alanjjohnstone
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A bio of Elliot Abrams for anyone who still believes his innocence.
The debate keeps bubbling and now includes how to finance the Green New Deal
Xenophobia drives German populism
A study has flipped the script on the well-worn story that mostly the poor, the uneducated, and the elderly vote for populists. Only one indicator matters: whether someone thinks immigration is bad for Germany.
Sociologist Martin Schröder blasted the widely held idea of the low-income, poorly-educated Alternative for Germany (AfD) voter was not at all representative of the truth. The fact is, wrote Schröder in the August 2018 study, that only one category truly unites the right wing: xenophobia.
“AfD supporters come from every level and part of society,” Schröder wrote. The one thing they all have in common, however, is “they don’t want refugees to migrate to Germany.”https://www.dw.com/en/who-votes-for-germanys-far-right-party-afd-not-who-youd-think/a-47793722
Italy has launched its citizens’ income welfare program designed to reduce poverty and unemployment.
The program, essentially a new system of welfare and unemployment benefits, provides those eligible with €780 ($882) credited to monthly, prepaid debit cards to pay for groceries, pharmaceuticals, utility bills, rent and other essentials. In exchange, able-bodied participants enroll in a job-finding and job-training program.
Who is eligible?
Italian or EU citizens, or legal residents who have lived in Italy for at least 10 years and whose annual household income doesn’t exceed €9,360 euros
Participants cannot own pleasure boats, second homes worth more than €30,000 or have bought a car in the six months prior to applying.
Able-bodied workers must sign up for job placement or training programs. The first job offer is to be located within 100 kilometers of home, the second offer within 250 kilometers and the third anywhere in Italy, with some exceptions.The program is expected to cost €7.1 billion this year, €7.8 billion in 2020 and €8.0 billion in 2021.
https://www.dw.com/en/italy-launches-7-billion-citizens-income-plan-to-combat-poverty/a-47798245
So he repeats the justification for no by-election is that the constituency votes for the individual and not the party. Yet he ignores that the individual is elected on a party manifesto.
Yup, for him it’s the face and not the case.
I’m sure you will have something to say on this issue in April Fools Day Socialist Standard.
An Alabama county court recognized an aborted fetus as a plaintiff in a lawsuit. The judge’s decision came four months after the passage of Amendment 2 by voters in a state referendum last November. The law gives fetuses the same legal rights held by a person under the state constitution.
“Pregnant people are full citizens with bodily autonomy and a right to choose the outcome of their pregnancy,” wrote Dr. Katie McHugh, a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Rights. “Attempting to grant a six week gestational sac equal rights is both unlawful and idiotic.”
Author Mona Eltahawy added that the case effectively renders the woman—and all women in Alabama—”walking incubators” with fewer rights than a fetus.
Will post-Brexit UK succeed in opposing US food industry
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/06/food-fight-doubts-grow-over-post-brexit-standards
Chlorinated chicken. The EU banned the practice 22 years ago,
13 separate antibiotics classed by the World Health Organization as “critically important” to human medicine were still being used in US meat supply chains, Cattle producers in the US use hormones to induce faster, bigger animal growth but they have been banned in the EU since 1989.,
Ractopamine is a growth hormone used to promote leanness in animals by shifting nutrients into muscle and away from fat deposition. It is administered in the days leading up to slaughter. It is banned by the EU, mainland China, Russia and almost 160 other countries but not in the US,
In the US, products that include Yellow 5 and 6, Red 3 and 40, Blue 1 and 2, Green 3 and Orange B are available for purchase and do not require labelling. The UK banned these food dyes following a 2007 double-blind study that found eating artificially coloured food appeared to increase children’s hyperactivity.
Mock all you wish , ALB. Eco-homes, rather than these micro-houses that are being built today by capitalism using loop-holes in planning rules
One of the issues is that we are not building zero-carbon homes, and the promises of insulation and low energy usage have not been kept by the industry or the government.
http://www.earthhomesnow.com/mud-brick-homes.htm
I thought I answered *why* I thought it useful but i’ll make it clearer
Any follower of this forum will notice, either
a) that many posts are not responded to (mostly mine).
b) that many threads have little engagement with few participants (mostly the ones I join in)
Any input from others is useful in judging the pertinence or interest of the various topics. Whether anybody would bother to indicate a preference, I am not so sure. Perhaps when we have a bigger and wider audience, its significance might become more apparent.
When on AlterNet, I am interested in knowing if any contribution I make resonates with others and the identity of who actually up-voted. (It’s not anonymous and they only operate up-votes, to avoid an issue you raised.)
Decided not go with literature but instead a Bluetooth speaker for the mobile phone. Perhaps we should think about featuring wall-posters on our shopping link.
The assumptions of the projections has been that governments will take action. But what if they don’t?
“The Trump administration’s actions amount to a virtual surrender to climate change,” said the report by the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center
What if other nations follow this example of economic self-interest before the general good?
We see plenty of reports, graphs and statistics. But what is always missing are policies and regulations and changes. Is this how an emergency is responded to?
This is an application I have seen on Libcom and on many of the comments section on “progressive” websites. It can be in the form of thumbs up/thumbs down, or in likes.
It is a fast poll of the popularity or unpopularity of a post on the forum.
It is feedback by and to members of the forum.
Wez, that is a good idea. I also noticed that such online radio broadcasts are also videoed.
I keep saying, we have the dosh and it should be spent in such creative and constructive ways before it is whittled away. (just as long we avoid words such as “propitious” in the radio script which I had to look up, Harvey 😛 )
The Tories and Islamophobics
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/05/tories-suspend-14-members-over-alleged-islamophobia
Always two sides to an argument, ALB
The critique of the eco-modernist
A critique of Leigh Phillips’ assertion of the Tech-Fix Ecomodernist faith
“…there is no reason why we cannot have both sophisticated modern medicine and the kind of supportive community that humans have enjoyed for millennia, and have both technically astounding aircraft along with small, cheap, humble, fireproof, home made and beautiful mud brick houses, and have modern genetics along with neighbourhood poultry co-ops. Long ago humans had worked out how to make excellent and quite good enough houses, strawberries, furniture, dinners and friendships. We could opt for stable, relaxed, convivial and sufficient ways in some domains while exploring better ways in others, but ecomodernists see only two options; going forward or backward….”
I have read numerous aspirations in SPGB literature that our aim is a sustainable benign steady-state society. Leigh Phillips disagrees.
“To call for a steady-state economy, to oppose growth, is to foreclose all the rest of the spectacular deeds that would otherwise lie in humanity’s future.” (p. 260.)
In another critique
“…Despite your avowed anti-capitalism, what you really seem to be saying is that managed capitalism can deliver prosperity to the masses so long as we claw back a bit of wealth from the richest few….”
Promethean Porn and Malthusian Mistakes: a letter to Leigh Phillips
Another of the pro air-con position of Phillips
The Air-Conditioning Debate Isn’t Really About Air-Conditioning
“… there can be no adequate or just solution to the climate emergency that does not ensure sufficiency for all with excess for none by putting a halt to overproduction for, and overconsumption by, the affluent world. Because capitalism is incapable of surviving in a world like that, the necessity for deep restraint is being widely ignored for now….”
