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https://iwgb.org.uk/2016/12/05/mays-brexit-plans-face-british-supreme-court-test/I think we played a modest role in helping the IWGB get off the ground. When they were set up on 2012 they had a room in the RMT's Maritime House in Clapham Old Town, up the road from us. Their then General Secretary, Chris Ford, called in and asked if we could help with any spare office equipment and supplies we might have. I think we gave him an old-fashioned computer and a roneo machine that were lying unused in our basement. Who says we're anti-union?
It is clear that the government is at sixes and sevens about what to do to implement the result of the referendum, veering between populist 'hard Brexit' and realism (i.e, the interest of the dominant section of the UK capitalist class which doesn't really want the UK to leave the EU). Now some ministers are saying that Britain may be prepared to pay to retain access to the single market and some EU programmes:http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/philip-hammond-says-uk-open-to-making-eu-budget-payments-after-brexit_uk_58468871e4b06a503248f3ea
Quote:Philip Hammond has suggested the United Kingdom could continue to pay into the European Union’s budget after Brexit.Last week, Brexit secretary David Davis confirmed the government was open to paying in order to secure the “best possible access” to the single market for British business.Asked in Brussels today about Davis’ comments, the chancellor said: “We want to keep all options open. That is something we would have to look at, looking at the costs and the benefits based on what is in the best interests of the British taxpayer.”"British taxpayer" of course means British capitalist class
It is interesting that Carney should refer to the present decade "as the first lost decade since the 1860s" by which he means a period during which real wages fell. The table he gives on page 5 vindicates Marx of the charge that he distorted what Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, had told the House of Commons in 1863. Marx, on the basis of newspaper reports, quoted him as saying that only the propertied classes had benefited from the prosperity of the preceding years. Gladstone, it seems, had second thoughts about saying this and had the passage in Hansard changed. But look at that graph. It shows real wages falling in the ten years before Gladstone's speech. So his orginial statement was right and Marx was right to pick up on it. This has now been confirmed by the Governor of the Bank of England himself.
jondwhite wrote:At MIA, we come under 'Western Marxism' https://www.marxists.org/archive/That's wrong. We would have been better classified under "British Social Democracy". At least Fitzgerald would have been as he's the same generation as some of them there.I wonder if this can be changed. We've not got much in common with those classified as "Western Marxists". Most of them seem to be ex-CPers. It is true that Frankfurt School did have some interesting things to say, though not the same as us and vice versa.
I don't know who associates us with "Western Marxism". Hardly appropriate if this only came into being in the 1970s when we'd being going for 70 years by then ! I'd prefer something like "Non-Leninist Marxism" or even "original" or "orthodox" Marxism.But at least you've proved Pavlov right. Just mention the word "Engels" and our feathered friend swoops down.
Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:I think you are tool who was duped by John Gault. The government of the USA Psyops division did a similar trick with the media by promting the term "conspiracy theory" and associating it with crazy people.LOL. We don't half attract 'em.
If you've never come across a money crank before, now you have. They think up an alternative to the present money system and then go on and on and on about it. In this particular case, as YMS is pointing out, the cranky scheme is worse than the present system as it requires every single exchange to be recorded. Negative interest about sums it up.
From the 700 or so leaflets we distributed in the constituency we have had 2 replies asking, on a tear-off addressed freepost card, for an information pack and a 3-month trial subscription. This — 1 per 350 leaflets — is actually quite a good reponse rate these days. In any event, higher than the rate from the 3000 or so distributed during the Witney by-election: 3 useful replies (we actually got 9 replies, but 6 of these were blank ones from opponents, probably Tories who didn't like "socialists", who wanted to make us pay for using freepost — freepost is only free to the sender not the recipient). Of course we've no way of measuring the number who read them.The trick seems to be the tear-off reply card. I wonder if we can't find a way of incorporating one into our election leaflets — or would this provoke more malicious replies?
Here's this week's Weekly Worker letter page report:http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1133/letters/The debateson 'market socialism' continue with three letters from our side. They are replies to letters in the previous issue:http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1132/letters/
Party members votes will have been counted among those "void for uncertainty". This is the standard practice if anything is written on the ballot paper even if it is quite clear what the voter meant, eg "None of the Above". In my case, I wrote the word SOCIALISM in red in the box for each candidate (and one outside as there were 8 candidates but the word socialism has 9 letters). I suppose their logic is that it is uncertain which candidate you want to vote for. In some cases, eg where the x has been placed over two boxes, this will be the case. But in most cases it is quote clear that the voters intended to vote for none or the candidates or, the same thing, against them all.
The last few hundred of the "The problm is not the Tories … It's capitalism" leaflet have been distributed in the Kingston part of the constituency, in the same council ward that we contested in the 2006 local elections. Now, we can sit back and wait to see which capitalist candidate is elected — except that the Party members living in the constituency need to remember to go and cast a write-in vote for "WORLD SOCIALISM" on election day, this Thursday.
Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:Why don't you stick to critiquing ideas and avoid the personal attacks as much as possible? That's what I do.Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:the biggest trick capitalist ever pulled on you, Mcolmee1, was getting you to agree to their values. They've tricked you good and they created the term money crank to discredit economic theories like those of marx. You've taking up the job of capitalist in defending capitalism and call it socialism. Well, you're wrong and a traitor to the poeple and you don't even know it because you've been bought and paid for by the capitalist disinformation system.
