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Don't trust any of the bastards

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As well as his view of "barracks Socialism" and the need for a coersive power in a "communist" society, his views on self denial, moral virtue and all of the rest of that bollocks fit more with the ideas of the authoritarian right than they do with the Socialsit case,His views on abstinance and being morally upstanding have uncomfortable echoes of the views Eoin O'Duffy the Blueshirt leader in Ireland who led the pro Franco Irish brigade in the Spanish Civil war.. A recent article on the history ireland site describes O’Duffy as preaching a gospel of moral improvement, one that emphasised the cultivation of integrity, temperance, patriotism, citizenship and virility: values which he summarised as manliness. Sounds to me that The Great Originator has more in common with buffoons like O'Duffy than he has with us!To celebrate the Great Originator I might just take a lazy walk down to the pub and have a couple of pints ande a packet of pork scratchings

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jondwhite wrote:

I thought the flag was a photoshop. Is it actually for sale? Can a link be provided here?

This was the link Mike posted on this thread:https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/The-Socialist-Party-Of-Great-Britain-Garage-Hangar-Basement-Flag-3×5-Feet/292341008511?hash=item4410e1c87f:g:GPEAAOSwAO1amx~kI am pretty sure it is a photoshop, but I'm guessing that if an order came in they would print them off as described.

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gnome wrote:

Mike Foster wrote:

alanjjohnstone wrote:

"Are we Bolsheviks? "Marcos, we are invisible…Surely, a socialist standard, should be unfurled wherever we attempt to have a physical presence to distribute our leaflets and literature

And we need banners for people to muster under!

I have no personal objection to the sale of these flags with our logo on them, I doubt the seller is going to retire to the Maldives on the money made from the sales either. However the question arises, is it a breach of our copyright? and as we are now clearly aware of it, could it impact on that copyright if we do not challenge it?Rather than stop any sales, should we contact the seller and ensure they acknowledge our copyright and as a gesture of good faith send us a couple so we could fly them outside HO?

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robbo203 wrote:

 I think you have completely misunderstood what the expression , 'from each according to ability; to each according to need ' actually means

 Be careful, give him a day or two and he will have claimed to have actually written it and want us to build him another statue!

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

 Analysis of information in Psychological Science from more than 16,000 participants from two studies has revealed links between challenging behaviour in childhood and political discontent. Naughty children are more likely to be left-wing.https://www.indy100.com/article/left-wing-naughty-children-politics-childhood-8270661?utm_source=indy&utm_medium=top5&utm_campaign=i100

However that does not mean that left wing adults (I assume the research makes no distinction between left wing and socialist) are likely to have been naughty children.(Although I was)

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twc wrote:

Oh dear.  Unintended, and unfortunate, timing for criticising the man.

It might be an idea to start  a critical thread about Michael Gove?

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43470315Trier commemorates Marx with new traffic lights

Hopefully they will be permenanty stuck on red

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Prakash RP wrote:

' … I am afraid I don't think you should be awarded a Nobel Prize or that statutes [ sic ] should be erected in your honour all over the world for the great service you imagine you have done to humanity by repeating something that has been known for over 2000 years. ' ( comment #63 by ALB )  I wouldn't ask you to erect my statue or recommend my name for a Nobel Prize. But I think it's not wrong of me to ask you not to deny me my due, OK ? I also think by not denying me my due recognition, not only will you help me win the limelight, you'll also help focus the world's attention on, and thus awaken humanity to, the brute fact that money canNOT measure the worth of a commodity and its significance, the immediate corollary to it, namely, that economic inequality doesn't owe its origin to qualitative distinctions between humans or between the work done by a skilled worker and that by an unskilled one. Professor Robert J. Aumann holds that the same thesis with different wording ( i.e.   the monetary value of an object does not measure its "intrinsic worth", usually called its utility ' ) is ' well-known ' and that it occurs in Exposition of a New Theory on the Measurement of Risk , a work by Daniel Bernoulli , which was first published in 1738 ( i.e.around 300 years back.). Nevertheless, ' [ he ] does not know who stated this thesis first. '

Here is another claim for theoretical greatness which is as likely to gain recognition as your claim.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTOH8QK-6HA

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

It seems appropriate to call a pub by its original name…public house…a house open to all…a home away from home, so to speak.

One of the most ridiculous “high expectations” comments I ever had to deal with was actually about pubs and came from a member of the Militant Tendency, actually a leading light in their movement and one of their full time organisers.I was in a pub (there’s a surprise) after a meeting put on by the Labour Party Young Socialists, where I had put forward the Socialist case for free access, and was approached by the said full timer who attempted to counter the case for free access (ironic that a so called Marxist and leading part of the vanguard should try to do so, but there you go). He said “so if there’s no money, and everyone’s going to work for free, whose going to serve behind the bar, while we all get drunk”. The obvious reply was “we’ll put the beer pumps on this side and we can help ourselves”He’s now a playwright, suppose his training with Militant prepared him for writing preposterous fiction and ridiculous romantic fantasies.

