alanjjohnstone
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/13/mike-pompeo-iran-gulf-oil-tanker-attacks
Those attacks on oil-tankers could be false flag incidents by Saudi Arabia/Israel (take your conspiratorial pick) to provoke war with Iran.
Or alternatively a defensive gesture by Iran demonstrating the vulnerability of the Straits of Hormuz if full scale conflict was to break up.
Or a terrorist third-party action intended to take advantage of the turmoil of another Middle East war.
I won’t commit as yet since one thing lacking is any evidence or proof other than allegations.
But one thing is for sure, it is an unsettling development that could well lead to open war that would inevitably escalate and spread.
Wolff has indeed suggested this, ALB, but I would have to search out the sources. (one little annoying thing is he often makes use of video lectures without transcripts on websites such as Truthdig)
It is one of my online criticisms whenever his articles appear (and I have also done so on the blog) that he proposes that the State fosters his WSDEs, ignoring his Marxist ABC that the State is not a neutral body but the tool of the capitalist class i.e. its executive committee. So he expects the “conventional” capitalist class to provide the rope to hang themselves rather than expect it to strangle any movement towards workers participation/control of production when it becomes perceived as a threat to their class interests.
I usually suggest in these comments that for the State to do the turnaround as Wolff requires it to do in promoting WSDEs, it would mean a popular political revolution for State power and if that was possible why stop half-way and not go the whole hog to socialism proper. Why urge taking people up to the top of the hill and then all the way back down again like some grand old duke of York.
Wolff’s pet hobby-horse Mondragon could not have got off the ground except by being under the combined umbrella of the very conservative Spanish Catholic Church and Franco’s fascist government in the separatist Basque region – a strange origin that liberals and progressive seem to neglect to mention since it raises a core question – what was their motive if Mondragon is supposed to be pro-worker and anti-capitalist?
Matt, you may be interested to know that i’m in the middle of doing a draft pamphlet on co-operatives which I hope will offer our own much needed comprehensive response to co-ops which has always been a popular topic of the Left. (As disclosure, I’ve used the co-operative for three funerals)
I wasn’t going to include “municipal socialism” which was once popular and was called “sewer socialism” in America as it began with demands for cities to install sanitation systems but now it is mentioned here, i’ll have to include a paragraph or few on it in relation to Richard Wolff who espouses what ALB describes as Lassalleanism. Maybe i’ll add a line or two on GDH Cole’s guild socialism as my old union already being part of the state required an alternative to nationalization and endorsed it but the Whitley system stole its thunder.
“…Labour voters would end up seeing him ousted after election and replaced with a more amenable (to the capitalists) Labour leader….”
I think the reality will be that the media will leave voters with no option for I think we can foresee a vicious and constant campaign of de-legitimacy which would make the present anti-Semitism accusations mild indeed. We’ll get a good hint of what is to come in any election campaign.
Increasing the amount of beef, lamb and sausages in your diet may shorten your life, new research claims.
Research published in the British Medical Journal suggests there is a link between changed eating habits – eating substantially more red meat and processed meat, such as bacon and ham – and a raised risk of dying early. Cutting back and eating more fish, chicken, vegetables and nuts appears to reduce the risk. The study was carried out by a team of researchers in the US and China, looking at the eating habits of about 54,000 women and 28,000 men over eight years and the death rates over the following eight years.
Increasing total red and processed meat intake by 3.5 servings a week or more over an eight-year period was associated with a 10% higher risk of death in the next eight years. Eating more processed meat raised the risk of early death higher than eating unprocessed red meat – 13% versus 9%. Cutting out one serving of red meat per day and eating fish instead reduced the risk of death in the next eight years by 17%.
“A change in protein source or eating healthy plant-based foods such as vegetables or whole grains can improve longevity.”
“We are not saying everybody should become vegetarian or vegan,” said the lead author, Frank B Hu of the Harvard TH Chan school of public health in Boston. “However, there is a significant benefit if you replace some of the red meat with plant-based foods.”
