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Saturday, May 10, 2008

How To Achieve Socialism

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How To Achieve Socialism

From the SPGB's 1998 pamphlet, From Capitalism To Socialism . . .
how we live and how we could live

NO MINORITIES

Socialism can only be established when a great majority of workers understand and want it. It would be absurd for a minority of conscious socialists to try to take over power and impose the new system on an unwilling majority. Such a strategy would certainly fail, with the armed forces, controlled by the majority-backed government, being used to defeat the rebels. The idea is heroic fantasy at best and would lead to a bloody tragedy at worst. And even if such a method of 'revolution' were successful-if a determined minority should seize political power in an attempt to introduce socialism on behalf of the working class-there would be no prospect of it resulting in a socialist society. It would not be possible to run a society in which everybody contributed co- operatively according their abilities and took freely according to their needs unless the great majority of people understood the arrangement and wanted it. It would not be possible to establish and maintain a society based upon conscious democratic control unless the great majority were prepared to exert that democratic control. If the population did not want to participate in social decision-making and were prepared to leave it to a particular minority, that minority would be forced to become the exclusive decision makers themselves and would eventually become a new ruling class. But in the final analysis, the very fact that a minority wanted it would show that they did not understand the full implications of socialism themselves, and so were not really socialists.

A look at the various theories of minority, or minority-led, action to establish 'socialism' essentially Lenin's Bolshevism and its various offshoots, Stalinism, Trotskyism, Maoism, Castroism, etc confirms that in practice these are the ideologies of would-be national ruling classes aiming to industrialise economically backward parts of the 'world-'through a policy of state capitalism misleadingly called 'socialism'. Their tactics-vanguard party, violent insurrection, ruthless measures against the old rulers and all opponents-are thus quite' irrelevant .for a genuine socialist movement, though superficially attractive to those who want radical social change, yet despair of ever winning over a currently indifferent or conservative- minded working class. In the unlikely event of them being successful in some highly industrialised country the outcome would be some form of state capitalism, certainly not socialism.

THE POWER OF THE STATE

The establishment of socialism must be the work of a socialist- minded, democratically organised working-class majority. The socialist revolution, in other words, must be a majority revolution. This is because of the power of the state in capitalism.

The state is the machinery for the defence of a system of minority ownership by a ruling class, and also that class's instrument for administering that system. It follows therefore that before capitalism can be abolished and socialism established the state must be taken over, firstly to prevent it being used to forcibly resist the change, and secondly so as to utilise its administrative facilities within the new system. Any attempt to establish socialism while leaving coercive power in the hands of the capitalist state would meet with brutal resistance. The idea entertained by some that capitalism can be 'brought to its knees' by workers organising a general strike through their trade unions but not taking over the state is quite untenable. Trade unions, which are sectional organisations, are no substitute for a political party which has as its clear aim the conquest of state power.

Socialism will not come therefore from minority action aimed at disrupting society and then taking advantage of the resulting social and political instability to seize government power in an armed uprising. Nor will it come from ignoring or trying to bypass the state. Socialism will come from a majority revolution which undertakes the task of gaining control of state power.

Where does the state's power come from? The power to form a government is invested in the votes of the electorate, where there is an electoral system. In countries like Britain the vast majority of the electorate are members of the working class. It would be impossible for the capitalist minority to appoint a government of its choice within the electoral system unless they persuade a significant number of workers to vote for such a government. It is true - that different sections of the capitalist class favour different styles of government and therefore huge funds are invested by them to influence workers into voting for one party rather than another. But many capitalists are aware that the only real differences between the parties are their marginally different policies for running the system. The whole of the capitalist class, however, has an interest in ensuring that working-class support for capitalism continues, as it is through this support-in the tangible form of votes-that the capitalist class maintains its position.

THE LEARNING PROCESS

Many workers clearly see the vast gulf between the pampered minority who own the world and the rest of us, the propertyless producers, but what can be done about it? Most think the way out is merely through their own individual advancement, not a social revolution. There is nothing particularly wrong with a person wishing to move up within capitalism: it is inevitable that workers will want to do so. But rags to riches stories are rare; that is why they make headlines. Under feudalism the ambition of the early capitalists was to become feudal lords themselves, and some did. But eventually the interests of the capitalists became so much opposed to feudalism that they had to destroy it. In the same way the modem working class will learn -- and is learning - that any progress they may make within the confines of capitalism leaves the roots of their problems untouched, and often creates new problems.

Capitalism itself causes workers to learn. It increasingly demands healthy, well educated wage-slaves, trained to think clearly and critically to cope with the technical nature of modern industry and the ever more complex nature of modern society .In many countries, including Britain, it has suited the ruling class to yield to working class pressure for the vote. This means that the democratic machinery for putting an end to capitalism is available to us when we, as a united working class, decide to use it. At present the working class in this country, as in other countries, votes repeatedly for capitalism run by one party or another. Most workers have not yet realised how deeply entrenched are the causes of their problems, and how futile are the patches and tinkerings and minor adjustments to capitalism. As more of them do so the number becoming socialists will increase at a faster rate. This in turn will increase the ability to propagate socialist ideas and information, and more socialist parties will be formed in other countries.

