ALB
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Virtual signalling as “a powerful force for social change” even if “there is no guarantee the people who are sending the signals are particularly virtuous or committed to the cause.” That’s a new one.
But, while we are discussing virtue signalling in relation to the World Cup, I wonder what the English team will do before the match this evening against Senegal.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Senegal
I’ll be watching to see if can they take the knee and cover their mouths and make some hand signal without falling over.
Unlike the Iranian team whose protest put them and their families at risk, the German team’s action was a textbook case of “virtue signalling” (and could well be cited in dictionaries for years to come as a typical case):
the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one’s good character or the moral correctness of one’s position on a particular issue.”
It didn’t work. They made a spectacle of themselves. They got accused of Islamophobia. They were kicked out of the competition at the first stage. And they didn’t prevent the German government signing the same week a deal to import gas from Qatar for 15 years.
More politics and soccer. Here’s Arab commentators taking the piss out of the German team’s virtue signalling. What idiot told their team to do that?
Another amateur weighs in on the number of casualties in Ukraine:
EU Commission chief in hot water over Ukraine war loss estimates
Or does she know something we don’t?
I didn’t pay my energy bill today but then I didn’t have one not to pay. I wonder how many more were in that position.
Maybe people still feel weak on their own and identify now with their State rather than some god and that every national anthem amounts to “O State, I am weak, but you are mighty”. Some pop psychology for you.
You are right, Moo, some of the contributions here seem to be trying to emulate Engels as an expert on military matters.
They are just as relevant as this incident in the sane area during the Crimean War of 1853-56 against Russia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kinburn_(1855)
Actually, the Kinburn spit, opposite Kherson and which commands the entrance to it, is still controlled by the Russian army. So, if I may play at being Engels myself, expect another battle of Kinburn soon.
It is not just leftwingers who are exposing the “higher wages cause inflation” myth. So are right wingers. Here, following in the footsteps of Enoch Powell in the 1970s (when he wasn’t talking about immigration leading to rivers of blood), is a member of the free-marketeer Cato Institute very effectively exposing the myth for the benefit of Tory activists:
Ryan Bourne: The wage-price spiral explanation of inflation is a dangerous myth
Not sure, though, that it will stop Tory (or, for that matter, future Labour) ministers, as for them any stick can be used to oppose wage increases since one thing they do do is eat into profits.
Another example of “imbecilic nationalism on the rampage”:
I don’t why even some socialists subscribe to the idea that professional soccer is “the beautiful game”. It is more like the disgusting game, a combination of commercialism and nationalism that sets Worker against Worker.
When a state mobilises for war there is full employment. A reflection on capitalism of course as it can only provide everyone with a job when there’s a war.
But, as you say, who pays for it? It will have to come from the resources that the state already has or can acquire through taxation or borrowing. The Russian state is said to have prepared for this by building up its reserves. But, if the war goes on too long, at some point these will be exhausted and the Russian state will have to resort to taxation and borrowing — from its private capitalists and outside investors in its bonds.
This has its limits as taxing the private capitalists too much will risk them not finding it profitable enough to go on investing and it’s hard too see who from outside would want to lend to the Russian state. They might have to bring in a full-scale state-controlled war economy.
Of course all the wealth of the state and capitalists comes out of surplus value produced by workers. In war-time this can be increased by lowering the workers’ standard of living but this can’t go too far as it risked decreasing productivity. and so defeating the aim.
Although people talk of a “permanent arms economy” this is not really compatible with capitalism. Only a temporary one is.
Incidentally the Ukrainian state is bankrupt and only propped up by money (grants and loans from the US), but being among the most corrupt states in Europe even the US is wondering into whose pockets their money is going.
Yes that article in the Weakly Worker — it’s by Michael Roberts not by them — is good.
“Despite this evidence refuting the wage-price spiral, mainstream economics and the official authorities continue to claim that this is the key risk to sustained inflation. The reason for doing so is not really because the economic prize-fighters for capitalism believe that wage rises cause inflation. It is because they want ‘wage restraint’ in the face of spiralling inflation in order to protect and sustain profits.“
Here’s the link:
https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1420/no-wage-price-spiral/
That will be very difficult to achieve and, if they don’t, what will be the point of the SNP? They will have shot themselves in the footnote and deservedly disappear into the dustbin of history.
If they really did have the support of a majority of the population of Scotland for breaking away from the rest of Britain they wouldn’t need to wait till the next general election or place their hopes in the legal system. They would be able to mobilise their supporters with mass rallies and other events to bring pressure to bear on the UK government to negotiate the terms of a referendum. They could even do what the Catalan separatists did and stage their own referendum.
But they won’t do this because they know that the support they have for their “maximum programme” is lukewarm and sentimental and wouldn’t be ready to press the point.