In the UK, about five women in 100 will die in the eight years after they are 60 and eight men in 100. If they all ate seven slices of bacon a week more between the ages of 52 and 60, “then about one more of the 100 women would die, and less than that – somewhere between 0 and one – more men would die. So in total somewhere between one and two extra deaths out of the 200 men and women.
Nutrition experts said the studies reinforced the warning that too much red and processed meat was not healthy.
Sanders defines his “socialism”.
As been said on the forum many times, Sanders admits what he means by socialism is still basically mostly FDR New Deal with little bits of Truman, JFK, LBJ and MLK mixed in.
From the horses mouth about the economic consequences of climate change
Rostin Behnam is part of the five-member Commodities Futures Trading Commission, an independent federal agency and of CFTC’s Market Risk Advisory Committee.
“If climate change causes more volatile frequent and extreme weather events, you’re going to have a scenario where these large providers of financial products—mortgages, home insurance, pensions—cannot shift risk away from their portfolios,” Behnam told the New York Times. “It’s abundantly clear that climate change poses financial risk to the stability of the financial system.”
“The impacts of climate change affect every aspect of the American economy—from production agriculture to commercial manufacturing and the financing of every step in each process,” he continued. “Any solutions seeking to address and mitigate climate risk must be equally focused on ensuring the safety and continued prosperity of our urban cores and rural communities. Failing to address financial market risks associated with climate change will impede economic growth, and most likely hit rural communities the hardest.”
The latest is that Sheffield offers itself up to be a trial city – a pilot involving 4,000 people would cost between £18m and £60m, depending on the extent of the scheme.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/12/sheffield-council-backs-universal-basic-income-trial
Julie Dore, the leader of the Labour-controlled council, said she recognised the transformative effect UBI could have on the residents of Sheffield, particularly given increasing automation in the workplace.
“UBI has the potential to be a bold, radical change to how our economy and society works with benefits for people’s wellbeing and how we support people in need,” she said. “In order to face up to these realities, I think it is completely right that radical solutions are considered. As a council, we are getting behind this and committing to looking at this further and working with a Labour government in trialling this.”Sam Walby, a co-founder of UBI Lab Sheffield, a grassroots group of researchers and activists said: “It’s an idea whose time has come. It seems to have been included in a lot of new visions, whether that’s for politicians or political writers.
“There seems to be a common theme that’s running through, which is, ‘how do we reimagine the welfare state for the 21st century’? We’re not saying this is a silver bullet that could solve everything, but we need to be exploring it. Some of its results might be completely surprising and unexpected.”The conventional meat industry raises billions of animals and turns over $1tn (£785bn) a year. However, the huge environmental impacts have been made plain in recent scientific studies, from the emissions driving the climate crisis to wild habitats destroyed for farmland and the pollution of rivers and oceans. Almost half the world’s crops are fed to livestock, but only 15% of the plant calories end up being eaten by humans as meat. In contrast, the report says, cultured meat and vegan meat replacements retain about three-quarters of their input calories.
Most of the meat people eat in 2040 will not come from slaughtered animals, according to a report that predicts 60% will be either grown in vats or replaced by plant-based products that look and taste like meat. 35% of all meat will be cultured in 2040 and 25% will be vegan replacements.
The report by the global consultancy AT Kearney, based on expert interviews, highlights the heavy environmental impacts of conventional meat production and the concerns people have about the welfare of animals under industrial farming.
“The large-scale livestock industry is viewed by many as an unnecessary evil,” the report says. “With the advantages of novel vegan meat replacements and cultured meat over conventionally produced meat, it is only a matter of time before they capture a substantial market share.”
“The shift towards flexitarian, vegetarian and vegan lifestyles is undeniable, with many consumers cutting down on their meat consumption as a result of becoming more conscious towards the environment and animal welfare,” said Carsten Gerhardt, a partner at AT Kearney. “For passionate meat-eaters, the predicted rise of cultured meat products means that they still get to enjoy the same diet they always have, but without the same environmental and animal cost attached.”