During this period there is bound to be a growing amount of discussion about the working of the future socialist society. Not only will there be private conversations and public meetings, but newspapers, radio and television will find the topic impossible to ignore. More and more people will become clear about what is at stake and what are the steps necessary to make the change from capitalism. Socialists may well be organising planning conferences so that all the problems of expanding production and distribution to cater for everybody can be foreseen and dealt with as soon as society is free to do it. This is probably also the period when the governments will make strenuous efforts to maintain support for the existing social structure. Large numbers of workers will have become able to resist appeals to illusions such as 'the national interest' or 'our traditional way of life' because they will have seen through them. Governments will: think twice about using repressive measures because these can arouse stronger and more determined opposition. It is more likely that they will begin to offer reforms which would be thought impossible today, in an attempt to fob off the working class. The capitalist parties may at this point decide to sink their differences and work closely together, much as religions are doing today in the face of the growing number of unbelievers. They will perhaps try to manipulate capitalism to provide a batch of free services (gas, electricity, transport, etc.) with the claim that this heralds the 'beginning' of the free society. But socialists will not be so easily deceived.

THE SOCIALIST MAJORITY

With a majority of socialists and large socialist parties in all the main countries, we shall be in a position to establish socialism. In the unlikely event of there being a country without some form of political democracy at this time, socialists could apply pressure from all over the world to insist upon its introduction.

The parties formed by socialists will be thoroughly democratic: their policy and all their activities will be under the active control of their members; they will have no leaders. In this they will be completely different from existing parliamentary parties or Leninist 'vanguard' parties. Being the actual movement of the working class to establish socialism they will reflect, as far as is possible under capitalism, the organisational forms of socialism, namely democratic control and popular participation. And far from being parties which seek to lead workers with attractive slogans, they will merely be the instrument workers can use to win political power once a majority of them have become socialists. Such parties will of course have to elect candidates to contest the elections for public offices. But those appointed will simply be mandated delegates from the working-class socialist majority. The position will be the exact reverse of that in existing parliamentary parties. Instead of the party outside parliament being essentially vote-catchers for the parliamentary leadership, socialist MPs and councillors will merely be the messengers of the socialist working class outside parliament, democratically organised in their socialist political parties and economic organisations. And, naturally, the aim of sending socialist delegates to parliament will not be to form a 'socialist government' (a contradiction in terms) but to abolish capitalism as smoothly and peacefully as possible.

The task of socialist delegates, when elected in every country, will be: firstly, to take over the state machine in the name of the great majority of the population, the working class; secondly, to enact legislation making the means of production and distribution the common property of the whole community under the democratic control of all the people; and thirdly, as a consequence, to abolish the state itself along with those coercive powers and agencies necessary to the maintenance of class society but superfluous in socialism. The remaining administrative institutions (such as health services, education, communications and state-run industries) may be temporarily maintained in their existing form, but fully democratised, as will be the case with the entire organisation of production and distribution. All useful regulations will also be maintained and adapted to the requirements of socialist society.

Some political theorists think it possible that the police and armed forces would be used to resist such a democratic socialist revolution. In practice it is extremely unlikely, since those who make up these forces of repression are workers, not capitalists. When socialist understanding is widespread among the working class they cannot fail to be influenced by it. Once they see which way the social wind is blowing, not very many of them are likely to want to risk their lives for their masters' wealth, power and privileges. And, in the final analysis, the police and armed forces are supported, supplied, housed and fed by society as a whole. They cannot continue as organised bodies if society decides they shall not.

USEFUL PRODUCTION

Once socialism is established, there will be a rapid growth in the amount and quality of useful goods produced. As there will no longer be any patents or industrial secrets, all productive units will have access to the most advanced technical processes. There will no longer be any banks, stock exchanges, wages offices, advertising agencies, and although some of the workers previously in these fields may continue to be concerned with statistics relating to production and distribution, many millions of them will be released to involve themselves in socially useful activities such as house building, food production and other rapidly expanding sectors.

It is reasonable to suppose that, since the revolution will not take anyone by surprise, many workers will have been, within capitalism, preparing themselves for new occupations in socialism. Trade unions and other workers' organisations will probably have been adapting themselves to help the growing socialist movement to prepare for the future running society on the basis of production for use. Resources and manpower invested in armaments production will be switched to the satisfying of human needs. Onslaughts will be made on any centres of backwardness and destitution. These will not be given the kind of Cinderella treatment now awarded to 'community development' but instead the top priority now enjoyed by 'defence'. In fact, since socialism will grow directly out of capitalism, the present organisational machinery of the armed forces could be used for this end, since they are the most efficient means capitalism has developed for moving men and materials fast. Think of the implications for famine victims in, say, Ethiopia, or the Sudan, if the full system of communications, transport and services available for military purposes were available for the distribution of relief supplies.

The socialist revolution will be unlike all previous revolutions because, instead of one minority seizing power from another, it will be the majority taking power to establish a classless, stateless, moneyless, democratic society .And it will be a society consciously organised directly for human need, in which planning will play an important part-but in a completely different way from the so-called 'planned' economies of the ex-state capitalist countries-Russia, China, Albania, etc. Production and distribution will be planned because the vast majority of men and women will be actively and democratically co-operating to provide themselves with what they want, where and when they want it. This will put an end to the anarchy of production and haphazard distribution--'domination of the product over the producer'-which exists in capitalism.

