BS: electing a new labour leader

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 21 Aug 15 - 04:45 AM

Shimrod, its not a faith thing, its the knowledge that they are the least worst option.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: akenaton
Date: 21 Aug 15 - 04:54 AM

Of course it's a faith thing!!

Anyone who imagines that socialists can run Capitalism must have suspended reason.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Aug 15 - 05:22 AM

OK Al, we will have to agree to disagree. You recollect what you said. I recollect what you wrote. I also recollect you said you were leaving Mudcat but I think the thread has been deleted so there are no facts to back that up with. No point in continuing. Try to remember it was you who brought it up on this thread in the first place.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 21 Aug 15 - 05:50 AM

"Anyone who imagines that socialists can run Capitalism must have suspended reason."

Anyone who believes that capitalists should be allowed to run the world has suspended all reason!

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Aug 15 - 07:12 AM

well of course it rankles being publicly accused of being a racist. perhaps if it is a general way of conducting yourself, it didn't register with you too much.

yes i felt like walking away from mudcat. but in truth it is a place i have a great affection for and it is the best forum in existence for my kind of music. so why should mindless abuse have driven me away.

as for this latest nonsense that i generally abused eastern europeans - this is a complete embroidery on the facts.

as for the L abour party thing.

there is a famous poem called i shall vote Labour by the late Christopher Logue seems appropriate.

I Shall Vote Labour by Christopher Logue


I shall vote labour because
God votes labour
I shall vote labour to protect
the sacred institution of the family
I shall vote labour because
I am a dog
I shall vote labour because Labour tolerates
the traitor Ian Smith
I shall vote labour because
I am on a diet
I shall vote labour because Ringo votes labour
I shall vote labour because
upper class hoorays annoy me in expensive restaurants
I shall vote labour because if I don't
somebody else will

And

I shall vote labour because if one person does it everybody else will be wanting to do it.
I shall vote labour because
my husband looks like Antony Wedgewood Benn
I shall vote labour because I am obedient
I shall vote labour because if I do not vote labour
my balls will drop off.
I shall vote labour because there are too few
cars on the road
I shall vote labour because
Mrs Wilson promised me five pounds if I did
I shall vote labour because I love
Look at Life films
I shall vote labour because
I am a hopeless drug addict
I shall vote labour because
I am a Wincarnis shareholder
I shall vote labour because
I failed to be a dollar millionaire aged three
I shall vote labour because labour will build
More maximum security prisons
I shall vote labour because I want to see
Nureyev and Fonteyne dance in Swansea Civic Centre
I shall vote labour because I want to shop
In a covered precinct stretching from Yeovil to Glasgow
I shall vote labour because I want to rape an air hostess
I shall vote labour because I am a hairdresser
I shall vote labour because
The Queen's Stamp collection is the best in the world
I shall vote labour because
Deep in my heart
I am a conservative

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 21 Aug 15 - 07:30 AM

Akenaton,

Anyone who imagines that Labour are socialists has been asleep for 30 years. Anybody who believes that capitalism is anything other than a scam to transfer wealth to the already rich is either in denial, or, more likely, in it up to their eyeballs.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Aug 15 - 08:00 AM

It is not a general way, Al. I am half Polish and when the implication is that east Europeans are criminals it rankles me too. Maybe that does not mean anything to you either? Do you remember the point you made by quoting Kipling? 'Single me in barracks don't grow into plaster Saints'. It was because you had said that crime had increased in your locality because of the influx of young east Europeans. It was that comment I considered racist as it is proven that an influx of east Europeans generally lowers the crime rate. If you now say that the increase in crime is not due to the influx of young east Europeans then I owe you an apology. If you were offended by being called a racist then maybe you can see that I was offended by being told we are more prone to commit crimes than other people.

Anyway, it is all water under the bridge and nothing to do with the new Labour leader. If we have both learned something from it, it was a worthwhile discussion. I have learned that you are not a racist and that I need to consider what you have said as not having the obvious meaning. What have you learned?

