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The Saker
A bird's eye view of the vineyard

offsite link Alternative Copy of thesaker.is site is available Thu May 25, 2023 14:38 | Ice-Saker-V6bKu3nz
Alternative site: https://thesaker.si/saker-a... Site was created using the downloads provided Regards Herb

offsite link The Saker blog is now frozen Tue Feb 28, 2023 23:55 | The Saker
Dear friends As I have previously announced, we are now “freezing” the blog.  We are also making archives of the blog available for free download in various formats (see below). 

offsite link What do you make of the Russia and China Partnership? Tue Feb 28, 2023 16:26 | The Saker
by Mr. Allen for the Saker blog Over the last few years, we hear leaders from both Russia and China pronouncing that they have formed a relationship where there are

offsite link Moveable Feast Cafe 2023/02/27 ? Open Thread Mon Feb 27, 2023 19:00 | cafe-uploader
2023/02/27 19:00:02Welcome to the ‘Moveable Feast Cafe’. The ‘Moveable Feast’ is an open thread where readers can post wide ranging observations, articles, rants, off topic and have animate discussions of

offsite link The stage is set for Hybrid World War III Mon Feb 27, 2023 15:50 | The Saker
Pepe Escobar for the Saker blog A powerful feeling rhythms your skin and drums up your soul as you?re immersed in a long walk under persistent snow flurries, pinpointed by

The Saker >>

Public Inquiry
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

offsite link RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail supporter? Anthony

offsite link Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

offsite link Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

offsite link RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

offsite link Waiting for SIPO Anthony

Public Inquiry >>

Human Rights in Ireland
Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.

offsite link Julian Assange is finally free ! Tue Jun 25, 2024 21:11 | indy

offsite link Stand With Palestine: Workplace Day of Action on Naksa Day Thu May 30, 2024 21:55 | indy

offsite link It is Chemtrails Month and Time to Visit this Topic Thu May 30, 2024 00:01 | indy

offsite link Hamburg 14.05. "Rote" Flora Reoccupied By Internationalists Wed May 15, 2024 15:49 | Internationalist left

offsite link Eddie Hobbs Breaks the Silence Exposing the Hidden Agenda Behind the WHO Treaty Sat May 11, 2024 22:41 | indy

Human Rights in Ireland >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link Judges Told to Avoid Saying ?Asylum Seekers? and ?Immigrants? Fri Jul 26, 2024 17:00 | Toby Young
A new edition of the Equal Treatment Bench Book instructs judges to avoid terms such as 'asylum seekers', 'immigrant' and 'gays', which it says can be 'dehumanising'.
The post Judges Told to Avoid Saying ?Asylum Seekers? and ?Immigrants? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link The Intersectional Feminist Rewriting the National Curriculum Fri Jul 26, 2024 15:00 | Toby Young
Labour has appointed Becky Francis, an intersectional feminist, to rewrite the national curriculum, which it will then force all schools to teach. Prepare for even more woke claptrap to be shoehorned into the classroom.
The post The Intersectional Feminist Rewriting the National Curriculum appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Government Has Just Declared War on Free Speech Fri Jul 26, 2024 13:03 | Toby Young
The Government has just announced it intends to block the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, effectively declaring war on free speech. It's time to join the Free Speech Union and fight back.
The post Government Has Just Declared War on Free Speech appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link I Wrote an Article for Forbes Defending J.D. Vance From Accusations of ?Climate Denialism?. Forty Ei... Fri Jul 26, 2024 11:00 | Tilak Doshi
On July 18th, Dr Tilak Doshi wrote an article for Forbes defending J.D. Vance from accusations of 'climate denialism'. 48 hours later, Forbes un-published the article. Read the article on the Daily Sceptic.
The post I Wrote an Article for Forbes Defending J.D. Vance From Accusations of ?Climate Denialism?. Forty Eight Hours Later, Forbes Un-Published the Article and Sacked Me as a Contributor appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Come and See Nick Dixon and me Recording the Weekly Sceptic at the Hippodrome on Monday Fri Jul 26, 2024 09:00 | Toby Young
Tickets are still available to a live recording of the Weekly Sceptic, Britain's only podcast to break into the top five of Apple's podcast chart. It?s at Lola's, the downstairs bar of the Hippodrome on Monday July 29th.
The post Come and See Nick Dixon and me Recording the Weekly Sceptic at the Hippodrome on Monday appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

