alanjjohnstone
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Hasn’t those social sciences produced much supporting evidence for the socialist case? Doesn’t the Party recommend some individual social science scholars?
We are in a battle of ideas, some academics are indeed on the other side. Some are not. When we look for a defence of socialist ideas, it is often to the findings of those social sciences we defer to.
Perhaps, Wez, our failure is to explain just how simple and common sense socialism is…indeed we have failed to effectively convince fellow-workers that it is in their own interests. I know in 2003 they didn’t require a lecture on the history of modern war and capitalism to know the Iraq invasion was all about oil. Likewise, (just to support you on one issue), they intuitively know that Big Pharma are indeed filling their own greedy pockets.
Have we over-complicated the whole socialist case? It was all so much easier in the past…
Long jail sentences threatened to those who are resisting the coup
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56067423Soldiers used for the first time to break up protests
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/15/myanmar-internet-restored-protesters-army-presence-aung-san-suu-kyiAlan – preserve us from ‘common sense’ since this is usually just another word for ignorance.
Wez, do you require it to be made a punishable offence not to wash your hands after going to the toilet? Or do you follow the medical experts’advice, to wash your hands, because even if you cannot see the germs and perhaps have never associated the ill-health consequences of not following the rules of hygiene, you still recognise the good sense of what you are being told and following the rule is at little cost to you personally.
Personally, i cannot understand those refuseniks when it comes to disregarding basic public health guidelines.
More and more arrests are occurring. Strikes in army-controlled businesses are happening. Those who are identified as participants in the protests fear for their jobs. Some police are defecting to the side of the protesters but still not in significant numbers. The army remain mostly in reserve, ready to be deployed if necessary.
This will be a drawn-out war of attrition.
We have always accepted the Marxian analysis that capitalism was a progressive social system to earlier ones and that it produced certain benefits such as the Enlightenment (yes, even the welfare reforms), some of which still exist. We also accept that even though it has flaws, bourgeois democracy, not as the ideal to aspire towards but an adequate tool for social change, hence our sympathies for fellow-workers in Myanmar, Hong Kong and elsewhere.
Regards to the pandemic there is no doubt that the public health measures being enacted globally is to reduce the toll of it. Whether it is because of humanitarian motives to protect life or business self-interest in that the source of all value – human labour power – is being affected, is for me a moot point. Plus for different countries the emphasis varies hence the differing priorities given to the vulnerable in the vaccine roll-outs.
What we do as socialists is to direct attention to the failure of capitalism to fulfil its declared goals of ensuring safety and stability because it possesses particular inherent contradictions within it as a social system that exhibits themselves in vaccine nationalism and intellectual ownership and definitions of who are and what industries are “essential”.
Just as the Black Death contributed to the end of the tied servitude of the serf to the manor, we can take an opportunity to show a good reason for fellow-workers demanding better rewards for the previously low-paid and unappreciated wage-slaves, as well as another good reason for the end of capitalism.
What we should not do is pander to populism and partisan sectionalism which appear as anti-Statism plots to impose Big Brother and anti-scienceism. We do not possess a technocracy, the science is still subordinate to political constraints and “expert” advice ignored.
We expose ulterior purposes and the vested interests in the motives of some who wish to impose or remove collective actions in regards to this pandemic. That is how i see a nuanced approach to the pandemic, that is, not extracting advantage from fear and pessimism but with us making the most of the cooperative and creative responses to the pandemic eg hospitals built and factories re-tooled in a matter of days, food distribution networks put into place, the homeless housed in hotels, and at the end of the day, the speed of the vaccine development (there are many orphan diseases still awaiting their vaccines and cures which deserve the same urgency) etc. etc.
We as individuals and part of communities and not as party members accede to particular laws of the State for common-sense reasons. I follow the formal road traffic rules and i informally follow the unwritten rules of pedestrians on the pavements by following the flow. I cover my nose and mouth when i cough and sneeze. I need no government policing for that. We may still be living under capitalism but we are also still a human society and as such we do not engage in anti-social or harmful acts. Now we have grown accustomed to masks, i foresee in the future when the pandemic has abated, wearing masks will happen whenever we catch a cold or the ordinary flu and the fatalities from those will fall as an unintended consequence.
I repeat though, it is up to us to present the constructive lessons of the pandemic and how it relates to building upon the socialist case. We have an environmentalist pamphlet, but as yet no pandemic one. As always we have many informative articles but they remain stand-alone and scattered and not collated and re-edited in a one cohesive whole.
An article that suggests that the Modi-friendly is trying to depict the Farmers’ Strike is a Sikh separatist movement and that Muslim extremists are also involved.
Facebook stops leftist Richard Wolff post supporting strike from being shared.
Facebook Blocks Sharing of the Indypendent’s Coverage of Hunts Point Produce Market Strike
Don’t want to start a new topic thread so i thought this the best to post this link.
Paul Mattick Jnr on the coup, the Trump support and offering some reality to the American mind-set
https://brooklynrail.org/2021/02/field-notes/Editors-Note-The-Coup-That-Wasnt
The anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers cite the Nuremburg War Crime trials in their defence.
Do Mandatory Masks and Vaccines Break the 10 Points of the Nuremburg Code?
Capitalism itself has chosen to pass various laws to restrict free speech, criminalising some aspects of it, much to the consternation of the 1st Amendment proponents. To paraphrase Marx on censorship, we have to take the rough with the smooth.
I note Larry Flint, the pornographer, died this week
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/10/media/larry-flynt-obituary/index.htmlGuardian sacks journalist for anti-israel tweets
The Guardian revealed its true face in sacking a columnist for criticising US military aid to Israel
“…The tweet, which Robinson deleted under Guardian pressure, was only anti-Semitic if you choose to see it that way — which, of course, is exactly how Israel’s apologists would like you to see it…”
U.S. editor John Mulholland complaining about Robinson’s tweeted:
“Saying that the only Jewish state controls the most powerful country in the world is clearly anti-Semitic. The myth of ‘Jewish power’ informs murderous hatred. Delete this and apologise.”
Ominous signs
A French nuclear attack submarine recently conducted a patrol in the South China Sea.
Defence Minister Florence Parly tweeted “striking proof of our French Navy’s capacity to deploy far away and for a long time together with our Australian, American and Japanese strategic partners.”
Defence Minister Parly stressed that France intends to conduct patrols every year in the region. And in the next few weeks, Paris should deploy, as part of its Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc) mission, “an amphibious group that should operate as far as Japan”, said the Defence Ministry.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/12/anti-abortion-activists-womens-rights
“saying the quiet part out loud – that they’re not just restriction abortion, they want to end access to abortion entirely”
