinds.

I’m a Green Party member because they provide the closest match for my views of the available parties (or at least, of the parties able to put up candidates across the whole country). However, I don’t agree with the party line on all points, and indeed have contributed to changing party policy on certain issues e.g. embryonic stem cell research and alternative medicine.

Me:  Tell me more about how you contributed to changing green party policy on scientific issues...

ML: When I joined a couple of years ago, there were a few Green Party science/health-related policy areas I was very unhappy with. Fortuitously, around the same time I joined, many other people seemed to be joining with similar ideas, and a new science policy mailing list was set up to discuss and hopefully reform this area (similar lists already existed for members who were interested in particular other areas). We discussed things for several months on the list and drew up a set of motions for policy amendment we wanted discussed at the next party conference. One small change I was involved in there was removing a previous policy which would have required newly-qualified scientists of many kinds to take a pledge (under a hypothetical Green government) to respect the earth and all life upon it. Most of us on the list felt this well-intentioned pledge would probably be at best pointless and at worst actively counterproductive, in that it would annoy many scientists by singling them out etc.

I also ended up joining the health policy mailing list and pushed very hard to get people talking about the policy to completely ban all embryonic stem cell research, as part of a general review of the health policy chapter of the manifesto, which was being carried out at the time. I got feedback from one of the people who had written the original policy, and found out the arguments behind it (which seemed more reasonable in 1999/2000, before much regulation of the field had been established). I did a certain amount of research on the topic, and managed to persuade the writer of the original policy that it needed amending. He was too busy to draft a new version, so I wrote one, and it ended up being voted in at the next conference.

(To clarify, the current Green Party policy is wholehearted support for embryonic stem cell research!)

Me:  How do you feel about the coalition?

ML: On the main areas e.g. massive cuts, increased privatization of essential public services, they’re just doing what I would have expected a basically Tory government to do. I’m very disappointed that this time they’ve managed to drag the Lib Dems down with them, alienating many former supporters and moving us more towards a US-style two-party system. Clegg’s main reward for the coalition agreement, and my one big hope for the coalition – the referendum on AV – was poorly managed by pro-AV campaign leaders, and brilliantly played by the other side, notably Cameron himself, and ended up being a huge missed opportunity. Even the purported improvements in civil liberties seem yet to materialize (with the exception of scrapping ID cards), and kneejerk responses to the riots, of the curfew and zero tolerance sort, are only promising to make things worse in that area.

That said, I suppose it’s not all awful. Some U-turns have been done on threatened plans which evoked significant public and/or Lib Dem unhappiness – the forest sell-off, some details of NHS “reform”, ring-fencing of university science budgets. In the end the government accepted expert recommendations on carbon emissions cuts, despite reports that Huhne was under pressure (from Vince Cable!) to backtrack on them. That was one of the things I wrote to my (Lib Dem) MP about recently, and I have to say I think he’s a very decent MP, who takes his constituents’ views seriously. I wouldn’t vote for his party though.

Me: Do you think coalition policies are in part to blame for the recent riots?

ML: Yes. Even if the riots were not consciously conceived as any sort of deliberate protest against particular policies, it seems very likely to me that impending cuts (especially in higher education, EMA, and council-funded community projects directed at young people), the spectre of worsening unemployment (especially for the young) and the increasing gap in earnings, housing and lifestyle between different parts of our society, have encouraged pre-existing feelings of hopelessness, alienation and anger in many younger, poorer people. A race-related act of perceived police brutality (as in the Los Angeles riots of 1992, the Watts riots of 1965, the 80s riots in Brixton and Broadwater Farm, and many others) then acted as a catalyst. Damaged police morale (due in part to prospective cuts to police funding) may also have weakened the police response.

Many of the roots of these problems go back to the previous government as well, or even earlier, but I think the coalition’s policies (and indeed its membership, with far more ultra-wealthy public school-educated types than under Labour) have worsened them.

Me:  Any views on the US debt downgrade?

ML: I don’t feel able to make any particularly informed comments on the US credit rating downgrade. It strikes me that it doesn’t seem to have brought about immediate and overwhelmingly negative consequences for the States (at least, not ones distinguishable from other international financial woes at the moment), as one might have been led to expect by those arguing for massive cuts here in order to avoid a similar downgrading for the UK. I also get the impression that the far right in the US contributed to the downgrade by their intransigence over any Democrat proposal to deal with debt involving even the smallest element of increased taxation.

Me:  To what extent do you think Murdoch is weakened by the NI hacking scandal?

ML: Murdoch – I don’t really know how weakened he is. Hopefully a lot! He’s an old man, and his offspring seem rather less driven than him; with any luck his empire will fizzle out over the next couple of decades. An even better outcome, I think, would be an independent press regulatory body that actually has some teeth to deal with the rampant unethical behaviour in a wide range of our newspapers, not just Murdoch’s lot.

I’ve started interviewing people by email. There should  be some content soon .

I have a large number of knowledgeable and interesting friends and acquaintances. I therefore thought that trying to interview as many of them as possible would make an excellent project. The interviews will be about their political views mainly, but I expect we’ll also talk about religion, science, philosophy and anything else that comes up. Some interviews will be in the form of IM interviews, or email interviews, and some will be in-person interviews. It all depends on what can be scheduled!