Bijou Drains
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Alb reported – “We met the Tory candidate, local councillor Steve Tuckwell. A Tory leaflet from local councillors in one ward had stated that they were involved “providing fruit and vegetables free to members of the public outside the Temple on Crowley High Street”. Intrigued by this unusual endorsement of free distribution from an unexpected source, as the time given was Tuesdays at 2pm, we decided to investigate.
It turned out to be an ordinary food bank but this was a special occasion. The Tory candidate was there, accompanied by an actual Tory MP (Bob Blackman for Harrow East).”
I would have thought that might be considered sailing a little close to the legal wind
“The Representation of the People Act 1983, section 113
(1)A person shall be guilty of a corrupt practice if he is guilty of bribery.
(2)A person shall be guilty of bribery if he, directly or indirectly, by himself or by any other person on his behalf—
(a)gives any money or procures any office to or for any voter or to or for any other person on behalf of any voter or to or for any other person in order to induce any voter to vote or refrain from voting, or
(b)corruptly does any such act as mentioned above on account of any voter having voted or refrained from voting, or
(c)makes any such gift or procurement as mentioned above to or for any person in order to induce that person to procure, or endeavour to procure, the return of any person at an election or the vote of any voter,
or if upon or in consequence of any such gift or procurement as mentioned above he procures or engages, promises or endeavours to procure the return of any person at an election or the vote of any voter.”
Might be worth contacting the local bobbies and seek their opinion on this practice
“Try reading any of the the “Theoretical Journals” of any of the the leftist or Trotskyist parties and you’ll find they’re all completely impenetrable due to their unreconstructed and inaccessible use of quasi Marxist word salad.”
————————————————————————————————————BD, would you include New Left Review in this?
____________________________________Strangely enough I just read the article below about language and culture:
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/decapitalizing-culture
I think generally the NLR is not nearly as bad as some of the one produced by political parties, although to be fair I was referring to the journals of the leftist parties and the NLR is not tied to any particular party, as far as I know.
“ But when you use words like idealism, materialism and socialism you are not getting a point across to most people. Not without circuitous philosophical and historical explanations, by which time they’ve already been inwardly yawning for a while”
Which is why I choose the language I use carefully and I try to select the language use to fit the person I’m talking to.
When I speak to a labourist I would describe myself as a libertarian socialist, to distinguish me from their concept of socialism. I might use the term socialist rather than using the term communist when I speak to a Stalinist.
If I am discussing materialism with a professor of philosophy my use of the term will be different to the way I use the term with an 18 year old.
To me one of the joys of the Socialist Standard is that over the years, it has always been readable whilst still being technically accurate.
Try reading any of the the “Theoretical Journals” of any of the the leftist or Trotskyist parties and you’ll find they’re all completely impenetrable due to their unreconstructed and inaccessible use of quasi Marxist word salad.
Considering our history we might be expected to be follow that trend, however whilst our political principles are unchanging, the way we express it might change. For example early copies of the Standard talk about “the masters” or the “master class”, using those terms today would be incomprehensible to most readers today.
But it’s not just politics, a few years ago I was working with a young person and I said I liked R and B, apparently to the young generation this doesn’t mean Leadbelly, John Lee Hooker or Howlin’ Wolf, but means a load of manufactured horse shit filled with auto tune music, who knew?
A colleague who was working in America stated during a meeting that he was “never more happy than when I have a fag in my mouth”, which was a bit of a conversation stopper.
Despite what TM says, the widespread use of print and even more the internet actually slows language change.
Chaucer to Shakespeare roughly 200 years, the difference is massive. Shakespeare to Jane Austen again roughly 200 years, big difference but not as big as Chaucer to Shakespeare. 300 years from Austen to present day, Austen’s work is a little difficult to the modern reader but not unintelligible.
Language change is actually slowing down. The nature of capitalism means the homogenation of language, the death of dialect and variation, the sterile conformity of language, rather than the development of new ways of expressing and understanding the world we live in.
