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The miners’ strike 30 years on

Mike Phipps
30th October 2014 at 15:13
1 comment
On Tuesday October 28, the House of Commons debated the plight of coalfield communities. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmhansrd/cm141028/debtext/141028-0003.htm#1410297000001   [continue/comment...]

Working class, Labour & being a democratic socialist

Barry Ewart
15th October 2014 at 13:49
0 comments
A few years ago I went on a packed demo in Leeds against the Bedroom Tax. I noticed an elderly working class woman in the crowds, beaming with pride and clapping as the protesters marched by.  Then a young middle class communist (Marxist-Leninist) thrust a leaflet in her hand which read: ‘Labour - Traitors!’ I wondered how this made her feel and was this the best way to win working people to ideas?  It got me thinking about all the so-called ‘left’ little sectarian groups - Trots, Leninists et al who have all the answers, want to lead us, advocate central planning, rule by elite central committees etc. etc.- in short what some would call bourgeois socialists. Some so called Marxists seem to have a fossilised view of capitalism and for example still think of the working class/working people in the UK as though they were still the mass industrialised working class of the 1960’s (production has mainly shifted to less developed countries, Far East etc.)  Fortunately for a more enlightened and genuinely critical and often Marxist perspective I read the excellent New Left Review (NLR)and some of these ideas can be informative, innovative and creative.  I remember as a Labour member the dreadful Trotskyite Militant Tendency in the 1980’s as they tried to take over the Labour Party (entry-ism) but thankfully they failed because they were essentially dishonest -you never win working people to ideas by being dishonest.  Groups like these it could be argued are 100 years out of date and use language that probably puts more working people off socialist ideas.  In the latest NLR there is a lecture by the late Jean Paul Satre on subjectivity and this made me think abut such groups - they are so boring - but the problem is they don’t know it!  But this is LRC, we are part of the Labour Party, and I am a democratic socialist - I would not describe myself as a Marxist but I will definitely draw on his best ideas about capitalism, wage slavery, and profits and I work to change the World peacefully.  I would argue we need to build a grassroots, bottom-up, participatory, democratic type of socialism which is fundamentally honest and which empowers working people from below.  For example we could have some industries publicly owned which break even such as mail and rail and staff elect qualified boards plus communities have a say (which should also be regionally organised); other publicly owned industries like the public utilities could be organised in the same way but could pay a community dividend which could be used by people to offset against bills (which could help address fuel poverty) or working people could take the money - but people would feel they were theirs and the industries would be nailed down against right wing carpet baggers if they tried to come for them. We could have some publicly owned airlines with less seats (instead of cramming people in for profits) with more space and comfort for passengers and creches in the sky! We could also have things like free public transport run democratically, and publicly owned by local authorities. But we need to work with our sister parties internationally to campaign for a global living wage, global shorter working week and earlier retirement with decent pensions, global better health services and a global decent homes programme, global better health and safety at work, more global democratic public ownership etc.  And perhaps the solution to the global crisis is staring us in the face - address global need - democratically. My other heroes are Paulo Freire (on critical adult education) and the music of John Lennon but I think Rosa Luxemburg was probably one of socialism’s finest writers -  Rosa argued the best thing that we can all bring to the table is our critical thinking. I would welcome comments from Labour Party members.
Yours in peace and international solidarity!  [continue/comment...]

Bombing Iraq: just the start?

Mike Phipps
6th October 2014 at 13:44
2 comments
Barely a week after Parliament voted for air strikes on Iraq, Isis are on the outskirts of Baghdad and there is a growing call from military hawks for the deployment of western ground troops. Belgium and Denmark are the latest countries to join the coalition of western military action against Iraq, but in practice it is the US that is leading the campaign, having now carried out hundreds of sorties, to little effect. Why is this? [continue/comment...]

Parliament debates bombing Iraq

Mike Phipps
27th September 2014 at 22:01
0 comments
Reading the Hansard record of Friday September 26th’s debate on going to war, one is struck by the paucity of voices raised against this folly. Caroline Lucas, the sole Green MP and George Galloway, the Respect MP, both made telling points, but of the 24 Labour MPs who voted against, very few got to do more than interject with some challenging questions. One exception was Jeremy Corbyn MP who spoke powerfully against the motion:
“This is the third time during my lifetime in Parliament that I have been asked to vote to invade or bomb Iraq. I have voted against on previous occasions, and I will not support the motion today. I ask the House to think a little more deeply about what we have done in the past and what the effects have been. We have still not even had the results of the Chilcot inquiry.
The current crisis descends from the war on terror, the ramifications of which have been vast military expenditure by western countries and the growth of jihadist forces in many parts of the world. Many people have lost their lives, and many more have had their lives totally disrupted and are fleeing warzones to try to gain a place of safety. Only two weeks ago, it was reported that 500 migrants had died trying to cross the Mediterranean to get into Malta, and many die every day trying to get to Lampedusa. Many of those people are victims of wars throughout the region for which we in this House have voted, be it the bombing of Iraq, the bombing of Libya, the intervention in Mali or the earlier intervention in Afghanistan…
We are right to talk about ISIL’s appalling human rights record, but we should be careful with whom we walk. The Prime Minister pointed out that there had been a ministerial visit to Saudi Arabia to get it on side in the current conflict. We sell an awful lot of arms to Saudi Arabia, and there is an awful lot of Saudi money in London in property speculation and various other investments. Saudi Arabia routinely beheads people in public every Friday, executing them for sex outside marriage, religious conversion and a whole lot of other things, but we have very little to say about human rights abuses there because of the economic link with Saudi Arabia. If we are to go to war on the basis of abuses of human rights, we should have some degree of consistency in our approach.
One should be cautious of the idea that bombing will be cost-free and effective. There was a military attack in Tikrit on 1 September, as reported by Human Rights Watch. It was an attempt to strike at a supposed ISIL base of some sort in a school. It resulted in 31 people being killed, none of whom was involved in ISIL, which was nowhere near. We will get more of that.”
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmhansrd/cm140926/debtext/140926-0002.htm#14092616000877 [continue/comment...]

After Gaza, some accounting

Mike Phipps
25th September 2014 at 22:17
0 comments
The Israeli bombardment of Gaza may have left the headlines, but only now is the full story of destruction and abuse coming to light. The Russell Tribunal on Palestine has been meeting in emergency session in Brussels, taking evidence on Israel’s Operation Protective Edge. [continue/comment...]

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