tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86568104981382859782024-03-14T08:52:56.016-07:00Arguing for socialismA collection of articles and talks by Dave HolmesDave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comBlogger149125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-7483052868576786752024-02-13T00:19:00.000-08:002024-02-15T03:17:47.485-08:00A discussion about Hamas & October 7<h1 align="left" class="western"></h1><p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNYYY76JYmyS55zVIOpeWF76W54JE1_uOl2z9mAiRaDqHB7muC_VpxsFuwe3lGAzhMHJYUjsX2DdZZxaxHXDzA-j4yhBssxKNzy6aFsk5jVBd02aZy6dRY-54SBNaL-vNQWTHBRLOwoPFVXvHnT9RVnkwj_ujZISIKcd-NEQ-0QVfUjX8pqb1glYyHVIrl/s2048/F231007ARK037.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNYYY76JYmyS55zVIOpeWF76W54JE1_uOl2z9mAiRaDqHB7muC_VpxsFuwe3lGAzhMHJYUjsX2DdZZxaxHXDzA-j4yhBssxKNzy6aFsk5jVBd02aZy6dRY-54SBNaL-vNQWTHBRLOwoPFVXvHnT9RVnkwj_ujZISIKcd-NEQ-0QVfUjX8pqb1glYyHVIrl/w400-h267/F231007ARK037.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">We are constantly told by the Western
corporate media that Hamas is a terrorist group, that the October 7
attack was a terrorist attack, atrocious, a massacre and so on. In
the days following the raid pro-Palestinian interviewees in the media
were repeatedly pressured: “Do you condemn Hamas?”<br /></span><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">But the reality is very different. On
January 21 Hamas issued a powerful <span style="color: navy;"><u><a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/PDF.pdf">statement</a></u></span>
that puts the attack — <span lang="en-US">Operation Al-Aqsa Flood —</span>
in the context of Israel’s long and violent subjugation of the
Palestinian population, explains why they carried out the raid, and
responds to Israel’s lies. One figure cited in the statement says a
lot: “in the period between January 2000 and September 2023, the
Israeli occupation killed 11,299 Palestinians and injured 156,768
others”.</span></p>
<h4 class="western" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Who exactly killed who</span></h4>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A <span style="color: navy;"><u><a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231215-israel-social-security-data-reveals-true-picture-of-oct-7-deaths">recent
report</a></u></span> on the raid puts the total non-Hamas dead at
1139 — 373 from the security forces, 695 Israeli civilians and 71
foreigners (most presumably guest workers).</span></p>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We can make a number of observations
about these figures:</span></p>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. The security forces (military and
police) are the primary armed force of the occupation. Obviously,
they are fair game. A primary objective of the attack was to smash up
the Gaza Division, the force responsible for keeping the inmates in
their open-air prison. Some 25 of their bases and installations were
attacked on October 7.
</span></p>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. We should be sceptical of any data
coming from the Israeli authorities. As their statements during the
Gaza genocide show clearly, they are inveterate liars. If they say
anything, it should be assumed to be a lie until proven otherwise.</span></p>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Who were the 695 “civilians”? The first point to make is that the
kibbutzes or "settlements" are not just country villages scattered
around the border with Gaza — they are precisely settlements
in a stolen land, guarding a subjugated population. They all have a
military character and each has its security element.</span></p>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">For instance, an October 14 <span style="color: navy;"><u><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12616229/Israeli-woman-Inbar-Lieberman-kibbutz-Nir-Hamas.html"><i>Daily
Mail</i></a></u></span> article features “Twenty-five-year-old
Inbar Lieberman, the security coordinator of kibbutz Nir Am, [who]
led a group of residents killing more than two dozen advancing
terrorists.”</span></p>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Israeli helicopter pilots lacking
clear guidance on targets used their mobile phones to talk to kibbutz
security personnel to get information on what to shoot up.
</span></p>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Also, since the Israeli Defence
Forces are based on national service, the settlements are full of
reservists who might be called up or be on standby.</span></p>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The recently-released movie <i>Zone
of Interest</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> deals with the life
of Auschwitz concentration camp commandant Rudolf Höss whose family
lived in a villa right next to the camp, separated from it only by a
high wall. On one side there was </span><span style="font-style: normal;">a
garden and </span><span style="font-style: normal;">quiet family life
and on the other a hellish nightmare where people were gassed to
death on a massive scale and their bodies burnt round the clock.
The stench of death was everywhere and inescapable, even in the
tranquil Höss family compound. It’s hard to avoid making a parallel between this situation and the Gaza open-air
prison-concentration camp and the nearby Israeli settlements.</span></span></p>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">3. All this said, we can admit that a
number of civilians did die on October 7. But who killed them? It is
<span style="color: navy;"><u><a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/27/israels-military-shelled-burning-tanks-helicopters/">now
clear</a></u></span> that many of the civilian dead, possibly even
most, were in fact killed by counterattacking Israeli forces (tanks
and helicopter gunships). The Israeli forces were desperate to stop
any captives being taken back to Gaza as hostages.</span></p>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Also, once Gaza’s border fence was
breached numerous people not under the discipline of the armed groups
streamed across. The Hamas statement addresses this when it says:
“Maybe some faults happened during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’s
implementation due to the rapid collapse of the Israeli security and
military system, and the chaos caused along the border areas with
Gaza.”</span></p>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And, more generally, Hamas affirms
that:</span></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-left: 0.2cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><blockquote>Avoiding
harm to civilians, especially children, women and elderly people is a
religious and moral commitment by all the Al-Qassam Brigades’
fighters. We reiterate that the Palestinian resistance was fully
disciplined and committed to the Islamic values during the operation
and that the Palestinian fighters only targeted the occupation
soldiers and those who carried weapons against our people. In the
meantime, the Palestinian fighters were keen to avoid harming
civilians despite the fact that the resistance does not possess
precise weapons. In addition, if there was any case of targeting
civilians; it happened accidently and in the course of the
confrontation with the occupation forces.</blockquote><p></p>
<h4 class="western" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Revolt of the oppressed</span></h4>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Even if Hamas had done everything
Israel accused it of — and this is so clearly <i>not</i> the case — we
could well say: So what? The whole situation goes back to the 1917
Balfour declaration and even before with the formation of Zionism in
the 1880s. Zionism wanted to take over a land — Palestine — which
already had a population. The Zionists could only accomplish their
aim with the support of Western imperialism and by ruthless violence (even if they had to dissemble at the
beginning when they were weak).</span></p>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Every revolt of the oppressed is
likely to involve some killing of "civilians". It would be better if this didn’t happen but brutality begets
brutality. In the United States, progressive opinion rightly
celebrates the 1831 <span style="color: navy;"><u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Turner's_slave_rebellion">Nat
Turner slave revolt</a></u></span>. On Turner’s plantation the
slaves rose up and killed the slave owner, his wife and all their
children, among others. Obviously, the violence fundamentally came from the infamous system of
slavery that blighted the lives of so many. <span style="color: navy;"><u><a href="https://www.normanfinkelstein.com/the-slave-revolt-in-gaza-and-bernie-sanders/">Norman
Finkelstein</a></u></span> has a number of passionate posts relating
the Nat Turner revolt and the recent one in Gaza.</span></p>
<h4 class="western" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Hostage taking</span></h4>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A key
objective of October 7 was to secure hostages (especially military
personnel) to use as bargaining chips in an attempt to liberate some
of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.</span></p>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think
this is an entirely legitimate form of struggle. Many other struggles
by the oppressed have taken hostages at various points in their
fight.</span></p>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-style: normal;">The
Paris Commune of 1871 took prominent figures hostage in an attempt to
stop the Versailles government forces executing captured Communards.
Eventually, when the killings continued, the Commune executed about
100 hostages, an action defended by Karl Marx in his famous work </span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The
Civil War in France</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></span></p>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-style: normal;">In
August 1978, a Sandinista commando took hostage the entire Nicaraguan
House of Deputies. Such a large section of dictator Anastasio
Somoza’s key backers and personnel were seized that the regime had
to negotiate over the release of political prisoners.</span></p>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-style: normal;">Obviously,
in seeking hostages, it is better to take military and security
personnel, regime bigwigs and so on and avoid ordinary people, the
elderly and children etc. </span>
</p>
<h4 class="western" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium; font-style: normal;">Israel’s
‘r</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">ight to defend itself’</span></h4>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Western leaders, including Australian
Foreign Minister Penny Wong, regularly invoke Israel’s “right to
defend itself”. But this right doesn’t exist. Israel is the
oppressor entity; in 1948 and 1967 it violently seized Palestine,
expelled a large part of the population, and reduced those remaining
to the status of second-class citizens.</span></p>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As an apartheid state, as a state for
Jews only, Israel has no right to exist — none whatsoever. The
non-Arab Israeli people certainly have a right to exist but only in a
democratic secular state which grants equal rights to all its
citizens, whatever their ethnic or religious background. A “Jewish
state” (just like an “Islamic state”, a "Buddhist state" or whatever) should be consigned to
history’s rubbish bin.</span></p>
<h4 class="western" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">What was the alternative?</span></h4>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As the Hamas statement makes clear,
there was no alternative to armed struggle. In 2018 Gaza errupted
with the March of Return. Thousands demonstrated near the border
fence demanding that Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to
their villages and towns. On just one day (May 14) Israeli snipers
murdered 60 people peacefully protesting near the border.
</span></p>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This reality meant that armed
struggle was inevitable. There simply was no realistic alternative
unless Palestinians were supposed to rot in their open-air prison for
decades more. The October 7 raid and the subsequent heroic resistance
has completely unlocked the whole political situation. Israel has exacted a
terrible price from Gaza but pro-Palestine sentiment has exploded
globally and Israel’s militarised colonial-settler society is under
the spotlight as never before in its entire history.</span></p>
<h4 class="western" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Terrorists?</span></h4>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Australian government’s <span style="color: navy;"><u><a href="https://www.nationalsecurity.gov.au/what-australia-is-doing/terrorist-organisations/listed-terrorist-organisations">list
of proscribed terrorist groups</a></u></span> contains 29
organisations. Most of them are definitely unsavoury but three
clearly should not be on it.
</span></p>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. The PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party)
is a progressive, socialist, secular liberation organisation. It
fights for the rights of the Kurdish people across the Middle East;
is for ethnic and religious pluralism, feminism, and grassroots
democracy. It was listed in December 2005 as a favour to Turkey. The
whole listing stinks.</span></p>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. The Lebanese Shia organisation
Hezbollah was listed in December 2021. It is not in any sense a
left-wing organisation and is integrated into the system of Lebanese
capitalism. But it does confront Israel and clearly <a href="https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/war-with-hezbollah-to-be-deadliest-for--israel---130-page-re">frightens the Zionist regime</a>. There is no good reason to describe it as a terrorist
entity.</span></p>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">3. Similarly with Hamas. It was
proscribed in March 2022. It is an Islamic group with social views
far from those of the left but, as recent events have shown, it is
dramatically and heroically confronting Israel. It is a key part of
the broad Palestinian resistance. Why on earth is it on the
Australian terrorism list?</span></p>
<p class="western" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We might also ask: If Hezbollah and
Hamas are proscribed, why are not Israel and the IDF since they are carrying
out a policy of terror on an <i>industrial</i> scale? And why doesn’t the
US also feature since it is Israel’s <i>key enabler</i>, without whose support
Israel could not exist? Obviously pigs will fly before we see Israel
and Washington on any terror list. But today many people around the
world are probably asking why not?</span></p>
<p align="left" class="western"><br />
<br />
</p>
<p align="left" class="western"><br />
<br />
</p>
<p> </p>Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-85583887694481909552023-09-30T21:07:00.010-07:002023-10-08T23:20:34.091-07:00Ukraine: US proxy war in crisis<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"> <br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_9kZoJE4CzVX1XGir_zeOBSAvmR8pQIwnIxauRZG8eTAkN0rCQykuO9nAZu5QnUs_a7gOX1v6NH0yBb4_YOsv_1d7b1hrUiisPARNobGO-xLO8AMJS-akWX9pPSvxuTKZgqEu7VtPdSc4wZc0XurXjl9540BL2RqJa_E2-93WbtyByndISICFBsoAEaFj/s770/ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="616" data-original-width="770" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_9kZoJE4CzVX1XGir_zeOBSAvmR8pQIwnIxauRZG8eTAkN0rCQykuO9nAZu5QnUs_a7gOX1v6NH0yBb4_YOsv_1d7b1hrUiisPARNobGO-xLO8AMJS-akWX9pPSvxuTKZgqEu7VtPdSc4wZc0XurXjl9540BL2RqJa_E2-93WbtyByndISICFBsoAEaFj/w400-h320/ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, NATO has been calling the shots, fighting a proxy war against Russia on Ukrainian territory, using NATO arms, training, intelligence, “volunteers” and advisers, with Ukrainians as expendable cannon fodder on the ground. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">This campaign is now in a deep crisis on all levels.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"><span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">In early June this year Ukraine began its much-vaunted counteroffensive. It has been a complete and total failure. Human and material losses have been enormous and Ukrainian forces have made no significant advances.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">The recent attacks on Crimea and other targets inside Russia are simply for show and distraction. They can’t alter the hard facts on the main battlefields. Also, the results and claims have been hyped up; Ukraine claimed, for instance, to have killed Russia’s top naval commander in a drone and missile strike on Sevastopol. Subsequent videos showed him still very much alive. (As if, in the 19th month of an exceptionally bloody war marked by deadly drone and missile strikes, key Russian military leaders would meet anywhere other than in a highly protected underground bunker!)</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Western weapons and training were meant to be the magic bullets which would make the decisive difference and turn the tide in Ukraine’s favour. But the US-NATO bloc has not been able to supply them in the required quantities, many of the weapons are inferior to Russian equivalents, and the training has been criticised as largely inappropriate to the actual situation on the Ukrainian battlefields.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Despite the public rhetoric from the leaders, there is declining support in the West for the war. On his recent visit to New York for the UN General Assembly, Zelensky got a definite cold shoulder. His subsequent Canada visit was a disaster with the Canadian parliament giving repeated standing ovations to a 98-year-old veteran of Ukraine’s “struggle for independence” from Russia during World War II. Not surprisingly he turned out to be, in fact, a Nazi Waffen SS veteran. The speaker of the parliament was forced to resign and Canada’s policy of deliberately welcoming Ukrainian Nazis after the war is now in the spotlight.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Poland has stopped military aid to Ukraine due to the wheat crisis. Ukrainian grain is flooding into the country and undercutting Polish farmers. An election is coming up and the ruling party has had to pull back.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">According to well-known commentator <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUsyzi8XI6E">Alexander Mercouris</a>, the US is very unhappy with Zelensky and is looking to replace him via elections in the new year.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Washington wants to avoid a bloody situation like the November 2, 1963 assassination of South Vietnamese president Ngô Đình Diệm when he wouldn’t heed Washington’s insistent directions and change course or step down. So he and his brother were killed in a CIA-backed military coup.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Washington and its allies have to make some big decisions. What will they do?</span><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Failure on the battlefield</span></h4><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Russia’s formidable Surovikin fortified belt running for 130km along the line of contact — three successive sets of lines each comprising extensive, deep and dense minefields, rows of concrete dragon’s teeth anti-tank obstacles, big anti-tank ditches, fortified strongpoints and artillery emplacements — has so far proven absolutely impassable for Ukraine’s depleted and battered forces. They haven’t even made it to the first line anywhere, let alone got through all three.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">The human cost of the war to Ukraine has been simply enormous. How many soldiers have been killed? In a July 17 post Ukrainian dissident journalist Roman Revedzhuk (cited in <a href="https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/analysis-of-ukraines-escalating-crimean?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2">Simplicius</a>) gives 310,000 from sources in the SBU, Ukraine’s security police. US military specialist <a href="https://thefloutist.substack.com/p/ukraine-before-and-after">Scott Ritter</a> gives a figure of 400,000.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">In the first 18 months of the war the <a href="https://life-pravda-com-ua.translate.goog/society/2023/09/19/256633/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp">number of Ukrainians with disabilities</a> increased by 300,000. Some <a href="https://gwaramedia.com/en/50-000-ukrainians-have-lost-arms-or-legs-due-to-war/">50,000 people</a> have lost arms and/or legs.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">The regime is resorting to <a href="https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/opinion/living-conditions-in-ukraine-are-resembling-a-new-slavery-a">desperate recruitment measures</a> but is encountering increasing resistance. People are avoiding certain jobs because going to work can lead straight to the battlefield and disfigurement and death. Even registering for unemployment benefits (a pittance anyway) can lead straight to the front.</span><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Failure of Western aid & arms production</span></h4><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Western aid built the Ukrainian army (and not just once but several times in fact) but this is not enough.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">The Western military aid has been shown to be no panacea and many weapons have proven to be deficient and susceptible to Soviet countermeasures. The training has largely proven to be inappropriate to the actual conditions faced in Ukraine (which is not urban warfare but is more akin to trench warfare under conditions of near total electronic transparency).</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">With Russia the US-NATO-Ukraine bloc is not facing an opponent like Iraq under Saddam Hussein or Afghanistan under the Taliban. This is “peer-to-peer” conflict, something the US has not had to face since the end of World War II. The US has its massive nuclear club and the ability to destroy the world many times over but that isn’t any help here.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">The US and its allies simply cannot produce enough weapons and ammunition. They are now supplying Ukraine by running down their own stocks. If aliens attacked Earth now we wouldn’t have a show!! “Just in time”, outsourcing and offshoring, is fine for running Walmart and Amazon and manufacturing vehicles, but it was already shown to be a big problem in the COVID pandemic and it is now a huge problem for the West’s war campaign in Ukraine. Modern industrial warfare like this needs big stockpiles right at hand and massive production of key weapons and ammunition.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Today’s Russia is not the old Soviet Union with its centrally planned economy. Nevertheless, Russia has massively ramped up its arms production and is clearly out-producing the West in the crucial 152mm artillery shell (Russia’s equivalent of the US 155mm shell). According to a September 13 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/13/us/politics/russia-sanctions-missile-production.html">New York Times</a> report:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">As a result of the push, Russia is now producing more ammunition than the United States and Europe. Overall, Kusti Salm, a senior Estonian defense ministry official, estimated that Russia’s current ammunition production is seven times greater than that of the West. </span></blockquote><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Failure of sanctions to cripple Russia</span></h4><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Western sanctions were supposed to be the killer weapon that would quickly bring Russia to its knees. Whatever problems they may have caused, it is clear that overall they haven’t worked. For every sanction there is a workaround. Russia still sells its oil and at a good price, it still manages to get the electronic chips it needs for military production, and so on.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Furthermore, Russia is a key supplier of a number of vital metals on which the West is crucially dependent. On that ground alone, sanctions would not seem to be a good idea.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">According to an August 7 report by Ben Aris in <i><a href="https://intellinews.com/russia-overtakes-germany-to-become-fifth-biggest-economy-in-the-world-in-gdp-on-a-ppp-basis-286944/?source=russia">bne IntelliNews</a></i>:</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">The late US Senator John McCain once called Russia a “gas station masquerading as a country” and the fact that Russia’s nominal GDP is about the same as Italy’s has long been used to dismiss it as unimportant.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">However, economists have long argued that considering only Russia’s nominal GDP of around $2 trillion is to underestimate its economic strength. Arguably, the belittling of Russia over the last decade has led Western leaders to badly miscalculate how vulnerable the Kremlin is to sanctions.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Looking at GDP in PPP (purchasing power parity) terms removes price level differences and allows a better comparison, especially of living standards, between countries.<br /></span></p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">In these terms Russia has just overtaken Germany to become the fifth wealthiest economy in the world and the largest in Europe, worth $5.3 trillion.</span></p></blockquote></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">The article continues:</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">“Sanctions were supposed to crush the Russian economy. Instead, it's now bigger than Germany's (and when you cut out services, and focus only on industry and manufacturing, which is what counts in war, probably bigger than that.) The cost to Europe? Deindustrialisation, inflation,” D.M. Collingwood, the editor of <a href="https://www.bournbrookmag.com/britanniq">BritanniQ</a>, said in a tweet.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">However, some academics say even the PPP assessment underestimates the power of Russia’s economy. In the last decades Western economies have seen services rapidly grow in importance, but Russia’s economy remains heavily weighted towards the manufacturing and industrial end of the spectrum. In a war, having a large industrial base is a big advantage, as the rate a country can produce arms is a key factor in the fight. In these terms Russia is even bigger than Germany, itself no mean industrial country, according to <a href="https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2022/11/assessing-the-russian-and-chinese-economies-geostrategically/">research</a> by Jacques Sapir.</span></p></blockquote></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Failure in holding Western public support</span></h4><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">As the populations in the West grapple with intensifying challenges over the cost of living, housing and climate change, sending expensive military aid to Ukraine doesn’t seem like a rational or attractive proposition for more and more people.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">The situation In Germany is especially acute. Gradually, voices are starting to be raised calling for an end to German weapons shipments to Ukraine and an end to German sanctions against Russia. A big problem is that the main left party, Die Linke, is divided on the war and has been unable to give the political lead required. Speculation abounds as to whether the party’s most prominent figure, Sahra Wagenknecht, will leave to form a new party, which will be against the war and sanctions.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">In the meantime, it is the right-wing AFD which is gaining the most from opposition to the ruling-class consensus on the war. A new Wagenknecht-led party could attract many AFD voters.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">One staunch oppositional voice is the German-Kurdish Die Linke MP Sevim Dagdelen. According to a September 15 <a href="https://sputnikglobe.com/20230915/bundestag-member-dagdelen-urges-germany-to-lift-sanctions-against-russia-1113393054.html"><i>Sputnik</i> report</a>:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Sevim Dagdelen, a member of Germany's Bundestag lower house of parliament from the Left party, has called for the lifting of sanctions against Moscow, as they cause damage to Berlin.<br /></span></p></blockquote><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">“It is high time we put an end to the self-destructive sanctions which do not hit Russia rather than boomerang on Germany, devastating citizens and companies,” Dagdelen said in social media on Thursday.</span></p></blockquote></div><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">The consequences of the “economic war”, which Berlin has been waging against Moscow, are deteriorating the situation in Germany, resulting in an increased number of bankruptcies. Around one in 10 companies in the food service industry is at risk of going bankrupt.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Russia’s economy is growing, the proceeds from the sale of oil are high, and Russia’s military capacity, the main target of the economic war, has not been affected at all, Dagdelen said.<br /></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"></p><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">In August, Dagdelen compared the German government’s policy to suicide bombers, highlighting that despite the sanctions, Russia’s economy was growing, while Germany’s economy contracted by 0.3%.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">After the start of Russia's military operation in Ukraine, the West, including the EU, rolled out a massive sanctions campaign against Moscow. To date, the bloc has already adopted 11 sanctions packages. The last package was introduced in June and expanded export, import and personal restrictions.</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">60% blame Washington & allies for the war</span></h4><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">A recent poll conducted in Germany and France by an <i>anti-Putin</i> group has produced some rather <a href="https://geopoliticaleconomy.substack.com/p/us-nato-responsible-ukraine-war-poll?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=2fqxqa">stunning results</a>. Despite the wall-to-wall anti-Russia, pro-Ukraine propaganda in the West, the poll found that in Germany some 60% of people believe that the US-NATO-Ukraine are responsible for starting the war while only 29% blamed Putin and Russia. Similar results applied to France. It seems that the people are far wiser than their leaders and many of them can see what Washington and its allies are doing.</span><br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXRz5lXfquKNjSjVvUY4LTAe4-WdYf918O-I4ykxKH71CSrfpJlUh2H1ePN2Px2phq7xGEc3FjfPcLdkM6DZ9P8tDo2GaPzqhF84al9M5Ps9JKoV9RFA2IV-Q0Avxlp_aTqQ1fMoVKUrl7K_pwJbz8Q64DMFaB3Lrgg8Osc_YPwBp64aLFPtdccYrlr62d/s1024/c2c2a479-8575-402f-8df0-426c309acc6f_1024x1024.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXRz5lXfquKNjSjVvUY4LTAe4-WdYf918O-I4ykxKH71CSrfpJlUh2H1ePN2Px2phq7xGEc3FjfPcLdkM6DZ9P8tDo2GaPzqhF84al9M5Ps9JKoV9RFA2IV-Q0Avxlp_aTqQ1fMoVKUrl7K_pwJbz8Q64DMFaB3Lrgg8Osc_YPwBp64aLFPtdccYrlr62d/w400-h400/c2c2a479-8575-402f-8df0-426c309acc6f_1024x1024.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Changed nature of warfare</span></h4><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">The conflict in Ukraine is somewhat like World War I with its frozen front lines. But this is combined with high-tech weaponry and transparency of the battlefield due to advanced surveillance.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">The war is marked by the predominance of missiles, drones (including drone swarms and decoys), loitering munitions (“suicide drones”), the acute importance of counter-battery systems, electronic warfare (especially signal jamming of a whole zone of the battlefield, affecting deployment of drones and missiles), intense ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconaissance) — and especially artillery, the main killer of soldiers.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">In this situation neither side can concentrate their forces for an attack in the old way — in the highly transparent battlefield that would immediately expose them to attack and destruction. Tanks, for example, have to play a different role and be deployed differently.</span><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Scott Ritter: Before Ukraine & after</span></h4><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"></span></h4><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">In a very hard-hitting and insightful September 1 talk, <a href="https://thefloutist.substack.com/p/ukraine-before-and-after">Scott Ritter</a> highlights a stark new global reality.<br /></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"><blockquote>The world that exists today is a fundamentally different world than existed before the conflict in Ukraine began … the conflict that has transpired since the decision by Vladimir Putin to send Russian troops into Ukraine on February 24, 2022 …</blockquote></span></div></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">But those who have memories that can go back simply two years remember, in the leadup to the conflict, how the United States said over and over and over again, “We will bring Russia to its knees.” That, “Together with the West, we will sanction Russia, we will break the will of Russia. Russia will fold. Even if Russia were to go into Ukraine militarily they could not sustain this attack because their economy will fail.”</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"><blockquote>Ladies and gentlemen, the Russian economy today is stronger than it has ever been largely because of the economic sanctions: “before Ukraine,” “after Ukraine.” But it’s more than simply the empowerment of the Russian economy. It’s how the world thinks about America: The American singularity is over …</blockquote></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"><blockquote>Everything we do has backfired. And it’s not just economically. Militarily: Prior to Ukraine, before Ukraine, BU — I’m trying to inject this concept into people’s minds — before Ukraine, people did fear the American military. With good cause. We go to war a lot. There is lethality associated with what we do. In Europe, NATO believed that it was a powerful military alliance. NATO believed that when NATO flexed its muscle people listened — before Ukraine. After Ukraine, NATO has been exposed as a paper tiger. A paper tiger. </blockquote></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"><blockquote>There is no military strength in NATO. NATO has no capacity to project meaningful military power beyond the borders of Europe. NATO cannot fight a war along the lines of the war that’s being fought in Ukraine today. Don’t believe me, believe General Christopher Cavoli, four-star American general, commander of US forces, supreme allied commander. He said in a <a href="https://theforge.defence.gov.au/publications/hard-power-reality-nato-commanders-observations-ukraine">Swedish defense forum</a> last January, that NATO could not imagine the scope and scale of the violence taking place in Ukraine today …</blockquote></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"><blockquote>NATO is a paper tiger. The world knows it’s a paper tiger. They know the United States cannot meet its stated desire to reinforce Europe in a fashion. Ukraine has lost 400,000 men in battle, 40,000 to 50,000 in the last several weeks. It took America ten years to lose 58,000 in Vietnam and that broke our back. Can you imagine a situation where the United States military was asked to sacrifice 40,000 men in two weeks? Can you imagine a situation when any European army was asked to sacrifice 40,000 men in two weeks? The fact of the matter is: We can’t win a war today in Europe. We’re not number one anymore. We’re not number two anymore. We might be number three …</blockquote></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"><blockquote>But before Ukraine nobody understood that. Nobody believed that. Everybody believed that America was the supreme military power in the world. Today, the blinders have come off. Economically, we’re number two. Maybe we can maintain that position, maybe not. Militarily, we’re number three. And who knows where we’ll go with that. Because our military is a broken system. We spent hundreds of billions of dollars on a system that produces nothing beneficial to the defence of the United State. Let alone the defence of its allies. How can you spend $900 billion a year and say we can’t fight and prevail in a land war in Europe against the Russian army that spends $68 billion a year? It’s because our system is broken. But that’s another question. </blockquote></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Ukraine has changed everything. Before Ukraine, America was number one, at least perception-wise. After Ukraine, American is number two economically, number three militarily, and this is a reality that the world is accepting … Russia knows this. Russia no longer fears the American military. It’s not that they want to go to war against the America military, but Russia knows its capabilities. It’s been tested. China knows this, as well. </span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Desperate need for peace</span></h4><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Obviously, there is a desperate need for peace. A deal was tentatively worked out in March-April 2022 in talks in Istanbul. Ukraine would not join NATO but would declare its neutrality. Russia would withdraw its forces to where they were before February 24. The two sides were haggling over the exact size and armament of Ukraine’s forces. For instance, Ukraine wanted around 1000 tanks, Russia wanted the number set at just over 300. Ukraine was ready to sign but Washington and London killed the deal; Russia had to be further damaged.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Today Russia is not interested in any negotiations that do not recognise its key demands: Ukrainian neutrality and disarmanent and recognition of its annexations in the south. The Ukrainian army would become a sort of internally-focused gendarmerie force only.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">A ceasefire alone and a Korean-style DMZ won’t cut it for Russia. That would simply give time for the West to rearm Ukraine and prepare for round two. Russia understandably doesn’t trust either Ukraine or the West. It was deceived before over the Minsk accords for the autonomy of the Donbass. Russia wants firm guarantees that Ukraine simply cannot be ever again be used as NATO’s bludgeon.</span><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">‘Capitulate on Russia’s terms or cease to exist’</span></h4><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">According to a September 25 <a href="https://tass.com/world/1679849">TASS report</a>:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Ukraine is fated either to capitulate on Moscow’s terms or cease to exist as a state, Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament), said.<br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">“When speaking about the conflict in Ukraine, [US President Joe] Biden, [NATO Secretary General Jens] Stoltenberg and other Western officials have started calling it 'a war of attrition.' They have put huge amounts of money into militarizing the Kiev regime. Where has it gotten them? The simple facts are these: the West is experiencing weapons and ammunition shortages, people in Europe and the US have lost trust in politicians, and the Kiev regime’s counteroffensive has failed,” Volodin stated.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">According to him, the outcome of the “war of attrition” also includes economic problems in Europe and the US, a lack of manpower for the Ukrainian armed forces, and ultimately bankruptcy and demographic disaster for Ukraine. “These seven facts speak for themselves: Ukraine will cease to exist as a state unless the Kiev regime capitulates on Russia’s terms,” Volodin stressed.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">“More than 10.5 million people have fled Ukraine. Another 11.2 million residents of Crimea, Sevastopol, the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions decided to join Russia. Ukraine has lost 53.7% of its population since 2014,” the State Duma speaker highlighted.</span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Some key political questions</span></h4><h4 style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Ukrainian self-determination is not the issue</span></i></b><br /></h4><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Much of the Western left is blinded by the deeply mistaken idea that Ukraine is fighting for self-determination against an attempted Russian takeover. I have taken up this question in a previous article (see <a href="https://dave-holmes.blogspot.com/2023/02/key-issues-of-war-in-ukraine.html#more">Key issues of the war in Ukraine</a>).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Russia is not seeking to take over Ukraine; it wants to secure its neutrality and demilitarisation. After eight fruitless years trying to achieve the implementation of the Minsk accords giving autonomy to the Donbass, Russia intervened in the already existing civil war between the Kiev regime and the Russia-oriented provinces in the south.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">With the 2014 Maidan coup, Ukraine’s ruling circles sold the country to Washington to use as a bludgeon in its unrelenting campaign against Russia. That was the country’s basic surrender of sovereignty and independence and it is due to the Kiev regime, not Russia.</span></p></div><h4 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>‘International law’</i></span></h4><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">The Russian invasion is often condemned as a violation of “international law”. If this phrase means anything in a world riven by sharp divisions between countries and class divisions within countries, it is a set of expectations. In general, we can agree that a country invading another or sending its forces across a state border is a bad thing.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">But it is like the Ten Commandments in the Bible. In general, killing is bad but is justified in self-defence or to defend the helpless, etc. Invading another country is in general bad but is justified in cases of legitimate self-defence. And that is definitely the case here: Russia is most decidedly defending itself from an existential threat from the US-NATO bloc.</span><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>An example from recent history</i></span></h4><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">It is instructive to look at an example from recent history. In December 1978, after years of provocation and cross-border massacres by the murderous Pol Pot regime, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian–Vietnamese_War">Vietnam invaded Cambodia</a> to remove the threat once and for all. The Vietnamese forces were accompanied by a small number of Cambodian defectors from the Pol Pot gang (including Hun Sen, later the longtime Cambodian ruler).</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Pol Pot’s forces were comprehensively defeated and pushed back to the southern border where the Thai regime sheltered them for many years (in return for US military aid). The Western “international community” continued to recognise the Pol Pot gang as the legitimate rulers of the country. Vietnam endured 10 years of harsh sanctions; eventually it pulled out of Cambodia and tried to restore its economy and relations with the West.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Was the Vietnamese invasion a violation of “international law” and an encroachment on Cambodian sovereignty? I think that would be a very hard argument to make. In my opinion, the Vietnamese intervention was entirely justified and saved both the Cambodian and Vietnamese peoples from a murderous regime and its inhuman terror.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><h4 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Spurious arguments</i></span></h4><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Some leftists argue that Russia is imperialist. Thus the war in Ukraine is an “inter-imperialist war”. Renfrey Clarke has dealt with this question in detail in his 2016 article<a href="https://socialistincanada.ca/the-myth-of-russian-imperialism-in-defense-of-lenins-analyses/"> The myth of ‘Russian imperialism’: In defense of Lenin’s analyses</a>. Associated with this is the assertion that Russia is “expansionist” and seeks to take over Ukraine and exploit its resources.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">This is very thin gruel indeed. Before the February 2022 invasion, Russia had coexisted with Ukraine for 31 years. The two countries may have argued about energy supplies or whatever but Russia evinced zero tendency to seek any territorial changes. And with the rebel Donbass provinces Russia clearly sought to have Ukraine take responsibility for them via provision for a wide self-government.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Then there is the charge that Vladimir Putin seeks to recreate the old Soviet Union. He has said that the breakup of the USSR was a catastrophe but there is zero evidence that he is trying to undo the whole thing.</span><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><i>The Russian ‘antiwar movement’</i></b></span></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Whatever its justified opposition to Putin and his oligarchic capitalist regime, in regard to the war in Ukraine the Russian left and liberal opposition to the regime is politically disoriented. It ignores, discounts or denies the US-NATO threat. Most Russians may not be keen on the war but they accept that their country is seriously threatened by Washington. The “antiwar movement” does not. Support for the government remains very high.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Recently <a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/09/03/russian-army-has-recruited-280000-soldiers-since-january-medvedev-a82343">Dimitri Medvedev</a>, Russia's former president and Security Council Chairman, said that so far this year the 280,000 people had enlisted in the armed forces. No doubt the recently increased salaries and benefits paid helps a lot but there is clearly more in play here.