alanjjohnstone
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This, to me, at least, is an issue about the environment, methods of food production and the type of society we seek to see in socialism…so i beg to differ in your reasoning that it is an irrelevant topic to discuss.As not being directly about working class issues? …perhaps you think the food adulteration industry as described in the 19th century slums and later by Upton Sinclair in the Jungle …which btw was originally meant to be about the dire straits of migrant workers in Chicagos meat industry but quickly became a public health issue once the propertied class discovered what went into their sausages…Red meat, trans fat… obesity, heart disease…a host of other health problems inflicted upon workers can be directly attributed to the food production system…cheap nasty fare for the working class…big high profits for the corporations…so it is, imho, a class issue…i could go on citing the risks with meat-eating but ALB will interject with beansprout poisoning…and overdosing on horse-radish
Quote:We must avoid associating socialism with one particular lifestyle choice, especially as most humans have always been meat-eaters and always will be.i actually disagree with that statement.We associate ourselves witht the steady state, zero growth model of economy for a socialist society, explaining that we envisage an anti-consumerism trend to prevail and expect a drop in consumption levels…with caveats of an initial phase of higher production to raise people to a decent standard of living. We explain this for various reasons such as little need for conspicuous consumption and public ostentatiousness to show status.If you want to cite Morris as an authority, then perhaps i can add his call to return to handicraft production which is a lifestyle decision, is it not? Maybe i want mass-produced MDF IKEA furniture and flat pack cabinets rather than cut down some oak tree. But to keep to the topic, this article seems to be part of the debate that took part in Commonweal and a reply to Morris. http://www.henrysalt.co.uk/bibliography/essays/socialists-and-vegetarians
Quote:The truth is that Vegetarians do not pretend that their system can offer a complete solution of the social difficulty, but only that it is an important accessory consideration…When a Socialist sets aside the plea for humanity to the lower animals as a mere fad and crotchet, a Vegetarian might well retort that if the promptings of gentleness and mercy are deliberately disregarded in the case of the animals, it cannot surprise us if they are also excluded from consideration in those social questions where the welfare of human beings is concerned…. No community possessed of true refinement will tolerate such degrading and disgusting institutions as the slaughter-house and the butcher’s shop, both of them a disgrace to civilization and decency.Humankind has always been scavengers and gatherers and very much less hunters.http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/07/23/human-ancestors-were-nearly-all-vegetarians/I suppose we can get into a debate on the evolution of our canine teeth versus our grinding molars. But the qualification i would make of your statement that most humans have been meat eaters is …"If and when they could", which was historically a lot less common than the customary non-meat diet, for only special occasions and particular feast days. In the last few months i have seen people eating dog and rat…nothing unusual, just a sign of poverty since both are free to obtain. I'm sure that culinary choice will disappear…but the assortment of grubs and creepy-crawlies i see being eaten everyday may take a bit longer as many find those a delicacy rather than a necessity. "and always will be"…OK, I'll use my crystal ball, in that case, as well, then…Hamburgers will be replaced by beetle-burgers…man-made, lab-grown meat will replace animal flesh…algae slime fortified with extra vitamins and minerals will be the dessert…and Soylent-type concoctions will be our main meal of the day..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_%28drink%29And we'll return to home-brewed real ales to wash it all down with. I'm not on some crusade to proselytise for vegetarianism or veganism…i'm not one myself…more a eat what's put on the table in front of me person…but as a socialist i envisage a rational well-planned society that will endeavour to be sustainable as far as possible which leads me to reach certain conclusions …that there will be a change of tastes and menu in socialism …We will be what we eat, to paraphrase Feurbach,…i see socialism as a world of humane humans not one catering for carnivores with carving knives.
