for lefties too stubborn to quit
As always, following on Dr. X’s suggestion, it’s all yours, “announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose”, feel free.
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| Colm B on What you want to say – 17th Ap… | |
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worldbystorm2014ATgmailDOTcom
The Cedar Lounge Revolution
When, and why, did it become acceptable for Ireland fans to embrace the Leprechaun image? I trace it to the Paris game (the 0-0) but it is embarrassing and pathetic. Wouldn’t have been tolerated in the 1980s.
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That Richard Tol /not ESRI report that got all the publicity yesterday (and today) is at http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/rt220/WP436.pdf
As usual Michael Taft gives the report a good going over.
http://notesonthefront.typepad.com/politicaleconomy/2012/06/the-esri-paper-now-you-see-it-now-you-dont.html
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The NME have offered an apology to Moz:
NME have offered an apology to Morrissey for “the misunderstanding” regarding a 2007 interview that Morrissey believes portrayed him as racist. His libel case against the NME goes to court this summer.
http://pitchfork.com/news/46821-nme-apologize-to-morrissey/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PitchforkLatestNews+%28Pitchfork%3A+Latest+News%29
Hmm. Which musician called the unfortunate Chinese
a “subspecies” again?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/sep/03/morrissey-simon-armitage-interview
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Never entirely sure what to make of Morrissey on issue’s like that. Thats a pretty appalling remark (chinese one), and he has a few more beside, but sometimes I just think he’s being provocative, and sometimes I think he has been unfairly criticised. For example certainly think people overstretched National Front Disco to imply support for that organisation. I didnt read the original article so don’t know about that instance. He’s a bloody mess of contradictions either which way.
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I’d agree there certainly may be an element of provaction
in Morrissey’s statements, and “National Front Disco”
is no more a pro-fascist song than “Belsen was a Gas”.
Seems very odd for the son of Irish immigrants to be
critical of other immigrant groups to Britain as well.
Still, I always was more of a New Order
fan 😉 ….
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Yeah exactly that on immigrants. Though he certainly became more exercised about it in later years than when he was younger. Around the time he stopped living there actually. I think he’d live it to have frozen in time in one way. Or even a nostalgia for an England that never was? hard to say.
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Hope everyone’s well. Thought you all may be interested in this story on the legacy of the British Communist Party. allegations of “Moscow Gold” abound…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18351323
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The book launch mentioned in that article grabbed my attention. Unfortunately, “After the Party” isn’t a detailed account of where various prominent ex-CPGB people ended up, but instead seems to be the vaguely nostalgic memoirs.of a handful of former communists who are now for the most part useless liberals.
As for the wider story, well it’s sickening to see resources accumulated over years of sacrifice by people who, whatever the limits of their actual politics, saw themselves as socialists squandered by a useless liberal think tank.
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Feeling content today, or at least thinking things can’t get any worse. Capitalism keeps delivering.
39% drop in median household net worth, ’07-’10. (USA)
http://www.angrybearblog.com/2012/06/recessions-are-natures-way-of-keeping.html
2 lovely graphs showing that the rich are getting richer. The second graph compares the Great Depression years of 1933-34 to the current depression.
Things are worse now than then with regard to continuing income disparity. (Who says no one learns from history. The recessions of the 19th and early 20th centuries provide capitalists with lessons they’ve had to learn and they seem to have learnt them well. They are profiting from misfortune. Well done!)
Many will focus on home asset depreciation but they are missing the point. The simple fact is that the rich are commodifying every cash flow (especially plundering public services through privatisation) whilst collecting their interest rentals to boot. Growing income disparity should be the focus, but what we get from our government is shite about how the dole makes us lazy and disincentives us. (Well done Mr. Taft in destroying the T(r)ol paper on the subject”
“I can’t comprehend how anyone can play word games about “incentives” to suggest that this situation, created quite intentionally over the past three decades, is or could be conducive to widespread national prosperity.
I can only assume that those who do so don’t actually care about widespread national prosperity.”
The author should know corporations don’t do national interest anymore. How quaint and parochial.
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“The recessions of the 19th and early 20th centuries provide capitalists with lessons they’ve had to learn and they seem to have learnt them well. ” – depends what you mean by learning lessons I suppose. There is a book on the crises by Sweezy and Magdoff which points out that actually capitalism does better overall when incomes are more equal. Obvious really as then the masses have more to spend on consumer goods. Take it from them and give it to the rich and the super rich can only buy so many yacths. Maybe we overestimate the insight of capitalists?
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Yeah but this way they stay richand get to indulge their economic prejudices.
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Yeah, I see what you’re saying Fergus. And it makes sense that a capitalism that distributes its production more evenly throughout society tends to be more stable and so more acceptable to more people.
But our current situation throws up several vital questions.
Are we realising the fruition of several decades of consumer society with regard to Marx’s observations about the inherent contradictions of competitive production – especially with regard to innovation and surplusing of labour?
Were the glory days after WWII a historical-economic aberration? Can we ignore the very uneven global distribution and exploitation of the post WWII era that enriched the West while keeping entire continents in poverty?
While the banking crisis is centre stage now and pure greed motivates many in business and our governments, is austerity simply being used as an agenda for other concrete developments that do not bode well for capitalism in the coming decades? (Only time, imo, will tell.) What affect are higher energy prices due to increased competition and the costly difficultly of tapping new resources having upon our economies? After all, energy is the modern equivalent of the slave in work terms.
