Darren redstar
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The Unitarians are having their conference this weekend, there's a live feed and everything! I for one, am all agog awaiting for the discussion on the Middle east, which has broken with similar such events in introducing a new element to the table usually overfill with ritualistic denounciation of Israel. A new dawn for socialism is being born! In the ninth century!We reject the abstract and Eurocentric call for the building of a socialist and democratic society in Iraq and Syria, partly because these states, their borders and their in-built divisions, exist to facilitate imperialism and partly because socialism and democracy are simply nowhere near the agenda of any social forces in Iraq or Syria; socialism and secular nationalism, just like political islam, have been undermined there by late 20th century historical developments, leaving the current stark choice between, on the one hand, a Caliphate, based initially on salafist jihadist ideology and Sunni exclusionism, but which would break the imperialist settlement of Versailles and threaten western control of oil, and, on the other, the continuation of western domination through nation states based on religious and ethnic division. ‘Criticisms of the call for the Caliphate must be countered by knowledge and understanding. Painting it as inseparable from violence or empire building is a false association that lacks historical, political and intellectual credibility. The Caliphate represents an alternative political vision that is gathering support amongst Muslims across the Muslim world because, for its adherents, like Hizb ut-Tahrir, it stands for replacing the brutal regimes in which they live with a political system based on Islam that sets up an accountable executive, an organised judiciary, representative consultation, the rule of law and citizenship; such a state could only be a stabilising force for the region and the European Left has to acknowledge and accept the widespread call for a Caliphate among Muslims as valid and an authentic expression of their emancipatory, anti-imperialist aspirations. The call for the Caliphate, however vague and malleable the concept is, reflects a strong internationalism among Muslims, reinforced and reproduced for hundreds of millions each year by the Haj (Pilgrimage to Mecca), which breaks down and demotes any attachments to nation states of origin.At bottom the caliphate means one government for all Muslims, in which non-Muslims who accept its authority are also welcome. The idea of the caliphate has evolved throughout history but its political content has remained vague. There is no ‘correct’ interpretation of the Caliphate; the lowest common denominator among its Muslim adherents is that a representative and deliberative body – the Shura – should appoint the Caliph, or political executive, and, in so doing, be mindful of the need to represent the peoples’ interests.However, although the Islamic State’s announcement is the first serious attempt at re-establishing the caliphate since the institution was abolished in 1924 by the Turkish republic, it has divided rather than united Islamist groups and the broader Muslim community and escalated the conflict and mistrust between Sunnis and Shiites. IS’ call for a Caliphate is partly tactical; a means to win Muslims all over the world to supporting, but IS’ jihad is also aimed at overturning the existing imperialist order and enabling the expansion of the boundaries of the caliphate to encompass all territory where Muslims live. It has, however, backfired, dividing political Islamists, many of whom have made it clear that a Caliphate cannot be accomplished, as IS are purporting to, through blood, charges of apostasy and explosions’. ‘To show solidarity with the people of the Middle East by supporting the end of the structure of the divided nation states imposed by the Versailles settlement and their replacement by a Caliphate-type polity in which diversity and autonomy are protected and nurtured and the mass of people can effectively control executive authority’. Call Jean Luc, we're gonna need a bigger face palm.
Some information about one of Brands collaborators http://laurenceeasemantruth.wordpress.com/2014/10/21/laurence-easeman-russell-brands-pal-nazi-sympathiser-bailiff/
More than one attendee was angry that we were shut out when leninists and reformists were allowed in.and the Catholic workers got a meeting "Christ and the class struggle"!!
A superb explanation of why I am no longer a class war member.not a single class argument just knee jerk anti establishment dressed up as politics. Sad really
I would hazard that the tragic events in Ukraine will also be advantageous to Putin. Putins power is dependent upon the support of various nationalist and big business power blocs and interests. He has achieved his original aim of securing the Crimea from the mess of the Ukrainian Maidan. But could not distance himself from the other Pro Russian nationalist movements without undermining his own support, their labelling as Terrorists, provides him with the opportunity to break off Russia's support.
I have many friends who went to oxford, and a niece who went to Cambridge. I have no issue with whatever university anyone attends. However, I do take issue with the Owen Joneses and Laurie Pennys who from positions of great privilege and well paid access to media declare themselves the new leaders of youth and the oppressed. Jones does so to promote his Labour Party whilst penny declares herself some sort of anarchist, whilst both in reality promote their own brand- as Laurie infamously put it 'monetising their radicalism'.class war may indulge in inverse class snobbery, but they at least are consistent in what they do and aim their barbs at figures who set themselves up to be aimed up.the swp in contrast are a party which has not only a leadership in which the English nobility are well represented, but also have created political dynasties of their own; the Harmans, the Glucksteins, the Rees' have all found themselves replicated and fast tracked through the party's myriad ranks.