THE WORLD SOCIALIST MOVEMENT

The revolutionary task of the movement for world socialism is therefore twofold: it is firstly to persuade our fellow members of the working class to reject capitalism and to aim for nothing less than socialism; and secondly to engage in political action for the purpose of measuring the growth of the socialist movement and, when the majority join us, of achieving our objective of bringing into being a new, exciting stage of human existence.

For more information about the World Socialist Movement, contact:

World Socialist Party of the United States
Socialist Party of Great Britain
Socialist Party of Canada
World Socialist Party of New Zealand

30,000 Dispossessed Die In Cyclone

From World Socialist Party (US) website:

The 22,000 confirmed dead and 41,000 reported missing that followed the cyclone that struck Myanmar, formerly Burma, on Saturday, revealed a tragedy of unspeakable horror, yielding nauseating stories of impossibly strong winds, damage to life and property wrought by falling trees and, as though that were not enough, the main culprit, a 12-foot high wave that ravaged coastal areas upon which resided millions of the nation's poor in shanty towns.

Myanmar is ruled by a military dictatorship headed by Senior General Than Shwe and Vice-Senior General Maung Aye since the 1990s, but who themselves followed in the footsteps of the original general who established rule by a coup d'etat in 1962, General Ne Win. The latter began the military dictatorship and nationalization of major industries by the name of the Burma Socialist Programme Party. This party was Leninist to the core, and had nothing to do with socialism in the orthodox sense of a classless society. Perhaps Leninist would be an appropriate term in considering the Burmese military junta's belief in a vanguard party establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat (meaning one OVER the proletariat rather than OF it), or perhaps one could also use the term Stalinist in referring to the extreme deprivations of the people, the important role of the army and secret police, and the strong cult of personality that the Burmese generals attempt to create. Privilege, power and wealth were and remain tightly controlled by the ruling elite.

In 1988, the country was swept by student-led demonstrations in March and June, and more widespread protests later that summer (in August) that led to security forces killing hundreds of demonstrators (known thereafter as the 8888 Uprising). However, in response to these protests, another General, Saw Maung, staged a coup d'état and formed the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) which declared martial law. It was this dictatorship that changed the name of the country from Burma to the Union of Myanmar. While free elections were held (the first in 30 years) in 1990, they were really a sham to appease the disgruntled population, as the hands-down winner of the election, the National League for Democracy that won 392 of the 489 seats, was prevented from taking office by the State Law and Order Restoration Council.

The UNICEF website describes the deplorable living conditions in Burma. It is one of the poorest nations in the world, with the average worker making $1500 a year compared with the United States average of $32,000. Most of the inhabitants live in small villages comprised of hut-like shelters. The working population tends to reside in or near Rangoon, the capital. The remainder of the population resides on the land, attempting to procure the means of subsistence from yielding small crops, however 37% of these have no land or livestock at all to generate such means of life. Poverty is so extreme that many families send their children to work. Women, desperate to bring in money for the family, are known to leave their children in others' care in Burma while seeking wage-labor in Thailand. Street children are a common sight in Myanmar, and some turn to prostitution. Malnutrition among children is increasingly commonplace. Prostitution and drug use generate high rates of HIV and AIDS, while medical conditions that are frequent friends of poverty and unhygienic lifestyles like malaria, diarrhea, dysentery, and tuberculosis run rampant. This is a country in which millions are too poor to afford a grass mat upon which to sleep, so the entire family will often huddle together on a bed of packed earth.

The rural population lives in waterless and toiletless huts. Even in the cities, workers frequently reside in small and overcrowded brick houses. The ruling military tend to absorb most of the country's budget, while health and education take distant places. Few children go to school in the preteen and teen years. Illiteracy is common.

These were the typical conditions of life for the dispossessed in Burma when the cyclone hit. Thousands of people living in the most desperate conditions were easy prey to severe weather. Even now, after the storm subsided, 400,000 troops were made to go to work immediately on the homes of the wealthy first, according to a May 6th article in the International Herald Tribune. Buddhist monks and some international charity organizations are the only entities presently busy trying to assist the millions affected especially by the tidal wave, other than the victims themselves. These monks were in the news eight months ago when they took part in peaceful anti-government demonstrations that led thousands to be jailed, and hundreds to be killed by the military by bullets, clubs, tear gas, and even torture.

