hallblithe

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  • in reply to: The long awaited homeopathy thread #113503
    hallblithe
    Participant

    Homeopathy is not effective for treating any health condition, Australia’s top body for medical research has concluded, after undertaking an extensive review of existing studies. 

    in reply to: SPGBer founder had a school named after him #112384
    hallblithe
    Participant

    Hi!I note Barltrop is also to be found on the same site, although the PDF is, annoyingly for me, devoid of content! 

    in reply to: Marxist Animalism #106417
    hallblithe
    Participant

    Dogs, whether for dinner or display, are often treated as just another commodity in a world where everything is for sale:Bred for looks, not health, many purebred dogs are drawn from a genetic wading pool that might have been designed by a cabal of Ralph Lauren, Dr. Frankenstein, Walt Disney and David Koch.    Even socially aware consumers who sneer at $5,000 designer purses, and animal defenders who deplore the cruelties of commercial livestock production, buy into trendy canines. Purebreds are commodities like any other luxury good, and breeding them is big business. Registered golden retrievers go for up to $3,000, English bulldogs for $9,000, and a Cavalier King Charles spaniel can cost $14,000, almost as much as a Honda Fit.   But neither price, pedigree nor being loved like a member of the family can shield a dog from the pain, breathing difficulties, cancer, panoply of debilitating genetic disorders, mental illness, crippling physiognomy and shortened life span that disproportionately plague purebreds…http://inthesetimes.com/article/17910/bred-to-death

    in reply to: Marxist Animalism #106294
    hallblithe
    Participant

    We know such activity would be of no more worth than a band aid.   My original questions were: who will perform such dirty work in a Socialist world and could you slaughter animals on a regular basis and prepare them for consumption?

    in reply to: Marxist Animalism #106289
    hallblithe
    Participant

    Why would your granddaughter or anyone else be starving in a Socialist world?

    in reply to: Marxist Animalism #106285
    hallblithe
    Participant

    Who will perform such dirty work in a Socialist world?   Could you slaughyer animals on a regular basis and prepare them for consumption?

    in reply to: Marxist Animalism #106270
    hallblithe
    Participant

    I have been Vegan for over 25 years,  a Socialist even longer, and would say that eschewing all animal products is my response to the who will do the dirty work question.    Having worked on a farm, as a nurse and veterinary assistant, I have performed a wide variety of dirty work but could never slaughter animals for food.   Socialists say that if no one is willing to mine deep underground, then we'd rely om technology to do it for us.   Similarly, meat can now be grown without the wasteful, messy business of mass killing – so no Terminators doing our dirty work: we might choose to use such technologly in the form of sexbots instead!  Meanwhile, those worried about the growth of Vegetarianism will find this Daily Mail article comforting!

    in reply to: What Is IS? #105915
    hallblithe
    Participant

    IS bad, UN good – think again;In 2007, it was reported that girls as young as 13 were having sex with U.N. peacekeepers in Haiti for as little as a dollar, Ezili Dant, president of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN), said in a letter to the United Nations.     The continued sexual abuse of minors in Haiti – and also in other peacekeeping missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Cote d'Ivoire – has alarmed the United Nations.     Allegations of abuse have dogged U.N. peacekeeping missions since their inception over 50 years ago. 

    in reply to: Kobani — another Warsaw? #105089
    hallblithe
    Participant

    Starting in 2012 a communalist social system has been in the process of transforming Rojava (West Kurdistan, or Syrian Kurdistan). This firsthand account of the institutions of that transformation was written in the early summer of 2014 and thus before the current war:http://new-compass.net/articles/revolution-rojava

    in reply to: Editorial: Capitalism and the two world wars #104368
    hallblithe
    Participant

    This Editorial is the subject of a new article in The Economist titled A war that finance didn't want

    in reply to: Air Malaysia and Ukraine #102472
    hallblithe
    Participant

    When Russia seized Crimea in March, it acquired not just the Crimean landmass but also a maritime zone more than three times its size with the rights to underwater resources potentially worth trillions of dollars.   Russia portrayed the takeover as reclamation of its rightful territory, drawing no attention to the oil and gas rush that had recently been heating up in the Black Sea. But the move also extended Russia’s maritime boundaries, quietly giving Russia dominion over vast oil and gas reserves while dealing a crippling blow to Ukraine’s hopes for energy independence.   Russia did so under an international accord that gives nations sovereignty over areas up to 230 miles from their shorelines. It had tried, unsuccessfully, to gain access to energy resources in the same territory in a pact with Ukraine less than two years earlier.   “It’s a big deal,” said Carol R. Saivetz, a Eurasian expert in the Security Studies Program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It deprives Ukraine of the possibility of developing these resources and gives them to Russia. It makes Ukraine more vulnerable to Russian pressure.”http://tinyurl.com/kheneph

    hallblithe
    Participant

    Why?…"…Since the discovery of oil and gas in the Occupied Territories, resource competition has increasingly been at the heart of the conflict, motivated largely by Israel's increasing domestic energy woes.Mark Turner, founder of the Research Journalism Initiative, reported that the siege of Gaza and ensuing military pressure was designed to "eliminate" Hamas as "a viable political entity in Gaza" to generate a "political climate" conducive to a gas deal. This involved rehabilitating the defeated Fatah as the dominant political player in the West Bank, and "leveraging political tensions between the two parties, arming forces loyal to Abbas and the selective resumption of financial aid."…"http://tinyurl.com/q2npqby

    in reply to: Euroelections 2014: South East Region #99564
    hallblithe
    Participant

    Here are the results of The Isle Of Wight County Press' recent poll:Of the 810 people who responded to the online poll, which closed on Thursday morning, 677 said they would be heading out to vote next Thursday, while 43 were still undecided.The CP asked two questions — did people intend to voice and which party would they be voting for.The Green Party came second to UKIP with 88 votes, while the Conservatives were third with 77.Labour polled 58 votes, the Liberal Democrats 33, the British National Party 15 and An Independence From Europe secured nine votes.Two votes each were cast for the Christian People’s Alliance, English Democrats and the Socialist Party of Great Britain, with a single vote for Liberty GB, Peace Party, Roman Party and YOURvoice.The Harmony Party were the only party in our poll not to receive a vote

    hallblithe
    Participant

    A museum worker writes:It is great to read a piece in which the Marxist arguments are remembered and there are certainly excellent discussions to be had on these themes. More information on the topics mentioned can be found in the book that accompanied the exhibition. In both I tried to get away from the notion that these societies were ‘primitive’ or ‘savage’ as this is the language of the nineteenth century used to place modern western Europeans at the top of the evolutionary tree. The language of Marx and Engels that pursues evolution from savagery to barbarism and then civilization also need to be brought up to date with modern knowledge. It also sought to avoid the concept of Rousseau’s noble savage that is also inherent in the Marxist approach.Ice Age art shows the developing skills in language and communication that enable modern humans to form larger, successful communities with many forms of organisation. Hunter gatherer communities have to be collaborative to survive and as I say in the book, these people probably did have gender specific activities but without concepts of male/female superiority or measures of value for activities. Men and women served one world through different tasks. The breakdown of this comes with agriculture and the measured values for activities. The concept of Mutterrecht as fully expressed by Jung’s disciple Erich Neumann also needs to be used with care. The elaborate ornaments in the exhibition also express ideas about personal and social identities, wealth and status that may have been politically, socially or spiritually hierarchical but as always it is difficult to be conclusive about the implications from the archaeological record.  There is as ever much to debate.

    hallblithe
    Participant

    "Thanks! A very kind review."Ken Macleod

Viewing 15 posts - 31 through 45 (of 70 total)