alanjjohnstone
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I beg to differ because as someone who cannot attend i don't want an edited version of what someone said. Back to Tristan's skill, your argument was brought up at the time because he was so damn good at providing an near transcipt…and i recollect, so good that he included passing asides that a speaker hadn't wished included and complained about. If verbatim is good enough for Hansard, it is good enough for me.Some minutes are so sparing of detail, there is sometimes little point in them. Our adoption of technology has never really been our strongest attribute and it is one of the issues we have to address.
A follow up article on the Swiss referendum herehttps://www.rt.com/business/327118-switzerland-money-banking-referendum/
Quote:“Banks won’t be able to create money for themselves anymore, they’ll only be able to lend money that they have from savers or other banks, or even, if necessary, money that the Swiss National Bank has provided them,” the campaign said in a statement on their petition website…Most people believe that the money they have in their bank accounts is real money… This is wrong! Money in a bank account is… a promise the bank makes to provide money, but it is not itself legal tender…Quote:Travel expenses can be claimed and free accommodation is available for delegates travelling to head office.I have always been aware of this but have always had a guilt-trip when i have considered availing myself. Paying ones own travel fare means trying to find the cheapest budget price. I would be very critical of a member who paid train or airline full fare and billed the Party for such…Notice of ADM/Conference dates are well in advance and so tickets should be bought in advance to gain the advantage of early booking promotions. Despite the once "spartan" conditions, staying at the HO, has always been my favoured option rather than a hotel. The company and conversation was always interesting. It has a shower and cooking facilities. For those who enjoy a good cholestoral high fry-up, there are a few local cafes that are not unreasonably priced. And some excellent Chinese/Indian/Italian restaurants in the vicinity. I took a sleeping bag and air-bed and always found a corner in the building for a peaceful sleep. Camp-beds were there to be used too. But i do know some members (especially those who arrived with partners) did use hotels and a list of those is (or was) available from the GenSec or HOO.If a branch does not attend, as been said, they are not stopped from participation in the sense of making their views known and having the chair read out the branch supporting statements and opinions. Since conference decisions are no longer the final say having been replaced by Party poll, branch attendance is not the be all and end all….but debate and exchange of information is.If i had one criticism, our meetings from the branch level up lack content of their minutes and reports. For a short period we had the typing skills of Tristan who could moreorless type verbatim what was being said. I believe this ADM was recorded so i expect a moreorless full transcript of what was said by the delegates. In the future i expect it to be live online so we can all watch and contribute. But some sort of protocol has to be designed to ensure proper representation and participation by some new updated rules of order.
Not if the subscriber dies in the near future, or the magazine folds in the near future…A gamble i won't makeAnd as a anti-capitalist magazine, why does it suggest the price of $595 and not $600…that old advertisers psychological ploy of trying to make something appear cheaper than it is
For the past few days i have been listening to old excerpts from Galloway's TalkSport radio show on You Tube …and i have to say, even though, i don't like admitting it, but i was impressed by how he handled those callers he more than once described as having "dragging their knuckes along the ground."In response to the bitter prejudices of some of his callers, i can well imagine a member of the SPGB on the platform often saying much the same as GG did with perhaps even more scathing scorn than GallowayAs a populist GG certainly doesn't court popularity…
And no doubt once more the contribution made by our party and the members at the time will go unrecorded and we won't even write an indignant letter protesting the fact much less actually demonstrate about it…as i said before…shame on us…
