alanjjohnstone
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Quote:things are funny like that, like with the federal and state law on pot possesion, some states completely ignore the feds
Also importantly the so-called sanctuary cities in regards to enforcement of immigration laws and undocumented migrants
I'm reluctant to intervene in your exchanges with Robbo, CP. but you are raising some valid points which should be considered.The right of a minority when they are subject to the will of the majority is an issue that has been discussed and debated by the socialist movement for years and various solutions have been raised, the question of the "tyranny of the majority" has not been neglected but the replies are not yet all in. Ideally, following the example of the Occupy Movement, decisions are arrived at by consensus but there was a fatal weakness. Some minorities were able to act without the authority of the majority and misrepresent the views of the majority. When a situation is 49% to 51% i think it is encumbent upon the 51% to take the narrowness of their majority into consideration by a compromise or a concession but reality tells us that some mtters cannot be negotiated in such a way. It is either this way or not at all. Are these disagreements common.I'm not so sure they areBut what about 75% to 25%? Should the 25% thwart the will of three-quarters? And what about the abstainers? In the UK the 1979 Scottish home rule referendum required a "pass" figure of 40% of the electoral roll voting for it. It meant those dead or dying who were still registered for a vote were effectively "no" voters. Was that democratic? The maority of voters went for hoome rule but the magic 40% figure of all eligible to vote was not achieved. The abstainers or don't cares were the winners.Our Party conducts its affairs by a Party individual member poll and a simple majority give the decisions its legitimacy. A majority of even one is sufficient. It really hasn't raised too many problems in practice or application. The general response to defeat is that there is always next year. But perhaps there might have been a missed opportunity but in the long term, it didn't have a lasting detrimental effect, It is like good luck and bad luck…over time these balance out. The point is that the very mechanism of decision-making we have today is a product of the social system we live under. The market economy, with its built-in contradictions and conflicting interests, has massively complicated the process of decision-making itself. It has moved it further and further from the ambit of "ordinary people" as the system itself has become more and more globalised. I'll leave Robbo to answer more fully.
Quote:nationality does not matter if you are a criminal.CP, would you agree that class very much does matter if you are a criminal?.Did we not see too big to fail, too big to jail response to bank and corporate CEO's who have been complicit in fraud conspiracies and money laundering?Isn't it "innocent" stock-holders and the company's lower-level staff taking the hit when the company pays no-blame compensation to the government and the CEO's escaping scot-free from their actions or negligence?
Vin, it wasn't meant as an accusatory post but a cautionary warning because of the implication that could be read into the statement by some, especially when read alongside Gnome's message #201.But anyways perhaps we require a new thread to discuss these matters because we are cluttering up K&S branch minutes.
Quote:So opposition to standing at elections is opposition to the party's Declaration of Principles?Let's not go on a heresy hunt here, searching out members who presently oppose using resources in elections because they may not think the time is appropriate for standing in elections. Some branchs have the members and the will to commit to them. Other branches consider that they are not able to contest them.Personally, whether we have candidates or not doesn't really bother me. It is more important that we use the occasions to increase our activity and publicity. We have to raise our profile and election-times are a suitable moment when more folk are focussed on politics and ready to engage in debate and discussion. For branches with a membership volunteering to take part in an election, all well and good , and i heartily endorse and support that. I hope the EC can devote money and logisitcs so that we do gain a receptive audience.I would also hope a branch SPGB newsletter could be published and distributed aongside an array of leaflets on a variety of topics rather than a one-size fits all election leaflet where the name of the candidate and ward is the only thing different. However, we do need a campaign strategy for those branches who feel they cannot put forward candidates so there has to be an alternative for them.Couldn't we devise a plan of things to do for branches. Have adverts designed for the local press and paid for by the EC. Templates for letters to the editor made so that all is required is the newspaper's email and a name of a local member. I would suggest fly-posting but being a realist i cannot imagine some of our members escaping the clutches of the law on their zimmer-frames. But we could produce more convenient to use stickers which are easy and sometimes effective. I recall reading of a member who could use his mobility scooter to apply to stickers on lamp-osts and bus-stops.
Briefly
Quote:How will you know that those randomly elected administrators will be compatent enough to run a planned economy though?I am sure there will be a system of balances and counter-checks via a process of recall, CP, as they do nowadays in many places.
