The palpable anger over the £963,000 bonus in shares awarded to state-owned Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Stephen Hester has to turn into some direct political and industrial action if society is to see an end to this kind of obscenity.
Hester is effectively a public servant, as 81% of the shares are owned by the state following a bail-out of the bank by the previous New Labour government. Since he took over as CEO in November 2008, RBS has sacked 33,000 staff.
The aim, as always with a capitalist concern, was to shed staff in a bid to return the bank to profitability. This Hester has done with the blessing of both the ConDem coalition and the Brown government that preceded it.
The mistake some people have made is to think that because the state owns a bank or two they would be run along different lines, perhaps more ethically or fairly. But the state nationalised the banks to prevent a collapse of the entire financial system – not to set up an alternative banking network.
The banks were allowed, nay encouraged, to continue along their usual profit-driven path. Recently-sold Northern Rock, for example, went about repossessing people who were behind with their mortgages and calling in loans while state owned.
As one of hundreds of angry comments on the BBC news website noted: “This is interesting, we own 81% of RBS and still the government and board of this bank show nothing but contempt for the general public and small business. RBS are about to repossess my brothers house for approx the same amount and close his building company putting people out of work and on the dole. Can anyone explain this madness?”
What is “madness” to some is sanity to others who hold the reins of a state that to all intents and purposes is a plaything of economic and financial elites. They call the shots – and not the government. Or as another sharp comment put it: “It's another sign the politicians aren't running the country, or at least not for the people. Their bonus is the cushy job their friends in finance offer them when they quit parliament.”
Robert Peston, the BBC commentator who broke the Northern Rock debacle, says he was “reliably told” that had the government blocked Hester’s bonus, it would have triggered mass resignation from the RBS board and the CEO’s departure. This financial blackmail clearly worked. Only a junior LibDem minister has demanded that Hester rejects the bonus – elsewhere there is silence.
So there you have it – the state is an extended arm of business. That has been the case since the modern state was formed in the early 19th century to facilitate the development of capitalism in Britain. For a period, this role was disguised by consensus politics, a welfare state, full employment and trade union rights.
The globalisation process produced transnational corporations and global financial institutions that more openly wagged the tail of the state. One consequence is that large numbers of people believe that traditional politics is corrupt, unrepresentative, undemocratic and a waste of time.
They are right. The state needs deconstructing and rebuilding with people’s assemblies and the like to create a real, functioning democracy.
Trade union leaders have reacted with outrage at the bonus for Hester, whose basic salary is £1.2 million a year. David Fleming, the Unite national officer, said: "What planet does Stephen Hester and his banking chums live on? Taking almost £1m from taxpayers' pockets as a bonus is utterly disgusting and offensive to every working person across the country.” Paul Kenny, the general secretary of the GMB union, said: "A bonus of nearly a million pounds looks to ordinary people like he has won the lottery – with a ticket they paid for.”
Public sector workers, by contrast, are facing a pay cut as a result of the government’s 1% pay limit (backed by Labour). If the union leaders are to be taken seriously about their desire to remedy gross inequality, they ought to be organising indefinite strikes against the pay limit (and pension cuts) with the aim of bringing down the ConDems. Otherwise it’s all hot air.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Friday, January 27, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
'No' to war on Iran
With evidence accumulating that Iran is not actually building a nuclear weapon, the sanctions and oil embargo imposed by the United States and Europe looks increasingly like the provocation that it is.
Behind the rhetoric, all sorts of interests are involved, political and economic, many of them connected to divisions emerging in the wake of a global recession that worsens by the day.
America, for example, does not used oil imported from Iran but the rising economic power of China does. So Washington will undoubtedly use the embargo to exert pressure on Beijing amidst a brewing trade and currency war.
President Obama is seeking re-election with the country’s cities, towns and rural communities enduring mass unemployment, homelessness, food stamps and poverty. Talking tough against Tehran is a useful diversion while brushing up Obama’s image as a man prepared to use the country’s military muscle.
Throw in the wild card of a weak Israeli government (which has fallen out with Obama) facing waves of social discontent and looking for any excuse to attack Iran, the danger signs are there. A miscalculation by either side could easily lead a full-scale war.
What you won’t find widely reported is the fact that intelligence and military agencies in the US and Israel don’t believe that Iran has made a decision to build a nuclear weapon.
Ray McGovern, retired CIA analyst and co-founder, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, says: “In recent days, that judgment has been expressed by high-profile figures in the defence establishments of the two countries – U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta and Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak.” He gives chapter and verse to back up his case. It is also a view shared by the Institute for Science and International Security.
But McGovern is concerned that the New York Times, which misled the world in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, is playing a similar role: “In this up-is-down world, America’s newspaper of record won’t even report accurately what Israel (or the CIA) thinks on this important issue, if that goes against the alarmist conventional wisdom that the neocons favour.”
