[ALB]

West London branch, in conjunction with comrades living there and elsewhere in Surrey, is standing a candidate in Guildford in the county council elections in Surrey where in the 1980s there was a very active Party branch. Although Surrey was part of the South East Region for the 2014 Euroelections, it was the only country where we didn't arrange for Royal Mail to distribute our election manifesto, which is one reason why we will be using the wording of that manifesto. But we'll have to distribute it iurselves since there is no free postal distribution in local elections.The nomination papers for our candidate in Guildford West were handed in and accepted today.More details here:http://spgb.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/election-time-again.html

[ALB]

The issue is not whether or not there could be a notional list of things that Socialists should or should not do, but what should be on any such list. Socialists should not be race prejudiced, anti-gay, religious, etc, as your list proposes, and obviously (it's absurd to suggest they might not be) against "raping, gang raping, trafficking, killing people". The question is should the list include such matters as smoking, drinking, gambling, getting married (or spending all your money on promoting socialism).

[ALB]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

Bugger me, no drinking, no smoking, no gambling, no sex and you've got to eat bloody broccoli, sod that for a game of soldiers

Actually sex is allowed as long as you pay for it. Don't know what women are supposed to do:

Quote:

The PHML is NOT opposed to prostitution ; NOR does it disapprove of your visiting brothels.Prostitution is an honest and society-friendly trade. Prostitution doesn't add to the army of the poor and vulgar ; nor does it swell the band of the antisocial. Rather, on the contrary, it helps reduce both the number of the poor and vulgar and the antisocial. Visiting brothels with a view to gratifying your desire is healthier, from the perspective of the PHML, than playing with yourself.

But I thought communists had to spend all their money on propagating communism…

[ALB]

Prakash RP wrote:

Nevertheless, as a communist, you have to spend all your time and money on COMMUNIST missions you must accomplish, RIGHT ?

No, but I'm beginning to see what you're getting it and don't agree with it. It implies that socialists will be only an ascetic self-sacrificing minority. We hold that socialism (or communism, the same thing) can only come into being when a majority want it, i.e it depends on majority political action, but you are never going to get a majority to behave as you propose. Besides, getting legally married is no more necessarily "approving matrimony" than using money is approving money.

[ALB]

You need to spell out clearly what do you mean by "matrimony"? Is it the legal act of getting married? If that's what you mean, then you are right that it doesn't serve any purpose except in relation to the couple's property or tax status or who pays for the upkeep of their children. Since these won't be issues in socialism, where every man, woman and child will have free access to satisfy their material needs, it won't make sense in a socialist/communist society.But of course we are living in a capitalist society where such matters can't be ignored by individuals and it's up to individuals to decide how they navigate such issues, not for Socialists to tell them what to do. The State doesn't ignore these issues either as it doesn't want the responsibility of paying for the upkeep of children, "natural" or otherwise. Or do you mean "cohabiting" without the sanction of the state, as an increasing number do now? But even here the State's courts have a tendency to take this into account when sharing out property in case of separation or obligations to pay for the upkeep of any children ."Matrimony" is a contract between property owners and the courts are interpreting "cohabiting" an implicit contract too. It's capitalist private property society that makes these matters a problem. Refusing to get legally married won't make them go away.

[ALB]

rodmanlewis wrote:

ALB wrote:

In fact I'm not sure what an "addition [sic] to matrimony" might be.

Bigamist? Masochist? Creature of habit?

Serial monogamist perhaps but in the sense of a series of legal arrangements?  Anyway, Prakash's strictures seem to be addressed to men.

[ALB]

Drinking, smoking, gambling and being married are not the same as being "addicted" to them. In fact I'm not sure what an "addition to matrimony" might be.

[ALB]

The main subject of the debate turned out, inevitably, to be the Bolshevik coup and Lenin's distorted definition of "socialism" as state capitalism. As the Party speaker I used quotes from Second International figures to show that prior to 1917 socialism had meant a classless, stateless, wageless, moneyless society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, and that it was Lenin who introduced a false distinction between "socialism" (a state capitalism where everyone becomes a hired employee of the state) and "communism" (what socialism originally meant).Everyone condemned the parties of the Second International though Jack Conrad ended up vigorously defending making the same mistake as them of having a "minimum programme" of democratic and social reforms to be achieved within capitalism as well as a "maximum programme" of socialism (however defined), which meant that they became the prisoners of their reformist supporters and voters and one reason why they went completely reformist. He also called for the setting up of "workers' militias" but conceded that weapon training for his party's members had not yet started.The other pannellist, Robin Halpin, argued that the revolution should begin by straigntaway abolishing private property and money and the link between work and consumption. He talked about the "ontology of labour" and said that capitalism was in "terminal decline" because it couldn't cope with the replacement of living labour by robots. He was against having anything to do with the State (in fact he came across as an anarchist) and a vociferous critic of the Bolsheviks for their "coup d'Etat" and suppression of the independence of the soviets. He was billed as "translator of workers by the Exit! group". Not been able to find out much about them but apparently they are something to do with, for or against, the ideas of the German philosopher Robert Kurz, if anyone knows about them.Discussion continued afterwards in a "wine bar" which some of our members were reluctant to enter but it turned out that it did serve lager too. It's still not clear to me what the Platypus Group, whose members here all seem to be students, stand for. One thing they do favour is debate, which is a good thing.

[ALB]

Emma Goldman was an individualist anarchist who held, as they do, that the majority was always wrong and that all progress comes from the action of "intelligent minorities" (like her). Not one of us.

[ALB]

We debated Pistono four years ago. Meanwhile capitalism hasn't collapsed:https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/subject/federico-pistono

[ALB]

Audience of about 30, mainly students. Six of us in the audience.  Mark Osborn, the Trotskyist, cried off at the last moment, which meant that the panel was 2 to 1 against Bolshevism-Leninism. Report follows.

