ALB
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I have cast a stick-on vote for socialism too. I could have voted for a pub which has formed itself into a party as a publicity stunt. I get a chance to vote again later as I have a proxy vote for a socialist in Australia. It’s in Lewisham North and East Dulwich where I get a chance not to vote for the Workers Party and the Christian Peoples Alliance as well as the usual gang of five.
“The NFP [New Popular Front] is following a similar path today [as the 1936 Popular Front], with ambitious policies to improve the purchasing power of poor and lower-middle-class people. These reforms include a substantial increase in the minimum wage, wages indexed to prices and free school lunches. Most importantly the NFP wants to prioritise investment in the future by increasing public spending on infrastructure – throughout the country, including in isolated rural areas – as well as in health, education and research.”
Oh dear! Clearly the French left has yet to realise that this type of reformism can’t work. For a start, where’s the money going to come from to increase the purchasing power of the lowest paid and to increase spending on public services and amenities? There is only one source — the profits of capitalist businesses. But profit is what drives the capitalist economy, so this would just slow down accumulation and make things worse. Mitterrand tried this in 1981 and it was a complete flop.
It’s a recipe for disaster which risks further fuelling the advance of the far right. Mind you, if that lot come into office they will of course fail too to make capitalism work in the interest of the majority class made up of those excluded from ownership and control of the means of living. That just can’t be done.
The French have a saying to describe a choice between two evils — it’s a choice between cholera and the plague.
I remember seeing a Trotskyist march in Lille during the second round of the French presidential election in 2002 when the two contenders were Jacques Chirac, the outgoing conservative president, and Jean-Marie Le Pen of the National Front (the father of Marine). One of the banners proclaimed “Cholera or the Plague? Vote Cholera”. I imagine this slogan will be brought out by the far left to justify voting for candidates of Macron’s party in the second round on Sunday.
I see the RN (as the FN has since renamed itself) are in effect arguing that, faced with a choice between their candidate and a candidate of France Debout or the Communist party, they are cholera. But I don’t think they will be so explicit as to say “Vote for us. We are only cholera”.
A lurker on this forum has dug out this article which makes the same point about the US President bring an elected version of George III:
Biden is saying that the Supreme Court ruling about the immunity of the president for certain acts means that the president is a king. But that was precisely what the Founding Fathers of the American Republic intended. Its constitution was a republicanised version of the political structure of late 18th century England, with the House of Representatives as the House of Commons, the Senate as the House of Lords, and the President an elected temporary King.
Virtually all our various election leaflets have now been distributed.
Four members distributed today the last 1100 or so of the extra 3,600 of the Clapham and Brixton Hill election communication which the printers sent us. We had ordered 48,000. 47,700 for sending to Royal Mail to distribute free, 300 for us but they sent us 3,600 (even if at no extra cost).
This was outside and around Stockwell tube station. Before then most of the others had been distributed on an almost every other day outside Brixton tube station.
Over the weekend were also distributed the last of the 8000 leaflets for distribution where we are not contesting and suggesting those who want socialism cast a write-in vote for socialism by writing “World Socialism” across their ballot paper.
These were distributed in Manchester, South Yorkshire. South Wales, the West Midlands, Portsmouth, Frome and in various parts of southwest and north London including, it so happens, Islington North where Jeremy Corbyn is standing.
Royal Mail also distributed free 47,300 of our election communication in Folkestone and Hythe and Kent & Sussex branch members there over 5,000 of a second leaflet, in council wards in Folkestone which we have consistently contested.
It was a typical hustings such as will have been happening up and down the country. Our candidate got a few chances to briefly put the socialist case on various issues such as crime, youth mental health, water pollution.
The candidate for the Trotskyist front TUSC didn’t sound or look like a Leninist insurrectionist or mass-strikist. She came across as a common or garden reformist or grass roots activist. She probably is.
Forgot to mention that yesterday’s Times had an editorial lambasting the LibDems’ promises as unrealistic. In other words, they seem to be saying continue to vote Tory in blue wall constituencies but Labour elsewhere.
Of course LibDens’ promises are unrealistic but so are those of all the parties since they are based on the mistaken premise that the government can control the way the capitalist economy works.
It is true that the less likely they are to get into office the more unrealistic their promises. Thus the Libdems are more unrealistic than Labour or the Tories, the Greens are more unrealistic than the LibDens, and the likes of Galloway and TUSC more unrealistic than the Greens.
Out driving yesterday passing through Ewell just outside London I saw a ReformUK placard by the roadside saying “Toot” if you support us. Nobody did, not even white vans.
Incidentally, their candidate in Epsom & Ewell is called Mayuran Senthilnathan. Which can’t be to the liking of some of their natural supporters.
A bit short notice but:
Our candidate Folkestone and Hythe, Andy Thomas, will appear at General Election Hustings tonight, Monday 1st July, in Hythe at St Leonard’s church from 7.30 to 9pm.
The event is being live streamed
The independent conspiracy-monger candidate in Battersea (Jake Thomas) calls on people to “resist the rise in corporate capitalism/socialism”. By “socialism” he v means of course state capitalism and, like the Greens, he doesn’t see anything wrong with capitalism as such, just wants to go back to pre-corporate capitalism.
On the front page of his leaflet he prints “Clowns on the left, jokers on the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you”. Perhaps one of the music-lovers here can dig out the original song as a forgotten classic.
No, not too late. Email your postal address to socialist party head office : spgb [at] worldsocialism.org and say how many leaflets you want.
Here is the Electoral Commission’s advice/code of conduct on campaigning outside polling places:
Here’s what the conspiracy-mongers of The Light are saying about the election. They are backing anti-Israel independents such an Andrew Feinstein as well
as their own. A comrade from Stroud reports that that their stall there has a placard praising Jeremy Corbyn (yes Jeremy, not his nutty brother Piers). They are also supporting a candidate there who is linked to this site:https://breakpartypolitics.co.uk/
The front page article, with a cartoon based on one of Galloway’s favourite quips, is by the former LibDem MP Lembit Opik.
Anyway, here it is:
https://thelightpaper.co.uk/assets/pdf/The-Light-46-Jun-24-Web-Final.pdf
Your personal theory does not hold water. For a start, the transition from Protestantism to Deism as the last stop before atheism did take place in America. The most well-known deists are in fact some of the founding fathers of the American Republic such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin. To which can be added Thomas Paine.
A comrade on that continent wants to draw attention to this alternative theory which seems to have the advantage of being based on actual research:
The comrade also mentions this:
It seems that yet again things are not as bad as you like to think.
