This morning Ted Grant, aged 93, died. I'll borrow some stuff about him from Wikipedia:

He formed a new, small tendency in the Labour Party, called the Revolutionary Socialist League which in 1957 was recognised at the official British section of the Fourth International and in 1964 founded the paper Militant. The group at first grew only very slowly, but by 1983, when it was known as the Militant Tendency, it was a significant force in British politics, and Grant was expelled from the Labour Party.

Throughout this time Grant and his colleagues denied that the Militant/RSL was any sort of political organisation, instead claiming it was merely a group of supporters of the newspaper (also called Militant). In the atmosphere of Labour's long shift to the left in the 1970s, all attempts to take action against the Militant/RSL were successfully resisted and even Michael Foot's action against Grant in 1982 (he was expelled along with the so-called "Editorial Board" - actually the Militant/RSL executive committee) was half-hearted.

But by 1985 the atmosphere had changed - Militant/RSL were effectively running Liverpool City Council as well as having 3 MPs. The grouping was aggressively advancing within the Labour Party but also faced a new leader, Neil Kinnock who was determined to smash the Militant/RSL as a force within the party.

The resulting confrontation saw many leading Militant/RSL members expelled from Labour and created a dynamic within the organisation that led many to question Grant's commitment to entryism. They argued that Militant/RSL was able to grow outside Labour and that the Labour Party's position on the poll tax revealed it to be out of touch with working class opinion. Despite the purges organised by the Labour bureaucracy, only a handful of leading Militant/RSL members were ever expelled, and most of the organisation's thousands of members and their three Labour-elected Members of Parliament could not be expelled.

Ted Grant obituary on Marxist.com.

In a defiant speech to the Labour Party conference in 1983, Ted said: "We'll be back!" He told them that there is no way Marxism can be separated from the labour movement. How right he was, now just a week before his death, socialism is stirring once more within Labour.

I'd like to think the splintered "socialist" sects on the left would learn the lesson, the most successful Marxist organisation in British history was not itself a party but was a part of the Labour Party, and an extremely powerful and influential part that could only be dealt with by extreme actions. The way forward in Britain is with the labour movement as a whole, and not with a sect of 20 members who are totally disconnected to the working masses.

Yes I'm talking about the SWP, SSP, BSP, SLP, CPB, etc and whatever fronts they throw together, the Socialist Alliance or Respect. They're all doomed to failure because they're disconnected from the mass. Learn the lesson from this comrade's life and experience.

This won't be a technical rant (we all know Blu-ray has 5GB less storage has much more fragile discs and doesn't use the VC-1 advanced codec as often), everyone who's seen an HD DVD against Blu-ray instore will know if one of them is better it is HD DVD, of course there's not much difference between them, until you look at the price tags, Blu-ray media being 3 times more expensive and the players being twice as expensive.

Most importantly in retail HD DVD is storming ahead:

Amazon top 10 HiDef software sales rank for 7/1/06
1. Syriana HD-DVD #949
2. Serenity HD-DVD #974
3. The Bourne Supremacy HD-DVD #1242
4. The Last Samurai HD-DVD #1610
5. Apollo 13 HD-DVD #2021
6. Swordfish HD-DVD #2130
7. Pitch Black (Unrated) HD-DVD #2347
8. Ultraviolet Blu-Ray #2644
9. Unforgiven HD-DVD #2862
10. Firewall HD-DVD #2921

In the top ten of high definition discs there is just one Blu-ray film.

In a recent Ipsos-Vantis survey:

1. In response to the question “Which statement best describes how likely you would be to buy an HD DVD player,” respondents were over seven times more likely to buy an HD DVD player vs. a Blu-Ray player when all studios support both formats.

a. 57% would definitely or probably buy an HD DVD player vs. 8% for Blu-Ray.

b. 25% would definitely buy HD DVD vs. 2% for Blu-Ray.

2. Purchase interest in HD DVD remains three times higher than Blu-Ray -- even without HD DVD studio support from Disney and Fox.

a. 56% of respondents would definitely or probably buy an HD DVD player vs. 18% for Blu-Ray.

b. 20% would definitely buy HD DVD vs. 6% for Blu-Ray.

3. The main reason consumers prefer HD DVD over Blu-Ray is its superior value.

a. In response to the question, “Which statement best describes how you feel about the value of an HD DVD player,” nearly 57% of respondents indicated that HD DVD was a “very good” or “fairly good” value vs. 14% for Blu-Ray.

b. Conversely, 68% indicated that Blu-Ray was a “somewhat poor” or “very poor” value vs. 19% for HD DVD.

That can be the only demand of the peoples of the Middle East, including the people of Israel.

For that don't know Israel has now attacked both Gaza and Lebanon in recent weeks, killing over 300 civilians and setting both countries back decades. Let us keep in mind this are both utterly defenceless countries that would not stand a chance in a full blown conflict with Israel. The bourgeois press in the west have blamed this on militants in both countries capturing Israeli soldiers.

