ALB
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Yes, the media did destroy and character assassinate Corbyn and they are still kicking him now that he’s down. I am not sure that this was entirely or even mainly due to Labour’s radical reformist programme, but will have had more to do with his pro-Palestine position. After all, Labour’s programme wasn’t the most radical they’ve had, even in living memory. And although they made fun of Michael Foot it wasn’t vicious as it has been in Corbyn’s case.
In any event the media are not all powerful. Otherwise how did the state-capitalist regimes in Eastern Europe collapse? In fact, how come we exist? If we can escape it, so can the rest of the working class. In fact, our whole case is based on this assumption.
An electronic copy of “World News” has been sent to the Internet Committee to put up at an appropriate place on this site.
That article by Jonathan Cook is, as usual, well written and he makes some valid points. However, his conclusions that the political system is rigged and that therefore the answer is to take to the streets is wrong and even dangerous.
Yes, the private and state owned media are biased and they do manipulate popular opinion, but there is no evidence that the electoral system does not accurately reflect the views of those who vote. After all, it didn’t prevent the election of over 200 Labour MPs. And there is no evidence that it could have prevented the election of the 326+ needed to for Labour to have become the governing party. It was that on this occasion not what a sufficient number of voters wanted.
The system that is “rigged” is not the electoral system but the economic system as all reformist governments have found and as a Corbyn one would have too. The working of the capitalist system require that priority be given to profit-making and that any government that doesn’t respect this will provoke an economic downturn.
The answer is certainly not to take to the streets and try to reform capitalism by “direct action”. That won’t be able to overcome the economic laws of capitalism either and, being the action only of a minority, would provide the state with the pretext to crack down with popular support. If such direct action had majority support it could use this to win an election, not that that would allow their reformist programme to be implemented given the nature of capitalism.
No, the lesson is that the battle that needs to be won is the battle of ideas, which is fought not on the streets but in leaflets, meetings, social media and even by contesting elections. Until a majority want to reject capitalism and replace it with socialism then it’s not going (to be able) to happen.
I would imagine that the Corbynistas will now play student politics to keep control of constituency Labour parties and that that will keep them occupied. Labour at least had one success — they saw off the potential LibDem challenge in the South. The LibDems are not going to be the new centre party they hoped to become and are irrelevant again in national level politics.
Here’s the results where we stood.
Cardiff North: Lab 25605 (61.2%) Con 8426 LD 6298 Brexit 1006 Gwalad 280 Ind 119 Soc 88 (0.2%).
Folkestone and Hythe: Con 35473 (60.1%) Lab 14146 LD 5755 Green 2708 Ind 576 SDP 190 YPP 80 Soc 69 (0.1%).
As can be seen constituencies in Wales are smaller than in England. In 2015 we got 68 votes in Folkestone and Hythe.
Yes, go ahead and draft something and send it to Head Office. Someone can send it from there and even if there’s no reply it can still be used in the Socialist Standard or on the blog.
What C.C.? We have an E. C. or Executive Committee that executes Conference Decisions but not a Central Committee that decides policy as in Leninist organisations !
Replies to the i paper insert have begun to come in. They are mostly from the West Country and South Wales. The explanation presumably is that, because we only inserted in 160,000 of the 190,000, they would have inserted them in the ones that went out first ie the furthest in distance from the distribution centre in Watford.
Some replies from the election leaflets delivered by the post office but hardly any by comparison. Which was our experience in the euroelections too. There may be a lesson to be learnt here. Something to do with getting a better response from targeted distribution as opposed to distributing to everyone. Having said that, the post office regulations mean that the leaflets they distribute can’t be so reply-friendly.
Two views on leaders and their debates. A useless gadget and the real-time reaction of socialists.
The idea of refusing to vote for something you don’t want when you can’t vote for what you do want is spreading and almost becoming mainstream:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7773909/Nigel-Farage-reveals-spoil-ballot-paper.html
This is what those who want socialism should do on Thursday (except in Cardiff Central and Folkestone & Hythe of course).
It’s something we started in 1918. Our answer to tactical voting — principled voting.
It appears from this that the protests in Hong Kong have had some sort of echo on the mainland:
All the 15,000 leaflets printed for distribution outside the two constituencies that we are contesting have now been distributed by members and sympathisers, door to door or in the street, in various parts of the country.
After the LibDems’ claim that:
“The Liberal Democrats will build an economy that works for everyone. not just the rich.”
and Labour’s that:
“Labour will rewrite the rules of the economy, so that it works for everyone.”
Here’s the Tories claiming they too can control the economy (from a leaflet on the NHS that came through my door on Saturday):
“With a majority government, we can continue to grow our economy”.
Oh yes? How? Since when has any government been able “to grow the economy”? The capitalist economy grows itself (accumulates capital out of profits) but in fits and starts, irrespective of what governments do. In fact, governments have to react to the way the capitalist economy moves and the phase of its boom/slump cycle that it happens to be in. They dance to its tune not vice versa.
Today’s news announcement that one of the documents Corbyn has quoted may have come from Russia has an uncanny parallel with the Zinoviev Letter that brought down the first Labour government in 1924:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinoviev_letter
The trouble is that, as then, we won’t know till after the election is over whether it is a dirty trick or not.
