alanjjohnstone
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Quote:The second item, published in the Auckland Star (13.6.77) under the heading "Monkey's perish to Produce Death Ray", reads almost like a horror story, the author of which, if in fiction, would have to have the imagination of a sadistic monster. But this is not fiction, but cold hard fact. Even if the reader was not an animal lover he would still feel disgusted and ashamed that he is a member of the human race. Highly trained monkeys are killed by high energy radiation and burns in experiments carried out by the United States Navy. These deaths were quoted as "appallingly painful". And what are these dreadful experiments in aid of. Just to find out how long you can continue to be of use to the war machine after exposure. How long can you continue to drive a tank, fire a gun, or push buttons. Their desire to get the last ounce of use from your body, even though it might be in the throes of an agonizing death, really shows what lengths these monsters will go to in order to perpetuate their system. Monkeys today—you tomorrow.Another view of the Great Charterhttp://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/06/12/happy-birthday-magna-carta-paul-craig-roberts/
Quote:A number of legal scholars have made the irrelevant point that the Magna Carter protected rights of the Church, nobles, and free men who were not enserfed, a small percentage of the population in the early 13th century. We hear the same about the US Constitution–it was something the rich did for themselves. I have no sympathy for debunking human achievements that, in the end, gave ordinary people liberty.I can't say i agree but we can make use of history, surely…
Mike, wouldn't it be also a good idea to perhaps adapt it into a short pamphlet suitable for non-attendees. Wasn't one of our past pamphlets 'Marxism Revisited' based on Fircroft talks. I'm sure there will be people from the publications committee at the school for you to broach the possibilities of such. …I'm a bit uncomfortable that other members are going to be deprived of something which may be of use to them just as much as those who go to the school and get this as an extra additional freebie….
Just maybe, just maybe, we don't get the response we hope for when we leaflet protests and demonstations is that we don't make the effort to actually communicate the best we can with those participating on them. An anti-austerity leaflet that fails to even mention the word austerity nor explain the reasons why it is being imposed, nor refer to the detrimental impact that it is having on fellow workers (and yes many people do need reminding of these) is deemed fit and proper contribution to the party's campaigning. I have previously said that we should use various leaflets with different text on protests. If you wish to off-load leaflets left over from previous demonstrations, do so by all means, but i think we should have written a much more relevantly themed leaflet than re-cycle old ones (and to make a virtue out of the fact that we will persist in such a practice! ) Being thousands of miles away and relying only on the occasional snippet of information but we do possess a printer, don't we,(and if we don't have a working one , we do have funds for them to be professionally produced, don't we?) and there are articles from past Standards that require the minimum of re-editing, for example, much of this recent leaflet http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2015/no-1328-april-2015/why-just-fight-austerity but to go back to 1998, we could quote parts of this editorial http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1990s/1998/no-1122-february-1998/editorial-welfare-cuts-governments-austerity-proBut i a teaching my granny to suck eggs for we have several skilled writers who could construct an original text and make a very presentable up-to-date leaflet. Or am i so out of touch being so far away that i don't realise that the party is no longer capable of meeting a limited expectation, that i am aiming for the stars, and that we cannot innovate anymore, but more importantly, we don't have the fervour or passion to make the socialist case wherever and wherever an opportunity arises and to do so with eagerness and gusto….Are we become that jaded in our politics that old leaflets suffice and little effort is put into their thought? Perhaps, everything was in hand to have volunteers at the demo but again it is possible Gnome has something when he wondered if the secrecy of our public events might be the cause of nobody turning up !!Is it no wonder i sometimes feel that something is missing and lacking within the Party's membership that it is necessary to upbraid comrades over a thing as basic and as simple as going on a demo to hand out the socialist message. And, of course, there will be many more in the future so let's try and get the right approach and attitude towards them to give ourselves even a bit of a chance of being seen and heard at them.
