ALB
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I have to admit that he did make one sensible point:
“Nationalism is just one arm of the rise of identity-based politics in the Western world that has done immense damage to the progressive cause. By dividing people into smaller and smaller groups and diminishing the experiences of others, we atomise our society ever more and keep potential allies and friends at arm’s length.”
But I couldn’t find anything else.
Finished reading it now and you’re right. There’s nothing there. Just politician-speak. There will be a “better, brighter future” for “hard-working families” under the next Labour government working in “partnership with business” promoting “world class“ innovation, blah, blah, blah. Just substitute Tory or LibDem for Labour and you have their promises too.
It really is:
Labour, Liberal, Tory
Same old same old story.Intrigued by this tweet from Will Hutton, in which he implied that Starmer in his now notorious 13,000 word essay advocated a “contribution society” where the principle “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs” would apply, I thought I should have a look at it.
I have not read it all yet, but I can already report that (fortunately) he doesn’t mention the word “socialism” but is even afraid to use the word “capitalism”. His so-called “contribution society” seems to be one people contribute by working hard and get paid a “fair wage”.
I will report more when I have finished reading it.
That tells us quite a bit about the way the CIA thinks but I doubt that the ideas got any further but would have been vetoed as too risky or unrealistic by someone higher up the chain of command. Anyway, they were never implemented.
And I just don’t believe that the shoot-outs were approved by MI5 or MI6. They would never get away with shooting the types of a Russian plane at a British airport. The media would want to know why and there would be no plausible justification that the British secret service would be able give.
Looking as if the Brexit Tory government has been hoist by its own petard. The fuel crisis is really bad. Queues outside petrol stations. People unable to get to work because they can’t get petrol for their car. The press saying the disruption could last for weeks.
That there would be less EU lorry drivers was expected. In fact intended by Brexit. The haulage firms had been warning for weeks of a shortage of drivers but the hardline Brexiteer Home Secretary refused to listen to them and told them to train and hire British drivers before finally being forced into a U-turn.
It looks like too little too late. If the disruption does last for a month or so the government will be in for an Autumn of Discontent which they could have avoided if they hadn’t been so ideologically opposed to allowing workers from the EU back.
The Taleban haven’t changed. They still don’t like woman and have begun discriminating against them. Now they are to bring back stonings and amputations. Listen to this mad mullah.
They are still the “obscurantist savages” that George Galloway (right for once) has described them. Their rule is going to be one of mad mullahs interpreting sharia law in the most brutal way it can be and enforced by bandit gang leaders. We can only hope that they will come to a sticky end sooner or later. Meanwhile as many people as can will try to get out of Afghanistan as soon as they can (their best option).
No such step was followed for London, with France’s Europe minister, Clement Beaune, suggesting that was because the UK was a “junior partner” which had accepted its “vassalisation” by the US.
Beaune told reporters the UK was subordinate to the US on foreign policy issues post-Brexit, accusing London of having returned to Washington’s “lap”.This is an accurate description of UK foreign policy since Brexit and would have been one of the things the section of the capitalist class that won the referendum envisaged.
I imagine Beaune had in mind Johnson’s statement that the UK was withdrawing from the EU because it didn’t want to be a “vassal” of Europe.
The UK has always had no choice but to be a vassal either of the US or part of a project to create a European state. For 50 years the ruling class decided to go for the latter. Now it’s government policy to swing back to the US.
The news this morning is that the US says that a comprehensive trade deal with the UK is not on their agenda but so desperate are the government to get in with the US that they are now thinking of applying to join the former NAFTA trading bloc between the US, Canada and Mexico with all the sacrifice of “sovereignty” it involves. It’s out of the frying pan into the fire as far as that’s concerned.
Why don’t they simply apply to become the 51st state of the USA?
Anyone who thinks that capitalism in China is any different from capitalism anywhere else should search “Evergrande” and see what comes up.
This is a property development company — with a name that typifies what all capitalist enterprises must aim at — that has overproduced in relation to its market and risks bankruptcy.
I see the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions has decided to dissolve itself. Individual trade unions will probably continue to exist but they will have to avoid getting involved in politics, at least anti-Peking ones.
Yes, she is missing the point. Several points, actually. Even if more women were to be involved in decision-making (as simple democratic principles demand), under capitalism what can realistically be decided is constrained by the economic laws of the system. After all, we have seen, and still have, plenty of women prime ministers, other ministers, mayors and local councillors and that hasn’t made any difference.
As has been said, humans might propose but capitalism disposes. It is only on the basis of the common ownership of productive resources that the decisions humans make can be effectively put into practice with the desired result, where we can both propose and dispose.
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.
