CONSUMERISM

Friday 31 May, 7:00 pm for 7:30, Unity House, Fennel Street Loughborough.

To be introduced by Chris North.

Most of us are familiar with the phenomenon of consumerism to some extent, but few people are aware of the deep and insidious grip the forces promoting consumerism exert on us as individuals and collectively. It has caused extreme dislocation within society and played a significant part in bringing our environment to a potentially catastrophic condition. In a far-reaching and entertaining talk, Chris will outline the situation in general, examine the damage being done to the individual psyche, and propose a radical solution for personal recovery

Events in the next few weeks

Here are some events which may be of interest:

Friday May 31st, 7:30: Friday Room meeting at Unity House, Loughborough. Topic: “Consumerism” to be introduced by Chris North.

Weds. June 5th, 7:00: Public meeting Belmont Hotel, De Montfort St, Leicester. Author and campaigner Melissa Benn speaking on “A New Vision for Education”. Refreshments provided. Organised by NUT.

Thurs. June 13th, 7.30pm: at The Ale Wagon, 27 Rutland St, Leicester LE1 1RE. Topic: “Is direct democracy is the answer to Britain’s (and even the world’s) democratic deficit.”

Friday June 14th, 7:30: Friday Room meeting at Unity House, Loughborough. Topic: “TRIDENT” to be introduced by Mike Green

Sat. June 22nd, 7:30: Mikron Theatre Company, Swan in the Rushes, Loughborough LE11 5BE. Performance: “Don’t shoot the Messenger! Adventures in the post” (Collection at the door)

Sat. July 6th, 6:30: Paget Arms 41 Oxford Street Loughborough, United LE11 5D. Topic: “Hope not Hate” hosted by Owen Jones ( Author of “Chavs – the demonisation of the working class” )

 

Painful Choices? Nation States and European Integration

This is a Loughborough University public ‘inaugral’ lecture which may be of interest to Friday Room members. It is to be held on Wednesday 29 May, 2013 at 5pm, Lecture Theatre SMB.0.14 (Stewart Mason Building). See the link at the bottom to book a place

The speaker is Professor Lee Miles, Department of Politics, History and International Relations. 2013 represents the 40th anniversary since Britain, Denmark and Ireland have been members of the European Union (EU).

In many respects, the governments of all three countries have often been criticised for lacking coherence in their approaches towards handling the challenges of participating in European integration, and in pursuing wider foreign policy objectives.

Have governments been confronted by almost continual ‘painful choices’? Do broader concepts like ‘painful choice’ help us to understand why European integration continues to remain challenging for governments more generally?

In this lecture, Professor Miles draws on his extensive research on the Nordic Countries, and combines Prospect Theory – taken from the realms of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) – to explain why the governments and elites of nation states are often resistant to approaching important decisions about their future and often complex relationships with the evolving European Union (EU).

Book your place »

Policies without Politics?

Friday 17 May, 7:00 pm for 7:30, Unity House, Fennel Street Loughborough.

To be introduced by John Greenwood.
People tend to make the tacit assumption that the only way to get better government is by getting a better party. The question is: What important improvements can be had without needing a party to promote it?

What we are looking for are single items of policy that could appeal to a majority of citizens regardless of party loyalties.

I want to explore the idea of “Proper Governance” in this context. The word “governance” seems to be cropping up in discussion and I have been doing a bit of pondering and have posted an outline of what I think “Proper Governance” is.

There are all sorts of governance models, for example the mutual society, the limited company, and state control. Different organisations work best with different models, there is no “one size fits all”. One feature that seems to be essential is effective critical oversight. So I would argue that the nationalised organisations failed because this was missing. Smaller limited companies and cooperatives do work because they have critical oversight from the shareholders in the former and the members in the latter. In both cases this oversight can lead to strong actions, like sacking the managers when they screw up.

The take home idea is that the only proper purpose of “privatization” is to acquire critical oversight. If a better means can be devised then there is no case passing control to shareholders who have no direct interest or experience of the organisation and will frequently be in a different country

We want to make idea of “Proper Governance” acceptable to people of all political persuasions. It has to be presented in such a way that the advantages are obvious to all and there are no grounds for suspicion. It is unfortunately true that people tend judge ideas by where they come from rather than their intrinsic merit. We need to consider how the idea is promoted, by whom and the language used. I have asked Evo to point out just how far words can acquire extra layers of meaning.

People’s Assembly and Left Unity.

A discussion piece by Geoff Gay. 09.05.13.

I want to draw attention to two current political movements, the People’s Assembly Against Austerity (PAAA) and Left Unity, either or both of which may turn out to be highly significant for the future of the British political left.
The People’s Assembly was generated by the Coalition of Resistance whose President is Tony Benn. Numerous well-knowns have put their name to it, including many trade union leaders, Green MP Caroline Lucas, a handful of Labour MPs, film maker Ken Loach, writer Owen Jones and comedian Mark Steel.
They have an event in Nottingham on Saturday May 18th, 10.30 – 5.00 at the Friends Meeting House on Clarendon St ( about 10 minutes’ walk from the Old Market Square ). I have to say that the website for this event, at which you can register to attend, is not good in that it seems to want to hide the exact details of the event. Then there is the big London event at Central Hall, Westminster on Saturday June 22nd, 9.30 – 5.00. You can attend this as an individual or as a delegate from a trade union body or other organisation. There is a delegate fee of £10 for delegates, or, for individuals, £8 waged or £4 unwaged.
Left Unity was initiated by Ken Loach, director of “The Spirit of 45″ and is evidently a movement aimed at building a new political party of the broad left.