Human life comes really cheap in Burma. Capitalism reduces most humans anywhere around the globe at any given time to expendable commodities to be bought and sold by the wealthy for profit, but our brothers and sisters in Burma have it much harder than most of us here in the United States. Shame on the television news stations or programs, with all the millions of dollars they could have put to good use in reporting the recent tragedy objectively, that resorted to the usual Spectacle about the thousands who died a violent death by violent weather and the usual claptrap urging us to become charitable in hard times. Instead, those of us with limited means like your friendly socialist reporter must hunt about the internet for scrips and scraps of information. The news these days is quickly approaching the level you encounter in a science fiction novel like Fahrenheit 451, a mere cartoon to amuse us, while thousands of miles away one million (that word does not do it justice, let me write it out thus: 1,000,000) of our fellow workers sit amidst their ruins, having already lost relatives and homes following the tidal wave, awaiting the second tidal wave of diarrhea and water-borne diseases, likely to affect millions of people, children being the most vulnerable. Another example of the cruelty imposed upon children by our capitalist system which this reporter will admit to getting particularly incensed about, especially in discussion with fellow Americans without class consciousness about to vote in four more years of capitalism in November when either Tweedledee or TweedleDum parties win.

A year and a half ago, another Spectacle was seen both in that country on television where it caused a minor scandal and abroad via a video on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8-2Ggd5Ng0). It was the story of the wedding of Thandar Shwe, the daughter of junta leader Senior Gen. Than Shwe, wearing a multi-million dollar stunning collection of diamond encrusted jewelry and clothing of the most extravagant nature. The wedding cost about $350,000, and the couple received gifts in excess of $50,000,000. The guests were all junta leaders and their families. This, of course, is the socialism that they are dedicated to promoting as an example of their strong socialist convictions, the sharing of their wealth amongst themselves the way the poor have had to learn the difficult task of sharing their poverty, their huts, their dying children, their diseases, and their recent bout of homelessness.

To the people of Burma, we offer our deepest sympathies after the terrible tragedy that befell you five days ago and continues to strike you now as you attempt to return to some semblance of human life again. We wish as socialists to express our solidarity with you across the globe. We also want to clarify for you the term "socialism," so misused by the butchers who rule the country you reside in. Socialism, when NOT used by governments and dictators, means a worldwide society characterized by common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. This means that the production of all wealth would be controlled by the community, not by the state. In fact there would be no state at all, a term we understand to mean a military, legal and administrative apparatus that exists to take care of the interests of each country's ruling class. Socialists, therefore, do not support either left-wing governments any more than they support right-wing ones. Rather, they insist upon a new paradigm in both understanding modern social problems as rooted in the control of the means of production by one class (by whatever political hue, it matters not), and in advocating a solution to those problems in the immediate institution of a truly classless society. Socialism will have neither dictators in power nor even liberal minded representatives, but rather a democracy so inclusive that the term "democracy" to characterize an entire social system (examples of democratic native societies notwithstanding) will begin to acquire real meaning for the first time in our human history. It will mean a society without wage labor in which wealth will be produced directly to meet needs.

Socialists certainly admire the bravery of the pro-democracy activists of Burma. They additionally understand that fellow workers of all nations will not be able to advocate the abolition of capitalism without also achieving minimal rights to organize and speak freely without facing intimidation and brutal treatment by the state. However, socialists do insist that a solution to the problems that befall the citizens of Burma will not be the mere increasing liberalization of that country, but the complete abolition of the market economy, and its replacement by a nonmarket economy based on production for use, and the free access of the wealth society produces.

It is this author's contention that it is impossible to understand the events that led to the recent deaths of tens of thousands of humans in Burma without also understanding the state of dispossession of most of them that is characteristic of a capitalist economy, whether the government is as despotic as Burma's or not. The role that poverty plays in this terrible drama will be all the more apparent as millions of affected individuals fail to receive the best that human science and ingenuity on the one hand, and economic resources and human care on the other, are able to muster for them in the wake of a potentially serious wave of malnutrition and disease, while the rich and powerful move to other locations and get back on their feet quickly because in our society it is ownership of property and money in the bank that does the walking.

-Dr. Who

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Friday, May 02, 2008

IF YOU LOVE BREASTS...

Please tell ten friends to tell ten today! The Breast Cancer site is having trouble getting enough people to click on their site daily to meet their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman. It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on 'donating a mammogram' for free (pink window in the middle).

This doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate mammogram in exchange for advertising.

Here's the web site! Pass it along to people you know.

http://www.thebreastcancersite.com

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Friday, August 17, 2007

Statement of Solidarity on the Anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion

Statement of Solidarity on the Anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion
by Amber R. Clifford-Napoleone Convener, Queer Commission of the SPUSA

In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, the New York City police raided a Greenwich Village bar: The Stonewall Inn. The Stonewall Inn, a gay and lesbian neighborhood bar with a large number of African
American and Latino patrons, was also well-known as a safe space for those who did not conform to gendernorms: butch lesbians, effeminate gay men, and transsexual and transgendered persons before the terms were in popular
use. All of these factors brought the police to Stonewall in 1969 for the purpose of illegally raiding the bar, and arresting its occupantsan action not unknown in New York in the 1960s. On that fateful day, however, the
Stonewall's patrons had enough. Nobody knows who threw the first bottle that day. It may have been Sylvia Rivera, a transgendered activist and later a founding mother of political movements on behalf of transgendered and transsexual Americans. It may have been a still unidentified butch lesbian arrested in the bar. Over 2000 GLBTQ Americans clashed with 400 police officers on June 28. Arrests and beatings were concentrated among Stonewall's African American, Latino, butch and trans patrons. What ensued was known in the New York press and among the police as the Stonewall riots. For gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, transsexual and queer
Americans, and later the world, that fateful day marked the beginning of the Stonewall Rebellion. With shouts of "Gay Power," the rebellion that lasted five days in New York began to spread across the country. Gay, lesbian, trans and other queer Americans took to the streets to protest their continued oppression, objectification, and criminalization. This singular event, the Stonewall Rebellion, marked the beginning of the modern GLBTQ liberation movement, and brought GLBTQ political and social struggles out of the closets on onto American streets. Using this date as the flashpoint, cities across America and around the world continue to celebrate the last week of June as Pride Weekend, a weekend where we remember the Rebellion, organize to continue the fight for queer liberation, and celebrate our culture, community, families and history.

