robbo203
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mcolome1 wrote:Probably, the USA goverment spent 95 millions dollars to impress the Chinese president with their millitary forces, but It did not work out too well either, and in the meeting it looks like China was in a stronger position, they have something that is as strong as millitary hardware, which is capital, China is going to increase their capital investment in the USA which is over 51 billions. The USA does not want to recognize that within a few years China is going to become the number one world economic power.
According to the IMF China is already the number one world economic power. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30483762 At any rate, it looks like the 21st century is going to be the Chinese century just as the 20th century was the American century – that is if we dont achieve world socialism first.
Tim Kilgallon wrote:There are arguments in favour of meat production, apart obviously from the delicious pork pies, bacon, sausages and hamburgers we get from it..Yes there are some environmental grounds that support this conclusion – quite apart from the obvious one that some environments such as mountainous terrains or arid regions are not suitable in many cases for arable farming and that by focussing on livestock here you are making use of an ecological niche that would be otherwise unavailable for increasing food output. But there are also other direct benefits that are sometimes overlooked . For example, properly managed pastoralism, partiularly in what are called "brittle environments" like the Meditteranean where there is little or no summer rainfall causing the vegetation to dry up, can play an important role in reducng the risk of devastatiing wildfires. As you will know from the news, wildfires are becoming increasingly significant in many parts of the world. There is also empirical evidence that grazing can have direct benefits for the resilence of ecosystems and for biomass production (see some of the stuff written by a guy called Andrew Warren who did a comparative study of th Sinai/Negev deserts and Israeli versus Bedouin patterns of land use).I am less convinced when it comes to so called factory farming however which is not only often intolerably cruel but also has adverse environmental and nutritional side effects. As with arable farming, I believe this too will have to be radically changed in a socialist society
Just to reinforce the point made earlier about the need to fundamentally change the way we go about producing food in a socialist society, there is this to consider – current industrialised methods of farming are causing an alarming loss of topsoil. Listen to this short youtube clip by George Monbiothttps://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=65usnzkhiR0&app=desktop Also, read thishttps://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/dec/14/soil-erosion-environment-review-vidalhttps://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-farming-left-if-soil-degradation-continues/https://phys.org/news/2015-12-soil-lossan-unfolding-global-disaster.htmlhttp://www.globalagriculture.org/report-topics/soil-fertility-and-erosion.html This is all bad news for the future of humanity and makes the need for a different kind of society all the more pressing. Literally, we face the stark choice – socialism or barbarism
alanjjohnstone wrote:Robbo, the WSM should be resting on its laurels, gloating over the fact that once again we have been proven right and should be rubbing it in with we told you so staementsNot much self-satisfied smugness since being right cost many innocent lives…Agreed Alan. Have you seen this BTW which seems to rule out the possibility that it was a stash of chemicals weapons that was bombedhttp://www.counterpunch.org/2017/04/06/on-that-gas-attack-we-dont-need-conspiracies-to-oppose-us-war-in-syria/
Trump has now finally been exposed as a complete and utter conman – or more precisely, neo-con man. The one thing that superficially separated him from his utterly obnoxious warmongering Democratic rival, Killary Clinton, and that cast him in a relatively favourable light was his promise not to meddle, militarily speaking, in other countries' affairs, to become more isolationist and to put "America first". However, it was pretty obvious right from the start that this was a hoax. Why make such a promise and at the same time also promise to beef up America's military might? Something did not ring true here. And now some of his gullible redneck supporters on the Right are furious and feel betrayed. As if that wasn’t totally predictable. . They would do well to reflect on all those other empty promises Trump made – like his faux pretence to have the interests of the American workers at heart. This from a billionaire who has treated his own employees with ruthless contempt and who despite his professed desire to "bring back jobs to America" has himself business interests in more than two dozen countries. Not that that really matters at the end of