ALB

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  • in reply to: Pannekoek’s theory of science #95524
    ALB
    Keymaster
    LBird wrote:
    ‘non-observable reality’.

    That's an oxymoron, surely? Certainly not a concept Dietzgen or Pannelokek would have subscribed to. 

    in reply to: Government launches “Immigrants, go home” campaign #94958
    ALB
    Keymaster
    Hrothgar wrote:
    There is only one truth.  There may be different ways of interpreting or assessing the truth, but the fact remains there is one truth and one truth only.  'Validity' in any perspective depends on its proximity to the truth.  The more objective we approach an incident or problem, the more truthful our analysis or conclusions are likely to be, and thus the more valid.  Objectivity cannot be decoupled from social values, admittedly, but we can achieve a large degree of objectivity using the right methods.

    Please don't rise to this bait here, LBird! But refer him to the other threads we have on this , e.g.:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/pannekoeks-theory-scienceLet's see if we can get him off his nasty obsession.

    in reply to: Government launches “Immigrants, go home” campaign #94948
    ALB
    Keymaster
    Hrothgar wrote:
    I would say that what you refer to here are ethnic differences rather than racial differences.  I have no particular problem with the presence of white Europeans in Britain.

    What is the problem you have with the presence of non-white Europeans and/or white non-Europeans in Britain? In fact what are your definitions of "white", "European" and "non-European"?And, while you're at it, what is the difference you make here between a "race" and an "ethnic group"?

    in reply to: Revolution – An Instructional Manual #96496
    ALB
    Keymaster

    Gene Sharp was once the editor of Peace News. His book From Dictatorship to Democracy was reviewed in the March 2012 Socialist Standard:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2012/no-1291-march-2012/book-reviewsIt has some relevancy to what has subsequently happened in Egypt and Syria.

    in reply to: Syria: will the West attack? #95987
    ALB
    Keymaster
    ALB wrote:
    But during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war they supported Iran as the "anti-imperialists" because the West was supporting Iraq, despite Iraq's use of chemical weapons: (….)It's clear that the use of chemical weapons in Syria is just a pretext for taking action to weaken the government side in the civil war to aid the rebels with a view to bringing about "regime change".

    By coincidence there's a letter in today's Times from Tory grandee Norman Lamont making the same point:

    Quote:
    Sir, Your leading article (Sept 3) about Syria and chemical weapons refers to the need "to uphold international norms and legal prohibitions that have held since 1925 on the use of chemical weapons". Your editorial memory is curiously selective. The West has in the past turned a blind eye to the use of chemical weapons. In 1988 Saddam Hussein used mustard gas and sarin against Iranian'troops, killing 20,000 and leaving 100,000 wounded. A recent article in the US magazine Foreign Policy claimed that US officials who gave Iraq intelligence about Iranian troop movements, did so in the knowledge that the Iraqis would use chemical weapons. The Iranians even flew some victims to British hospitals and tried to raise the issue in the UN. The West was indifferent. You are right: the use of chemical weapons is, indeed, horrific and unacceptable. But if you wish to carry conviction with your arguments, should you not at least acknowledge the West's position in the past has been woefully far from consistent?LORD LAMONT House of Lords

    As the Times is read by "top people" the elite policy-makers and their mouthpieces in the media who want to bomb Syria know full well what cynical hypocrites they are.

    in reply to: Syria: will the West attack? #95984
    ALB
    Keymaster
    mcolome1 wrote:
    The Trotskyite during the Iraq war they made a call to provide support to Saddam Hussein because he was an anti-imperialist,

    But during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war they supported Iran as the "anti-imperialists" because the West was supporting Iraq, despite Iraq's use of chemical weapons:

