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After the hype for (and against) Facebook’s so-called money, it looks like they have decided to fall back to Plan B — a new payments system:
https://cryptopotato.com/doesnt-wait-for-libra-facebook-introduces-facebook-pay/
I see the media are having a go again at Corbyn for refusing to commit himself to being prepared to press the button to continue a nuclear war and saying that he’s unfit to be prime minister. He is, but that’s a compliment.
The Labour Party’s pathetic and hypocritical response is that the decision would not be taken by Corbyn himself but by a committee, so as to show that the Labour Party is as fit to run the British capitalist state as it has always been:
The nomination papers for our candidate in Folkestone & Hythe (Andy Thomas) were handed in today and accepted.
We won’t know who are opponents are till nominations close on Thursday but as this is a Tory-held seat, under Farage’s cunning plan there won’t be a Brexit Party candidate. So, there could just be the usual gang of three (Tory, Liberal, Labour) plus the Greens.
That’s what I would have thought. Agree with you about the Catalan nationalists. The same situation could occur here in a couple of years with the Scots Nats. Already the Tory party is positioning itself as an anti-Scottish English nationalist party — I had a one of their leaflets through my door last week which declared that “voting Liberal Democrat risks a Labour/SNP government for the next 5 years.” And does anyone think that the Orange Order and Rangers supporters in Glasgow and elsewhere will take a Scottish breakaway lying down?
Safer to accept “national” boundaries as they are and work with all workers within a particular state to win control of it, in conjunction with workers in other states doing the same, with a view to dismantling them all. In any event, not to support breakaway movements within states. That just divides workers even more, setting one section against another.
So the far-right Vox party has increased its representation in parliament but at which other parties expense?
Just audio but this should be good enough specially if the background militarist music can be edited out.
Relatively successful meeting with 25 or so present and members from outside London. Members will be glad to hear that among those there was Danny Lambert, his first reappearance since his accident.
The talks were recorded. Unfortunately it was the day of the Lord Mayor’s Show and the militarist music of the drum and flute bands as they marched down Fleet Street might be audible in the background.
Just realised I forgot Farage’s mob. They might expect be standing. But I can’t think of anything to rhyme with Brexit except Schmexit.
Cardiff Central, where we will be standing, is one of the seats allocated to the LibDems under the Liberal/Green/Plaid Cymru election pact just announced. That means two less reformist candidates standing – no Green and no Plaid. Good. There are already too many reformist parties.
That means we can revive the old slogan:
Labour, Liberal, Tory
Same old same old story
Three members went to this meeting to leaflet it for ours on the same subject on Saturday. We also stayed for the meeting and said something during the discussion. There were about 30 there.
It was a bit disappointing to hear Peter Hudis advocate workers cooperative producing for the market as an emergency measure to do something about climate change before the UN deadline of 2030, especially as he has written extensively against “market socialism”. His justfication was that, as socialism was not going to happen within 12 years, something had to be done to stop a climate disaster that would make socialism impracticable. But this is to beg the question by assuming that such a threat could be averted while retaining a market economy. Anyway, if workers could be persuaded to take over the market economy they might as well go the hold hog and establish socialism.
Kohei Saito was the most interesting on his conclusion, after studying some of Marx’s recently published scientific notebooks, that Marx was not a “productivist” but was concerned with the “metabolic rift” between production and nature that capitalist production caused by not returning to nature elements it extracted from it. We had a discussion with him afterwards in the pub.
Heather Brown did not speak on feminism (why should she) but on use-value and exchange-value.
A couple of Buddhists in the audience tried to argue that Marx was a bit of a Buddhist. We were tempted to ask if their solution to the “metabolic rift” was for humans to be re-incarnated as worms or even extinct species. But didn’t.
Looking for something else, came across this article from the January 1970 Socialist Standard. We’ve been nothing if not consistent.
“The Socialist Party and the Common Market
The Socialist Party of Great Britain is neither for nor against Britain’s entry into Europe. We stand for world Socialism and regard the Common Market issue as irrelevant from a working class point of view.
Britain’s joining the Common Market would amount to little more than a re-arrangement of tariff barriers. Which is a matter of no concern to workers, but of great concern to capitalists since it could affect their profits.
Most of Britain’s biggest firms have long been convinced that joining the Common Market would allow them to make more profits. This is why the parties that most directly serve their interests, the Labour Party and the Tory Party are also in favour of entry. It is the task of these parties to work out policies that benefit capitalist industry in Britain and then to trick workers into backing these policies. Thus we are about to be subjected yet again to intense pro-Market propaganda in the press and on the radio and television.
Some British capitalists, with investments mainly in farming and what used to be the British Empire, are opposed to entry as they reckon it would threaten their profits. Their direct political expression is through sections of the Tory Party but their anti-Market campaign is helped, no doubt inadvertently, by a section of the Labour Party, the National Front and the so-called Communist Party.
It is because we know that the Common Market debate involves only the interests of these two sections of the British capitalist class and that, as we say in our declaration of principles, “the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class”, that we refuse to take sides and warn workers not to be taken in by the political spokesmen of either section.
We repeat now what we said when this red herring first appeared in 1961:
“Whether the British government goes in or not, British workers should be looking to promote their own Socialist working class unity with workers everywhere, not just in Western Europe” (Socialist Standard, January 1962).”15,000 of the leaflets for distribution outside Cardiff and Folkestone will be delivered to Head Office tomorrow. So branches, members and sympathisers can now obtain some for distribution in their local area. Just email Head Office.
Members will be leafletting this meeting tomorrow to advertise ours on Saturday:
The draft election address of our candidate in Cardiff Central in the election can be found here. 45,000 will be distributed by the post office to households in the constituency. Another 1000 will be distributed at street stalls that the local branch will be doing.
The EC did approve the text of a “generic” leaflet yesterday, i.e one for distribution outside the two consistencies of Cardiff Central and Folkestone & Hythe that the Party will be contesting.
Here is what it says (for Party members to spread on social and — anti-social — media):
“Profit or Needs, not Leave or Remain, is the real issue
This election, we’re told, is about Brexit. Whether ‘we’ will be richer or poorer, freer or more subservient if we stay in or leave the European Union, with or without a deal.
But does anyone seriously expect that Leaving or Remaining will end child poverty? Homelessness and food banks? Collapsing health and social services? Unemployment – or the mass insecurity of zero-hour-contracts? War and forced migration? The destruction of the Earth’s wildlife and natural resources? The threat of disastrous climate change?
The Brexit ‘debate’ simply obscures the real issue: a failed economic system where nothing is produced unless a profit can be made from it. Where human needs are everywhere subject to the inhuman demands of market forces. And this system will continue to rule our lives whether our new leaders are based in Brussels or London, Belfast or Edinburgh.
The Socialist Party stands for putting an end to this profit system. For replacing it with a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the world’s natural and industrial resources.
We live in a world of potential plenty, where we could meet our needs by freely cooperating on the basis of ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.’ There is no need for anyone anywhere in the world to go without what they need to live a happy, healthy and fulfilled life. What prevents this is the ownership of resources today by a privileged few and production for sale with the aim of making a profit.
The parties committed to running the market system – and that includes the Labour Party and the Greens – are making empty promises. A vote for them is a wasted vote as this system operates on the basis that making profits must always come before meeting needs, whatever those in government might want or have promised.
You can show that you reject the profit-driven market system, and want a classless society of equal men and women geared to directly satisfying people’s needs, by casting a write-in vote for “WORLD SOCIALISM” on your ballot paper.”
Can branches, members and sympathisers let Head Office know by email how many copies of this leaflet they would like.
