[ALB]

Another .explanation is that there was no Green Party candidate standing in Folkestone East..Incidentally, Folkestone was part of the UKIP wipe-out. Previously the councollors there were UKIP. 

[ALB]

Here's the result was Guildford West:https://mycouncil.surreycc.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.aspx?XXR=0&ID=211&RPID=506775711Turnout: 29%. Our percentage 0.5%.

[ALB]

Here is the result for LewesIndependent 2370LibDem 757Labour 568Green 307Con 263Socialist 19 (0.4%)Turnout: a massive 52% for a local election. Not a result the Tory pundits on the radio and TV will be highlighting.Official result here (if you can navigate it):http://www.eastsussexinfigures.org.uk/escc_elections_2017/atlas.html

[ALB]

Here are the results for Folkestone:https://democracy.kent.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.aspx?ID=577https://democracy.kent.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.aspx?ID=547Although the percentage figures both show 1%, in Folkestone East the percentage was 1.5% and in Folkestone West 0.6%

[ALB]

What you probably don't understand as a non-Londoner is the reluctance of people from North London to cross the Thames.

[ALB]

Six members and sympathisers, 4 from Surrey, turned up in the intermittent rain yesterday to hold our final election stall in Guildford. With more handing out leaflets we distributed more. Some political discussions too, one with a UKIP supporter who, when asked why UKIP still existed now that they had won Brexit, replied that he didn't trust the Tories to deliver it; another with someone who said that the Tories just wanted to grind down the poor; a rather confused third person said he was voting for May in the General Election but for the Greens in the local election.

[ALB]

LATEST NEWS: NO DELEGATES VOTE TO STOP THE PRINT EDITION OF THE SOCIALIST STANDARD. On an indicative vote the motion was rejected at Annual Conference today by nil votes for, 12 against and 2 abstentions. The motion now goes to a vote of the whole membership

[ALB]

ALB wrote:

This is what happens if you don't send a photo. Mind you, in this case they didn't ask for one though they were sent our manifesto. Scroll down to Guildford West:http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/surrey-county-council-elections-who-12911967

They have now updated this. I did send them the logo saying we'd prefer this to a photo, but they chose the photo (Alan should be pleased it's in colour, though I didn't expect it to be that big):http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/surrey-county-council-elections-who-12911967The statement is based on the Folkestone one and reads (for those who don't want to see the face):

Quote:

“I am standing to raise the issue of the need for the shared and democratic ownership of the Earth’s resources, with all goods and services produced for use, rather than for profit.“The current crisis in social care in Surrey is a pressing example of why this change is necessary. Its root cause is today’s outdated system where finance determines what can, and cannot happen."Socialists suggest a better way. At a time when we can easily feed, house and care for every human on the planet, it no longer makes sense to use money to ration access to what we need, especially not to the needs of the most vulnerable.”"I am standing to make the point that local problems arise from the economic system of production for profit that exists everywhere and that they cannot be solved unless this system is replaced by one based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, and access for all to what they need on the basis of 'from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs."

[ALB]

Our comrade Binay Sarkar in India has written an article about "The Bolsheviks and the Abolition of Money":https://www.academia.edu/24449687/THE_BOLSHEVIKS_AND_THE_ABOLITION_OF_MONEY

[ALB]

Not really (and of course he's better than them as he wants socialism and they only wanted some workers-controlled market economy).To tell the truth, I don't think he has the same definition of class as we do, i.e relationship to the means of production (in capitalism between owners and non-owners). Or rather sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't. At one point he talks of "wage slavery"  and "the general economic slavery of the majority".but most of the time he sees class as defined by wealth and income levelHe sees the inequality of wealth, power and esteem built-in to capitalusm (and in fact to all class societies) as resulting in the "oppression" of the "lower classes" by the "upper class" (his terms), i.e of those at the bottom of the heap by those at the top. This oppression, he says, takes the form of the poor having worse health and living less long than those at the top (this of course is a confirmed fact). He calls this "structural violence" and sees it as a "war" of the rich against the poor. So his "class war" is one initiated by the rich against the poor rather than the "class struggle" we see initiated by the producers against the owners. One criticism of this approach is that it leaves out those who are neither the rich nor the poor, those in the middle of the heap, the majority in developed capitalist countries.

