alanjjohnstone
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g_oKmhIeA0 A 6 minute animated video….perhaps not 100% our socialist case but certainly instructive on the way it could be expressed
http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/09/central-bank-digital-currencies-a-revolution-in-banking/Ellen Brown has a long history of being a critic of the banking industry and presenting money creating myths and currency crankism as when she repeats a B of E report fro a few years back. She is an advocate of the greenbanks
Quote:Banks are not intermediaries taking in deposits and lending them out. When a bank issues a loan for a mortgage, it simply writes the sum into the borrower’s account. The borrower writes a check to his seller, which is deposited in the seller’s bank, where it is called a “new” deposit and added to that bank’s “excess reserves.” The issuing bank then borrows this money back from the banking system overnight if necessary to balance its books, returning the funds the next morning. The wholerigmarole is repeated the next night, and the next and the next.But the article also adds stuff about a new development stemming from Bitcoin – The Public Blockchain. And the supposed end of fractional reserve banking. I'm finding it hard to get my head around what it's all about and what implications it is supposed to have.Can somebody break it down into digestible chunks for me?
A minority opinion was that we buy gold bars but another minority opinion suggested that we instead buy platinum,Another minority said we go down to the casino to the roulette table and place the lot on red – but i got out-voted.
I just re-watched our election video and perhaps i was a bit too premature with my criticism, ALB. We did endeavour to present a cross-section of humanity, as best we could ….
And a bio may very well reinforce people's perceptions that we are predominantly a white elderly male party. But is a debatable issue that should be discussed more fully….Did i ever mention that i favour a full dedicated conference on the party positions, attitudes and image….
Labour will research the radical policy of universal basic income, which would replace means-tested benefits with a flat-rate payment.http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/14/jeremy-corbyn-to-launch-review-into-universal-basic-incomeA recent Compass report on the issue argued that a transitional system could be created at an annual cost of £8bn a year, which would leave many means-tested benefits in place.The tax-free personal allowance, currently worth £11,000, would be abolished, and tax rates would rise; but every adult would receive a payment of £71 a week – or £51 for pensioners – and £59 for children. The authors claim such a system would cut child poverty by 45%, and that 60% of those in the bottom fifth of the income distribution would gain more than 20%
The Danish Council on Ethics and the impact of meat-eating on the climate
Quote:The main reason why climate change is an ethical problem is because it harms other people and nature. It therefore poses a serious threat to both the development of the global society and to nature.http://www.etiskraad.dk/~/media/Etisk-Raad/en/Publications/Climate-damaging-foods-2016.pdf?la=daTax the meat. Climate-damaging foods are in reality too cheap since the costs of externalities such as restoration of climate damage are not reflected in the price.
Quote:“The imposition of taxes would signal that the moral responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should be shouldered by the consumers in solidarity….everyone has an obligation to contribute to the implementation of effective, collective measures to make overall food consumption less damaging to the climate.”I'm not sure if it is apocryphal or not but i recall hearing about an SPGB speaker addressing an election meeting from behind a curtain. But the SPGB case is not about diminishing a speakers presence or his attributes as a debater or speaker but simply on election leaflets and online statements by not having his photo or personal extraneous details such as if he is married, how many children, what age he is, what his job is or even his or her gender if we could. The linked article does not address those issues but simply says that watching a debate live will determine an attitude towards the outcome by the participants demeanour and responses …something that the SPGB has always accepted, hence our keenness to be involved in election hustings etc.
So does the Election Committee think the change is to our advantage?Will it be easier to canvas and fly-poster and leaflet? What is the estimated electoral roll population?Will it be easier for the voters to attend our meetings at HO during election campaigns?
Came across this article which made me think we have not benefited from Sanders "socialism" legacy.http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/09/12/seizing-moment-young-socialists-take-old-democratic-guard
Quote:"DSA membership has been exploding," Kayla Pace, the co-chair of the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDS), DSA's student section, told me in an interview. "DSA is getting 200 new members a month on average, this is up from the year prior with only 50 to 75 recruits a month."I'd hazard a guess that other organisations in America claiming to be "socialist" are also reaping a growth in membership from the Sanders "socialist effect"Could we have done something different, something more?Even if it was just only 2 or 3 new members a month, even one or two a month, it would have had an enormous impact upon the WSPUS
But in my favour, i am very happy to be contrite and beg the forum's forgiveness about that abuse of my megalomaniac power as moderator
#221, that's become a bit of a Party urban myth. Wiki explains its origins
Quote:Several poems from Yoko Ono's 1964 book Grapefruit inspired Lennon to write the lyrics for "Imagine"—in particular, one which Capitol Records reproduced on the back cover of the original Imagine LP titled "Cloud Piece", reads: "Imagine the clouds dripping, dig a hole in your garden to put them in." Lennon later said the composition "should be credited as a Lennon/Ono song. A lot of it—the lyric and the concept—came from Yoko, but in those days I was a bit more selfish, a bit more macho, and I sort of omitted her contribution, but it was right out of Grapefruit."
