ALB

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  • in reply to: Our 2022 local election campaign #229379
    ALB
    Keymaster

    Here is the result for the Clapham East ward of Lambeth council.

    Leigh (Lab) 1127
    Collins (Lab) 1073
    Hattersley (Green) 411
    Willians (LD) 224
    Freeman (Con) 215
    Hindson (Con) 193
    Cranney (TUSC) 38
    Lambert (Soc) 31

    As electors had 2 votes the way to calculate the percentage is to compare votes with the 1744 ballot papers returned. 31 is 1.8 percent of this.

    Turnout was 23 percent.

    in reply to: Our 2022 local election campaign #229372
    ALB
    Keymaster

    RESULT FTOM TUNBRIDGE WELLS

    Pantiles & St Mark’s Ward

    Gavin Barras (Liberal Democrats) 1386 58% Elected

    Dogan Delman (Conservatives) 715 30% Not elected

    John Anthony Hurst (Green Party) 132 6% Not elected

    Lorna Blackmore (Labour) 130 5% Not elected

    Shannon Phineas Trahern Kennedy (The Socialist Party (GB)) 11 0.46% Not elected

    Voting Summary
    Seats 1
    Total votes 2374
    Electorate 5264
    Number of ballot papers rejected 12

    in reply to: Russian Tensions #229367
    ALB
    Keymaster

    Alan, did you see this from your favourite Pope?

    https://news.yahoo.com/pope-francis-suggests-apos-barking-221515078.html

    in reply to: Russian Tensions #229366
    ALB
    Keymaster

    The same sort of question can be asked about Germany, France, Italy and Britain: How long will the voters there be prepared to put up with the consequences of sanctions and increased arms spending on their cost and standard of living? Will they force their governments to adopt a less war-mongering approach?

    I don’t think that ordinary people are as much in favour of prolonging the war, by pumping in more arms, as the governments are.

    in reply to: Russian Tensions #229344
    ALB
    Keymaster

    Lavrov was talking bollocks and has apparenty been disowned by his boss:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/05/israel-says-putin-apologised-for-foreign-ministers-hitler-remarks

    in reply to: Russian Tensions #229330
    ALB
    Keymaster

    None of the so-called BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — singled out as ripe for development to the next capitalist stage — are supporting the NATO war with Russia. Nor are any of the others imposing sanctions on Russia. I don’t suppose they will be happy with the US, the EU and Japan for plunging, through their sanctions, the world economy into a slump.

    in reply to: Russian Tensions #229323
    ALB
    Keymaster

    Yes, despite what both sides are saying, it really is a war between NATO and Russia.

    Meanwhile, on the economic front, both sides are pursuing Mutual Assured Depression. It’s mad even from a capitalist point of view.

    in reply to: An Incontestable Argument for the Law of Value #229321
    ALB
    Keymaster

    Marx also goes into the semantics of the word “value” in a footnote in the first few pages of Capital:

    “‘The natural worth of anything consists in its fitness to supply the necessities, or serve the conveniencies of human life.’ (John Locke, “Some Considerations on the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest, 1691,” in Works Edit. Lond., 1777, Vol. II., p. 28.) In English writers of the 17th century we frequently find ‘worth’ in the sense of value in use, and ‘value’ in the sense of exchange value. This is quite in accordance with the spirit of a language that likes to use a Teutonic word for the actual thing, and a Romance word for its reflexion.”

    Since then of course “worth” has come to be used to mean “value for money” not how useful something is.

    in reply to: Russian Tensions #229316
    ALB
    Keymaster

    Abenezer, you’ve been reading the Daily Wail again !

    The two stories you highlight don’t bear the interpretation you put on them.

    The Russian equivalent of the Mail is not saying that there are occult forces at work but claiming that some Ukrainian soldiers think there are.

    The same with the story about Sweden. The bus stop ads are not saying that Sweden is a Nazi state but that some famous Swedes were Nazi sympathisers.