[ALB]

ALB wrote:

The Lib Dem and the Green were a mutual admiration society (they are a joint group on Surrey County Council),

I thought I detected something going on between them and now this:http://www.guildford-dragon.com/2017/04/26/guildford-lib-dems-greens-considering-election-pact/Irrelevant conventional politics, I know, but of interest to political trainspotters.

[ALB]

Here's what today's Times is saying:

Quote:

Marine Le Pen has set out to win over left-wing voters by casting herself as protector of the working class and softening her hostility to Europe before the presidential vote on May 7.  In a television appearance she sought to  build momentum against Emmanuel Ma­cron, the centrist favour­ite, by making a direct pitch to the supporters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the revolutionary leftist who took 19 per cent of the vote in Sunday's first round.Mr Melenchon refused yesterday to join the main­stream parties in urging voters to gang up against the far right and reject Ms Le Pen.The National Front leader depicted herself as being close to Mr Melenchon on the need to protect workers from hostile foreign competition and European de­regulation that could rob them of em­ployment rights. She claimed that Mr Macron, 39, was an agent of the "oligarchy" who wanted to sell France out to global finance.

The article went on to say that she had already won over 12 percent of Mélechon's voters. This should not be a surprise as the French "Communist" Party paved the way, with its long-standing slogan of "Produisons français" (Let's Produce French), for the Front National to take over its voters.It was of course British leftists with similar views to Mélenchon who swung the vote in favour of Brexit, in effect allying themselves with UKIP.

[ALB]

Not in the introduction, but there's a whole section in Chapter 3 entitled "Class War", defined in the Glossary at the end as:

Quote:

In Marxist terms, class war is considered an economic and political power struggle between capitalist owners and workers. More broadly, as argued in this book, class war is a structural inevitability of the market system's incentive psychology and competitive procedural dynamics, creating a constant state of imposed economic and political deficiency upon the lower classes while the upper classes are naturally supported by the structure, in contrast. This outcome occurs without personal intent to oppress or elevate.

And, while I'm at it, here's his definition of "Capitalist Ownership":

Quote:

Also termed the "ownership class," this highlights the traditional labor role separation between workers and owners in capitalism. Underscoring this relationship is socioeconomic inequality. While often classified as a Marxist concept, the phrase is merely the observation of power imbalance and how there are hierarchy-enhancing aspects of market economics, along with incentivized state policy in favor of power and wealth consolidation for the upper class overall.

 

[ALB]

Well actually, there is this that Dave B came across:

Quote:

Humanity, if it wants to be civilised through and through, must make the Principle of healthy and meaningful living its LIFE PRINCIPLE and get rid of all institutions and culture that fail to harmonise with the Principle of Healthy and Meaningful Living. https://hubpages.com/politics/the-RIGHT-VIEW-of-CIVILISATION

t seems to be putting the cart before the horse, i.e taking the idealist position of setting out a set of principles and then saying that society should conform to them.It is also unclear whether these principles are to be applied under capitalism as well as being the supposed basis of future socialist/communist (the same thing) society. Most of things it regards as a sin (eg.bribery, gambling, trafficking, etc) won't arise in socialism as money and the money economy will have disappeared and, also, with the end of the coercive state and the economic dependence of women on men, so will "matrimony" as the state-endorsed living together of a man and a woman. All that will be left are smoking and drinking. So, what's all the fuss about — just a cigarette and a glass of beer. What's wrong with that?

[ALB]

More on what was said at the Guildford hustings here:https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/we-want-capexit.html

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