Young Master Smeet
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Aaron Bushnell sent the video of him burning himself to death to an Anarchist group (that is not a link to the video, I won’t).
“My name is Aaron Bushnell. I am an active-duty member of the US Air Force and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest—but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”
The socialist attitude is to ‘live for the cause’, but there is no denying the calm determined decision Bushnell made to die such a horrible death.
I hope no-one else makes this choice, but it is a symptom of a world run mad.
Interestingly, Engels once advocated voting Tory:
“What Aveling told me confirms the suspicion I already had, namely, that Keir Hardie secretly cherishes the wish to lead the new party in a dictatorial way, just as Parnell led the Irish, and that moreover he tends to sympathise with the Conservative Party rather than the Liberal opposition. He publicly declares that Parnell’s experiment, which compelled Gladstone to give in, ought to be repeated at the next election and where it is impossible to nominate a Labour candidate one should vote for the Conservatives, in order to show the Liberals the power of the party. Now this is a policy which under definite circumstances I myself recommended to the English; however, if at the very outset one does not announce it as a possible tactical move but proclaims it as tactics to be followed under any circumstances, then it smells strongly of Champion.”
You’d have to have a heart of shit not to laugh:
Labour have disowned their by-election candidate (but their free mailout is still going out tomorrow, too late to cancel).
They’ve disowned another candidate.
Sue Gray is in trouble for unlawful leak investigations.The fish rots from the head down; when will Kier apologise?
They’re briefing and leaking like fiends: they may yet throw the election.
This is too funny for words.
I was going to dredge up that quote: but also, we need to watch out for the fascist bogey.
It’s no coincidence that the fash vote goes up under Labour governments, it suites them and the Tories. Look at France: Macron has nothing to offer the French, except that he is not the Front National, even while stealing their policies. In America, Biden is relying on the gamble that people will vote for him, while offering them nothing, because he is not Trump. It’s the magicians trick of ‘forcing’ a card on their mark. You need to vote for what you want, not against something.
Already answered:
“the first point is honest debate is needed to try and change people’s minds alongside social practices that bring people together, a worldwide movement that attacks the reactionary interests everywhere.”
In the scenario you paint, the refugees are just as likely to be socialists from across the globe as reactionaries, and the movement in their own countries would be having these debates.
People’s mind can change (quite quickly) and if they can’t, then socialism will never happen.
Binned post/thread.
Forums › General discussion › King Charles is dead.
#2502101. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.
“Forum aims and scope
The SPGB web forums are operated by the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB) and are intended to promote discussion of matters related to the SPGB, the World Socialist Movement, and socialism in general.”This post belonged in the off-topic forum.
I think the first error here is seeing refugees/foreigners as a uniform bloc of reactionary ideas: there are reactionary people enough in the UK, what is important is the material basis for said reaction, mostly around trying to secure jobs, and seeing ‘others’ getting all the benefits.
Lets not forget the propagandistic aims of British capitalists in trying to pain foreigners as reactionary others: these claims were all made about the Irish centuries ago: it’s about building a coalition to protect their wealth as Britain’s rulers. the propaganda of a universal worldwide society without nations and borders would intrinsically challenge that.
So, the first point is honest debate is needed to try and change people’s minds alongside social practices that bring people together, a worldwide movement that attacks the reactionary interests everywhere.
Declassified have taken a look at the self-defence angle
“Foreign Office says only one British merchant vessel was targeted by Houthis before the RAF bombed Yemen. And it was registered in the Cayman Islands.”
The British government concept of interest is very expansive.
Ah, and they’re giving the supplement away Here
That’s a good article, and surprisingly well informed for the time: no annexations no indemnities was the standard Social Democrat agreed position at the time (though they added no separate peace): interestingly, one of the articles in the Star makes a virtue of Lenin’s accommodation with the peasantry into a virtue. I’ll plug the hell out of that article.
What they also miss is that the returns on capital are equalised through finance, , as noted before, these billionaires, to avoid having any taxable income live on a sea of debt, their entire wealth goes through financialisation, which in turn distributes profit back in the form of interest which is generalised among savers; likewise, their companies are mostly financed by public issuance of shares, and the market price of shares also does the work, actual genuine monopolies are vanishingly rare, firms like Vollkswagen and Ikea, tetrapack, etc. that remain family owned, perhaps, but even they rely on financing.
There is no guarantee that Operation Prosperity Guardian (fucking really?) will succeed, yesterday we got full bore propaganda that all the drones were shot down, “The naval response, meanwhile, is costly for participating nations. Given the cost of surface-to-air missiles used by western navies to destroy much cheaper Houthi drones, the cost-benefit ratio is negative, although this does not account for the cost of a ship and its cargo.” At the minimum, the insurance rates will go up, inflating all prices of goods going through that route. “Interestingly, instability in the Red Sea is neither in China’s interest nor in the interests of any other non-western large trading nations because their economies are strongly and undeniably dependent on the global maritime supply chain.” I suspect that ‘national self reliance’ may well become the trend, and more regionalised economies.
Also, today marks the beginning to South Africa’s court case against Israel: I don’t hold much hope, but it could be make or break for international law, if the ruling is against Israel, Britain and the US would have to make some tough choices. There may already be some effect, as apparently Netanyahu has made a public statement that Israel does not intend to fully occupy Gaza, nor displace the Palestinians.
Milei rules by decree, interestingly, he doesn’t have a legislative majority: in some ways this is more like Allende than some would admit, but he will have the backing of some powerful people (apparently, including the US).
This will turn into a test of strength for the Unions, but as the article notes, Pinochet won out in the 70’s – I don’t know if our anarcho-capitalist will resort to wholesale slaughter, but I wouldn’t rule it out.
This analysis suggests the Chinese posturing is about bolstering the CCP’s nationalist credentials, but that it may have reached its limits (note, though, the slowed growth rate of 3%, an actual contraction in China could be catastrophic).
I don’t think China wants war in the area, at best America could use Taiwan to try and provoke one: according to this article at least…
As the Ukraine war has shown, missiles can down a fleet, so naval empires don’t have it as easy as they did.
