Bijou Drains
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alanjjohnstone wrote:I would have thought the news of the 2nd Indy Ref ould have provokes some interest in our fellow members but it may well be correct that the tongue-in-cheek reference on another thread to the Socialist Party of the Home Counties or Socialist Party of London is truer then we believehttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/world-socialist-movement/kent-and-sussex-regional-branch-maidstone?page=19#comment-38685Perhaps, it is the realisation of the very weak state of the Party in Scotland that it might be better to ignore developments there. However, i thought my slightly heretical suggestion that we combine publicity with other political parties and groups and share a platform with those who share moreorless our political conclusion on independence for Scotland would have resulted in some sort of accusation of breaking our hostility clause.Although it is not viewed a likely prospect ..May refusing the referendum or insisting it is on her own time-table, we may well face a Catalonian-like unauthorised referendum, with certain political sanctions upon the Scottish Government and the SNP.,…perhaps a recipe for UDI.But i did onder about members who individually favoured a vote stay in the EU referendum on the grounds of unity with migrant workers yet a Vote No in the 2014 Scottish Referendum because it divided UK and Scottish workers if their position has changed on the 2 nd referendum.As for the Scottish claim on Northumbria and vice versa…As a Border family i refer you to my SS articlehttps://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2014/no-1318-june-2014/scottish-english-who-caresSome dates954 Edinburgh is lost to Scottish king Indulf.1018 Lothian is lost to the King of Scots Malcolm II.1139 Matilda grants Northumberland north of the Tees to David I of Scotland.1157 Henry II reclaims Northumberland from Scotland
Another habit of the border familes was to give the first born son his mother's maiden name as a first name. hence the use of first names like Graham, Elliot, Ridley, Robson, Percy, Charlton, etc. as first names. I came across one or two guys with the first name Johnstone when I worked in Tynedale.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Sturgeon opts for a late 2018/early 2019 independence referendum so to stay in the EU once Brexit details are known.I think i mentioned on another thread that our gut feeling as to oppose independence because it divided workers…Now i think that case is weakened since it is Brexit which will divide workers.We will no doubt advocate our spoiled vote policy as we did previously and suffer the same insignificant and negligible result being utterly side-lined in the debate. This time i hope we can raise the profile and should consider joint discussion forums with those who will either share our tactic or go for abstention. I think we have to join together for a much louder voice on the issue of nationalism, either British, Scottish, or European.Hi Alan, undoubtedly our position is unchanged, however we can use this referendum to highlight the ridiculous oportunistic shennanigans of the leftists. The Militant line, for example, was to support Scottish independence and support Brexit. Are they now going to support Scottish independence because they want continued EU membership for the Scots?As to your question on another thread, there has been one or two comments in the regional press and TV about joining in with out kilted cousins in the north. I suppose at least it would mean we could join a football league we had a chance of winning! The one thing I am not looking forward to is ignorant London based journalists going on about what happens north of Hadrian's Wall, ignoring the fact that it is oveer 70 miles from Wallsend to the Scottish border and that most of the county of Northumberland, a good chunk of Cumbria and the majority of the city of Newcastle is also "north of Hadrian's Wall"
alanjjohnstone wrote:To bring your argument on Occupied Northumberland up to date, i noticed that many try to get their medications free from north of the border and perhaps if Scotland does get independence there will be a move for the border to move southwards and restore the Carlise/Newcastle frontier-line. Radge and radgee too is a word used in Edinburgh. I recall a weegie co-worker surprised that we use the ord chum as a verb…to chum you (accompany) to the shops, for instance. And i remeber him explaining the dispute he had with a shop when he asked for ginger and got told they didn't have any…a weegie generic term for any flavour for what we call ijuice…Shottie or shot can also be used for can i have a shottie of your mobile to make a callI'll reply on the Scottish Indepence thread
Gadgee is a definite Romany/Geordie loan word, very commonly used in the North East, as is radgee (mad) hence radgee gadgee. We also use chore "A'hm ganin oot on the chore" which translates as "darling I'm going out to collect my share dividend" , However we keep toot, not shottie. Barr for a pound (another Romany word) is common, as in that cost us twenty barr, an item of value can therefore be barrey. We use Charva (another Romany word) which I think has been corrupted on a national scale to "chav".There is, of course, a big Romany tradition in the Cheviots, the King of the Gypsies used to be crowned at Kirk Yetholm and I think a lot of the old shepherds and drovers had Romany links.Also lots of similarities between what could be broadly termed Northumbrian dialect and lowland Scots as Lowland Scots is a dialect derivative of Old Northumbrian.The old saying is that a Geordie's just a Scotsman with his brains kicked out. However some of us still consider Edinburgh and the Lothians to really be Scottish occupied Northumbria!
John Pozzi wrote:Tim Kilgallon wrote;"Socialists are interested in the abolition of the wages system!"That's perfect Tim! Then conscious socialists' will love the Global Resource Bank alternative world exchange system that abolition's capitalist imposed fiat-money wage-slavery. ;o), jperrr, apart from the fact that it doesn't abolish the wages system:Basicaly you have not answered any of the following questions:Even if you allocate a certain value to the GBR bank, no one else values it in the same wayLeaving the means of production in the hands of the few, continues wage slaveryLeaving the state in the hands of the minority class means that the power of the minority class continuesEven if all of the workers bought into your hair brained scheme, big capital will notNatural resources do not provide wealth on their own they need the application of labourDemocracy is more than owning a share in a bank
John Pozzi wrote:The basis of economics, i.e., the branch of knowledge concerned with the production, consumption, and transfer of wealth is the product of nature – not labour. If money values natural resources people are free to play. Machines can labour.Try telling your fairy story to the tea planation workers in India mentioned in this story.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-37936349Your inability to examine the world outside of your miniscule frame of reference is actually quite nauseating. We have you pontificating about your ridiculous daydream, whilst your fellow workers are starved to death while watching their children being prepared to be fed into the same meat grinder of capitalism. If you have any intellectual credibility, question the ridiculous nonsense you are propagating and find out about the real case for socialism. Tell them the machines can do the work and they can just play,
John Pozzi wrote:The fallacy in both Adam Smith's and Karl Marx's theories of economics is the product of labor is not the basis of our economy, the product of nature is. Machine can replace labor and Global Resource Bank shareholder income let's everyone enjoy the good life now, i.e., do what they like. – http://www.grb.netThere's only one problem with what you've written, and that problem is, that your completely wrong. Other than that, it's fine
twc wrote:Tim, I don’t think the Socialist Party has to “solve” all the world’s problems in a capitalist parliament—no matter how dire the capitalist predicament.A capitalist parliament supposedly acts in the interests of its electors.If Socialists hold steadfast to their conviction that they can’t solve capitalism’s problems in capitalism, it’s downright dishonest—as well as political poison—for them to curry favour with an electorate in order to solve a problem that they advocate can’t be solved.That’s what will kill a Socialist Party stone cold motherless dead, just as it did every other party that allowed itself to succumb to reformist tactics on the urgent grounds of:just as an exception—a special case because of [pop in your exceptional circumstances here].just this time—even though we are about to establish a reformist precedent.A Socialist Party can survive the ignorant wrath of liberal humanist voters who see our stance as their betrayal.But a Socialist Party can’t hope to survive its tactical capitulation to liberal humanist fantasies. Remember, they are our, avowedly labour, political enemies. We only defeat them by opposing them.As you rightly fear, we may be kicked out of parliament on such perceived urgent (exceptional) special issues. So what? We pick ourselves up, and dust ourselves off to fight another day. Like love, the path to socialism won’t run smoothly, but it must run true to its Socialist cause, or not at all.In parliamentary confrontation over Socialism, he who bends loses. It is the electorate that must bend before Socialism.It’s no counter argument for anyone to fret that we may [shock!] be rebuffed by that humiliated product of capitalist exploitation, the electorate! What, by the prescient electorate that gave us xxx, yyy, zzz, [who shall remain nameless]!The unconscious cowardice expressed by all advocates of exceptional future reformism—apparently on case-by-case merit—is timidity over being rebuffed by the electorate.For crying out loud, of course we may be rebuffed along the way. One has every reason to think that a century of constant rebuf might have steeled us somewhat.Steadfast holding to Socialism is the only reliable, theoretically justifiable, Socialist course. And that implies: No compromise to reformism — Socialism before reformism.The point I am making, twc is that in a situation such as the one I outlined, if we decide to abstain where we have the deciding vote, we are in effect actually making a choice of one over the other.It is not as much a case of supporting a reform if we vote for it, as supporting a reform if we abstain, in this case a reform that would hurt, even in the short term, the working class and, in the example I gave, the prospects of a Socialist revolution, by in effect, supporting the supression of free speech.
The focus on illegal Mexican immigrants by Donald Trump and his supporteers, is a little ironic on a number of levels. To start with I would think that most Native Americans have a view on teh impact of unchecked immigration (Trump himslef is the son of an immigrant).That aside most of the immigration from Mexico is into states such as New Mexico, California and Texas, states that were taken from independent Mexico following large scale immigration of white settlers into those states from the USA.It could be argued that the Texan revolution came because of unchecked, illegal white immigration, supported by the hope of re-establishing slavery in Texas.
The difficulty with this case is that if we abstain on a vote and that vote goes through, where we could have voted against it, we are effectively voting for it. Similarly, if we abstain against a vote and that vote is defeated, then effectively we have voted against it.To put that into practical terms. Say for instance (and I know this is all very hypothetical) a parliament has 101 seats. A minority government is formed with 50 members the opposiition has 49 and we have 2. the governing party puts forward a motion that will introduce strict curbs on trade union activity and supression of political expression. the opposition is against it. If we abstain the motion goes through, if we vote against the motion is defeated. Twc, are you seriously saying that we should abstain from such a vote, allow the supression of free speech, the shackling of trades unions? I think the working class would be very unforgiving of such a move.
John Pozzi wrote:The Global Resource Bank is a direct democratic economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and medium of exchange are owned and regulated by a global community that utilizes GRB ecos as their medium of exchange, i.e., GRB socialism.What do "we" seek to use in your SOCIALISM as your medium of exchange?I think, John, you are somewhat missing the point. Socialism is based on the idea of "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need". There is no exchange in a Socialist society, Socialism is a moneyless, exchangeless, fully cooperative society.What you are proposing is a variation on capitalism, i.e. those who have Capital use it to make profit from the unpad labour or workers who work for wages. Your idea, despite your protestations, is not that different from the tried and failed ideas of many reformers of capitalism, from the Cooperative movement to LETS schemes.Perhaps it would help if you went away and actually read some socialist literature, there are plenty of links on this website.What you propose is not Socialism, you are not a Socialist. What you propose is a utopian scheme to try and make capitalism, (a system that the exploitation of labour by those who own capital through the use of the wages system) slightly less unpleasant, (which won't work by the way).Socialists are interested in the abolition of the wages system!
ALB wrote:We've had this doscussion before. If there's is no provision to not vote for any of the parties or candidates, then the only alternative is to "spoil" the voting machine, i.e., start the process of voting and walk away without completing it. The polling clerk will then have to do something before anyone else can use that machine. I can add that when I voted in Belgium once they did have a provision to cast a blank vote (and to do that in either French or Dutch).Perhaps the answer is to despoil the voting machine, by pulling the curtains shut and having a little tom tit in the corner, that would get the message across, whatever the langauge.
