Bijou Drains
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Not only that Michel L Bird has so far failed to give us any indication about how the truth behind the following crucial questions will be established in a future society:1. "What came first the chicken or the egg?"2 "Is the glass half full or half empty?"3. "How much is that doggy in the window?"4. (One for the football fans, or as you would call it Soccer) "Who's your father referee" (The current consensus goes along the lines of "you haven't got one, you're a bastard, you're a bastard referee")5 (And probably the most important question) is it "the one who denied it, who supplied it" or is it as, I suspect "The one that smelt it that dealt it"(On a serious note, perhaps when reading through L Bird's ridiculous, long winded, pompous, pseudo-intellectual postings, you can now see why those of us who are serious about promoting Socialist ideas on this forum, get a little bit tetchy at times!)
LBird wrote:Tim, I only got to Question 1, and since I've answered this time and time and time again (to you, Vin, robbo, YMS, etc.), it appears that you either can't read or won't read what I write.When you've gone back and read what I wrote in answer to this question the last few times, I'll then take your request seriously. Until then, I can't treat your post as a serious attempt at political discussion.So, post a quote of mine, answering that question the last time it was asked, and we might start to make progress. From Question 2.Actually L Bird, what you really mean is that you wont answer these questions, because you know fully well that you would look even more stupid if you did answer them. And you wonder why people take the piss, what a pillock
LBird wrote:Tim Kilgallon wrote:LBird wrote:alanjjohnstone wrote:If it is workers' democracy we want, …workers were discouraged not by lack of consultation but the amount of it…after meeting every day and every week…many compulsory…So, alan, you're arguing that the Soviet Union's version of 'consultation' amounted to "workers' democracy"? Wow!
Previously I have tried (sometimes by your own admission successfully) taking the piss out of you, but I think after reading the above I have to admit that at times I'm beat,L Bird you really are beyond parody, your ability to misconstrue any statement made by another is an absolute marvel of the modern world. I would go as far as to say, and I don't say this lightly, your ability to misrepresent any comment made in a negative and derogatory way goes beyond that of my late mother in law, and that is my friend very great praise.L Bird, a one man mixture of misunderstanding, misrepresentaion and misconstruction, I salute you sir!
Tim, you could try reading the political discussion, and then making some political comment, about both sides, but you regard yourself as a 'Genius Jester', whose 'witty quips' keep us all in tucks of laughter, 'The Joker'.Perhaps 'A Joke' would be more accurate for your knowledge, if only you had Rabbie's power.Anyway, back to the grown-ups' political discussion…
The point I am making, L B, if I may call you that, is that what Alan was saying, i.e. that workers in the Soviet Union, were pissed off with being corralled into taking meaningless votes about fuck all, in no one's mind other than your own, could possibly be construed as "arguing that the Soviet Union's version of consultation amounted to "workers' democracy"". Which is what you stated. However your elitist stance is that anyone who disagrees with you is somehow your intellectual inferior. As an aside I wonder what kind of life events have made you have such a fragile sense of self esteem that you have to continually buld up your intellectual prowess, at the expense of others.The point I take from Alan's quote from Lee Harvey Oswald, is that choice, selection, voting, in whatever form it takes is meaningless unless it has an impact on individual experiences. This is of important and relevant to this discussion, not because Alan equates the Soviet Union to Worker's Democracy" but because have proposed a system of society where regular plebiscites are held over every theoretical aspect of science.Moreover your proposal gives rise to several questions, which have been repeatedly asked by posters on this forum, none of which you have given substantial answers to. So I will put these questions to you again in the vain hope that you will use your "massive" intellect to provide any form of answer to themQuestion 1 – You repeatedly state that you are in favour of workers' (or sometimes you have used the phrase proletarian) democracy, if that is the case, how can this be implemented in a classless society, where by definition there is no working class or capitalist class?Question 2 – You state that you are in favour of plebiscites to establish the "nature of truth" and of "scientific theory". In the event of these plebiscites taking place, what is the fate of any minority who do not agree with the outcome of the vote? Would they be free to continue to hold their views, despite the democratic vote? Would those that voted for scientific theories that lost the vote be banned from applying the theories that lost the vote in their research? Would those who persisted in holding these views be subject to any form of sanction?Question 3 – Which leads on from question 1, if, as could be construed from the phrasing you use, only "workers" i.e. those that contribute useful work, are part of the franchise, what are the rights of those who do not contribute useful work, fro example the retired, people with disabilities, the seriously ill, etc.? If as could also be possibly construed the franchise for these plebiscites was open to all, how far would that franchise stretch, would there be any exclusions?Question 4 – Although you state that this system relates to science, where do the boundaries of this start and stop? What, effectively is science and what is not? It would be very easy to define research into cell formation as science, but what about perception of the world, is that scientific?Question 5 – What about resources? as scientific theory is built up of lots and lots of interrelated theories, presumably each plebiscite decision has a knock on effect on all of the other theoretical positions that are built up from that theory. therefore it is conceivable that, in your system, if a major theoretical concept is overturned, hundreds, if not thousands of subsequent votes would need to be taken. Where is humanity going to find the time and the resources to conduct these seemingly endless series of plebiscites? I fully expect that you will waffle on about your superior intellectual power, or my bourgeois individualism, or accuse me of being a Leninist/Trotskyist, materialist fuckwit, but I am a kind of a glass half full kind of character, so here's hoping.
