Ukraine

[RichardB]

Apologies for off thread but MUCH MUCH more must be done to encourage and welcome the 60 / 65 plus back into the workplace.

David Graeber: "In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century's end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a 15-hour work week. There's every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn't happen. Instead, technology has been marshaled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless." This is the problem, not people dropping out of the workforce.

[Ein Heldenleben]

But who is this "we"? When did we (you and me and the other contributors to this discussion) ever have a choice in the matter? - I mean when elections generally involve making a choice between subtly different flavours of neoliberalism, which will always favour increased "defence spending" (= increased "weapons industry profits") over taking care of ordinary people whether at home or abroad. Which is why there's always an assumption that throwing more weapons into places already saturated with them is somehow going to solve anything, even though it never does (which is why Stop the War actually have been right every time!).

Sorry Richard but we’ve had seventy years of peace In Europe (aside from Yugoslavia ) and since the fall of the Berlin Wall there’s been major collective disarmament. Even with the German increase in arms spending there’s nothing like as much high explosive and armed personnel in Europe as in the 70’s . It’s still way less dangerous than 62 to 92 .
On politicians and our choices please Don’t get me going . I was pro Iraq 2 as I believed Blair re WMD . I once told the former Labour MP Bryan Magee this (scarcely a radical) the look he gave me I will never forget !

[Ein Heldenleben]

David Graeber: "In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century's end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a 15-hour work week. There's every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn't happen. Instead, technology has been marshaled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless." This is the problem, not people dropping out of the workforce.

There is not one single aspect of the job I do that can be done by a robot - whether it’s pointless or not is not for me to say !

[RichardB]

Sorry Richard but we’ve had seventy years of peace In Europe

Yes, Europe and the USA have been good at exporting their wars (and weapons) to other parts of the world. But if war is the continuation of politics by other means, the supposedly non-warlike means can be almost as damaging, as when the EU decided that the Greek economy needed to be destroyed. As for believing in Iraqi WMDs, any residual suspicion I might have had that they existed was dispelled by Colin Powell's pathetic and shameful performance at the UN.

[RichardB]

There is not one single aspect of the job I do that can be done by a robot

Likewise. But that doesn't change the basic principle. One of the most beautiful passages in the article I quoted from goes like this: "what does it say about our society that it seems to generate an extremely limited demand for talented poet-musicians, but an apparently infinite demand for specialists in corporate law? (Answer: if 1% of the population controls most of the disposable wealth, what we call ‘the market’ reflects what they think is useful or important, not anybody else.) (...) Say what you like about nurses, garbage collectors, or mechanics, it's obvious that were they to vanish in a puff of smoke, the results would be immediate and catastrophic. A world without teachers or dock-workers would soon be in trouble, and even one without science fiction writers or ska musicians would clearly be a lesser place. It's not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish. (Many suspect it might markedly improve.)"

[gradus]

Disasters Emergency Appeal broadcast on R4 just now. Several ways to contribute, on line here:https://www.dec.org.uk/?gclid=Cj0KCQ...IaAo9YEALw_wcB

[Ein Heldenleben]

Yes, Europe and the USA have been good at exporting their wars (and weapons) to other parts of the world. But if war is the continuation of politics by other means, the supposedly non-warlike means can be almost as damaging, as when the EU decided that the Greek economy needed to be destroyed. As for believing in Iraqi WMDs, any residual suspicion I might have had that they existed was dispelled by Colin Powell's pathetic and shameful performance at the UN.

Say what you like about Blair he was a great performer- very convincing.
The EU treatment of Greece was shameful but then I think the Greeks should have got their gold reserves back so I’m a bit old fashioned .
I don’t think we do export wars in the UK (any more) but I am very anti -stoking them with indiscriminate arms sales particularly to the Middle East.
To be honest I’m a bit of a John Gray pessimist : the whole neo- con ‘ rebuild the world in the image of the West ‘ thing doesn’t work unless it’s done with enormous care and pots of Money (as with Germany post world war 2 and the creation of a social democracy) but not as in post Communist Russia - “let untrammelled capitalism and the markets rip” . Very simplistic but to explain the rise of Putin for me it would not be about NATO and arms sales , but much to do with the laissez faire capitalism and plundering of the country that happened in the nineties. We could and should have done better for the Russian people.

Final thought as so many have pointed out having London as a safe haven to park the loot has helped corruption in Russia thrive and undermined tentative steps toward democracy.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Likewise. But that doesn't change the basic principle. One of the most beautiful passages in the article I quoted from goes like this: "what does it say about our society that it seems to generate an extremely limited demand for talented poet-musicians, but an apparently infinite demand for specialists in corporate law? (Answer: if 1% of the population controls most of the disposable wealth, what we call ‘the market’ reflects what they think is useful or important, not anybody else.) (...) Say what you like about nurses, garbage collectors, or mechanics, it's obvious that were they to vanish in a puff of smoke, the results would be immediate and catastrophic. A world without teachers or dock-workers would soon be in trouble, and even one without science fiction writers or ska musicians would clearly be a lesser place. It's not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish. (Many suspect it might markedly improve.)"