He adds: “If Iran is not working on building a nuclear bomb, then the threats of pre-emptive war are not only unjustified, they could be exactly the motivation for Iran to decide that it does need a nuclear bomb to protect itself and its people.”
There is rhetoric on both sides. Iran doesn’t have the military capability to shut the Strait of Hormuz, as it has threatened. Its navy is made up of a handful of small ships and would be obliterated within minutes of a confrontation with the American fleet on standby in the region.
The Islamic government is facing real economic difficulties as a result of the sanctions already in force. Unemployment and inflation have soared in recent months, while the currency, the Iranian rial, has lost 40% of its value against the US dollar within a year.
A huge black market is dominated by the Revolutionary Guards, who used wanton violence in the crackdown on street protests over the last couple of years.
Iran is surrounded by nuclear weapons in the shape of China, India, Pakistan and the American fleet. And, of course, Israel. The hypocrisy in the official denials that the Israelis have an arsenal of nuclear weapons is overwhelming. If all this was about the proliferation of nuclear weapons, where are the sanctions against Israel?
Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, is undoubtedly behind the murder of Iranian nuclear scientists over the past year. And prime minister Netanyahu doesn’t give a fig for Obama’s re-election prospects and could defy Washington with a pre-emptive strike this year.
In the end, the Iranians have a right to defend themselves. If nuclear weapons are a deterrent, and Israel has them, it is natural Iran should want one. The Iranian regime is reactionary and oppressive but is not an imperialist power. That’s why we have to say, no any attack on Iran by the US, Israel, Britain and France.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Behind the rhetoric, all sorts of interests are involved, political and economic, many of them connected to divisions emerging in the wake of a global recession that worsens by the day.
America, for example, does not used oil imported from Iran but the rising economic power of China does. So Washington will undoubtedly use the embargo to exert pressure on Beijing amidst a brewing trade and currency war.
President Obama is seeking re-election with the country’s cities, towns and rural communities enduring mass unemployment, homelessness, food stamps and poverty. Talking tough against Tehran is a useful diversion while brushing up Obama’s image as a man prepared to use the country’s military muscle.
Throw in the wild card of a weak Israeli government (which has fallen out with Obama) facing waves of social discontent and looking for any excuse to attack Iran, the danger signs are there. A miscalculation by either side could easily lead a full-scale war.
What you won’t find widely reported is the fact that intelligence and military agencies in the US and Israel don’t believe that Iran has made a decision to build a nuclear weapon.
Ray McGovern, retired CIA analyst and co-founder, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, says: “In recent days, that judgment has been expressed by high-profile figures in the defence establishments of the two countries – U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta and Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak.” He gives chapter and verse to back up his case. It is also a view shared by the Institute for Science and International Security.
But McGovern is concerned that the New York Times, which misled the world in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, is playing a similar role: “In this up-is-down world, America’s newspaper of record won’t even report accurately what Israel (or the CIA) thinks on this important issue, if that goes against the alarmist conventional wisdom that the neocons favour.”
He adds: “If Iran is not working on building a nuclear bomb, then the threats of pre-emptive war are not only unjustified, they could be exactly the motivation for Iran to decide that it does need a nuclear bomb to protect itself and its people.”
There is rhetoric on both sides. Iran doesn’t have the military capability to shut the Strait of Hormuz, as it has threatened. Its navy is made up of a handful of small ships and would be obliterated within minutes of a confrontation with the American fleet on standby in the region.
The Islamic government is facing real economic difficulties as a result of the sanctions already in force. Unemployment and inflation have soared in recent months, while the currency, the Iranian rial, has lost 40% of its value against the US dollar within a year.
A huge black market is dominated by the Revolutionary Guards, who used wanton violence in the crackdown on street protests over the last couple of years.
Iran is surrounded by nuclear weapons in the shape of China, India, Pakistan and the American fleet. And, of course, Israel. The hypocrisy in the official denials that the Israelis have an arsenal of nuclear weapons is overwhelming. If all this was about the proliferation of nuclear weapons, where are the sanctions against Israel?
Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, is undoubtedly behind the murder of Iranian nuclear scientists over the past year. And prime minister Netanyahu doesn’t give a fig for Obama’s re-election prospects and could defy Washington with a pre-emptive strike this year.
In the end, the Iranians have a right to defend themselves. If nuclear weapons are a deterrent, and Israel has them, it is natural Iran should want one. The Iranian regime is reactionary and oppressive but is not an imperialist power. That’s why we have to say, no any attack on Iran by the US, Israel, Britain and France.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
UK heads for recession as '1930s moment' nears
Greek debt is but one black hole among many in the eurozone crisis which threatens to tip the world into a ‘1930’s moment’ according to IMF managing director Christine Lagarde. But the problems facing global capitalism are far deeper.