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 21 Aug 15 - 08:15 AM

Perhaps some people need to stop using words they don't understand.

The United Kingdom has never since Lloyd George been capitalist and it has never ever been socialist.

It has during the last hundred years under every government pursued wealth through capitalism in order to spend on social agendas.

To a greater or lesser extent. Every employer who awards a pay rise is exhibiting socialism. Every worker who has gone on strike for better pay or conditions is a capitalist.

Sanctimonious bollocks all round.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Aug 15 - 08:46 AM

"It has during the last hundred years under every government pursued wealth through capitalism in order to spend on social agendas. "
What a bizarre way of describing both Capitalism and Socialism
Can't make up m#y mind if you are being serious or satirical
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Aug 15 - 09:06 AM

Historians... do not preface their work with,
"Note: Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the historical data contained herein. Any inadvertent errors are regretted."

Perhaps they should. But I would assume that it is in fact as neccessary for any one making a statement about history, or in fact anything, so perhaps actually saying it is redundant

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Aug 15 - 02:41 PM

i learned i am likely to be attacked on mudcat for speaking from experience.

something i learned when describing an awful experience watching a group of pensioners being tortured at a social occasion by some young traddies determind to show they could play a jig or a reel last well past the causing a headache stage. poor old Diana got really pissed off with me for calling the music garbage. i do miss her.

i wasn't talking about where i live - just my home town, and what everybody i met said to me when i visited it.

and of course this does relate to the labour party. isn't this doctrinaire - lets not talk ill of anyone bollocks, the very reason why everyone from a gang of twats like UKIP to Boris the Walking Fruitcake can steal votes off labour.

in way Corbyn is the flipside of Thatcher. she reckoned all we needed to set us right was give the yobs a clip round the ear, introduce 1952 grammar school curriculum and before long Jim Laker would score a century.
Corbyn wants to renationalise the railway, and before long we'll all be having tea in the refreshments room in Warmington on Sea station.

Its this reluctance to believe what honest decent people tell you that makes the idealism so bloody phoney.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: akenaton
Date: 21 Aug 15 - 04:03 PM

Guest Dave :0). Lots of people here believe Labour are socialists, despite a huge amount of evidence to the contrary.
Shim...the vast majority of people here believe capitalists should rule the world

Which leads me on to Team Musket who have obviously COMPLETELY lost the tiny piece of the plot which was in their possession.
The "trickle down economics" argument has been shown as an absolute fraud by tax avoidance, cutting of tax rates for business, the criminal activities associated with the financial crash and manipulation of interest rates.

Capitalism is a huge Ponzi scheme....the government takes what it is allowed to take in revenue....take too much and capital disappears and reappears as if by magic in a more sympathetic environment.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 21 Aug 15 - 04:21 PM

Well don't that damned well beat all. Alun Parry is a Liverpudlian political singer and songwriter. He has just had his application to affiliate to the Labour Party turned down on the grounds that his allegiances are at variance with LP aims and values.

I know Alun Parry well. He is a bloody good songwriter who attacks capitalism, and its attendant ills, relentlessly. He stands up for Palestinians, striking workers, Gay rights, women's rights, migrant workers, travellers, oppressed ethnic minorities, and all the wretched individuals of the earth who get a raw deal from life, just because they happen to be poor or black or the wrong sex, or whatever. In other words, he is exactly the sort of person who a Labour Party, a Labour Party, SHOULD have in its ranks, and would have if it had an ounce of commitment towards the ideals which the founding fathers stood for.

He is not a Labour Party member - in fact he is not a member of any political organisation - but I have never heard him say or sing anything decrying the party, or any of its leading figures.

It is blindingly obvious that the reason why they will not let him affiliate is because they know full well he will vote for Corbyn, and we could never have that. In a free and democratic election, we can't let people vote for someone who might actually rattle a few ivory towers, now can we?

God damn the begrudgers and bureaucrats and careerists and self centred opportunists who have infested the party for the past twenty five years and more.

