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Nation
Jul 30, 2013 11:04:53 GMT
Post by dodger on Jul 30, 2013 11:04:53 GMT
Britain as a nation state
WORKERS, FEB 2013 ISSUE
Is the British nation state still needed, or is the case for it transcended? Debate about this crucial matter has at long last moved out of the shadows into the glare of media concern, which is positive. Yet this very development has generated the current phoney war to ‘renegotiate Britain’s position inside the European Union’, as a spoiling tactic to derail growing opposition and safely confine argument within an endless EU cul-de-sac.
Admittedly dwindling, the historical identity, cohesion and sovereignty of Britain still outweighs and threatens EU pretensions to incorporate us in a capitalist super-state, to reduce us to a mere collection of pliable, governed regions. Consider, above all, the weight of time: England, the essential core of Britain, has existed as a national entity for over a thousand years; the destinies of Wales and England have intertwined for 700 years, whilst Scotland merged its fate to Britain 400 years ago. These are seriously lengthy periods during which countless generations have combined to shape common and shared interests. Most important, the working class has organised as one class across Britain to further its interests and ambitions. These things are deeply rooted; by comparison, the EU has had a mere 41 years to erode British identity. The British people’s consistent opposition to joining the Euro has not emerged just because that disastrous currency would have had destructive economic consequences for us; it stems too from our deep reluctance to ditch completely all control over our national economy. Our past informs our present.
Once, centuries ago, capitalism broke down feudal barriers to make national economies. Now some capitalists (though not all) favour an EU super-state that promotes freedom of movement for capital and labour, strengthening employers and weakening workers. A centralising EU state functions for the benefit of the strongest, particularly German capitalism’s, interests. So for British workers, and for workers in the other nations of Europe, the potential of protection only resides within the national framework. We cannot afford to let our nation go.
In the distant future, there will undoubtedly come a time when, following successful socialist revolutions in many adjacent countries, there will be proper moves to fashion growing economic cooperation between states on the basis of mutual benefit, which no doubt will lead gradually to supranational agreements and higher forms of cooperation. That time is a long way away but even then care will still have to be taken to protect national interests of all the state partners.
For now, the working class needs the protective shield of the national state against the destructive incursions of the EU. Out of the EU – trade with the world. Rebuild Britain – reconstruct an industrial economy.
www.workers.org.uk/thinking/britain.html
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Nation
Aug 11, 2013 6:57:44 GMT
Post by dodger on Aug 11, 2013 6:57:44 GMT
www.philippinerevolution.net/statements/20120622_let-the-fire-of-nationalism-burn
Let the fire of nationalism burn
June 22, 2012
cpp CPP Ang Bayan 
US imperialist intervention in the Philippines under Benigno Aquino III’s regime is brazen, widespread and intense. What could not be done with completion under previous regimes can now be implemented with full force, because the Aquino regime plays to the hilt its role as a stooge of its imperialist master.
Under the Aquino regime, the presence of US military troops and equipment will be heightened and the facilities left behind by the US in their abandoned military bases in Clark and Subic will be put to use once more. US military and police intelligence units are overtly stepping up their operations in the country under the guise of “coordination.” The Aquino regime is also paving the way for charter change to thoroughly open the economy to foreign plunder. Through programs like K+12, imperialist intervention will likewise be finding its way to the very core of education and consciousness.
Aquino’s puppetry to US imperialist dictates and military dominance underscore the absence of genuine national freedom and sovereignty.
The prolonged economic depression of the US compels it to more vigorously assert its own interests and expand its markets. US efforts to intensify the exploitation of labor and tighten control of trade routes in order to ride over its economic depression are resulting in worsening socio-economic conditions in semicolonial and semifeudal countries such as the Philippines.
Aquino’s claims of “freedom from poverty” as the supposed fruit of his so-called “righteous path” are full of air. Afer two years under Aquino’s US-imposed neoliberal policies, the Filipino people are suffering more than ever from unemployment, hunger and massive poverty.
In the face of the US-Aquino regime’s extreme contempt for Philippine sovereignty, there is urgent need for the Filipino people to reaffirm and reassert their nationalist aspirations and struggle for national liberation and self-determination.
There must be a renewed vigor in upholding nationalism or anti-imperialism. The people must oppose the imperialist-sponsored notion that under a “globalized world,” nationalism and the need to build a dynamic, self-reliant and industrialized economy are antiquated ideas. Apologists of imperialism turn a blind eye to the fact that the imperialist countries and other secondary capitalist countries are among the most zealous ultra-nationalists in terms of economic protectionism.
The Filipino people are at a crucial juncture where upholding nationalism especially in the field of economic policy and foreign relations is of utmost importance. US imperialism and their puppets seek to extinguish the fire of Filipino nationalism or depreciate its meaning to a narrow concept of pride in the nation’s heritage or individual accomplishments by Filipinos. The history of US imperialism’s oppression and plunder of the Philippines must never be banished from the consciousness of future generations of Filipinos.
The Filipino people, especially the Filipino youth must look back to our history of revolutionary resistance and struggle for national liberation. They must give serious time and effort to nationalist studies in order to gain the knowledge that has been stricken off the World Bank-designed curriculum of Philippine education.
They must look back to the works of Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio of the late 19th century, the nationalist ideals of the heroes of the working class movement in the early 20th century, the nationalist assertions of Claro Mayo Recto, Lorenzo Tañada and Renato Constantino from the 1950s as well as the more recent expressions of Filipino nationalism set forth by Jose Ma. Sison and the national-democratic movement from the late 1960s to the present.
They must study, promote and seek inspiration from the heroic revolutionary resistance of the Filipino people in launching people’s wars against Spanish and American colonialism, as well as in the struggle to achieve national and social liberation in the past four decades.
The nationalist studies movement must take root among young Filipinos and impact on the Filipino national consciousness. In so doing, the Filipino people can further raise the struggle for national liberation to unprecedented heights.
Nationalism or anti-imperialism should be brought to the core of the people’s mass struggles. In fighting oil price hikes, we must expose foreign monopoly control of the oil industry. In struggling for wage increases, we must expose the policy of cheap labor as a way of attracting foreign investments. In demanding greater social subsidies, we must expose deregulation, privatization and denationalization as policies of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. In fighting the demolition of urban poor communities, we must expose the fact that they pave the way for the foreign interests behind the Private-Public Partnership program of the US-Aquino regime. And in demanding the abrogation of the Mutual Defense Treaty and the Visiting Forces Agreement, we must expose US military interventionism and the master-client relations between the US imperialists and their puppet state.
The war of national and social liberation that has long been waged by the revolutionary movement led by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) is a continuation of the Filipino people’s unfinished revolution. The people have achieved great victories in the past and are poised to achieve bigger victories in the next few years.
The nationalist movement is one aspect of the national-democratic movement, with the revolutionary forces as among the most determined advocates of the people’s nationalist aspirations. As the national-democratic revolution advances, so does the cause of nationalism. A broad nationalist movement rouses the people in their millions to the need for a national-democratic revolution. The mutual causes of Filipino nationalism and the national-democratic revolution advance hand in hand.
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Nation
Aug 11, 2013 7:14:39 GMT
Post by dodger on Aug 11, 2013 7:14:39 GMT
Ang Bayan, 2013-07-05 www.philippinerevolution.net/publications/ang_bayan/20130705/amplify-the-filipino-people-s-aspirations-for-nationalist-and-democratic-economicsAmplify the Filipino people’s aspirations for nationalist and democratic economics
Under the direction of the US imperialists and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank (IMF-WB), the Aquino regime carries out policies that perpetuate the chronic crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal economy. Refusing to carry out basic reforms to build a self-reliant, modern and vibrant national economy, the Aquino regime is simply presiding over the further deterioration of the Philippine economy and the widespread destruction of productive forces.