Even Lagarde had to acknowledge that there is “little margin for manoeuvre” and that the real problem is "America's debt and deficit - the lack of a medium-term plan to reduce it”. Even that doesn’t begin to get to the heart of the matter.
Only yesterday the worst-case expectation was that the UK’s Gross Domestic Product – the key measure of growth - fell by 0.1% between October and December. But today’s official figure from the Office for National Statistics reveals that the UK economy actually shrank by 0.2% in the last quarter of 2011, and is heading for recession.
Accumulated UK government debt broke through the £1 trillion mark as a dual consequence of falling tax revenues, continued support for the financial sector and higher welfare bills as a result of soaring unemployment.
Despite the ConDem’s stated intention to reduce the country’s dependence on debt, its combined corporate, public and household debt has increased to 507% of GDP and the country remains where it was in the league table of the richer nations when the crisis broke in 2007/8 – right at the top.
Despite all the evidence, there are some like governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King, who try to present even the darkest of messages in a glowing halo of hope for the future of the capitalist society.
He said: “All crises come to an end, and businesses will find ways to trade with each other and meet the needs of consumers whatever the transitional problems posed by deleveraging.” Of how and why this might happen he gave no sign, making his message rather mystical in content.
Oliver Blanchard, the International Monetary Fund’s chief economist also tried to package his warning that Europe's debt crisis could tip the world economy into recession with the faintest hint of a rosy future "With the right set of measures, the worst can definitively be avoided and the recovery can be put back on track," he said. "These measures can be taken, need to be taken, and need to be taken urgently."
Only the first indications of the impact of these ‘measures’ have been seen so far in the millions of dispossessed American families, and hundreds of millions thrown out of their jobs worldwide.
But there are some who are, however reluctantly, coming to the conclusion that the game is up. In a wide-ranging article inspired by the Financial Times ‘capitalism in crisis’ series, its senior commentator Martin Wolf reviews the defining characteristics of civilisation.
Taking in the insolubility of the crisis of extreme financial instability, the prospect of a global economic collapse, the impact of humanity on the planet, and the role of leadership, he observes that states alone are now unable to supply the ‘public goods’ of education, health, control of crime and pollution.
“Ours is an ever more global civilisation that demands the provision of a wide range of public goods. The states on which humanity depends to provide these goods, from security to management of climate, are unpopular, overstretched and at odds. We need to think about how to manage such a world. It is going to take extraordinary creativity.”
Wolf doesn’t offer a solution, because the only ones available within the framework of capitalist civilisation are too brutal and unacceptable to liberal thinkers like him.
It is time to open a new era, based upon co-operation in a democratically-controlled, ecologically restorative system of production and distribution designed to satisfy the needs of the 99%.
Gerry Gold
Economics editor
h
Even Lagarde had to acknowledge that there is “little margin for manoeuvre” and that the real problem is "America's debt and deficit - the lack of a medium-term plan to reduce it”. Even that doesn’t begin to get to the heart of the matter.
Only yesterday the worst-case expectation was that the UK’s Gross Domestic Product – the key measure of growth - fell by 0.1% between October and December. But today’s official figure from the Office for National Statistics reveals that the UK economy actually shrank by 0.2% in the last quarter of 2011, and is heading for recession.
Accumulated UK government debt broke through the £1 trillion mark as a dual consequence of falling tax revenues, continued support for the financial sector and higher welfare bills as a result of soaring unemployment.
Despite the ConDem’s stated intention to reduce the country’s dependence on debt, its combined corporate, public and household debt has increased to 507% of GDP and the country remains where it was in the league table of the richer nations when the crisis broke in 2007/8 – right at the top.
Despite all the evidence, there are some like governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King, who try to present even the darkest of messages in a glowing halo of hope for the future of the capitalist society.
He said: “All crises come to an end, and businesses will find ways to trade with each other and meet the needs of consumers whatever the transitional problems posed by deleveraging.” Of how and why this might happen he gave no sign, making his message rather mystical in content.
Oliver Blanchard, the International Monetary Fund’s chief economist also tried to package his warning that Europe's debt crisis could tip the world economy into recession with the faintest hint of a rosy future "With the right set of measures, the worst can definitively be avoided and the recovery can be put back on track," he said. "These measures can be taken, need to be taken, and need to be taken urgently."
Only the first indications of the impact of these ‘measures’ have been seen so far in the millions of dispossessed American families, and hundreds of millions thrown out of their jobs worldwide.
But there are some who are, however reluctantly, coming to the conclusion that the game is up. In a wide-ranging article inspired by the Financial Times ‘capitalism in crisis’ series, its senior commentator Martin Wolf reviews the defining characteristics of civilisation.
Taking in the insolubility of the crisis of extreme financial instability, the prospect of a global economic collapse, the impact of humanity on the planet, and the role of leadership, he observes that states alone are now unable to supply the ‘public goods’ of education, health, control of crime and pollution.
