[DJP]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

A word of sanity from Ricky Gervais 

Quote:

Joking aside, Brexit won't make any difference. The rich will still be rich, the poor will still be poor, and we'll still blame foreigners.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/ricky-gervais-brexit-eu-referendum-results-a7102451.html

This may be true. But it would also be true if they'd been a Fascist takeover overnight. It's not a case of all or nothing. We are not as bad as the left-communists. Are we?

[DJP]

Interesting analysis here. In short who is going to pull the trigger? No one looks willing.http://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2016/jun/25/brexit-live-emergency-meetings-eu-uk-leave-vote#comment-77205935

[DJP]

SocialistPunk wrote:

Free movement of labour???

Of course, for EU citizens, that was never realistically off the table.

[DJP]

I'm guessing this was just a hit and run comment rather than a serious attempt at discussion. "John Galt" is a character in Ayn Rand's"Atlas Shrugged". Luckily I don't think this stuff was that popular in the UK.

[DJP]

They've yet to invoke article 50. For this to happen, an act of Parliament will have to be passed. However, the vast majority of Parliament are in favour of "stay". The great charade is only just beginning.I wonder how much of free hand the other EU states will give them in negotiations with the threat of exit in the background.

[DJP]

This did or does operate on the New Zeland low power broadcast rules. In other words, you are allowed to broadcast without a licence if your transmitter is 1 watt or under. In effect, this means a radius of about a mile or less. So you're not going to get many listeners, especially when you think of the population density in New Zealand.

[DJP]

rodmanlewis wrote:

You're confusing cause and effect. Brexit of itself won't give a boost to racism and xenophobia, it will endorse what is already there.

I don't think things separate out that easily. There are no one-way streets. If the predominant mood is one of isolationism and xenophobia, and Brexit would be a boost to this mood, then more people will be inclined to think that way. 

[DJP]

I think the article, written in 1969, could have been better written to avoid confusion.The point it is trying to make is that, if we want to affect the kind of change in society that the socialist party is proposing then *mere* atheism is not enough.All members of the socialist party are "atheists" (we do not permit people with religious viewpoints to join) though they may not self-describe as such. But mere atheism on its own is not enough. Prominent "new atheists" such as Sam Harris are just apologist for the present order.

[DJP]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

the Sanish Civil War more commonly called the Spanish Revolution by anarchists

Technically "The Social Revolution" refers to the CNT led collectivisations mainly around Catalonia and Aargon, not the civil war as a whole. Incidentally, there wasn't one civil war but three. The "anti-fascist front" versus the military insurgents, the central government versus the CNT in Catalonia (more people in Barcalona were killed in the "May Days" than in the initial battle against the military) and finally, on the Republican side, a coup against the Communists which led to the end of the war.

[DJP]

jondwhite wrote:

My second question of the three was to quote Comm. Manifesto Chapter 2 'The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties. They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. ' They replied that they didn't agree with Marx who was advocating a broad church approach to a party before he failed in the First International. Hmm? I'm not sure the key word isn't 'separate' rather than party.

I think here they are using the word "party" in the old-fashioned sense meaning "group" rather than "political party". What working-class political parties would there have been when the manifesto was written? But either way Marx was just a man, what is written in the manifesto and elsewhere is not some kind of scripture to be slavishly followed.

[DJP]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Are we being to Euro-centric and parochial by not discussing how (for the want of a better word because i technically don't think they are) – the peasants are involved in socialism? 

There is no longer any such thing as a peasant. A peasant is not just someone who makes their living on the land, but someone who has a certain claim to the land they work. The rights that gave them access to the land have long been eroded. A "landless peasant" is a proletarian by definition.

[DJP]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

"Europe and European identity is rooted in Christianity."

OK fine. But now you'll have to say that "European Nationalism" includes both eastern and western europe and Russia too. Is it really meaningful to talk of "nationalism" existing on this broad basis?A national identity is based on more than a shared religion. The kind of tight narrative and mythology that gives rise to a European "imagined community" (in the sense of Europe being a single country) just hasn't really been forged yet.So until there is such a thing as a European nation, there can't be such a thing as "European nationalism".Of course you can still have rascists and religious biggots whithout such a thing existing..You might find this discussion interesting:http://historum.com/european-history/91170-europe-nation.html

[DJP]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Hmmmm….Should i be a British nationalist…or a European nationalist? 

I don't think it really makes sense to talk of "European Nationalism". If there really is such a thing as a singular European national identity what does it look like? What are the shared features of this identity?

[DJP]

John Oswald wrote:

Isn`t being in the EU of benefit to workers in the sense of some freedom of movement, cross-border relationships, cosmopolitanism (which can only be good for spreading a global socialist consciousness etc.)

Yes. I think there is some real benefit in this. I will be voting "in" on those grounds only. Capitalism continues either way. But as socialism is not coming any time soon I think we should hold on to those reforms that are worth wanting, this is one of them.

[DJP]

Calling everyone who votes in the referendum "class collaborators" just makes us look like a sad whining sect.If I vote, I'm going to vote "in" as the right to travel and settle and work within the EU with ease is a reform worth wanting. I'm sure the 5% of the UK population who will not get a vote on the issue, the EU nationals who live and work and have formed relations here, will think the same too.And how does the prediction about the Calais camps being "greatly swollen with Poles and Eastern Europeans too" amount to "no change"? If this line is meant as a joke it's not funny and shows a nationalistic bias that should not be in a socialist paper..Socialism is not coming for at least another 100 years but in the meantime I'd sooner not be stuck on a small island with with a bunch of xenophobic nationalists, which is what Brexit (albiet symbolically) represents.

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