Today, the struggle for queer liberation continues. GLBTQ persons in the United States are still denied over 1,000 Federal rights guaranteed to heterosexuals. GLBTQ Americans continue to live daily with violence, both verbal and physical, and this violence continues to escalate despite years of work to pass poorly enforced hate crimes legislation. In August 2006, in Greenwich Village not far from the famous Stonewall Inn, four African American lesbian women were verbally and physically attacked on the street. These women were convicted of assault on their assailant, a man who ripped the hair from the women's scalps and threw lit cigarettes at them. For defending themselves, these four young women have received sentences ranging from 4 years to 11 years. Fred Phelps, the ultra-conservative religious leader from Topeka, Kansas, continues to protest at the funerals of GLBTQ Americans, harassing their families and claiming that their deaths were deserved punishments. Police across the country continue to raid bars and sweep streets after parades. Thousands of young GLBTQ people are homeless, left to live on the street because their own families could not accept them. This summer, in solidarity with GLBTQ people across the country, remember Stonewall and continue its legacy by working for queer liberation. Recognize the capitalist roots of oppression based on gender and sexuality, refuse to force others to conform to heteronormativity, resist and call attention to homophobia in all its forms, and join the Socialist Party and its commissions in the continued struggle for a just world for everyone.

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GLBT rights

Check out this site:

http://www.socialistaction.org/queer.htm

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Monday, November 27, 2006

Victorian election: Labor government returned to power with big business and media backing

By Rick Kelly
27 November 2006

Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author

The Labor government in the Australian state of Victoria was returned to office last Saturday with a marginally reduced majority. The result came as no surprise, with Labor Premier Steve Bracks unanimously endorsed by big business and the media. With the official campaign limited to just three weeks, the shortest time possible, none of the central issues facing working people was addressed. No discussion was permitted on the Iraq war, the growing threat to democratic rights, worsening social inequality or lower living standards.

While some votes are still being tallied, at last count the Labor Party received 43 percent of first preference votes, down from 48 percent in the 2002 election. Labor's reduced vote, however, did not result in any significant gains for the Liberal Party, with the opposition winning just 34 percent of first preference votes, up less than half a percent on 2002.

Due to the undemocratic compulsory preferential voting system, Labor's vote will translate into a large parliamentary majority, with at least 53 of the 88 seats in the lower house, against a minimum of 21 for the Liberals and 8 for the rural-based National Party. Only one independent, Craig Ingram in rural Gippsland, retained his seat. In the upper house, Labor is tipped to win 20 or 21 of the 40 available seats.

Much of the media commentary in the aftermath of the election has focussed on the "power of incumbency". Labor's return to power in Victoria marks the 25th successive federal, state, and territory election held in Australia in which the ruling party was re-elected. In a highly complacent and self-satisfied manner, the media has portrayed this situation as a sign of general popular satisfaction with the status quo.

In fact the opposite is the case. Largely concealed by the media, and lying just beneath the surface of official politics, is immense disaffection and hostility toward the official parliamentary establishment. The existing political set-up provides no outlet for these sentiments. With no fundamental difference between Labor and Liberal policies, election campaigns have become highly artificial affairs.

In a rare admission, a columnist in the Age commented last Friday that not many issues were "on the table for inspection... This election has been micromanaged to an unprecedented degree by taxpayer-funded spin doctors. The avoidance of troublesome topics has been crucial to the strategy."

Incumbent governments rely on stoking insecurity and running scare campaigns. Bracks's victory was driven by widespread hostility among ordinary working people toward the Liberal Party, particularly the Howard government's despised WorkChoices industrial legislation. The state Labor government cynically postured as a defender of workers' conditions and an opponent of Howard's industrial laws.

According to the Age, Labor spent one-quarter of its advertising budget in the final week of the campaign targeting state Liberal leader Ted Baillieu for his support for WorkChoices. Bracks also warned workers not to risk a return to the "Kennett era," i.e. the 1992-1999 Liberal government of Premier Jeff Kennett, under which social spending was slashed and public schools and hospitals throughout the state shut down.

Bracks's record belies his posturing. The Labor premier picked up where Kennett left off in 1999, and entrenched the Liberals' severe budget cuts and public sector job losses. Bracks has also worked hand in hand with the Howard government in implementing a right-wing, pro-business economic agenda.