A website for some to browsehttp://speciesandclass.com/"…Species and Class is a group blog focused on exploring the animal-human relationship from socialist and social anarchist perspectives…"
Quote:…We individually become vegan. We individually avoid products tested on animals or are made by child laborers. We individually refrain from traveling to ag-gag states or countries that practice bullfighting or consume dogs or permit female circumcision…being vegan doesn’t work to end slaughter…Instead of hoping to convince one consumer at a time of the cruelty of eating and wearing animals (the individual solution), we must adopt strategies to bring about institutional solutions to the institutionalized exploitation and murder of animals. While the individual approach is preferable to doing-nothing-at-all, it actually neutralizes activists. Convinced that not eating meat or boycotting companies is a viable strategy, activists are taken out of the struggle by not engaging in tactics that could result in success, or some measure thereof…Removing oneself from the marketplace does not mean the marketplace disappears.Whereupon it descends into radical reformism of voting the lesser evil…
Just to let you know that your efforts are very much appreciated and long may these worthwhile contributions continue.Hope all is well
And from Robert Fisk providing some much needed historical perspectivehttp://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/charlie-hebdo-paris-attack-brothers-campaign-of-terror-can-be-traced-back-to-algeria-in-1954-9969184.html
Quote:Long before the identity of the murder suspects was revealed by the French police – even before I heard the names of Cherif and Said Kouachi – I muttered the word “Algeria” to myself. As soon as I heard the names and saw the faces, I said the word “Algeria” again. And then the French police said the two men were of “Algerian origin”.Noam Chomsky citing historical parallelshttps://zcomm.org/znetarticle/we-are-all-fill-in-the-blank/
Quote:terrorism is not terrorism when a much more severe terrorist attack is carried out by those who are Righteous by virtue of their power. Similarly, there is no assault against freedom of speech when the Righteous destroy a TV channel supportive of a government that they are attacking.Apologies for those who already knew but i think it is symptomatic of the media that it was only today that i read of Ahmed Merabet, one of the policemen killed, was himself a Muslim, surely deserving of emphasis. But as i previously commentated, the whole media and the politicians stinks of hypocrisy. Who can blame some conspiracist theorists when they see who is jumping on the Charlie band-wagon like Fox TV who campaign to save Christmas from the heathens and support bans on the building of mosques. Defence of free speech? It was only a few months ago that the French comedian had his rights of free expression curtailed by the French government and was forbidden entry to the UK – his offence was giving offence to Jewish people. The French legally makes holocaust denial a crime, (as does many other countries) yet it decreed that a similar law against those who deny the Armenian holocaust was against the principle of free speech. Granted piss-take and anti-semitism/islamophobia may well be very difficult to differentiate. Deciding intent amounts to mind-reading. Our get-out if it comes to legal action, is that we piss on all religions…organised or not (such as crystal healing fakers). We don't discriminate. Banish all gods from the sky. I can say now that the consequences will be serious for those who are atheists. Won't be long before the Dave Allen's of the comedy world will be silenced…jokes on priests and paedophilia will soon be banned because of religious "hurt". And the law will be selectively applied only against those that the State disapproves of.
Duncan, i'm on record for complimenting the SNP Yes campaign for one of the best publicity events during the referendum. This was when they gathered together migrants and immigrants of all the world who had made Scotland their home and supported the Yes vote. For just once, the nationalists went beyond Scotland for the Scots simplistic solution and tried to embrace internationalism (albeit for a contradictory purpose)From your own posts, this is something you, yourself, have not managed to do. Can you not see this by re-reading your own messages? It is time for you to be a cosmopolitan, a citizen of the world, a member of the world's working class and perhaps hopefully an eventual member of the World Socialist Movement. Time is now for you to break the chains of parochialism and start seeing things from a global perspective. The situation we face is a real risk of extinction of every life form on the planet requires you to think of yourself not as a Scot but as homo sapian…a thinking man …so start using that old brain box of yours before it's too late. No-one is saying you cannot enjoy the thrill of the ceilidh and dance a reel to an accordion band. No-one is saying you cannot take pleasure in hill walking and delighting in the sights and sounds of the glens and mountains. No-one is saying you cannot appreciate the humour of Lex McLean, Chic Murray, Billy Connolly, Stanley Baxter. No-one is telling you what to wear if you decide upon a kilt, or choose to speak with friends and family in gaelic or doric. Socialists and non-Scots do all that. A peoples' culture belong to the people, all peoples, not just one nation. And to use a very maligned slogan …"We Arra People", not the lairds and clan chiefs, that grouse shooting aristocracy who trace themselves back to Bannockburn and claim to be Scots.
12 dead in Paris France…headlines2,000 dead in Baga, Nigeria in Boko Haram attack …No news for the BBCSays it all really
When you go to the online version Socialist Standard on our website and click comment…the comment ends up here. One thing it does is make sure an article can be added to by others and also not get over-looked.
