alanjjohnstone
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There is as Jondwhite says systemic disenfranchisement in many US states. I'm preparing an article on it and have garnered quite a litany of facts from ex-felons being excluded to obstacles being placed on registering to vote and ID demands when actually placing the ballot. But as Gnome says, when we have a genuine socialist movement independent of the Democrats there won't be any tampering by the Democratic Party machine as we have witnessed with the Sanders campaign.An American socialist party will circumvent any undemocratic practices. One possible and potential one being the Electoral College. But i am curious about what the socialists emphasis be…at a city level considering some of the sizes of the metropolises ie NYC and LA, at a 50 states level, or representative and senate level, or Presidential election. Something for the future socialist to work out. Who does hold state power in the US? Where is it centred?
Daily Telegraph has a related article.The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that the proportion of working-age adults who do not pay income tax has risen from 34.3 per cent to 43.8 per cent, equivalent to 30million people. Over the same period the amount of income tax paid by the richest 1 per cent has risen from 24.4 per cent to 27.5 per cent, meaning that 300,000 people pay more than a quarter of the nation's income tax.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/26/nearly-half-of-britons-pay-no-income-tax-as-burden-on-rich-incre/
Another part of the debate. It will weaken the trade unions.http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/guaranteed-annual-income-opinion-1.3547324
EU and TTIP and the UK
Quote:Brexit wouldn’t necessarily stop TTIP anyway – that’s all down to the transition process. At the very least, Britain would need to adopt many of TTIP’s provisions in order to remain in the single market.But it gets worse: every scenario for Brexit is premised on extreme free trade agreements coupled with looser regulation to make us more competitive. “Outcompeting” the EU through lower standards is the strategy. High-profile supporters of the Brexit campaign have repeatedly said that they believe the UK would be able to realise a more “ambitious” and faster free trade deal if we stood alone. There’s every reason to think that Brexit will turn the UK into a paradise for free market capitalism: a TTIP on steroids….. If being in the EU has brought us TTIP, it has also brought us the means to stop it. Europe also allows the potential to take on the .corporate power which TTIP symbolises: the biggest threat to our sovereignty. Even in the best of circumstances, there is only so much a small nation state can do against the size and power of global big business. But through being in Europe we could stop tax avoidance, introduce a financial transactions tax, hold corporations legally responsible for their human rights abuses, enforce world-leading climate targets, develop new forms of public ownership of key resources.This is a very thought-provoking critique of UBI. A bit too long for me to take in all at once so i'll be returning to it everytime i come across a UBI article on the "progressive" websites It is also too long and complex for me to summarise but i think it explains a lot from our standpointhttps://gegen-kapital-und-nation.org/en/what-wrong-free-money/
For an entertaining and very informative explanation of what goes on to fund raise, i recommend John Oliver's videohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylomy1Aw9Hk
I note Hilarity Clinton, the odds-on favourite for the next president, has also supported UK membership of the EU, as has former president Bill Clinton. Perhaps the EU is collectively stronger economic opposition to TTIP than the nations who submitted and now are approving TPP. But below the radar are the other so-called "free trade" talks taking place in Australia.http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report-secretive-patent-talks-has-generic-drug-activists-worried-2205771
Before others draw your attention to my message #31 message, Tristan, we have had a situation where EH and GW began and ran a blog without prior EC approval.And to those who may wish to use it as an example of double-standards i want to point out that the banner description when it began did indeed explain that it was a branch blog but this description was dropped when the blog was later re-designed. Members have had ample opportunity to object to any of its 6,500 posts blogged in the name of the PartyCertainly, as you say, Tristan, we can isolate and separate cases that have been brought before the EC but i simply don't consider that approach to be a permanent solution since the different issues very much over-lap and have a common cause.Like yourself, i hesitate in going any deeper into all the problems being highlighted. It has a very long history, going back years.The only new thing i have brought to the table is the possibility that we can seek neutral mediation as a way to resolve this dispute as amicably as possible. Because if we don't lance this festering sore soon, it is going to burst and the pus will splatter all over the Party.
