alanjjohnstone
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An interview with Saito
Saito developed a “unique way of reading Marx”, he says, as a “degrowth ecological communist”.
Saito says. Everyone on the planet should have access to the basic things we need to live – electricity, water, education – but “we need to come up with a vision where mass production, mass consumption and mass waste can be avoided.”
Saito writes, “Marx came to see the plunder of the natural environment as a manifestation of the central contradiction of capitalism.”
Marx’s idea of communism changed significantly, and was no longer growth-driven. “The pre-capitalist society had a unique way of communal regulations of land,” Saito says, “and they also imposed various rules on their production and consumption which realised a more steady-state of sustainable production.”
And a lot more statements…
“20 independent trade union and civil organizations in Iran put forward their most basic demands in a joint statement.
The demands presented in this charter encompass a range of social, political, and economic changes necessary for Iran. These demands seek to establish rights such as free expression, equal opportunities for women and LGBTQ+ community, better working conditions, job security, and an end to discrimination and corruption. The signatories of this charter hold the belief that the Iranian people can accomplish these changes with their abundant resources and educated populace. They also view such progress as essential for a prosperous future.”
Demands are as follows:
1. Immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners, the prohibition of any thought crimes for political, trade union or civil activities, and the public prosecution of perpetrators and authorities responsible for the oppression of people’s protests.
2. Unconditional freedom of belief, expression and thought, press, forming of political parties, establishment of local and nation-wide trade union and civil organisations, assembly, strikes, marches, social networks, and audio-visual media.
3. Immediate abolition of any kind of capital punishment, execution, revenge killing, and the prohibition of all forms of mental and physical torture.
4. Immediate proclamation of the complete equality of women and men in all political, economic, social, cultural, and family domains, the unconditional removal and abolition of laws and conventions which discriminate against gender and sexual orientations, the recognition of LGBTQ+ rainbow society, decriminalisation of all sexual orientations, and unconditional recognition of the rights of all women to control their bodies and their destiny and to prevent any form of patriarchal control over them.
5. For religion to be recognised as a private affair of individuals and not allowed to interfere or be present in the political, economic, social, and cultural laws and norms of the country.
6. Provision of safety at work, job security, immediate increase in wages of workers, teachers, civil servants and all employed workers and retirees with the involvement, intervention, and agreement of their elected representatives of independent and nation-wide organisations.
7. Abolition of any laws and norms that are based on national and religious discrimination and oppression, the establishment of suitable supporting infrastructure for equitable distribution of state resources for the development of culture and arts in all regions of the country, and the provision of necessary and equal resources for learning and teaching of all spoken languages in society.
8. Dismantling of the organs of suppression, curtailment of the reach of state and direct and permanent engagement of people in the affairs of country through local and national councils. Removal of ay state or non-state authority by electors at any time should be recognised as the fundamental rights of the electors.
9. Confiscation of the properties of all real or legal persons and all state, quasi-state or private institutions which have plundered directly or through state rents the properties and social wealth of the people of Iran. The proceeds of such confiscation should be spent immediately on modernisation and renewal of education, pension funds, environment, and the needs of regions and sections of the people of Iran who have been deprived and enjoyed the least resources during the reign of both regimes of monarchy and Islamic Republic.
10. Ending of the destruction of environment, implementation of major policies for the renewal of environmental infrastructures which have been destroyed in the past century. Returning to public ownership those parts of the environment (such as pastures, coasts, forests, and hillsides) which under the guise of privatisation have deprived the rights of public towards them.
11. Prohibition of child labour and the provision of subsistence and education for every child irrespective of the economic and social circumstances of their families, the general provision of welfare through unemployment benefits and substantive social benefits for all people who have reached the legal age to work or are unable to work. Provision of free education and healthcare for all people.
12. Normalisation of foreign relationships at the highest level with all countries of the world based on justice and mutual respect, banning of nuclear armament and endeavour for world peace.“Not just in India but wherever Indian Nietzscheism is going—to America, Europe, Canada, Australia and so on, the anti-caste battles will follow. To stop this Nietzscheism not few universities, one Seattle, all Governments of the world including the UN must make laws to annihilate caste and human untouchability.”
