Apart from Sir Ian Blair, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, is there any other copper who likes this government? Not many, judging by the angry reaction from the men and women in blue to New Labour’s decision to reduce their pay award. An independent commission gave the police 2.5% but home secretary Jacqui Smith refused to backdate it to August, as recommended. Her decision effectively reduces the pay rise to just 1.9%, well below the rate of inflation.
So now the police are talking about forming a trade union and going on strike. You have to go back nearly 90 years for the last time that police truncheons were withdrawn. In August 1918, the National Union of Police and Prison Officers (NUPPO) launched a strike by London police, which was supported by 10,000 out of the 12,000 workforce. The executive of NUPPO demanded a pay increase, improved war bonuses, extension of pension rights to include policemen's widows, a shortening of the pension entitlement period, and an allowance for school-aged children.
The most significant issue was that NUPPO be officially recognised. They won their demands, but the issue of the union was left unresolved. In 1919, police in Liverpool began another series of strikes. This time the union was suppressed by force and every striker was dismissed. The Police Federation, which is no more than a glorified staff association, was imposed on officers and is currently in charge of negotiations with the government.
Anonymous police bloggers are lining up to condemn the government. One has even called for a march on London, while others favour action ranging from all-out strike to a work-to-rule. There is a general air of contempt for the Police Federation negotiators. The prospect of industrial action by police is apparently frightening some ministers and MPs, who fear for their seats as the opinion poll ratings continue to plummet. But it seems the Brown government doesn’t really have a handle on any major issue and dithering is the order of the day (as shown by Brown’s decision to sign the new Euro treaty by himself instead of jointly with other EU leaders!)
As far as the state goes, New Labour had the support of the police while the judiciary fought a rearguard action to defend inroads into their powers and a general onslaught by ministers on the rule of law. The intelligence agencies are still smarting at being politically manoeuvred into spinning the case for the invasion of Iraq while senior civil servants are said to be bemused by how the Brown clique runs (or doesn’t) the machinery of government. Add in the mounting impact of the global financial crisis and things are not looking good for New Labour. Who knows what the outcome of a strike by police might be.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
For revolutionary solutions to create a sustainable, not-for-profit economy in place of global capital alongside a real democracy based on People’s Assemblies. Visit our web site at www.aworldtowin.net
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
March on Wall Street
The jailing of press baron Conrad Black for defrauding shareholders has captured the headlines this morning. Black’s $32 million theft is simply the tip of an iceberg of what may be viewed as an entirely criminal situation in the world of business and finance. Black’s six and a half years in jail will perhaps seem small to the millions of people around the world who are imprisoned by debt for their entire lives - while traders play the financial markets to notch up record profits.
The fact is that 2008 is set to be the year when debts come home to roost. And, as credit becomes harder to obtain, debt is changing from being a millstone around their necks, into a nightmare. Mortgages have helped people afford a roof over their heads, whilst at the same time locking them into repayments they can ill afford. But now comes the nightmare of repossession.
In the United States, things are now so bad that people have taken to the streets – Wall Street to be exact – to protest against the way in which black communities and ethnic minorities have been hit especially hard. Yesterday, demonstrators paraded through the centre of US big business to protest against the eviction of millions of homeowners, the first ever march to target the financial markets. US civil rights leader, Jesse Jackson, who has campaigned for economic empowerment since he joined Martin Luther King as far back as 1965, led the march. He has spoken on U-tube of a financial tsunami in the US and last Friday called for a Marshall Plan to provide relief to people who lost homes and savings in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal.
The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, which organised the New York rally and a second one in Chicago, said in a statement:
“As the mortgage market continues to decline, millions of home-owners could face foreclosure in the coming year. Unfortunately, a disproportionate number of those home-owners are minorities who were targeted for sub-prime, predatory loans”.
Like his mentor, Martin Luther King, Jackson sees the issue of debt as a class question as much as an ethnic issue. In Chicago, where Jackson’s Rainbow Push coalition is based in a former synagogue, 30% of homes are in foreclosure. In Detroit’s Wayne County, a quarter of homeowners are in default, as Danny Schechter reports.
Lest anyone thinks these problems are unique to America, just look at what is coming up here. The lead story in today’s Times notes that as shoppers are set to blow a record £11.7 billion on their credit cards this Christmas, the new year will bring nothing but pain. It concludes:
“There are fears that the credit crunch will have a devastating effect on some families which are already deep in debt. Nearly 5 million people have still not paid off their store and credit card bills from a year ago, according to moneyexpert.com.”
It is time to get real. We need to work out a bold programme for a not-for-profit economy, not rely on the same politicians who have worshipped at the shrine of capitalism for all their lives.
Corinna Lotz
AWTW secretary
Monday, December 10, 2007
Consumerism from cradle to grave
Not so long ago, I was amazed to find that my neighbour’s six-year-old boy knew more brand names than I did, as he swept around identifying every gadget in my flat, from Dell, HP, to Sony. I shouldn’t have been surprised at all. The average 10-year-old is now aware of between 300 and 400 different brands. Young people are exposed to about 10,000 TV adverts per year, as well as pop-ups on the Internet.
A number of new studies, including a report by the government’s own Department for Children, Schools and Families, point to the serious damage to children’s health and education resulting from over-exposure to marketing.
Britain’s biggest teaching union, the National Union of Teachers, accuses companies of using psychologists to target children in a way that seriously damages their health and well-being. The NUT’s study, the most comprehensive to date, has found that marketing strategies are highly damaging, leading to ill-health and unhappiness. Eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia result from unrealistic expectations about what they “should” look like. NUT general secretary, Steve Sinnot says that teachers are increasingly concerned by the “lifestyle pressures exerted on children by the advertising and marketing industries…. There are dangerous consequences for the physical and mental health of young people.”
According to the media watchdog, Ofcom, 92% of advertising before 9pm is for products high in sugar, sale and fat. Perhaps most shocking is the fact that nearly three-quarters of seven-year-old girls want to be slimmer. More than half of children know that someone has been bullied for not owning the latest gadgets or clothing, and nearly a third are dissatisfied with the way they look.
Educationalist Sue Palmer, says, “Marketers’ interest in the under-10s is at an all-time high… They’re grooming children to be consumers from an early age – and since consumption doesn’t buy happiness, it’s not surprising that one in 10 children is now diagnosed with a mental disorder.” The only reassuring aspect of the wanton destruction of childhood by commercialisation is that children themselves are keenly aware of the damaging side of the pressure to wear the “right” labels and to conform. Nearly 70 per cent of them say there is too much pressure to look perfect and wear the latest fashions.
But none of this will deter the government, nor Brown’s right-hand man, Schools Secretary Ed Balls from his crusade to replace existing schools with “academies”, sponsored by big businesses, often with their own ideological agendas. In this, they are seamlessly aligned with pro-business councils, whether New Labour or Tory.
In Tory-controlled Westminster, for example, the iconic comprehensive, Pimlico School, is about to be handed over to a Tory party donor and venture capitalist, John Nash. Nash is a former chairman of the British Venture Capital Association, and chairman of a leading private equity provider, Sovereign Capital. The council is riding roughshod over the results of its own consultation about the future of the school which showed that 92% wanted it to remain a community comprehensive school, with 4% for trust and 4% academy. Pimlico School Association has also voted that the school should keep its current status.
Corinna Lotz
AWTW secretary
10 December 2007
A number of new studies, including a report by the government’s own Department for Children, Schools and Families, point to the serious damage to children’s health and education resulting from over-exposure to marketing.
Britain’s biggest teaching union, the National Union of Teachers, accuses companies of using psychologists to target children in a way that seriously damages their health and well-being. The NUT’s study, the most comprehensive to date, has found that marketing strategies are highly damaging, leading to ill-health and unhappiness. Eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia result from unrealistic expectations about what they “should” look like. NUT general secretary, Steve Sinnot says that teachers are increasingly concerned by the “lifestyle pressures exerted on children by the advertising and marketing industries…. There are dangerous consequences for the physical and mental health of young people.”
According to the media watchdog, Ofcom, 92% of advertising before 9pm is for products high in sugar, sale and fat. Perhaps most shocking is the fact that nearly three-quarters of seven-year-old girls want to be slimmer. More than half of children know that someone has been bullied for not owning the latest gadgets or clothing, and nearly a third are dissatisfied with the way they look.
Educationalist Sue Palmer, says, “Marketers’ interest in the under-10s is at an all-time high… They’re grooming children to be consumers from an early age – and since consumption doesn’t buy happiness, it’s not surprising that one in 10 children is now diagnosed with a mental disorder.” The only reassuring aspect of the wanton destruction of childhood by commercialisation is that children themselves are keenly aware of the damaging side of the pressure to wear the “right” labels and to conform. Nearly 70 per cent of them say there is too much pressure to look perfect and wear the latest fashions.
But none of this will deter the government, nor Brown’s right-hand man, Schools Secretary Ed Balls from his crusade to replace existing schools with “academies”, sponsored by big businesses, often with their own ideological agendas. In this, they are seamlessly aligned with pro-business councils, whether New Labour or Tory.
In Tory-controlled Westminster, for example, the iconic comprehensive, Pimlico School, is about to be handed over to a Tory party donor and venture capitalist, John Nash. Nash is a former chairman of the British Venture Capital Association, and chairman of a leading private equity provider, Sovereign Capital. The council is riding roughshod over the results of its own consultation about the future of the school which showed that 92% wanted it to remain a community comprehensive school, with 4% for trust and 4% academy. Pimlico School Association has also voted that the school should keep its current status.
