ALB
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Found De Leon’s pamphlet The Vatican in Politics. Ultramontanism: The Catholic Political Machine in Action:
The trouble is that you have to read it sideways.
A bit surprising that the SLP of America were still issuing as a pamphlet as late as 1962.
Actually in the end it ended up the other way round, with Connolly dying “in the faith” with the last rites from a catholic priest (or whatever religious catholics have to before they die).
I suspect he was always a secret catholic. After all, he sent his kids to a catholic school when he didn’t have to since he had married a protestant. And then there was his falling out with Daniel De Leon over De Leon’s opposition to the catholic church or rather to its “ultramontanism” (your “globalism” ? even claim to world domination, logical if you claim to be god’s representative on Earth).
I don’t know how reliable Vanity Fair is (not much I suspect) but the headline of this story is amusing:
Trump Official Threatens Peasant Revolt in China If Xi Doesn’t Cut a Deal
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/01/wilbur-ross-trade-war-little-villages
While the League of Empire Loyalists and the Mad Marketeers wax lyrical about the benefits for British capitalists of trading on World Trade Organisation terms (not that they are many capitalists that are convinced of this), there may not be a WTO with a year or so. Trump is threatening to withdraw the US from it and in the meantime is sabotaging the functioning of its appeal court:
If his happens then world trade will become a free-for-all where might is right.
Even some Mad Marketeers are beginning to have second thoughts. Today’s Times quotes a “scholar” at the rightwing Cato Institute and former WTO appeal judge as saying:
If the United States gets its way, then these smaller countries will no longer have the benefits of the rule of law. They will be subjected to the rule of power and might makes right.
Interesting headline of an article in today’s Times
GREED NOT FEAR WILL SAVE OUR POLLUTED PLANET. Only economic incentives can encourage people to adjust energy use and drive down emissions.
Opening paragraphs of the article can be read here.
In view of the impasse at the inter-governmental conferences the profit motive may well be the only way of something more being done. Wouldn’t have thought that that’s any guarantee though, but that’s the best capitalism can offer.
Here is the composition of the main group backed by Turkey:
The legions that dissolved into the current “al-Sham Legion” are the following: Hamza Division, Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah Division, al-Tamkeen (Empowerment), Hanano, Ibad al-Rahman (Worshipers of the Merciful), al-Furqan (the Criterion), Soqur al-Islam (Falcons of Islam), Army of Mujahideen, Amjad al-Islam (Glories of Islam), and Nusrat al-Islam, in addition to Ashbal al-‘Aqida (Lion Cubs of Doctrine), Maghawir al-Islam (Commandos of Islam), Osoud al-Islam (Lions of Islam), Siham Al Haq (Darts of Righteousness), al-Fatihin (The Conquerors), Maghawir al-Jabal (Commandos of the Mountain), al-Iman (Faith) and Ansar Idlib (Advocates of Idlib).
These are the fanatical gangsters that are to be sent in to the crush the Kurds. No wonder the Kurds, and no doubt most Syrians, don’t want to be ruled by that lot.
President Erdogan of Turkey is said to be close to if not a member of the Brotherhood:
https://www.quora.com/Is-Erdogan-from-the-Muslim-brotherhood
More added to the Edgar Hardcastle Internet Archive (click on title to read):
Can Trade Unionism Save the Workers? March 1927
Marxism or Communism July 1927
What is Capital? September 1928
Religion, War and Nazism November 1940
Sir Richard Acland in a Muddle November 1940
The People’s Convention December 1940
Britain’s Third Labour Government September 1945
How Not To Save Democracy November 1948
The Welfare State: Have Things Changed? December 1958
Does Mao provide the Answer? October 1970It looks like the PKK and the Syrian government will be doing a deal. That would make sense, from their points of view, as both are secular Nationalists and have an interest in presenting a united front against the jihadists of Al Qaeda and the bandit gangs hired by the Turkish government who want to impose some sort of Muslim state.
Syrian Kurdish commander says deal with Assad government ‘inevitable’
I imagine the deal would be some cultural and administrative autonomy plus a share of oil revenues in return for re-integrating into the Syrian State. We’ll see.