Aquino’s claims of so-called “rapid economic growth” are mere rhetoric that fail to strike a chord among the Filipino people. To the toiling masses of workers and peasants, the Philippine economy is incontrovertibly in deep crisis. This is marked by worsening landlessness and land concentration by big landlords and plantation owners, acute joblessness and massive labor migration.
The socio-economic conditions of the people
Majority of the Filipino people continue to live in dire socio-economic conditions. They suffer daily from hunger, poverty and disease. The income of the toiling people are grossly inadequate as costs of food, clothing, transportation, education, medicine, health services and other basic needs continue to shoot up. The official wage rate of P456/day in the National Capital Region is less than half of the daily cost of living of P1,000-P1,200 for a family of six. More than half of business firms in the NCR violate minimum wage laws, and up to more than 80% in the Southern Tagalog region. Violators include the much-vaunted call center companies.
The Aquino regime has adamantly refused to heed the longstanding demand for substantial wage increases. Instead, it has pushed for the implementation of the two-tier wage system which further dismantles the national minimum wage system by pegging workers’ compensation to so-called floor wages which are set arbitrarily on the basis of supposed local conditions. Capitalists are further given the prerogative to grant productivity wages according to their whims and thus subject workers and rank-and-file and middle professionals to worse forms of exploitation and oppression employing one flexible labor arrangement or another.
Rural incomes continue to drop as a result of growing landlessness, extremely low wages of farm workers and falling farm-gate prices of palay, copra, abaca and other agricultural products. Peasant tillers suffer from excessive feudal land rent which runs as high as 70% of the total harvest after they shoulder the cost of production. There is widespread displacement of peasants and minority peoples due to the entry of mining companies, big agribusiness plantations and commercial and tourism projects. Poor fisherfolk are displaced from their fishing grounds by large foreign commercial fishing companies.
The problem of unemployment is acute. The number of unemployed workers continues to rise as a result of the absence of industrial development and widespread landlessness. Government deceitfully places the unemployment rate at 7.5% for April 2013 (up from 6.9% in April 2012). The Aquino regime manipulates unemployment data by making more restrictive definitions of the labor force in order to bring down its base number; and by making more liberal definitions of those considered to be unemployed and underemployed to bloat their figures. Recent independent surveys place unemployment at between 20-25%.
The actual extent of the extreme problem of unemployment is further masked by the continuing stream of labor export. The grave problem of labor migration is underscored by the fact that the total number of Filipinos working abroad is already 10% of the total population. Migrant contract workers experience the worst forms of oppression and exploitation. Wages are extremely cheap. They are confronted by the heightened racial and anti-migrant discrimination brought about by the domestic crisis in the host countries. The Aquino regime has proved itself to be completely inutile in defending and advancing the rights and welfare of the Filipino migrant workers. Unemployment in the Philippines is bound to worsen as migrant workers abroad are compelled to return home by crisis conditions in the host countries.
More and more Filipino middle class families are being pulled down by the pervasive socio-economic crisis. There are not enough employment opportunities for college graduates except low-quality temporary employment at call centers or abroad. There are no opportunities to build up capital except in import-dependent, small retail or service-oriented enterprises.
The living conditions of the broad masses of the Filipino toiling people are in a constant state of decay. In urban areas, they are concentrated in large poor colonies that lack public services and are prone to fire. An increasing number of people live in under bridges, pedestrian overpasses, public markets, push carts, plazas and parks. In the countryside, poor peasants live in rickety huts that are prone to the elements. Entire communities are situated in areas prone to flood and mudflows.
The public education infrastructure is deteriorating rapidly as the Aquino government cuts social spending. The Aquino regime’s official estimates of teacher (46,000) and classroom (33,000) shortages are understated as public schools have resorted to double or triple shifting school hours to the detriment of the students well-being and the quality of teaching. The reactionary government continues to encourage the commercialization of education. Tuition continues to rise by as much as 10-15% annually. The government has failed to do anything to address the injustice against hundreds of thousands of families who have been victimized by so-called “pre-need” companies that have run away with millions of pesos belonging to people who were made to invest in their “education plans”.
The Filipino people suffer from deteriorating public health services services. Private medical facilities are largely inaccessible except through state-supported private health insurances. Epidemics of dengue, leptospirosis, cholera, diarrhea, respiratory and other diseases regularly break out resulting from lack of clean water and public sanitation and general urban blight. Beyond providing public notices and warnings, poorly-funded government health services and public works are largely incapable of confronting and preventing such epidemics.
Yearly, tens of thousands become victims of one natural and man-made calamity after another brought about by the grave destruction of the environment. They suffer from increasingly severe and frequent floods, landslides and mudflows that not only directly endanger their lives, but also destroy or hamper their economic livelihood and bring about hunger and disease. They are ultimately victims of the distorted economic priorities of the reactionary government which actively endorses logging, mining and plantation operations as well as the wanton construction of malls and other commercial establishments in complete disregard of the impact on the environment and the people’s welfare. Calamity victims further suffer from the reactionary government’s inutility in providing substantial relief and rehabilitation. The Aquino regime has cut spending for disaster preparedness. The social welfare department is mired in bureaucratic corruption.
Aquino’s PR economics
Over the past three years, Aquino and his IMF-trained technocrats have engaged in nothing but PR-economics involving media and publicity campaigns to misrepresent the grave socio-economic crisis as “rapid economic growth.” His spinmeisters are busy hyping up selected and manipulated statistics to conjure up the illusion of economic growth. Aquino’s PR economics aims to divert the people’s attention from their dire economic situation to promises of so-called “inclusive growth,” which is no different from the “trickle down” economics propaganda of the previous Arroyo regime.
With the support of the US, the ruling Aquino clique employs the yellow-media machinery that is managed by the Aquino sisters and close friends of the Aquino-Cojuangco clan and which include opinion writers, publishers, journalists, news websites, survey firms, the election IT network, blogs and social media account holders. They make false claims of high popularity ratings and support for Aquino. They daily manage and troubleshoot the Aquino regime’s public standing.
They cover up bureaucrat capitalist corruption by perennially harping on Aquino’s “good governance.” They even take advantage of the pervasive public perception of Aquino’s dimwittedness by circulating the line “di baleng tanga, hindi naman korap”. They continue to hurl anti-corruption propaganda directed at the previous Arroyo regime. The calculated aim is to draw attention away from the big-scale corruption and anomalies of the Aquino regime which involve Aquino’s use of bureaucratic prerogatives in awarding of big infrastructure contracts to Aquino’s closest relatives, supporters and friends. The government bureaucracy continues to be plagued by widespread corruption, most significantly the Department of Education, the Department of Public Works, Bureau of Customs and the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
Aquino’s PR managers boasts of the 7.9% growth in the first quarter of 2013 and claim that such is the result of his “good governance”. The clear fact is that “Asia’s fastest growth rate” was achieved only through an artificial and one-time large infusion of government spending in public construction (45.6% growth) after several years of slowdown. The growth in government spending was carried out as part of the election strategy of the Aquino regime and in partnership with private construction which grew by 30.7%. The so-called growth in the first quarter of 2013 was further fueled by massive election spending.
Following the dogma of “repeating a lie big enough until people accept it as true”, Aquino makes endless claims that poverty is being reduced through the so-called cash transfer program, ignoring the bigger problems of landlessnes, low wages, soaring prices, lack of jobs and so on. aquino’s publicists are fixated at covering up the extent of poverty through an endless stream of press releases. This World Bank-funded program initiated under the Arroyo regime is widely projected as Aquino’s solution to poverty. The cash dole-out program has been used as a counter-insurgency tool prohibiting its recipients from participating in organizations espousing progressive and democratic aspirations. Funds for the program has lined-up the pockets of corrupt government and military officials. The P30-40 billion program is set to terminate by 2015 coinciding with the end of the World Bank funding.
