ALB
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Apparently Starmer is not a nationalist but only a patriot. I thought patriotism was something for scoundrels. So there’s nothing stopping him being both.
At the time of that article in the Socialist Standard, this article about chimps having a ‘cumulative culture’ like humans appeared in the press. Of course this is minimal compared to humans.
The relevant point here is the matter of fact way, in fact their basic assumption,in which those who did the research accepted that human behaviour depends on non-biological cumulative culture.
“The bourgeoisie does not walk down the path towards war just because they feel like it, but rather because they find that, in addition to attacking the working class, it is the only path to alleviating their cyclical crisis of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall over time.”
The CWO is part of the ICT so this is a classic statement of their mistaken view that capitalism needs a world war to devalue capital by physically destroying part of what it has been invested in so that the rate of profit (the ratio of profit to total capital) is raised and capital accumulation can resume.
Two quick points.
Capital can be devalued (become worth less in money terms) without what is has been invested in being physically destroyed. In fact this is the more normal way. Also, productive resources can be physically destroyed without a war.
50 years is rather a long time for the supposedly inevitable world war to come so that capital accumulation can continue. After all there were about 20 between the world wars of the last century. In fact in that period capital accumulation has continued despite going through a number of boom/slump cycles and the amount of capital accumulated today is more, in both physical and value terms, than it was in 1970.
They have now officially gone public with their plans.
There is an account here of one of the public planning meetings like the ones members of Lancaster and West London branches attended.
They seem to be deliberating courting bad publicity again by “going for petrol stations”:
“She added: “At the end of March, the Just Stop Oil campaign will be in the streets, and will be blocking fossil fuel infrastructure and then we will go to the petrol stations. And we won’t be popular, but it needs to be done.”
If they think they have chosen a demand which will get them an “easy win” they appear to have made a mistake.
Some diplomatic fudge is the most likely outcome. The trouble is that the UK has an inexperienced, not to say mad, Foreign Secretary who keeps turning up the rhetoric. Now she is talking about Russia going on to attack other east European countries. Completely crazy talk as, if this happened, there would have to be a war between NATO and Russia which Russia would never risk.
But I don’t think anyone treats her or Britain seriously any more that Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov did, especially not France or Germany. Germany gets 55% of its gas from Russia. Britain gets only 3%. That tells it all.
I’ve never thought much of Makhno myself. He seems more of peasant bandit leader (in the Hobsbawm sense). I don’t know why the anarchists eulogise him. Well actually I think I do. Here was somebody who opposed both the old regime and the Bolsheviks — their Russian revolution hero to rival Lenin and Trotsky. Incidentally should Trotsky be regarded as a Ukrainian?
Another day and still no invasion. But I forget D-day’s not until tomorrow. It looks as if the Western bloc is going to blink first. They seem to be shifting from Ukraine actually joining NATO to the abstract right of Ukraine to aspire to join at some point in the distant future. The editorial in today’s Times says:
“Kyiv does not have a right to join NATO, for there are stringent criteria for accession. It certainly cannot meet these criteria when part of its territory is under occupation. But it has every right to aspire to membership even if there is scant likelihood of it acceding in the foreseeable future.”
That sounds like a well-crafted face-saving formula.
I think they mean that a report that Russia has everything in place to launch an invasion is what is “credible” not that they will actually do it at 6am on the morning of Wednesday 16 February.
Anyway let’s wait and see. Rendezvous-view the day after tomorrow.
Thanks. Found it on Al Jazeera:
“Ukraine makes Wednesday ‘unity day’ in face of feared invasion
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has declared Wednesday – the day US officials warn might mark the start of a feared Russian invasion of the ex-Soviet state – national “unity day”.
“They tell us that February 16 will be the day of the invasion. We will make this into Unity Day. I have signed the corresponding decree,” Zelenskyy said in a national address.”
I am not sure that that means he is convinced that Russia will invade that day. The “they tell us” might even suggest that he personally doesn’t think it will happen. I don’t think Biden or Johnson really do either. They are just saying it is possible. Well, yes, it’s not impossible but, then, so are lots of things.
”Looks like Zelenskyy is now convinced Russia will invade on Wednesday.”
Where did you read that? I couldn’t find anything about it on the internet after a quick search.
It’s becoming clearer and clearer that Starmer is an unscrupulous place-hunter. To become PM he is prepared to go back on all he once said and on what he promised Labour Party members to get elected Leader.
Wasn’t he the person who forced Labour to take a more pro-Remain position that Corbyn wanted and whose tactics of holding out for a second referendum sabotaged any chance of a softer Brexit?
Him and the gang of careerists around him show once again that the Labour Party is just a vehicle for careerist politicians and can never be reformed into being an instrument of socialist advance, as some still naively believe.
A message from the leader of the “party of NATO”:
“Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said parliament should be recalled if Russia invades Ukraine, as he called for tougher sanctions against Moscow.
On a visit to Sunderland, he said: “I think it’s very important that parliament is recalled if there is an invasion … we must have a swift and strong response, a united response, from the United Kingdom and a united response with our allies.”
He added: “I would like to see tougher sanctions. I’d like that threat to be very real because let’s see this for what it is. It’s Russian aggression. So I would say to the government go further on sanctions.”
I know the Ukrainian ambassador has rowed back a bit on what he said, but I just heard on the 11 o’clock bbc4 radio news summary a junior minister at the war office called Heappy saying that if Ukraine wished to exercise its sovereign right not to join NATO the government would respect that; all they were concerned with was that Ukraine should have the right to decide its alliances.
Is there something going on here we are not being told about? And if there is, why didn’t they say this as the start?
At least this Heappy character seems more clued up than the Foreign Secretary who showed she an ignorance of the geography of Russia and his boss, Ben Wally, the Minister of War, whose contribution to de-escalating the situation was to compare Putin to Hitler.