You can hear some of Alun Parry's work here

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: akenaton
Date: 21 Aug 15 - 04:45 PM

"He stands up for Palestinians, striking workers, Gay rights, women's rights, migrant workers, travellers, oppressed ethnic minorities, and all the wretched individuals of the earth who get a raw deal from life, just because they happen to be poor or black or the wrong sex,"

Come on Fred what have any of the above got to do with the struggle against Capitalism....in fact, migrant workers are helping to fund capitalism....Gay rights? Palestinians? Travellers?... most have no interest in any political system, Oppressed ethnic minorities? We are all fucking oppressed. Minorities and majority
You spread the net too wide and nothing will be achieved.   That is what they want, the leaders of capitalism. Make smoke screens, spread confusion, divide and conquer.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Aug 15 - 08:12 PM

True socialists do not have the tunnel vision that says they are campaigning against capitalism to the exclusion of everything else. True socialists know that gay people, Palestinians, travellers, the poor, black people and people of the wrong sex, and plenty more, are sidelined and victimised by the lousy ethos of capitalism, and that only true socialists will ever stand up for them. If those sidelined minorities show no interest in any political system, it's because every political system they've encountered has treated them as fifth-class non-citizens. Your attitude towards such people is as far removed from any notion of true socialism that I've ever encountered. Shame on you.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Aug 15 - 08:15 PM

well that's just the problem. The Labour Party was founded in a very different age.

we had an empire then, and all the racist shit that went with that. homosexuality was illegal. capital and corporal punishment were on the statute books. Ireland was part of the UK.

And I imagine most Labour Party members at the time would have gone along with all that.

whatever founded the Labour Party. I don't think it gets us very far in this debate.

the question is, which of these turkeys will fly?

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Aug 15 - 08:45 PM

The daft thing is that with the alternative voting system that was voted down (by the tiny percentage of people who actually voted in the referendum) it can be taken as read that the votes of virtually all these "leftwing infiltrators" would have ended up in the pile of Labour votes, once second preferences came into play.

In real terms treating such people as "opponents of Labour" is to misrepresent the truth. Whatever the organisational difference, the values are shared, far more I would say than in the case of many of the rightwingers in Labour who claim to be "centre left".

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 02:30 AM

Fascinating.

Socialism for me and you, but ignore the rights of others. Spout off oppressing decent normal people whilst claiming to be oppressed yourself. And there was me thinking hypocrisy required intelligence. Mea Culpa.

Capitalism meanwhile is something to do with roofers and other building labourers working cash in hand whilst preaching some weird discredited communism, presumably whilst trying to get rich quick down the dog track.

No wonder telly ratings are down. Far better entertainment viewing the exhibits on Mudcat.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: GUEST,Musket II
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 03:01 AM

Anyone thinking any national government can impose its political philosophy, regardless of what that philosophy is should take note of the fact that Greece is about to have yet another election because slowly but surely, it just might sink in that the job of a national government is to do its best given the international arena it depends on.

What we call socialism is merely ensuring a safety net and effective health and social care plan. We, like every country there is, depend on capitalism to fund it. Everything else is just ensuring either you (capitalism) or everybody (socialism) gets a good long suck on the tit.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 03:43 AM

Of course, both capitalism and socialism are based on the ludicrous and deadly assumptions that the Earth's resources are purely for human consumption, are infinite in extent and can be consumed forever at ever- accelerating rates. All of the major political parties in the UK (and elsewhere) appear to share these assumptions and, hence, in the opening years of the 21st century, have no credibility whatsoever! Notice how even Jeremy Corbyn puts the now obligatory 'tick' in the 'environment box' but it's at the bottom of his list of priorities and is probably just vaguely aspirational ("under ideal economic conditions we might start to think about the state of the environment ... possibly ...").

But it may already be too late. I strongly suspect that anthropogenic climate change is already much more advanced than we are being told by the media. We're also in the midst of a mass extinction event which I can see happening, with my own eyes, in my own patch. Even if it were remotely possible, do our politicians even have time to ditch their 19th century ideologies? I suspect not. The struggles between Left and Right will soon be consigned to the history books - but there will be no-one around to read (or, indeed, write) the history books!