Further to my previous post this news item indicates that Israel is never going to be willing to integrate its Palestinian population but will in fact exclude them from any form of citizenship.
But it does offer a slight glimmer of hope
“…The increase in Israeli government and municipal presence in these areas of occupied East Jerusalem marks a “shift from broad neglect of Palestinian areas to the beginning of what is intended to be a decades-long process of absorbing most of East Jerusalem into Israel”, ICG wrote. Likud ministers, both in favour of a two-state solution and annexation, who support this shift see it as long-term policy to remould the national identity of Palestinian Jerusalemites from “Palestinian” to an “Arab of Jerusalem”…”
I found this article a worthwhile read.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/06/11/annexation-without-citizenship-apartheid
Once again it reminds me of what Bill M once said a long time ago that made me re-evaluate my attitude, the Palestinians should end their national struggle and transform it into a civil rights campaign by making the demand for citizenship.
We all know that a separate Palestinian state will never be a viable entity and simply continue the conflict as the poorer people look across the wall and see the greener grass of the wealthier state built upon the continued exploitation of the West Bank resources.
I commented on the website –
“I think the shift from a Palestinian national struggle to a civil rights demand for citizenship in a “ersatz Israel” may well resonate with those who currently view Israel as the “victim”. Rather than supposedly “threaten” Israel’s existence it calls for Israel’s “expansion”, providing legitimacy to the hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers presently illegally occupying the West Bank.”
I hold out very little hope that the Israeli Jewish population will ever accept this proposal as it upsets their demographic superiority but for the Palestinians, I think it is progress and the idea of One State Solution has indeed already been gaining ground and it will be better received message for those third-parties sitting on the fence.
It may also encourage the active involvement and the participation of those Israeli-Arabs as they are conveniently called instead of Palestinians who compose a fifth of Israel’s population but who for good sound reasons that they are economically better off inside Israel, don’t rock the boat too much and acquiesce to the various discriminatory policies.
Our Euro leaflet did at least elicit one response from a green activist who took umbrage at our claim to want to own the Earth for all of humanity, the implication that we are the same as Biblical fundamentalists seeking dominion over all creatures.
“..Take this example from a Socialist Party’s leaflet, with the headline ‘There is only one world’:…the world’s natural and industrial resources must become the common heritage of all humanity so that they can be used to directly meet the needs of the world’s population…”
Details of visit
The only other names that struck a bell was Margaret Atwood and Vandana Shiva.
But, of course, just how many of the signatories and those generally in the eco movement have actually heard of us?
This is what we have to address…our political anonymity within perhaps the most prominent social movement of the present time.
How successful they will be involving the wider labour movement is going to be a challenge. Embarking on a series of one-day strikes may resonate in some parts of the world, and fall very flat in others.
In the end, it is a very limited application of the general strike, more a token gesture and certainly not as a weapon of liberation but merely a lever to pressure government policy.
But surely our role is to ask…Why stop short?
No, i’m not advocating the use of the General Strike for establish socialism We have the vote for that.
But it is a hopeful sign that people are organizing outside the constraints of the conventional political parties, who are all rushing to be on the band-wagon…Ministers declaring climate emergencies…
I think we can go further and convince environmentalists to declare class war against the whole capitalist system, not just a few target fossil fuel corporations…and this is the message we need to get across. If we are not present, and I mean visibly in attendance, there will be no-one to hear and listen to such ideas.
“Marches serve two functions: to encourage people to join a movement and to enact change,” lead author Janet Swim said in a statement. “This study is consistent with the idea that people who participate in marches can gain public support, convince people that change can occur, and also normalize the participants themselves.”
Although researchers found that some participants had expressed negative views of protesters in general before the marches, after the People’s Climate March they were less likely to view marchers as “arrogant or eccentric or otherwise outside of the norm,” Swim reported. Observers who said they consumed news via conservative sources had more “collective efficacy beliefs” after the marches, meaning they were more likely to believe that collective action could be effective and to have plans to participate in protests themselves.
Meanwhile, the police exert their power to prosecute protesters
