[ALB]

ALB wrote:

There's a local council by-election in Northfield Brook ward (part of the Blackbird Leys estate) in Oxford on 22 October.

Four members and sympathisers are distributing "write World Socialism across the ballot paper" leaflets house to house. In her leaflet the Labour candidate says that "Labour's values are her values" listing one of them as

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fair wages for hard work

In other words "shit wages if you don't work hard" and "shit benefits if you don't work at all". It seems Corbynism has not reached Oxford Labour Party but, then, Labour's turn to the left under him will only mean a return to the conservative motto of "A Fair Day's Wage for A Fair Day's Work" (which Harold Wilson turned round to say "A Fair Day's Work for a Fair Day's Wage").

[ALB]

Interesting article in today's Independent on the "Moderates":http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syrian-archbishop-pleads-for-uk-to-stop-backing-anti-assad-islamist-groups-a6697226.htmlThe Western capitalist powers did the same thing in Afghanistan of course. But that's realpolitik for you: anything goes when it comes to overthrowing a regime perceived as hostile to a state's economic and geopolitical interests.To give him his due, in this passage in his speech to the SNP Conference today Alex Salmond expresses a sensible view on the question of bombing Syria:

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Mr Salmond, the SNP foreign affairs spokesman at Westminster, said: "There is nobody in Syria who is not being bombed by somebody. That's why there are six-and-a-half million people displaced."He added: "What should our reaction be to this carnage in this country? We need to be the voice of clarity, of sanity and of humanity."We have to have the clarity to put forward the vision that adding a few more ageing Tornado sorties will have no military consequences whatsoever but it will add to human suffering".

[ALB]

For the record, Oxford Labour) Council did vote through last night the new curbs on busking and begging in the city centre.

[ALB]

The CPB is against bombing Syria … except by Russia:http://www.communist-party.org.uk/britain/peace/2170-communist-position-on-government-threat-to-bomb-syria.htmlHaven't been able to work out the position on this of the "Stop the War Coalition".

[ALB]

Good article on Paul Mason's view here on our blog which people might have missed amongst the other 6 or 7 the same day (shouldn't there normally only be two a day, one for each time zone?):http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/paul-mason-and-socialism.html

[ALB]

It seems we may have jumped the gun here in assuming that the election will result in the continuance of the outgoing "austerity works" government. There seems to be the possibility of a "left of centre" one led by the PS and  supported by the CP and the Left Bloc:http://news.yahoo.com/portugal-makes-no-headway-forming-government-093106426.html

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The Left Bloc campaigned to renegotiate the national debt and end austerity measures, while the Communist Party wants Portugal out of the eurozone, but both say they are willing to give up those policies in order to keep Passos Coelho from returning to the prime minister's office in Lisbon's Sao Bento palace.

Not that it will make all that much difference.

[ALB]

I see Critisticuffs are organising a meeting/workshop on Corbyn at which they will dissect his programme:

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# What does Corbyn want? #Wednesday 21 October 2015, 7pmMay Day RoomsJeremy Corbyn's successful campaign to run the Labour Party and his hope to lead the State inspired many people: a few hundred thousand registered to join or support the party and Corbyn spoke to packed meetings. The response of some on the left has been critical, or at least pessimistic, about Corbyn being able to implement his policies as somehow big business and its allies will prevent him from doing so. A variant suggests he will be prevented by the “Labour Party machine”. Others say that although he is generally going in the right direction, on some issues he does not go far enough. Still others insist that all real change must come from below and that the success of Corbynism will take people away from focussing on pursuing such change into the dead end of parliamentary campaigning.In this workshop we want to investigate what Corbyn actually says he wants to do in terms of social and economic policy laid out in his policy paper “The Economy in 2020”. His goals are not something we think is good at all regardless of whether they are impossible to achieve. It is not that it doesn't go far enough or represents a distraction from the right means of pursuing the same goals: his programme is fundamentally hostile to the interests of those who want to live in a world based on human needs being satisfied instead of one where poverty is made its organising principle.1. We will look at how Corbyn thinks about the way in which wealth is produced in this society. We will argue that understanding how wealth is created is crucial to any political movement that wants a better society: we will show that despite Corbyn also appearing to start from this premise he never addresses the issue.2. We will argue that as a result of his mistaken thinking about the nature of wealth in this society, Corbyn agitates for a programme that calls for the increase of wealth from which workers are widely and systematically excluded.3. We will look at the fact that Corbyn perceives the necessity to use the capitalist state to provide a “fair share” to workers in the society reliant on this form of wealth creation. Contrary to what Corbyn thinks, we will argue that any such programme of state intervention must guarantee that the poverty of workers continues as its first principle.4. Finally we will look at how and why it is easy for Corbyn to arrive at the view that the State he wishes to run can be transformed into an organisation whose purpose is the welfare of all the people in this society. We argue that Corbyn will find that such welfare must necessarily preserve the poverty he wants to abolish and that the role he wishes the State to have is not one it can realise