“Ours is an ever more global civilisation that demands the provision of a wide range of public goods. The states on which humanity depends to provide these goods, from security to management of climate, are unpopular, overstretched and at odds. We need to think about how to manage such a world. It is going to take extraordinary creativity.”
Wolf doesn’t offer a solution, because the only ones available within the framework of capitalist civilisation are too brutal and unacceptable to liberal thinkers like him.
It is time to open a new era, based upon co-operation in a democratically-controlled, ecologically restorative system of production and distribution designed to satisfy the needs of the 99%.
Gerry Gold
Economics editor
h
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Israel stands accused of child 'torture'
Imagine a child arrested and taken from the family home by heavily armed soldiers in the middle of the night. Bound with plastic ties and blindfolded, the child is transported to another country for interrogation.
Neither the child nor their parents are told the reason for arrest, which is frequently accompanied by both physical and verbal abuse. This is a daily experience suffered by Palestinian families on the West Bank at the hands of the Israeli army.
Since 2000, around 7,500 Palestinian children have been detained and prosecuted in the military court system, established as part of the illegal Zionist occupation of the West Bank.
Children are questioned without a lawyer or family member present; they are not informed of their right to silence and they are frequently threatened and physically assaulted.
They are forced to sign forged confessions, in Hebrew - which they neither speak or write - and interrogators focus on getting them to name names of older siblings, family friends, even parents.
Children as young as 12 are brought before the military courts. Most are denied bail and most plead guilty. Some 99.74% of cases end in conviction and 98% of the children are given a custodial sentence.
Regular reports detailing this treatment are submitted to the UN Rapporteur on Torture, by children's rights organisation DCI and others.
Their most recent report states that children "continue to be systematically ill-treated during their arrest, transfer and interrogation. This treatment consists of both physical and verbal abuse, as well as threats and intimidation. Further, the cumulative effect of the ill-treatment each child is subjected to, may in some cases, amount to torture".
More than 70% of the detained children are transferred to prisons and detention centres inside Israel, in violation of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. As a result they get no family visits, because their parents can't get a permit to enter Israel. Palestinian children are not permitted to use the telephone or send and receive letters whilst in detention.
The soldiers act on frame-up reports made by the paramilitary settlers who roam the West Bank armed to the teeth with automatic weapons. In 67% of cases, the children report being ill-treated by soldiers or policemen whilst inside a settlement.
Here's testimony from Husam S aged 16:
And from A, whose name and age were concealed as he named an Israeli officer:
The state of Israel sanctions systematic brutality against Palestinian children, not only in military courts and prisons but in breach of all their rights - to education, to health care, to a childhood free of fear. These are crimes against humanity but they go unpunished because the major powers like the US and Britain in effect allow them to happen because Israel is their client state.
Penny Cole
Neither the child nor their parents are told the reason for arrest, which is frequently accompanied by both physical and verbal abuse. This is a daily experience suffered by Palestinian families on the West Bank at the hands of the Israeli army.
Since 2000, around 7,500 Palestinian children have been detained and prosecuted in the military court system, established as part of the illegal Zionist occupation of the West Bank.
Children are questioned without a lawyer or family member present; they are not informed of their right to silence and they are frequently threatened and physically assaulted.
They are forced to sign forged confessions, in Hebrew - which they neither speak or write - and interrogators focus on getting them to name names of older siblings, family friends, even parents.
Children as young as 12 are brought before the military courts. Most are denied bail and most plead guilty. Some 99.74% of cases end in conviction and 98% of the children are given a custodial sentence.
Regular reports detailing this treatment are submitted to the UN Rapporteur on Torture, by children's rights organisation DCI and others.
Their most recent report states that children "continue to be systematically ill-treated during their arrest, transfer and interrogation. This treatment consists of both physical and verbal abuse, as well as threats and intimidation. Further, the cumulative effect of the ill-treatment each child is subjected to, may in some cases, amount to torture".
More than 70% of the detained children are transferred to prisons and detention centres inside Israel, in violation of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. As a result they get no family visits, because their parents can't get a permit to enter Israel. Palestinian children are not permitted to use the telephone or send and receive letters whilst in detention.
The soldiers act on frame-up reports made by the paramilitary settlers who roam the West Bank armed to the teeth with automatic weapons. In 67% of cases, the children report being ill-treated by soldiers or policemen whilst inside a settlement.
Here's testimony from Husam S aged 16:
They put me in a metal cage at the entrance to Huwwara interrogation centre. They made me stand against the wall and there were so many flies inside the cage. I tried to chase the flies off my body, but a soldier kept shouting at me and ordering me to face the wall. I kept standing there facing the wall for about an hour. About an hour later, the soldier said: “Come here motherfucker". He took me out of the cage and made me stand in the burning sun. "Take off all your clothes," he ordered me and I became scared of him. I took of all my clothes except my underwear. Then he ran a metal detector over my body and gave me big prison clothes and detained me in Room 2 with three adults.