    Quote:
    Author Barry M. Lando says, by 1987, the U.S. military was so invested in the correct outcome, that "officers from the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency dispatched to Baghdad were actually planning day-by-day strategic bombing strikes for the Iraqi Air Force." Iraq used this data to target Iranian positions with chemical weapons, says ambassador Galbraith.According to retired Army Colonel W. Patrick Lang, senior defense intelligence officer for the United States Defense Intelligence Agency at the time, "the use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern" to Reagan and his aides, because they "were desperate to make sure that Iraq did not lose." Lang disclosed that more than 60 officers of the Defense Intelligence Agency were secretly providing detailed information on Iranian deployments. He cautioned that the DIA "would have never accepted the use of chemical weapons against civilians, but the use against military objectives was seen as inevitable in the Iraqi struggle for survival." Despite this claim, the Reagan administration did not stop aiding Iraq after receiving reports affirming the use of poison gas on Kurdish civilians.Joost R. Hiltermann says that when the Iraqi military turned its chemical weapons on the Kurds during the war, killing approximately 5,000 people in the town of Halabja and injuring thousands more, the Reagan administration actually sought to obscure Iraqi leadership culpability by suggesting, inaccurately, that the Iranians may have carried out the attack.

    It seems that the US ruling class is a bit selective in its condemnation of the use of chemical weapons. That's ok as long as the side they want to win uses them, despite the "international community" drawing a so-called "red line" in 1925 against their use.It's clear that the use of chemical weapons in Syria is just a pretext for taking action to weaken the government side in the civil war to aid the rebels with a view to bringing about "regime change".

    in reply to: Suggested Marx reading list #96317
    ALB
    Keymaster
    dweenlander wrote:
    In addition I would recommend Michael Heinrich’s An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital – which focuses largely on Vol. 1 and contains some marvellous stuff on the labour theory of value. 

    If this is the sort of stick Heinrich's gets for challenging the falling-rate-of-profit theory of cyclical crises then it sounds as if he is worth a read:http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/economic-crisis/the-unmaking-of-marxs-capital-heinrichs-attempt-to-eliminate-marxs-crisis-theory.htmlI think I'll start with the article of his they criticise:http://monthlyreview.org/2013/04/01/crisis-theory-the-law-of-the-tendency-of-the-profit-rate-to-fall-and-marxs-studies-in-the-1870s

    in reply to: Syria: will the West attack? #95982
    ALB
    Keymaster

    I hadn't realised it till now that a large section of Trotskyist and Trotskyoid opinion supports the rebels in the Syrian Civil War (they seem to think it's a re-run of the Spanish Civil War). This requires considerable rhetorical and dialectical skill as Western imperialism supports the rebels too.Here's an extract from statement signed by various British trot groups including Workers Power and Socialist Resistance:

    Quote:
    We believe that the people of Syria should be enabled to free themselves from the Assad dictatorship. For their struggle to be successful, they should receive all the necessary material aid, including arms and humanitarian assistance, without conditions imposed by the West.

    Who from, then? Trotskyist gun runners? Is a international Trotskyist brigade being formed to fight alongside the Jihadists and Western secret agents already on the ground?But the prize goes to an Australian leftwinger cxalled Michael Karadjis:

    Quote:
    Socialists have no business demanding our imperialist governments send arms or do anything in particular, as we know their agendas; but neither should we protest if they do send some arms.

    But, if it would weaken the government side (as it would), why not also turn a blind eye to them bombing government installations and positions?

    in reply to: Syria: will the West attack? #95981
    ALB
    Keymaster
    alanjjohnstone wrote:
    Our anti-war position re-Iraq would be no different if they had actually found WMDs.

    Good point. Our anti-war position re Syria would be no different either if the UN backed bombing Syria. I see the famous Noam Chomsky is going around saying that any bombing of Syria without UN backing would be "illegal". So that means he thinks it would be ok if the UN Security Council voted for it? Probably not, but, as a supporter of the rebels, his position on the matter is ambiguous, as this extract from an interview he gave in July shows:

    Quote:
    Yet there’s concern that the continued failure to arm the opposition in an organized manner and within clear frameworks means the continued control of certain individuals and religious authorities in the Gulf over the provision of weapons to limited groups—the more extremist elements—within the ranks of the armed opposition. This would entail the continued marginalization of the moderate opposition fighters.Your question deals with extremely narrow tactical options. We all want to force Assad to the negotiating table and from there, to resign, but the question is how to achieve this? The first way to do this is to supply the opposition with arms. This step would most likely produce an escalation of the military conflict and open the door to further military upgrading and expansion on the part of the regime, leading to increased destruction and the regime staying in place for longer. The second approach is to go to Geneva with the cooperation of the major powers, including Russia, and force the regime to accept a truce. These are the options we have.But do you believe that you will be able to make the regime accept change through negotiations?Honestly and objectively I reckon that both options offer only a slim chance of success. But you have to make a choice. Which path will you take? Neither option is ideal, but once again, you have to think about what you have. I believe you should choose the negotiating track first, and should you fail, then moving to the second option becomes more acceptable.

