ALB
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The French translation is now available as a leaflet that can be downloaded and printed:http://www.fichier-pdf.fr/2014/03/11/emparons-nous/
52 is not a good innings. I agree he was a good trade union leader (and of course he was a leader) who was committed to furthering the interests of his union's members and negotiated better wages and conditions for them. His political views were of course wrong. In fact his death will have political consequences as both TUSC and No2EU, the left nationalist list he was due to head in London in May's euroelections, were his personal hobby horses. I doubt if his successor and the RMT's executive will continue for long to pour the union's money down these black holes. So in the more or less short term it's going to be good bye to TUSC and good riddance to No2EU.
We've also run off 3000 leaflets as part of our local election campaign for the Lambeth Council in May, advertising the debate prominently on the back. Door-to-door distribution in the wards round Head Office begins this week.In the meantime here's Nigel Farage's bid for the votes of "the working classes":http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/nigel-farage-the-main-parties-dont-listen-to-the-working-classes-9181460.htmlMaybe Elizabeth Jones will turn up in a shawl and clogs.
I don't think there's going to be a war over this. The Western capitalist bloc will up the rhetoric and rattle a few sabres but in the end will accept the re-incorporation of the Crimea into Russia as a fait accompli. Russia won't invade the rest of the Ukraine. Meanwhile the papers will sensationalise things to sell more.Anyone want to bet against this?
I'm not sure that "Freedom" could have claimed to have been "the longest surviving 'libertarian socialist' journal". It wouldn't have described itself as such as it catered for all brands of anarchism (except anarcho-capitalism) including individualist anarchists who regarded socialism as an extension of "the tyranny of the majority" they saw democracy as being.Second, it ceased publication between 1932 and 1945. It was never clear either who owned and controlled it, but it was something more like the tyranny of the minority, a precaution against being taken over by a group of organised anarchists (if that's not a contradiction).I used to subscribe to it too a long time ago and I suppose it is sort of sad to see it go under. In the 40s, 50s and 60s it expressed what the nebulous concept of anarchism meant at that time in this country.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Certainly, one scammer in Africa tried to play us off against an NGO out there.By co-incidence we have received an email from the IWW in America about the same scammer and asking for details of our experience with him. They seem to have come to realise, like we did, that he is not entirely what he claims to be.In the meantime John McDonnell, the Labour MP who is sponsoring the Ukraine meeting in the House of Commons, is being alerted about this Popovitch character.
What struck me was the title and subtitle of the article (which may have been the subeditor's not his)
Quote:Not even climate change will kill off capitalism.As long as the conditions for investment and profit remain, the system will adapt. Which is why we need a revolutionAnd also this passage identifying who and what he was arguing against:
Quote:There is a worryingly widespread belief in leftwing circles that capitalism will not survive the environmental crisis. The system, so the story goes, has reached its absolute limits: without natural resources – oil among them – it can't function, and these resources are fast depleting; the growing number of ecological disasters will increase the cost of maintaining infrastructures to unsustainable levels; and the impact of a changing climate on food prices will induce riots that will make societies ungovernable.The beauty of catastrophism, today as in the past, is that if the system is to crumble under the weight of its own contradictions, the weakness of the left ceases to be a problem. The end of capitalism takes the form of suicide rather than murder. So the absence of a murderer – that is, an organised revolutionary movement – doesn't really matter any more.This of course is an argument we have heard from leftwing Greens and have had to argue against. He goes on:
Quote:But the left would be better off learning from its past mistakes. Capitalism might well be capable not only of adapting to climate change but of profiting from it.I don't think this can be taken as a claim that capitalism could actually solve the climate change crisis, but merely that it can live with it while making a profit from attempts to deal with it. The examples he gives (militarisation and insurance against catastrophes) may not be valid (I would have thought the profitable investment will, or would, be more technologies to alleviate it) but the general point remains, as the subtitle puts it: As long as the conditions for investment and profit remain, the system will adapt.But instead of arguing about what he meant, why don't be email him? I'll do this. In the meantime here's more on where he's coming from:http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/1430-razmig-keucheyan-s-the-left-hemisphere-a-dizzying-menagerie-of-anti-capitalist-thought
Merci. It says he comes from Switzerland where he was a member of a Trotskyist group and that in France he is a member of the Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste which is the current embodiment of the Ernst Mandel Trotskyists (whose equivalent in Britain would be, I suppose, "Socialist Resistance", the old IMG).Robbo, I don't think he is advocating either "militarisation" or "financialization" but merely saying that these are ways capitalism can get out of a crisis. This analysis may well be wrong but to accuse him of advocating these would be like accusing us of advocating lower real wages, devaluation of capital, etc for making the point that these are the ways that capitalism gets out of a slump.What I got out of his article was that capitalism will not collapse from some ecological crisis any more than it will from some economic crisis. As he says (using an analogy we have often used ourselves) capitalism will not commit suicide but has to be murdered. It won't die of its own accord, but has to be done to death.
ALB wrote:Sorry, mate, we've been had by scammers from the Ukraine before. So were others:http://www.internationalist.org/ukraineimpostors0803.htmlWe have received an email drawing our attention to the fact that one of these scammers will be in England to address a meeting on the Ukraine tomorrow:
Quote:Message:
http://thepeoplesparliament.me.uk/themes/crises-in-ukraine/Monday 10th March
6pm, Committee Room 6 House of CommonsA discussion on the unfolding crises in Ukraine, with expert eye-witness
reports from Mr Zakhar Popovych of the left opposition and Volodymr Ischenko
of the Commons Journal of Social Criticism
NB! Interesting to note that Zakhar Popovych was one of the key figures of the notorious scandal around the Ukrainian branch of the CWI "Workers Resistance" in 2003Pity I've not got the time to present him with a demand that he re-imburse the money he extracted from us and others.
Just read it. Good stuff, even the Party case, as put for instance by Brian Gardner in the course of this videoed debate (incidentally, the other speaker, who put the "catastrophist" viewpoint, has since joined the Socialist Party). People on our facebook page like it too.Does anyone know who the bloke who wrote the Guardian article is? Sounds as if we should get in touch with him.
I don't think we care whether someone calls themselves an atheist or an agnostic as long as they don't think that there is some supernatural entity that interferes in human affairs, do we? That's why it's best to say what we are for, e.g that we are materialists, realists or whatever who accept that the only world is the world we can experience.
At the moment this is just a general proposal for the people of Switzerland to vote on in a referendum. Because they've got the 100,000 signatures there will be a vote but I think the Swiss Parliament fixes what the exact wording will be. I doubt if it will be as precise or as far-reaching as the proposers want. But, as Bill has pointed out, even if it gets the required majority it wouldn't work as intended but would be a subsidy to employers paid out of general taxation. In fact it would be a confirmation of the limits of democratic decision-making under capitalism where the people may propose but it's capitalism that disposes.Interesting thought: in Switzerland, when the number of socialists reaches 100,000 we'll be able to force a referendum on socialism. That would be good publicity for the idea, getting everybody to discuss it (which may be the real intention behind those who forced a referendum on a guaranteed basic income).
I wonder what this suppressed report says:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2573535/Effect-immigration-unemployment-smaller-previously-claimed-Theresa-May.htmlIt might puncture the claims not only of UKIP but also of Bob Crow's No2EU and the Scargill Labour Party. It is certainly true that immigration does not cause unemployment. Capitalism does.