I tend to think the meta-narrative developing which employs a very skewed story about the Darwinian notion of survival of the fittest (in human economic terms the bigger one’s bank balance and asset hoarding, the better a survivalist one is) sheds some light on how we got to this point and where we’re going as societies.
There have been a few muted voices from the bowels of capitalism that have questioned the current capitalist orthodoxy of austerity by pointing out that austerity is killing demand. Such voices are largely ignored. Why?
It’s my developing belief, as events unfold and governments respond to the immediate banking crisis, that we are seeing that capitalists have indeed learned the lessons pre-WWII. They may have learned that when economies can no longer grow exponentially they require consolidation of their wealth through outright ownership of all of society’s assets. We see far fewer new factories but instead every human activity becomes a source of rent as new and innovative productive opportunities reach a plateau for a multitude of reasons.
best
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Look who’s been a Fool Again
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http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/labour-could-quit-over-vote-on-new-bailout-197366.html
Interesting little solo run here by Deputy Colm Keaveney, chair of the Labour Party. Ivana Bacik was caught totally off-guard by it on Vin B last night!
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Another significant victory against Tesco in Smithfield. The City Council have rejected a second attempt by the company to operate an off licence in the premises formerly occupied by the Complex. After Tesco’s fall at the second Bord Pleanala jump last year, they came back on the rebound, their task made easier by the legal ejectment of the Complex by receivers working for NAMA. DCC also played the cultural card, permitting them to open shop (without the booze) as long as they come up with some sort of documentation as to how they’re going to implement a cultural framework plan for the area, which was originally conditioned under the initial development grant of permission. Face painting for kids on a Sunday morning?
Last time round, the Board thought this condition unreasonable, and I’d tend to agree with them. As for the gargle, well it’s no secret that Tesco traded alcohol on Thomas Street illegally for some period, before it was forced to regularise its position on foot of legal action and an enforcement order from DCC. Tesco has deep pockets and we should expect them perhaps to appeal the latest decision to the Board.
They were defeated by strong local opposition in the form of 18 submissions to the planning authority based on planning law, the City Development Plan and excellent medical evidence regarding the social effects of the sale of cut price alcohol in vulnerable communities.
I’m sorry in a way as I was on the point of developing a Joycean boardgame based on a map of the city, where you plan routes between the canals where you’ll not come within a 350m radius of a Tesco.
And because we know that Saville’s are known to pull the chair up at the Cedar Lounge on occasion, we’ll all be looking forward to the official NAMA response to a question regarding the suitability of a space directly opposite the children’s court for a cut price off licence. Should it go to the Board, that is.
So, does Tesco have the bottle? Having been beaten three times now, are they really gonna go the fourth round?
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Of course they’ll try again. There is clearly a profit to be made.
I liked the Complex, but is a Tesco off licence going to make a difference to the area when there are several pubs and off licences nearby?
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Fear not. Although unemployment might be rocketing, the European project collapsing and capitalism facing its greatest crisis in a century, the Labour Party is on top of the issues that matter most:
http://www.labour.ie/press/listing/13396060517268322.html
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Fair play to Deputy Nash. Bereaved parents who would have never heard of this website have now had it brought to their attention by the Labour TD from Louth. Result.
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Alan Shatter. Why?
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Perusing the Irish desertion issue post after the recent decision this week and came across a line about imperialist war just waiting to be waged in Syria.
Since obviously this hasn’t come to pass (yet)and wholesale slaughter has continued unabated I am curious on people’s take on things.
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Piece by David Lowery once of Camper Van Beethoven on file sharing
http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/letter-to-emily-white-at-npr-all-songs-considered/
Maybe because he’s American, the terms of the piece are all couched in the language of ‘ethics’ and ‘fairness’, but if you can’t see the politics I don’t know what you’re doing here.
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I have to confess, sonofstan, that I’m not really sure what you see in this piece. It strikes me as very sanctimonious in tone, and actively distasteful when it starts using his dead friends as ammunition. The language of ethics and fairness is, as you note, problematic, while the political opposition he sets up between struggling musicians and megacorporations who are allegedly eroding their intellectual property rights completely ignores the massive corporate interests behind the generalised expansion of intellectual property in recent times.
There are reasonable arguments to be made against file-sharing, and indeed you’ve made some to me before, but I really don’t think that this piece has anything much of interest in it.
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For those with a little interest in history.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01kg4tx
Hitler, Stalin and Mr Jones
Image for Hitler, Stalin and Mr Jones
2011-2012
Duration: 1 hour, 20 minutes
Storyville: an investigation into who killed Welsh journalist Gareth Jones. Jones’s greatest scoop was to reveal the starvation to death of millions in 1930s Ukraine, caused by Stalin’s policies
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I do not even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was good.
I do not know who you are but definitely you are going to a famous blogger
if you are not already 😉 Cheers!
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Oh my goodness! Incredible article dude! Thank you, However I am encountering troubles with your RSS.
I don’t know the reason why I cannot join it. Is there anyone else having the same RSS issues? Anybody who knows the answer can you kindly respond? Thanx!!
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Spambot I love you.
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I’m disappointed to see you shutting down legitimate debate in this manner WbS. The totalitarian jackboot of socialism reveals itself once more.
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But I love Danae and Pam. I tell you, I love them.
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