Corinna Lotz
AWTW secretary
10 December 2007
Friday, December 07, 2007
Basic rights reduced to a lottery
For this government, civil liberties are something to be subjected to a kind of lottery. You draw a number out of the hat and that becomes the number of days you can detain someone without charge on the suspicion of committing a terror offence. The rules are fixed, however, by comparison with the real game of chance. Under New Labour’s National Security Lottery Rules, the number chosen must always result in a longer period of detention than is already the case.
It began with the Terrorism Act 2000, which introduced the first breach in the ancient liberty of habeas corpus, which as far back as the 11th century stated that no person should be detained without charge. The 2000 Act introduced a seven day limit on pre-charge detention, which was lengthened to 14 days maximum under the Criminal Justice Act 2003. In 2005, Tony Blair went for the Big Lottery Detention Prize and tried for 90 days. He suffered his first Commons defeat but the government still managed to get the period extended to 28 days.
Not to be outdone, new prime minister Gordon Brown wanted that period doubled to 56 days. Why 56 and not 50 or 47? No one knows. Perhaps the cabinet drew numbers out of a hat to show how tough they are on terrorism. And the “justification” or evidence for abolishing basic rights? David Winnick, the Labour MP who led the revolt against Blair’s 90 days, says: “No evidence has been produced in my view – and in the view of a good number of other people who have taken a close interest in this matter - that any extension is necessary."
The only significant voice in support of the proposal to extend detention is that of Sir Ian Blair, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whose force got off scot free after executing the innocent Jean Charles de Menezes on a Tube train. Even New Labour’s former attorney general Lord Goldsmith is opposed to the plan, along with the director of public prosecution, Sir Ken Macdonald.
So now home secretary Jacqui Smith has come up with a new number – 42 days. In a pathetic bid to get this through parliament, she is proposing that the government should get the power to introduce 42 days detention with MPs being allowed to give retrospective approval on each case. Anyone can work out that by the time MPs get round to discussing the matter, the suspect would have been held for 42 days in any case! Tim Hancock, UK campaigns director of Amnesty International, said the plan would rob people of their basic rights, adding that "no amount of parliamentary window-dressing can disguise that fact”.
Britain already holds terror suspects far longer without charge than any other country in the world. If New Labour gets its way, the period will rise to the point where it amounts to internment or imprisonment without trial. And from holding terror suspects to detaining political activists and campaigners would be but a short leap.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
It began with the Terrorism Act 2000, which introduced the first breach in the ancient liberty of habeas corpus, which as far back as the 11th century stated that no person should be detained without charge. The 2000 Act introduced a seven day limit on pre-charge detention, which was lengthened to 14 days maximum under the Criminal Justice Act 2003. In 2005, Tony Blair went for the Big Lottery Detention Prize and tried for 90 days. He suffered his first Commons defeat but the government still managed to get the period extended to 28 days.
Not to be outdone, new prime minister Gordon Brown wanted that period doubled to 56 days. Why 56 and not 50 or 47? No one knows. Perhaps the cabinet drew numbers out of a hat to show how tough they are on terrorism. And the “justification” or evidence for abolishing basic rights? David Winnick, the Labour MP who led the revolt against Blair’s 90 days, says: “No evidence has been produced in my view – and in the view of a good number of other people who have taken a close interest in this matter - that any extension is necessary."
The only significant voice in support of the proposal to extend detention is that of Sir Ian Blair, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whose force got off scot free after executing the innocent Jean Charles de Menezes on a Tube train. Even New Labour’s former attorney general Lord Goldsmith is opposed to the plan, along with the director of public prosecution, Sir Ken Macdonald.
So now home secretary Jacqui Smith has come up with a new number – 42 days. In a pathetic bid to get this through parliament, she is proposing that the government should get the power to introduce 42 days detention with MPs being allowed to give retrospective approval on each case. Anyone can work out that by the time MPs get round to discussing the matter, the suspect would have been held for 42 days in any case! Tim Hancock, UK campaigns director of Amnesty International, said the plan would rob people of their basic rights, adding that "no amount of parliamentary window-dressing can disguise that fact”.
Britain already holds terror suspects far longer without charge than any other country in the world. If New Labour gets its way, the period will rise to the point where it amounts to internment or imprisonment without trial. And from holding terror suspects to detaining political activists and campaigners would be but a short leap.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Who killed Sajida Khan?
As the World Bank plans its launch of a new carbon fund at the United Nations climate conference in Bali, activists worldwide will pay tribute to the woman who spent her last breath resisting one of its most controversial projects. Sajida Khan won the struggle against the project when the Bank pulled out of the toxic South African landfill. But sadly, Khan passed away on 15 July 2007 in her Durban home.
Aged 55 her fragile but vibrant, uncompromising life endured several bouts of debilitating cancer. The dump that the government promised to close in 1987 is still open and thriving. Indeed, plans for new carbon financing were sealed by the South African government even before the Bali conference. The Bali conference is likely to generate a lot of hot air as it searches for climate solutions, but as government delegations debate yet more market-based policies for the post-Kyoto era we should pause and reflect upon who really killed Khan?
Meet the suspects and consider their motives:
1) Bisasar Road’s original design team of apartheid bureaucrats who in 1980 dumped what became Africa’s largest formal garbage heap in the middle of a nature reserve in the mixed-race residential neighbourhood of Clare Estate.
2) Operators of the illegal medical waste incinerator parked at Bisasar during the 1990s, sprinkling toxins onto Khan and her neighbours until its belated closure.
3) Durban Solid Waste for not terminating the dump as repeatedly promised. It runs a methane incineration system that spews yet more cancerous ingredients - dioxins, lead, cadmium — into the toxic soup around Bisasar.
4) The World Bank team who met Durban officials in 2002, persuading them that the dumpsite should remain open for seven to twenty more years. The reason? To capture carbon credits by selling investments in Bisasar methane-to-electricity operations to global polluters, who in turn will face less pressure to cut their own emissions.
5) The Kyoto Protocol – meant to turn the corner on climate change – is thus also a suspect. It established a ‘free market’ in carbon credits that would permit polluters in the North to purchase shares in ‘Clean Development Mechanism’ projects like Bisasar, instead of reducing their own greenhouse gases.
6) Major international polluters ranging from Big Oil to the Dutch government, who are the buyers of this “privatised air”.
7) Other landfill sites in Durban’s Marianhill and La Mercy suburbs, which are also supported by the World Bank’s Prototype Carbon Fund.
8) Who can forget the role of the [South Africa’s] national Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism? According to the National Climate Change Response Strategy, citizens must understand “up-front” how the “Clean Development Mechanism primarily presents a range of commercial opportunities, both big and small. This could be a very important source of foreign direct investment’. Khan and her Durban Group comrades considered this position a form of eco-prostitution equivalent to accepting toxic waste for a pittance.
9) Then there’s the South African economy itself, addicted to fossil fuels and the world’s cheapest energy. The US is the world’s largest CO2 emitter in absolute terms, but in relative terms SA emits 20 times more of that gas than the US, measured by each unit of output per person. That in turn has made Pretoria aware of the need for even rotten offset projects like Bisasar, so as to market SA’s feeble attempts to cut back on greenhouse emissions.
This blog is drawn from an article published in Alter-Eco, which is being produced by groups who have come together to make a unified call in support of real solutions to climate change and against the false market-based solutions that are being implemented under the Kyoto Protocol.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
The emperor has no clothes
In the four months since the advent of the credit crunch in the global financial markets caught Northern Rock with its pants down, the chorus of ritual assurances about the soundness of the economic fundamentals has given way to doom-laden panic. A recent “emperor-has-no-clothes” statement from former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers opened the floodgates on admissions about the depth and breadth of the worsening crisis, together with dire predictions and warnings about its damaging effects.
Summers says that even if “necessary changes” in policy were implemented, the “odds now favour a US recession that slows growth significantly on a global basis”. He also believes that without stronger policy responses than have been observed to date, “there is the risk that the adverse impacts will be felt for the rest of this decade and beyond”. His assessment of the US housing market brings into the open predictions which had so far only been muted murmurs on the sidelines. Summers says that “indicators suggest that the housing sector may be in free-fall from what felt like the basement levels of a few months ago” and predicts prices could fall by as much as 25%.
In a shocking admission of the uselessness of the economic models used by forecasters, Summers is concerned that “we do not have comparable experiences on which to base predictions about what this will mean for the overall economy”. Put another way, the people who supposedly run the economy have no idea what the future holds.
Meanwhile, in Britain the Financial Services Authority (FSA) says there is "a very real prospect" that financial conditions will worsen next year because of the global credit crunch. The implication is that a number of smaller mortgage companies could go under because of difficulties in raising cash. An key indicator of the crisis is the soaring inter-bank lending rate, which is far higher than the official bank rate. .
As for debt-laden “home owners”, prospects are bleak indeed. Clive Briault, the FSA's retail managing director, says that more than 1.4 million borrowers on fixed-rate, short-term mortgages are due to come off their favourable terms next year. Many of them will have to pay higher interest rates as a result, which will contribute to the pressure on consumer spending. Other may not be so fortunate. Briault said that at the bottom end of market, the so-called sub-prime sector that focused on people with poor or non-existent credit histories, many borrowers "may not have access to the market at any price". Bluntly, they face losing their homes.
A House of Cards, our new publication, lays bare the intimate, mutually-dependent connection between the emergence of a web of transnational corporations during the uneven period of global growth, and the vast clouds of credit and debt needed to make it happen. There’s no pleasure in history proving us right, but it does mean that we’re able to see beyond the current crisis. A House of Cards offers the outlines of solutions based on collective ownership, self-management and replacing the profit motive with production for need. Get yourself a copy!
