ALB
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Glad to hear that there are parts of Turkey which reject "Islamism" even if they are not really socialist in our sense. Still, secularism would be an advance in that part of the world. Doesn't surprise me that the Alevi and the Alawites don't support "Islamism" or "Islamisation". That would be slitting their own throats before ISIS did so..
Trying to track down the origin of the Times's distortion of what he said, here's what he said immediately after what Andrew Marr said about Francis Wheen and Marx:
Quote:Well, he was an observer rather than a doer although towards the end of his life his family got quite involved in doing things. But he was essentially a fascinating figure who observed a great deal and from whom we can learn a great deal.An observation no doubt shared by many who wouldn't consider themselves to be "Marxist". In fact I think Corbyn was trying to make the point that to some extent "We're all Marxists now". But look how the Times twists this into a statement that
Quote:Britain has not learnt its lessons from Karl Marx.He may or may not believe that but that's not at all what he said. I know Stuart will defend his profession but this is scumbag journalism.Corbyn is wrong about Marx as Marx was a "doer" as well as an "observer". From 1843-1848 and again, during the period of the First International, from 1864-1872.
A leading article in today's Times interprets the above as Corbyn
Quote:believes Britain has not learnt its lessons from Karl Marx.The key phrase for us (of cours) is:
Quote:I haven’t really read as much of Marx as I should have done.Looks as if the Labour Party is going to annul the election if he wins anyway.
Interesting, instructive and amusing. It confirms the polls (for what they're worth) that
Quote:Only 5 per cent of Mr Corbyn's supporters think he can win a general election.Without doubt a realistic assessment but what it seems they want is to protest against austerity and give the Labour Party a kicking. Of course we can't join in, just enjoy the passing show.
I see what you mean. Only a moron in need of a head transplant would vote for the other three who must be out-and-out cynical hypocrites. I can see that they will be pro-business(the Labour Party has long accepted capitalism and the profit motive) but I can't really believe that they can be anti-poor and want to make their conditions worse. Most Labourite politicians will have been attracted to Labour as they thought it was the party of the "welfare state" and will have wanted to end poverty. They will be no different. So they can only be pretending to be in favour of bashing the poor as they think that being this is a vote-catcher. The Tories are just bastards. The other three would-be Labour Leaders are hypocrites as well. As you say, it can't be bad that quite a few young people can see this.
stuartw2112 wrote:So Odysseus refused to sail through the strait, but decided to sit there and wait for better conditions? If so, I grant you your victory!Actually he got through (but his crew didn't) but then he was a superhero which I don't think Corbyn or Tsipras are (or imagine themselves to be). Corbyn thinks it will be easy while Tsipras now knows it can't be done.
I think the tale from Greek mythology you are looking for is that of Scylla and Charybdis:http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Sa-Sp/Scylla-and-Charybdis.htmlNot just Greek mythology, but contemporary Greece too. I think Syriza chose Scylla … or was it Charybdis?
Quote:This is only a first victory for us in a long war against greedy corporations and their republican servants. Good job New-York! One day every state will raise minimum wages for everyone!According to this report, the rise to £9.60 equivalent is not coming in till the end 2018 for those in New York, and not till 2021 for those in the rest of NY State. The current mimumum there of $8.75 is the equivalent of £6.35 (it's now £6.50 in Britain).http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33631609Here's what Osborne has promised:
Quote:Mr Osborne said the new minimum wage would be set at £7.20 an hour in April 2016 and rise to 60 per cent of median hourly earnings by 2020, which will be about £9.35. This means the effective minimum wage for the over 25s will be more than 13 per cent higher in 2020 than would otherwise have been the case.Looks as if he has stolen the Democratic Party's clothes as well as Labour's (and some of those of the Trotskyists).
Just dug up what we said the last time a leftwinger wanted to stand in the Labour leadership contest — John MacDonell in 2007. But never got on the ballot (not enough support from fellow Labour MPs):http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2007/no-1231-march-2007/greasy-pole-if-john-were-prime-ministerI see we were suggesting that he might appoint Jeremy as his Foreign Minister. Actually, I think he'd have made a better Old Labourite standard-bearer this time (he's still an MP) than Jeremy (trade union background, no so quirky, can't see him expressing support for Hamas, even a couple of years younger) but it's not our job to advise the Labour Left what to do than it is to advise capitalist governments.
"Jeremy" has launched his reformist economic programme:https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/jeremyforlabour/pages/70/attachments/original/1437556345/TheEconomyIn2020_JeremyCorbyn-220715.pdf?1437556345As can be seen, it assumes the continued existence of capitalism, even of production for private profit and the continued existence of the rich but with more government intervention.He seems to be advocating the Bank of England printing (well, creating electronic) money for the government to invest:
Quote:The ‘rebalancing’ I have talked about here today means rebalancing away from finance towards the high-growth, sustainable sectors of the future.How do we do this? One option would be for the Bank of England to be given a new mandate to upgrade our economy to invest in new large scale housing, energy, transport and digital projects: Quantitative easing for people instead of banks.It's Keynes warmed up and won't work of course. Zimbabwe (or Venezuela), here we come.
It's true that socialism can't be imposed from above by some vanguard after it has somehow won control of political power, as Mason himself once believed when he was in Workers Power. But then we never believed that. OK, you can say that it won't come either by a democratic majority revolution but you must concede that it couldn't come surreptiously on its own like a thief in the night as someone once put it (the Fabians I think). It would have to require some political action, even reformist, to for instance reform patent law and abolish the concept of "intellectual property". I imagine Mason wouldn't deny this. After all, he seems to be drawing a parallel with the transition from feudalism to capitalism (which did involve a struggle for the control of political power as well as the growth of capitalist economic forms).
Here's how the i paper (15 July) reported the story:
Quote:Socialist realists eye capital gainsA socialist party of just 300 members is worth more than £lm, it has emerged. The Socialist Party of Great Britain has cash reserves of £452,250 and property worth £900,000, its accounts state. A spokesman told the BBC: "We live in a capitalist society; you need money to survive. We don't just want to 'abolish money'"Which goes to show that not all scumbag journalists, skilled in the arts of distortion and truncated quotes, work for the Sun, the Daily Mail and the rest of the gutter press. Some work for the self-styled "quality" press.
They were handing out "Jeremy Corbyn for Labour Leader" leaflets at the Lambeth Country Fair yesterday. Here's what it says on the front:
Quote:Together We CanBuild A Fairer BritainHelp create a more equal society by voting for a principled Labour leader, committed to opposing austerity, protecting our environment, promoting,peace and investing in our future.There are plenty of thing's wrong with this.1. It's assuming that a Leader of the Labour Party could commit the party to trying to do all this.2. It's encouraging the idea of Leaders and Leadership.3. It's assuming that "opposing austerity" is an action that has some chance of success in capitalism in a slump (have they not heard of Greece?).On the back it talks about addressing
Quote:Britain's wealth divide, building an economy which works for the many not the few.as if capitalism could be reformed so as to "work for the many". You'd have thought that by now Labour activists would have learned that this can't be done. But this reformist illusion/delusion lives on.
