alanjjohnstone
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Another sign that American interests will remain just that under Biden.
https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20210124-us-reiterates-support-for-taiwan-after-china-sends-jets-into-island-s-airspace
The U.S. State Department on Saturday said it was concerned by China’s “pattern of ongoing attempts to intimidate its neighbors, including Taiwan.”..Biden’s administration has shown little sign of reducing pressure on China over such issues…The State Department statement on Saturday said Washington would continue to deepen ties with Taiwan and ensure its defense from Chinese threats…Taiwan’s de-facto ambassador to Washington, Hsiao Bi-khim, was an invited guest at Biden’s inauguration.The trade in pets is now considered the third-largest source of illegal income in the European Union after organized drug and arms trafficking.
https://www.dw.com/en/covid-demand-for-dogs-and-cats-surges-in-germany/a-56318208
The irony.
Ultra-orthodox jewish protesters cried “get out of here, Nazis” at Israeli police.
Don’t they know that making such comparisons is a breach of the IHRA and makes them anti-semitic?
‘Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’
Is there any change?
A U.S. aircraft carrier group has entered the South China Sea to promote “freedom of the seas”
“With two-thirds of the world’s trade travelling through this very important region, it is vital that we maintain our presence and continue to promote the rules-based order which has allowed us all to prosper,” Rear Adm. Doug Verissimo, commander of the strike group, was quoted as saying.
Nominee for secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday there was “no doubt” China posed the most significant challenge to the United States of any nation.
New U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reaffirmed America’s commitment to Tokyo to defending a group of East China Sea islets claimed by both Japan and China,
But, BD, it is the prime minister who hands out the government departments to particular MPs or as we currently see Biden appointing non-elected government officials.
Regards IndyRef2 I will be curious to see the turn-out if it takes place.
I was in the UK for the 2014 referendum and was genuinely surprised by the participation from both sides. Those registering to vote was an all time high, and remember this was when because of the poll-tax many had previously refused to go on the electoral register. The actual number of voters were also at a record high. Our own call for abstention was most definitely ignored.
For such an important and emotional issue, i noticed that there were no reluctance to show your preference in stickers, badges and window posters. The Yes and No camps campaigned in the streets alongside one another without friction or animousity. There may have been isolated individual acts of political violence and the only significant occurrence was post-referendum when Rangers loyalists goaded nationalists in Glasgow, but considering the issue at stake, it was very peaceful.
For a socialist committed to electoral process 2014 was a heartening event, and i would think it will reflect the enthusiasm of the campaigns for socialism when they take off in popularity. People were actively politically engaged and were enjoying the experience of participating. Everywhere there was debate and discussion.
I think the reason was that this was a rare occasion where each person believed that his or her individual vote counted. They believed they held real political power in decision-making. That how they voted, yes or no, would make a real difference. Within British history, such days don’t come along too often (perhaps the 1945 was the closest.)
A useful read on India’s Public Distribution System
You are right, centralisation of resources and services is probably the prime benefit of urbanisation. Anyone who has lived even in the coutryside of the UK knows how utilities and facilities are scarce and sparse.
But our aim is not urbanisation but as advanced in the Communist Manifesto, the ending of the separation between town and country. How it is done is a matter of discussion.
India’s governments has always been interventionist, buying up harvests at guaranteed prices and stockpiling the rice.
When so many people are dependent on farming as in India, controlling prices is much more about social control.
Those who would integrate India’s agriculture more fully into the global marketplace seem to be missing the irony of the current situation, in which rural India’s increasing exposure to the global market helped make government subsidies necessary in the first place. Where once diverse food crops once covered the Indian landscape, there are now vast monocultures of cotton, wheat, rice, maize and other crops to be sold for cash – and often not enough cash to pay the debt amassed to grow them. The subsidies which were originally aimed at cities as a subsidy to manufacturers (to keep the workforce fed on cheap food and allow wages to stay low), is now a lifeline for landless rural farm-labourers in the faltering farm economy.
But when placed in perspective it is the developed world’s use of subsidies that creates a sustainability problem such as federal help to farmers in America where the climate isn’t suitable for particular crops. Again a political issue based on the lobbying power of agricultural interests.
The blog discusses food storage as a form of food wastage which will be unnecessary with socialism here
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2020/11/what-food-problem.htmlWhen so many in the developing and undeveloped countries are small-holders, family farms and subsistence growers with surpluses sold locally, can we really say that leaving prices to fluctuate widely and wildly with the demands of the market is reactionary?
