tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-360280822024-03-18T18:27:42.939+00:00SOCIALISM OR YOUR MONEY BACKOur aim is to build a movement working towards socialism, a democratic society based upon co-operation and production for use, a world community without national borders. An end to buying and selling and money, where goods will be voluntarily produced and services voluntarily supplied to meet people's needs. People will freely take the things they need.
The Socialist Party of Great Britain is an organisation of equals with no leaders.Poetry Coalshedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05514953133244910986noreply@blogger.comBlogger21217125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-44997987762981457882024-03-18T17:55:00.001+00:002024-03-18T18:27:10.260+00:00Financial Difficulties Advice: Abolish Capitalism!
As
capitalism continues to exacerbate the financial problems of very
many, living as we all do in a social system that is exploitative and
profit based, the ‘solutions’ on offer are, as usual, of the band
aid type rather than of the drastic surgery which is the only
panacea.
The
Guardian
reports that, ‘A
record 6.7 million people in Britain are in financial difficulty, a
campaign group has cynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-68211656604664743782024-03-17T13:51:00.003+00:002024-03-17T14:22:53.982+00:00Capitalism's War Addiction: Working Class Expendable
Latvia
joins
‘other European countries where conscription is already mandatory
including Austria,
Belarus, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Lithuania, Moldova,
Norway, Sweden,
Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine. ‘
https://metro.co.uk/2024/02/07/latvia-introduces-compulsory-conscription-men-aged-18-27-20236904/
The
UK had mandatory conscription in WW1 and WW2 after which National
cynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-68359100488787410742024-03-16T11:58:00.002+00:002024-03-17T11:25:48.013+00:00Karl Marx - An Appreciation
This
is a shortened version of an article that appeared in the Socialist
Standard, March 1933, which was the anniversary of Karl Marx’s
death fifty years previously.
‘Fifty
years ago, on March 14th, 1883, Karl Marx died in London, after a
lifetime devoted to the workers' cause. The persecutions and
privations he had endured in that cause hastened his death. When he
died, much of the work cynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-46344007935643129342024-03-15T12:52:00.001+00:002024-03-15T17:26:09.105+00:00Chad: No such thing as a free lunch?
The Republic of Chad is a landlocked country in Africa. From 1900 to 1960
it was a French colony. After independence civil wars and
dictatorship followed. Idriss
Déby
ruled as President until his demise in 2021 when General Mahamat
Déby, his son, took power.
Over
a third of Chad’s eighteen million population live in extreme
poverty.
World
Bank Date has only 11.3 per cent of Chadians having cynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-78242512694925789362024-03-14T13:11:00.001+00:002024-03-14T17:15:54.862+00:00Kicking against the pricks: Gove and censorship
Strange
times when The Socialist Party of Great Britain finds itself sharing
the views of three former government ministers and the Archbishop of
Canterbury. When members of the capitalist establishment are kicking
against the pricks then something is seriously amiss.
‘Michael
Gove has named a string of organisations that could be barred from
government funding and meetings under a cynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-84932887148416914352024-03-13T15:55:00.002+00:002024-03-13T17:33:40.832+00:00Dirty Business
According
to a recent report from The Rivers Trust, ‘No single stretch of
river in England or Northern Ireland is in good overall health.’ At
the end of February, for instance, human faeces and toilet paper
flooded a chalk stream and a road in Norfolk.
Besides
the discharging of raw sewage, there can be pollution by plastics or
chemicals, especially ‘forever chemicals’ that take over a
thousand cynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-68911341142253610372024-03-13T12:12:00.003+00:002024-03-13T12:28:27.998+00:00Kybosh on Cod
Little
Jacky may very well no longer have a codlin' or haddock baked in a
pan when his daddy’s boat come in.