To cast doubt on the extent of joblessness in the Philippines, Aquino’s spin doctors have taken a page from the media managers of the US government by hyping up the so-called “skills mismatch problem”. This is a twisted attempt to blame the workers for the grave problem of unemployment and cover-up the fact that the Philippine economy continues to stagnate and deteriorate. Furthermore, this seeks to justify the implementation of the K-12 program that seek to transform the educational system into one big training camp to produce cheap and low-skilled workers required by foreign investors.
Aquino’s officials regularly go to the press to announce the availability of tens of thousands of “job opportunities” in government-sponsored “job fairs” even though there is actually no hiring drive by companies. Of close to 9,000 who sought work in the “job fair” last June 12, only 500 found employment. If there were actually great demand for labor, these companies would have been scrambling and offering higher pay to a supposedly scarce labor pool. On the contrary, companies have been coming up with one flexible labor scheme after another to pull down wages while riding on the continually rising tide of the sea of unemployed workers.
Aquino is obsessed with earning positive credit ratings in order to project the Philippines as a haven for foreign investors. The Aquino regime went to the extent of cutting back on government spending from 2010 to early 2012 at the cost of an economic slowdown just to cut back the public deficit and portray the country as a credit-worthy client. In 2011, it went to the extent of propagating the lie that the Philippines is already a creditor country after falsely describing the obligatory $1 billion contribution to the IMF as a loan.
In reality, the Aquino government has been on a borrowing spree. It sold government 10- and 25-year bonds in September 2010 ($1 billion), January 2011 ($1.25 billion) and November 2012 ($500 million). It is set to borrow at least $1 billion this year to service debt requirements. By the end of 2013, total Philippine government debt is estimated to amount to P5.78 trillion.
Ruling class technocrats and politicians are making noise about attracting foreign direct investments to address the acute problem of unemployment. They seek greater liberalization policies, further pulling down workers’ wages as an incentive. There is persistent talk about amending the 1987 constitution in order to remove the restrictions against foreign ownership of land and 100% ownership of domestic enterprises.
They describe the nationalist demand for national industrialization as “outmoded.” In fact, it is Aquino’s foreign investment- and foreign debt-dependent and export-oriented economic paradigm that is outmoded and flawed. It is basically the same economic framework of the past ten governments since the 1940s which has failed to develop a self-reliant and progressive economy. Export-oriented production (semiconductor and electronic parts, wiring sets, car parts assembly) of so-called foreign direct investments is completely divorced from the rest of the economy.
Still, a large part of foreign investments in the Philippines comes in the form of hot money or portfolio investments that seek quick profit. From early this year, Aquino and his PR-specialists made a big story of the record high trading at the Philippine Stock Exchange. In January 2013 alone, new foreign portfolio investments increased by 120%. However, after pushing the PSE to a new peak of nearly 7,400 pts last May, foreign capital managers went on a selling spree to withdraw their money and bring home profits, pulling down the PSE back to around 6,100 points by mid-June and causing the sharp devaluation of the peso due to increased demand by homebound hot money that needs to be converted back to dollars.
As expected, Aquino’s spokesperson downplayed the massive withdrawal of foreign hot money and made claims that such are only temporary setbacks and that “the economic fundamentals remain strong.”
The people’s aspirations for nationalist and democratic economics
Amid the grave economic crisis, the Filipino people must amplify their demands for nationalist and democratic economic policies. They must vigorously expose and condemn the backward and counter-progressive dogma of the IMF-trained technocrats of the ruling reactionary state which serves as framework for the antipeople, antinational and anti-democratic economic policies. They have to wage democratic mass struggles and armed resistance in the countryside to oppose the Aquino regime’s liberalization, privatization, deregulation and denationalization policies and measures.
The clamor for genuine land reform is the main democratic socio-economic demand of the Filipino people. The demand seeks to achieve the social liberation of the majority of the Filipino people comprised of landless peasants and farm workers from the worst forms of feudal and semifeudal exploitation. It involves primarily the breaking up of land monopolies and the democratic distribution of land to the tillers. It seeks to unleash rural productivity and economic energy by giving the mass of agricultural producers control over the means of production. Raising productivity will be further achieved through work cooperation, providing irrigation and other production infrastructure and the application of mechanization as initial steps towards socialist transformation of agriculture.
Under a genuine democratic regime, land reform in the Philippines can be basically completed within a year or two. Under the landlord-dominated state, bogus land reform programs in the Philippines have been carried out one after another since the 1930s up to the most recent Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (1988) and its extension since 2009. After more than half a century of bogus land reform programs, the big landlord class remains the dominant class together with the big bourgeois compradors and their foreign monopoly capitalist partners. Since assuming power in 2010, the landlord government of Benigno Aquino III has prevented land distribution of the 6,500-hectare Hacienda Luisita of the Cojuangco-Aquino clan.
Contrary to the demand for land reform, the Aquino regime as well as all the previous regimes have allowed big landlords, real estate companies, foreign mining companies, plantations and big agribusiness corporations and their local partners to dominate and take control of vast tracts of land. So-called farmer beneficiaries of agrarian reform ultimately lose control of their land either as a result of failure to maintain the burdensome amortization payments and widespread land-use conversion to real-estate and commercial projects. Big landlords and plantation owners continue to retain or seize monopoly control of vast tracts of land compelling peasants to join government-organized pseudo-cooperatives which are used to organize production of crops for exports.
The Filipino people demand an end to the undemocratic austerity measures and cutbacks implemented by the Aquino regime in accordance with IMF-WB dictates. They demand greater state subsidies for public education up to the tertiary level. They demand higher spending for public health and a stop to the policy of commercialization and privatization of public hospitals and the program of health tourism. They demand an end to the demolition of urban poor communities that aim to clear valuable real estate for the benefit of the Ayalas and other big business companies.
The demand for national industrialization is the main nationalist economic demand of the Filipino people. The Filipino people demand a self-reliant economy primarily geared towards the betterment of the material living conditions of the people. Agriculture and industry must be able to provide the Filipino people with affordable food, clothing and other basic consumer items. They clamor for an end to the policy of serving the demands of foreign companies for cheap labor, raw materials and semi-manufactures.
The sustained modernization of a self-reliant economy can be achieved by taking agriculture as the base with heavy industry as the leading factor and light industries as the bridge between the two. This is the key principle set forth in the socialist construction of China since the early 1950s which resulted in the two decades of rapid and well-balanced growth.
The Filipino people demand the building of a steel industry for the production of basic steel and steel alloys. They demand the building of chemical, petroleum, pharmaceutical, power, telecommunications and other basic industries. They aspire to build a powerful economy with machine-building, ship-building and other heavy industries. The Filipino people demand the nationalization of the oil industry which involves centralized state procurement of crude oil, setting up state refineries and retail outlets and government control of pricing.
They demand the building of such light industries for the production of food, textile and clothing, paper products, shoes and footwear, appliances, furniture, hand tools, agricultural machineries and other commodities for individual and productive consumption. They demand the modernization of agricultural production in consonance with land reform through large-scale mechanization.
For over six decades, the ruling reactionary classes have refused to develop even basic industries. Philippine manufacturing has failed to go beyond assembly plants dependent on imported components and which production is oriented towards the demands of the export market. Semi-manufacturing in the Philippines is largely divorced from the overall economy. Similarly, large-scale agricultural production and fishing are controlled by foreign big agribusiness and geared towards the export market. There is no processing of mineral resources beyond the extractive phase. Food processing is small-scale and very rudimentary.
