Chile joins year of 'global indignation'

The political temperature continues to rise in Chile since last week’s killing of 16-year-old high school student Manuel Gutiérrez in the capital Santiago.

The country, which is the world’s major producer of copper, has been viewed as a rock for global capitalism in an unstable South America. But now it is seeing – horror of horrors for its right-wing rulers – a united workers and student movement which has the support of the majority of Chilean citizens.

Interior minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter has been forced to announce that the bullets that killed Gutiérrez matched those in a 9mm UZ submachine gun belonging to police officer Miguel Millacura. Hinzpeter has been compelled to ask for the resignation of deputy chief of the Metropolitan Zone Sergio Gajardo.

The discrediting of the police – and the continuing 37-day hunger strike by a high school student - will intensify the political and social crisis facing President Sebastian Pinera.

Over the last three months, massive student protests for an egalitarian education system followed close on the heels of the longest-ever strike at Collahuasi, the world’s third largest copper mine. In July, miners struck at the state-owned Codelco mine, followed by workers at the world’s biggest copper mine, Escondida.

An estimated 70-80% of Chileans support the student movement with parents and grandparents joining their children in massive street protests. Last week, up to half a million people took part in strikes and demonstrations around the country as the Workers United Center of Chile joined in with a 48-hour strike. Over a thousand arrests were made as the state struck back.

Although the country’s booming economy is growing at 6.8%, it also has a 15% poverty rate and the widest gap between rich and pour in the region. Chile ranks as the world’s 16th most-unequal country, along with El Salvador and Panama.

Its workers know that the wealth they generate is being creamed off by a tiny elite. And, with an average debt of $45,000 which is around 174% of a student’s annual salary upon graduation, no wonder there is anger amongst young people.

Chilean students are part of a global “indignation” movement that is seeing protests from Honduras, where a 17-year-old Nahum Guerra was shot on August 22 during protests for public education, to Venezuela and the Dominican Republic and other mass movements in Europe, North Africa, Middle East and India.

Most important of all, just as in Spain and Greece, an entire generation of students and workers feel disenfranchised as they do not see themselves represented by established political parties. The “leftist” Concertación bloc, which took over after the military dictatorship, is scoring only 17% in the polls, even lower than Pinera’s 26%.

The CUT union leadership is discredited by its close relationship with the official parties as is the Chilean Communist Party (CCP). And whilst students are fighting against government strategies for private profit-driven education, the CCP is running a profit-oriented university in the country’s capital!

The rise of local and territorial people’s assemblies amongst students and around the country is opening up new avenues for a mass movement to devise strategies to go beyond capitalism. Helped by social networking, Chilean students are linking up directly with the real democracy movement (DRY and 15M) in Spain and elsewhere.

The rise of Chile’s mass worker-student movement is proof, if proof is needed, that 2011 is indeed the year of “global indignation”. Understanding the experience of how democratically-elected socialist president Salvador Allende was overthrown by Pinochet’s military junta in 1973 is vital. This is the spectre that haunts not only Chile every mass people’s movement.

The development of people’s assemblies in Chile and elsewhere shows the urgent need to go beyond resistance - and the mistaken belief that the existing state can be reformed - to a strategy for wresting economic and political power away from those who hold it.

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary

Breaking out of the logjam

Meetings around the country are discussing where the anti-cuts movement can go from here. Despite the massive turnout, the TUC’s March for the Alternative has not, as everyone knows, stopped a single attack on jobs, services, benefits or grants to the arts.

A discussion at the weekend in London, organised by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, revealed some of the issues and challenges. Both young and older speakers from a wide range of organisations revealed the desire to continue the struggle. At the same time, it proved hard to break with the notion that protests and strikes in themselves remain the only option.

The meeting heard Mark Barrett from the People’s Assembly Network seek endorsement of the motion passed at January’s National Education Assembly for a long-term strategy of city-wide permanent assemblies. But the appeal to broaden out the struggle in new ways was pretty much ignored.

Yet the cuts are getting deeper. An NHS worker from University College hospital said that 500 jobs were being cut in St George’s hospital alone. He called for support networks to be set up around hospitals. Some suggested that UNITE general secretary, Len McCluskey was evidence of a “left” tendency within the TUC leadership. There were calls for strike action in the NHS, and others for limited general strike action.

