rodshaw
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I think Rev. Stephens was wrong on both counts – God isn’t going to teach us anything, and a revolution will be manufactured – not by leaders, but (we hope) by the working class.
I’m amazed anyone wants to go abroad at all. The quarantine hotels seem like a nightmare too, little more than prisons, with reports of women getting harassed by the “guards” who are supposed to be looking after them and the companies that administer them trying to pass the buck to the hotels and vice versa.
The Red Arrows want to be the first net-zero air force by 2040:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-58173637
Such ambition – only 19 years away!! That should do it then, the answer to our problems.
Such are the token gestures of the capitalist system.“Has he become the male version of Katie Hopkins, seeking media exposure by making ridiculous statements.”
Clarkson has always made a living out of making ridiculous statements. I read that he’s had Covid himself so you’d think he’d know better. Hyperbole is his stock in trade. You only have to read his nonsense in the Sunday Times every week to see. He’s an arch supporter of capitalism, labels anyone who’s not right wing a socialist, and takes great amusement in winding them up. A bit like his fellow ST writer Rod Liddle. He’s also until recently been a climate change denier but may have slightly changed his tune on this because he’s bought a farm with some of his millions and at least nominally has something to lose by it.
If faced with the calm and collected arguments of the WSM he’d probably just give us a raspberry.
You just can’t win with capitalism. Lockdowns damage the economy (well, for most). Removing them causes hundreds of thousands of people to be pinged into self-isolation, damaging the economy.
Same old same old, isn’t it. Maybe we should invite the Global Alliance for a Green New Deal to a debate, and suggest they become the Global Alliance for World Socialism. They can’t think beyond governments and economics.
Ten or twenty years from now, how much impact is a ‘Green New Deal’ really going to have on all the crap being spewed world-wide into the atmosphere, even if governments get serious about it?
I read somewhere, or was told by a party member, that the biggest polluter of all is the armed forces. So maybe they’ll start dropping green bombs.
Such paucity of ideas and imagination. But what can you expect from the advocates of profits before all.
After the flooding in Germany I wonder what token gestures the government will make there. The writing on the wall gets bigger and bigger.
If he fears the word capitalism is becoming a bad word, presumably Luntz’s objective is to make capitalism sound nicer and therefore appear nicer without wanting people to actually change it. At least he didn’t manage to find a nicer word to foist onto people, which is something.
As for socialism being more popular, of course that word means at least as many different things to different people as capitalism does, generally centred on reformism and state palliatives. When 36% of people equate it with common ownership and the total abolition of capitalism (whatever it’s called by then), we’ll be getting somewhere.
On the slightly related subject of space travel by humans, the view of space scientists like Brian Cox seems to be ‘we’re plundering and ruining the planet, let’s go into space to find another to plunder and ruin’.
At least it’s nice to see some mega-rich types eating humble pie. They must have foreseen some opposition but not this much.
As to the merit-based, pyramid-based model of the professional football world, as espoused pretty much universally by those who opposed the ESL, maybe as socialists we could say that it’s ok if restricted to sport but I’m sure we don’t subscribe to it for society in general.
From the BBC website:
Leeds boss Marcelo Bielsa was also critical of the Super League proposal.
“It shouldn’t surprise us,” he told the BBC. “In all walks of life the powerful look after their own and don’t worry about the rest of us.
“The big teams are also created due to the opposition of the other teams. In the search for higher economic earnings they forget about the rest. The powerful are more rich and the weak are poorer. It doesn’t do good to football in general.”
Among other groups, the players of these clubs have been completely bypassed. Ok, some if not all of them are pretty rich in their own right but they have no option really but to follow the clubs if they want to stay in the big time.
But can someone tell me why the government has jumped right in and is showing so much interest? Is it just to gain a bit of popularity?
Maybe he needs telling that he doesn’t have to be an economist to see that capitalism needs to go. Indeed, economists are probably among the last people who’d say this.
In his wildlife programmes he talks of humans causing the problems, but on primetime viewing he probably wouldn’t get away with putting the finger on capitalism directly even if he thought so.
A similar fuss was made when the Premier League started. And when the European Cup became the Champions League. Cynicism, betrayal of grass roots etc. etc. Admittedly without (as far as I can remember) the government sticking their oar in. And without the prospect of a league where most clubs will never get relegated and will be able to play one another ad infinitum.
Let’s not forget UEFA have their own plans for lining their pockets further by bloating the Champions League. And of course the World Cup keeps getting bigger.
When the hoo-ha dies down fans of these big clubs will still shell out for replica shirts and tickets to watch their much-loved idols, most of whom move on after two or three years anyway. The cynicism on one side is matched by the naivete on the other. But isn’t that a reflection of life in general under capitalism?
I had my second jab today and one of the people on duty told me I might need a booster later in the year. As it’s unlikely this would be taken out of current stocks (the shelf life of the vaccines seems to be about 6 months), maybe a programme of manufacturing lucrative repeat jabs is already becoming reality.
