alanjjohnstone
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Biden, no joke, literally.
A staggering 97% of the jokes Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon told about the candidates in September targeted President Donald Trump, a study found. That’s 455 jokes about Trump and 14 about Democrat Joe Biden, according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University. That doesn’t even count 64 jokes made about Trump’s family or administration, the study said.
In the 2016 campaign, Trump was the punchline for 78% of the jokes to Hillary Clinton’s 22%
Since 1992 Republicans are usually targeted more than Democrats by the comedy writers
Chinese corporate leaders say they do not see much difference in policies of Donald Trump and Joe Biden towards China.
Goldman Sachs on a Biden presidency
“We recently analyzed the implications of a fiscal program similar to the Biden campaign proposals and found that the boost to growth from fiscal stimulus would outweigh the negative effects of tax increases, particularly in light of the fact that the increased tax revenue would go to fund new spending.”
I don’t know. Was he drifting towards authoritarianism as all those Latin American caudillos appear to do? Was the building of a costly museum to himself a sign of that?
Before the coup, as our blog reported, Morales was losing some of the indigenous support in his efforts to promote economic development. He talked the talk but didn’t fully walk the walk.
There was little reason for the corporations to oust him despite the conspiracists saying it was all because of the lithium mining contracts. His relationships with the foreign multinationals was amicable.
It was down to the traditional rulers seeking the return of their political power and control they had lost from a new ascendant ruling class.
“Socialists do not stand for an equal distribution of the problems capitalism causes workers.”
Capitalism is built on inequality. Nobody disputes that. We recognise that no amount of reform can bring equality to capitalism.
As i have said other times and other places, socialism should be the umbrella – or as we say, the banner to muster under – to bring together all the diverse movements of resistance into one unified force.
I do NOT have any trouble combining the struggle for socialism with the struggle for survival. Incapacitated socialists deprived of the basics, cannot make the revolution, we need such things as democracy, bourgeois or otherwise. We need bread for the head. We refuse to accept certain views from the left that destabilising capitalist society and creating distress leads to socialism. People place such ideas as socialism on the back-burner as they confront the the immediate necessity of staying alive.
Many of us recognise that the starving and suffering must first fill their bellies and alleviate their pain – yes, by achieving certain reforms and improvements in their daily lives – before they can focus their thoughts and concentrate effort on socialism.
If there is privilege, it is ourselves who have achieved that degree of awareness that we can see beyond putting the next meal on the table, and it took economic and political action in the class struggle to achieve that “luxury”. We cannot dismiss historical precedent so easily and think those in the undeveloped and developing world, living under despotism, can jump necessary social developments. It is our criticism of backward revolutions such as the Russian Revolution, that the material basis was not ready for any evolution of consciousness.
Wez accepted one expression of Lenin, i am also prone to agree with Lenin that there is indeed uneven development. We are world socialists and when addressing those from other parts of the world, we have to cut our cloth accordingly, horses for courses, fit our arguments with the situation and conditions people actually face and live. We don’t impose our own template, other than some broad guidelines of universal application to all societies.
But it seems i have gone further than discuss “white privilege”
Nationwide, more than 28 million ballots have been cast, a record fuelled by coronavirus concerns. US media are reporting that registered Democrats have so far outvoted registered Republicans – casting more than double the number of ballots.</p>
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/election-us-2020-54576498Its more than “white privilege”. Its also gender, disability, and as i have already said in some professions its class.
It is also more than “identity politics”. It is recognizing and acknowledging that there are some who suffer far more than others and such law and policies that exclude them should be opposed.
“If Socialism, international, revolutionary Socialism, does not stand staunchly, unflinchingly, and uncompromisingly for the working class and for the exploited and oppressed masses of all lands, then it stands for none and its claim is a false pretense and its profession a delusion and a snare.” Eugene Debs supporting open borders.
Looks as if the left have prevailed in Bolivia with a majority that may not mean a second round run-off.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-54591963
The BBC background reporting does not include the later finding that the Morales vote was not in fact rigged.
