[alanjjohnstone]

Hillary Clinton’s campaign raised $143 million in August.https://www.rt.com/usa/357968-clinton-fundraising-record-135-million/

[alanjjohnstone]

In the end,  i opted for a short SOYMB blog on the situationhttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2016/09/a-story-of-co-operative-failure.html

[alanjjohnstone]

I wear a moderators hat to apply moderation to this forum. But as this is a general debate about the pros and cons of the forum's moderation i will contribute as non-moderator.  

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Mod1 has  declared he detests Vin, as has Mod 3 and both refuse to call him a comrade.  How can we expect a fair decision from them.

You can expect a fair decision, comrade, because there exists a third moderator. As soon as Cde. Maratty sought a review from the new moderators, it was immediately embarked upon, but sadly its conclusion was not to his satisfaction. Because the moderators chose to operate, as the courts call it, "in camera", it is unfortunate that the motives and actions of individual  moderators can be speculated upon and their impartiality questioned . The moderators are currently exchanging daily several emails to try and tackle the problem of moderation. It is not too easy to accomplish. To offer an instance of the difficulty – LBird and Robbo as non-members of the Party but are regular posters but neither have recourse to a full appeals procedure eg to the EC, conference and party poll that a party member such as Cde. Maratty can pursue, if he so wishes, and has been urged to do. Such inequality among forum users requires to be resolved and will be in the due course of time.  I am confident that feedback from the forum users of any new proposals will be a part of this.    

[alanjjohnstone]

http://www.dw.com/en/football-a-billion-dollar-game/a-19505179Germany's Bundesliga is in second place. In the last season, the Premier League took in $4.9 billion (4.4 billion euros) – the Bundesliga, $2.7 billion (2.4 billion euros).The 20 Premier League associations have a payroll of more than $3 billion, whereas the 18 Bundesliga teams put out less than half that.Bundesliga teams have invested about $520 million on players, up from nearly $470 million last year – a 10 percent increase. That does not include transfers still pending before the August 31 deadline.Christian Seifert, CEO of the German Football League (DFL) said: "If you're growing 10 times faster than the German economy in general, you're in a good position."Karsten Hollasch agrees, the leader of the Sport Business Group for consulting firm Deloitte,  told DW that the league can expect "solid and continual growth over the long term."The further internationalization of the "Bundesliga brand" grows ever more important, Hallasch said. During the off-season, FC Bayern was in the US and Schalke 04 in China. Even FSV Mainz 05 made a stateside appearance.Social media plays a big role in this brand identity strategy. Facebook and Twitter are not only for connecting with fans around the world but for investors, too. When the team goes overseas, it "can promote its sponsors there."

[alanjjohnstone]

Could someone please remind me of when and explain the particular circumstances of why those guidelines came into practice?

[alanjjohnstone]

Another proposal for the citizens income,  this time from the Fabian Society and it is a compromise alternative, not the full idea.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/universal-basic-income-fabian-society-uk-policy-what-is-welfare-reform-report-arguments-corbyn-a7216791.html 

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Tax-free allowances should be scrapped and the money used to pay a flat-rate benefit to all adults…The report’s authors reject the idea of a “fully-fledged” universal basic income –… They warn such a plan would create too “many losers and not reduce poverty or improve the incomes of those with the least”. But the Society’s researchers say a similar flat-rate “individual credit” for all adults that sat alongside the existing benefits system could “significantly reduce poverty and increase low and middle incomes”. They say child benefit could also be integrated into the same system, with a “child credit” paid to a child’s main carer.“At this time there is not a good case for integrating universal credit, tax allowances and child benefit into a single flat-rate payment for each individual (ie a ‘basic income’),” the report’s authors write. “There is growing interest in the idea, which has the merit of reducing the employment disincentives, complexity and intrusion associated with means-testing. “But a basic income has significant disadvantages – any revenue neutral reform would create many losers and would not reduce poverty or improve the incomes of those with least today. Reform would be very unlikely to eliminate the need for means testing and conditionality.“Instead, the tax-free allowances and child benefit should be converted into an ‘individual credit’ for all adults and a ‘child credit’ paid to the main carer. Unlike a basic income, this payment would sit alongside universal credit and as a result would significantly reduce poverty and increase low and middle incomes.

[alanjjohnstone]

Those who supported Sanders are now in the process of forming a movement called "Our Revolution…which is?This article gives some insighthttp://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/29/bernie-sanders-or-revolution-a-statement-or-a-question/

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Weaver’s insertion into the just forming OR, apparently by Sanders, also shows just what kind of organization the politicos at the top want the OR to be. Why hasn’t there been some kind of democratic process to determine who will lead the OR, its supporters should ask themselves? And what about the 100 or so “Board” members of the OR? How has it been “selected” and by whom? Why not elected? Or the OR’s chair, Larry Cohen, former head of the Communications Workers of America union. Who made him ‘chair’ of the Board?… These are organizational questions that in turn determine what kind of strategy is adopted. The OR may be “revolutionary” in its objectives, but certainly not at this point in its strategy—and even more certainly not in terms of its organizational structure. A counter-revolutionary strategic focus attempting to reform the Democrat Party from “inside” – with appointed managers like Weaver and selected Board chairs like Cohen in a top-down organizational structure – will not constitute “Our Revolution.” It will still “be” theirs.

