alanjjohnstone
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With further research it appears it was Engels who called Mexicans lazy in an article called “Democratic Pan-Slavism” that first appeared in the 15-16 February 1849 issue of the NRZ.
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https://louisproyect.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/1-marx-i-racism.pdf
Jonathan Cook defends Corbyn
https://dissidentvoice.org/2020/07/uk-labour-party-teeters-on-brink-of-civil-war-over-antisemitism/
China blocks opposition in elections
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-53593187
It said they could not be considered to be abiding by the constitutional duty required of lawmakers if they:
advocated for, or promoted, Hong Kong’s independencesolicited intervention by foreign governments in Hong Kong’s affairs
expressed “an objection in principle” to the imposition of the national security law by central authorities in Beijing
expressed “an intention to exercise the functions of a LegCo Member by indiscriminately voting down” any legislative proposals introduced by the Hong Kong government, “so as to force the government to accede to certain political demands”
Also
<p class=”story-body__introduction”>Four students have been arrested in Hong Kong in the first police operation to enforce China’s new national security law for the territory. The four were detained for “inciting secession” on social media after the new law began on 1 July, police said.</p>
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-53585747China blocks opposition in elections
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-53593187
It said they could not be considered to be abiding by the constitutional duty required of lawmakers if they:
advocated for, or promoted, Hong Kong’s independencesolicited intervention by foreign governments in Hong Kong’s affairs
expressed “an objection in principle” to the imposition of the national security law by central authorities in Beijing
expressed “an intention to exercise the functions of a LegCo Member by indiscriminately voting down” any legislative proposals introduced by the Hong Kong government, “so as to force the government to accede to certain political demands”
We should not overlook that the continued sanctions against Iran are still taking a heavy toll on its people.
Despite food and medical supplies being exempt from sanctions, banks and governments are reluctant to transfer or take Iranian money because they fear unwittingly breaching the complex U.S. restrictions, according to five trade and finance sources.
Iran’s central bank (CBI) has been unable to transfer the billions of dollars worth of oil export cash it had built up between 2016 and 2018.
That money was accumulated in bank accounts in countries that Iran sold oil to, especially in Asia, with its biggest customers including South Korea and Japan, in the years after Iran signed the nuclear accord with world powers, but before the Trump administration withdrew and reimposed sanctions in 2018.
The funds were frozen when the sanctions, which target the CBI as well as dollar transactions with Iranian entities, were reintroduced. As a result, international banks and their governments – whom they seek clearance from – are wary of allowing funds to be released without specific authorisation from Washington for each transfer. South Korean and Japanese authorities have declined cash transfers to Switzerland by the CBI without specific U.S. approval, according to the sources, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
The blockage illustrates how the complexity of U.S. sanctions has made many banks, companies and countries wary of doing any business with Iran, even when exemptions exist, because breaches can involve huge financial penalties and being effectively shut out of the crucial U.S. financial system. Major international trading houses were also ready to supply Iran with agricultural commodities under the scheme, but only when they were certain transactions were free of any sanctions risk.
“The big trading houses will only work inside a formal U.S.-approved payment system,” one European grain trader said.
Iran was Brazil’s second-biggest buyer of corn in 2019, but in January to June its imports from the country slid to around 339,000 tonnes from 2.3 million tonnes a year ago, according to Brazilian government data. Brazilian sellers are struggling to find international banks willing to process the transactions because of perceived sanctions risk. Iran pays $10 per tonne more than other buyers to compensate for payment and logistical challenges
The impact has also been felt in other areas, with many foreign shipping companies and insurers are unwilling to provide vessels or cover for voyages, even for approved commerce.
Fast food giant KFC has laid bare the realities of chicken production after admitting to poor welfare conditions among its suppliers.
More than a third of the birds on its supplier farms in the UK and Ireland suffer from a painful inflammation known as footpad dermatitis that in severe cases can prevent birds from walking normally.
Nearly all the chickens reared for KFC are fast-growing breeds that take just 30 days to reach slaughter weight. The push for high growth rates and maximum amounts of breast meat has exacerbated health and welfare problems for birds, including inability to move and liver and heart failure.
One in 10 KFC chickens also suffer hock burn caused by ammonia from the waste of other birds, which can burn through the skin of the leg – a condition typically associated with inactive birds.
While the overall number of birds that die or are culled because of disease, injury or lameness is falling, the weighted mortality rate on KFC farms is still around 4%. In a flock of 10,000 birds that means around 400 birds dying or being culled.
Banning the Bible!
The Catholic Church made a submission to MSPs on Holyrood’s Justice Committee, who have been tasked with scrutinising the reforms.
The Bishops’ Conference of Scotland said: “Any new law must be carefully weighed against fundamental freedoms, such as the right to free speech, freedom of expression and freedom of thought, conscience and religion.”
With section five of the legislation creating an offence of possessing inflammatory material, they fear the “low threshold” in the proposed new laws “could render material such as the Bible … as being inflammatory under the new provision”.
