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RTE (Irish Radio) is worth a listen. It's on iplayer and you can also get it on long wave. Amazing the number of high profile international stories that never get reported in the U.K. Also their take on the Middle East is quite different, being non aligned you don't get as much blatantly pro US of pro Russian propaganda

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lindanesocialist wrote:

Of course Daniel Blake does not live in a vacuum. He and the rest of us are engaged in a class struggle. Here is a list of his class enemies. 

I took a quick wikipedia search on each of the individuals on this list, very interesting lesson was learned by me on how to become rich and influential. Sadly I made the massive mistake in my business career by being born between the wrong pair of legs. If only I had developed the foresight to be parented by the owners of a diamond mine, a multi national brewing concern, a multi national banking and finance organisation or a member of the landed aristocracy, instead of the clearly resource poor pair I was lumbered with.Even the so called self made billionaires (Branson, Dyson, Philip Green, Ashley, for example) chose better than me. They had upbringings and family resources that helped them nicely along the road, for example "self made man" Ashley was loaned the equivalent of £35,000 grand to start a shop at the age of 18, what was I doing messing about with the resourceless family that I had bringing me up? If only I'd said to "me Fatha", "howay Da, lend us £10,000 man, A'll give ye it back man, ahh promise"The myth of the meritocracy continues, which allows the complimentary myth to be peddled as well. If the rich are where they are through merit, then the poor must be where they are because they're feckless.Of course the reformists squeal that what we need is a "fairer society", we actually need to have a genuine meritocracy, as if such a state of affairs were genuinely possible. How much better it would be if the super rich were super rich because they deserved it. Presumably they also think that grinding poverty would be of if it was inflicted on those who deserved that as well. the notion of a society where rich and poor people have been replaced by materially satisfied and mutually cooperative people, doesn't seem to have occurred to them!

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jondwhite wrote:

Cheers. Looking forward to the SPGB game on itunes.

I actually have started developing the SPGB board game.It runs a bit like this. Every player is allocated a regional branch. they then pick up a "Useful Socialist Activity Card" the card might say something along the lines of "develop an introductory video for the party", "start a twitter feed" or "develop a whiteboard animation for Party use". The players then have to try and get all of the members of the branch together to form a quorum so that they can pass a resolution to conference backing the useful idea. This is not as simple as it sounds, whilst your moving round the board gathering members, you have to throw the bickering dice. This dice decides what the ones who are left alone together will bicker about. (sometimes the bickering means that one of the members goes of to the holding pen (Central Branch) which means that you have to gather more members to meet the quorum. If your lucky you can land on a Form A square, that means you get a new member and these members are immune from bickering for a short period of time.Once you have your quorum gathered you have to get your resolution passed by the branch. This means throwing the for, against and abstain dices. If you don't get your resolution passed you have to start all over again until you finally get your resolution passed.Once you have your resolution passed, and your delegate credentials singed by the Branch Secretary, you can begin the journey to Clapham High Street to go to conference, but be careful there are hazards on the way. You might land on the L Bird square. If you land on this square you are stuck discussing the nature of science whilst others are getting to conference before you. You might think that throwing a six will let you get away from L Bird, and although this is in the rules, L Bird doesn't recognise the existence of the matter which makes up the dice, outside of his own consciousness. You therefore have to wait on this square until L Bird calls you an ill educated imbecile, and then the Mods will step in and warn him. this releases you from his magic spell and you can carry on on your journey to Clapham.However there is also the Moderation square. If you land on this square you have to pick up a moderation card. This might give you a warning too, so you have to miss a go, you may have to carry out an act of contrition, which means you miss two goes, or you might get a complement, which means you move on three squares. It is important that all of the moderation cards are shuffled at the beginning of the game, so that they appear to be arrived at completely at random (just like real life!).The next square you might need to avoid is the "fuckwit" square. If you land on this square you are stuck with an IT developer from California, who won't let you move on until you have completed three surveys and filled in six postcards.(I was thinking of adding another square about sex in Socialism, which involves having sex with a bonobo, but I'm not quite sure about that one.)Eventually you arrive in London and there is just one more hazard to avoid before you arrive at Clapham High Street. When your in London you have to get past the undead zombies (aka as Socialist Studies) if you get caught by one of these creatures, they bite you and you become a zombie too. This means that you start to spout homophobic vitriol and start rambling on about MI5 spies. However don't worry too much because to bite you the Socialist Studies Zombies have to throw a six, which allows them to put their false teeth in.Having cleared this hurdle you have completed your journey to Head Office and the next part of your odyssey can begin, attending conference. At conference you have to negotiate the hazard of the standing orders committee, who might decide that you can't sit because your branch hasn't completed it's form C, but if you're lucky and you get accepted as a delegate, you can then pick up a chair's decision card. Hopefully the Chair's decision doesn't rule you and your resolution  "out of order", because then you'll have to go back and start again. If all of this is completed you can then throw the conference resolution voting dice. If you don't win you will have to start all over again from the beginning. If you win, you can then carryout your "useful Socialist Activity", but unfortunately you'll be too tired after all of the difficulties you've encountered, to do anything about it.(Advanced apologies if I've upset anyone, just a bit of fun. One of the things that has always separted the SPGB from other political parties is our ability to laugh at ourselves as well)