Owen jones swings in, finding a handle to whinge about Class War being mean to him on a recent demo.apparently, crowing about the death of a child is the same as holding a banner saying F*** off back to Oxford.
Joyfully the LU faction is mostly Steve freeman, whose letter in weekly worker revealed that the faction is almost entirely english. The Scottish LU being insufficiently Leninist, and overwhelmingly rejected the delights of Caledonian Capitalism
That was also one of mine, based on an essay I wrote for my access course.available herehttp://redstarcommando.blogspot.co.uk/2007/12/multiculturalism-newspeak-of-left-cop.html
I find myself in general agreement with comrade Mulenga, in recent days the 'Left' has refound it's antiwar principles. Months of slaughter in Iraq, in Syria, in the Ukraine and in countless other conflicts where workers have been hurled at the throats of their brothers in the name of nation, of faith, or of ideology; but always in the service of Capital, have found little protest from the myriad forces of the left. Now that the Israeli- Palestian conflict has re intensified mas demonstrations have sprung up across the country. Israel is being universally condemned as an Apartheid ( or even Nazi!) pariah, even as it remains a parliamentary democracy with a functioning civil society, free trades unions (which organise both Arab and Jewish workers), And Israeli military operations are regularly represented as a crime equivalent to, or even worse than the holocaust, explicitly determined to exterminate the Palestinians.the left do all this as a part of justifying a political agenda which under serious consideration would be condemned by anyone with even an ounce of Socialist, or working class consciousness. They do not want to unite the working class in order to challenge and overthrow capitalism and it's blood soaked sirens; Nationalism and Religion. Instead they campaign for the mass expulsion of millions of people from their homes, purely on the basis of their race. And the establishment of a racially and religiously pure state. In this they are happy to be the catspaws of religious psychopaths and the capitalist ruling classes of the Arab States. Only the realisation of our common class interests as workers, the ending of all states and the establishment of a socialist society can free the people of the region from this cycle of violence. 8 years ago when I was a member of class war I wrote the following, which had the distinction of being banned by several 'anarchist' websites ( an honour I also got for my statement 'Islamophobes r us')HezBollocks and IsRabies (26th July 2006)A Class War Federation statement on the War in LebanonClass War is appalled at the carnage that is occurring in the Middle East. We are also disappointed but not surprised at what is being said about it, especially by some "progressive" organisations.Lebanon is being turned into a grotesque war-games board as the real protagonists – The USA and Iran use their proxies to slug it out.Neither the Israeli army nor Hezbollah give a flying fuck about 'their' civilians, except as bloody totems to hang in front of the cameras of the world's press in order to justify their own next atrocity.The left have adopted two approaches.Firstly, wholesale adoption of the Islamist agenda, cheerleading Hamas or Hezbollah without qualification or criticism. This 'Idiot anti-imperialism', the trademark of today's SWP, says my enemy's enemy is my friend and any criticism of them, no matter how mild, is 'racism, islamophobia, and Zionist pro American warmongering.'The second approach is slightly more subtle – Hezbollah is fighting back, therefore we must support Hezbollah and the slogan 'we are all Hezbollah' is an act of basic solidarity with those who are fighting back against imperialism – the slogan is compared with the Parisian students who, when Danny Cohn-Bendit was attacked in the bourgeois press as a German Jew, marched through Paris chanting 'nous sommes tout les jiufs allemands!' (we are all German Jews).This argument is crap – Hezbollah isn't a nationality or a racial epithet, it is a political party/militia, if the slogan really wanted to fit then the SWP should have handed out placards proclaiming 'WE ARE ALL SH'ITE'.Lebanon has a radical history, albeit one distorted by the chains of Leninist communism, but this has been written out of the Brit left's history books in their rush to embrace Islamo-trottery.A real working class alternative is desperately needed – one that recognises that there can be no peace whilst borders are drawn by reference to the Torah, and International policy is determined in Washington by consulting the Book of Revelations."Israelis living in Tiberuius fund the war, and contribute bodies to the war. It's not true to say they are wholly 'innocent'… "- that quote is from an otherwise relatively sane leftist, and is a justification for every atrocity against civilians ever. It gives an idea just how much the left loses it when the question of Israel is raised.The Israeli state oppresses the Palestinians, driving them into the hands of the fanatics of Hamas out of despair at the failure of the secular Palestinian left. In turn the suicide bombers provide for the Israeli state 'proof' of the murderous nature of the Palestinians and drives the Israeli public to support harsher and harsher measures against the 'terrorists'.This is a self destructive spiral and must