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Polling day is tomorrow. The result should be announced well before midnight.
In the meantime we have more data on visits to the landing page. The page was the one for the offer of a free 3-month trial subscription to the Socialist Standard. We were not expecting anyone to take up the offer but chose this page as one that would not have all that many visitors. (If we had had time we could have prepared a special page.)
There have been 175 visits since we started leafletting on 16 September. Depending on what the normal number of visits a day are assumed to be (5, 6 or 7) the extra number could be between about 40 and 80. Since 1950 leaflets were distributed that’s between that between 1 in 50 (2%) and 1 in 24 (4.1%). Which shows that a QR code is relatively useful as a measure of the minimum number of those who take some notice of the leaflet, ie don’t simply bin it. Others will have read it without using the code but there is no way of measuring that.
Our next experiment will be to leaflet an area when there is not an election on.
The leaflets cost £105 to be printed. We are not expecting the percentage of the vote to be similar of course as it’s not a measure of those who agree with what it says only of those who used the QR code.
I don’t know if this is the right place but not sure this deserves its own thread only being recorded somewhere.
Yesterday in a speech to the Tory conference the Minister of Transport publicly endorsed the conspiracy theory about the “15 Minute city”, the idea that people should be able to access the shops they need within 15 minutes walking distance. Seems a good idea at least in socialism, but the conspiraloons see it as part of a plot by a shadowy elite to control and enslave us.
I have a copy of a one of their leaflets which says:
“AGENDA 2023. We will destroy 15 minute cities and BE HAPPY”
and
“15 Minute City. Enslavenent in small steps. Cameras. Charges. Cutbacks. Control. Communism.”
(If only getting to Communism was that easy!)
Anyway, here’s what the minister said:
“What is sinister, and what we shouldn’t tolerate, is the idea that local councils can decide how often you go to the shops, and that they can ration who uses the roads and when, and that they police it all with CCTV.”
https://www.wired.com/story/15-minute-city-conspiracy-uk-politics/
But local councils can’t decide this nor is there any plan to give them this power. It’s only in the minds of anti-15 Minute City conspiraloons. Among whom a Tory minister must now be included.
The text of the leaflet is based on this:
You have missed my point about 82% being low. It is of course an overwhelming majority but I understood it to be in answer to the question “Do you think that Ukraine should be an independent country?”
In most countries the reply to such a question would be near to 99%. Or do you think that in Australia the reply would be less than that? A figure as low as 82% suggests a serious minority problem.Thanks for the figures on those who support negotiations with Russia. Seeing that it is dangerous to hold this view and that no politician dares express it for fear of being arrested and charged with being “pro-Russian” (with good reason: opposition MPs who put this view have been kicked out of parliament, their parties banned and their leaders arrested) I would have thought that it is surprisingly high. One in 4 in the country as a whole, rising to 1 in 3 in the east and to nearly 2 in 5 in the south.
I think you are probably right that the higher figures reflect the greater number of native Russian-speakers there but they could also reflect that this is where most of the shelling from both sides and destruction is going on and that people there just want it to stop. An expression of ordinary people’s abhorrence of war but bad news for war-mongers like yourself.
I hadn’t realised that the UN’s “International Court of Justice” had ordered Azerbaijan not to blockade Nagarno-Karabakh but they did:
Note the final paragraph:
“It is not yet clear whether Azerbaijan will follow the order. While the order is binding, however, the ICJ has no way of enforcing it.”
Quite. When it comes to relations between capitalist states, might is right and judgements of international courts of justice just scraps of paper. Realpolitik rules.
I will let others wade in to deal with your flimsy pro-war arguments, basically an echo of what the media put out which you have swallowed hook, line and sinker even to the extent of blaming it on one evil man. If you think that the war has nothing to do with whether or not Ukraine should join NATO then that just shows how naive and unworldly you are.