In Labor's traditional heartland of the Latrobe Valley, anger with Labor's policies produced an unexpected challenge to the party's stranglehold over two seats—Narracan, which the Liberals won, and Morwell, which remains in doubt but may fall to the Nationals. In Morwell, Lisa Proctor stood as an independent and received almost 9 percent of the vote, after she resigned from her local Labor branch, less than a fortnight before the election, complaining that Bracks was ignoring the area. The result, indicative of deep-rooted anti-Labor sentiment, was one of the few moments in the election that failed to follow the officially sanctioned script.

Having secured re-election on the back of a negative vote against the Liberals' federal agenda, Bracks now intends to press ahead further, and has already announced that legislation cutting business taxes will be passed before the end of the year. Other measures will soon follow. The media is demanding that economic reform be accelerated. "Business—mostly ignored during the campaign—will expect the Bracks government to move decisively on other issues hampering Victoria's competitiveness," the Australian Financial Review cautioned Labor in its editorial today.

The Liberals' electoral debacle has caused concerns within the ruling elite. While backing Bracks, the media had urged a stronger Liberal vote in order to place more pressure on the government and create the conditions for a genuinely competitive election in four years time. Now, however, even senior Liberal figures admit they are unlikely to have a chance of winning government until 2014. Internal infighting and recriminations will likely follow, though state leader Baillieu is expected to remain opposition leader, largely because no-one else is considered capable.

Despite the mounting crisis of the two-party system, the Greens were unable to capitalise and took just under 10 percent of the vote, equivalent to what they received in 2002. Votes are still being counted in the electorate of Melbourne, but the Greens appear not to have won any of the four inner-city seats they targeted. In the upper house, they won only two or three seats and are unlikely to secure the balance of power as had been widely predicted.

The Greens consciously pitched their election campaign to the political and media establishment. With the protracted disintegration of the Democrats—who received less than one percent of the vote for the Victorian upper house—the Greens have stepped forward to fill the vacuum and play the part of "responsible" third party, working as a parliamentary "watchdog" and helping the next government advance its agenda.

While the Greens attracted significant support among many Melbourne middle-class voters, they proved incapable of making any wider appeal and winning the support of workers hostile to the "free market" agenda of both the Bracks government and the Liberals. The Greens also refused to issue an appeal to anti-war sentiment, and throughout the campaign remained silent on the "war on terror," Australia's participation in the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Howard government's military interventions in East Timor and the Solomon Islands.

The Greens also appear to have lost support after they reached a preference-swapping arrangement with the Liberals. The deal aimed at securing inner-city seats for the Greens, but appears to have backfired after Labor mounted an expensive mail-drop operation in the final days of the campaign. While Labor's condemnations of the Greens' manoeuvre were utterly hypocritical, it likely struck a chord with people disgusted with the politics of unprincipled electoral horsetrading.

Family First, a right-wing Christian fundamentalist outfit, received more than 4 percent of the upper house vote but appears unlikely to win a seat. People Power, a new right-wing populist party that received significant media coverage in the election campaign, received less than one percent.

The "informal" vote, that is, those ballots not validly filled in, was 4.5 percent, up from 3.4 in 2002. Many of these votes would have been deliberately spoiled by voters looking to register a protest against all the available candidates.

In the working class suburban electorate of Broadmeadows, the Socialist Equality Party's candidate, Will Marshall, received 424 votes or 1.5 percent of the total. This is a relatively small, but nevertheless significant vote. After a very short, three-week campaign, it represents a conscious turn toward a socialist alternative by an important layer of workers and youth. Due to anti-democratic party registration electoral laws, Marshall's name appeared on the ballot without the SEP being listed alongside, and the party's campaign faced a deliberate media blackout.

The SEP—the only party in the campaign that provided an independent perspective for the working class—made a significant impact in Broadmeadows. Party campaigners distributed 17,000 election manifestos, 2,000 in Turkish for immigrant workers, and hundreds of people provided their contact details for further discussion. The response to the SEP's campaign indicates that growing numbers of people are looking to take a stand and take up the struggle to build a genuine alternative to the entire political establishment.

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Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Workers Struggles: The Americas

Workers Struggles: The Americas

11 July 2006

Excerpt taken from the World Socialist Web Site

Latin America

Panamanian teachers threaten to strike

The Education Action Front (FAM), representing independent teachers, and the Association of Professors of the Republic (APR) rejected a government proposal to raise monthly wages by US$65 over three years. The teachers have threatened to strike July 11 unless the government makes a better wage offer.

The government proposal calls for a US$50 increase next year $15 in 2008, an increase which, according to teachers, is well below current inflation rates. They are demanding a US$190 raise.

Guatemala public health doctors on strike

A strike by public health doctors in Guatemala is entering its third week. The doctors are demanding higher wages and an increase in hospital budgets for medicine.

Last week the government pledged to increase the budget for medicine, promising not to allow further shortages. It also created an emergency temporary bonus equivalent to 25 percent of wages in an attempt to induce doctors to end their walkout. The money for the bonus would run out in October.

Sergio Morales, the Human Rights Solicitor, denounced the lack of medicine in 37 public hospitals and the fact that outpatient clients do not get free medicine when they leave the country. He also pointed out that Guatemalas budget for health care, 1.4 percent of its gross domestic product, is the lowest in Central America and is a violation of the countrys constitution, which guarantees basic health services for all.

