alanjjohnstone
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http://www.afriquesenlutte.org/afrique-centrale/ouganda/article/ouganda-amin-africa-and-the-worldThanks to the work of Darren's Socialist Standard Past and Present blog that allowed our African blog Socialist Banner to repost archive material, one blog has picked up on a 1970s article to widen our audience to the parts where our own efforts do not reach.
According to aa Libcom thread, Workers Power are operating in deep entryism as http://www.redflagonline.org/
I admire the sentiments of thinking the best of our political enemies and perhaps it will be justified. But as the only surviving socialist organisation from that period which unqualified opposed the war, the SLP, BSP and the ILP now being defunct, you would imagine if the organisers were sincere they would have already approached the Party even if only to request any material which we may have at hand. By all means, hold your fire until you are sure we have not been neglected but please consider what we should do if we have been ignored.Wouldn't a picket and protest, banners and all, of the exhibition be in order? And, of course, a press-release explaining the reason for our displeasure at the omission. Nor should it consist of a token one-off demonstration but a continual one until our own World War One display is included in the exhibition. I don't think even the most stongly worded letter of complaint to the organisers is suffice, considering the personal sacrifice and suffering of our members for their principled stand against the war. Lest we forget them and to ensure their memory continues and to commemorate their commitment to socialism, we should not take this slight so lightly. We should make our anger very explicit in the clearest and most direct way we can and if we cannot get today's members to to turn up to honour the members of yester-year, then i'm afraid they fall in my estimation of them. I consider this as a priority and not a side-issue or of minor concern. We have a responsibility to our past comrades that they are not forgotten.
I think London is too much of an ethnic melting pot for an appeal to just one particular section of the populace. Galloway is on a loser.But who knows, no-one would have tipped Corbyn…might be worth a fiver at the bookies on Gorgeous George to come in first.
Another link for those following this threadhttp://www.activistpost.com/2015/10/this-is-a-tipping-point-robots-cheaper-than-any-human-worker-means-the-end-of-jobs.html
Quote:South Korea is making a huge move to undercut China on labor costs by displacing humans once and for all in their production facilities, in a bid to edge up on their Asian rival. Samsung has vowed to create robots that do the work automatically, and without the need for breaks, meals, or days off that are literally “cheaper than any human worker.”Well worth pointing this out to the organisers that the only currently existing organisation that consistently oppoesed the war has been ignored and its contribution neglected.Tomorrow's EC could firs off a critical letter to them.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/05/robot-revolution-rise-machines-could-displace-third-of-uk-jobsAnother report on the guesstimates of how many jobs will disappear because of robotics.35% of all workers in the UK, and 47% of those in the US, at risk of being displaced by technology over the next 20 years, according to Oxford University research cited in the report, with job losses likely to be concentrated at the bottom of the income scale.At present, there are on average 66 robots per 10,000 workers worldwide, the report finds; but in the highly automated Japanese car sector there are 1,520.“We are in danger, for the first time in history, of creating a large number of people who are not needed,” he said. “The question should be, what sort of economy do you want, and to meet what human needs?”
Well what about NO2EU and many other variants of those types? Can we check who else have now been disallowed? A quick google very quickly demonstrates that SPGB is in common political usage.Most dictionaries carry SPGB as the acknowledged acronym of ourselves …Did he check those or as you say based his decision on his personal [lack of] knowledge.
Cheers for the correction…your message was a few posts earlier and my memory isn't quite the same as it used to be. My point is your second point rather than your first.There is a constant need for the media to focus on the "necessity" of austerity because i think they understand that people don't quite agree or accept that we need it hence the indoctrination and brainwashing of the supposed inevitablility of it, while at he same time the State is meanwhile concentrating its firepower on ensuring that there isn't too much we can do about it thus the proposed crackdown on trade unions…enforcing a belief that there is no alternative except to passively comply with policies, not even permitting the thought of some wiggle room to retain what standard of living we presently have. But we do see that concessions and compromises are possible…such as junior doctors are currently extracting by the threat of more militant action.Whatever the fact of the limited reach of our propaganda, we should be highlighting whatever victories workers achieve, offring confidence and optimism and not so much negativism by giving credence to the powers of parliament, after all much of the change of heart over Iraq and Syria and tax credits is due to either people power or the potentiality for it…As long as it is not an existential threat to the ruling class, politicians will occasionally bend for opportunistic reasons to the will of the people to maintain the democratic camoflage.