Language has two forms, internal and external. If I can’t tell you what I mean, it stands to reason that I can’t tell myself what I mean. Language change and usage is an attempt to further develop our internal and external understanding of the world we live in.
We should rejoice that despite the way that society attempts to restrict language to the benefit of class society, new language forms break down the barriers to expression and connection
Perhaps TM could guide me in my use of language.
When the queen pegged out should I have said:
a) one less of the bastards
b) one fewer of the bastards
c) It didn’t really matter because I managed to put my point acrossFound this on t’internet, haven’t gone through it with a fine toothcomb but makes several mentions of the party and makes one reference to ALB. The author states at one point that “The Bordigists and the SPGB championed a super-Marxian intransigence in theoretical matters.” If any one out there can explain to me what the f… that means I would be very grateful.
https://www.democracynature.org/vol7/ojeili_intellectuals.htm
ALB – “He fancies himself as a latter-day Churchill. He may well turn out to be because the current Ukrainian offensive seems to have a similarity with Churchill’s disastrous Gallipoli campaign during the first world slaughter.”
From the Eighteenth Brumaire – “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce”.
Churchill had large elements of tragedy, Bojo has all the elements of farce.
The historical fact is that all language (like culture) is in a process of continual change. Definitions, meanings, spelling, pronunciations, grammar, usage have continually changed and have done throughout human history. Old English (itself an amalgam of the language of the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, etc|) is unrecognisable to modern English speakers.
For example a change in usage I did not know about in usage I did not know about until recently is the use of the word terrific in its current usage. Originally the use of terrific was linked to terror and terrify in the same way as horrific is linked to horror and horrify, it changed around the mid 19th century to its current usage of something that was good or exciting.
There is no such thing as proper English, any more than there is a proper version of chilli con carne.
The French Academie Francaise have tried (in vain) to regulate the way in which the people make use of their language, being especially upset about the way in which English is changing the use of French. Ironically they do not have same concern for other languages used in France. The Académie Française intervened in June 2008 to oppose the French Government’s proposal to constitutionally offer recognition and protection to regional languages (Flemish, Alsatian, Basque, Breton, Catalan, Corsican, Occitan, Gascon, Arpitan, etc.)
In my view, the whole idea of there being “proper language” is a bourgeois fantasy and is another attempt of attempting to divide and conquer. The idea that there is a uniform language that fits in to the national boundary is part of the nationalist fantasy of there being a group of “people” that can be defined by their language group.
I was told for years that my dialect was “wrong” was “slang” or was a sign of lack of education or culture, because my dialect didn’t fit in to the idea of “proper English”, the irony being that it was closer to Old English than most other English regional dialects and was less impacted by the great vowel shift. I still look a house a hoose, a mouse a moose, wear byuts not boots, drink beor not beer and call a table a chebble, just like Chaucer.
To be fair they have put forward the following proposals, thought Loony at the time:
Passports for pets
Abolishing dog licences
Getting rid of the 11+
24 hour drinking
Legalising commercial radio
Voting at 18Their latest manifesto says
26m tonnes of waste plastic bottles are discarded every year in the UK of which only 45% are recycled. The Loony Party has the answer.. Stop making them..
Before you ask…We have found an alternative. Its called glass.
Seemed more switched on than the other contenders at Oxbridge
A suggestion, perhaps we show a little bit of comradely support for Paula as a new moderator.
Could we all just try and attempt to keep it civil at least for a few weeks until Paula and others get a handle on things.
Petty point scoring (and I am guilty of this as much as others) doesn’t really do us any good.
I also often think that the bickering that occurs in the forums would be forgotten and dismissed, if they had occurred on a Saturday night over a few pints (or cappachino’s to include the hipster element).