“However, if a union advocated job reservation or so-called “positive” discrimination”
We had what was called the S-bill jobs that were light duties which was reserved for the sick and the convalescing. Isn’t that an example of positive discrimination? We recognised that they had the privilege of sitting down and not lifting heavy bags.
And aren’t there certain occupations which now advertise that “extra consideration will be given from applicants” from a particular sector of the population that were previously discriminated and not fully represented. As i pointed out higher educational opportunities were biased towards the public schools. But isn’t the legal profession providing special entrance procedures to attract those identified as “working class” or from the “minorities”.
We have always said that we are not equal, we are not all the same, we have different requirements and varying abilities. Some need a helping hand or a lift-up.
I’m sure it is compatible with being a socialist, ALB, defending what we got and trying to gain what we have not got, to survive under capitalism.
But Wez seems to be saying to me that i am a reformist to organise alongside non-socialists to resist capitalism even i do realise that we would more often than not lose. That is the nature of the class struggle…as James Connolly described it …empty bellies against full wallets.
For sure there will always be somebody worse off than others. We shouldn’t ignore his or her plight, deny them the reality of their particular hardship by declaring it is all relative.
By accepting that some patients are in ICU and require extra-special care does not take away from the rest of us that we are victims of the pandemic and some are sick and others sicker yet some are infected but asymptomatic. We treat the cause of the disease – the virus that we all share – the commonality.
But i also recall some old Standard article from the 30s saying that if we don’t have the guts to fight back against the capitalists now, we aren’t worth the salt in the fight for socialism later…words to that effect.
There does exist affirmative action and nor restricted to the USA. Oxbridge under pressure from public opinion now include a certain amount of preference to state schools for admittance. I note Harvard are being taken to court for their bias against white and Asian applicants.
What i am saying is that we should and probably do acknowledge that there is different degrees of oppression and as we usually can understand why, it should be part of our reaching out to those workers. In Northern Ireland, no-body would deny that there existed protestant privilege – a better class of slum in Shankhill than on the Falls Road. And to give James Connolly the credit he did try to unite the two communities through the union…the trade union.
The Belfast 40-Hour Strike where “Bolsheviks and Sinn Feiners” were leading astray many “good loyalist protestants” to the dismay of the Orange Lodge, where the composition of the strike committee was a majority of Protestant, but the chairman was a Catholic. Sectarianism was being challenged by working class militancy. The Officials belated learned that and became the Workers Party, but too little, too late.I don’t think anyone here would deny that the migrants, both the asylum seekers or economic refugees are particularly vulnerable and at risk of a variety of abuses. We acknowledge that condition and base our case firstly not on wait until socialism, but on class solidarity. We say if employers take advantage of migrants to keep wages low, the answer is not to stop migrants but to unionise them.Again it is from personal work experience, but the sorting office i worked in employed large numbers of part-time evening staff, many foreign students, Eastern Europeans and many females. The full-time warehouse staff walked out on unofficial action and when those part-timers arrived to work they were met by a picket-line. All turned back even though they would not benefit directly and were proportionally losing much more wages and they stayed out until the dispute was resolved. They instinctively knew that to do otherwise put them on the side of the bosses and that they were not willing to do.The answer for some socialists may be to cite the D of P and declare the only solution to unfair treatment, prejudice and privilege is socialism. I feel differently. It is as said previously, appeal to the commonality, firstly, as fellow human beings, and, secondly as fellow-workers. Achieve those and socialism will come.Is that the way we try to persuade fellow-workers who happen to be religious, LT?
Or do we use their words and deeds against them?
“You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry … Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism … There must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a Democratic Socialism.”
“The movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society. There are forty million poor people here. And one day we must ask the question, Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society. We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life’s marketplace. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. It means that questions must be raised. You see, my friends, when you deal with this, you begin to ask the question, Who owns the oil? You begin to ask the question, Who owns the iron ore? You begin to ask the question, Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that is two-thirds water? These are questions that must be asked.”