I would like to explain my motivation for promoting these initiatives, both historically and leading up to the present :
I was an active member of the Communist Party of Great Britain from 1966 through to its final Congress in 1991. From 1951 onwards, the central concept of the CPGB programme, The British Road to Socialism ( developed in the face of a great deal of disruptive internal opposition ) was that of the Broad Democratic Alliance, based on the objective reality that the interests of something like 95% of the population lie in uniting around a counter-hegemonic strategy involving the radical extension of democracy paving the way for replacing free-market capitalism by a fairer, more equal, more participative society ( which we called “Socialism” ). I still take the view that this strategy is on the right track, at least in its concept and its essence.
In 1993, I joined the Labour Party , represented Labour as a councillor from 1999 to 2011, and even had a period as Constituency Secretary. I have never felt really at home in the early 21st Century version of the Labour Party , dominated as it is locally by middle class do-gooders and nationally by largely middle class career politicians, and obsessed as it still is by gaining local and national “power” through the first-past-the-post electoral system which forces any party which sees itself as the main vehicle for a more progressive ( or at least less reactionary ) politics to gravitate towards “safety” as opposed to any kind of radicalism. The only radical Labour government was that of 1945-51, in the very one-off circumstances following two world wars, punctuated, for a large proportion of the population, by a period of grinding poverty and deprivation.
During the current period, in which the Labour Party has been absorbed by neo-liberalism ,
( is “One Nation Labour” any less of a vacuous slogan than “New Labour” ? ) there have been numerous attempts to challenge the “safety” position, most of which have been doomed to failure by their sectarianism. I find myself much closer to the position of the Green Party than to mainstream Labour politics, but, as the Greens do not seem capable of making an electoral breakthrough on a national scale, I still have more reason to stay in the Labour Party than to leave it. I went through a period of believing that the future of the British left lay in some sort of alliance consisting of different forces in different places – the Greens here, Respect there, TUSC * somewhere else, the SNP, PC and Sinn Fein in their respective nations, and so on. Compass has probably been the most influential of the left pressure groups, but it is only a pressure group, not a political party contesting elections.

But now, please refer to my previous article “A Gramscian Party” inspired by a talk by Richard Johnson. Antonio Gramsci understood the need for a counter-hegemonic strategy, as opposed to the sort of pragmatic and anti-theoretical Labour position. If the Labour Party is incapable of becoming a Gramscian party, then the initiative will have to come from elsewhere. I had thought that the PAAA was the best bet, and I still think that it is an important broad left initiative. But, again, the PAAA seems to be more of a pressure group on the austerity issue than an embryonic Gramscian party. So perhaps the Left Unity movement ( which I had not even heard of until very recently ) is now the better bet. I would urge readers to investigate the websites of both these organisations.

* Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition – the brainchild of the ex-Trotskyist “Socialist Party” .

What class are you? Who cares?

Friday 3 May, 7:00 pm for 7:30, Unity House, Fennel Street Loughborough.
Discussion to be introduced by Charles Walker.

In a divided 21st Century Britain, how do we define class? Is it even something worth talking about?

Based on a BBC survey with over 160,000 responses, sociologists Mike Savage and Fiona Devine have developed a new model of class based on Bourdieu’s three forms of capital: economic, social and cultural. You can estimate which of their seven classes you belong to using the BBC’s class calculator here. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22000973 But is Bourdieu’s model the best way of talking about class? And what does it all mean for bringing about political change?

The study can be found here. http://soc.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/03/12/0038038513481128.full.pdf

Screening of Thin Ice, the story behind climate science

You are invited to a FREE screening of the global film: Thin Ice, the story behind climate Science.

When: Tuesday 23^rd April, from 5:30 PM to 7:00 PM, Room J1.04

Where: Edward Herbert Building (EHB), Loughborough University

Trailer & more information: www.thiniceclimate.org

Synopsis:

In recent years climate science has come under increasing attack, so geologist Simon Lamb took his camera to find out what is really going on. For over three years he followed scientists from a wide range of disciplines at work in the Arctic, Antarctic, Southern Ocean, New Zealand, Europe and the USA. They talk about their work, their hopes and fears with  a rare candour and directness. This creates an intimate portrait of the global community of researchers racing to understand our planet’s changing climate, and provides a compelling case for rising CO2 as the main cause.

Thin Ice – the inside story of climate science – is a unique project: a film about climate science made by a scientist.

Register here http://thinicelboro-estw.eventbrite.co.uk/

Please forward to anybody who may be interested, there is a 400 person capacity.