spc newsletter 1st Jan 2016

[Socialist Party Head Office]

The Socialist Party of Canada

Secretary's Report for January 1, 2016

Email Report

– WSPNZ GAC minutes for November received with thanks.

– WSP India EC meeting minutes receives with thanks.

Good of the Movement

– Three introductory packages requested and sent.

– Two membership questionnaires sent out.

Finances

– Secretary's expenses for December, $20.40

Karl's Quotes

– Completing the section on "The Dynamics of Capitalism", Marx gleefully recounts, "The Times of November 1857 contains an utterly delightful cry of outrage on the part of a West Indian plantation owner. This advocate analyzes with great moral indignation – as a plea for the re-introduction of Negro slavery – how the Quashees (the free blacks of Jamaica) content themselves with producing only what is necessary for their own consumption, and, alongside this "use-value", regard loafing (indulgence and idleness) as the real luxury good; how they do not care a damn for the sugar and the fixed capital invested in the plantations, but rather observe the planter's impending bankruptcy with an ironic grin of malicious pleasure, and even exploit their acquired Christianity as an embellishment for this mood of malicious glee and indolence. They have ceased to be slaves, but not in order to become wage labourers, but, instead, self-sustaining peasants working for their own consumption. As far as they are concerned, capital does not exist as capital, because autonomous wealth as such can exist only either on the basis of direct forced labour, slavery, or indirect forced labour, wage labour. Wealth confronts direct forced labour not as capital, but rather as relation of domination; thus, the relation of domination is the only thing which is reproduced on this basis, for which wealth itself has value only as gratification, not as wealth itself, and which therefore can never create general industriousness. ( The Grundisse in The Marx-Engels Reader, Second Edition, page 251). What a nerve these Quashees have wanting to produce only what is necessary! How the idle capitalists and their apologists scold the worker for not working hard enough to create more profit for them! My father was a shipwright in Hull, England, repairing the fishing trawlers returning from their North Sea adventures. One day, the boss came to talk to his men saying that he had been watching them through the window all morning and was not happy with their productivity, to which my father wondered aloud exactly how productive was a morning spent looking through the window!

Food For Thought

– On November 14, The Weather Station on TV in Toronto said that smog in China was fifty to sixty times above the acceptable levels. This gives a clear indication of just how profit mad the capitalist class is. As long as profit is made, to hell with the health of the people.

– A friend on the police force told an SPCer that twenty-five per cent of the people have no feeling towards others, hence the high number of psychopaths around. Even if not statistically correct, it does point to the way capitalism dehumanizes and alienates people from each other. There is only one cure and it won't be found within capitalism.

– We all know that the gun laws in the US are ridiculous and why – so the gun manufacturers can keep on selling their products and make huge profits, and that they command so many lobbyists and so much capital that they can control a government on that question. An editorial in the Toronto Star revealed that gun violence in that country claims a life every sixteen minutes; more Americans die from guns in six months than died from terrorism for the last twenty-five years and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars; more Americans have died from guns since 1968 than on the battlefields of all the wars in American history; American children are fourteen times more likely to die from guns than children in other developed countries. Incredible figures, unbelievable that a few can control the many and continue the slaughter in the name of profit. Just hours before the San Bernadino massacre, a group pf doctors went to Capitol Hill to present a petition of more than 2,000 signatures demanding an end to the two- decade funding freeze that has effectively killed public research into gun violence in the US and with it, any legislation that may have followed. In 1996, the Republican-controlled Congress stripped $2.6 million from the budget of The Centre for Disease Control that was earmarked for gun violence research and instead passed a bill that expressly forbid that agency from doing any research that "may be used to advocate or promote gun control." The result of this law and many others over time can be deduced from the figures for gun deaths per million in other developed countries – Japan, 0.1, Norway, 0.9, England, 0.9, Australia, 1.7, France, 2.0, Germany, 2.1, Canada, 5.6, US, 31.2. Only Mexico and Columbia (121.7 and 446.3 respectively) with their own special drug war problems have higher numbers.

– An article in the Toronto Star of November 14, focused on the illegal hunting of animals, specifically, lions and elephants in Zimbabwe. Poachers are poaching and killing dozens of elephants with cyanide. This is a problem for the local capitalists because they aren't getting their cut. Zimbabwe's 'hunting' industry brings in more than US$200 million annually, and, they claim, benefits 800,000 people living in communities that allow hunts on their land and getting income from the fees paid by operators and hunters. In other words, killing animals helps to keep the economy going. One hunter paid $50,000 for a hunt in which he killed a lion that he probably located easily since it was wearing a GPS collar. This may be sickening news but capitalism is all about money and profit. Obviously, it must be clear to anyone that this has got to change!

– Tongue in cheek award for December – Spanish company, Grifolos, a world leader in blood-plasma products, announced it was moving its $100 million distribution centre and treasury department from where all payments are made, to Dublin. The Irish government has just announced a new business-friendly corporate tax category. Grifolo insists it is not 'tax engineering' but has moved to Dublin to take advantage of the skilled work force there. Those who believe that, please raise your hands.