LBird wrote:alanjjohnstone wrote:I go away for a day and return to two threads that are meaningless to any neutral visitor. Number of angels dancing on the head of a pin comes to mind…I'll be basically offline for a week or so and will expect to return to screeds of messages after messages which in no way relate or resonate with any of my fellow-workers. If it is workers' democracy we want, then boring them stiff and so that they will not participate or get involved will be one method of keeping the elite in charge.I posted a link to Lee Harvey Oswald's stay in the Soviet Union which i doubt anybody really read and how workers were discouraged not by lack of consultation but the amount of it…after meeting every day and every week…many compulsory…So, alan, you're arguing that the Soviet Union's version of 'consultation' amounted to "workers' democracy"? Wow!
Previously I have tried (sometimes by your own admission successfully) taking the piss out of you, but I think after reading the above I have to admit that at times I'm beat,L Bird you really are beyond parody, your ability to misconstrue any statement made by another is an absolute marvel of the modern world. I would go as far as to say, and I don't say this lightly, your ability to misrepresent any comment made in a negative and derogatory way goes beyond that of my late mother in law, and that is my friend very great praise.L Bird, a one man mixture of misunderstanding, misrepresentaion and misconstruction, I salute you sir!
Vin wrote:Tim Kilgallon wrote:What norsery school did yee gan tee marra? Ah din't knaa th'wez that clivvor owa the watta.Forthest we iva got at norsery wus Logical Positivism and a little bit of existentialism!Ah dident gann ta norsry marra and am not that clivver, like. I'ts just the thik c$£ts around mak es luck clivver. Ya naw, the liverbird's a div lol
Whey ah thowt yee'd had a gud educashun marra, yee'd sed ya school was approved, mind wor wag wifey knewed mare than yon liverbord, he wadn't knaa what cuddy kicked im.
Vin wrote:Alan Kerr wrote:@LBirdWell then,1) 'automation-for-the-bourgeoisie’ comes earlier.2) 'automation-for-the-proletariat' comes later.Please see The Socialist Preamble.Or see anything by Marx and Engels.There can be no proletariate in socialism. There can be no free slaves. See Marx and Engels ! "Vulgar socialism has accepted as gospel from the bourgeois economists (and a part even of the democracy has taken over the doctrine from the unreflecting socialists) that the problem of distribution can be considered and treated independently of the mode of production, from which it is inferred that socialism turns mainly upon the question of distribution.""We look forward to an end forever to the wages system".NO MARKET! NO WAGES! NO PROLETARIAT! Eeeeehhh, tell you what, its like being back at nursery school
What norsery school did yee gan tee marra? Ah din't knaa th'wez that clivvor owa the watta.Forthest we iva got at norsery wus Logical Positivism and a little bit of existentialism!
moderator1 wrote:Tim Kilgallon wrote:Marcos wrote:Alan Kerr wrote:@Steve-San FranciscoWho or what is shifting total sunlight around in a way that keeps trees alive?“A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"(Stephen Hawking’s book A Brief History of Time)At least the little old lady did give an answer.If not the market then who or what is shifting total labour around in a way that keeps us alive?We are shifting from social sciences into Botany, Agronomy, and Zoology
message to Moderator 1can you explain how the original post relates to the title of this discussion, marx and Automation. As pointed out by Marcos, the posting had nothing to do with the thread title, yet no action was takenagainst the posters, yet later posts wchich diverge ended up with bans from the forum. I for one would like some degree of consistancy in the moderation of this forum!!!
1st warning: : 2. The forums proper are intended for public discussion. Personal messages between participants should be sent via private message or by e-mail.