Quote:With the populace being the ones that write and enforce the laws, people will simply pick and choose which laws they want to follow which means no law or order.Just as they do today…laws on the statute books that are simply ignored.http://ijr.com/2014/12/222618-50-state-laws/
Irwellian,i am perfectly content to accept that the 1917 Revolution was a complicated affair and happy to concede that the Bolsheviks did reflected the urban majority opinion in October. But the decision for the assumption of power was not taken democratically by the Petrograd Soviet. Was it a coup? I think the events could be considered as such, a small group in secret orchestrating a military take over to replace the existing government.
I highly recommend this article by a certain Robin Cox which i recommend to CP as a fuller explanation of your comment.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1990s/1993/no-1066-june-1993/beyond-capitalismMy point was just we should not crucify a critic unjustly. CP had a point …we do have economic plans in socialism…Yet how these plans are created and then carried out have some similarities to capitalism but also some stark differences. I think we may very well use a global coordinator such as the United Nations WHO, after all they have shown that they can eliminate smallpox and now on the brink of ending polio by a world-wide approach tailored for local and regional circumstances. I'd like CP to understand that socialism isn't an instant panacea and an over-night process but there will be need for goals and objectives in a similar vein as the Millennium Goals, (now replaced by the Sustainable Goals) were devised and global action taken….planned, so to speak…First, there would have to be urgent action to relieve the worst problems of food shortages, health care and housing which affect billions of people throughout the world.Secondly, longer term action to construct means of production and infrastructures such as transport systems for the supply of permanent housing and durable consumption goods. These could be designed in line with conservation principles, which means they would be made to last for a long time, using materials that where possible could be re-cycled and would require minimum maintenance.Thirdly, with these objectives achieved there could be an eventual fall in production, and society could move into a stable mode. This would achieve a rhythm of daily production in line with daily needs with no significant growth. On this basis, the world community could live in material well being whilst looking after the planet.
To be fair, Robbo, CP is correct in the sense that we do seek an industrial production system that is planned, where their exists coordinated networks with rational decisions made in cooperation. Rather than opposing a planned economy, as yu have pointed out in contributions it is the centralised system of command economy, of government ministries laying down quotas and priorities for semi-independent enterprises who are still in competition for resources and labour. I am sure you can explain it more clearly to CP, Robbo. What socialists oppose is the anarchy of production and the waste of socially unnecessary competition. We do seek a democratic planned world economy and once again we can thank capitalism for putting into place many of the foundations and structures of a supply and distribution chain that we will inherit and, adapt, and apply via various existing and future bodies. This isn't new. Syndicalists and Industrial Unionists have formulated plans of how they will do it, some of which are now obsolete.
Let us not forget the wide use of the chain-gang when mainly african americans were used to build the South's infrastructure and were also hired out to the white farmers to provide the State or prison with an income.Today many industries still rely on prison work but are simply using the precendents from the past.
CP, i think it has been made quite clear that "government" need not be the present one and that societies around the world have had different forms of government that would be considered more representative of their populations than our own. Your objections to what you take to be anarchist administrations doesn't mean that they could not work in even the most sophisticated and elaborated societies, such as we have around the world.We have responded to your concerns that peoples personal property might be at risk by explaining the distinction between personal possessions and social property. An ex-capitalist will be most likely ermitted to retain his mansion and perhaps his holiday villa but it will be up to himself to maintain it in good order. We have plenty of experience in Europe of impoverished nobility letting their grand homes go into ruins because one person is simply unable to keep it in good repair and have had to go cap in hand to the State ministry for the upkeep and became a de facto care-taker than owner. Society in todays world is more or less run by paid-experts and not the owning class … and it has been since the 19th C when the capitalist no longer could manage his own affairs and begun hiring over-seers and accountants and executives to carry out his wishes. Socialism, when required to make decisions that cannot be taken locally will elect or even randomly appoint administrators to be the spokes-persons of the people and make choices. Democracy isn't that complicated…on the otherhand, CP, disguising class domination under the pretence of democracy does make politics very complicated.Murray Bookchin was an advocate of the New England town-hall assembly style of participatory democracy. America has its tradition of direct democracy that can be revived quite easily and adapted to the computer world.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_municipalismSwitzerland regularly hold referendums of it devolved decentralized cantons. Rather than an exception its example could be common-place. I think if i began to list the failures and faults of existing "bourgeois democracy" it would be a very long post.