Instead of heeding the people’s demands for nationalist economic policies, the Aquino regime is going full-throttle in efforts to attract foreign monopoly capitalists and financiers by further liberalizing investment and trade policies and opening up more and more areas of the economy to foreign exploitation. Aquino is set to surpass all previous regimes in pushing down wages and further liberalizing trade and investment in the remaining areas of the economy. Over the past three decades, the successive puppet regimes have liberalized almost all aspects of the local economy, from banking to water and other public utilities, mining, financial markets, transportation, small retail, agriculture and so on.
Heightened liberalization policies of the past three decades have resulted in the near complete decimation of local business and the domination of foreign big capital in all aspects of the economy. Furthermore, more than two decades after the dismantling of the national minimum wage system, the difference between workers’ daily wages and their daily cost of living has reached unprecedented levels. Agricultural production has virtually remained stagnant without significant mechanization since the 1970s.
The Filipino people demand an end to foreign economic domination that has stunted the local economy to semi-manufacturing and raw materials extraction. They demand support for local capital formation and an end to complete dependence on foreign debt and foreign investments. They demand equal footing with trade partners.
Victory of the people’s war as condition for economic reform
The grave crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal system has Aquino further sidling up to his imperialist masters for financial and military support. Aquino has terminated peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines which are supposed to enter the phase of discussing the crucial questions of socio-economic reforms. In doing so, he has avoided public debate and discourse over the IMF-designed policies being implemented by his regime.
Aquino has resorted to a ruthless campaign of suppression which is set to be more brutal in the face of worsening poverty, economic desperation and the rising tide of defiance. There have been increasing attacks and human rights violations against workers, peasants and other sectors who have been raising their nationalist and democratic demands.
Clearly, the Filipino people’s demands for nationalist and democratic economic policies cannot be achieved under the reactionary puppet state of big landlords and big bourgeois compradors. The worse the crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal system become, the more that the reactionaries defend it.
Only upon the complete nationwide victory of the people’s democratic revolution will the conditions exist for carrying out nationalist and democratic economic reforms in the Philippines. Such sweeping fundamental socio-economic reforms can only be carried out by a people’s democratic government. Under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the people’s war has made big strides over the past few years and is setting sights on complete victory in the not so distant future.
In the course of waging people’s war, the revolutionary land reform movement continues to advance nationwide. It has already benefitted hundreds of thousands of peasants. Before achieving nationwide victory, the revolutionary forces carry out the minimum land reform program comprised primarily of lowering land rent by collectively confronting the power of the landlords. Under the minimim land reform program, efforts are carried to raise farm-workers’ wages, build work collectives and other forms of cooperation and increase income through side occupations.
By organizing the revolutionary Pambansang Katipunan ng mga Magbubukid (PKM), other mass organizations of youth, women and children and cultural workers and revolutionary committees for land reform, security and self-defense, arbitration and others, the people are able to exercise political power in their villages and towns. The maximum program of land distribution can be carried out under certain advanced revolutionary conditions.
In the urban and town centers, workers are rising up despite all-out suppression of their rights to organize. In the past couple of years, workers have achieved more and more successes in building unions and other types of associations and waging strikes and other forms of collective action. They demand wage increases and oppose contractualization and other unfair labor practices. Urban poor communities have vigorously opposed government demolition of their homes. Mass struggles are being launched against increases in education costs, oil prices, electricity and water rates. In all these, revolutionary forces gain strength by carrying out propaganda and education, recruiting the advanced activists and building and expanding the CPP.
The toiling masses of workers and peasants and middle-class are increasingly aware that they are bound to be pulled down deeper into crisis over the remaining three years under the puppet Aquino regime. In view of the policies of the Aquino regime that serve the interests of foreign and local big business and big landlords, it is becoming crystal clear that the Filipino people have no other recourse but to wage democratic mass struggles and armed resistance in order to assert their nationalist and democratic demands.
The aspirations for national and democratic economic reforms to end the chronic economic crisis and social injustice are among the Filipino people’s biggest motives for vigorously advancing the people’s war. |
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Nation
Aug 11, 2013 17:31:21 GMT
Post by dodger on Aug 11, 2013 17:31:21 GMT
Back to Front - Looking after ourselves
WORKERS, JULY 2009 ISSUE
Capitalism is hell-bent on destroying any structure, society, nation state, or people who get in the way of its unrelenting pursuit of profits. Its devouring of the seed corn of future survival, of people, of any principle or remnant of human dignity has brought it to its present economic debacle.
Capitalism pursues its interests – we as workers must pursue ours. Every use of language, every question posed should be prefaced: who is this from? Who is it for? Whose interests does it serve? Every defining question throughout society runs down that class fissure which is so deep and fundamental in this the oldest and first capitalist nation.
When they talk of social cohesion they mean segregation and apartheid.
When they talk of truth they lie.
When they talk of peace they mean war.
When they talk of equality they mean inequality.
Their war on terrorism means a police state against us all.
Our workers’ nationalism is different from nationalism of the imperialist, the racist or non-socialist nations. Workers’ nationalism is based upon class. We are for the unity of all in our nation. Division on grounds of race, of colour, of gender, of age, etc, weaken and undermine our reaching out for the building blocks for the future.
Capitalism is not going to perish of its own accord. The Communist Manifesto spoke of the working class as the gravediggers of capitalism. So now is the time to get our hands dirty then? To do that we must assert the unified interests of the working people of Britain.
For example: if you want to resolve issues of climate change then deal with its source – capitalism. Stop blaming industry. If you want to resolve the misnomer globalisation then stop proclaiming powerlessness, the victim culture, in the face of supposed unbridled globalised capitalism. Recognise that this problem was analysed and explained over 150 years ago in the Communist Manifesto.
If a survival plan for Britain is desperately required, then all the things capitalism promotes for its survival – free movement of capital, free movement of goods, free movement of labour, freedom to exploit, freedom to rob, steal, loot – we should oppose.
What would our survival plan be? Stopping the export of capital, re-establishing import controls, re-establishing control of our borders, rebuilding our industries and services, re-equipping, re-training, planning a future to meet the aspirations, hopes and expectations of future generations. And how that simple cry of ‘British jobs for British workers’ has set such a frenzy and clamour among those who supposedly rail against capitalism but are terrified of genuine working class action to defend itself.
Some in a developing nation might accept such a call, but not us in Britain. But Britain needs to develop its strategy of national liberation and withdrawal from the European Union to become a liberated nation. Let all of Europe follow suit as the EU implodes and takes its fascist origins with it to hell.
There is no place for subservience or fatalism in this period. There are no universal human rights other than those you fight for, nothing is given at birth. There is no one other than ourselves to take responsibility for solving our own destinies.
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Nation
Aug 11, 2013 20:26:35 GMT
Post by dodger on Aug 11, 2013 20:26:35 GMT
The national is also international
The workers of all countries face the same crisis, to varying degrees: finance capital is seeking to destroy national independence in order to allow it to sack the wealth of all nations. That’s the globalisation agenda, and that’s where the World Trade Organization fits in.
The only way to deal with the globalisation offensive is nationally: defeat it where we are strong, and widen liberated areas. We can do this through asserting the importance of nation and of independence. The only way we can help other workers is by defeating capitalism here, just as the only true help they can give us is by taking up their own fights. That’s true international solidarity– and it’s the only one that works
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Nation
Aug 14, 2013 15:36:48 GMT
Post by dodger on Aug 14, 2013 15:36:48 GMT
Brilliant study of nationalism's good side, January 25, 2008
This William Podmore review is from: Nations Matter: Culture, History and the Cosmopolitan Dream (Hardcover)
Craig Calhoun is Professor of the Social Sciences at New York University. His new book is a major contribution to political theory and sociology and to current debates on globalisation, cosmopolitanism and nationalism.