Marcos wrote:Alan Kerr wrote:@Steve-San FranciscoWho or what is shifting total sunlight around in a way that keeps trees alive?“A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"(Stephen Hawking’s book A Brief History of Time)At least the little old lady did give an answer.If not the market then who or what is shifting total labour around in a way that keeps us alive?We are shifting from social sciences into Botany, Agronomy, and Zoology
message to Moderator 1can you explain how the original post relates to the title of this discussion, marx and Automation. As pointed out by Marcos, the posting had nothing to do with the thread title, yet no action was takenagainst the posters, yet later posts wchich diverge ended up with bans from the forum. I for one would like some degree of consistancy in the moderation of this forum!!!
MBellemare wrote:Aaah! This is where you Armchair Marxists have ventured to. The pub down the street, Socialism and Change!Bolsheviks, a blue-print? There only idea was to shoot half the country! And let the other half die of stavation!I wonder if Russia would have made the same choice in Lenin, knowing where they are today under Putin.The way to anarcho-socialism is through micro-revolutions, little mini-insurections in the micro-recesses of everyday life, which may possibly blossom into a full-fledge people's revolution. (Think May 68 in France). It begins with the students and spreads from the campuses, outwards, making the whole super-structure wobble.A genuine revolutionary rabble, no party, no polit bureau, just a rabble, comprised of people from all social stratums wanting radical social change! A new socio-economic formation.Oh wow, it's another proclamation from right on, trendy anarchist Michel Luc Bellemare, the man who is so radical and revolutionary and anti elitist that he spends half his time making sure that every one knows he's got a PHd. (like anyone in the SPGB would give a flying f@ck)So the revolution starts on the student campus, that's right mate, when they've finished playing candy crush!Oh and it's going to be headed by a disorganised rabble. I can really imagine the agencies of the state are really shitting it, a whole load of disorganised students with no organised idea of how they want to achieve change, or what they want to achieve by that change, charging on to the streets, just like France in '68.I recall the late, great Cde Dick Donnelly refering in his rich Glaswegian Brogue to the "so called revolutionaries" being defeated by "something akin to a municiple street sweeping device, christ only knows what would have happened if the full resources of state repression had been unleased on these romantic fools".It was a disorganised rabble that tried to overthrow Assad, it was a disroganised rabble that over threw the Tunisian regime, it was a disrganised rabble that over threw Louis XVI. They all worked realy well for the working class, didn't they. Can I suggest that if you aren't willing to learn from the lessons of history, you bugger off back to your cosy world of modern art and paint some more of your bonny pictures and stop posing as a windswept and interesting revolutionary. The SPGB is a serious political organisation, not a passing fasion statement, to look back on in embarassment in old age.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Tim, i bow to the superior humourist, i'm well beat….but remember, the Greater One who created Paradise – Jock Stein who created a host of avenging angels called the Lisbon Lions.Sorry, ALB, for the repetition but some on this forum require to have things explained more than once and often, more than twice and still no guarantee that simple truths will sink in.Humourist? Thanks for the compliment, gobshite is the more usual response to my ramblings.I am more than happy to bend the knee before Jock Stein, what he did produce a team to win the European Cup all born within 30 miles of Glasgow will never be reproduced.My Owld Da's best mate from the war was born and bred in Glasgow and in 1970 we had a wee trip up to stay with them.Whenever we went anywhere, Me Fatha would take me and my older brother to a match. On this trip it was decided that I was too little (at 9 years old) to go to the game, my brother Paddy at 14 was taken to the European Cup Semi Celtic v Leeds at Hampden, attendance around 140,000. By way of compensation the next night I was taken to see Hamilton Accies play Morton in the old Scottish 2nd Division (official attendance 2, me and me Da). So although I have a soft spot for Celtic, the Accies are my team in Scotland.Some of the older members of Glasgow Branch used to say that Partick Thistle were the "thinking man's team" in Glasgow, which, they explained, iwas why they got such poor crowds!
