ALB
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I can’t see any left of Labour Party party getting off the ground unless the electoral system is changed. As if there wasn’t enough evidence to show this — ILP, SLP, Respect, TUSC, Left Unity, WPB. And fancy inviting Fiona Lali of the RCP. If they were to get off the ground they would soon find themselves infested with all sorts of Trotskyist groups not just hers.
Now it turns out that he occupies the same moral low ground as other politicians — accepting gifts from a dodgy businessman not just for himself but for his wife too:
“THE PM had a day at the races with his wife yesterday — as a row erupts over clothes given to her by a Labour donor.
(…)
This year Lord Alli, ex-chairman of fast fashion firm Asos, gave Sir Keir £18,685 worth of work clothes and several pairs of glasses.”His day at the races probably also involved some gift from some betting firm.
What a hypocrite.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/30445314/keir-starmer-races-wife-labour-donor-clothes/amp/
I wasn’t relying on the Orinoco Tribune as a source of news but on it being, on this occasion, the news itself — that “a blatantly pro-government outfit” was suggesting that it might be a good idea for the electoral commission to publish the detailed election results. Surely that is newsworthy.
Further mention by the pro-government Orinoco Tribune of the electoral commission’s
“controversial delay in releasing the poll-by-poll electoral results that may negatively affect the solidity of the democratic foundation of the Bolivarian Revolution.”
Trump is a (rather eccentric) personification of the interests of a section of the US capitalist class which, under the name of “isolationism”, has always existed and which has opposed getting involved in conflicts between European states.
This section might be a minority with in the US capitalist class, but, like the Brexiteer section in Britain, could triumph at the ballot box putting its representatives in control of the state with the power to implement its foreign policy.
Having said this, I agree with your implication that a Trump administration is likely to be just as chaotic as was the Johnson Brexiteer government here, if only because the other section of the capitalist class will try to sabotage it.
Of course the abolition of the wages system entails the end of the need for money. Isn’t that precisely the point that Bill was making?
We don’t want to simply “abolish money” and leave the rest of capitalism intact with wages being paid in kind. We want to see the end of the minority class ownership of the means of life which obliges the rest to work for wages. Once class ownership is replaced by common ownership the wages system ceases to exist as does the need for money.
I can’t see what this argument here is about. In saying that the abolition of the wages system entails the abolition of money Brian is saying the same as Bill — that the abolition of the wages system ends the need for money. Nobody here is saying that the abolition of the wages system does not entail the abolition of money.
I think you are right that NATO is the aggressor in the sense of having taken steps to upset the previous status quo in the area but I don’t think they want a war with Russia.
After Russia took military action to try to prevent Ukraine (previously a large and important chunk of the old USSR ruled from Moscow) being incorporated into the US sphere of influence through joining NATO, the US announced that its aim in supporting Ukraine was to weaken Russia by keeping it bogged down in an unending military operation.
This is not the same as the vital economic interest that the US has in dominating the Middle East and its oil reserves and trade routes, which motivates its support for Israel and its slaughter in Gaza as a state on the ground to counter the US’s current main challenger there, Iran.
Trump seems to realise this and seems to want the war in Ukraine to end so that the US can concentrate its military might on defending its vital economic interests in the Middle East and in opposing the challenger to its domination of East Asia, China. Of course he might just be saying this to put pressure on the European members of NATO to pay more on military spending snd relieve US spending on protecting Europe.
That’s an odd sort of argument. In recent decades the British state (under successive Labour and Tory governments) has bombed Serbia, Montenegro, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Yemen. Now it wants to bomb Russia if only by proxy.
I would have thought that amply justified the description of “warmonger”.
Good question. The UK does not seem to have any particular interests of its own at stake in Ukraine.
Possible explanations are:
1. Britain is acting, with US approval, as the US’s attack dog.
2. The British establishment (like the French) has delusions of grandeur about still being a world imperialist power.
3. Showcasing its weapons will help its arms exports.
Perhaps a combination of all three.
In any event the Labour government is just like the Tory ones on this issue. Even before being elected Starmer was proclaiming Labour as “the Party of NATO”.
Here he is in 2022:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/10/labour-nato-british-left-ukraine-keir-starmer
Given that Britain doesn’t need to take this position, it is a deliberate choice to put guns before butter — to put arms for Ukraine — and in fact “defence” spending generally — before heating for pensioners.
According to the news, it is the British Labour government, paying heed to hung-ho generals, that is pushing this while the US is not so much in favour. In any event, nothing seems to have been decided yet or, if it has been, is not going to be announced. No doubt for fear of provoking Russia.
Like its predecessor the Starmer government is putting workers in Britain in danger as any retaliation by Russia is likely to be aimed at Britain rather than a direct military attack on some neighbouring NATO country. It is being suggested that, if a British missile is used to attack Russian territory, the response could be a massive cyberattack on government institutions or energy infrastructure or cutting underwater cables.
Meanwhile, ironically perhaps, the Trump team want to move in the opposite direction with his vice-presidential running mate, J. D. Vance proposing a peace plan that guarantees that Ukraine doesn’t join NATO, one of Russia’s aims from the start and what provoked their invasion:
Of course 9/11 was a conspiracy — by a group of fanatical Islamists who conspired to bring about what happened.
But it wasn’t a conspiracy by the US government or elements within it or by the Zionists.
This article from 2011 puts the case against the “irrefutable evidence” presented by the “Truthers”:
The 9/11 Truth Movement: The Top Conspiracy Theory, a Decade Later
Let’s see what the final outcome of the sabre-rattling and the bluff and counter-bluff is going to be.
I don’t think your wish is going to be granted.
Yes, it is looking like Starmer wants to be as much a warmonger as Blair was. Maybe allowing Ukraine to attack Russia with British-made rockets is part of his declared policy of making things get worse.
For the record, the result of the election in November 2015 was:
Jeremy Corbyn Labour 29659
Alex Burghart Conservative 8465
Caroline Russel Green Party 5043
Julian Gregory LibDem 3984
Greg Clough UKIP 1971
Bill Martin Socialist 112Just realised why McDonnell thought it might be the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist/Leninist). The CPB-ML is a party in the Maoist tradition and “Abolish Money” wouldn’t have conjured up in his mind another Maoist Pol Pot in Cambodia under whose rule money was supposed to have been abolished.
Hence the importance of Bill’s point that we don’t stand for the abolition of money but for a society in which money would no longer be needed.
Today the CPB-ML is an anti-immigrant and British nationalist party which neither wants to abolish money nor a society in which money would not be needed.
