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In a nutshell, cooperatives wage a struggle for survival in a capitalist system. Recuperated workplaces wage a struggle against the bourgeois law, often manifested in state repression, against the capitalist owners and private property.

And fail spectacularly, leading to no income to survive under capitalism and to disillusion and bitterness. No wonder workers choose the first option, even if that's what coops have only ever been and only ever can be — a way of trying to survive under capitalism. The only anti-capitalist way-out is political action to dispossess the owning class and end the market system by bringing about the common ownership of the means of production and inaugurating production directly to meet people's needs not for sale or profit.

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I agree. That it merely shows those that the videos were staged. Those that staged it may well have believed that it was a gas attack. Nevertheless the fact that two medics, identified as being present on the video, describe what happened must count for something as first hand rather than hearsay evidence.

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Bijou Drains wrote:

What I find remarkable about the film from Douma is that the medics hosing down the children and treating them with inhalers are wearing masks, but none of them are wearing gloves?

According to a trainee medic who was present who the Russian authorities identified on the video and interviwed, those hosing down the people were not medics but people who barged in with others with video cameras at the ready:

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Konashenkov released statements by medics from Douma's hospital, who said a group of people toting video cameras entered the hospital, shouting that its patients were struck with chemical weapons, dousing them with water and causing panic. The medics, however, said none of the patients had any symptoms of chemical poisoning, according to the satements. (http://abc7ny.com/politics/russia-claims-syira-chemical-attack-was-stage…)

There is an interview with the trainee medic concerned somewhere on the internet but I couldn't track it down.

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France has now declassified  the intelligence advice on which they based their claim that the Syrian government had carried out a gas attack in Douma:https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/full-text-french-declassified-intelligence-report-on-syria-gas-attack-1.5995544As can be seen, it is not based on any forensic study but only on hearsay from organisations they say "whose information is generally reliable" and on the Syria government having form in the matter. This would not be enough to bring a prosecution let alone have any chance of getting a conviction in a court of law. No wonder the US and Britain are keeping their "intelligence" classified.This is not to say that the Syrian government might not have done it, only that  this remains to be proved.

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gnome wrote:

or alternatively email Head Office (spgb@worldsocialism.com) and put 'T-Shirt question' in the subject line.

That's not Head Office's email address. It's @worldsocialism.org, isn't it? 

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All this shows that the UN Charter is just a worthless scrap of paper. It bans war in principle but if you read the small print there are let-out clauses. Naturally states that want to go to war  invoke these, All they have to do is to get some clever lawyer to draft a plausible pretext (as in this case). What this does is disguise the real reason for going to war. The most hypocritcal would-be justification is the claim that it is done for humanitarian reasons. No state is ever going to renounce war in the case that the vital interest of its capitalist ruling class are at stake.The attacking states argued that they had to act because Russia had repeatedly exercised its veto to prevent them acting against Syria in the name of the UN. Russia has exercised this over Syria 14 or so times. This compared with the 42 times that the US has exercised its veto to protect its client state in the area:http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/42-times-us-has-used-its-veto-power-against-un-resolutions-israel-942194703

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I could go to this as it's just round the corner but I think I'll give it a miss. Though I suppose I could contemplate on "How do ‘Being’ and ‘Nothing’ “move”?" while distributing leaflets for the local elections.

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

I hope this latest blog post goes some way to explaining our position, Marcoshttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/in-response-to-syrian-air-attacks.html

That's excellent. We can use it in next month's Standard.

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

Air attacks took place but rather token muted affairs from my viewing of the reports

I agree that after all the sabre-rattling, drum-beating and bellicose rhetoric, all that the US and a couple of its poodles have done is to administer a slap across the wrists to the Syrian government. Israel could have done that on its own. It is of course a good thing that they didn't unleash mass destruction. The Army of Islam and those that faked the videos won't be happy of course as that is precisely what they wanted.Lucky that we didn't issue a statement, though we had prepared a front cover for next month's Socialist Standard denouncing the "latest example of capitalist barbarism". Fortunately this can be changed to denounce the hypocrisy of the capitalist states involved and their leaders and changing Trump's words from "righteous power" and "noble warriors" to "might is right" and "trained killers".Beyond that, other points are that they admistered their wrist slap without authorisation either of the UN or their own elected assemblies as, by their own standards, they are supposed to do and before waiting for the report of the chemical weapon inspectors due to commence their evidence collecting today.

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No it doesn't. It just means that one of the Russian suggestions — that it was Porton Down what done it — seemed a bit of a cock and bull story. This doesn't mean that the British state's explanation — that it was the Russian government what done it — is true. The government itself originally suggested an alternative — that it was some rogue element that got the stuff from the old Soviet Union.Meanwhie the Russian government has produced some evidence for its claim about what happened in Douma:

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Konashenkov released statements by medics from Douma's hospital, who said a group of people toting video cameras entered the hospital, shouting that its patients were struck with chemical weapons, dousing them with water and causing panic. The medics, however, said none of the patients had any symptoms of chemical poisoning, according to the satements. (http://abc7ny.com/politics/russia-claims-syira-chemical-attack-was-staged-by-uk/3337376/)

This would only be evidence only that the videos were staged but not that the British Secret Services were behind it. But no doubt the OPCW will see the statements and interview the doctors and hospital staff who made them and come to some conclusion about them.

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The point I was making was that both sides are claiming to have "proof" or "irrefutable data" as to what happened which are directly contradictory. We can't make a judgement as who is right unless they produce the evidence for it to be examined:https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/04/13/after-france-claims-proof-chemical-attack-was-assad-russia-says-irrefutable-data

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Can't you send the pamphlets back to Head Office so they can be recycled to newer members (we've got enough back issues there)?. The Party has enough money to pay the postage.

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Not to mention us. The term "state capitalism" was in use even before the First World Slaughter, as by Kropotkin, Wilhelm Liebknecht and, again, us (even before Cliff was born):http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1910/no-68-april-1910/evolution-and-state-capitalism

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Bakground information:https://in.reuters.com/article/mideast-crisis-syria-chemicalweapons/factbox-chemical-weapons-inspectors-how-do-they-work-idINKBN1HK17A?rpc=401&Let's see what they come up with.

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Interesting take on the situation by a former Sea Lord:http://talkradio.co.uk/news/former-naval-chief-syria-chemical-attack-could-be-propaganda-18041325517After Russia's cock and bull stories about the Salisbury incident now it's NATO's turn to come up with one about the Douma incident:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/12/syria-attack-experts-check-signs-nerve-agentSecret agents smuggling bodies through enemy lines and over the border to be examined by doctors in Jordan. They'll have to do better than that in their bid to show that a nerve gas as well as chlorine was involved.

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