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Marc
(last edited Sep 15, 2017 09:10AM)
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Sep 15, 2017 02:51AM
while all that is true, do they or do they not have a big strike fund prepared? (a mistake Scargill's NUM made by not having one)
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Scargill's big mistake was not respecting democracy (an easy mistake for him to make since he is not a democrat). Had he simply bided his time and waited for events to prove him right I expect the majority of the membership would have come round to his point of view.Might we still have deep mined coal in the UK? Like the Breeder Reactor before it, Carbon Capture seems to have defeated the Might of British Engineering (you know, one of the Titans that is supposed to hold up the Blue Sky in the Sunny Uplands of the Brave New World of Brexit).
carbon capture seems to have defeated pretty well everybody so far.As for reactors, the nuclear industry was probably doomed in the UK when successive governments kicked it into the long grass in the 1970s
Theresa May has clarified the fatuous 'Brexit means Brexit'. Brexit apparently means Remain.
Theresa May has clarified that the Brexit unicorn will save us all.But not before it saves the Conservative Party from eating itself.
A good friend wrote this and posted it on Facebook. I'm sharing it here with his permission. I'm interested in your thoughts.
'US gun laws. Have you ever truly considered why citizens of the US are so attached to their guns? Here a critical view:
First off, 'Aristocracy and the right to bear arms'. Immigrants from Europe from the 17th - 19th century came from places where it was illegal for them to bear arms as this was a right reserved for nobility: in fact, so poud were the nobility of this right, that it was considered one of the defining features of being noble. When immigrants arrived on US shores, they were allowed to bear arms. A right that would have seemed akin to a super-power at the time.
RESULT: US citizens are elevated to the level of nobility, or alternatively, this freedom is a defining conceptual cornerstone to what it is to break the shackles of serfdom. It is freedom, and as this critique will show, perhaps the most meaningful freedom.
Second: Alienation and powerlessness. Western capitalist society dispenses equity by sharing fairness which is calculated by the indiviual's capacity to compete in an unlevel playing field. Some are born already at the top of the mountain, some climb the mountain starting from 2000 ft underwater with lead weights, some are born at sea level, but are given a helicopter, some are born near the top of the mountain, and discover that snowboarding down is it much more fun. Despite this, all are considered equal, and those who do not reach the summit promptly have only themselves to blame. This is a fundamental wrong which (product of the enlightenment, yes thank you, you were helpful at the time, but that was three hundred years ago) draws upon dear old Sir Isaac Newton, and the scientific method. In general... seen from space... yes, true, all men are born equal. In detail, at ground zero, in the real world, this is utterly false.
RESULT: Cognitive dissonance as cultural truth. People believe the unbelievable (buy into success-mythology), live powerless existences, and find fault in 'the other', rationalising irrationally. In doing so, become alienated from their work, their community and ultimately themselves.
Third: Reification. The ongoing gains of institutional power and influence (starting with the state, now in the corporate hand), lessen the individual's 'confrontation with the father' (yes, we are borrowing Freud here - a bit), and the corporation takes on the role of an individual (legislative fact in the US), to the detriment of authority in the father (or mother) figure. This results in the ego being undermined. Authority becomes embodied in superficial 'heroes' of stage and screen, leaders, the hero myth is revalidated as Ersatz (no one else wondering about grown people paying cash to watch the never-ending string of superhero films?) In this way, '... delivered to the superego, it becomes all the more a subject of destruction, and all the less a subject of Eros' (Marcuse). As individuals tend to identify with a group ideal as the essence of their own ego-ideals, external, conventional and stereotyped values replace their own thinking, which becomes rigid; the ego is faced with growing anxiety, constriction and destructiveness.
Ultimately, the relationship towards society is reified social relations and personified things: cars, (Held), phones, and .... guns. In such a society, the individual is threatened with obsolescence.
RESULT: in combination with the other two factors, the individual strives for recognition through the reified and personified things. The ego is reified, enabled towards the destructive, away from nurture.
Summary: guns are the personification of personal power. They are what made Americans essentially 'noble'. In a culture of cognitive dissonance, an object such as a gun reassures and anchors belief and ego in a system that is what defines and defiles the individual. Guns are the opium of the US, and its citizens, faced with impossible odds, self-medicate.
'Give the powerless the power to take a life, and they will willingly let you take everything else.''
I think there's something to that albeit I assume it operates at a subconscious level rather than flooding through the guy with a machine gun in his hand. I have a different take on it, in that now it seems to me to be simply about anxiety in the face of crime. US citizens arm themselves to defend their homes and families, though this is a smaller scale version of the fallacious nuclear deterrent argument: when a home invader breaks into your house, he's not necessarily going to assume and almost certainly not know that you have a gun. US citizens instead of arguing that they have to defend themselves, should inquire why and how have they come to live in such a society with so much personal insecurity that they feel they need to arm themselves?