</span><br /> <br /><br /></p>Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-52190396606852405762023-06-18T02:03:00.006-07:002023-06-19T05:53:18.531-07:00Notes on a trip: Singapore, Paris & Melbourne<p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggL5bDI-of_OvXpycCZQhmoAn3jkQQxtdrVciTtyh7XN6YYD0kNtYKAhG2KwXvZNWgD3sawl2Y2diUZNKmu1R7Ybfe70K_grRXVhW35DQFX-KbMvYFThUmR0etIk5iZ3KuUwnZaMa4v1XJv1iXNvDm4vEHfhsaD4FST8lsbYIFeH4bfInymIONm3Fv_g/s3224/IMG20230527100858.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3224" data-original-width="1963" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggL5bDI-of_OvXpycCZQhmoAn3jkQQxtdrVciTtyh7XN6YYD0kNtYKAhG2KwXvZNWgD3sawl2Y2diUZNKmu1R7Ybfe70K_grRXVhW35DQFX-KbMvYFThUmR0etIk5iZ3KuUwnZaMa4v1XJv1iXNvDm4vEHfhsaD4FST8lsbYIFeH4bfInymIONm3Fv_g/s320/IMG20230527100858.jpg" width="195" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In May Andrea and I spent two weeks in Paris. Breaking our flight going and returning, we stayed for several days in Singapore. As Paul Keating once famously said, Australia is at the arse-end of the world. To get to Paris we had to undertake three seven to eight-hour flights (Melbourne-Singapore, Singapore-Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi-Paris). Here are a few thoughts on what we saw.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span></span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Singapore</span></span></h4><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Singapore is an island city-state, some 140km north of the equator. It is home to about 5.6 million people, three quarters of whom are Chinese alongside sizable Malay and Indian populations. The country has four official languages (English, Chinese, Malay and Indian). Its official multiculturalism is a pleasant contrast to the ethnic tensions stoked by the ruling classes in most of its neighbours.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Singapore is a pro-Western capitalist state but whatever its social, economic and political problems it obviously works on the basic level (people get around, are housed, and so on).<br /></span></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Metro system</span></span></h4><h4><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></h4><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As tourists we used the city’s extensive MRT subway system to get around. For anyone from Australia, it is extremely impressive. In 2019 the MRT averaged 3.4 million trips per day. It is amazingly modern and efficient. Fares are cheap; there are no tickets: Passengers use their credit cards or phones. All the stations have platform fences and gates which means people can’t fall onto the tracks.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Singapore’s MRT was part of the losing consortium which bid to be the operator of Melbourne’s new public transport ticketing system. Instead, the state government chose a less experienced US-led consortium, at the cost of an extra billion dollars. No wonder the losers are claiming the contract process was a big stitch-up.<br /></span></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Echoes of history</span></span></h4><h4><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></h4><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the city museum I saw an early 1930s promotional film. It began with trumpeting the might of the British military forces on the island — the powerful airforce, the heavy battleships, the big colonial army. It all looked extremely impressive but in early 1942 all that would be shown to be absolutely worthless.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The invading Japanese forces defeated a British army 3-4 times their size: They were better led, better motivated and better equipped. The British-led forces were hobbled by some very poor decisions (made both before the war and during it), inadequate training and poor morale — especially due to colonial tensions in the army.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Some 7000 captured Indian troops joined Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army, which fought for the Japanese in Burma, hoping to spearhead the liberation of their homeland from the British.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Churchill described the British defeat in Malaya and Singapore as the greatest catastrophe of British arms in history. He was rightly especially worried about what it would mean for the prestige of the “white race”. The local nationalist movements were greatly encouraged to see an Asian country defeat their hitherto mighty white masters. The defeat of the French, Dutch and British in the Far East presaged the end of Western colonialism in the area even if it took some years and some big struggles to fully play out.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On our trip home we stayed at the YMCA. Right behind our hotel was Fort Canning Park. Today it is a lush tropical park with some beautiful walks. During the Japanese invasion, the hill covered the bunker where the British commander General Percival made the fateful decision to surrender his forces.</span></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Paris</span></span></h4><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In Paris we stayed in Montmartre, a district on a modest hill overlooking the central city. Our hotel was very close to the famous Sacre Coeur Church (see photo above). The church was actually built after the defeat of the Paris Commune in 1871, apparently in an attempt to restore public morality! Visitors crowd in front of the church on the crest of Montmartre to enjoy a spectacular view of the city below.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Montmartre has numerous flights of steep stairs to enable people to get up and down the hill. While obviously great for keeping fit they are otherwise problematic. (These stairs feature prominently in the final sequences of the movie<i> John Wick 4</i> which, being completely unable to sleep, I watched on the overnight flight home from Singapore.)</span></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A beautiful city</span></span></h4><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Paris is undoubtedly a very beautiful city — at least in the main tourist areas. Most of this is due to Napoleon III (1852-70) and his supremo in charge of urban planning and renewal, Baron Haussmann. The great wide tree-lined boulevards, the uniform facades, and the wonderful gardens are extremely impressive. Over the last period, serious efforts have been made to reduce vehicular traffic and encourage cycling and walking. There is a way to go but the results are already clearly evident.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Like all capitalist countries, France has some acute social problems and the far right and mainstream parties trade in anti-migrant and anti-refugee sentiment. President Emmanuel Macron recently rammed through (without a parliamentary vote) an increase in the pension age. While we were there a weekly magazine featured an interview with him and their posters adorned news kiosks. Under a mug shot of Macron was the text: “Réformer: Plus vite, plus fort”. We will fuck you over, faster and harder — the universal message of capitalist neoliberalism.<br /></span></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Métro</span></span></h4><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Just as in Singapore, Paris is served by a very efficient public transport system. While there are buses (and also 12 tramlines), the heart of the system is the Métro. There are 16 lines, three of them automated (i.e., driverless). In 2019 it averaged 4.1 million trips per day. It is very dense, efficient and — to a visitor from Australia with our miserable public transport systems — very impressive. Using the Métro it is very easy to get around the city.</span></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Arc de Triomphe</span></span></h4><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At one end of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées is the Arc de Triomphe. It is all very spectacular, celebrating hundreds of battles and generals in the Napoleonic wars. It also has plaques honouring soldiers who fought in France’s innumerable and bloody colonial wars. Across Paris, the street names seem to favour famous French generals and battles (there are apparently very few women honoured in this way).</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Arc de Triomphe immediately made me think of Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance, also quite spectacular but when you get down to it, ultimately tawdry and militaristic. Abstract appeals to patriotism play such a big part in bourgeois ideology; we are exhorted to salute the flag and so on while the real urgent needs of the mass of people who actually live here are ignored.<br /></span></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Louvre</span></span></h4><h4><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></h4><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One day we paid a visit to the Louvre, the most famous art gallery in the world. It is home to the most famous painting in the world, Leonardo da Vinci’s <i>Mona Lisa</i>. In 2022, the Louvre attracted 7.8 million visitors — over 21,000 each day.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We duly made our way to the room where the <i>Mona Lisa</i> hung, behind a solid protective housing. But even there, the queue was several hundred people long so we just gazed across the room and then went elsewhere. There is certainly an immense number of works to look at. (Personally, I especially liked Jacques-Louis David’s canvases of historical scenes from Napoleon’s campaigns and reign. They are enormous and spectacular and make you want to look up things on <i>Wikipedia</i>!)</span></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Versaillles sanitised</span></span></h4><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We made the obligatory trip to Versailles, the gigantic palace outside of Paris created by the long-reigning Louis XIV (ruled from 1643 to 1715). We joined the huge crowds walking through the palace.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While it was impressive in its way, I felt the display didn’t give one any sense of how it actually worked. There were thousands of courtiers and a veritable army of servants to look after them. They simply don’t feature in what the tourist sees.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The display is also sanitised — in a literal sense. The stench of piss and shit and unwashed bodies is completely missing. But back in the day it was absolutely inescapable. A report on <a href="https://www.history.com/news/royal-palace-life-hygiene-henry-viii">history.com</a> talks about European royal palaces in the period:<br /></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;">But without a doubt, the most pressing health concern was caused by the dearth of waste disposal options in an era before reliable plumbing. “Faeces and urine were everywhere,” Eleanor Herman, author of <i>The Royal Art of Poison</i>, says of royal palaces. “Some courtiers didn't bother to look for a chamber pot but just dropped their britches and did their business — all of their business — in the staircase, the hallway, or the fireplace.”<br /></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;">A 1675 report offered this assessment of the Louvre Palace in Paris: “On the grand staircases” and “behind the doors and almost everywhere one sees there a mass of excrement, one smells a thousand unbearable stenches caused by calls of nature which everyone goes to do there every day.”</span></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">The article goes on:</span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><blockquote>Louis XIV is rumoured to have bathed twice in his life, as did Queen Isabella of Castile, Herman says. Marie-Antoinette bathed once a month …<br /></blockquote><blockquote>It was the Sun King himself, Louis XIV, whose choice to no longer travel from court to court would lead to a particularly putrid living situation. In 1682, in an effort to seal his authority and subjugate his nobles, Louis XIV moved his court permanently to the gilded mega-palace of Versailles. At times over 10,000 royals, aristocrats, government officials, servants and military officers lived in Versailles and its surrounding lodgings.<br /></blockquote><blockquote>Despite its reputation for magnificence, life at Versailles, for both royals and servants, was no cleaner than the slum-like conditions in many European cities at the time. Women pulled up their skirts up to pee where they stood, while some men urinated off the balustrade in the middle of the royal chapel. According to historian Tony Spawforth, author of <i>Versailles: A Biography of a Palace</i>, Marie-Antoinette was once hit by human waste being thrown out the window as she walked through an interior courtyard.</blockquote></span><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">The tourist sees none of this. We see room after room with immaculate furnishings and endless artworks covering the walls. On SBS On Demand you can watch the series <i>Versailles</i> about Louis XIV. Everyone looks so clean — including the almost never-washing king!</span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Some concluding thoughts</span></h4><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Singapore, Paris and Melbourne are all capitalist cities. But within this framework, for various reasons, they have developed in different ways. Australian towns and cities follow the US pattern and are generally <i>enormous</i>. They sprawl in all directions and often measure scores of kilometres across. This puts a very heavy burden on infrastructure, especially transport systems — even if the will was there to improve them.<br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">It is heartbreaking to see the developers putting up their crappy single-storey, dark-roofed homes in the treeless suburbs on the outskirts of Melbourne. How much better life would be if everything were more compressed on the European or Singaporean model. I would much rather live in an apartment in a well-constructed block with decent public amenities (public transport, parks, playgrounds etc.). Capitalism, with its generations of greedy "developers" and venal politicians, has sold us a pup.<br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"> <br /></span></p><p></p>Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-63012925951265720612023-04-04T21:40:00.013-07:002023-06-13T01:24:09.021-07:00Imperialism: A short introduction<p></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYiHZwp1YHmO_chhORDgHhmynwlduh86nrjL5rq1luFdiXRGwh2yZmtJkDuYOHgsVCZKZ98zuy6EzbQJqMH47ct5LbV4LJKPKaH5jp1SbxXNs9JQ7KkiuORFj1vnaji63PTWSiWjfyloWr092d-vi8cssRsYyZtVCb5licHs9QA4YpIcZ9WfeMle02Wg/s1284/Carve-up%20of%20Africa.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1284" data-original-width="1158" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYiHZwp1YHmO_chhORDgHhmynwlduh86nrjL5rq1luFdiXRGwh2yZmtJkDuYOHgsVCZKZ98zuy6EzbQJqMH47ct5LbV4LJKPKaH5jp1SbxXNs9JQ7KkiuORFj1vnaji63PTWSiWjfyloWr092d-vi8cssRsYyZtVCb5licHs9QA4YpIcZ9WfeMle02Wg/w361-h400/Carve-up%20of%20Africa.jpg" width="361" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">[This the text of an educational given to Socialist Alliance Melbourne branch on April 4, 2023.]</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"> </span></p><p></p><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We live in a world where capitalism is near universal. However, it’s not just capitalism but capitalism in its imperialist stage. If we don’t understand what this is (and what it is not), we can’t understand anything about the politics of Australia and the world today.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to the dictionary definition, the word “imperialism” can be applied to anything aimed at empire building: Thus, for instance, the Roman Empire was “imperialist”, England in the 1600s was “imperialist”. But for Marxists, imperialism has a precise meaning. It refers to a certain stage of capitalist development and that alone. Any other usage simply serves to obscure the real tendencies of development in the modern world.<br /></span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Force & violence play a crucial role</span></span></h4></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">It is important to understand that the modern capitalist system did not develop in the West simply by natural organic processes. Force, violence and plunder were at the very heart of it; they were — and remain — absolutely essential:</span></p></div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In Britain, force was used over several centuries to dispossess the peasantry of their land and to create a workforce available for exploitation. (This process is still going on in various parts of the world.)</span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The stupendous amounts of wealth</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> extracted by the English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Dutch from the Americas, Asia and Africa in the period 1500-1750 was absolutely decisive in accumulating the capital which enabled the industrial revolution to take off in Western Europe. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Slave trading and slave labour constituted a massive part of this wealth.</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The colonisation of the Americas was the </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">greatest genocide in world history</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">. A <a href="https://www.se.edu/native-american/wp-content/uploads/sites/49/2019/09/A-NAS-2017-Proceedings-Smith.pdf">2018 study</a> argues that “the total number of Indigenous deaths throughout the Western Hemisphere between 1492 and 1900 appears to be about 175 million”! The indigenous population was slaughtered, worked to death in mines and plantations, and succumbed to starvation, introduced diseases and despair.<br /></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Today the West champions “free trade”. But in its infancy, British capitalism was nurtured by an extreme protectionist policy. Only when British industry was secure (about 1830) did it turn to promoting the virtues of “free trade”. It used brute force (“gunboat diplomacy”) to smash a path for its goods into India and China (the Opium Wars).</span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Today, the US — with its CIA, special forces, Marine Corps, airforce, carrier battle groups and some 800 bases around the world— is merely continuing this policy of “supplementing” and helping along “organic” economic processes with naked force.</span></p></li></ul><div style="text-align: left;"><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Development of monopoly</span></span></h4></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In his famous 1915 work <i>Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism</i>, Lenin dates imperialism from 1900. This follows some fundamental changes that took place in Britain, the world’s most economically advanced country, in the last quarter of the 19th century.</span></p></div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the early part of the 19th century, the <i>laissez faire</i> period of British capitalism (let things be, governments shouldn’t interfere with business), the economy consisted of a large number of small and medium-sized companies.</span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">But <i>laissez faire</i> capitalism developed into monopoly capitalism. Each sector of production becomes dominated by a handful of firms — typically one, two or three. These firms get bigger and bigger and the monopolised sector employs the great mass of workers and accounts for most of the production.</span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Competition is not eliminated but takes place on a new basis; it is fiercer and more ruthless. Ernest Mandel in <i>Marxist Economic Theory</i> (Merlin Press: London, 1968) says: “There is no better way of describing the competition between monopolies than as a permanent state of war interrupted by frequent truces.” (p. 435) Think of the giant automobile companies.<br /></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Monopolies can set their own prices and force consumers to pay. Enormous profits are generated.</span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The economy becomes divided into monopoly and non-monopoly sectors, one with higher and the other with lower rates of profit. The non-monopoly sector is forced to cede </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">to the monopoly sector</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> a portion of the surplus value extracted from its workforce.</span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Monopoly capitalism is marked by decay and stagnation: We see crises, suppression of inventions, stupendous waste (advertising, etc.), massive overcapacity (capacity which can’t be profitably used). But this stagnation is relative, not absolute. As Mandel says, “it falls ever further short of the possibilities offered by modern technique” (p. 437).</span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The development of monopoly produces huge capital surpluses which cannot be profitably invested at home due to the saturation of the market. These surpluses are exported. Historically, this led to a new attitude to colonialism. It was now a question of protecting long-term loans and investments. Direct control assumed a much greater importance. Colonies also meant markets and sources of raw materials and denying these to rivals.</span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">There was a huge spurt in colonialism in the last part of the 19th and the early part of the 20th century. Just look at the carve-up of Africa (see map above).</span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">After World War II, decolonisation was forced on Britain, France and the Netherlands but eventually — and often after big independence struggles — direct control was replaced by neo-colonialism wherein reliable client regimes protected imperialist interests.</span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Today, of course, the question of repayment of the infamous Third World debts to the Western states and banks is a key issue. Most of these loans never actually did anything positive for the country, for the people, but were siphoned off by corrupt regimes into Swiss bank accounts but the whole country must now pay for this theft. They should be cancelled.</span></p></li></ul><div style="text-align: left;"><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">World divided into two parts</span></span></h4></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Lenin explains that under imperialism the world is now divided into two qualitatively different parts:</span></p></div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">A “First World” of the rich imperialist countries — North America, Western Europe and Japan.</span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">A “Third World” of semicolonial countries which are dominated, dependent, capitalist countries completely subordinate to imperialism. These countries are “underdeveloped” due to the massive looting of the wealth of the Americas, Africa and Asia by Western Europe in the centuries leading up to the industrial revolution and then the brutal blocking and stunting of their development by imperialism.</span></p></li></ul><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Of course, there is a big spectrum here. The Third World stretches from highly developed and urbanised South Korea to impoverished Burkina Fasso. One can debate the exact status of countries in the grey area but all suffer from imperialist domination.</span></p></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Role of the state</span></span></h4></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Compared to the infancy of the capitalist system, under imperialism the state has a massively enhanced role.</span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The first part of the 1800s, before imperialism, was the <i>laissez faire</i> period of capitalism, characterised as we’ve mentioned by many small and medium-sized capitals in each sector. As Mandel writes: “The bourgeoisie of the free competition period had the ‘Manchester’ outlook, strongly for free trade and against colonialism. All increase in public expenditure was regarded as waste by the industrial bourgeoisie, still greedy for new capital in order to be able to expand the framework of production.” (p. 451)</span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Under imperialism, the role of the state is massively enhanced. The monopolists want big state expenditures on arms, contracts, special concessions and tax breaks, bailouts, and control of the working class. The right-wing talk of “small government” only applies to social expenditures (health, public housing, etc.) which the monopolists resent. They actually want <i>big</i> government.</span></p></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p></p><p></p><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">State still decisive instrument</span></span></h4></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The state is still the decisive instrument for imperialism; it is in no way rendered irrelevant by “globalisation”. Just look at the USA: It is constantly strengthening the state power and using it to assert its interests against its imperialist rivals, the Third World, Russia and China, the EU countries and, of course, the people.</span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Conversely, we should reject any idea that the national state can’t do anything to resist imperialist-pushed neo-liberalism. This claim flies in the face of the facts: anything is possible if the people are organised and mobilised under a radical leadership. Look at Cuba (more on that later). Even look at Venezuela where the revolution has stalled and faces massive internal problems. Since 2011 the state has built <a href="https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Venezuelan-Government-Has-Built-4.2-Million-Homes-So-Far-20221028-0002.html">4.5 million homes</a> for the poor! </span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">‘Multinational’ firms still national</span></h4></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">We hear a lot of talk about transnational or multinational firms. It is true that their operations are indeed multinational and they have a global division of labour within the firm. </span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">But each multinational is still profoundly national in ownership. Thus, for instance, US corporations backed by the US state fight it out in the world arena. There are only a tiny handful of truly multinational firms in respect of actual ownership (e.g., Shell which is controlled by British and Dutch capital).</span></p></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p></p><p></p><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Globalisation</span></span></h4></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">There is a lot of talk about “globalisation”. As a July 2017 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/14/globalisation-the-rise-and-fall-of-an-idea-that-swept-the-world"><i>Guardian</i> article</a> put it: </span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><blockquote>Since the 1980s, and especially following the collapse of the Soviet Union, lowering barriers to international trade had become the axiom of countries everywhere. Tariffs had to be slashed and regulations spiked. Trade unions, which kept wages high and made it harder to fire people, had to be crushed. Governments vied with each other to make their country more hospitable — more “competitive” — for businesses. That meant making labour cheaper and regulations looser … </blockquote><p></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Globalisation” is globalisation of the neoliberal assault on working people, i.e., the extension to the entire world of austerity, cutbacks, and privatisation in the interests of boosting profits of giant First World corporations. Everything is fair game for their profit-making schemes: water and gas supply systems in the Third World, Britain’s National Health System, Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, and so on. The grim effects of this assault on the world’s people is increasingly clear.</span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The COVID pandemic has also highlighted another huge problem with capitalist globalisation. Offshoring, that is, producing essential goods (especially medical products) in far away cheap labour countries, can lead to a crisis when a pandemic shuts down normal trade and supply chains. </span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The “casino economy” is often taken to mean that “finance capital” now dominates productive, industrial capital. This is not true. Finance capital has been dominant form for over a century. The massive speculation we see today results from the huge accumulation of surplus capital which cannot be profitably invested due to market saturation and chronic productive overcapacity.</span></p></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p></p><p></p><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Imperialism responsible for war</span></span></h4></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Imperialism is the cause of war in the modern world. There are wars of inter-imperialist competition for the division and redivision of the planet, wars by proxy, colonial and counter-revolutionary wars and so on.</span></p></div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The <b>1914-18 World War</b> was the the first all-out inter-imperialist war. Estimates of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties">death toll</a> range from 15-22 million. Millions more were maimed and crippled. The essence of the war was a struggle between robbers over loot: Britain and France had huge colonial empires while late-arriving Germany, the strongest European power, had few colonies. Britain and France strove to hang onto their colonial loot while Germany sought to grab it from them.</span></p></li></ul><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the event, the Allies were victorious but the US was the big winner and it was clear that a new world superpower had arrived.</span></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>World War II</b> was in many ways a repeat of its predecessor. Germany </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">(allied with Italy and Japan) </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">again sought world supremacy. But this time the Soviet Union was allied to the British-French-US bloc and it was simply fighting for its survival. It played the biggest role in crushing Germany. The destruction was immense. Some <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties">70-85 million</a> people died. </span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Since World War II the US has been the sole superpower and Washington’s military preponderance has been absolute. As a consequence of this and because a nuclear war would be the end of everything, there have been no direct inter-imperialist wars. Until the collapse of the USSR in 1991, there was a common front of the US-led “free world” against the Soviet Union and Third World liberation struggles.</span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The US debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown that Washington’s attempt at its own “thousand-year Reich” (dubbed</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> the “American century”</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> by <i>Time-Life</i> publisher Henry Luce in the 1940s), i.e., their bid to control the entire world, is doomed to fail just as surely as did Hitler’s some 80 years ago.</span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Today, of course, the economic preponderance of the US is being eroded relative to China and its military supremacy is also being challenged. And the Ukraine war has introduced huge strains into the relationship between the US and its West European allies, especially Germany.</span></p></li></ul><div style="text-align: left;"><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The eve of socialism?</span></span></h4></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Lenin regarded imperialism as the “eve of socialism”. I think that today this has to be reformulated in the light of the existential crisis of climate change: The imperialist era will either lead to the victory of socialism or the end of the human species — that is, we get rid of the capitalist system or it will doom us all.</span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">There is no progressive role for capitalism whatsoever, in any sense. It is ever more malignant and destructive. We see this confirmed in so many ways every single day — there are crises everywhere we look.<br /></span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">On a world scale, all the objective economic conditions for socialism have existed since 1900. Our challenge is political: We have to mobilise the forces required to overthrow imperialism and embark on solving humanity’s desperate social and, above all, ecological problems by constructing a socialist society.</span></p></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p></p><p></p><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What about Australia?</span></span></h4></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Is Australia imperialist or is it a neo-colony of the United States? We have to say unequivocally that Australia is a small imperialist power in its own right. It dominates a number of Pacific countries, and it has its own giant monopolies (especially mining outfits) that operate around the world.</span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, it is sometimes sickeningly subservient to Washington but we shouldn’t go overboard about this. The Australian bourgeoisie still controls the Australian state and it chooses to go with the US to defend their common interests. There have been many moments of tension in the past — over access to the US market for our farm produce and access by US firms to our PBS in the health sector. But these tensions play out against the backdrop of the acknowledged supremacy of the US.</span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">And, of course, we see all the time the huge local monopoly outfits that dominate the economy (e.g., the supermarket chains), although often they will have a big foreign shareholding (not always obvious).</span></p></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Can imperialism be overthrown?</span></span></h4></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Can imperialism actually be overthrown? A few points by way of conclusion:</span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Lenin stressed that imperialism reaches into labour movement in the imperialist countries; it uses its superprofits to create a relatively privileged stratum — the labour aristocracy. Due to its more secure conditions of employment and better wages and conditions, this layer is naturally susceptible to opportunist, pro-imperialist politics.</span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Socialists must engage in a constant fight against the opportunist politics of this layer and champion the interests of the non-privileged sections of the working class. Thus, in Australia racism, refugees and “border protection”, and justice for First Nations people are key issues. Solidarity with anti-imperialist struggles around the world must be a central part of socialist politics in Australia today.</span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Socialist Cuba remains a shining example of what can be done and how to do it. There the revolutionaries made a revolution in the “backyard” of the United States, took state power, mobilised the people, developed their country and have resisted a sustained US assault for over 60 years. Despite all the pressures and problems this has created, this remains an absolutely monumental achievement.</span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Two examples illustrate the scale of Cuba’s achievement:</span></p></div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 2001 <a href="https://twn.my/title/learn.htm">James Wolfenson</a>, then head of the World Bank, was forced to admit that Cuba, which doesn’t belong to the IMF or the World Bank, had the best Third World social indices! (Wolfenson claimed that he wasn't embarrassed to admit this!) Of course, this was precisely because it stayed clear of the clutches of imperialism, unlike the rest of Latin America.</span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Based on <a href="https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/cuba-found-to-be-the-most-sustainably-developed-country-in-the-world-new-research-finds">2015 figures</a>, Cuba ranked first in the world on the Sustainable Development Index. The US was number 159 and Australia came in at number 160! </span></p></li></ul><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Whether in the Third World or the First, a people united, mobilised, and organised behind a revolutionary leadership is a colossal force. It alone can overthrow imperialism.</span></p></div>Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-87862947216001548772023-02-14T22:18:00.004-08:002023-09-09T22:34:35.616-07:00Key issues of the war in Ukraine<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">These notes should be read in conjunction
with the document <u><a href="https://dave-holmes.blogspot.com/2022/10/theses-on-war-in-ukraine.html#more">Theses
on the war in Ukraine</a></u> by myself and Renfrey Clarke which gives a
succinct overview of the issues raised by the war. Here I want to deal in more
detail with some of the key questions.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><h4 class="Subhead" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span>The West wants to dominate Russia</span></span></span></span></h4><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">Washington</span><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">
has an historically unprecedented world empire which it wants to maintain and
expand. It is never going to be reconciled to any country it doesn’t control or
dominate. The two main targets in its sights today are Russia and China, both
big capitalist countries which are by no means opposed to relations with the
West but want them on their own terms.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">One way or another, Washington wants to dominate Russia, to subjugate and exploit
it, install a client regime, or possibly even to break up it up into several
more pliable states, as advocated by some neocons. Right now, through the
conflict in Ukraine, it
seeks to move NATO bases and missiles right up to the border and to bleed Russia in an endless war (like in Afghanistan).</span></span></p><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;"><span></span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">Even if the Putin regime were to
fall, irrespective of whether it were replaced by a more reactionary regime or
a more progressive one, Washington’s hostility would remain, although in the
latter case it would probably be forced to present itself in a different way.
The only regime acceptable to the US
would be a subservient client outfit, such as rules in most Third
World countries.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Subhead"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>A proxy war</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">In Ukraine, NATO is fighting a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">proxy</i> war. That is, it is fighting a war
against Russia
on Ukrainian territory, using NATO arms, training, intelligence, “volunteers”
and advisers, with Ukrainians as expendable cannon fodder on the ground.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">The US
is driving relentlessly to achieve a nuclear first-strike capability against Russia. The war
in Ukraine
is a key part of this project. Two articles by <i>Monthly Review</i> editor
John Bellamy Foster explain this extremely clearly: <u><a href="https://mronline.org/2022/04/09/the-u-s-proxy-war-in-ukraine/">The US
Proxy War in Ukraine</a></u> and <a href="https://monthlyreview.org/2022/05/01/notes-on-exterminism-for-the-twenty-first-century-ecology-and-peace-movements/">‘Notes
on Exterminism’ for the 21st Century</a>. Establishing US-NATO bases in Ukraine would greatly strengthen Washington’s position in this insane endeavour and place Russia (and the
world) in a perilous position.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><h4 class="Subhead" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ukraine
is <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">not</span> fighting for
self-determination</span></span></h4><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">For Marxists, the right of nations
to self-determination is a serious question. But while self-determination is an
important principle to which we are committed, it is subordinate to the needs
of the overall struggle, in this case the struggle against US-led Western imperialism.
It is not some absolute right, overriding all other considerations.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">On the left, Ukraine’s right
to self-determination is repeatedly invoked to justify supporting the flood of
NATO weaponry into the country. Marxists understand that, in principle, it is
acceptable for those fighting for their national rights to take or seek arms
from any quarter (as, for instance, Rojava is doing in regard to the US
imperialism).</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">But this war is <i>not</i> about
Ukrainian self-determination. Russia
is <i>not</i> trying to take over the country. Ukraine’s national sovereignty is <i>not</i>
under threat. There is a war going on between Russia
and Ukraine, armed and
organised by Washington.
But a war does not necessarily involve a struggle for self-determination. It
depends on the actual situation.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">To make things clearer, let us imagine,
for example, that some years ago Bangladesh
had invaded Myanmar
and occupied Rakhine province in order to protect the Muslim Rohingya people
there from the genocide set in motion by the country’s brutal military rulers. In
such a situation, would it then make sense to say that Myanmar was fighting
for its sovereignty and self-determination? Obviously not. The Bangladeshi
intrusion might be judged good or bad, well conceived or foolish, but it
couldn’t realistically be seen as an attack on Myanmar’s basic sovereignty.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><h4 class="Text" style="margin-top: 8.5pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span color="windowtext">Limited aims of Russian invasion</span></span></span></h4><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">To actually take over and occupy a
country of the geographical size and population of Ukraine, <i>millions</i> of troops
would be needed. All up, Russia
and its allies (including the Donbass militias) originally deployed at most
200,000 soldiers and probably far fewer.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">The Russian military’s plan was <i>never</i>
to fight its way into Kiev
and occupy the city. The forces deployed were not remotely capable of that.
Perhaps initially Putin deluded himself into thinking that the Zelensky regime
would collapse in the face of a show of force or a lightning strike aimed at
beheading the government.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">But while the initial thrusts
towards Kiev and Kharkov
served to keep large Ukrainian forces away from the Donbass, they also supplied
first-rate material to the Western media’s wall-to-wall propaganda campaign
against Russia.
I think this part of the Russian campaign was a big political mistake and enabled
the West’s propagandists to obscure the essentially <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">reactive and defensive nature</i> of its intervention.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">real undermining</i> of Ukrainian independence and sovereignty actually
comes from the post-Maidan regimes which have deliberately made the country a
client of US imperialism, a willing tool in the Western campaign against Russia.
Ukraine
today is totally dependent on Western military and financial aid. Key decisions
are not made in Kiev: They are made in Washington and London.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><h4 class="Text" style="margin-top: 8.5pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>The military struggle</span></span></span></h4><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">It is very difficult to get a
precise grip on the military situation. The mainstream media reportage and
commentary is almost 100% propaganda. But a number of things do seem reasonably
clear.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">It is highly unlikely that Russia
will be militarily defeated. The forces Russia initially committed were way
too small and could not adequately defend a very long front, especially when
confronted by an opponent heavily armed, trained and advised by NATO. Russia has
taken steps to rectify that by calling up 300,000 reserves.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">The so-called Ukrainian “victories”
at Kharkov and Kherson, so loudly trumpeted by the Western
media, were bought at a huge cost, with many thousands of Ukrainian soldiers
killed and thousands more wounded. Moreover, they were not really battlefield
victories; in both cases Russian forces vacated territory in a timely manner
and in good order to take up far more defensible positions behind natural river
barriers.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">Furthermore, as Renfrey Clarke
explained in a November email to me:</span></span></p><p class="Text" style="margin-bottom: 5.65pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.5in 5.65pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Ukrainian
troops are being killed at 5-6 times the rate of their Russian counterparts.
