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alanjjohnstone wrote:

His early act of withdrawing Canadian aircraft from bombing Syria and Iraq can only be applauded

This was the reason why some of our sympathisers supported Corbyn's bid to become Labour leader — that he would never agree to bombing anywhere.  No doubt he wouldn't but there are still some (many?) on the Labour benches who do want Britain to join in the bombing frenzy in Syria.

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Thanks, Alan. There was also a sting in the tail (but not as bad as the spirituality crap in Deep Space Nine):

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When Kirk landed with Spock and McCoy they came across some runaway slaves who were apparently "sun"-worshippers. Only later did they discover that they were really "son" (i.e son-of-god) worshippers. The SS Enterprise went away with its captain and crew satisfied that the Roman Empire would fall under the impact of Christianity, even if some 2000 years later. The only trouble is that the rise of christianity under the Roman Empire [not completed].

I imagine a summary of Kautsky's Foundations of Christianity was to follow or that this led to the rise of feudalism not industrial capitalism.

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In the meantime I've found that draft (it must be from the late 60s or early 70s):

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In a recent Star Trek adventure Captain Kirk and the starship Enterprise came across a planet whose technology exactly paralleled Earth's in the twentieth century but whose social development had not advanced beyond the slave society of Roman times. Indeed the Roman Empire still existed, with televised gladiator fights sponsored by motor manufacturers. The slaves were, for the most part, contented having been granted a free medical service and old age pensions.Of course anything goes in science fiction, but would it really have been possible for social development to have taken this course? Could modern technology have been developed on the basis of chattel slavery? No, not unless you are prepared to reject the scientific approach to history pioneered by Marx and argue that property forms are quite independent of the relations and methods of production.In Roman times industry was very little developed and largescale production was confined to agriculture, mining, road building and construction work. All these are labour-intensive projects requiring a mass of unskilled labour. Which is precisely why slave-labour was appropriate, and developed. Modern technology, capable of producing television sets and internal construction engines developed [not completed]If Spock had studied Marx he would have been able to tell Kirk and McCoy that what they saw on the planet's surface was a illusion of some kind.

I'm sure a trekkie like Alan seems to be will be able to identify the precise episode.

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The whole thing is silly. Why are technologically advanced economies that can support space travel such as the Klingons and the Cardassians still using money? Why is there a poverty-stricken planet not far from a post-scarcity space station, i.e if there's enough abundance to sustain a space station why isn't there enough to feed the population of a nearby planet?I once drafted an article about an episode in the first Star Trek series in which Captain Kirk and the others come across a technologically advanced planet (one that had advanced to Earth's current stage) that had the social structure of Ancient Rome, with patricians and slaves. I was going to argue that this was impossible as an economy with such a technology could not function on the basis of chattel slavery. I didn't finish it because I didn't want to come across as a technological determinist, even though I think there is an element of technological determinism in Marxism:

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The handmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam mill, society with the industrial capitalist.

And the interplanetary spaceships gives you a moneyless society of abundance …

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You're talking about the actors not the role they play, especially not in the two cases you mention as the Ferengi are portrayed as the epitome of capitalist profit-seeking. But why in a post-capitalist, post-scarcity world are there capitalists? In fact why are there be workers who needed to form a union?

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Dave B wrote:

I didn’t like Deep Space 9 much.

Who does? It's not really a genuine part of Star Trek, just an ordinary soap opera set in a space station with people who still have capitalist ideas. Basically, it's just crap.

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This is not a simple and straightforward issue as tax credits are, and were intended to be, a subsidy to low-paying employers. They can pay below market wage rates knowing that the government will top up this. The trouble is that the reduction in tax credits won't lead to the employers compensating for this. From a trade union point of view, it was probably better not to have gone down this route but tried instead to negotiate higher wages. Easier said than done of course, especially as the workers affected are notoriously hard to organise.

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Article here which argues that why Russia has intervened to prop up the Syrian government (and why the West want it overthrown) is who is to control the gas fields that have been discovered in the Eastern Mediterranean:http://cyprus-mail.com/2015/10/18/war-in-syria-today-could-spell-war-for-cyprus-tomorrow/Could be something in it.

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ALB wrote:

As the Syrian government has launched an offensive to try to gain complete control of Syria's largest city, Aleppo, background article here explaining why many of Sunni Muslim background are fighting against the Jihadists and so-called "Moderate" rebels:http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/03/syria-aleppo-sunni-quds-baath-brigades.html#

Just realised that the author of this article is the same "Edward Dark" who a couple of years ago wrote this moving obituary for the "revolution" (which, I think, was mentioned here at the time):http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=246_1369829961He is living in the government-held part of Aleppo.

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Who does Lama Fakih think she is? Next she'll be telling ISIS that they "must" put the heads back on those they beheaded.  I see she's an "Arab American". Not biassed then? She's already been accused (ok, by a supporter of Kurdish nationalism) of being an "Arab Nationalist":https://www.change.org/p/amnesty-international-amnesty-international-must-remove-arab-nationalist-lama-fakih-reporting-about-kurdistan?recruiter=403036212&utm_source=share_for_starters&utm_medium=copyLinkThis is a good exercise is not taking what you read in the media at face value.

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I agree that the Syrian Observatory is biased, in its language and reporting, against the Syrian government (which it refers to as the "Syrian regime", as in "regime change") but in this case it was merely reporting. For a report of the same thing from another source:http://www.basnews.com/en/news/2015/10/17/ypg-calls-amnesty-international-report-arbitrary-biased/The YPG make a valid point when they accuse Amnesty of inadvertently stirring up already existing and long-standing ethnic tensions in the area. And of course there are "war crimes" and "war crimes" (a stupid concept anyway):  razing villages (which no doubt has gone on to some extent) is not the same league as publicly executing prisoners of war or enslaving an ethnic group as ISIS have done. In fact, as a secular group which says it is committed to the concept of political democracy, the YPG is one that might qualify as "moderate". The trouble, from the Western capitalist bloc's point of view, is that they are not fighting against the Syrian government: the two seem to have at least a tacit agreement not to tread on each other's toes. More on this here:http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/08/syrian-kurds-sets-terms-assad-partnership-150803191234786.html

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

And now read Amnesty Internation condeming moderate YPG for war crimes !http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34511134

YPG refutes Amnesty's allegations:http://www.syriahr.com/en/2015/10/kurdish-ypg-denies-amnesty-allegations-on-war-crimes-in-syria/

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As the Syrian government has launched an offensive to try to gain complete control of Syria's largest city, Aleppo, background article here explaining why many of Sunni Muslim background are fighting against the Jihadists and so-called "Moderate" rebels:http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/03/syria-aleppo-sunni-quds-baath-brigades.html#It seems that if there are any moderates in Syria they would be supporting the secular Syrian government against those who want to establish a confessional Sunni Muslim state there.

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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").

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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".

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