Greetings Fellow Workers,
Please find our February 2019 Monthly Report for your review and comment. This month we had an amusing contribution sent from a sympathizer, MatterNatter, which we though you may enjoy. Find it as a second attachment below.
yfs,
John, Mehmet, Steve & GAC members
Socialist Party of Canada
PO Box 31024 Victoria BC Canada V8N 6J3
https://www.worldsocialism.org/canada/ | https://twitter.com/spc_news[https://twitter.com/spc_news]
THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF CANADA
worldsocialism.org/canada | spc@worldsocialism.org | twitter.com/spc_news
PO Box 31024 Victoria B.C. Canada V8N 6J3
Secretary’s Report for February 2019
Email Report
– WSP (India) EC meeting minutes No. 195, Sunday, January 6, 2019 received with thanks. Announcement:
SPRING SCHOOL & TWENTY FOURTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2018 will be held on Saturday 2nd and
Sunday 3rd March 2019 at the WSP (India) Head Office: Theme: TRADE UNIONISM – under decadence of capitalism.
Good of the Movement
– Socialist Party of Canada meeting, Wednesday, 27 February 2019, 6:30pm to 8:30pm, The Second Cup Coffee House, 324 Bloor St W, Toronto, ON, M5S 1W5.
– Upcoming SPC Toronto Branch meetings – Visit https://web.facebook.com/Toronto-Branch-Socialist-Party-of-Canada-1120836671294008/ for upcoming events.
– SPC enquiries independent web forum: https://www.reddit.com/r/Canadian_Socialism/
– SPC involvement re: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: 100th anniversary of Winnipeg’s 1919 General Strike will be marked with monument, movie, books – http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/1919-winnipeg-generalstrike-
centenary-1.4669345
– Peer collaborators generating socialist articles and summaries – write to worldsocialismbc@outlook.com.
– Open E-Letter Dec. 2018, World Socialist Party New Zealand – an official letter from the party. Replies would be appreciated:
Dear comrades,
Lately our branch has discussed the lack of progress within our party and whether overseas has had the same lack of progress. Within this discussion we have concluded that proceeding with the same methods would not be an intelligent way of dealing with the problem of advancing the cause.
Some of the suggestions made are to do with the name Socialism. We can continue using this word but by far the majority of the world’s population understand Socialism to mean different to what we know it to mean. Thus,
the mere mention of the word creates a barrier to those who who are averse to the what they believe Socialism is.
Also discussed, that Socialism will be voted in by the majority. We have noted that none of the changes from primitive Communism to human slavery to feudalism or to capitalism has been selected by a majority vote but in fact it has been changed by social evolution. Our part it seems is to be the catalyst for next stage.
Maybe it would be wise to demonstrate to the people of a wonderful world that is evolving. It only needs people to understand that the old ways of employment for sustenance will be phased out.
We are asking companion parties their thoughts on these matters and any suggestion they have.
Addendum
i Trevor. Could you point out its the meaning behind the word and not the word itself which has no reference in the real world that matters. Showing people what is possible now and let there imagination do the rest, rather than looking back at.
A comprehensive study needs to take place in regards how the receiver of the message interprets the message.
regards Gerald
General Administrative Committee
– One GAC seat remains open. Member nominations forward to spc@iname.com.
Dues – $25 per year or $2 per month. Funds conduct Party post, photocopies, public meeting expenses and internet
services. All other Party activity is voluntarily run. Dues waiver – please contact general secretary to arrange.
Food for Thought – views & contributions to spc@worldsocialism.org
● A recent issue of the Canadian Jewish News ran an article which focused on the plight of the Yazidi’s, the aboriginal people of Iraq, which are now being raped, murdered and enslaved by ISIS. Their history goes back 7,000 years, but their numbers have dwindled from a high of 23 million down to one million. They are now experiencing their 74th genocide. Yet there are still people who want capitalism to continue, but
without atrocities – and they think Socialists are dreamers.
● Recently there has been a rash of convenience store robberies in Hamilton, Ontario. Young men have been driving
trucks into them and stealing the ATM machines. So far there have been
no injuries and no arrests. That such actions are crazy, callous and
criminal, is symptomatic of capitalism these days.
● Ford’s Ontario government lost no time in slashing reform measures.
