Originally posted by Ein Heldenleben
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Ukraine
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Originally posted by RichardB View PostBut 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!).
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 !
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Originally posted by RichardB View PostDavid 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.
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Originally posted by Ein Heldenleben View PostSorry Richard but we’ve had seventy years of peace In Europe
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Originally posted by Ein Heldenleben View PostThere is not one single aspect of the job I do that can be done by a robot
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Disasters Emergency Appeal broadcast on R4 just now. Several ways to contribute, on line here:https://www.dec.org.uk/?gclid=Cj0KCQ...IaAo9YEALw_wcB
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Originally posted by RichardB View PostYes, 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.
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.
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Originally posted by RichardB View PostLikewise. 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.)"
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 )
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Originally posted by Ein Heldenleben View Post... 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....
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Originally posted by Frances_iom View PostIMO 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.
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Originally posted by RichardB View PostAs 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.
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.
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Originally posted by Maclintick View PostAgreed, 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.
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Originally posted by Ein Heldenleben View PostThat 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 …
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Originally posted by Maclintick View PostSorry, I thought you said you believed Blair on WMD as in #229 ? "I was pro Iraq 2 as I believed Blair re WMD"
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 nowLast edited by Ein Heldenleben; 03-03-22, 22:59.
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Originally posted by gradus View PostDisasters Emergency Appeal broadcast on R4 just now. Several ways to contribute, on line here:https://www.dec.org.uk/?gclid=Cj0KCQ...IaAo9YEALw_wcB
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