– The recent movie, "Suffragette" is well worth seeing but buyer beware. Though Meryl Streep is in it, she only appears as Mrs. Pankhurst for about three minutes in which she makes a speech that inspires the main character. This is a young laundress who becomes active in the movement. The strong point of the movie is that so many fictionalized versions of female suffrage struggles have shown them from a rich person's point of view. This main character is from the working class. It also focuses on the plight women where regarding custody battles. Legally, men had the final say in any decisions affecting the children. In the final analysis, the movie falls down by making it seem that political equality between the sexes is the main event but, in capitalism, there is no equality between the sexes or within the sexes.

– The recent climate change conference in Paris did achieve a measure of agreement missing since the Kyoto accord that was totally ignored by most countries. Canada's new environment minister stated that Canada will not support legally binding emissions and that 'emission targets must be flexible'. The US has said the same thing. Obviously anyone can and will therefore ignore the targets as dictated by their capitalist class. It will be virtually impossible for a competitive world of two hundred countries following their own courses to get the concerted global action necessary. Only socialism can do that.

– In The Socialist Standard, journal of our companion party in the UK, a recent article focused on the plight of the elderly. To quote one of its many points, "The government has now announced that it will not, after all, introduce rules to cap care costs, which means that many elderly people will have to sell their homes to pay for care." Think of the enormity of that. That's what a lifetime of work making profits for the capitalist class gets you, homeless and in debt!

– We are all well aware of the importance of a tropical forest such as the Amazon rain forest has on world climate. Now, according to new research, a disturbingly high number of tree species are in danger of becoming extinct there. Of the fifteen thousand species found there, as many as two thirds are considered rare and 57% are facing extinction. With 'increased governance' that figure could be reduced to 36%. Perhaps with good governance it could be reduced even further. Do not hold your breath waiting for this to happen. The madness of capitalism will continue until we, the workers, say otherwise.

– The November 21^{st issue of The Toronto Star contained three separate articles dealing with environmental damage. The new evidence from the Amazon rainforest (see above), receding sea ice due to global warming forcing polar bears onto land where they may become a danger to humans, and vice versa. Rising sea levels are threatening to put the island of Diamniadio, off the coast of Senegal, under water. Thousand who live on the island aren't merely seeing their way of life threatened but their own safety. There is no hope that the powers in charge will be galvanized into any meaningful action. Profits have to be made quickly for them to survive in business, regardless of the long term impacts. That could well mean the extinction of us all, including the rich.}

^{– A new poll by Fusion 2016 claims that young workers today are more pessimistic than those surveyed in 1986 (and they have good reason to be). 29% today, compared to 12% in 1986, felt that the American dream 'is not really alive', while 70% of whites without college degrees said the dream has become harder to achieve. Young Americans of colour showed no change responding to the same question despite the fact that median household income for whites age 25-34 was $58,197 compared to $43,957 for blacks.}

^{– One reason for the above attitude is revealed in The Toronto Star, December 12. The article tells us that precarious work is now so common in the public sector that, in recent years, it has been the most unionized sector in the country. Now, this last bastion of long term jobs with benefits is disappearing. Although the provincial government vowed to tackle job insecurity, 44% of ministry postings in 2014 were for temporary positions. Province-wide, one third of all jobs are insecure. Of the 300 job postings for correctional officers, for example, not one single position was permanent. And so cutting off the workers from access to benefits and pensions. Some of the temporary jobs were for summer students and for workers to cover for things such as maternity leaves but the trend is quite clear – the public sector has taken a leaf from the private sector in reducing costs. So, we are getting back to where we started over one hundred years ago and start the fight for wages and benefits all over again, better, dump the whole wages system and substitute security for all.}

^{– An article in the Toronto Star, November 28, emphasized the shocking amount of food that is being wasted, "One third of all food produced globally either never makes it to the table or doesn't get eaten". That represents 1.3 billion tonnes of food – the weight ten thousand CN towers-worth and nearly $US1 trillion The energy that goes into the production, harvest, storage, transportation, and packaging of that food – energy that is ultimately wasted – produces more than 3.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. Food thrown out from North American homes, European restaurants and Asian food markets is contributing to global climate change. However, it hardly makes sense to throw food away while millions are starving, but where does it say that capitalism makes sense. In a society that does make sense, food would be distributed so there would be no starvation and no waste.}

^{– Figures on the recent Paris climate talks may tell a story:-}

^{Number of delegates at the summit – 40,000}

^{Number of police officers deployed – 11,000}

^{Budget for the two weeks of talks – $240 millions}

^{Countries represented – 196}

^{Heads of state who will participate – 147}

^{The number of legally binding climate treaties – 0!}



^{Have a wonderful holiday season,}

^{for socialism, John And Steve}





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