Osama Bin Laden DEAD- Killed By U.S. Forces

[Errata]

Cuba has far more political prisoners now than the U.S. had at the height of McCarthyism. And I wouldnt suggest you be a homosexual in Cuba either, you are your soon imprisoned or sent to a mental health facility.

And I dont believe in Cubas healthcare system for a second. I doubt any of these "capitalist commentators" have used it once, let alone regularly.

Improved literacy has been a success I admit.

I had hoped that by now the US would have come to the conclusion that the embargo simply doesn't work. I mean, whether or not we have a good reason to punish or contain Cuba, it doesn't matter if it DOESN'T WORK. It's like laying siege to one door of a citadel. Not effective.

[Bob Hinton]

True but..........

I agree with your post completely Julie.Cuba in fact has one of the best,if not THE best, health systems in the world and many capitalist commentators have admitted it and been glad to use CUban doctors and medical help in times of disaster .

I think you'll find that Cuba relied very heavily on the Russians to the tune of (I think)$800 million a year. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union that of course has stopped. It will be interesting to see how they fare say in another 10 years or so.

[Limehouse]

Julie

On the scroungers, I have seen a welfare state in the Uk produce a vast army of people who have been very content not to find work. Psychologically, on the "hand-up" comment - experience says that people do not value what they do not have to strive for - hence education is now taken for granted and many families do not support children at school, whereas before the war workers would often strive HARD to get their kids to grammar schools etc.

The House of Lords has, in my view, done a very good job over the decades since 1911. I am a believer in political evolution not revolution and the Lords has adapted well to changing times. It is no threat to the Commons and has been an expert revising chamber. Under Thatcher it represented the only real opposition (pace Ken Livingston and the GLC).

Elect a House of Lords and I predict serious constitutional clashes within 20 years. Appoint it, and where is the difference between what we have and what we will get.

On Cuba, it sems to me that the welfare of the people has been held well back and that they would have become more prosperous more quickly under the non-Communist regime. If it's so great why do so many try to leave?

And how do you justify Castro clinging to power for so long? How is that a good thing? If so, why not have PMs for life here? or in the US. But such despotism seems to be the norm in Communist regimes!

Happy to discuss further on your return,

Phil

Hi Phil - enjoyed you post and have 'cut' a few points to respond to:

1. The 'hand up' I mentioned is not a free ride. You mentioned working class kids working hard to get to grammar school and that is precisely the 'hand up' at work. It was a route to opportunity for those willing to work hard but for whom the old network did not exist. The 'hand up' is at work today - sending bright students who do not have a history of university education in the family to university summer schools so that they can experience academic life for a week. They may then be partly sponsored through the first year of their degree.

2. I think you ae quite right when you speak of the recent reforms in the House of Lords and what they have achieved. I don't have a problem with an appointed House of Lords IF those appointed have proved to be experts in their own fields and are as squeaky clean as they can be. I do object strongly to inherited peerages resulting in a seat in the House of Lords based soley on 'birthright' or anything similar.

3. I am very interested in your comment about the people of Cuba not becoming prosperous under communism because I have recently discovered a marvelous quote from the socialist author Jeremy Seabrook:

"We've been seduced by the idea that the working class struggle should be - not emancipation - but wealth". (The Idea of Neighbourhood: 1984: Pluto Press)

That quote speaks volumes to me and I just have to go away and think about it and write something of why it inspires me so much.

Julie

[Phil H]

Thanks for your post - eloquent and well reasoned, Limehouse.

However, for the sake of argument I'll take you up on your point about wealth - at least partly tongue in cheek, I assure you.

For the sake of argument, surely it is a natural aspiration to have, not only a sufficiency of "wealth" but also more than that - abundance?

Is it not also a natural human ambition to leave that wealth to their children - along with any successful businesses etc?

Further, who has the right to deny those aspirations?

As I understand it, it is that approach that makes Americans so suspicious of socialism and "communism" (they often seem to correlate the two).

There is also a very strong argument to be had for "better" Government coming from those who have a "stake" in a country - who run businesses, pay taxes, serve in some capacity (Armed forces/civil power). Hence a House of Lords of such people. They have an interest - a vested interest - in the country doing well.