[ALB]

I still wonder whether this is not tit for tat between Russia and NATO. Russia stirs things in the Baltic States. The West stirs them in Belorussia. The last time the West did this was in the Ukraine when they arranged for the pro-Russia government to be overthrown and sparked off the civil war there. Fortunately, I don't think they'll be able to start a civil war in Belarussia, just a bit of sabre rattling.

[ALB]

mcolome1 wrote:

Moral issues of the  Churches and priests  of the left. That isn't new

Actually, it's quite good on religion, giving them all any equal kicking:

Quote:

The PHML disapproves of all cultures, beliefs, faiths, and practices that do not rest on sound logic or facts .Thus, belief in God, gods, or ghosts, belief in religion and religious rites and rituals, idolatry, palmistry, astrology, homoeopathy, acupuncture, ayurved, alternative medicine, and other similar stuff which each are just a load of rubbish, from the perspective of an enlightened human, are in conflict with the PHML.The concept of an omnipotent God is just a piece of the silly and benighted. The enlightened know it's the truth, not God, that happens to be all-mighty. And the main drawback of the idea of God the Creator is the fact that nothing but nothingness can emerge out of nothingness. Sir Isaac Newton also believed in God the Creator, but he forgot outright to throw light on how God created the great big universe with billions of stars, planets, moons, meteors, comets, black holes, pulsars, quasars, nebulae, et cetera, et cetera out of the infinite vacuum. Nevertheless, Albert Einstein who discoveredE= mc2 outright dismissed the Newtonian God the Creator. According to Einstein, the universe cannot have a ' Creator ' because it was never created— the universe, as Einstein believed, existed all along and will exist for all eternity ; it is without beginning or end, and hence cannot have a ' Creator ' or a Destroyer. The god aswell as the ghost is also, as the enlightened view it, the fruit of a flight of fancy befitting the silly and benighted.' Faith is stronger than reason, ' says the silly. But the enlightened know the faith is little more than a set of unscientific, ridiculous ideas and beliefs. Faith isn't enlightening ; nor does it have an answer to any problems relating to life or the universe, be it the accumulation of wealth at one pole leading to the pauperism of billions at the other or the phenomenon of global warming or the social pollution due to the barbarian institution of matrimony ( the poor and vulgar marry and procreate just to swell the army of the poor and vulgar and the gang of the antisocial and terrorists, and thus they pollute the society ).Christianity preaches universal love and forgiveness, which means Christianity wants you to love and forgive both the good and the bad, i.e. all the innocent along with the culprits such as thieves, robbers, murderers, smugglers, abductors, gangsters, druc peddlers, girls traffickers, child abusers, Mafiosi, extortionists, rapists, terrorists that pumped shot into Malala, the ISIS gunmen that committed the Paris massacre, et cetera, et cetera. Thus, it ought to be obvious to every sensible human now that the Christian faith is truly the path that is certain to lead the human civilisation to extinction.And what does Buddhism truly teach ? Buddha's principal teaching is life is a boundless sea of grief. Therefore, Buddhism asks its followers to seek nirvana , the Buddhist variety of suicide, meant to escape the life that has got nothing but no end of sorrow and suffering for you.Islam preaches jihad and mut'a , you know, and Islam is also known for its feminophobia*. ( * fear of the female ) Islam is so afraid of literate, free girls that it has asked its followers to spray acid, in order to punish girls that love freedom and learning, onto their faces and riddle them with bullets. And jihad means killing innocent humans, young and old, male and female, and both kafirs and non-kafirs ( i.e. those Muslims that refuse to obey dictates of jihadis). And mut'a is the Islamic name of what you know as prostitution.And as I view it, Hindutva (Hinduism of today) means barnashram, the nonsense called idolatry, worshipping beasts (e.g. the holy cow and Hanuman, the monkey god), and banning beef eating. The enlightened view barnashram as something that not only is a downright falsehood but is an affront to the humanity, as well. And Hindutvaites love and respect beasts like cows and hanumans more than humans— so much so that they might even kill you if they can know you eat beef or do not worship Hanuman.Like palmistry and idolatry, none of astrology, homoeopathy, acupuncture, et cetera are sensible or scientific, as the enlightened view them.

Good stuff. I like it.

[ALB]

ALB wrote:

Meanwhile here's what the "moderate" rebels recently booted out of eastern Aleppo are up to

More on the "moderates" here:http://www.syriahr.com/en/?p=63332

[ALB]

Revealing article in today's Times under the headline "EU migrants leaving as pound falls":

Quote:

European Union migrants are leaving Britain because the collapse in the pound has cut the value of their pay, according to the Bank of England.Foreign workers send much of their earnings home and the 12 per cent fall in the pound against the euro since last June's referendum means that work in the UK is worth less than before. This has reduced the incentive to take a British job as well as convincing some EU migrants to leave.The Bank said that companies were now struggling to recruit from abroad. The findings, in the Bank's monthly agents' report, suggest that the impact of Brexit on exchange rates could prove the most decisive factor in bringing net migration closer to the government's target of tens of thousands a year.Last month's official figures showed that annual net migration had fallen below 300,000 for the first time in two years. Foreign construction workers at the Battersea power station develop­ment have left the country because of the collapse in the pound."There was little evidence of EU migrant workers leaving the UK due to its plans to leave the EU," the agents' report said.

So it was a question of workers coming to get a higher paid job and, now that the pay is lower, less are coming and some are leaving — the simple operation of supply and demand in the labour market. And now the poor employers are short of workers, unless they increase wages of course. 

[Author]

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