5 May 2007

Elections, ecosocialism, the war on democracy, carbon cons and more

Well manic....so tomorrow on the politics show at least in the SE bit of the BBC to talk about the Green parties fantastic gains in the local elections, meaning I miss the Green Left Weekly interview with Dave Riley which I am still hoping to do, monday talking at the Leicester Alternatives Festival, tuesday doing a meeting at 6pm at University of Sussex (Brighton) on 'Real Alternatives to Capitalism', lets not think about wednesday, thursday, friday...

Today, well writing a new comment is free blog to flag up 'Eco Islam', plus my ethical eats column for Red Pepper, plus a piece on Gordon Brown and carbon trading, plus a couple of things I have forgotten which I will have to remember and then remember to write.

All the past week electioneering....great local results but sad to see the Scottish Greens reduced to two parliamentary seats....

I went to a showing of John Pilger's new film 'The War on Democracy', which with footage from numerous US backed coups Guatamala 1954, Chile 1973, El Salvador...showed the US contempt for elected governments, the contrast with popular democracy in Venezuela and Bolivia is also flagged up.....more on this film when it comes out.

Fantastic meeting with Joel Kovel speaking at the lSE yesterday, which really got people thinking....big ecosocialist international coordinating meeting planned in Paris for October 7th, watch this space...

busy, busy, busy, busy....

3 comments:

weggis said...

I would prefer "effective" to "busy".

Busy people tend to lose focus and forget what they are trying to achieve!

This is precisely my worry on having a "leader".

Anonymous said...

Where at Sussex Uni will you be speaking?

I'll try and come along.

Hopefully, you'll mention workers' co-operatives as one of many alternatives to capitalism. For more, see a paper I recently wrote on workers' co-ops in the UK:

http://mphil.acrewoods.net/index.php/Workers_Coop_Paper

And another paper on power within co-ops in the UK using Stephen Luke's 3 dimensions of power:

http://ed.acrewoods.net/node/187

Best,

Ed

Anonymous said...

Hi Derek - great results. BUT... is there any way of finding out

- how many of the 93 were up for re-election
and
- how many of those were re-elected

In other words, was it 18 gains, or 19 gains and one loss, or 20 gains and two losses, or 21 gains and
[comment edited for brevity]
losses, or 111 gains and 93 losses?

Getting new councillors is good, but keeping existing seats is better - and doing both is best.

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