ALB
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We've actually got (or had) a leaflet on this very subject:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1990s/1995/no-1090-june-1995/levellers-or-diggersThere might still be some lying around somewhere (certainlt a couple of dozen).
Young Master Smeet wrote:The simple question is, why does the UK need to be able to project it's force into the ME? IS is not an existential threat to Britain, and we can ask many questions about the value of the number of lives that will be saved by bombing IS rather than spending the same sum a different way.I've been asking that question myself and the only answer I can come up with is to project an image of being a world power (mightier is rightier) and/or to suck up to the US. There is no military necessity (there are enough bombers there already, 3 or 4 from Britain won't make much difference), nor economic (what's happened to austerity?) nor the security of ordinary people in Britain (quite the opposite — it will increase the chances of a Paris here). So it appears that the UK government is prepared to take the risk of a Paris-style massacre here for reasons of power politics and prestige. Which shows that, whatever the reason, is not for our security as people.But the government and the lickspittle media are determined to bomb Syria. Poor Jeremy. He's doing his best to be a voice of sanity but he's attacked relentlessly and stabbed in the back by some of his own MPs.
Sounds like a complete spectrum of the possible votes: Yes, No, Don't Vote and Cast a Write-In Vote (for Socialism). But what is the "Republican Socialist Alliance" ? A one-man show?
News from the other Islamic State in this weekend's i paper:
Quote:Saudi ArabiaPoet sentenced to death for apostasyA Palestinian poet has been sentenced to death for renouncing Islam.But that's presumably ok as it's being done by "our bastards".
It should be added that the Report on the failure of HBOS also mentions, in addition to risky funding, ill-judged (with hindsight) lending; which of course is another reason why a bank can fail.In his foreword to the Report Andrew Bailey, who is a Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, writes:
Quote:Both the strategy and operation of HBOS, and its supervision by the FSA, were creatures of the time. The FCA/PRA Report sets out, against the backdrop of almost uninterrupted economic growth over a long period and the rapid development of financial markets, the story of an institution that became unsustainable through its poor risk management, in respect of the credit risk on the assets side of its balance sheet, and on the liabilities side in respect of the vulnerability of its funding. These are, of course, the fundamental building blocks of banking (emphasis added)Note his taking for granted that banks need funding to make loans as one of "the fundamental building blocks of banking". No nonsense here about banks being able to lend without funding by creating the money to lend out of thin air.The Report itself has something to say on economic conditions of the time:
Quote:Halifax and Bank of Scotland merged [in 2001]during a period of heightened corporate activity, in the middle of an economic cycle that had begun in the early 1990s. UK domestic economic growth had been relatively steady since the recession of the early 1990s, resulting in an extraordinarily long period (around 60 quarters) of continuous expansion. The growth in the financial services sector was more than twice as fast as the economy as a whole, averaging 6% per annum in the decade preceding the crisis, and increasing its share of nominal gross domestic product (GDP) to around 10%. Confidence in the future prospects of the economy was reflected in both bank and non-bank equity prices, which rose steadily from the start of 2003 until 2007. As the benign conditions persisted for longer and longer, many perceived that a new paradigm of economic stability had been established.(emphasis added)One of the "many" who (mis)perceived this of course was Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer until 2007 and Prime Minister when HBOS failed in October 2008 and now a discredited and broken man. Like him, those in charge of HBOS assumed that the boom/bust cycle had been broken and that the "new economic paradigm" would continue indefinitely and accordingly pursued a policy of expanding their lending and finding funding for this. Andrew Bailey says that
Quote:The criticism in the Report is not that management failed to predict that there would be a global financial crisis.and then goes on to make such a criticism with a different form of words:
Quote:Rather, they should have put in place strategies that could in combination accommodate and respond to, in a timely way, changes in external circumstances.As if the global financial crisis was not a change in external circumstances.The HBOS management was doing what managers of capitalist firms are supposed to do: trying to maximise profits. They aimed quite high. According to the Report, their stategy included
Quote:a return on equity goal of around 20%.In fact they lost everything for the bank. They do seem to have taken too many risks but isn't risk-taking what apologists claim is a justification for profit?
