This forum is to discuss the issues raised in Sandy Irvine's 20 page essay Trotsky's Biggest Blindspot. It originated as a discussion about the Online Opinion article What will disaffiliation from the Labor Party achieve for the ETU? of 1 July 2008.

The denial by socialist groups of the material limits of the environment is barely more rational than religious beliefs in life after death. This belief, and the support for high immigration which it entails, has helped the rulers of the UK, for their own selfish short-term ends, to turn their island into a crowded slum on the verge of a catastrophic social and ecological breakdown.

See also: Devastating demolition of the case for mass immigration by Sir Andrew Green in the Daily Mail of 31 Mar 08, The Collusion of the Left in the Neo-Liberal Agenda of Sep 06, Open Britain by 'open border' extremist Phillipe Legrain and introduction and comments on his own web site. A local copy of a posted comment is to be found here.

Alistair McConnachie, the head of the Glasgow based organization Sovereignty explains that in this article originally published in September of 2006 how the Left, driven by the ideology of "Equality" manipulates the lofty concept of solidarity to collude in destructive capitalism and ecological disaster.

The Original article is to be found here on the web-site sovereignty.org.uk. See also: How mass migration has devastated the social fabric of Britain.

As long as the claimed short term economic benefits of growth can be said to be shared equitably Canada's New Democratic Party remains unconcerned by the resultant ecological devastation.

Leon Trotsky showed great insight on many issues but his biggest blind spot concerned ecological sustainability, now the greatest issue of our times. His thinking reflected the technological cornucopianism that bedevils the socialist tradition.

Contents: Trotsky as case study, On Ecology, The New God, Bringing the Earth to heel, Regress of nature, The Paradigm of Industrial Cornucopia, The God That Failed, Limits to growth, Overshoot, Flawed Fixes, Capitalism and the Causes of Ecological Crisis, Overpopulation, Trotsky on Technology, On Farming, Trotsky on Lifestyles, What was to be done?, Endnotes

The original 20 page pdf document by Sandy Irvine can be downloaded from www.sandyirvine.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk This document can also be viewed as a html document as "The Prophet Misarmed: Trotsky, Ecology and Sustainability" at www.whatnextjournal.co.uk.

Why has an Australian Marxist web-site suddenly vanished from the Internet, almost without trace?

Arguing with socialists about population growth or immigration is as futile as debating these issues with the Vatican. Fundamentally, they have no understanding of limits. They would have us believe that growth can go on forever, that we need only manage it and share its fruits equitably, and if driven by the right technology, that we can open our borders to the world without ecological consequences.

History records that Karl Marx had a fierce disregard for Thomas Malthus and his theory. Blaming the poor for their poverty was just not on for the socialist revolutionary from Trier, Germany. The system---capitalism---was to blame for everything. Dump capitalism, institute socialism, and people will presumably stop bonking.

I think that your faith in the Russian Revolution is misplaced. Like many critics of Stalin, you don't see that the fault does not originate with Uncle Joe but with Lenin's concept of democratic centralism, a concept that made Stalin, Mao, Castro, and Ho Chi Minh inevitable. Trotsky was a Stalinist who lost a power struggle. His firm resolution and ruthless determination to win was demonstrated by how he put down the workers at the
Kronstadt "revolt" ...