This is largely because Ukrainian commanders are being forced by the political
leadership to send masses of troops to be butchered in ill-advised assaults,
and to try to hold positions even where these have become untenable. The purpose
is to achieve minor territorial gains and avoid retreats, thus allowing the
politicians to convince Western backers to keep sending weapons and funding the
economy.</span></span></blockquote><p></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">Drawing on Turkish and Israeli
sources, a <a href="https://southfront.press/ukrainian-general-israeli-intelligence-reveal-ukrainian-russian-losses-reports/">recent report</a> shows the enormous and unsustainable losses incurred by the
Ukrainian military to date. This report also backs up Clarke’s argument above
about the relative casualty rates of the two protagonists.</span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">It is also worth noting that compared
to the massive US assault on Iraq
in 1990-91, the Russian missile attack on Ukraine has been extremely modest
and much more discriminating.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">The Western assault on Iraqi
civilian infrastructure is described by <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_air_campaign">Wikipedia</a></u>:</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Quote"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Coalition bombing raids destroyed Iraqi civilian infrastructure.
11 of Iraq's
20 major power stations and 119 substations were totally destroyed, while a
further six major power stations were damaged. At the end of the war,
electricity production was at four percent of its pre-war levels. Bombs
destroyed the utility of all major dams, most major pumping stations, and many
sewage treatment plants, telecommunications equipment, port facilities, oil
refineries and distribution, railroads and bridges were also destroyed.</span></span></blockquote><p></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">Nothing like this has taken place in Ukraine. Even the heavy attacks on
power infrastructure only really began in October — that is, seven months (!)
after the start of the war — following Ukrainian sabotage of the Kerch bridge linking Crimea with the rest of Russia.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><h4 class="Subhead" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Civil war</span></span></h4><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">Ever since the 2014 Maidan
protests and the coming to power of a far-right ethno-nationalist regime, there
has been a <i>civil war</i>, prosecuted by the Kiev
regime against the rebel Donbass provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk. The population here — whether ethnic
Russian or not — is deeply distrustful and fearful of the central authoritities
in Kiev.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">Cities and towns elsewhere in the
south (like Odessa
and Mariupol) also saw unrest following the Maidan events but the rightist
gangs crushed it. There was also considerable unrest in the eastern city of Kharkov; this too was put
down with the help of rightist militia.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">The post-Maidan governments, as
well as glorifying World War II Nazi collaborators like Stepan Bandera and
tearing down Soviet-era monuments, passed a law discriminating against Russian
and other non-Ukrainian languages. (There is a real element of madness here.
Recently, a statue in Kiev of Fyodor Dostoyevsky was replaced by one of Andy
Warhol!)</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">On January 16 of last year a
delayed provision of the law came into effect. According to <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/01/19/new-language-requirement-raises-concerns-ukraine">Wikipedia</a>,
“It requires print media outlets registered in Ukraine to publish in Ukrainian.
Publications in other languages must also be accompanied by a Ukrainian
version, equivalent in content, volume, and method of printing. Additionally,
places of distribution such as newsstands must have at least half their content
in Ukrainian.” The law “makes exceptions for certain minority languages,
English, and official EU languages but not for Russian”! Any Russian language
media would find it hard to survive this nakedly discriminatory requirement.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">The Donbass <i>is</i> fighting for
self-determination. This could mean separation, joining Russia or some sort of self-government within Ukraine (as envisaged in the original Minsk accords of 2014-15, endorsed but then immediately
flouted by the Kiev
regime).</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">Russia</span><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;"> has intervened on the side of the rebel provinces.
The odious Putin regime notwithstanding, Russia is clearly waging a <i>defensive</i>
struggle against NATO and its Ukrainian client, not a war aimed at occupying
the country. It is defending the Donbass and Crimea.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">For a comprehensive analysis of
the origins and development of the conflict in the Donbass, I urge readers to
check out Renfrey Clarke’s 2016 article <u><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/10dcCbdMlBgGmOdjdGE3z03aW86CaYasJ/view">The
Donbass in 2014: Ultra-Right Threats, Working-Class Revolt, and Russian Policy
Responses</a></u>.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><h4 class="Subhead" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Russian aggression?</span></span></h4><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">What if Russia had not intervened
militarily? Ukrainian forces would have invaded the Donbass and overwhelmed the
Donetsk and
Luhansk militias. There would have been a far-right pogrom, and millions more
refugees would have poured into Russia.
Crimea would have been directly threatened.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">Whatever one thinks of Vladimir
Putin and the Russian system of oligarchic capitalism that he represents, there
is no Russian aggression and to speak in these terms is completely wrong. Clearly,
Russia
fired the “first shot” when its forces crossed the border. But for Marxists
that is not the key thing, nor is citing “international law” a convincing
argument here.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">The Russian action was a response
to the-threatened assault across the Donbass line of control by Kiev’s forces, and the ever-increasing integration of Ukraine
into NATO. Was it the best possible response? We can debate that but talk of
Russian “imperialism” or “expansionist” tendencies is completely wide of the
mark.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">A Russian defeat at the hands of
the US-NATO-Ukraine forces would be a victory for imperialism. An end to the
war and a withdrawal of Russian troops is obviously desirable, but only as a
result of negotiations and a reasonable peace settlement.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Bodytext"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">Such a reasonable deal was
tentatively agreed in March-April of last year but Britain
and the US
pressured Zelensky and he pulled the plug. The West wanted to keep fighting to
badly weaken Russia.
Washington, London
and the Kiev
regime are thus responsible for the 10 months of fighting since then with all
its immense destruction and loss of life.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><h4 class="Subhead" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Is Russia
responsible for NATO’s expansion?</span></span></h4><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">There is no doubt that that the West
has used Russia’s military
intervention in Ukraine
to expand NATO. Finland and Sweden are in
the process of joining NATO. This will need the approval of NATO member Turkey and gaining that will require a dirty
deal with Turkey
at the expense of the Kurds. There is even talk that <u><a href="https://archive.ph/7186p">Finland</a></u> has agreed to NATO stationing
missiles there.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">But Russia’s intervention is not to
blame for this. It is the result of the all-out propaganda offensive waged by
the West using its control of the media to demonise Russia
and its leader, lie about Ukraine,
and lie about the West’s involvement and war aims.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">Moreover, when Moscow
is having such obvious difficulty in defeating Ukrainian forces so close to the
Russian border, how on earth is it supposed to threaten Finland and Sweden, let alone other countries
in eastern and western Europe? But who said imperialism’s Russophobic scare
propaganda had to make any logical sense?</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">(Nearer to home, we have yet another
testament to the power of the capitalist lie machine. According to a March 2022
<u><a href="https://poll.lowyinstitute.org/themes/china/">Lowy Institute poll</a></u>
there has been a sharp decrease in the Australian public’s perception of China: “Most Australians continue to hold very low
levels of trust in China,
with 12% saying they trust China
somewhat or a great deal, a 40-point decrease since 2018.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And today, with the risible Chinese weather balloon
saga, the West’s anti-China hysteria is being ratcheted up a few more notches.)</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><h4 class="Subhead" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Washington’s
drive to war began long ago</span></span></h4><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Bodytext"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">The fundamental reason for the
war in Ukraine is US imperialism’s unrelenting campaign against Russia. It
wants to completely subordinate Russia
to Western capitalism or to crush it, one way or another.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Bodytext"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">Since the collapse of the
Soviet Union, NATO has expanded right up to Russia’s borders. US missile bases
have moved closer and closer to Moscow.
In 2019 the US withdrew from
the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia. Washington is striving mightily to develop a
nuclear first-strike capacity.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Bodytext"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">From the formation of an
independent Ukraine in 1991,
the US worked non-stop to
tear the country away from its traditional links to Russia and draw it into the
anti-Russia Western alliance — politically, economically and militarily.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Bodytext"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">Following the 2014 Maidan coup
things escalated dramatically. A pro-US, far-right, ethno-nationalist,
anti-Russia regime was installed and immediately went to war against a section
of its own people, provoking a huge backlash and a civil war which has
continued to this day.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Bodytext"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">Even before the Russian intervention, Ukraine was integrated <i>de facto</i>
into NATO. Its army was rebuilt, trained and equipped with Western arms.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">After the Maidan events it was
clear that Ukraine and Washington were on a path to war with Russia. It is worth reading <u><a href="https://johnpilger.com/articles/break-the-silence-a-world-war-is-beckoning">John
Pilger’s 2014 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Guardian</i> article</a></u>
where he warned of what was happening.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">And in a September 26, 2022
article that drew on Wilileaks’ huge dump of US diplomatic cables, <u><a href="https://mronline.org/2022/09/26/brainwashed-for-war-with-russia/">Ray
McGovern explained</a></u> that even in 2008 the US was well aware of what
Ukrainian membership of NATO would mean to Russia:</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: arial;">14 years ago, then U.S. Ambassador to Russia (current CIA Director) William Burns was
warned by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Russia might have to intervene in Ukraine,
if it were made a member of NATO. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Subject
Line</i> of Burns’s Feb. 1, 2008 Embassy Moscow cable (#182) to Washington makes it
clear that Amb. Burns did not mince Lavrov’s words; the subject line stated: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Nyet means nyet: Russia’s NATO enlargement
redlines.”</i> Thus, Washington policymakers
were given forewarning, in very specific terms, of Russia’s
redline regarding membership for Ukraine in NATO.</span></span></blockquote><p></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><h4 class="Subhead" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Western weapons to Ukraine</span></span></h4><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">Sections of the Western left want
NATO to step up the supply of high-end weapons to Ukraine
so that Russia can be
comprehensively defeated and Ukraine’s
supposed “self-determination” supported. That’s also precisely what NATO wants.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">Should socialists really be
pushing in the same direction? Shouldn’t that sound alarm bells and make them
even just a little bit uneasy?</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">The weapons are there and more are
coming but socialists shouldn’t give any support to Washington’s proxy war. We should oppose the
Western weapons deliveries, including by Australia. We should also oppose
the sending of Australian military trainers to work with Ukrainian forces,
whether to the international program in the United Kingdom or anywhere else.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><h4 class="Subhead" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Nord Stream sabotage</span></span></h4><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">The spectacular sabotage in late
September of the Nord Stream pipelines carrying natural gas from Russia to
Germany was an act of open warfare — but in the West, far away from the actual
theatre of war in Ukraine. The US
was always the obvious culprit. According to a <a href="https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream">recent
investigative report</a> by US
journalist Seymour Hersh, the bombing was carried out by Washington
with support from Norway.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">Of course, as our <a href="https://dave-holmes.blogspot.com/2022/10/theses-on-war-in-ukraine.html#more">Theses</a>
point out, the sabotage was aimed at Germany. Washington
wanted to kill off any chance of a German-Russian rapprochment by ensuring that
no Russian gas could make it to Germany.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">If Russia
or China did something
similar (e.g., blew up dozens of trans-Atlantic internet cables near the UK coast as they came ashore in Cornwall) it would likely mean World War III
but on this issue the Western corporate media is astonishingly uncurious and
silent. (Unfortunately, it’s not really astonishing at all but in a rational
world it would be.)</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">Germany</span><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;"> is paying dearly for the destruction of Nord Stream.
German industry is being forced to buy US fracked gas at a huge extra cost.
Many big German companies are apparently considering moving to the US to get access
to cheaper energy. Germany,
especially the working class and the poor, is going to pay a heavy price for Washington’s ruthless <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">realpolitik</i>.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><h4 class="Subhead" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Peace negotiations</span></span></h4><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">Apart from the heavy military
casulaties, thousands of civilians on both sides have died. Missiles may miss
their target and hit apartment blocks and military targets may be close to
civilian infrastructure. The conclusion we should draw from this is that war is
truly horrible.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">To end all the misery and
suffering it is necessary to end the conflict as quickly as possible — and that
means pushing for serious talks. As mentioned above, a quite reasonable deal
had been worked out in March-April of 2022 but Zelensky, under heavy Western
pressure, pulled the plug on it.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">Socialists should call for serious
negotiations, above all between the US
and Russia.
That’s the real choice and that should be our political focus.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p class="Text"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span color="windowtext" style="font-size: small;">But a big section of the left in
the imperialist countries appears to think that Ukraine
should first comprehensively defeat Russia and then talk — but in that
case talks would be largely superfluous. In the light of the way the
battlefield situation appears to be developing, a Ukrainian victory seems
highly unlikely. There are several possible alternatives.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"><span>
</span></span><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"><span>The war just goes on forever. This will mean the
utter destruction of Ukraine
as a country (human and material devastation, population decline) — all because
Western imperialism wants to bog down Russia in a never-ending conflict.
A further danger here is an escalation or miscalaculation that touches off
nuclear armageddon. <br /></span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"><span>A variant of the war never ending is that there
is a sort of permanent stalemate or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">de
facto</i> ceasefire along a heavily fortified line of control (like on the
Korean peninsula).</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"><span>A more desirable
outcome is that there are actual peace negotiations. But these can only get
anywhere if <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Ukrainian government
gives up its ultimatist, intransigent positions. It needs to give up on NATO membership,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>forget about Crimea, and to accept that the
Donbass population wants nothing to do with Ukraine. And any peace deal will likely
involve a big confrontation with the tiny minority of ultra-right ethno-nationalists
who exert a big leverage on Ukraine's
political and administrative processes, through their strong implantation in
the “power ministries”.</span></span></p></li></ul><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><p></p>Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-81078408328836948282022-10-05T16:23:00.007-07:002023-03-09T18:48:18.279-08:00Theses on the war in Ukraine<p></p><p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro";"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>By Dave Holmes & Renfrey Clarke</i></span><br /></span></p>
<p></p><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">A.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Introduction</span></b><p>
</p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">Climate change threatens the survival of
humanity. Disasters are coming thick and fast and will quickly get much worse.
But rather than deal with the truly existential crisis this represents, Western
imperialism is devoting more and more resources to a war drive against Russia and China, two big countries that have
persistently resisted subordination to Western imperialism. <br /></span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">This perverse misallocation of resources shows
the pathological sickness of the world imperialist system presided over by the United States.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">The war in Ukraine is being used to massively
intensify the West’s anti-Russia campaign. But the blowback from the sanctions
regime is destabilising Western Europe and
intensifying the suffering of developing countries.</span></span></p></li></ol><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro";"><span><a name='more'></a></span></span><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.25in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">B.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>US imperialism & NATO</span></b></p>
<p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union did not lead to the dissolution of NATO
but instead to its relentless expansion eastwards. The advance of NATO up
to Russia’s borders is
perceived in Moscow
as an existential danger. Western missiles are being installed ever closer
to Russia,
with alarmingly short flight times. <br /></span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>The incorporation of Ukraine into NATO, formal or informal, is
seen in Russia
as a particularly extreme escalation, directly threatening the Russian
heartland. Russia
has made bluntly clear, over some 15 years, that it regards this move as a
“red line”, the crossing of which must result in an unspecified but
forceful response. Nevertheless, the Western powers in the last few years
have integrated Ukraine
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">de facto</i> into NATO structures,
to the extent of large international military exercises being held on the
country’s territory.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>The fundamental responsibility for the
war in Ukraine lies
with Western imperialism in general, and with Washington in particular. Especially
since the mid-2000s, the US
has devoted enormous resources to overturning previously close and
friendly economic and political relations between Ukraine and Russia. Large sums have been
spent on such activities as funding pro-Western, anti-Russian media
outlets; establishing and supporting pro-Western NGOs; and bankrolling
sympathetic political currents.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>The process of tearing Ukraine away from its traditional links to Russia and
other post-Soviet countries, and of realigning it with the Western
alliance, escalated dramatically with the 2014 Maidan coup. Carried out
with the extensive and admitted involvement of US diplomats and other
personnel, the coup installed a right-wing, anti-Russian government and
greatly increased the influence of the ultra-right in Ukrainian political
life.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>The 2014 coup was followed by a popular
uprising in the Donbass provinces, seeking autonomy from Kiev. International efforts to settle
the resulting civil war culminated in the 2014–2015 Minsk Accords that
promised the Donbass a measure of self-government. The Ukrainian
government signed the accords, but took no steps to implement them.
Instead, Kyiv shelled rebel cities on an almost daily basis for close to
eight years. Late in 2021 the Russian government appears to have concluded
that the Minsk
process was completely dead. Russian troops then began to be massed near
the Ukrainian border. From mid-February 2022, especially intensive
shelling by Ukraine of
the city of Donetsk
was followed by the Russian invasion on February 24.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>In fomenting the Russia-Ukraine war, and
then in funding and supplying the Ukrainian side, the US has sought to force Russia
into an endless and debilitating conflict.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>The US
also wants to break its own NATO allies away from any economic cooperation
with Russia (energy and
trade) and to weaken their position relative to US capitalism. This economic
warfare has been taken to new heights with the recent sabotage of the Nord
Stream pipelines. Washington,
acting directly or through proxies, is the almost certain culprit. The
destruction of the pipeline means that German-Russian gas trade is now
impossible. Germany
— especially the working class and the poor — will pay a very heavy price
for this.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Through a propaganda campaign of
unprecedented scope in key Western countries, the corporate media have
demonised Russia (especially its leader, Vladimir Putin, who is presented
as a sort of secular Satan) and cast a thick fog over the real reasons for
the conflict, the nature of the Zelenskyi regime, and the actual situation
on the battlefield.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>The Western propaganda campaign has been
used by the governments of Finland
and Sweden
to stampede their countries into joining NATO. In Germany it
has been used to push through a vastly increased military budget.</span></span></p></li></ol><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.25in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">C.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Russia</span></b></p>
<p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Russia</span><span> has absolutely legitimate security
concerns. Washington wants to weaken Russia,
to subordinate it to Western capitalism, if possible to break it up, and
generally to eliminate it as any sort of independent entity.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Surveys indicate that a strong majority
of Russians share the conviction that their country is under military
threat from the West. Popular support for the war, and backing for the
Putin administration, both evidently remain at high levels.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Russia</span><span>, however, is dominated by a ruthless
capitalist class (the “oligarchs”) that arose out of the break-up of the Soviet Union, enriching itself by stealing state
assets and impoverishing the mass of the people. The Putin regime
represents the oligarchs and administers their collective political life.
As an anti-worker, anti-democratic force, the regime is incapable of
mounting a popular, progressive response to the US-NATO threat.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Repressive, and basing its mass appeal
largely on an archaic social conservatism, the Putin regime cannot expect
to maintain its support if the war lasts indefinitely. For many Russians,
the high-minded explanations the Putin administration advances for its Ukraine
policy jar with their experience of having their own political rights
curtailed. The hatred and distrust of the regime felt by Russian
progressives is often so intense that they do not accept that their
country is actually threatened by NATO.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>The emergence of the rebel Donbass
republics in 2014 presented the Putin regime with a serious dilemma.
Russian public opinion would not accept the imposition by the Ukrainian
far right of a pogrom regime on the Russian-speaking Donbass. At the same
time, Moscow
was intensely wary of the popular and progressive aspects of the Donbass
revolt. Though providing the Donbass republics with sufficient military
aid to allow them to survive, the Putin regime showed a clear preference
for a negotiated solution that would see the rebel republics finish up as
semi-autonomous entities within Ukraine; hence Russia’s support for the
Minsk accords. In time, bureaucratic arm-twisting from Moscow, together with the political
inadequacies of the Donbass leaderships, saw the radical trends within the
republics suppressed. The undemocratic, bureaucratised political forms
that emerged in the Donbass could not act as a pole of attraction for the
Ukrainian masses.</span></span></p></li></ol><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.25in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">D.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ukraine</span></b></p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Just as
in Russia, in Ukraine the break-up of the Soviet
Union saw the development of a ruthless, predatory capitalist
regime based on the theft of state-owned assets. While the Russian oligarchy
eventually became consolidated around Putin,
Ukraine has
seen the persistence to this day of an erratic, economically disastrous
“oligarchic pluralism” within which rival oligarchs fight each other for
control of state resources.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Minion Pro"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Minion Pro";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-language-override: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Minion Pro"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Minion Pro";">Ever
since the 2014 Maidan events, Ukraine has been run by hard-right,
ethno-nationalist regimes that have kept power centralised in Kyiv; restricted
the rights of the country’s large Russian-speaking minority; and made little
effort to stop an aggressive neo-fascist street movement from beating and intimidating
Roma (Gypsies), LGBTI people, and other elements judged to be "non-Ukrainian".<span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-language-override: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Minion Pro"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Minion Pro";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-language-override: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><span>Like its
post-Maidan predecessors, the Zelenskyi regime is selling Ukraine to
international capital while restricting workers’ and popular rights. Repressive
anti-labour laws cripple trade union organising. Once-important opposition and
left parties have been outlawed or forced underground by neo-fascist violence.</span></span></p></li></ol><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.25in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">E.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Russia</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">’s annexations</span></b></p>
<p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>In early October, following endorsement
in referenda in the districts of Kherson,
Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk,
Russia
formally annexed these regions.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>The referendums, conducted in wartime in
occupied territory, have predictably been denounced by the West as a sham.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>The Donbass results, however, have a high
degree of credibility. The breakaway region has endured eight years of
brutal attacks by the ethno-nationalist Ukrainian regime, including the
showering of Donetsk
city with anti-personnel “petal” bomblets. It is simply inconceivable that
the people of the Donbass would want to return to Ukraine,
or would not resist such an outcome.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>The referendums in the other regions are
more questionable. Their fate will be decided on the battlefield and/or in
negotiations.</span></span></p></li></ol><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0.25in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">F.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Negotiations</span></b></p>
<p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>At the time of writing, the war has been
raging for over seven months. Scores of thousands of soldiers and
civilians have died, while many more have been maimed and traumatised.
Millions of people have become refugees. The material damage to buildings,
houses and infrastructure is immense.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>At this point, there are two broad
alternatives: the war grinds on, fueled by ever more copious amounts of
Western weaponry and covert military assistance (intelligence sharing,
“volunteers”, advisers and technicians), or the belligerents start
seriously to talk to each other. Negotiations, of course, do not in
themselves guarantee a positive outcome.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span>Socialists should call for the following</span></i><span> —</span><br /></span></p></li></ol><p>
</p><ul style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>A
ceasefire in place as a prelude to negotiations.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Minion Pro"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Minion Pro";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-language-override: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><span>Washington</span><span>
must negotiate seriously with Russia
and address its absolutely legitimate security concerns. Revive the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, scuttled by Trump in 2019.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>NATO
should be dissolved.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>All
Western sanctions against Russia
should be ended. </span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Ukraine</span><span> and Russia must negotiate. Ukraine should
declare its neutrality and renounce all claims to NATO membership.</span></span></p></li><li><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Minion Pro"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Minion Pro";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-language-override: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><span>Whether
any of the annexations stand or not, Ukraine must reinstate Russian as
an official language.</span></span></p></li></ul><p> <br /></p>Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-10793140190003562812022-09-18T01:10:00.053-07:002023-03-09T18:48:47.390-08:00Ukraine war: Negotiations only way forward<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOaxKGI-QPB1qkWcbrrvpQg-aT0i1R5xKJU7_tTiHnDLepIbJwFteq0vkJ0rns4hocUgu_qxgnlnS865j2IbDXf1xybXsCMhe1G0xb0PApPqo6r_kzgM4KtIGqNGTrC8LdKj-xKgQAOnKfVfppitB2JXLWMSz76kmfgtR__WwwlIpChzrzt2ag4GqpRw/s728/map_ukraine_war_russian_invasion_09_12_2022_c.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="527" data-original-width="728" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOaxKGI-QPB1qkWcbrrvpQg-aT0i1R5xKJU7_tTiHnDLepIbJwFteq0vkJ0rns4hocUgu_qxgnlnS865j2IbDXf1xybXsCMhe1G0xb0PApPqo6r_kzgM4KtIGqNGTrC8LdKj-xKgQAOnKfVfppitB2JXLWMSz76kmfgtR__WwwlIpChzrzt2ag4GqpRw/w400-h290/map_ukraine_war_russian_invasion_09_12_2022_c.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">The
Russia-Ukraine war has been raging for over six months. Tens of
thousands of soldiers and civilians have died, many more have been
wounded and traumatised. Millions have become refugees. The material
damage is immense — towns and villages, infrastructure, transport and so
on have been smashed up.</span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span></span></span></span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span>How did this happen? </span></span></span></span> <br /></span></span></h4><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">Russia fired the so-called “first shot” to start the current war in Ukraine. But more fundamentally, the war is actually the outcome of Washington’s push over more than three decades to tear the country away from its connections with Russia and integrate it into the US-NATO anti-Russia bloc.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">Things escalated sharply with the Maidan upheaval in early 2014. Backed by the West, the rightist regime of chocolate oligarch Petro Poroshenko came to power. It downgraded the official status of the Russian language. The people in the southeast (the Donbass) and the south rose up against the attempt to strip away the rights of the ethnic Russian population. They formed self-defence units. In the rest of the country the influence of the neo-nazi far-right grew dramatically. The rebellions in Donetsk and Luhansk provinces survived, but in cities like Mariupol and Odessa they were crushed.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Ukrainian regime signed the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_agreements">Minsk accords</a> in 2014-15. These accords provided for a form of self-government for the Donbass. However the regime ignored the deals it had signed and tried to militarily conquer the rebel provinces. This campaign failed when the Ukrainians suffered some heavy defeats (particularly at the battle of Debaltseve in early 2015).</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ukrainian forces dug in along the line of control and over the years established a very heavily fortified series of trenches and strongpoints. On the eve of the Russian intervention about half of the Ukrainian army was deployed there.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ukraine’s integration into NATO was moving forward rapidly even without formal membership. NATO countries have trained thousands of Ukrainian soldiers. In May 2021 Ukraine took part in a big joint military exercise with NATO countries. In December last year, Ukraine amended its constitution to allow foreign troops to operate in the country.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">In February this year it looked very likely that Ukraine was going to invade the rebel Donbass region. There was a massive increase in shelling across the line of control into the Donbass (see map below). This was probably the immediate trigger for the Russian intervention.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigZ8KMDhqFyxar_De5E1gUzBCeiU_sfuPKP24jGD19uHngvuGXTsoBgBBISXx7yxa942VLT1dAa-It9XVYighxdafdxGobsACBq8cwuFDchcepQt1jHfDOmNJPiiZ_BoynB_ir3zllaoY_iIFT6j57RdNIGAxCPXkTwq5aQgL34e30Kjlse0Kh-BkpLA/s609/Map_Donbass%20shelling%2021.02.22.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="609" data-original-width="550" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigZ8KMDhqFyxar_De5E1gUzBCeiU_sfuPKP24jGD19uHngvuGXTsoBgBBISXx7yxa942VLT1dAa-It9XVYighxdafdxGobsACBq8cwuFDchcepQt1jHfDOmNJPiiZ_BoynB_ir3zllaoY_iIFT6j57RdNIGAxCPXkTwq5aQgL34e30Kjlse0Kh-BkpLA/w361-h400/Map_Donbass%20shelling%2021.02.22.png" width="361" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><p></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Military situation<br /></span></span></b></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">Like it or not, the reality is that Russia is highly unlikely to be militarily defeated. Its armed forces, population and economy are massively bigger than Ukraine’s. It currently occupies some 20% of Ukraine. This land contains the bulk of the country’s mineral wealth and productive capacity. Ukrainian forces are being ground down, taking very heavy and completely unsustainable losses in the face of devastating Russian artillery and air bombardments to which they have no adequate answer.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">It is also now clear that Western weapons alone won’t turn the military tide in Ukraine’s favour. The really critical stuff (heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems) has been supplied in relatively limited numbers; it needs highly trained troops to operate; a lot has been destroyed in transit or on the battlefield.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">Furthermore, <a href="https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/08/ukraine-a-frontline-report-vanishing-foreign-weapons.html">recent reports</a> have highlighted that possibly as little as 30% of Western weapons supplies have actually reached the Ukrainian military — the rest has been siphoned off into the black market, ending up who knows where.</span></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Recent Ukrainian offensives</span></span></h4><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">On August 29, Ukraine launched its much-heralded offensive towards Russian-occupied Kherson in the south. The offensive was reportedly pushed by Zelensky against the wishes of the military high command. He needed a big demonstration for his Western backers that Ukraine’s resistance was still viable so they would keep the weapons coming. Ukraine appears to have suffered a <a href="https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/08/ukraine-a-counteroffensive-that-was-destined-to-fail.html">heavy defeat</a> with big losses of equipment and several thousand soldiers killed as they advanced across the flat, open steppe.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">There has been a lot of hype about the recent military events around Kharkiv and Izium. This appears to be just that — hype. Russian forces made a premeditated withdrawal in good order to more defensible lines. This withdrawal was actually underway days before the start of the Ukrainian “offensive”. The Ukrainians met little opposition on the ground but still suffered several thousand dead at the hands of Russian artillery and air strikes.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">However, supporters of the Russian intervention at home and abroad were not in on the Russian military plans which naturally proceeded under cover of a considerable amount of deception. So the subsequent events provoked great disquiet and protest. But the basic military realities outlined above still appear to hold.</span></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Before the war: What Russia wanted</span></span></span></span></h4><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">Before the current war began, Moscow had made crystal clear what it wanted from the West. On December 18, 2021 the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/17/russia-issues-list-demands-tensions-europe-ukraine-nato"><i>Guardian</i> reported</a> on Moscow’s proposals:<br /></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;">The demands, spelled out by Moscow in full for the first time, were handed over to the US this week. They include a demand that NATO remove any troops or weapons deployed to countries that entered the alliance after 1997, which would include much of eastern Europe, including Poland, the former Soviet countries of Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and the Balkan countries.<br /></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;">Russia has also demanded that NATO rule out further expansion, including the accession of Ukraine into the alliance, and that it does not hold drills without previous agreement from Russia in Ukraine, eastern Europe, in Caucasus countries such as Georgia or in Central Asia …<br /></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;">The Russia document also calls for the two countries to pull back any short- or medium-range missile systems out of reach, replacing the previous intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) treaty that the US left in 2018.</span></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A dispassionate observer might think that the Russian proposals were actually very reasonable and would lead to a safer and more peaceful Europe. However, not surprisingly, the <i>Guardian</i> article described them as “highly contentious” and “aggressive” and said they were “likely to be rejected in western capitals as an attempt to formalise a new Russian sphere of influence over eastern Europe”.</span></span></span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">In regard to the Donbass region of Ukraine, Russia was a signatory to the 2014-15 Minsk accords which provided for a measure of autonomy for the rebel provinces. Ukraine signed the accords but repeatedly tried to militarily crush the rebels, with neo-Nazi elements playing the key role in the fighting. As mentioned above, before Russia intervened on February 24 this year, it was clear that Ukraine was preparing a full-scale invasion of the region.