ALB
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Two coming meetings in Oxford:
Quote:Tuesday 24 March, 7.30. Public meeting on “The Human Cost of Privatisation”, organised by Oxfordshire Keep Our NHS Public and Oxford and District Trade Union Council. Oxford Town Hall, St Aldate's, Oxford OX1 1DPOxford candidates have been told they will be invited to speak from the floor if they turn up (this is not a hustings). Our candidate in Oxford East, Kevin Parker, will be there. Also, no doubt, TUSC candidate who we've not yet met.
Quote:Tuesday 31 March, 7.30. 38 Degrees lobby group’s Oxford East Hustings. Fusion Arts centre in Princes Street OX4 1DD – behind the East Oxford Community Centre on Cowley Road.We've been invited to this. So have Oxfam and Christian Aid.
Yes, I remember her in Rochester. She was telling us that the Tories had become a party of toffs that had betrayed working-class Tories. The false invoice seems to have been a way of getting more expenses as a MEP for UKIP funds. It seems that UKIP has turned into a party of upstart wide boys (and girls) that was never going to do anything for the working class anyway.
The candidate himself has already drafted a reply.
Quote:We don't think of ourselves as idealists, but simply practical.You're right, there never has been a society quite like socialism, but then, up until five hundred years ago, there had never been a society quite like capitalism, these things can change. We simply want to do away with the waste of minority ownership of wealth (and all the machinery that goes into enforcing minority ownership). Complex societies have existed in which market relations were marginal : the smallest unit of currency in Roman Britain would have been useless for daily life and most consumption would have come from the production of a given estate; the Inca empire organised almost entirely without money using a kind of Labour tax; of course, these were class divided societies, but they demonstrate that market relations are not the only way we can do things.Darren redstar wrote:Silhan Ozcelik, is charged under the terror acts and remanded in custody for trying to join the Kurdish resistance to ISISI can't see a jury convicting her, though. The defence would just need to show videos of the Islamists beheading hostages and prisoners of war and throwing gay men off buildings and the jury would reach a "not guilty" verdict in a couple of minutes. More on her case here:http://islingtonnow.co.uk/2015/03/18/holloway-teenagers-terrorism-charge-prompts-fury-from-supporters/Mind you, it could be the price the Turkish government has asked for to co-operate in trying to stop Islamists from the UK joining ISIS. Wheels within wheels.
I think someone complained a few weeks ago asking why we were discussing here subjects like hunter-gatherer societies rather than austerity. Here's a reply received from someone in Islington to our reply to an email circular about the NHS they had sent. Our reply said that a free health service was all very well but, until we had a socialist society in which all services were free, a free health service would be and was being constantly undermined by the economic forces of capitalism.
Quote:Thank you for replying interestingly, if simplistically. I'm a social scientist and There has never been a society anywhere that runs in the way you dream of – even the most egalitarian hunter-gatherers would have trouble with your vision, alas. And if it can't be managed among a band of 20 or 30 it certainly can't in a whole society. But it is good to have your idealism at one end of the spectrum.gnome wrote:Actually, Kevin gets two bites of the cherry. He's also in the first picture with the Loony Party guy speaking.He also gets a half-face in the photo of Mike. I see we get a mention that we're standing in this news item too:http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/11855716.GP_launches_her_campaign_for_General_Election/?ref=arThey are standing only a few more candidates than us so we should get invitations to the same hustings as her. Actually, she has told us of a couple of hustings we didn't know about.
Report in the Oxford Mail on Monday's hustings there:http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/11861970.Candidates_clash_on_poverty_and_immigration_at_hustings/We get the face and the case.
ALB wrote:and somebody called Alistair from the Monster Raving Looney Party (dressed as if he thought yesterday not today was Paddies' Day).More on him here:http://votemadhatter.blogspot.co.uk/He is clearly just using the Monster Raving Looney Party label to publicise his Alice in Wonderland Walking Tour of Oxford. Presumably he regards £500 as cheap price to pay for the publicity. A shrewd businessman then. He has stood in local elections there before. Insofar as he says anything political he's appealing for the protest vote.