It has cut $25 million in funding for programs that provide
after-school jobs for needy teens, class room tutors for kids as well as
projects focusing on indigenous issues. Maria Rizzo, chairman of the
Toronto Catholic School Board, said,”I’m sick to my stomach because I’m
afraid of the steps we’ve taken on poverty, on indigenous education and
even in
the Focus on Youth Program – we’ve hired our kids in the most
vulnerable school communities, in the neediest neighbourhoods, just to
give them a leg up. Now I have serious concerns. A spokesperson for the
Ministry of Education said,”such funds must be better managed so they
the greatest impact on the students”. The fact that the province is
$14.5 billion in debt has, of course, nothing to do with it. NDP
education critic, Marit Stiles, said,”These cuts are going to
be deeply felt by our kids in the classroom. For Doug Ford to take the
axe to schools is inexcusable. It would be better for all concerned, if
we had a society that didn’t need reforms.
● Toronto is a city with a severe lack of affordable housing. The
current wait list for subsidized housing in Toronto, which includes
Toronto Community Housing, Cooperatives and private non-profit housing,
(if you believe it), is close to 99,000 households and about one third
of those waiting
are seniors. Average market rents for a three bedroom rental is
$1,633, according to data from the Canada Mortgage and
Housing Corporation. Those figures are occupied units,
landlords can charge what they want for newly empty units.
Research firm Urbanation recently published a report showing
the average cost of renting a studio condo averaged $1,800 and a two
bedroom condo $2,700. With prices like that no wonder so many are
homeless.
● The Ontario government on their boundless generosity are intent to
share the pot of all their soon to be tax revenues from the sale of
cannabis with the municipalities. This does not please Toronto Mayor
John Tory, who expects the city to get about $3 million and whose
council voted to allow cannabis shops to open on April 1. His staff has
estimated cannabis legislation will put the city on the hook for, ”tens
of million’s of dollars in additional policing, paramedic, fire, public
health and other costs.” Just leave it up to capitalist society to
create
problems it can’t solve.
● Most Canadian’s were, naturally, happy to see gas prices go down
8.6 per cent in December, but wait a minute not everything is
peachey-dandy – inflation overall in Canada went
up 2 per cent, according to Stats-Canada’s figures which were released
on Jan.18. Canadians paid 14.9 per cent more for fresh vegetables and
28.1 per cent more for air fares. The Bank of Canada’s governor Stephen
Poloz kept his benchmark interest rate unchanged at 1.75 per cent as the
economy goes
through what he described as a temporary period of softness due to the
drop in oil prices. At the supermarket shoppers can experience such
softness, that it would make them wonder what hardness would be like.
● Tesla announced, on Jan.18 that in order to produce cheaper electric cars it would have to cut 7 per cent of its work force, which would be 3,150 people. As CEO Elon Musk put it,”We face an extremely difficult challenge, making our cars, batteries and solar products cost-competitive with fossil fuels. While we have made great progress our products are still to expensive for most people.” There it is folks the basic hard facts of capitalist economics which inevitably mean someone will suffer and as always it will be the working class who suffer the most.
● Coldwater First Nation Chief Lee Spahan is pretty upset because the Canadian Government want to build another pipeline through his tribe’s reservation and claims they never consented to the first. This is the Trans-Mountain pipeline; the 1,100 kilometer tube which carries Alberta crude to the coast of British Columbia and was built in 1956. The government hopes to expand by building a twin line along the existing route, thereby tripling capacity. The First Nations Don’t want them to; Stephan said,”It’s very hard to trust them. The honesty is broken”. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. One thing we know for a fact is that the political stooges of the capitalist class have never let aboriginals stand in their way yet, so its unlikely they will now.
============
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
From my mother’s womb I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
1914 – 1965 – Randall Jarrell
AESOP, ON A MISSION TO DELPHI, WAS THROWN OVER A PRECIPICE BY THE PRIESTS, INFURIATED BY HIS WITTY BLASPHEMIES
Wise hunchbacked slave, your wisdom did not save
Your falling into error.
The servants of the Gods, jealous and grave
With dignity, no terror
Saw in straight-laced rectitude; no mirth
In mock of gods man-made;
But deep self-danger in the birth
Of keen disparagements, by laughter taught.
You erred
In thinking man-gods could permit
Laughter at self or what their hands had wrought.
