Young Master Smeet
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Interesting comments in the annual report of the Ecology building society (from 2013) http://www.ecology.co.uk/pdf/about/Ecology-Annual-Report-2013-3.pdf
Quote:Total assets reached a record level at year end of £124.8m, a rise of 13.73% (2012: 6.10%). The growth level would have been higher were it not for measures that we took to restrict inflow of funds, necessary to ensure that the overall financial sustainability of the Society did not suffer. It is necessary to restrict liquidity to ensure that profits can be maintained, these profits being the mainsource of capital available to the Society. Despite the increase in overall lending, we ended the year with higher levels of liquid funds than our preferred level – another reason why we will continue to extend our reachto potential borrowers in 2014.The reason for this wa:
Quote:Over the course of the year, the Society has tried to maintain its rates for existing savers, while recognising that the difficulties at the Co-operative Bank have led new ethical savers to Ecology. The Society has deliberately operated with a very low margin between our saving and borrowing rates, in order to deliver value to both borrowers and savers.So the building society was suffering from people trying to lend it money!
Well, the point is it's a place where people can come for in depth discussion with party members (and where party members can discuss issues). That is, it's not a magaphone. The work of the forum is being promoted in our otehr literature, to draw people here for discussion.
Actually, our answer to W.B. of Upton Park could mean that a "left-wing" government may come to rely on our MP's votes to carry bits of their legislative progamme, so if they, say, made their Trade Union Act a matter of confidence, and we abstained, they could fall…
(Oh, p.s. the above assumes that socialist parties have a similar presence across Europe and a party at least tens of thousands strong is organised in the US).
I was going to invoke the Calderdale Commune, but decided that mole Valley had the more amusing name.So, lets imagine some scenarios: The UKIP scenario: we're riding high on 20% in the polls, we may have one or two MPs, and we're a minority on a few councils in the labour heartlands. The press are blasting us from all directions. At least one big union has a socialist party general secretary (but others stay loyally labour). The trots have folded up shop and are trying to organise within the socialist party, and the anarchists are on the streets, trying to 'out radical' us at all turns. A council that elects by thirds (they still do this in Bristol) hold an election, and we win a small majority of seat on a split vote plurality (something like 26% of the vote in each seat), and thus we take our first council.Obviously, a party meeting would follow, and we'd have a heated debate. Trot headbangers would demand that we form a revolutionary red guard, anarchists scream sell out, and labour union members start going in for sabotage.What would Jack Fitzgerald do?
I raised local councils because the situation is pretty much the same as national govenment (especially those in supranational organisations like the EU).Yes, there is the option of a revolt: say the Mole Valley Commune. The council could simply refuse to set any budget, 'occupy' local governmnt properties, work with campaign groups and unions to secure direct access to resources, and throw open democracy so that a mere change of personnel won't be enough to give power back to capitalist parties. These are actions short of revolution that can be effected by a technical local majority. That and, obviously, campaign to spread the revolution.
Ona related theme:http://brightonandhoveindependent.co.uk/green-party-says-cuts-motion-full/Socialism in one council? We would run into similar problems to the Greens in Brighton, and we'd have to think of a wy round them (hopefully we wouldn't clash with the unions, but then there might be Labour loyalists in position to try and sabotage). In specific circumstanxces, though, we'd be having to administer cuts.Obviously, any local socialist majority would seek to democratise processes. So a socialist Britain would see the monarchy and House of Lords (and all the honours system) dismantled, and the cabinet abolished and replaced with committees of the house, etc. i.e. political reforms without necessarily interfering in the market (save total support for the unions).
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/garda-considering-purchase-of-drones-to-aid-policing-1.2069157They are considering using drones in Ireland, but apparently, and this is the first I've heard of this, they are already being used for policing in Ulster. This is just for surveillance, not weapon strikes (a la Pakistan) but I imagine the next step will be to add 'non lethal' weaponry to the arsenal, and we'll see what use they can be put to in a riot. The point is, this technology reduces the manpower element of policing, which in turn increases the political reliability of the police.