Those who do not pay taxes, receive hand-outs or welfare, own nothing - do not have such a stake and can vote and act out of self-interest, or be swayed by populist demagogues.

Not a fashionable argument but not, I think, one without validity.

I personally can see that a country stable and well-governed is preferable to one based on vapid principles that may be moral but aren't always practical. Thus is oligarchy not better, more efficient and more effective than democracy?

Phil

[jason_c]

Hi Phil - enjoyed you post and have 'cut' a few points to respond to:

1. The 'hand up' I mentioned is not a free ride. You mentioned working class kids working hard to get to grammar school and that is precisely the 'hand up' at work. It was a route to opportunity for those willing to work hard but for whom the old network did not exist. The 'hand up' is at work today - sending bright students who do not have a history of university education in the family to university summer schools so that they can experience academic life for a week. They may then be partly sponsored through the first year of their degree.

2. I think you ae quite right when you speak of the recent reforms in the House of Lords and what they have achieved. I don't have a problem with an appointed House of Lords IF those appointed have proved to be experts in their own fields and are as squeaky clean as they can be. I do object strongly to inherited peerages resulting in a seat in the House of Lords based soley on 'birthright' or anything similar.

3. I am very interested in your comment about the people of Cuba not becoming prosperous under communism because I have recently discovered a marvelous quote from the socialist author Jeremy Seabrook:

"We've been seduced by the idea that the working class struggle should be - not emancipation - but wealth". (The Idea of Neighbourhood: 1984: Pluto Press)

That quote speaks volumes to me and I just have to go away and think about it and write something of why it inspires me so much.

Julie

Julie

I think it inspires you as communist emancipation has been a complete failure in wealth creation. Its not as if this "emancipation" has a rich history of delivering goods and services to its citizens. You are looking for past excuses to confirm your current thinking. Its proof that failed communist ideals lead to all sorts of mumbo jumbo. Herein lies its problems. The communist theory is so against human nature it invariably ends in failure when practiced. Nowadays its even a failure in theory.


The above is meant as a criticism of totalitarian communism rather than western democratic social justice.

[Limehouse]

Thanks for your post - eloquent and well reasoned, Limehouse.

However, for the sake of argument I'll take you up on your point about wealth - at least partly tongue in cheek, I assure you.

For the sake of argument, surely it is a natural aspiration to have, not only a sufficiency of "wealth" but also more than that - abundance?

Is it not also a natural human ambition to leave that wealth to their children - along with any successful businesses etc?

Further, who has the right to deny those aspirations?

As I understand it, it is that approach that makes Americans so suspicious of socialism and "communism" (they often seem to correlate the two).

There is also a very strong argument to be had for "better" Government coming from those who have a "stake" in a country - who run businesses, pay taxes, serve in some capacity (Armed forces/civil power). Hence a House of Lords of such people. They have an interest - a vested interest - in the country doing well.

Those who do not pay taxes, receive hand-outs or welfare, own nothing - do not have such a stake and can vote and act out of self-interest, or be swayed by populist demagogues.

Not a fashionable argument but not, I think, one without validity.

I personally can see that a country stable and well-governed is preferable to one based on vapid principles that may be moral but aren't always practical. Thus is oligarchy not better, more efficient and more effective than democracy?

Phil

Hmm. Food for thought indeed.

OK - let's take wealth. In part I agree with your reasoning. However - there is a point to be made.

My paternal grandfather was born in rural Suffolk. He was one of 12 children. The main work for his class in that region was agriculture and serving the fishing industry. My great-grandfather had found work on the fishing boats - and at the age of ten my grandfather had had sufficient schooling to allow him to read and write well enough and he left school and joined the fishing boats. There he stayed until the outbreak of WW1. He served in the navy and stayed on after the war until about 1923. During a period of leave he fathered a child - my father - born in 1917. Despite his lack of secondary education my grandfather was an intelligent man who played chess to championship level. When he left the navy he moved up to London and worked for the Post Office for the rest of his working life. He worked very hard but accumulated no personal wealth. He was a man of sober habits and lived a simple life but still he left no personal wealth when he died.