Or decide on the technicality that they are "wage-slaves"More links http://www.runnymede.community/ourstory/https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=60&v=CuVejWqOSSs
Maybe there is a chancehttp://occupydemocracy.org.uk/2015/06/08/runnymede-eco-villagers-get-court-date-for-same-day-queen-arrives-for-magna-carta-celebrations/
Maybe you should insist upon visiting the restaurant's kitchens and inspecting the fridges and food larders to avoid those occasional funny tummies the morning after, ALB But, yes i do defer to the authority of others when their expertise is recognised, as i do also in the case that my water supply is treated and not contaminated. But we should also make a difference been appointed experts who do not get chosen and have no control over and delegated experts who are selected through some form of choice and we have the power to dismiss by some process.I think this professor is guilty of mis-direction…people don't want the power of crossing every t and dotting every i on every bit of city legislation but they do seek veto-powers other than merely at election-time. Some seek to sit in onTown Hall decision making. How that is implemented is no easy task but it is a principle that should be upheld and the means sought out to have it democratically practiced. Democracy is more than having a say, its about having power enacting that say…i'm sure one of our articles says that somewhere.
Are you telling me that there are now two tiers of membership, Gnome…the privileged local members who can comment freely on all aspects of the Party's activities and campaigns and those who may be located further afield who have their freedom of opinion curtailed and restricted? Perhaps you would like to formally move at next conference that members of the Socialist Party who are not resident in the UK should not have any say or participation in the activities of the Socialist Party and put your own viewpoint to the test, if you think you talk for others in the Socialist Party….i also note also with irony from a comment in a report you would apply your limitation of opinions on election messages only to those branches who stand candidates in elections…Now, would that be three tiers of memberships you seek ?Oh, and if i do carry out local activities where i live, a military dictatorship where republicanism is treated as a serious crime, which makes the content of another thread on political liberties all the more relevant to this comrade, would i be able to rely upon you to conduct a reformist campaign to get me out of jail and/or stop my deportation or to bring my family into the UK and that you would also expect that the party pays for my legal defence …i thought not…, comrade.But, of course, i was presently under the erroneous impression that what i do for the party right now contributes just that little bit to building the revolution everywhere around the globe…another misconception of mine, it seems…perhaps not as valuable as your own contribution but one that's best to my ability in conditions that are not ideal. Maybe i should now consider transferring membership to the geographically nearest WSM party (and strangely enough, i have also offered them my gems of wisdom , too in the past because I don't ration whatever knowledge i claim to possess) and cease playing any role within the SPGB, if your attitude reflects a popular one held within the Party that some foreign-based members should be seen but not heard.Until that position is clearly demonstrated to me as one that prevails, i will, however, still post whatever i believe to be worthy…as often (3 posts a day limit !!!!..Humpfff)…and as lengthy …as i choose to see fit…regardless of what i consider to be a minority view of one until proved otherwise …It is entirely up to you yourself if you wish to join the anti-austerity protest and it is up to you if you wish to take along a banner or not. My message was addressed to the Party collectively not to you personally and i would be disappointed if the Party does not intend to leaflet the event. I would criticise that as a failing if the party were not making a visible presence at it.I will certainly be putting forth online on our blog what i think is the party's view of the protest on the 20th….perhaps you might want to check it and see if it meets with your approval…after all, why should i have the nerve to comment on austerity policies in the UK when i don't live there…what's all this socialist internationalism coming to these days when socialists express opinions on wider topics than their own parochial back-yard
“We want to occupy city hall and open it up to the people” – Ada Colau . Her salary as mayor will be slashed from €140,000 to around €35,000 a year, privileges such as official cars will be a thing of the pastThe election of a radical mayor to Barcelona has the establishment rattled.http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/13/ada-colau-barcelona-spain-mayor-targets-tourists