So, sacrificed,
You fell a prey to wit –
Rare luxury, for those the unafraid
Konrad Egilson, n/d
Socialists Readings in the Modern Rage
Socialist Party of Canada 2019 Calendar £19.25:
https://www.zazzle.co.uk/socialist_party_of_canada_2019_calendar-158951425439478504
Greatest Impossibilists 2019 Calendar £19.25:
https://www.zazzle.co.uk/greatest_impossibilists_2019_calendar-158115142299860432
– Edgar Hardcastle Archive 1900-1995
https://www.marxists.org/archive/hardcastle/
– Producers and Parasites (1935). By John Keracher.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/keracher/1935/producers-parasites.htm
– History of the Socialist Party of Canada (1973). By J. M. Milne
http://www.socialisthistory.ca/Docs/SocialistParty/HistoryofSPC.pdf
– W.A. Pritchard address to the jury in the Crown vs. Armstrong, Heaps,
Bray, Ivens, Johns, Pritchard, and Queen: Indicted for seditious
conspiracy and common nuisance,Fall assizes, Winnipeg, 1919-1920.
Winnipeg: Defense Committee, 1920.
http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/bibliography/4627.html
“Hardy” | Bargaining researcher, Trade Union Council, UK
– Socialist Studies http://www.socialiststudies.org.uk/ | Marxian Economics YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXq0kw9sU6xvrr34yezA_Tw
Archive of Socialist Studies (except no. 36): https://1drv.ms/f/s!AvbgU4NFjvNHgV9xDR5_Om8AtJjF
Kenworthy, John Coleman (1900). The Anatomy of Misery: Plain Lectures on Economics.
https://archive.org/details/anatomyofmisery00kenw
– History of Economics: A Scientific Investigation into the Political Economy and Its Swindler ‘Economics’
published. 50.00 Rupees/CD$1-1.50. Contact http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org for more
information to purchase.
– Red Lion Press:
Revolutionary Socialist: Life of the Socialist Party of Canada and the OBU, 1910-1922.
Thinking: An Introduction To Its History and Science.
Method in Thinking: An Introduction to Dialectics.
Inquires to the publisher: https://web.facebook.com/search/more/?q=Larry+Gambone&init=public
– Rosa Luxemburg on Socialism (2019). The Socialist Party of Great Britain.
£4.00
For socialism, Steve, Mehmet, John & contributing members of the SPC
R E A D I N G S MATTER NATTER
September 2018 Volume 1, Number 1
Lack of health is a disease of the body, lack of thought a disease of the mind.
Epicurus, 341–270 BC
—-*—-
How many are the things which we cannot imagine and how many are the
things we treasure for qualities they do not possess? This mistaken view
of things, these erroneous conceptions, taken together, these are the
clouds of errors which turn into upsetting storms.
Francis Bacon, 1561 –1626
In Praise of Knowledge, Counsels for a Prince
—-*—-
Let a certain holy ambition invade the mind, so that we may not be content with mean things but may aspire to the highest things and strive with all our forces to attain them: for if
we will to, we can.
Pico della Mirandola,, (1463 – 1494), On the Dignity of Man, ISBN 0-87220-396-4,
p.7
—-*—-
The object of study is never confirmation of one’s views or beliefs, but preparation for one’s dearly cherished views to
be overturned.
—-*—-
The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.
—-*—-
Those who shrink from ideas end by having nothing but sensations.
—-*—-
The Question of Capitalist Restoration
The class struggles of the past century have shown the power of proletarian science to command the loyalty and devotion of the working classes. The proletarian states of the 20th century released and directed the pent-up energy of the masses for the building of a new world. After some years in power, socialism’s first leaders passed away and soon afterwards, a multitude of capitalist forces began to emerge. These anti-socialist forces were careful to cover their intentions behind a smokescreen of distortions. Thus the masses were corrupted with fairy tales of equality and riches to come. Into the hands of tricksters and opportunists fell state power. With their slick tongues these tricksters, their cronies and their henchmen, attacked proletarian science by wholesale revision of its key values. And they began with spiteful, second-rate lies to negate the role and achievements of past heroes. In the new Land of Peace and Plenty socialism was to evolve quietly into communism. No more class struggle; that’s over. The new-rich popped up like jack-in-a boxes. The enthusiastic welcome given to them
was a wonder to behold. Socialist millionaires were feted as proof that socialism actually worked! Fake socialism spread everywhere. Capitalism’s decadent culture was held up for admiration.
Millionaires in Socialism
Sentimental yearnings accompanied by the lingering glow of past accomplishments converted genuine but now safely dead revolutionaries into harmless icons of fake socialism. Fake socialism, as it spread around the world, discouraged the armed struggle of the oppressed peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America and diverted it into parliamentary dead ends.