</span></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">West scuttled agreement in April</span></span></h4><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">According to an August 31 report by Dave DeCamp on <a href="https://news.antiwar.com/2022/08/31/report-russia-ukraine-tentatively-agreed-on-peace-deal-in-april/">Antiwar.com</a> a peace settlement was possible back in April but was scuttled by the West.<br /></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;">Russian and Ukrainian officials tentatively agreed on a potential peace deal during negotiations back in April 2022, according to a <i>Foreign Affairs</i> article by Fiona Hill and Angela Stent that cited former US officials.<br /></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;">The article reads: “According to multiple former senior US officials we spoke with, in April 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement.”<br /></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;">The terms of that settlement would have been for Russia to withdraw to the positions it held before launching the invasion on February 24. In exchange, Ukraine would “promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries”.<br /></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;">The tentative deal was the result of in-person peace talks Russian and Ukrainian officials held in Istanbul at the end of March. Virtual talks resumed after the meeting in Istanbul, but the two sides ultimately failed to reach a deal.<br /></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;">A major factor in the failed negotiated settlement was pressure from the West. According to a report from <i>Ukrainska Pravda</i>, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to stop negotiating with Russia when he visited Kyiv on April 9.</span></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Let's consider what this means: Some <i>five months ago</i> the war could have been stopped on quite reasonable terms! So the West and the Zelensky regime must bear a large part of the responsibility for all the carnage that has occurred since then.</span><br /></p><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Schroeder: Settlement possible</span></span></h4><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">In August, after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, former German Chancellor <a href="https://intellinews.com/moscow-ready-for-new-ukraine-peace-talks-252565/?source=ukraine">Gerhard Schroeder reported</a> that Russia was ready to begin peace talks on bringing the war in Ukraine to a halt.<br /></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;">Schroeder suggested that Ukraine make territorial concessions that would see Donbas become semi-autonomous in a “Swiss canton model”, which is similar to the proposed Minsk II agreement arrangement that was championed by French President Emmanuel Macron in February as a possible solution to the political crisis then.<br /></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;">[Russian Presidential spokesperson Dmitry] Peskov said that the two sides were close to a peace deal in late March as a result of several rounds of talks held in Belarus and then by video conference, but the talks collapsed after Kyiv accused Moscow of committing war crimes and massacring civilians in Bucha on the outskirts of Kyiv.<br /></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;">Schroeder also said that “armed neutrality” for Ukraine would be an alternative to NATO membership — an idea that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky himself suggested after conceding that Ukraine would never be allowed to join NATO in the first weeks of the war, when a rapid ceasefire still seemed possible to halt the invasion.<br /></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;">Ukraine also should give up all claims on the Crimea as part of any deal, said Schroeder. “The idea that the Ukrainian President Zelensky will reconquer Crimea militarily is just absurd,” he told <i>Stern</i>.<br /></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;">Finally, completing what must be Putin’s wish-list, Schroeder also called on Europe to allow the launch of Nord Stream 2, the second of two gas pipelines that run from Russia’s giant Yamal gas fields under the Baltic Sea to Germany.</span></blockquote><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Negotiations or endless war?</span></span></h4><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">Negotiations are the only realistic way forward. Above all, that means Washington, Ukraine and Russia must talk seriously. Of course, nothing is guarranteed but talking is better than the endless war that Washington has hitherto favoured.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">Whether negotiations take place while fighting continues or whether there is a ceasefire in place is not the key question. The alternative to negotiating is that the war will grind on and a lot more people will die.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">First, there is the question of a settlement in Ukraine. The outlines of a reasonable deal have always been clear: a neutral, non-NATO Ukraine and self-government for the Donbass within Ukraine. The discriminatory language law should be repealed: Russian should be an official language alongside Ukrainian (as used to be the case). Russian troops would withdraw once firm guarantees for the necessary referendums were in place.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">Then there is the wider question of a NATO pullback, a withdrawal out of range of all short-range and intermediate-range missiles in Eastern Europe and Russia and the other things Russia demanded. In 2019 the US withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia. That obviously needs to be revisited.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">How feasible is the achievement of any of the above? The battlefield stalemate and Ukraine’s dire economic position, plus Russia’s need to end a debilitating conflict and normalise its relations with the West are all factors pushing both sides towards serious talks.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;">As for meaningful talks between the US and Russia on a NATO pullback to the situation of 1997 or revisiting the IRNF Treaty, it is hard to see that happening without the development of a big antiwar movement in the key Western countries.</span></span><br /></p>Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-15348850075454730722022-08-03T23:36:00.004-07:002022-08-03T23:43:10.151-07:00Rojava & Turkey’s war on the Kurds<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3aqL6cZxggg8PIxx6LA5vz32s0N7O-B9Z-CVvkNm-FE6eXiNPw5Ey-7xWKbYG9kSRmR7r5siki-gjPZIJVa75nBuNDedRkaYOVear8EEqChw2AMqK1ri_GVVxqeEReMTHS5zMiFiAwcPixgdumJX5nhTNbJLtJDAxgx60ZZ4Hxe9NNf29j2FlBklVlw/s1000/A%20Kurdish%20areas.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="589" data-original-width="1000" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3aqL6cZxggg8PIxx6LA5vz32s0N7O-B9Z-CVvkNm-FE6eXiNPw5Ey-7xWKbYG9kSRmR7r5siki-gjPZIJVa75nBuNDedRkaYOVear8EEqChw2AMqK1ri_GVVxqeEReMTHS5zMiFiAwcPixgdumJX5nhTNbJLtJDAxgx60ZZ4Hxe9NNf29j2FlBklVlw/w400-h235/A%20Kurdish%20areas.png" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial;">[Education to Melbourne branch of Socialist Alliance, August 2, 2022.]</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div style="text-align: justify;">There are around 40-45 million Kurds — about 20 million in Turkey (a quarter of the population), 10-12 million in Iran, about 8 million in Iraq and 3.5 million in Syria. There is a Kurdish diaspora in Western Europe of as many as 2 million people, about half of them in Germany.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In each country they face a struggle for their rights. In Iraq there is the Kurdish Regional Government area but it is controlled by a neo-colonial kleptocracy headed by the Barzani family which colludes with Turkey to keep the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in check.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><a name='more'></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Turkey’s war on the Kurds</span></span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Modern Turkey was established in 1923. In the 100 years since, the ruling circles have never recognised the Kurdish people and their aspirations. At times even the Kurdish language has been illegal. Several uprisings were crushed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">In Turkey today, the Kurdish people are oppressed and every attempt by them to organise, to assert their basic rights, is met with heavy repression. The still legal Kurdish based HDP faces heavy repression. Thousands of its activists are in jail or facing charges; HDP mayors have been sacked and jailed.</div><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;">Turkey regards Kurdish activity <i>anywhere</i> to be a mortal threat. It not only fights the Kurdish movement inside Turkey but abroad.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><h4><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Northern Iraq (South Kurdistan)</span></span></h4></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In northern Iraq today, Turkey is waging a full-scale war against the Kurdish liberation forces of the PKK. The mountainous PKK-controlled area is called the Medya Defence Zones.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Despite its technical superiority, Turkey is meeting determined and effective resistance. The guerillas have prepared very well over a long period of time and have learnt many lessons from battling Turkish forces.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Turkey is trying to construct a string of fortified hilltop bases to deny the guerillas access to Turkey to the north, and Sinjar (Shengal ) and Rojava to the west. The guerillas use small teams, snipers, infiltration tactics and “war tunnels”. Female fighters make up a large part of the resistance forces. They have killed hundreds of Turkish troops (never acknowledged by the regime) and the invasion has been stalemated.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Turkey uses bombing, drones, helicopters, artillery and in desperation has resorted to the widespread use of poison gas — supposedly banned internationally — to neutralise the tunnel warfare of the guerillas.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Obviously the resistance forces have had losses but they seem to be more than holding their own.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><h4><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Attacks on Shengal (Sinjar)</span></span></h4></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Between Rojava and Iraqi Kurdistan lies Shengal (Arab name Sinjar), centred on a huge 62km-long mountain rearing out of the plain. This is the ancestral home of the Yazedis, a Kurdish people with their own distinct religion. In 2014 they were targeted by IS, betrayed by the Barzani regime, and suffered a terrible massacre.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">They were saved by the PKK and the YPG/YPJ. They set up Yazedi self-defence forces and today there is a complicated struggle between the Yazedis, the Barzani regime and the Iraqi central government. Turkey’s war on the Kurds extends to the Yazedis and there have been drone strikes, bombings and assassinations.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXhcP1W9LwCRqqM1sl2zNHy0XtBH_QxMeaKfM49O2fubVHRcwmlAxZwEL-fIK0oek6C8raII6N5aH1c_K4PbmV6FPcf1RPOCL4iU5PrM6aKdoC0kxFinylYaQCw5bvjIZbTB9Gk9OW_uTj1IFizE3Lu-KLONFkjLcIY8gK3aYuphvI4fK2HkQPxwpzcg/s3400/C.%20Turkish%20security%20zone.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2550" data-original-width="3400" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXhcP1W9LwCRqqM1sl2zNHy0XtBH_QxMeaKfM49O2fubVHRcwmlAxZwEL-fIK0oek6C8raII6N5aH1c_K4PbmV6FPcf1RPOCL4iU5PrM6aKdoC0kxFinylYaQCw5bvjIZbTB9Gk9OW_uTj1IFizE3Lu-KLONFkjLcIY8gK3aYuphvI4fK2HkQPxwpzcg/w400-h300/C.%20Turkish%20security%20zone.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> <br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Turkey’s long war on Rojava</span></span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In Syria, Turkey regards the Kurdish-inspired Rojava Revolution as a threat to its security. Of course, this is complete rubbish. Rojava does not threaten Turkey in any material way. It is the “threat” of a good example — of ethnic and religious inclusivity, the liberation of women, and respect for ecology.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Turkey has been waging a war against the Rojava Revolution for a long time. It has long been the key backer of the Islamic State. When IS failed to crush Rojava, Turkey directly invaded and occupied the westernmost canton of Afrin in early 2018. Ever since it has been a lawless place as Islamist gangs loot and terrorise. The Afrin Liberation Forces continue to strike the invaders.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">The next year Turkey further occupied a big chunk of Rojava and it is gearing up to make yet another large-scale incursion. Turkish autocrat Erdogan has stated that Turkey wants a 30km “security zone” along the border. This zone would include most of Rojava’s big population centres — there wouldn’t be much left.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Over the last month, Turkish forces have carried out hundreds of attacks against Rojava — using artillery, ground forces and drones. But Erdogan is waiting for a green light from both Russia and the US before launching an all-out assault. So far he hasn’t got it and may not in the future.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">In Afrin and elsewhere in the Turkish occupied territories, massive ethnic cleansing is taking place. Erdogan wants to replasce the Kurdish population with Islamists and Syrian refugees.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">And all the while Turkey is waging economic war on Rojava — by restricting the border crossings — and a water war — Turkey controls the headwaters of the Euphrates river and restricts the flow to damage Rojava’s agriculture but this also badly impacts both Syria and Iraq</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><h4><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The West sits on its hands</span></span></h4></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Turkey could not proceed in its war against the Kurdish people without Western backing — neither in Turkey, northern Iraq nor in Syria. The West does absolutely nothing to hinder Turkey and in reality it supports the crushing of the highly progressive Kurdish national movement. A free and organised people is a deadly threat to Western interests in the Middle East or anywhere else. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Supported by millions of people, the Kurdish movement inspired by the ideas of Abdullah Ocalan (jailed by Turkey since 1999) is today the most revolutionary force in the Middle East.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">One example: Western countries have largely refused to take responsibility for their nationals who fought for IS and were captured. Australia, for instance, has so far refused to bring back several dozen women and children stranded in the huge al-Hol refugee camp where underground Islamist cells still operate, intimidating and killing. Maintaining such camps is a huge drain on a poor and struggling country.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><h4><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What Rojava stands for</span></span></h4></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Rojava Revolution is 10 years old. It has survived against all odds. It has withstood the forces of the Syrian regime, the Islamic State gangs, and Turkey and weathered the ups and downs — both cooperation and backstabbing— of Washington and Moscow.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is an immensely progressive project.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li>In an intensely patriarchal region, Rojava has broken the mould. It has made women’s liberation a centrepiece of the revolution. It has created a women’s army (the YPJ, the Women’s Protection Units) which leads and fights and has furnished thousands of martyrs to the cause. </li></ul></div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Every genuine revolution draws women into the struggle but there has never been anything like Rojava. Apart from the military struggle, every institution has a system of co-chairs, one male and one female. There is a campaign against domestic violence with women’s centres in the villages and towns. From being completely excluded from the economy, now tens of thousands of women work in agriculture, the service and public sectors. There are scores of women’s cooperatives.</li><li>Rojava is building a system of grassroots popular democracy based on assemblies and communes.</li><li>Another hallmark of the revolution is its drive to include all ethnic and religious groups — Arabs in particular since Arab chauvinism is a foundation of the Assad regime (Syria is officially the Syrian Arab Republic). But also Assyrians (Christians), Turkmen, Circassians and so on. The SDF is now probably majority Arab.</li><li>As Peter Boyle explains in a July 5 <i>Green Left</i> article, ecology is a big focus of the revolution. This includes trying to re-green the landscape, long deliberately denuded of tree cover, and trying to develop a sustainable agriculture. All this is life and death for the people of northern Syria. Global warming is a deadly threat there and there is not much time to prepare for it.</li></ul><div style="text-align: justify;"><h4><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Fighting for socialism</span></span></h4></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As Behrouz Boochani has observed, Rojava — strictly the Autonomous Administration of Northern and East Syria — is the most progressive and democratic development ever seen in the Middle East. It is the struggle for socialism in perhaps the most unlikely place but we should learn from it and do all we can to support it.</div><p><br /><br /><br /> </p>Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-69083197993313830092022-07-28T01:16:00.007-07:002022-07-28T23:25:58.030-07:00Stop Turkey’s war on Rojava<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO9rU6l5VloGG59gxmCCqWFI4iIhXG715Rthar0F60iUpz0q5PIUy0JXHsu4qScFP6bpmP9maWYJESN6OPfRc7rByJLBENsHeMzXzhtnP_XI_3w7wkvm0Hm1IKl86m3k31DeZ-14S4QlqaRuh_6xx7iUyqOJa5A43q-mshZYfijrF8QcooOD1YWhn7wA/s850/37611918885_be2b1466ca_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="567" data-original-width="850" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO9rU6l5VloGG59gxmCCqWFI4iIhXG715Rthar0F60iUpz0q5PIUy0JXHsu4qScFP6bpmP9maWYJESN6OPfRc7rByJLBENsHeMzXzhtnP_XI_3w7wkvm0Hm1IKl86m3k31DeZ-14S4QlqaRuh_6xx7iUyqOJa5A43q-mshZYfijrF8QcooOD1YWhn7wA/w400-h266/37611918885_be2b1466ca_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /> [Speech at a rally in Melbourne on July 23.]</span></span><br /><br />Socialist Alliance joins with you in calling for the United Nations to impose a no-fly zone over the liberated territory of North and East Syria — Rojava — to block a new invasion by Turkey and its Islamist mercenaries.<p></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Turkey’s long war on Rojava</span></span></h4><p>Turkey has been waging a war against the Rojava Revolution for a long time. It has always been the key backer of the Islamic State. When IS failed to crush Rojava, Turkey directly invaded and occupied the westernmost canton of Afrin in early 2018.</p><p>The next year Turkey further occupied a big chunk of Rojava and it is gearing up to make yet another large-scale incursion. Over the last month, Turkish forces have carried out hundreds of attacks against Rojava — using artillery, ground forces and drones.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Turkey’s war on the Kurds</span></span></h4><p>Modern Turkey has never recognised the Kurdish people and their aspirations. In Turkey itself, the Kurdish people are oppressed and every attempt by them to organise, to assert their basic rights, is met with heavy repression.</p><p>In Syria, Turkey regards the Kurdish-inspired Rojava Revolution as a threat to its security. This is complete rubbish. Rojava does not threaten Turkey in any material way. It is the “threat” of a good example — of ethnic and religious inclusivity, the liberation of women, and respect for ecology.</p><p>In northern Iraq, Turkey is waging a full-scale war against the Kurdish liberation forces of the PKK. Despite its technical superiority, Turkey is meeting determined and effective resistance and has resorted to the widespread use of poison gas.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The West is complicit</span></span></h4><p>Turkey could not proceed in its war against the Kurdish people without Western backing — neither in Turkey, northern Iraq nor in Syria. The West does absolutely nothing to hinder Turkey and in reality it supports the crushing of the highly progressive Kurdish national movement. A free and organised people is a deadly threat to Western interests in the Middle East or anywhere else.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Rojava will win</span></span></h4><p>Any Turkish incursion in northern Syria will be fiercely resisted by the liberation forces. But they need the support of progressive forces around the world.</p><p><i>Impose a no-fly zone now!<br />Say no to Turkey’s war against the Kurdish people!<br />Long live the Rojava Revolution!</i></p>Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-9535455661312355742022-03-31T17:42:00.003-07:002023-03-16T21:54:41.659-07:00Open Borders or a First World Fortress?<p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">[From <a href="https://www.resistancebooks.com/product/asylum-a-socialist-view-of-the-refugee-crisis/"><i>Asylum!</i> <i>A Socialist View of the Refugee Crisis</i></a> (2022).]</span></span></p><p>The spectacular August 2021 collapse of the Western puppet government in Afghanistan in the face of the Taliban offensive generated a new wave of people seeking asylum.</p><p>Prime Minister Scott Morison made it clear that only Afghans who came through “official channels” would be resettled in Australia. If you come by boat forget it — apparently, making the slightest concession to “boat people” would open the floodgates to the dreaded people smugglers. And none of the 4200 Afghans already here on temporary visas would be permanently settled. Then Defence Minister Peter Dutton weighed in, claiming that some Afghan asylum-seekers could be terrorists or pose a threat to Australia.</p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">‘Border control’</span></span></h4><p>The huge fuss about the security of our borders and the threat of “boat people” is carefully designed political propaganda, aimed at keeping people fearful and prevent them reaching out to other human beings simply seeking a safe haven in a terrifying world.</p><p>Above all, the anti-refugee propaganda is designed to stop ordinary people focusing on the <i>real</i> threat — the absolutely overriding threat — to their life and liberty, that is, the capitalist system which subordinates all human needs to the enrichment of the capitalist class. That’s why, despite living in such an objectively rich country, we have such massive, seemingly intractable problems in so many basic areas: Aged care, disability care, education, housing, healthcare, job security, racism and indigenous disadvantage, taking urgent action on climate change, and women’s equality and safety.</p><p>And as climate change bites ever deeper, Australia could well have its own internal refugees before too long — people forced out of low-lying coastal areas by rising sea levels, people forced out of bushfire devastated areas, and people forced out of areas which have become simply too hot for human habitation. Where will all these people go? Will our benificent governments actually look after them or will they just swell the ranks of the homeless and semi-homeless?</p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Anti-refugee propaganda is confected</span></span></h4><p>And, we might well ask, if “boat people” are such a threat, why are “plane people” — asylum seekers who come by plane, of which there are far more — not similarly targeted? Even imperialist-sponsored scapegoating should have some logical consistency!</p><p>Moreover, in 2019, <a href="https://www.budgetdirect.com.au/travel-insurance/research/tourism-statistics.html">9.4 million tourists came</a> — 9.4 million!! If a few thousand “boat people” are supposed to frighten us witless, this figure should have us scrambling for the rocketships to look for another planet!</p><p>Furthermore, as of March 31, 2019 there were 2.4 million people in Australia on <a href="https://www.vsure.com.au/temporary-visa-holders-reach-2-3-million/">temporary visas</a>! (This figure includes overseas students and people here for work.)</p><p>These are very large numbers, even if they are not all here at any one time. But were Dutton and Morrison jumping up and down about the dangers? Not at all. These numbers are all good and necessary for big business.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Why so many asylum seekers?</span></span></h4><p>Tens of millions of people are on the move globally, both within countries and across the borders, seeking safety and a tolerable life, because Western imperialism has literally created a hell on earth. The depredations of the giant Western corporations, imperialism’s endless wars in the Third World against any challenge to its grip, and its support for a whole range of ruthless client regimes have made life intolerable in places like Central America, Syria, and Afghanistan.</p><p>The bulk of these refugees take shelter in other nearby Third World countries. For example, it is estimated that there are more than 3.3 million Afghan refugees in <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/11/afghan-refugees-deported-from-iran-as-humanitarian-crisis-deepens">Iran</a> and some 3 million in <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Pakistan-shuts-door-to-further-Afghan-refugees">Pakistan</a>. <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2021/8/4/the-afghan-refugee-crisis-brewing-on-turkeys-eastern-border">Turkey</a> hosts almost 4 million refugees, 3.6 million of which are Syrians who have fled the civil war there.</p><p>And the West’s failure to tackle climate change with the necessary urgency is soon going to make whole areas of the planet literally uninhabitable — and provoke gigantic waves of desperate refugees, dwarfing anything hitherto seen.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Fundamental social change the only solution</span></span></h4><p>Imperialism’s grip on the Third World has to be broken. We need radical, emancipatory liberation movements that struggle for power. The Autonomous Administration in Northern and Eastern Syria (the Kurdish-led Rojava Revolution) is an inspiring example of a feminist, democratic, pluralist revolution but it is fighting for its survival at great cost against a host of enemies — including the veiled hostility of the West.</p><p>We need massive, disinterested technology transfer and aid to the countries of the Third World to help them cope with climate change and all the associated problems (especially sustainable energy generation and food supply).</p><p>And we also need radical social change in the heartlands of imperialism.</p><p>Without fundamental social change there cannot be a solution to climate change and all its associated problems. For example, there is currently more than enough food produced to feed the world’s population. But many poor people cannot afford it, a lot of it is wasted, and a lot goes to feed livestock instead. Once the grip of the big capitalist corporations on the food supply is broken, a sustainable, people-centred system can be created.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Open the borders</span></span></h4><p>Socialists have long called for open borders, that is, for the right of people to move freely between countries.</p><p>The <i>Wikipedia</i> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_border">Open Border page</a> argues that:</p><blockquote><p>Pervasive control of international borders is a relatively recent phenomenon in world history. In the past, many states had open international borders either in practice or due to a lack of any legal restriction. Many authors, such as John Maynard Keynes, have identified the early 20th Century and particularly World War I as the point when such controls became common.</p></blockquote><p>And even today, we do have open borders in specific areas, most notably Western Europe. The Schengen Agreement creates a big open-borders area embracing the European Union and the Nordic countries: You don’t need a visa to move between these countries. (The United Kingdom was part of this until Brexit cut the link.)</p><p>Of course, these are all rich First World countries. The problem arises when people from the Third World attempt to enter the First World. Then all the various walls come into play (above all, the Mediterranean).</p><p>Clearly, a genuine open borders policy for Australia would be an enormous shift from current practice. Capitalism needs an expanding population (for markets and a labour force) so it needs high migration levels. But the numerically tiny capitalist class also needs instruments and means to keep the vast majority under its thumb.</p><p>For the capitalist class, tight regulation of a country’s borders is a key means of social control. As John Howard notoriously put it: “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.” Lib-Lab political leaders need xenophobia and racism to distract and confuse people. Hence the demonisation of asylum seekers who arrive by boat.</p><p>The current federal Coalition government practice of deporting back to New Zealand any NZ nationals who have served prison terms here of 12 months or more — even if they have lived in Australia almost all their lives — is another example of the usefulness of closed borders to our rulers. They want Australian residency to be conditional, easily subject to revocation, and to pit people against each other.</p><p>The campaign against “boat people” implies that if any such asylum seekers are settled in Australia most of Asia will empty out and try to come here. This is a modern version of the infamous “yellow peril” scares of the past. We can make several observations:<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><p>Firstly, if conditions in their Third World homelands were not so dangerous or simply intolerable, most people would stay put and merely leave to temporarily visit other places.</p></li><li><p>Secondly, as the tourism and residency figures suggest, even if millions of people came and settled here, Australia could cope. Of course, we need to make the big switch to a truly sustainable economy in all respects but that would be no problem if capitalism were replaced by a system centred on meeting people’s needs rather than making profits for the capitalists.</p></li><li><p>Thirdly, climate change means millions almost certainly will seek to escape and come to rich First World Australia anyway. Are we going to join Morrison and Dutton and their gang and try to repel them on the high seas or the beaches? Or are we going to welcome them and fight together to build a society fit for human beings to live in?</p></li></ul><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Spurious arguments</span></span></h4><p>Australia has always had a significant baseline of anti-migration and anti-refugee propaganda.<br />Populationists, for example, claim that Australia has a limited “carrying capacity” and can’t support a larger population. But there is no fixed “carrying capacity”. If our entire food production system was freed from its current profit-oriented, capitalist basis, we could sustainably feed a much larger population and help the rest of the world as well.</p><p>Australian agriculture and food production today is the result of capitalist development. It is focused on profit above all. Take the water crisis in the Murray-Darling: Agribusiness diverts huge amounts of water for completely inappropriate crops (especially water-intensive cotton, rice and almonds) while towns downstream are rationed. There is actually a <i>market</i> in water, which many small farms now can’t afford and are forced to shut.</p><p>Other voices blame all our urban problems (bloated sprawling cities, the housing crisis, inadequate public transport, lack of green space, etc.) on sheer numbers of people and on migration in particular. But these problems are due to the absolute dominance of capitalist, profit-centred development in our cities. Governments are opposed to building quality public housing on the massive scale required because that would cut out the profit-hungry “developers” that rule here. The lack of adequate public transport networks is due to the prioritisation of private motor vehicles, a rich source of profit for big capitalist interests. And so on and so on.</p><p>The problem is not too many people, whether migrants or refugees. It is the malignant social and economic system in whose toils we are forced to live and work — capitalism with its profits-before-people DNA.<br /></p>Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-39396792751264864182022-03-31T16:26:00.002-07:002023-03-16T21:56:45.361-07:00Introduction to Asylum!<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">[Introduction to the pamphlet <a href="https://www.resistancebooks.com/product/asylum-a-socialist-view-of-the-refugee-crisis/"><i>Asylum! A Socialist View of the Refugee Crisis</i></a> (2022)<i>.</i>]</span></span><br /></p><p>Our world is in chaos. Within countries and between countries, tens of millions of people in the Third World are on the move — they are fleeing war, oppression, gang violence, grinding poverty and escalating climate change. They are desperately looking for a way out.</p><p>And now the Russian invasion of Ukraine has produced a fresh crop of refugees. Being forced to leave your home and seek safety in another country will always be traumatic but for various reasons the Ukrainian refugees are generally being treated differently to those from the Third World.</p><p>As climate change bites deeper and deeper, the refugee crisis is only going to get radically worse. Whole regions of the world are on the cusp of becoming uninhabitable. This will result in very large-scale population displacement.</p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Misery caused by the West</span></span></h4><p>The misery of the Third World is a result of the rapacity of the giant Western corporations and the wars fought by the Western powers to maintain their world empire. Climate change is fundamentally due to the mad, unsustainable profligacy of the imperialist West and its refusal to make the urgent, large-scale transition to renewables that is necessary to avert catastrophe.</p><p>Australia is an integral part of this apparatus of madness. It was a loyal supporter of the United States in its criminal war in Afghanistan and it supported the Sri Lankan regime in its war against Sri Lanka’s oppressed Tamil minority — two conflicts which generated the largest cohort of those who tried to reach Australia by boat. And as the OECD’s highest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases and the world’s largest exporter of coal, Australia is a significant contributor to climate change.</p><p>The solution is really very simple. We need to reverse course and work to create a better world — a world without war and misery — and take urgent steps to tackle climate change. Then people wouldn’t be forced to make desperate attempts to find sanctuary in faraway places.</p><p>But while the solution may be simple, actually achieving it will require a stupendous political struggle by hundreds of millions of people and the creation of a society which decisively puts people’s needs before business profits.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Building walls</span></span></h4><p>The Berlin Wall served the West well as a symbol of “communist totalitarianism”. When it came down in 1989, there was a tremendous outpouring of triumphalist propaganda. Whether the wall was good or bad or why it was erected, the West’s response to it was pure hypocrisy and that is so evident today.</p><p>In fact, the Western governments are 100% in favour of building walls around their own countries to hold back the tide of refugees and they are constructing them at a great rate.</p><p>As the article by Nathan Akehurst in this pamphlet shows, Europe has built a “wall” through the Mediterranean which it is constantly strengthening — at tremendous human cost. The European Union also subsidises the authoritarian Turkish regime to keep several million Syrian refugees away from Fortress Europe.</p><p>On June 3, 2021 the Danish parliament voted in a proposal of the Social Democrat-led government, allowing it to detain asylum seekers outside the country while their claims are processed. Discussions have been held with the government of … Rwanda, a desperately poor country in the middle of Africa! Australia’s cruel offshore detention regime is now being emulated by other imperialist countries. The United States has a wall on its southern border to hold back the tide of desperate refugees from Central America, fleeing the chaos and violence in their countries — chaos ultimately created by Washington.</p><p>There is definitely no room at the inn. Costa Gavras wonderful 2009 film, <i>Eden is West</i>, shows the journey of one young asylum seeker as he travels from an unknown country to Greece and eventually to Paris, in constant danger of apprehension by the police and deportation back to his starting point. It is the story of so many.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">‘Border protection’</span></span></h4><p>Our government and the media fan the hysteria over “border protection”. A major task of our navy seems to be the interception of wretched boatloads of refugees and turning them back to Indonesia. There is a even a TV show called <i>Border Security: Australia's Front Line</i> doing its bit for xenophobia and Fortress Australia.</p><p>Of course, the real threats to Australia’s ordinary people come not from <i>outside</i> our borders but from <i>inside</i> — from the capitalist corporations and their Lib-Lab governments which are steadily destroying our economic security and civil liberties and now the very climatic conditions which make life on earth possible.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Internal climate refugees</span></span></h4><p>In Australia, the devastating floods along our eastern seaboard in March this year have undoubtedly created a large number of internal climate refugees. The northern NSW town of Lismore has effectively been destroyed. Thousands of residents are now homeless: their homes are gone, often they were not insured and it’s clear that the town will have to be rebuilt somewhere else — somewhere safer.</p><p>There is plenty of money for the confected “national security” promoted by our leaders — the planes, missiles, submarines, tanks etc. designed to plug Australia into the US war drive against China. But if “national security” means anything surely it should mean protecting the lives and living standards of the people who live here. First of all, this means drastic action to tackle climate change at source. But it also has to include people protection measures such as a massive program of quality public housing to shelter people forced to relocate (by floods, fires, extreme heat and rising sea levels). </p><p>Our leaders will resist such a rational and people-before-profit policy with all their might. And all the while they sow hatred and division to divert us from a struggle against their profit-mad system which is responsible.<br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"> * * *<br /></p><p>The government must be forced to change its policy on those who come here seeking asylum. For a start: it must shut down all the detention centres, offshore and on the mainland; allow all asylum seekers to immediately apply for asylum in Australia; and let all asylum seekers seeking refugee status be accepted into the community.</p><p>Socialist Alliance’s <a href="https://socialist-alliance.org/policy#migrant-asylum-seekers">refugee policy</a> provides a comprehensive list of demands for a humane approach to those who come to Australia seeking safety.<br /> <br /></p>Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-79860405393560827692022-03-25T19:38:00.003-07:002022-10-12T20:28:31.573-07:00Hard rubbish collection: Endpoint of consumerism<p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij5FNtcQW-M8GpTJATUOtzPtD1CbSW_vY70adr2MeJsgqBigSVhHk14B_MvlH-_I7K33vspft2Toj9HazEdg4LelEnNCjDQMzcnNRpXMU0CS_b0i3L2fqZAYw4Z4uLobcoERbphcSYSUS2UCpnRaROb6pMcG8GhyfkA4eEOgMax4jrywtJphxT85gCzA/s4160/IMG20220326112322.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1970" data-original-width="4160" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij5FNtcQW-M8GpTJATUOtzPtD1CbSW_vY70adr2MeJsgqBigSVhHk14B_MvlH-_I7K33vspft2Toj9HazEdg4LelEnNCjDQMzcnNRpXMU0CS_b0i3L2fqZAYw4Z4uLobcoERbphcSYSUS2UCpnRaROb6pMcG8GhyfkA4eEOgMax4jrywtJphxT85gCzA/w400-h190/IMG20220326112322.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>The Melbourne suburb of Brunswick where I live is a long way from flood-ravaged Lismore and we’ve suffered no climate disaster but in some streets there is definitely a resemblance at the moment.<p></p><p>It's the biannual municipal hard rubbish collection!</p><p>I don’t know what it’s like in wealthy Toorak, but here it’s always a source of great local interest and amazement. This time there seems to be a lot more stuff and, along with the usual crap, some of it looks to be very good quality.</p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Everything under the sun</span></span></h4><p>All up, the display is a sort of museum of modern living. There are microwaves; lots of mattresses; metal tubing for tables, clothes racks and all sorts of things; chipboard furniture, from the seemingly new to water-damaged crap; lots of indoor and outdoor chairs; lounge suites; crockery, cutlery and other kitchen stuff; garden refuse; and just about everything you can think of — it’s all out on the street waiting for pickup and its journey to who knows where.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Recycling</span></span></h4><p>Of course, seeing all this stuff raises the question of recycling. OK, we’re all in favour of it. <br />There’s actually a quite a bit of informal recycling. We’re not supposed to grab other people’s hard rubbish — that’s meant to be reserved for the contractors — but naturally everyone checks out the piles and grabs anything that looks useful for them.</p><p>You see people peering closely at a heap and occasionally carrying something away. Sometimes cars pull up and people start piling stuff into the boot.</p><p>One can’t help but think: Once it’s collected what’s going to happen to all this stuff? Is it going to be picked over and the good stuff re-sold? Is it going to be sorted into categories (crap, metal, electrical, etc)? Is it actually going to be recycled in any way? I think most people would assume that nothing much is going to happen at all — a cynical public assumes most of it will simply end up in landfill, that is, buried in a hole in the ground.</p><p>Piled up on the streets of Brunswick at the moment seems to be a good part of the annual output of entire factories. Is there something wrong with the way we are living (or forced to live, to be more precise)?