alanjjohnstone
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Tim, “According to conservative estimates, by 2017, China will overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy, and by 2050, its economy will be twice as large as that of the United States. Chinese influence will extend well beyond the economic sphere. The full social, cultural and political repercussions of China’s ascendancy will be felt sooner. In the coming decades, the West will be confronted with the fact that its systems, institutions and values are no longer the only ones on offer.” When China Rules the World -The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order by Martin JacquesI think this offers a different interpretation to that hackneyed phrase "new world order"
Sign of the times, while most cable news were leading with the US election, CCTV's main story was the talks Chinese Premier Li was having in Russia, making trade deals.Puts something into perspective for what might develop in the future
Mea Culpa . That was me mis-speaking as politicians now say, ALB. I meant he – Lenin – got the theory in What is to be done
Again some facts might be welcomed here, CP.You may well cite CIS when past reports by the CIS have been deemed misleading by several leading non-partisan immigration-research organizations, the Migration Policy Institute, the American Immigration Council, as well as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But best described as “a bunch of lefty, zero-population growth, pro-abortion, forced sterilization wackadoodles” by Liz Mair, a Republican consultant.The American Immigration Council (AIC), characterized one CIS report as “anti-immigrant fear-mongering at its lowest.”The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) published reports in 2002 and 2009 connecting CIS to John Tanton, who helped found various other organizations, including the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and NumbersUSA, and alleging that he has ties to white supremacy groups and a eugenics foundation.The SPLC's 2009 report said “CIS presents itself as a scholarly think tank that produces serious immigration studies meant to serve "the broad national interest." But the reality is that CIS has never found any aspect of immigration that it liked, and it has frequently manipulated data to achieve the results it seeks.”The Wall Street Journal also charged that these organizations are "trying to stop immigration to the U.S." It quoted Chris Cannon, at the time a Republican U.S. Representative from Utah, as saying, "Tanton set up groups like CIS and FAIR to take an analytical approach to immigration from a Republican point of view so that they can give cover to Republicans who oppose immigration for other reasons."“John Tanton, a virulently anti-immigrant nativist who has associated with white supremacists and dabbled in eugenics. He and his allies also fear that human population growth—particularly in the First World—jeopardizes the environment. Thus, they also back pro-abortion groups. This fact has left many on the right deeply concerned about citing their research or affiliating with their leaders.”http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/22/meet-the-shady-network-of-immigration-opponents-donald-trump-loves-to-cite.htmlCIS senior policy analyst Stephen Steinlight said in July 2014 said that the US should ban Muslim immigration because "Muslims believe in things that are subversive to the Constitution",called immigration reform "a plot against America" and Republicans who support it "psychotic", and of President Barack Obama that "being hung, drawn and quartered is probably too good for him."Next time try quoting the KKK for race equality
It has always seemed to me that the Party has never given Kautsky and the SPD the same critical analysis as we have to Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Sure, we have criticised Kautsky but somehow always added a conciliatory caveat or two which i haven't particularly noticed in our articles on Lenin (except for his obituary).Is it simply because of the Leninist legacy and the damage? Or a hang-over from our founding fathers sympathy for Kautsky's writings? Wasn't it from Kautsky we got the socialist consciousness will enter the working class from the outside via the intellectuals in the Social Democrat Party and Lenin merely seconded that. And was it not the SPD and Kautsky that endorse the twin programme approach of minimum and maximum demands – that the present-day Trotskyists adopted. Even the maximum demand is weak when he supports the continuance of money and wages. WW over the recent years has certainly revived an interest in Kautsky. Perhaps we should join in…. with daggers drawn to Kautsky's ideas.TBH, I find Kautsky a turgid read and not at all inspiring and always lay his books aside unfinished.
