On Scotland...

National in form, imperial in content by Nick Wright

It has become commonplace, in these last hours, for the great and good to praise the the Scottish referendum campaign, or more precisely the people who live in Scotland, for a great revival of politics.

And it is true. Millions of people grasped at the idea that they could have a decisive say in the way they were governed. Most particularly young people, including those will be deprived of the vote in the forthcoming election but, through Alec Salmond's crafty manoeuvre, were able to vote in the referendum, have displayed a passion, engagement and maturity that stands in contrast to the lacklustre nature of routine parliamentary politics.

People were presented with a clear choice, a binary division, a yes or no. And while it is true that the SNP's offering contained no substantial element of popular sovereignty or genuine independence – how could it when Salmond had already surrendered control of currency, accepted the Royal Prerogative, embraced NATO (and its missile submarines) and, critically, the European Union of bosses and bankers – the popular mood is for change.

This is dangerous for the establishment, both the British establishment and its Scottish outriders.

Labour calculates that, with the independence bubble burst, they have a generation in which to cement the voting loyalty of a Scottish working class that is no longer unproblematically loyal.

But the working class mobilisation that gave a massive vote for this simulacrum of independence in Glasgow, Dundee and other areas of proletarian concentration, contains real dangers for a Scottish Labour leadership that is a mediocre as it is is right wing.

A good part of the drive for a yes vote lay in the implicit promise, heralded in a handful of Holyrood measures, that a return to the kind of concessions that a capitalist class might allow a social democratic government to concede was possible.

This is not on offer. The financialisation of the British economy, no less the Scottish economy, has stripped out the basis of full employment, stable work, productive labour and manufacturing profits that underpinned the integration of the British working class as a whole, and the Scottish working class no less, into the imperial consensus.

It is to the New Statesman , in a piece published days before the vote, that we owe this clear signal that imperial ideas remain deeply rooted.

In a piece that cemented the Staggers role as praise giver in chief for Gordon Brown it was argued thus:

“If the Westminster establishment is serious about far-reaching reform of the kind being proposed in a blind panic and about addressing the decline of parliament, then Alex Salmond, whose political mission from the outset was to break the Union, might end up creating the conditions in which it could be remade and thus saved. For now, as we enter the last days of the referendum campaign – perhaps the last days of Great Britain – those of us who do not have a vote, who loathe neoliberalism but who feel culturally British and believe in the multinational ideal of the United Kingdom, for all its flaws and incongruities, can only watch and hope that pragmatism will hold sway so that Scotland is not lost as Ireland was before it.”

But Ireland was not lost, except to British imperial rule.

From the standpoint of the working class, British, Irish and Scottish, Ireland independence was a victory.

Thus in a piece that ostensibly is critical of Scottish nationalism we find the clearest expression of imperial British sentiment, as equally national in content as it is reactionary.

Meanwhile, the New Statesman and the Labour right is promoting the New Labour warmonger, Jim Murphy, as potential leader of the Scottish party.

Ed Miliband needs to find a way to connect with a Scottish labour movement tradition that can recover the lost working class voters. He will find this impossible with a bomb-happy imperial warmonger like Murphy in command of his Scottish cohorts.