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rodshaw wrote:

I have had similar reactions – life is just too complicated, and there are too many points of view and ways of life, for us all to live in a single world-wide system. Disregarding a) that's what we do now under capitalism and b) most of life's complications are a result, not a cause, of class-divided, money-based society.Who would live in the local stately home or the grander houses? I think this kind of criticism can partly be addressed by saying that it would be up to the local community – via the socialist equivalent of the local council or whatever – to decide collectively, with everyone of course having a say.I think people living in grander houses would be generally left to live there unless demand was so great that they needed to be broken down into smaller units. Maybe the current 'owners' of large piles and their former staff would be willing to continue to manage them just for the love of it. Maybe it would be decided to convert them into apartments. Or maybe people who wanted could take turns at living in them or looking after them. Or maybe it would be decided to dismaltle them and build something more appropriate.It's not as if anyone would be turned out onto the street.And yes, it's worth turning the question round to see what they think should happen – get their imagination going.

With all the very desireable accomodation in the city offices of insurance companies, solicitors, accountancy firms, banks, stock exchanges, etc. etc. who would want to live in a stately home miles from the bloody pub (A pub with free beer, by the way)

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Dave B wrote:

iNone. To keep it going is like trying keep a pencil balanced on its tip. Breath on it and it falls over and stops dead. Fukushima type meltdown is a total impossibility In fact that is the problem. Actually computer power played a significant part in getting it to run for 10 seconds at the one in England near Oxford. Because to keep the plasma stable etc they had to monitor it and do really fast alterations to the magnetic field or something. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_European_Torus I think they have been looking at a slight variation of it involving lithium or something which is easier but produces a potential radioactive waste product, something like tritium? But it has short half life of a decade or so unlike the half lives of thousands of years of some of the stuff they do with atomic energy now. I have sort have been following over the years, went to lectures in Manchester by the scientific director of the JET one and a bod from one in France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER That is like a $20 billion project and running. It is quite insane really. It costs $20 billion, for the prototype and pilot plant, because they have only got crap super conducting material. And the research money they have spent on superconductors probably doesn’t add up to $200 million? As well as being black magic with eye of toad and tail of newt stuff; it has also been plagued over the by fraudulent and exaggerated irreproducible claims to pull in more grant money. The idea or philosophy of ITER would be future bigger ones or say 10 times bigger would be 1000 times easier to run etc and that they would be on an engineering learning curve. The americans have spent a small fortune on one that produces the plasma and heat etc etc using lazers.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility

It always surprises me that more interest hasn't been taken in metal powder internal combustion engines or even Stirling engines.https://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/could-metal-particles-be-clean-fuel-future-257172

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

In a 2016 study published in the Association for Psychological Science, researchers at New York University claim that, compared to the working-class, the rich aren't as likely to notice or be interested in the people around them. "Social class affects information processing in a pervasive and spontaneous manner,"Compared to members of the upper class, members of the working class have a more interdependent and holistic social outlook. Along the same lines, working-class individuals have been found to more accurately judge others' emotions and feel more compassion for others' suffering.This study now posits that the contrast "may have as much to do with attentional neglect as it does with reduced empathic ability."(But it doesn't explain why when standing at the bar waiting to be served, i'm always ignored as if i'm invisible)

Attachment difficulties in members of the upper classes may be explained by amongst other things "boarding school syndrome". There was an interesting article in the Telegraph, of all places, and there is lots of information on the psychologically detrimental impact of disrupted early years of children cared for by a succession of different au pairs and nannies.https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/secondaryeducation/11662001/The-truth-about-boarding-school-syndrome.htmlFor those interested in Attachment Theory, John Bowlby described his own experiences of boarding school in his book Seperation, Anxiety and Anger where he states " I wouldn't send a dog away to borading school aged 7".I suppose at least coming from a long line of scum protected me from the ravages of early years care in the capitalist class. Worrying thing is that governments world wide are pushing harder and harder to get workers of both sexes away from their infants earlier and earlier, and getting parents back into the ranks of the exploited.I also know what you mean about being ignored at the bar, I sometimes think I must be wearing Harry Potter's bloody cloak!

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So to summarise, Prakash RP., in your view you cannot consider yourself a communist if you drink alcohol, etc.So in effect what you are saying is that Karl Marx (the notorious drunkard) was not a communist.Interesting viewpoint, but not one that I think will gain much acceptance.In the meantime, I'm away down the boozer to get as pissed as a little beetle, I might even indulge in a nice big packet of porky scratchings, a pork pie and a bar of chocolate, you're welcome to join me, I'd even buy you a pint or two

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Prakash RP wrote:

 just because someone has got a lot of pluses, they can't deserve to be recognised as fully civilised or communist, IMHO. 

In MHO, anyone who feels they have the right to dictate how others choose to live their lives can't be recognised as fully civilised or a communist. As you fall into that catagory, you can draw your own conclusion.On the other hand I have heard of the positive health benefits of going and sticking your head up a dead bear's arse, as someone who is interested in a healthy and meaningful life, perhaps you should try this health giving action?

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