My father was the oldest of five children. He spent his early life in Navarino Mansions in Dalston Lane in Hackney and later moved out to Chingford (then in the Essex countryside - now part of north east London. He served as a civilian in WW2 as he was unfit for military duty. He left school at 14 - able enough - and worked in various jobs - all low paid - and supplemented his income with gardening and carpentry at which he was very gifted. Like his father he was a chess champion. Like his father he worked hard all of his life and when he die in 1969 - when I was 11 - he left no personal wealth.

So - it is possible to work hard in a wealthy country and never acquire any personal wealth. It is possible to graft and serve and obey the law and bring your children up right and have aspirations for them - and die young and poor - just like my parents did.

So - what do we strive for? How much wealth is enough? Do we need enough to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table and to pay the bills and have a holiday every year and send our children to university and then retire at a respectable age if we want to with our home paid for and time to relax and enjoy oursleves? Is that enough? It sounds reasoable doesn't it? But in this wealthy country - many people will not achieve those things. And it is not always for want of having worked hard.

So - back to how much wealth is enough. I work with young people. Most of them are not very well off. Some of them have parents who have never worked. The kids can't help that. But in contrast to the non-working parents - they are bombarded with advertisements for Ipods and Iphones and numerous other gadgets and accessories that youing people feel are essential in order to fit into their world - their form of society. Selling the young people these things creates wealth for many people but it doesn't do the young people one bit of good. It robs them of their aspirations because they have to be prised away from Facebook or their mobile phones on which they receive and send hundreds of texts per day. Additionally - they care only about accumulating the latest phone or Ipod or download or Xbox game on which they can achieve this or that level of competence.

Capital as wealth has dictated that we become a species of consumers - both materially and in the way we present ourselves. We consume products and experiences and we consume 'the right look' so that we have to be tanned and groomed and polished and made perfect or be condemmed to criticism and ridicule.

I rant. I apologise.

I have to quote you in full here to respond:

There is also a very strong argument to be had for "better" Government coming from those who have a "stake" in a country - who run businesses, pay taxes, serve in some capacity (Armed forces/civil power). Hence a House of Lords of such people. They have an interest - a vested interest - in the country doing well.

Can I ask - who educates the people who run businesses? Who looks after their health? Who puts our fires in their premises or pumps out the water if they flood? Who responds wehen their premisis are broken into or vandalised? Who cleans them? Who delivers goods and services to them? Who makes a profit for them? Do we not all serve ?

So - back to wealth - it is normal to desire wealth because when we see it being enjoyed we wish to do so too. MOst people I know desire only to have enough so that they don't have to worry. For them - that IS wealth.

There is a programme on television next week called Poor Kids. I have just read an article about it in the Radio Times and it made me very sad. Despite being a wealthy country we still have relative poverty for far too many children - and it just shouldn't happen.

[Phil H]

Scrooge replies

There is a programme on television next week called Poor Kids. I have just read an article about it in the Radio Times and it made me very sad. Despite being a wealthy country we still have relative poverty for far too many children - and it just shouldn't happen.

And the poor will always be with us.

Equalise all wealth, all savings all income and in a week, I guarantee, there would be those with "fortunes" and those in debt.

My fear is that "socialists" will continually strip away all incentive, to achive...?

Actually, our capitalist society has ensured that poverty is not what it was. Oh, I'm sure you can fin pockets of utter destitution, but actually compared to say, the 1880s, the 1920s or even the 1950s the poor are much better off - just not comparatively. the welfare state, which absorbs more and more of the nation's wealth has not achieved you goal, so what will?

I'm sorry, I have every compassion for the "poor" as individuals and I do all I can as an individual to help (sincerely), but I do not see "socialism" as offering more than unworkable palliatives, unsustainable promises and ineffective policies.

