When I grow up, can I be Norm Geras?

http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2009/03/low-marx.html

Not enough materialism?..Pah, I say!

The future of Socialism?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/10/venezuela-chavez-bodies-exhibition

No

For geeks, members of the Twelve Colonies and any passing Cylon infiltrator

I am a geek. I live with it, this tragic terrible affliction and thus readers of this blog must suffer it too. As season 4 of the new BSG reaches its climax and the run ends, I have been reading a bit behind both the conception and its birth.

I stumble across this article by fellow fan-boy and general wit and humourist John Hodgman

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/magazine/17GALACTICA.html

I am hopeful that I can convince my friend Humpers to do a guest post once the series concludes. I will say this now though. BSG might have used analogies with recent events such as mass terrorism, religious fanaticism, suicide bombing and torture, but it made its points general. No goodies were a valiant administration facing down terror or provoked desperate and heroic freedom fighters. No baddies were agressive imperialist pig-dogs or savage theocratic brutes. No cut outs, no easy points. Rather BSG sought to use the initial logic of its premise, infused with a raw emotional power to produce a insightful look at human complexities.

See, horrid aren't I, even worst with the Wire :)

After the Etonians and after October

Please go read Andrew Coates excellent review of 'Waiting for the Etonians' here:-

http://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2009/03/05/wating-for-the-etonians-review-of-nick-cohens-latest-book/

I was particularly taken by the last paragraph. After agreeing with Cohen's attacks on much of the 'actually existing' left, Coatsy adds

'But there is a left that it emerging. It is one the spans the distance between radical social democracy, Compass, the unions, the small independent socialist publications, such as Labour Left Briefing, Chartist, and many others on the democratic socialist left, a gamut of groups, feminist, gay, anti-racist, green, and which extends to many on the ‘far left’ who are fiercely democratic. Ideas are now being developed, on welfare, public ownership and working conditions, that connect with the legacy of the socialist and labour movement. A left that never had any time for tyrants and dictatorships of whatever ilk, Stalinist, Nationalist, or Religious. Or so I think – because I come from this movement. As do many. It’s a shame that other than offering some warmed over diatribes, and a few real insights on class and culture, wrapped in well-written prose, that Nick Cohen doesn’t seriously engage with us. Perhaps the East Wind has frozen his frowning face.'

A left that is proud of and devoted to democracy and removing the inherent hypocrisies from the classic rights of Liberalism. That despises tyrants of every ilk, that has a moral compass with more points on it than howling fascist or uncritical worship, that thinks. That is the left we must build, one that both see today as what it is and is equipped with the tools and passion of hundreds of years of democratic struggle. One that realises the horror done in the name of it's ideals and that 1914 was not some new dawn, but a trauma that we have yet to recover

Both H/T and hats off Tendance Coatsy