I think the problem is (and it arises all the time in all areas of our case) when we expose the hypocrisy and double standards of politicians and capitalists we get accused of supporting or providing ammunition for things we oppose."If you aren't with us, you are against us?Ours is a harder message to convey, full of nuances such as we would prefer, if forced to choose, an Assad secular dictatorship to an ISIS despotic theocracy and, like it or not, we would prefer "bourgeois democracy" of Hollande's France to Assad's Syria as it offers socialists increased opportunity to advocate socialism. It gets a bit more complicated if we are offered only the option of a future ISIS caliphate or Saudi Arabia Al Nustra dominated Syria…But truth again be told…none of us are facing these hard decisions and as far i see…people are voting with their feet…they have become refugees … and if i knew any Syrian/Iraqi socialist , i would have no hesitation in urging them to flee the war-zone, too, and forget about trying to sell the Socialist Standard on the corner of an Aleppo street…If he or she cannot flee to safety, then keep their heads down, don't put it above the parapet……we don't need socialist martyrs …live for socialism, don't die for it…The article i linked to about Hitler is important…there is no prospect of socialism in Syria/Iraq right now or in the foreseeable future, nothing to fight or die for….(i don't think we say turn the other cheek if you are personally are in danger…as an individual, you can use violence to survive if, for example, you need to escape Raqqa and being an unwilling human shield for ISIS) As our info says "Because the truth and the facts often contradict "common knowledge", socialists have to show that "common knowledge" is wrong. That takes more words than just accepting the status quo." and people hate reading long wordy discourses so react in a knee-jerk response.Our case is that the enemy of our enemy is NOT our friend…What infuriates me are the media's omissions taking place and how news is hidden from the public.A few news organisations yesterday featured had the stats that Russia has killed 200 civilians since they began their bombing of ISIS. They failed to put a figure on the so-called "coalition" deaths of civilians. But what more, they have purposefully and deliberately under-reported the Saudi bombing in Yemen's civil war, with British-bought weaponry and not one condemnation of Cameron as the main sale-person of those.
Many members had sympathy for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War and there was conflicting members views during it. When it was moreorless over, there was a reassessment that you cannot use war to defend democracy. The way i read the party history, our 1937 statement was deliberately dreafted to try and stop too much acrimonious debate within the Party. http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1930s/1937/no-393-may-1937/spgb-and-spainThe other article taking a more jaundiced view is not online AFAIK but i think it was PatD who once directed my attention to it during a debate on Spopen or maybe somebody else…This article makes good readinghttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1940s/1940/no-426-february-1940/how-can-hitlerism-be-destroyed
Quote:On Syria, I'd suggest first and foremost our position is anything that brings the swiftest end to the fighting and minimises the loss of workers lives, irrespective of the political outcomes; and, further, practical solidarity with refugees, who are workers in struggle with various states.i once had an argument with a PLO Solidarity supporter about Hezbullah, where he insisted it was legitimate for them to engage in military actions against Israel because it was recognised as a resistance movement against Israeli occupation of Lebanon territory. I countered by asking was the sacrifice of lives worth trying to reclaim Shebaa Farms, a bit of dirt just 7 miles long and 2 miles wide…(which was in any case also claimed by Syria). I said i was the same as the First World War generals sending troops to die for a few miles of No-Mans Land…To stop a war and save lives, i'd happily cede a few square miles of territory…You English can keep Berwick-on-Tweed
I always recall what an ex-Regimental Sergeant Major (he wasn't in the SAS, he trained the SAS) i worked alongside with said to me…"Only difference there will be if the Russians invaded for the likes of you and i is that instead of a crown on our postie caps, there will be a red star…otherwise there won't be fuck all of a difference…we'll still be sorting and delivering letters"I also recall some Danish libertarian decades ago (libertarian in the US right-wing sense) as an election defence policy was to surround the borders of Denmark with loudspeakers that would announce "We Surrender" in Russian.
I thought that was an excellent video. Simple basic animation with self-explanatory text ..catchy tune…(perhaps old enough to be out of copyright?) Yes, not beyond our capability or means to do something along the same (railway) lines
Our message has always been a plague on both houses…We don't design hierarchies of oppressionBoth patriotism and religion right now have the loudest voices compared with the socialist and the media determines who gets to shout the most. http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_29294710/richmond-donald-trump-supporter-arrested-suspicion-threatening-muslims
An update on this old threadhttp://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/dec/22/prince-charles-plot-ginger-terrorist-detained-under-mental-health-act
Quote:“I want my legacy to say that I fought a one-man war against the capitalist regime. I want them to see my transition from poor red-haired victimised minority that is constantly walked over to a fully transformed military terrorist striking at the hearts of the bigoted tyrannical rulers and of course the dark haired dark eyes Caucasian race.”