And from A, whose name and age were concealed as he named an Israeli officer:
“Don't you want to confess?" the interrogator kept shouting. "I got nothing to confess to," I kept responding, and he kept kicking me on my bottom. He grabbed my head and started slamming it against the metal closet while saying: "You son of a whore, I'll bring your mother down here." He would take a break and then resume hitting and kicking me. He kept doing this for about two hours. Then I got tired. "I threw Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers," I finally said [...] After that he took me to another room and removed the blindfold. A man talked to me and introduced himself as Captain Dawoud.
The state of Israel sanctions systematic brutality against Palestinian children, not only in military courts and prisons but in breach of all their rights - to education, to health care, to a childhood free of fear. These are crimes against humanity but they go unpunished because the major powers like the US and Britain in effect allow them to happen because Israel is their client state.
Penny Cole
Monday, January 23, 2012
St Paul's Occupation makes its mark
As the tent city Occupation outside St Paul’s, supported by sister occupations at Finsbury Square and the Bank of Ideas, approaches its 100th day, it’s time to celebrate its achievements.
The Occupation has defied countless predictions of its demise, enabling thousands of people to manifest a collective will and powerful determination to challenge the existing order of things at many levels.
The state with its many arms has acted against those who, inspired by Occupy Wall Street in New York and other global occupations – in particular in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and Madrid’s Sol Square - headed to the City of London’s Paternoster Square on October 15, 2011.
When the original intention to occupy Paternoster Square, where the London stock exchange is located, was thwarted by the laws of private property, the Occupation was forced on to the space outside St Paul’s Cathedral. The then canon, Rev Giles Fraser told the police to leave and gave the occupation permission to remain on the church’s property. Under pressure from the St Paul’s hierarchy, Fraser resigned his post.
Undaunted, St Paul’s activists have confronted the City of London police; the legal system which defends private property; misleading reportage by the London Evening Standard and Daily Mail in particular; hostility from sections of the Church of England hierarchy; and last but not least the antithesis of democracy in the shape of the City of London Corporation, which won its court action against the Occupation last week.
The Occupation has had to deal with the welfare problems that are rampant in society at large: ill health, substance abuse, mental instability, and homelessness. Many at St Paul’s courageously decided to try to help those suffering from these problems as best they could, a heavy task which at times threatened to overwhelm the action.
The greatest achievement of the Occupy movement is its struggle to liberate and colonise physical space – a highly political question in a London where public property has virtually vanished under the impact of corporate assimilation of the commons. Countless thousands who have walked past Tent City or had contact through other means have seen their preconceptions melt away when they have spoken directly to the occupiers or sat in on discussions. Inspired by the Occupation and the daily general assemblies and offshoot working groups and talks and discussions at Tent City University, the movement has built up a massive “virtual” presence. The Occupy website, its many Facebook and Twitter platforms are only the tip of an internet iceberg.
The publication of a hard copy and online newspaper, The Occupation Times, has formed a record of what has happened. The current edition includes a crucial discussion under the heading of “Revolution or Reform”. The working group offshoots have involved people from the Occupation itself as well as countless others who have take part in debates. These continue to function to develop concepts to take the movement forward.
Inspired by the US and Spanish occupations, the form of organisation has put into practice concepts of consensus democracy and “leaderlessness”. There have been many problems and criticisms associated with organising in this way. But these remain secondary to the undoubted need to find a really 21st century way of unleashing the democratic energies of those who have been hitherto excluded from decision-making processes.
The Occupation is a physical and mental learning process for all those who seek to change society. It has embodied and embraced a huge range of ideological tendencies. A World to Win has participated, with others, in raising the crucial questions of the need to transcend the cruelly limited and restrictive nature of capitalist democracy and the profit-driven economy which is in such turmoil and crisis. Facilitating these kinds of debates is one of the Occupation’s key achievements.
Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary
The Occupation has defied countless predictions of its demise, enabling thousands of people to manifest a collective will and powerful determination to challenge the existing order of things at many levels.
The state with its many arms has acted against those who, inspired by Occupy Wall Street in New York and other global occupations – in particular in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and Madrid’s Sol Square - headed to the City of London’s Paternoster Square on October 15, 2011.
When the original intention to occupy Paternoster Square, where the London stock exchange is located, was thwarted by the laws of private property, the Occupation was forced on to the space outside St Paul’s Cathedral. The then canon, Rev Giles Fraser told the police to leave and gave the occupation permission to remain on the church’s property. Under pressure from the St Paul’s hierarchy, Fraser resigned his post.