I see the numbskull President of Portugal is still playing silly buggers, thinking of maintaining the outgoing government in a caretaker capacity until fresh elections within six months. This despite the fact that not all members of the capitalist class in Portugal seem all that worried over the possibility of a leftwing government. As one of them says, quoted in this article: "A few steps to the left, well ok":http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/19/us-portugal-crisis-insight-idUSKCN0T80LH20151119#JuMjq9807wzTSd6T.97
These extracts bring out, once again, the matter-of-fact assumption by practical bankers (as opposed to armchair banking theorists) that banks need 'funding' to make loans and don't just conjure up out of thin air the money they lend..Banks get the money to fund their lending from two main sources: deposits (retail) and short-term borrowing from the money market (wholesale). The loan-to-deposit ratio shows how much lending is funded by deposits compared with borrowing. It is not a measure of how much a bank can lend out of thin air over and above its deposits, as currency cranks misunderstand.The higher this ratio is the more a bank is relying on borrowing. For it to be too high is considered bad practice because funding from borrowing is more risky than from deposits. The risk is that the rate of interest a bank has to pay for this will rise unexpectedly (as happened after the crash of 2008) and squeeze the margin between that rate and the rate of interest on the loans the bank itself makes, the source of a bank's income as a bank. This is what happened to Northern Rock and, apparently, to HBOS too, putting them in dire financial difficulty.It does seem rather unfair for the authorities to single out some bank executives for doing what they were all doing before the crash, taking advantage of the boom conditions to make as much profits for their shareholders as they could. It will happen again in the next boom whatever the regulations now being put in place after the horse has bolted. Making as much profits as you can while the sun shines is in the nature of capitalism.
What a load of bollox but I don't suppose the ordinary, nominal Muslim believes that any more than the ordinary nominal Christian believes that at the end of time their bodies will be resurrected.Meanwhile an Islamic judge gets a taste of his own medicine:http://en.abna24.com/service/middle-east-west-asia/archive/2015/11/19/720528/story.htmlBut then as he died a martyr he might like it.
It will be interesting to see what they decide this weekend. We know what, logically, they should decide to do, i.e join (or rejoin) Labou runder Corbyn as many of them seem to have already done:http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/nov/19/left-unity-party-ken-loach-to-consider-joining-labour-jeremy-corbynWhether a majority will vote for this remains to be seen. But if they don't another mass exit towards the Labour Party can be expected.
More on Joe Hill here:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2000/no-1154-october-2000/joe-hill-songwriter-working-classAnd here's one of his songs that we all (except Robbo ) used to sing at Party socials:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2000/no-1154-october-2000/preacher-and-slave-joe-hill
Had to laugh at the news item about football fans learning to sing La Marseillaise. Rugby players have been singing it for years but with different wordsYou could use these instead if you are at a place where you have to sing it. When they played (and play) the Welsh national anthem I used to sing "My hen laid a haddock on the top of a tree".That's the way to deal with national(ist) anthems.
Here's the best statement from a Left Communist perspective I've come across. It could have appeared in the Socialist Standard (maybe it could/should?):
Quote:DOWN WITH THESE FLAGS!“Allons enfants de la patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé…”(“Let’s go, children of the fatherland, the day of glory has arrived…” –the opening of the ‘Marseillaise, the French national anthem)The Marseillaise is popular again. The bloodthirsty song rises again from thousands of throats on French squares, before sport events and concerts, in the Sorbonne and in the parliament: “Amour sacré de la patrie, conduis, soutiens nos bras vengeurs!” (“Sacred love of the fatherland, lead, support our vengeful arms!”) On Facebook a campaign was started to exhort users all over the world to change their profile in the colors of the French national flag.Do not sing the Marseillaise.Do not change your FB profile into the colors of the French national flag.Do not fall in the trap of the war-mongering media.The terrorist attacks in Paris were horrific and repulsive. But nationalism is not the answer; it spreads the poison further. It may be true that most people who now sing the Marseillaise, or change their FB-profile into the French colors, only want to express their solidarity with the victims. But at a moment like this, it is important to know what the symbols, around which we are asked to close ranks, represent. Under the French tricolor, millions were sent to their death, in wars for worse than nothing. Under this banner, atrocities were committed (in Algeria and elsewhere) that were even worse than those of ISIS, while singing the Marseillaise: “Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!” (“May their impure blood water our furrows!”)We don’t want to single out France: other national flags and anthems are equally blood-drenched. ISIS itself is not a religious movement; it simply uses religion as a flag and anthem to recruit cannon-fodder for its real goal: to control territory, to gain power, to amass capital. It seizes opportunities arising in the context of war and economic crisis in the Middle East