Zombie

Jeremy Corbyn's speech: https://youtu.be/YOPrFoEZPLU

A feudal baron seizes on a fertile valley. But as long as the fertile valley is empty of folk our baron is not rich. His land brings him in nothing; he might as well possess a property in the moon.

What does our baron do to enrich himself? He looks out for peasants — for poor peasants!

If every peasant-farmer had a piece of land, free from rent and taxes, if he had in addition the tools and the stock necessary for farm labour, who would plough the lands of the baron? Everyone would look after his own. But there are thousands of destitute persons ruined by wars, or drought, or pestilence. They have neither horse nor plough. (Iron was costly in the Middle Ages, and a draughthorse still more so.)

All these destitute creatures are trying to better their condition. One day they see on the road at the confines of our baron’s estate a notice-board indicating by certain signs adapted to their comprehension that the labourer who is willing to settle on this estate will receive the tools and materials to build his cottage and sow his fields, and a portion of land rent free for a certain number of years. The number of years is represented by so many crosses on the sign-board, and the peasant understands the meaning of these crosses.

So the poor wretches swarm over the baron’s lands, making roads, draining marshes, building villages. In nine years he begins to tax them. Five years later he increases the rent. Then he doubles it. The peasant accepts these new conditions because he cannot find better ones elsewhere; and little by little, with the aid of laws made by the barons, the poverty of the peasant becomes the source of the landlord’s wealth. And it is not only the lord of the manor who preys upon him. A whole host of usurers swoop down upon the villages, multiplying as the wretchedness of the peasants increases. That is how things went in the Middle Ages. And to-day is it not still the same thing? If there were free lands which the peasant could cultivate if he pleased, would he pay £50 to some “shabble of a duke”[2] for condescending to sell him a scrap? Would he burden himself with a lease which absorbed a third of the produce? Would he — on the métayer system — consent to give the half of his harvest to the landowner?

But he has nothing. So he will accept any conditions, if only he can keep body and soul together, while he tills the soil and enriches the landlord.

So in the nineteenth century, just as in the Middle Ages, the poverty of the peasant is a source of wealth to the landed proprietor.

• Chapter 4, The Conquest of Bread, Pëtr Kropotkin (1892) Available at: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-conquest-of-bread

Seems familiar...

I think point 4 is the point the poster is trying to make.

We're so far removed from nature, so far removed from the thing that lets us live, eat, and thrive, that more of us know bullshit brands than the plants we can enjoy looking at, the ones we must avoid, and the ones we can eat. Inherited knowledge is being lost. Yes, with the internet, if you're inclined, you can look these things up but most people aren't doing that.

It's sad. And I don't mean the modern usage of sad as in lame, it's sad as in depressing.

No.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_protests

People are already willing to pay that significant tax, it's just currently known as net profit.

People already pay for all of these things, and every single one of them has a % tax added by the business supplying them to generate profit.

Not only do they have a profit tax attached, that profit tax is maximised to what the company believes they can get away with through "free market demand and supply" with no accountability except the ability to boycott (assuming there's another company you can move to, if it's a monopoly or oligopoly, good luck).

The difference that public ownership brings is a reduction in costs because there's no profit motive and an increase in accountability because of elections. Unfortunately in undemocratic "democratic" systems like America that accountability never materialises so it's misunderstood what that means.

In Scotland, we have a proportionally representative system. It's not perfect, we're still attached to Westminster via FPTP and the Barnett formula, but the parts that are genuinely democratically publicly run work brilliantly.

Scottish Water, for example, are a publicly owned company which (as the name suggests) supplies fresh, clean water to every home in Scotland. We pay a tax called council tax which is based upon the value of your home and a percentage of that tax covers sewage, drains, and water. We have some of the cleanest and safest water in the world. There's no meter tracking usage, we can use as much as we want. Businesses pay per litre but citizens have carte blanche.

ScotRail has recently been taken over by the government, this isn't as perfect an example as Scottish Water but it's also got a lot of the private corporate culture still to rip out of itself. But the service even now is considerably better than when it was privately owned.

We have what are known as Council Houses which are owned and maintained by the local council (local government) and rented out to generally poor or people in need. The rates charged are set by the council and can range from almost on par with private landlords to free, dependent upon needs and the situation. It's not unheard of for an old lady who's lived in a council home for years with 3 bedrooms who's family have moved out or died to swap houses with a young family in a 1 bedroom flat who have a baby and another on the way. Public housing allows that flexibility. There's no coercion allowed, you have the right to stay where you are, it's your home after all, but if the old lady is happy to move then it is facilitated with ease.

That is what public ownership and infrastructure allows. It's cheaper than private ownership, provides better service, and has a reasonability and flexibility that the private sector normally doesn't. Unfortunately, we live in a world where money means everything and profit motive is seen as the epitome of motivation so moving from private to public ownership of anything is an incredibly uphill battle and as most people only know the private world (and public projects often get bogged down in capitalist conservative countries) they're reluctant to comprehend let alone try it.

Public ownership works, it just needs to be set up and maintained properly, and unfortunately that means fending off capitalist saboteurs and vultures at every turn.

I thought they said we are £12bn in the hole and that's why they're pushing forward with austerity?

Does the magic money tree only produce fruit when you want to cause harm in the world?

No comrade, is glorious Russian engineering.

Collapsible bridge makes for easier movement to new location to where bridge is needed. Don't listen to Western pig lies, mighty mother Russia is safe place.

Now please, this way to nearest conscription centre for help powerful Putin to make Russia great again, spasibo.

Mr Wilkinson added: "The idea that cannabis is a harmless drug is a misconception. Its cultivation and distribution are often controlled by organised crime networks that exploit vulnerable individuals and perpetuate violence.

Yes, because it's illegal.

Make it legal and regulated like alcohol and these issues disappear. Moving it from illegal to SUPER DUPER illegal won't change anything. Moron.

Fair point, however by your own source:

although permanent effects in body chemistry can sometimes be seen, as in the case of bone density loss increasing with length of use of depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA).

In men... ...side effects of some drugs may include depression, suicidal ideation, hot flashes, anemia, infertility, increase in body fat and higher risks of cardiovascular diseases and osteoporosis.

In women... ...side effects include the deflation of breast glands, expansion of the size of the nipple and shrinking of bone mass.

My original point was about wrongful conviction but fuck, even if the person is guilty, that is cruel and unusual punishment.

State enforced depression and suicide ideation? No thanks. That's Josef Mengele style shit, the Nazi SS Angel of Death

We have movies with multiple audio streams. So you can choose English, or French, or crew commentary.

Why not have a mix for "standard home TV setup" and a mix for "5.1 ultimate surround sound system" and keep both groups of people happy?

How do you reverse a chemical castration if it's later revealed the person was wrongfully convicted?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-47973826

New figures show that 84 people were wrongly convicted of crimes between 2007 and 2017.

Charges ranged from murder to rape and included people serving life sentences.

To clarify: that number is just for Northern Ireland, I don't know the number for the whole UK but presumably proportionally similar. By my maths that would be 296 people wrongfully convicted in the UK per year

They're representative politicians in a supposed representative democracy.

The word representative means they are there in place of "the people" because you can't expect everyone to read and fully understand everything.

That is therefore the politician's job. They are not supposed to have people to summarise the bill for them. They are meant to understand it and determine whether to vote yes or no based on the needs and requirements of their constituents.

If the bill is too long or complex then they should vote no until they can understand the whole thing.

In the opposite of The Simpsons Governator, they are meant to read, not to lead!