alanjjohnstone
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Moderator notice
Regarding complaints of the failure to keep the thread on topic, long experience has taught me that forum exchanges often take detours, where sometimes they are not productive but at other times, they often are fruitful.
These diversions may appear to side-track the topic but it is the moderator’s personal opinion, they can add broader context to the debate.
Eventually, the discussion returns to being directly relevant to the topic title.
The moderator’s tolerance and forbearance of off-topic messages have applied to all posters but I would say that, wouldn’t I? ;-p
Whatever criticism can be laid against the SPGB, inconsistency is not one of them.
From 1929 on Zionism
“…Religion and race, national independence and patriotism, are now, from the worker’s point of view, just so many ruling-class devices useful for the purpose, among others, of stirring up hatred when and where they may want it. Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Iraq have no more interest at stake in the independence of the states in which, and by which, their exploitation is carried on, than had British and German workers in 1914. Socialism alone is worth struggling for. That is the message of the Socialist to all the working-class dupes of the closely-allied superstitions of religious, racial and patriotic rivalries. Jewish workers and Arab workers both suffer, but not because they are Jew or Arab, or because they happen both to be in Palestine, but because they are workers and therefore exploited by those who own and control their means of life. The Jewish workers cannot solve their problems by transferring their misery from New York or Berlin to Jerusalem. The world will be fit for Jewish workers and Arab workers to live in when, and only when, the working-class, as a whole, have gained political control for the establishment of Socialism…”
https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2022/11/potash-and-palestine-dead-sea-fruit-1929.html
Jonathan Cook on the media double standards.
“…And in stark contrast to Britain’s whole-hearted support as Ukraine battles to stop Russia’s annexation of its eastern territories, the UK’s prime minister Liz Truss stated only last month that she may reward Israel for its illegal annexation of Jerusalem by moving the British embassy there.
Whereas Palestinians are constantly inveigled to postpone their liberation struggle and wait for their occupier to agree to peace talks, even when Israel openly scorns engagement, Ukrainians are pushed by the West to do the exact opposite. They are expected to delay any negotiations with Russia and focus on the battlefield.
Similarly, those who promote talks between Israel and Palestine that are never going to take place are praised as peacemakers. Those who advocate for talks between Ukraine and Russia – when Moscow has expressed a repeated willingness to negotiate, even if its overtures are disparaged by the West – are rounded on as appeasers.
Russia, meanwhile, faces sustained and comprehensive sanctions imposed by western states to bring it to heel.
By contrast, those proposing a far weaker tool – grassroots boycotts – to pressure Israel to loosen its choke-hold on Gaza are smeared as antisemites and face legislation to outlaw their activities by the same western states sanctioning Moscow.
It is almost as if the “freedom-loving” West has an entirely inconsistent agenda when it comes to the plights of Ukraine and Palestine. Israel’s hold on Palestine is unfortunate but justified; Russia’s over Ukraine is emphatically not.
Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s “unprovoked aggression” is heroic. Palestinian resistance to Israel’s violence – invariably presented as self-defence – is terrorism…”
Not technically UBI but another sympathetic article to guaranteed income project, more a generous benefits system
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/nov/02/guaranteed-income-us
SNP’s finance secretary has announced a further £615m of cuts to healthcare, education and the justice system in Scotland.
When added to previously announced cuts of £560m it is almost £1.2bn in austerity cuts
“The Russians are in no danger of losing”
But are they in a position to win outright?
I said in earlier posts I expect a protracted prolonged war of attrition but because of demographics, Russia should eventually prevail.
ALB suggests commitment to Ukraine will dissipate in due course as the economic crisis deepens, weakening it.
We see some early evidence of this with those on the right and left uniting in joint protests
A Republican victory in the mid-terms may well lead to the same drop in support for Ukraine in a more internationally isolationist USA.
However, I have not forgotten that TS predicts a swift Winter offensive that will give Russia victory.
Certain military experts suggest a Russian military build-up for such a tactic.
Time will tell which analysis proves the more accurate.
Otherwise, it is all speculation.
Once more, I reiterate the SPGB’s general position.
A speedy ceasefire to have peace talks where Ukraine cedes territory to the Russians if that is what it takes to bring an end to the war.
Workers have no land to fight and die for.
An SPGB principle of anti-nationalism TS scoffs at but one that better facilitates the chance of peace.
And it is a principle that produces also the accusation that we are in favour of appeasement. So damned if we do, damned if we don’t.
On Libcom it is mentioned that in Heath’s Ireland’s Workers Solidarity Movement isn’t discussed at all so we shouldn’t feel too affronted
BD, having for years fought the French and USA, in 1979 Vietnam then fought an invasion from China which called it a “self-defensive war”.
Vietnam, more accurately called it a war against Chinese expansionism.
Who is the imperialist? China?
Or Vietnam for invading Cambodia?
This recent essay by Yanis Varoufakis tries to explain how his nuanced third-camp position is hi-jacked by both the right and left wing.
“The women, students, and workers rising up across Iran are adamant: They will neither submit to the fascism hidden behind the regime’s pseudo-anti-imperialism nor surrender their country to the hegemony of the US or their economy to financialized capital.
They are learning the hard way how to refuse misleading binary oppositions (neoliberalism-statism, imperialism-autocracy, patriarchy-consumerism). I hope and trust that they can teach us to do likewise. It is another reason why we must support their struggle.”Harry Young dismissed the claim he met Lenin. He says he saw him at a conference.
https://www.andrewwhitehead.net/political-voices-harry-young.html
Well worth a listen to him name-dropping a lot of left personalities
Did Trotsky attend any SPGB meetings?
I have not read if he had. If he did it was at the very beginning of the Party as he lived in London from 1902 when he met Lenin for the first time in person in October 1902
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/first-encounters-when-lenin-met-trotsky-1523773.htmlAnd went back to Russia for the 1905 Revolution in February.
Nor did John Lennon write Imagine after hearing an SPGB speaker. I have heard that one too.
I once did an informal talk on Trotsky for my branch
My notes can be read at my personal blog
https://mailstrom.blogspot.com/2007/08/notes-for-talk-on-trotsky-and.html
Moderator notice
Once more to prevent any escalation I remind posters of
7. You are free to express your views candidly and forcefully provided you remain civil. Do not use the forums to send abuse, threats, personal insults or attacks, or purposely inflammatory remarks (trolling). Do not respond to such messages.
Please take heed of “Do not respond to such messages”. It stops with True Scotsman’s parting barb.
An article on the propaganda war
Another analysis of the possible fall in support for Ukraine in the USA
https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/support-for-ukraine-could-dwindle/
Some on the left have suggested Jerusalem as a new national anthem but this is from Edward Carpenter, a socialist and associate of William Morris, and is frequently overlooked.
Arundhati Roy, the Indian novelist, comments on the Ukrainian war.
Full speech
https://thewire.in/rights/arundhati-roy-stuart-hall-memorial-lectureextracts
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2022/11/arundhati-roy-on-ukraine-war.htmlArundhati Roy summed up the Left’s dilemma as “tortuous yoga asanas – some pretty drastic seeing and unseeing – depending on where you have decided to place yourself.”
She added: “Many on the Left cannot find it in themselves to call out Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. They believe that Ukrainian outrage against Russia has been entirely confected and cultivated by Western imperialism.”
A view of the Indian left-wing attitude to the war here.
https://countercurrents.org/2022/11/leftist-response-to-the-war-in-ukraine/