</p><p><b></b></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Built to be used and chucked</span></span></h4><p>In the piles on the footpaths are a lot of electrical goods — household appliances, computer stuff and musical stuff. Occasionally there is a note on an appliance saying “This works” but most have nothing. They often look brand new but probably don’t work — most likely for want of a tiny cheap part which you can’t get for love or money or only after a stupendous amount of effort. Truly, all this is the endpoint of consumerism. Stuff is produced, used — and ends up on the street in the hard rubbish collection.</p><p>I don’t blame people for consumerism. Some people get carried away but capitalism promotes consumerism — it needs consumerism to sell the endless river of stuff it produces. Some of it is necessary, some of it is simply crap but in nearly all cases it is produced with no thought of tomorrow. If the whole world were to live like this we are doomed.</p><p>Things could be produced to be readily repaired and to be easily recycled at the end of their useful lives. But not under the system of profit-crazed capitalism that we endure. If we want to save our planet and make rational and sustainable use of its resources, we’ll have to fight for a different economic system. This one is plain crazy.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCTwi5Np0RoILhveCtqMzXrtMXKxIgaGkJjElZ-zTpu8Mr-UaaOdrGu_E0y_FzeJwt0-MPxS-oX0U9t61JfUjxG5YN-x9AQrDMokWFfGxkF3VVhS5XwCd8K9EVC5pUQ2jA5jW62dC_TtV0AswGH8N9sQFEPTRO8U28XLEYGpbDywsxYwzvGnttQD7nGg/s4160/IMG20220326113216.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1970" data-original-width="4160" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCTwi5Np0RoILhveCtqMzXrtMXKxIgaGkJjElZ-zTpu8Mr-UaaOdrGu_E0y_FzeJwt0-MPxS-oX0U9t61JfUjxG5YN-x9AQrDMokWFfGxkF3VVhS5XwCd8K9EVC5pUQ2jA5jW62dC_TtV0AswGH8N9sQFEPTRO8U28XLEYGpbDywsxYwzvGnttQD7nGg/w400-h190/IMG20220326113216.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-38055211730135240692022-03-23T21:34:00.005-07:002022-03-23T23:50:51.187-07:00‘National security’ or protect people here and now?<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8-n8D3AGtGfm7lURjhi9Cv_AenBzrizekcEb66lxT9BB-tvb6acpFZs1iXHMzQuZgIJXEmAoeGi4fY9IYhvfwTnSlqm9H_oAxvxJ16QJo-ilReVbL-4CCH3j9oMea5111e8Ex8BdotLD7itU1Dgp-1Wwr4RBkZyHxEp3YCofbKsR_lL2DItQtR95ZIg/s862/Lismore%20floods.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="485" data-original-width="862" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8-n8D3AGtGfm7lURjhi9Cv_AenBzrizekcEb66lxT9BB-tvb6acpFZs1iXHMzQuZgIJXEmAoeGi4fY9IYhvfwTnSlqm9H_oAxvxJ16QJo-ilReVbL-4CCH3j9oMea5111e8Ex8BdotLD7itU1Dgp-1Wwr4RBkZyHxEp3YCofbKsR_lL2DItQtR95ZIg/w400-h225/Lismore%20floods.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">As the lives of residents along Australia’s east coast were smashed by unprecedented floods, Prime Minister Scott Morrison was talking up “national security”. The Coalition government has committed to spending hundreds of billions of dollars on beefing up our armed forces.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">“Our world is becoming increasingly uncertain, so it’s important we take steps now to protect our people and our national interest over the coming decades”, Morrison said in a <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/pm-goes-on-military-recruitment-drive-amid-china-threat-20220309-p5a352">March 10 speech</a>. The <a href="https://www.pmc.gov.au/national-security">website</a></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"> of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet claims that “National security is all about keeping Australians safe and secure.”</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">Actually, it’s not. It's about the interests of the tiny capitalist class who rule the country. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">When the code phrases of "national security" and "national interest" are trotted out we are all meant to stand to attention and salute the flag. They are meant to trump all other concerns that people may have. Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party leaders certainly understand it that way. Albanese's pathetic response to the Coalition's war drive is to claim that Labor will <i>actually deliver</i> the weapons systems that Morrison has merely promised.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span></span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Protecting all of us</span><br /></span></span></h4><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">Surely, if those capitalist propaganda staples of the “national interest” and “national security” mean anything they should mean protecting the wellbeing of the people who live here — <i>all of us</i>, not just the handful of corporate rich. Australia is not under threat from any other country. But right now we are under an<i> immediate and existential threat</i> from climate change due to global warming.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">The planned new planes, missiles, submarines, tanks and extra troops are designed to plug Australia into the US war drive against China. This is Morrison’s idea of “national security” and the “national interest”. It shouldn’t be ours. A stronger military will do nothing — <i>absolutely nothing</i> — to help with the <i>actual challenge</i> that faces us, i.e., dealing with global warming and its consequences — let alone dealing with aged care, healthcare and a host of other pressing social problems.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">First of all, and most obviously, we have to take drastic and urgent action to tackle climate change at source. That is, stop extracting and using fossil fuels completely and achieve net zero carbon emissions as rapidly as possible.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">But even if climate virtue suddenly and miraculously descended over the whole planet, big climate changes are already in the pipeline and won’t easily be reversed. So climate action also has to include some far-reaching measures to protect people and give us a chance of survival in the unprecedentedly hostile environment that is fast developing.</span></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Internal climate refugees</span></span></span></h4><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">In Australia, the recent devastating floods along our eastern seaboard have displaced a lot of people. We now have our very own internal climate refugees.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">For example, the northern NSW town of Lismore has effectively been destroyed (see picture above). Thousands of residents are now homeless: their homes are gone, often they were not insured. There is a lot of brave talk about rebuilding the town but in, say, five years time, how many current residents will still be there? And it’s clear that if the town is to be rebuilt, it will have to be somewhere safer.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">As climate change bites ever deeper, more and more regions will become uninhabitable — due to floods, bushfires, extreme heat, rising sea levels, whether singly or in some combination. More and more people will be forced to move from where they are living and go somewhere safer.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">It is true that homes can be made more resilient in the face of floods or bushfires but there are severe limits to this. There is no escaping the fact that human settlement in some areas of the country will have to be abandoned.</span></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Homelessness crisis</span></span></h4><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">However, when people are forced to leave their home (whether because it was destroyed or the area is no longer habitable), they will often be abandoning their main asset. Most will not be in a position to simply buy or build another home. Homelessness will rachet up to unprecedented levels.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">Homelessness was a growing problem even before the recent floods. On census night in 2016, 116,000 people were homeless, according to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_Australia">Australian Bureau of Statistics</a>. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">Under the current regime of profit-driven developers the problem of homelessness and lack of housing will never be solved. If we want to avoid shanty towns and tent suburbs around our major cities, we need governments to commit to a massive program of quality public housing.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">We need government housing authorities capable of building scores of thousands of high quality homes every year. In the face of rising temperatures these need to be properly insulated. Rents should be tied to income and kept low. Obviously the most needy should be given priority but public housing should be available to all.</span></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What about insurance?</span></span></span></h4><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">Insurance is a racket, an expensive gamble that we are forced to make due to the fear of losing everything due to misfortune or disaster.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">But the Australia Institute’s <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/mice-floods-and-the-climate-crisis-why-your-insurance-wont-cover-society-wide-catastrophes/">Richard Denniss explains</a> that insurance can’t cover us for society-wide disasters like the consequences of climate change:</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;">… If a forecaster says something’s likely to happen, then it’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to get insurance against it …</span></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;">While insurance companies make their profit out of our fear of an individual catastrophe, they would lose their entire business if they insured against society-wide catastrophe. We take it for granted that insurance companies will pay out if an accident hits our car or house but most people rarely think about what will happen if catastrophe hits us all at once. Which is why the small print on insurance premiums is so small …</span></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;">For the same reasons, a growing number of insurers are reluctant to insure Australians living in the tropics against storm damage.</span></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;">Just as no bookmaker will take a $10bn bet on the flip of a coin, no insurance company will take a bet that nuclear power stations won’t have accidents or that sea levels aren’t going to rise in the next 50 years.</span></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;">While you can still get cyclone insurance in northern Australia, the prices are rising rapidly as global temperatures rise and tropical cyclone intensity increases. In response, the Morrison government announced a $10bn “reinsurance pool” to help lower insurance premiums for northern Australians. But not even the insurance industry thinks that will work.</span></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;">According to the chief executive of Suncorp, Steve Johnston, “disaster mitigation, rather than disaster clean-up, is where Australia should focus. It is a sad fact that 97 cents of every dollar of disaster funding goes to recovery and rebuild. The remaining three cents spent on preparation and mitigation is but a small drop in a rapidly filling bucket.”</span></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">In this situation, why have house insurance at all? If everyone had the right to a basic house, then why would you need insurance? Homeowners take out insurance because they know the consequences of losing their house in an uncaring capitalist society is a disaster from which you may never recover. But if you knew that society would do its best to look after you, things would be different.</span></span><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Where’s the money coming from?</span></span></span></h4><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">Australian state and federal governments are capitalist through and through. They are there to represent the capitalist class which includes, among others, the landlords, speculators and the euphemistically misnamed “developers” who are attacking the suburbs of our cities like a permanent plague of locusts.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">The huge government expenditures of the last two pandemic years shows what governments can do — if they want to. It should now be a little harder for capitalist ideologues to dismiss a demand for increased social expenditures by raising the classic cry “Where’s the money going to come from?”</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">The financial resources to tackle climate change and its consequences are here in abundance. Socialists call for measures such as the following:<br /></span></span></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">We need to nationalise the key elements of the economy — the banks, mines, transport system and so on.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">The corporate tax rate should be returned to the 49% level of the 1980s. We need to make sure it is actually paid and crack down hard on tax avoidance. We need to establish a steeply progressive personal taxation system — those on the bottom pay little or nothing, those at the top pay a lot.<br /></span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">We need to scrap the orders for the planes, missiles, submarines, tanks and the other useless military hardware. Military spending should be slashed and our armed forces reconfigured for the actual defence of the country’s borders.</span></span></li></ul><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">When spin doesn't work<br /></span></span></h4><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">In normal times invoking "national security" and the "national interest" gets a lot of traction. But climate change truly changes everything. The floods and bushfires affect people in the most direct and immediate way. When your house and property has been destroyed, the normal deceptive spin of capitalist politicians isn't going to work very well. People expect the government to come forward with assistance and solutions.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">Many people probably think that talk about China and Russia is all very well but meanwhile how are we going to live if floods, bushfires and searing heatwaves become normal frequent occurrences? What happens when my house is destroyed and I have no insurance because it was too expensive or the insurance companies wouldn't offer it where I live?<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">The only solution is to fight for a people-centred “national security” policy where looking after the mass of the population is the highest priority of all government policy. Obviously, this would require some fundamental changes in our society. This won't be easy but there is no other way.</span></span><br /></p>Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-41384335361270422082022-02-25T00:17:00.006-08:002023-03-09T18:49:11.387-08:00Ukraine: Who is perverting history?<p style="text-align: justify;">Russia has finally invaded Ukraine. Socialists around the world have condemned the invasion and called for a Russian withdrawal and negotiations. They have also condemned the relentless eastwards expansion of NATO which Russian leaders rightly regard as an existential crisis for their country.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The solution would seem to be a neutral Ukraine in the manner of Austria or Finland, the withdrawal of US offensive missiles from Eastern Europe, and the federalisation of the Ukraine giving democratic autonomy to the Russian-speaking Luhansk and Donetsk regions in the east.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Russian invasion is a boon for the Western governments and their corporate media enablers. In their usual manner there will be all sorts of posturing and little light will be shed on what are the real issues in the conflict.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Putin & Lenin</span></span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;">The February 23, 2022 edition of the Melbourne <i>Age</i> carried an article from the <i>New York Times</i> by Michael Schwirtz, Maria Varenikova and Rick Gladstone. It was headed<a href="https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/putin-s-perverted-history-lesson-20220222-p59ypi.html"> “Putin’s perverted history lesson”</a>.</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">In his speech to the Russian nation, President Vladimir Putin buoyed his case for codifying the cleavage of two rebel territories from Ukraine by arguing that the very idea of Ukrainian statehood was a fiction.</p></blockquote><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">With a conviction of an authoritarian unburdened by historical nuance, Putin declared Ukraine an invention of Bolshevik revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin, who he said had mistakenly endowed Ukraine with a sense of statehood by allowing it autonomy within the newly created Soviet state.</p></blockquote><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">“Modern Ukraine was entirely and fully created by Russia, more specifically the Bolshevik, communist Russia,” Putin said. “This process began practically immediately after the 1917 revolution, and moreover Lenin and his associates did it in the sloppiest way in relation to Russia — by dividing, tearing from her pieces of her own historical territory.”</p></blockquote><p>This is probably a fair representation of Putin’s criticism of Lenin. However, the authors of the article peddle their own perversion of history. The article continues:</p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote>The newly created Soviet government under Lenin that drew so much of Putin’s scorn on Monday would eventually crush the nascent independent Ukrainian state. During the Soviet era, the Ukrainian language was banished from schools and its culture was permitted to exist only as a cartoonish caricature of dancing Cossacks in puffy pants.</blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Under Stalin’s bureaucratic regime Ukrainian national rights were indeed trampled on. However, this was in complete contravention of the nationalities policy advocated and fought for by Lenin in the early years of the Russian Revolution. In particular, Lenin championed the policy of “Ukrainisation” designed to undo several centuries of Russian colonial domination and restore the primacy of the Ukrainian language and culture.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Between the early revolutionary years and the Stalin years lies a sharp break — a real political counter-revolution. Conflating these two periods is the stock-in-trade of Western anti-communist writers. In their eyes, Lenin equals Stalin and the whole Soviet project was damned from the start.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Formation of the Soviet Union</span></span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;">In 1922 there was a struggle within the Russian Communist Party over the formal constitution of the Soviet Union which showed clearly, even at this early stage, the different approaches of Lenin and Stalin to the national question.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Prior to the formation of the Soviet Union the different republics were united in a loose union based on bilateral treaties. Stalin wanted the various non-Russian republics to enter the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR) as autonomous regions with central authority based in Moscow, i.e., the Russian republic would clearly have more rights than the others.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Lenin was vehemently opposed to Stalin’s “autonomisation” plan. He regarded it as an expression of Great Russian chauvinism. After a sharp fight Lenin carried the day and the Soviet Union — the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics — was formally established in December 1922. It brought together Byelorussia, the RSFSR, the Transcaucasian Federation (comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia), and Ukraine in a union of equals, each with the right to secede.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhWKGlHJF1lXfm31WCfWZZiHNRnyAHiyDvuhj4IF887OUNci6RzDi0_zQgait6Vm-kmIIel6SBV5ZdugLY41XcWI_nHJS-bfonbBQhJI6dg7hMOZIaWtIp9GC1HkMFw32UNJLvY9Pvc0FRpYkeTtpaYi-shdCrWzNBi1rsBhlTU5Vz65OiX8OluV-mVQg=s264" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="264" data-original-width="191" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhWKGlHJF1lXfm31WCfWZZiHNRnyAHiyDvuhj4IF887OUNci6RzDi0_zQgait6Vm-kmIIel6SBV5ZdugLY41XcWI_nHJS-bfonbBQhJI6dg7hMOZIaWtIp9GC1HkMFw32UNJLvY9Pvc0FRpYkeTtpaYi-shdCrWzNBi1rsBhlTU5Vz65OiX8OluV-mVQg=w289-h400" width="289" /></a></div> <span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Ivan Dzyuba</b><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;">By a strange historical quirk, in the midst of the current crisis the noted Ukrainian intellectual <a href="http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CD%5CZ%5CDziubaIvan.htm">Ivan Dzyuba</a> passed away on February 22. Dzyuba was the most prominent figure in the 1960s generation of left-wing dissidents in the Ukraine. (In the post-Soviet era he was Ukraine’s Minister of Culture 1992-94.)</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In 1965 he wrote <i>Internationalism or Russification?</i> In the Soviet Union it was denied publication and circulated clandestinely; later it was published in the West in various editions. In 1972 Dzyuba was arrested; in poor health he was eventually forced to recant his views. However, his book remains and shows clearly the approach of Lenin to the Ukrainian question.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In the introduction to the 1974 edition by Monad Press of New York (a publishing imprint associated with the Socialist Workers Party), M.I. Holubenko wrote that:</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Internationalism or Russification?</i> is an impressive marshalling of evidence from a Marxist-Leninist point of view to demonstrate the devastating political, social, economic, and cultural effects of Stalin’s nationalities policy, and the continuation of these policies by succeeding post-Stalin regimes. The central political thrust of the book is a call for a return to Leninism. (p. viii)</p></blockquote><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ukrainisation</span></span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;">In his book Dzyuba outlines the policy of Ukrainisation which was the official policy of the Communist Party and the Soviet state in the early years of the revolution.</p><blockquote><p>As is well known, during the 1920s in the Ukraine the CP(B)U [ Communist Party of Ukraine] conducted … an enormous national-educational work which went down in the history of the party and of the Ukraine under the name of “Ukrainisation” (or “de-Russification”).</p></blockquote><blockquote><p>The Ukrainian language was introduced into all spheres of social, civic and industrial life, knowledge of Ukrainian history and culture was fostered, there developed a sense of national belonging and of the national duties of a Ukrainian communist; in literature and journalism extensive discussion of nationality problems was permitted, and particularly the satirising of such shameful phenomena as hatred of one’s native language and culture, national nihilism and betrayal.</p></blockquote><blockquote><p>Preparatory work was being done for the Ukrainisation of the proletariat, of the large cities, and industrial centres. At the same time the need was stressed for the “distinguishing of Russified workers, who use a mixed Ukrainian language, from Russian workers”. Regarding the latter, as a national minority in the Ukraine, “careful treatment … and protection of their interests” was recommended; for the former, explanation of their national membership and their national duties. (p. 52)</p></blockquote><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Treatment of Russian population</span></span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;">Dzyuba expands on this last question in his 12-point summary of what Ukrainisation meant.</p><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><p> … The education of the Russian population of Ukraine in a spirit of respect and considerate friendliness towards Ukrainian national life — national construction, culture, language, traditions, etc. The encouragement of the Russian population to acquaint themselves with Ukrainian culture, history and language, and to take part in the creation of new national cultural values. The safeguarding of the national-cultural needs of Russians as a national minority in the Ukraine. (p. 128)</p></blockquote></div><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Rights of national minorities</span></span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;">In so many countries around the world ruling elites exploit or foster national and ethnic differences to maintain their power. One expression of this policy is discrimination against the language of a minority.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Thus, for instance, in 1956 in Ceylon (today Sri Lanka) the Sinhala-dominated government declared Sinhalese the sole official language of the country. This immediately made the Tamil minority second-class citizens in their own country and affected their education and employment opportunities. The extreme chauvinist policy of the ruling elite later led to a terrible civil war.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">One of the drivers of the current crisis in the Ukraine was the 2014 attempt by the right-wing nationalist post-Maidan government in Kiev to downgrade Russian language rights. This helped spur the formation of the Luhansk and Donetsk "people’s republics" in the Russian-speaking east of the country.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The new Ukrainian elites regard the Soviet past as an unrelieved nightmare. They are busy enriching themselves; rewriting history; rehabilitating pro-Nazi, antisemitic figures from the past like Stepan Bandera; and banning communist organisations. They do not want to acknowledge the early revolutionary years of the Ukraine. Ivan Dzyuba’s outstanding work is indeed a closed book for them. <br /></p>Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-8355975037838589352021-09-15T21:28:00.004-07:002021-12-22T20:04:18.528-08:00Pandemic shines harsh light on privatisation & outsourcing<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhInWC735ldUGcg8lAhI1uHfXe5Hv8zBwLeoGNsbuc6p7nnGsaFJMLprp75t0f_j-fwu0aLdGYc-jOVEOoj71LRtprNtmqFtlpXUSQ_B-m0TFVUSda9oRwxf6uJ6kvq5qLXRBWYjdUC0X7x/s620/Nurses_Showgrounds+vax+hub+2021.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="372" data-original-width="620" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhInWC735ldUGcg8lAhI1uHfXe5Hv8zBwLeoGNsbuc6p7nnGsaFJMLprp75t0f_j-fwu0aLdGYc-jOVEOoj71LRtprNtmqFtlpXUSQ_B-m0TFVUSda9oRwxf6uJ6kvq5qLXRBWYjdUC0X7x/s16000/Nurses_Showgrounds+vax+hub+2021.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo: Nurses at Melbourne Showgrounds vaccination hub, 2021.</span></p><p></p><p>Right from the start, Australia’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been shaped by the basic realities of contemporary capitalism (“neoliberalism”).</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Essential goods supply crisis</span></span></b></span></p><p>It quickly became apparent that the various global supply chains we depended on for medical supplies and equipment were no longer reliable. Early on, getting hold of face masks (PPE) and ventilators was a big problem. We produced very little here in Australia and overseas suppliers were too busy fulfilling other orders or they had been hit by the virus themselves.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>The just-in-time, low-inventory approach of today’s big corporations depends on fast and reasonably cheap freight. But right now there is a <a href="https://stockhead.com.au/news/special-report-the-global-shipping-crisis-could-take-years-to-unwind-and-heres-why-australia-could-be-hardest-hit/">worldwide shipping and transport crisis</a> with container rates on key routes having quadrupled this year. In some cases, neither containers nor even ships can be had at any price. In Australia some producers and retailers are stockpiling for the Christmas period in order to insulate themselves against delays but this is a gamble which might end badly if the market shifts, leaving them with huge inventories to clear.</p><p>All this is a strong argument for making essential goods in Australia, especially medical supplies and equipment. We need to build up a strong local manufacturing capacity. Of course, now that there is a guaranteed market, numerous companies are coming forward and seeking government support and contracts to manufacture various items.</p><p>But the problem with relying on private companies is that they are in it for the money and will produce only insofar as it is profitable. They don’t want a big surplus capacity to insure against a future crisis; if production of a given item is not profitable, it simply won’t happen.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Low-paid, casualised work</b></span></span></p><p>So many people now depend on insecure, low-paid, casualised work. Many of these workers missed out on income support in the various lockdowns. A lot of the workforce used in aged care and hotel quarantine are insecure, casualised workers. Typically, they are forced to take shifts at a number of workplaces to make ends meet. This has been a key pathway for spreading the virus.</p><p>Even stopping work to get tested or vaccinated means real financial hardship for workers on the breadline. Finally, the governments recognised these realities and introduced payments for time off work for testing or vaccination.</p><p>Casualisation is great for the capitalists but a disaster for workers — it is a social and economic pandemic of its own. We need regular, fulltime jobs for all. A massively expanded public sector has to lead the way — in healthcare, in aged care, in disability care, in building public housing, and so on.</p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Keating defends his sell-offs</b></span></p><p>The AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is being produced in Australia by biotech company CSL under a billion dollar deal with the federal government. Discussions are also underway about CSL setting up production facilities in Melbourne capable of producing the new, very effective mRNA vaccines.</p><p>CSL began its life in 1916 as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSL_Limited">Commonwealth Serum Laboratories</a>. It was privatised in 1994 by the Paul Keating Labor government. Last year <a href="https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/paying-for-what-we-used-to-own-the-strange-case-of-csl,14558">John Quiggin</a> wrote an article explaining the sordid details of this operation in which a prime public asset was sold to private interests at a fraction of its real value.</p><p>In an August 4 <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/government-should-represent-all-citizens-20210803-p58fk0.html">letter to the<i> Age</i></a>, Keating defended his many privatisations. “As Prime Minister I privatised a number of government institutions; the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, CSL and Qantas. All are competitive institutions. The Commonwealth Bank and CSL went on to become world-class companies.”</p><p>Just what is a “world-class company”? CSL now has a <a href="https://companiesmarketcap.com/csl/marketcap/">market capitalisation</a> of almost $100 billion. In 2019-20 <a href="https://investors.csl.com/site/investors/financial-results-and-information/five-year-summary#">its nett profit</a> was $US2.1 billion — a return on invested capital of 21.6%.</p><p>Furthermore, according to a <a href="https://au.news.yahoo.com/asx200-top-ceo-pay-014949853.html"><i>Yahoo News</i> report</a>: “Paul Perreault, the chief of multinational biotechnology giant CSL, took home $43,044,606 in realised pay last financial year, new data has revealed, making him the nation’s highest-paid CEO.” The article explained that it would take a worker on an average salary of $63,085 more than 682 years to earn this sum.</p><p>Clearly, CSL long ago left behind its modest public origins. It is now truly world-class, with world-class market capitalisation, world-class profitability and world-class CEO pay and Keating presumably thinks we should all feel good about that.</p><p>John Quiggin argues that “there is now a strong case for renationalisation of a wide range of private assets, including roads, electricity transmission and distribution network and airports. It is time to call the failed experiment of privatisation to a halt.”</p><p>In the face of the pandemic, taking CSL back into public hands should surely be a priority. We need a publicly owned biotech company, based right here, that can develop and produce our own vaccines and medicines in a timely way, avoiding corporate profiteering.</p><p>In our opinion, a nationalised CSL should not operate on corporate lines (like Australia Post today) but have public service as its overriding aim, and be run under real democratic control and with all wages and salaries confined within a very narrow range (i.e., no obscene “market rate” CEO and executive pay or outrageous “bonuses”).</p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Privatisation a big success … for capitalists</b></span></p><p>Quiggin and other critics of privatisation have described it as a “failed experiment”. Obviously, this is true in one sense. But privatisation was never really an “experiment”, a bright idea. It was and is the insistent demand of big business. It wants a bigger and bigger slice of the cake. It is all about profits. And it’s been an outstanding success … for the big capitalists! It has been terrible for the mass of people — but public welfare was never the object.</p><p>Despite our governments selling off so many public assets, this process is not stopping. Every single governmental function is being eyed off for sale to the private sector. And those enterprises that remain in public hands have been corporatised (like Australia Post) with ridiculously high executive pay and an anti-worker culture.</p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Outsourcing — a modern plague</b></span></p><p>And even if something still remains in state hands, it will be subject to another modern plague — outsourcing. A September 8, 2020 article by <a href="https://www.michaelwest.com.au/privatisation-of-the-public-service/">Geordie Wilson</a> on <a href="http://MichaelWest.com.au">MichaelWest.com.au</a> exposed how deep the rot has gone:</p><blockquote><p>It’s been assumed by critics of privatisation, that outsourcing in the public service is mostly in call centre, technology, or consulting roles. However, documents obtained by MichaelWest.com.au show that even senior roles are being outsourced now. Senior public servants work in department buildings and take orders from the minister, but their real employer is actually a private business.</p></blockquote><blockquote><p>We have identified that senior roles in policy, management, biosecurity and even ministerial advice are now filled by private business. Even assistant directors and executives at many departments are now privately run. The headcount of non-IT public servant roles outsourced by the government is in the thousands.</p></blockquote><p>Wilson went on to look at various government departments. The process had proceeded to an extraordinary extent in the Department of Defence:</p><blockquote><p>Defence has 29,000 outsourced roles while it has 17,000 regular public servants. The outsourced staff number 1.5 times the number of true blue public servants. Some 8000 of the outsourced roles are in materiel maintenance while the other 20,000 appear to be regular public sector roles.</p></blockquote><blockquote><p>Spouses of senior defence officials have been given contracts to supply these outsourced roles even while those officials still were employed at the army.</p></blockquote><p>The article didn’t give any information on the Commonwealth Department of Health or on how far this process has gone in the various state public services but we can assume it is underway there too.</p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Contracts for private companies</b></span></p><p>In addition to outsourcing personnel, our governments routinely contract private companies to perform all sorts of functions. In a January 29, 2020 article, <a href="https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/unaccountable-accounting-firms-secure-lucrative-government-contracts,13535">David Paull</a> wrote that:</p><p></p><blockquote>… major accounting firms are reaping the benefit of our privatised public sector to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.</blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>The names are very familiar, KPMG and Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), two of the biggest accounting firms in the world, are now playing increasing roles in this cash drain, securing contracts for Australian Government services at a rate that is mind-boggling. The biggest beneficiary of our Government’s desire to “cut red tape” is KPMG. It has secured 596 contracts from various Commonwealth departments since the 1st of July, 2018, amounting to between one to two contracts per day.</p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span><b>The pandemic & outsourcing functions</b></span></span></p><p>The pandemic emergency has showcased the problems with privatisation and outsourcing. We have mentioned the problems with staffing in aged care and hotel quarantine. We can add the problems with the vaccination roll-out in aged care. Private operators Aspen Medical and Healthcare Australia were contracted to vaccinate residents in private aged care facilities. It later emerged that the rollout didn’t include jabbing the staff! No doubt the private operators didn’t care — they were getting their money anyway.</p><p>The pandemic has shown that we need strong, well-funded and properly staffed health bodies — government departments, hospitals, paramedic services, and so on. Last year the private hospitals had to be incorporated into the state health systems (no doubt on profitable contracts) which brought an extra 30,000 beds and 105,000 nurses and staff into the national COVID response.</p><p>But government-run hospitals arguably need a lot more staff — to make up for staff required to isolate, to reduce the burden on everyone, and in “normal” times to reduce nurse-patient ratios. (And, of course, expanding nurse numbers would mean paying them properly and improving conditions.) Recently, Victoria hired 350 overseas medical staff, mostly doctors, to help maintain the health system in the crisis.<br /></p><p>It has long been clear that hotels are not designed for COVID quarantine and there have been regular leaks of the virus. But the process of building proper, Howard Springs-style facilities in each state has been incredibly slow. In early 2020 China built a 1000-bed COVID hospital in a little over a week! We could have done that with quarantine facilities here but the political will simply hasn’t been there.</p><p>Now something is finally happening. In Victoria, the Commonwealth has contracted Multiplex to construct a big cabin-style facility which is meant to be ready by the end of the year. And in Queensland the state government is pushing ahead on its own.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Hollowing out of the state</b></span></span></p><p>In a November 10, 2020 article, Melbourne University academic <a href="https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/the-limits-of-government-outsourcing">Martin Bortz</a> discusses “a fundamental view that has permeated public administration in Australia for decades — that governments are just there to steer, and the private sector will do the rowing.” He goes on:</p><blockquote><p>However, over the last few decades, using private sector organisations for governance challenges has been pursued with particular vigour amid privatisation and the rise of so-called “new public management” (though it is not so new anymore).</p></blockquote><blockquote><p>Of particular interest to researchers and critics is what Professor of Government Rod Rhodes has called the “<a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780198786108.001.0001/oso-9780198786108-chapter-8">hollowing out of the state</a>”. Here, the core functions of government are slowly eroded and eventually given off to private contractors, consultants and external agencies.</p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">Crises the new ‘normal’</span></b></span></p><p>Our political leaders are trying to convince us that after the pandemic life will more or less return to normal. But the pandemic may never quite go away. And there may well be more pandemics as <a href="https://grain.org/en/article/6433-capitalist-agriculture-and-covid-19-a-deadly-combination">capitalist agriculture</a> continues on its present destructive course.</p><p>But the pandemic is not the only problem we have to deal with. Climate change is arguably an even bigger and more dangerous problem. The recent fires, heatwaves, hurricanes, droughts and floods around the world and our own 2019-20 massive, pre-COVID bushfire outbreak shows that a host of disasters is coming for us. Crises of one kind or another or in combination will be the new “normal”. </p><p>Obviously, our key concern has to be trying to stop them at source (cutting our greenhouse gas emissions to zero as rapidly as possible and moving away from destructive capitalist agricultural practices). But a lot of the fallout is in the pipeline already and we need to make plans to deal with it.</p><p>All emergency response services must be provided with vastly increased budgets and the necessary fulltime staffs — in the health sector and the general emergency response area. We need public housing on a massive scale to cut out the speculators (“developers”) and provide cheap quality homes to all who need them. We need the capacity to house people forced out of certain areas by bushfires, extreme heat, drought, floods and sea level rise. We need projects to guarantee access to food for everyone in the face of what is coming.</p><p>If our response is dependent on the profit-motivated capitalist corporations, our society simply will not be able to cope. Ordinary people want our lives and welfare protected; the corporations want profits. They are not the same thing.<br /> </p>Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-58100106698013183442021-07-27T15:11:00.013-07:002023-03-20T21:19:50.450-07:00The West's campaign against China<p></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZDDpwSa3ot0yiH5y22AbO9m50J9_dn_DdhMcRCZ5SRSi3DhdlU8bZWefvw1DS4st4sq4bStqv7weKheGdLEPAKAO7S3r19-WtTDNB2izInTXMMYlcCZPoIr_tnCBor33xKeD4NORC4MYr/s863/GCHQ+base+at+Bude.