Gerry Gold
Economics editor
Summers says that even if “necessary changes” in policy were implemented, the “odds now favour a US recession that slows growth significantly on a global basis”. He also believes that without stronger policy responses than have been observed to date, “there is the risk that the adverse impacts will be felt for the rest of this decade and beyond”. His assessment of the US housing market brings into the open predictions which had so far only been muted murmurs on the sidelines. Summers says that “indicators suggest that the housing sector may be in free-fall from what felt like the basement levels of a few months ago” and predicts prices could fall by as much as 25%.
In a shocking admission of the uselessness of the economic models used by forecasters, Summers is concerned that “we do not have comparable experiences on which to base predictions about what this will mean for the overall economy”. Put another way, the people who supposedly run the economy have no idea what the future holds.
Meanwhile, in Britain the Financial Services Authority (FSA) says there is "a very real prospect" that financial conditions will worsen next year because of the global credit crunch. The implication is that a number of smaller mortgage companies could go under because of difficulties in raising cash. An key indicator of the crisis is the soaring inter-bank lending rate, which is far higher than the official bank rate. .
As for debt-laden “home owners”, prospects are bleak indeed. Clive Briault, the FSA's retail managing director, says that more than 1.4 million borrowers on fixed-rate, short-term mortgages are due to come off their favourable terms next year. Many of them will have to pay higher interest rates as a result, which will contribute to the pressure on consumer spending. Other may not be so fortunate. Briault said that at the bottom end of market, the so-called sub-prime sector that focused on people with poor or non-existent credit histories, many borrowers "may not have access to the market at any price". Bluntly, they face losing their homes.
A House of Cards, our new publication, lays bare the intimate, mutually-dependent connection between the emergence of a web of transnational corporations during the uneven period of global growth, and the vast clouds of credit and debt needed to make it happen. There’s no pleasure in history proving us right, but it does mean that we’re able to see beyond the current crisis. A House of Cards offers the outlines of solutions based on collective ownership, self-management and replacing the profit motive with production for need. Get yourself a copy!
Gerry Gold
Economics editor
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Miners in challenge to ANC
Not a lot has changed for South Africa’s 500,000 miners since the end of apartheid. Most days, a miner is killed as he labours in unsafe conditions to extract precious metals for sale by the mining corporations. Today, members of the 270,000-strong Miners Union of South Africa stage a 24-hour strike against the rising death toll. Some 201 miners have been killed in accidents so far this year, compared with 199 for the whole of 2006.
The union expects some 40,000 members to march on the Chamber of Mines in Johannesburg, which includes famous names like AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields, Harmony Gold, Anglo Platinum, Impala Platinum and Lonmin. South African miners produce three-quarters of the world's platinum and more than a 10th of its gold in shafts that are up to 3.78 kilometres underground.
South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki ordered a safety audit of the country's mines after 3,200 workers were temporarily trapped at Harmony Gold Mining’s Elandsrand operation in October, but the death rate has continued to rise. Despite ever-rising prices for precious metals, especially gold and platinum, the owners have failed to invest in improved safety measures.
The owners know that there is a massive pool of unemployed workers ready to work in dangerous conditions, especially in mines where the union is not strong. Those who extract the fabulous wealth that lies underground, just like the poor workers in the townships, are treated with contempt, or are at best targets for token acts of charity while the mine owners and the country’s ruling political elite live off the fruits of their labour.
Miners are not the only South African workers battling for a decent standard of living 17 years after the ending of apartheid. In Cape Town, work is underway on a showpiece new stadium for the 2010 World Cup. It is a 68,000-seat arena within sight of the notorious Robben Island, where Nelson Mandel was imprisoned for years under the apartheid regime. The city’s newest icon has already been the subject of strikes and protests.
The government is spending R420bn [£30.1bn] on the 2010 World Cup and related infrastructure projects. Fifa is making a big show of providing affordable tickets for the poor. It has announced that the cheapest tickets for games will be sold only to South Africa residents for about $20, and a further 120,000 will be given away to the lowest paid. But even at $20, tickets are beyond the reach of ordinary workers who are building the stadium. So the World Cup is simply another profit-making bonanza for contractors and the media.
President Mbeki and his deputy Jacob Zuma are presently engaged in a struggle for the leadership of the ANC at its conference later this month. Zuma’s left demagogy has won him widespread backing, despite his pro-business policies and association with corruption. Today’s one-day strike is an indication that the working class needs to go beyond the ANC and its grip on power to carry through the social revolution against capitalist corporations.
Corinna Lotz
AWTW secretary
The union expects some 40,000 members to march on the Chamber of Mines in Johannesburg, which includes famous names like AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields, Harmony Gold, Anglo Platinum, Impala Platinum and Lonmin. South African miners produce three-quarters of the world's platinum and more than a 10th of its gold in shafts that are up to 3.78 kilometres underground.
South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki ordered a safety audit of the country's mines after 3,200 workers were temporarily trapped at Harmony Gold Mining’s Elandsrand operation in October, but the death rate has continued to rise. Despite ever-rising prices for precious metals, especially gold and platinum, the owners have failed to invest in improved safety measures.
The owners know that there is a massive pool of unemployed workers ready to work in dangerous conditions, especially in mines where the union is not strong. Those who extract the fabulous wealth that lies underground, just like the poor workers in the townships, are treated with contempt, or are at best targets for token acts of charity while the mine owners and the country’s ruling political elite live off the fruits of their labour.
Miners are not the only South African workers battling for a decent standard of living 17 years after the ending of apartheid. In Cape Town, work is underway on a showpiece new stadium for the 2010 World Cup. It is a 68,000-seat arena within sight of the notorious Robben Island, where Nelson Mandel was imprisoned for years under the apartheid regime. The city’s newest icon has already been the subject of strikes and protests.
The government is spending R420bn [£30.1bn] on the 2010 World Cup and related infrastructure projects. Fifa is making a big show of providing affordable tickets for the poor. It has announced that the cheapest tickets for games will be sold only to South Africa residents for about $20, and a further 120,000 will be given away to the lowest paid. But even at $20, tickets are beyond the reach of ordinary workers who are building the stadium. So the World Cup is simply another profit-making bonanza for contractors and the media.
President Mbeki and his deputy Jacob Zuma are presently engaged in a struggle for the leadership of the ANC at its conference later this month. Zuma’s left demagogy has won him widespread backing, despite his pro-business policies and association with corruption. Today’s one-day strike is an indication that the working class needs to go beyond the ANC and its grip on power to carry through the social revolution against capitalist corporations.
Corinna Lotz
AWTW secretary
Monday, December 03, 2007
Stalemate in Venezuela
The narrow 51%-49% defeat for Hugo Chavez in a referendum on the constitution is a potentially dangerous moment for Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution. Emboldened by their victory, the anti-Chavez movement will undoubtedly look to the United States for support in yet another attempt to overthrow the president.
The vote represents the first major electoral defeat for Chavez after nine years in which he has won three general elections and two referendums. During this time, Chavez has tried to develop an accountable state that could facilitate a process of transition from reform to revolution. Sunday’s referendum was intended to approve Chavez’s plans to run for re-election indefinitely, give him increased powers and create the structure for what he called a socialist state in Venezuela. The reforms also included stronger powers for the president to seize private property and to censor the media during emergencies. There were also proposals to cut the working day from eight hours to six, extend social security benefits to informal workers, such as street vendors and lower the voting age to 16.
While the middle class in the shape of some students, business groups, opposition parties, the media and the Roman Catholic Church all lined up against Chavez ahead of the referendum vote, his support amongst the poor and the working class failed to be mobilised in sufficient numbers. There were reports that his own supporters were more concerned about soaring crime, inflation and food shortages. In the end, about 56% of voters turned out.
The political stalemate in Venezuela is connected to the unwillingness by Chavez to acknowledge the strategic necessity of a qualitative break with the capitalist state and its replacement with truly democratic alternative structures in the hands of the masses. Impressive reforms in education and health, and the curbing of big business, have led to the notion that the state can be transformed into an instrument of the revolution. But the basic objective fact is that the economy remains dominated by the role of the transnational corporations and global capital. At best, Chavez has been able to negotiate better terms with the TNCs, which have indeed brought benefits to the people, but the basic domination of capital over labour remains intact.
The ruling class of Venezuela is disgruntled because they perceive the state to be no longer acting in their overall social interests. They have been prepared to give support to various attempts to overthrow the Chavez regime in order to regain control of the state. So, what we have is an extremely complex and dialectical situation whereby the capitalist state is weakened, and yet in the last analysis it still remains a bourgeois state. For the revolution to consolidate its gains, this is what has to change. The democratic constitution has to be transformed from a formal document into a reality by the mass action of workers and peasants. People should not wait for a lead from Chavez. The same goes for the issue of challenging capital. If the state is unwilling to challenge the power of the TNCs, the working class should take a lead and develop real workers’ control, the revolutionary alternative to co-management.
The calling of a representative conference to develop a strategy for implementing the constitution in a complete way, could show that its aims can only be realised through the overthrow of the power of the TNCs. There is no doubt that Chavez’s reforms have increased workers’ confidence in their abilities, and sense of material well-being. But these advances can only develop further if the limitations of utilising the existing state are understood and a conscious struggle for revolutionary change is prepared.
Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor
The vote represents the first major electoral defeat for Chavez after nine years in which he has won three general elections and two referendums. During this time, Chavez has tried to develop an accountable state that could facilitate a process of transition from reform to revolution. Sunday’s referendum was intended to approve Chavez’s plans to run for re-election indefinitely, give him increased powers and create the structure for what he called a socialist state in Venezuela. The reforms also included stronger powers for the president to seize private property and to censor the media during emergencies. There were also proposals to cut the working day from eight hours to six, extend social security benefits to informal workers, such as street vendors and lower the voting age to 16.
