ALB
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This long article (see the translation above in #265492) is actually very good. Pity he writes “Marxism” when “Leninism” would be more appropriate.
Now, in threatening to impose secondary sanctions on states that continue to trade with Iran, Trump is risking a world trade war, seeing that China is a major trade partner with Iran. India, Russia and Japan won’t be too happy either.
On the other hand, the limits of “Great” America’s economic power might well soon be exposed.
Another 200 or so were distributed this morning in the Balham part of the ward, making 1700 so far. More could have been but we want to keep some for Sunday when a filmmaker doing a short film about the party wants to film an example of party activity. We are going to meet outside Balham tube/mainline station at 12 so we can be filmed giving out leaflets there and then putting them through letter boxes in nearby streets.
A further 500 were distributed yesterday. The Tories and Labour canvassers were out too. It is a vital by-election for them because, if the Tories win, it means they control the Council. The seat was held by Labour. So far we have seen 4 different Tory and 3 different Labour leaflets (and one Vote Green window poster).
Local online news outlet reports on our leafletting campaign:
It’s not going to be long before the media start talking again about “Marxist guerrillas” in Colombia. If their ideological pretensions are to be taken seriously they should be called Leninist guerrillas.
We distributed 600 or so leaflets inserted inside one of our general leaflets yesterday. We probably won’t cover the whole ward (no need to as we have no candidate) but will put a few hundred more through letter boxes before polling day on 27 August. Both the Tories and Labour have been leafletting too but none of the other candidates as far as we have been able to see. Just token candidates to keep their party’s name in the public eye.
SPEW, disguised as TUSC, contested this ward in May. It is difficult to see why as it doesn’t seem their territory with only 10 percent in “social housing”. In the event their candidate — Adam Powell-Davies, the leader of their student front organisation — got only 0.1 percent of the votes cast.
We met a real live fascist in the proper historical sense of the word. An Italian supporter of Mussolini. He showed us a photo of his father as a Blackshirt as well as a picture of Mussolini. He didn’t say who he would be voting for but there is no reason to suppose it would be RefUK as they are not fascists. Maybe he will write “Fascismo” across his ballot paper.
The first few hundred leaflets were distributed through letter-boxes yesterday. Here is what it says. It is designed to be distributed at elections where there is no Socialist candidate and has already been used in a by-election in Bolton and the elections for the new Mayor of Greater Manchester.
WHY WOULD ANYONE BOTHER WITH VOTING?
Can’t be bothered with voting?
Fair enough.
So let’s do this instead!We know, they’re all rubbish. Red, blue, yellow, green, whatever colour that other lot are this week. They all want the same thing: to keep things ticking along for the people who own everything while the rest of us graft for a living.
Not voting will look like you don’t care and these career politicians will use that as a mandate when the election is over.
Get down to the polling station. Take the pencil. And write SOCIALISM right across the ballot paper.
Why bother? Spoilt ballots get counted and published. Sitting on sofas doesn’t. It tells them, you’re not apathetic. It tells them you want the whole lot replaced, not just the faces at the top.
What we actually want: No bosses. No buying and selling of people’s lives. The factories, hospitals, land, the lot; owned by all of us, run for all of us. That’s socialism. Not state control. Not more welfare. Not reformism (tweaking the system) and hoping for the best. Actual common ownership.
None of the parties here are offering it. So don’t pick one. But don’t be silent either!
SPOIL IT PROPERLY. WRITE SOCIALISM.
for more information visit SPGB.NET
The second paragraph of this report suggests that SPEW has decided to “enter” the Green Party via a SPEW front organisation.
“Socialist Students also produced the letter as a leaflet, which our members took along to the Young Greens Convention as a way of opening up discussion with Young Greens members about the 20 November campaign. Socialist Students members in the Green Party attended the convention and also helped to raise the international youth walkouts inside the conference.“
Typical Leninist tactic of trying to jump on any bandwagon that’s rolling. These people have no principles or, rather, this dishonest practice is a principle for them.
There is another local by-election a few tube stops from Head Office in Clapham, in neighbouring Wandsworth’s Trinity ward. London branch won’t be contesting it but we will be distributing leafletting in the ward a leaflet suggesting that those who want socialism should write “SOCIALISM” across their ballot paper.
Wandsworth is odd in that it is one part of the country where the two main contenders are still Labour and the Tories. Neither Reform nor the Greens enter into it.The council is made up of 29 Tory and 28 Labour and one independent. The by-election has been caused by a Labour councillor moving up the greasy pole.
Actually, to be honest, I think you have more in common with Bruno Bauer who was among the first to argue that Jesus wasn’t a historical person and was one of the group Marx and Engels fell out with and polemicised against in The Holy Family.
Marx argued that the criticism of religion should lead on to the criticism of the conditions that gave rise to religion. Bauer didn’t get beyond criticising religion.
Not been following this thread as I thought that the question had been resolved ages ago — “Jesus” was not a historical person but either an idea or ideal or an amalgam of dozens of freaks calling themselves Jesus and the Jewish Messiah and proclaiming that “the end of the world is nigh”. And that it was Paul who was the historical figure who thought up Christianity.
But a newsletter from the South West London Humanists just landed in my intray. Which contains the following which might be of interest to those who are following this thread:
“ The New Testament: Jewish or Gentile?
For anyone interested in these things, this piece by Ann Conway-Jones, The New Testament: Jewish or Gentile? is worth reading: “A recent phenomenon in New Testament research is the involvement of Jewish scholars. They perform the vital task of correcting Christian misunderstandings, distortions, stereotypes, and calumnies, with the aim of recovering the various Jewish contexts of Jesus, Paul, and the early Christian movement”. It seems a lot of people forget that Jesus was Jewish, and so was St.Paul, even after his famous vision on the road to Damascus. As well as thinking that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, Paul was convinced that it all meant that the End Time was imminent. He even said in one of his letters – the earliest texts in what much later became the New Testament – that he expected to live to see it. The Jesus Movement was just a strand in what’s known as ‘2nd Temple Judaism’ – all part of a creative process at a time when just about everyone believed in the supernatural.”Link to the book here:
In the election on Thursday for the replacement of Burnham as Mayor of Greater Manchester the turnout was only 25 percent. In other words, 75 percent of those eligible to vote didn’t consider the outcome important or significance enough to bother to vote. Which suggests that even in Manchester ‘Manchesterism’ is seen as not being up to much. They are right — just a bigger trough for local politicians.
When he was seeking to be elected Trump said he wouldn’t get America involved in wars like previous presidents. But his attempt to apply capitalist bully boy business tactics to relations between states has resulted in every single Arab state in Western Asia being bombed. He has set the whole area on fire.
I suspect the more intelligent members of the capitalist class will be happy to see his wings clipped in November and the back of him at the beginning of 2029. He’s been a disaster from their point of view.
To be fair, we record two measures the Burnham government has taken — he says to put money into people’s pockets but actually not to take so much out of them — to help people a “little bit” (his own words): the £2 cap on bus fares and removing VAT on electricity bills.
This, to see if and how long they last. After all, a previous Labour government in 1964 abolished prescription charges when first elected only to have to re-impose them a couple of years later when faced with a balance of payments crisis.
