Wednesday 12 February 2014

Dialectics 2: I thought the word 'Workers' in Galway Socialist Workers Party was a real word

I've been at it again, thinking undialectically. In everyday talk this means that I didn't realise that what I know to be the truth is actually the opposite of the truth i.e. a wicked lie that only serves imperialism. I confess my error and am truly thankful to Galway Socialist Workers Party (pictured above) for putting me right. 

It all started late last night when I noticed that Galway SWP are holding a meeting this very evening on the subject of 'Poetry, Politics and the Left'. I should have looked away but I am a weak man. And not just when it comes to Galway SWP. 

Moments earlier I clicked like on a photograph of Jeff Goldblum (pictured below) and as a result got caught up in a Facebook fad in which anyone who clicks like on a Jeff Goldblum photo has to themselves post a photograph of, yes, Jeff Goldblum.
It should be pointed out that Jeff Goldblum (pictured above on the right) has never, so far as I am aware, had any connection with Galway SWP (pictured below with the sign about the C.I.A.). 
Anyway, as I say, I am a weak man and plead guilty. I should have continued looking at pictures of Jeff Goldblum but didn't. Instead, I clicked that I would be attending the Galway SWP event. It was the event's title that grabbed me. 'Poetry, Politics & the Left' was also the title of an interview Red Banner magazine in Dublin did with me back in 2009. You can read that here

Then, in a particular moment of madness, I posted a link to this poem, on the Facebook page of Galway SWP's 'Poetry, Politics & the Left' event. It's about an entirely fictional Community Employment Scheme where the rights of the employees were trampled on. The title of the poem is simply 'Community Employment Scheme'. Read for yourself. 

What I got wrong is I assumed that the word 'Workers' in Galway Socialist Workers Party meant that they would like such a poem, which is, after all, written from the point of view a FÁS (now Solas) scheme participant. I thought the word 'Workers' in Galway Socialist Workers Party was a real word. Seems it's more like the 'Democratic' in German Democratic Republic

It was the dialectics that got me, your honour. If I'd looked at the issue from the point of view of the anti-imperialist struggle in Iraq/Afghanistan/Syria/Palestine, I'd have known that not all abusive and incompetent FÁS scheme managers are actually abusive and incompetent. Those are just more words. And the words people use to describe the things that happen to them are subjective i.e. their own and so are not to be trusted.

If I'd looked at it from the correct Marxist position i.e. while standing on my head in the middle of Shop Street and listening to Galway SWP (pictured above) shout slogans down a megaphone, I'd have known that sometimes it's not that simple. 

Sometimes the not at all abusive, not at all incompetent FÁS scheme manager is actually an anti-imperialist who's forever big mouthing it about Iraq and Shannon and Palestine. 

In such instances, in the interests of the anti-imperialist struggle, a real Marxist would say that those bastard Community Employment Scheme participants deserve everything they get:

that it's okay if their wages were paid late;

that it's okay for their Manager to write secret reports about them, full of things that are well, not true, and then circulate said reports to the Board and another employee;

that it's okay that the Scheme participants themselves should not be shown these reports, or be given a chance to respond to them;

that it's okay that the Scheme participants should only learn of these reports' existence when the Manager is stupid enough to leave them in an envelope on one scheme participant's desk;

that it's okay when the scheme participants eventually resign and find other employment that the Scheme Manager should, on a number of occasions, use the company website to post demeaming and abusive comments about these now former employers;

that it's okay that said Scheme Manager should email people, who the former scheme participants go on to work with, to try and make trouble for them in their new employments.

I should have realised that it's fine to do all of these things so long as you're also prepared to rattle on about Iraq and Shannon and drones and Afghanistan in the pages of the Ballygar Arsewipe.  

Furthermore, I should also have known that it's very, very okay for the Socialist Workers Party to support such an individual by signing petitions asking the government to give them more money and describing him in their paper as someone who always speaks his mind.

Within minutes Galway Socialist Workers Party deleted the link to my poem which I posted with only the following fairly mild commentary: 

"This is a poem about a corrupt and abusive government back to work scheme." 

I thank the Galway SWP for giving me this lesson in the dialectics of anti-imperialism. I was lost. But now I'm found.