Demand a living wage

The economic crisis that went global after Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008 is not over, but the free-market system appears, for the time being at least, to have stabilised. Output is increasing while unemployment is falling in Britain, the United States, and even Spain. The euro has survived, and the global bourse is still rewarding those degenerates who manipulate world markets.
     There is nothing new in recognising the cyclical nature of market-driven economies; yet this phenomenon should remind us once again that we cannot wait passively for capitalism to oblige socialism and self-destruct.
     Many of the left-inspired initiatives launched in the wake of the 2008 crisis, while well intentioned, have withered away. Failure was usually due to the fact that these efforts concentrated either on making a moral criticism of the system or attempting to defend a single social issue. It would be churlish to criticise the many dedicated activists who campaigned against these injustices; but ultimately we have to calculate the effectiveness of their actions rather than the aspirations they entertained.
     All too often the left found itself on the back foot, trying to defend old achievements while rarely having the opportunity to advance fresh demands.
     Supported by its own powerful media and a plethora of right-wing ideologues masquerading as academics or civil servants, the masters of neo-liberalism were and are surrounded by a protective propaganda buffer. Their well-oiled publicity machines skilfully dismiss criticism, ostensibly offering a rationale for the harshest of cut-backs and the iniquitous division of wealth. While the layer of misinformation was and is far from being impenetrable, it nevertheless creates an effective barrier to all but the best-crafted critique and adequately supported actions.
     However, just as capitalism appears to be in the process of weathering its latest storm and regaining a certain superficial composure, signs are emerging that at its heart there is a deep-running lack of confidence among some of its most esteemed theoreticians. Central to their concern is the obvious fact that recovery is built upon reducing earnings and income for working people while simultaneously cutting back on the public services and goods often identified by trade unionists as the citizens’ social wage. The difficulty these economists see lies not necessarily in the misery resulting from such policies: what worries them is that a lack of purchasing power is leading to static or falling consumption, leaving the global economy gripped in a non-expansionary or stagnant trough.
     For some time now influential figures from the Keynesian school of economics, such as Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, have been critical of the fiscal policies being followed by OECD countries. They were considered “old-school,” and were tolerated somewhat indulgently.
     More recently, though, other pro-market economists have added their voices to the list of sceptics, and they are less easily dismissed. Even if we haven’t read it, most of us are aware of the latest work of the French economist Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. He caused a stir by undermining capitalism’s claim of an inherent effectiveness of markets to generate wealth equally across the board.
     Other prominent free-market economists are now adding their voices to a growing clamour to rethink the seemingly unshakable position held by economic movers and shakers since the beginning of the Thatcher-Reagan era. The British economist David Blanchflower, a former member of the Bank of England’s influential Monetary Policy Committee, wrote scathingly in the Independent (London) of British government policy. In his article he described the calamitous drop in living standards and real income levels experienced by a majority of Britain’s working people.¹ This has happened without pause since the present coalition government came into office, and this in spite of a growth in GDP and falling rates of unemployment.
     The Blanchflower article struck a chord when he identified a drop in real wages, which in many cases takes workers’ pay below the cost of living. Of course this issue is not confined to Britain. Labour’s share of income has been falling throughout the OECD countries (including Ireland) for several decades, but the impact was disguised until the economic crash of 2008.² Not any longer, though; and one positive outcome has been an increasing demand for adopting and implementing a living-wage policy.
     In Ireland the call for just such a policy not only has the powerful endorsement of the ICTU and its largest trade unions, SIPTU and Unite, but is supported by a number of well-regarded pressure groups advocating social justice. A report in the Irish Times on 4 July announced the launch of a living-wage campaign, mentioning that “one in six people living in poverty in Ireland has a job, a group often called the working poor.”³
     Achieving a living wage—as distinct from a minimum wage, which often becomes the maximum—is not an end in itself, no matter how welcome it would be for working people. Forcing capital to pay workers an acceptable income does not alter the fundamental property relationships that socialism understands to be essential.
     What the struggle for a living wage does do, nevertheless, is offer workers an opportunity to push back and regain some ground lost over the past years of retreat. In this instance there is not only support for the campaign from the union movement and agencies within civic society but there is the real advantage that capitalism’s ideologues are divided on the issue. In other words, momentum in this case favours workers.
     It is essential to ensure that the campaign does not become restricted or capped. A living wage is an ever-changing target and not a fixed figure. Nor should it be viewed as merely an amount in the pay packet: also included in the demand must be an acceptance of an inviolable social-wage element, guaranteeing all the communal and collective goods that a civilised society must provide, such as a home, health care, education, and daily amenities.
     It has to be recognised, of course, that there is no single panacea that will carry the day for working people. Campaigning in support of a living wage is just one step towards the eventual goal of a socialist society, but if properly supported it can nevertheless become an important step.

