ALB
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To include meetings would overload it with too many messages and defeat the purpose of announcing important additions (new pamphlets, recordings, articles). If we want to inform people of meetings I suggest a separate mail out.
New WWI article from the Socialist Standard just added to our archive on this site, showing our position with regard to "pacifist" opposition to the war (which I think is a position that Left Bolshevik organisations have sometimes accused us of holding):http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1915/no-135-november-1915/socialism-v-peacemongering
Apparently Left Unity have written to Class War to discuss their respective plans for next May's General Election:http://ianbone.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/left-unity-requests-election-talks-with-class-war/I wonder whether we will get one of these letters too.
Ozymandias wrote:Yesterday I dithered between actually voting no (!) or spoiling my ballot. Realising a no vote was effectively a yes vote for Capitalism it felt good to attach my wee SPGB sticker onto my ballot paper. But beyond that drop in the ocean I actually felt major relief this morning that workers had rejected secession. I think it would have been a disaster.That confirms what I suspected (and my own view) — that most socialists would have seen No as the lesser evil (or, as Steve Coleman might have put it, Yes as the evil of two lessers). Anyway, one good result is the demise of that unsufferable nationalist demagogue Salmond to be followed perhaps by the decline of the SNP.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Todays New York climate change march is reported on our blog. http://www.socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/change-everything-time-for-fresh-greens.htmlThere are no demands, nor will there be any official speeches and some of the sponsors of it will be the fossil fuel industry and the banks. But Ozy is correct…the environmentalist activists are perhaps the few that are making any attempt to identify and tackle the culprit…capitalism. For sure, they have often been off-target but just how effective have we been in discussing the issues. As a party we do need a campaign strategy for getting our message across.Forget about New York. There's a climate march too in Edinburgh on Sunday if youse are free:http://www.stopclimatechaos.org/events/peoples-climate-march-edinburghAlso in Glasgow and London.
Actually, Glasgow branch weren't really expected to distrubute our press statement on the referendum. This was done by the election committee which sent it to all the daily papers in Scotland. It got a mention here (right at the end) if nowhere else.As to the referendum on the EU I can't see this generating enough interest to get over 90 percent of the population aged 16 or over to go and vote. In any case, it is not certain it will take place as it's a Tory election promise that would only be implemented in the unlikely event of the Tories getting an overall majority in next year's general election.
I don't think the accusation of bias against the BBC is fair. They struck me as being "too fair" from the point of view of the British ruling class who have an interest in Scotland not breaking away (as it will weaken them on the world stage) but I've just been listening to a local radio station in South West London on my way back from Clapham. The presenter said that if Scotland voted yes the first record he would play would be "The Road to Nowhere" and also remarked that the Union Jack looked ok without the blue Scottish part of it. (Of course it would still just be a rag on the end of a stick.) Talk about bias! But I don't think Radio Jackie can be heard in Scotland.
ALB wrote:The debate was recorded so should be available some time.Here it is:http://www.mixcloud.com/davidallen3139/insight-with-adam-on-afrobeat-940-fm/Talking starts 5.58 minutes in.Incidentally the "Adam" is the interviewer not me.
Quote:Quote:If Scotland leaves the union, "Great Britain" will remain valid as a geographical term. The logical name for what remains will be the Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland (KEWNI). Ukip could restyle itself KEWNIP.PROFESSOR MARTIN WEST, Oxford.Anyone for SPKEWNI ?
Just remembered. There would be a precedent. The name of the party Rosa Luxemburg was associated with in Russian Poland was "Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania", or SDKPiL.
Yes, I had a debate on the Scottish referendum with them and a LibDem on a local radio station in East London last night and it was amusing to see the UKIP representative repeat all the arguments for Scotland not withdrawing from the UK (not big enough internal market, not strong enough to survive international competition on its own, etc) as are put against them for wanting the UK to withdraw from the EU. Also, she was so against Scotland being offered a disproportionate amount of money to vote No that she forgot that UKIP has an MEP from Scotland (be interesting to see what he does if there's a Yes vote). The debate was recorded so should be available some time.
Interesting letter in today's Times from an Oxford Professor:
Quote:Sir, In pondering what the rest of the realm would be called in the event of Scotland's secession, let us be clear about the meaning of the term Great Britain. It was not first instituted, as recently claimed, by James VI of Scotland when he acquired the throne of England; nor does it embody a claim to greatness, as your columnist Alice Thomson (Sept 10) supposes. Gret Britanee was referred to in 1474 in the instrument for the proposed marriage of Edward IV's daughter Cecily to James III of Scotland, and more than three centuries earlier Geoffrey of Monmouth used the term Britannia maior for the island of Britain as opposed to Britannia minor, which was Brittany.If Scotland leaves the union, "Great Britain" will remain valid as a geographical term. The logical name for what remains will be the Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland (KEWNI). Ukip could restyle itself KEWNIP.PROFESSOR MARTIN WEST, Oxford.Anyone for SPKEWNI ?
alanjjohnstone wrote:I think YMS may well be leading us to a place we do not want to be…Class interests are class interests…not sections or part of the class…not individual material interests. Class interests must be viewed in global terms, not national or regional terms or occupational/industrial terms.I don't know what you mean. Where don't we want to be?
The other interesting thing about the campaign from the socialist point of view is confirmation of our argument that if you want reforms a better way to get them than reformism is to demand revolution. The SNP demands "revolution", i.e. independence, and when it looks as if they might win the ruling class offers more reforms within the system, so-called devo-max, to try to buy off the movement. Maybe in fact that's even what Salmond wanted from the start.
Vin Maratty wrote:I think we should be concerned about what is being said on our Facebook by members of the Partyhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/worldsocialism/10152727706882700/?notif_t=group_comment_replyNot necessarily. At last a debate amongst members on some political issue instead of the procedural matters that have dominated conferences and ADMs in recent years (and must be at least partially responsible for falling attendences, though maybe the internet is the new forum for debates). But a bit late. Our branch tried to get a discussion going on the Scottish referendum at this year's Conference but without much success.It is true that one thing we couldn't have anticipated then was that there is going to be a big turn-out. Which can't be a bad thing as it shows that when there is something to vote about that workers, rightly or wrongly, feel concerned about they will turn out to vote and in fact there is a sense that it will be a "historic" vote in political terms as a "yes" vote will change history. So, we can be confident that when socialism is really on the agenda workers will turn out to vote and ignore the anarchists and other anti-parliamentarists (or "andy pandies" as Glasgow branch call them). A high turn could be the one positive outcome.