I think it has always been the socialist case – even from the pre-1904 days – that the working class must have its own INDEPENDENT political party, and i would say party with a small p – a self-organised and class conscious labour movement. It may not yet have socialism as its number one priority but primary place at the forefront the interests of the workers within the class struggle, a united workers movement is something we do not possess in today's world. YMS has made the valid point that the Socialist Party for the foreseeable future cannot organise itself as a motivating force within our fellow workers but it doesn't stop us being an advocacy group for increased militancy and resistance to the encroachment of capital. For sure our role is to educate for socialism and make socialists, but as a working class party we also have a responsibility in analysising capitalism and encouraging active resistance to it. Certainly the best agency within the capitalist system to oppose capitlist policies are the trade unions (and now joined by many lobbyist campaigning groups from charity NGOs to even Church of England bishops) and contary to ALB's arguement that workers accept the need for austerity, i think it is that they see no victorious outcome in fighting it and for the time being accept the inevitable passively. They see the result of Greek government's attempt to stand up to the economic power of the ruling class and judge quite correctly that the current trade union movement is not going to be a very effective weapon. I recall some SS article or other (from the 30s i think) that explains that if the workers cannot wage class struggle against the capitalists today – then they aren't worth their salt in the struggle for socialism tomorrow. I recall Pannekoek earlier trying to explain that defeats in the class war are not necessarily defeats in the sense that by engaging in fights with our masters it creates class identity, class solidarity…in other words… class consciousness. Back to YMS, true we are too small to have a physical influence on our fellow workers but we are sufficient in numbers and with adequate means of expressing ideas to be an intellectual effect. I think this is what Vin is trying to suggest we presently lack. Our propaganda is not being targetted effectively and its aim is off. I don't think this simply only applies to tax credits. There are many other fields of battle going on where socialist presence is missing. Again it does not mean we have to be out in force in strength of number, but to focus our engagements is a concerted manner either via the internet and social media and/or by "propaganda by deed" – you know i have mentioned this before…more theatrical protests that are dramatic and media centred…but it begins with the mundane almost prosaic…flags and banners and pickets. One man with his bag of shopping stopped the tanks in Tiannaman Sq (even if ultimately the State got its way) No-one will listen to our case for socialism, if it isn't heard. Our heyday was with the outdoor meetings and soap-boxes where we had an audience to speak to. I think sometimes these days we find ourselves talking to ourselves.Yes we want the Tories out – No we don't want Labour in – Our difficult task is to communicate the alternative – Socialism while at the same time also urging collective action today and that means helping the creation of an organised capable of challenging the State and its crack-down on living standards or at least slowing down and mitigating the attacks upon our class. It is not reformism to stop fellow workers from being cowed into apathy because they feel impotent.This is post is no definitive answer…as i say we in the party need to talk and discuss it in our own organised way.
Is it possible to be neither supportive nor condemnatory but simply to introduce another option and advance its case alone.Would a doctor prescribe faith-healing, and hope that it brings a miracle recovery?Would the doctor undermine what placebo effect such might have on the patient but ridiculing that alternative therapy?Or would the doctor simply concentrate on getting the patient to follow the recommended treatment by describing its benefits and curative powers? I have argued previously along the lines that we should be presenting a much clearer projection of the alternative society we advocate as a solution.
Should these 10 reasons offer us hope for socialism?http://libcom.org/blog/10-reasons-communism-will-win-15072013
I fully agree that we are not anti-science and support the boundless potential of new technology. I'm all for drones surveying wilderness areas doing census counts on flora and fauna …unfortunately the primary purpose of their production was for the military… But i think we also have to be understand , as you say, that its implementation within the current times is not to make a world of abundance for all but more to make an abundance of wealth for the few stock-holders in Monsanto and that comes at a price for many unable to resist corporate power. The claims of GM food to being an actual improvement on other ways of food production does not go unchallenged. It is all a matter of horses for courses.We all recognise the importance of anti-biotics and insist upon more R and D but do we argue that it should be used in livestock as normal practice and not just only for treatment of infection. We, as you say, make a judgment on the customary mis-use of technology. Can we see evidence of this abuse of GM , i think we do. The proponents of GM keep repeating this mantra…it can feed the world, and totally ignore that we already can feed the world without it and it is done mostly not the vast Prairie farms but small farms. https://www.grain.org/article/entries/4929-hungry-for-land-small-farmers-feed-the-world-with-less-than-a-quarter-of-all-farmlandIt is the industrial sized farms that require intensive pesticide use which inevitably effect the crops so they develop GM products to counter the detrimental effects … and the pests adapt …so more GM engineering is required…and on and on it goes…. and those least able to afford it, are made to pay more and more and grow increasingly indebted. In India where only GM cotton is permitted a government appointed scientific panel concluded GM cotton had failed to deliver what they promised, exactly my point on the maize (and golden rice)…why should we believe the advertising…in everyday life we don't accept businesses outlandish claims such as that the fossil fuel industry is working for green energy. Why should we exempt Monsanto from criticism just because they spend some of their enormous revenue on a few projects that just might be of use.We have a few choices we can make. Accept as inevitable that Monsanto controls the food industry and stand by without comment as they exercise that power across the globe. Or voice support for those who resist the incursion of Monsanto who are determining the way they farm which will ruin both their economic welfare and their social communities, for the benefit of a relative few who are turned into proletarianised wage-workers (i wouldn't describe these people as 'peasants'…they are full participants in world capitalism…)We walk a tight-rope…understanding that science can be a benefit for humanity and not sounding if we are cheer-leading for our class-enemy's agenda of land-grab and dispossession, again part of the consequence of GM as it is practiced in the real world. It is a matter of who's side we are on when it comes to expressing an opinion and political view. I see everyday the solidarity and social cohesion of communities where each own just a few paddy-fields and i see Round-Up that shows how dependent they are on the big players…i wouldn't like to be complicit in facilitating small farmers being further controlled, even more than they are now, by Big Ag.And if our socialist movement grows in number and is to grow in strength, we have to resonate with a lot more diverse people than merely some urbanites in some Western countries with our message.