Support for an anti-imperialist-Nazi united front?
The Israeli rights groups Peace Now and B’Tselem also described the attacks as a settler “pogrom” supported by the Israeli government.
300 attacks, including shootings and arson in the Nablus area of the occupied West Bank, Palestinian officials say, in what has been described as a “pogrom”
37-year-old Palestinian Samih al-Aqtash shot and killed by settlers protected by the Israeli army in the village of Zaatara south of Nablus.
390 Palestinians were injured across the villages of Huwara, Zaatara, Burin and Asira al-Qibliya…stabbings and attacks with metal rods and rocks, one person in hospital with fractured skull after being beaten in the head with a rock. Another beaten with a metal rod to the face, 30 Palestinian homes and 100 cars were set on fire by settlers…
…video shows the attacks taking place under the protection or in coordination with the Israeli army, sometimes with soldiers and settlers shooting side by side.In two earlier posts, I had warned of this reaction to any Palestinian violence and had purposefully used the term “pogrom” in those posts.
Jordan hosted a meeting between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in Aqaba attended by Egypt and the United States, called in order to discuss steps to de-escalate tensions.
The closing statement of the Aqaba summit, said: “The Government of Israel and the Palestinian National Authority confirmed their joint readiness and commitment to immediately work to end unilateral measures for a period of 3-6 months. This includes an Israeli commitment to stop discussion of any new settlement units for four months and to stop authorisation of any outposts for six months,”
After the statement was announced, Netanyahu said that there “will not be any freeze” with regards to settlement construction.
“The building and authorisation in Judea and Samaria will continue according to the original planning and building schedule, with no change,” he said, using the biblical term for the West Bank.
A number of top ministers in Israel also confirmed that the Israeli government will not temporarily halt the announcement of new illegal settlement units.
Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, who headed the Israeli delegation at the summit, said “Contrary to reports and tweets about the meeting in Jordan, there is no change in Israeli policy,”
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, “…there will not be a freeze on construction and development in settlements, not even for one day,”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/27/403
“The speed and efficiency in which settlers take over Palestinian lands by building farming outposts is coupled with a lot of violence,” Dror Etkes, Kerem Navot founder and settlement researcher, told Al Jazeera.
According to the latest United Nations figures, 2022 recorded the highest number of settler-related incidents since the international organisation Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs started monitoring them in 2006.
Etkes said that the establishment of outposts is usually associated with a huge amount of violence…Israeli human rights group Yesh-Din data from 2005 to 2022 show that 93 percent of all investigations into ideologically motivated crime in the West Bank are closed without an indictment.
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/2/27/israeli-settler-outposts-threaten-palestinian-bedouins
Palestinian resistance sparks pogrom by Israeli settlers
What’s been happening in Venezuela?
“…The Bolivarian project inspired optimism across the international left. Chavez enjoyed mass support and his commitment to a Bolivarian alliance across Latin America promised new possibilities in the context of the “pink tide.” But the reality is that Chavismo’s original supporters are now in exile or living a continuing economic crisis inside the country. There is no definition of socialism that can justify the coexistence of extravagant wealth and extreme poverty. The promise of Chavismo was betrayed. It now exists only in the words of a corrupt and repressive new ruling order, and in the memory of the left.”
As US Reengages Maduro, Oil Giants Earn Deals — and Venezuelans Protest
Local government debt is a “big headache” for the national economy.
Having spent more than £42bn last year on Covid-prevention measures, and hit by falling tax revenues, by December 2022 local governments had accumulated 35tn yuan (£4.2tn) in debt, up from 30.5tn yuan the previous year. That means that China’s provincial debt burden is roughly 20% bigger than Germany’s total GDP.
Local governments owe billions: last year 2.6tn yuan of refinancing bonds were issued, and more than 1tn yuan was paid in interest alone.
Revenue relating to land sales typically accounts for more than 30% of local government income and between 2019 and 2021 the share was about 40%. But last year land sale revenues declined by nearly one-third compared with 2021.
