ALB
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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.
The JW vision of future society as expressed in their leaflets starts off well saying that there is no need for anyone to go hungry or live in slums etc. True of course and we can agree with that. But then they go on to exaggerate and say that no one will get ill or that nobody will die.
What a despicable bunch of chancers not to say blackmailers. They knew that the Labour Party under its new leader would do all it could to avoid being accused of anti-semitism and played thus to the full, walking away quite a bit richer.Nice one.
I was referring to the situation if a conflict should develop between two sections of the working class over eg jobs and crumbs that fall from the capitalists’ table.
Obviously we are not against, even welcome and support, movements for equal respect and civil rights for any group of workers denied them. And we combat racism and racist attitudes via meetings, leaflets and pamphlets as a party and as individuals calling out work colleagues and relatives who express or entertain them.
Where we draw the line is when such movements demand social reforms for their group only such as quotas, positive discrimination, reparations, etc. How can we support such sectional demands any more than we can defend the position of a section that already benefits from some?
Since we are committed to defending the interests of the working class as a whole there is no way we can support the demands of one section against another or take sides in such sectional disputes.
But aren’t reformist politicians and Trotskyist infiltrators playing the “black card”, respectively to get votes and hi-jack the movement?
How can we as socialists take sides between two sections of the working class? We have no alternative but to assert the common interest of the working class irrespective of language, state nationality or skin colour.
