Young Master Smeet
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@Lizzie: please stop derailing threads with posts about the success or otherwise of the SPGB. Please stick to the topic of the thread. Feel free to start a thread on that topic if you wish. The topic of this thread is the content of an SPGB statement, please stick to that.
We do need some perspective, what is happening is Gaza now is what happened in Aleppo, Mosul, Fallujah (each city, admittedly, less densely populated than Gaza city, but still with horrific civilian death tolls. 23,000 civilians died in the battle of Aleppo.
For several reasons, Palestine draws more attention than these horrors, but is in principle no different, a part and parcel of the ongoing capitalist world war. The interest of various ruling groups calls on us to pay attention to what is happening in Gaza, but equally horrifying wars are being fought in Tigray, Yemen, Ukraine (and other places, I’m sure, if I put the time into finding them all).
But the horrors of the siege of Gaza pale compared to the war that is waged through poverty, 9 million die every year from hunger (and that isn’t an overnight death, it’s a long slow process of being exposed to hunger). That’s about 25,000 every day.
I popped along (for reasons, I wasn’t in much shape for an intervention), there wasn’t a lot of leafletting going along, this was overwhelming a pro-Palestinian march: I doubt if a leaflet against nationalism would have got any traction at all (and might have caused ructions, in fact). the Millies were there, with an ingenious ‘For a Socialist Intifada’ leaflet, calling for a working class movement in the UK and in the Arab world, I didn’t see much else (Fight Imperialism/Fight Racism were there).
On a small side point, I don’t think the bomb needs to be that big. This video shows the effect of 2kgs of high explosive, Hamas’ rockets can hold up to 20kgs (probably more likely 5 or 10).
Now, the balance of probability is that it was an Israeli bomb, but from our POV it is the war that is to blame, not the Israeli, and the war stems from capitalism.
If the carpark was as packed with people as seems to be claimed, then even a relatively small bomb could cause those casualties, and the big looking fireball.
That said, looking at the crater, it looks to me like the rocket was under power, not falling under gravity, but I am *not* an expert.
Further, I only recently read about the Eilat-Askelon pipeline which, as a route to circumvent the Suez Canal, is sufficient interest to back Israel (for the US) and also for Israel to deny a contiguous Palestine in the south. More complicated than that
One thing I’ve noticed is the Israeli spokes people keep bringing up the war against ISIS and the casualties that accrued from that: I suspect they are missing just how much the propaganda regime here buried such ideas.
If you look on the Wikipedia page, it shows that 88K ISIS militants were killed, and around 40k civilians (of which 8-13k were killed by the US coalition). The Russians killed 4-6K.
The media coverage was relatively quiet about that (except when Russians hit a hospital on the same day as the US did, it was darkly comic hearing the excuse for the US blast and condemnation for the exact same Russian action.
It’s interesting, digging around, to find out about how Britain implemented rationing in WW1.
Firstly, as with Covid, they really didn’t want to do it, and at first try for voluntary co-operation, followed by decentralised efforts by local authorities (there was, apparently, a massive ding dong in the Ministry of Food, over centralized v. decentralized approaches).
When they did bring it in (January 1918) it seems to have been fairly simple to implement, and just required executive fiat (I wonder if they were using the Defence of the Realm Act – there was no primary legislation).
Also, what I didn’t know about was the huge public kitchens (and how they were integrated into the process of rationing, apparently one in Hammersmith could feed 50K people per day).
Finally, apparently, the long queues were a motivating factor, as they were seen as breeding grounds of dissent and possible Bolsheviks. Labour ministers said that Unions would refuse individual rationing, but actually union members were at the forefront of pushing for rationing, to guarantee they got their share.
@Almamater,
I can’t see any pending messages, and I’ve taken no action to prevent or unapprove any of your messages, I can’t think what has happened.
October 2023 › Forums › General discussion › Music
#247617Off topic, (rule 1); personal message (rule 2).
Mod Notice:
I think we’re in danger of straying off the discussion of this thread, I think we can consider the brothers/sisters issue closed, or else move it to another thread.
October 2023 › Forums › General discussion › Anti-Zionism is not anti-semitic
#247594
Edited post for rule 4 (Copyright)
October 2023 › Forums › General discussion › Anti-Zionism is not anti-semitic
Post: #247582Remove: breech of rule 7 (Personal attack).
Anarchist Communist Group have put out a statement:
“Against the barbarism of capitalism and the march towards world war we call for working class unity, internationalism and preparation for mass movements that can implement social revolution and create libertarian communism.”
“The task before the workers of Palestine and Israel is thus no different from the task here. It is only to be conducted in more difficult circumstances. We must build a working class movement, based on liberty, equality and solidarity, and fight for a revolution which will re-make society on the same principles.”
