Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Draft Model Motion on Co-operative Socialism to Labour Party Branches,etc

Draft Model Motion on Co-operative Socialism to Labour Party Branches, Co-operative Partyy branches, Trades Councils, etc.

Drafted by John Courtneidge
0795 099 6418  courtj@myphone.coop  Also on Facebook and Twitter

1) The objective of the Labour and Co-operative Movement is, as Clement Attlees wrote in 1937, 'The establishment if the Co-operative Commonwealth' (see his book 'The Labour Party in Perspective, Left Book Club, Victor Gollancz, Chaper 6);

2)  To that end, we need an economic plan, suitable for the 21st Century, that produces the Co-oprative Commonwealth and that is, therefore, consistent with the Co-operative Values and Principles, as contained in the 'Statement on the Co-operative Identity' and as refreshed, periodically, by The International Co-operative Alliance (see www.ica.coop);

3)  Such a plan, termed 'Co-operative Socialism', has been gathered together, with that end in view, and may be seen in an Occupy London web-page (by web-searching the phrase "Co-operative Socialism") and discussed in papers archived at the web-page for The Campaign for Interest-free Money (www.interestfreemoney.org);

4)  This plan has already been adopted by Labour Action for Peace, by Occupy London and by the Bromley Branch of The Co-operative Party;

5)  We [include your organisation's name here] also adopt this plan for Co-operative Socialism: with a view to promoting it to our related organisations and to write to our MPs, both organisationlly and as individual constituents, to see if they support and promote this plan and, if not why not.

6)  We will share the information so gathered with Labour Action for Peace (LAP), so that LAP can share this information publicly.

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Goverments Decide on Sustainability So Politics Matters

Those Feb 2017 UK by-elections. Check the data. Not the spin.

Copeland                                             Stoke Central
Con gain from Labour                         Labour hold

%vote Change from 2015 General Election:
* = ELECTED
Con*        +8.5%                                  Con         +1.8%
Lab          -4.9%                                   Lab*        -2.2%
Lib-Dem  +3.8%                                  LIB-Dem +5.7%
UKIP        -9.0%                                  UKIP        +2.1%
Green      -1.3%                                  Green      -2.2%

Turn-out (ie % of registered electors that voted):

51.33%   ( -12.5% cf GE2015)         38.2%  (-11.7% cf GE2015)

My commentary follows references to data.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copeland_by-election,_2017

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoke-on-Trent_Central_by-election,_2017

http://www.ukpolitical.info/by-election-turnout.htm

http://www.ukpolitical.info/Turnout15.htm

Commentary

1) The  Labour vote did not evaporate in either case, contrary to the propaganda by the capitalists

2) The Tories played a blinder again by selecting a woman candidate who had worked in the local industry: nuclear power and reprocessing. And by pointing out the long-held anti-nuclear credentials of Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

3) To finish the Copeland remarks, the UKIP vote looks mostly to have switched back to its traditional home ,the Conservatives (ie UKIP -9.0% ,Conservatives +8.5%) with the prresently-typical protest vote going to the Lib-Dems and not the Greens).

And the turn-out moved down by 12.5%, to 51.33%,  from the 2015 General Election level (which, at 63.83% was almost the same as the turn-out average in England of 65.8%).

4) In Stoke Central (which was a much  more 'high prrofile' election due to the presence of a well-publicised UKIP candidate and a re-standing Muslim candidate for the Lib-Dems). the turn out at both the 2015 General Election (only 51.26%, then) and this by-election (36.7%, down, therefore, from 2015 by 11.7%) reflected/es the run-down economic status of many ex-industrial, mostly northern and midlands Constituences, that were used and deserted by the New Labour project of Tony Blair, Peter Madelson, Gordon Brown, JohnPrescott, Neil Kinnock, etc.

5) To round-out the Stoke Central commentary, the UKIP efforts mostly  failed despite the media coverage, etc. The two protest votes moved as in Copeland (LD up, Green down: neither by much).

6) The bigger picture:

The two by-elections were  caused by resignations of two anti-Corbyn, pro-Remain, Blair/Mandelson-promoted New Labour MPs (whether they are members of The Labour Friends of Israel I don't know: that pro-Zionist group has along-standing hatred of Jeremy Corbyn's pro-Palestinian position).

Their resignations certainly appear to have been coordinated by the pro-Remain, pro-capitalist factions (which likely the involvement, if not coordination, of the Chatham House pro-capitalist network).

As such it was a failed attempt to 'get rid of' the Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell project for democratic and co-operative socialist.

A project that is heartened by the outcome.

Not least that the Blairite candidate in Copeland was defeated.

One step back, but two steps forward (at least!)

Friday, February 24, 2017

A Call for a Needs'-based Politics,Rather than a Rights'-based Politics.

What's needed is a 'Needs-based politics' (ie Co-operative Socialism) rather than a 'Rights'-based politics' (ie any formmof managed capitalism = 'Social' Democracy = fascism (ie a collusion of 'elites' and states = eg the WTO, The 'World' Economic Forum, the Chatham House/Council on Foreign Relations/PowerCorp etc.