Almost by definition, the NHS is not sustainable, it cannot, CANNOT, deomstrably, provide the levels of care in which every individual, irrespective of means, can have free treatment at whatever cost now. And if you disagree, tell me how it can, while paying all the disbaled for not working, the pensioners (increasing in numbers) the civil and public servants who must never lose jobs or have lower pay (I speak as one)

No, I'm sorry, allowing the Bransons, the bankers and Sugar and the entrepeneurs, the company bosses their incentives helps everyone by growing the economy. And if you try to stop it you'll see a huge migration of talent overseas. Some will always get on, make wise investments, assess risks better, be more thrifty, wise or inspired. What are you going to do - penalise them every time they put their heads over the parapet, or earn a buck?

I see socialism as directive, oppressive and tyrannical, every time it opens its mouth - sorry.

Look forward, not back, see the progress (over say the last 100 years) not the failures (mainly of socialists), stop giving me the slogans ("eradicate child poverty by 2020" - what does that mean? how is it measured?).

Sorry, I see the problem, I identify with your goals (though you won't see that ) I weep for your emotion, share your pain, but I don't see your offerings as solutions, as practical or desirable. 60 years of the welfare state in the UK has surely shown that.

Yours, Scrooge.

phil

[Limehouse]

There is a programme on television next week called Poor Kids. I have just read an article about it in the Radio Times and it made me very sad. Despite being a wealthy country we still have relative poverty for far too many children - and it just shouldn't happen.

And the poor will always be with us.

Equalise all wealth, all savings all income and in a week, I guarantee, there would be those with "fortunes" and those in debt.

My fear is that "socialists" will continually strip away all incentive, to achive...?

Actually, our capitalist society has ensured that poverty is not what it was. Oh, I'm sure you can fin pockets of utter destitution, but actually compared to say, the 1880s, the 1920s or even the 1950s the poor are much better off - just not comparatively. the welfare state, which absorbs more and more of the nation's wealth has not achieved you goal, so what will?

I'm sorry, I have every compassion for the "poor" as individuals and I do all I can as an individual to help (sincerely), but I do not see "socialism" as offering more than unworkable palliatives, unsustainable promises and ineffective policies.

Almost by definition, the NHS is not sustainable, it cannot, CANNOT, deomstrably, provide the levels of care in which every individual, irrespective of means, can have free treatment at whatever cost now. And if you disagree, tell me how it can, while paying all the disbaled for not working, the pensioners (increasing in numbers) the civil and public servants who must never lose jobs or have lower pay (I speak as one)

No, I'm sorry, allowing the Bransons, the bankers and Sugar and the entrepeneurs, the company bosses their incentives helps everyone by growing the economy. And if you try to stop it you'll see a huge migration of talent overseas. Some will always get on, make wise investments, assess risks better, be more thrifty, wise or inspired. What are you going to do - penalise them every time they put their heads over the parapet, or earn a buck?

I see socialism as directive, oppressive and tyrannical, every time it opens its mouth - sorry.

Look forward, not back, see the progress (over say the last 100 years) not the failures (mainly of socialists), stop giving me the slogans ("eradicate child poverty by 2020" - what does that mean? how is it measured?).

Sorry, I see the problem, I identify with your goals (though you won't see that ) I weep for your emotion, share your pain, but I don't see your offerings as solutions, as practical or desirable. 60 years of the welfare state in the UK has surely shown that.

Yours, Scrooge.

phil

Hi Phil - I see your points and at least we have the same goal - to erradicate poverty.

Socialism requires the redistribution of wealth but for me and many modern socialists that does not mean taking from the rich and redistributing the wealth to all. It means creating opportunities and breaking down barriers so that resources are more fairly shared and earned.

Look at it this way. Imagine you are going to establish a community in which everyone is going to be equal. It is agreed that everyone will wear the same type of clothes (like Startrek - kind of all-in-one jump suits) and everyone will have two suits - one in the wash and one on their backs. Everyone will be equal because everyone will have the same amount of clothes. Now - my husband is six feet four inches tall and I am five feet one inch. In order for us both to have two suits - Eddie will need more material. If he is given the same amount of material as me - he will not have two suits and will not be equal. So you see in order to achieve equality of opportunity - some people need more resources or they cannot achieve equality.

Regarding the NHS - it has to be paid for out of taxes and National Insurance. People don't really get free treatment - they pay via their taxes. Many people additionally pay for their medication (my husband and I included) and for their dental and eye care (again - my husband and I included). Many countries in Europe have much higher taxes than in the UK and they don't leave in droves.