While the middle class in the shape of some students, business groups, opposition parties, the media and the Roman Catholic Church all lined up against Chavez ahead of the referendum vote, his support amongst the poor and the working class failed to be mobilised in sufficient numbers. There were reports that his own supporters were more concerned about soaring crime, inflation and food shortages. In the end, about 56% of voters turned out.
The political stalemate in Venezuela is connected to the unwillingness by Chavez to acknowledge the strategic necessity of a qualitative break with the capitalist state and its replacement with truly democratic alternative structures in the hands of the masses. Impressive reforms in education and health, and the curbing of big business, have led to the notion that the state can be transformed into an instrument of the revolution. But the basic objective fact is that the economy remains dominated by the role of the transnational corporations and global capital. At best, Chavez has been able to negotiate better terms with the TNCs, which have indeed brought benefits to the people, but the basic domination of capital over labour remains intact.
The ruling class of Venezuela is disgruntled because they perceive the state to be no longer acting in their overall social interests. They have been prepared to give support to various attempts to overthrow the Chavez regime in order to regain control of the state. So, what we have is an extremely complex and dialectical situation whereby the capitalist state is weakened, and yet in the last analysis it still remains a bourgeois state. For the revolution to consolidate its gains, this is what has to change. The democratic constitution has to be transformed from a formal document into a reality by the mass action of workers and peasants. People should not wait for a lead from Chavez. The same goes for the issue of challenging capital. If the state is unwilling to challenge the power of the TNCs, the working class should take a lead and develop real workers’ control, the revolutionary alternative to co-management.
The calling of a representative conference to develop a strategy for implementing the constitution in a complete way, could show that its aims can only be realised through the overthrow of the power of the TNCs. There is no doubt that Chavez’s reforms have increased workers’ confidence in their abilities, and sense of material well-being. But these advances can only develop further if the limitations of utilising the existing state are understood and a conscious struggle for revolutionary change is prepared.
Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor
Friday, November 30, 2007
“Fire-storm” warning for global economy
A World to Win’s view of the capitalist economy is often pooh-poohed by those who tell us that the system is unchallengeable. We are told that we exaggerate the instability of the world economy. But over the last few days, one financial expert after another is outdoing us in predicting extreme crisis and break-down to come. Warnings are flying thick and fast as the credit crunch is conducted throughout the world economy via the global financial system.
From the high office of the Governor of the Bank of England down to broadsheet newspapers, commentators are united in saying that the damage from the financial storms to the real economy is as yet unknown and that the global economy is moving into recession. “This particular crisis is proving a more sustained fire-storm,” Jeremy Warner of The Independent said this week. “What in September was still looking as if it would be only a temporary financial storm with relatively limited consequences for the real economy has turned into something much more drawn out and potentially damaging.”
And in the run-up to what should be the annual Christmas spending spree, Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, yesterday warned parliamentarians of “rather uncomfortable” times to come. King told MPs there were was a “big risk” that the credit crunch would intensify with consequent risks to growth and inflation. He spoke of "sheer uncertainty" and that fear of what lies ahead among US banks in particular was already pushing up interest rates.
And writer Sean O’Grady, asks: “Is the roof falling in on the housing market? . . . Has the bubble burst? The signs are ominous. For some months the property market has been cooling, the bubble showing distinct signs of strain . . . How bad can things get? The worst scenario is that the UK follows trends in the US. There the bubble burst last year, with the toughest market since the Great Depression.”
“The pain has just begun,” he concludes.
As municipal housing has declined and people buy instead of renting, so much money has been ploughed into bricks and mortar that British households have accumulated more debt than any other major advanced economy.The cruel reality of so-called “home ownership” (actually home indebtedness) is that of a dream turning into a nightmare – an unattainable fantasy. Those who have managed to scramble on to the first rung of the ladder pay an unprecedented one-fifth of their income on mortgage repayments. At about £200,000, average house prices are at nine times average earnings, the highest ever. The stark reality facing mortgage payers on both sides of the Atlantic adds substance to the analysis made in A World to Win’s new book, A House of Cards. What we are seeing is the crash of almost infinite amounts of debt, based on an unsustainable house price bubble. This is combined with the creation of countless and ever-more exotic financial products leveraged on debt, secured on ever-diminishing actual values.
Will the credit melt-down and economic down-turn automatically lead to the overthrow of the capitalist system and its replacement by a co-operative, not-for-profit economy? Of course not. But what it does mean is that for billions of people around the world, the conditions of their lives are changing dramatically. Confidence in the system at all levels is being shaken to the core. Until now, many people have been affected by a feeling of powerlessness that has made them reluctant to challenge the existing economic and political structures. But now the realities underneath the glossy images of homeownership and endless consumerism are breaking through. An understanding of how the system has reached this point is crucial. This is a good time to debate and develop the ideas for composting capitalism and building up a not-for-profit economy put forward in A House of Cards.
Corinna Lotz
AWTW Secretary
From the high office of the Governor of the Bank of England down to broadsheet newspapers, commentators are united in saying that the damage from the financial storms to the real economy is as yet unknown and that the global economy is moving into recession. “This particular crisis is proving a more sustained fire-storm,” Jeremy Warner of The Independent said this week. “What in September was still looking as if it would be only a temporary financial storm with relatively limited consequences for the real economy has turned into something much more drawn out and potentially damaging.”
And in the run-up to what should be the annual Christmas spending spree, Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, yesterday warned parliamentarians of “rather uncomfortable” times to come. King told MPs there were was a “big risk” that the credit crunch would intensify with consequent risks to growth and inflation. He spoke of "sheer uncertainty" and that fear of what lies ahead among US banks in particular was already pushing up interest rates.
And writer Sean O’Grady, asks: “Is the roof falling in on the housing market? . . . Has the bubble burst? The signs are ominous. For some months the property market has been cooling, the bubble showing distinct signs of strain . . . How bad can things get? The worst scenario is that the UK follows trends in the US. There the bubble burst last year, with the toughest market since the Great Depression.”
“The pain has just begun,” he concludes.
As municipal housing has declined and people buy instead of renting, so much money has been ploughed into bricks and mortar that British households have accumulated more debt than any other major advanced economy.The cruel reality of so-called “home ownership” (actually home indebtedness) is that of a dream turning into a nightmare – an unattainable fantasy. Those who have managed to scramble on to the first rung of the ladder pay an unprecedented one-fifth of their income on mortgage repayments. At about £200,000, average house prices are at nine times average earnings, the highest ever. The stark reality facing mortgage payers on both sides of the Atlantic adds substance to the analysis made in A World to Win’s new book, A House of Cards. What we are seeing is the crash of almost infinite amounts of debt, based on an unsustainable house price bubble. This is combined with the creation of countless and ever-more exotic financial products leveraged on debt, secured on ever-diminishing actual values.
Will the credit melt-down and economic down-turn automatically lead to the overthrow of the capitalist system and its replacement by a co-operative, not-for-profit economy? Of course not. But what it does mean is that for billions of people around the world, the conditions of their lives are changing dramatically. Confidence in the system at all levels is being shaken to the core. Until now, many people have been affected by a feeling of powerlessness that has made them reluctant to challenge the existing economic and political structures. But now the realities underneath the glossy images of homeownership and endless consumerism are breaking through. An understanding of how the system has reached this point is crucial. This is a good time to debate and develop the ideas for composting capitalism and building up a not-for-profit economy put forward in A House of Cards.
Corinna Lotz
AWTW Secretary
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Planetary emergency appeal
In the run up to the December crisis meeting on global warming, a call has gone out to world governments meeting in Bali to make a global energy and economic transition without delay in order to save the planet and its inhabitants from disaster. Signatories to the call say a “systemic shift” is needed just to stabilise the planet’s climate.
Drawn up by leading development and climate organisations, include the International Forum on Globalisation, Focus on the Global South and the Polaris Institute, the appeal calls on governments to "begin a pathway toward new global agreements that recognise and operate within our planet’s limits and equitably share its ecological space". It rightly points out that the proposals governments are likely to discuss in Bali will "dangerously underestimate the challenges confronting us".
Instead, the signatories make the case for having "deeper binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at the very least 80% below 1990 levels by 2050... with solutions that place the greatest burden of adjustment on the richer nations, and the richer segments within all nations". The appeal demands that developed countries "drastically reduce consumption of energy and others resources, materials, and commodities" and proposes that "...conservation and re-localising cycles of ownership, production and consumption are the fastest, cheapest most efficient means toward powering down”.
Interestingly, the appeal recognises the need to "shift power away from global and national governance, and toward local economies, especially energy and food systems..". This appears to be the beginnings of a realisation that the structures of the existing society cannot deliver a sustainable future. There is a call for new development models that "satisfying basic human rights and basic human needs for all (such as survival, sufficiency, freedom, identity)", to replace existing measurements based on economic performance.
The signatories urge the creation of global financial mechanisms to help poor nations keep their resources and see the need to "drive ecological solutions that transform today’s patterns of production and consumption, replacing long-distance trade and absentee-ownership with decentralised economic activity under community control".
There is nothing in the appeal you could disagree with, even if there is no reference to the economic system known as capitalism anywhere in the document. The real issue revolves around how these absolutely necessary changes are to be achieved. In this respect, the signatories mistakenly place their faith in existing governments and institutions to carry through the transition. For example, the appeal claims: “Just as one of the oldest global bodies, the International Labour Organisation, includes representatives from governments, labour, and business, these new negotiations must involve all of the sectors of society to be effective.”