Doctors have vowed to stay out until legislation is passed guaranteeing the government subsidy and until their wage increase is made permanent.

Grupo Mexico to shut down Caridad mine unless workers end job action

Grupo Mexico threatened last week to shut down its largest copper mineLa Caridad in the Mexican state of Sonoraunless strikers return to work. The workers walked off their jobs March 24 demanding safer working conditions and an end to the governments interference in their union. They are occupying the mine. A closure of the mine would destroy 2,000 jobs.

Even if the mine closes, picketing is expected to continue. The Mexican police have indicated that an assault to expel the workers from the mine could result in numerous casualties.

A strike by 271 metal workers at the Sicartsa steel mill in Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan state, is now 100 days old. Last April, a police and army operation to end the strike and occupation of the mill killed two workers.

United States

Detroit city union surrenders to concessions

The administration of Detroit Democratic Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick will slash hours, pay and benefits for 4,000 of the citys workers following the endorsement of the cuts by a state-appointed panel. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers Council 25 bowed to the concessions, claiming that opposition would have provoked even harsher measures.

The union says it will not put the agreement to a vote by rank and file, citing the authority of the mayor to impose the settlement. "We dont have any choice right now," said chief AFSCME negotiator Jimmy Hearns. The agreement cuts hours and pay by 10 percent and increases costs for prescriptions and doctor visits.

Iowa nurses strike

Nurses at Dubuque, Iowas Finley Hospital launched a three-day strike July 6 after hospital management rejected a mediators request for talks. The contract between the hospital and Service Employees International Union Local 199, which represents Finleys 333 nurses, expired in June and bogged down over a number of issues, including wages and staffing.

Local 199 was seeking a 5.75 percent wage increase while the hospital was only willing to offer 3 percent. Management brought in professional strikebreakers and plans to lock out nurses for an additional two days after the strike comes to an end.

Finley is a part of Iowa Health System, the states largest healthcare provider, and controls three of Des Moines five commercial hospitals, none of which are unionized. Finley was first unionized by the SEIU in 2003 and obtained a one-year contract in 2005.

Workers strike Oregon public utility

About 155 workers at Eugene, Oregons public utility struck July 6 over healthcare and other issues after the Eugene Water & Electric Board refused arbitration. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 659, which represents construction workers, electrical line technicians and hydroelectric plant workers, is seeking lower out-of-pocket healthcare costs, an additional paid holiday and retroactive raises to cover the six months they have worked without a contract.

The Eugene Water & Electric Board is offering raises of 12.4 percent over the course of a three-year agreement but has refused to budge on healthcare issues. The strike is the first ever in the 95-year existence of the public utility.

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Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Vegetarianism and Socialism

by: http://www.myspace.com/worldsocialism

You can have your veggies and eat them too!

The practice of vegetarianism or non-practice of animarianism* is not new to humanity. However, one could argue that it has never been more important. World hunger, inhumane and filthy methods of meat production, and the spread of livestock diseases both new and old are forcing many who would never consider abandoning sinking their teeth into a steaming hunk of flesh to give the idea a second thought. There are many kinds of vegetarians, ranging from impostors to the almost monastic avoiders of any food product of animal origin. This lifestyle is admittedly difficult; from meat-lovers restaurant menus to relatives who have to cook me something extra (and have my eternal gratitude), to the usually absurdly high-priced products offered in the supermarkets.

I will try to show how vegetarianism in socialism makes sense and pass along some of the general benefits of the lifestyle, without attempting to convert you. There are people and organizations out there that can help you if you have questions or want more details on the nutritional aspects of meat-free lifestyles.

One of the concerns about meatless diets is protein. Actually, a balanced Western diet includes four times the recommended amount of protein for an average healthy adult, so leaving out the meat isnt going to kill you. In fact, I dont track where my protein comes from, and I sort of dont care, because I know that there are sufficient quantities in many plant-based foods, the chief being the soybean. This is exactly where the herbivores get it and they do just fine.

Incidentally, this introduces an area where I think vegetarianism and socialism cross at the cessation of the waste of matter and energy involved in transforming plants into meat. A good rule of thumb to estimate this waste is the ten percent pyramid, with humans on the top and the little greenies on the bottom. Only ten percent of each pound of eaten is successfully converted into eater. The rest is waste in the form of uneatable or indigestible matter and heat energy lost during chemical conversion. Therefore, it takes about ten pounds of plants to produce one pound of animal, and ten pounds of animal to produce one pound of human or other carnivore.

A Happy and Livable Planet

A little math tells me that if I was a carnivore, it would take 250 x 10 x 10 = 25,000 pounds of vegetable matter to produce a meat- eating version of me, but only 2,500 pounds to produce me as an herbivore. Abandoning meat as a food source can optimally increase the nutritive capacity of agriculture ten times, thus reducing our dependence on it! When socialism rolls around, the elimination of waste and hunger will surely be both primary goals for the creation of a happy and livable planet.