I just want to clear up your failure to understand my point about “only” 82% of those polled (whoever they were) being in favour of an independent political Ukrainian state. In most countries (unfortunately since such is the grip of nationalism) you would expect this to be at least 99%. The fact that some 18% are against must be of some significance if only to serve as a pretext for the Russian ruling class (and your counterparts on their side) to justify the war.
I notice you left unanswered my request for the percentage of those polled who supported negotiations with Russia.
More getting-it-wrong from Wolff.
Harriet Fraad, Richard D. Wolff – Twenty-First Century Socialism: What It Will Become and Why
The first part, about the history and evolution of mass parties calling themselves “socialist” or “communist” is not bad once you get over your annoyance at them being referred to as socialists or communists. It’s his proposed alternative of a market economy composed of democratically controlled workers’ cooperatives producing for sale that’s wrong (and isn’t socialism either).
Here’s a couple of extracts:
“Inside enterprises, each worker will have one vote to decide the major issues facing enterprises. Such issues include what, how, and where to produce as well as how to use the resulting products or, if products are marketed, what to do with the revenues. The difference between employers and employees disappears; the workers become collectively their own boss. Profits cease being the enterprise’s top priority or “bottom line” because that maximization rule prioritizes employers’ gains over employees’ gains and capital’s interests over those of labor. In democratized enterprises, profits instead become one among many democratically determined enterprise goals.”
“Democratic worker cooperatives become a key institutional foundation of whatever state apparatus survives. Worker co-ops, democratized households, and individuals will be the state’s three revenue sources and thus key sources of its power. They will democratically decide how to divide the provision of such revenue among themselves.”
Not quite sure what this should be called. Unrealistic worker control of a market economy? Wolffism perhaps? If the state can’t control how the market economy operates how can workers coops be expected to?
The last 200 leaflets were distributed yesterday. Preliminary data on the use of the QR indicate that there was an increase in visits to the page chosen as the landing page on the days that leaflets were distributed but it has no yet been established by how much above normal.
Thanks, pgb, for making your position absolutely clear — you support NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine to incorporate the country into their bloc. You naively accept the “humanitarian” and “moral” reasons and talk of “justice” invoked by the NATO governments to justify their arming and financing the Ukrainian state and keeping the war going
The issue has always been whether or not Ukraine should join NATO. That’s why the West supported the overthrow of a pro-Russia government in 2014 and why Russia invaded in 2022 in a bid to overthrow the pro-West government there. Whether or not Ukraine should exist as an independent political entity has never been the issue. Both Russia and the West accept this; they just want its government to favour them. NATO wants to expand further to the East. Russia sees this as a threat to its vital interests as a capitalist state. In international relations (relations between capitalist states) “morality” and “justice” don’t come into it. Might is right. Realpolitik rules.
Incidentally, you quote an opinion poll which says that 82% of the population of Ukraine support its existence as an independent state and that this is “the highest it has ever been”. That seems rather low at only 82%. What about the other 18%? Presumably they either couldn’t care either way (which would be good) or think that it should become part of Russia again (a sizeable minority which would make for political instability). Also, was this poll conducted just in the territory controlled by the Ukraine government or in the whole of its designated territory? If the former, that would mean that if those in the Russian controlled territory were included the figure would be much higher. And if the latter, how did the pollsters poll those in the Russian controlled parts?
You say that the poll showed that “support for negotiations with Russia is relatively low” but don’t give the exact figure. Have you got it to hand?
Finally, the SPGB has always been opposed to conscription and practised what it preached, with those members who were in a position to do so refusing to be conscripted in both world wars and also in the period of “national service” after WW2 and either being sent to jail, assigned to non-military work or going on the run. It’s a socialist principle not to kill fellow workers in conflicts between capitalist states.
YMS has already dealt effectively with the “just war” theory. So I will only deal with pgb’s cop-out of “leaving it to the Ukrainians to decide”.
Obviously the Ukrainian government and its nationalist supporters want the war to continue to recover their lost territories. But it is equally obvious that on their own they are no position to do this. They need outside support. Presumably, pgb, you think they are entitled to ask for this. Ok, but do you think that the governments of the NATO and other countries such as Australia are being “just” in supplying arms to the Ukrainian government and nationalists, arms which are allowing the killing and destruction to continue? Are you for or against this? This is a decision you can’t leave to “the Ukrainians”. It’s for you to take.