be broken.The Israeli state is not shaken by katyushas or by suicide bombers – it is strengthened by them.The last real challenge to the Israeli state was the Intifada, mass popular resistance on the streets of the west bank and Gaza, and amongst the 'Israeli Arab' population, this rose up from below from the streets and spread all across the middle east and north Africa as the Arab working class drew inspiration from the bravery of the Palestinian youth, and employed the same tactics to confront their own ruling classes. Inside Israel proper the intifada created real tensions within the army, as soldiers refused to be used to gun down children and sparked a massive peace movement amongst the general population.The Oslo peace process was designed to derail the intifada and create from the PLO a police force to keep the unruly Palestinians in line.All the arguments of the left revolve around one state/two state. All happily accept the artificial divisions created in the twentieth century by the very imperialists that they claim to oppose, and all ignore the actual people – Palestinian, Israeli, Lebanese, Druse, Syrian, Egyptian, Jordanian, Bedouin – who live there. Re-jigging the lines on a map will create new oppressions, new grievances and new horrors, and we as revolutionaries should have no part in assisting that.We should stand shoulder to shoulder with those struggling against the oppressors of the Israeli state and the Palestinian bantustan. We fight against our 'own' rulers who attempt to use this slaughter to their own ends and use measly words 'condemning the violence' whilst writing out the receipts for the latest arms contract.Any state solution is a continuation of the same bullshit.No BordersNo StatesNo GodsNo War but the Class War
SPGB-AWL alliance to take over teachers' unions, claims this morning's Times… http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/education/article4132635.ece
Quote:Militant left plotting union takeover, teachers warned An ultra-left alliance of “Trots” is trying to seize control of Britain’s biggest teachers’ union from within, a former leader has warned. Fred Jarvis, a former general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, has appealed to teachers to fight back by voting for mainstream candidates. In a book to be published next week, he accuses a grassroots network of NUT activists of being a vehicle for entryism tactics similar to those used by the Militant group in the Labour party in the 1980s. A chapter on the politics of the NUT says its 45-member national executive committee is in the grip of a “hotchpotch of Trots”, but says it is important to distinguish between different left factions, some at odds with each other. His most serious criticism, however, is aimed at an alliance of left-wing teachers launched in Liverpool in 2012 to press for an escalation of industrial action against Michael Gove’s school reforms after the NUT called off one of its strikes. This grouping, the Local Associations National Action Campaign (Lanac), has tried to mobilise NUT branches and co-ordinate conference motions to call for more frequent strikes. Mr Jarvis said: “You have got this Lanac, which I have called in the book the NUT’s Militant Tendency because of what happened within the Labour party. You had groups that were trying to form a party within a party. That’s what the Lanac outfit boils down to.” Lanac has links to the two far-left groups, the Socialist Party of Great Britain and the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty. Its influence in the union, however, is limited. It claims to have eight supporters on the NUT executive and its call for four days of strikes in the autumn term was defeated at the annual conference in April. The NUT’s biggest hard-left grouping is the Socialist Teachers Alliance, with about 15 members on the executive. A smaller left faction, the Campaign for a Democratic and Fighting Union (CDFU), has about seven, while the more mainstream broad left has 15. Mr Jarvis, 89, who led the NUT from 1975 to 1989, said the power wielded by left and ultra-left factions within the NUT was fairly recent — “within the last six or seven years” — and said teachers had lost influence and respect as a result. “Up until then the so-called broad left had a majority on the executive,” he said. “Basically, they have lost that. They are still on the executive but they are no longer in the majority. Throughout my time we never had the extreme or ultra-left we have today.” Mr Jarvis added: “Within the conference, in my view, the general flavour at the moment doesn’t reflect the overall allegiance of the members. When you look at the population as a whole and opinion polls of teachers that have been held over the years, they have moved, to some extent, more leftwards but they have not moved that far left by any means.” His comments follow the re-election this week of Christine Blower, previously a leading figure in the CDFU, as the NUT’s general secretary.Interesting they quote the Slow Food movement, this was a central actor in the early 2000s complaining about low food, and especially meat prices, as this made meat easily access able to all, and thus less "special", higher food prices= food banks.there is a union backed campaign for the living wage at tesco, which doesn't make the false claim that a higher price means better wages for the workers, but instead points to the profits of the company