the day. Trump has predictably turned out to be a totally hypocrite and a lier to boot but he is just a symbol. His personal traits are an irrelevance. What is relevant are the millions of American workers who put him in power in the deluded belief that he would make a difference. With this latest example of military adventurism in Syria, Trump has fallen completely into line with the predictable pattern of every American President – which is to do the bidding of American capitalism. All of them have played the humanitarian card to manufacture a pretext for military intervention regardless of the disgusting hypocrisy this entails. Trump’s crocodile tears over the children gassed in Syria cannot wipe away the bloodstained record of his and American military's war crimes in Mosul, for instance, where the inhabitants of that benighted city were leafletted by air and told to remain in their homes, only to find those same homes bombed to smithereens at the cost of literally hundreds of lives. If Trump is such a humanitarian why does he not oppose Saudi Arabia’s brutal bombing campaign in Yemen. If he was a humanitarian why does he forbid some of those hapless human victims of war entry to America? A humanitarianism that is selective is not humanitarianism at all but a sickening cynical ploy. Chemical weapons are horrific but what is so especially horrific about them that sets them apart from the slow and agonising death under a mountain of rubble resulting from an aerial bombardment? This particular focus on a particular kind of weapon is the liberal’s get-out card that enables them to kill other human beings in the name of humanitarianism
I see that according to the Sun Newspaper Following the bombings, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said that the strike was a "proportional response to Assad's heinous act".The spokesman said that the Shayrat Airfield was used to store chemical weapons and Syrian air forces and he revealed that America intelligence believed aircraft from the base carried out the chemical weapons attack.He added: "The strike was intended to deter the regime from using chemical weapons again."(https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3275613/donald-trump-us-attacks-syria-chemical-attack-sarin-latest-news/) If the airbase was used to store chemical weapons as claimed then surely bombing the airbase poses the risk of releasing these deadly gases into the environment. In which case….
http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news "Breaking: US launches airstrikes on Syria: Military fires more than 50 Tomahawks on Homs airfield just hours after Trump said 'something should happen' following gas-attack atrocity –The military fired more than 50 Tomahawk missiles at al-Shayrat military airfield –Secretary of state Rex Tillerson said earlier today that the U.S. was already exploring the enlistment of an international coalition to oust [aka an illegal coup against] Assad | 06 April 2017 | America has launched airstrikes against a Syrian air base. The US military fired more than 50 Tomahawk missiles at the al-Shayrat military airfield near Homs on Thursday. Officials confirm that no fixed wing aircraft were involved. The move comes just hours after President Trump denounced this week's horrific chemical weapons attack [due to the US-backed 'rebels' storing such chemicals] as an 'egregious crime', saying 'it shouldn’t have happened. And it shouldn't be allowed to happen.' Russia now has more than 30 helicopters operating in Syria, including a fleet of around eight Mi-28N Night Hunter and Ka-52 Alligator gunships stationed at its Shayrat airbase southeast of Homs city, according to satellite images posted online by IHS Jane's analysts" With so much Russian military stationed in Syria could someone please explain how a concerted attempt by this "international coalition" to oust or topple Assad could not possibly run headlong into this same military with all the repercussions that that might entail?
Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:jondwhite wrote:'Crystal clarity and mass awareness' is measured by membership numbers of the WSM / SPGB etc.I like that it's at an actionable definition and presumably measurable and countable. is there a consensus on this definition? How do we prevent members of the WSM /SPGB, etc, from establishing themselves as the elites or in some way a class above the non-members?Do you know the current rate of growth or decline for membership numbers of WSM/ / SPGB etc? what is the consensus answer for the percent of the population needs to become members of the WSM / SPGB and achieve crystal clarity to qualify as mass awarenes for the socialist revolution? 100%, 50%, 5%, other? Does socialism, as defined by the consensus of WSM/SPGB etc members. only exist if it is dominant worldwide or can local dominance serve to declare a local region socialist? 100% of the planet or is it 100% of a nation, or is it 100% of a city or is it 100% of a village, or is it 100% of a single persons economic exchanges?
Socialism cannot be established by a minority. Period. That is the position of the WSM and it is one that has been reiterated countless times. Ipso facto that rules out any kind of elitist or vanguardist perspective. You have to have a majority because you cannot operate a socialist society without the populace understanding and accepting as it were, the "rules of the game" – the norms, values and behavioural expectations of a socialist society. You can argue how much of a majority you require but I think this is being a bit pedantic. If 51% of the population were "fully socialist" in outlook then it is more than likely that a further 30-40% of the population would be well on the way to becoming socialists themselves. They might quibble about one or two aspects of socialism but more than likely would go along with the majority without demur. This is often the case – even hostile opponents of socialism, display in their dealings with others around them a kind of "socialistic" – for want of a better word – pattern of behaviour or mentality. The point is that the growth of the socialist movement itself progressively modifies the wider social environment in which it exists. Socialist values and socialist ideas cannot but help seep into this wider enviroment and subtly transform the relation between the movement itself and those outside of it. My belief is that the latter will come to more and more resemble the former at least in certain respects. Two radically opposite worldviews cannot coexist and flourish in the same soil in which they are rooted. One must necessarily draw nourishment away from the other. Authoritarian fascism for example would be reduced to a tiny insignificant rump, in my view , by the time the socialist movement can be counted in the millions Finally, it is completely unrealistic to expect socialist ideas to flourish in one part of the world and remain insignificant elsewhere. There are 3 main reasons for saying this1) Global communications technology that allow for the near instantaneous dissemination of ideas everywhere and, as well as that, the stepped up movement of people around the world as carriers of ideas2) Increasing uniformity of conditions and experiences across the world as a result of globalisation and growing interdependencies, giving rise to increasing convergence in thinking3) The pro-active decisions of the globally-organised socialist movement in selectively directing propaganda resources to those parts of the world that are lagging in socialist consciousnesss in order to reduce, if not eliminate altogether, spatial inequaiities in the extent of this consciousness – which inequalities it will have a very strong interest in reducing for the sake of ensuring a smoother transition to socialism
alanjjohnstone wrote:If it proves to be sarin (which i doubt) the Russian account that it was a side-effect of a chemical weapon factory being blown up simply does not stand up to scrutiny But the identity of the chemical agent is still to be clarified. Both government and rebels have used chlorine..Just a quick technical question , Alan. Why if Sarin was involved would the Russian account be invalidated?
ALB wrote:You forget that cats weren't originally pets. They performed a useful role in homes and in farms of keeping mice and rats (which eat food supplies) down. I can't see why this couldn't be so in socialism, especially on your small-scale farms.If anyone is interested in the history of changing attitudes towards nature – both fauna and flora – I cannot recommend this book too highly:"Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England 1500-1800" by Keith Thomas published in 1983 Its is a classic in its field. You can read a snippet of the book here: http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/eac/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Keith-Thomas.pdf You might want to look it up in researching for your article , Alan
The point though is that pets afford pet owners a very real sense of joy and pleasure and we shouldnt adopt a too hardnosed attitude on this. For some folk their pet (s) is the only real emotional bond they have with a sentient creature. There is a local guy around here who seems to have mental problems and is withdrawn more or less completely into his own world, speaking to himself and avoiding human contact as much as possible except to beg for a bit of cash. He is very attached to, and gentle with his two dog companions and I imagine that his world would collapse without them. Losing a pet is traumatic as I know but it is indication of what an important role pets play in our lives Yes cats kill birds often wantonly and there is in my local pueblo a campaign to get cats spayed becuase the problem is that they breed like …well…cats. Litters of 'em! And they raid the public bins where they scavenge for wasted food (talking about food). This is a problem of unwanted or dumped animals, however. People dont bother to spay their animals becuase it costs money so their animals produce litters which can't be sold but also can't be kept because of costs again – so they are dumped. And when they are dumped they will do what they can to survive – including killing birds. Its the same with dogs. Some dogs have gone feral and there are packs of them high up in the mountains around here where they hunt for rabbits and possibly even wildboar. There is a dog warden that comes round in the pueblo every now and then with a pole and a noose to round up all (apparent) strays to take to a compound eventually to be put down. Its quite distressing to watch. Its a difficult question to resolve – pets – but you cant really force people by edict not to keep them in a socialist society. I think its one of those questions that will resolve themselves rather like water finding its own level
alanjjohnstone wrote:Oh, and just to add irritation salt to the wound on lifestyles, i have decided to do a future SS article on the probable demise of the pet in socialism…Maybe for a working title call it "Animal lovers against nature" lovers".oooo youre on dodgy ground there, Alan. Me and my missus are inseparable from our pet dog and our pet chickens, each having been given suitably spanish names and with whom we gossip on a daily basis. They also recycle food waste and produce eggs. So, very ecological."Workers of the World Unite – you have only your pets to lose" Hmmm. Doesnt sound right to me….
alanjjohnstone wrote:Robbo, I'll concede to Tim and Vin that i do have a tendency to over-simplify future problems for socialism as black and white rather than the 50 shades of grey that a complex world economy throws up. But overall, i have to accept that we need changes and some may well not be palatable for everybody. If it retards recruitmant to the socialist mission as Gnome suggests, so be it – but the Party has never pussy-footed around its unpopular conclusions.The necessities of life will be distributed through free access. How future generations inside socialism determine what is basic needs and what are luxuries, i leave to them, although we can all speculate about it today. They will also evolve their own and widely diverse methods of "rationing" "scarce" goods and we can take educated guesses at these. But i still insist that we will make decisions on a social level that will mean a restriction on individual choices.Global warming doesn't magically disappear over-night because we end capitalism and socialism arrives. It has to be tackled by human action just as it was created by human action.Absolutely. But I think the point needs to be made that we can have our cake – or more cake – and eat it. We can raise production but also be more eco-friendly. In the sphere of agricultural production that means seriously modifying the way we go about producing food. Large scale, capital intensive, industrialised monoculture farming is NOT the way to go. It is less productive and more environmentally destructive. We need to think smart and to think small . We need to diversify and to be more labour intensive and one thing for sure is that in a socialist society there will be masses of people released from the enourmous amount of of socially useless work undertaken today that is only necessary to keep capitalism functioning. These people will want to find meaningful creative work. As Marx, I think, said work itself will become a prime need in socialism. Advances in robotics are creating the very real prospect of eliminating all back breaking unpleasant toil. But at the same, this should open up the possibility for human beings to become more creatively involved in other areas of production. Food production is a prime candidate for this. .Lets get more people directly involved in producing their own food. Here's my utopian dream: Lets transform our big cities (in which about a half of the world's population now live) . Lets bulldoze the ugly squalor that scars so much of our cities and turn these areas into city farms. Lets recycle our shit and use the stuff productively rather than dump it into the sea or wherever. Lets bring the countryside right into the heart of the city (the original idea behind the Garden Cities movement). Lets use more in the way of small scale appropriate technology like rotavators and drip irrigation to lighten our workload but also to reduce our ecological footprint. All the evidence suggests that this is the way to increase output and become more sustainable but it is the economics of capitalism that gets in the way and prevents it from happening. We dont even need to radically alter our diet – for example by becoming more vegetarian – for all this to happen. In fact there is a lot to be said for free range and better quality meat production, which, for example, exploits ecological niches such as mountainous terrains which are very difficult to convert into arable land. Where I live in Southern Spain I am surrounded by mountains. I had a little place up in the mountain which I have just recently had to sell unfortunately and my nearest neighbour, Pepe is the local cabra hombre or goat man. He has a herd of 1000 goats which produce milk and meat. He splits the herd into 3 lots and he and his two sons, on an almost daily basis, wander around the countryside grazing the grass – the goats I mean , not Pepe (although he has been behaving rather strangely of late). The environmental benefits of this are enormous. Not only does this stimulate biomass growth but it also reduce the risk of devastating wildfires in the late summer. So there is a role for animal husbandry in a socialist society too but as with arable farming it needs to be substantively modified . That means, amongst other things, no more of those horrible factory farns or using hormones for the sake of making a profit
alanjjohnstone wrote:What our political rivals are saying about farming and foodhttp://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/25218/05-04-2017/what-would-a-socialist-food-industry-look-likeThese Trots haven't got a clue. They are immersed in capitalist thinking right up to their eyeballs. Look at this from the article you link to "So it wouldn't be difficult to open up the supply chains of a combined, publicly owned supermarket distribution network to corner shops, etc. This, combined with a nationalised financial sector that could supply cheap loans, would massively relieve some of the pressures on small business owners in the sector and would encourage fuller integration with the socialist plan." "Socialist planning" indeed!
alanjjohnstone wrote:Coincidentally, i just came across this report, todayhttp://news.asiaone.com/news/world/protect-small-farms-meet-growing-global-food-needs-study-saysQuote:More than half of the world's food is produced by small and medium farmers, particularly in Africa and Asia, said researchers at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia. While large-scale plantation agriculture is expanding, small farms with less than 20 hectares of land should be protected because they produce more diverse and nutritious food, the study said. "It is vital that we protect and support small farms and more diverse agriculture so as to ensure sustainable and nutritional food production," Mario Herrero, the study's lead author, said in a statement. "Large farms, in contrast are less diverse." Big farms larger than 50 hectares dominate food production in the western hemisphere, Australia and New Zealand, producing more than three quarters of the cereals, livestock and fruit in those regions, the study said. In South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, small farms produce about 75 per cent of the food, the study said."It is not any sandal-wearing lentil-eating Neil from the Young Ones saying this but hard-nosed researchers. And i can search out many other sources asserting similar if you so wish.
I endorse what you say above completely, Alan There is a tendency to see a trade-off between more environmentally appropriate or sustainable forms of farming and increased output. In other words, if you go for a more eco-friendly approach that means you are going to have accept a decline in agricultural production. This argument is often coupled with another – that in a world in which population growth is still growing rapidly (even if the rate of growth is slowing down), we cannot afford to be picky. Eco-friendly organic products tend to be purchased more by the better off in Western countries and this helps to reinforce the impression that these are more costly so that switching over to to a more eco-friendly forms of farming will reduce supply, increase food prices and thus disproportionately hit the poor. This is all part of the hard sell that agribusiness uses to support its preferred model of farming – large scale, highly industrialised or mechanised and chemicalised and reliant on inputs like terminator seed technology and artificial fertilisers. But is based on a myth. Small scale farms using more eco-friendly approaches – and the one thing tends to be associated with the other – are significantly more productive than large scale mechanised farms in terms of output per hectare. According to Geoffrey Lean:Study after study show that organic techniques can provide much more food per acre in developing countries than conventional chemical-based agriculture. One report – published last year by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) – found that 114 projects, covering nearly two million African farmers, more than doubled their yields by introducing organic or near-organic practices. Another study – led by the University of Essex – looked at similar projects in 57 developing countries, covering three per cent of the entire cultivated area in the Third World, and revealed an average increase of 79 per cent. And research at the University of Michigan concluded that organic farming could increase yields on developing countries' farms three-fold.("Organic is more than small potatoes", Daily Telegraph, 7 Aug 2009). The problem is the economics of capitalism that work against making the shift to a more rational system of agriculture. Here are a few links that hint at the potential for both raising output AND improving sustainability in a future socialist society by moving away from industrial model of farming: http://permaculturenews.org/2014/09/26/un-small-farmers-agroecology-can-feed-world/ https://monthlyreview.org/2015/03/01/a-rational-agriculture-is-incompatible-with-capitalism/ https://monthlyreview.org/2009/07/01/agroecology-small-farms-and-food-sovereignty/ http://foodtank.com/news/2015/04/organic-trumps-conventional-across-the-board http://www.academia.edu/2581032/Indigenous_agricultural_revolution_ecology_and_food_production_in_West_Africa