State Budgets Can Never Serve The Class Interests of Workers

category national | anti-capitalism | opinion/analysis author Thursday October 29, 2015 23:41author by Paddy Hackettauthor email paraichackett at gmail dot com Report this post to the editors

The annual budget statement is a bourgeois matter. It is the obligation of communists to highlight the latter rather than getting exclusively immersed in its details. No matter how popularly appealing a budget appears it can never serve the class interests of workers. Sections of the Left relate to state budgets as if they are pliable and can consequently meet workers' needs.

The annual budget statement is a bourgeois matter. It is the obligation of communists to highlight the latter rather than getting exclusively immersed in its details. No matter how popularly appealing a budget appears it can never serve the class interests of workers. Sections of the Left relate to state budgets as if they are pliable and can consequently meet workers' needs. In this way they seek to delude the working class and thereby promote capitalism. The state budget cannot, by its very nature, transcend the limits of capitalism. No government can transcend these limits through the medium of the budget.

It is not a subjective matter. It is an objective matter determined by the laws of capital. Conservative bourgeois governments do not introduce annual budgets that fail to meet the needs of the working class because of their immoral nature. Capitalist constraints prevent this just as the law of gravity and the second law of thermodynamics impose objective constraints on the physical world. The nature of budgets is not a moral question.

Consequently arguments made by the radical Left as to how adverse the substance of a particular budget is amounts to no more than mere political rhetoric designed to obstruct the development of class consciousness. Such delusional rhetoric is designed to suggest that capitalism is a progressively rational system capable of serving working class needs. It falsely suggests too that bourgeois governments fail to meet the needs of workers for morally subjective reasons. This assumes that such governments consist of "bad people".

In the light of the foregoing it is clear that it is not the obligation of communists to evaluate budget details in themselves. To do so is to base a budget on the false assumption that it can serve the interests of workers. At most the content of a budget must be discussed as evidence of the inherent inability of budgets to meet the needs of workers.

Having said this I am not claiming that all budgets, although bourgeois, are of equal value. Some budgets may more adequately serve the class interests of capitalists than others. Analogously some bourgeois governments are better than others at representing the interests of capitalism. Bourgeois governments can vary in competence.

Related Link: http://paddy-hackett.blogspot.com/
author by fredpublication date Mon Nov 02, 2015 23:25author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Mike, your post reeks of "capitalism is the only way" smug condescension.

often the problem with communist or socialist states is that the menacing external threats from capitalist states
mean they end up backed into a corner and having to spend far too much of their budget
responding to external menacing military threat and the threat of meddling and internal subversion
by those same well funded forces, and all the while having to battle a tide of well funded and orchestrated propaganda.
Not an ideal way to have to spend large chunks of your budget when what you really need to be doing is feeding, housing and educating people, providing healthcare and decent public utilities and services.

That is what often ends up breaking the back of any such states. It's a systematic and relentless assault.

The menacing external threat from capitalism totally distorts wanna be communist and socialist states
and systematic external sanctions / embargoes cripple them economically.

Capitalism lives in dread of the "good example" where a state does what it was meant to do
and genuinely attempts to look after the interests of it's people.

author by Mike Novackpublication date Sun Nov 01, 2015 14:29author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Assume for just a moment that you get to carry out your revolution and establish the workers' state of your dreams. Do you imagine that this state would be operating without a budget? Zero planning about what resources were to be allocated to which public activity?

Look guys, even if you are not for a democratic form of communism, even if you are for rule by some sort of revolutionary council, you are STILL going to have a budget. If you try to tell people nonsense like "in our workers' paradise resources will appear by magic, there won't be any need to make hard decisions about how to divide up what is available" NOBODY is going to take you for anything but fools.

 
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