From
The Fishing Daily, ‘Russia Ends Decades Old UK Fisheries Agreement
for Barents Sea.’
https://thefishingdaily.com/latest-news/russia-ends-decades-old-uk-fisheries-agreement-for-barents-sea/
More
devastating than the news emanating from Kensington Palace, or
rather, not cynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-75310771331613330602024-03-12T20:55:00.001+00:002024-03-12T23:53:11.552+00:00Socialist Sonnet No. 13940 Years On
Just forty
years on from the Iron Lady
Disavowing
coal. Deep in the shadow
Of abundant
stockpiles, the wealth below
Was to be forfeited
for a shady
Deal between
politics and capital,
Anathema of
organised labour
Had to be
vanquished, by setting neighbour
Against
neighbour if at all possible,
Coalfield
against coalfield, trade against trade.
Solidarity
undermined, Poetry Coalshedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05514953133244910986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-1513843273409863482024-03-12T16:09:00.003+00:002024-03-12T17:22:02.105+00:00Manipulating The Crowd
In
1895 Frenchman Charles-Marie Gustave Le Bon (1841 –1931) wrote The
Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind.
In
it Le Bon analysed how the behaviour of the individual was affected
by that of the crowd or mob and how, caught up in the assembly of
many others an individual would sublimate their personality and
proceed to act in ways that individually they would not have
contemplated.
cynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-80510344928564702122024-03-11T15:11:00.001+00:002024-03-11T18:44:51.628+00:00Reeves and the economy Talking about the economy on Sunday, Rachel Reeves told the BBC that Labour won’t be able to turn things around straight away if elected.Unfortunately, she is deluded if she really thinks that there is actually a mechanism for “turning things around”. Driven by the profit motive, and always in the interest of the minority owning class, worldwide capitalism runs according to its own laws. cynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-8680750954463974962024-03-11T08:37:00.003+00:002024-03-11T09:45:35.070+00:00Capitalism damages mental health Try
singing ‘If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands’ in
the UK and, as the UK has now been designated the second most
miserable country in the world, you’ll likely get a traditional
British ‘please go away’ response.
An
(online) survey from Sapien
Labs,
a neuroscience foundation, took place across seventy one countries
and generated 419,175 responses.
‘Some
35% of Britons told
cynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-18694522155005051822024-03-10T12:50:00.002+00:002024-03-10T13:13:40.058+00:00Mothers Milk
In
May 2023, UNICEF highlighted the growing cost of infant formula and
the profit jacking of producers.
‘Families
are under growing pressure to afford infant formula and other
essentials to support their babies’ early years. Infant formula
prices have risen above inflation over the past two years –
bringing the cost of feeding a 10-week-old baby on first stage infant
formula to between £44cynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-87441221951031088132024-03-09T14:42:00.002+00:002024-03-09T16:21:12.445+00:00Capitalism looking for more African women supporters
Further
to this post from SOYMB, 5 March, comes news that women in Nigeria
are being targeted to become more capitalism friendly and contribute
toward the profits of Nigerian capitalists.
‘The
World Bank, formed at the 1944 Breton Woods Conference is meanwhile
concerned that women's rights and gender equality need to progress at
a faster pace. Lest anyone think that this organisation’scynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-39919629310603208462024-03-08T06:11:00.001+00:002024-03-08T10:19:52.652+00:00‘Senile’ or ‘unhinged’? In preparation for the US elections this year, both sides are resorting to slurring the mental capacities of the other’s leader. Biden is being called ‘senile’ by Republicans and Trump ‘unhinged’ by Democrats.Will this play into how people vote? It’s hard to know. But one thing is sure. Whoever is voted into power will have no significant impact on the problems faced by electors in America cynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-34409249060415906012024-03-07T11:50:00.003+00:002024-03-07T11:57:03.752+00:00War is not meant to end
Aljeezera
13 February, noted that, from a report by the International Institute
for Strategic Studies; ‘Global defence spending jumped 9 percent to
a record $2.2 trillion last year, and is set to rise in 2024.’
‘The
war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.
Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and
ignorance. This new version is the past and no cynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-9937229501677954042024-03-06T11:45:00.006+00:002024-03-06T12:38:27.261+00:00Socialist Sonnet No. 138Barbarism or Socialism?
A hundred,
more, gangs on Haiti shows,
Under
idyllic Caribbean skies,
The true
nature of raw free enterprise
Untroubled
by any effective laws.
Wherever the
market determines goods,
Drugs or
guns or both? And then nothing stirs
Unless so
willed by armed entrepreneurs
The poor
look up to as their Robin Hoods.