He covers nationalism and ethnicity, nationalism and civil society, nationalism and community, nationalism and cultures of democracy, and Hans Kohn's distinction of ethnic and civic nationalism. He shows that nations are not `imagined communities', `invented traditions', or the products of `false consciousness', all idealisms. Nations are not primordial, primitive, ethnic communities either.
Nationalism was in origin a project of liberation. As Calhoun writes, "The emancipation of the nation from empire and dynasty went hand in hand with the emancipation of the person from subjection to patriarchy, religion, and village custom." He notes that nationalism can mobilise people for war, but also for democracy, liberty, equality and fraternity.
He shows how nationalism is a form of social solidarity, offering potential for integration across lines of ethnic and other differences. It is also crucial to most existing democracies, organising the primary arenas for popular political participation. He praises national liberation movements, which fought not only external oppression but also brought much wider ranges of people into the political process.
He observes that nationalism helps to mobilise collective commitment to the social institutions created by generations of struggle, such as schools and health services. Nationalism underpins current struggles to defend such institutions - and the very idea of the public good - against privatisation.
National struggles are also viable forms of resistance to capitalist globalisation and its `fantastically unequal and exploitative terms', global capital markets and unequal terms of trade, which all compromise nations' sovereignty.
He notes, "European integration ... is often sold to voters as a necessary response to the global integration of capital. In Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere, a similar economistic imaginary is deployed to suggest that globalization moves of itself, and governments and citizens have only the option of adapting."
But there is an alternative to global capitalism, and a positive, progressive form of nationalism, a workers' nationalism that defends national sovereignty, is a key part of it.
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Nation
Aug 16, 2013 9:10:18 GMT
Post by dodger on Aug 16, 2013 9:10:18 GMT
Patriotism and Proletarian Internationalism [Paperback]
Ho Chi Minh (Author)
From the Foreword when this book was originally published in Hanoi in 1979: "The national liberation revolution can only succeed if it accords with the world revolutionary movement and authentic patriotism in our time cannot dissociate itself from internationalism - this leading idea which has inspired the Vietnamese revolution for nearly half a century was introduced into Vietnam by President Ho Chi Minh. While struggling for its independence, the Vietnamese people knows that millions and millions of comrades and friends are fighting by its side and that it's own sacrifices also serve the just cause of other peoples. With this in mind, we have collected writings and speeches of President Ho Chi Minh in the period from 1920 to 1969. In simple terms they gave a well-defined orientation to the Vietnamese revolutionary movement and greatly contributed to its victory."
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Nation
Sept 21, 2013 16:24:50 GMT
Post by dodger on Sept 21, 2013 16:24:50 GMT
In 1881, just two years before his death, the ailing Karl Marx received a letter from a young socialist, Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, asking for his opinion about the call to rebuild the International Workingmen’s Association, the most advanced experiment in Left Unity up to that date -
A no frills response!
“It is my conviction that the critical juncture for a new International Workingmen’s Association has not yet arrived and for this reason I regard all workers’ congresses, particularly socialist congresses, in so far as they are not related to the immediate given conditions in this or that particular nation, as not merely useless but harmful. They will always fade away in innumerable stale generalised banalities.” When not explicitly tied to the concrete struggles of a real historical conjuncture, the question of Left Unity can be nothing other than the “statement of a phantom problem to which the only answer can be – the criticism of the question itself.” ..
Thought it worth sharing..spotted the quote in KASAMA.
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Nation
Oct 10, 2013 17:44:54 GMT
Post by dodger on Oct 10, 2013 17:44:54 GMT
What is a free nation?
James Connolly
Written almost a century ago, as published in Workers’ Republic, 12 February 1916. {Then as now time to re-assert the workers' vision of independent nations peacefully co-operating.}
We are moved to ask this question because of the extraordinary confusion of thought upon the subject which prevails in this country, due principally to the pernicious and misleading newspaper garbage upon which the Irish public has been fed for the past twenty-five years.
Our Irish daily newspapers have done all that human agencies could do to confuse the public mind upon the question of what the essentials of a free nation are, what a free nation must be, and what a nation cannot submit to lose without losing its title to be free.
It is because of this extraordinary newspaper-created ignorance that we find so many people enlisting in the British army under the belief that Ireland has at long last attained to the status of a free nation, and that therefore the relations between Ireland and England have at last been placed upon the satisfactory basis of freedom. Ireland and England, they have been told, are now sister nations, joined in the bond of Empire, but each enjoying equal liberties—the equal liberties of nations equally free. How many recruits this idea sent into the British army in the first flush of the war it would be difficult to estimate, but they were assuredly numbered by the thousand.
The Irish Parliamentary Party, which at every stage of the Home Rule game has been outwitted and bulldozed by Carson and the Unionists, which had surrendered every point and yielded every advantage to the skilful campaign of the aristocratic Orange military clique in times of peace, behaved in equally as cowardly and treacherous a manner in the crisis of war.
There are few men in whom the blast of the bugles of war do not arouse the fighting instinct, do not excite to some chivalrous impulses if only for a moment. But the Irish Parliamentary Party must be reckoned among that few. In them the bugles of war only awakened the impulse to sell the bodies of their countrymen as cannon fodder in exchange for the gracious smiles of the rulers of England. In them the call of war sounded only as a call to emulate in prostitution. They heard the call of war—and set out to prove that the nationalists of Ireland were more slavish than the Orangemen of Ireland, would more readily kill and be killed at the bidding of an Empire that despised them both.
The Orangemen had at least the satisfaction that they were called upon to fight abroad in order to save an Empire they had been prepared to fight to retain unaltered at home; but the nationalists were called upon to fight abroad to save an Empire whose rulers in their most generous moments had refused to grant their country the essentials of freedom in nationhood.
Fighting abroad the Orangeman knows that he fights to preserve the power of the aristocratic rulers whom he followed at home; fighting abroad the nationalist soldier is fighting to maintain unimpaired the power of those who conspired to shoot him down at home when he asked for a small instalment of freedom.
The Orangeman says: “We will fight for the Empire abroad if its rulers will promise not to force us to submit to Home Rule.” And the rulers say heartily: “It is unthinkable that we should coerce Ulster for any such purpose.” The Irish Parliamentary Party and its press said: “We will prove ourselves fit to be in the British Empire by fighting for it, in the hopes that after the war is over we will get Home Rule.” And the rulers of the British Empire say: “Well, you know what we have promised Carson, but send out the Irish rabble to fight for us, and we will, ahem, consider your application after the war.” Whereat, all the Parliamentary leaders and their press call the world to witness that they have won a wonderful victory! James Fintan Lalor spoke and conceived of Ireland as a “discrowned queen, taking back her own with an armed hand.” Our Parliamentarians treat Ireland, their country, as an old prostitute selling her soul for the promise of favours to come, and in the spirit of that conception of their country they are conducting their political campaign.
That they should be able to do so with even the partial success that for a while attended their apostasy was possible only because so few in Ireland really understood the answer to the question that stands at the head of this article.
What is a free nation? A free nation is one which possesses absolute control over all its own internal resources and powers, and which has no restriction upon its intercourse with all other nations similarly circumstanced except the restrictions placed upon it by nature. Is that the case of Ireland? If the Home Rule Bill were in operation would that be the case of Ireland? To both questions the answer is: no, most emphatically, NO! A free nation must have complete control over its own harbours, to open them or close them at will, or shut out any commodity, or allow it to enter in, just as it seemed best to suit the well-being of its own people, and in obedience to their wishes, and entirely free of the interference of any other nation, and in complete disregard of the wishes of any other nation. Short of that power no nation possesses the first essentials of freedom.