Once again you are repeating myths that are simply not true. but i seriously doubt you will accept factsContrary to the myth advanced by opponents of reform that illegal immigrants don’t contribute their fair share in taxes, and drain government benefits, the reality is that undocumented workers are helping to keep the social security trust fund in the black. They do this because they are paying into the system typically with false social security numbers, which means they will never collect benefits. Their money, often collected for many years, helps keep the system afloat and benefits flowing to aging baby boomers.This is not an insignificant amount of money. When payroll contributions cannot be credited to a verifiable number, they go into what’s called the “Earnings Suspense File.” A study that was done last year by the Center for American Progress (CAP), a liberal think tank, found that this file is estimated to have accumulated one trillion dollars worth of tax contributions.Not all of that “unmatched money” is from illegal workers, says Marshall Fitz with CAP, but he felt comfortable saying, “A significant portion of that suspense file has been funded through undocumented workers who currently will never see those benefits.”Here’s how the math works. Five percent of the U.S. work force is undocumented, which is some 8.1 million people. Thirty-eight percent of the 8.1 million pay social security taxes, which comes to roughly $12 billion a year, according to CAP estimates. Obama’s executive order would allow newly legalized workers to eventually collect benefits when they reach retirement age. But that’s a long way off for many of them, and any potential loss would be more than offset by the millions of young workers who will be brought into the system to pay taxes for three or four decades before they can collect benefits.“The biggest problem we have with social security is there are fewer Americans to pay into the system to support people who are currently retired or about to retire,” says Ornstein, “so the more people working and paying into the system is better for everybody.”Henry Aaron, an expert on social security at the Brookings Institution, says that looking ahead 75 years into the future, the legalization of some five million immigrants by executive order would be “like a boost in population—and a higher population is typically good for the (social security) trust fund. It’s equal to an increase in net migration, and when people enter the system, and that group is young and working, that’s positive.”This is because immigrants are the lifeblood of the U.S. economy. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said the bipartisan Senate bill passed last year with 68 votes would cut the deficit by $820 billion over 20 years.“Opponents of doing anything but deport or self-deport say these are people who are relying on government benefits, taking jobs from hardworking Americans,” says Ornstein. Immigrants without legal documentation are forced to work “off the books,” or “under the table. This is an arrangement that suits more employers than probably would care to admit it, because they avoid paying their fair share of taxes on those workers.Common sense is too often in short supply in the emotional debate over immigration reform and Obama’s executive action. But as America faces two great demographic shifts taking place simultaneously—the graying of America and the browning of America—the economic benefits of legalizing millions of people are clear for those directly affected and for the country as a whole.What is less clear is how workplaces accustomed to exploiting workers will adjust to newly empowered immigrants less afraid to stand up and be counted and claim what they’re entitled to.http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/11/29/how-immigrants-will-save-social-security.html?via=newsletter&source=CSMorningTestSomeone, something has to be blamed for the shortcomings of how the system is standing up in the eyes of the population at large. Immigrants, and especially illegal immigrants, are a convenient fall guy – but that's because we're mostly kept ignorant of the real facts. Targeting undocumented immigrants may be convenient but it's the wrong minority. YOU, CP, need to keep our eye on the ball and target the small minority who seek to keep the rest of us in servitude with wage slavery – the capitalists.
What part of world socialist do you not understand, CP….You maybe an American nationalist but the World Socialist Movement members seek a prosperous world for 7 billion non-Americans, and not just for 300 million Americans. We don't happen to accept American exceptionalism and its manifest destiny.As for your claims on immigration, they have been repeatedly debunked over the years. But here is just one news-report one positive aspect of actually encouraging more immigration
Quote:The aging of the U.S. population poses major economic challenges: rising healthcare costs, more retirement spending and, crucially, fewer working-age Americans to help pay for it all. Already, economists believe, the graying of America helps explain the slow economic growth of the past decade-plus. The problem will only get worse as more baby boomers leave the workforce…You wouldn’t know it from this year’s overheated campaign rhetoric, but immigration is the only thing keeping the U.S. from facing a Japan-style demographic cliff.http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/immigrants-are-keeping-america-young-and-the-economy-growing/I doubt very much if it will change your entrenched viewIn Scotland, we have first-hand experience of Trump's business and political activities. He is no longer welcomed here despite his family connection and investment. http://news.sky.com/story/donald-trump-a-loser-on-familys-ancestral-scottish-island-10645351America does not have a problem with illegal immigrants. It has a problem from oligarchs, plutocrats and the corporate attack-dogs.
The blog has already scheduled a post of extracts from Debs speeches and writings for the US polling day with the title .."if debs was standing". I think folk know of my heretical affection for Debs. If he was standing in 2016, i think he would get my vote, despite the fact that his party as you say were full of "sewer socialists" (municipal socialism) such as Victor Berger who Debs would often defend. But strangely enough, Debs never held a senior official position within the SPA except being its candidate 5 times.
I still disagree that the BBC is any significantly less dishonest than the other major cable news networks. How can you say it is in cahoots with the foreign office but it is not naked propaganda.But i will concede having watched North Korean TV foreign service for a whiile, the BBC isn't the worst offender. But the BBC is skilled in deceit by omission.John Pilger's interview with Julian Assange? I would consider editorially that it is a prominent story by a respected journalist but i struggle to find it highlighted It' as you say,having to weigh up every news channel's interpretation. But the problem is that there are now so many to view. Which ones would you skip? France 24? DW? I guess it is not so much the same stories you compare but what sphere of influence they insist upon reporting and going to the channel with the least connection. I mentioned CCTV and surprise surprise, one of their major focus for news is Africa. i note that the Indian government has banned cable NDTV for 24 hours for breaking it's rules on Kashmir.Anyways, this is all a moot. When we become a threat we will not be given the "fair and balanced" coverage. We may argue it is the case not the face but i am sure we will find certain members crucified as individuals to smear the socialist movement as a whole.
