alanjjohnstone
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This action by Piketty has raised him up in my estimationhttp://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30650097
Pope Francis has urged people of all religions and cultures to unite to fight modern slavery and human trafficking, saying in his first mass of 2015 that everyone has a God-given right to be free.http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/01/pope-francis-new-year-mass-slavery-human-trafficking
Quote:“All of us are called [by God] to be free, all are called to be sons and daughters, and each, according to his or her own responsibilities, is called to combat modern forms of enslavement. From every people, culture and religion, let us join our forces,”Next year it might be wage slavery he will challenge…we can only hope
Humfffff…are you saying i can't do what you do and actually implant the video, but instead can merely post the location of it for people to go to…
Quote:It would make concerted efforts to help those hardest hit by the crisis – free electricity for Greeks who have had supplies cut off,Call me a free-loader but surely this will entail means-testing because wouldn't everybody cease paying the electric bill and get cut off to entitle them to free electricity.
Quote:rents covered for the homelessThis is certainly achievable. I have read that a number of 'progressive' city/town councils in America of all places have adopted similar policies as it cuts down costs in other areas..law and order etc…
Quote:food stamps distributed in schoolsThe SSP proposals for free school dinners. I'm surprised that their other proposal for free transport hasn't been adopted by Syriza…After all it is mainstream policy in Scotland for all the political parties to have free bus travel for over 60s. I'll read the links now.
An example of the depth of Chomsky's analysis in an interview with the impressive journalist Chris Hedges with an opening question about the nature of wage-slavery.A rather long video …an hour…but i think well worth a watch and demonstrates Chomsky's wide-ranging scope that introduces vital concepts that are no longer discussed or debated. http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/chris_hedges_interview_noam_chomsky_on_empire_liberal_class_20141231One thing i full-heartedly share with ex-comrade Stuart Watkins is his respect and admiration of Chomsky.
Quote:Alan, I hope you didn't think that this was Brand himself speaking. It was another comedian doing a take-off of him.I might be aging but my eyesight hasn't got that bad, ALB I simply wanted to make a point that this stand-up comedy style of message isn't exactly well suited for our purpose which is to convey and communicate our case. Chomsky is far batter with his slow, clearly articulated and information-filled conversational manner. Brand, et al, reminds me too much of people in the pub, making some good points but it's hidden in a load of other shit and the nuggets of gold and the real gems often gets lost. Once again, i do think Brand serves a purpose, IF it gets us thinking about how we should be advocating and advancing our own ideas, breaking the old moulds and thinking out the box…trying new things, experimenting, and discarding what doesn't work or is too time/cost expending and building on initiatives that do seem to have a resonance with people.And once more i confess my own personal lack of inspiration. I do believe we need group-think. These workshops last year were i think very promising….but was there any follow-ups in concrete terms. Did they actually result in any related action? I am a bit out of touch as people know. Obviously the election seminars gives the participants increased knowledge on the procedures would be a great aid but has the propaganda and promotion suggestions begun? I think they might have but perhaps they still remain low key and not reached the higher priority yet. Like other comrades i am a strong supporter that we should be using the local press more, not only is it easier to gain a voice in them and cheaper to place ads but in my experience people actually read their local paper closer and more intently. I noted one branch's well designed ad didn't bring in the crowds but we should not place too much importance on one introductory effort…a series of ads …a campaign of public meetings…often has better effect. I joined in the 70s when we had the '7 Days For Socialism' campaign so i may be biased, but saturation propaganda may be the way to go, leaving trails of titbits for people to track and trail towards the Party. Anyways, lets make it a good new year for all of us
A bit like Ben Elton's delivery when he was at his peak, ALB…a gatling gun..Chomsky has a much more deliberated where he makes sure he is saying something of substance and of importance and it is not lost in rapid fire verbiage. In fact i think i remember Dawkins explaining that many New Agers use a technique of a verbal onslaught with plenty of key words , dropped in to make it sound all scientific but out of context and without real meaning to them. I recall saying long ago at the time, that Elton's comedy was counter-productive since it turned Thatcher into a figure of fun to take the piss out of rather than show her as she really was…the serious political representative of the capitalist class in the process of crushing the working class….i don't think the jokes or repetitious chants particularly helped to explain what was happening and her role in it. And it certainly didn't develop into a lasting political critique which led to any changeBut, of course, i have a reputation (some say a well-deserved one) for lacking a sense of humour…and whatever did happen to Ben Elton?….oh he, is in Australia appearing on their version of Question Time, acting out the conscience of the liberal intellectuals rather than calling for real revolution.I'm not dismissing Brand…i simply want to go beyond him…but i'm not sure exactly how to do that and nothing i ever read helps get me any closer to an answer. I'm open minded enough to keep hoping.