Does Ireland possess such control? No. Will the Home Rule Bill give such control over Irish harbours in Ireland? It will not. Ireland must open its harbours when it suits the interests of another nation, England, and must shut its harbours when it suits the interests of another nation, England; and the Home Rule Bill pledges Ireland to accept this loss of national control for ever.
How would you like to live in a house if the keys of all the doors of that house were in the pockets of a rival of yours who had often robbed you in the past? Would you be satisfied if he told you that he and you were going to be friends for ever more, but insisted upon you signing an agreement to leave him control of all your doors, and custody of all your keys? This is the condition of Ireland today, and will be the condition of Ireland under Redmond and Devlin’s precious Home Rule Bill.
That is worth dying for in Flanders, the Balkans, Egypt or India, is it not? A free nation must have full power to nurse industries to health, either by government encouragement or by government prohibition of the sale of goods of foreign rivals. It may be foolish to do either, but a nation is not free unless it has that power, as all free nations in the world have today. Ireland has no such power, will have no such power under Home Rule. The nourishing of industries in Ireland hurts capitalists in England, therefore this power is expressly withheld from Ireland.
A free nation must have full power to alter, amend, or abolish or modify the laws under which the property of its citizens is held in obedience to the demand of its own citizens for any such alteration, amendment, abolition, or modification. Every free nation has that power; Ireland does not have it, and is not allowed it by the Home Rule Bill.
It is recognised today that it is upon the wise treatment of economic power and resources, and upon the wise ordering of social activities that the future of nations depends. That nation will be the richest and happiest which has the foresight to marshal the most carefully its natural resources to national ends. But Ireland is denied this power, and will be denied it under Home Rule. Ireland’s rich natural resources, and the kindly genius of its children, are not to be allowed to combine for the satisfaction of Irish wants, save in so far as their combination can operate on lines approved of by the rulers of England.
Her postal service, her telegraphs, her wireless, her customs and excise, her coinage, her fighting forces, her relations with other nations, her merchant commerce, her property relations, her national activities, her legislative sovereignty—all the things that are essential to a nation’s freedom are denied to Ireland now, and are denied to her under the provisions of the Home Rule Bill. And Irish soldiers in the English Army are fighting in Flanders to win for Belgium, we are told, all those things which the British Empire, now as in the past, denies to Ireland.
There is not a Belgian patriot who would not prefer to see his country devastated by war a hundred times rather than accept as a settlement for Belgium what Redmond and Devlin have accepted for Ireland. Have we Irish been fashioned in meaner clay than the Belgians? There is not a pacifist in England who would wish to end the war without Belgium being restored to full possession of all those national rights and powers which Ireland does not possess, and which the Home Rule Bill denies to her. But these same pacifists never mention Ireland when discussing or suggesting terms of settlement. Why should they? Belgium is fighting for her independence, but Irishmen are fighting for the Empire that denies Ireland every right that Belgians think worth fighting for.
And yet Belgium as a nation is, so to speak, but a creation of yesterday—an artificial product of the schemes of statesmen. Whereas, the frontiers of Ireland, the ineffaceable marks of the separate existence of Ireland, are as old as Europe itself, the handiwork of the Almighty, not of politicians. And as the marks of Ireland’s separate nationality were not made by politicians so they cannot be unmade by them.
As the separate individual is to the family, so the separate nation is to humanity. The perfect family is that which best draws out the inner powers of the individual, the most perfect world is that in which the separate existence of nations is held most sacred. There can be no perfect Europe in which Ireland is denied even the least of its national rights; there can be no worthy Ireland whose children brook tamely such denial. If such denial has been accepted by soulless slaves of politicians then it must be repudiated by Irish men and women whose souls are still their own.
The peaceful progress of the future requires the possession by Ireland of all the national rights now denied to her. Only in such possession can the workers of Ireland see stability and security for the fruits of their toil and organisation. A destiny not of our fashioning has chosen this generation as the one called upon for the supreme act of self-sacrifice—to die if need be that our race might live in freedom.
Are we worthy of the choice? Only by our response to the call can that question be answered.
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Nation
Nov 1, 2013 5:25:56 GMT
Post by dodger on Nov 1, 2013 5:25:56 GMT
Next year’s referendum can become an opportunity for the British working class to rebuild and revitalise our country...
The Battle for Britain: workers take steps to defeat separatism and build unity
WORKERS, NOV 2013 ISSUE With 12 months to go until voters in Scotland are asked to say Yes or No to the referendum question “Should Scotland be an independent country?”, the bulk of Britons have no say in an issue vital to their future – the possible break up of their nation. A recent poll of British opinion outside Scotland has 53 per cent rejecting separation. The same poll within Scotland points to the effectiveness of the growing campaign against the separatists, maintaining a healthy lead – 44 per cent no with the separatist yes at 25 per cent. Among those “certain to vote” 52 per cent are against, with 28 per cent in favour.
National unity. Doctors in Glasgow join colleagues around Britain in protest
against the chaos of the new appointments system, 2007.
Photo: Workers
The resulting large numbers of those undecided, the volatility of polling and danger of low turnout on the day, means hard work must be done to win this argument decisively. By re-uniting British workers and the trade union movement we have the potential to reverse our impoverishment and to rebuild and transform Britain.
Such unity should be a foregone conclusion. After all it was the Britain-wide solidarity, forged in adversity by trade unions in the 19th century, that was the biggest factor in creating British society, pulling together the threads of social and cultural interaction, creating a British nation. Separatists are blind to this development; their minds leap from feudal myth straight to the present day. And it was the hopes and demands of our common struggle against Nazism in World War 2 that gave birth to the all-Britain provision of education, healthcare and arts funding that workers strive to defend today.
Unions join ‘no’ campaign
A potentially strong and decisive working class and its trade union movement is threatened by a permanent split. Recognising this, a growing number of unions are taking their responsibility for class unity seriously. They have argued for – and won in their conferences – opposition to the break up of Britain and support for affiliation the No campaign organisation, Better Together, and its specialist section for unions, Work Together.
Albeit small, these unions are embedded in the industrial working class and its struggles. The train drivers of ASLEF were the first, in May of this year, followed by Community, which represents workers in the steel industry. USDAW – the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers – came on board and the National Union of Mineworkers signalled its support too.
The ASLEF conference was unanimous in its support of the No campaign, with one speaker arguing that the referendum should be Britain-wide and not be just among Scottish voters. Their Scottish Secretary, Kevin Lindsay, commented, “We believe the protection of pensions, public services and vital industry is best achieved by working people in Scotland working with people from across the UK.”
Community’s Scottish Officer, John-Paul McHugh, said, “Workers across the whole UK stand united in solidarity. Whether we are from Glasgow, Grimsby or Glamorgan, we know that by working together we can achieve so much more than we could apart. The complete failure of the SNP to support the Scottish steel industry when contracts were being handed out for the Forth Road Bridge replacement was a taste of what life would be like in a separate Scotland.”
USDAW points to its Annual Delegate Meeting having “overwhelmingly rejected the arguments used to advance the case for separation.” It had reached its policy “by carefully considering the evidence for and against independence” and concluded that it “does not accept that the lives of our members will be improved if Scotland becomes independent, and this is why we are joining with other like-minded organisations in the Better Together campaign to make a positive and strong case for Scotland remaining part of the UK family.”
USDAW’s list of “10 Reasons Why Scotland is Better being Part of the UK” includes a warning “that an independent Scotland would be required to join the euro”, that “800,000 Scots live and work in England and Wales without the need for papers or passports” and that the “pensions of 1 million Scots are guaranteed by the UK welfare system”. Its Scottish Divisional Officer, Lawrence Watson, wrote in The Scotsman, “The challenges and difficulties faced by USDAW members are the same whether they live in Manchester or Motherwell.”