A socialist future like the one I dream about will also have a lot less pain and suffering than the current offering. Ive done my homework, and without getting into details, I can say that there is a lot of that going on in the meat industries. Plants, in contrast, dont feel pain. They cannot for the obvious reason that they do not have brains, or any nervous systems at all. And no, the cows and pigs are not going to reproduce out of control if we stop using them for food.

There are environmental impacts as well, the most serious of which is the pollution caused by the wastes of animals grown for food. This has to go somewhere and usually, untreated livestock waste is dumped into the nearest body of water, unlike human waste, which is in most cases required by law to be treated before release into the environment. The impacts of farm animal waste are significant Im not going to quote statistics, so you can research this if you want.

The impact of fertilizer is even greater; however, this problem does not completely go away if meaty diets eventually disappear. Fertilizer will still be necessary to grow crops, but mindful socialists will not be forced by the pressure of the market to produce the most, the biggest, and the best only that which is needed. They can take care that the effects of the fertilizer they do use are reduced and monitored by careful farming practices, efforts made easier by a cooperative agricultural model and not a competitive one. Meat processing facilities have environmental impacts as well. Since it seems impossible for capitalism to maintain clean and efficient slaughterhouses, those places remain vectors for disease and contamination. Shockumentaries still pop on the tube every once in awhile, reminding us, however ineffectively, how filthy meat processing actually is.

In sum, the benefits of a vegetarian society can go hand in hand with the desires of a socialist society. A widespread vegetarian lifestyle can play a significant role in reducing energy demands, pain and suffering, and the negative effects of agriculture on the environment. The environmental and medical impacts of a meat-centered culture are well documented even if they are generally ignored; and even though the psychological impacts may be harder to measure, they still contribute, in my opinion, to making the world a little more violent than it needs to be

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Tuesday, June 27, 2006

DEFINE NECESSITY
Current mood: crushed

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Monday, June 26, 2006

Putting the Taco Bell Boycott Victory in a Global Context

Putting the Taco Bell Boycott Victory in a Global Context
by Baku

Across the world, the anti-capitalist and anti-corporate globalization is strong and thriving. Peasants are taking down governments; armed and non-violent uprisings are creating autonomous spaces taking regions and industrial facilities; Fallujah was held for months. The Global South is also leading the way in terms of harnessing resistance into sustainable, unique forms of alternatives to statist and capitalist regimes.

But, in the heart of the Empire meek and masturbatory resistance is more of the norm. Underrepresented communities, yes, are under occupations and resist as they always have, but have been unable to consolidate gains or have felt comfortable in the wins of previous social movements.
That was until now.

With the victory of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers against the largest fast food corporation in the world, Yum! Brands, the CIW and its allies have struck a blow in the heart of Empire.

Just as Empire spreads its tentacles through military occupation, Empire?s mode of production dominates and spreads across the glove. In many senses, the resistance seen around the world are against the carnivorous appetite of corporate capitalism. Indeed, the root cause of the farmworkers? struggle is directly linked to the creation of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the ensuing bi-lateral, multi-lateral and impending hemispheric Free Trade Area of the Americans, agreements.

In 1994 politicians of Canada, Mexico and the United States of America signed NAFTA into law. Briefly, NAFTA gave unprecedented mobility to transnational corporations to move industry from Canada and the USA to Mexico in the pursuit of lower labor costs and lesser regulations. Perhaps, most importantly, NAFTA game transnational corporations the ability to undermine governmental regulations which for example would allow a community to deny a corporation?s request to place a toxic dump in an indigenous community in Mexico, or the United States for that matter.NAFTA also knocked down all ?barriers to trade? including governmental tariffs on products and subsidies on certain industries (well, that is for everyone except the USA). This had dramatic and drastic effects on protected and emerging markets within Mexico. For example, Mexican corn production has been a strong part of their national economy,
However, it was also a precarious segment due to the largely collectively-run and small farming operations that provided both sustenance and export-driven production. The Mexican government enacted legislation that aided in protecting the sector of the economy. However, NAFTA knocked down that barrier. The Mexican corn economic sector was flooded with heavily subsidized (in the billions of dollars) and corporate-consolidated US agro-business.

The flood decimated Mexican corn production through its artificially depressed prices. Unable to compete with the monolithic US agro-business thousands of Mexican farmers were displaced as economic refugees. Many found work in the sweatshop maguiladoras that popped up all along the Mexican-US boarder.

Others traveled further to sweat in the fields of Florida and across the US. But, often times the immigrants found worse conditions than existed at home. In some fields of Florida, workers were held by gun point and threaten and received physical violence in order to maintain worker compliance.

But, in a sense, now the chickens have come home to roost. The same farmers and workers that had been displaced by free trade have organized in their new home.

The US transnationals have used strategies of displacement, fragmentation and poverty to undermine the resistance in the Global South. And in many cases even engage in low-intensity warfare to take out organizers.
But, by and large the US anti-corporate globalization movement was too weak and passive to be a threat. Corporations could deal with a few smashed windows here and there. But, now they are on notice. You are next.

I guess it just took a little Global South to get the Global North in gear.

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Victorian election: Labor government returned to power with big business and media backing

By Rick Kelly27 November 2006

By Rick Kelly
27 November 2006