ALB
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Looks as if the government in England gave in too readily to the business lobby and have now been forced to row back in a bid to avoid a second wave.
South African? Interesting article here on slavery in the Cape region. Some of the slaves came from outside Africa, from India, Indonesia and Madagascar. A few even from West Africa.
https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-slavery-and-early-colonisation-south-africa
Yes indeed. What a pathetic criticism of the BBC from someone employed by a rival state-owned broadcaster, that owned by Qatar whose political system is still “oriental despotism”. He seems to want to suppress the fact that African rulers also played a part in the transatlantic slave trade (as well as locally).
No mention (of course) of Arab slavers in the service of orientalist despots or of Islam’s theological justifications of slavery. Nor of the link in Arabic between the word for slaves and blacks. You’ll never here anything about any of these on Al Jazeera.
From today’s Times ( of London), Mr Biden said “that he would provide $150 billion in business loans and grants for ethnic-minority-owned businesses”.
There is clearly a lot of anger about but it is so misdirected. What do those who pulled the statue down want? It can’t be to return to the situation before the Spanish conquest as that is impossible. And if it’s monetary compensation they want that would only help them survive a little better under capitalism. Socialism is literally the only way out but I suppose they will say they want “something now”. That may make some sense if they also saw and worked for socialism as the solution, but not instead of it.
Articles by Hardy from the 1920s with our criticism of Labour and Social Democratic parties just added to the Edgar Hardcastle Internet Archive:
Some I.L.P. Distortions of Marx, August 1922
Labour Governments. The Australian Fiasco, December 1923
The capitalist principles of the I.L.P., January 1925
The Road to Power. An exposure of the Social Democrats in Germany, July 1925
The failure of the Co-operative Movement, January 1927
What the Labour Party wants, September 1927
Housing Reform Examined. An illustration from Vienna, December 1927
The Labour Machine in Conference, November 1928They are much more currency cranky than the party of the sane name in the UK.
With their endorsement of the US Federal Reserve conspiracy theory and their mistaken belief that private commercial banks can somehow create money to lend out of thin air, I don’t think we have all that much in common with them.
Not too bad but he comes across as a bit wild-eyed. Hope we don’t when we put our case. Some of what he says is ok as when he says there’s no solution within the present system (which I thought I heard him call capitalism once). You can tell that, while they might be coming towards a similar conclusion to us, it’s from a quite different direction, as with his attacks on banks and from the hints of technocracy. Still, better than many other critics of the present economic system.
This confirms our view that, once protests of this sort go beyond the basic anti-racist assertion that all humans are of equal worth no matter what the colour of their skin or so-called “race”, they get bogged down in the quagmire of reformist politics.
It is not difficult to see what’s going on here with both Republicans and various factions of the Democratic Party exploiting the situation for vote-catching ends, not to mention Leninist and anarchist vanguardists fishing in troubled waters.
The only way, literally, to avoid this is to campaign for socialism of which basic anti-racism is an integral part.
The comment by the person from NAACP about “privileged white people” cannot go unchallenged. There are of course privileged “white” people, ie those who own and control of the means of production, but there are also privileged “black“ people in the same position (even if proportionately less).
But those “white” people demonstrating in Portland are not privileged even if their parents come from the higher-paid section of the wage and salary working class. “Race” is indeed a toxic element in US politics.
Yesterday I heard Nick Robinson on bbc radio 4 trying to browbeat the manager of RT in Britain. At one point he asked her whether RT was financed by the government to which she replied “no more than the bbc”.
That Ofcom has the power to censure and ultimately ban broadcasters for “unbalanced” reporting is an infringement of free speech of course. That wouldn’t happen even in the US where they’ve got the First Amendment (but I imagine that only applies to US citizens?).
Looks as if any review of the book we did would have to be titled “Why Nathan J Robinson Should Be A Socialist”.
William Hawes doesn’t seem any better with his praise of Lenin and of the government of Venezuela. So a follow-up article could be “Why William Hawes Should Be A Socialist”.
Here’s sn illustration that the Greens are not just harmless well-meaning nature lovers but actually entertain mistaken ideas which could harm technological progress from which socialism could benefit:
https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/Should-people-in-France-be-worried-about-5G
I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them will oppose anti-Covid vaccinations.
The rise of Greens with such ideas to positions where they have some decision-making power is a disturbing development
Dream on. That’ll never happen under capitalism. And won’t be needed in socialism as everyone will then have direct access to what they need without, as under capitalism, having to have money before they can satisfy even their basic needs.
Compared with socialism this proposal is a wild fantasy. And they accuse us of being unrealistic.
