ALB
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One thing that the Occupy movement did was to make the use of the word “capitalism” more acceptable and more widespread. Unfortunately more in the sense of finance capitalism than in our sense and which gave currency crank ideas a new lease of life, including its anti-Semitic fringe.
It is my guess that this would be how anti-semitism (not just anti-Zionism) got into the Labour Party with a lot of people who had supported Occupy joining under Corbyn. Just a guess, mind you.
In any event, this is why it is important to understand capitalism as the whole system of class ownership and production for profit and not just financial capital and its dealings.
That election does seem to have been a real one for those candidates and lists that passed the “loyalty” test in so far as there was a choice between 14 competing lists. Nothing like in the rest of China where people don’t have even that limited and truncated choice.
Official Chinese government news agency report on the elections here.
I thought I’d look up the result of that election in Macau. Here’s what Wikipedia says:
“The turnout of the election was only 42.38%, marking the lowest since the 1988 election. The mass disqualification was said to be the reason of residents not voting, but officials claimed the weather and pandemic as main factors instead.The number of invalid and blank ballots broke record, with some writing “trashed election”, “democracy”, name of disqualified candidate Antonio Ng, or foul languages.
Pro-democracy camp won 2 seats only out of 33, whilst the remaining were under the control of pro-government and pro-Beijing parties and politicians as expected.”Only 14 of the 33 seats are directly elected.
The official results were:
Eligible voters 323,907
Valid votes 132,056 96.20
Invalid votes 2,082 1.52
Blank votes 3,141 2.38
Turnout 137,279 42.38So blank and spoiled votes were nearly 4 percent. Turnout was down by 15 percent.
There are thousands and thousands of charities, all trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon. No wonder someone had the idea of deciding which was the most urgent. The trouble is that most of them are.
Here’s a killer admission from the Business Secretary:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/kwasi-kwarteng-blames-free-market-for-global-warming-l3dm9dpnn
He is reported as saying;
“If market solutions naturally greened the world, we wouldn’t be where we are. Clearly there’s been a market failure.”
Another consequence of these protests is that the government is planning to give the police more power to deal with them. The Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill which is going through Parliament expressly mentions XR’s protest tactics as a justification.
This will make things worse for others too as the new powers won’t just be used against XR.
They did it again this morning and this time nearly caught me. Luckily my satnav diverted me away from junction 9 on the M25 to another route. But if I had have been blocked I confess I would have been tempted to join the angry motorists trying to pull them away. But of course I wouldn’t have done this but handed them some of the leaflets that I always carry in the back on my car as they seem in need of a bit of political education.
I don’t know what they are hoping to achieve. Most people are already convinced that there is a climate crisis and don’t need any more convincing. The only reactions from people I have heard have been: “crazy”, “stupid”, “silly”, “dangerous”.
Anyway, who do they think they are? Arrogating themselves the right to stop workers going to work and socialists going about their activity. And it is not as if they were demanding anything radical or claiming to be anti-capitalist. Just asking the government to spend more on insulating houses quicker. That would only have a minor effect while capitalism, the cause of the problem, continues its destructive way intact.
Although they are being called “vouchers” people there will in fact be given a plastic card with £100 pre-paid on it which they can use in shops and restaurants (as long of course as these have terminals that can accept cards, as most will have these days).
Anyone for labour-time plastic cards? Like the SLP of America and certain Council Communists who still think in these dated terns, for instance.
I suppose it could be seen as a mini version of it except that the consumers are not being given money which they can do what they like with (for instance save it). The NI scheme is handing out vouchers that cannot be saved (or spent on gambling) and which have to be used by a certain date. The aim is rather less ambitious too. It’s to help local shopkeepers rather than to try to relaunch the economy through stimulating consumer spending.
I would say that it has more in common with local currencies, as the aim of both is to help local shops. Also some local currencies devalue if they are not spent within a given time period.
I don’t know if this qualifies as UBI but it is a universal and (very) basic income — everyone over 18 in Northern Ireland who applies is to be given vouchers worth £100 to spend in local shops.
This is not new as it had been done in Taiwan quite a few times.
The Northern Irish vouchers have to be spent in October and November, so that £50 a month or £600 a year if it really was a permanent UBI. Which realistically is about what UBI would pay if ever introduced as a universal payment to everyone.
They’ve gone and done it again , the idiots:
“M25 traffic: Thirty arrested and drivers delayed after climate activists block parts of motorway in rush hour
Protestors blocked at least five junctions, causing miles of queues along the motorway. Footage shared on social media showed angry drivers attempting to drag the protestors from the road.”Reading through an article from the Socialist Standard from 1905 which refers to “any female over 18 years of age, who has been vaccinated” being able to be a teaching assistant, it seems that there is a precedent for compulsory vaccination (in this case presumably against smallpox) to carry out certain jobs. This would have made sense.
There were anti-vaxxers even in those days as a report in the October 1905 issue of a debate against the S.D.F. that had taken place in August, records the S.D.F. speaker is as saying:
“He was an anti-vaccinist because he objected to having his child poisoned. This was not Socialism, but a question of human well-being.”
I see the Taleban have announced a government, “inclusive” in the sense that apart from mad mullahs it includes a few bandit leaders. It looks as if they are going to come unstuck trying to run a capitalist state according to pre-mediaeval laws as well as in the interests of one particular tribe. Serves them right.
Are you sure that’s right? According to the papers, the new tax is going to be paid only by people in work including any pensioners who are:
“The tax will begin as a 1.25 percentage point rise in National Insurance from April 2022, paid by both employers and workers, and will then become a separate tax on earned income from 2023 – calculated in the same way as National Insurance and appearing on an employee’s payslip.
This will be paid by all working adults, including older workers.”So you should be alright. This is a chance to make a distinction between the view that “workers don’t pay taxes” (a view sometimes attributed to us) and that “taxes are ultimately a burden on profits”. Workers do pay taxes out of their pockets but in so far as this increases the cost of living will tend to be passed on to employers in the end as higher money wages. However, this doesn’t apply to pensioners and others in receipt of a non-work income.
