alanjjohnstone
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Never noticed that. Here is the article the reference is to, one of my blog post on Socialist Courier to read the quote in context.http://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2014/08/soap-box-to-ballot-box.html
Quote:To accomplish that revolution, we must organise on the political field. We will accomplish nothing but our own suicide by attempts at armed insurrection. Politically, we must use every forum open to us, from the soap-box to the ballot-box, to spread the idea of revolution. We must be conscious of what we are doing and where we're going, conscious to a degree never before seen in a revolution. Isn't it about time we let democracy work for us ? To do that, we have to stop watching and letting the politicians and the corporations do our thinking. Democracy is not a spectator sport. We have to do our own thing to live in the kind of society we desire. We have all the constitutional laws available for our use to change our necessary social institutions to work for us.so we can live in a peaceful and prosperous society. Let's learn how to use them. Let's for once give democracy a chance! We always told what has been done and what will be done, and the voting process is packaged in keeping with the party bosses plans. Fact is, as a majority…, we, the people, don’t need to be screwed. When it comes to having any measure of democracy in any real decision making, we have the real say in what goes on.yet we never really get things done in our best interests. The point is that we have to take control of our own lives. Our revolution will be the first in history of, by and for the working class, with no elite "Party" leading us by the nose into a bureaucratic "Worker's State" so it can climb on our backs like any ruling class.A response to our statement on the Scottish Republican Communist Network website by prominent left nationalist Allan Armstronghttp://republicancommunist.org/blog/2014/04/01/yes-the-radical-case-for-independence-glasgow-book-launch/comment-page-1/#comment-1476325
The good old BBC, the voice of the Establishment. Headlines – Humantarian Iraq air-drops. Ignored – the deployment of Tornado fighter aircraft…oh , sorry, it is mentioned near the end of the article, parroting the official line
Quote:The RAF Tornado jets are set to take off from RAF Marham in Norfolk, and could carry out surveillance to assist delivery of aid supplies.Nor as far as i can see reported the possibility of arms being sent to the Kurds by the UK as the Independent speculates or boots on the ground…http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-28751958http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraq-crisis-britain-to-send-tornado-jets-to-iraq-as-cameron-considers-arming-kurdish-fighters-9663389.html
Perhaps this article might provoke further debatehttp://www.alternet.org/belief/scientific-journal-tries-prove-belief-innate-and-fails
Independence solves unemployment…cut corporation taxes, give business money, cherry-pick immigrants. get single parents into work, …and encourage unions to collaborate with employershttp://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-28741265
The NIMBY impact on house prices censored from government reporthttp://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/10/fracking-censored-house-price-report
The Guardian economists team join those who call for a citizens income.http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/aug/10/tax-benefits-citizens-income-self-employmentWhat is telling is this comment about current Tory policy.
Quote:So far support for a citizen’s income is limited to the Green party, although the government’s switch to a flat-rate state pension is a step in that direction.It's an idea supported by many right-wingers, including Milton Friedman, who was in favour of the 'negative income tax' model.
What if there was a Russian-Ukrainian all out war, to follow on from Socialist Punks previous questionhttp://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/08/09/what-if-theres-real-war-ukraine
Rare that our media ever presents a clear coherent spokesperson. It is left to the fringe news websites to do. Chomsky interview on Democracy Nowhttp://www.alternet.org/world/noam-chomsky-israels-assault-gaza-hideous-atrocity?paging=off¤t_page=1#bookmark
Richard Seymour – Lenin's Tomb blog. Another article that makes interesting readinghttps://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/08/the-anti-zionism-of-fools/
Another fine article to readhttp://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25447-the-war-over-the-war-israel-gaza-and-american-protestYMS has mentioned that some can over-egg the pudding by claiming UK and US policy is determined by the Israeli/Zionist/Jewish lobby. This quote i think supports his view.
Quote:"Khalidi in an April 2013 talk for his book, Brokers of Deceit: How the US Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East, that the Palestinian struggle is just not vital to the geopolitical interests of the United States. "To suggest that the Israel lobby has some kind of arcane influence on American policy in the Middle East overall is a terrible mistake," he said. "On issues of strategic importance to the United States, the power of the Israel Lobby was shown to be minimal. On Palestine, it has enormous weight. But on issues of strategic importance . . . like peace between Egypt and Israel, which was crucial in the eyes of American policy makers over three administrations, Nixon, Ford, Carter to American Cold War objectives, there was absolutely no hesitation in pushing, pressuring and forcing Israel to do things that American policy makers wanted."The feminists now have their say on the bookhttp://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25456-how-gender-changes-pikettys-capital-in-the-twenty-first-century
Quote:In Capital, Piketty proposes a global wealth tax to spread the economic benefits of returns on capital more equitably, which, theoretically, would close the wealth gap between classes. But there are also ways to target the wealth and wage gaps amongst women and people of color specifically. As Dean Starkman notes in The New Republic, targeted redistribution can close the white-black wealth gap and a wide set of solutions already exist that target equal pay and equal opportunity for women.With these solutions and others, we can begin to correct the widening inequalities that are pushing out women and people of color. And, the effects of wealth and wage inequalities on marginalized groups is multiplied many times over. Exercising the political will to correct inequalities is not just a matter of economics; it’s a matter of social justice.Simply everyone is lining up to "benefit" from Piketty's reform. I'll keep on repeating, it is reformism that has to be tackled, rather than crediting the book's research.
