alanjjohnstone
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Apartheid?
The Israeli government is requesting to expand the jurisdiction of the northern Jewish town of Harish by nearly 50 percent, even though hundreds of its homes are vacant, after a report projected that the area’s Arab population will overtake its Jewish population.
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/today-s-koenig-memorandum-1.9274303
Jonathan Cook continues his surgical dissection of the EHRC report on the Labour Party
It is the Equalities Commission, not Labour, carrying out Political Interference
Senior officials stalled antisemitism complaints not because they were especially antisemitic but because they knew the delays would embarrass Corbyn and weaken him inside the party…The corporate media long ago styled Labour staff who delayed the complaints procedure to harm Corbyn as antisemitism “whistleblowers”…
…If Labour had an identifiable problem in relation to antisemitism complaints, according to the report, it seems to have occurred mostly in terms of the party being too hasty and aggressive in tackling antisemitism, in response to relentless criticism from the media and Jewish organisations, rather than being indulgent of it.
Again, no one in the media, Jewish leadership organisations, or the new Labour leadership wants this finding to be highlighted. So it is being ignored.
Actually some commentators say it was the pandemic that won it…with Trump’s failure to deal with the pandemic, had not the pandemic arisen, Trump would have campaigned on his economic achievements and in a poll (if we still trust those) more American claim to be better off now than under Obama … and that is with the effects of the pandemic.
Recall also that part of the Biden campaign strategy was to keep him away from the media and let Trump shoot himself in the foot.
For those of us still interested in the observations of Noam Chomsky
Chomsky: Voting Is Not the End of Our Work. It’s Only the Beginning.
“Trump has also skillfully tapped reservoirs of anger and economic resentment among the working and middle classes who have been subjected to the bipartisan neoliberal assault of the last 40 years. If they feel that they have been robbed, they have good reason…Less educated workers may not know the details or understand the mechanisms that have been designed to undermine their lives, but they see the outcomes. The Democrats offer them nothing. They long ago abandoned the working class and have been full collaborators in the racket…”
For the left, elections are a brief interlude in a life of real politics, a moment to ask whether it’s worth taking off time to vote — typically against. In 2020, the choice was transparent, for reasons not worth reviewing. Then back to work. Once Trump is fully removed, the work will be to move forward to construct the better world that is within reach.
The first task, imho, is for that left to regain some of their credibility for having endorsed and campaigned for a corporate president. And as for the better world that is within reach, the lesser evil proponents will always find a reason for putting that better world further out of our reach.
Very soon we will know what direction Biden intends to take when he announces his cabinet and we find out who is included and who is excluded. That will be more illuminating than the platitudes of his speeches
For me, it is not so much Biden won the election but that Trump lost it with his own-goals on the pandemic mostly.
I also think Pelosi played a blinder by refusing to compromise with the Republican Stimulus Plan…even the Republican $400 month would have been suffice to convince hard-up workers to support Trump and Pelosi ended that chance with a decisive block.
But i fully expect many on the right to say “We Wuz Robbed” and also fully expect those on the left not to care why Trump’s message resonated with so many voters.
Is it all over? Will Trump stand in 2024? He legally can. Will Don Jnr stand as his proxy? Or Ivanka?
What LT has failed to acknowledge is that Trump garnered record votes for a defeated president. He not only retained his 2016 base but he expanded upon it. That is a harsh stark fact.
If Trump is a neo-fascist racist xenophobic bigot, what does that mean for practically half of America who nevertheless voted for him? What was the Trump message that resonated in the American working class? Why did the Republican Party change into a Trump cult?
Trump could so easily have won if he had handled the pandemic better and arranged for a generous stimulus package.
That is the real frightening aspect of this American election for me. A Biden presidency does not reflect any increased political awareness in our fellow-workers.
Tanks rolling down the streets of San Francisco. Army setting up road-blocks and check-points in NYC. Trump declares martial law. Right-wing militias assassinating leftists.
Where is this damn coup?
Now the focus of the media is on the run-off election in Georgia to determine who controls the Senate.
Anyways, now victory has been declared, we shall now see if Biden is indeed the lesser evil over the next four years.
We need not speculate but merely wait and watch and see how the future pans out for America and the World.
Personally as i have asked, what can Biden really do without a cooperative Congress.
For instance, in Poland abortion has just been made illegal, if a different party had won the election last time round it’s unlikely that would be the case now.
Isn’t it a case that the root problem is not the actual government but the cultural conservativism of catholic Poland.
What i see in the recent predominantly younger women protesting is an attempt to change Polish society’s attitudes, not just opposition to the court decision to further restrict already draconian termination rules. And i wish them all the solidarity that they can achieve persuading and influencing others to adopt a new progressive way of thinking.
Our task is to help the protesters to also accept another idea, as well.
Changing the government without changing the reason why it was so recently re-elected results in unintended consequences…such as driving prejudice underground to fester until it results in a reactionary back-lash.
