Young Master Smeet
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Quote:who, if not the 'producers' (or, 'workers', as defined above), shall have political power….'elite group' (of 'experts'; often from Young Master Smeet)
I have never argued this. Indeed, I've argued the exact opposite, but never mind. The whole community (including those not directly involved for one reason or another in production) should be involved in democratic decision making, in socialism.
To return to the thread: part of the problem of no platform (other than the implicit call it gives to state power, and legitimacy it gives to suppression of ideas) is the power it gives to the fascist bogey: if we don't support mainstream parties, the fash will get us. Whilst I in no way want to diminish the harm the fash would do if they got to power, the only real defence we have against them is support for political democracy, and, ultimately, pro-socialist activity, rather than anti-fascism.
The BBC this morning have been going big in the driverless car trials:http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31364441They already in propaganda mode: asking why people are prepared to trust planes to computers (which they already have) but not cars.To be clear, this is a threat to every Taxi, delivery, lorry, bus and all sorts of other drivers. Yes, new work will come along, and for many of us it will be a liberating boon.
Ah, it seems the Greens *haven't* ditched the policy, just weaselled it:[quoteCaroline Lucas]“The citizen’s income is not going to be in the 2015 general election manifesto as something to be introduced on May 8.“It is a longer-term aspiration; we are still working on it. The aim is absolutely, to be able to give everybody a guaranteed, non-means tested income, because that means that you can get around the poverty trap.“When we come to publish our manifesto in March, you will see the workings out that we’ve got. This is not a policy for the next general election, it is lifting the living wage to £10 an hour by the end of this parliament … challenging the austerity of the other parties . . . what we need to be doing is investing in jobs rather than cutting jobs.”[/quote](My bold)http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/02/green-deputy-leaders-contradict-caroline-lucas-citizens-income-will-be-manifesto
http://www.tuc.org.uk/economic-issues/britain-needs-pay-rise/average-wage-worth-%C2%A32500-less-year-cameron-became-pm-says-tucThe hard facts of class war:
TUC wrote:Since David Cameron became Prime Minister the average wage is worth £2,500 less a year, the worst fall in living standards since Queen Victoria was on the throne.[…]From April 2010 to April 2014, the value of average gross annual earnings of full-time employees in the UK decreased by £2,509, or 8.4 per cent. Source: ASHE, adjusted by RPI.This is the real issue of the day, that the prolonged crisis since 2008 has depressed wages and decreased the share of the national wealth going to workers(and the above doesn't include the cuts to the social wage in the form of cuts and restrictions to benefits). Cameron thinks he can buy votes cheap by asking employers to put up wages (which they may, as a political move to keep their party in power).And the TUC? It is doing all it can, it would be futile to be a blow hard and demand a general strike now, they are putting up guerilla resistance where they can (see here for a minor union success) but that just points up the necessity of a political response.
There's a copy of: Pre-capitalist economic formations / Translated by Jack Cohen. Edited and with an introd. by E. J. Hobsbawm. Edition [1st U.S. ed.] Published • New York : International Publishers [1965, c1964](Or another edition of the same) in the party library.
I have my doubts about the efficiacy of the study: one, it's not necessarily an empirical question. I was once doing the party's monthly accounts, and found I was out by 40p. I was about to just write this small discrepencey off, but decided to give it another check. It turned out two lines were out by substantial sums that got me to within 40p of the correct sum. Even if at the accounting level the banks don't directly credit and debit from different bits of their ledger (immediately) ultimately, they must produce balanced accounts. So you can't point to one deposit and say 'it became that loan'.Indeed, the paper says what we have always expressely said:
Quote:Instead we find that the bank treats customer deposits as a loan to the bank, recorded under rubric ‘claims by customers’, who in turn receive as record of their loans to the bank (called ‘deposits’) what is known as their ‘account statement’SP,in this thread I also mentioned the principle of association, which means people may wish to control the manner of expression. No topic has been censored on this forum, the manner of behaviour of forum members has been censured. All such controls are due to channel limitations, and the need to share the resource. The fact that people can go elsewhere to discuss topics in the manner they choose fit is relevent.LBird: so this sub-committee that reviews the material won't become corrupted itself? And you are right, there are things we don't know we don't know about the moon, and that can only be resolved through "going there" (either physically or through advances in remote viewing). If censorship exists, there will be information I don't know I don't know, that I might need to know (or have a chance of finding). I will also be being asked to vote on matters I don't know by your beninign su-committee. Democratic censorship is impossible.
