Young Master Smeet
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“Limousin, the archetype of an unchanging peasant land, experienced the Commune of 1871 intensely. We do not know it. The Limousin workers paid a heavy price. We do not count the dead on the barricades, nor the shot, nor the imprisoned, nor the deported to New Caledonia and Guyana. We have almost forgotten them.
The Communard uprising of the spring of 1871 has long been treated as a brief convulsion of history, a very Parisian anecdote without consequences, quickly erased by the indifference or hostility of rural France. Recent work has challenged this preconceived idea and it is in this research perspective that this book is set: the Commune is also a Limousin story.”
That actually sounds very interesting: seems there was an earlier book on the subject:
https://www.abebooks.co.uk/Oubli%C3%A9s-lHistoire-Limousins-Commune-Paris-1871/30975808480/bdSadly, can’t find anything in English on the subject.
A bit late to the party: I revised my view of boxing some years ago, there was a fight on the telly in the pub, and some flyweights were giving each other welly. I realised at any moment either of them could stop, just walk away: its a sport not so much of inflicting damage but of demonstrating resilience in the face of damage and carrying on. It’s also a sport, at the top level, about the skill of not being hit, and having tremendous reserves of energy and fitness.
Partly that’s why I’ve shied away from MMA, although they’ve (mercifully) stopped head kicks on the floor, they still have ground and pound punching, which is unpleasant to watch.
I’ve been along to some exhibition chess boxing matches (yes, really), but the chess players, even with some moderate boxing skill, didn’t have the energy to have any power in their shots by the third round.
All that said, I think in socialism, where we won’t have police or armies to settle disputes like this, we will have some terrific arguments, and one town or village might take a different view than another for how their venues might be used. There won’t be money to gamble, prizes to give out, advertising, pay-per-view, or anything of that sort. If people still wanted to test themselves in this way, I imagine they’d find a way.
From Raymond William’s Keywords (only as an aside, really):
“It is from rw oikos , Gk – household, with the familiar ending logy from logos – discourse, thence systematic study. Economy shares its reference, with the alternative ending nomy (cf. astronomy) from nomia , Gk – management and nomos , Gk – law. Economy had developed from its early sense of management of a household (C16) to political economy (from F, C16-C17) and to economics in its general modern sense from 1C18. Ecology (Haeckel’s ökologie) developed the sense of habitat (a noun for a characteristic living place from C18, from the form of the Latin verb ‘it lives’), and became the study of the relations of plants and animals with each other and with their habitat.”
(an interesting coupling with ecology, really)
Well, we got 22 votes (1.13%)
https://www.islington.gov.uk/about-the-council/voting-and-elections/elections/by-elections-2024
Number of votes cast: 1,946
Turnout: 21.33%Labour got 785, the Independent got 550
Everyone else pretty much nowhere, the Greens got gazumped by the Corbynistas. Maybe if Caines hadn’t stood, the Greens might have won. I think turnout benefited Labour.
So, I voted for socialism this morning: there were polling agents at a by-election! (Labour and Independent), both teams seem to have been running get out the vote operations. I came home to another Caines leaflet saying ‘election today’.
Commendably, Islington council emailed me to remind me there was a by-election today, which I think is a good thing (they got my email when I registered to vote).
Off to the count tonight, I don’t expect fireworks, but we’ll see.
“That the class rule of the workers over the strata of the old world whom they have been fighting can only exist as long as the economic basis of class existence is not destroyed.”
“it only means that, as the proletariat still acts, during the period of struggle for the overthrow of the old society, on the basis of that old society, and hence also still moves within political forms which more or less belong to it, it has not yet, during this period of struggle, attained its final constitution, and employs means for its liberation which after this liberation fall aside.”
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/04/bakunin-notes.htm
“I wasn’t too sure on how to answer this apart from I don’t think alot could’ve been done even by Leninists to stop the fascists in Italy and Germany.” That was our case at the time, millions of Germans supported the fascists and did not consciously support socialism (and lets not forget the role of left-wing coups in delegitimising democracy in Germany and giving the right their excuse to suppress the left – the Spartacus Uprising and the Bavarian Soviet),
Islington Palestine Solidarity have come good on their promise to publicise responses to their BDS questionnaire:
Lancaster have been organising a nice event in their patch, which they recently encouraged replicating at the organising event: they just hire some digs in Lancashire, people turn up, eat, drink, chat and go for walks: its very pleasant, but usually attracts the usual suspects.
I sent our election address to the Islington Tribune and Islington Gazette: the latter printed it in their letters column.
In response to a challenge from the Green candidate regarding a controversial planning issue in the ward (the building of a tower of student residences on the old nurses home at Archway) I have sent teh following:
Dear Friend,
By way of reply to the Junction Ward Green Party candidate, (letters 15/11/24): our current economic and political system is geared towards promoting the interests of the few of own the world, at the expense of the many who do the work. Housing developers are geared towards making profits for their owners, not serving community needs. The planning system is tooled for supporting profit making.
As the Socialist Party candidate, I am standing solely on the basis of campaigning to create a system of society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments of producing and distributing wealth by, and in the interests of, the whole community.
I don’t expect to win the seat, but it is an opportunity for those who agree with that aim to express support. Whatever the other candidate’s view on the Archway development, a vote for them is a vote for the continuation of a system where the power and advantage in any such dispute is with the wealthy minority.
Yours for World Socialism,
Bill Martin (Socialist Party Candidate, Junction Ward by Election 2024)
Some of us turned up to Archway station, and spent an hour and a half leafletting. There was some engagement from the public, one young woman (too young to vote) who said she was a member of the RCP took a leaflet. We also ran into someone who knew of the Party and was surprised to see us contesting (he wasn’t local).
There was no sign of the other parties, a pro-Palestine stall turned up later. We retired to a cafe, where they allowed us to leave some leaflets.
A few thoughts:
1: Irrationality: I think we have to assume that 71 million Americans knew what they were voting for, and support Trumps policies, these policies appear irrational to us, partly because they are refracted through local propaganda (and, we aren’t the intended audience of these policies).
2: American democracy is big and complicated, some radical measures (minimum wage rises, etc.) won referendums at the same time as Trump was elected. There is, apparently, a disconnect between local action and the perception of the distant ‘Washington elite’ that Trump has worked on very hard.
3: Citizenship as a form of property is under theorised, although it tends not to be manual workers who mostly get exercised about illegal migration, etc. clearly some see a kind of ‘citizenship rent’ as being worth supporting (backed up by tariffs, etc. and winning trade wars). Is imperialism winning votes?
4: Its worth noting that trumps vote was static, the Democrat vote collapsed, in part some are blaming Gaza, I do wonder if the slight margins of sexism (say worth 5% of the vote) come into play in a tight contest – say, would Walz on his own have won?
5: Trump only has 4 years, that’s not enough time to consolidate any big structural changes, although he looks to have the House and the Senate, and he may be able to appoint a couple more Supreme Court judges…