Hidden debts accumulated through local government financing vehicles, mechanisms that are used to fund infrastructure projects, could more than double the total debt burden.
Ritter starts off by quoting Prigozhin as an authority for 135,000 *verifiable* dead. By whom?
And says Prigozhin isn’t prone to exaggerate when you earlier in response to the news that there is dissent between Wagner and the Russian regular army said Prigozhin does embellish the facts.
Ritter provides no source for Ukraine’s 350,000 KIA, 350,000 wounded and 100,000 MIA.
His figure for Russian casualties is also given without source, 95,000 casualties, an almost 1/1 ration of dead to wounded which returns to your earlier exchange with BD on statistics.
Hitchens’s general rule for rejecting certain knowledge claims states what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
Ritter claims Russian victory by Autumn at the latest.
Things will have to happen from what we have not yet witnessed any evidence for if that is the case.
I will mention Putin’s offer back in 2014 of $15 billion in loans and cheaper gas to counter the EU promises.
If Putin couldn’t buy Ukraine, he tried to steal it.
Further to the financing of Wagner, it is entering into commercial contracts with its various African clients.
https://socialistbanner.blogspot.com/2023/02/wagner-in-africa.html
13,000 people have taken part in a demonstration in central Berlin to protest against giving more weapons to Ukraine, urging the German government to deescalate the crisis by paving the way for negotiations. Similar demonstrations took place in other German cities.
Sahra Wagenknecht said her main motivation was to bring to an end the “terrible suffering and dying in Ukraine”. But that meant offering Russia negotiations
“We are like the slaves to war and the warmongers,” said Norbert, a former soldier, declining to give his surname, who held a banner reading “The real enemy sits in the City of London and New York,” a reference he said to the financial powers who he claimed were behind the war and had no interest in it ending.
Back in 2014, no doubt that Western propaganda tried to promote pro-EU policies but equally Russia also tried to influence opinions.
Taking advantage of what amounted to insurrections, Russian troops entered Crimea and also the Donbas.
The International Court of Justice has held “the right of every state to conduct its affairs without outside interference, and that an alleged right of intervention could not find a place in international law.”
One of our goals in the SPGB is the abolition of the nation-state. We don’t recognise that countries are natural entities but artificial creations. That is why we accept the re-drawing of any border to avoid war.
I very much doubt you ever read what we wrote 2014 but it has remained consistent and here is a reminder.
“Ukraine is now in the throes of full-scale civil war.
On one side – the ‘Maidan’ movement, the new government it brought to power in Kiev, the European and American backers of that government and (behind the scenes) the Western-oriented business magnates or ‘oligarchs’.
On the other side – the resistance movement known as the ‘Anti-Maidan’, a collection of armed groups in the country’s eastern regions (which are also fighting one another), the Russian government with its secret services and the Russia-oriented oligarchs.
Both the Maidan and the Anti-Maidan are basically nationalist movements (Ukrainian nationalist in one case, Russian nationalist in the other). Both feed on ethnic hatred. Both are willing to massacre unarmed civilians identified with the other side. They fight for the interests of different sections of Ukraine’s capitalist class. They have nothing to offer working people except further suffering, bloodshed and privation, perhaps even famine…”“Yanukovych, faced with the alarming prospect of the severance of East Ukraine’s economic ties with Russia, announced that he would not sign the agreement with the EU after all. Thereby he set off the Orange protests and the current crisis.
This time, it seems, Ukraine has to make a definite choice. It cannot move toward membership in both the EU and the EAEC. That is unacceptable to both organizations. Ukraine would become the gap through which Russian or Kazakh goods (say) could enter the EU or German or Polish goods enter the EAEC, effectively turning Europe and the post-Soviet region into a single customs union.”“Those… who seek to justify Russian action to a greater or lesser extent resort to the largely ad-hominem argument of guilt by association. If you don’t lend support, even qualified support, to Russia then you are, by default, somehow supporting NATO. This remains so even if you condemn both sides.