Just how naïve this approach is was demonstrated by the New Labour government last week when it effectively gave the green light for a new runway at Heathrow Airport, despite massive opposition from local communities and environmental groups. Transport secretary Ruth Kelly said expansion was needed to keep the British economy “competitive”. Her “solution” for the extra CO2 emissions that would occur was to ensure “that every tonne of carbon that is emitted from a plane is matched by a reduction somewhere else in Europe” through carbon trading.
Kelly’s decision is just one of countless examples of how corporate power and compliant governments are locked into a mutual dance of death at the planet’s expense. They are deaf to appeals, whatever their merits and logic, and incapable of tackling the planetary emergency in the way outlined by the signatories above. Political and economic life will have to be restructured from top to bottom by the mass of the people themselves independently of their rulers’ wishes. If there was an easier option, it would have been discovered by now.
Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor
Drawn up by leading development and climate organisations, include the International Forum on Globalisation, Focus on the Global South and the Polaris Institute, the appeal calls on governments to "begin a pathway toward new global agreements that recognise and operate within our planet’s limits and equitably share its ecological space". It rightly points out that the proposals governments are likely to discuss in Bali will "dangerously underestimate the challenges confronting us".
Instead, the signatories make the case for having "deeper binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at the very least 80% below 1990 levels by 2050... with solutions that place the greatest burden of adjustment on the richer nations, and the richer segments within all nations". The appeal demands that developed countries "drastically reduce consumption of energy and others resources, materials, and commodities" and proposes that "...conservation and re-localising cycles of ownership, production and consumption are the fastest, cheapest most efficient means toward powering down”.
Interestingly, the appeal recognises the need to "shift power away from global and national governance, and toward local economies, especially energy and food systems..". This appears to be the beginnings of a realisation that the structures of the existing society cannot deliver a sustainable future. There is a call for new development models that "satisfying basic human rights and basic human needs for all (such as survival, sufficiency, freedom, identity)", to replace existing measurements based on economic performance.
The signatories urge the creation of global financial mechanisms to help poor nations keep their resources and see the need to "drive ecological solutions that transform today’s patterns of production and consumption, replacing long-distance trade and absentee-ownership with decentralised economic activity under community control".
There is nothing in the appeal you could disagree with, even if there is no reference to the economic system known as capitalism anywhere in the document. The real issue revolves around how these absolutely necessary changes are to be achieved. In this respect, the signatories mistakenly place their faith in existing governments and institutions to carry through the transition. For example, the appeal claims: “Just as one of the oldest global bodies, the International Labour Organisation, includes representatives from governments, labour, and business, these new negotiations must involve all of the sectors of society to be effective.”
Just how naïve this approach is was demonstrated by the New Labour government last week when it effectively gave the green light for a new runway at Heathrow Airport, despite massive opposition from local communities and environmental groups. Transport secretary Ruth Kelly said expansion was needed to keep the British economy “competitive”. Her “solution” for the extra CO2 emissions that would occur was to ensure “that every tonne of carbon that is emitted from a plane is matched by a reduction somewhere else in Europe” through carbon trading.
Kelly’s decision is just one of countless examples of how corporate power and compliant governments are locked into a mutual dance of death at the planet’s expense. They are deaf to appeals, whatever their merits and logic, and incapable of tackling the planetary emergency in the way outlined by the signatories above. Political and economic life will have to be restructured from top to bottom by the mass of the people themselves independently of their rulers’ wishes. If there was an easier option, it would have been discovered by now.
Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Dangerous and unpredictable times
The crisis of the Brown government has a self-destructive logic, taking us into politically uncharted and dangerous waters. There is heady and unpredictable mix of a government in melt down, state administrative systems in turmoil, a deepening banking and financial crisis and senior figures in the armed services denouncing the prime minister for his indifference.
Over the last decade, the Blair/Brown project has attempted to bring the state, government and corporate power into a unified, seamless whole held together not by politics but by a managerial team, headed by a chief executive officer (formerly known as the prime minister).
Ancient processes like the rule of law have gone by the board because they get in the way of efficient government. New Labour has regarded itself if not above the law, then at least its equivalent. The acceptance of £630,000 from a property developer through third parties was clearly in breach of laws passed by the New Labour government itself. Yet no fewer than three party general secretaries stood by as the money flowed into the coffers.
New Labour’s outlook is that laws and the legal system should be subordinate to government policies. For example, the fact that the invasion of Iraq was illegal under international law is seen of no consequence (although it was of concern to army chiefs concerned about the implications for troops). Holding foreign nationals in prison without trial was considered so important that human rights were flouted until the judiciary stepped in. In terms of the donations, only after having been found out is New Labour to return the cash.
Other crises over Northern Rock and the loss of data discs with 25 million people’s identities and financial information indicate that the New Labour project is floundering. The credit crunch that has overwhelmed Northern Rock is the most graphic expression of the end of a consumer/housing boom based on fantasy finance, one that was encouraged by New Labour ministers. In a futile bid to stop the rot, the government has loaned the bank up to £25 billion – with absolutely no guarantees about getting the money back. The financial crisis is worsening by the day while millions of people are struggling to pay their mortgages and credit card debts.
In this context, the intervention last week of five former chiefs of the defence staff in a co-ordinated attack in the House of Lords is nothing if not sinister. Their warning that the Ministry of Defence was facing "blood on the floor" because of budget cuts was unprecedented. They demanded increased spending on the forces and criticised the government for breaking the “military covenant” between the country and its armed forces. Lord Boyce, attacked the government for using "smoke and mirrors" to cover cuts in defence spending. He told peers: "We are seriously endangering our people because of the lack of money being given to equip, train and properly support those in the second line preparing to rotate to the front line." Another accused Brown of indifference to the armed forces by being the only senior cabinet minister who had avoided coming to the Ministry of Defence when he was chancellor.
The next question is: what do these former service chiefs – who were undoubtedly speaking for the mass of serving officers – going to do about it all? If those in charge of the state are betraying the armed forces, as they allege, what do they propose? Do they want to become the government? It’s not such a daft question as you think. These are dangerous and unpredictable times.
Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor
Over the last decade, the Blair/Brown project has attempted to bring the state, government and corporate power into a unified, seamless whole held together not by politics but by a managerial team, headed by a chief executive officer (formerly known as the prime minister).
Ancient processes like the rule of law have gone by the board because they get in the way of efficient government. New Labour has regarded itself if not above the law, then at least its equivalent. The acceptance of £630,000 from a property developer through third parties was clearly in breach of laws passed by the New Labour government itself. Yet no fewer than three party general secretaries stood by as the money flowed into the coffers.
New Labour’s outlook is that laws and the legal system should be subordinate to government policies. For example, the fact that the invasion of Iraq was illegal under international law is seen of no consequence (although it was of concern to army chiefs concerned about the implications for troops). Holding foreign nationals in prison without trial was considered so important that human rights were flouted until the judiciary stepped in. In terms of the donations, only after having been found out is New Labour to return the cash.
Other crises over Northern Rock and the loss of data discs with 25 million people’s identities and financial information indicate that the New Labour project is floundering. The credit crunch that has overwhelmed Northern Rock is the most graphic expression of the end of a consumer/housing boom based on fantasy finance, one that was encouraged by New Labour ministers. In a futile bid to stop the rot, the government has loaned the bank up to £25 billion – with absolutely no guarantees about getting the money back. The financial crisis is worsening by the day while millions of people are struggling to pay their mortgages and credit card debts.
In this context, the intervention last week of five former chiefs of the defence staff in a co-ordinated attack in the House of Lords is nothing if not sinister. Their warning that the Ministry of Defence was facing "blood on the floor" because of budget cuts was unprecedented. They demanded increased spending on the forces and criticised the government for breaking the “military covenant” between the country and its armed forces. Lord Boyce, attacked the government for using "smoke and mirrors" to cover cuts in defence spending. He told peers: "We are seriously endangering our people because of the lack of money being given to equip, train and properly support those in the second line preparing to rotate to the front line." Another accused Brown of indifference to the armed forces by being the only senior cabinet minister who had avoided coming to the Ministry of Defence when he was chancellor.
The next question is: what do these former service chiefs – who were undoubtedly speaking for the mass of serving officers – going to do about it all? If those in charge of the state are betraying the armed forces, as they allege, what do they propose? Do they want to become the government? It’s not such a daft question as you think. These are dangerous and unpredictable times.
Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Two states no solution for Palestinians
Palestinian leaders meeting the Israelis in Annapolis, Maryland, today will be offered nothing. Instead, they will be asked to sacrifice the right of Palestinian refugees to return, to abandon Palestinians living inside Israel’s 1948 borders and to forget about the aspirations of the Palestinians living in Jerusalem and Gaza. Failed preliminary talks over many weeks mean that all those attending the US-sponsored conference know in advance that no genuine gains can be made.
What is not on offer is a Palestinian state. Where are its borders? Who will control its borders with other countries? Where is its capital? Who has the right to live in it? By consistently postponing the solution of these crucial questions, the Zionist state of Israel has been able to continue to create “realities on the ground” that make any viable Palestinian state impossible. The West Bank and Gaza are two separate prisons. Gaza is a hell on earth for those who live there. On the West Bank, Palestinians continue to be deprived of their land and their right to education and work.
West Bank-based Palestinian leaders have been drawn so deeply into the so-called two-state solution, that they are in danger of sacrificing their own legitimacy to try and achieve it. But 14 years on from the signing of the Oslo Accords, the peace process has become a trap from which the Palestinians must find an exit. Tony Blair’s announcement last week of a handful of meaningless economic initiatives underlined the fact that the only people to benefit from the two-state process so far are a handful of well-off Palestinian businessmen, and the group who are involved in administering and policing the enclave.
