alanjjohnstone
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The sanctions noose tightens
“COVID-19 is now inversely related to the markets. The worse that COVID-19 gets, the better the markets do because the Fed will bring in stimulus. That is what has been driving markets,” said Andrew Brenner, head of international fixed income at NatAlliance.
The Federal Reserve’s $3 trillion bid to stave off an economic crisis in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak is fuelling excesses across U.S. capital markets.
The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average have both risen more than 40% and the Nasdaq composite has gained nearly 60%. The S&P 500’s forward price-to-earnings ratio is currently 21.5, a level last seen during the dot-com boom 20 years ago.
The new immigration rules
This newspaper article was actually re-posted by our African blog back in 2015
https://socialistbanner.blogspot.com/2015/10/was-slavery-all-black-and-white.html
I think we should be cautious in ascribing the slave trade to some Africa’s rulers. Yes, they were those who benefited and sought to protect these privileges but they were not the cause or the reason for the slavery and it was not universal among the African rulers to engage in the slave trade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Africa
Slavery would have remained on the scale of earlier times and i’m sure with its abolition, much of the colonial plantation servitude in Africa was reflected the domestic slavery of Africans during the later epochs.
Because white slavery existed particularly on the Barbary coast it should not distract us from the rise in racism because of the practice of slavery.
https://socialistbanner.blogspot.com/2015/07/transforming-beasts-into-men.html
Just as in modern times local African rulers benefit from corruption and the draining away of resources by the multinationals, they could not achieve such thievery without the complicity of the international banking system and the global corporations abusing the tax laws and accountancy rules. The more we point the finger at individual African rulers, less is the attention is paid to the real plunderers of Africa’s wealth. They may be beneficiaries but very much secondary.
Our African blog has many articles on modern day slavery.
The Jamaican newspaper article was actually inaccurate. In 1981, Mauritania became the last country in the world to abolish slavery. It didn’t make slavery a crime until 2007.
It would be easy to say that the American Civil War abolished slavery in the USA, but that would ignore the decades of Jim Crow laws which deprived African-Americans of possessing the same “free labour” rights of white wage-slaves. People forget the largest internal migration in America was not the Dustbowl years of the Okies but the exodus of African-Americans from the South escaping servitude.
We should be very cautious in reinforcing the arguments of some whose purpose is to absolve Europeans of culpability in the Atlantic Slave Trade.
The vote still counts
Over half a million voters in Hong Kong cast their ballots in primaries held by the city’s pro-democracy opposition parties, organizers said on Sunday after polls closed.
The turnout was higher than organizers were expecting, with over 610,000 people casting their ballots digitally and in person. People stood in long lines outside of 250 polling stations across Hong Kong for the two-day election. Many regard the opposition’s primary as a litmus test of greater resistance to the security law.
The elections, organized by the Group Power for Democracy, seek to secure a majority of more than 35 seats — more than half of the total number — for pro-democracy candidates in Hong Kong’s Legislative Council election in September. This would give democracy candidates greater power to veto pro-establishment legislation.
https://www.dw.com/en/hong-kong-opposition-primary-draws-nearly-600000-in-protest-vote/a-54135805
LB, here is the email who may well be a useful contact for you.
Contact: Trevor Clarke
wspa.info@yahoo.com.auOn the Republican side, they are already jockeying to be the next candidate if Trump is defeated.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/10/nikki-haley-post-trump-republican-party
<p class=”css-ca4fse”>Nikki Haley ex-ambassador to the United Nations and former governor of South Carolina is one of the favourites</p>No branches near Melbourne and the World Socialist Party of Australia sadly faded away several years ago, LB.
There are a few isolated individual members or sympathisers who you could get in touch with and perhaps meet up with, at least online, if not physically.
One advantage of internet is that you can begin campaigning for socialism and exposing the futility of reformism on local social media and discussion lists (but always being wary of spamming or trolling then it backfires)
Our blog is always on the look-out for contributors from all parts of the world.
Our recent experience of breathing new life into the World Socialist Party of the United States shows the possibilities that a handful of comrades can have.
This is a short history of the SPA but doesn’t give you the full picture of the colourful characters that participated.
LB, there seems to be two strands of thought.
One is that we are all just sheep that blindly follow lockdown and social distancing rules just because the State says so.
The other is that we are social, cooperative and will collaborate with one another for mutual advantage and benefit. and require little State coercion to do so.
Every bank i go to has a notice saying hiding your face is not permitted.
With face masks, what happens to all those laws that forbade the wearing of them at protest marches?
What about all those laws that forbade some muslim women from hiding their face?
What about all that facial recognition technology that now seems redundant?
Reservations are technically not private owned land, are they?….but more like large concentration camps which they were designed to be despite the few that are now home to casinos.
I’m sure that socialists being responsible persons will do the best they can to minimise spreading COVID-19 by use of face masks and social distancing. Just as we would abide by even State measures to slow the spread such as limits on public gatherings and travel restrictions.
We would heartily support cooperative measures to research and develop vaccines and treatments such as open resource such as was engaged in with DNA Genome Project while openly opposing such things as claims of intellectual ownership by pharmaceutical industries.
However, leopards rarely change their spots. Capitalism has a structure that is detrimental to progress and the well-being of people. It is not just drug manufacturer patents that present a problem but also national rivalry. He who pays the piper gets the first tune…to paraphrase an old saying.
There is no rule that says socialists as individuals should idly stand by when they witness pain and suffering. We simply understand the limited effect each of our contributions will have when it comes to the big picture.
Private financial backing for the world’s 35 largest meat and dairy companies totalled an estimated $478bn (£380bn) between January 2015 and 30 April this year.
Dr Tara Garnett, an Oxford University food systems analyst, called the funding and production of intensive animal protein to provide cheap food “a systemic problem created and maintained by powerful financial interests and by absent, unhelpful and damaging governance”.
Scientists have repeatedly expressed alarm over the environmental impact of large-scale food and dairy production and are calling for a transformation of the global food system, comparing the environmental impact to that of big oil. They say the current model is responsible for up to 30% of greenhouse gas emissions and 70% of freshwater use, with huge reductions in meat-eating essential to avoid climate crisis.
The report by the UK-based campaign group Feedback describes meat and dairy production as a “fundamentally extractive business model” propped up by “vast flows of private finance”. It adds: “There is no version of industrial animal agriculture that is compatible with climate justice and a zero-carbon future.”
Feedback’s executive director, Carina Millstone, said the environmental and biodiversity damage from intensive meat and dairy production was “as bad if not worse” as that of major oil and gas companies.
Australia was known for its draconian treatment of asylum seekers, marooning them in camps on isolated islands.
However, for Hong Kong residents who have visas to visit Australia like the UK they are permitting them 3/5 yr residence and a pathway to citizenship – in all about 14,000 are being permitted this privilege.