Undaunted, St Paul’s activists have confronted the City of London police; the legal system which defends private property; misleading reportage by the London Evening Standard and Daily Mail in particular; hostility from sections of the Church of England hierarchy; and last but not least the antithesis of democracy in the shape of the City of London Corporation, which won its court action against the Occupation last week.
The Occupation has had to deal with the welfare problems that are rampant in society at large: ill health, substance abuse, mental instability, and homelessness. Many at St Paul’s courageously decided to try to help those suffering from these problems as best they could, a heavy task which at times threatened to overwhelm the action.
The greatest achievement of the Occupy movement is its struggle to liberate and colonise physical space – a highly political question in a London where public property has virtually vanished under the impact of corporate assimilation of the commons. Countless thousands who have walked past Tent City or had contact through other means have seen their preconceptions melt away when they have spoken directly to the occupiers or sat in on discussions. Inspired by the Occupation and the daily general assemblies and offshoot working groups and talks and discussions at Tent City University, the movement has built up a massive “virtual” presence. The Occupy website, its many Facebook and Twitter platforms are only the tip of an internet iceberg.
The publication of a hard copy and online newspaper, The Occupation Times, has formed a record of what has happened. The current edition includes a crucial discussion under the heading of “Revolution or Reform”. The working group offshoots have involved people from the Occupation itself as well as countless others who have take part in debates. These continue to function to develop concepts to take the movement forward.
Inspired by the US and Spanish occupations, the form of organisation has put into practice concepts of consensus democracy and “leaderlessness”. There have been many problems and criticisms associated with organising in this way. But these remain secondary to the undoubted need to find a really 21st century way of unleashing the democratic energies of those who have been hitherto excluded from decision-making processes.
The Occupation is a physical and mental learning process for all those who seek to change society. It has embodied and embraced a huge range of ideological tendencies. A World to Win has participated, with others, in raising the crucial questions of the need to transcend the cruelly limited and restrictive nature of capitalist democracy and the profit-driven economy which is in such turmoil and crisis. Facilitating these kinds of debates is one of the Occupation’s key achievements.
Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary
Friday, January 20, 2012
Using the C word to prop the system up
Suddenly it’s alright, if not de rigueur, for the political elite to talk about capitalism – so long as you end up praising the system rather than burying it.
Yesterday it was prime minister Cameron’s turn. He came out against “turbo-charged” capitalism, declared that City bonuses were “out of control” and said the Tories favoured “social responsibility”.
Naturally, the leader of Britain’s most significant ruling class party was not about to propose a radical alternative. In fact, Cameron insisted that the “real solution” to the system’s current problems was “more enterprise, competition and innovation”.
Open markets, he declared, were the “the best imaginable force” no less for “improving human wealth and happiness” and could “actually promote morality”. Believe that and you’ll believe anything.
The question is: why is Cameron so desperate to preach the alleged virtues of capitalism and markets at this particular moment? Why did Clegg call for a John Lewis co-ownership model of capitalism? What made Miliband distinguish between “predatory” and “good capitalism”?
What unites them is their role as political custodians of the capitalist system, sharing out the management of the wider state’s responsibility for its development. Just as importantly, their job is sustain the system’s legitimacy in the eyes of the majority, which it requires if the 1% is to stay in control.
And that is what is under pressure, as every survey reveals. Trust in and support for mainstream politics and politicians, as well as the operations of big business and banks, is ebbing away.
The parliamentary democratic state system is rightly viewed as partisan for siding with corporate interests in the crisis, bailing out banks while taking it out on ordinary people. In practice, it is undemocratic. A million young people are out of work; living standards have been savaged; many require two or more low-paid jobs to make ends meet while key public services are being wrecked.
Enter Cameron, Clegg and Miliband. Together they are critical of “corporate greed” and other features but carefully avoid any censure of the fundamentals of the capitalist system let alone suggest there might (or ought to) be an alternative. Even Cameron’s criticism of New Labour’s “Faustian pact” with the banks (on which he is right) is another diversionary attack.
For it is neither corporate greed (capitalists down the ages have practised this) nor the excesses of banks and bankers (also not new) that lie at the heart of the present downward spiral into global depression on a scale scarcely imaginable because it has no parallels.
The financial system provided the credit (and its twin, debt) for a globalised economy that is required to grow year on year to sustain profit levels and satisfy shareholders. Going into reverse, destroying production and sacking people, is what happens when debt overwhelms consumers.
Banks collapsed because bad debts began to mount, calling into doubt the questionable value attributed to all sorts of assets that looked good on paper so long as they earned an income. Meltdown II is now on the cards. A new credit crunch already exists and the debt crisis overwhelming the eurozone is a reflection of the recession.
Reining in City bonuses or curbing executive pay will make not a jot of difference to how this crisis unfolds. This is merely the froth of capitalism as a system of production and exchange. Creating an alternative system which does not depend on constant expansion in search of profit is the basis of a sustainable, rational alternative.