The discussion reflected the variety of actions being proposed by the spectrum of left organisations more widely. The Socialist Party, for example, says that a 24-hour public sector general strike “would terrify the ConDems”. Others call for a national anti-cuts organisation to be formed. The Socialist Workers Party has been calling for a general strike. The Right to Work campaign believes that March 26 showed that “we have the power to stop Cameron and Clegg” and that more protests, demonstrations and strikes are the answer

But the underlying issue of what is driving the Coalition to force through the cuts and wind up the welfare state was left in the dark. The unmentioned elephant in the room was the global crisis of the capitalist system, the financial crisis that has brought countries like Greece, Ireland, Iceland and Portugal to their knees, and the deepening recession.

In this context, the government is not for turning, as much for the fact that they are no more in control of the banking system and money markets than you and I. The stark truth is that without a strategy for power, without a political strategy, marches and even general strikes are ineffectual.

Unfortunately for those who believe that the ConDem government can be persuaded to change course by protest, Financial Times’ columnist Robert Shrimsley just about summed it up: “It’s irresponsible to admit it, but this kind of peaceful protest [March 26] is pointless. The system has all the shock absorbers necessary to handle a law-abiding demonstration.”

Those who seek to break out of this logjam, as UK Uncut and anarchists have sought to do, found themselves preyed upon by police provocateurs and susceptible to entrapment and, in the case of one student leader, targeting by the far right.

On the day and subsequently, it has been left to young people in Trafalgar Square and others in Hyde Park, to find another way forward. Inspired by the movement in Egypt that brought down Mubarak, they are still seeking to win support for equivalent action by trying to occupy key places like Trafalgar Square.

The strategy of building a People’s Assemblies Network is crucial as a way of uniting these aspirations with the anti-cuts movement, trade unionists, young people, unemployed, professionals and political organisations and the millions now facing huge cuts in services and jobs. Assemblies have the potential to become more than just unifying organisational forms. They could provide answers to the most important question of all – where power lies and how can it be transferred into the hands of democratic, popular assemblies.

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary

Student revolt shows state in turmoil

The continuing wave of student protests against increased fees and education cuts is highlighting a deepening crisis within the British state, one that presents opportunities as well as threats.

Plans for more demonstrations, including today’s against the abolition of the education maintenance allowance, show the real concern not only of students but also parents and teachers about how education is increasingly run along business lines.

It has emerged that Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson almost quit over the incident last Thursday when Prince Charles and Camilla’s vehicle came under attack from protesters. The episode made it evident that 3,000 officers failed to seal off streets in central London, once demonstrators had got wise to their kettling tactics.

Stephenson and his ilk are still smarting from being caught off their guard by protesters at Tory party headquarters in Millbank Tower during the protest organised by the National Union of Students last month. In revenge attacks for November, last Thursday’s operations saw massed ranks of police deployed around Parliament Square.

A police cavalry charge was used as a terror tactic. Police used truncheons indiscriminately on defenceless students such as 20-year-old Alfie Meadows, who is recovering from a three-hour brain operation. Officers pulled Jody McIntyre, who suffers from cerebral palsy, from his wheelchair. So far around 180 people have been arrested and the Met is preparing criminal prosecutions against them.

So now Home Secretary Theresa May says she does not exclude the possibility of the police deploying water cannon to curb further student protests. Recent citizen protests in Stuttgart saw serious injuries as a result of their use. That won’t bother the Coalition and no doubt tear gas and para-military riot units won’t be far behind.
Behind the continuing protest movement there is a deeper current of disaffection.

Today’s publication of the British Social Attitudes Survey shows that trust in politicians has reached an all-time low.

This groundswell of distrust indicates that there is a breakdown in the relationship between the state and the mass of the population, especially young people. This is fuelling their evident desire to go beyond and outside the worn-out parliamentary channels of protest and pressure politics.

In doing so they are moving politically ahead the mass of workers who are being held back by the Labour Party and trade union bureaucrats. Young people are not as trapped the those who seek to place a safe cap on things and keep the status quo. They are not hanging around for the feeble stroll around the park being organised by the Trades Union Congress in over three months time.

But today local councils up and down the country are being told how much to cut - how many jobs and services are to disappear, leaving a trail of devastation and misery. Most councillors – whatever their political affiliation – will be voting through the cuts. Ordinary people, not only public service workers, will now be drawn into a wider movement.

So the urgent issue is to continue to explore and develop new political forms outside and beyond local government, the conservative trade union leadership and parliament.

Last Friday a student meeting at the London School of Economics, called to discuss the way forward in the battle against education cuts, proposed that assemblies should embrace not only the national student movement, but also those fighting against the cuts more widely.