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="416" data-original-width="863" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZDDpwSa3ot0yiH5y22AbO9m50J9_dn_DdhMcRCZ5SRSi3DhdlU8bZWefvw1DS4st4sq4bStqv7weKheGdLEPAKAO7S3r19-WtTDNB2izInTXMMYlcCZPoIr_tnCBor33xKeD4NORC4MYr/w640-h308/GCHQ+base+at+Bude.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /> [Talk given at an online forum Behind the Cold War on China, July 27, 2021.]</span><br /><br />Socialists are not the only ones who talk about a new cold war between the US and China. It is becoming a commonplace in the mainstream media.<p></p><p>But we have an explanation for it. All the endless propaganda and punitive measures against China are part of a campaign by Western imperialism, principally the United States, to isolate and contain China and reassert Washington’s hitherto uncontested hegemony — economically, militarily and politically.</p><p>Despite its enormous power, the US is in relative decline. Just compare its position now to that at the end of World War II. Then it was the unchallenged world superpower — the only one. Now China is a an emerging superpower. It is challenging the US, both economically and militarily. And the US is beset by truly massive, glaring social problems, obvious to everyone.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>Over the last three decades China’s economy has surged forward. Arguably, China now has the world’s biggest economy and is vital to world economic growth. Per capita GDP remains low but it is rising.</p><p>One example says a lot for me and I cite it in the <a href="https://www.resistancebooks.com/catalog/behind-the-cold-war-on-china/">pamphlet</a>: China now has 38,000km of high speed rail and plans to increase this to 70,000km by 2035. The US has next to nothing in this regard.<br /><br />In response to China’s rise, Washington and its Western allies have pushed a raft of economic measures. Huawei has been stopped from bidding on contracts. Chinese companies are not allowed to buy certain assets. Trump imposed a range of tariffs which Biden has not lifted. Australia brought in an unprecedented foreign influence law.</p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The West’s propaganda campaign</span></span></b></p><p>Along with these measures there has been a non-stop drumbeat of propaganda. The Western campaign against China focuses on three broad themes:</p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>A fake concern for human rights centred on Hong Kong and the Uighur Muslim minority in Xingjiang in Western China.</li><li>Charges against the Chinese government and China-based companies of tech surveillance, spying and industrial espionage.</li><li>Whipping up fear of Chinese military growth and capabilities.</li></ol><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">China is capitalist</span></span></b></p><p>At this point we have to be clear on one key point — What is the nature of China in a socio-economic sense? In our view, it is capitalist — the state promotes and defends capitalism.</p><p>China had a real revolution in 1949. Land reform was carried out and by 1956 the capitalist class had been expropriated. But the Mao leadership was always a privileged Stalinist bureaucratic caste. And over the last 30 or so years, it has restored capitalism. Chris Slee’s article in our pamphlet explains this transformation.</p><p>But having said that, we have to recognise that Chinese capitalism has some very distinctive features — the extremely strong centralised state control and the still powerful sector of State Owned Enterprises.</p><p>There is some confusion about China on the international left. Some leftists oppose the US cold war attacks but — to varying degrees — they think that China is socialist or at least non-capitalist; that the hue and cry about Uighur oppression is just Western propaganda; and downplay or reject claims that China is fundamentally undemocratic and repressive.</p><p>We can discuss this but I think such apologetics just weakens our argument. In fact, the case of China is only one instance of some leftists prettifying authoritarian regimes that come under attack by Washington (other examples include Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Syria under Assad and Zimbabwe under Mugabe).</p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Cornwall: An illustration of Western hypocrisy</span></span></b></p><p>The US charges that the huge Chinese tech company Huawei is under the control of the Chinese government and its technology will be used for spying, or might be used for spying, so we can’t use any of their telecommunications equipment — even though it seems it is the cheapest and best.</p><p>Trump even wanted to force Chinese divestment of the popular video-sharing company Tik Tok, accusing it of posing serious security and privacy risks to its 80 million US users. However, Biden has let that one slide.</p><p>But Washington’s charges are staggeringly hypocritical. Let’s look at one instance.</p><p>In early June the G7 summit was held in Carbis Bay on Cornwall’s north coast. The leaders of the main imperialist countries had a closed session to discuss what to do about China. The final communique predictably attacked China on Xinjiang and Hong Kong and the origins of COVID.</p><p>If the G7 leaders had been so minded, they could have travelled up the Cornish coast — about 100km as the crow flies — to Bude.</p><p>Bude is the site of a Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) station which plays a key role in tapping into transoceanic communications cables. This is the TEMPORA program first exposed by Edward Snowden in 2013. A <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/gchq-tempora-101"><i>Wired</i> report</a> explained:</p><blockquote><p>Interceptors have been placed on around 200 fibre optic cables where they come ashore. This appears to have been done with the secret cooperation, voluntary or forced, of the companies that operate the cables, potentially giving GCHQ access to 10 gigabits of data a second, or 21 petabytes a day …<br /></p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>GCHQ wasn't exaggerating when it used the phrase ‘Mastering the Internet’ in the documents.<br /></p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>Around 300 GCHQ and 250 NSA operatives are tasked with sifting through the data …<br />They use specific searches, which can relate to trigger words, email addresses of interest, or targeted persons and phone numbers. GCHQ and the NSA have identified 40,000 and 30,000 triggers respectively …<br /></p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>The data is shared with the NSA. In fact, 850,000 NSA contractors have access to the data, according to the documents reported on by the <i>Guardian</i>.<br /></p></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://venturebeat.com/2013/06/21/prism-meet-tempora-the-british-spy-agencys-program-to-capture-calls-facebook-messages-emails-and-more/">Another report</a> at the time explained that “GCHQ has tapped 200 of the world’s fibre optic cables, is surveilling more than 600 million ‘telephone events’ a day, can intercept emails, check Internet users’ access of websites, and can see what people are posting on Facebook.”<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">Clearly, China has a lot of catching up to do! The West’s charges really are an extreme case of the pot calling the kettle black.<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Spying scandal in Denmark</span></span></b></p><p style="text-align: left;">Let’s look at another example. Last year a scandal erupted in Denmark. The FE — the Danish equivalent of the CIA — was exposed as having spied on its EU and NATO allies on behalf of Washington. Left-wing Denmark-based journalist Ron Ridenour summed it up in a <a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/2020/12/10/outposts-of-the-u-s-surveillance-empire-denmark-and-beyond/">Covert Action report</a>:</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">Denmark’s military allows the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA) to spy on the nation’s Finance Ministry, Foreign Ministry, private weapons company Terma, the entire Danish population, and Denmark’s closest neighbors: Sweden, Norway, France, Germany and the Netherlands (NL).<br /></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">This activity is exactly what the West accuses China of doing.<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Hypocrisy on human rights</span></span></b> </p><p style="text-align: left;">Now let’s briefly look at the question of human rights.</p><p style="text-align: left;">There is no doubt that China has a repressive, authoritarian regime — a dictatorship. It represses the working class and forces them to endure a harsh exploitation, often for the benefit of big Western corporations.</p><p style="text-align: left;">It also subjects the non-Han Chinese populations in Tibet and Xinjiang to national oppression.</p><p style="text-align: left;">In front of the whole world, it crushed the Hong Kong democracy movement. Whatever the political confusion and mistakes of sections of this movement (calling for Western help, calling for independence) overall it was a progressive, deeply rooted struggle for democratic rights. Socialists had a duty to support it.</p><p style="text-align: left;">But when the West hits China over its repressive policies it is a bit hard to take it seriously. Just look at the US. The Black Lives Matter movement shone a searchlight on the nature of US society: There is what has been called a new Jim Crow system based on massive Black incarceration and racist killer cop forces across the country.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Incarceration plays a huge role in the US. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate"><i>Wikipedia</i></a> explains the facts:</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">At the end of 2016, the Prison Policy Initiative, a non-profit organization for decarceration, estimated that in the United States, about 2,298,300 people were incarcerated out of a population of 324.2 million. This means that 0.7% of the population was imprisoned …<br /></p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">Total U.S. incarceration (prisons and jails) peaked in 2008. Total correctional population peaked in 2007. If all prisoners are counted (including those juvenile, territorial, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) (immigration detention), Indian country, and military), then in 2008 the United States had around 24.7% of the world’s 9.8 million prisoners.<br /></p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">As of 2009, the United States had the highest documented incarceration rate in the world, at 754 per 100,000.<br /></p></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">A disproportionate percentage of this prison population is Black and minority.<br /></p><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">China’s military revolution</span></span></b></p><p style="text-align: left;">The West makes a lot of propaganda about China’s military build-up. A February 26<a href="https://mronline.org/2021/02/06/how-the-gulf-war-sparked-chinas-military-revolution/"> Monthly Review articl</a>e by Liu Zhen explains that the 1991 Gulf War was a wake-up call for China’s leaders:</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">The Gulf War sparked 30 years of chaos and turmoil in the once powerful Middle Eastern country but also served as a rude awakening for China’s military leaders.</p></blockquote><blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">With the technology and firepower on show during the conflict — precision bombing, satellite guidance, missile interception, air-to-surface strike to eliminate tanks, electronic warfare, one-way transparency on the battlefield, stealth bombers — the Gulf War was a “psychological nuclear attack” on China, observers say.</p></blockquote><blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">The event helped to kick start China’s military modernisation and led to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) narrowing the gap with the U.S. military so much that it is now considered a “strategic threat”.<br /></p></blockquote><blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">Desert Storm, which lasted six weeks, marked the dawn of a warfare revolution, showed the backwardness of the PLA at that time and sparked anxiety regarding national security, experts say.</p></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">That’s the reality. China’s military revolution and arms build-up is fundamentally a <i>defensive</i> measure against at the threat of a US attack. China saw what happened to Iraq and doesn’t want the same fate to befall it. Even if China were a vibrant socialist democracy, it would still face the same US war threat and would be forced to develop a countervailing military force strong enough to deter Washington.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">US response under Biden</span></span></b></p><p style="text-align: left;">Donald Trump has gone and Biden has reversed many of his policies. But one area where he hasn’t is China. In fact, he has pushed new initiatives aimed at China. A May 31 <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/biden-s-us250-billion-plan-to-frustrate-china-20210531-p57wo0.html">Sydney Morning Herald article</a> by Stephen Bartholomeusz discussed Biden’s “United States Innovation and Competition Act”:</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">A sprawling $US250 billion ($324 billion) -plus suite of legislation aimed squarely at enhancing America’s ability to compete with China, along with a grab bag of other anti-China measures, is winding its way through the US Congress …</p><p style="text-align: left;">At the core of the legislation is spending designed to provide incentives for domestic semi-conductor manufacturing and research and development in strategic sectors like artificial intelligence, 5G wireless, quantum computing, biotechnology and robotics — industries that China has identified as central to its plans for global technology leadership and into which it is pouring state funds …</p><p style="text-align: left;">It calls for Taiwan’s inclusion in international bodies; requires an unclassified report on the origins of the coronavirus; opposes international development banks’ assistance to China; provides funding to counter “predatory bilateral lending” (read China’s “Belt and Road” program) and would impose more sanctions on China for its treatment of the Uighurs in Xinjiang.</p><p style="text-align: left;">There’s also proposed sanctions against those engaged in cyber attacks against the US, with particular reference to China, and “transparency requirements ” and the threat of withdrawal of funding from colleges that have Confucius Institute partnerships with Chinese colleges and universities.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Along with the $US360 billion of the continuing Trump administration’s tariffs on China’s exports to the US, which the Biden administration appears in no hurry to revisit, the bill would represent a quite dramatic escalation of US efforts to improve its competitiveness against China </p></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;">And the US military continues to guzzle an enormous amount of funds each year. It is renewing its nuclear arsenal and continues to push allies like Japan to shoulder more of the burden of building a military force to counter China.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Of course — just as in the long Cold War with the Soviet Union — everything is presented as the US responding to threats from China. The opposite is true. US bases surround China “like a noose” and the US has a humungous nuclear arsenal. (The US is the only country which has ever used nuclear weapons in war and it refuses to make a no-first-strike pledge). The US routinely interferes in the affairs of other countries and organises destablisation campaigns and coups. Washington is the aggressor and wants to maintain its edge. China is right to be concerned.</p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Australia & China</span></span></b></p><p>I’m sure David Brophy will have a lot to say about the <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/china-panic">“China panic”</a> in Australia. Our pamphlet also refutes a lot of the hysterical claims about Chinese influence in Australia. So I will be brief.</p><p>I wouldn’t dispute that China is active in the Chinese community here or that it surveils Chinese students in Australia or that it tries to cultivate political figures.</p><p>The US influence is <i>qualitatively</i> greater than China’s. We can assume it has agents, contacts and informants everywhere — in parliament, in academia, in the community, and in the trade unions.</p><p>I hope people read Jeff Sparrow’s recent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/03/secret-embassy-cables-cast-the-bob-hawke-legend-in-a-different-light"><i>Guardian</i> article</a> on Bob Hawke. When he was a celebrated trade union leader in the 1970s, Hawke was in regular contact with the US embassy. He said one thing in public and another to his US friends. If Hawke were around today he might well have fallen foul of the new foreign influence laws — after all, he was an unregistered foreign agent.</p><p>China’s economic influence has been massively hyped; it is much less than that of US. At the end of 2019, the US and UK accounted for 43% of foreign investment in Australia; China accounted for 5.7%. And all the various restrictions will continue to keep China’s share low.</p><p>In some quarters China has been blamed for the housing crisis. Again, this is rubbish. The housing crisis is a result of capitalist speculation, tax laws which facilitate this and above all, the<i> absolute refusal</i> of state and federal governments to build quality public housing on any serious scale. China plays a miniscule part in all this.</p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">No war with China</span></span></b></p><p>In conclusion, how should we respond to all this? I want to suggest four key areas to campaign around:</p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li> Left and progressive forces must campaign against any war with China.</li><li>Australia must break with the US war alliance — i.e., withdraw from ANZUS, Five Eyes, and the Quad. Close down all US bases on Australian soil, especially Pine Gap and anything else used in nuclear war fighting.</li><li>Our military should be reconfigured for strictly local, genuinely defensive activities. Scrap the frightfully expensive weapons programs — the planes, the submarines and the missiles — which are designed to fit into the US regional war effort and which have nothing to do with the actual defence of Australia. Use the money instead for useful programs — the transition to renewables, public housing, healthcare and public education.</li><li>We want to see the main elements (the “commanding heights”) of the economy in public hands. Nationalise key sectors of our economy — first and foremost, the banks, the mining sector and the power industry — under real democratic control. Then we would prohibit any foreign company buying anything. If a foreign company wants to invest here, it should be a joint venture with the state under strict conditions (profit sharing. workers conditions, environmental safeguards, etc).</li></ol><p><br /> </p><br />Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-79834659568824600872021-07-18T01:16:00.010-07:002021-07-20T20:45:47.579-07:00A Radical Life: A Memoir by Jim McIlroy<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikOnmL2O-pvyKeSJo1GbT936pGNJTJJZDX098aySXlsQ8z2yEmRL79wfmeywearueP09Mn3SlcxPdCIC6yQpvnISkjj5db0thaIsUxBbcnxwqzcPS931GbpAv635bpZULxH-VAcM8tFS7g/s562/00+Front+cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikOnmL2O-pvyKeSJo1GbT936pGNJTJJZDX098aySXlsQ8z2yEmRL79wfmeywearueP09Mn3SlcxPdCIC6yQpvnISkjj5db0thaIsUxBbcnxwqzcPS931GbpAv635bpZULxH-VAcM8tFS7g/s320/00+Front+cover.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p>[Remarks at online launch of <a href="https://www.resistancebooks.com/catalog/a-radical-life-a-memoir-by-jim-mcilroy/">A Radical Life: A Memoir by Jim McIlroy</a>, July 18, 2021.]<br /></p><p>It’s a pleasure to be helping launch Jim’s very readable and important book.</p><p>Perhaps Jim will say something about the development of his memoir project. I know he started putting it together some years ago. But once we committed to producing an <i>actual book</i>, things quickly escalated. Jim had about a third in reasonable shape but he came under great pressure to finish the rest — to boil it down from all the emails, flyers, reports and articles that he had assembled. A lot of the editing and polishing of the text took place <i>after</i> it was laid out with Coral and myself weighing in with comments and suggestions. That might not be how the big publishing houses do it but we had no choice!</p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>Anyway, I was very happy to be associated with the project and got considerable satisfaction in seeing the book gradually take shape as various issues were sorted out, as the photographic section was assembled, and as Jim took some hard decisions — above all, to cut, trim and boil down!</p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Prominent figure in our movement</b></span></span></p><p>To my knowledge, Jim’s memoir is the first by someone from our particular political current — the Socialist Youth Alliance / Socialist Workers Party (later the Democratic Socialist Party) which helped set up the Socialist Alliance in 2001 and then folded into it completely in 2009.</p><p>Almost from the start, Jim has been a prominent figure in our movement. He has been part of the national leadership, a branch organiser and an election candidate. He has been active in solidarity work, especially with Venezuela, as the book details.</p><p>Jim has long been a prolific writer, especially for the socialist press (or media, as we would say today). He enjoys writing and is very quick and accomplished at it. And, of course, as Jim explains, he has always enjoyed getting the socialist press out to people. Jim would have to be the all-time champion <i>Green Left</i> seller! I think it is appropriate that the cover photo shows Jim selling the old <i>Direct Action</i> way back in 1977.</p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>A collective story</b></span></span></p><p>While the story Jim tells is his personal one, it is also a collective one. As Jim notes, he was part of the youth radicalisation of the 1960s and 1970s. He was one of many who recoiled from the horrors of the Vietnam War and turned to revolutionary socialism and Marxism. And he has never deviated from that course.</p><p>Being an active member — a “cadre” — of a small revolutionary socialist organisation is a strange experience. On the one hand, there is the comradeship of the struggle and the satisfaction that comes from striving for a great emancipatory project.</p><p>On the other hand, while on some issues we are with a large part of the population, sometimes even with a majority, our overall project of working to create a big radical party of struggle for fundamental social change makes us a small minority. Australia is a rich imperialist country, we are not risking our lives, but the struggle certainly has its rigours and pressures. Everything is telling you to give up, that you are irrelevant, that socialism is an impossible dream.</p><p>In telling his story, Jim shines a light on our collective experience and, if you like, gives some validation to the efforts of all those who have laboured and toiled over the decades to build the organisation and advance the struggle.</p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Humane & progressive upbringing</b></span></span></p><p>In the early section of the book, Jim draws an attractive picture of a world that no longer exists, that is, of growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s in fairly comfortable suburban Melbourne — first in Parkdale (near Mordialloc on the Frankston line) and then from the mid-fifties on, in very outer-suburban Mt Eliza.</p><p>Jim draws an affectionate portrait of his family, especially his parents, Cecily and Ian, and credits them with his humane and progressive upbringing. Among other things, they had a leftish-progressive social and work circle which included a number of former members of the Communist Party.</p><p>One thing the reader soon notices is that Jim has travelled abroad an awful lot! In 1967 he even travelled with friends by van across Afghanistan — a journey that today would be simply impossible and unthinkable madness. When Jim got back to Australia the afternoon Melbourne broadsheet <i>The Herald</i> wrote an article on it, centred (with photographs) around Jim’s collection of central Asian hats. (This historic piece is reproduced in the photo section of the book.)</p><p>By my count, Jim has had 10 or more extensive overseas trips and sojourns! Travel broadens the mind but since joining the movement Jim’s trips have always been as an activist, talking to people and reporting — primarily for <i>Direct Action</i> or <i>Green Left</i>.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIrPhaw1Z8bLFNfGHmr5-FtN2D9_6H-PU2bjmAQwkhkOgkcdC5SDxSWORg3dzQ8GqDGMSlNn5yvvUe4k91eE5wIddI678ItS8tN_Yi6fPPLGF9MLY5j74cfYPsLjUW7KlBYQf3xxnDFMjt/s1772/1992_Jim+and+family%252C+Brisbane.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1163" data-original-width="1772" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIrPhaw1Z8bLFNfGHmr5-FtN2D9_6H-PU2bjmAQwkhkOgkcdC5SDxSWORg3dzQ8GqDGMSlNn5yvvUe4k91eE5wIddI678ItS8tN_Yi6fPPLGF9MLY5j74cfYPsLjUW7KlBYQf3xxnDFMjt/s320/1992_Jim+and+family%252C+Brisbane.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Family is important</b></span></span><p></p><p>The book makes it clear that for Jim his family is extremely important.</p><p>Growing up with parents who are committed socialist activists can’t always have been easy for Chantal and Katrina. There is inescapably a tension between family time and all the endless political meetings and activities. But they all got through it and the children have charted their independent path in life. Jim has obviously been a loving dad to Chantal and Katrina and a devoted partner to Coral.</p><p>The cover photos show the two poles of Jim’s life: on the front he is selling the party press, on the back is the family quartet, looking very bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, all scrubbed up for the portrait.</p><p>Inside, the rich selection of photographs helps bring Jim’s story to life and there are plenty of shots showing Jim and family members in various settings.</p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>We were lucky</b></span></span></p><p>As the title says, this is about a radical life, a life committed to socialism and human progress. Jim practises what he preaches — all the time.</p><p>I think Jim would agree when I say we were both very lucky: We joined a socialist organisation that had an outstanding leader in Jim Percy (who died of cancer in 1992). The SWP provided a rational framework in which people could give of their very best.</p><p>The emphasis was always on engagement in the struggle and over time we shed some of our sectarian baggage and tried our best to engage with other left forces moving in a positive direction. <i>Green Left Weekly</i>, established in early 1991, was one of the first fruits of this orientation.</p><p>Jim’s book is not like a “normal” autobiography. Readers will note that after dealing with his youth it progressively moves heavily into articles and reports on various aspects of politics — especially building the party and solidarity with Venezuela. Jim was insistent on doing it this way because this is such a large part of his life and passion. Nevertheless, I think there is plenty of content for the general reader.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Friends for over 60 years</b></span></span></p><p>I have known Jim since the 5th grade at Mt Eliza State Primary School and we have been friends for over 60 years. I became a socialist due to Jim and when I joined the SYA in late 1970 I was naturally extremely keen to have Jim join as well — which he soon did. And, as they say, the rest is history.</p><p>For both of us, our involvement in revolutionary socialist politics has been the decisive thing in our lives.</p><p>Today the world is in a deepening crisis. Humanity is on the cusp of an utter catastrophe and a transition away from the profit-driven madness of capitalism and towards socialism is the only solution.</p><p>We need more and more young people — and not only them — to take the road that Jim and many others took all those years ago. I hope Jim’s memoir can help inspire some of them to do likewise.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Plenty of gas in the tank!</b></span></span></p><p>Of course, Jim is far from finished! There is still plenty of gas in the tank even if the engine requires a lot more attention than it used to! I for one look forward to a second volume of memoirs and reflections!</p><p>Finally, I declare that the book is well and truly launched and if you haven’t already got a copy I urge you to buy one, read it and spread the word around.</p>Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-47794508969129769182021-02-25T01:59:00.006-08:002023-03-20T21:20:12.060-07:00Putting Australia's anti-China campaign in perspective<p align="left"></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="1">[A shorter version of this article appeared in<a href="https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/putting-anti-china-campaign-perspective"> <i>Green Left</i></a>, February 25, 2021.]</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">In a recent <a href="https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/china-no-victim-western-imperialism">Green Left article</a> Dave Bell raised some important issues about China. What is China’s place in the world economic and political system, what is its influence in Australia and how should socialists should relate to it?</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The position of the recent <a href="https://socialist-alliance.org/news/resolution-australia-china-conflict">Socialist Alliance resolution</a> and <a href="http://links.org.au/behind-anti-china-hysteria">my Links article</a> is that Western imperialism led by the United States is waging a cold war campaign against China. This involves both harsh trade sanctions and a big military build-up. The reason for this campaign is that China’s rapid economic, technological and military development has reached a point where it seriously threatens Washington’s interests.</font></p><a name='more'></a>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">We cannot be neutral in this struggle but must strongly oppose the US-led campaign — notwithstanding the repressive capitalist nature of the Chinese regime.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">We can be critical of China's actions is this or that regard but we must never lose sight of the realities of imperialist domination of the world. And we have to call out Western hypocrisy and lies about China.</font></p><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Our rulers have so many weapons with which to poison the minds of the masses and obscure the real source of their problems. They have racism, sexism and all the rest — and now they are also whipping up fear of China. Yes, they have some real things to base this on but it is still a propaganda campaign which we have to oppose.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>Who dominates the world?</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Bell asserts that China is a “growing danger to the world”. I think it would be more accurate to say that China’s impact on the world is contradictory. On the one hand, there is its repressive internal policy and its support to some unsavoury regimes. On the other hand, there are some real achievements (e.g., its success dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic) and its startling economic development. Moreover, its very existence is a counterweight to US pressure and it has helped some states (e.g., Venezuela and Iran) to withstand Washington’s onslaught.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Bell argues that China is “not a victim” of Western imperialism. Historically, that is completely untrue. However, today China is pushing hard to free itself from imperialist economic and military pressure and is becoming too strong to push around easily. That fact underlies the current US-led cold war against it.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">However, somewhat surprisingly, Bell admits that: “Given the brutality of the United States over the last 100 years, a strong Chinese defence capacity is merited.” Washington is certainly capable of great brutality but the issue is its ongoing economic and military<i> cold war</i> <i>campaign</i> against China.</font></p><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">China is driving as fast as it can towards military parity with Washington, or at least getting to a stage where the US will think long and hard before it embarks on a hot war against China. I regard the military moves of China — the regime notwithstanding — as fundamentally <i>defensive</i> in motivation. In this regard, see the recent very interesting article <a href="https://mronline.org/2021/02/06/how-the-gulf-war-sparked-chinas-military-revolution/">How the Gulf War sparked China's military revolution</a>. China correctly sees itself as encircled by the US and wants to be able to avoid what happened to Iraq under Saddam Hussein.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>'A pox on both their houses'?</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Bell says “A pox on both their houses.” In my opinion such a position is dead wrong. We can be critical of both countries but they occupy <i>radically different positions</i> in the world power system. The reality is that US-led Western imperialism dominates the world.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">A few basic facts serve to illustrate this. Quite apart from outright bans and punitive tariffs, Washington's domination of the SWIFT international payments system and the special status of the US dollar enable it to impose crippling sanctions on any country. China and Russia are trying to develop a way around this but they are a long way from creating a real alternative.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Far outstripping any empire in world history, the US has 800 bases in 130 countries, with 160,000 troops. With the increasing use of private military contractors, the real number of personnel is undoubtedly much higher. Junior partner Britain has 145 bases in 42 countries.</font></p><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"></font></p><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>Who owns Australia’s top companies?</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Bell asks: “Is it scaremongering to alert Australians to the take-over of our electricity retailers, ports, National Trust buildings, manufacturing companies and prime real estate?”</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Let’s look at who <i>does</i> own Australia and who we should be most worried about. In a September 15, 2019 article, researcher <a href="https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/us-ownership-of-australias-biggest-companies/news-story/5e0361d3e4433be0c4c1c40c8254cac1 ">Clinton Fernandes</a> outlines some key facts:</font></p>
<blockquote><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The attention being given to possible covert influence being exercised by China in Australia shouldn’t distract us from recognising that very overt foreign influence now occurs through investment.</font></p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Right now, US corporations eclipse everyone else in their ability to influence our politics through their investments in Australian stocks.</font></p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Using company ownership data from Bloomberg, I analysed the ownership of Australia’s 20 biggest companies a few days after the 2019 federal election in May. Of those 20, 15 were majority-owned by US-based investors. Three more were at least 25% US-owned.</font></p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">According to my analysis, all four of our big banks are majority-owned by American investors. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the nation’s biggest company, is more than 60% owned by American-based investors.</font></p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">So too are Woolworths and Rio Tinto. BHP, once known as “the Big Australian”, is 73% owned by American-based investors.</font></p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The ASX’s top 20 companies make up close to half of the market capitalisation of the Australian Securities Exchange.</font></p></blockquote>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">In my view, this doesn't mean that Australia is an economic colony of the United States. The Australian state is still controlled by the Australian capitalist class. But, as Fernandes points out, the very significant US investment in Australia means that Washington has a big influence on our politics — way more than any other foreign player— and certainly qualitatively more than China.</font></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfwBxJSbG72DKV5h2awsrjkGSFFXpCVJYM94cJhPHmabLIhciACSSWpTjGsiKvLvCQONCt3Oht984txlfrVnEVQ8Ajh5RNV9w2ElAgq2mZtbDji1qce_rP8HgYFuubWsa9ArAYZrPFngoL/s650/US+ownership+in+Aust.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="650" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfwBxJSbG72DKV5h2awsrjkGSFFXpCVJYM94cJhPHmabLIhciACSSWpTjGsiKvLvCQONCt3Oht984txlfrVnEVQ8Ajh5RNV9w2ElAgq2mZtbDji1qce_rP8HgYFuubWsa9ArAYZrPFngoL/w400-h400/US+ownership+in+Aust.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<p align="justify"> <font face="arial" size="2"><b>Who are our biggest overseas investors?</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">According to <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/resources/investment-statistics/statistics-on-who-invests-in-australia">figures released by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade</a>, at the end of 2019 foreigners had invested $3.8 trillion dollars in Australia. The US accounted for 25.6% of this and the UK 17.8%. China (including Hong Kong) made up just 5.7% of the total.</font></p><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"></font></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="arial" size="2"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQEiwCe-u0R5OjtVZQC8m5rfsbGw7AOlutD7HeoTRAOdXP0PJib2ES_wydgOylSGYwdQf-vtjqhzuRJIiHnoohAvEdMrC53XhV3YiygqPY8WyqdiZdXrpNF3zJD6pxkWg-1OHThy242qnY/s844/Foreign+investment+in+Aust.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="522" data-original-width="844" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQEiwCe-u0R5OjtVZQC8m5rfsbGw7AOlutD7HeoTRAOdXP0PJib2ES_wydgOylSGYwdQf-vtjqhzuRJIiHnoohAvEdMrC53XhV3YiygqPY8WyqdiZdXrpNF3zJD6pxkWg-1OHThy242qnY/w400-h248/Foreign+investment+in+Aust.jpg" width="400" /></a></font></div><font face="arial" size="2"> </font><p></p><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>Foreign ownership of farmland </b><br /></font></font></p><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><font face="arial" size="2">In regard to foreign ownership of Australia's farmland, a</font> December 28, 2020 article by <a href="https://www.farmweekly.com.au/story/7067765/how-much-aussie-farmland-is-foreign-owned/ ">Mollie Tracey</a> in <i>Farm Weekly</i> gives some basic figures:</font></p>
<blockquote><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Chinese investors have continued to be the largest foreign entities with an interest (leasehold and freehold) in Australian farmland for a second consecutive year.</font></p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">They increased their investments by 0.5 per cent, bringing Chinese interests' total area of Australian agricultural land to 9,199,000 hectares or 2.4pc.</font></p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">United Kingdom investors remain the second largest overseas land holders, but they decreased this investment by a significant 9.5%to a total of 8,166,000ha.</font></p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">As such, the gap between the two largest foreign farmland owners has widened further, with all other countries having significantly less Australian agricultural property investments.</font></p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Investors from The Netherlands were the third largest foreign holders of Australian farmland, closely followed by American and Canadian investors, which each had about a 0.7% share of Australian farmland.</font></p></blockquote>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Whatever else can be said, the modest figure for China doesn't warrant the hysteria being generated in some quarters.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>Foreign ownership of residential property</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Investment from China in Australia's residential property market has sparked all sorts of anti-China claims. In the first place, foreign buyers are banned from acquiring existing property; they can only invest in new developments. Secondly, Chinese investment in Australian property is actually <i>declining</i> from its peak several years ago.
</font></p><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><font face="arial" size="2">A May 8, 2020 <a href="https://www.domain.com.au/news/chinese-buyers-abandon-australias-property-market-replaced-by-us-investors-954319/">Domain article</a> by Lucy Macken was headed "Chinese buyers abandon Australian property, replaced by US investors: FIRB".</font></font></p><font face="arial" size="2">
<blockquote><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">China’s foreign investors have abandoned the Australian property market in droves, replaced by a surge in the number of buyers from the US.</font></p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">US investment in Australian real estate soared to $19.5 billion in the 2018-19 financial year, more than three times what it was the year prior, followed by a jump in Canadian investment from $2.1 billion to $13.3 billion.</font></p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">As North America’s investment has grown, investment levels from China halved in a year from $12.6 billion to $6 billion last financial year, ranking it fifth largest source country for real estate investment behind Singapore and Hong Kong . . .</font></p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Of last financial year’s total $88.5 billion worth of real estate approvals more than $19.5 billion came from the US and $13.3 billion from Canada. Singapore accounted for $9.8 billion worth of investment, closely followed by Hong Kong’s $9.3 billion, and lagged by China’s $6 billion and New Zealand’s $4.7 billion.</font></p></blockquote>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">These are the facts. The claim that investors from China are pricing Australians out of the market is highly exaggerated. The reasons for Australians being priced out of the housing market and growing homelessness is due to <i>capitalist property speculation</i> and the <i>adamant refusal</i> of federal and state governments to build quality public housing on the massive scale required (because that would undercut capitalist property speculation).
