alanjjohnstone
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
The fears of the Alawites and the blind eye of the Western media.http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/10/10/the-alawites-fact-fiction-and-fear/
In South Africa – the genetic origin of the term 'apartheid' When did words start having genetic origins? Why did you decline to comment on my subsequent post on South Africans self-descriptions becoming increasingly less racial and tribal? Or is it you who deem "workers cannot decide for themselves now?" – to throw your statement back at you.I have made my position quite clear, i do not care if you views are accurate and valid on race. My relationships how i treat another is not based on race.Once again to throw your own words back at you "I think it is both dangerous and inquitous to work to eradicate natural differences among human beings." Therefore i cannot support a policy of selective breeding to seek to eliminate the existing and growing mix of DNA/culture within various human beings that contribute to our individual uniqueness and produces that natural difference.
The Socialist Courier blog has carried a posting on St Kilda gaelic communismhttp://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2012/05/celtic-communism-gaelic-commonwealth.html?q=st+kildaIts a pity The Times has a paywall.
Or another interpretation is that he and fellow leader, Carroll, of the EDL have found the State quango, Quilliam Foundation, to be better payers for their services. But i am a terrible cynic and i should trust more in peoples' ability to actually change their belief systems and take them at their word. According to Wiki the model for Quilliam is Egyptian and Saudi de-radicalisation of Islamists. hmmm??? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quilliam_(think_tank) BTW, Are socialists the avant-garde?
Take a look outside in post apartheid South Africa. "Only 4.1 percent of people describe themselves by their language or tribe, while a mere 8.8 percent use race as a self-descriptor. Contrast this with the 52 percent who identify themselves as South Africans, first, and the 88 percent who are proud to be South African citizens.There is no doubt that, increasingly, South Africans do not see race, language and tribe as an important criterion for self-identity. They are well on their way towards a non-racial society." http://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/let-s-dump-obsession-with-race-1.1588948#.UlS3H9Knokg And of course the next stage is to dump the obsession with nationality, too!!
"APARTHEID""We already have this. Have you been outside recently?" I have already made it clear that i couldn't care a toss if there exists a race or not. Hrothgar could for all i care prove that neanderthal genes predominate in some communities (In 52 Clapham High St has raised that possibility !!). What my issue is the political implications of his supposed solutions. Forever claiming his accuracy we have him insisting that we in the UK (and Europe) practice apartheid….http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid_in_South_Africa Yes I have looked outside…I see no white only – black only signs for buses or train carriages. I see no pass laws regulating where someone lives or travel. I do see however government attempts to eliminate discrimination, not formalise it into law. I also see an economic system that is more concerned witht the colour of someone's money than the colour of his skin. No, there are no apartheid laws, no Jim Crow laws….this is exactly what Brian accuses you of wishing to create and what I have also accused you of advocating. You are on a trajectory of a self-fulfilling prophecy. While socialists recognise and highlight the dangers of racism and bigotry affecting workers solidarity and hindering the struggle for socialism, you wish to inflame racism and turn worker against worker. And then in all your glory point the finger and declare…"see, I told you so… race war not class war…" You continually claim some sort of libertarian credential but to achieve your chosen future means authoritarian and oppressive acts of coercion. You deny any political affiliation with Nazis and Klansmen but these are your bedfellows. To them, you are what is commonly referred to as a useful idiot.
Its not going to be over-night or a simultaneous epiphany. What will be part of the early process will be is the building of individual socialist parties in these 200 countries to capture political control of the 200 states and they will embark upon transforming itself into a world socialist movement (party.) People are becoming increasingly aware that national sovereignty in regards to global problems such as climate change is meaningless. They will charge their local and regional organisations that have grown into the expression of their wishes with the task to co-ordinate and co-operate with all others of like mind well in advance of the revolutionary moment of assuming political power. So the real beginning is not the question as you pose but the creation of the One Big Union, the One Socialist Party out of the 200 odd workers organisations in each country and from that to thier world-wide restructuring…industrial workers of the world and the world socialist party…a start has been already made but a long way from completion, sadly.