Quote:between 23 and 27 February 1917, the politicians of the Duma Committee and the members of the Workers' Group sitting on the Central Committee for the War Industries (an employers' and State organization), attempted to organize elections in Petrograd for a Central Soviet. The impetus for this came from the latter group, which installed itself in the Tauride Palace on 27 February and set up a provisional executive committee of the council of workers' delegates, to which committee several socialist leaders and members of parliament attached themselves. It was this committee which called upon workers and soldiers to elect their representatives. This explains why, when the first Provisional Soviet met that very evening, it still contained no factory delegates!https://libcom.org/library/radical-tradition-oneThis is based on Oskar Anweiler book on the soviets.https://libcom.org/files/The%20Soviets-%20The%20Russian%20Workers,%20Peasants,%20and%20Soldiers%20Councils%201905-1921.pdf
Quote:The decisive step in forming the Petrograd soviet was taken by members of the central workers group who were released from prison on February 27. Led by Gvozdev and accompanied by soldiers and the masses, they moved into the Tauride Palace, the seat of the duma. There they formed with several socialist duma members, among them the Menshevik Nikolai Chkheidze, and participants in the earlier secret conferences,31 a "Provisional Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers Deputies" on the aftemoon of February 27 (March 12), 1917. The commÎttee immediately appealed for the election of deputies, one for each 1,000 workers and one for each army company, and caIled the first session for 7 :00 p.M.32 When the meeting was called to order at 9:00 P.M., only 40 to 50 people were present; probably this number did not even include the delegates earlier elected in the factories, since they were stiII ignorant of the soviet's establishment.Quote:Trump is bringing law and order back into Washington.I'm not going to accept that you honestly believe this, CP. You seem to be a thinking personBut reflect…His earlier directive was found to be illegal and unconstitutional by federal judges, and seen to drafted with little thought for the law. His picks for some very important government agencies are of lobbyists who are intent upon dismantling many protective laws to permit certain corporations more of a free hand. Rick Perry has advocated shuttering the Department of Energy he’s slated to lead. Betsy DeVos, who would head the Education Department, is a leading proponent of voucher programs that divert taxpayer funds from public schools. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has repeatedly sued the Environmental Protection Agency and describes himself as a “leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda.” Ben Carson has criticized Housing and Urban Development rules designed to combat segregation in housing. Puzder has fought labor rules intended to protect workers.You may consider de-regulation as desirable but of course what is de-regulated is chosen politically to represent the interests Trump seeks to attract.
Under UK law, people of the Jewish and Sikh faiths are considered not just religions but racial group under the racial discrimination acts.We have Israel that defines itself not by nationality but as a "Jewish" stateHere is an article that Hindu elements in India are adopting a similar policy http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/02/24/hindu-religion-or-nationality/
Quote:‘everyone living in India is Hindu’ and that Muslims might be Muslim by religion but they are Hindus by nationality’, is yet another interpretation of Word Hindu. He said that this is Hindustan so all those living here are Hindu. Both these, Hindu is a nationality and we are Hindustan are erroneous formulations in today’s context and need to be examined from the point of view of Indian Constitution.CP, we all know that totalitarian states are very disingenous when they introduce draconian legislation. They are never open about who they seek to target. Trump is using fear of rapists and murderers to remove people who are of no threat, at all, to others.To quote from the link to the directive.(a) Have been convicted of any criminal offense; (my emphasis)(b) Have been charged with any criminal offense, where such charge has not been resolved; (my comment – not yet found guilty by a court, simply charged)(c) Have committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense; (my emphasis on the vague definition…jay-walking?)(d) Have engaged in fraud or willful misrepresentation in connection with any official matter or application before a governmental agency; (such as trying to get around rules by saying you are not undocumented such as using fake social security number to get a job )(e) Have abused any program related to receipt of public benefits; (by pretending to be eligible as so many native-born do when claiming benefits)(f) Are subject to a final order of removal, but who have not complied with their legal obligation to depart the United States; (Trying to evade deportation orders)Trump has from the very start tried to conflate the serious criminals with ordinary and the vast number of decent migrants. We shouldn't be taken in by the deliberate propaganda. The Directive is aimed at ALL immigrants, not the dangerous ones.Perhaps you have already seen this storyhttp://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Undocumented-Woman-with-Brain-Tumor-Removed-from-North-Texas-Hospital-414651843.htmlAs for ICE's assurance that she will receive appropriate medical treatment in detention…you must know in your gut that it is a false promise.