Proves nothing…you bumped into an already confirmed politico who you met at the Levellers event, who surprise surprise had a mate who was a politico…and another confirmed politico happened by, easily recognisable by his hat…And i bet you all had Socialist Standards stuffed in your pockets and were talking politics loudly that every customer was aware of your presenceThe most this proves is the confirmation of six degrees of separation…stayed long enough in the pub and i am sure other coincidences would have occurred…Just how many others in the pub if you did a poll that night would have a scooby about the SPGB?I recall a work colleague who remembers a beardy speaker in the 1970s pointing him out and saying there are dummies in shop windows better dressed so who is the real dummy. This was in 2000-and-something but he still remembered the speakers wit and, when looking back, also the accuracy of the put down but he could only say a socialist speaker…he didn't recollect it was the Socialist Party of Great Britain until i jogged his memory….Anyways i hope you got both on board to help us out more in our Oxford campaign…i'm pleased we are making an early start…i hope it continues
I think the Left has the one big advantage…the rank hypocrisy of the Western government, their opportunistic politicians and lick-spittle media with their supposed ranking order of acceptable religious/political beliefs…They offer sitting duck targets for the Left nationalists who can easily expose the double-standards being exercised. The message is simple …to stop terrorism, stop the terrorism…But Cameron and Obama and Netanyahu etc simply cannot do that, so the other terrorists continue to follow their example using less sophisticated means, in China where gun control is strict, scores can be knived to death. Popular or not we have to maintain a plague on all houses…including that fat Buddha…those cow worshipping Hindutvas…but as Kenny Everett would say, "done in all the best possible taste"
I'll pay no heed to the unsubstantiated claims about who shot down the Malaysian passenger plane but as ALB says let us stick to facts. (btw, aren't you curious to know why the Russians have never released details of that supposed proof but only leave third-parties to say such information exists…spying is all about lying whether CIA or KGB or MI5, never trust any intelligence agency until the data is verified by neutral experts, and there are few.)So there is more oil in off the coast of Scotland than originally claimed. Ian Wood in September reckoned the SNP overestimates the reserves but i'll take your assertion of great new vast finds as true …but then i remind you of the high production costs compared with cheaper fracking and then add the latest scientific information that vast amounts of oil CANNOT be extracted since it would have a disastrous effect on global warming and climate change. So they simply cannot be exploited and as for the SNP claims to use the North Sea revenues to finance alternative renewables, that is like a junkie saying , i'll continue to peddle the dope to other addicts so i can afford to get off it myself. The Norwegian sovereign fund operates exactly like any other investment fund…it invests its money in dictators…and the Alaska Permanent Fund, another model, the cash pay-outs are used to bribe voters to support pipeline's environmental destruction.As a citizen of Edinburgh, i'm pleased to learn my fellows in Craigmillar, Niddrie, Wester Hailes, Drylaw, Pilton are well-off. But, of course, it was only in the mid-1980s that the Tories finally lost control of Edinburgh council…oh, and before you leap to conclusions, the Tories are the ONLY party in history to obtain MORE than 50% of the entire Scottish vote and that in the mid-1950s which places the 1945 so-called landslide for Labour into perspective…So much for the socialist credentials of Scottish people. The fact is that there exists less of a radical tradition than conservativism with the small c. Red Clydeside was more about skilled engineers trying to stop by unskilled and women getting jobs. War production broke output records and the anti-war movement was insignificant.No need to go on about the New World Order, after all SNP are fully committed to the EU and NATO and the UN and the British monarchy…You can appeal to Sheridan on the Yes, others will appeal to Galloway for the No. But we appeal to the real interests of the working class….not solely the Scottish…not just the British…not merely the European…but we are for the interests of the world working class. Perhaps you forget that part of Marx in your socialist education…."WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITES"…not this bit or that bit of the land but globally. And don't try to quote his support for Irish or Polish independence or i will need to counter with his opposition to any form of Slavic independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire or his support for Prussian unification of Germany. He had special reasons for picking and choosing which peoples to support or not to support in nationalist struggles. Something for you to go and read up on. Duncan, i think your heart is in the right place but you have to take that one step further and rid yourself of the political baggage you still carry, just as we must also jettison our faiths in god. You ARE NOT a Scot…you are firstly a human being and secondly a worker…the accidental place of your birth is well down the list., somewhere scraping the bottom…despite what they keep telling you about your history. Try reading some of the archive posts on our Edinburgh/Glasgow branch blog for a fresh insight into the pasthttp://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/
By citing the authority of Salmond's credentials as a chartered accountant, you might as well go all the way and add that he was a bankers advisor on the oil industry, hence the sympathetic attitude the SNP have frequently shown to the oil corporations and the touching of the forelock to the Scottish banking industry Or have you so easily forgotten his statement that “We are pledging a light-touch regulation suitable to a Scottish financial sector with its outstanding reputation for probity" Or his endorsement of RBS ill-fated takeovers. Or approval of HSBC principles of banking, "the preferred financial institution of drug cartels and money launderers” as US Crime investigators described it. Or SNP promising the oil industry and Scottish business in general tax cuts. A selective SNP memory, i believe. Syriza and Spain's Podemos promise much the same as the SNP…and lets be blunt neither can escape from the influence of European capitalism via the EU, much less the effects of global economic events such as the fall in oil prices…which makes all the SNP promises now worthless as $50 a barrel is in no way $110 that there post-independence budget was based upon. 1st Warning: 1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.
