alanjjohnstone
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Another story about disillusioned rebels fearful of the jihadists. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/18/syria-revolution-civil-war-conflict-rivalry "I need Bashar [al-Assad] to last for two more years," said the businessman. "It would be a disaster if the regime fell now: we would split into mini-states that would fight among each other. We'll be massacring each other – tribes, Islamists and battalions…"
Did come across this quote by Harrington" If there is a genuine continuing theme in Conservative history it is the defence of authority. In the Nineteenth Century, Conservatives stood for truncheons, gunboats, and the Church of England. The contemporary Conservative believes in truncheons and the authority of management in business.’ – Michael Harrington "
Found it for you, comrade, but cannot access it .http://invereskstreet.blogspot.com/2006/07/pages-from-party-press.htmlI can't find it on his other blog http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/
Also think of all the fun you will have attending conference and ADM and challenging all our sacred cows
LBird, IIRC, you hoped that Rosa Liechenstein not Luxemburg would discuss her Leninism.I would like to know why you decline to join the SPGB and just where your disagreements are. Surely, the reasons are not in the differing interpretations of Pannekoek or Engels philosophying. Members on this thread and related ones have alredy disputed with one another and moreorless a party line in much of the discussion does not exist. Some one said it resembles the theological question of how many dialecticians are dancing on a pin head.So why aren't you not filling up a Form A since i think you are in more agreement with the SPGB than with others. Lets get the debate down to something tangible !!!
Syria's genuine sincere rebel activists give up. http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024008029 But he believes that his message, unpopular among his revolutionary colleagues, is one they need to hear — that their revolution has ended; that a dangerous wave of Islamic extremism has welled up in its place; that they should work to stop the fighting now; and that if they can’t, they should hope it’s Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who wins… "… For too long on the ground, there was too much focus on the crimes the regime was committing and not enough on our own problems. And addressing these problems was always being delayed….we would say it would all end soon — Assad is going to fall in two weeks; Assad is going to fall in a month; Assad’s going to fall in Aleppo. At each moment, we thought it was going to end very soon, and that meant we were neglecting the mistakes that were being made (among the revolution). We were thinking, OK, the regime’s going to fall, and we can solve this later. We just need to get rid of Assad. This was a big mistake…" http://www.buzzfeed.com/mikegiglio/confessions-of-a-syrian-activist-i-want-assad-to-win
The economists strike back. "This could be the golden age of economics…This is a great time to be an economist…" http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/74cd0b94-4de6-11e3-8fa5-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2kx7RhGKp
Of course, he made this speech at a City of London do , that quasi independent state within the UK. http://www.socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2012/07/corporation.html The Real Corporation
As you know, their expulsions for rule breaking was a little acrimonious with many accusations, even some in Socialist Studies claiming a present member of the Party is a MI5 infiltrator. i was not a member at this time so i am indeed spreading third-party unproved gossip about Socialist Studies.
I accept most of what you say , Ed, particularly in regards to the phrase Anglo Marxism. Also, yes our members are human with many of our fellow workers weaknesses but the terms of sexism , racism should be in a concrete political context. Members know better than to exhibit these traits and endeavour to correct them, particularly when it is pointed out. If they are expressed openly and in public then i would expect charges to be brought against that member for actions detrimental. The Socialist Studies group has been mentioned and since i was not intimately acquaintred with them, it has been pointed out to me that it included homophiles and a certain wife-beater. We are not the morality police and cannot act as such but conduct unbecoming of a member should raise other members concerns. Certainly if they at the pre-membership stage show they hold such views then i consider that membership would be withheld eg Hrogarth on another thread here tried to join but continued to advocate his tribal racialist theory or whatsishisname's mysogynist views on the other WSM forum some time back. It is not an easy issue. I had hoped my e-mail would be taken to understand that. Take nationalism. Too easy for some members to be sympathetic to the national football side or a sports personal, basing that preference on geography. At one conference, i plead guilty, myself and an a Irish member displayed the prejudice of supporting France against England in the pub to the anger of others- our behaviour little different from the England fans "patriotism" Regard to Mcolme, i have witnessed the issue of lighter and darker skinned discrimation personally in African and Asia countries. Although it may appear racial its roots are in class, lighter skin = non- worker so they use skin lighteners as aspiration tools . I'm also guessing that the same can be said in Mexico – lighter skin is associated with the Spanish Conquisador ruling class and not the peons.
Following a polite letter from myself the SW article added the postscript that i refer to, Adam's letter and Duncan Hallas's correction.
Another related comment in this articlehttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/15/far-right-threat-europe-integration More worrying than the growth of the far right are the temporising gestures to the racists and anti-immigrants now coming from mainstream Conservative and even Liberal Democrat politicians and from some of the new "Blue Labour" ideologues. The warning from the likes of David Blunkett that hostility to Roma immigrants might lead to a popular "explosion" is reminiscent of Enoch Powell's rhetoric…."
Deborah Orr has a interesting column in the Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/15/labour-apologising-not-economic-migration "Better at being Tory than the Tories" was not a vote-winning slogan. Yet it was true. Labour wanted Britain to attract economic migrants. Partly, this was because the larger a working population is, the greater the economic activity, and the more revenue there is to look after those not working – of whom there was a burgeoning number in the UK at that time. But the policy was attractive to Labour for other reasons, too, some of which no Labour government could admit to.Most glaring was Labour's fear of a resurgence of union power. They didn't want people banding together to insist on higher pay and better conditions. A steady supply of people for whom just working in Britain offered higher pay and better conditions than they would otherwise expect served to reduce cohesion in the workforce, making common purpose harder to achieve. It's easy to see why this was not a perceived benefit of immigration that Labour was keen to advertise, or even explicitly acknowledge within the party……….By bowing to the logic of the free market without explaining that economic migration is simply part of that, Labour has allowed rightwing political rhetoric to continue preaching the lie that global free markets and economic migration are separate issues. Due to Labour's own lies-by-omission, organisations such as the English Defence League and Ukip have been able to flourish. But more urgently, those lies-by-omission have allowed the Conservatives to maintain their own delusions about the efficiency and moral goodness of free markets…."