Perhaps realising that we all say stupid things and giving people a bit of leeway to allow them to withdraw, apologise or forgiving them for making stupid contributions (especially me when the pubs have just shut)
I think those who thought of Prigozhin and his soldiers as a replay of Lenin and the Bolsheviks or even Kornilov and the White Russians are a bit mistaken.
If there is any precedent at all then it is Ernst Röhm and the brown shirts.
If I was Prigizhin and his mates I would keep an eye out for long knives (and also avoid drinking tea in restaurants)
“ I recall the late comrade Pieter Lawrence was a strong advocate of the idea that there would indeed be “law” in a socialist society”
And I remember completely agreeing with him at a couple of conference debates. He made the very sensible contribution that if in a socialist society he developed a severe mental illness he would much rather be supported by regulated and qualified professionals given a choice of that or having his care needs decided upon by the local tennis club or “the village moot”.
I agreed with what he said then and I agree with him now.
I also have the view that a Socialist society would need to use the knowledge gained about health ans safety, food regulation, moving and handling, etc. to regulate areas of our lives. I don’t want to eat contaminated or unsafe foods or to take medicines that have not been investigated or researched.
Mongomery once said: “The first rule of war is don’t march on Moscow”. I have a feeling the Wagner group may face the same fate.
” socialism would be a society without laws, police or prisons, I knew then that it would never become a reality.”
Socialism means the common ownership of the means of production and distribution.
I think a socialist society will have to have rules and they will need to be democratically enforceable if a minority do not wish to comply with these rules and if that leads to difficulty for others. You could call them laws if you want to, I have no objection to that.
For instance if someone insists on driving their car at speeds that put others in danger, then I see nothing unsocialist taking the car off the anti social person and stopping them from driving if they persist on doing it. It would be undemocratic not to.
In a similar way I am pretty sure that in a Socialist society the behaviour of some people would require that to protect the health and well being of others it would be necessary for them to have constraints, for instance children would still need to be protected from those who wish to abuse them. If the only way of ensuring that protection was to separate the perpertrators of this abuse physically from the rest of society in some way, again I would say this wouldn’t be unsocialist, as long as there were safeguards to ensure that system operated in an accountable and open way.
The advent of a socialist society would not instantly mean that parnoid schizophrenia would cease to exist (the adverse experiences that are sometimes linked to schizophrenic breakdown for instance may be reduced, but things like death of a loved one, relationship breakdown, etc. will still occur). It will be necessary to protect people with these difficulties as well as protecting the population from their actions.
I would also hope that these, and other decisions like this would be made by caring and professionally knowledgeable people. Without the resource constraints that they currently are made, I see no reason why the current arrangements to support people could not be adapted to create a compassionate and therapeutic system of support with appropriate safeguards to ensure their is no abuse of the system.
I do think, however, that the idea that punishing people through prison as a way of changing their anti social behaviour would hopefully be recognised as being pretty counter productive.
I do not think that my view is one that others in the party have expressed over the years.
I do think though that in a socialist society the need for these kinds of measures would be massively reduced in comparison to capitalism.
“Just shows you how utterly hopeless things are. Socialism is a beautiful dream. That’s all it’ll ever be.”
If the history of change teaches us anything, it is that change usually takes place when you least expect it.
During the reign of Louis XIV and for most of the reign of Louis XV, France was probably the strongest Absolute Monarchy in the world, but the French Revolution followed in 1789.
The Tsarist system had endured through the 1905 revolution and looked to be in its strongest ever postion in 1913.
If you had predicted during the 1980 Olympics that the Soviet system would begin to collapse within a decade you would have been locked up.
In theory Britain was the Leading World superpower at the end of WW1, 30 years later the British Empire was starting to be broken up.
In 1916 the captured members of the Irish Volunteers and The Irish Citizens Army were jeered as they were marched through Dublin, Sinn Fein won a massive vote in the 1918 Irish General Election.
When Newcastle won the cup in 1955 they were the most successful club side in England and then …………..