Janet Biehl, who is if i recall (a Bookchin acolyte) report on Rojova http://roarmag.org/2014/12/janet-biehl-report-rojava/
Quote:Under their Third Way, Rojava’s three cantons declared Democratic Autonomy and formally established it in a “social contract” (the non-statist term it uses instead of “constitution”). Under that program, they created a system of popular self-government, based in neighborhood commune assemblies (comprising several hundred households each), which anyone may attend, and with power rising from the bottom up through elected deputies to the city and cantonal levels.This is another report from another member of the delegation.http://peaceinkurdistancampaign.com/2014/12/22/a-revolution-in-daily-life/
Quote:The point of the revolution, many people told us, is not to replaced one government with another, it is to end the rule of the state. The question, the co-president of the Kurdish National Congress put it, is “how to rule not with power but against power”. State power is being dispersed in a number of ways….The new administration (with a parliament and 22 ministries), appointed for now by various political parties and organisations but to be eventually be elected, has taken responsibility for some state functions…The old state also continues to operate in parallel with new structures…Meanwhile, the new administration is balanced by multiple autonomous elements. Separate from it, communes (weekly open neighborhood councils, with their own local defense units and sub-councils dedicated also to youth, women, politics, economy, public services, education and health) and city and canton-level councils consisting of delegates elected by them, deal with immediate practical problems that can be resolved immediately. Both the administration and the communes were set up by TEVDEM, a coalition of organisations including the PYD, co-ops, academies, women’s and youth organisations and sympathetic political parties. These organisations all have their own decision-making structures and sometimes there own education programmes in their “cultural centers” “houses” and “academies”. The result of all this, is both that all political forces have complex, cross-cutting reliances on each other and that there are plenty of meetings to go around.Just how much reliance can we place on these witnesses? After the Russian Revolution we had numerous political tourists report their observations. Most were through rose-tinted glasses but i'm not so sure we can imply Graeber et al are liars or dupes and i'm very reticient in doing so. But I also have that niggling feeling of deja vu in the sense of the wishful thinking expresed in much of Lenin's State and Revolution.I have posted my own impression on Libcom that if they say is true then indeed there exists an overlap of PKK and ourselves in taking control of the state (in their case it can only be the local one and not the central Turkish one) and adapting it the organ of liberation, lopping off its class coercive bits and using the state to protect the socialist revolution and at the same time abolish itself http://libcom.org/forums/news/no-genuine-revolution-interview-graeber-evrensel-newspaper-29122014#comment-549616http://libcom.org/forums/news/no-genuine-revolution-interview-graeber-evrensel-newspaper-29122014?page=1#comment-549657Perhaps i am too being a little optimistic in generalising from a very particular event taking place in unique circumstances ….but so did the Paris Commune, of course. It is strange though that some on the forum emphasise Brand for potentially bringing revolution on to the agenda, but there is little ongoing debate and discussion on a revolution that is taking place …with that enormous caveat…IF it is really happening as many seem to suggest.