When 'I' wrote the 'Four Needs' essay (see the papers'section at www.interestfreemoney.org) there a) wasn't a needs-based Needs Theory and b) the overarching economic need (for income equality and equity - as adumbrated by 'The Spirit Level' - see www.equalitytrust.org.uk - and Richard Wilkinson's earlier books).

What we now know is that, for sustainability, happiness, health and properity for all, the world needs to move to a zone of maximum equality and equity - Aubrey Meyer's concept of 'Contraction and Convergence' (see lower down this page earlier this week).

I know that my distaste for Rights'-based Politics is going to elicit discussion, so let's leave my support and justifcation for the better option - Needs'-based Politics - to then.

Monday, February 20, 2017

The Big Picture: Chemistry, Sustainability and Economics

On 'my' Facebook page, I posted the following nonsense:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1214499648589099&id=861349470570787

My friend, Mavis asked if it was true. I replied as follows.

I think, Mavis​​ that the water is split into hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis (a process called electrolysis) and the hydrogen is then burnt in the engine.

Of course, the electricity has to come from somewhere. And that somewhere is almost certainly a fossil fuel source (oil, gas, coal, nuclear). Ideally, the electricity comes from solar panels. But they come from manufacturing that uses fossil resources in the main.
In addition, the electrolysis of water requires an added ionic material: sulphuric acid is used in school, demonstrations of the electrolysis of water, for example.

Overall, these 'magic' solutions are not the way forward.

First we need, in the global north-west to reduce our GDP activity (ie our capitalist 'economic' activity: the '' marks signify that most capitalist 'economic' activity is harmful and not beneficial to the  global household).

Secondly, that activity in the global north-west needs to include far greater income and economic equality and equity (the evidence in, say, The Spirit Level, is that more equal societies act more sustainably: partly because their populations have less 'need' for status bling).

Finally, the overall poorest countries need a) to not be hand-bagged by the global north-west's capitalist businesses (including ususry-based for-profit banks) and b) they need to be helped to come up to the 'contraction-and-convergence' sweet spot that is the dog-leg point on the GDP-vs-Wellness graph in The Spirit Level.

All of the above is, of course, in the plan for Co-operative Socialism!

Thursday, February 16, 2017

Letter to MPs regarding the plan for Co-operative Socialism

Dear Peter,


Letter text as requested.


(LAP comrades, Colin Bastin (LAP Chair) and Helen Watts (LAP Secretary Organiser cc'd)

--------------------

14 February 2016


From John Courtneidge


Flat 10 Coleridge House

79 Bromley Road

Beckenham, Kent BR3 5PA


MOBILE 0795 099 6418

E-mail for questions and MP Responses: courtj@myphone.coop


---------------

Dear Chartist editor


Thank-you for publishing the earlier Chartist article on the plan for Co-operative Socialism: a plan that Labour Action for Peace, Occupy London and the Bromley Co-operative Party all support.


As a follow-up action:


Might Chartist readers care to join in an information gathering and sharing exercise among MPs, concerning the plan for Co-operative Socialism?


Below is a letter template to MPs in this regard.


I, on behalf of Labour Action for Peace, will correlate results (my contact details are also below).


Thank you, in and for co-operation


John Courtneidge (Dr)

-------- MP Letter template--------


[My name]

[My address and Post code]

[Date]

Dear                                 

MP for

Re: Plan for Co-operative Socialism

I write to you as one of your Consituents.

A number of groups (including, for example, Labour Action for Peace) now support a plan for Co-operative Socialism. Details of that plan may be found by web-searching the term "Co-operative Socialism" and navigating, for example, to the relevant Occupy London web-page and the papers' page of The Campign for Interest-free Money.

I write to ask if you support this plan.

If yes, will you promote it to your Parliamentary colleagues?

If, no you do not support this plan, could you please let me know why not?

Please note that your reply and that of Parliamentary colleagues (even non-replies) will be shared publicly.

Thank-you!

[Signed]
 

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

from Now to Peace and Sustainability


Some of you might wonder about the graphic (above), that I shared yesterday (5Feb 2017) on 'my' Facebook page and which I'll re-produced today (6Feb 2017, I think).

Here is its 'sister' image. 





This photo is a share from, and of, my/our FB friend, Barbara Hillman (and I hope she doesn't mind me sharing it). It exemplifies the serenity of 'peace, krder and good government' (to use that phrase from the British North America Act: the founding document for the, then, Dominion of Canada).

So, back to that image from yesterday.

It attempts to show the mental turmoil in each personality qudrant as people scramble around, tyrying to find the worm-holes of tansition.

And finding the blocking walls between some attempted transitions.

One (vertical) worm hole is that from the pride of the greens (the Ratioalists) to the groundedness of the blue quadrant.
The others are the pair close to the eastern-most point on 'the personality equator' which show the route/s from the turmoil of 'now', to the tranquility of sustainability and peace available to us as 'then'.

We are standing at those three worm-holes of liminality.

And woo-hoo 4 that!

-------------

Thx, again, Barbara Hillman​​! And my apologies for prior use of this without permission!