ALB
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
This passage from that Washington Post article, referring to the Ukrainian President Zeletsky, was interesting, even revealing:
“He has projected an air of calm, denouncing what he and his advisers have characterized as a geopolitical fight between Russia and the West that has little to do with Ukraine itself.”
He seems to know what’s going on.
Thanks. There could be something in it as this is being spread by the Labour left and not just Johnson and the far-right.
According to this when the mob was shouting “traitor” they meant “traitor to the working class”.
Also:
“Traitor to the working calss
Men could be heard bellowing “traitor to the working class” before police stepped in to rescue Starmer and walked him to the safety of a police car.”And here’s Ken Loach on the subject.
Labour Heartlands seem to be a leftwing Corbynista blog? I think they are still in the Labour Party. Can anyone confirm this?
When Johnson smeared Starmer in the House of Commons he said that Starmer had prosecuted journalists but not Jimmy Saville. One newspaper report of the incident yesterday when a jeering mob surrounded Starmer said that there were shouts of “Assange”. Does anybody know if, when he was Director of Public Prosecutions, Starmer prosecuted Assange? Is that what Johnson was referring to?
You seem to be making as much fuss about the small loony wing of the Republicans as they make about the “ineffective” progressive wing of the Democrats. Both parties are employing scare tactics to corral voters.
I am not sure that the midterm elections will settle the matter of how effective the Republican extremists will be. These days, as has been noted, people “vote principally to keep people they dislike out of power”. So, in the US, many of the low percentage of people who do vote would be voting Democrat to keep the Republicans out and Republican to keep the Democrats out.
If the Democrats lose ground, the question will be why? I don’t think this could be interpreted as a vote for the extremists in the Republican Party but as a vote to punish the Democrats.
Is this true?
“Brighton and Hove City Council has begun to educate governors, heads, staff, parents and even pupils based on their race. White children will be taught that they are ‘privileged’ while non-white children will be taught that they are victims of their white classmates. This warped ideology is known as ‘Critical Race Theory’ (CRT).”
Or will there be a group with an ace to grind behind this petition?
It looks as if wiser counsels are beginning to prevail:
“French President Emmanuel Macron has said he thinks a deal to avoid full scale war in Ukraine is possible and that it is legitimate for Russia to raise its own security concerns.
Before talks in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, he called for a “new balance” to protect European states and appease Russia.”“However, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba appeared to play down the threat of an imminent invasion, tweeting on Sunday: “Do not believe the apocalyptic predictions. Different capitals have different scenarios, but Ukraine is ready for any development.”
The electoral system is the US has always been flawed, even corrupt, from a democratic standpoint, with gerrymandering, partisan election officials, problems with voter registration, siting of polling stations, etc. I don’t know if it is getting worse or if it is this applies across the whole country. Part of the problem is that the two main parties are electoral machines concerned with winning at all costs.
I don’t think the Republicans are out to destroy the electoral system, just to play it in their favour. That’s not democratic but it’s not the same thing as destroying political democracy.
Obviously socialists are concerned about political democracy. We want it to exist as a means for a socialist majority to win power and effect the revolution from capitalism to socialism more or less peacefully. We are also concerned that formal democratic procedures should be supported by a democratic culture.
If political democracy is under threat naturally we protest and always have done but what else can we do?
The policy of forming a “united front” with others who are not socialists but who favour political democracy doesn’t work and doesn’t advance our cause of socialism (which is why we exist). So we can’t do that, even less vote for them or tell others to, as Chomsky, Kliman and others advocate. The most we could do without compromising our socialist integrity would be to vote for or against some measure if it was put to a referendum.
The “united front with non-socialists” policy doesn’t work because it involves support for capitalism which creates the problems which lead some to blame democracy for them.
For instance at a lesser level, if the Republicans make gains in November this will be because some who voted for the Democrats two years ago either don’t vote or change to voting for the Republicans. Why would they do that? Because, I suggest, the Democrats have failed to solve the problems they face.
Ok I am not on the spot but I don’t think the admittedly flawed political democracy in the US is under threat of destruction. There is a fringe of raving rightists who want to destroy it but I don’t think that either the Republican leaders or the vast majority of those who vote for them want this. So we are talking hypotheticals here.
We have on this forum one person saying that the end of civilisation is nigh due to global warming and another that it is nigh due to a coming nuclear war. Why do people find it easier to conceive of the end of the world than of the end of capitalism, I think somebody once asked (I can’t remember who. I think he was called Jackson or Jamieson or something like that)?
For a start, NATO has said it won’t react militarily to any Russian invasion of Ukraine. Second, Russia is not going to invade Poland or the Baltic states, which would provoke a military response. Third, Biden and Putin and their generals are not that mad.
First, he said, extremists become the majority and respecting the rule of law becomes secondary to winning at all costs.
If extremists become the majority there’s not much that can be done about it. They will get their way. The real problem is why they would become the majority. The main reason will be the failure of democratic reformists to solve the problems capitalism creates, providing the opportunity for extremists to say that democracy not capitalism is the cause of these problems. This suggests that the answer is not to join and promote the democratic reformists. That won’t stop the rise of extremists. The democratic reformists are not the lesser evil. They are part of the evil. Their tactics and failures fuel extremism. Socialists cannot support or vote for them. We must insist that the only way out is socialism and promote that and only that.
Yes, it is surprising that Wolff is regarded as the most important contemporary exponent of Marxian economics in the US whereas he puts forward a theory of exploitation which he himself admits is not that of Marx.
We have been pointing this out for years, on the theoretical as well as polemical level as here and here.
Yes, we have been using that quote for years. See here, for instance, it’s the last quote there.