Quote:Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams has called for a historic realignment of Irish politics to pave the way for an anti-austerity Syriza-style government here after the next general election.[…]The remarks came after Siptu president Jack O’Connor said the left had a “once in a century opportunity” to lead the next government.The Shinners seem to be courting SIPTU (the Irish trade union) who may well be dischuffed after the performance of Labour as the minority coalition partner in Government there. Interesting attempt to piggy-back the Syriza experience, especially its broiad populist reach (which I suppose is native Sinn Fein turf, since they've always tried to hitch the farming vote as well).
http://theconversation.com/the-international-media-is-failing-to-report-the-syrian-war-properly-37290(MInd, they don't report Mexico, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Nepal, etc.)
Quote:Towards the end of 2014, the favourite narrative (which never quite played out) could be summed up as “Assad is winning”. This year, the theme is “jihadists versus extremists versus jihadists”: this refers to both the Islamic State, which is fighting against Syria’s rebels, and to the “al-Qaeda-linked” Jabhat al-Nusra, which often fights alongside those rebels (but not always).[…]In recent months, these assorted anti-Assad groups have not only turned the tide on the Damascus regime’s forces, but have made notable advances throughout Syria. Sometimes working with Jabhat al-Nusra, they have moved into towns and villages and captured Syrian military bases.They now control most of north-west and south-west Syria, and, in January 2015, they advanced from the south towards Damascus. They have also been battling the Islamic State throughout Syria, from Aleppo Province in the northwest to Hama and Homs Provinces in the centre, to the greater Damascus area.and
Quote:Meanwhile, the more substantial Syrian conflict – the one with another 200 deaths daily, and 300,000 since 2011, with 4m refugees worldwide and 7m people displaced inside the country – has all but disappeared from view.Obviously, Ukraine has kind of stolen the limelight, and the Russian connexion to the Syria debacle is there, but we must never let it be forgotten that it was military adventurism that led us to this pass…
I think this sums up what TUSC means to the RMT:http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/rmt-union-president-im-standing-8598307
Quote:Peter Pinkney, the highest ranking layperson of the RMT Union, will campaign against Ed Miliband’s party in Redcar, claiming: “The party of the left is now the Green Party.”JUst to show what Lord Ashcroft is predicting for this seat:I think its safe to say he won't win.
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2013/no-1311-november-2013/how-did-social-inequality-ariseThe creation of inequality : how our prehistoric ancestors set the stage for monarchy, slavery, and empire / Kent Flannery, Joyce Marcus. Cambridge, Mass. ; London : Harvard University Press 2012
But society cannot democratically do the censoring, since in order to vote on what information to suppress society would have to disseminate it, in which case, it's not suppressed. You'd need a technical elite to do the censoring.
Lbird,the problem is, that your position is the elitist one here, since censorship requires a censor that hides information from the democratic polity.
The philosophical objection is the same as the practical one. Censorship requires enforcement (and the ability to enforce); someone has to know what will be said (in advance) in order to operate the censorship. That is, someone must always be 'exposed'. There is no way of knowing what has been wrongfully suppressed, nor of knowing what has been suppressed. It also denies the basic principle of democracy that a minority (opinion) has the right to try to become a majority opinion. That principle alone means that democracy must 'self deny' itself and place restricting expression beyond in its powers.The only abridgement to 'free speech' is the principle of freedom of association, which says I don't have to hear someone's speech if I don't want to, or, if we are gathered to hear speech, that we only hear it in the prescribed manner (or, put another way, when there is limited bandwidth, we have to democratically control that bandwidth and the manner of its usage, free speech is for the commons). Thus at meetings we have chairs, who must be obeyed, for example.On with philosophy, and we can make a distinction, per Austin, between speech and speech acts. The famous 'Shouting fire in a crowded theatre' (originally introduced in the US courts to abridge first amendment rights, throuigh the 'clear and present danger' test) the reality is that that test it has nothing to do with expression, but actions. "I believe there is a fire in this theatre" is an expression of opinion, whereas "shouting fire" is raising a fire alarm.Needless to say, even a socialist society will need to protect itself from dangerous behaviour. The difference between these three illustrates how difficult that is:1) I hate smurfs.2) Smurfs have a harmful effect on our community.3) I believe the world would be a better place without Smurfs.4) Kill the smurfs!That illustrates how grammatical mood is not naturally aligned with the effect of the speech act (3 in particular is a declaration of a belief but one that in a certain context could be seen as having the same effect as 4).