    He didn't say who, in the event of a failure of diplomatic negotiations, would be given the contract "to supply the opposition with arms".Personally, I've always thought that Chomsky had feet of clay.

    in reply to: Government launches “Immigrants, go home” campaign #94927
    ALB
    Keymaster
    alanjjohnstone wrote:
    i dare say your nom de plume betrays you as some sort of Aryan racial myth-peddlar rather than a genuine student of the Beowolf legend.

    An Anglo-Saxon, eh? But they were immigrants in their time. Hordes of them came and pushed to the West the previously established population who spoke a language akin to Welsh. Here is what some of these think of Saxons:Where will this nonsense about sending people back from whence they came end?

    in reply to: Government launches “Immigrants, go home” campaign #94925
    ALB
    Keymaster

    Have you read Daniel Defoe's poem The True Born Englishman?http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173337That about sums it up. And that's only up to 1701 but it didn't stop then.

    in reply to: Syria: will the West attack? #95979
    ALB
    Keymaster

    I notice that the war-mongers in favour of Britain bombing Syria have shifted their ground. Forgotten is all the sob stuff about "humanitarian" intervention. The justification now is the British capitalist state's "credibility". They are complaining that the No vote in Parliament means that Britain has slipped from a second-rate power to a third-rate one and are calling for a re-vote to reverse this.The Tory, Liberal and Labour politicians who are arguing this have exposed themselves as advocates of adding to the killing and destruction just to try to restore Britain's "prestige". They do have a point from a capitalist point of view as, in negotiations between states over trade and other economic matters, "might is right" and the threat of "might" and a record of it being used is taken into account. The sufferings of the people in Syria don't come into. That's just a pretext.

    in reply to: Summer School 2014 #96463
    ALB
    Keymaster
    Mike Foster wrote:
    I tried looking for when Marxism 2014 is, but there was nothing on the SWP website.

    I wouldn't bother about not clashing with this as it is not likely to be what it used to be. Members in London who don't go to our summer school should be able to cover any residual event the SWP may organise.

    in reply to: Pannekoek’s theory of science #95512
    ALB
    Keymaster

    Here's an article by Pannekoek in which he blames capitalist states, in pursuit of capitalist interests, for misusing the work of scientists not the scientists themselves for their work:http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1948/revolt.htmAnd here he is setting out on the opening page of Anthropogenesis what he sees as the "scientific method":

    Quote:
    The problem of the origin of man cannot be solved by experiment or observation. The appearance of man on earth is a fact of the past of which no report or witness could reach us. The factual data which we have at our disposal are comparisons of man of today with animals, supplemented by extremely rare, imperfect and damaged fragments of fossils of prehistoric man and remains of his stone implements. But they are silent with regard to the forces which have caused the evolution of animal to man.Where direct empirical data are lacking and indirect ones are so few, a far stronger appeal than is needed in experimental science has to be made to the mental equipment of the scientist. Whereas in the case of plenty of empirical facts that can be increased at will, no more is necessary than arranging and combining them and from them deducing new problems and making new experiments, the scarcity of such facts causes theoretical discussion to play a more important part. What matters here is the logical combination of differing data, the seeking for connexion between what lies far apart, the making of conclusions, and the careful weighing of probabilities.

    No hint that before Lamarck, Darwin and the others it was "true" that some supernatural being created humans by an act of will some 4000 years ago, i.e that creationism was once "true".

    in reply to: Government launches “Immigrants, go home” campaign #94918
    ALB
    Keymaster

    Meeting for you here, wiscalatus:http://antinational.org/en/why-others-stay-others

Viewing 15 posts - 8,341 through 8,355 (of 9,541 total)