Good read by Israeli peace activist Uri Avnerihttp://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/08/hamas-and-israeli-paranoia/
Quote:This war has created temporarily an unlikely coalition of Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority.Interesting article on the use of language during the Gaza warhttp://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/08/gaza-israel-language-modern-war-steven-poole
Quote:Using Gaza lessons to prepare for next Hezbollah war Sober reflection indicates that the capabilities the army displayed against Hamas will need an upgrade if better results are to be obtained in Lebanon. By Amos Harel | Aug. 7, 2014 | 6:43 AM When Golani Brigade fighters suffered multiple losses during a fierce battle with Hamas in Gaza City’s Shujaiyeh neighborhood on July 20, the air force hastened to the rescue. Within 50 minutes, planes had struck 126 targets, most with one-ton bombs. With permission, the pilots dropped some of these bombs less than 250 meters (800 feet) from the ground troops, a risk that shocked veteran pilots when they heard about it later. Yet not one soldier was hurt. Throughout the operation in Gaza, cooperation between the ground forces and the air force was much closer than it was in the past. There was no repeat of the charges leveled during the Second Lebanon War of 2006, that the air force had neglected the ground troops. The planes were at little risk from anti-aircraft fire; the main problem was trying to minimize civilian casualties while bombing targets located in dense urban areas. This challenge only grew tougher as the fighting progressed, since as the ground troops advanced deeper into these built-up areas, the dangers they faced escalated. Aerial bombing is the first stage of every major Israeli military operation. Preparing for ground maneuvers takes longer, for two reasons. The first has to do with decision-making. It doesn’t matter how many times the politicians and generals tell us they have learned from past mistakes and know the IDF has no time to waste; they will still always agonize over whether to send in ground troops and risk the attendant casualties. The second is the time needed to organize. While air force planes can take off within minutes, ground forces have to travel to the staging area, be issued necessary equipment and be briefed on operational plans. That’s true even for regular troops, and doubly so for reservists. The IDF’s initial assumption was that a series of gradually escalating strikes on Hamas assets would reduce its desire to fight and spur it to quickly accept a cease-fire. That assumption didn’t exactly work out. In part, this could be due to the differences between Gaza and Lebanon, which is the principle theater for which the IDF has prepared. Both Hezbollah and the Lebanese government have bigger assets to lose: Beirut’s Dahiyeh neighborhood, where Hezbollah is headquartered, and major civilian infrastructure like the Beirut airport, highways and power stations. Hamas’s assets in Gaza are much smaller, and unlike in Lebanon, there’s no chance of driving a wedge between it and the government, because Hamas is the government. Still, it’s possible that the destruction Gaza suffered will help restrain Hamas from starting another war. If another war breaks out with Hezbollah, the firepower the IDF used in Gaza will look tiny by comparison. A war in Lebanon would be more intensive from the outset: Nobody plans to start off by attacking empty buildings, as was done in Gaza. This is because Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal is incomparably more advanced than that of Hamas. Its rockets are far more precise, carry much bigger warheads and are capable of striking anywhere in Israel, and it has more than 100,000 of them. Facing such a threat, antimissile systems like Iron Dome will be less effective. The nine existing Iron Dome batteries were plenty to minimize the damage caused by rockets from Gaza. Dealing with Hezbollah’s rockets would require more batteries, as well as the Magic Wand system for intercepting medium-range missiles, which is still in development, and perhaps even the Arrow antimissile system for long-range missiles. The Israeli home front would suffer heavy damage, so the government wouldn’t be able to wait. It would have to respond harshly from the first moment. The Second Lebanon War, and the preparations for a third, are the proper context in which to evaluate the war in Gaza. Despite all the differences, there are important similarities between Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2014: the hesitation over the operation’s direction, the fear of casualties in a ground operation, the fact that the war ended without a victory and the understanding that another round is possible. Moreover, it’s clear that Hezbollah is following events in the south and learning the lessons. If there’s one thing senior IDF officers agree on, it’s that Hezbollah and its Iranian advisers are good at studying, analyzing and drawing conclusions.Whether Israel really hurt Hamas as badly as it claims and how much deterrence it has achieved will become clear only later. Meanwhile, it makes sense to assume that Hezbollah has also dug attack tunnels under the border, even if the IDF hasn’t yet found proof of this. After all, Hezbollah dug defensive tunnels very close to the border even before the 2006 war. In April, Haaretz reported that Hezbollah seemed to be acting more aggressively than at any other point since 2006. The army journal Maarachot recently quoted an intelligence colonel as saying that when Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatens to “conquer the Galilee,” this may reflect a plan to open the next war by an incursion into Israel. Given Israel’s experience in Gaza over the last month, it’s safe to assume that tunnels will also figure in any northern scenario. With the cease-fire in Gaza apparently holding, a clear gap has emerged between the public’s feeling that Israel didn’t win and the pride senior officers involved in the fighting are taking in their troops’ achievements. It’s true that the soldiers fought well and completed their assigned mission of destroying the tunnels. But it would be a mistake to attach too much importance to this success. Ultimately, the IDF deployed 10 brigades for more than two weeks without advancing more than two or three kilometers from the border. What is important now is for the army to focus on learning the war’s lessons. Unfortunately, the IDF often has trouble investigating itself: When senior officers’ careers are on the line, few are willing to be completely open. The blame-free inquiries used in the air force and some other elite units don’t seem to have penetrated to the rest of the army. After the Second Lebanon War, the IDF appointed more than 50 inquiry committees. But the quality of the results varied widely, and some key inquiries were never completed at all. Sober reflection indicates that the capabilities the army displayed against Hamas will need an upgrade if better results are to be obtained against Hezbollah. Even if the Shi’ite organization now seems preoccupied with other fronts – Lebanon’s own problems, the Syrian civil war and, most recently, the Islamic State’s seizure of parts of Iraq from the Shi’ite-led government – events can change suddenly. After all, few people predicted that the IDF would spend this summer intercepting rockets and hunting tunnels in Gaza.
