alanjjohnstone
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The SOYMB blog has been keeping up to date with the projections on both the State pension and many company occupation pensions.In the UK, 68 now but with the prospect of 70 being the reality. Similar stories across the globe.There has been quite a strong women's grass-roots protest Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) that failed to achieve well-deserved general support from the unions and the public as a whole.Both BT and Royal Mail intend to end final salary schemes and both threaten imminent industrial action to protect it. However, having watered down their schemes for new entrants, it is unlikely that younger employees will be as determined to defend the rights of the older worker.Part of the divide and rule is to incite a generation "civil war", we see it regards the property ladder and the triple-locked pension being unlocked and the rising age of retirement. Typical blame everybody but the profit system.I'm less impressed by the budget gap forecasts referred to in the article. Playing with figures often. I still remember my own employer's pension surplus when they took a 10-year "holiday" from contributions and then when the stock-market crashed, pleading poverty. On the wider world issue of the aging of the working population, the blog has often linked the issue to the need for greater immigration as a counter-measure.Living longer is no longer a success story of society but a problem and a handicap. I'm not surprised that we have folk proclaiming euthanasia for the old.
He is perhaps the better writer of the SWP. He does a Howard Zinn with a Peoples History of the World which is readable.
I have said my piece, Vin. A response was required since it was SC himself who belatedly came on the forum to justify his position. I will now zip my mouth. I will await the outcome of NERB and the EC deliberations upon the matter.
Quote:The position of Steve Colborn is not quite as clear cut as some members would have us believe.I'm very surprised by this remark coming from you, Gnome.Our rulebook is quite explicit. (We even excluded members and branches from participating in this general election because they did not follow agreed accepted procedures correctly)."A member shall not belong to any other political organisation or write or speak for any other political party except in opposition, or otherwise assist any other political party. [Is the SCP not organised politically] Candidates elected to a Political office shall be pledged to act on the instructions of their Branches locally, [has SC considered this obligation of a member, now that he is an elected public official]Any Branch proposing to contest elections, National, European or Local, shall first obtain permission from the Executive Committee." [although referring to a branch, i am sure it is also interpreted to mean individual members]Would your response have been the same if a member had stood as a candidate for the Independent Working Class Association without informing the party? As i said in my earlier post, there could have been a fertile exchange on the merits or otherwise of engaging in community politics as i endeavoured to initiate on this forum. http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/parish-councilsBut members were deprived of the opportunity in this particular instance by the unilateral actions of SC that demonstrated a lack of respect for his fellow members. I see no defence that deserves special consideration. I think it gives credence to those members who opposed approving his re-membership being sceptical of pledges of good behaviour in the future could be relied upon.
I just read his wiki entry and surprised that he is a climate change denier. I am also surprised by his attempts to suppress criticism of his weather predictions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Corbyn
I looked at the one-week residential break prices. Makes our Summer Weekend School a veritable bargain in comparison.
As a post script to the above comment, the question that will be asked by many is not that whether you are a socialist because not many of us will consider you a turncoat but the issue will be if you are fit person for membership by your underhand conduct. You may well try and defend yourself when charges are inevitable brought against you but there is little defence to be had in knowingly flouting Party rules and keeping your actions secret from your branch, your comrades, not to mention your own family and friends.
There was no witch-hunt but attempts to clarify a situation which was all due to your own actions. As soon as it was made clear no other person knew of your go-it-alone endeavour, apologies for any unintended offence was offered. The fact that others initially were thought to be involved was all because of your decision to not inform the branch or the Party of your intentions. Questions were obviously raised but answers were given and were fully and unqualifiedly accepted. Nor did we wait for weeks to pass to have matters cleared up as demonstrated by this very tardy response from yourself.Members of the Socialist Studies group believed they too were still "good" socialists when expelled for breaking Party rules and remained "loyal" to the Party. Unfortunately accepting party rules goes with membership. The respected member Robert Barltrop believed his local community would benefit from his personal contribution. He stood as an independent. I am sure the Party's historians can cite other examples from our historyNow the Party has to expend its time in the process of expelling you. Another distraction, just as it was when it had to make a decision on your appeals to re-join a few years ago after you resigned. I need not remind you of the most basic principle of Marx and of the Party. "Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims."You may judge that after many decades of local socialist activity and letters to the local press that every voter was aware of your personal politics but you stood in a political contest on behalf of an organisation which is not a socialist one nor presented to the electorate a socialist case for your election. Again, i say this because of your lack of transparency. Perhaps you did address public meetings and issued an election leaflet to your ward that has not made known to your fellow members of the SPGB. But it seems even your new colleagues have difficulty in understanding your political stance, describing you as a "national socialist" I can also ask, what would the situation have been iff you had not been elected. Would anybody have known if you had stood? Would you have shared the news of your defeat as a SCP member?The simple fact is that there was very little open-ness shown by yourself to your supposed comrades of the SPGB. If you had resigned and stood as you claim as a spokes-person for your community, there would have been a healthy and fruitful debate and discussion of the situation. I, for one, may well have been one of your advocates. After all, i had already raised the issue of activity in parish councils on this forum before knowing of your participation in such.But now, i find myself one of your accusers of betraying the trust we place in all of our fellow members.