The lingua franca of the new capitalists was the ‘parliamentary road to socialism’; a lie blown away most graphically in 1973 when the president of ‘socialist’ Chile committed suicide as he was dive-bombed in his presidential palace. Thousands suffered torture and death simply because of the president’s fear that arming them might lead to violence and death. Death came anyway – from a fascist dictatorship. Social Imperialism, marketed in the 1960s as ‘the international socialist division of
labour’, can be best illustrated by that darling of all fake socialisms, Cuba, which, some sixty ‘socialist’ years on, is still as underdeveloped as ever it was. So goes the world under parliamentary socialism: the leadership gets some loot off the capitalist table, the masses get nothing but the vote as they forever wait, wait, and wait again. Some forty years spent corrupting the masses’ understanding of socialism prepared the way for what became a sudden and obscene scramble for riches. Capitalism’s triumph was announced by wholesale pillage and outright gangsterism. The most rapacious of these plunderers now live as billionaire princes in one or another of capital’s golden cages. All matters of any real importance for the masses must be gained in a struggle to break the bourgeoisie’s hold over the masses. Victory comes first in the battle of ideas. The masses of the advanced capitalist world are beginning a new struggle against their slavery. The more successful the ideological and political struggle against capitalism becomes, the more frightened will become big capital. History has shown the true face of capital which, when well and truly frightened, is always fascist. Prejudice is further from the truth than ignorance.
—-*—-
Stalinism is a much abused term. In the discourse of public politics in the West, particularly on the left of the political spectrum, it has become a form of abuse with little substantive content. In academic pursuits, too, the term has had a distinctly pejorative air.
Graeme J. Gill, The Origins of the Stalinist Political System,
Preface, Cambridge
University Press; 1990
—-*—-
Capitalism is a creature of a thousand faces. It will adopt any combination of political, social, economic; historical and cultural ingredients called into being by the necessities of the day.
—-*—-
Nothing is a more terrible sight than ignorance in action.
Goethe, Maxims and Reflexions
—-*—-
Not only is capitalism as slippery as an eel it is even capable of disguising itself as socialist or even communist for a while.
—-*—-
Wisdom lies only in truth
Goethe,
Maxims and Reflexions
—-*—-
Truth is hard on the ears
Chinese proverb
___________________
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We can be contacted at:-
matternatter.blog
Marxism Revised
—–The Home for Ridiculous Lefties —–
Today the sentimentalists for Cuba dare not cite its history for fear of having to provide excuses for a woeful failure to industrialize. North Korea and China, desperately pretending to socialism, also have their apologists abroad. North Korea is ruled by a network of nepotistic families who routinely send their children to the elite of capitalism’s schools. Seventy years on, and for its own survival, the regime is still as dependent on small-scale industry, craft production and market stall-holders as it ever was. And then there’s China where its pseudo-Marxist leaders confidently state that the first leader of the New China was only 70% right. Might just as well say he was only 70% sincere! These fools, these laughable fakes say their millionaires, their billionaires even, are fine examples of upstanding citizens practicing ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’! What kind of socialist is it that will erect nets around their factory to stop rooftop death leaps by desperate and demoralised workers? These suicides lend colour to the suspicion that such workers are under attack from a particularly vicious capitalist offensive.
The Educated Idiot
The common or garden educated idiot will only rarely, and only under exceptional conditions, rise above its own formation to strike out for itself. Under conditions of modern life it is not given to many to have both the brains and the leisure to strike out on a truly scientific and independent course of study and of those who do, one invariably comes across the following:-
It is quite possible for someone who is convinced that socialism will triumph in the end to join in the fight against it. The insight into the laws of motion which Marxism gives, however, assures a continuing advantage to those who accept it, and among the opponents of socialism the most dangerous are certainly those who partake most of the fruits of its knowledge.
The history of the 20th century – fact or fiction?
Because we were born as children, and formed all manner of judgments respecting sensuous things before we had the perfect use of our reason, we are through many preconceived ideas hindered from the knowledge of the truth. From these we appear not to be able to free ourselves in any other way but by once in our lives striving to doubt that respecting which we have the very slightest suspicion of an uncertainty. Indeed it is really desirable to hold as false everything in respect to which we have any doubt, so that we may find more clearly what is most certain and most knowable. Yet despite the above, the educated idiot historians of the 20th century continue to spread their cherished historical myths on no more evidence than received opinion.1
… the more the expression of private interests are represented as interests in general, the more their falsity is exposed, the more resolutely they are asserted, the more hypocritical and holy becomes the language of this normal society.
In the hands of the educated idiot, the history of socialist struggles in the 20th century is no more than a mishmash of opinions peppered with footnotes. Fakethrough and through.
1 Freely quoted from, Karl Marx. The German Ideology p. 310, Progress Publishers, 1968