http://www.irishpost.co.uk/news/tory-bid-deny-irish-britain-vote-general-election
Quote:Senior Conservative MPs who called for the right to vote to be removed from Irish members of the electorate have in fact given them more reason to head to the polls on May 7, says Matthew Doyle, Chair of the Labour Party Irish Society.OK, so there's some base shoring going on here, as Labour and the Irish post want to maintain an 'Irish vote', still, if the Tories want to help drive voteers towards Labour.Never mind Northern Ireland, where this could literally be explosive, London has a massive Irish contingent. The fact that British citizens can vote in ireland too is surely a part and parcel of the ongoing peace process (presumably, if there is some 'reunivficiation' the Ulster Scots will be able to keep their British citizenship, the same way Irish in Britain have retainde theirs.Hisorically, this sort of relationship has made it easier for Ireland to export unemployment through emigration (as happened in the recent crisis, one of the things that made their 'austerity' work), and has also provided Britain with an extra labour pool.
http://theconversation.com/media-coverage-of-charlie-hebdo-and-the-baga-massacre-a-study-in-contrasts-36225The above is an incisive analysis of the difference in reporting between what happened in France and what is (AFAIK) still happening in nigeria and Baka.
Quote:A study we conducted in April 2014 suggests that media outlets publish three to ten times as many stories about France than about Nigeria. This disparity is striking as Nigeria’s population (estimated at 173 million) is almost three times the size of France’s population (66 million).[…]We tend to read about countries like Nigeria only when they are in crisis, from terrorist attack or epidemics like Ebola. Despite the shocking magnitude of the attacks in Baga, the story can feel predictable, as the news we get from Nigeria is generally bad news.I think that last point is significant, Syria, Nigeria, Mexico: shrug, so what's new?
http://theconversation.com/markets-threaten-greek-democracy-ahead-of-election-36034This tells us some of the story in greece:
Quote:These policies brought a reduction of the fiscal deficit by €17.4 billion, at a cost in national income of more than double that figure. No western European country has suffered such a collapse of GDP since the end of World War II. We cannot find one example of a developed capitalist country with a lower national income than it had four years previously in any year between 1945 and 2010.Quote:Europe and most countries of the world need radical measures to restrict – or better still eliminate – the power of finance. The choice is democracy, however flawed it might be, or the dictatorship of finance. It really is that simple.Of course, in Chile, as I've been reading up recently, it wasn't an automatic process. They had to assasinate the head of the army, Schneider, and then his sucessor managed to discredit himself at the worst possible time…it's like a football goal, fifty percent planning, fifty percent luck, to pull off a coup.
http://theconversation.com/why-jihadism-appeals-to-religiously-illiterate-loners-36106This is a very perceptive article about the sorts of people attracted to these kinds of actions:
Quote:We continue to see jihadist terrorism as being about religion more than anything else but “religious avengers” of this kind are often actually religiously illiterate. This is particularly true of Western Muslims who have been lured to fight for Islamic State, or who have carried out attacks at home[…] Those drawn to jihadism are usually not particularly religious prior to their involvement with violence. They are either raised in largely secular households or possess only a rudimentary grasp of their parental faith, which rarely extends to religious practice of any sort. […] These sorts of melodramatic crises of identity can prove useful for Jihadist recruiters. They can use the confusion to sell a new utopian identity around the Ummah or global community of believers – which does not recognise colour, race or nationality and is besieged from all sides by evil forces. This radical interpretation of a religious community becomes the sole locus of identity and belonging.The hearts cry of the oppressed, the soul of a soulless world, etc. so the real anti-dote is a real, physical, practical sense of belonging, a materialist antidote.
Ach, it was easier to find than I thought (lousy reference they gave).http://www.historytoday.com/martin-pugh/womens-movement
Quote:In Britain, on the other hand, domestic politics complicated and delayed female enfranchisement. While the women enjoyed allies amongst Radical Liberals, they had to adjust to the unexpected dominance of Conservatism in the late Victorian era. In time the suffragists' arguments began to reflect a Conservative view, and a growing number of Conservative MPs supported them. Yet this advance only aroused suspicions amongst Liberal and Labour politicians as to whether women voters would favour the Conservatives and whether a limited measure designed to enfranchise property-owning women would damage their party interests. This antagonism between feminists and the left-wing parties eventually provoked die militant suffragette campaign which was a distinctive feature of the movement in Britain'. But militancy actually delayed enfranchisement in the sense that by repudiating and alienating the labour movement the Pankhursts deprived their campaign, of die working-class support which would have frightened the government.There will have to be collective democratic agreements, not least a decision what to do about industrial scale grazing. I'd guess, myself, that aside from hunting genetically modified whales[*], animal raising will become restricted to marginal land that isn't any good for crops. the point is though, that it will be a democratic decision, and one that will doubtless be hotly debated.Now, where did I put by cybernetically enhanced Chimpanzee slave? [*] The genetic modification will be that they die painlessly when you give them a funny look.