Re-Message #27Just to clarify a few points on our blogs.1. Socialism Or Your Money Back was set up before i joined it but if memory serves me right (BillM will be able to confirm or deny because he was i believe instrumental in its beginning), it had EC approval from the outset.2. Socialist Courier (again if i recollect rightly) was set up at the initiative of Edinburgh branch approaching Glasgow branch to begin a joint blog venture and both branches approved at their branch meetings without resorting to EC for permission.3. Socialist Banner (once more relying on recall) was started by Cde, John Bisset as an online version of a hard-copy magazine that was published with the approval of the EC. It continued as an internet blog commentary without formal approval when the magazine ceased. 4. Socialist Standard Past & Present grew out of a My Space account which had been started (yet again from recollection) at the request of the EC and has took over as the main online medium than My Space, a one-time rival to Facebook but now very much dwarfed these days. It is important to note, that the first three Blogs accountability to the Party is shown by its regular Blog Committee's reports submitted to every Conference and ADM since their inceptions. Members at conference and ADM can comment or instruct the blog Committee. SOYMB has also made it very clear that they will cooperate and coordinate with other committees such as the Elections Committee upon its blog-post content. We also have a couple of other blogs. Socialist Party Election blog that sprung forth from Vaux Populi started by the Election Committee and London branches and a seldom used but still live News from Nowhere blog, also begun as a dedicated election blog in Scotland.
Let's drop all this pretence, shall we, comrades. Rule this.. rule that…This has now become something more personal than procedural. The simple fact is that one comrade does not have the confidence or trust of some other comrades. This is demonstrated by resignations from the AV committee and not just by issues being raised on the Twitter account by the same said members. Would the situation have become such a controversy if it involved another member from a different branch? I think not.I'm not going to apportion blame whether the member rightly deserves such special attention due to past incidents and behaviour on the forum and elsewhere. Nor whether some members of the IC are acting prejudicially against him as they are accused of. I have argued that we do not possess and should possess some form of a grievance procedure. But we don't. So as we have done in the past albeit in not an identical situation but close enough to serve as a precedent, we convened a special inquiry, formed by a couple of members who's integrity and impartiality were trusted by all. The EC was then seen to have to have operated without fear or favour. Both sides accepted the conclusions of the mediators. Until we do create a recognised and agreed "complaints committee" this improvised ad hoc approach is the best we can do and the EC should put it into action. If the EC lays down its "law", i think its findings will leave a bad taste in the mouths of one or other side of this dispute and may have unwelcomed consequences. I am all for openness and transparency but not for airing our dirty laundry in a way that gives visitors and readers of the forum a very false impression of the Party's democracy in action and its members relationships with one another. The words comrade, comradely and comradeship do actually mean something very definite in my mind.
The Young Turks have provided me with a treasure-house of Hilarity's abuses in her contest with Sanders. They are just too numerous to cite. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1yBKRuGpC1tSM73A0ZjYjQ
Some data to feast uponA survey questioned French people aged 18 to 3096% of respondents saying they had heard of the movement. And far from being a fad among urban elite, as some media have suggested, Up All Night was familiar to 92% of young people living in rural areas. 56% of them said they understood the movement's goals.70% of respondents said that Up All Night expressed their demands. Among those who had heard of the movement, 21% said they “completely agreed” with the statement, “The people who participate in the Up All Night movement express their generation's demands”. 48% said they only “more or less agreed” with the demands. 54 percent of young French people interviewed said that the movement’s demands were not clear.When asked whether they would support the movement, 24% of respondents said they “completely agreed’ and 36% they “mostly agreed”. Only 27% said they would “probably not” support the protesters, and 12% said “definitely not”. As the name of the movement suggests, the “occupations” take place primarily at night, 26% of young people asked said they were willing to participate in an Up All Night protest “until the end of the night”. Another 14% said they were willing to participate during the day. And 26% said they would support the movement “from their computers”. 33% of those interviewed said they would not take any action to support Up All Night.http://www.france24.com/en/20160414-most-french-youth-support-all-night-movement-not-willing-stay-nuit-debout
Not so sure.If i was in the Leave camp i would highlight that we have Cameron/Obama effectively endorsing the EU/TTIP agreement before it is agreed. But Canada, a very much smaller economy than the UK, is still able to negotiate its own deal with the EU through CETA. Options and Plan Bs always exist for capitalists. As we blogged before, for the likes of Duke of Westminster and his Grosvenor empire, they know how to adapt to either result without too much inconvenience having the experience of several centuries behind them.
One more article for your reading pleasure. http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/22/on-the-uprisings-in-france/
Quote:However, it would be foolish to automatically assume that #NuitDebout militants are actively trying to adopt more “radical” solutions than the ones suggested by the old political guard. Marxist theory is unanimously rejected in favor of more liberal-leaning approaches to feminism and immigration; talks around the economy are rooted in Keynesian reasoning – which begs us to ask the question: what makes the #NuitDebout movement so different than the French political parties its organizers are desperately trying to break free from? Their “multifaceted” approach and refusal to subscribe to an ideological current might seem “fresh” to some participants but it’s ultimately proof that most are ignorant of the power structures that pave way to the many forms of oppression they’re decrying