The rise of food importation may be rational inside socialism…regions well suited to specific crops devoting to the growing of them in economies of scale that require the mechanisation you mention. But we live under capitalism. Countries have first to acquire the foreign exchange to buy produce at centralised exchanges in Chicago and elsewhere, where foodstuffs become commodities speculated on the futures market for profit and returns.
Africa has been transformed from a food exporter to a food importer where the main victims are the city dwellers solely fully dependent upon wage-slavery to buy food. It is a flawed model.
The US miltary already responds to the arrival of Biden? Perhaps it is coincidental, perhaps it isn’t.
US convoy enters Syria from Iraq with fresh logistics.
At the same time, 200 US troops arrived in the Hasakeh province on helicopters set to be deployed at the nearby oilfields.
An interesting article which says that Biden’s healthcare plan is the one that the private medical insurance corporations wished to seek.
https://www.dailyposter.com/p/news-biden-lifts-health-care-plan
Plenty of presidential executive orders …but the big ones to expand Medicare during the pandemic, using emergency provisions in the Affordable Care Act and to expand Medicaid to cover more people, so far silence.
Mustapha, sad as it seems, but the optimism of the pioneers of socialism and of our own founder members has been shown to be very much a false dawn.
Progress towards socialism has not been as swift as we expected or anticipated.
Why? Plenty of theories out there. But i simply put it down to what some describe as the strength of “false ideoology”, namely nationalism, racism and religion.
We see it highlighted today in the US as expressed as “white christian nationalism”. And even those who purportedly oppose such a belief-system incorporate many of its elements (re-listen to Biden’s inauguration speech)
But such reactionary ideas are present world-wide in various forms. Hindutva. Islamism. In Europe we have Orban. In Brasil, Bolsoaros. In Philippines, Duterte. Ortega. Maduro. Much of Africa is still dominated by tribalism and religion. Need i go on. You can readily add your own observations to the list of divisions.
Can it be over-come? Can revolutionary consciousness prevail?
At my advancing age, i merely hope to detect a sign that people are acquiring an awareness of their relationships with one another (and with the environment) Those changes i do perceive although i don’t foster illusions that they are as yet strong enough or have the popularity to overthrow the capitalist economic system…but it exists. And as long as capitalism remains it won’t disappear but only ebb and flow with events and conditions.
All you and i can do is carry on what we have been doing. Where we may differ in approach, it will be for our fellow-workers to decide which of our disagreements are valid or invalid political positions. All we can do when our views diverge is to engage in comradely debate and discussion because we are not class enemies. (I’ll add the caveat that at times in our history, some who claimed to be friends were indeed our foes).
You probably know the William Morris quotes.
William Morris explained:
“One man with an idea in his head is in danger of being considered a madman: two men with the same idea in common may be foolish, but can hardly be mad; ten men sharing an idea begin to act, a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is war abroad, and the cause has victories tangible and real; and why only a hundred thousand? Why not a hundred million and peace upon the earth? You and I who agree together, it is we who have to answer that question.”And
“Give us Imagination enough to conceive; courage enough to will; power enough to compel; and then I say, the thing will be done.”
I think we should be fully aware that there is an on-going global land-grab including in India taking place and more often than not it is by force…not necessasrily by the point of the bayonet but the choice of employment or hunger. Hence the migration of rural populations into the cities to find work.
Our blog recently posted that the richest 10% of the rural population control over 60% of land assets, while the poorest 50% own just over 3%.
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2021/01/who-owns-land.html
And earlier posted the story that one per cent of the world’s farms operate, directly or indirectly 70% of crop fields, ranches and orchards. In Latin America, where the poorest 50% of people owned just 1% of the land.
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2020/11/big-ag-controls-farming.html
And this land-grab is not producing more food for people but to develop monoculture plantations soya, palm oil ets. Often it is for food for livestock or for ethanol fuel.
Those small family farmers being displaced are the food producers. It leads to food importation and that raises the cost of living. Africa is a prime example.
https://theecologist.org/2014/sep/23/un-only-small-farmers-and-agroecology-can-feed-world
I view the Indian farmers strike as part of the wider issue of food sovereignty and food security. It is a lot more than just protecting their income.
Nor is it merely a undeveloped or developing country’s problem but one that is being faced by farming in the developed world too.
As for the trend in China, the demographic imbalance in rural districts are recognised as detrimental. Younger population migrating to industrial regions leaving the farms to an older generation, frequently unable to work the farms productively.
YMS, is your point that urbanisation is a positive trend if conducted democratically and peacefully?
A useful read by Colin Todhunter
per day, each cow in Europe receives subsidy worth more than an Indian farmer’s daily income.
And another by him
the richer countries are applying enormous pressure on India to scrap its meagre agricultural subsidies; yet their own subsidies are vast multiples of India’s.