    No doubt the Russian media are portraying the war in Ukraine as a struggle between Good and Evil but they are not the only ones.

    in reply to: An Incontestable Argument for the Law of Value #229314
    ALB
    Keymaster

    If you want a really detailed discussion of the various meanings and etymology of the word “value” or, rather, of its equivalent in German Wert the thing to read is the notes Marx wrote in 1881 on a book by a man called Adolph Wagner:

    https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/01/wagner.htm

    Here is an example:

    “What annoys (shocks) Mr. Wagner about my presentation, though, is that I will not do him the favour of complying with the patriotic German professorial “striving” for confusing use-value with value. (…). He says:

    “In harmony with the view of Rodbertus and also of Schäffle I place the use-value character of all value in the fore, and emphasise the assessment of use-value all the more, since the assessment of exchange-value is simply not applicable to many of the most important economic goods,”

    The only thing which clearly lies at the bottom of the German stupidity is the fact that linguistically the words value [Wert] or worth [Würde] were first applied to the useful things themselves, which existed for a long time, even as “products of labour,” before becoming commodities. (…)

    As the commodity is bought by the purchaser not because it has value but because it is a “use-value,” and is used for definite purposes, it goes without saying that 1. use-values are “assessed,” i.e. their quality is investigated (just as their quantity is weighed, measured, etc.); 2. if different sorts of commodities can be substituted for one another for the same use, one or the other will be given preference, etc., etc.

    In Gothic there is only one word for Wert and Würde: vairths, τιμη, τιμαω, assess, i.e. evaluate; to determine the price or value, to rate; metaphorically: to appreciate, esteem, honour, distinguish. (…)

    Wert and Würde [value and worth] are thus closely related in both etymology and meaning. What conceals the fact is the inorganic (incorrect) inflexion of Wert which has become customary in Modern High German: Werth, Werthes instead of Werdes, since Gothic th corresponds to High German d, not th = t, and this is indeed still the case in Middle High German (wert, gen. Werdes, loc. cit.). According to the rule in Middle High German, d at the end of a word became t, giving wert instead of werd, but genitive Werdes.

    But all this has as much or as little to do with the economic category “value” as with the chemical valency of the chemical elements (atomicity) or with the chemical equivalents or equal values (combining weights of the chemical elements).

    Furthermore it should be noted that — even in this linguistic connection — if it follows automatically, as if by the nature of the thing, from the original identity of Würde and Wert that this word also referred to things, products of labour in their natural form — it was later directly applied unchanged to prices, i.e. value in its developed value-form, i.e. exchange-value, which has so little to do with the matter that the same word continued to be used for worth in general, for honorary offices, etc. Thus, linguistically speaking, there is no distinction here between use-value and value.“

    Good luck ! In English this sort of discussion is more complicated as the meaning and etymology of two different words are involved — “value” and “worth”. Actually three different words as the word “commodity” is also linked linguistically with the idea of being useful . . .

    in reply to: Russian Tensions #229301
    ALB
    Keymaster

    I hadn’t realised that the founder of IKEA (after whose initials the firm is named) was a Nazi in its youth. But it seems that he was:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvar_Kamprad

    You learn something new every day.

    in reply to: Labour Party facing bankruptcy #229287
    ALB
    Keymaster

    Another proof that the Labour Party is politically bankrupt. From today’s Times:

    “Sir Kier Starmer has suggested that he will expel Labour MPs who do not voice ‘unshakeable support for Nato.’ The Labour leader said he was ‘very clear’ that support for the military alliance is ‘the root of the Labour Party’.”

    His next move, as he subordinates everything else to furthering the political careers of himself and the rest of his gang of place-hunters, must be to change his name. The man he is named after, Kier Hardie, was not a socialist but at least he didn’t think that the root of a party claiming to represent “Labour” was support for a military alliance.

    What a despicable creature he is.

    in reply to: Our 2022 local election campaign #229284
    ALB
    Keymaster

    How MyLondon reported the list of candidates standing in Clapham East ward:

    “Clapham East: Andrew Collins (Lab), Bobbie Craney (TU & Soc), Jake Freeman (Con), Tim Gingell (Green), Nicholas Hattersley (Green), John Hindson (Con), Daniel Lambert (Socialist), Jessica Leigh (Lab), Iestyn Williams (Lib Dem).”

    It is wrong as the nomination of one of the Green candidates was not accepted but it is right in identifying our candidate as the Socialist candidate.

    in reply to: Our 2022 local election campaign #229283
    ALB
    Keymaster

    No mention in today’s local free paper of us standing in Tunbridge Wells.

    in reply to: Russian Tensions #229282
    ALB
    Keymaster

    When Borys gave his Churchill impersonation before the Ukrainian parliament today he said (read):

    “When my country faced the threat of invasion during the Second World War, our parliament — like yours — continued to meet throughout the conflict.”

    True, the House of Commons did continue to meet during the Second World Slaughter but only one MP was interned. By contrast in Ukraine, a number of opposition parties, making up about 10 percent of their parliamentarians, have been banned by the Zelensky government. They weren’t present but either on the run or detained by the Ukrainian secret police.

Viewing 15 posts - 2,146 through 2,160 (of 10,403 total)