</font></p><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>Our conclusion</b></font></font></p><font face="arial" size="2">
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The overseas country with the greatest influence (economic, military, political) in Australia is the United States.</font></p><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Australia is in a close military-intelligence alliance with the US and hosts a number of key US bases.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Washington has undoubtedly recruited all sorts of agents and collaborators from political, corporate, academic, media and trade union circles. In 1975 the CIA helped topple the mildly reformist Whitlam Labour government.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Whatever China is doing or trying to do, it is undoubtedly a long, long way behind the US in the influence stakes.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>What should we do? A socialist policy</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">What should be the socialist attitude to our economy and overseas investment in Australia, whether from the US, China or anywhere else? Here are some points which seem key to me:</font></p>
</font></font><div style="text-align: justify;"><font face="arial" size="2"><font face="arial" size="2"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><font face="arial" size="2">The commanding heights of the economy — the banks, mines, factories, transport system, supermarkets and so on — must be publicly owned and under democratic control.</font></li><li><font face="arial" size="2">There should be a state monopoly of foreign trade to protect our economy and ensure that any benefits flow via the state to the people who live here. Any foreign investment should be a joint project with the state under strict controls and limits.</font></li><li><font face="arial" size="2">The land (and any mining on it) should belong to us — not to the capitalists of any origin.</font></li><li><font face="arial" size="2">Similarly, the national housing stock should be reserved for people who live here. Foreign ownership should be banned. The state should build quality public housing on a <i>massive</i> scale to end homelessness, house everybody who needs it, and end capitalist property speculation and rent gouging.</font></li></ul></font></font></div><font face="arial" size="2"><font face="arial" size="2">
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>Military & intelligence policy</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Our armed forces should be reconfigured towards the actual defence of Australian territory against realistic threats, rather than built around “interoperabilty” with the US war machine or projecting imperialist power in the Asia-Pacific region. We simply don’t need obscenely expensive US warplanes or an obscenely expensive submarine fleet. Spend the money instead on meeting real needs in the community (healthcare, education, housing and welfare).<br /></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Australia should withdraw from all collaboration with the US war machine — that is, leave ANZUS and the Five Eyes group, and close all US bases here.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Australia should declare its neutrality from all imperialist alliances and pursue a peaceful and constructive foreign policy.</font></p></font><p></p></font><p></p>Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-21615427106469191072021-02-02T16:24:00.183-08:002023-03-20T21:20:31.808-07:00Behind the anti-China hysteria<div><div><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhvu2jQt01oZoZK0c-G0Qno0KCtF9Ps9P7SiCtjqzNbNcj4BBTduSfazivpSid42nIaTtj6F5SnOvBweTyT4-y2MGbsQtgE9PKbuInRegRhGyjo23CK9w8J0oUDXNShRDd266cF-HpWoAT/s950/uploads%25252Fcard%25252Fimage%25252F988885%25252Fd061916b-ed7a-44ef-a7c7-16f2c6477555.png%25252F950x534__filters%25253Aquality%25252880%252529.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="950" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhvu2jQt01oZoZK0c-G0Qno0KCtF9Ps9P7SiCtjqzNbNcj4BBTduSfazivpSid42nIaTtj6F5SnOvBweTyT4-y2MGbsQtgE9PKbuInRegRhGyjo23CK9w8J0oUDXNShRDd266cF-HpWoAT/w400-h225/uploads%25252Fcard%25252Fimage%25252F988885%25252Fd061916b-ed7a-44ef-a7c7-16f2c6477555.png%25252F950x534__filters%25253Aquality%25252880%252529.png" width="400" /></a></div><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="1"> [Talk given to Melbourne Socialist Alliance branch, February 2, 2021]</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">China’s influence in Australia, real or alleged, is a major issue in politics today.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Numerous Chinese investments in Australia have been blocked. The Chinese company Huawei has been banned from participating in the 5G rollout.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">In June NSW Labor MP Shaoquett Moselmane had his ALP membership suspended after an Australian Federal Police raid on his office over allegations that he was being cultivated by Chinese government agents. He was never charged and his ALP membership was reinstated in November. Former staffer John Zhang remains under investigation.</font></p><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><span></span></font></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Academic Clive Hamilton has been a leading anti-China voice. <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/worlds-eyes-on-australia-to-see-if-we-can-resist-china/news-story/497695d8da3a4467b7d40d30f86a90f4">He says</a> Australia is “the global leader pushing back against the Chinese Communist Party’s interference”.</font></p><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><i>Sydney Morning Herald</i> journalist Peter Hartcher is a prominent China-basher. In <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/apologising-for-china-s-delinquency-we-ll-be-sorry-20210201-p56ydy.html">a recent column</a> he described China as a "rising fascist power".<br /></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The Chinese regime is indeed very authoritarian and anti-democratic, carries out an active intervention into the Chinese overseas student and diaspora communities in Australia, and attempts to cultivate various people in positions of authority and influence.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>A cold-war campaign against China</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">But Australia has amicable relations with plenty of authoritarian and anti-democratic regimes (e.g., Turkey and Saudi Arabia). And the US government has long cultivated people in positions of authority and influence — both Coalition and Labor politicians, trade union leaders, academics and so on. It has military and spy bases here that make us a nuclear war target.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">It has immeasurably more influence on Australian politics than China but does the “political class” and its media enablers get worked up about that? No. They are in favour of it. Many are probably already on the US gravy train, whether directly or indirectly.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The Chinese regime may not be very nice but that is not the reason for the anti-China push. This is a cold-war campaign being waged by US imperialism and its allies aimed at isolating and weakening China. This campaign goes back to the victory of the revolution in 1949 but has been driven to a new level by the obvious growing economic, technological and military power of China — especially relative to the United States, which is no less clearly in decline.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>Capitalism with special characteristics</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The China question continues to bedevil the left.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">In my opinion the Chinese state is capitalist, albeit with some special characteristics. It promotes capitalism and a new class of Chinese capitalists has emerged. According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_billionaires"><i>Forbes</i> business magazine</a>, in 2020 China had 389 billionaires (the US had 614).</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The key features of Chinese capitalism are a very strong state control and, related to that, a still important sector of strong state-owned enterprises. All this was very much displayed in China’s extremely effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in comparison with the catastrophic and shambolic way the US administration dealt with it — some 4500 deaths compared to 500,000 with a population over four times as large.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The recent drama around Alibaba and Ant group illustrates these features. Alibaba is a gigantic Amazon-like Chinese corporation founded by Jack Ma. Associated with it is the one-third owned Ant Group. Ant hosts a payments platform which in June last year had one billion users and 80 million merchants. Its IPO set for August last year would have raised $US30 billion, valuing the company at $US313 billion.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">But the public float never happened. The central government cancelled it, probably because Jack Ma had made some ill-advised criticisms of the government’s financial leadership or maybe they were also concerned with the enormous economic power that group would wield. The speculation today is that the government intends to nationalise both Alibaba and Ant.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">According to a December 26 <a href="https://www.ibtimes.sg/china-ccp-nationalize-jack-mas-alibaba-ant-group-54444"><i>International Business Times</i> report</a>:</font></p>
<p align="justify"></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><font face="arial" size="2">Xi Jinping, Chinese President and CCP general secretary, had said in October that the plan was to make China a more state-controlled economy based on domestic demand. Observers think China's political economy is poised to see major changes. Many believe that Xi will change the pattern of property ownership in the country.</font></blockquote></div><p></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>Some historical background</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">It is worth remembering that China has long been an object for the predatory lusts of Western colonialism and imperialism.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">In the 1800s the Western powers smashed their way into China (the so-called Opium Wars) to secure lucrative trade deals and territorial concessions. In the 1930s Japan invaded China. The US backed Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist regime against both Japan and the rising Communist insurgency.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">China was meant to be the big prize of the US victory in the Asia-Pacific war, a huge market and source of labour and raw materials. The 1949 revolution took that from them — Who lost China? as the McCarthyite witch-hunters ranted in the 1950s.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">In the early 1950s the US fought the Korean War in defence of its right-wing puppet regime in the south. When US-led forces drove north to the Yalu River border with China, Chinese forces launched a massive counterattack, forcing a headlong retreat. When MacArthur wanted to use atomic weapons against bases in China, Truman sacked him.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Today, <a href="https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/john-pilger-most-lethal-virus-not-covid-19-it-war">John Pilger reports</a>, some 400 US bases encircle China — “rather like a noose” as a former Pentagon planner told him.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>China’s rise</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">A recent <a href="https://mronline.org/2021/01/05/dossier-no-36-twilight-the-erosion-of-u-s-control-and-the-multipolar-future/ "><i>Tricontinental </i>dossier</a> highlights China’s rise:
</font></p><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"></font></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><font face="arial" size="2"><font face="arial" size="2"></font></font></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><font face="arial" size="2"><font face="arial" size="2">The United States is approaching a position where it will no longer be the largest economy in the world by any measurement in the foreseeable future. In purchasing power parity (the real physical flow of goods and services), China’s economy is already 16% bigger than that of the US; by 2025, the IMF projects it will be 39% bigger. As with almost all developing countries, the size of China’s economy is understated when calculated at current exchange rates, but it is already 73% of the size of the US economy at current exchange rates and, based on IMF projections, will be 90% of the size of the US economy in 2025.</font></font></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="arial" size="2">
</font></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><font face="arial" size="2"><font face="arial" size="2">By the end of the decade, China’s GDP will be bigger than that of the US no matter how it is measured.</font></font></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><font face="arial" size="2"><font face="arial" size="2"></font></font></div><p></p><font face="arial" size="2">
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Most worrying to the US leadership is China’s growing challenge to US technological supremacy. In fact, in a number of areas China is ahead of the US.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Strikingly illustrating this advance is the growth of China’s high-speed (200kph plus) rail network. According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China ">Wikipedia</a>, at the end of 2020 this network had a length of almost 38,000km! It is projected to total 70,000km by 2035. It has “transformed Chinese society and economy” says the report. The US has next to no high-speed rail track.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">An August 20 2020 <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/08/20/donald-trump-is-losing-his-tech-war-with-china-and-doesnt-even-know-it/">article by Dilip Hiro</a> outlined the growth of China’s tech giants and their challenge to US corporations. It is well worth reading. Let’s look at Huawei, which is at the centre of the anti-China campaign.</font></p>
</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font face="arial" size="2"><font face="arial" size="2"></font></font><blockquote><font face="arial" size="2"><font face="arial" size="2">Huawei (in Chinese, it means “splendid achievement”) makes phones and the routers that facilitate communications around the world. Established in 1987, its current workforce of 194,000 operates in 170 countries. In 2019, its annual turnover was $122.5 billion. In 2012, it outstripped its nearest rival, the 136-year-old Ericsson Telephone Corporation of Sweden, to become the world’s largest supplier of telecommunications equipment with 28% of market share globally. In 2019, it forged ahead of Apple to become the second largest phone maker after Samsung …</font></font><br /><font face="arial" size="2">
</font><br /><font face="arial" size="2"><font face="arial" size="2">Ren [Zhengfei, Huawei’s founder,] has given top priority to the customer and, in the absence of the usual near-term pressure to raise income and profits, his management team has invested $15 to $20 billion annually in research and development work. That helps explain how Huawei became one of the globe’s five companies in the fifth generation (5G) smartphone business, topping the list by shipping out 6.9 million phones in 2019 and capturing 36.9% of the market. On the eve of the release of 5G phones, Ren revealed that Huawei had a staggering 2570 5G patents.</font></font><br /><font face="arial" size="2">
</font><br /><font face="arial" size="2"><font face="arial" size="2">So it was unsurprising that in the global race for 5G, Huawei was the first to roll out commercial products in February 2019. One hundred times faster than its 4G predecessors, 5G tops out at 10 gigabits per second and future 5G networks are expected to link a huge array of devices from cars to washing machines to door bells.</font></font></blockquote><font face="arial" size="2"><font face="arial" size="2"></font></font><font face="arial" size="2">
</font></div><font face="arial" size="2"><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">As Dilip Hiro goes on to explain:</font></p>
</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font face="arial" size="2"><font face="arial" size="2"><blockquote>In May 2019, the US Commerce Department banned American firms from supplying components and software to Huawei on national security grounds. A year later, it imposed a ban on Huawei buying microchips from American companies or using US-designed software. The White House also launched a global campaign against the installation of the company’s 5G systems in allied nations, with mixed success.</blockquote></font></font><font face="arial" size="2">
</font></div><font face="arial" size="2"><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Because Huawei’s technology is more advanced and cheaper than its competitors, we will all pay a price for the West’s anti-Huawei campaign.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>US trade war against China</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Trump’s presidency was marked by the imposition of numerous sanctions against China. Tariffs were imposed on many categories of goods. But judged by its stated aims — to reduce the US trade deficit with China and bring jobs back home — it has been a failure. According to a <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/08/07/more-pain-than-gain-how-the-us-china-trade-war-hurt-america/">Brookings Institute study</a>:</font></p>
</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font face="arial" size="2"><font face="arial" size="2"><blockquote>The trade war caused economic pain on both sides and led to diversion of trade flows away from both China and the United States. As described by Heather Long at the Washington Post, “U.S. economic growth slowed, business investment froze, and companies didn’t hire as many people. Across the nation, a lot of farmers went bankrupt, and the manufacturing and freight transportation sectors have hit lows not seen since the last recession. Trump’s actions amounted to one of the largest tax increases in years.”</blockquote></font></font><font face="arial" size="2">
</font></div><font face="arial" size="2"><blockquote><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">A September 2019 study by Moody’s Analytics found that the trade war had already cost the US economy nearly 300,000 jobs and an estimated 0.3% of real GDP …</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Numerous studies have found that US companies primarily paid for US tariffs, with the cost estimated at nearly $46 billion. The tariffs forced American companies to accept lower profit margins, cut wages and jobs for US workers, defer potential wage hikes or expansions, and raise prices for American consumers or companies. A spokesperson for the American Farm Bureau stated that “farmers have lost the vast majority of what was once a $24 billion market in China” as a result of Chinese retaliatory actions.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Meanwhile, the US goods trade deficit with China continued to grow, reaching a record $419.2 billion in 2018. By 2019, the trade deficit had shrunk to $345 billion, roughly the same level as 2016, largely as a result of reduced trade flows …</font></p></blockquote>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>China’s recent deal with the EU</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Furthermore, China has managed to divide the US from its traditional allies in the so-called “Free World”. A January 28 <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/01/28/while-america-was-sleeping/ ">article by Alfred McCoy</a> highlighted two recent mammoth trade deals engineered by China.</font></p>
<blockquote><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">In November 2020, Beijing would lead 15 Asia-Pacific nations in signing a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership that promised to create the world’s largest free-trade zone, encompassing 2.2 billion people and nearly a third of the global economy.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Just a month later, China’s President Xi Jinping scored what one expert called “a geopolitical coup” by signing a landmark agreement with European Union leaders for the closer integration of their financial services. In effect, the accord gives European banks easier access to the Chinese market, while drawing the continent more closely into Beijing’s orbit …</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">… this treaty is arguably the biggest breach in the NATO alliance since that mutual defense pact was formed more than 70 years ago.</font></p></blockquote>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><a href="https://mronline.org/2021/01/07/the-geo-politics-of-eu-china-investment-deal/ ">Salman Rafi Sheikh</a> assessed the China-EU deal in similar terms:</font></p>
</font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><font face="arial" size="2"><font face="arial" size="2"><blockquote>The recently announced EU-China principally agreed investment deal is a watershed moment, marking a first EU-China investment deal of its kind that would open the doors for the EU to make direct investment in China. China will also have opportunities to expand its reach in the European market.</blockquote></font></font><font face="arial" size="2">
</font></div><font face="arial" size="2"><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>Regime’s repression & surveillance</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Proponents of the anti-China campaign cite the regime’s heavy surveillance of disaspora Chinese and overseas students in Australia. The use of Chinese nationalism features heavily in regime efforts to rally support in these communities. Given the terrible historical record of the West in relation to China, Chinese nationalism certainly has a lot of material to work with.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">But obviously there is a dark side to this as it is used to prejudice Chinese against the Hong Kong people struggling for democracy or against the non-Han Chinese Tibetans and Uighurs fighting for democracy and their very existence as distinct peoples.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">But Western countries would be in a stronger position to criticise China if they didn’t support repressive regimes around the world, if they didn’t try to overthrow governments they didn’t like and if they were honestly trying to “close the gap” with their own non-white and indigenous minorities.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">A key Western intelligence and surveillance alliance is the Five Eyes which brings together Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States and the UK — four Anglophone settler-colonial states plus the great mother of such settler-colonial states. And, of course, Five Eyes is very concerned about Chinese influence. It is almost comical.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">China-bashers claim that through Chinese companies such as Huawei and Tiktok the Chinese Communist Party has access to all your data. There is no actual evidence whatsoever for these specific claims. But I have no doubt that China does carry out cyber surveillance, hacking and espionage.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">But I don’t think their efforts abroad would <i>remotely</i> measure up to what the US and allied agencies get up to. A June 6, 2014 <a href="https://mashable.com/2014/06/05/edward-snowden-revelations/ "><i>Mashable</i> article</a> details “The 10 Biggest Revelations from Edward Snowden's Leaks”. Here are a few tidbits:</font></p>
<blockquote><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The very first story revealed that Verizon had been providing the NSA with virtually all of its customers' phone records. It soon was revealed that it wasn't just Verizon, but virtually every other telephone company in America …</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">… the NSA … can request user data from the [US tech giants like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple] which are compelled by law to comply …</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The British spy agency, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), taps fibre optic cables all over the world to intercept data flowing through the global Internet, we learned. The GCHQ works closely with the NSA, sharing data and intelligence in a program that's codenamed Tempora.</font></p></blockquote>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">And so on. The NSA had even bugged Angela Merkel’s mobile phone.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>China’s island bases</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The West is deeply troubled about China’s rapid construction in 2013-16 of the “great wall of sand” — seven bases built on reclaimed coral reefs in the remote Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. China also has bases in the closer Paracels Islands.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">China’s “nine-dash line” claim to most of the islands in the South China Seas is hotly disputed by neighbouring countries (Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia). Looking at the map we can see that the Spratlys are indeed a long, long way from China.</font></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="arial" size="2"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6mSguhyphenhyphen4MTcXe-6XizUYy-svphtPiv0AJXxz40rR4cK0g6lMm9y795KU5do8uzTmM3iyaPbq3ZTk2QtJ9wFr8Hf9VmiIP85YWT5oIwQeEjN_rtr0VZ69Wf1vXIWkYT6kDjigUqFWZw4Eu/s976/China%2527s+nine-dash+line.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="907" data-original-width="976" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6mSguhyphenhyphen4MTcXe-6XizUYy-svphtPiv0AJXxz40rR4cK0g6lMm9y795KU5do8uzTmM3iyaPbq3ZTk2QtJ9wFr8Hf9VmiIP85YWT5oIwQeEjN_rtr0VZ69Wf1vXIWkYT6kDjigUqFWZw4Eu/s320/China%2527s+nine-dash+line.jpg" width="320" /></a></font></div><font face="arial" size="2"><br />However, I think that their fundamental purpose is to increase China’s defences against the US encirclement. A recent <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2020/01/the-conventional-wisdom-on-chinas-island-bases-is-dangerously-wrong/"><i>War on the Rocks</i> article</a> argues that the bases present a formidable barrier to a non-nuclear attack by the US and its allies.</font>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The hysteria about the South China Sea seems confected when we consider that the US has 800 bases and 160,000 troops in 130 countries; the UK has 145 bases in 42 countries. Are our rulers and the media worried about that? Not at all: They are fully in favour of it.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>Australian exports to China sacrificed</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Last year, in reaction to the Australian government’s obvious hostility to China, Beijing imposed punitive tarrifs on a range of Australian exports.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">In wiping out a large part of the country’s exports to China, our biggest trade partner, the Morrison government achieved a truly striking own goal.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">There seems to be a radical disjuncture between the needs of the big Australian corporations and the country’s political-security leadership and its total support for the US-Australia alliance.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">A November 10 <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australias-asymmetrical-trade-with-china-offers-little-room-to-move/">article by David Uren</a> on the blog of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute explained the grim reality for Australia.</font></p>
<blockquote><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Australia has no realistic alternative market to China for a third of its exports and no viable source but China for almost a fifth of its imports.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">By contrast, it is only as a supplier of minerals that Australia has any significance to the Chinese economy. As an export market for Chinese businesses, Australia is almost irrelevant, accounting for just 1.9% of their worldwide sales.</font></p></blockquote>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">For instance, China takes 76% of Australia’s lobster exports. There is no realistic alternative market. If China doesn’t take our lobsters there is no point catching most of them. Perhaps the lobsters are celebrating.</font></p>
</font><div style="text-align: justify;"><font face="arial" size="2"><blockquote><font face="arial" size="2">The impracticability of diversification is most obvious in iron ore [says David Uren]. Australia will ship almost 800 million tonnes of iron ore to China this year. The total seaborne market in the rest of the world is only 460 million tonnes and Australia already captures around 100 million tonnes of that. If China didn’t buy our iron ore, there would literally be nowhere else to send it.</font></blockquote></font></div><font face="arial" size="2">
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The big mining corporations are surely praying that China doesn’t develop a realistic alternative to Australian iron ore. If that market should disappear the pain will be widely felt here.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>Break from US war alliance</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Last November China's embassy here made public a document outlining 14 grievances against Australia. Chris Slee wrote a <a href="https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/us-imperialist-alliance-cause-trade-war-china">December 8 article</a> dealing with this in <i>Green Left</i>. I don’t have time to go into this at length. Comrades should read the article.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Some of China’s complaints are valid. For instance, Australia does discriminate against Chinese companies, and not just where there are “security” concerns. And as Chris Slee points out:</font></p></font><div style="text-align: justify;"><font face="arial" size="2">
<font face="arial" size="2"><blockquote>Canberra also has a double standard on human rights issues: it rightly criticises China’s oppression of the Uighurs and its repression of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, but there is no similar denunciation of the mass incarceration of Black people in the United States or the police murders that have prompted the Black Lives Matter movement.</blockquote></font></font></div><font face="arial" size="2"><p></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Australia — that is, the mass of ordinary people, if not the big capitalist corporations — would be better served if Australia withdrew from the US war alliance and the Five Eyes group and declared our neutrality from such pacts. Criticisms of China’s repressive internal actions would still anger the regime but we would clearly not be part of the war drive against China.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The Biden administration will not automatically repeal Trump’s anti-China measures. In fact, it looks like most or all of Trump’s measures will continue until or unless the US cuts a deal with China.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The US empire is in decline but it retains a huge military capacity and China has not achieved parity yet, even though the gap is closing. The danger is that US will use its military superiority to offset its relative economic weakness. Australia should make sure it is not any part of such madness.</font></p></font><p></p><p></p>Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-37300453491691903472020-12-30T17:39:00.011-08:002021-12-23T16:15:21.041-08:00Introduction to Socialism I<div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgcMXMefV8dhVDvBvU8DHvPhyO1qbUhjbMPXjWl-jOhbq1Fhk5-peAzi6F8ZzMd4L3_VHH3huHXVaADuMbzijApZ3w-kDUsF-QwLMVzL5bKixMuZ6jHEdjMuhJdIlb2XwVSGikMPGKQ544mfBlklsWsfLSRwNXGAio1DU7JmU7laORPSV2NVS7RAVsoPg=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgcMXMefV8dhVDvBvU8DHvPhyO1qbUhjbMPXjWl-jOhbq1Fhk5-peAzi6F8ZzMd4L3_VHH3huHXVaADuMbzijApZ3w-kDUsF-QwLMVzL5bKixMuZ6jHEdjMuhJdIlb2XwVSGikMPGKQ544mfBlklsWsfLSRwNXGAio1DU7JmU7laORPSV2NVS7RAVsoPg=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">[For a PDF of slideshow see <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-H2roOMgYX29YCF4eby1CyKJMcF9ZgSn/view?usp=sharing">here</a>.]</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span></span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgSaxOlWW-LcXxYgucfShPpYl7yLgrGj1RD41buh9Ap_FXeDJziNwJkHxuUlRUcF8W02mxVZkRrE8jun-f5JVMV0b2bZhXYif8H_is1Rw0EBk4CkPaEvvQTBGJ8z3la46YQwLpMqPf1D4D5_XSpRPa9eY0KTh7FaMeyoNQ6awE30vE5dpm3GnMgWtbGag=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgSaxOlWW-LcXxYgucfShPpYl7yLgrGj1RD41buh9Ap_FXeDJziNwJkHxuUlRUcF8W02mxVZkRrE8jun-f5JVMV0b2bZhXYif8H_is1Rw0EBk4CkPaEvvQTBGJ8z3la46YQwLpMqPf1D4D5_XSpRPa9eY0KTh7FaMeyoNQ6awE30vE5dpm3GnMgWtbGag=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><b><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">1. What is capitalism?</span></span></b><br /><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Private ownership of society’s means of production.</li><li>Source of capitalist wealth is labor of working people, appropriated because capitalists own means of production.</li><li>System driven by hunt for profit => ruthless competition and exploitation of working class. Profit is alpha and omega, the start and finish of whole thing. Everything else subordinated to this.</li></ul><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgb04-N7LMw8mwa6tq7GR8MXaLzqhSz0FEIE1a9PxPtJDAwwpVnH7yRmX_J8USF8rzME1GuJq1bPTZMyNwaTFoiQ8WuUnsnIhgxM8nuSMbekTtFV_Ygon2QASNxat7SYbowa2OUqvov2rs7aQ6aAjQ1MZ510cwa8fBxG_Vw8fQtvTjQANoZoydZZgHC0A=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgb04-N7LMw8mwa6tq7GR8MXaLzqhSz0FEIE1a9PxPtJDAwwpVnH7yRmX_J8USF8rzME1GuJq1bPTZMyNwaTFoiQ8WuUnsnIhgxM8nuSMbekTtFV_Ygon2QASNxat7SYbowa2OUqvov2rs7aQ6aAjQ1MZ510cwa8fBxG_Vw8fQtvTjQANoZoydZZgHC0A=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">2. Social system responsible for all ills of society</span></span></b><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Exploitation of workers, insecurity, unemployment.</li><li>Racism, ethnic and religious stereotyping and discrimination: profitable and politically necessary to keep oppressed divided, etc.</li><li> Oppression of women: despite all, they remain second-class citizens. <br /></li></ul><ol style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><li>Through the family women bear the main burden of care of children, sick and elderly. If system had to pay for this, enormous cost to capitalists.</li><li>Women paid less at work; big advantage to capitalists.</li><li>Sexism divides workers.</li></ol><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Homophobia: byproduct of support of family system, undermines it and must therefore be rejected. Also useful in dividing working class.</li></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUAOYdxWbsfSEpS-clXw3RH5Dono8zz0P0i-w9xvSArxDfoTWBegC8PdOj1SSfr4UmtW7Mbh9Ik3s3dNTcUNOnjPUUExLNFVg9U_aXiQgoTflyzU9vdglfPYAqgyo_f-CKPolWKku_Nd72/s960/Slide4.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUAOYdxWbsfSEpS-clXw3RH5Dono8zz0P0i-w9xvSArxDfoTWBegC8PdOj1SSfr4UmtW7Mbh9Ik3s3dNTcUNOnjPUUExLNFVg9U_aXiQgoTflyzU9vdglfPYAqgyo_f-CKPolWKku_Nd72/w400-h300/Slide4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p><br /> <b><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">3. Imperialism & war</span></span></b><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Imperialism is highest stage of capitalism: outgrowth of giant monopolies and finance capital.</li><li>War: nothing to do with dark side of human spirit and everything to do with imperialist drive for control of markets and sources of raw materials.</li></ul><p> </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiGnA80sQBpCPXUcQo2QtQrbOfY-Vjl1iDh2IHytF6vtazUU5ytvtJCWmNV5IKF221qm9ed6sgwPzVFndBazXUa9lDY6VMIy25s1P_7E7Vzw6JRPfUjxS0nNo0mDfgUNwS7q2VlohQ2vYgwCejq0L3Rf2WnaNoA7UZZLiv03ig4-hVCIbHt0K_oCl0w5g=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiGnA80sQBpCPXUcQo2QtQrbOfY-Vjl1iDh2IHytF6vtazUU5ytvtJCWmNV5IKF221qm9ed6sgwPzVFndBazXUa9lDY6VMIy25s1P_7E7Vzw6JRPfUjxS0nNo0mDfgUNwS7q2VlohQ2vYgwCejq0L3Rf2WnaNoA7UZZLiv03ig4-hVCIbHt0K_oCl0w5g=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p></p><p><br /><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">4. Gobal warming</span></span></b><br /></p>Most serious crisis ever: fate of human society itself at stake.</div><div><br />Result of rapacity of capitalist system, of corporations’ drive for profit at all costs.<ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Not due to population per se or ‘overconsumption’ but the way capitalism forces us to live.</li><li>Consumerism: capitalism must foist ‘stuff’ on us, continually, otherwise economic crisis.</li><li>This leads to crises of ‘overproduction’: too much stuff produced that can’t be sold. No other society knows such a crisis — people thrown out of work, into poverty, etc because too much is produced (madness).</li></ul><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg46_7VgfyvMJ4kSGxyzuQvZB-ylvvDWSfw5rBS9GJcP4tQAaEkUVOsswVLQBo5etxvVGt4rOE1SdJzZwGASt5Ntxzac9EpmSJtpXBDXLG3mukLc8w08xsYlN0GUr34y8aRlSvrfUPZ_1rw0R7JKOsjo73sbJ5Sj80O5TXfYa8v45ukQn_T29REz7oqGg=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg46_7VgfyvMJ4kSGxyzuQvZB-ylvvDWSfw5rBS9GJcP4tQAaEkUVOsswVLQBo5etxvVGt4rOE1SdJzZwGASt5Ntxzac9EpmSJtpXBDXLG3mukLc8w08xsYlN0GUr34y8aRlSvrfUPZ_1rw0R7JKOsjo73sbJ5Sj80O5TXfYa8v45ukQn_T29REz7oqGg=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">5. A class-divided society</span></span></b><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Capitalist class is a small group: few percent of population (in Australia, a few thousand people).</li><li>Working class: great majority of society — own no means of production (only petty personal property) and have to work for bosses in order to live. Carries society on its back. If workers stop working, society stops functioning.</li><li>Middle classes: intermediate between capitalists and working class. Old middle classes: Small proprietors: self-employed (artisans, farmers). New middle classes: Professionals: self-employed (consultants, etc.).<br /></li></ul><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhWzqBtEFPKvVlNTdmXvaYVI2SQbmxr2PSPUr6mAh030kXFHFlSBhVlqoGCeUeDzD-k3CevMGqquX-_lIIRoqimhNY8eZPX2Gjh51Zkg_zHqw1nElWcGBqQQu7RjtLZc5NEBiFpilKwloEThHgrCIHgp-c9rACYiOQBKJMODUaXZteY4SKzJKz4DsMw4A=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhWzqBtEFPKvVlNTdmXvaYVI2SQbmxr2PSPUr6mAh030kXFHFlSBhVlqoGCeUeDzD-k3CevMGqquX-_lIIRoqimhNY8eZPX2Gjh51Zkg_zHqw1nElWcGBqQQu7RjtLZc5NEBiFpilKwloEThHgrCIHgp-c9rACYiOQBKJMODUaXZteY4SKzJKz4DsMw4A=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><b><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">6. How does 1% rule society?</span></span></b><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Ruling class has its supporters: upper middle class, bureaucrats, whole series of people on the make chasing big careers, backward workers, etc.</li><li>Naked force not best option: big overheads and very expensive. Much better if can make people believe the system works.</li><li>In Third World (the neocolonies of imperialism) force is a lot more naked (but still many variations).</li><li>In West, huge resources devoted to ‘manufacturing consent’ (media, education) and obscuring class realities and fact that 1% rule society.