Privatisation in Malta

Privatisation of transport on the cards in Malta:

“The announcement made by the Minister of Transport that Autobuses de Leon will take over the running of Malta Public Transport is not in the national interest”, stated The Communist Party of Malta.

“Public Transport should remain under State control as it is an essential service for the public. Government should have avoided re-privitising public transport and instead work towards a reliable, affordable and efficient public service”.

 

“Through privatisation the Government will now have to make good for the company’s profits. Government should have kept control of the service and instead increased subsidies to make the service meet the expectations of the commuters”.

 

The Party said that“privatisation will lead to another political failure as the company will be after profits and not after an efficient and affordable public transport service”, stated the Communist Party of Malta.

 

Victor Degiovanni

Secretary

Communist Party of Malta

FARC-EP Update from the Peace Talks in Havana, Cuba

Peace Delegation FARC-EP

Monday, 01 September 2014

Iván Márquez, spokesman of the Peace Delegation of the FARC-EP, stated that concepts like "transition", "demobilization" and "surrender of arms" don't exist in the General Agreement of Havana or in the ranks of the insurgency.

This was the loud and clear answer to the announcement by the government these days, of creating a 'Strategic Command of Transition', which would be in charge of the transition, of the enemy's demobilization and of controlling the surrender of arms.

 

Márquez said that the FARC won't ever accept a military hierarchy to resolve problems that are of a political nature, and that fundamental aspects like abandonment of arms also implies demilitarization of society and state.

 

With these announcements, the government is creating false expectations, when it should be realistic and explain to the people that

"in spite of the progress that has been made on different aspects, it will still take time to define what hasn't been resolved yet, like for example institutional transformations".

 

The insurgency also expressed its irritation about the government not taking into account the opinions of the counterpart at the Table. The state continues trying to impose its legality (the so-called legal framework) as instrument of transitional justice, while the FARC has said many times that this unilateral imposition is unacceptable.

 

"The only legal framework we accept is the General Agreement of Havana in which state and insurgency are equal parts. Remeber that item 3, numeral 5 on the End of Conflict, states that "the National Government will review and implement the necessary institutional reforms and adjustments to face the challenge of the construction of peace".

The FARC-EP called for an emergency meeting with the government, to re-establish the bilaterality of the peace process and read the content of what has been agreed. At the same time, the guerrilla movement invites Juan Fernando Cristo, Government Minister, to come to Havana and discuss the different viewpoints that might exist, as well as explain the real content of the agreements made so far.

 

The peace talks in Havana have entered the 28th round of conversations, which at the same time is the 2nd round on the fifth item on the Agenda: victims. Since the start of the conversations, the FARC-EP on a number of occasions, has made clear that the peace process shouldn't be deflected by third party's wishful thinking or the interpretations of mainstream media.

"There is only one Agenda, in the context is the Agreement made on August 26, 2012. The rest is fantasy".

Death of Noel Harris

The CPI records with sadness the death of Noel Harris, life­long trade unionist and commun­ist, at his home in Donaghadee, Co. Down. As a union activist and official in Belfast, Dublin and London he was a member of DATA, the Draughts­mens’ Union, then national secre­tary of ASTMS in Dublin and a member of the Executive Council of the ICTU. He moved to Prague as head of the Social and Econ­omic Depart­ment of the World Federation of Trade Unions and then to London as national organiser of the cinema workers’ union, ACTT.

Throughout his working life he campaigned against sectarian discrimi­nation through his union and his member­ship of Belfast Trades Council and the Commun­ist Party. In January 1967 he was a member of the found­ing com­mittee of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Associ­ation and took part in the first civil rights marches.

ISIS is the new 11th of September

Kemal Okuyan
From soL (daily news portal of the Communist Party of Turkey)

Is ISIS (or Islamic State) a US project out of control?