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 05:18 AM

Steve Shaw. Hear, bloody hear. In one sense the problem doesn't lie with capitalism. The problem lies with the dog eat dog ethos which capitalism lives by, and which disadvantages all but the tiny majority at the top of the tree.

If you'll excuse me I'm off to Whitby, where the spirit of voluntary co-operation, with everyone striving for the common good of the festival, might just serve as a metaphor for a future socialist society - one where people will be more interested more interested in working for the betterment of their fellow human beings (and the planet) than they are in the profit motive and 'what's in it for me'.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 07:10 AM

Bad news Fred. I'm at Whitby right now and sod the common good. I'll barge my way to the front of the queue at the bar in The Plough in ten mins if it's all the same to you.

Hate to disappoint you, but my three grand guitar looks positively shabby at the side of some at a singaround last night. Seems we capitalists like the noise folk music makes after all.

🐷💰

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: akenaton
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 07:41 AM

So Steve, you don't want any serious attempt to establish a socialist state?..... I'm afraid there is no other way people must be made to understand that as Shimrod says our natural resources and environment will not withstand another fifty years of capitalism.....no matter who is managing it.

Singing songs is all very nice and cosy, but how many mindsets are changed?.....Society is more self centred and capitalistic today than it has ever been in my lifetime.

If you don't want to be sneered at by people like Musket, start concentrating on the important things, the things which will change the political climate.

Shim says it is already to late, I hope he is wrong as nature has wonderful powers of recovery, but I fear he may be right.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 07:56 AM

Musket lets me know if I'm wrong without sneering. Watch and learn.

Socialism is inclusive. That means, among other things, celebrating diversity and difference. Note that I said celebrate, not tolerate. Your attitude to gay people and immigrants shows that you feet aren't even on the bottom of the ladder of tolerance, let alone celebration. I've yet to see a single aspect orf silo idioms in anything you've ever posted.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 08:11 AM

Socialism is inclusive. That means, among other things, celebrating diversity and difference.

What utter drivel...

As a socialist, if you tell me that you're gay, I'll say fine. I won't clap my hands, dance a jig or celebrate it in any way. It's just how it is.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 08:19 AM

It doesn't much matter what a guitar looks like, what matters is how it sounds, and that's more down to how it's played. I've heard brilliant music on instruments that look like wreckks, and the other way round.

Pushing your way to the bar isn't about capitalism. Individual jostling and competing is a whole different game from organised exploitation. If you were to buy up all the beer in the pub, and sell it to the punters for a tidy profit, that would be capitalism.

As for what counts as socialist values, I think it has to be recognised that that is primarily about economic things. The other things, like opposition to fox-hunting, and to the death penalty, and prison reform and gender issues can in principle all be signed up to by rightwing Tories, and often are. The economic issues are the central ones of which that can't be said.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 08:23 AM

Aspect of socialism, that should have said. Silo idioms sounds good. At least my iPad autocorrect thought so!

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 08:25 AM

Well done for completely missing the point, Guest.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 08:40 AM

And what was the point that I'm missing?

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 08:47 AM

I agree, Kevin, but surely true socialism has a significant humanitarian side to it as well. One thing that Jeremy Corbyn's inclusion in the contest is doing is getting Labour to rethink the fuzzy, almost invisible line that, thanks to Blair, separates Labour from Tory. The way we see each other as fellow human beings, in spite of difference, is part of that rethink, hopefully. Working people do not exist simply to be exploited by the rich and powerful and we have an obligation to treat people who can't earn enough, or who seek safety in this country, with fairness and humanity. Not indulgence...

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: akenaton
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 09:51 AM

People create the humanitarian side!......given the correct environment. Some thing which are beneficial will be encouraged, some things which are not will be discouraged.

Fidel Castro was encouraging a socialist state and socialist mindset in Cuba......against all the odds.....but it takes a fist of steel, and an inspirational leader.