Oh dear, what a combination of the two silliest slogans of past decades — “the personal is political” and “think global, act local” — plus a call “nimbies of the world unite,” with religious smugness added in.
Of course tackling climate change requires global action and the application of science, not tree-hugging.
Alan, you write:
how I detest the manner in how we repetitively say “wages or salary” at every turn.
But what should be call “the working class”? We know what we mean by it, but a lot of people out there don’t and either don’t think we are talking about them or that we are a group outside the working class that wants to do something for the poor workers.
That’s why we have to think of some term that conveys more immediately who and what we mean. I can only think of “wage and salary working class”. Other possible terms such as “the 99%” or “the people” don’t really fit the bill.
I realise that we should really be discussing this in a different thread, but it has come up here.
Even if it has been it’s still there at the moment:
From today’s Times:
A measure of short-term borrowing costs in the US known as the “near-term forward spread”, which is closely monitored by the Federal Reserve turned negative for the first time since 2008. This means that the market expects interest rates to fall in the short term because recession is looming.
Art Cashin, UBS director of floor operations for the New York Stock Exchange, said: “Everybody is terrified that this is a sign of a global slowdown.
In other words, not just a fall in Stock Exchange prices but a fall in actual production.
More on the “near-term forward spread” here:
journal.firsttuesday.us/using-the-yield-spread-to-forecast-recessions-and-recoveries/2933/
Not sure how reliable this is, but any downturn is predicted for 2020.
The good news, Alan, is that according to page 29 of the new Luxemburg pamphlet:
Workers everywhere are beginning to rise from their knees to their feet again.
!
Sorry to have to keep pointing this out but this article like many others is confusing about what any increase in global warming of 1.5 degrees C (or of 2 or 4) means because it omits to say in relation to what. If you don’t read these things carefully you might think that this is in relation to today’s average global temperature whereas it is in fact in relation to the pre-industrial times. As the temperature has already risen by about 1 degree since then, we are talking about a further rise of 0.5 (or 1.5 or 3) degrees by the end of the century.
So, when the caption below the photo says:
“A major IPCC special report released in October warns that even just a half-degree more of warming could be disastrous.
this is confusing. The “half-degree more” which the IPCC report refers to is not a half-degree more than the pre-industrial figure (taking it to a rise of 1.5 degrees since then) but a half-degree beyond 1.5 degrees to 2 degrees. In fact the whole IPCC report is making the rather obvious point that if the temperature rise is not limited to 1.5 degrees (since pre-industrial times) and rises to 2 degrees things will be worse.
The article again shows this confusion in the last section when, despite mentioning that there has already been a 1 degree rise since pre-industrial times, it repeats:
“Since the 19th century, the Earth has warmed by 1 degree Celsius. Now, a major IPCC special report released in October warns that even just a half-degree of warming could be disastrous.”
But IPCC report is not saying that a half-degree rise by 2100 would be disastrous. It is saying that the rise should be limited to this otherwise, if in particular it rises by a half-degree beyond that (i.e. to 2 degrees beyond pre-industrial levels) there is likely to be disastrous consequences.
The other thing of course is that the Common Dreams – or should it be Common Nightmares ! – article is dealing with is, as it states, the worst case scenario of “business-as-usual”, i.e. nothing being done to stop CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels continuing at their current rate. But they won’t (something is being done, however insufficient) and in fact can’t (it is only in theory that something can go on increasing exponentially as in practical there will always be physical obstacles to this, e,g. in this case coal or oil will become too expensive to extract).
This is not to say that there is not a serious problem that capitalism can’t cope with properly. There is, if only because the agreed aim amongst capitalist states is to try to limit the rise by 2100 to the 2 degrees the IPCC regards as disastrous and that they are not on course for this. Also, the further capitalist development of the “underdeveloped” countries, and the energy generation this will entail from whatever source is cheapest, will continue.
The article, however, does make a valid point when it says:
“apocalyptic thinking might be easy to mock, and not entirely helpful in inspiring political action if end times are nigh.”
Quite. If the end of the world is nigh, why bother?