     We witnessed before how organisations that were created by the US armed forces, intelligence agencies and funds being declared “enemies.” Some of these organisations were in a state that made them insensitive to the dictates of US imperialism, and some could not come to terms with having been sidelined by the United States as outdated. There were cases when they were put on the terror list as well as cases when they were truly identified as threats . . .

     ISIS is not like that. ISIS is not out of control. We can comfortably say that ISIS, or Islamic State, with its new name, has been performing wonderfully for US interests.

     If both sides at the talks that are going on and moving forward between Iran and the United States can manage not to describe each other as “enemies” and are looking for ways to collaborate on cracking down on ISIS, if the Obama government is able to bring into line the renewed mullah regime in Tehran, which is trying to put together a “strategy” . . .

     If, at a time when the distinction between “moderate Islam” and the “radical one” was blurred, ISIS, having risen with a violence that destroyed the relation between political Islam and “armed fanaticism,” makes everyone forget the scale of reactionary advances in a very wide geographical area . . .

     If ISIS, which says “I am here” not only in Arab states but in Turkey and even in European states, can help rebuild the public “common-threat perception,” which is the glue for the Western alliance . . .

     If, for the first time, a US-led alliance can become as legitimate, as effective and even as likeable as this one, if the Yankees can position themselves as true liberators . . .

     If ISIS is creating the perfect opportunity for making everyone forget the fiasco in Syria and the means to get everyone on board with the policy changes required by this fiasco, if it helps conceal the war crimes committed by Obama and others in Syria . . .

     If ISIS can change all the balances in Iraq in one day in order that “Iraq cannot become stable as a country, there is no such country,” and prepares the ground for the division of Iraq . . .

     If the ability of various Kurdish groups to “act together” is increasing, thanks to ISIS, and if the authority of the Kurdish leadership in northern Iraq solidifies, despite the “lack of spine” it displayed in the first days . . . (We have many reasons to claim that Barzani’s forces did not move against ISIS right away because it was a US preference) . . .

     What more could Uncle Sam expect from an armed force it has created!

     The Arab world doesn't find the following situation odd any more: peshmergas trained by the United States and ISIS murderers will attack each other with American weapons, and American bombs dropped from planes will land on one of the sides.

     ISIS has created the necessary energy for the revision of the plan of the great transformation that began with the “Arab Spring” but then hit a wall in Syria. The violence displayed is so gruesome that no-one is willing to state the overt role of the United States in it. Humanity is united against barbarism, and the statement “barbarism or socialism,” which had not lost its power for decades, is now vaporised in the face of the tragedy of thousands tortured, beheaded, or buried alive.

     Unite against barbarism! Unite with the USA!

     Are we supposed to accept this?

     The fact that it was the United States that directed ISIS is being dismissed with the label of “conspiracy theory,” and we are supposed to tolerate this?

     Are we going to be afraid of going past the triviality of “the United States was supporting them but now they are out of control”?

     ISIS is a covert US operation. It is a new and better thought-out 11th of September attack. It is the result of “creative chaos” strategy.

     We need to avoid cutting corners by saying, “There is no chance of success, the United States has been failing, none of its plans are succeeding.” Let us not forget that the biggest plan of the imperialist forces is the sustenance of the existing order; there cannot be any plan-project that goes beyond this, that can replace this.

     Alliance with imperialism against reactionary forces, and alliance with reactionary forces against imperialism, have to be severely condemned. One of the ramifications of this in domestic affairs is the liberation of secularism from the connection to the market. If Erdoğan can still hurl threats around today, the reason behind this is not the lack of a wide front against him: it is because the unprincipled and spineless anti-Erdoğan position, and the reasons that make Erdoğan who he really is, are not investigated.

 

Political statement CPI

National Executive Committee, Communist Party of Ireland
26 August 2014

The National Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Ireland expresses its solidarity with workers now engaged in industrial struggles to defend their livelihood.