The GMB convenor at Babcock Marine, Eric McLeod, wrote for the Work Together campaign, “By being part of the UK we are able to do the work of maintaining and re-fitting the Royal Navy Fleet. The two aircraft carriers alone mean decades of work at Rosyth. No Ministry of Defence means no more shipbuilding jobs in Scotland.”
But a lot of fence-sitting is going on among the larger unions, and the Scottish Trades Union Congress itself only pledges to “enable debate”. Others have deferred deciding – for example, the Musicians’ Union rejected a “fence-sitting” motion at its July conference; it will decide policy early in 2014. The Communications Workers Union (CWU) is assessing its position after consultative meetings throughout October – with strong arguments against separation to be presented by its executive. These include the warning that “an independent Scotland would not have the capacity to recapitalise banks in the event of another financial collapse on the scale of the one in 2008.”
Who bailed out Scottish banks?
In the worst collapse in capitalism since the Great Depression, it was Britain’s taxpayers that bailed out the Scottish banks.
Speaking for the Better Together campaign, former Chancellor Alistair Darling echoed the CWU remarks: “I had to write out a cheque to bail out RBS. I could do it on the credit of the UK; I could not have done it on the credit of Scotland, because it’s not big enough. The Irish Government underwrote its banks. It took the world 20 minutes to realise it couldn’t afford it.”
No wonder Alex Salmond avoids mention of his much-vaunted “arc of prosperity” – an arc of impoverishment would be the result of an “independence” in Europe that would entail seeking fresh EU membership, with the inevitable condition of joining the euro. Scots would find themselves in a workhouse with Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain. Fevered discussion of other currencies – the groat, old Scots merk or remaining in a sterling zone – all disguise what would be the certainty of being drawn into the euro.
Financing “independence” with “Scotland’s Oil” is a pipe dream, as Brian Wilson and other No campaign analysts have proven. Wilson recently exposed the SNP’s admission that oil and gas tax revenue is already being used to fund current spending (presumably with an eye to referendum voters). So much, then, for SNP plans to build an “oil fund” to bankroll its separate Scotland. It would take full British backup to finance new oil and gas exploration in increasingly difficult waters. There will be no second oil boom. And the oil and gas market is too volatile to base a new economy upon.
A love affair – with NATO
In response – to help draw up his Economic Plan for Independence – Salmond brings out the heavy canon in the form of Joseph Stiglitz, Clinton’s former US economic policy advisor. His credits include devising the economic break-up of Yugoslavia. That was done with help from the bombs and boots of NATO; that’s an organisation that would have an enhanced role in a separate Scotland.
The SNP’s quest for a strategic “Nordic identity” would combine defence with trade and diplomacy in yet another “arc” embracing Scandinavia, Iceland and Canada. The “SNP-speak” in its documents uses the tell-tale phrase “the high north” – one straight out of the lexicon of US-NATO strategy. In 2009 a NATO seminar had been held on ‘Security Prospects in the High North’ and a ‘National Security Presidential Directive’ was issued putting the US view of “broad and fundamental national security interests in the Arctic Region”. The Voice of Russia interpreted this and a subsequent Nordic Baltic Summit as follows: “Europeans have decided to watch the Russians in the Arctic and how they behave there closely. The idea of creating an Arctic ‘Mini-Nato’ was discussed at the Summit in London... The heightened activity of North Europe is explained by an increased interest in the Arctic and its natural resources.” A separate Scotland would seek to be part of that activity.
Referendum meeting in Clydebank in October, organised by the local trades council.
Speakers for working class unity were shouted down.
Photo: Workers
It would seem Salmond, to capture the votes of leftists, liberals and some trade unionists, would call for the removal of Trident nuclear submarines (to be shifted – at great expense – a little further down Britain’s west coast) and, in return, agree to an enhanced role for Scotland in NATO.
On a visit to New York on 6 April for Tartan Day (a “day” pushed through the US Senate by Trent Lott, right-wing Republican ally of the SNP), Salmond held talks with US government officials about NATO membership for an independent Scotland, as well as signalling that US bases could be established in Scotland. He was quoted in a Scotsman article that day (“Salmond opens way for US military bases”) saying the bases would be allowed as long as they were non-nuclear.
Presumably, had Scotland been independent, Scots regiments (in keeping with SNP plans for a Scottish Defence Force, crassly synonymous with the pro-Nazi “Scottish Defence Force” of the 1930s) would now be fighting alongside al-Qaeda “rebels” in Syria. Remember it was an all-British vote that kept us out of war last month and “gave peace a chance”.
Official aid for separatists
The SNP and Yes campaign are using the machinery of Scottish government and hundreds of civil servants – all funded by tax payments of workers of Britain – to give advice and draw up plans and “white papers” for these defence and domestic fantasies. UK Foreign Office officials are already facilitating a semi-autonomous foreign policy conducted with relish by Salmond and his ministers. Witness Li Keqiang (now China’s Premier) being received first at a “state banquet” in Edinburgh Castle by Alex Salmond in 2011. And over 50 diplomats from countries around the world invited to the SNP conference.
The Yes campaign has more than double the resources of those arguing for British unity. Brian Wilson pointed out in The Scotsman in August: “The place has gone mad when the Scottish civil service is being used to formulate and communicate hypothetical policies to be pursued by a hypothetical government in a hypothetical state. But the politicisation process is now so advanced that even the most flagrant abuses pass without comment – least of all from those entrusted with defending the integrity of civil servants.”
Myth building
How did we get into this mess? Why did a once united working class allow this to happen? The answers could fill a book. Some go back a long way: the Roman empire tried to destroy the united resistance of Brigantes and Picts by building walls – we must not permit new borders within Britain! Two different currencies and two different immigration systems would inevitably lead to this.
“Braveheart” myth building has distorted history. Even William Wallace was seen in the 19th century as quite a British rebel, more along the lines of Wat Tyler the peasant revolt leader. Then came separate identity spearheaded by new words. Historian Vanessa Collingridge clarifies how the description of anything within Britain as “Celtic” only started after a 1706 language categorisation: “And where there were no historical or cultural precedents to draw upon, sometimes Celtic ‘traditions’ were simply made up.” (from Celtomania, a chapter in her book Boudica).
In the 20th century misleading comparisons with the struggle for Irish independence led activists like John MacLean into the cul-de-sac of seeking a “Scottish Workers Republic” and the STUC into advocating “Home Rule”.
With such thinking about, it was easy to divert the bold assertiveness of Scottish industrial workers that grew in the 1960s and resulted in such actions as the work-in at Upper Clyde Shipbuilders (UCS) in 1971-2. This became a prototype for dozens of work-ins and occupations all over Britain in the years immediately following.
An alarmed capitalist class played on backward thinking to divert a potentially powerful movement into fake nationalism – channelling it into the harmless (to capitalism) Campaign for a Scottish Assembly. The fantasy of leading trade unionists was that it would become a “Workers’ Parliament” – a line of thought continued recently in the 40th anniversary film about UCS, which ended with views of the Scottish Parliament, as if this was some kind of achievement growing out of the work-in.
Industrial workers take lead
When such dreams are punctured, rage can follow, as witnessed at one of the most disorderly public meetings of recent decades in Clydebank Town Hall last month. Packed with separatists and their ultraleft cheerleaders, the speakers for British class unity were shouted down and screeched at. Richard Leonard of the GMB union could hardly be heard in his attempt to advocate class thinking above Scottish nationalist thinking.
