alanjjohnstone
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Even under a “best case” scenario where greenhouse gas emissions are rapidly reduced in the coming decades and global warming is limited to 2 degrees Celsius, climate change will still drastically increase the size and likelihood of destructive wildfires globally, according to a new international study published in Environmental Research Letters.
Wildfires Will Keep Getting Worse — Even in “Best Case” Climate Scenarios
The obsession with royalty on show yet again with the Harry and Meghan interview
“Phewwww…the heat is off me” Prince Andrew is rumoured to have stated.Gorter can identify the ideological origins that constrains workers inability to act in their own interests – capitalist ideals – with the class consciousness that Gorter explains is created by the workers relationships with the the forces of production which results in revolt – the socialists’ materialism, LBird alludes to some other influence upon myself that takes upon the role of intermediary (to refer to another thread like a Catholic priest) and what i presume to be the “Leninist” Socialist Party “cadres”.
What i found refreshing with Gorter’s albeit overly-optimistic essay was that he related historical materialism to political action, and that is something i have asked LBird to do in the past – to make philosophy practical as Marx suggested in his quote, the philosophers have interpreted the world but the task is to change how the world runs. Gorter repeats it
“We have not in any case provided this analysis for the purpose of transforming the workers into philosophers…We have set ourselves another goal; we want to transform the workers into combatants. And into victors…”
Political abstention doesn’t seem to me to be Marxist and that is what LBird by his own admissions indulges in. I may well be wrong but his only socialist activity is solely on this forum. How will we change society if we continue to act as individuals and not as a unified class in a mass class party?
I’m pleased you found it of some use.
For me, as you know from previous contributions, i find it difficult to incorporate philosophical concepts into practical politics. Gorter endeavours to do that in relation to the class struggles in Germany at the time.
LBird, what do you think of Herman Gorter’s ‘Historical Materialism’
https://www.marxists.org/archive/gorter/1920/historical-materialism.htm
I’m not sure he has been mentioned as yet. But if you still to read another for your library
Too long for me to summarise but the message is this
“The power of the truth must live in the mind of the proletariat…The mind must be revolutionized. It must extirpate prejudice and cowardice. The most important thing is mental propaganda. Knowledge, mental power, is the essential thing, the most necessary of all.”The economic benefits of protecting nature-rich sites such as wetlands and woodlands outweigh the profit that could be made from using the land for resource extraction, according to the largest study yet to look at the value of protecting nature at specific locations. Scientists analysed 24 sites in six continents and found the asset returns of “ecosystem services” such as carbon storage and flood prevention created by conservation work was, pound for pound, greater than manmade capital created by using the land for activities such as forestry or farming cereals, sugar, tea or cocoa…This suggests that even if people were only interested in money – and not nature – conserving these habitats still makes financial sense.
More bad news
The Rainforest Foundation Norway (RFN) analysis found that human activities including logging and land-use changes—often for farming—have destroyed 34% of old-growth tropical rainforests and degraded 30% worldwide… over half of the destruction since 2002 has been in the Amazon and neighboring rainforests.
The climate crisis is pushing the planet’s tropical regions towards the limits of human livability, with rising heat and humidity threatening to plunge much of the world’s population into potentially lethal conditions, new research has found.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/08/global-heating-tropical-regions-human-livability
Preparing for reversing Trumps troop withdrawal plan for Afghanistan and getting ready for a repeat of Obama’s troop surge?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56316649
Blinken has warned of a possible new “spring offensive” by the Taliban. The Taliban could make rapid military gains across Afghanistan when American and NATO troops pull out, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has warned.
The US indulges in some sabre rattling
https://www.foxnews.com/world/us-b52-bombers-mideast-iran-israel
JL – most transgender people never have cosmetic surgery
Robbo – there is no way she can be considered a woman in a biological senseOnce again i have to refer to the large populations around the world of what should be considered as Third Gender. These people are being neglected in these exchanges.
I find this debate focusing on what is the American/EuroCentric issues is doing a disservice to tens of thousands of TS/TG who despite increasing social acceptance in their own countries still face legal obstacles.(JL at least you did acknowledge the status of the hijaris as a separate category)
Most Ladyboys/Katoeys (very crudely described as ‘chicks with dicks’) do undertake hormone treatment and frequently engage in the sex trade for the means to have sexual assignment surgery. They seek to accentuate their femininity, to look more ‘woman’ than many women. They work most often in the female service industries, fashion, hair salons, make-up.
From casual conversations, their only rivalry with ‘real’ women is not on the sports field but their own ‘battle of the sexes’ – to compete for male attention.
i have said this on the thread – they behave and are treated as different from ‘real’ women but viewed as sisters. But not as feminised gays.
And i see the fuss about ‘fake’ women engaged in female sports gaining an ‘unfair’ advantage rather distracting when TS/TG are being sent to male prisons to be abused and raped. (and yes there has been cases of TS/TG committing crimes when placed in women’s prisons, just as members of the straight and the LGBTQ community have when incarcerated)
When it comes to sex/gender i always felt an affinity with Marge Pierce’s book, ‘Woman on the Edge of Time’ where differences are so blurred that sexual identity became an irrelevance.
Isn’t socialism ultimately about unisex?
The Chinese government took a leaf out of the British government’s rule-book on Julian Assange.
While ruling that dissidents should be released on bail, they continued detention on the basis that there is an appeal against the court decision as in the UK case with Assange who remains in jail despite the court saying he cannot be extradited
“The corporations would dictate prices, and they would have a monopoly over us. The corporate power over agriculture would make us slaves on our own lands.”
The capitalist market already does but Modi’s proposals may well grind the farmers face further into the mud.
Where did i read the situation is either standing in a barrel of shit, or doing a hand-stand in it? (Sounds like BD, to me)
More sabre rattling by Israel
And the attacks will not necessarily be all at Iran but includes Lebanon