NATO is the imperialist tool of the world hegemon, the USA, so those who resist it are by definition anti-imperialist and require understanding at least, not condemnation, or so goes the argument. Those who position themselves on the left, but condemn Russia, are supposedly social-imperialists.
Taking an active pro-Ukraine stance against Russian aggression is to become a perhaps unwary ally of a virulent nationalism…”“The US and EU capitalist blocs are using the military threat of a revived NATO against Russia as part of the western capitalist attempt at influencing the external orientation of Ukraine towards Europe… Ukraine has decided to pursue membership of NATO, and clearly the western capitalist powers regard the Russian ‘near abroad’ as their own sphere of influence…Russia went to war with Georgia in August 2008 when Georgia sought to join NATO. Russia could not allow this and Russia halted NATO expansion into the Caucasus…”
=============================In fact, this forum featured a thread on the Euromaidan protests. A taste of the posts here
“…the Western Powers are using movements to which they claim to be ideologically opposed to further their ends. That it’s not about “democracy” but realpolitik as to which sphere of influence the Ukraine is to fall into: the West’s (Germany’s in particular) or Russia’s…”
“I’m still inclined to believe that those throwing Molotov cocktails at the police in Kiev will be ultra-nationalist quasi-fascists from that part of the Ukraine which was annexed by Russia from Poland in 1940 and which had previously been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and which supplied Nazi Germany with concentration camp guards and non-German members of the Waffen SS. So, no sympathy for them. The last thing they wanted is political democracy. Mind you, the government side is just as bad. Some choice, fascism or stalinism.”
“There are already indications that part of the country won’t accept the new regime. The map at the end of this article from RT (Russian government world TV) shows what these areas might be.It is also ominous that in other reports RT is referring to the people living there as “Russians” rather than Russian-speaking Ukrainians as well as referring to the western part of the country as “Galicia””
“One mafia opposed the mafia that was in charge, and co-ordinated the discontent in the government, and found muscle through the fash (and maybe lost control of the muscle). The mafias had relations with groups in Europe and in Russia, who sponsored them. One mafia had friends in the unions (in the East).Our position (and Stop the War’s) should be clear: we are against the mafia. We don’t support anyone dying for either side, and we don’t support “our” state sending anyone to the theatre to kill or be killed. We have no interest in where the borders are drawn, but we do care that effective and meaningful democracy be restored.”
Kiev’s parliament is voting on Thursday to establish a National Guard of 20,000 people – recruited from activists involved in the recent pro-Western protests as well as from military academies – to strengthen Ukraine’s defences. Ukraine’s national security chief Andriy Parubiy said the Guard would be deployed to “protect state borders, general security and prevent “terrorist activities”. Reading the above report i foresee that the neo-nazi nationalists will now be legitimised and given weapons to reinforce their influence against any liberal elements. Official Brownshirts. We now await the SS to be established.”
================We have always been critical of both sides other war
TS argues that there can be a just war. In the case of Ukraine, Putin conducted a humanitarian invasion and a war of national defence.
It was a pre-emptive war built upon Putin’s speculation of the imagined grounds that Ukraine was an existential threat to LPR and DPR and to Russia itself from NATO eastward expansion. Perceived threats by Putin as no actual invasion of the separatist republics had taken place and no NATO bases had been created on Ukrainian territory.
Why was not the Baltic states’ earlier actual membership seen as even a bigger threat as it created a corridor to Russia’s second city St Petersburg? Grounds also now exist for the invasion of Finland once it formally enters NATO. Will it happen?
The claim of genocide can either be 6400 DPR-LPR dead, the majority killed several years previously and the majority being armed militia rather than civilians. OCHR’s estimate is 3,106 civilian deaths (7,000–9,000 wounded) on BOTH sides of the ceasefire lines.
Or was it the cultural UN definition of genocide, the extinction of Russian (and Hungarian) languages?
TS has avoided connecting the war with Ukraine’s imminent membership of the EU, although it was the trigger for the Maidan protests back in 2014.
New Issues Group (NIG)
Imagine the furore there would be if an anti-semitic secret organisation was found to exist in Parliament.
