alanjjohnstone
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Having received the papal blessing, UBI is being promoted as a remedy for the economic devastation inflicted on workers by COVID-19
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/03/universal-basic-income-coronavirus-shocks
Perhaps a Libertarian Party candidate might split the Trump vote and give Biden the election?
The sorry tale of the mercenary army that failed
While Trump and others blame China for holding back information about the Wuhan outbreak, it seems the irony that Trump has banned Dr Fauci from testifying to Congress, has not dawned upon his supporters as yet.
It is now evident the strategy of Biden’s camp is concentrating attention upon the written record.
Reade, as she explained previously, was not explicit in her sexual harassment complaint. If the report is found it will not have any reference to the sexual assault. I’ve seen this before so it is no surprise to me.
I am fairly confident that the liberal, pro-Democratic Party media will move on and Biden will face no further questioning upon this matter. The media will be satisfied it has done its job “professionally”
Our task though is to convince our American fellow-workers that the lesser evil is still an evil. Sanders as the presidential contestant would have made our case much more of a difficulty but between Biden and Trump, it is somewhat easier.
Reade has been accused of being inconsistent with her claims…rather than initially present the event in its entirety, she later elaborated on the details. There no contradictions in her account, just a fuller description. But it is being held against her.
Her claims have been corroborated even if legally it might be said to be hearsay evidence.
Likewise, Biden’s senior staff deny any complaint was lodged by Reade as proof positive that no assault took place.
And now the Senate will be requested to permit an examination of its files. Not sure just how long that process will take. Probably until the end of the election is what i’m guessing when it cannot damage his chances.
Bu, yes, there are four options. Reade is lying. Biden is lying. Reade is misremembering. Biden is misremembering.
My bet is that Biden is not consciously lying but as in the case of his wife’s and child’s traumatic death, he is prone to re-constructing events, understandable to minimise the pain.
He has shown on several occasions that he also does so regards his political history. I see no reason why he should break the pattern.
It is not for nothing i call him Dementia Joe. He exhibits the clinical symptoms of its onset, rambling incoherent replies to questions where cannot finish his sentence.
Nor should we forget that Biden was pressured into a reply, it was not voluntarily given and took quite a while to get around to. And the media only began focussing on it once Sanders was out of the way. Never during the contest.
Nor do i see many media outlets offering her interviews. The AP originally did but then declined to publish details of the interview at the time.
In Scotland it would be a “not proven”, in a criminal case a “not guilty” but in a civil case, probably a “guilty” verdict
So Biden has finally spoken.
It is now a matter of she said, he said and who you wish to believe as expressing the truth
Trusting someone who is relying on memory, can we forget that Biden mis-remembered his role in the civil rights movement marches and how he completely forgot that he was not arrested in South Africa for trying to reach the then jailed Mandela. Or his support for the Iraq war. Or allying with Republicans to oppose bussing of minorities.
At a personal level, he misrepresented the tragic circumstance of the death of his wife and infant daughter. He said the driver was drunk – who was not and who also had the right of way on the road and then after the crash assisted the best he could.
Biden can invent “facts”
The SLP had the metaphor of the sword and shield strategy which they kept switching around so I don’t know what came first.
The shield of political action to protect the industrial action sword
Or industrial action to shield the vote when it was used as a weapon.
Welcome back, LBird…Your nemesis Bijou was recently expressing concern about your silence and worried you may be victim of the virus. Happily you appear healthy enough.
The conflicting science and disputing experts being demonstrating in analysing the pandemic shows when it comes down to it, it will be how workers feel about the legitimacy or otherwise of their explanations whether to obey or disobey… they either stayed lockdowned…or voted with their feet to escape it
“The SPGB’s vague allusions to socialist society “from each according to their ability to each according to their need” leaves us groping in the late 19th century.”
Not sure what you really mean but that aspiration may have been formulated in the 19th C but today we can witness that it is now achievable and feasible with the developments in technology, robotics, automation and artificial intelligence. We can if we wish have a society of abundance and that is taking into account keeping it ecologically sustainable
Is it a cop-out for an organisation of 400 to not provide an agenda for the billions in the working class to follow other than some generalised guidelines?
We are as disappointed as you that we are no nearer accomplishing a socialist society than De Leon or our own founding members who optimistically expected socialism to be built within a short time-frame.
Why hasn’t it?
Well, we had some workers taking some wrong turnings…labourism and bolshevism, both leading down the reformist path.
But surely, some might ask, having made such errors, workers have now corrected their ideas. Sadly, no and again we can speculate why – the power of the media and also decades where capitalism appeared to solve social problems…the NHS, raising many workers to the “middle” classes with their own house , own car and holidays abroad. We would be wrong to think workers did not perceive those advances as signs of progress. But it has stalled…as predicted…and it is being reversed…as predicted.
There has also been the counter ideologies confronting socialism. Nationalism and religion. Both still deeply entrenched in the consciousness of our fellow-workers. They have ebbed and waned in influence but when crises have risen, populist politicians have used them to stoke their support. mostly on irrational fears.
But let’s be positive. The Socialist Party would like to think it has a role to play in the coming social revolution. Perhaps, we will, but not on the present evidence. We in the Socialist Party are no better or cleverer than anyone else. None of us as individuals know more than a little or can contribute more than a little. But collectively we can exert some influence and sway a few fellow-workers.
But in these turbulent times the unthinkable is now thinkable. Positions are shifting. The political focus has shifted from individualism to collective well-being. Much of the Welfare States social safety-nets have been found wanting. Not understanding the essentials of capitalist production, most fail to understand socialism, or even the need for it. But there are a growing number who now know that no palliatives or tinkering with reforms of any kind will remove the detrimental effects of the present system. They are imagining a different world, fairer, kinder and greener without us in the Socialist Party.
The best thing we can do in the Socialist Party is to recognise our limitations that for the time being, all we can be is a like-minded educational club, keeping alive an idea.
But also never to forget William Morris words
“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.”
https://www.dw.com/en/why-achille-mbembe-was-accused-of-anti-semitism/a-53293797
Achille Mbembe has been accused of anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel. He claims that the “shameful allegations” against him are unfounded. “Everything I have ever written or said rests on a single foundation, namely the hope for the development of a truly universal community, from which no one is excluded,”
Wall St lobby against Warren for VP