Now I don't know about you, but I'd class as an Israeli soldier as a military target, the militants involved captured the solders to use to trade for their own people who have been captured. For those who don't have much background Israel have long been kidnapping people; at one point even trying to make it perfectly legal to kidnap civilians in other nations. Of course legal or not the US and Israel still do this all the time.

Anyway here's what some people have been saying on the BBC website:

Its very easy to criticize Israel.. However to fight a cowardly enemy that hides in amongst the general population and appear as non-combatants will always result in civilian deaths. It is this general population that has to flush these fighters out of their communities if not the bombings will continue. Israel is in an impossible position we have had one suicide bomb in the UK explode they have them on a daily basis, and I fear we may be only a few years behind them.

Tom Forrester, London

The lack of knowledge of the situation among people in the west is astonishing. A cowardly enemy that hides amongst the general population? I hate to burst your bubble pal but Hezbollah is a mass movement, it's not an "army" it's a resistance movement against Israel, of course they're going to be among civilians, because they are civilians, civilians who are resisting imperialism.

The Lebanese army is not involved in this conflict (well they've been on the receiving end of Israeli bombs but that's all), simply because the Lebanese government is a lackey of imperialism, all they've been able to do is plead for a ceasefire.

Putting aside the fact that this has totally and illegally destroyed Lebanon's economy, displaced countless of innocent people, murdered more of the innocent than guilty, and really did bomb Beirut back 20 years...all Israel is doing here is breeding hatred and revenge into the younger and future generations of Arabs in the region. They will never achieve their goal of living without fear in this manner. Shame on the US for the support.
I actually had faith in the peace process prior to this.

Faisal, London

Some people do have some sense however. Lebanon has worked tirelessly to build up its infrastructure at great cost. Now Israel have destroyed it all, what took a decade to build Israel destroys in a week.

I don't understand why the International Community, specifically US and UK, refuse to request a cease fire, given the breaches of Geneva conventions.

Out of the 300 Lebanese casualties, more than 250 are civilians (mostly women, children and elderly), more than 20 are Lebanese soldiers not taking part in the conflict.

How can these killings, the destruction of the infrastructure, be justified as a 'war against terrorism'?
Roland, Paris

Simply because the international community doesn't give a shit about people's lives. They only care about their material interests, when have the ruling class ever cared about life?

Being that Hezbollah are a terrorist organisation how can Diplomacy ever take over?

Tina Wilson

Let's think back to another "terrorist" crisis. The IRA "offensive" on the United Kingdom. Of course the IRA weren't on the offensive Britain just like Lebanon wasn't attacking Israel. They're both defensive struggles aimed at restoring territory lost due to imperialist aggression. Anyway.....

Did Britain bomb the crap out of Ireland and invade? No. That really sums it up.
Was peace achieved through the destruction of Ireland? No, it was achieved by diplomacy.

So stop accepting the ideas of idiots. Hezbollah is not just a "terrorist" organisation they defeated the 22 year Israeli occupation of the country and has support among up to a million Lebanese, with many benefiting from an intricate network of social services and political representation, it's a movement that encompasses roughly a quarter of the country's population. Sure they've made mistakes, but you can't just brand them "evil" terrorists, such statements are simply the understanding of idiots. They're the results of material historical conditions imposed on them from the outside mixed with some flawed strategies from within.

The actions of the Israeli ruling class are nothing short of insanity. Let's say my neighbour's son kicked a football through my window. What should my response be? Get him to pay to replace it? That's what most people would say is acceptable. What Israel have done however is gone next door, strangled the dog, shot the guys wife, cut the legs of his son and burnt the house down. That is exactly what they are doing here.

And before the wishy washy people go on about who started it, this isn't some playground squabble. The imperialist powers of the west started it, they booted the people out of the area and founded Israel, armed it to the teeth, with nuclear weapons too in order to dominate the region, it is a western puppet state and that is all.

It's like somebody coming to your house kicking you out and forcing you to live in a tent in the road, then calling you a terrorist if you come knock on the door to try and get your stuff and then he goes and burns your tent down, what do you have nothing, no hope. Would you honestly say you don't want to fight back at those responsible?

The only way to end this conflict for good is for the peoples of the middle east to unite together and smash those responsible for the continuing conflict, the ruling classes of the region and western imperialism.

One angry Christian man in Beirut shouted into the microphone of a television reporter: "Where is Hezbollah? There are no Hezbollah here! They are over on the other side of the city. But look at this death and destruction! This is a Christian area, but I will tell you something: we are all Hezbollah now!"

Israel will not defeat any "terrorists" they'll only cause the numbers opposed to Israel to grow and cause much human suffering along the way.