The other fallacy of the small scale deterrent argument is that seen in the UK with knife crime. Youth argue everyone on the street is armed with a knife so they must do the same or perish. But once the blade is stuffed down your trousers, it starts calling to you to be used and eventually that voice may prevail. It certainly allows for a reflexive whipping out of the blade for a situation that doesn't call for it, simply because the holder feels empowered and emboldened. In the US you have both this and young kids who find a gun in the house & accidentally plug a parent. Those who call for had the concert goers been armed yesterday, they could have fired back & shut down the shooter earlier - yeah right, that's all you need say 500-100 weapons directing fire up at a high-rise hotel - carnage. Or what we call Libya.
Some cultures are just plain shite.
Back in 1842, Charles Dickens remarked the US obsession with firearms. The Onion sums up the current situation more concisely.
I think the love affair with guns originated more in pragmatism - the early settlers were trying to survive in what was basically hostile territory. A lot were massacred by the native Americans (just as they were also massacring those people of course). Then they ended up fighting the war of independence against GB. So the whole attitude of needing to be armed stems from that need to hang onto territory and defend yourself and your family rather than because they felt 'enobled' by gun ownership. It has now become a psychological need which has long outlived that original practical reason, plus large parts of the USA are suspicious of federal government and want to be able to defend themselves against the forces of Washington.
seems unfair to my mind that people wanting to become citizens of the UK have to take a Citizenship test that in all probability many UK citizens would fail.So I have designed an alternative test to give the indigenous Brits a chance of passing.
http://sulcicollective.blogspot.co.uk...
Warning: May contain Satire
I wonder if I'll pass it, Marc.I wonder if I could pass the real one...
Marc wrote: "seems unfair to my mind that people wanting to become citizens of the UK have to take a Citizenship test that in all probability many UK citizens would fail.So I have designed an alternative test..."
I surprised myself...I got some of those right!
Dave got most of them! I'm gobsmacked!
I got enough to be allowed to stay. Although with the source of the language one, I suspect different areas of the country produce English dialects which source their words differently.
AbsolutelyI suspect a lot of words came to us through French AND Latin
And then we've got the hybrid words created from Latin and Greek by 20th century scientists :-)
most of the Greek words are medically related
but they have colonised the other sciences as well with Telephonewhereas Television is Greek and Latin :-)
All sorts of people have done really well on the EU gravy trainNo wonder so many of them have been upset
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wal...
Jim there are gravy trains in every country. Look at the one Trump's just set up in the USA for the highest earners
Not keep abreast of US tax coding, have enough trouble keeping up with UK But I did notice that this much vaunted US corporate tax cut still leaves their tax rates higher than ours.
It doesn't matter what the tax rate is if tax payers are allowed to organise their affairs to avoid them. The US will be quids in if Apple now repatriates its Irish billions.
I have to prove my 'non-resident for tax purposes' status for three countries every three months.Still pay stupid amounts of sales tax yet never claim it back yet I could, legally.
I should start.
David wrote: "It doesn't matter what the tax rate is if tax payers are allowed to organise their affairs to avoid them. The US will be quids in if Apple now repatriates its Irish billions."I suspect that that is the plan
fancy that, all sorts of thing tanks, many of them composed of people who get EU money, think leaving the EU is a bad ideaWho'd have guessed it!
Why is there no-one talking about how great life is going to be post-Brexit?Why is no-one talking about all the things they will be able to do with their new found freedom?
How is Brexit going to make our lives better?
perhaps they are, perhaps it's just the commentariat isn't listening to them?Or perhaps you're just reading the Guardian and listening to the BBC?
The last two aren't news outlets with regard to Brexit, they're players in the game.
Other media outlets do exist. Some of them are also players but on the other side
But to ask why is no-one talking about something might merely mean that you aren't listening to the right people
Because nobody knows how it's going to finally shake out. We each have gut feelings and so do the experts, because this is un precedented, because so much of it is about business confidence, particuarly with regard to the multinationals whether they will just up sticks and go elsewhere leaving us in the klatz, or whether they feel confident enough about the UK to stay.I know which side my money is on, but like everyone else, it's only a feeling, since there is nothing to inform it based in hard fact.
So which media outlets are talking talking about how great life is going to be post-Brexit?This group has a number of members who voted Leave, yet I haven't seen any of them talk about how Brexit is going to make their lives better.