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lindanesocialist wrote:

Young Master Smeet wrote:

The big question I have is: since when have Geordies qualified for human rights?

 Am  a Mackem so I wadent knaw. We dinit think Geordies should   have a football team nivver mind  human rites.   

Just to put things into historical context, The Kingdom of Northumbria was considered the cradle of Western Civilisation, that was at the same time as you silly buggers in the south were running around with your faces painted blue!

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moderator2 wrote:

Goodness me…i had almost forgotten their existence. Out of sight – out of mind, indeed. I did recently go to their website to check on their dismissal of the citizens' wage which was a fairly good rebuttal of it. In Thailand, there is a  word to describe a man who flits from one woman to another. He is called a butterfly and it is used as a verb also …to butterfly. It is an appropriate description …Butterfly politics… moving from one party to the next, especially when enamoured by attractive manifesto promises but then moving on to the next where the nectar is sweeter still. I think we have had experience of this type of serial party joiner. I wonder if there might be an opportunity to pick up a few SPEW supporters if they do dissolve. (i'm not confident that they will) Surely, they cannot all be damned. Can there be a few who are genuine and sincere socialists, if misguided and mistaken? 

I think you forgot to change your user name again.A little tip I used when I moderated on a site:If I was wearing my Darth Vada outfit, then I knew I was a moderatorIf I was wearing my Princess Leia costume then I knew I was plain old ordinary meIf I was wearing my spiderman pyjamas then I knew it was bedtime.Try it, it worked for me.

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moderator3 wrote:

Obviously some users fail to grasp the reason the rules encourage us to contact the moderators regarding moderation decisions.The idea behind contacting the moderators off thread, regarding moderation decisions, is to allow a dsicussion to take place between moderator and forum user, that doesn't clog up the thread.   

Actually, let's be honest, the rules don't "encourage" us to contact moderators re moderation decisions, they forbid us from certain actions with regards to Moderation decisions.With regards to clogging up threads, it has been suggested on several occasions, that I am aware of, that a moderation discussion thread be started Such a thread would allow free discussion of moderation decisions, and stop the clogging up of threads. This suggestion has been turned down by Mods in the past, but to me would seem to be an easy way to resolve a very tricky problem.

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moderator2 wrote:

Many thanks for your legal opinion and the lawyers latin, (a subject which never appeared in my school's timetable so i had to look it up) 

Quote:

*Forum rules* Your use of the forums indicates your agreement to abide by these rules, to abide by the decisions of the moderators in interpreting and enforcing these.

I was amiss in not citing that earlier 

Quote:

should be applied to all participants in the forum, including moderators

As it did to this moderator who received a suspension for his post in reply to one of your own that tried my patience one time too manyBut, you have rightly deduced from my post to Cde. Lindanesocialist that it was indeed a threat of  me now drawing a line in the sand that any more breaches and i will automatically suspend her from the forum. Again, i hope she fully and clearly understands this and takes care with her future postings.   

Forum rules do indeed state that posters agree to abide by the decisions of the moderators.As I have stated very explicitly previously, no where in my posting, or in Linda's posting is there any indication that there is the intention of not abiding by any moderator's decisions, merely commenting.I also stated, and you clearly agree with this, that your posting to Linda was a threath "that any more breaches" will result in automatic suspension. However as I feel I pointed out earlier, neither Linda, nor for that matter myself, were querying or appealing against any decision, Linda commented on a moderation decision and I commented on her comment. Neither of these actions was in breach of the rules.As for interpretation, as you state the rules state that all posters agree to abide by the decisions of the moderators in interpreting and enforcing the rules. Linda did not state that she did not abide by any decisions you made in interpreting the rules, any more than I did.The problem here does not appear to be in understanding Latin, it appears to be more in understanding English.The only other possible way I can think of interpreting what you are saying is, that as a moderator you are able to interpret the rules in anyway that you see fit and that it is a breach of the rules for any forum member to comment on that interpretation or to publicly state that they disagree with the interpretation.I do not think for one moment you would be silly enough to place that kind of interpretation on the wording of the rules.I understand that at times that being a moderator must feel like a paret trying to sort out bickering kids. I do not want to add to your voluntary workload in this area, however perhaps the way forward here is a little moderation when undertaking moderation.

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moderator2 wrote:

And Lindanesocialist, just how many times do the moderators have to accommodate your repeated breaches of the guidelines?How many times do you require to be told not to take it upon yourself to perform the moderators' task by deciding what action  is warranted and what is not? For those of you who have forgotten RULE 15. Queries or appeals relating to particular moderation decisions should be sent directly to the moderators by private message. Do not post such messages to the forum. You must continue to abide by the moderators’ decisions pending the outcome of your appeal.You are already just one small step away from suspension, Lindanesocialist, and no more formal warnings from the moderators are necessary yet you persist in breaching the rules.Pay heed to this message and simply note its serious intent and there is no need nor cause to reply on the forum to this posting. 

Moderator 2, the rule you quote states:"queries or appeals relating to particular moderation decisions should be sent directly to the moderators by private message"Linda's posting was a COMMENT on a moderation decision, not a query, or an appealt. If it had been an appeal, she would have probably started the sentence with "I wuld like to appeal" if it had been  query, it would have probably started with words lke "why" or "what", etc. Her sentence would also probably have ended with a question mark. Therefore Linda has clearly not breached any of the forum rules.Similarly, as you did not make a moderation decision, merely issued an implicit threat, my COMMENTS on your contribution are also within the guidelines and the rules, as they neither query a DECISION or appeal against a DECISION.I think the implied threat which you have made is clearly a case of a moderator acting "ultra vires". Whilst I respect and am grateful for the role of the moderators and genuinely understand the difficulties you face trying to moderate the forum, I am also of the personal opinion that the current rules, especially those which ban the questining of moderation decisions in public are unfit for a Socialist Orrganisation, However I am happy, until new rules and guidance are developed, to go along with them as they are written. I also think that this is a principle which should be applied to all participants in the forum, including moderators

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Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

If I could enact any law, I'd ban surveys and fuckin postcards as well

I have written that law for you and have a plan to enact it. Of course I made a postcard to get the news out and get support to pass the law.  Here's what it says on the postcard I made for you. . . https://docs.google.com/document/d/12N92wl74vQathQT1hJmNkJsl_DsKrdU7XrO_O66ZH8o/edit#heading=h.3w86cm3wtzd6for your convenince the postcard desgin at the link above (wich looks nicer because you can format text in a google doc better than in this discussion forum) is copied here below. . . 

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We can stop junk mail and surveys that waste your time. We have a plan to stop it for good. Our political mailer philosophy is to prove we value your time and information by giving you 5 minutes of our time for reading this and completing a survey telling us how you want us to spend 5 minutes. It’s that easy to stop junk mail. We are going to make sure that junk mail solicitors value your time equal to their own like we do. We want you to vote YES on  “Public Good for Public Time in Mailers Law”. Once enacted, every time consuming non-profit survey or mailer will have to give you an equal or greater amount of time for every minute of your time that they take!   Imagine if every political mailer you received came with a 5 minute favor for your use? You could collect favors from that pile of political mailers on your coffee table and turn them into a new tree planted in the forest or on your sidewalk!  Wouldn’t that be a better world?  If you want to help more, we have other projects you can donate your 5 minutes towards like, “what if EVERY bank statement you received in your mailbox came with a 15 minute favor of your choice?”  Well, I’m getting ahead of myself, but if you like the idea, then join our brainstorming branch and upvote it for more attention and time resources. make a suggestion, or vote to encourage our next choice for legislative action for the people, of the people, and by the people.  This message was endorsed by and time data verified by a generous donation of time from the world socialist of Great Britain. Join with us to help stop junk mail.  

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my mistake. I should have said a law that bans twats that post about surveys and postcards

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If I could enact any law, I'd ban surveys and fuckin postcards as well

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Subhaditya wrote:

[Well all I can say is I can prove my superiority through violent means as well.

Dream on Bonny LadIf your theseis is that lack of sex produces violent threat, does the above quote back up my thesis that you're clearly not getting any

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Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:

@Robbo203,You wrote. . .

robbo203 wrote:

I can very easily imagine an organisation such as this continuing to operate and do useful work in socialist society catering for the sexual needs of men and woman who perhaps might find it difficult to do this on their own and  need someone to advocate on their behalf in a caring and respectful manner.  The big difference of course is that these sexual services like all human labour  will be provided on a completely free and voluntary basis which is the logical corollary of the free access to goods and services that will be hallmark of a socialist society 

I don't think we need an "organization" and I think any organizations in a post socialist revolution society need to be considered with skepticism. How do we ensure the organization isn't extracting surplus value from the workers? Maybe that's the nature of organizations? If the "organization" you descibe did exist after the socialist revolution, then how would socialist leaders ensure the suruplus value extracted from any free assoication and exchange wasn't used by the organization in ways not of benefit to the people?  Even if we had the power and authority to stop these organizations in a socialist world, We'd still need to monitor and endorse or veto almost every voluntary free exchange offer between people and that would take a lot of time for someone or some "organization".   

You seem to understnad the principles of post cards fairly well, however it is fairly clear your struggling a little with the ideas of the Socialist Party (exchnge, surplus value, leaders, power, etc. not really compatible with Socialsim)

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mcolome1 wrote:

Subhaditya wrote:

At the height of the Victorian Age there were 80,000 prostitutes in the streets of London.The Britsh army had an elaborate system to ensure their soldiers got sex from 'non local' prostitutes, probably for security reasons 'local' was avoided.Disabled people(men and women) make use of them as 'sex surrogates' and pay them for their services….. to say such a service is not required in a thoroughly monogamous society is a joke.If you fail to add this 'pleasant/unpleasant' task (which I understand will be voluntary like every other task) in a socialist society will mean socialism will fail in its promise to meet people's needs through peaceful cooperation.

I thibk that 80,000 prostitutes is nothing compared with the ring of child prostitution that exists around the world. Doesn't;it   bother you to know that children are being  used as prostitute ?  Those are sexual slaves, and many of those children are already suffering from venereal diseases, and probably they will die at a very young age. That ring of prostitution is also tied to drug traffic, and some are also used  to transport drugs Personally, I do not care if the socialist society is going to be monogamous, or polygamy, what is really  worrying  me is this society based on profits who is  using children as prostitutes, and a bunch of perverts are having sex with minors, and are destroying their personal life. Those are the social issues that socialists must worry aboutThere is a big ring of women who have been forced into prostitution, only the rings from the Major Antilles is bigger than the 80 000 that you have mentioned, and those women are distributed thru different countries, and the most affected one are women because there is male prostitution too

You are right on the money there Comrade. The commodity based "society" that the upholders of Capitalism laughingly describe as "freedom" casually ignores that fact that slavery and especially sexual slavery still exists and thrives in most parts of the world.The idea of the "happy hooker" who chooses the so called sex industry as part of a life style choice. which Subhaditya appears to go along with, is a propaganda myth created for those making millions out of the misery of men, women and as you so rightly point out many children. A recent survey in the Uk by the charity Barnardos reported that of female prostitutes they surveyed over 70% began working in the sex industry as children.The fact that capitalism reduces everything to a commodity that can be bought or sold, leads to a situation where children are traffiked and forced into being sex slaves and creates a mind set where those abusing them think that it is ok to do so. The scandals in Rochdale and Rotherham, that hit the headlines are only the tip of a very large ice berg.I'd rather live in a Socialist society with the problem of some people being sexual frustrated, than a capitalist society with millions being sexual exploited.

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The subjective bit, presumably, comes from how we determine what is socially necessary labour time.. If your the immobilised patient in bed no2 dying for a crap, the usefulness of the consultant, who is going to examine your dandruff, might be less than the nurse with the bed pan!

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Just out of interest, I know it's slightly off topic, but do warnings expire like driving licence points? I've had a few of those in my time. It would seem fair that posters can reduce their culpability by prolonged good behaviour. 

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