I imagine they will be saying that the "growth" Corbyn wants will be the growth of wealth in the form of exchange value and capital which implies the extraction of surplus value from workers and so their exclusion from ownership and control of the means of production, i.e their "poverty". 

[ALB]

SocialistPunk wrote:

Are there any quotes from Marx, whereby he outlines socialism/communism as being a society of common ownership and democratic control of the worlds resources, by and for the community?

Some references are given in this article:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1973/no-832-december-1973/marxs-conception-socialism

Quote:

Natural resources and the man-made instruments of production would be held in common: Marx speaks of "a community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common" (Vol. I, p. 78) and, in his Critique of the Gotha Programme, of "the co-operative society based on the common ownership of the means of production" (p. 22) and of "the material conditions of production" being "the cooperative property of the workers themselves" (p. 25). It is significant that Marx never defined communist society in terms of the ownership and control of the means of production by the State, but rather in terms of ownership and control by a voluntary association of the producers themselves. He did not equate what is now called "nationalisation" with Socialism.

Marx also talks about "cooperation and the possession in common of the land and of the means of production" at the end of Chapter 32 of Volume I of Capital.

[ALB]

Another statement from the "moderates":

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Al- Fateh Army said, “we call all the mujahedeen in Hama to inflame the fronts within their areas in order to make the Muslims legions meet in Hama liberating it InshaAllah, and that al- Fateh Army declares the charter of this blessed battle as follows:“Any fighting group, whether it is of Nusayri (Alawites) or Rafedah (Shiites) or Daesh (Islamic State) encounters al- Fateh Army is going to be fought until we liberate the whole land of al- Sham God willing, we ask out Ummah to help us by your faithful prayers that Allah grants us a clear victory and that Allah assists us with his own soldiers.”

[ALB]

I thought it quite clever since that what Trots do.

[ALB]

"Moderate" leader calls for sectarian war against the Alawite minority in Syria:http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/201792#.Vhy1pG6ebTQ

[ALB]

Another one, from Saturday's i paper:

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US broadcaster leading leftwinger a dance (7)

[ALB]

I wouldn't believe a word you read about Syria in the Daily Express. They just make things up and then add 'according to reports' or 'reportedly'. Here 's two recent examples:http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/611157/Russia-Turkey-jet-plane-shot-down-airspace-Syria-ISIS-Islamic-Statehttp://www.express.co.uk/news/world/609757/Putin-ISIS-Islamic-State-Syria-Raqqa-troops-soldiers-air-strike-jets-militaryIt's like the Daily Star.

[ALB]

There is something odd about this. It's reasonable enough to charge someone with action detrimental for voting for another party (we'd do that, so would most other parties) but how is the ex-member in question misusing our blog?Also, I know companion parties have complete autonomy, but this is not in accordance with our tradition and practice:

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That the party summarily rejects Dipak Kumar Bhattacharya’s resignation plea along with all allegations and directly expels him from the party Membership.

Wouldn't we just let a member resign if they wanted to (in fact I can recall two cases where a member resigned after voting for another party and we left it at that)? And certainly our EC doesn't have the power to "directly expel" a member.

[ALB]

A contribution to this general theme from ex-comrade Steve (now Professor Stephen) Coleman:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqJO_CUXe-I

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