</li><li>Democracy: big advance over dictatorship (fascism etc) but severe limitations and if radical party ever looked like winning and using office to drive through an anti-capitalist program, the gloves would come off (see 1980s British TV film <i>A Very British Coup</i>).</li></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgshAEcH9Cqs5I4aScuhN0G7leD8zdoJsRfwr2iGANg8RYF8Vww2Uqzswduib6FptN0xswv6pCXrLekDF3pjYhp4M-WZtm7hN86as4cVr89iajESoj6ilRxKnhGM2FaRhc5JST1ls7i6hhgOfVZWfulXQgbflLuy2iAccS46uAq9j2pm87CVdSWki23Ng=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgshAEcH9Cqs5I4aScuhN0G7leD8zdoJsRfwr2iGANg8RYF8Vww2Uqzswduib6FptN0xswv6pCXrLekDF3pjYhp4M-WZtm7hN86as4cVr89iajESoj6ilRxKnhGM2FaRhc5JST1ls7i6hhgOfVZWfulXQgbflLuy2iAccS46uAq9j2pm87CVdSWki23Ng=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><p> <br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>7. What is the state?</b></span></span><br />If all else fails capitalists have the state — their ultimate fortress. Police, army, courts etc who are organised for violence and repression.</p><p> Unknown in early communist, ‘hunter-gather’ societies: there the whole community would organise its affairs, bear arms etc.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiPu86oLmnQHgMJUZO1WuA3RDKkeukcPCfem0um1zq2pd-wEnagpi8lF-gl5QYdGhuxbr_TZhMo45YjgcqACIXZwKP0-_DbPIZ-20-CA-4nyertxV5Lq38RCYIu1n-NBTjSffZ1zffTFk1hibHk-LObsGKyoPobOMLrjh05L8PkDpRRx44OkBloYeV3HA=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiPu86oLmnQHgMJUZO1WuA3RDKkeukcPCfem0um1zq2pd-wEnagpi8lF-gl5QYdGhuxbr_TZhMo45YjgcqACIXZwKP0-_DbPIZ-20-CA-4nyertxV5Lq38RCYIu1n-NBTjSffZ1zffTFk1hibHk-LObsGKyoPobOMLrjh05L8PkDpRRx44OkBloYeV3HA=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>8. Can capitalism be reformed?</b></span></span><br /> Short answer is NO! We struggle for reforms in the interests of the people but as long as the system remains these can only be provisional, the capitalists will never be reconciled to them.<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Look at the 8-hour day, first won a century ago: now disappearing for many. Overwork for one section; unemployment, underemployment, casualisation for another section.</li><li>Welfare state: product of a specific period in West (post war boom plus Cold War), now being dismantled everywhere.</li><li>War, climate change etc: no let up => we need a new system!</li></ul><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEibqoUmOPWYXJlfYfY8KC4CjAByfLzSHkrtFHeCEOg5615JRQj9HxHpIJ73T7bUuyOBQeD7kpo7gh3y4x-wbsXYyaU5jEUEdrC6qXyZ9xTHkfNXahGo7wuXhbqMsLmoZPRcKx5Uzm_ycHwLHP7VZ-AvhMvrdp2wdEaJTjKg4Pzg1MUGHZySZv3dzHMPoQ=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEibqoUmOPWYXJlfYfY8KC4CjAByfLzSHkrtFHeCEOg5615JRQj9HxHpIJ73T7bUuyOBQeD7kpo7gh3y4x-wbsXYyaU5jEUEdrC6qXyZ9xTHkfNXahGo7wuXhbqMsLmoZPRcKx5Uzm_ycHwLHP7VZ-AvhMvrdp2wdEaJTjKg4Pzg1MUGHZySZv3dzHMPoQ=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>9. The socialist alternative</b></span></span><br />Socialism: means of production owned in common, no private owners — all are owners (collectively).<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Since economy is owned by society (nationally, state level, municipal), rational economic planning can be implemented. Combination of centralism and decentralisation.</li><li>Provides basis for eliminating racism and discrimination, oppression of women, etc. Old attitudes might persist for a time but no longer being driven by interests of a specific social class.</li></ul><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiUluRnSemWWlm8RGQs0IaZS98UnVxyV29nyY_PcEtW7QxoS7AsXKejq5QxgxmZqU9caGSwyGWJEWS0ptCXCwDTRW-7CaAPK3pn5vST3kGpsRuTAd4t19tlJBJm7MLC3O-e5ojHZiL_dQZ354vUlx6IXX63PtnV-_6LyMWxGEfIyeL8hnaZZglRBXlFgw=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiUluRnSemWWlm8RGQs0IaZS98UnVxyV29nyY_PcEtW7QxoS7AsXKejq5QxgxmZqU9caGSwyGWJEWS0ptCXCwDTRW-7CaAPK3pn5vST3kGpsRuTAd4t19tlJBJm7MLC3O-e5ojHZiL_dQZ354vUlx6IXX63PtnV-_6LyMWxGEfIyeL8hnaZZglRBXlFgw=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>10. Meeting people’s needs</b></span></span><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Under capitalism making profits for the rich is the overriding aim; all human needs subordinated to this. Housing, healthcare, education, the environment, etc — all suffer while funds are poured into corporate welfare and militarism.</li><li>Under socialism the sole criterion is trying to meet the basic needs of the mass of people. It will be a society where ‘no one is abandoned’ (Fidel).</li></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiosLJBcK_HWt2kvVUWovJH3jcmlk3craqXbLEy3Dh-eczyKDmfXXxwdYThjcKdHDCSL91wbepbrvTzzEdfEiavZcIGBnLd4D3j3QkTwlp2Za8GkJ74R1QokRjoll1HOBk4Gm4XGT5axLGGJK1hydHBr5paelxJcJcqaa3oVgXCyioCpx8nw7PnL6tivg=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiosLJBcK_HWt2kvVUWovJH3jcmlk3craqXbLEy3Dh-eczyKDmfXXxwdYThjcKdHDCSL91wbepbrvTzzEdfEiavZcIGBnLd4D3j3QkTwlp2Za8GkJ74R1QokRjoll1HOBk4Gm4XGT5axLGGJK1hydHBr5paelxJcJcqaa3oVgXCyioCpx8nw7PnL6tivg=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>11. Objections to socialism</b></span></span><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>It will never happen. (Leave that for next seminar!)</li><li>Human nature: greed is innate, will always out => new ruling elite. A tired old, factually wrong mantra. Compare Soviet experience with Cuba.</li><li>Will stifle individuality. That happens right now in class society, the individuality of the masses is crushed — ‘work, consume, die’.</li><li>Economy won’t work if greed factor removed. Capitalist society only functions because so many ordinary people are <i>not</i> motivated by greed and egoism.</li><li>Modern economy too complex to plan. Already the big capitalist corporations are really highly planned economies. The chaos is <i>outside</i> in the market.</li></ul><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEirYr3hEgkRdyjy42iW-Ue3SdJfr0kss3hV-GZjBTRaVmEOArHEv5j_Lkmka2wNYo9gEnvrdSgLLGWKUCpDeEujSC7I-HcBlaayv_xffg-QvnhBcDn9UobNqOLuUeoeecr6gTwsXr4IE1ln9xdBUrX8XwvOm6vexmvbIkvCQitAmEpN6Tcsr1_b2kZgSw=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEirYr3hEgkRdyjy42iW-Ue3SdJfr0kss3hV-GZjBTRaVmEOArHEv5j_Lkmka2wNYo9gEnvrdSgLLGWKUCpDeEujSC7I-HcBlaayv_xffg-QvnhBcDn9UobNqOLuUeoeecr6gTwsXr4IE1ln9xdBUrX8XwvOm6vexmvbIkvCQitAmEpN6Tcsr1_b2kZgSw=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>12. Fight for socialism</b></span></span><br /></p>As a post-capitalist society develops, and whole world goes the same way, social classes will wither war, social tensions will wither away, the state will wither away, money will wither away. A new society and a new human type will emerge (=socialism/communism)</div><div><br /></div>Will we get ever there?<br /><div><div style="text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li> This is unknowable. But however grim things may look right now, the future is not written. </li><li> What happens will be decided by the struggle.</li><li> What each of us does makes a difference. As Trotsky once so powerfully expressed it: Each of us carries a particle of the fate of humanity on our shoulders. This consciousness should inspire us to do all we can to advance the cause.</li></ul></div><p><br /> </p><br /><br /></div>Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-3045473937206342542020-12-29T20:42:00.001-08:002021-12-23T16:15:50.259-08:00Introduction to Socialism II<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj41XNnUE3RIkfi1yQ6o47F6KKdmL--G1EUzRCj5khTN431ux-Am7rtbRM9lch1LS0g1JDLzimdwtzhp9wYCZM7-w9gp5sc8cSFQfiSdyloFputQDn2t707ax515R-xgohyqWc6F49jOsAfjOPCDl_ZisNHR8N_c6iDRo3vksDLnP4Y9W6hIrzmxNf5ew=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj41XNnUE3RIkfi1yQ6o47F6KKdmL--G1EUzRCj5khTN431ux-Am7rtbRM9lch1LS0g1JDLzimdwtzhp9wYCZM7-w9gp5sc8cSFQfiSdyloFputQDn2t707ax515R-xgohyqWc6F49jOsAfjOPCDl_ZisNHR8N_c6iDRo3vksDLnP4Y9W6hIrzmxNf5ew=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">[For a PDF of slideshow see <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IIp12YK8jYVJW3ivZUt5zZRmFX7evLOn/view?usp=sharing">here</a>.]</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span></span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj3Jpa_Ry5eG8gNCWnywlNtkdPZ4l6cF8dOItLIoMYJPtFRhdSaFX5RTg8VgoYI8cw2T8AYXzTg1eooGIw3HTMth2AAeBD7XNsN6uEwHh_lwV5MaMYxbX1b6EAzJvvytcQ2hXPBe8aj9vs8dN9CGNJn4FcFqnwYBHXJcjbsL05-zvictmipCg8EstW4ZQ=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj3Jpa_Ry5eG8gNCWnywlNtkdPZ4l6cF8dOItLIoMYJPtFRhdSaFX5RTg8VgoYI8cw2T8AYXzTg1eooGIw3HTMth2AAeBD7XNsN6uEwHh_lwV5MaMYxbX1b6EAzJvvytcQ2hXPBe8aj9vs8dN9CGNJn4FcFqnwYBHXJcjbsL05-zvictmipCg8EstW4ZQ=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Change the system</b></span></span><br />We are for radical social change — we want to replace capitalism with socialism.<br /><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>We are not talking about simply reforming the system, tighter regulation etc.</li><li>An absolutely basic change in whole system: a new state structure, the economy (or at least most of it, all the main sections) taken into public hands.</li><li>Capitalist class would cease to exist as such. Just be people same as everyone else, could have personal property but would not own means of production.</li></ul><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhxzBmzqf4nT-uxzf-EpXQvYWueKLAp2COAoO47f4Sxkc4fOenDyhaTRJtCVr0zbBkjnOphR6XSO0CSqN74gcRxXXHfn9_65-bb1osCgC-L_J-V4MgguT6xfmHcu4sga7-T8cfdtF1-u2DkQr1IO8cVEoj9G-SxgR2yLmH6SxSi7jr6-vh760dqcAzxVw=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhxzBmzqf4nT-uxzf-EpXQvYWueKLAp2COAoO47f4Sxkc4fOenDyhaTRJtCVr0zbBkjnOphR6XSO0CSqN74gcRxXXHfn9_65-bb1osCgC-L_J-V4MgguT6xfmHcu4sga7-T8cfdtF1-u2DkQr1IO8cVEoj9G-SxgR2yLmH6SxSi7jr6-vh760dqcAzxVw=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">How can fundamental social change take place?</span></span></b><br /></p><ul><li>No recipes; many variations are possible (electoral victory of the left and struggle to defend it; huge upsurge bypassing discredited parliament, etc)</li><li>Crisis: built into capitalist system. Some small, some enormous etc. People shaken up, jolted out of rut. Lenin’s formula for revolutionary situation: when the ruling class cannot continue in the old way and the oppressed classes will not continue in the old way.</li><li>Crises on this scale don’t happen every day, generally very infrequent but they do happen in the life of every country.</li></ul><ul style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><ul><li>February-November 1917 in Russia: began will overthrow of tsar and ended in the workers taking power through the soviets.</li><li>May-June 1968 events in France: shook the system but didn’t succeed in toppling it.</li></ul></ul><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b> </b></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgpGYkEr05rFPaUzqBbF7nIrWKzdp5KwRs2eR566AALVbUwWYXrrjJHjx5061KnpvPrDWu-Effabh3B5eOQBZJj89ws8u5S-xpjCkGg_P94N4UhrS3MeS_Z_urDHkpIVGj5EeivZGA97qKVuY4cmNlkpPyJ2qDO9HvrWLROi4U4TeUV3ZUPJDPqRQq09g=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgpGYkEr05rFPaUzqBbF7nIrWKzdp5KwRs2eR566AALVbUwWYXrrjJHjx5061KnpvPrDWu-Effabh3B5eOQBZJj89ws8u5S-xpjCkGg_P94N4UhrS3MeS_Z_urDHkpIVGj5EeivZGA97qKVuY4cmNlkpPyJ2qDO9HvrWLROi4U4TeUV3ZUPJDPqRQq09g=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>How can the people win?</b></span></span> </p><p>Trotsky’s analogy of steam and piston in preface to his <i>History of the Russian Revolution</i>. Nothing happens without a mass upsurge, an explosion from below.</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li> But this is not enough. If the masses lack leadership then capitalist class will eventually regain control of situation</li><li>Second key ingredient is a mass, militant socialist party made up of activists deeply embedded in the mass movement and playing a leadership role on the ground.</li><li>Talk of ‘revolution from below’ is ridiculous: what other sort of thoroughgoing revolution is there? But unless the working-class masses succeed in creating their own class party, any revolt is highly unlikely to win.</li><blockquote><ul><li>Why is this? The capitalist class is organised and prepared. It is permanently waging the struggle 24 hours a day, every day of the year. It has leadership (political, civil, military and business leaders), it has state power, the media, the schools and so on.</li><li> The people (the working class masses and their allies) need to be organised too. TUs are fine but cover less than 20% of workers plus not geared to political struggle (all workers, backward and advanced, can belong to TU). Workers need their own political party (not a faker party like ALP).</li></ul></blockquote></ul><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhWV6USxnur2_awQg-3-6CDTA7P0sGzTXfIKTKCHWiigHWRipeWGBnK56zBvWmmUsiYjfiinyFoDyQTMR4DOtuEEMioA8eWufzInjRfMT58thDgGDgExZX17LmVYLMV5likrxlgc1xSSAJRX5PatuqgdEb_52CXsIcXErEtdtl7kVLqy-kKEBNXInkHkQ=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhWV6USxnur2_awQg-3-6CDTA7P0sGzTXfIKTKCHWiigHWRipeWGBnK56zBvWmmUsiYjfiinyFoDyQTMR4DOtuEEMioA8eWufzInjRfMT58thDgGDgExZX17LmVYLMV5likrxlgc1xSSAJRX5PatuqgdEb_52CXsIcXErEtdtl7kVLqy-kKEBNXInkHkQ=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Socialist party must be built now!</b></span></span><br />The socialist party cannot be built overnight, or even in the middle of an upsurge.</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Has to be built in a long struggle beforehand. It will obviously grow in an upsurge but unless it has a certain mass implantation beforehand, it will most likely be swamped</li><li>In Russia in 1917, Lenin’s party had 22,000 members in February when the tsar was toppled plus a great history. By the time of the November 7 revolution it had 300,000-400,000 members.</li><li>In France, revolutionaries of the JCR made tremendous efforts and did grow. (They had introduction to socialism classes in the Sorbonne with 3000 people!) But they were swamped by the upsurge and couldn’t mount an adequate challenge to the huge Stalinist Communist Partry whose leaders were desperately trying to avoid a revolutionary showdown.</li></ul><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiwMjABDw0vwcNlQ2ueNrKS0Zyn9unLd_Go4VWFWpO5dSu_TX5rW1lSIXrjL__26M1ZNKdLG1KuVHmUNqDN4ivzLa4Hn5AUZlkD4uWekN4Sixb-llw3xZDTehFaOCQ_FbADwYeKmTrfq63NZ7tiKej6QySlZKVX7jkVKRsSD55gY7idEOIr8qNsBxa7_g=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiwMjABDw0vwcNlQ2ueNrKS0Zyn9unLd_Go4VWFWpO5dSu_TX5rW1lSIXrjL__26M1ZNKdLG1KuVHmUNqDN4ivzLa4Hn5AUZlkD4uWekN4Sixb-llw3xZDTehFaOCQ_FbADwYeKmTrfq63NZ7tiKej6QySlZKVX7jkVKRsSD55gY7idEOIr8qNsBxa7_g=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /> <span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>How we struggle today</b></span></span><br />Today we are small and the level of struggle is small. There is growing discontent and alienation but not yet manifested in large actions.<p></p><p>Within the limits of our capacity (numbers, implantation, etc) we strive to work with others to build action committees with an activist approach. Most actions today are small. (Even last year’s WAW at 20,000 plus was small.)</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>But they are critically important in getting the message out, educating and radicalising people. The broad masses will learn from experience in struggles (workplace/industrial, protests and rallies).</li><li>They will learn all the faster if the socialists are there alongside them all the time, trying to generalise the lessons and explain that at the end of the day we need to replace this profit-mad system with a people-centred socialist society.</li><li>Most committee and movement work is necessarily united front work, i.e., we have to work with other people from a range of political backgrounds. Conversely, this is the best way to build the biggest, broadest, most effective actions.</li><li> Over time, even small actions, persistently engaged in, can effect people’s consciousness. (e.g. movement in solidarity with East Timor.)</li></ul><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjK71zdFP5rjFg7rKGYD7VMuvS89RMdWQxejsmOfgk9Ed5hIYNU2wfqjCN1YLvOvOW9sUPk4yT7uzSnLLxi-BDjy2gaQmGAcAFfPkkWaRYRWhmeH1gLsmqFmHKYjKH3j1cggkO1iZ07v38iH2d1_NSpLJRdG2GKIjfwJLy-6eDLq-1qNonPUM0aOKOpLA=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjK71zdFP5rjFg7rKGYD7VMuvS89RMdWQxejsmOfgk9Ed5hIYNU2wfqjCN1YLvOvOW9sUPk4yT7uzSnLLxi-BDjy2gaQmGAcAFfPkkWaRYRWhmeH1gLsmqFmHKYjKH3j1cggkO1iZ07v38iH2d1_NSpLJRdG2GKIjfwJLy-6eDLq-1qNonPUM0aOKOpLA=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Reforms versus reformism</b></span></span><br />As we discussed in the first class, while we struggle constantly for reforms (stopping something, improving something, etc) we do not believe that capitalism can be reformed away, one reform at a time. Reform<i>ism</i> is a fatal mistake.<p></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Rather, in fighting for progressive changes, however modest, we teach people how to struggle, to rely on their own class action rather than capitalist fakers to change things. Winning reforms can give people confidence in their ability to change things.</li><li> Reforms can also make life better for people, however limited and provisional a given reform may be. <br /></li></ul><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEicdW4YtwBDTXTa9rD3pHXNdodYGvBabrNb64cm8Mc6rRGJEjYta9mXnH0GoWLuO-Ay2Z1Hu2sgKFwCsZ6yvIEqfF36gOLzAPijPUGSfAV456KgS8zJl6_8VrCh6j3hOkRrxjhIgu1e8xv32iIwwZwW5JIkPtlEz-bAWfjS-A-fIypNpiUtV3qAMbi_Vg=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEicdW4YtwBDTXTa9rD3pHXNdodYGvBabrNb64cm8Mc6rRGJEjYta9mXnH0GoWLuO-Ay2Z1Hu2sgKFwCsZ6yvIEqfF36gOLzAPijPUGSfAV456KgS8zJl6_8VrCh6j3hOkRrxjhIgu1e8xv32iIwwZwW5JIkPtlEz-bAWfjS-A-fIypNpiUtV3qAMbi_Vg=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /> <span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Our transitional method</b></span></span><br />If we are serious, if we believe that people learn from their experiences and not fundamentally from abstract propaganda, then our starting point must be people’s present level of consciousness.<p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li> This is called the ‘transitional method’ (see Trotsky). It aims to build a bridge between the present consciousness of the masses and our maximum goal of replacing capitalism with socialism.</li><li>Thus, during the struggle against the Vietnam War in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the key militant and unifying demand was ‘US and Australian troops out’. If implemented, this meant the end of the puppet regime in the South and the victory of the liberation forces. On the other hand, it could unite revolutionaries who supported the liberation forces, sincere people who thought we shouldn’t be trying to take over someone else’s country, pacifists, draft resisters opposing conscription and even conservative people who thought the war wasn’t worth it. If the movement had adopted the ‘advanced’ slogan of ‘Victory to the NLF’ it would have massively narrowed its appeal and lessened its effectiveness.</li></ul><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgKhVIRCVnGJ5OUv9PIkYuG8Sgp30gg9d3vbFknS-1Yyjp4zXWWmn3CGyreytR4qyx2h6FtKEiYhxs4CnhqL3Z1g7uebs3Ocv-0YScRrVNqxIY4f6JQcXsEl0IM0cZwwU3_s3qerZtcc2iF0KQIdXly8yYDog1_g2UM5c_5vjs-lVjjEAbqiyiyZo8rbA=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgKhVIRCVnGJ5OUv9PIkYuG8Sgp30gg9d3vbFknS-1Yyjp4zXWWmn3CGyreytR4qyx2h6FtKEiYhxs4CnhqL3Z1g7uebs3Ocv-0YScRrVNqxIY4f6JQcXsEl0IM0cZwwU3_s3qerZtcc2iF0KQIdXly8yYDog1_g2UM5c_5vjs-lVjjEAbqiyiyZo8rbA=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Running in elections</b></span></span><br />A key tactic in the struggle is to run candidates in elections (federal, state, municipal).<p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>We understand all the limitations of elections under capitalism, the nature of capitalist parliaments. However, people’s political interest is heightened at election time and we can gain a great hearing for our ideas.</li><li>If we actually win and get an MP or a councillor (Fremantle), we can make even more effective propaganda and use the position to build the struggle (rallies, pickets, etc).</li><li>We are not electoralists. For us the vote, while obviously important, is not the main thing. The main thing is how many people we involve and draw closer to us, how many people we join, and how many people we reach with our propaganda (on all levels).</li></ul><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhA76bdGBtfz0zEbJd-x4T5RmBqIBwyjrLXAcMuONVzCgFY-50GEp42HH2gCWpz0-jMs5c2RMohJ2xr6EHSpgXEFqvk30lbTWBDiWyPrWAEiSJDWu2M0LgDpcPq0TXDss58gaBi7lngrom0SrdpO9CpyGE7aRFPIg9PNZ2G4SIyMSmiX_bjI3GI1hdyjw=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhA76bdGBtfz0zEbJd-x4T5RmBqIBwyjrLXAcMuONVzCgFY-50GEp42HH2gCWpz0-jMs5c2RMohJ2xr6EHSpgXEFqvk30lbTWBDiWyPrWAEiSJDWu2M0LgDpcPq0TXDss58gaBi7lngrom0SrdpO9CpyGE7aRFPIg9PNZ2G4SIyMSmiX_bjI3GI1hdyjw=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The struggle for unity</b></span></span><br />We have to be involved in the struggle. Even if we are small we must constantly strive to show leadership in action.</p><p>Socialists must also constantly strive to realise the greatest unity of the left and progressive forces.</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>In campaigns.</li><li>Also in building a broad fighting socialist party. Shouldn’t take this to mean that we think we can unite absolutely all socialists in a single party — unrealistic — but we must constantly strive for, look for opportunities for united action and even regroupment in a single organisation.</li><li>We don’t claim that Socialist Alliance is the last word in this process or demand that everyone necessarily join us. But we exist and strive to demonstrate our approach to the rest of the left.</li><li>In Russia in 1917, Lenin’s party reached out to a host of other revolutionary currents and drew them into the Bolshevik Party. Many activists from these groups — such as Trotsky — quickly became leaders of the Bolshevik Party. The sharp differences and disputes of the past were put aside because it was clear they were all united on what to do right now and recognised that unity was critical.</li><li>Similar phenomenon in Cuba before and after January 1959 revolutionary victory over Batista. Process only completed after revolution when new Cuban CP formed by uniting the three main revolutionary groups (J26, Revolutionary Directorate and Popular Socialist Party). </li></ul>Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-34550145243397283272020-12-24T23:02:00.001-08:002021-12-23T16:16:12.908-08:00Social inequality & social classes<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiC11hJS6QgMmOgkjbyFVkT6rtprLl9MIXqVwvxrkG6OTl6ATpjp4ER3_bwwZXZ-f-xtbWJW2CZW71JMgWmHxQ5mSTr1mXiNdEnpckvYJZ9M0lW1AyjNF11RQxautk7baFb1wTQLMt5HJ7O7fAVYhGpyiSsI1J6SY80ZxwTjL3A3UmYqxbh2UX2meA-KQ=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiC11hJS6QgMmOgkjbyFVkT6rtprLl9MIXqVwvxrkG6OTl6ATpjp4ER3_bwwZXZ-f-xtbWJW2CZW71JMgWmHxQ5mSTr1mXiNdEnpckvYJZ9M0lW1AyjNF11RQxautk7baFb1wTQLMt5HJ7O7fAVYhGpyiSsI1J6SY80ZxwTjL3A3UmYqxbh2UX2meA-KQ=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div> <p></p><p>[This slideshow served as an introduction or discussion aid to a class on the topic. A PDF of the slideshow can be seen <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-2gWstBmRXQgFwYjF8WKLxCJa2tSWukE/view?usp=sharing">here</a>.]</p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a> <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiEUrN1eNcGLjO8rDjTj73jfEjp52o41gDgCZL-XrVXjtr_dVLKd5ju7m5B0xkuBNb15v7pjt28PzkFEM_7Wgu9ZxzVvqoOaJHVJ0sAk38kUIRRBE5mZ5DOSGAR7dnoC6SxcRq9PzZpyuj0tMejpok2fO9w1P9178-iMzQHUe8O4ORhLNIfvaRZSUeifA=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiEUrN1eNcGLjO8rDjTj73jfEjp52o41gDgCZL-XrVXjtr_dVLKd5ju7m5B0xkuBNb15v7pjt28PzkFEM_7Wgu9ZxzVvqoOaJHVJ0sAk38kUIRRBE5mZ5DOSGAR7dnoC6SxcRq9PzZpyuj0tMejpok2fO9w1P9178-iMzQHUe8O4ORhLNIfvaRZSUeifA=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiCB12sdVtddNvZm-k7nxDmBWnoAcgpT-taBiUZgt3iih-No2_4hxqlBjawHt6POHpN1PLPZ-kSN0xI9quzMX3-yI4yafFTqEp2tXVMpvcsC2ipIAM5m132kHf4KZUrKN8pQZT0yWQ_sRvPMIBJqZoRqBovwrata4rLtVgYhV3xFUUCHLJOuIOMiVc57g=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; 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text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhPLG8NiyNQ5p9dqApL96NTquuMdzrZqr7yqbji_TZTjPxDi9356WvPaif2E5iKWFmc9A89-cT4X4Rpzct7A8r2F-bmTEGBZQBFN1qtL7xpQrLPYXD8Z5PpxyD2K28CpHCBKR5oFusA9o3qXOkcuo8NLRQqVPk5CV0aQmkqMMwGZQy2J-ixeUULsid_Jg=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhPLG8NiyNQ5p9dqApL96NTquuMdzrZqr7yqbji_TZTjPxDi9356WvPaif2E5iKWFmc9A89-cT4X4Rpzct7A8r2F-bmTEGBZQBFN1qtL7xpQrLPYXD8Z5PpxyD2K28CpHCBKR5oFusA9o3qXOkcuo8NLRQqVPk5CV0aQmkqMMwGZQy2J-ixeUULsid_Jg=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br />[This slideshow served as an introduction or discussion aid to a class on the topic. A PDF of the slideshow can be seen <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ASMAU77ipwYPt18FgQ7tNJyaCssAaoDP/view?usp=sharing">here</a>.]<p></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhEfWmNarwuAvEucCLFalzaR8HLRk83e2aosh6d6JqbL_wiBWUbQIihs9yIstgzl5CEa-CpO-vPW_p8WqtJT-o1QMuOF77BBPxQa5cKERWhdSJsoiKt3AK2Sbo00i2775Rl_x9wbL3ekvGpwXrAJLBPO3b4WJfmnO3Rrxh0PSae_qc-WYBZyb-159hTng=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhEfWmNarwuAvEucCLFalzaR8HLRk83e2aosh6d6JqbL_wiBWUbQIihs9yIstgzl5CEa-CpO-vPW_p8WqtJT-o1QMuOF77BBPxQa5cKERWhdSJsoiKt3AK2Sbo00i2775Rl_x9wbL3ekvGpwXrAJLBPO3b4WJfmnO3Rrxh0PSae_qc-WYBZyb-159hTng=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgzlvgC_wxifpNPS5P3SQN1cyM34VNV0E2aralpmUrZ6-h7hVY8U8Bl29SAQa1gzuYRJ-K3C89E_1nqqJ_K7bJPJ6WoQDxxjdpn-lkIst_B7VHXxMA6Ev23bIAWQGFNZpwgHmTH1Rh5LFxoygDIwQ7J44lQ4YsT_hRxgBX71WlfZlw6DXnaTjaPp3hZFQ=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; 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text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjBM-Z33tI8PDVTsbL8nHQ1rEnw_qabHTSWhv-HLvTju7GpuDtTmQXPyco2S0JRn3sq2Yot81-xrYEnWRbRXHzud3yysHSBrD0VCSfLtbxOr1Be2qjWI-HUdSRsNsMHqN_oOYykZ5YD1pNw3FnJZYUS2L-GEUWxWVOJqRltabP96S7DETllL9pfTTFjDg=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjBM-Z33tI8PDVTsbL8nHQ1rEnw_qabHTSWhv-HLvTju7GpuDtTmQXPyco2S0JRn3sq2Yot81-xrYEnWRbRXHzud3yysHSBrD0VCSfLtbxOr1Be2qjWI-HUdSRsNsMHqN_oOYykZ5YD1pNw3FnJZYUS2L-GEUWxWVOJqRltabP96S7DETllL9pfTTFjDg=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br />Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8656810498138285978.post-76960199284503759842020-12-02T23:15:00.002-08:002021-12-23T16:16:48.484-08:00The capitalist mode of production<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj2_WaOvKQkpRJwAT9JPdPo4C9JHbv1jZlUeAbGSpIaVyRBGBKjgbKORkx8OmYxH98FB2kPGmWX4QaN-QkzPFWMv5SNm-zRdExZGgqmxHwfYgZ95lm_PKTQiVSOuB6fvPAe8N7nQ3aLGJgmJL6x4gwnoAKE6qYtJfZXbQAlJrO4mkaQNpgbOBaaKHjWIw=s960" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj2_WaOvKQkpRJwAT9JPdPo4C9JHbv1jZlUeAbGSpIaVyRBGBKjgbKORkx8OmYxH98FB2kPGmWX4QaN-QkzPFWMv5SNm-zRdExZGgqmxHwfYgZ95lm_PKTQiVSOuB6fvPAe8N7nQ3aLGJgmJL6x4gwnoAKE6qYtJfZXbQAlJrO4mkaQNpgbOBaaKHjWIw=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p> [This slideshow served as an introduction or discussion aid to a class on the topic. A PDF of the slideshow can be seen <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/17pKgLFa2_Vptw4fvJuxh8F-F8-DyExpc/view?usp=sharing">here</a>.]</p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiOQLz-rAeId-fW-WTLl7qIPF8RO1UuEC8NiHLSrSWLm8ELY45hm7aD-fDiuZgPxS9LBgWOwyCXfNupjQuKMEVKdxAZDwFg3Hl0JO7b6_F3ewdimoeVecdUlUnsB_JZ7PvtadQtSSq6qI5c5pcrvgPzPTlvUWD-DeOhdhzKAPW1mk_wKr4yq3YXtKtWWQ=s960" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiOQLz-rAeId-fW-WTLl7qIPF8RO1UuEC8NiHLSrSWLm8ELY45hm7aD-fDiuZgPxS9LBgWOwyCXfNupjQuKMEVKdxAZDwFg3Hl0JO7b6_F3ewdimoeVecdUlUnsB_JZ7PvtadQtSSq6qI5c5pcrvgPzPTlvUWD-DeOhdhzKAPW1mk_wKr4yq3YXtKtWWQ=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhUs8kRtTckUH6Id0XkxRKg5Sx3KG2t_jOsV7SOf45unzDkk3v7hHmGHrKpHP45MpwGfvWoXm7RgUnwrzTpd4_Np8DlYx4sU5dd3SBSA_2Zm9Xquez_pN3rQlwDAzyyux8sj-dtI4HALbBGmBaXaDZ5iXzpj7OTd1tyzOYUdh8LKrMj5XUZSNuWy7RTXA=s960" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; 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<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">In mid-June Turkey launched yet another large-scale air and ground operation in northern Iraq aimed at crippling the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Turkish planes bombed the Makhmur refugee camp, home to 12,000 Kurds from Turkey. The camp near Erbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government, is a stronghold of support for the PKK. Also bombed was Shengal (Sinjar), home of the much-persecuted Yazedi Kurds. Following the devastating Islamic State attack on Shengal in August 2014, the PKK played a key role in helping to establish the Yazedi self-defence forces.</font><a name='more'></a></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Turkish planes also hit targets across the rugged PKK-controlled border region between Iraq, Turkey and Iran (the Medya Defence Zones). Following these attacks Turkey has ramped up its efforts, which began last year, to establish bases in the Heftanin region.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>What Turkey wants</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">In a <a href="https://anfenglishmobile.com/kurdistan/guerrilla-commander-ersi-they-cannot-succeed-in-heftanin-44909" target="_blank">radio interview</a> nine days after the invasion had begun, Rizgar Ersi, a PKK military leader, explained Turkey's objective:</font></p>
<BLOCKQUOTE><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">It is trying to occupy a strip of land that is about 30 to 40 kilometres wide. If it succeeds in this, the attack will continue on a line from Qandil to Shengal and an occupation corridor will be built. If the Turkish state occupies 30 or 40 kilometres of the mountainous area, only the small plain between Zakho and Sulaymaniyah will remain for the population of Southern Kurdistan. The attacks on Shengal, Maxmur and the Medya Defence Zones show that this process has started.</font></p></BLOCKQUOTE>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-7_Gi181FJYi53QnkTv7z5MohVmBaqz2r1OE5RTO5GhKf8lHyYFNJ2aObZNSjIAhRuJFFKrvdhzwhwb63tD8Pl1fLMnzG6PRPoTg6SfHEXlKXtaXIYT7HCY91Sflz3AieZXeJMKnAvm2-/s1600/Guerrillas+in+Heftanin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-7_Gi181FJYi53QnkTv7z5MohVmBaqz2r1OE5RTO5GhKf8lHyYFNJ2aObZNSjIAhRuJFFKrvdhzwhwb63tD8Pl1fLMnzG6PRPoTg6SfHEXlKXtaXIYT7HCY91Sflz3AieZXeJMKnAvm2-/s400/Guerrillas+in+Heftanin.jpg" width="400" height="225" data-original-width="990" data-original-height="556" /></a></div>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>Fierce resistance</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Ersi went on to describe the battles around Heftanin:</font></p>
<BLOCKQUOTE><p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">First, the Turkish military bombarded the region for days with heavy weapons, tanks and howitzers. Then the Turkish jets dropped 1000-kilo bombs on the area for hours. Then Cobra helicopters and reconnaissance aircraft advanced; attempts were made to launch a ground operation. The guerrillas' tactic was not to allow Turkey to get a foot on the ground in the region. From the first moment, the attacks on the army began.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The soldiers were severely hit by the guerrillas and had to retreat. That is the reality of Heftanin. Afterwards, they launched a second wave of attacks with even more massive use of the most modern war equipment but they only managed to get deployed on a hill. In the past nine days, five or six hills have been occupied. Before that, they had been completely deformed by the bombing.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The guerrillas carried out 20 actions in eight days. Cobra helicopters were attacked 15 times, many of them were damaged and had to withdraw from the war zone. There were dozens of sabotage actions. More than 70 Turkish soldiers were killed and dozens were injured. In these eight days, five of our friends have died in the sacrificial struggle. This is the situation.</font></p></BLOCKQUOTE>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">He added that the guerrillas are very well trained, highly motivated and determined, and fighting in their own land.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>Villages emptied</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The Turkish onslaught has had a severe impact on civilian life in the area. According to a June 27 <a href="https://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/27062020" target="_blank">Rudaw report</a>, villages in the border town of Zakho 'have been emptied and placed under lockdown due to recent Turkish airstrikes . . . according to local officials, 361 villages in Duhok province have been completely emptied due to airstrikes over the past 20 years.'</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>KDP collaborates with Turkey</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The northern border regions are nominally under the control of the KRG, whose dominant element is the Kurdish Democratic Party led by Masoud Barzani. The KRG is a neocolonial regime, politically and economically subservient to Turkey and the United States.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Over the past two years, as Turkey has expanded its network of bases and outposts in the border region, the KRG has done nothing.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">In early June, shortly before the invasion, Hakan Fidan, chief of Turkey's MIT intelligence agency, made a secret visit to Baghdad. It is hard to believe he didn't brief Iraqi and KRG officials about the imminent invasion and secure their agreement.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>Long history of operations in Iraq</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Turkey's first anti-PKK incursion into Iraq took place in 1992. The current 'Operation Claw' is the latest of many such efforts since then. Despite Turkey's huge superiority in weapons and numbers and the death and destruction caused, all the previous attacks were repulsed by the PKK and significant losses inflicted on the invaders. They all failed in their objective of smashing the PKK.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>Drones, surveillance & informers</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">This time around Turkey is pinning much of its hopes on the heavy use of drones, high-tech surveillance and informers.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">In the last few years Turkey has carried out a number of assassinations of PKK leaders using these means. In August 2018 PKK leader Ismail Özden (Mam Zeki Sengali) was killed near Shengal by a missile strike and in October last year two PKK leaders were killed by a drone strike near Sulaymaniyah.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Turkey's home-grown drone capability is much lauded in the country's pro-government media and right-wing nationalist circles. And there is no doubt that the widespread use of drones, with their advanced attack and surveillance capabilities, has created serious problems for the Kurdish guerrillas but there are always countermoves and the PKK has adapted its tactics accordingly.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>Turkey implacably opposed to Kurdish rights</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Looking at the history of the Turkish republic since its founding in 1923, implacable opposition to basic Kurdish rights is the central feature, the fixed element. Although it once courted the Kurdish vote and began peace talks with jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, the current authoritarian regime of Recep Tayyip Erdogan is engaged in a war on any manifestation of Kurdish autonomy and democracy — whether it be in Turkey, Syria or northern Iraq.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>Turkey attacks Kurds everywhere</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">In early 2018 Turkey invaded northern Syria and occupied Afrin, the geographically isolated western canton of Rojava. Using an army largely made up of jihadist gangs it has carried out massive ethnic cleansing, forcing out hundreds of thousands of Kurds and terrorising and brutalising those that remain. Afrin today is a dangerous, lawless place. In the years before the Turkish invasion it was the most peaceful part of Syria.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Last year Turkey invaded Rojava again and occupied a strip of land between Tel Abyad and Serekaniye and is constantly trying to expand it. The results have followed the dismal pattern of Afrin.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">And in Turkey itself the Erdogan regime has kept up its war on the Kurds. The left-wing Kurdish-based Peoples Democratic Party (HDP), while not yet illegal, is under constant attack. Scores of elected HDP mayors have been sacked and replaced by government administrators, thousands of party members are in jail, and on June 4 two HDP MPs were illegally removed from office and jailed. In June, two HDP six-day marches protesting this state of affairs were repeatedly attacked by security forces.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>Western silence</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The big Western powers are complicit in the Turkish regime's war on the Kurds at home and abroad.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">It is important to be clear that the West is fundamentally opposed to the Kurdish freedom struggle with its radical leadership and its highly progressive agenda of democracy, feminism, ecology, and religious and ethnic pluralism. The West has no problem with the rotten Barzani leadership of the KDP but organisations like the PKK are something else.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">That's why the Western powers (including Australia) have accommodated the Turkish regime by listing the PKK as a terrorist organisation when it is so clearly a legitimate national liberation movement fighting for self-government and democracy.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">The European Union annually gives large financial grants to Turkey so that the huge army of Syrian refugees (some 3.5 million of them) is kept away from Fortress Europe.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">For decades Turkey has been armed by the West. The Turkish army is equipped with hundreds of German Leopard tanks and these were used in the two invasions of Rojava.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">One possible looming source of conflict with the West is Turkey's big (and so far successful) military intervention in Libya in support of the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord. The GNA and Turkey have signed an agreement giving Turkey oil exploration rights over a big slice of the Mediterranean between the two countries. This agreement has been fiercely opposed by Greece, Cyprus and the EU.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2"><b>Erdogan under pressure</b></font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Under Erdogan's rule Turkey has a very aggressive foreign policy with the army conducting operations in Iraq, Syria and Libya. At home it crushes all dissent and keeps its Kurdish population in a tight Turkish chauvinist grip.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">But there are growing signs that trouble is looming for the regime. The economy is in a bad way and social distress is growing. Nationalist hype won't put food on the tables of the millions struggling to survive.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) has recently suffered some small splits, although they are all on the right and share the AKP's Kurdophobic outlook.</font></p>
<p align="justify"><font face="arial" size="2">Despite the repression the Kurdish movement is not broken. And there are clear signs that 'Operation Claw' could well turn out badly for Erdogan. The heroic Kurdish resistance in Heftanin is making a big contribution to the ultimate demise of the regime.</font></p>Dave Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01769108939847309205noreply@blogger.com