Wolff on Inequality and taxes
https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/the-consequences-of-inequality-can-be-fatal/
Lezmond Mitchell, who is Navajo and the only Native American on federal death row is scheduled to be executed in late August.
Mitchell, who was convicted of the 2001 the grisly killings of a Navajo woman and her 9-year-old granddaughter. Mitchell and an accomplice abducted Alyce Slim, 63, and her granddaughter in October 2001 with plans to use Slim’s vehicle in a robbery. Prosecutors said the two fatally stabbed Slim and slit the girl’s throat. Their beheaded, mutilated bodies were found in a shallow grave on the Navajo Nation.
Tribal officials and even the victims’ family opposed the death penalty. Native American tribes for decades have been able to tell federal prosecutors if they want a death sentence considered for certain crimes on their land. Nearly all, including the Navajo Nation, have rejected that option. Mitchell was convicted of carjacking resulting in death — a crime that carries a possible death sentence no matter where it happens, meaning the tribe had no avenue to object.
Mitchell’s attorneys have said he had no history of violence and wasn’t the primary aggressor.
Navajo Nation Council Delegate Carl Slater has been pushing the tribe to request clemency from the federal government and affirm its position against the death penalty. Slater said it would send a message that the federal government has no problem using loopholes to infringe on the tribe’s sovereignty.
“This completely conflicts with our values,” he said. “The government has an obligation to express our values and reflect them. That’s not just to our citizens, that’s to other sovereigns that have these relationships.”
I thought this interview was useful
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/29/seth-rogen-israel-palestinians-jewish-actor
It is all a matter of relating socialism to contemporary conditions to make it resonate more to make a receptive audience, isn’t it?
We cannot return society to an imaginary golden age but we can take lessons from the past to explain the pain of the present and suggest a better future.
For instance, regards the Native American situation, we can show how the traditions and cultures of the Iroquois Confederation influenced Marx and Engels vision for socialism through the writings of Lewis Henry Morgan.
I don’t think enough has been done, probably because we don’t possess the expertise.
We could, however, start by constructing a reading list which would help.
But we must caution against the concept of the ‘noble savage’, romanticising modern images of history.
As for pulling down statues, people have always targeted symbols of their oppression as a positive act.
As an aside, don’t know where i heard or read it but even the SLP retained a legacy of nationalism. At some meeting or other, the Stars and Stripes was placed on the floor at the entrance door, which meant trampling upon Old Glory. The SLP members declined to enter the hall.
Ivan Ko, Hong Kong property tycoon and the founder of the Victoria Harbour Group , an international charter city investment company, hopes to find a 50 sq km site between Dublin and Belfast to create a new city, named Nextpolis, for a possible 50,000 emigrants from Hong Kong.
“We like Ireland,” Ko told the Guardian on Tuesday. “Corporate taxes are very low. You have a very strong manufacturing and biomedical companies. Major tech giants have European headquarters there. Overall we think Ireland is very good.”
After two-hundred and fifty years the 215-member Esselen tribe of northern California is landless no more.
250 years ago, Spanish soldiers built a military outpost in Monterey and Franciscan padres founded missions – places where tribal members were brought to be baptized and converted to Catholicism. By the early 1800s, nearly all of the remaining tribe had been decimated by disease and death. Esselen tribal members were stripped of their land, language and culture.
They have now finalized the purchase of a 1,200-acre ranch near Big Sur, along California’s north central coast.
The deal will conserve old-growth redwoods and endangered wildlife such as the California condor and red-legged frog, as well as protect the Little Sur River, an important spawning stream for the imperiled steelhead trout.
“We’re the original stewards of the land. Now we’re returned,” Tom Little Bear Nason, chairman of the Esselen tribe of Monterey county, told the Santa Cruz Sentinel. “We are going to conserve it and pass it on to our children and grandchildren and beyond.”“We are back after a 250-year absence – because in 1770 our people were taken to the missions,” Nason told Monterey County Weekly. “Now we are back home. We plan on keeping this land forever.”
They will share it with other groups also native to the area, including the Ohlone, the Amah Mutsun and the Rumsen people – all of whom were devastated by the arrival of white settlers.
“Getting this land back gives privacy to do our ceremonies,” Nason said. “It gives us space and the ability to continue our culture without further interruption. This is forever, and in perpetuity, that we can hold on to our culture and our values.”
Even an increase in a confused understanding of socialism has the American capitalist in fear
“…Whether Millennials actually use the word “socialism” properly — as government ownership of the means of production — is moot. More likely, they simply want better public policy that addresses their specific problems. Even then, however, they often fall prey to political snake oil such as rent controls or wealth taxes…It would be tragic if we survived the pandemic only to find ourselves living in true socialism, which in practice has always robbed societies of prosperity and individuals of freedom. To avoid that fate, all generations should offer Millennials a fairer — a liberal — deal.”
(Hat-tip to Libcom for link)