I have a potentially serious progressive disease that I inherited. I don't need a lot of health care but I do need monitoring. However - the risk of serious complications is high. Because of this - private health care would be beyond my means. It's not my fault I was born wth this condition - but I would suffer unfairly without the NHS. In fact - without the NHS - people like me would be nowadays be aborted (I would think that some actually are).

How do we erradicate child poverty? How is it measured? Well - we start by ensuring every child has access to education and healthcare. That would be a very good start.

Have a good evening Phil.

[Natalie Severn]

Julie

I think it inspires you as communist emancipation has been a complete failure in wealth creation. Its not as if this "emancipation" has a rich history of delivering goods and services to its citizens. You are looking for past excuses to confirm your current thinking. Its proof that failed communist ideals lead to all sorts of mumbo jumbo. Herein lies its problems. The communist theory is so against human nature it invariably ends in failure when practiced. Nowadays its even a failure in theory.


The above is meant as a criticism of totalitarian communism rather than western democratic social justice.

i think You are very mistaken here.The Soviet Union was a super power created in less than thirty years--ie from 1917 to 1950 which had altered the face of Russia entirely from being a backward feudal/peasant society of extreme poverty and illiteracy and high infant mortality to one which provided its people with gas,electricity,cheap-if basic -accomodation, a system of package schooling similar to adopted in the West in the 80"s ,literacy,health care, theatre ,ballet , sports literature poetry to rival any in the Western democracies.
They even sent a man into space before America!
So don't pull that one.The problem was partly that the West ostracised Russia.Penalised her as it does Cuba in an effort to destroy her.
But none of that excuses the purges,the assasinations ordered by the paranoid Stalin, the tanks in Hungary etc etc
That was the tragedy.Not any failure economically.That came much later with Breshnev and co.

[Phil H]

Limehouse

A few quick responses to your very touching post:

Look at it this way. Imagine you are going to establish a community in which everyone is going to be equal. It is agreed that everyone will wear the same type of clothes (like Startrek - kind of all-in-one jump suits) and everyone will have two suits - one in the wash and one on their backs. Everyone will be equal because everyone will have the same amount of clothes. Now - my husband is six feet four inches tall and I am five feet one inch. In order for us both to have two suits - Eddie will need more material. If he is given the same amount of material as me - he will not have two suits and will not be equal. So you see in order to achieve equality of opportunity - some people need more resources or they cannot achieve equality.

I find that absolutely ghastly - a grey, sterile, bleak anathaema. It assumes somewhere at the back of its workings, Stalinist bureaucrats working out (rather like 1940s rationing) what X or Y is entitled to. Sorry - I am entitled to work, earn and keep and make my own decisions (within reason). I don't mind paying a proportion of my earnings for the genreral good, what I would object to is the state determining what I should earn!

[B]Regarding the NHS - it has to be paid for out of taxes and National Insurance. People don't really get free treatment - they pay via their taxes.
Many people additionally pay for their medication (my husband and I included) and for their dental and eye care (again - my husband and I included).

But why not charge those who can afford something, a payment for their care - or at least for their keep. It's called a "means test£ and in modern society there is nothing demeaning in it. It only socialist dogma that says there is.

Why do we allow people taking thousands in treatment, and earning good sums, to still have holidays abroad, cars, etc. It teaches neither thrift not wisdom nor prioritisation of tasks.

Many countries in Europe have much higher taxes than in the UK and they don't leave in droves.

But they have vastly differnt cultures - the Germans for instance are less likely to own their own home - they rent.

While I have great sympathy for your own condition and situation it is not something I can discuss on here.

How do we erradicate child poverty? How is it measured? Well - we start by ensuring every child has access to education and healthcare. That would be a very good start.

Well, you won't start giving them a good education until you tackle the individuals (parents especially) who do not value it - probably BECAUSE it's fee - who keep children out of school, for frivolous reasons (holidays), who do not value books, watch reality TV (rather than the BBC ); who do not speak in a language approcimating English - how can a child spell a word if they pronounce it improperly? Accent still marks a person more than anything else, because it says something about his/her background, manners and education.