“We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing’-oriented society to a person- oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
“The dispossessed of this country the poor, the white and Negro live in a cruelly unjust society. they must organize a revolution against that injustice, not against the lives of the persons who are their fellow citizens, but against the structures through which society is refusing to take means which have been called for”
Martin Luther King
Archbishop Desmond Tutu : “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
“They shall build houses and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards and eat fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat.” — Isaiah
“Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet; and distribution was made to each as any had need.” – Acts 4: 32-36
“The use of all things that are found in this world ought to be common to all men. Only the most manifest iniquity makes one say to the other, ‘This belongs to me, that to you’. Hence the origin of contention among men.” – St. Clement.
“What thing do you call ‘yours’? What thing are you able to say is yours? From whom have you received it? You speak and act like one who upon an occasion going early to the theatre, and possessing himself without obstacle of the seats destined for the remainder of the public, pretends to oppose their entrance in due time, and to prohibit them seating themselves, arrogating to his own sole use property that is really destined to common use. And it is precisely in this manner act the rich”. – St. Basil the Great.
“Who is the covetous man? One for whom plenty is not enough. Who is the defrauder? One who takes away what belongs to everyone. And are not you covetous, are you not a defrauder, when you keep for private use what you were given for distribution? When some one strips a man of his clothes we call him a thief. And one who might clothe the naked and does not—should not he be given the same name? The bread in your hoard belongs to the hungry; the cloak in your wardrobe belongs to the naked; the shoes you let rot belong to the barefoot; the money in your vaults belongs to the destitute. All you might help and do not—to all these you are doing wrong” – Basil of Caesarea (c. 330–379), the Father of the Eastern monks who became Bishop of Caesarea
Epistle of James tells you, “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up for treasure for the last days. Behold, the wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter”
“Therefore if one wishes to make himself the master of every wealth, to possess it and to exclude his brothers even to the third or fourth part (generation), such a wretch is no more a brother but an inhuman tyrant, a cruel barbarian, or rather a ferocious beast of which the mouth is always open to devour for his personal use the food of the other companions.” – St. Gregory. Nic.
“Nature furnishes its wealth to all men in common. God beneficently has created all things that their enjoyment be common to all living beings, and that the earth become the common possession of all. It is Nature itself that has given birth to the right of the community, whilst it is only unjust usurpation that has created the right of private poverty.” – St. Ambrose.
“The earth of which they are born is common to all, and therefore the fruit that the earth brings forth belongs without distinction to all”– St. Gregory the Great.
“The rich man is a thief”. – St. Chrysostom.
Our words are our weapons and we turn their words into our weapons. We have the words of the rebel priest John Ball from long ago and many more of the “heretics” like the lollards, anabaptists, taborites, the Ranters
We can also expose the hypocrisy of slavery being God-ordained and many more the religious cant but if we do not express those criticisms in a comradely way, they will not listen. Or do we use the same Christian sentiments against our deluded brothers and sisters, compassion, pity, charity.
We don’t impose our politics, we share them.
😎
An interesting analysis of who elected Trump.
“…there was no influx of white voters anxious to support Mr. Trump and his racialized nationalism… Democratic strategists who had spent storied careers crafting cynical dog whistle campaigns, began shouting racist! to shut down any challenge to their campaign…the ‘white’ in white working class is politically and culturally loaded. While the overall population of the American working-class skews white in absolute numbers, a larger percentage of blacks are working class and poor. Industrialization facilitated the Great Migration of Southern Blacks from the rural South to the industrialized North. What the use of the term (‘white’) appears to reference is the social breakdown in Rust Belt communities subjected to the twin curses of deindustrialization and neoliberal creep into every aspect of modern life. Why this was considered a ‘white’ problem is a bit of a mystery … class antagonism was central to the outcome of the 2016 election…When the Democratic-leaning press began (falsely) reporting on rising hate and racial backlash, and the CEOs of large banks and tech companies began stating publicly that white supremacy is the only problem in need of solving, the havoc that neoliberal policies have wrought quickly disappeared as a topic of polite conversation….assertions that the large number of voters who voted for Barack Obama twice, but who then voted for Donald Trump in 2016, did so because they are racists, defies basic political logic…”