While terror
roams the streets in four by fours
Poetry Coalshedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05514953133244910986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-28947001546734960662024-03-06T10:49:00.002+00:002024-03-06T10:59:04.133+00:00Biden or Trump: Karma?
Karma
is a belief in Indian religions that do good in this life and your
reincarnation will be happier. Do bad, and you’ll suffer for it the
next time round. Not a concept that materialists give credence too
but, for the sake of this post, Americans collectively must have done
something terrible to have to suffer the ongoing unedifying election farce that
is taking place in the USA right now.
Incynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-78931623922036413562024-03-05T15:38:00.002+00:002024-03-06T03:54:24.515+00:00Russia, Women and Musk
Capitalism
is global. Capitalism long ago created the conditions for the
transition to a socialist global society. Examples of wealth
inequality can be found in many SOYMB posts. Now comes news further
inequality within Russia. Rosstat, the Russian official statistics
agency, using the Gini index, which assesses inequality on a scale
from 0 to 1, where higher values indicate higher inequality. cynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-5948595736030296632024-03-04T16:45:00.005+00:002024-03-04T16:57:21.298+00:00Erroneus reporting: Galloway is not associated with the SPGB
There
is an article on the ynetnews.com website, 3 March, stating that
George Galloway is a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.
This
is completely and utterly false.
Galloway
is not, and never has been, associated with the Socialist Party of
Great Britain,
Representations
have made to the news site informing them of this fact and asking
that it corrects the article accordingly.
In
cynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-206684157524711502024-03-03T11:28:00.002+00:002024-03-03T11:36:32.456+00:00Who will man the lifeboats?
Royal
National Lifeboat Institution: ‘Founded in 1824 as the National
Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, it soon
afterwards became the Royal National Institution for the Preservation
of Life from Shipwreck under the patronage of King
George IV. On 5 October
1854, the institution’s name was changed to its current name
(RNLI), and in 1860 was granted a royal
charter. cynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-72915538434761370752024-03-02T11:11:00.004+00:002024-03-02T13:38:40.051+00:00Career Reformist wins Rochdale by-election So the egocentric opportunist George Galloway is back in parliament. Some say it was a protest against what is going on in Gaza. There may be something in that. Others see it as a rejection of the Westminster parties. One thing it wasn’t was the election of a Socialist MP.He promised “secure jobs for all in decent conditions with living wages”, “decent, cheap secure housing for all”, “free cynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-21199222276385676572024-03-01T11:46:00.000+00:002024-03-01T11:46:08.373+00:00ZOOM meeting 1930 todayThis evening's meeting (19.30)*DID YOU SEE THE NEWS?* *(Zoom)*Discussion on recent subjects in the news*Speaker: TBC*To join the meeting click https://zoom.us/j/7421974305hallblithehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05103491398870023498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-19490312953495315162024-03-01T05:59:00.002+00:002024-03-01T11:19:47.801+00:00George Galloway’s Workers Party GEORGE GALLOWAY’S ‘WORKERS PARTY’The Rochdale by-election on 29 February was prompted by the death of the previous Member of Parliament for that constituency. From 1972 onwards the seat had a mix of Liberal and Labour MPs. Labour no doubt expected an easy win there, which they may have achieved under pressure, even though a previous Labour MP, expelled from that party and then representing cynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-12561788306642493092024-03-01T05:41:00.000+00:002024-03-01T05:41:11.695+00:00Socialist Standard March 2024 Now Available On Line https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2020s/2024/no-1435-march-2024/cynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36028082.post-65974178563346967762024-02-29T09:55:00.002+00:002024-02-29T10:55:55.579+00:00Capitalism and the Fallacy of Reform: Part Two
Continued
from Part One
Like
Bernstein, today’s labour and social democratic parties do not
champion any meaningful alternative – in fact, they are complicit
in the perpetuation of capitalism. As Bernstein’s contemporary, the
socialist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) contested:
“…people
who pronounce themselves in favour of the method of legislative
reform in place of and in cynical but optimistichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507551531620970361noreply@blogger.com0