Child poverty shouldbe measured by how the parents spend their income - if they put cars, social life, fags etc before the child then take the child away or force them to do their duty. I confidently predict that in the next 50 years people will have to get a licence before they can breed (for more reasons than this) which in part will evaluate their readiness/suitability to be parents. those who have children anyway will be heavily penalised.

I am genuinely sorry to be so implacable about this, but I want to see pragmatism, reality and balance brought to this issue generally in the country. Being soft and sobby helps no one (IMHO).

Phil (probably still Scrooge in your eyes )

[Zodiac]

There is a programme on television next week called Poor Kids. I have just read an article about it in the Radio Times and it made me very sad. Despite being a wealthy country we still have relative poverty for far too many children - and it just shouldn't happen.

And the poor will always be with us.

Equalise all wealth, all savings all income and in a week, I guarantee, there would be those with "fortunes" and those in debt.

My fear is that "socialists" will continually strip away all incentive, to achive...?

Actually, our capitalist society has ensured that poverty is not what it was. Oh, I'm sure you can fin pockets of utter destitution, but actually compared to say, the 1880s, the 1920s or even the 1950s the poor are much better off - just not comparatively. the welfare state, which absorbs more and more of the nation's wealth has not achieved you goal, so what will?

I'm sorry, I have every compassion for the "poor" as individuals and I do all I can as an individual to help (sincerely), but I do not see "socialism" as offering more than unworkable palliatives, unsustainable promises and ineffective policies.

Almost by definition, the NHS is not sustainable, it cannot, CANNOT, deomstrably, provide the levels of care in which every individual, irrespective of means, can have free treatment at whatever cost now. And if you disagree, tell me how it can, while paying all the disbaled for not working, the pensioners (increasing in numbers) the civil and public servants who must never lose jobs or have lower pay (I speak as one)

No, I'm sorry, allowing the Bransons, the bankers and Sugar and the entrepeneurs, the company bosses their incentives helps everyone by growing the economy. And if you try to stop it you'll see a huge migration of talent overseas. Some will always get on, make wise investments, assess risks better, be more thrifty, wise or inspired. What are you going to do - penalise them every time they put their heads over the parapet, or earn a buck?

I see socialism as directive, oppressive and tyrannical, every time it opens its mouth - sorry.

Look forward, not back, see the progress (over say the last 100 years) not the failures (mainly of socialists), stop giving me the slogans ("eradicate child poverty by 2020" - what does that mean? how is it measured?).

Sorry, I see the problem, I identify with your goals (though you won't see that ) I weep for your emotion, share your pain, but I don't see your offerings as solutions, as practical or desirable. 60 years of the welfare state in the UK has surely shown that.

Yours, Scrooge.

phil

Well Phil,

I am sorry to say that the above post only serves to prove, beyond all reasonable doubt, that you were indeed failed by our "Socialist" Education System. As a Dyslexic myself I am most certainly not one who is noted as possessing any great abilities in the realms of spelling, punctuation or grammer, quite the reverse in fact, but Phil!!! Not since the tragic events of Walpurgisnacht 1987, when a coven of dyslexic Devil worshipers inadvertently sold their souls to Santa, have I witnessed such horrific abuse, however unintended, of our beloved mother tongue!!! I'm afraid that the poor spellers will always be with us, give everybody pen and paper and in a week, I guarantee, there would be typex everywhere!!! I blame bloody Socialists, up to no good as usual etc. etc.

Best wishes,
Zodiac.

[Phil H]

I blame time constraints, lack of a spell checker and the fact I was trying to do other things in parallel.

Phil

[Zodiac]

I blame time constraints, lack of a spell checker and the fact I was trying to do other things in parallel.

Phil

Hi Phil,

Men just cannot multitask!!!

Best wishes,
Zodiac.

[Phil H]

Or spell!!

[Zodiac]

Or spell!!

Hi Phil,

Well, join the club mate!!! I think that we must have both used the same textbook in School, "Spellung far Beggunnners"

All the best,
Zodiac.