And the momentum for building People's Asssemblies took a step forward at the “Liberation beyond resistance” meeting in London on Saturday. There was a wide-ranging discussion on the nature and purpose of People's Assemblies and many proposals made for concrete actions in 2011. Assemblies have the potential to challenge the state for power itself in order to create a truly democratic society, in terms of politics and the control of resources. They are the way to go in 2011.

Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary

Public transport cuts spell hardship and fumes

As striking maintenance workers on London’s underground draw attention to cuts and safety risks, Budget cuts herald the end of local bus services in the rest of the country.

Already in rural areas people are forced to use their cars whether they like it or not. Now buses could become extinct outside of town and city centres as a result of the 25% cut in the government’s transport budget, according to the Campaign for Better Transport.

They warn that cutting the Government’s Bus Service Operator Grant – a grant which allows local authorities to subsidise routes that are crucial, but unprofitable – will remove 94 million miles of existing routes from subsidy, will result in 7% fewer services and a 6.5% fares increase.

Campaign Executive Director Stephen Joseph said:
“Bus cuts and fares rises will be below the radar, happening at a local level around the country, but they will have a huge impact on the poorest people and communities, and act as a barrier for people to get access to employment, training and public services.”

The Transport and Communities and Local Government departments spend around £2.4bn a year on buses, including up to £1bn on pensioners' bus passes and more than £400m on fuel subsidies.

In London bus and tube ticket prices are set to rise by 7% next January, two per cent higher than the rate of inflation. This follows this year’s 3.9% increase in tube fares and 12.7% rise in bus fares.

Train fares could increase by over 33% across the board over the next five years as a result of the cuts. Train travel in Britain is already the highest in Europe, up to 50% higher on average. And a government review is currently trying to find out why the rail network is costing three times more to maintain than it did when it was in public ownership.

The Rail Maritime and Transport union says the network is dogged by a culture of underfunding, cuts and unacceptable safety risks to staff and passengers. RMT members working on the maintenance and upgrading of the London underground are striking today against cuts in staffing and safety, though the bankrupt company that walked away from the upgrade contract had already had £312m of public money.

Bus and train companies continue to make huge profits in spite of the recession.

Transport is the source of 24% of the UK’s Co2 emissions. 89% of that comes from cars, trucks and vans. Personal car travel is the biggest culprit, at 58% of the total. Buses contribute just 2% and rail 3%.

Millions of pounds are being invested in developing electric cars, and this research benefits from the government’s various tax breaks for ‘entrepreneurs’. But there is no evidence that electric cars will have more than a marginal impact on Co2 emissions. As Professor Roger Kemp, who chaired a review by the Royal Academy of Engineering, said:

''Swapping gas guzzlers for electric vehicles will not solve our carbon emissions problem on its own. When most electricity in Britain is still generated by burning gas and coal, the difference between an electric car and a small, low-emission petrol or diesel car is negligible.”

The best, fairest and cheapest way to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions would be to get more people and goods off the roads and on to buses and trains. But that would be to defy the logic of profit. As far as the government is concerned, this is definitely not ‘the age of the train’ – or the bus.

One of the key roles of People’s Assemblies will be to challenge every bus route closure and fare increase, demanding that the books of the privatised transport companies are opened to scrutiny. We need a community-owned and controlled transport system, based on a well-financed integrated transport strategy.

Penny Cole
Environment editor

Oil spill goes global

Estimates of the quantity of oil gushing into waters of the Gulf of Mexico continue to increase. BP’S own guess was originally as low as 1,000-5,000. Then the original 5,000 barrels a day grew to 60,000.

Now, more than two weeks into the capping operation, around 45,000 barrels are still poisoning the seas, destroying wildlife and wrecking livelihoods – and there is no prospect of stopping the flow. It is on track to become the worst oil spill since the first Gulf War in 1991, which spilt around six million barrels.

This worsening catastrophe does not just symbolise the intertwined ecological, economic, social and political consequences of capitalist production and distribution. It is at the centre of the universal crisis that is now changing the way of life of every person on the planet. The explosion was by no means an unforeseeable accident. The drive for growth to sustain profits produced a global economy lubricated by increasing amounts of credit and debt and fuelled by oil. As the oil became harder to extract, costs escalated, profits were hit and corners cut.

During the Congressional hearing of the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, in the US House of Representatives yesterday, Chair Ed Markey dismantled attempts by the other oil companies to isolate BP. He and other House Democrats ripped into the chiefs of oil companies for filing bogus oil-safety reports before drilling new deep-sea wells, saying they are no better prepared for an offshore disaster than BP. Congressional investigators found that all five of the nation’s major oil firms filed virtually the same safety report prior to drilling new wells - right down to citing a long-dead expert who could be called in the event of an emergency.