Quote:“I don’t think the ideas of a city can be based on what a citizen’s assembly wants – it’s absurd,” said Francesc de Carreras, a constitutional law professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. “Democracy doesn’t mean that everyone expresses their desires and they come true by some miracle. It’s not a good idea to have citizens participate in these things. We’re not the ones who have skills in these areas,” he said. “I don’t go into a restaurant and tell them how to cook.”While the prospective leader of the "free world" plays the populist card at a rally, the Catholic Church uses terminology that would have Hillary Clinton running to the hills, although they may well be used by her rival Sanders.The Ghanaian cardinal, Peter Turkson, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and a close ally of the pope said: “Much of the world remains in poverty, despite abundant resources, while a privileged global elite controls the bulk of the world’s wealth and consumes the bulk of its resources.”While the Pope himself said last year “An economic system centred on the god of money needs to plunder nature to sustain the frenetic rhythm of consumption that is inherent to it,..I think a question that we are not asking ourselves is: isn’t humanity committing suicide with this indiscriminate and tyrannical use of nature? Safeguard creation because, if we destroy it, it will destroy us. Never forget this.”Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga of Honduras, who coordinates the Vatican’s inner council of cardinals and is thought to reflect the pope’s political thinking . “The ideology surrounding environmental issues is too tied to a capitalism that doesn’t want to stop ruining the environment because they don’t want to give up their profits,”“Pope Francis has repeatedly stated that the environment is not only an economic or political issue, but is an anthropological and ethical matter,” said another of the pope’s advisers, Archbishop Pedro Barreto Jimeno of Peru. “It will address the issue of inequality in the distribution of resources and topics such as the wasting of food and the irresponsible exploitation of nature and the consequences for people’s life and health,” Barreto Jimeno told the Catholic News Service.The pope is “aiming at a change of heart. What will save us is not technology or science. What will save us is the ethical transformation of our society,” said Carmelite Father Eduardo Agosta Scarel, a climate scientist who teaches at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina in Buenos Aires.Neil Thorns, director of advocacy at the Catholic development agency, Cafod. “I expect it to challenge the way we think. The message that we cannot just treat the Earth as a tool for exploitation will be a message that many will not want to hear.”Earlier this year Stephen Moore, a Catholic economist, called the pope a “complete disaster”, saying he was part of “a radical green movement that is at its core anti-Christian, anti-people and anti-progress”. Moore was backed this month by scientists and engineers from the powerful evangelical Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, who have written an open letter to Francis. “Today many prominent voices call humanity a scourge on our planet, saying that man is the problem, not the solution. Such attitudes too often contaminate their assessment of man’s effects on nature,” it says.
The research doesn't actually say people are incapable of sharing but it's being proposed at the wrong time and the wrong place to be effective as an alternative. Going back to my teens i remember the Dutch hippies started the white bike movement…free access to bicycles left around the city…Seemed quite a success as many city authorities took up the scheme in various forms…When similar was tried in Edinburgh, the bikes quickly disappeared for good, requisitioned so to speak by the needy…(that really should read neds) …These days with swipe cards that release padlocks the idea has taken on a new impetus in various localities…Similar has been tried with cars but not sure if they have been successful. I do think in sociaism sharing and borrowing for occasional use will be popular…Plenty of current business are going concerns with tool hire…
Quote:Will it be possible for this revolution to take place in one country alone?No. By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth, and especially the civilized peoples, into such close relation with one another that none is independent of what happens to the others.Further, it has co-ordinated the social development of the civilized countries to such an extent that, in all of them, bourgeoisie and proletariat have become the decisive classes, and the struggle between them the great struggle of the day. It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries – that is to say, at least in England, America, France, and Germany.It will develop in each of these countries more or less rapidly, according as one country or the other has a more developed industry, greater wealth, a more significant mass of productive forces. Hence, it will go slowest and will meet most obstacles in Germany, most rapidly and with the fewest difficulties in England. It will have a powerful impact on the other countries of the world, and will radically alter the course of development which they have followed up to now, while greatly stepping up its pace.It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htmIn the 1840s Engels too was talking decades, not for the spread of the actual idea and its acceptance but for the development of "the means of production are available in sufficient quantity." I think you might agree that the technological feats achieved by capitalism (but which it has rarely taken advantage of) , can provide for all in sufficient quantity.
http://rt.com/business/266521-china-russia-cargo-service/ China has started a rail freight service linking the western Xinjiang region also known as a "core area" of the Silk Road economic belt with Moscow. It is expected to deliver $8.1 billion worth of cargo annually.
