rodshaw
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
If the arms industry doesn’t dictate foreign policy, they certainly can heavily influence it. At least if we are to believe our own journal:
‘The eastward expansion of NATO, especially when it extends to the ‘near abroad’ and right up to Russia’s borders, is a bitter grievance of Russia’s power elite. That is because it violates the security requirement of a ‘friendly neighbourhood’ deeply embedded in their psyche. It is also because it violates the verbal promises made by Western politicians to Gorbachev that if he allowed Germany to unite and united Germany to remain in NATO then NATO would not expand ‘an inch to the east’. These promises were ‘forgotten’ under pressure from American arms manufacturers, whose sales were flagging due to improved relations with Russia and who sought new markets in Eastern Europe.’
From the article on Ukraine in the SS March issue.
‘However, one concern was why NATO was pressing this belligerent position?’
Because it’s good trade for the arms dealers?Acccording to a BBC report Abramovich once swindled the Russian Government out of $2.7bn in an oil deal and they considered charging him with fraud:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60736185
Rather than sanctioning him, you’d think the UK would want to reward him.Doesn’t the purchase and sale of non-existent assets (or should I say, assets that exist only as ideas) happen daily on the Stock Exchange?
As a half-Neapolitan Yorkshireman I’ll always feel in chains as long as Yorkshire is part of the UK and Naples is part of Italy.
A newly formed socialist society is bound to inherit many nasty problems which will require some form of regulation. But I’m not sure they will take generations to fix. A society that is no longer sick at its roots won’t be breeding as many sick people, and I imagine the first generation to be born into that society will have a totally different outlook on life.
Just think how quickly attitudes and behaviour can change even in capitalism.
I daresay one big issue will be how the majority keeps a difficult minority in line, when that minority for whatever reason is determined to cause trouble.It’s interesting to see what is considered to be high inflation at different times. In the 1970s it was never below 7% and in 1975 it was over 24%. In the last few decades or so it’s been much lower.
Interest rates were also higher in the 70s and 80s. But I’m not clear whether consumer price inflation, as listed in the link above, would take interest rates into account.
‘What would be the Socialist position on the issue of lockdowns, mandatory vaccination and the like? Personally I think these are extraordinary times, and extraordinary measures are required.’
There would be no governments to lay down the law and such issues could only be decided democratically. People not ‘obeying’ a majority decision couldn’t be fined or jailed, but might perhaps be heavily ostracised and seen as personae non gratae, which might weigh more heavily.
It may be wishful thinking but I like to think that in a socialist society things would never get to the stage they have got to with this pandemic. With no commercial interests at stake and presumably better health precautions all round, dangerous viruses and so on would most likely be nipped in the bud, and such extraordinary times would not develop. Also there would be no (or far less) idiotic conspiracy theories and religious prejudices around, which really reflect people’s powerlessness and lack of trust in governments and being told what to do.
I personally believe Karl Marx will come back one day and lead us all to socialism. Ah wait, that can’t be right…
To me one significant thing is that Thunberg is saying she doesn’t trust politicians to cut the mustard. She knows it’s useless pleading with them, unlike what she used to say. They are “pretending to take our future seriously”. Still a long way from real socialist consciousness but not to be knocked.
There we go again, the inability to think of a world without money as a practical alternative. One day the penny will drop.
There’s apparently a shortage of about 100,000 lorry drivers and last I read the govt. plan is to let about 5,000 from Europe get temporary visas till the end of the year. Fat lot of help that is, surely. I can see some sort of disruption for months to come, not just at petrol stations but in supermarket supplies and home deliveries. One good thing that may come of it is better rates for the drivers.
And for the rest of us, at least it may mean less lorries trying to carve you up on the motorway. Assuming you have the petrol to get there.
I wonder if we’ll see an intensified campaign for people to switch to electric cars?
Many workers in the UK have been clearly disadvantaged by Brexit. It’s sometimes hard to maintain the WSM position that voting to be in or out of the EU was of no relevance to workers.