Jewish settlements continue to expand into substantial towns, sucking in resources of land and water. The borders between Gaza and the West Bank and neighbouring countries have been cleared of housing and the Israeli army has seized strips of land so that it can control access in perpetuity. The Israeli government has no intention of removing its illegal wall, and further plans include Israeli-only roads. The conditions of most Palestinians have worsened since 1993 and the conflict has claimed more than 4,000 Palestinian lives and more than 1,000 Israeli lives.
A far more significant conference than the one in Annapolis took place in London recently. Organised by the London One State Group - Palestinian and Jewish students who work together - it attracted more than 300 academics, activists and students from all over the world to discuss an alternative way forward that challenges the right of Zionism to rule over a state based on religious exclusivity.
The conference heard from many speakers that the Palestine national cause – made up of Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, those living as refugees in other countries and those living as second-class citizens within the borders established in 1948 – has become more and more divided as a result of the doomed two-state process.
At the same time Israeli Jews are more and more sceptical both about the possibility of a peaceful settlement of the conflict, and – after the defeat of the Israeli army in Lebanon – the chance of a military solution. The conference concluded that the time is absolutely right to revive and bring up to date the proposition that the only way forward for Palestinians and Jews is the establishment of a single, democratic, secular state from the Sea to the Jordan River, where all the people of the region can live together with equal rights.
Penny Cole
What is not on offer is a Palestinian state. Where are its borders? Who will control its borders with other countries? Where is its capital? Who has the right to live in it? By consistently postponing the solution of these crucial questions, the Zionist state of Israel has been able to continue to create “realities on the ground” that make any viable Palestinian state impossible. The West Bank and Gaza are two separate prisons. Gaza is a hell on earth for those who live there. On the West Bank, Palestinians continue to be deprived of their land and their right to education and work.
West Bank-based Palestinian leaders have been drawn so deeply into the so-called two-state solution, that they are in danger of sacrificing their own legitimacy to try and achieve it. But 14 years on from the signing of the Oslo Accords, the peace process has become a trap from which the Palestinians must find an exit. Tony Blair’s announcement last week of a handful of meaningless economic initiatives underlined the fact that the only people to benefit from the two-state process so far are a handful of well-off Palestinian businessmen, and the group who are involved in administering and policing the enclave.
Jewish settlements continue to expand into substantial towns, sucking in resources of land and water. The borders between Gaza and the West Bank and neighbouring countries have been cleared of housing and the Israeli army has seized strips of land so that it can control access in perpetuity. The Israeli government has no intention of removing its illegal wall, and further plans include Israeli-only roads. The conditions of most Palestinians have worsened since 1993 and the conflict has claimed more than 4,000 Palestinian lives and more than 1,000 Israeli lives.
A far more significant conference than the one in Annapolis took place in London recently. Organised by the London One State Group - Palestinian and Jewish students who work together - it attracted more than 300 academics, activists and students from all over the world to discuss an alternative way forward that challenges the right of Zionism to rule over a state based on religious exclusivity.
The conference heard from many speakers that the Palestine national cause – made up of Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, those living as refugees in other countries and those living as second-class citizens within the borders established in 1948 – has become more and more divided as a result of the doomed two-state process.
At the same time Israeli Jews are more and more sceptical both about the possibility of a peaceful settlement of the conflict, and – after the defeat of the Israeli army in Lebanon – the chance of a military solution. The conference concluded that the time is absolutely right to revive and bring up to date the proposition that the only way forward for Palestinians and Jews is the establishment of a single, democratic, secular state from the Sea to the Jordan River, where all the people of the region can live together with equal rights.
Penny Cole
Monday, November 26, 2007
Writers' strike holds firm
Today is high-noon in the three-week long stand-off between screen writers belonging to the Writers Guild of America and the big studio conglomerates which dominate US cinema and television screens. Leaders of the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers are resuming negotiations after powerful strike action by WGA members.
Twelve thousand writers have been picketing in both Los Angeles and New York City for demands aimed at preventing loss of income as a result of Internet broadcasting and DVD sales. At present, writers receive 4 cents per DVD sale and no residuals (royalties) from iTunes sales or advertising-supported free rebroadcasts on web sites such as abc.com. Writers receive no payment from material aired for free on the Internet.
The strike has received tremendous support, not only from WGA members, but also from leading members of the acting profession who have spoken out and joined picket lines. Outside the film and television industry, recording artists like 13-year old singer-song-writer Shamim have also joined the picket lines. Shamim recently founded the Protection for Artistic Rights Coalition (PARC), an organisation whose ultimate goal is to spread youth awareness of the issues that artists face in an industry changed by the Internet and digital media. "I am affected by the same things that the writers are affected by with respect to digital media. I am a struggling recording artist who has music being downloaded freely through the Internet," She said. "At the end of the day we are all creative people who are watching profits and royalties stream in from advertisers to giant companies that haven't been paying artists their fair share."
US dockers have brought food hampers to picket lines, California Nurses Association members have joined the protests and Teamsters Union members parked trucks outside studio gates in demonstrations of solidarity. In the UK, the Writers Guild and International Art Critics Association have expressed support. The writers’ strike has also been strengthened by the support of show runners – the people who work as both writers and producers - such as Marc Cherry of “Desperate Housewives” fame.
Life-time WGA member Richard Walter noted that the present dispute was different from the last WGA strike in 1998: "Way back then there was more dissent within the guild, particularly involving the show runners. This year, very much to their credit, despite financial risk, show runners have been very pro-guild. Production has been affected much more directly and quickly than anticipated by management,” Walter said. “I’ve never seen anything like this in all my years – and I’ve been through seven or eight strikes.”
The show of unity amongst everyone from writers, actors, musicians , show runners and even producers in the American entertainment industry is awesome. WGA members are showing a side of the US that is too often submerged by right-wing governments like the Bush regime. The immense strength of the strike, together with a number of anti-government films coming out of Hollywood like Rendition, indicates that a big change is taking place across the Atlantic, coinciding with an historic crisis for the American economy
Corinna Lotz
Secretary
A World to Win
Twelve thousand writers have been picketing in both Los Angeles and New York City for demands aimed at preventing loss of income as a result of Internet broadcasting and DVD sales. At present, writers receive 4 cents per DVD sale and no residuals (royalties) from iTunes sales or advertising-supported free rebroadcasts on web sites such as abc.com. Writers receive no payment from material aired for free on the Internet.
The strike has received tremendous support, not only from WGA members, but also from leading members of the acting profession who have spoken out and joined picket lines. Outside the film and television industry, recording artists like 13-year old singer-song-writer Shamim have also joined the picket lines. Shamim recently founded the Protection for Artistic Rights Coalition (PARC), an organisation whose ultimate goal is to spread youth awareness of the issues that artists face in an industry changed by the Internet and digital media. "I am affected by the same things that the writers are affected by with respect to digital media. I am a struggling recording artist who has music being downloaded freely through the Internet," She said. "At the end of the day we are all creative people who are watching profits and royalties stream in from advertisers to giant companies that haven't been paying artists their fair share."
US dockers have brought food hampers to picket lines, California Nurses Association members have joined the protests and Teamsters Union members parked trucks outside studio gates in demonstrations of solidarity. In the UK, the Writers Guild and International Art Critics Association have expressed support. The writers’ strike has also been strengthened by the support of show runners – the people who work as both writers and producers - such as Marc Cherry of “Desperate Housewives” fame.
Life-time WGA member Richard Walter noted that the present dispute was different from the last WGA strike in 1998: "Way back then there was more dissent within the guild, particularly involving the show runners. This year, very much to their credit, despite financial risk, show runners have been very pro-guild. Production has been affected much more directly and quickly than anticipated by management,” Walter said. “I’ve never seen anything like this in all my years – and I’ve been through seven or eight strikes.”
The show of unity amongst everyone from writers, actors, musicians , show runners and even producers in the American entertainment industry is awesome. WGA members are showing a side of the US that is too often submerged by right-wing governments like the Bush regime. The immense strength of the strike, together with a number of anti-government films coming out of Hollywood like Rendition, indicates that a big change is taking place across the Atlantic, coinciding with an historic crisis for the American economy
Corinna Lotz
Secretary
A World to Win
Friday, November 23, 2007
Crying for Argentina
In the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires, the poor – many of them street children - scurry ahead of municipal lorries collecting in well-off areas. They are searching for glass, paper, cardboard, scraps of food - anything that can be reused. They also pick through rubbish dumps in search of food. But as political tensions rise throughout the country, the city’s right-wing mayor, businessman Mauricio Macri, has decided to curb their activities.
Last May, 30,000 people marched hundreds of kilometres to the capital under the banner “Hunger is a crime” demanding an end to poverty and a better life for the country’s children. Protests held around the country revealed seething discontent with poverty, low wages and state-sponsored repression. Over the last five years, shanty towns have been growing even though the economy has expanded by more than 8%, revealing continuing deep inequalities in Argentina.
Now the ruling elites are hitting back. Buenos Aires mayor Macri, has declared: “It is as much a crime to steal garbage as it is to rob a person round the corner.” The city government has set punitive rules for those try to survive off refuse.
Alberto Morlachetti, a campaigner for Pelota de Trapo foundation, that champions the rights of street children, says angrily: “Garbage has become a sacred value. It must not be tossed away, it cannot be mixed as if it lacked categories…. It cannot be left lying around because it has proprietors. The duty not to waste our rubbish has become a civil mandate. Mayor Macri was one of the precursors of this passion for garbage and the importance of urban detritus and their transformation into merchandise. Rubbish-tip pickers are now required to wear a vest, gloves, reflective tape and have official permits in order to be able to work and feed themselves. The governor’s whip must bear down hard enough so that the crime - of those who want to eat – does not start again.”