Seventy people turned out last night for the hustings organised in central Oxford for both Oxford constituencies by the Council of Faiths. They heard 9 candidates from the two constiruencies, including both of ours (Mike Foster and Kevin Parkin) make a short statement and answer questions. Two other individuals said from the floor that they would be standing in Oxdord East, an Independent who has stood before and somebody called Alistair from the Monster Raving Looney Party (dressed as if he thought yesterday not today was Paddies' Day). No show or sign of the TUSC candidate.Andrew Smith, the sitting MP fot Oxford East, said he had made a mistake in voting for the Iraq War. The Green candidate said "Tax the Rich" (2% wealth tax on any wealth over £3million) to pay for green reforms. The UKIP candidate managed to put over that UKIP was not just a single issue party but a party advocating empty promises on everything like the other parties. The Tories were not represented by the MP for Oxford West (she said she was in the House of Commons) but by a stand-in. Can't remember what the LibDem said. The biggest round of applause went to the National Health Action Party, a doctor who spoke passionately against the privatisation of the NHS. The two Socialist candidates put the case for socialism. Nobody was against same sex marriages. Everybody except the Greens, the NHAP and us was for the imposition of border controls on people leaving the UK (watch out for longer queues if you're holidaying abroad this year). Also present were three other Party members and three Socialist Standard subscribers.
stuartw2112 wrote:I'm not of course against trying to change the agenda.Nor am I. Isn't that what we should be trying to do and, in fact of course, what we in the Socialist Party are doing by our current election campaign. We can't just sit back and let pro-capitalist politicians set the agenda even if they are to a large extent reflecting popular opinion (or indifference).
stuartw2112 wrote:Nothing wrong with that – but it will not lead to the collapse of capitalism. And a damn good thing too since capitalism is how the world makes its living, and no alternative is on the agenda nor will be for the foreseeable future.So what do we do then? Just try to make the best we can of capitalism? Or even try to stop it collapsing (as the Greek finance minister is said he's trying to do)? Rather pessimistic and not very inspiring.
Richard wrote:Consumerism keeps capitalism humming happily along.Isn't it rather the other way round, i.e that capitalism keeps consumerism humming along? After all, the aim of production under capitalism is not to meet consumers' needs but to make profits from which to accumulate more capital. Given this, consumption is a by-product of the accumulation of capital not its driving motor. What would cause capitalism to collapse would be if capitalist firms refused to invest for profits but there's a fat chance of that happening, though it does happen from time to time. Hence the regular occurence of slumps, some big, some small.Incidentally, the term "consumerism" has a dubious origin. It was first put forward as an alternative name to capitalism for the present economic system:
Quote:In a 1955 speech, John Bugas (number two at Ford Motor Company) coined the term "consumerism" as a substitute for "capitalism" to better describe the American economy:[7]“The term "consumerism" would pin the tag where it actually belongs—on Mr. Consumer, the real boss and beneficiary of the American system. It would pull the rug right out from under our unfriendly critics who have blasted away so long and loud at capitalism. Somehow, I just can't picture them shouting: "Down with the consumers!"[8]Bugas turned out to be wrong as there are now people who are saying "Down with consumerism" if not "Down with the consumers". Having said this, it is true that under capitalism there is a lot of wasteful consumption.
Richard wrote:Don't buy anything beyond what you need for basic comfort. If we could all do this then capitalism would collapse overnight!Not too sure about that, Richard. And if it did I don't think the result would necessarily be socialism.If we did it, more likely that capitalist employers would say "good, now we don't need to pay our workers so much" !
alanjjohnstone wrote:i think we don't often emphasise that there is an important time factor. If tomorrow tax taken from your pay was raised to a third then we would suffer a pay-cut and have less spending power.True, but it works both ways. Workers benefit, albeit temporarily, from a tax cut, as a LibDem leaflet that came through my door yesterday claims:
Quote:£800 tax cut. 53, 100 people in Richmond Park and North Kingston have benefited from the Lib Dems raising of the income tax threshold. Nobody will pay any income tax on the first £10, 500 they earn.This is true too, though of course it will eventually be eaten away by inflation (and was in fact compensation for past inflation). But if we go down this road we can't have it both ways.