The other question is how do “the Ukrainians” decide? It is clear that many are opposed to the war. Hundreds of thousands have voted with their feet against it by fleeing the country. Others have had to be conscripted against their will (in fact if the war is so popular amongst Ukrainians why is conscription necessary?). And there could be as many as five million Ukrainian subjects who resent being “de-Russified” and would be like some arrangement with Russia to protect them. Ok, maybe a majority is for the war, but why take their side as opposed to that of the minority who are against it? Why disavow the draft dodgers?
There are serious doubts about the truth of that story about Zelensky buying a villa in Egypt. It smacks too much of fake information. For a start, I doubt if Zelensky would be that stupid.
Anyway, here’s the other side (from an Egyptian source):
Revealing faux pas and reminder of the nasty past of Ukrainian nationalism:
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/24/nazi-linked-veteran-ovation-zelenkyy-canada-visit-00117857
Looks like the moral high ground, occupied by the Ukrainian nationalists immediately after the Russian invasion, and used as a pretext by NATO to keep the war going to achieve its ends, is beginning to crumble.
Looks like the ethnic cleansing has begun now that the Azeri government has conquered the enclave. A consequence of the deadly idea of a “nation state” and the problem they have with minorities who don’t fit the definition of being part of the “nation”.
Expect more of this in the Caucasus if ever the Russian Federation breaks up as some are wanting. The population there of various linguistic and religious groups is so mixed up that the establishment of “national states” for any of them is bound to involve mass migrations and ethnic cleansing as happened in Europe after the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian after the first world slaughter.
The doctrine of “national self-determination” is anti-working class, anti-socialist and anti-human. Bring back Rosa Luxemburg who was the most well-known person to realise and say thus.
Read also Elie Kedourue’s classic demolition job on nationalism, Nationalism which Wikipedia summarises as:
“Kedourie argued that multi-national empires like the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the Austrian Empire had allowed different peoples to live together in peace, and the break-up of empires had led to wars as nationalists fought each other for dominance. (…) Kedourie had no use for nationalism, which he saw as dividing people up, and believed that importing Western ideas of nationalism into the Middle East had been a disaster, as it turned people who once lived together in harmony into enemies as various peoples started to see themselves as part of this or that nation.”
Whatever may be the case in some other parts, Ukraine is waging a war of conquest in Crimea which is only accidentally part of Ukraine (due to administrative decision by Khrushchev in 1954) and has not been ruled by it since 2014. Over 70 percent of the population there speak Russian as their mother tongue and don’t want to be ruled from Kiev. Yet the US and its allies are providing Ukraine with missiles to attack Crimea and its population.
The US has officially declared that its war aim is to weaken Russia not provoke a war with it. So what they are doing is arming Ukraine to do this, using it as their proxy or puppet — in fact they are financing the whole Ukraine state — but not with enough to beat Russia. They are cynically keeping the war going at a level below total war in order to weaken a geo-political rival.
Yet people can still be found who think that the war is justified and come up with all sorts of spurious arguments to justify the continuation of the killing and destruction and providing the means to do this. Shame on them.
The Lambeth “World Car Free Day” event was a bit of a flop, at least on the two occasions we passed by. Just the stall holders and a few families. Maybe it got better later in the afternoon. And of course all the main roads leading to Vauxhall Bridge were just the opposite of car free. Still, a good try but against the flow in the week the government announced it was postponing by five more years the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans.
But we did find evidence of some radical activity in the ward in a nearby road. This IWW sticker on a road sign:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/16253171/710927396542553682
400 more leaflets were distributed, some outside the ward but that doesn’t matter. The aim is not to get votes but to spread the idea and in particular see how many responses we get to the QR code.
500 to go, much of which will be distributed before and/or after the London. Branch meeting tomorrow.