Macri’s election as mayor last June was seen as a tough challenge to the government of Nestor Kirchner, who is being succeeded by his wife, president-elect Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Yesterday it emerged that Argentina’s defence minister Nilda Garré sacked Brigadier General Osvaldo Montero, head of military intelligence, after discovering that he had plotted against her appointment. Defence minister Garré is part of the government being formed by Cristina Kirchner, due to take over as president on December 10. Taped conversations revealed that the Brigadier General had told interior ministry officials that Garré, who is well-known as a former Peronist left-winger and the first woman to hold office as defence minister, had to go. The plotting by the military intelligence chief incident speaks of uneasy relations between Kirchner’s civilian government and the military, whose brutal dictatorship during the 1970s led to the “disappearance” of 30,000 people.
Kirchner’s husband-to-wife handover cannot mask deep-seated problems economic as well as political problems. Tensions are mounting between the big power suppliers and Kirchner, who plans to continue her husband’s policy of keeping prices largely frozen for residential users since the country's economic collapse in 2001-2002 which hit middle-class voters particularly hard. During that crisis, millions became involved in a variety of actions, including takeovers of factories by workers whose bosses had gone bankrupt. The downturn in the global economy driven by the credit crisis will hit Argentina hard. Cristina Kirchner’s government is in for a rough ride.
Cornna Lotz
AWTW secretary
Last May, 30,000 people marched hundreds of kilometres to the capital under the banner “Hunger is a crime” demanding an end to poverty and a better life for the country’s children. Protests held around the country revealed seething discontent with poverty, low wages and state-sponsored repression. Over the last five years, shanty towns have been growing even though the economy has expanded by more than 8%, revealing continuing deep inequalities in Argentina.
Now the ruling elites are hitting back. Buenos Aires mayor Macri, has declared: “It is as much a crime to steal garbage as it is to rob a person round the corner.” The city government has set punitive rules for those try to survive off refuse.
Alberto Morlachetti, a campaigner for Pelota de Trapo foundation, that champions the rights of street children, says angrily: “Garbage has become a sacred value. It must not be tossed away, it cannot be mixed as if it lacked categories…. It cannot be left lying around because it has proprietors. The duty not to waste our rubbish has become a civil mandate. Mayor Macri was one of the precursors of this passion for garbage and the importance of urban detritus and their transformation into merchandise. Rubbish-tip pickers are now required to wear a vest, gloves, reflective tape and have official permits in order to be able to work and feed themselves. The governor’s whip must bear down hard enough so that the crime - of those who want to eat – does not start again.”
Macri’s election as mayor last June was seen as a tough challenge to the government of Nestor Kirchner, who is being succeeded by his wife, president-elect Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Yesterday it emerged that Argentina’s defence minister Nilda Garré sacked Brigadier General Osvaldo Montero, head of military intelligence, after discovering that he had plotted against her appointment. Defence minister Garré is part of the government being formed by Cristina Kirchner, due to take over as president on December 10. Taped conversations revealed that the Brigadier General had told interior ministry officials that Garré, who is well-known as a former Peronist left-winger and the first woman to hold office as defence minister, had to go. The plotting by the military intelligence chief incident speaks of uneasy relations between Kirchner’s civilian government and the military, whose brutal dictatorship during the 1970s led to the “disappearance” of 30,000 people.
Kirchner’s husband-to-wife handover cannot mask deep-seated problems economic as well as political problems. Tensions are mounting between the big power suppliers and Kirchner, who plans to continue her husband’s policy of keeping prices largely frozen for residential users since the country's economic collapse in 2001-2002 which hit middle-class voters particularly hard. During that crisis, millions became involved in a variety of actions, including takeovers of factories by workers whose bosses had gone bankrupt. The downturn in the global economy driven by the credit crisis will hit Argentina hard. Cristina Kirchner’s government is in for a rough ride.
Cornna Lotz
AWTW secretary
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Put New Labour in the post
The government’s refusal to accept responsibility for the loss of personal and financial records of 25 million people is absolutely typical. Blaming some “junior official” acting alone is simply an excuse to avoid the fact that ten years of New Labour have created the conditions for what happened at Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
Infatuated by managerialism, New Labour has tried to turn the state into a mirror image of the way big business functions. Like most of its other policies, this has proved an abject failure. Endless mergers and acquisitions of government departments, stuffing ministries out with consultants and corporate advisors, on top of ruthless “efficiency savings”, have created not only widespread chaos and confusion but major policy failures in every department.
The story of Revenue & Customs is typical. In 2005, when Brown was Chancellor, he merged what had been historically two separate departments into one. The price was paid by staff after Brown demanded that the merged department shed 25,000 jobs out of 94,000 – more than a quarter. Morale inevitably plummeted and management systems floundered. The disappearance of the child benefit data discs was only one in a string of breaches of security. Yet the government has until now refused appeals by the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas to do spot checks on government departments to see whether data protection is being observed. The Institute of Chartered Accountants has been warning of a catastrophe waiting to happen at HMRC. Chief executive Michael Izza said: “We have been flagging for most of 2007 that there has been a deterioration at HMRC. It manifests itself in things like postbags being unopened for weeks. It now takes 13 weeks to register a new company for a VAT number.”
The mantra of “efficiency savings” has contributed in other ways to the data loss disaster. Apparently, officials at HMRC told the National Audit Office (NAO) that it was too expensive to select the data the NAO wanted and that it was cheaper to download the entire database onto a disc. Then there is the way the discs were transported. Not for New Labour the use of expensive, in-house services. No, TNT Logistics, a major global corporation, has the contract for HMRC. As to the idea that one, young civil servant is totally responsible for the breach of security, this is simply laughable. New evidence suggests senior officials were aware that data including addresses and bank account details of 7.5 million families, was to be provided to the NAO. Sir John Bourn, the outgoing comptroller and auditor general, told a secret session of MPs on public accounts committee that a senior business manager at Revenue & Customs had authorised the information to be released in its full form. His email approving the sharing of the data was copied to an assistant director.
So now the government is involved in a cover-up of what really happened. While it builds an oppressive, authoritarian, surveillance state, New Labour can’t even provide basic protection of the data it holds on citizens. It’s time Brown and company were packaged up and sent unregistered (preferably by TNT) to some faraway destination.
Infatuated by managerialism, New Labour has tried to turn the state into a mirror image of the way big business functions. Like most of its other policies, this has proved an abject failure. Endless mergers and acquisitions of government departments, stuffing ministries out with consultants and corporate advisors, on top of ruthless “efficiency savings”, have created not only widespread chaos and confusion but major policy failures in every department.
The story of Revenue & Customs is typical. In 2005, when Brown was Chancellor, he merged what had been historically two separate departments into one. The price was paid by staff after Brown demanded that the merged department shed 25,000 jobs out of 94,000 – more than a quarter. Morale inevitably plummeted and management systems floundered. The disappearance of the child benefit data discs was only one in a string of breaches of security. Yet the government has until now refused appeals by the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas to do spot checks on government departments to see whether data protection is being observed. The Institute of Chartered Accountants has been warning of a catastrophe waiting to happen at HMRC. Chief executive Michael Izza said: “We have been flagging for most of 2007 that there has been a deterioration at HMRC. It manifests itself in things like postbags being unopened for weeks. It now takes 13 weeks to register a new company for a VAT number.”
The mantra of “efficiency savings” has contributed in other ways to the data loss disaster. Apparently, officials at HMRC told the National Audit Office (NAO) that it was too expensive to select the data the NAO wanted and that it was cheaper to download the entire database onto a disc. Then there is the way the discs were transported. Not for New Labour the use of expensive, in-house services. No, TNT Logistics, a major global corporation, has the contract for HMRC. As to the idea that one, young civil servant is totally responsible for the breach of security, this is simply laughable. New evidence suggests senior officials were aware that data including addresses and bank account details of 7.5 million families, was to be provided to the NAO. Sir John Bourn, the outgoing comptroller and auditor general, told a secret session of MPs on public accounts committee that a senior business manager at Revenue & Customs had authorised the information to be released in its full form. His email approving the sharing of the data was copied to an assistant director.
So now the government is involved in a cover-up of what really happened. While it builds an oppressive, authoritarian, surveillance state, New Labour can’t even provide basic protection of the data it holds on citizens. It’s time Brown and company were packaged up and sent unregistered (preferably by TNT) to some faraway destination.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Climate report passes the buck
Even vetting by the US government could not prevent the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from opening its synthesis report with the stark statement that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal". The United Nations agency has, however, once again passed on identifying the main cause and fails to come up with any solutions to climate change that might challenge the status quo.
A jump in GHG emissions has not only resulted in rising temperatures but also been responsible for the increasing number of heat waves (such as the one that caused the deaths of thousands in France in 2003) and droughts (currently causing major problems even in developed countries like Australia and in Tennessee in the United States). Rising emissions are also behind rising sea levels and has affected tropical storm systems (the cyclone which hit Bangladesh last week claimed over 10,000 lives).
IPCC scientists also warn that the consequences of allowing temperatures to rise un-checked could expose up to 250 million people to increased water stress in Africa alone, where rain-fed agriculture yields could be halved. The synthesis report admits that GHG emissions will continue to rise even with current "climate change mitigation policies" and "sustainable practices". These could result in changes to climate systems even greater than already experienced and could lead to abrupt or irreversible impacts (such as oceans rising several metres if polar ice sheets are lost). Up to a third of all the planet's animals and plants face extinction as temperatures rise.