No "liberal" liked what Fidel did, they screamed and shouted about all the minutia, but the state still exists, with a good education and health service, the lowest HIV figures in the world... and will until the corporate capitalists get their foot back in the door.

Fidel is old and frail, but he still doesn't trust US politicians.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 09:54 AM

Say what you like. The beer was great, the music tolerable and now off for a dump and some kip. Playing tonight and got to look my capitalist best.

Barging in possibly increased my beer consumption and therefore added contribution to GDP by three pints. Got to do your bit for the economy eh?

Nobody has to be shown that socialism is the way forward same as nobody had to be shown capitalism is the way forward. We vote, we accept the outcome and that is that.

Now, the hotel is that way, I think? Touching cloth here...

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: akenaton
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 10:02 AM

No disrespect intended, but I wish to god we had a Fidel Castro rather than a Jeremy Corbyn.

Maybe Jeremy has a fist of steel inside the pure new wool gloves :0)


Come on Jeremy!!

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 12:49 PM

Fuck me drunk. Despotic dictators who keep their citizens in fear of their lives and forty years behind the rest of the world are suddenly idolised by someone who sees sections of society as second class.

Nothing new there.

By the way, the HIV rates in Cuba cannot be measured as public health monitoring is selective. WHO publish their concerns regularly, and Cuban doctors who make use of the relationship with South Africa as a way of escaping the regime tend to publish all about it in BMJ.

That said, their training is good as far as it goes,but tends to be woefully out of date, so in order to work here or indeed to be on the specialist register in South Africa, it takes two years of a structured course in recent techniques and procedures in their speciality.

On other matters, I have been to Cuba three times on business and the grinding poverty away from the tourist areas are a stain on the whole rotten Castro regime. They saved the country from the worst excesses of USA business and replaced it with something worse.

Corbyn says nice things about him though...

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 02:32 PM

'As a socialist, if you tell me that you're gay, I'll say fine. I won't clap my hands, dance a jig or celebrate it in any way. It's just how it is'

oh go on! dance a jig! you'd look look great in one of those little riverdance skirts, and panties to match your moustache....

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 04:26 PM

I've yet to see a single aspect orf silo idioms in anything..."

Give us a clue what that means, Steve.
..............
Yes, there's a humanitarian tradition that fits well with the socialist analysis, but my point was, the fact that it's been particularly associated with the left and centre rather than more right-wing analyses in our corner of the world is contingent. There's nothing inevitable about it. Economic conservatives can hold all kinds of liberal views, and still remain profoundly conservative (though that's not the right word really - very few of them appear to have the distrust of change in Society that the term implies when it comes to changes that damage the lives of poor people).

But even when formally sharing the same liberal values, these get applied in a different way. Conservative feminists will focus on the fact that there aren't many top executives who are women, socialist feminists will have the plight of cleaners and call centre workers and single mothers as their focus.

It's this focus on economic issues, and the appetite for equality that defines socialism, not the liberal values that can be shared at some level across the political spectrum.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 05:12 PM

I did post a correction to that glitch.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: akenaton
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 06:29 PM

In my youth we had a society which contained large elements of socialism ....we were poor, but we never felt it to be "grinding poverty". We had self sufficiency, people repaired things themselves or sent them off to be repaired, people rode bicycles, helped their neighbours in what we would now call work sharing, but most importantly there was no huge wealth differentials between professional people and manual labourers...no one was rich, not the doctors, farmers, shopkeepers even the "aristocracy" who were crippled by "death taxes"
In times of extreme need people shared what they had, merchants wrote off food bills. My own family was left penniless and homeless by fire .....the little community rallied round, gave what they could and we survived ....I often worked free of charge to folks whom I knew to be in dire straights financially.

We need to learn well what Shimrod says capitalism is no longer sustainable.....we all have to get used to being rather a lot poorer and if we are not willing to accept that, then we must be made to accept it.