Anas Sarwar tried to explain he was born here when it was shouted that he should follow the example of his grandfather who had fought for Pakistan’s independence. A London woman who spoke up from the audience for the 300 years of developing British unity had the microphone snatched from her and someone shouted “Go home b--ch”.
It was brave of Clydebank Trades Council to mount the event; but the town, once a heartland of heavy industry, is now a shadow of its former self. The solidarity outlook of the previous generations of industrial workers would have made it much more difficult for such separatist thinking to prevail. In seeking to rebuild Britain’s industrial base anew, we will create not just wealth but collective social thought. It is significant that it is the industrial trade unions that have taken the lead in opposing the break up of Britain.
The No to Separation campaign website is www.bettertogether.net
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Nation
Nov 17, 2013 9:35:28 GMT
Post by dodger on Nov 17, 2013 9:35:28 GMT
www.workers.org.uk/thinking/stand.htmlStand and Fight
WORKERS, APRIL 2009 ISSUE In the 1980s capitalist crisis our party published a series of pamphlets about the destruction of the means of livelihood for our class. The third of these sold out almost immediately, and we reprint extracts from the beginning and end of it, highly relevant in the present crisis.
In the home of industrial capitalism a transformation is taking place. A shrunken distorted version of a once-powerful economy residing in a radically altered landscape is created, prey to the depredations of multinational and finance capital. A design appalling in its implications is pursued by the ruling class. To produce a climate fit for capitalism, capitalism as it has developed over the past 200 years must be destroyed. A counter-industrial revolution has been declared.
…Thatcher represents the thinking of the financial and multinational interests who see no place in the world for a Britain with a strong productive base and who hate and fear those productive and skilled workers who create the value which makes that financial parasitism possible. Her government has concentrated the long decline of Britain, accelerated it, and by so doing irrevocably changed the situation. A slump of unprecedented proportions grips the land out of which a Phoenix is supposed to rise. Yet only ashes are created.
…Many nations have died in the past. Famine, pestilence, invasion from without, civil strife from within, have been the instruments of destruction. Yet nothing like the decline of Britain has been witnessed in the modern world. By the hand of its own ruling class the country is being dismembered and laid to waste in the pursuit of the destruction of its opposing force – the working class. The “common ruin of the contending classes” has taken on a new and nightmarish possibility.
Capitalism has no loyalty to our country and moves its operations elsewhere. But workers cannot desert these shores en masse for we have nowhere to go. We face a callous policy of deliberate destruction and we have nowhere to run to. The longer we delay our revolutionary response, the greater the quandary we shall find ourselves in. We must stand and fight now and make a future for our class here, independent of capitalism. If we don’t fight, we shall lose everything.
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Nation
Nov 21, 2013 6:29:22 GMT
Post by dodger on Nov 21, 2013 6:29:22 GMT
 In response to Faces of Nationalism by Tom Nairn ....................... Will Podmore / 26 June 2012 Counterfeit Marxism
Perry Anderson wrote, “At least four alternative readings of the times—there may be more—offer diagnoses of the directions in which the world is moving … The best known is, of course, the vision to be found in Hardt and Negri’s Empire, to which the other three all refer, at once positively and critically. Tom Nairn’s Faces of Nationalism and forthcoming Global Nations set out a second perspective. Giovanni Arrighi’s The Long Twentieth Century and Adam Smith in Beijing constitute a third. Malcolm Bull’s recent essays, culminating in ‘States of Failure’, propose a fourth.” Anderson summarised Nairn’s thinking: “Tom Nairn’s account goes roughly like this. Marx-ism was always based on a distortion of Marx’s own thought, formed in the democratic struggles of the Rhineland in the 1840s. For whereas Marx assumed that socialism was possible in the long run, only when capitalism had completed its work of bringing a world market into being, the impatience of both masses and intellectuals led to the fatal short-cuts taken by Lenin and Mao, substituting state power for democracy and economic growth. The result was a diversion of the river of world history into the marshlands of a modern middle ages. But the collapse of Soviet Communism in 1989 has now allowed the river to flow again to its natural delta—contemporary globalization. For the core meaning of globalization is the generalization of democracy around the world, fulfilling at last the dreams of 1848, crushed during Marx’s life-time. Marx, however, himself made one crucial mistake, in thinking class would be the carrier of historical emancipation, in the shape of the proletariat. In fact, as the European pattern of 1848 already showed, and the whole of the 20th century would confirm, it was nations, not classes, that would become the moving forces of history, and the bearers of the democratic revolution for which he fought. “But, just as a counterfeit democracy would be constructed by Marx-ism, so nationality too was in due course confiscated by national-ism—that is, imperialist great powers—in the period after the American Civil War and Franco-Prussian War. “Hardt and Negri concur that globalization is essentially a process of emancipation …”[ii] Anderson sums up, “Politically, all four versions agree that globalization is to be welcomed …”[iii] Nairn denies all Marx’s work and thought after he left the Rhineland in 1848. Anderson writes of ‘the fatal short-cuts taken by Lenin and Mao’. This echoes Plekhanov to Lenin, “you shouldn’t have taken power.” Lenin should just have let the First World War carry on, killing yet more millions of Russians and others. He should have reinstalled tsarist feudal absolutism. Mao should have let Japanese aggression succeed, and let Chiang Kai-Shek carry on misruling ever-smaller areas of China.
Anderson writes of Lenin and Mao ‘substituting state power for democracy and economic growth’. So socialism can’t use state power to establish democracy and produce economic growth? And if it does, it’s not socialism?
Anderson writes that capitalism completes its work by creating a world market, but, inconsistently, that ‘the core meaning of globalization is the generalization of democracy around the world’. It is superficial to see globalisation as basically a political process. It is also a ridiculous prettification of the political processes actually occurring in the world. Is the partition of Iraq part of ‘the generalization of democracy’? The destruction of Yugoslavia? The ‘ever closer union’ of the EU?
Anderson writes, ‘national-ism—that is, imperialist great powers’, absurdly equating nationalism (even Scottish?) with ‘imperialist great powers’. In reality globalisation is just a liberals’ word for imperialism.
Countries are right to assert their sovereignty against imperialism. Economist Shahid Alam wrote in his brilliant book Poverty from the wealth of nations (Macmillan, 2000), “In the long run, sovereign countries will structure their international relations to develop manufactures and indigenous capital, enterprises and technological capabilities; they will impose at the outset, or gradually, policies that regulate the entry of imports and foreign capital, labor and enterprises. On the other hand, the quasi-colonies and colonies will implement policies which facilitate the free entry of imports and foreign factors; the establishment of foreign monopolies over their markets; and direct expropriation of their resources. These asymmetries ensure that loss of sovereignty will produce lower levels of industrialisation, lower levels of productivity in the subsistence sector, lower levels of human capital, lower rates of taxation and public expenditure and, finally, lower growth rates of per capita income.”[iv]
He summarised, “All other things remaining the same, the loss of sovereignty retarded industrialisation, human capital formation and economic growth. … The results showed a strong positive correlation between sovereignty and industrialisation.”[v]
This materialist analysis demolishes Anderson and Nairn’s bourgeois idealism. Nairn is a counterfeit Marxist, who distorts Marx’s thought in order to back the reactionary ideal of Scottish nationalism.
Perry Anderson, Jottings on the conjuncture, New Left Review, 2007, 48, 5-37, p. 31.
[ii] Ibid, pp. 31-2.
[iii] p. 36.
[iv] M. Shahid Alam, Poverty from the wealth of nations: integration and polarization in the global economy since 1760, Macmillan, 2000, pp. 10-11.
[v] M. Shahid Alam, Poverty from the wealth of nations: integration and polarization in the global economy since 1760, Macmillan, 2000, pp. xi and 13. |
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