ALB
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There seems to be some ambiguity about what the aim of the 1 December action called a “strike” is. Originally, I think, it was to get energy bills capped at the level they were in April this year. Now it seems to be that it is that they should continue to be capped at their current, higher level after April next year.
In one sense it doesn’t matter, as what the organisers are trying to do is keep popular discontent on the boil and use it to get some mass reform movement off the ground. To do this they obviously feel the need to put some concrete aim before those they are trying to involve. What this aim is doesn’t really matter as long as it is something — it can be, and actually seems to be, a moving target.
This of course is one of the tactics of reformism — billed as “the only game in town”.
The Socialist attitude would be for people to express their discontent by organising for socialism. That is the most effective mass movement to get off the ground. If it did, the government would fall over itself offer concessions in a bid to buy off the movement for socialism. As we have always argued, if reforms (concessions, palliatives) are what you want the best way to get some would be a mass movement for socialism.
But that is not part of the reformist playbook.
Are they really going to go ahead with their “strike” (not paying their energy bills) from 1 December despite not having the million commitments they wanted? I suppose they had to call their own bluff.
It’s a bit Napoleonic though: “on s’engage et puis on voit”, ie you commit yourself and then see what happens.
They could find themselves out in front with no troops behind them.
Conspiracy to cause a public nuisance seems pretty wide-ranging if they want it to be (not that magistrates and juries will always let them get away with it).
“What is conspiracy to commit public nuisance?
Public nuisance is a common law offence in which a person carries out an act which has the effect of endangering life, health, property or comfort of the public, or to obstruct the public enjoying its rights. It is both a criminal offence and a civil wrong.
It typically consists either of an environmental nuisance, such as carrying on works producing excessive noise or smells, or of offensive or dangerous behaviour in public, such as noisy parties and hanging from bridges.
In criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons agree to carry out a criminal act.
Source: gov.uk / CPS”I see they have arrested Hallam on a charge of conspiracy and are holding him in custody pending the trial. It’s probably what he wanted (and a lot of other people too but not for the same reason) as part of his strategy of building up the number of his activist followers. He has claimed that he only needs 2 to 3 percent of activists practising civil disobedience and he can change the world.
He obviously did “conspire” to disrupt the M25 motorway but they will have difficulty proving it. And so they should as “conspiracy” never used to be a crime and can catch all sorts of people just for meeting to discuss some activity that breaks the law.
If he does get 5 years (as he could) he will have time to reflect on his absurd prediction that if global warming is not stopped 7 billion of the world’s population of 8 billion will die — which was the justification for the name “Extinction Rebellion” and for the extreme action its offshoots are taking. Not sure what’s happened to the original XR.
What a shower of shits they are ! There’s practically no difference between them and the Tories, as can be seen by the fact that the only criticisms they have of the Tories are the behaviour of ministers blown up out of all proportion.
According to this, the Starmer clique who control the party have been selecting candidates in their own image:
Starmer’s quiet purge of his would-be MPs
byu/kontiki20 inLabourUKAnd still the trade union leaders want a Labour government and are mobilising their members to vote Labour. They have no dignity or self-respect.
How are we supposed to know what this is about or whether it’s worth watching if there’s no introductory comment? Is he a comedian or a professor of anthropology or maybe an advocate or critic of “national anarchism”?
I think society could work on a completely non-political basis, even anti-political, without any sort of political authority, at any level. In other words, once capitalism has been formally abolished out of existence, the various parliaments and assemblies captured by socialists would then take the final step of abolishing themselves.
We need to be clear what we are meaning by the word “political” in this discussion. The Socialist Party associates the word with the State as the public power of coercion. Once a socialist majority wins control of the State, of political power, then the aim will be to use it briefly to abolish capitalism and then to quickly dismantle it, by lopping off the powers of coercion. What will be left would be an unarmed administrative centre.
On this definition it follows that in socialism “politics”, as activity involving the policy a State should pursue would no longer exist, only non-political democratic debate would.
I don’t see any reason why the various elected assemblies would necessarily need to be abolished. It’s just the coercive aspects of the current administrative centre that would need to go. The elected assemblies could continue to exist, no doubt made more democratic. Or they could be replaced by entirely new assemblies. Who knows? We can’t second guess the future course of events or the decisions of those who establish socialism. But there’s no point to start from scratch just for the sake of it.
But your objection doesn’t seem to be to the central administrative of society being armed (our objection) but the traditional anarchist objection to one existing at all (in fact to define the “state” they wish to abolish as any central administration).
I don’t think this is realistic. Society needs an administrative centre for some matters (world matters like global warming, research into how to avoid the Earth being hit by an asteroid). Other matters can be dealt with by regional centres, still others, most day to day matters in fact, by local centres.
I don’t see decisions taken by any of these centres being an infringement of the “right of the individual” or the “tyranny of the majority” as individualist anarchists do. Obviously there will be limits as to what they can decide and rules on how they decide, but these too can be decided democratically (or even inherited from existing elected assemblies). What’s the problem?
We were there. Report from a comrade who was present:
“I thought heavy rain may stop play but luckily it stopped around 2.30pm. Managed to get rid of a box of Socialism or your money back, a good pile of Standards and some of the new leaflet.
It was quite entertaining with Stop Oil blocking the roads, Diane Abbott MP and the usual shouting speech head-bangers for reform.
A lot of Police present but all seem to pass peacefully.
Free food too, had a nice pasta with beans stew.”There’s this online book launch tomorrow (5 November) if you can work out what time 3pm EDT is in your part of the world:
It looks as if it is not only God that is on both sides in this war but the Devil too:
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/medvedev-says-russia-is-fighting-a-sacred-battle-against-satan/48030508
Well, in my book saying that capitalism is “viable”, ie works successfully, is praise. That it is extant is of course an in incontrovertible fact. So is that it can never be made to work in the interest of the majority class of wage workers and their dependents.
That’s not logical. To say something is the “only” game in town is higher praise than saying it is the “best” game in town as this suggests that there are at least two other games about. No?
Got my increased winter heating allowance of £250 and interest rates on savings are going up to 3%. Lizzie must be right that capitalism is the best game into town.
It certainly shows that capitalism cannot exist without a state and that a pure “free market” capitalism is just a libertarian pipe dream. It has never existed and fortunately never will.
On the question of a “permanent arms economy” see this recent article (scroll down to the second item):
The shape of things to come even if the whole of Britain gets a Labour government. They’ll be forced to make cuts just like the Tartan reformists in office in Edinburgh are.
In the end reformists governments can’t be any different from conservative ones — because they both accept the capitalist economic system and have to work within its constraints. They can only act as caretakers for capitalism.
