[ALB]

There's some silly arguments there, Alan, but there's no real need to have a grand philosophical debate about this. As far as I'm concerned if someone wants to make a lifestyle choice of being a vegetarian, fair enough, go ahead, but leave the rest of us to get on with our wider eating habits. To be honest this is what most vegetarians do. The trouble is that some are over-zealous and criticise the rest of us, so provoking arguments. They think they've got the moral high ground but just come across as smug. And of course those who associate vegetarianism with socialism have to be refuted. Actually, we can turn the tables on them here by pointing out that only within a socialist framework can a rational food policy not involving the mistreatment of animals be put into practice.

[ALB]

Thanks. Until I re-read that letter from Richard Condon I had forgotten how abysmally low was the theoretical understanding of the rank and file members of the "International Socialism" Group at the time. Some of the others were able to put up more of a fight:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1970/no-791-july-1970/debate-%E2%80%9Cinternational-socialists%E2%80%9DAnyway, we've asked for a review copy of the book. Don't know if we'll get one though.

[ALB]

jondwhite wrote:

But no more SPGB candidates will be announced right?

I can't see any more branches coming forward to contest the parliamentary elections, but there are local elections the same day in two of the seats we've chosen: Brighton Kemptown and Folkestone & Hythe. There are elections to Lewes District Council (and East Sussex County Council) in the former and to Shepway District Council in the latter. Personally, I'd be in favour of contesting a council seat in each, so as to raise further our profile and also provide a focus for leafletting. Candidates would have to live in the council area but we have members, even parliamentary candidates, living in both.

[ALB]

Yes, scroll down to Elections in 2010s:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easington_%28UK_Parliament_constituency%29Scroll down even further to Elections in the 1990s and see how we did in 1997.I see no one wants to stand there as a Tory or LibDem. Can't say I blame them.

[ALB]

Missed this other possible candidate in Brighton Pavilion:

Quote:

On 12 December 2014 sex worker Charlotte Rose stated her intention to stand for the seat, although she did not state if she would be standing as an independent candidate or representing a party

The lists above may well not be the final list as other candidates will probably coming forward in the coming months.

[ALB]

I see our candidatures are now on wikipedia too:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_East_%28UK_Parliament_constituency%29#cite_note-8http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_West_and_Abingdon_%28UK_Parliament_constituency%29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_Pavilion_%28UK_Parliament_constituency%29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_Kemptown_%28UK_Parliament_constituency%29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islington_North_%28UK_Parliament_constituency%29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauxhall_%28UK_Parliament_constituency%29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canterbury_%28UK_Parliament_constituency%29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folkestone_and_Hythe_%28UK_Parliament_constituency%29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swansea_West_%28UK_Parliament_constituency%29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easington_%28UK_Parliament_constituency%29Our opponents are the usual suspects except in Oxford West & Abingdon where we're up against the National Heath Action Party too and in Folkestone & Hythe against various odds and solds (TUSC and the YPP, whatever that is).Anyway, the gauntlets have been thrown down.

[ALB]

This might of relevance:http://www.firstpost.com/living/homeless-kitty-saves-abandoned-baby-2049441.html

[ALB]

Actually, there is a sense in which humans are superior to other animals: we have better brains. Other animals are superior to us in other respects (better hearing, sight, smell, even with senses we don't have, etc) but we have better brains, one capable of abstract thinking and forward planning. This doesn't mean that we are entitled to abuse or "dominate" them. Quite the opposite. It means that we are the only animal that has the ability to save other animals. It could even be said that we have a duty to do this. But this doesn't mean that we should not eat some of them any more than it means that some animals should not eat other animals.

[ALB]

Just realised that in French "Je suis Charlie" means both "I am Charlie" and "I follow Charlie". Don't know if that has any significance.

[ALB]

Très interessant, but I noticed that Sade wasn't a vegetarian, far from it ("Sade n’était pas végétarien, loin s’en faut"). But then of course you don't have to be one to be against the mistreatment of animals.

[ALB]

I hope this is not a vote-catching ploy as you'll be the Socialist Party's candidate in Islington North in May's general election, the last mainland constituency to have an Irish passport-holder as MP (Michael O'Halloran) That demand from some Tories is not just to disenfranchise Irish citizens living in Britain, but all Commonwealth country citizens. I can't see it ever happening. In fact the Tories' election strategists must we hopping mad: what a gift to their opponents !

[ALB]

There is a difference between the "consumption communism" of the early christians and later monastic orders and the proposition that God gave the Earth to be held in common by all humanity.

[ALB]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Meanwhile, today's story by Robert Fisk is one you yourself, ALB, highlighted some days previous on message #13 – The Saudi flogging.Fisk adds some historic details to it, not to justify it but to condemn it. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabias-history-of-hypocrisy-we-choose-to-ignore-9978493.html

Good article by Fisk. He's gone up in my etimation. Irony of history that the world's easiest access oil should be in the worst possible part of the world politically and ideologically. Anywhere else and modern history would be quite different.

[ALB]

Here's how John Locke, writing in 1690, begins Chapter V "Of Property" of his Second Treatise of Civil Government:

Quote:

Whether we consider natural reason, which tells us, that men, being once born, have a right to their preservation, and consequently to meat and drink, and such other things as nature affords for their subsistence: or revelation, which gives us an account of those grants God made of the world to Adam, and to Noah, and his sons, it is very clear, that God, as king David says, Psal. cxv. 16. has given the earth to the children of men; given it to mankind in common. But this being supposed, it seems to some a very great difficulty, how any one should ever come to have a property in any thing (….) I shall endeavour to shew, how men might come to have a property in several parts of that which God gave to mankind in common, and that without any express compact of all the commoners.

In other words, as late as 1690, political philosophers still had to refute the proposition that God gave the Earth to all humanity in common.Also, Article 38 of the 39 Articles of the Church of England (1562) declares:

Quote:

The Riches and Goods of Christians are not common, as touching the right, title, and possession of the same, as certain Anabaptists do falsely boast.

So, the doctrine of common ownership put forward by the early Christian Fathers was not entirely forgotten but came up again and again and had to be refuted by the defenders of private property.

[ALB]

Do you think he thinks we're the Labour Party?

[Author]

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