Word.

As for The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, I haven’t read the book but I do have a couple of quotes from it in my collection and one of those is quite the most motivating incitements to make something of this life I live that I have ever read:

“Every man who is not helping to bring about a better state of affairs for the future is helping to perpetuate the present misery and is therefore the enemy of his own children.”

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=l-kwdpspOx8C&pg=PA204&lpg=PA204&dq=Every+man+who+is+not+helping+to+bring+about+a+better+state+of+affairs+for+the+future+is+helping+to+perpetuate+the+present+misery+and+is+therefore+the&source=web&ots=RExDVuM9m3&sig=YYoNWzL-t_f5OHrTHMsy7IlRIDI&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

I got it in the mid-late 90s from a guy called Jeff from Brighton, a very intelligent eco-anarchist, one of the original 90s road protesters and probably the person with the best grasp of radical political history that I’ve ever met.

Whilst an avowed revolutionary, he made clear that, in the phrasing I remember and parrot, ‘demanding revolution is the only way to get proper reform; demand reform and you get nothing’.

The totalitarian/democratic thing is a valid quote in the context of the current HH debate I think.

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is very much a polemic. It paints characters with a big black brush. Presumably the evil ones have big thick bushy eyebrows that they waggle mellowdramatically. But behind the dogma, it’s a tract on utopian socialism, and one that had a profound influence upon me when I was a teeneager.

I’m no longer an uncritical socialist by any means, but Tressell points out that the vast majority of work done is pointless. Shifting sand from one beach to another in order to generate wealth. He didn’t know about scarcity in its’ modern context. He just wanted everyone to have a better standard of living, instead of having to slog their bollocks off all the time just to keep body and soul together.

Really got to go!

Oh don’t worry PMM. I’m well aware that it’s not a new idea. It’s a very very old one in fact. It’s just a new one for me to be espousing. Up until relatively recently I was of the opinion that democracy was the least bad system available to us. I no longer believe that.

And it’s a combination of environmental and psychoanalytic theory that has led me to that position.

(the long URL you posted above doesn’t seem to ‘wrap’ properly in IE, but aside from that, all seems well)

EDIT: Those two comments of yours (above — now condensed into one) were in my spam bin for some reason. No idea why, as you’re on my safe list. Have any others gone missing?

I think it’s pronounced like Cillit Bang, except you replace the Bang with an O.

I suspect it’s along the lines of ‘Sil-ih-tow’, or even ‘Sil-eh-tow’.

But I’d really like it to be ‘Silly toe’.

I’m hoping it was a dream, then the only person I’m stealing from is Unconscious Jim. And he’s unlikely to complain.

My favourite slogan of all time, though, is still the classic Situationist International graffiti… “Be realistic. Demand the Impossible!”

I love that.

If you think that Democracy is not the be all and end all we like to proclaim it, certainly in it’s current incarnation, then you’ll find that your ideas are nothing new.

Hmmm. Come to think of it, the RTP has other relevent passages. Let me bore you with another…

`A little while ago you made the remark that you never trouble
yourself about what you call politics, and some of the rest agreed
with you that to do so is not worth while. Well, since you never
“worry” yourself about these things, it follows that you know nothing
about them; yet you do not hesitate to express the most decided
opinions concerning matters of which you admittedly know nothing.
Presently, when there is an election, you will go and vote in favour
of a policy of which you know nothing. I say that since you never
take the trouble to find out which side is right or wrong you have no
right to express any opinion. You are not fit to vote. You should
not be allowed to vote.’

Crass was by this time very angry.

`I pays my rates and taxes,’ he shouted, `an’ I’ve got as much right
to express an opinion as you ‘ave. I votes for who the bloody ‘ell I
likes. I shan’t arst your leave nor nobody else’s! Wot the ‘ell’s it
got do with you who I votes for?’

`It has a great deal to do with me. If you vote for Protection you
will be helping to bring it about, and if you succeed, and if
Protection is the evil that some people say is is, I shall be one of
those who will suffer. I say you have no right to vote for a policy
which may bring suffering upon other people, without taking the
trouble to find out whether you are helping to make things better or
worse.’

http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/etext03/rggdp10.txt