I'm not one for one size fits all.Previously i referred to large swathes of Mexico that possess a democratic structure that remains informal in contrast to the formal one but reflects the will of its people more efficiently and would be a better tool for democracy. Bookchin argued for the town-hall assembly of New England but would that be appropriate for the metro sprawl of LA. As always, the emancipation of the working class will be the act of the working class themselves. Not every factory and industry will have a uniform workplace democracy but will be tailored differently to suit needs. Making things fit for purpose was the point of my post.I was trying to answer a specific question raised on the thread – the issue of practices such as FGM which require to end. I raised the issue that to forcibly end it would lead to many more problems. I cannot see the volunteers of MSF carrying guns to threaten parents, but perhaps they could use blackmail by withdrawing services but that i think won't be acceptable either. It will be education and assistance to the victimsI don't think one size fits all and i don't consider that socialist consciousness spreads overnight. There will be uneven development and as Marx said the muck of the old regime – the hang-overs from the past. Wishing them away won't work.Most of the world's population is fed by small farmers – peasants, if you like – will there be forced collectivisation to make their farms common property of all and the scales of economy forced upon them. Not likely, is it? There title deed – their private property – will be respected but undermined by other inducements, the benefits of coops, the offer of free machinery and technology, volunteer labour (seasonal workers for harvests), free access to the products from elsewhere. In time there attachment to outmoded ideas as being owners of their farms is superseded by social practice.Or is the cure going to better than the problem. Do we repeat the example of Russia's Red Army and deem them all Kulaks and risk the ensuing famines? Maybe in socialism, we could divert the produce of the prairies and the pampas and the steppes to off-set the folded arms of Africa's and Asia's small farmers. But is it a lasting solution? Socialism is going to be the organic growth of communal living and democratic decision-making, and it will mutate according to the condition of the soil. Where it is fertile there will be rapid growth and many branches and deep roots, but where the ground is more barren, it will take longer to sprout and blossom and may require some extra care and attention to encourage healthy growth. I think i made myself clearer now.
It is coincidental but i think the lead news story is pretty relevant to this debate on experts and controlhttp://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-40108558Was part of the problem the fact that he was not in a big NHS hospital with a separate bureaucracy and admin management but a small, private hospital?But i am always wary of two professions…doctors and lawyers…they deal with people's lives and are taught to be detached from personal emotion and involvement. It is why many become politicians
Quote:Hence, its not so much as the 'who' but how the community arrives at a democratic conclusion and outcome.And i don't think we can state a priori how every society will determine those means. We can generalise and perhaps speak for ourselves but other places and regions possess different cultures and traditions on how decision-making is accomplished. In the UK, FGM will be regarded as child abuse and sanctions will be taken against it by local communities. In what way, i am prepared to leave it to those who possess the first-hand experience – not necessary solely experts and professionals but including some such as school and medical staff. The problem arises in parts of the world where it is prevalent. I can only conjecture that the current methods of education and offering sanctuary for those victims trying to escape it will continue. If armed force is used to impose the end of FGM it will be viewed as an "alien culture" and resisted leading to a conflict where the cure will be worse than the problem, driving it underground. We have to accept as we do with religious ideas, some traditions will die out gradually of their own accord and cannot be simply "abolished". The revolutionary process will be slower (or quicker) in different places.We have not got all the answers before us, just the draft of them that will be amended and adjusted and adapted by practice. The cliche that we use that socialism is not the panacea for everything that is wrong with society is nevertheless true.
I'm not being self-depreciating out of modesty, Stuart.As you point out in your example of the debate the SPGB missed an opportunity and that is my problem. Too often i miss the real argument because i'm not an original thinker…(as i keep saying, a proficient copy and paste artist )- and end up concentrating on a secondary, side-issue.But i'd like you take up LBirds invite and set up a new thread on Marxism and Buddhism, and i'm sure DaveB can bring in early Christianity.I tried that book link. LBird…lost.