The economic consequences are resounding around the world. The highly lucrative local fishing industry has been closed down. Tourism is melting away. BP’s market value has declined by more than 40% since the Horizon drilling rig blew up. The value of pension funds dependent on BP’s profits is dropping like a stone. The mess on Florida’s beaches is heating up the campaign to seize BP’s assets and there are indications that the global corporation is exploring ways to protect its US operation through bankruptcy proceedings.

President Obama’s speech last night, broadcast from the Oval Office, was largely about the need to wean the US off of its addiction to oil. His attempt to divert attention from his inability to do anything effective about the spill not only failed to convince anyone but, according to many commentators, actually worsened the political crisis. As the Financial Times put it ‘And there was something in it to frustrate or antagonise virtually every stakeholder who was listening.’

In his response to BP’s testimony, Ed Markey eloquently expressed the contradiction at the heart of the crisis: “BP is more concerned about minimising its ‘liability’ for the costs of the clean-up than for the ‘livability of the Gulf’ ”.

But the US Congress is no more able to act to stop the destructive actions of global corporations like BP than it is to regulate the financial institutions that arrogantly straddle the world.

The moment has arrived for a new kind of politics and a new kind of democracy based upon collective stewardship of the planet we depend upon. Now is the time for a qualitative change in our relationship with nature. Let’s begin the job of reconstructing democracy from the bottom up through the building of an international network of People’s Assemblies.

Gerry Gold
Economics editor

Election deepens political crisis

The death at the weekend of writer Alan Sillitoe and the looming possibility of a hung Parliament have no direct connection. And yet looking back at Sillitoe’s writings, and reflecting on the latest twists in the election campaign, you can detect a profound shift taking place in British history.

Sillitoe’s brilliant story, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner appeared as a film in 1960. The story of a borstal boy symbolised the rebelliousness of an entire generation of young people – and the gritty realities of working class life in post-war Britain.

That world has passed. Communities of factory workers like those depicted in Sillitoe’s writings disappeared under globalisation and the policies of Thatcher and New Labour. New class relations have emerged. Workers are more dispersed and less unionised. Large sections of the community no longer work and live in impoverished conditions in, for example, former mining areas.

The old party loyalties have gone as a result. That, at the political level, can help to explain the sudden rise of the Liberal Democrats and an historic break-up of the two-party system. The choice between first the Tories and the Whigs and later Tories and Labour has dominated British politics for 200 years. Formal coalitions have been reserved for war time only.

That is why the threat of a Parliament without an overall majority for any party signals a moment of instability in which the “known knowns” are – at least temporarily – shattered, and has forced a realignment between those who represent capitalism.

The connection between this political transformation is inseparable from the economic processes of the last 40 years, in which the British welfare state has changed into a “market state” – entirely subservient to the rule of global capital. This process, explained in A World to Win’s book Unmasking the State, has led to a “hollowing out” of the state itself.

As the state’s role has altered, more and more people have lost interest in politics, realising that exercising your right to vote does not lead to any influence over those elected. Clegg’s sudden stardom following the first TV debate was not so much due to his personal charisma as the desire to pin on him the widespread disaffection with New Labour and the Tories.

After all, Clegg is even more ruling class than Cameron, and the Lib Dems are even more pro-banker than Brown and Cameron put together, if that’s possible. Don’t forget that Clegg’s deputy leader, ex-banker Vince Cable was the oil corporation Shell’s chief economist.

As Clegg knows only too well, Both Brown and Cameron’s “love bombing” is just hot air and he is walking a political tightrope. Many Lib Dem voters would see entering into an agreement with Cameron, as a "pact with the devil” and those who want to get shot of New Labour will feel betrayed if Clegg joins with Brown.

Achieving a stable form of government under these conditions could be well-nigh impossible. Some will see the political crisis as simply shadow-dancing while the real power-brokers remain hidden from view in the corridors of Whitehall and the global corporations. In some respects they are right.

But at the same time, to view politics separately form the deep currents underneath is also to miss the real moment of opportunity. The political crisis means that the ruling class is unable to rule in the old way at a time of a serious financial emergency. The strength of those in power is precisely that they are aware of this weakness and will do all in their power to address it.

Our strength must be to see it as an opportunity for those excluded from power to exercise their power in a meaningful way. That is why our strategy of forming People’s Assemblies is a thousand times more realistic than believing we can influence any parliament that will result from the election.

Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary