rodshaw
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Was the letter sent to The Times or did it just appear in the SS? Though I don’t suppose he would have answered either way.
Meanwhile, Springwatch is on air again. Never an episode goes by without an impassioned plea for us all to do something about the impending loss of one endangered species or another. Surveys are launched. Wildlife activity is monitored. We can like them on Facebook and engage with them on Twitter. The point is made over and over again that ‘we’ are spoiling the planet. These are very learned, well-meaning and enthusiastic people who can’t be faulted for effort. Do any of them even have the vaguest idea that it’s capitalism that’s the problem, not ‘us’? Even if they did, would they be allowed to say so on the BBC?
Living in Northampton I narrowly missed out on being able to vote for my own party too.
I used the sticker from a few years ago with the Eugene Debs quote – better to vote for what you want and not get it, etc. Don’t seem to be able to paste it into this screen.
Meanwhile, we have programme after programme on TV about endangered wildlife and how something must be done. The presenters are all sincere, well-meaning people but can’t see past the ‘do your bit’ mentality. Attenborough included. I feel like screaming at them.
Though I daresay any attempt to point to the real cause of the problems, and the real solution, if it occurred to them at all, would be quickly edited out of the script.
Just standing back a bit from this whole rigmarole…in a way I’m amazed at all the political contortions over the last couple of years. I’d have thought, in my simplistic way, that the big players in the ruling class, i.e. the manufacturers, industrialists and other capitalists who wanted to stay in the EU, would immediately after the referendum have strong-armed the government into ensuring as soft a Brexit as possible.
Why didn’t this happen? Did they not have that much clout after all?
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.
rodshaw wrote:Par for the course for Liddle. As a self-confessed ex-leftie, he is now a firm apologist for the capitalist system.If capitalism is lifting us out of poverty, why is he giving money to charities that try to alleviate poverty?Mind you, even as a leftie he would have been a supporter of capitalism, although he wouldn't have realised it.He also writes for the Sunday Times and I must say I like the way he speaks out against the right-on PC brigade who want to muzzle every view they find offensive. I'm sometimes surprised they let him say the things he does.All when the mood takes him, though.
Par for the course for Liddle. As a self-confessed ex-leftie, he is now a firm apologist for the capitalist system.If capitalism is lifting us out of poverty, why is he giving money to charities that try to alleviate poverty?
Far from considering themselves to live in any kind of poverty, a very large proportion of what we socialists term 'workers', probably a majority, would think themselves somewhere in the 'middle class' bracket and consider themselves to have done ok out of the system. Not necessarily in a smug way, but they certainly see no need for any kind of major social change. I think this is the greatest stumbling block we face to a majority gaining socialist consciousness.
One of her quotes:"We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings."
The I'm-all-right-jack attude of a large section of workers is a real problem for the socialist movement. Despite what we say about the basic division between worker and capitalist, many members of the working class consider themselves to have done pretty well out of the system and see no need to change it. In fact some regard the better-off socialists as two-faced, as if they aren't entitled to want a better world just because they have done ok.
Thus encouraging workers to buy into the corporate ideology of profits being good for the business and therefore good for all. See it all the way your bosses see it! A happy workforce is a compliant workforce.But it won't stop them laying you off when you're no longer needed.
Perhaps to give a brief overview of their life, particularly how they were influenced by socialism, and to say our sympathies are with their family. The person who has died will neither know nor care.
Whether such a group or list is desirable depends partly on what is meant by sympathiser. Is it people who agree 100% with the Party case but for whatever reason don't join, or would it include people who disagree with some aspect or other of the Party's case? Eg our stance on religion, the use of Parliament, outright opposition to reformism, etc?