Inevitably that means taking ownership and control of capital out the hands of the reckless minority and placing it under democratic stewardship. That is what distinguishes us from Cameron, Clegg and especially Miliband.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Yesterday it was prime minister Cameron’s turn. He came out against “turbo-charged” capitalism, declared that City bonuses were “out of control” and said the Tories favoured “social responsibility”.
Naturally, the leader of Britain’s most significant ruling class party was not about to propose a radical alternative. In fact, Cameron insisted that the “real solution” to the system’s current problems was “more enterprise, competition and innovation”.
Open markets, he declared, were the “the best imaginable force” no less for “improving human wealth and happiness” and could “actually promote morality”. Believe that and you’ll believe anything.
The question is: why is Cameron so desperate to preach the alleged virtues of capitalism and markets at this particular moment? Why did Clegg call for a John Lewis co-ownership model of capitalism? What made Miliband distinguish between “predatory” and “good capitalism”?
What unites them is their role as political custodians of the capitalist system, sharing out the management of the wider state’s responsibility for its development. Just as importantly, their job is sustain the system’s legitimacy in the eyes of the majority, which it requires if the 1% is to stay in control.
And that is what is under pressure, as every survey reveals. Trust in and support for mainstream politics and politicians, as well as the operations of big business and banks, is ebbing away.
The parliamentary democratic state system is rightly viewed as partisan for siding with corporate interests in the crisis, bailing out banks while taking it out on ordinary people. In practice, it is undemocratic. A million young people are out of work; living standards have been savaged; many require two or more low-paid jobs to make ends meet while key public services are being wrecked.
Enter Cameron, Clegg and Miliband. Together they are critical of “corporate greed” and other features but carefully avoid any censure of the fundamentals of the capitalist system let alone suggest there might (or ought to) be an alternative. Even Cameron’s criticism of New Labour’s “Faustian pact” with the banks (on which he is right) is another diversionary attack.
For it is neither corporate greed (capitalists down the ages have practised this) nor the excesses of banks and bankers (also not new) that lie at the heart of the present downward spiral into global depression on a scale scarcely imaginable because it has no parallels.
The financial system provided the credit (and its twin, debt) for a globalised economy that is required to grow year on year to sustain profit levels and satisfy shareholders. Going into reverse, destroying production and sacking people, is what happens when debt overwhelms consumers.
Banks collapsed because bad debts began to mount, calling into doubt the questionable value attributed to all sorts of assets that looked good on paper so long as they earned an income. Meltdown II is now on the cards. A new credit crunch already exists and the debt crisis overwhelming the eurozone is a reflection of the recession.
Reining in City bonuses or curbing executive pay will make not a jot of difference to how this crisis unfolds. This is merely the froth of capitalism as a system of production and exchange. Creating an alternative system which does not depend on constant expansion in search of profit is the basis of a sustainable, rational alternative.
Inevitably that means taking ownership and control of capital out the hands of the reckless minority and placing it under democratic stewardship. That is what distinguishes us from Cameron, Clegg and especially Miliband.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Food agency rewrites report to suit corporates
Global agri-business is increasingly influencing the work of publicly-funded food and agriculture bodies such as the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Consultative Group on Agriculture Research (CGAR).
A new report from the biodiversity action group ETC charts this change with three case studies where private interest capped public benefit.
The first shows how the FAO rewrote a report on “greening agriculture” under the impact of demands from corporate interests. The original report was produced jointly by all the so-called “Rome-Based Agencies” (all the UN food agencies have their offices in Rome including FAO, CGAR, etc.). NGOs like Oxfam, and small farming interests were consulted.
But publication of the first draft brought demands for changes from Crop Life International, representing pesticide manufacturers, the International Fertilizer Industry Association, and the New Zealand Farmers association, amongst others.
Without consulting the original authors, FAO rewrote the report to emphasise the importance of high-tech in the food chain, muffle data implying that the industrial food system is leading to the doubling and tripling of type 2 diabetes, and defend the role of meat and dairy products in a green economy.
A warning that the big transnational seed/chemical companies are patenting multi-genome “climate ready” crops was muted. And the report includes the astonishing statement that “we need to ultimately move people out of farming.”
Challenged by ETC about this phrase, Ann Tutwiler, FAO Deputy Director General for Knowledge, retorted: “Sorry — why would we want to shift to more labour intensive practices? It seems to me that we want to reduce the labour intensity of farming and shift labour to more productive uses in the agrifood systems, science, etc. Farming needs to be more knowledge intensive and more capital (including natural capital) intensive, but we need to ultimately move people out of farming.”
This represents a modern version of the “green revolution” approach which is historically responsible for world hunger. The 20th century approach was based on intensive use of pesticides and fertiliser. The 21st century approach adds gene-manipulation to the mix.
