alanjjohnstone
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Was the reason for Iran’s restrained measured missile response because it screwed up and brought down a civilian jet?
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51055505
Yet another tragedy upon tragedy
I think I have said this before.
In all my years involved in politics I have encountered only one solitary leftist (WRP) who in believing that the future revolution would be a violent uprising as many of his like-minded leftists do, actually joined the Territorials – the local part-time Parachute Regiment, no less – to acquire military training and weapon skills.
I’m told he spent much of the weekend exercises in punch ups with his supposed comrades-in-arms who were definitely not his comrades.
Those romantic insurrectionists live in a fantasy if they imagine they can win power by lobbing bricks and bottles at 50-ton battle tanks.
Yourself (and Darren) are doing a great job in documenting and cataloguing a variety of SPGB writers and thinkers.
I suggest that Proudhon’s ideas as a mutualist rather than an anarcho-capitalist are a little bit more complex than you state.
https://marx.libcom.org/library/mutualism-yes-no-iain-mckay
But, yes, Owen was not identical to Proudhon although there were similarities in their projects.
SPGB 1989 Conference:
“This Conference reaffirms that is: ‘In the minds of many workers the Co-operative movement is regarded as being in some way linked up with socialism. When the co-operators take up this attitude they claim in justification that Robert Owen, the co-operative pioneer, was actively concerned for some part of his life with possible means of escape from the capitalist system…Robert Owen’s solution was that small groups of workers should try to establish self-supporting ‘villages of industry’, in which there would be no employer, no master. They would constitute, as it were, little oases in the desert of capitalism, owning the ‘land and means of production common’. He anticipated that the movement would grown until finally the workers would have achieved their emancipation…The Co-operative Movement cannot solve the basic economic problems of the workers as a whole, or even of the co-operative societies’ own members. Its success is merely the success of an essentially capitalist undertaking…Co-operation cannot emancipate the working class. Only Socialism will do that. The workers cannot escape from the effects of capitalism by retiring into Owen’s ‘villages of industry’. They must obtain for society as a whole the ownership of the means of production and distribution, which are the property of the capitalist class. For this they must organise to control the machinery of government. Once possessed of power they can then reorganise society on a socialist basis of common ownership. Owen’s original aims can only be achieved by socialist methods’.” – carriedFurther reading
https://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2012/06/robert-owen-and-new-lanark.html
https://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2010/06/robert-owen-money.html
Yet on the forum you previously offered a sympathetic defence of Robert Owen who shared many similar failings…did you not?
“To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.”
Proudhon – General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth CenturyThe reprisals have begun
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51028954
My thoughts are that the use of sophisticate missiles fired from Iran itself is a warning that all US bases in the region (such as the 5th Fleet in Bahrain) could be targeted if need be.
Will the US let this go without a response? Is it sufficient revenge for Iran?
We’ll just have to wait and see
And they think it is all over
The European parliament will express its “grave concern” about the attitude of Boris Johnson’s government to the 3.3 million EU citizens living in the UK following threats of deportation made by a British minister. The condemnation follows the comments of security minister Brandon Lewis, who threatened EU citizens with deportation from the UK if they do not apply for settled status before the deadline of 30 June 2021.
Without a “physical document” offering proof of their right to residency at the end of the transition period on 1 January 2021 there is an increased “risk of discrimination against EU27 citizens by prospective employers or landlords who may want to avoid the extra administrative burden of online verification, or erroneously fear they might place themselves in an unlawful situation”.
Even in death, Soleimani brings death
Fifty people have been killed and more than 200 injured as Iranians gathered for the burial
A plague on both hoses article
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/soleimani-anti-imperialist-hero-200105211451136.html
From her website
“Revolution, in its very essence, should be defined by freedom and justice, not a singular love of nation. Revolution, in its very essence, should stand for humanity.”
We can certainly agree that advance planning is required to provide social and community services. Demographic changes including estimated numbers of newcomers arriving can be projected with a fair degree of accuracy. But the determining factor for the provision of public services are not local needs but budgetary, hence the current crises in housing, class sizes and hospital waiting lists, etc. Central and local government spending restrictions is the main influence on the problems of access and availability, are they not? And ultimately those depends upon how much the capitalist class is prepared to pay.
As you pointed out new arrivals can be located rationally. Presently that is not the case and it is adding to the pressure on local authorities and adding to the competition for resources increasing social tensions. Research shows that the poorest regions of the country are disproportionately carrying the burden of housing asylum-seekers with the wealthier parts of the country escaping the costs
(See https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-poor-carrying-burden-again.html)
This also goes for European nations. The numbers of migrants and refugees in Italy and Greece can be contrasted with the relatively very modest UK intake while the nationalist governments in Eastern Europe are refusing to accept sharing any agreed quota whatsoever.
Probably the overriding influence on migrant numbers is the economic climate. Eastern European numbers have dropped, not only because of Brexit, but also largely due to the fall in the exchange rate value of the pound. More than one million Mexicans and their families, including US-born children, returned to Mexico from 2009 to 2014 after living in the US due to economic insecurity and the Mexican population in the US is continuing to shrink.
[See https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/mexican-immigrants-united-states%5D
The UK already has a points-based system for non-European Economic Area migrants, based on various tiers, introduced not by the Tories but by the Labour government in 2008. Johnson intends to extend it in some shape or form to EU-born workers.
For the employers there are pros and cons in a points system depending on the nature of the business. The quotas for unskilled farm-workers are already to be substantially increased. The points system also requires constant adjustment to match the ever evolving nature of the economy. In Canada and Australia accepted immigrants join the job market. The UK proposal is that a guaranteed job is required, AFAIK.
Just to end, that while the socialists aspire to the end of frontiers, passports, work permits and visas, we do not advocate such as we are well aware that the capitalist nation-state will control its borders (albeit with relaxations in the EU Schengen) and a call for the end of that is unachievable without the creation of the socialist world cooperative commonwealth.
Iranian-Americans were detained at the U.S.-Canada border and questioned about their “political views and allegiances”. Those detained were returning from an Iranian pop concert that took place in Vancouver.
An anonymous source from Customs and Border Protection (CBP), alleged that “the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued a national order to CBP to ‘report’ and detain anyone with Iranian heritage entering the country who is deemed potentially suspicious or ‘adversarial,’ regardless of citizenship status.”
What next? Internment camps?
The first consequence
Iran to resume nuclear weapon production
If “imminent”, then you would imagine officials would be on stand-by to deal with any possible crisis.
Mark Esper, Secretary of Defense: No public or media events.
David Norqust, Deputy Sec. of Defense: No public or media events.
Mark Miley, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff: No public or media events.
John Hyten, Vice chair Joint Chiefs of Staff: No public or media events.