I am minded of this songs lyrics"No saviour from on high deliversNo faith have we in prince or peerOur own right hand the chains must shiverChains of hatred, greed and fear"

[alanjjohnstone]

There were more than 4,000 severe breaches of animal welfare regulations over the past two years at British slaughterhouses, according to data released by the government’s food watchdog under freedom of information laws. The data, comprising reports by vets and hygiene inspectors, details instances of needless pain and distress that include chickens being boiled alive and trucks of animals suffocating or freezing to death. More than 900 million farm animals are killed for food each year in Britain.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/28/fsa-4000-breaches-animal-welfare-laws-uk-abattoirs-two-years

[alanjjohnstone]

Your right Gnome…any liberal critical of the surveillance society we live under wouldn't find too much to fault with such an observation that still sounds fresh and relevant a hundred and fifty years after it was written.Horrible to imagine, isn't it, to have some of our values shared by non-socialists and not use it as openings for dialogue and discussion and debate but instead to disparage, discourage and dismiss, rather than seek some rapport on agreed ideals to try and make connections. But here is another comrade who felt its message resonated and was worth circulating. http://class-warfare.blogspot.com/  

[alanjjohnstone]

Hmmm…are you trying to distort what i say, ALB…Having not read Iain's book, i can only say "i believe…" and use just the one citation as justification for the belief he is critical..And now you impute some ulterior motive in bringing Iain's criticism to the attention of the OPWhen i cite Paul Johnson a right-wing historian hack, i'm not wishing to be nice, nor any affinity for some Cambridge academics from the 19thC. but try to answer the OP's question. The debate on Proudhon, as i already pointed out , i am not qualified to enter since i have not seriously read anything by him apart from once having a poster featuring the following

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“To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality."

Can't say there is much i dissent with in that.

[alanjjohnstone]

TWC, in your haste to defend Marx, you appear to read that when i quote Iain Mackay's opinion, you ascribe them to me. Mackay's view of Marx's use of quotations differs somewhat from Engels and involves accusations which some readers of this thread may be unaware of, particularly the OP.The original quote continues: 

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This allows him to impute to Proudhon ideas the Frenchman did not hold (often explicitly rejects!) in order to attack him. Marx even suggests that his own opinion is the opposite of Proudhon’s when, in fact, he is simply repeating the Frenchman’s thoughts. He takes the Frenchman’s sarcastic comments at face value, his metaphors and abstractions literally. And, above all else, Marx seeks to ridicule him.

I'm no literary scholar, it has been some years since i opened a page of Poverty of Philosophy and i have most definitely not read Proudhon and in particular his "System of Economic Contradiction".ALB would put it down to disagreement to indicate and bring out a divergence of ideas but  Mackay would say it is a case of Marx purposefully and wilfully misinterpreting Proudhon to win the debate..  Since the topic is about Marx's intellectual honesty so being accurate in espousing a rival's argument is pertinent and debating that issue is Iain Mackay and not me.I can provide his e-mail if you wish and i'm sure he will only be too happy to respond to you.   

[alanjjohnstone]

I believe Iain Mackay's book on Proudhon is critical of Marx's habit of distorting certain parts of Proudhon's writings“…we find Marx arbitrarily arranging quotations from Proudhon’s book, often out of context and even tampered with to confirm his own views…”Property is Theft!_ A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Anthology – Pierre-Joseph Proudhon – Google Books

[alanjjohnstone]

A more detailed expose of Marx selective quotations here of a Gladstone speechhttp://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2016/05/marxs-dishonesty-in-his-quotation-of.html

[alanjjohnstone]

Paul Johnson’s ‘Intellectuals’ repeats the hatchet job

Quote:

“…Marx's systematic misuse of sources attracted the attention of two Cambridge scholars in the 1880s. Using the revised French edition of Capital (1872-75), they produced a paper for the Cambridge Economic Club, 'Comments on the use of the Blue Books by Karl Marx in Chapter XV of Le Capital' (1885).30 They say they first checked Marx's references 'to derive fuller information on some points', but being struck by the 'accumulating discrepancies' they decided to examine 'the scope and importance of the errors so plainly existing'. They discovered that the differences between the Blue Book texts and Marx's quotations from them were not the result solely of inaccuracy but 'showed signs of a distorting influence'. In one class of cases they found that quotations had often been 'conveniently shortened by the omission of passages which would be likely to weigh against the conclusions which Marx was trying to establish'. Another category 'consists in piecing together fictitious quotations out of isolated statements contained in different parts of a Report. These are then foisted upon the reader in inverted commas with all the authority of direct quotations from the Blue Books themselves.' On one topic, the sewing machine, 'he uses the Blue Books with a recklessness which is appalling . . . to prove just the contrary of what they really establish.' They concluded that their evidence might not be 'sufficient to sustain a charge of deliberate falsification' but certainly showed 'an almost criminal recklessness in the use of authorities' and warranted treating any 'other parts of Marx's work with suspicion'….”

[alanjjohnstone]

I also read something about this a long time ago, so it is not a new claim…forget when and where.So i did a google and came up with this  

Quote:

In 1885, two Cambridge scholars, Joseph Robson Tanner and F.S. Carey published a monograph titled Comments on the Use of the Blue Books Made by Karl Marx in Chapter XV of Le Capital, in which they exposed how Marx had misquoted, misrepresented and falsified data and information published in British government reports (the Blue Books) to make his points, while citing them as his sources. And, mind you, it’s just one chapter that they studied. They wrote: “He uses the Blue Books with a recklessness which is appalling…to prove just the contrary of what they really establish.” They went on to say that their evidence certainly showed “an almost criminal recklessness in the use of authorities” and warranted treating any “other parts of Marx’s works with suspicion”.

https://books.google.co.th/books/about/Comments_on_the_Use_of_the_Blue_Books_Ma.html?id=ETMctwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y

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