In saying that, we must make sure that everyone contributes and that their contributions are recognised.....Monolithic industrial socialism failed because it did not take into account humanity's desire to have a purpose and to be respected for fulfilling that purpose.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: akenaton
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 06:36 PM

On Fidel Castro,.....he of the "rotten regime", when the great man dies, there will be no singing and dancing in the streets of Havana.

I predict the biggest show of REAL emotion from the Cuban people.
A country will mourn the death of their father.

Fortunately he leaves a template of how a sustainable society should work and without US sanctions he could have done much much more.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 07:04 PM

"without US sanctions he could have done much much more."

He received all the largess he needed from the Soviets, he didn't need the US.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 07:54 PM

We appear to have entered some kind of golden-age dream world...

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 07:55 PM

https://keithpp.wordpress.com/tag/liz-kendall/

all seems fair enough to me

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 08:19 PM

Without the sanctions imposed by the US against Cuba, which other countries were forced largely to join in, Cuba wouldn't have needed to rely on help from the Soviet Union, which came at a stiff political price, and of course dried up over 20 years ago.

Pretty well all the aspects of a war economy forced on Cuba for so long can be paralleled by what happened in the UK during the war years, which was every bit as much a "dictatorship" as Cuba, for essentially the same reasons.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Aug 15 - 02:58 AM

We can and no doubt will argue about Corbyn's economic and leftileaning views. But I think there is another force playing that is rarely discussed and when it is it is entirely negatively in terms of rebellion against the whip. It is his refusal to play politics as a game, rather than something that matters. For example, it is claimed the Tories have a series of announcements planned for just after September 12 to force whoever is elected to appear as extrem lefty or Tory-light depending how whoever is elected responds. That's playing playground level PR games: your focus should be on how these policies affect real people in the real world, not whether it makes your opponents stronger or weaker. That's the game Jeremy rejects, and it would be better for the country if politicians on both sides also started thinking more about effect on lives than the PR.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: DMcG
Date: 23 Aug 15 - 03:04 AM

Me again above.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: Musket
Date: 23 Aug 15 - 03:07 AM

Oh gosh. Just think, if the USA hadn't imposed sanctions, perhaps Castro wouldn't have had to liquidate opposition leaders, refuse passports and exit papers for Cubans, spend a large proportion of GDP on a secret police function to keep people in check, suspend any means of democracy (usually from a beam in Havana Prison) and use starvation rations as a political tool.

zzzzzz

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: akenaton
Date: 23 Aug 15 - 05:39 AM

Opposition leaders? :0)....Do you mean supporters of Batista?

When are "YOU PEOPLE" going to see that being "nice and liberal" does not work when attempting to change society.

"democracy" and "liberalism" under this system, are devices to ensure that change does NOT take place, not to facilitate it.

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: akenaton
Date: 23 Aug 15 - 06:56 AM

Shock Horror...."The Labour Party is being infiltrated by socialists!!!!"

Apparently many members are being banned from voting if they have criticised the Party on Facebook or Twitter......wonder if Mudcat counts?

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 23 Aug 15 - 07:12 AM

Nobody is trying to change you. Although many wish you'd stop embarrassing yourself and polluting debate.

"Apparently many members are being banned .... If they have criticised....."

Err.. That isn't true, is it? Did you make it up or is it on the same far right websites where you get your "facts" to support your bigotry, homophobia and puerile hatred that makes anybody cringe, and especially those who see themselves as socialists?

Batista? Castro was his opposition, he wasn't around to be opposition to the Castro regime. At least get a neighbour to read some history to you. Even Wikipedia for Clapton's sake..

Subject: RE: BS: electing a new labour leader
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Aug 15 - 11:02 AM

Many of those things you cite Musket, have close paralells in how the wartime government in the UK behaved, or to go further back, the Paris Commune. When a country, or a city, is under siege, many civil liberties go to the wall, and inevitably things happen that shouldn't happen.

But if America had accepted the right of Cubans to make their own revolution, without trying to overhrow it directly, and then trying to starve it out, there would have been no occasion for Cuba to operate as if it were at war to generations.