     Iarnród Éireann workers are struggling to prevent a cut in wages arising out of Government policy, which is to run down the rail service, and public transport in general, in the interests of privately owned companies, to shift the burden of running public transport onto the workers and travelling public, and to remove the state from any meaningful social responsibility for providing a comprehensive public transport service.

     So also are the Greyhound workers, whose employer wishes to cut their wages by a third and further erode their working conditions—a direct result of the wholesale privatisation of the collection of household waste.

     The establishment has created a free-for-all with little if any regulation in this industry, dominated by a Wild West approach by ruthless get-rich-quick employers and a savage drive to the bottom in workers’ wages and conditions as well as poorer services. Refuse collection services are now a great deal worse than when they were provided by the local authorities themselves.

     This dispute can be settled in a just way for the workers only when all waste collection is brought back under the control of local authorities. In the meantime the demand must be that a Joint Labour Committee be set up to establish basic wages and conditions for this industry, to prevent workers’ wages and conditions being driven further down as the main factor in competition between gangster employers.

     Maximum pressure must be put on Greyhound to allow its employees back to work and to end the use of agency and scab labour. The outcome of this lock-out will affect the security of employment of every private employee in the country.

     The Government cannot be allowed to walk away from its responsibility. In particular, the Labour Party must demand the beefing up of regulatory controls by the Environmental Protection Agency over these rogue companies, to regulate how and by whom such companies can be set up, and where they are registered, and to ensure that the companies’ books are open to public scrutiny.

     Both these disputes arise out of the general offensive of employers and government against workers’ wages and conditions. The response of the trade union movement to this offensive has so far been cowardly and conciliatory. Clearly this policy has not worked; it is time for a policy of resistance.

The CPI is appalled at the suffering, amounting to torture, inflicted by the state on a young immigrant woman seeking asylum here. The woman in question had no money with which to exercise her right to travel, as she was a refugee, being held in disgraceful internment-like conditions and prevented from taking up employment. This greatly exacerbated her position. She was suicidal as a consequence of her pregnancy, which resulted from a horrific rape. She was clearly entitled to an abortion under section 9 of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act, on the grounds of her risk of suicide; but this was delayed, adding to her suffering, until she could be made to deliver by caesarean section.

     The CPI reiterates its support for the demand for the repeal of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution and for legislation to recognise women’s right to choose.

The CPI expresses its solidarity with the Palestinian people, now living under a prolonged siege by the Zionist state of Israel and suffering savage violence daily. To the gallant people of Palestine the party expresses its continued solidarity. The Israeli Zionist-military state has unleashed a savage and brutal war against the people of Gaza, while imperialist governments mouth empty rhetoric and their pretended condemnation of Israel’s genocidal war.

     The people must demand that the Israeli embassy be closed and the ambassador expelled. We need to move beyond outrage, disgust and charity to building political solidarity with the Palestinian people and in particular to building the boycott campaign.

     Trade unions have an important role in educating their members in accordance with ICTU policy on why they need to boycott Israeli goods. Unions also need to use whatever little influence they may have within the Labour Party to pressure it into taking action at the Government level to stop all trade with Israel.

     To the people of Ukraine the CPI expresses its solidarity, and with those resisting the forces of fascism, forces preserved, encouraged and unleashed by the United States, the European Union, and NATO.

     The wars in Palestine, Syria and Ukraine demonstrate once again the imperialist powers’ willingness to make use of the darkest and most brutal agents, whether Zionist, jihadi, or neo-Nazi, which they persist in imagining they can control as part of their strategy of permanent war. They use groups like ISIS to fuel fear and confusion among working people around the world and in particular to sow confusion among peace activists as to their real intentions in building a war psychosis among a confused and terrified populace. They have no regard for the consequences of their policies for the peoples of the world, including their own peoples, or the risks of a wider war.