This article raises some of the issues brought up on this thread.http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/10/invention-imagination-race-and-nation/
Washington Post reports that "Foreign fighters man checkpoints, serve as commanders on the battlefield and have become the de facto rulers of towns and cities in areas under rebel control, giving them a visible and much-feared presence across large swaths of territory, according to Syrians living in the north as well as analysts. Saudis, Tunisians and Libyans are among the most frequently encountered nationalities, the residents and analysts say, but men from Chechnya, Kuwait, Jordan, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates also are present. The Pakistani Taliban announced in August that it had established a presence in Syria. Among those killed in recent battles was a Moroccan commander who had spent years as a prisoner of the U.S. government at Guantanamo Bay"http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/foreign-extremists-dominate-syria-fight/2013/10/01/5871685e-2ae7-11e3-b141-298f46539716_story.html?wprss=rss_middle-east
“Unlike you, I am not being bossy or prescriptive about what people can or cannot do and should or should not do.” This is your Big Fat Lie. No socialist has decided you must marry an Indian, No socialist has decreed your best friend has to be West Indian. No socialist has instructed you to love your next door neighbour. No socialist has insisted that you must invite people who do not like you to your birthday parties. No socialist has imposed that the only music you can listen to is opera in the original Italian. No socialist is forcing you to eat from a menu of pizza, kebabs or Tandoorie. No socialist is forcing you to do anything. The only person imposing restrictions upon you, is you, yourself. And it is only you who have chosen that these restrictions will also be extended to apply to all others, as well. It is you who desire to limit your own freedom and at the same time deprive others of their freedoms. http://www.listenlittleman.com/ “You’re not free, little man, and you haven’t the faintest idea what freedom is. You wouldn’t know how to live in freedom.”
Have you ever mailed a letter from part of the world to another and wondered how from a pillar-box in the street, to the letter-box of a house in another continent, it gets there?Have you ever flown from one part of the world to another and wondered about all that air-space you pass through which requires air traffic control to permit a safe journey?Or how WHO and FAO can mobilise all these NGOs to combat epidemics and famines. UNESCO is another international aid and what about the countless charities around the world. Have you never ever requested a book from your library who then borrow it from another library to provide it to you? World co-operation already exists in many areas of our life and we are awash with international organisations and professional bodies and business/trade associations that co-ordinate and keep one another informed of facts and developments. As often explained when we establish socialism, it is not a blank page beginning but building upon what already exists in a myriad of forms. We take what exists and transform them, sometimes this will be very minimal change that is required, while in other cases it will need more fundamental adaptations. Every army in the world has an engineering corps equipped with all sorts of heavy construction equipment and with trained personnel, capable of laying bridges, building roads and runways, constructing barracks and bases, every army has a transport corps to support supplies and logistics – why should they be made redundant and not deployed for peaceful means.
“My answer to that is racial secessionism…You could start by not trying to attach random, abstract labels to what I am saying.” Oh, you do that yourself without any help from me. Always a new label from yourself and when very early in this debate i accurately labelled you, oh , how upset you became and the indignant appeals to your own personal originality…yet every message from you confirms the stale old racist ideology presented as something novel. Jack London, the writer, was much the same as yourself, unable to accept the changing world when it came to white supremacy disappearing. He, too, clung to the past, pretending it was the future. “Unlike you, I am not being bossy or prescriptive about what people can or cannot do and should or should not do.” Let live and let be, eh? Now, why is it I don’t believe you in the slightest. Perhaps it is because you insist upon placing your racial theories in the forefront of your thinking process rather than than trying to achieve a world of mutual co-operation. Free access to goods and services denies to any group or individuals the political leverage with which to dominate others which has been a feature of all private-property or class based systems through through the control of and restrictions to the means of life. This will ensure that a socialist society is run on the basis of democratic consensus, and yes, if you wish to seclude yourself from those who you claim differ from you in some vague way, you will be fully entitled to. Who, after all, can force you to live the way you do not wish to. It is not the WSM who advocates control and authority, after all….but yourself. We are the ones who say looks, appearances, cultures, fashions, lifestyles are matters of little concern right now, our pressing needs is socialism to end unnecessary suffering of all peoples, all ages, all sexes. We don’t pick and choose who we seek to liberate, we aim to free everybody – ” the emancipation of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex.” as we declared in 1904 and continue to aver.
"In a socialist society communities could exist autonomously" I believe the word you actually see is autarky. Socialism is about a world co-operating , realising its interdependence. DJP asks how you would ensure a racially pure community. I have given my answer – you would strengthen the state with co-ercive measures to enforce restrictions. Just as national "anarchists" and so-called libertarians do, you can camoflage a dictatorship with fancy words all you want. You would evoke laws to forbid black neighbours, brown class-mates and your ultimate sanction will be violence. You will end up with Jim Crow laws. Dance all you wish but people are not the narrow minded racists you endeavour to colour them as. Mixed-race people are the fastest growing ethnic minority group in the UK and, with all mixed categories counted as one sole group, are predicted to be the largest minority group by 2020.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_(United_Kingdom_ethnicity_category)
Why should it be that we are expected to trust "our" own government and its propaganda outlet, the BBC, more than the Russian government and RT tv. http://rt.com/news/syria-chemical-un-resolution-356/ Surely it is not because we trust our government or the BBC not to mislead us?
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/09/26/bono-poor-poor-pitiful-me/ Bono clearly has no time for us – why on earth should we cling to him?