(btw, i just this morning submitted an article of those Poland protests for the SS)
I prefered Stephen Shenfield’s article to ALJO’s, I think it’s better to have a self-reflective discussion rather than always wheeling out the party line.
So did i think Stephen had more to say.
We should always try to present a nuanced case for our ideas rather than some monolithic “we have all the answers answer to every political problem” posture.
But sometimes we leave it to those better able to actually achieve something. Individual reforms to those single issue activists dedicated to gaining them. Economic improvements to the unions. And political advantages to what our our fellow-workers think is the best way to acquire them. They are better positioned to achieve their goals without socialists deciding to join in. I thought that was clear from all the experiences of the Trotskyist entryist policies.
Why handicap those trying to improve their conditions with the association of revolution.
There has been talk elsewhere of so called “white privilege” but we cannot deny we enjoy the privilege of “bourgeois democracy” and involved is that fellow citizens decide what are the political issues, despite all attempts of the politicians and media to manipulate the political agenda. Sometimes our master are unable to limit debate and discussion.
I see the socialism as the science of generalisation. As such rather than be a proponent of specifics, we present the wider case for socialism and the historical relevance of different political action.
No one can disagree that the NHS or M4A is the lesser evil to free-market private health care. No-one can dispute that peace is the lesser evil to war. No-one can challenge that government hand-outs is the lesser evil to penury.
But it isn’t our role to defend those lesser evils. Being more sympathetic to those actually involved resisting attacks and cuts to them should be. Our “hostility clause” should be expressed better.
Our purpose of coming together as a political party is to critique the reason why “lesser evils” are necessary under capitalism and to explain that we have to go beyond advocating the “lesser evil” philosophy to end it.
What i do outside the Party is to survive the best i can and opting for the lesser evil will always be part of my strategy for surviving. That is the reality for all of us, isn’t it? Sometimes we should acknowledge that fact better.
Jonathan Cook on the report
Corbyn was Never Going to get a Fair Hearing in the EHRC Antisemitism Report
its findings – deeply flawed, vague and glaringly inconsistent as they were – were nowhere near as dramatic as the headlines suggested.
“Our analysis is at odds with her documented pre-Congress career of being pragmatic or moderate,” explained Josh Tauberer, GovTrack founder “and it remains to be seen which part of her career — her actions as a district attorney and Attorney General or her policy proposals in Congress — would be reflected greater in a Biden administration.”
So we shall wait and see, won’t we?
As i said, you cherry pick stats.
Trump’s Record on Foreign Policy: Lost Wars, New Conflicts and Broken Promises
Trump’s policy of bombing was a continuance of Obama’s.
Obama set a new post-World War II record for U.S. military spending, at $5.67 trillion over eight years (in 2020 dollars) including Obama’s $1.2 trillion plan to “modernize” U.S. nuclear weapons.
But to be absolutely clear, i’m in no way absolving Trump of his murderous military strategy…i simply wish to point out that what he has done is no worse and no better than his predecessors. I don’t want you to go away thinking that i am whitewashing Trumps atrocities in Syria or Iraq. I merely say it has been the same old same. Trump is not an exception.
I have tried to track down your 72,000 in three years claim. I cannot find a reliable source, just various fringe websites and blogs. Perhaps you can give me the authoritative study those are based upon.
2-term Bush’s military dropped 70,000 bombs on five countries. 2-term Obama dropped 100,000 bombs in seven countries. In his final year of office Obama dropped over 26,000 bombs.
And it is as you say Trump dropped more than either of those presidents with incredible civilian casualties in places like Raqqa
Further to ALB’s earlier link to Richard Wolff’s perspective on the election, he has this article on Counterpunch
Why Capitalism Was Destined to Come Out on Top in the 2020 Election
“No matter who “won” the U.S. election, what will not change is the capitalist organization of the country’s economy. The great majority of enterprises will continue to be owned and operated by a small minority of Americans. They will continue to use their positions atop the capitalist system to expand their wealth, “economize their labor costs,” and thereby deepen the United States’ inequalities of wealth and income. The employer class will continue to use its wealth to buy, control, and shape the nation’s politics to prevent the employee class from challenging their ownership and operation of the economic system. Indeed, for a very long time, they have made sure that (1) only two political parties dominate the government and (2) both enthusiastically commit to preserving and supporting the capitalist system. For capitalism, the question of which party wins matters only to how capitalism will be supported, not whether that support will be a top governmental priority.”
But then Wolff returns to his pet hobby-horse
“…A new political party that offered systemic criticisms of capitalism and advocated for a transition to a worker-coop based economic system would bring real choice into U.S. politics. It would place before the electorate a basic question of vital importance: what mix of capitalist and worker-coop organized enterprises do you wish to work for, buy from, and live with in the United States?… The social movements, labor unions, and the new socialist initiatives need to coalesce into a broad, new socialist party. If that party could also become the political voice of a growing worker-coop sector of the economy, many key conditions for a transition beyond capitalism will have been achieved.”
