J Surman
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"Who did Piketty write his book for?"Couldn't it be for himself? Expecting good returns – or am I being just too trite?
Surprised I haven't seen any discussion here about this:http://rt.com/shows/keiser-report/168924-russell-brand-austerity-headlines/I saw it on TV yesterday, but it's on line, see link.Max Keiser is always something of an entertainment, often informative, plus a wide range of 'guests' – this one the celebrity of the moment. No doubt it makes more people think a bit more.
admin wrote:Server migration has now complete. An increase in page loading times should now be apparent, especially if you view the site whilst logged out.Thanks Admin – much appreciated. Working daily on a 2G mobile connection can be SO frustrating. The difference in loading speed today on this site is truly amazing. I'm just about to check out the search facility – something I'm usually loathe to do.Cheers!
gnome wrote:You should be able to set up a filter so as to target specific offenders. I see you have a Gmail address so all you have to do is click on the 'clogged wheel' icon at the top right side of the page and select 'settings'. A new window will open and at the top of the page there are number of options displayed including 'filters'. The rest should be straightforward. Hope that helps…Thanks – and sorry for the delay. Have done my best, we'll see what happens!
admin wrote:[I'm not privy to the workings of Blogspot but I guess either they or a co-maintainer of the blog is deleting them before you get a chance to view them online.OK, thanks. Next question – can't they be prevented from coming to my, or anyone else's, private email?
Can you please explain why I frequently get 'replies to a blog' in my private email which are obviously spam, and often not my posts anyway, but the same comments don't appear on the actual blog? I can do nothing about them, except delete because there's no way I'm going to click on them or use their email address – but I don't understand how they come through to me.Also, I need to get out more – not sit in front of this screen!
Just in my private email list. I didn't know about the forum website private msg box until reading your msg! So, just found it to check – it's not there.I don't want another box to have to open on a regular basis so I shan't be looking there again. Surely we've got more than enough avenues already for contacting each other?
And I thought it was just me! I got the one described above twice. We're also getting too many similar ones as comments on the blog. I did ask the internet committee if anything could be done about it but didn't get a reply.
I read this, below, minutes before checking what's new on the forum. It has some relevance to what's being discussed currently on this thread:
Quote:Modern biblical scholarship has enabled critically thinking Christians to understand what the historical Jesus actually said and what was tacked on later to serve the interests of Rome and early church leaders, but those original messages remain politically inconvenient today.We now have the best biblical scholars ever, academics who have developed research tools that amaze me and offer a very good handle on what Jesus said and what he did not say as well as the cultural, historical, religious and social context in which he lived and taught.With what I now know, I find it impossible ever again to see Jesus with a sword in his hand or in possession of a protective shield. The Jesus that I meet in the Gospels is a man of peace, who gently nudges me toward non-violence. Love and kindness are the ways of Jesus.Jesus taught his disciples (and us) to pray that the kingdom of God might come to earth. Yet, people of Christian faith can pray without ceasing but until we collectively abandon the ways of violence and war, peace on earth and the reign of God will never fully come.The first great challenge to Christian faith in the future is the abandonment of the ways of violence and war. Love, peace and kindness must become synonymous with Christian faith.The second challenge involves the ownership of property. This is a key to understanding the teachings of Jesus, who lived in a time and place of economic disparity. Jesus advocated a new celebration of the Year of Jubilee, which, according to the Bible, is the time when property and possessions were to be returned to the Temple priests for redistribution among the tribes of Israel. This massive redistribution was to take place every 50 years (though it never actually did).Yet, there is no way we can avoid the clear Bible standard of limitation of private ownership — of land in particular and wealth in general. That was also the view of Jesus.By Bible standards, today’s wealth gap between the rich and the poor is so enormous that it is a complete affront to the professed beliefs of those who are wealthy and claim to be followers of Jesus. The standard is clear: We are to be stewards of wealth, not owners.Jesus advised one wealthy man to sell all that he had and give his wealth to the poor, then to follow him. Jesus ridiculed the man who kept building bigger and bigger barns to hold his wealth. These two examples are not incidental to the teachings of Jesus, but are at the very core of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.Some people who call themselves Christians will cry out against these clear tenets from the Bible and Jesus’s teachings as the imposition of socialism. But the issue with Jesus and Bible standards is not socialism but stewardship. Christians are called upon to practice radical stewardship and to encourage others to do likewise.The challenge of stewardship has a modern application to world environment as well. Stewardship cannot be understood only on the level of individuals. Stewardship is a major part of Christ’s challenge to churches, nations and the whole world.The greatest challenges to Christians of the future are two in number: peace and stewardship. All other concerns pale in their presence.from here: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/23934-jesus-mandate-peace-and-stewardship
Yes, daft isn't it? Here in Turkey it was delayed 24 hours so as not to disrupt local elections across the country on Sunday. However, it didn't stop multiple power cuts at strategic polling stations at vote counting time. Don't know what news you're getting but neither Istanbul nor Ankara have conceded to the AKP and thousands of activists are out trying to protect the boxes. There is a race on to contest the declared figures before the 48 hours is up, any minute now.Of course as far as socialism is concerned this will have no bearing whatsoever – it is being seen broadly as a fight against mega corruption and the coming further tightening of the authoritarian state.
First – I accept that the UK and the US are two nations divided by a common language! Now, having just read the latest on this thread I then found this article (link below) which I found very interesting. What it does reveal for me is that whatever capitalism throws at people there are plenty of folk out there wanting, above all else, to be part of democratically run communities, to be organising in the interests of people, to be 'in charge' of their own lives and futures. And it's not something new but long established and you might say in this day and age, against all odds. People are out there seeking what socialism will give them – the means to do their own organising etc,
Quote:I’ve been wondering about that, too. And in fact one of the things I found is that there’s more of a connection between black cooperatives and civil rights than there is between black cooperatives and capitalism. I think there’re a couple of reasons. In the U.S. co-ops are often linked with hippies, communism or socialism and back in the 1950s, just after the McCarthy era, black leaders knew they couldn’t talk about either and be listened to. So there was an official avoidance of the subject of co-ops. Second, there was a lot of resistance from capitalists. White unions in the late 1800s were being sabotaged and certainly blacks got the same resistance as well because co-ops gave them more economic control and power. So by necessity, even if you were involved in co-ops it had to be as clandestine as possible. And third, people, including many blacks, just wouldn’t accept civil rights if it included language about economic rights.-more-http://www.popularresistance.org/how-co-ops-helped-produce-foot-soldiers-for-civil-rights/
imposs1904 wrote:We were recently referred to on facebook as the most boring socialist organisation in the world.If the cap fits wear it! However it doesn't take much for a lateral thinker to see they mean 'boring' as getting to the nitty gritty of a topic. Isn't that what we always aim to do? And my Oxford concise dictionary places the meaning 'push another competitor out of the way' ahead of 'a dull and uninteresting person or activity'. So, come on , which is it to be?Let's bore I say!