to establish its own state. A state at war, and in war, as the history of France, the US, Germany and just about any other country illustrates: all is permitted.What did ISIS have to gain from the attacks in Paris? Continuous recruitment is essential for the so-called Islamic state, it needs it to wage war and to control its territory. The attacks favor its recruitment in two ways: first, as a demonstration of power, which increases its appeal for young people who feel angry and powerless. Secondly, the attacks fan the hatred of Muslims and thus the ill treatment of Muslims, pushing more of them into the tentacles of ISIS. Furthermore, ISIS needs to stop the exodus of refugees out of Syria. It cannot permit the emptying of the territory it controls or wants to conquer. Contrary to what’s often claimed, it does not get its main income from oil-exports or from Saudi subsidies but from the exploitation, in various ways, of the population in the areas it controls. So those who use the attacks to fan hatred for Islam and to keep the refugees out, do exactly what ISIS hoped they would do.The problem is not Islam. The global system is in crisis and this crisis creates situations in which waging war becomes very profitable. The warring parties feed on each other. The civilian casualties of drones and missiles feed the Islamist propaganda; the Islamist atrocities feed the belligerent, nationalist, anti-other ideologies in the West which prepare the way for more war.The first thing president Hollande did after the attacks was to send planes to bombard Raqqa, a large city that is said to be the capital of the IS. One wonders: had these planes “clean” military targets for what became the largest bombardment of Raqqa so far? If so, why weren’t they hit before? And if they were not, how many civilians were killed in Raqqa? Will the media tell us? Will there be a campaign on Facebook to put the flag of ISIS on our profile, in solidarity with the innocent victims that fell on its territory? Or will the mangled corpses only be seen on the Islamist social media?Revenge. Reprisal. Retaliation. The deeper the crisis becomes, the more we risk to see of it. The wars, the terrorist attacks, the massive unemployment and uncertainty, the ecological catastrophes, the swelling stream of refugees, all show that the systemic, global crisis of capitalism brings with it ever more social disruption, violence and destruction. The real problem is in society’s foundations and as long as they remain intact –as long as capitalism survives- the spiral will only widen.Changing the foundations , changing the purpose and means of human relations, ending capitalism, can only come as a result of massive collective struggle, which does not exist today. Nobody knows what the future will bring. But we do know it’s not written yet. What we do or don’t matters. It matters that we don’t passively accept the logic of capital. It matters that we refuse to sing the national anthem together with those who exploit and oppress us. It matters that we stand in solidarity with the victims of wars and terrorist attacks, whether they are French or Turk, Arab or Jew, black or white, without embracing any of the war-making parties. It matters that we raise our voices against the calls to close borders, erect walls, keep out refugees, and engage in more war. It matters that we say no! to more control, more police violence, more austerity in the name of national security. It matters that we refuse to help dig our own graves. It matters that we demonstrate that none of the problems facing society can be solved within capitalism. It matters that we speak, in the rivulets of revolt, of the power of the stream they could become.INTERNATIONALIST PERSPECTIVE__._,_.___
That's actually how Paddy was chosen as our "Leader" at one Conference. The idea was repeat the exercise every year but you have to pay £25 every time you make a change and there's a certain amount of bureaucracy is involved. But if you want to be our Leader it can be arranged. When registering him we did make it clear in a covering letter that it was for the purpose of the Political Parties Act only.Meanwhile, the 16 November having past and despite our letter, the Electoral Quango has gone ahead and removed "SPGB" as one of the registered variants of our name.
alanjjohnstone wrote:I vaguely recall a long time ago DannyL when he was a regular orator at Hyde Park becoming involved with some radical Muslims speakers there and the idea of a formal debate was raised…and we shit our pants – so to speak – scared that the debate would become a physical confrontation and HO would be damaged and no more was said about the possibility.I'm no sure about that anecdote. We have confronted radical Islamists in debate, at various universities in the 1990s. I recall the late Eddie Grant saying after he had done one that the last time he had seen an audience segregated into men and women at a meeting was at a synagogue. At one anti-war demonstration in Hyde Park our stall happened to be next to a radical Islamist one. The young people (men) of Bangladeshi origin were fascinated to hear the atheist case presented. They had never met one before. The perils of living in a secular society, nothing of course compared to the perils of an atheist living in ISIS-land.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Fisk at his best again bringing some perspective to the problem…and asking a poignant question ….if the French could retaliate by taking out an arms depot and training base, why didn't they do it a week ago rather than in revenge attack?…Maybe because they didn't want the Syrian army to get to Raqqa first, i.e before their proxy pawns on the ground:http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/11/syria-aleppo-army-lift-blockade-kuweires-airport.html