Yes I’ve memorised that quote as well. You could add 90 per cent of financial services employees esp independent financial advisors , HR , all public relations people , press and communications people, strategists , consultants (esp McKinsey)
All I can say is that pre lockdown I was spending (like a lot of people on this forum) very very much more than 1 per cent of my income on creative artists and I don’t regret a single cent
(Apart from the odd dreadful night at the National Theatre )

[Frances_iom]

... Very simplistic but to explain the rise of Putin for me it would not be about NATO and arms sales , but much to do with the laissez faire capitalism and plundering of the country that happened in the nineties. We could and should have done better for the Russian people....

IMO the key factor was the one thing common to all ideocracies - from the marxist utopians thru to islamic republics - the destruction of all alternatives to their self proclaimed truth. There was no social structure in Soviet Russia that could step up to take over.

[Ein Heldenleben]

IMO the key factor was the one thing common to all ideocracies - from the marxist utopians thru to islamic republics - the destruction of all alternatives to their self proclaimed truth. There was no social structure in Soviet Russia that could step up to take over.

But can’t a social structure be created ? Nazi-ism was pretty all pervasive. The clever thing we did was not lock them all up…

[Maclintick]

As for believing in Iraqi WMDs, any residual suspicion I might have had that they existed was dispelled by Colin Powell's pathetic and shameful performance at the UN.

Agreed, but just as pathetic and shameful was the adulation this "warrior" (= warmonger, in my book) received posthumously in the media, as if he were a protagonist in some straight-to-DVD Steven Seagal flick. Back to Iraq, and WMD. Sorry, Heldenleben, I can't but question your implication that nobody knew that the whole WMD fabrication wasn't obvious at the time. The BBC knew it, and told us so, paying the price. Director-General Greg Dyke (effectively fired by Richard Ryder, Chairman of Governors) reporter Andrew Gilligan (later fired) who relied on evidence from UN weapons inspector Dr.David Kelly (murdered or suicide ? Nobody knows. There's never been a coroner's report).

Today the Commons erupted into applause for the Ukrainian ambassador, attending. The only other occasion on which I can recall a similar outpouring was for Robin Cook's forensic demolition of Blair's case for the war in Iraq in 2003.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Agreed, but just as pathetic and shameful was the adulation this "warrior" (= warmonger, in my book) received posthumously in the media, as if he were a protagonist in some straight-to-DVD Steven Seagal flick. Back to Iraq, and WMD. Sorry, Heldenleben, I can't but question your implication that nobody knew that the whole WMD fabrication wasn't obvious at the time. The BBC knew it, and told us so, paying the price. Director-General Greg Dyke (effectively fired by Richard Ryder, Chairman of Governors) reporter Andrew Gilligan (later fired) who relied on evidence from UN weapons inspector Dr.David Kelly (murdered or suicide ? Nobody knows. There's never been a coroner's report).

Today the Commons erupted into applause for the Ukrainian ambassador, attending. The only other occasion on which I can recall a similar outpouring was for Robin Cook's forensic demolition of Blair's case for the war in Iraq in 2003.

That wasn’t the implication. The implication was that Bryan Magee couldn’t believe I was such a fool as to believe Blair but he was too polite to say so! His eyebrows were the giveaway …

[Maclintick]

That wasn’t the implication. The implication was that Bryan Magee couldn’t believe I was such a fool as to believe Blair but he was too polite to say so! His eyebrows were the giveaway …

Sorry, I thought you said you believed Blair on WMD as in #229 ? "I was pro Iraq 2 as I believed Blair re WMD"

[Ein Heldenleben]

Sorry, I thought you said you believed Blair on WMD as in #229 ? "I was pro Iraq 2 as I believed Blair re WMD"

Yes I did say that. At the time more than 50 per cent of the British public also believed him* . I think even Blair himself believed it at the time. All the evidence of the dodgy dossier etc emerged later if you remember . The Gulf War was March 2003 . The Gilligan Today report was late May 2003 . It was only when we invaded Iraq that it emerged that the WMD weren’t quite the doomsday weapons we had been led to believe . So the causus belli evaporated in a bit of a puff of smoke. It also later emerged that the whole legality of the war had been questioned at a very senior level within government. Had I known that at the time my view on the invasion would have been very different.
I met Norman Lamb once - his book on Kelly is well worth reading,

* Just checked according to Yougov : an average 54% of us supported The 2003 invasion . I was far from being the only one who believed the PM when he said Saddam had WMD…
I’m a tiny bit more cynical now

[oddoneout]

Disasters Emergency Appeal broadcast on R4 just now. Several ways to contribute, on line here:https://www.dec.org.uk/?gclid=Cj0KCQ...IaAo9YEALw_wcB

They broadcast that on R3 just before 1pm - I don't remember such a thing happening before, and at first thought it was a trail for some programme, and was a bit puzzled.