It is transmitted into the agencies by staff recruited from big business, and by the growing influence of corporations and corporate foundations - such as the Gates Foundation - at the highest level. Tutwiler is herself a former agri-business lobbyist.
Case number two involves CGAR's International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas based in Syria. They signed a three-year contract with the Mexican beer industry to provide them with new strains of malting barley for assessment. In return, the industry partner would have a Mexico monopoly on any successful strains. This may actually breach CGAR rules, but how many other such deals are happening?
Case number three relates to the gene sequencing of pigeon peas by CGAR's Hyderabad-based International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). Last November they made a headline grabbing announcement that they had completed the sequence - but in fact the complete sequence had been published a month before, by government-backed Indian scientists. Why was ICRISAT not working in partnership with them? Because they chose to replicate the work, partnered up with Beijing Genomics Institute (the world’s largest gene sequencing company) and Monsanto.
Industrialised food is now the world's biggest industry, bigger even than energy. To continue expanding, the corporations must exploit land in Africa and Asia. But there's a problem - these key areas are already being affected by climate change - both drought and extreme rainfall.
So the corporates are jumping on board the UN expert networks, to get a share of the public funding invested in new crop varieties. They are buying influence, often through big “charitable” foundations, to ensure the UN shares their market-driven approaches.
Some corporations buy US politicians by the dozen to promote the view that anthropogenic climate change does not exist. Other corporations busily climate proof their business and prepare to profit.
Planning to meet climate change with fairer land distribution and sustainable organic methods is increasingly blocked out of the picture under the influence of corporations. We urgently need to transform this, reminding ourselves that food and industrialised food are not at all the same thing.
Penny Cole
Environment editor
A new report from the biodiversity action group ETC charts this change with three case studies where private interest capped public benefit.
The first shows how the FAO rewrote a report on “greening agriculture” under the impact of demands from corporate interests. The original report was produced jointly by all the so-called “Rome-Based Agencies” (all the UN food agencies have their offices in Rome including FAO, CGAR, etc.). NGOs like Oxfam, and small farming interests were consulted.
But publication of the first draft brought demands for changes from Crop Life International, representing pesticide manufacturers, the International Fertilizer Industry Association, and the New Zealand Farmers association, amongst others.
Without consulting the original authors, FAO rewrote the report to emphasise the importance of high-tech in the food chain, muffle data implying that the industrial food system is leading to the doubling and tripling of type 2 diabetes, and defend the role of meat and dairy products in a green economy.
A warning that the big transnational seed/chemical companies are patenting multi-genome “climate ready” crops was muted. And the report includes the astonishing statement that “we need to ultimately move people out of farming.”
Challenged by ETC about this phrase, Ann Tutwiler, FAO Deputy Director General for Knowledge, retorted: “Sorry — why would we want to shift to more labour intensive practices? It seems to me that we want to reduce the labour intensity of farming and shift labour to more productive uses in the agrifood systems, science, etc. Farming needs to be more knowledge intensive and more capital (including natural capital) intensive, but we need to ultimately move people out of farming.”
This represents a modern version of the “green revolution” approach which is historically responsible for world hunger. The 20th century approach was based on intensive use of pesticides and fertiliser. The 21st century approach adds gene-manipulation to the mix.
It is transmitted into the agencies by staff recruited from big business, and by the growing influence of corporations and corporate foundations - such as the Gates Foundation - at the highest level. Tutwiler is herself a former agri-business lobbyist.
Case number two involves CGAR's International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas based in Syria. They signed a three-year contract with the Mexican beer industry to provide them with new strains of malting barley for assessment. In return, the industry partner would have a Mexico monopoly on any successful strains. This may actually breach CGAR rules, but how many other such deals are happening?
Case number three relates to the gene sequencing of pigeon peas by CGAR's Hyderabad-based International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). Last November they made a headline grabbing announcement that they had completed the sequence - but in fact the complete sequence had been published a month before, by government-backed Indian scientists. Why was ICRISAT not working in partnership with them? Because they chose to replicate the work, partnered up with Beijing Genomics Institute (the world’s largest gene sequencing company) and Monsanto.
Industrialised food is now the world's biggest industry, bigger even than energy. To continue expanding, the corporations must exploit land in Africa and Asia. But there's a problem - these key areas are already being affected by climate change - both drought and extreme rainfall.
So the corporates are jumping on board the UN expert networks, to get a share of the public funding invested in new crop varieties. They are buying influence, often through big “charitable” foundations, to ensure the UN shares their market-driven approaches.
Some corporations buy US politicians by the dozen to promote the view that anthropogenic climate change does not exist. Other corporations busily climate proof their business and prepare to profit.
Planning to meet climate change with fairer land distribution and sustainable organic methods is increasingly blocked out of the picture under the influence of corporations. We urgently need to transform this, reminding ourselves that food and industrialised food are not at all the same thing.
Penny Cole
Environment editor
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