alanjjohnstone wrote:The Great Architect in the sky surely must be a Scotsman (or an Irishman)…who else turns water into wine. Isn't whisk(e)y the water of life, after all?And what does the Geordie God offer…Lindisfarne mead and Brown aleThe people of Jaw-dee do have a messiah. He was known to perform great miracles at the temple of the people (St James' Park), and he was known to the true believers as "Kee Gan"I quote from the Book of She ra Chapter One, verse number 9" and lo did a great saviour come from the south to take his place amongst the people of Jaw-dee, and they did know him as Kee gan.When the people saw Kee gan they proclaimed him as the Messiah and they looked upon his perm of curls and saw that it was good.And the tales of his miraculous deeds did travel far from the land of Jaw-dee even unto the darkness of the Land of Mackum and when the tribe that is known as Mackum beheld the miracles that Kee-gan performed, there was great gnashing of teeth (well the one or two they had left) and lo they did rent their vestments of red and white and did cry unto themselves the incantation "aye wa in thashitenoo".Unto this day the tribe of Jaw dee will shake their fists of vengeance at the cruel fat tyrant known as Ash Lee and cry out for the return of Kee gan, and consume the holy bread of stotty cake and with the sacred drink of broon perform the ritual of " gerritdoonyaneck" even unto the tenth bottle. So sayeth the lord
alanjjohnstone wrote:Hmmmm..the fact that mouse took on a life of its own and posted so many repeated posts would make anyone other than a rationalist suspect some sort of supernatural interventionhmmmm, if a supreme being did want to provide support for their existence perhaps feeding the millions of starving children in the world, or some other such miracle would be more credible than"the miracle of the pessimistic Sotsman's mouse".I suppose based on this "miracle" you could come to the conclusion that there is a god, but unfortunately he's a fuckwit!
Bob Andrews wrote:gnome wrote:it's the membership which should be giving greater cause for concern.The Gnomemeister in his inimitable manner has one again hit the proverbial piece of ironmongery on its uppermost protruberance. The sad fact is, most members, in terms of legacies and bequests, are more useful to the Party dead than alive.
Have you made a will Bob?
roman wrote:alanjjohnstone wrote:I linked to it on another thread a while back, but i suppose people forget…i did.https://www.gordon.edu/ace/pdf/F&EF09Stark.pdfQuote:Did early Christianity also attract lower class converts? Of course. Even when a wealthy household was baptized, the majority would have been servants and slaves, and surely some lower status people found their way to the church on their own. The point is that early Christianity substantially over-recruited the privileged,Rodney Stark is NOT a New Testament scholar, I've read his work, his a good sociologist, but his work on the first couple centuries is just not up to par … it's not due to "tradition" that people say that early Christianity was mostly made up of the poor, it's due to serious scholarship. See John Dominic Crossan and Richard Horsley's work.One of his arguments that Jesus was middle class was that his family traveled to Jerusalem for a festival (in one of the gospels), he doesn't argue for the historicity of that even, nor argue that a poor family would not be able to do that, nor does he bring up the fact that in the story his family coudlnt' afford animals for scrifice (the offered birds). But either way, that story is NOT part of the earliest material most likely to be historical and thus one would have to argue for its historicity. The fact that Jesus is called "rabbi" doesn't mean anything since it wasn't an actual title until AFTER the 70 C.E. where the pharisaic movement became the main Jewish religious sect.It IS true that some wealth people became christians (as seen in pauls letters), but as other actual scholars have pointed out the prophets and traveling teachers required the rich people for financial support, but that's not how you do history, you can't just take a text and accept it at face value, you have to examine it and see how it could fit in different social contexts, and compare it to other texts.In short, be careful when someone who isn't a scholar of early Christianity comes out and says all the actual scholars of early Christianity are wrong.If you look at the Q source without the Matthean and Lukean context, in it's own context, as well as the Markean material in it's oral tradition form (take the individual stories and sayings), it's clear the audience was peasantry.The writings are BY DEFINITION coming from the middle class and up … but that doesn't define the movement as a whole. The fact that Paul includes AS TRADITION, the communist ethic, and then complains about people who aren't working but living off the rich, is exactly what you'd expect when someone from a wealtheir background joins a movement made up of peasants. When you go to the second century you see the same thing, the tradition sounds like it comes from the peasantry where as the writers recording them and framing them are clearly educated and middle to upper class.
You talk of the Q source and say it should be examined in its own context. I'm not an early Christian scholar, but I was under the impression that the Q source was hypothetical and was first put forward in the 19th Century. If that is correct, how can we examine it?
The difficulty with the JC myth is that it is so hard to pin down. Why anyone would logically chose to declare themselves a true follower, is beyond me.The constant debate about the supposed meaning of the bearded ones "utterances", interpreted one way by one group of followers, interpreted another way by another group of followers, so that they can be used to justify anything, or at times nothing at all.For me, I think this is the crux of the whole argument, the entire body of the supposed JC philosphy is nothing but a hotch potch of borrowed contradictary and at times over sentimental guff. Nice bloke, probably, heart in the right place, probably, useful to the 21st century problems we face, no."His message" is clearly a mixed messge, one which pulls together a crude understanding of some aspects of preceding philosophies and religious messages, without any real understanding of the ideas that formed them, placed out of context and used willy nilly. On top of this were now supposed to believe, despite the evidence before us, that the message is a socialist/communist one!Anyway, that's enough about Jeremy Corbyn, let's get back to the debate about Jesus!
