23 August 2013

On the destruction of Glenn Greenwald's partner's computers and data by the British government

An article in TechDirt gives a good general account of some of the democratic issues involved in the case of the British government's harassment of the Guardian journalist involved in the Snowden whistle-blowing affair, Glenn Greenwald and his partner, David Miranda.
TechDirt Data destruction orders direct from Cameron

Since the article ignored both historical and class perspectives I made the following comment rooted in the perspective of the Permanent Revolution, ie that the bourgeoisie as a class is totally incapable of taking society forward even to realize bourgeois democratic ideals that are incomplete or even quite absent, and that such ideals can only be achieved in passing by the working class when it achieves the broader goal of emancipating all humanity in a non-capitalist world run by associated producers on socialist lines:

Clear enough for an article lacking historical and class perspective. Should be enough to stimulate any remaining serious bourgeois democrats to take action. Ha-fucking-ha.
We should be clear that there will not be any massive bourgeois democratic response against this violation of fundamental bourgeois democratic rights. The only defenders of such democratic rights on a mass scale are organized socialist movements - workers and poor peasants fighting against the capitalists and imperialists who are daily ruining their lives with overwork in harsh conditions or enforced idleness, and the poverty accompanying both.
The only way to put an end to this kind of inhumanity - both the violation of rights and the brutal exploitation - is to replace capitalist society with a non-capitalist one. The great bourgeois democratic reforms (parliamentary rule, universal franchise, equal legal rights for all, universal education, national liberation) have been achieved in most places, and the bourgeoisie is quite satisfied now, thank you very much. Historical change is class-led, by the class with most to gain and nothing to lose. That used to be the bourgeoisie, from around 1500 to 1789, say. Now it isn't any more. It's the working class and the poor peasants who are one bad harvest away from dispossession and the megacity slums.
So any serious non-socialist radical democrats had better start reading up on history and class and put their effort behind creating an alternative society removing power from the worn-out, incompetent, brutal and incorrigible capitalist bourgeoisie.

No comments: