Moo
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“Why don’t they propose socialism as the common ownership and democratic control of productive resources with production directly for use and distribution according to needs. That would much simpler and more practical.”
Indeed it would, but that goes against their ideology that state-ownership is the same as common-ownership, and Parliament can reform capitalism to make it work in everyone’s best interests.
An educational video on why Taiwan thinks it’s China: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQTtwh2GRME
“The Chinese military has become significantly more aggressive and dangerous over the past five years, the United States’ top military officer, Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said”
When will the Guardian ever have an article with this title: ‘The US military has become a lot more aggressive and dangerous since WWII’? Answer: On the 6th of never.
“Kyiv must provide a clear response to Moscow’s proposals that Ukraine accepts ‘non-aligned’ and ‘non-nuclear’ status in order to strike a peace deal, Russian deputy foreign minister Andrey Rudenko was cited as saying.
“Ukraine must also recognise Russia’s control over Crimea and the status of the pro-Russian self-proclaimed ‘people’s republics’ in Donetsk and Luhansk.”
Those are reasonable peace terms. Well, they’re much more reasonable than half, or the whole, of Ukraine being annexed into the Russian Federation. But, of course, they don’t justify the dropping of a single bomb, nor the shedding of a single drop of blood.
“Our forum discussions are irrelevant and insignificant and our blog-posts and the articles in the Socialist Standard are invisible.
“But what else can we do?
“We can only clarify the situation for ourselves as events take place.”I agree. It’s important we (i.e. real socialists) keep in touch with each other, or else we’d go insane. These forums (in particular) are very good for mental health.
The Socialist Standards; pamphlets; and blog-posts are very interesting and do a lot to make sense of this mad world. I find it very handy to share a link to a pamphlet (on a given topic) to the unconverted on social media.
One silver lining is that due to the materialist conception of history, and because capitalism is unsustainable, it’s a question of WHEN the socialist revolution will happen, not ‘if’.
“If the public is to get what it supports and deserves – not least a basic standard of living, and a rational and urgent response to the climate crisis – we all need to take action now.”
Sadly, by this he means we should elect a soft-left, anti-war, ‘green’ capitalist government. The article still makes a lot of good points, though.
“The Liberals might demand electoral reform as part of the package to support a minority government or form a coalition. Might actual get greater support this time around.”
Good point. I didn’t consider that.
According to the Electoral Calculus (https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html) if there were a general election this month: Labour would win 48% of the seats; the Conservatives 38%; the SNP 8%; the Liberal Democrats 3%; and others 3%. Therefore, it’s seems likely Labour will form a minority government backed by the Liberal Democrats.
If Scotland doesn’t leave the union, then I feel the days of parties winning super or comfortable majorities are over. In every future general election, either the Conservatives will win a small majority or Labour will form a minority government backed by the SNP or Liberal Democrats.
ALB, it doesn’t matter in this forum whether you call the Ukrainian capital by its Russian or Ukrainian name. However, you’d better call it Kyiv on social media, unless you want to be labelled a Putin sympathiser.
https://www.facebook.com/ledbydonkeys/videos/560420942266948
Try not to laugh at all the times he promised not to do something, then did it. What’s poignant is all these evil b*stards could have been good people if they were born into a socialist world.
P.S. Thanks, ALB, for posting a link to the source of the claims.
“[The collective West] back in February had suggested Zelensky should surrender and flee”
I find that highly questionable.
If western governments really cared about the Ukrainian people they would match humanitarian aid with military aid.
Yet again, the burning questions of the referendum will be:
1. Will Scotland join the EU or the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), or neither?
2. What will happen to the UK’s nuclear weapons (that are based in Scotland)?
3. What will happen to the border between England and Scotland?
4. What will happen to non-Scottish Brits living in Scotland, and vice versa?
5. What currency would Scotland use?
6. Will Scotland join the Commonwealth Realm or become a republic?
Apart from number 4, the above questions are a bunch of trivialities that distract from the real problems facing the world. Although, sadly, just like Brexit, people will get very passionate about whether the workers of Scotland should be exploited by Scottish/European capitalism or British capitalism.
“Will it be seats won or votes cast for the SNP (and the Green Party)?”
I predict the SNP would win a majority of the seats, but they (and the Greens) wouldn’t win a majority of the votes.
However, the issue will likely be resolved before the general election. This is because the SNP apparently wants to hold a consultative referendum (i.e. a non-legally binding one), so if they win it they can say to Westminster: “The people have spoken and they want freeeeeedoooooom!”.
It’s confusing when people use the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ to describe social as well as economic policy.
After reading dozens of Socialist Standards, the consensus (in the SPGB) seems to be: Hard-Left = Leninists; Soft-Left = Greens, Corbynistas, the SNP; Soft-Right = Blairites, Liberal Democrats; Hard-Right = Conservatives, Reform UK.
With that in mind, Macron is a hard-right social liberal; Mélenchon is a soft-left social liberal; and Le Pen is a soft-right neo-fascist. What do they all have in common? They’re all on Team Capitalism.
