ALB
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It’s the same over here. Because they can’t build houses on their land (Green Belt), in Surrey landowners put their land to another use:
Info here on golf courses in rest of Britain too.
In the days before political correctness this sort of thing used to be called “Asian flu” but it wasn’t a joke:
Revealing quote from President Bolsonaro of Brazil in this article (about how even “progressive” governments in Latin America, as in Venezuela and Bolivia, have been forced to cut down forests by capitalist pressures):
“If we continue with protected areas and indigenous regions, agribusiness ends in Brazil and if agribusiness ends, so does our economy.”
Under capitalism, this is a perfectly logical position for a state to take: agribusiness is profitable and taxing it brings in money for the state, therefore it must be protected and allowed to continue and expand. As is his statement to the UN General Assembly in September that:
“It is a fallacy to say that the Amazon is the heritage of humankind.”
Agreed, it is a fallacy. The Amazon is not the heritage of humankind but it should be, only it never will be under capitalism.
Also, in Brazil, it seems to be like in the US. They put Amerindians on reservations but when the land is required to make a profit they want to kick them off it.
That quote from Connolly was from the period when he had not yet gone completely reformist, but he couldn’t half waffle when he wanted to.
The article was praising the words “sinn fein” not the organisation of that name of which he is critical:
“Thus the Sinn Féin body of the Argentine Republic, as recorded in the Gaelic American, states that Sinn Féin demands freedom for Ireland on the basis of the Act of Renunciation in 1782. This is absurd. The act by which the English Parliament renounced the right to make laws binding on Ireland left untouched the power of oppression, political and economic.”
Of course in the end he was executed for his leading role in a failed bid to set up a capitalist republic in Ireland which also “left untouched the power of oppression, political and economic” and for which he is a “national hero”.
Watched the deluded idiots in parliament square last night as they waved the union rag and sang god save the queen and imagined that they had just won freedom and independence. They hadn’t, only some sections of the capitalist class had.
But there’s hope yet. Not all Leave voters are that stupid. Here, according to Katy Balls in today’s i paper, is what focus groups have found about what those in the north and midlands who switched to voting Tory:
”When it comes to these new voters, there is a sense from focus groups that a lot of them hear conversations on trade deals and feel as though it doesn’t help them personally — it’s a preoccupation of the rich.”
Pity they didn’t realise earlier that the whole Brexit saga was essentially about trade arrangements and so just “a preoccupation of the rich.”
Why should we worry who the Democratic Party’s candidate for the presidency is going to be? Let them stop Bernie if they want. Why should we care!
Writing in today’s Times one of their columnists Philip Collins, once Tony Blair’s speech-writer and who doesn’t normally talk sense, put it rather well:
”In the course of their everyday lives most people are not going to notice Brexit either way. They will have a blue passport and a coin and Brexit will retreat to the list of questions to which the British public pay little attention even though, as the trade talks unfold, there is a lot more Brexit to come … Brexit has been a pathetic spectacle which has encouraged and stoked the worst in British politics. It will be a pleasure to see the back of it.”
Doesn’t Sinn Fein also claim to be “socialist” in some sort of vague way, based on advocating workers cooperatives as “an economy that works for workers”:
https://www.sinnfein.ie/files/2019/Workers_Co-operatives.pdf
Incidentally, their basic policy implied by their name of We Ourselves on our own has been adopted by the British government and comes into force this evening (even if, ironically, SF were in favour of Britain staying in the EU).
I know the Irish Labour Party is a pretty pathetic organisation but hasn’t it been the junior partner in various coalition givernments?
Actually, when you read the article, the “alternative reality” is not the Netherlands not being in the EU but if the EU’s anti air pollution laws didn’t exist.
Obviously, as air pollution respects no frontiers, some sort of inter-governmental agreement in particular with Germany with its heavy industry was required to deal with air pollution in the Netherlands, and the existence of the EU and its decision-making procedures facilitated this. However, the same regulations could have been negotiated bilaterally been the two states.
So it does not follow that had the Netherlands not been in the EU more people would have died. Not that the article actually says this — it merely says that if EU anti-pollution laws had not applied there — but appearing in the anti-Brexit Guardian readers would be expected to draw this conclusion and extend it to assume that with Britain now out of the EU more people will die here.
But this assumes that Britain will not follow the content of EU anti air pollution laws or will water them down. Theoretically possible but highly unlikely as, while Britain might be free to make its own “sovereign” decisions from tomorrow (actually it won’t be till 31 December at the earliest as it has to follow EU rules till then), it would not be free of the economic reality that the economies of Britain and the EU are interdependent and can’t be separated, at least not without severe economic disruption which no government of capitalist Britain would dare risk despite electioneering and pre-negotiation rhetoric. Wait and see.
Apologies for pissing on your parade but there are council regulations that have to be met — they already told us what material to use for the fascia and A-boards are in theory banned in Clapham High Street with a fine if you are caught. Still, local churches can get away with billboards outside their premises saying god needs you, so we might get away with it. Dealing with these questions is what we have an EC for.
Advice on head office window is always welcome from any part of the world, as it would be on heating problems there. We did of course used to have until a few months ago a member with expertise on this ….
Forgot to add BD that there haven’t been dead flies in head office window for decades. When you saw one it must have been when you were down to see Newcastle last play in the Cup Final.
More of the same. From an article by Simon Nixon, their chief leader writer in today’s Times:
“Theresa Villiers this week introduced a bill in parliament that legally guarantees Britain will leave the fisheries policy. But the government will have little choice but to negotiate a deal that looks remarkably similar to it.”
So, they put us all through this Brexit fuss just to change the way that decisions are made, not the content of the decisions. Talk about much ado about nothing.
That’s right. A lot depends on “climate sensitivity” (crudely, the degree by which average global temperature rises as a result of more CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere) but this is not much more than a guestimate. So the assumptions on which scientists base their calculation about global warming could just as well be on the high side as the low. The trouble is very few of us on the forum, if any, are going to be around to find out which.
