Lenin, like Meaders, like Nick Davies, is spot-on with symptoms, diabolical with analysis.
"The fact that the demand for prostitution is increasing tells us something about the parlous condition of gender relations in this country."
Can't disagree with that, old boy. It's just the diagnosis that's up the Swanee.
The family unit has been the chief way in which the reproduction of labour has been guaranteed under industrial capitalism. The woman's subordinate role in the household and in society has ensured that the exploited male worker ... the Mad Mahdi 'family as capitalist invention' theory.
It's entertaining to read the 153 comments, from people who I'll hazard a guess are rearing about 5 children between them - especially when you consider that his political allies are a bunch of people who know all about the importance of the family - and are highly successful at both raising children in quantity and passing on their culture to them.
Media comment is mainly in the traditional 'aren't we Brits a bunch of sad, hung-up hypocrites when it comes to sex work ?' mode, with a few 'the debate shows how far we have advanced' dissenters. Traditional Guardianista ambivalence is in full effect. As I wrote many a moon back :
Is selling sex in all its forms, from car adverts through Page Three and ladmag shoots to Amy and Lara, a major cause of gang rape, frustration and impotence, and eating disorders (Ms Bunting), ‘violence against women’ (femiluni Julie Bindel), is it just another job - sex work, or is it ‘a girl power thing’ where the exploited are the poor sad male punters (A Good Thing) rather than the girls (A Bad Thing) ?
They still don't know - and they may never.
The other foolishness I've noted is the Saudi arms deal affair. From Shuggy and Paul Anderson on the left to The Lone Voice on the right, horror is the order of the day.
I'd recommend anyone commenting on this issue to take a look at Anthony Sampson's book The Arms Bazaar. Bribery and large arms contracts have been together for a very long time. If we don't bribe others will. Even senior people in Western democracies can be bribed.
Now it's not unreasonable to say - no. We shouldn't bribe. Let others do it - we won't. Fine. If you don't want to bribe, get out of the arms trade. Which means closing a large chunk of what remains of Britain's technically advanced manufacturing industry. And in this case it also means a rupture with a powerful (we've sold them all that kit) oil-rich nation bordering Iraq. You can see why HMG might blink at this.
Amazingly, the most logical contribution I've seen on this comes from BNP blogger John Bull.
I have no idea whether BAE paid certain Saudi royals a 'commission' or not, and now that the inquiry has been dropped we shall never know. But so what if they did? How was any Briton harmed by this? The point of the law is - or should be - to protect Britons from harm (either physical or financial). Even if BAE did bribe the Saudis, so what? How did any Briton suffer by this?
As I have said repeatedly, British governments are elected by Britons for Britons; it is not the responsibility of the British government to eliminate corruption thoughout the globe. The fact is that if we want to win foreign business we have to adapt to foreign business practices. It is absurd of us to try to impose our mores and morals on foreigners, just as it would be outrageous if they tried to impose theirs on us. Most foreign countries accept that 'sweeteners' are part and parcel of any business deal. If we want to sell to foreigners - which obviously we do - then why not accept this tradition? How does it harm us?
This attempt to apply British law in foreign lands is another example of the Left's attempt to impose its values around the world. Thank goodness on this occasion they have been rebuffed. So three cheers for the Saudis who have stood up for their own culture, their own values and their own traditions.
I'm not sure three cheers is the order of the day. But I take his general point.
UPDATE - the mighty Littlejohn thunders across the Portman Road turf, studs up.
I know this might sound frightfully callous in the current hysterical, emotional climate, but we're not all guilty.
We do not share in the responsibility for either their grubby little existences or their murders. Society isn't to blame.
That's just the warm-up ...
The tortuous twistings of the sisterhood over the past week have been a joy to behold. The 30-year-old Spare Rib T-shirts have been brought out of mothballs and we've been treated to the All Men Are Bastards/Rapists/Murderers mantra from assorted Glendas who ought to be old enough to know better.
We've heard the well-rehearsed arguments for legalised and regulated prostitution, as if we were living under the Taliban. The fact is, we've already got de facto legal brothels on every High Street.
They're call saunas or massage parlours.
When Blair gets back from saving the Middle East, don't be surprised if he turns up at the funeral of one of these unfortunate women to deliver a lip-trembling, tear-stained eulogy: "She was the People's Prostitute".
6 comments:
Just when you think that New Labour cant stoop any damn lower, they do. This Saudi deal and the cover suprises me not a jot.
Hell if John Prescott was caught sucking off a West Highland Terrier it would not suprise me, and Blair still would not sack the fat prick.
The family unit has been the chief way in which the reproduction of labour has been guaranteed under industrial capitalism.
I'm sorry, but I laughed so hard when I read that, I almost fell out of my chair. Seeing a live Marxist is a lot like seeing somebody with a stone axe stalking the pigeons in the park: Like, er, what epoch was this again?!
But anyway, somebody ought to notify that poor kid that the family unit has been the chief way in which labor has been reproduced under all systems, forever. It's the chief way in which human beings reproduce. What a goddamn idiot.
Bribing Saudis doesn't bother me. How corrupt was the Royal Navy in Nelson's day? Unspeakably so. But they seem to have done okay.
I should have said, the Marxism is like a living museum, Colonial Williamsburg kind of thing: Traditional craftsmen practicing their traditional crafts as they have done for generations uncounted, etc.
Are they Reclaiming the Night for the general public or just for streetwalkers and kerb crawlers?
The problem post 1918 was how the elites were to reclaim their privileged position once the ordinary worker was liberated from fedual hierarchy.
First came Fascism with a demogogic call to the Old Order predicated on a populist divine right of "The People" to counter the millennialist rhetoric of Soviet Socialism.
Then post-WWII the need to recapture Power from the masses took on the supra-nationalist form of tying the popular will and democratic mandate in knots through treaties and associations.
The whole of the modern era is the substitution of a Permanent Elite in place of shifting democratic majorities - it is Plato's Republic and its Guardians
Fascism - the economic and political system to be found in Italy in the 20s and 30s - was a perfectly understandable attempt to counter the Bolshevik agitation going on in Italy, and to protect the provident classes from the ravages of what the libertarian HH Hoppe has termed 'soft communism' - populist democracy. Mussolini's project was supported by figures of such intellectual stature as Pareto, the 'Karl Marx of the middle classes' and life-long devotee of individual liberty, and the occidentalist Evola. Once implemented, it also led to some of the most free market policies in the world at the time, and from that to the healthiest growth rates in Europe.
But of course what do I know? No doubt, it was actually a 'demogogic call to the Old Order predicated on a populist divine right of "The People"'. Yep, a demagogic call predicated on the divine right of "The People", which was nonetheless somehow sent out to the Old Order. Faulty wires, I guess.
By the way, fido's description of Prescott as a 'fat prick' might be more accurate than he imagines, and might well be the key to unlocking the psychological impetus which drove that petty pen-pusher slag of his into his embrace and onto his arms.
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