One thing Chomsky and Brand have in common and i have said that it is a weakness, although others may view it as a strength…they are not members of any particular party. Chomsky is a prime example of some who is excluded from the media (except for rare occasions) because of the content of his message. i find it strange for someone who has written many fine books on the media manipulation, on the US state's nefarious role in world events that you regard it as ineffectual. It is not a question of either Chomsky or Brand – we can have both and do have both. One uses the communication skills of a erudite professor, the other his talent as an entertainer. Charlie Chaplin used his expertise for being a clown to produce the Great Dictator for political observation and comment.But the more some promote Brand, it leads to people like myself who are sympathetic to him, to begin to criticise and pull him down from his pedestal. Brand has a long way to go before he assumes the intellectual stature of Chomsky. It was not Brand who put the message of revolution on the lips of people but various popular peoples' movements from Arab Spring to Occupy to Indignados. A far as i see he is merely a convert to revolution and perhaps not the messiah but definitely an apostle for it and gets that credit. But let us keep a perspective…Brand is getting over 100,000-to 200,000 views on average to his almost daily videos, (figures Chomsky only reaches when over the course of a year). A great achievement but let us remember he doesn't call for revolution in all of them…in some he offers such reforms such as virtual currency.Again i call for restraint in making the face more important than the case. The messenger will always be different and expressing the message in different forms but it is the message that is the revolution. And it is exactly on this that both Chomsky and Brand (albeit for different reasons and purposes) are vague and present a lack of clarity. Brand has offered no definition of what sort of revolution we should seek and nor has Chomsky. Quite correctly they leave it up to the people ourselves. And alas, despite claims of an open door, i don't see a rush of people through it. Because ..they simply don't know what is behind the door. This is where we should be trying to heighten our influence. the opened door may well be simply another entrance to another prison-cell…or the gate-way to freedom. It is up to us to ensure people use the door to reach a genuinely new place. But enough of platitudes. We don't possess the power of persuasion that either Chomsky or Brand have. If only we had but we don't. Thats a fact. Our task is to try and acquire it. We won't be given TV interviews or newspaper columns but as the message in #75 suggests we could do more to harness the internet, you tube and social media as the vehicles for our ideas. We need to concentrate on that.I for one see our blogging going to waste in the sense that we have few visitors and few links to it. IMHO, the presentation mars the content. Perhaps 2015 will see an improvement. I hope so.Our website may be having more of an impact, statistically but it still has a long way to go in terms of being used as source material and cited as references in footnotes as a sign and signal it is of actual influence.2015 may well be time to consider the unthinkable…making the Socialist Standard fully an e-zine and having simply a hard-copy quarterly magazine, glossier and meatier and marketable at WHSmiths With months to prepare and edit, the content can be more in depth. The figures released by DJP shows it is our Marxist analysis that is the popular top ten. Surely we should take notice of that fact. Bur enough of today's rambling…
Sure there exists cyber war but there is also psy-op warfare and this article argues the first blow was struck by America against Korea through Hollywood's Interview. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/12/post-modern-warfare-2014122874033621466.html
Quote:In 2013, Obama boldly declared: "Believe it or not, entertainment is part of our American diplomacy".Davd Graeber interview on Rojavahttp://libcom.org/forums/news/no-genuine-revolution-interview-graeber-evrensel-newspaper-29122014Despite whatever misgivings we may have, there are possiblies some things that Graeber cites that bolsters our case against the anarchists
Quote:What was the most impressing thing you witnessed in Rojava in terms of this democratic autonomy practice?There were so many impresive things. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anywhere else in the world where there’s been a dual power situation where the same political forces created both sides. There’s the “democratic self-administration,” which has all the form and trappings of a state – Parliament, Ministries, and so on – but it was created to be carefully separated from the means of coercive power…..i think Graeber confirms that the form of democracy is less important than the content and intent which flies in the face of the usual anti-parliamentarian arguments. That we can transform existing structures to make them fit for purpose and no reason why town and city councils here cannot be adapted into administrative organs.
What we can expect apparently from this American – Cuba thaw in relations is an invasion of golfers.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cubas-golf-revolution-but-will-the-revolutionary-nation-take-bourgeois-game-to-its-heart-9947413.html
Nigel Farage has been named “Briton of the year” by The Times, which hailed his “game-changing” politics. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-named-briton-of-the-year-by-the-times-9946110.html