I keep getting told that we need to get behind the government to make it work, yet it never goes beyond that.
oh we just know the banks who have refused to open up money for small businesses since the banking crisis are going to be ever so open once Brexit is complete and business and market confidence are strong & stable (to coin a phrase). No chance
Life after Brexit is going to be harsh. The question is really, would if be any better financially if we reversed the decision? I don't think so myself.The Pound is currently trading at a more realistic level given the state of the economy thereby helping exporters, and there is a mild hope that if we can put some sort of halt to the tide of imports from the EU that is causing a huge (and concealed) Balance of Payments crisis, we might - might- not actually go Bankrupt after all.
Personally I have no intention of getting behind the Government, unless I was wielding a big knife
Michael Cargill wrote: "So which media outlets are talking talking about how great life is going to be post-Brexit?This group has a number of members who voted Leave, yet I haven't seen any of them talk about how Brexit..."
why spit into the wind?
Most of us have just given up wasting our breath. After all we're the morons who didn't realise that it's only joining the EU that stopped us sending children up chimneys
You've just achieved a supposedly epic victory that is going to herald in a new dawn for the nation... why wouldn't you be talking about the new wonderful things that are now within your grasp?The silence is alarming.
The referendum was whether you voted with gritted teeth for staying, or grinding teeth for leaving. Either way a dentist drill is entailed
you've obviously not been listening to the right peoplehttps://www.express.co.uk/news/politi...
read the business pages of a paper like the Daily Telegraph you'll see both pro-Brexit enthusiasm and other commentators and suchlike who are more nuanced.
James Dyson is a complete loon, as is anyone who thinks that Brexit will be fine for the UK but a disaster for the EU.There's certainly a very small minority who will personally benefit (or believe they will) from Brexit, and they're the ones who are being positive about it... usually because they won't have to worry about health and safety for their employees any more.
But nothing in that article actually shows me any tangible benefits for leaving the EU.
So anybody who disagrees with you is by definition a complete loon and you wonder why you cannot find anybody you respect who's in favour of brexit.
No, anyone who thinks that Brexit will be fine for the UK but a disaster for the EU is a loon.Just look at some of the things Dyson is saying about the biggest trading bloc on the planet:
“It’s actually a disaster for Europe, because it’ll cost them a lot more to export to us.”
"You can’t negotiate with that lot, as I’ve found out from 24 years of sitting on European committees with Dyson."
If he thought negotiating with the EU was hard whilst we were a member, wait until he sees what it's like on the outside.
Having sat in some committees struggling with EU regulations, I know entirely what he meansNZ and Aus sell sheepmeat into the EU without having to go through half the crap we do as members.
As for the biggest trading bloc on the planet, it's the biggest because we're members
If we were to join the chinese, the Chinese/UK trading bloc would be the biggest on the planet
If we were to join the US, the US/UK trading bloc would be the biggest on the planet
The EU is a pathetic trading bloc, it hides behind a tariff wall in a desperate attempt to protect french agriculture!
Then you get some scare mongers trying to say food prices will go up when we leave the EU
NZ and Australia are diddy little nations that will have to comply with whatever standards the EU tells them to. They're the minnows and will have little in the way of leverage, which is how it would be for us when we try to create trade deals with nations like the US, China, and the EU.None of that offers any insight into how Brexit will make our lives better, and food prices have already gone up.
Michael Cargill wrote: "NZ and Australia are diddy little nations that will have to comply with whatever standards the EU tells them to. They're the minnows and will have little in the way of leverage, which is how it wou..."only because we don't have a chronically overvalued currency. But then I don't suppose you'll have seen the newspaper articles saying what good news the increase in exports is
As far as I can say, the only evidence you have for writing James Dyson of as a complete loon is that he disagrees with you over brexit.
Given that he's made more money than either of us, created more jobs than either of us, paid more tax into the UK exchequer than either of us, I suspect he doesn't give a toss about what you or I think of him
The increase in exports is something I've heard about non-stop, simply because it's the only thing that can be said to be a good thing. But it's only temporary because we have to import just about everything we make, and it doesn't make up for the loss of everything else.I'm ignoring Dyson's comments because he says things like “It’s actually a disaster for Europe, because it’ll cost them a lot more to export to us.”
That's not a debatable point of view, it's just plain nonsense.
Michael Cargill wrote: "That's not a debatable point of view, it's just plain nonsense...."That is of course your opinion. Unfortunately for you the referendum showed that in reality for a lot of people might beg to disagree with you on what can and cannot be debated.
Reality doesn't care for the referendum - it is literally impossible for Brexit to be worse for the EU than it is for us.
that is of course your opinion. An lot of people obviously beg to differFor myself I'm perfectly happy to wait to see what happens, I have no particular urge to thrust my opinions upon people and certainly have better things to do than spit into the wind
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