ALB
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That's why during the Falklands War I boycotted the British papers and read the Irish Times instead.
In that election Eugene Debs was the candidate of the old Socialist Party of America. Pity there's no a recording of his rhetoric. For instance:
Quote:The Socialist party is the political expression of what is known as “the class struggle.” This struggle is an economic fact as old as history itself, but it is only within the past generation that it has become a thoroly [sic] conscious and well-organized political fact. As long as this struggle was confined to its economic aspect the ruling classes had nothing to fear, as, being in control of all the means and agencies of government, they were always able to use their power effectively to suppress uprisings either of chattel slaves, feudal serfs, or free-born and politically equal capitalist wageworkers. But now that the struggle has definitely entered the political field it assumes for the present ruling class a new and sinister aspect. With the whole power of the state — the army, the navy, the courts, the police — in possession of the working class by virtue of its victory at the polls, the death knell of capitalist private property and wage slavery is sounded.This does not mean, however, that the workers will wrest control of government from the capitalist class simply for the purpose of continuing the class struggle on a new plane, as has been the case in all previous political revolutions when one class has superseded another in the control of government. It does not mean that the workers and capitalists will merely change places, as many poorly informed persons undoubtedly still believe. It means the inauguration of an entirely new system of industry, in which the exploitation of man by man will have no place. It means the establishment of a new economic motive for production and distribution. Instead of profit being the ruling motive of industry, as at present, all production and distribution will be for use. As a consequence, the class struggle and economic class antagonisms as we now know them will entirely disappear.He got 420,852 votes, or 2.84%. The trouble is that most of these would have been votes to reform capitalism as the SPA also advocated reforms and not just socialism.Even so, speed the day when another US presidential candidate will utter the words above.
You've missed the point as well as revealing your own prejudices.If you look again Clinton is given the same treatment too. And they were being gargoylised not demonised. See the accompanying article:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2016/no-1347-november-2016/ditch-these-ugly-gargoyles
Of course but the BBC only tells political lies. The other TV channels tell these plus commercial lies.
I don't recall defending the "integrity" of the BBC, only saying that it wasn't as bad as the others as it didn't carry adverts, a bit of shelter from commercialism, the hucksters and their lies.
I think that's unfair. I'm not a Guardian-reader but you can't compare it to the Scum. To say they're the same is like the ultra-left position that there's no difference between fascism and political democracy. The Scum is in a league of its own as a dangerous anti-foreigner rabble rousing rag. The Daily Wail is down there with them
jondwhite wrote:ALB wrote:Is the John Holliday who has a letter on the wars in the Middle East under the title "Barbarism" not also a former Party member?Yep and he has posted here on this forum once too.
The article he provides a link to, arguing that the conflict in Syria is at least in part a "pipeline war" is quite good.http://armedforcesjournal.com/pipeline-politics-in-syriaIt would seem to explain why Saudi Arabia and Qatar support one side and Iran the other. Not really Sunni v Shiite. That's just to get workers to go out and die for one ruling class or the other.
This is going to be an unusual by-election. The Greens say they won't be standing and are urging voters to back the LibDens while UKIP are backing the outgoing MP Goldsmith (despite the fact that he's clearly one of the "globalised elite" they claim to be against) who is standing as a Nimby candidate. It seems that the line-up is going to be Brexiteer Goldsmith versus the pro-EU LibDem candidate, a sort of second referendum.The date has now been fixed for Thursday 1 December. West London branch decided at its meeting on Tuesday to produce a leaflet and hold a stall in Richmond one Saturday, on 19 and/or 26 November (to be decided at our next branch meeting on 15 November). Detailsof exactly where and when will be given on the World Socialist Movement section of this site.
There's a letter in this week's Weekly Worker which has some relevance to the discussion here.
Quote:Comrade Eric Blanc, in his otherwise excellent article, 'The roots of 1917' (October 27), makes the throwaway remark that “the soviets represented a more direct form of democracy than envisioned even by the early Kautsky” – which (as he notes earlier) was that “a parliament based on universal suffrage would be a central component of the dictatorship of the proletariat”.This is a fallacy, albeit commonly held by revolutionary Marxists and anarchists. In a sense, the opposite is the case. Except at the very lowest tier – that of the workplace or geographical neighbourhood – council democracy is extremely indirect. A national parliament is directly elected by the citizenry. A central (or ‘supreme’) council, which is the national decision-making body in the council model, consists of delegates elected by regional councils, which in turn consist of delegates elected by city or county councils, which in turn … etc. In this pyramidal structure several tiers separate the national decision-makers from the grass roots.Moshe Machover refers to another, comparatively recent article making this point as "ground breaking", but an article in the July 1920 Socialist Standard had already made the point:
Quote:The word "Soviet" is used by many supporters of the Bolsheviks as though it denoted some newly discovered magical power. When one is told that it merely means "Council" the magic vanishes.At the base of this system are the Urban and Rural Councils, directly elected by the sections qualified to vote. The delegates are elected in the proportion of one delegate to every 1,000 members in the towns (up to a maximum of 1,000 councillors), and one delegate to every 100 in the country.Above this comes the Volost Congress. A Volost is a group of villages, and the Congress is composed of delegates from the Councils of these village groups.Next above in the order is the District Congress composed of representatives from the Village Councils.Still higher is the County Congress consisting of representatives from the Urban Councils and the Volost Congresses.Overriding all these bodies is the Regional Congress made up of delegates from the Urban Councils and Congresses of the County Districts.At the apex of the system is the All Russia Congress of Councils which is the supreme authority of the Russian Republic. This is formed of delegates from the Urban Councils and the Congresses of County Councils.We have, then, six grades of authority in the Russian system. But note how they are elected.The "labouring masses" vote once – namely, at the local councils, urban and village. This is their one and only vote. All the other grades are elected by the delegates of the Congress immediately below it.This the Volost Congress is elected by the Village Group Councils; the District Congress by the general Village Councils; the County Congress by the Urban Councils and Volost Congresses; the Regional Congress by the Urban Councils and Congresses of County Districts; and the All Russia Congress by Urban Councils and Congresses of County Councils.We see, then, that "the supreme authority of the Russian Council Republic" is removed five stages beyond the vote, reach, or control of the workers.Is the John Holliday who has a letter on the wars in the Middle East under the title "Barbarism" not also a former Party member?
Only when from the 70s on these votes were cast in their favour. In the 50s and 60s when they were cast in favour of "the rightwing leadersjip" the left were against the system.Here's the front page of the October 1960 Socialist Standard showing Bill Carron, the leader of the AEU, casting 908,000 votes at the TUC Congress that year against unilateral nuclear disarmament:Later he became Sir William Carron, a knight of the round table installed at the TUC headquarters in Congress House.