The front cover depiction of Hilarity Clinton is scarcely flattering, CP Populists are … popular. They say things what people want to hear and propose things that people seek to see. I don't view Trump as very different from any other politician, except perhaps in a matter of degree of his rhetoric and even then it is a debatable difference. Trump's anti-immigration posture can be seen as little different from Clinton's anti-Russianism – both are equally nationalistic and full of patriotic sloganising. Both brought out the generals for their convention endorsements. We have had our own versions of Trumps in Europe…Farage in the UK and across Europe others such as Hungary's Orban and i could offer a long list of both left and right-wingers who scapegoat others for the real and genuine problems that people are suffering from. Trump can promise all he wants but it is simply not in his power to deliver. But we are world socialists. If Trump wishes to have America "prosperous" on the backs of non-Americans then we will indeed treat him as a demon.
Accept my apologies…But some would dispute that the BBC lies less than some other parts of the media… In 2003, a Cardiff University report found that the BBC 'displayed the most "pro-war" agenda of any broadcaster' on the Iraq invasion.https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/jul/04/Iraqandthemedia.politicsandthemediaOver the three weeks of the initial conflict, 11% of the sources quoted by the BBC were of coalition government or military origin, the highest proportion of all the main television broadcasters. The BBC was less likely than Sky, ITV or Channel 4 News to use independent sources, who also tended to be the most sceptical. The BBC also placed least emphasis on Iraqi casualties, which were mentioned in 22% of its stories about the Iraqi people, and it was least likely to report on Iraqi opposition to the invasion.Andrew Bergin, the press officer for Stop the War, “Representatives of the coalition have been invited to appear on every TV channel except the BBC. The BBC have taken a conscious decision to actively exclude Stop the War Coalition people from their programmes, even though everyone knows we are central to organising the massive anti-war movement”.In 2003, Richard Sambrook, then head of BBC News, told staff not to broadcast 'extreme' anti-war opinion.His deputy, Mark Damazer, issued an email to newsroom staff 'listing which categories of journalist should not attend' the peace march in London in February 2003:'These include all presenters, correspondents, editors, output editors and "anyone who can be considered a 'gatekeeper' of our output".'David Miller, then a professor of sociology at Strathclyde University noted afterwards:“BBC managers have fallen over themselves to grovel to the government in the aftermath of the Hutton whitewash… When will their bosses apologise for conspiring to keep the anti-war movement off the screens? Not any time soon.”John Pilger commented:“We now know that the BBC and other British media were used by MI6, the secret intelligence service. In what was called "Operation Mass Appeal", MI6 agents planted stories about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction – such as weapons hidden in his palaces and in secret underground bunkers. All these stories were fake.”The BBC's Nicholas Witchell declared of the US invasion, as it steamrollered its way into central Baghdad:“It is absolutely, without a doubt, a vindication of the strategy.” (BBC News at Six, April 9, 2003)Natasha Kaplinsky, then a BBC breakfast news presenter, beamed as she described how Blair 'has become, again, Teflon Tony'. The BBC's Mark Mardell agreed:“It has been a vindication for him.” (BBC1, Breakfast News, April 10, 2003)BBC chastened by not discovering WMD? Not a bit of it.In 2006, BBC reporter Paul Wood asserted that US and British troops had come to Iraq to “bring democracy and human rights”.Stuff those sanctimonious hypocrites Andrew Marr and Nick Robinson and their blind obedience to authority
Yeah, ALB, but i have read you defending the BBC's "integrity" Watch out for CCTV – the Chinese cable news network…they are gearing themselves to make a more of a presence and are presently advertising for media professionals … a more rational RT is how i judge their editorial to be. ..but always from a Chinese government perceptive…i caught an episode of their Long March history programme…very patriotic…but featuring participants never heard of.
I think one reason the Sun gets away with it is because the so-called informed respected press tell their own lies alsoI'd like to see Mason dissect and deconstruct a few articles from the Guardian.
Just so folk know the pipeline motive for the ME conflict has not been ignored by the blog. We posted back in Augusthttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2016/08/syrias-pipeline.htmlBut first mentioned even earlier in 2013http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2013/05/buying-civil-war.html
Wasn't it contesting a Pathfinders article on fracking in the SS? Anyways, is anybody up to comment on Dave Douglass letter on anarchists voting?I would offer a friendly sympathetic letter but i have already used my reply on Clark who i just relaised i spelt Clarke. (What's the betting he pulls me up on it.)http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1129/letters/But i have to give CPGB/WW credit for their letter policy. Can anybody imagine SWP's Socialist Worker being so generous with their space? Kudos to the WW editors.
