ALB
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Some Yellow Vests are preparing to contest the European elections in France in May:
A sensible way to test how much support they have but which will also show that they are essentially a protest group rather than a revolutionary movement as some have been imagining.
The photo in the link answers one of my questions. But unless they are wearing ceremonial uniform what they are wearing would be a hindrance in combat conditions. But it could still be worn for police duties arresting other women for not wearing the hijab that’s illegal in Iran.
And not just a Remainer but, with his talk of “ a closely consolidated military and economic union” and call that “the customs barriers must be thrown down”, up there with the founders of the EU like Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman who did, after WW2, what he is saying here should have been done after WW1,
He wasn’t wrong of course that a large tariff-free market was good for capitalist development, which is why the UK breaking away from it and re-erecting tariff barriers (which is unlikely as not even the extreme Brexiteers want this) would have the opposite effect.
According to this, Rosa Luxemburg would have favoured Brexit because she was opposed to a capitalist United States of Europe:
Since she rejected the so-called of “rights of nations to self-determination” as irrelevant and as the “right” of a capitalist class to have its own state, this would be strange. But then the ex-RCPers around Spiked are continuing the tradition of the RCP’s Living Marxism (known to us as Dead Leninism) of being deliberately provocative.
Actually, the passages about profits and imposing work which the review was criticising are these:
‘… socially and politically speaking, profit making is merely the capitalist means to its social aim of controlling us by forcing us to work’ (p. 83)
‘Marx focussed on the dialectical character of the struggle within capitalism between those who impose work and those who resist’ (p. 72).
And the review never said he said that the capitalists weren’t interested in profits, only that he said that they were more interested in controlling workers and that making profits was a means towards this end.
Do they have to wear a hijab and be accompanied by a male relative? Does seem very efficient as a fighting force to me.
It’s better in German as it’s a pun: Der Mensch ist, was er isst . The English translation is a bit non-pc as it means “Man(kind) is what it eats”, so women are what they eat too. Actually it’s a more profound statement than any of ours on this thread. As the cells in the human body completely renew themselves over a period of time the material to renew them can only come from what we eat. Which, incidentally, is why vegans have to consume vitamin and other supplements to ensure this takes place properly.
But I thought we’d agreed that we had exhausted this subject.
Sounds like the equivalent of the English proverb ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’, ie who pays me or gives me bread, his tune I play or song I sing. But who is the payer or bread giver in this case? Surely not the small farmers?
More on the absurdity of “the Border” (and of all borders) from this article from March last year:
https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-03-19/city-northern-ireland-brexit-big-headache
Some people are playing with fire just to further their political ambitions.
The physical-force Irish Republicans’ contribution to the Brexit debate and its implications if the Border between Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland has to be re-erected:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-46934277
Whatever they say, this is bound to affect the thinking of UK MPs on the matter, and presumably was designed to. Should make no-deal even less likely.
I wouldn’t have thought it was their official diplomatic position, although Russia would benefit from the UK leaving the EU as this would remove the state most in favour of sanctions against them.
The rant itself could have appeared in the Communist Party’s paper, the Morning Stair. Perhaps it did or will.
From an article in today’s i paper headlined “The bird that rules the world. Our insatiable appetite for cheap chicken means they account for 23 billion out of the 30 billion from animals.”. It concludes:
… despite growing interest in vegetarianism and veganism, surveys find little evidence that many people in the rich world are turning into herbivores. People may like flirting with plant-based diets. But what they really love is chicken.
I suppose someone should say something about Brexit. Everyone else is. I heard Tony Blair the other morning explaining on the radio the dilemma the UK capitalist class faces. He pointed out that for the past 40 or so years their governments (even under Thatcher) had pursued the policy of being part of an EU single market (i.e. a market with common regulations and not just a tariff-free trading area) and that they were now completely integrated into it in terms of export markets and supply chains. They could withdraw but this would cause disruption and would be giving up something they have already got. A referendum had voted in favour of withdrawal but this could be interpreted in various ways, including just withdrawing from the EU’s political decision-making and enforcing institutions. He said that this (now called Norway Plus) would limit the economic damage but would leave the UK in the position of a rule-taker, as the extreme Brexiteers pointed out, as it would have no say in drawing up the common single market regulations. Hence, he concluded, it would be better if the UK stayed in completely.
This is politically impossible, at least not without another referendum. It is true that if the UK withdraws from the single market this would be the first time in the history of capitalism that a capitalist state has voluntarily surrendered the favourable access to a market that it already has. The extreme brexiteers are in effect arguing that two birds in the bush are worth more than one bird in the hand.
If there is no second referendum and no deal is ruled out, the only deal that would make sense from the point of view of the majority of the UK capitalist class would be Norway Plus as that would at least ensure the status quo of frictionless access and would avoid having to turn the clock back by unravelling the single market integration that has happened so far. The trouble is that this is likely to split their main party, the Tories, down the middle, as the Tories like to remind themselves happened to them in the mid-1840s when Sir Robert Peel embraced Free Trade and repealed the Corn Laws.
From the point of view of pure democratic theory, there is nothing wrong with holding a second referendum. One referendum result can be overturned by another referendum. You could even argue that a change that is the equivalent of a change in an organisation’s constitution should require a second vote to confirm the first (as an alternative to requiring for instance a two-thirds majority as in many organisations).
Of course in this particular case — which is about the trading arrangements of the UK capitalist class — the issue is not one that interests socialists. It would be an even greater festival of xenophobia than the first. And those favouring it might not get the result they expect. I have been surprised that interviews that I have heard on the radio with workers from Blyth and Sunderland show that people in these places which voted by a large majority for Brexit haven’t changed their minds (or at least are not saying they have). Another reason, incidentally, why the UK capitalist class might settle for Norway Plus as less risky politically. But of course they don’t act directly. They leave that to their political representatives, the MPs, who have their own agendas (like staying in or obtaining office), so there’s no guarantee they’ll get this.
Another example of how it is not possible for a rational energy policy to be adopted under capitalism:
https://www.itv.com/news/2019-01-17/nuclear-power-hitachi-says-no-thanks-its-not-worth-the-risk/
Nuclear power is one way of generating electricity without emitting CO2 and so not contributing to global warming and would no doubt have to be resorted to even in a socialist society to deal with this problem. However, under capitalism it costs so much to build a nuclear power station and getting it running and so long to get a return (profit) on the capital invested that private capitalist enterprises are unwilling to undertake it, in fact even unable to raise the capital, while governments which could raise the capital take a similar short-term view and don’t put up the money (which would ultimately have to come from taxes that would fall on the profits of other capitalist enterprises).
The same thing happens with other large-scale, renewable, energy projects like tidal power, as with a recent project in Swansea:
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/live-updates-swansea-tidal-lagoon-14827245
And then there’s this coming out in June:
Fully Automated Luxury Communism
I would imagine that this is more likely way socialism could come about than through a fear of some ecological catastrophe produced by capitalism, but who knows?