While the IPCC report admits that adaptive capacity is unevenly distributed both "across and within societies", a recent Christian Aid report, Truly Inconvenient: Tackling poverty & climate change at once shows that for millions of the world's poor “safe” levels of climate change have already been exceeded. Christian Aid rightly points out that "industrialised nations" (aka global capitalism) have been responsible for causing the climate crisis and it is they who should start to put it right. It even recognises the need for a debate about the "very nature of development".
The IPCC report does confirm that global warming is due to the increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions arising from the activities of the society we live in and that these have increased by 70% since 1970. As this is the period that has seen the rapid growth of global capitalism, it appears to leave little room for argument as to the real culprit for the climate crisis we are facing.
Yet the solutions proposed by the synthesis report, however, are firmly wedded to the status quo. The only “solutions” are market-led, with the IPCC seeing "substantial economic potential for the mitigation of global GHG emissions". It still supports the use of nuclear power for generating energy and biofuels for transport despite the dangers of radioactive pollution and increasing food prices for the world’s poor from farmers diverting to more profitable biofuel crops. The IPCC still sees industries trading in carbon as "an effective carbon-price signal” which could “realise significant mitigation potential”.
What the report fails to recognise that to truly tackle this crisis, a fundamental change in how society is organised will be needed. This is the very question that Running a Temperature addresses published by AWTW addresses, providing a clear and alternative framework for dealing with the climate crisis beyond capitalism.
Stuart Barlow
A jump in GHG emissions has not only resulted in rising temperatures but also been responsible for the increasing number of heat waves (such as the one that caused the deaths of thousands in France in 2003) and droughts (currently causing major problems even in developed countries like Australia and in Tennessee in the United States). Rising emissions are also behind rising sea levels and has affected tropical storm systems (the cyclone which hit Bangladesh last week claimed over 10,000 lives).
IPCC scientists also warn that the consequences of allowing temperatures to rise un-checked could expose up to 250 million people to increased water stress in Africa alone, where rain-fed agriculture yields could be halved. The synthesis report admits that GHG emissions will continue to rise even with current "climate change mitigation policies" and "sustainable practices". These could result in changes to climate systems even greater than already experienced and could lead to abrupt or irreversible impacts (such as oceans rising several metres if polar ice sheets are lost). Up to a third of all the planet's animals and plants face extinction as temperatures rise.
While the IPCC report admits that adaptive capacity is unevenly distributed both "across and within societies", a recent Christian Aid report, Truly Inconvenient: Tackling poverty & climate change at once shows that for millions of the world's poor “safe” levels of climate change have already been exceeded. Christian Aid rightly points out that "industrialised nations" (aka global capitalism) have been responsible for causing the climate crisis and it is they who should start to put it right. It even recognises the need for a debate about the "very nature of development".
The IPCC report does confirm that global warming is due to the increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions arising from the activities of the society we live in and that these have increased by 70% since 1970. As this is the period that has seen the rapid growth of global capitalism, it appears to leave little room for argument as to the real culprit for the climate crisis we are facing.
Yet the solutions proposed by the synthesis report, however, are firmly wedded to the status quo. The only “solutions” are market-led, with the IPCC seeing "substantial economic potential for the mitigation of global GHG emissions". It still supports the use of nuclear power for generating energy and biofuels for transport despite the dangers of radioactive pollution and increasing food prices for the world’s poor from farmers diverting to more profitable biofuel crops. The IPCC still sees industries trading in carbon as "an effective carbon-price signal” which could “realise significant mitigation potential”.
What the report fails to recognise that to truly tackle this crisis, a fundamental change in how society is organised will be needed. This is the very question that Running a Temperature addresses published by AWTW addresses, providing a clear and alternative framework for dealing with the climate crisis beyond capitalism.
Stuart Barlow
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Sarkozy’s ‘Thatcher moment’
The outcome of the strike movement sweeping France is being monitored closely by The Economist and other voices of the market economy. “Let battle commence”, urged The Economist (15 November). “Can Nicolas Sarkozy be a French Margaret Thatcher?” asked Les Echos, a business newspaper. “Is Sarkozy ready for a long trial of strength with the unions à la Thatcher?” mused Le Parisien, in a reference to the class conflict that shook Britain between 1982 and 1986.
Previous French governments have lost their nerve in the face of strikes and demonstrations against plans to impose what is referred to as the Anglo-Saxon globalisation model by the country’s trade unions. This is viewed, correctly, as an economy based on flexible, low-cost labour, the unfettered movement of capital and a continuing reduction in social benefits and rights.
Will Nicholas Sarkozy stand firm, The Economist asks? It recalls with alarm the attempt in 1995 by the Chirac government to break up the country’s excellent public-sector pension schemes. Sarcastically, the magazine notes: “In the end, Jacques Chirac's government did what French governments do best: it backed down and dropped the whole plan.” It sees more hopeful signs this time, as Sarkozy confronts strikes by transport workers, civil servants, teachers and protests by students against plans to open universities to corporate investment.
Sarkozy wants to end what are known as “special regimes”. These allow railway, electricity and gas workers to retire on full pension after 37½ years of pension contributions, rather than 40 years in the rest of the public sector. Some 500,000 workers, and 1.1m pensioners, benefit from these regimes. Over the next four years, Sarkozy wants to lengthen the required contribution period to 40 years. The government also wants to extend to 41 years the required pension-contribution period for all workers, as well as introduce changes to the labour market and the benefit system.
The Economist is keeping its fingers crossed. By comparison with his predecessors, the magazine notes, Sarkozy has done exactly what he said he would do. And he has calculated that the leaders of the strike movement are looking for a compromise rather than building a momentum to bring down his government. The government has said it is prepared to talk about details in an effort to woo union leaders. The Economist is not completely convinced that France will enter the world of Anglo-Saxon globalisation, however, warning: “The deal he [Sarkozy] does on special regimes needs to be scrutinised to see how far he keeps his word.”
Nevertheless, the strike movement in France, along with industrial action by railway workers in Germany and nurses in Finland, indicate a rising tide of militancy just as the wheels come off the global economy. With the euro rising to new heights against the declining dollar, exports from the European Union become more expensive. This is what is driving the state and employers to reduce workers’ conditions. The events in France could presage a European-wide period more like the revolutionary year of 1968. Now that would really get The Economist worried!
Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor
Previous French governments have lost their nerve in the face of strikes and demonstrations against plans to impose what is referred to as the Anglo-Saxon globalisation model by the country’s trade unions. This is viewed, correctly, as an economy based on flexible, low-cost labour, the unfettered movement of capital and a continuing reduction in social benefits and rights.
Will Nicholas Sarkozy stand firm, The Economist asks? It recalls with alarm the attempt in 1995 by the Chirac government to break up the country’s excellent public-sector pension schemes. Sarcastically, the magazine notes: “In the end, Jacques Chirac's government did what French governments do best: it backed down and dropped the whole plan.” It sees more hopeful signs this time, as Sarkozy confronts strikes by transport workers, civil servants, teachers and protests by students against plans to open universities to corporate investment.
Sarkozy wants to end what are known as “special regimes”. These allow railway, electricity and gas workers to retire on full pension after 37½ years of pension contributions, rather than 40 years in the rest of the public sector. Some 500,000 workers, and 1.1m pensioners, benefit from these regimes. Over the next four years, Sarkozy wants to lengthen the required contribution period to 40 years. The government also wants to extend to 41 years the required pension-contribution period for all workers, as well as introduce changes to the labour market and the benefit system.
The Economist is keeping its fingers crossed. By comparison with his predecessors, the magazine notes, Sarkozy has done exactly what he said he would do. And he has calculated that the leaders of the strike movement are looking for a compromise rather than building a momentum to bring down his government. The government has said it is prepared to talk about details in an effort to woo union leaders. The Economist is not completely convinced that France will enter the world of Anglo-Saxon globalisation, however, warning: “The deal he [Sarkozy] does on special regimes needs to be scrutinised to see how far he keeps his word.”
Nevertheless, the strike movement in France, along with industrial action by railway workers in Germany and nurses in Finland, indicate a rising tide of militancy just as the wheels come off the global economy. With the euro rising to new heights against the declining dollar, exports from the European Union become more expensive. This is what is driving the state and employers to reduce workers’ conditions. The events in France could presage a European-wide period more like the revolutionary year of 1968. Now that would really get The Economist worried!
Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor
Monday, November 19, 2007
Bankers the priority for New Labour
When it comes to bailing out bankers, the New Labour government’s coffers are deep, as shown by the vast amounts of taxpayers’ money used in the futile bid to save Northern Rock. Contrast this with the treatment meted out to people claiming disability benefits and spending cuts imposed on climate change agencies as well as the body that reviews miscarriages of justice, and you get the picture about where priorities lie.
The government has loaned the failed Northern Rock anywhere between £22 and £40 billion and is not quite sure when - or even if - the state will gets its money back. There’s billions in interest due on top of the capital sum and city commentators are agreed that that this is unlikely ever to be repaid by whoever ends up buying the first British victim of the global financial crisis. Today it is revealed that potential buyers have valued the stricken mortgage bank at well below the closing price of its shares on Friday. They were selling at 132.6p each, giving the bank a valuation of £560 million. So much for the government’s soothing words about Northern Rock’s assets totalling over £100 billion.
Meanwhile, spending cuts are coming in thick and fast as the government slashes vital services in a bid to balance its books. According to leaked reports, there are plans to cut £300 million off the budgets of agencies funded through the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Nature England is being asked to cut 30% from its budget for new conservation work. In addition, it is being asked to repay the £12 million spent on setting it up! Another agency facing cuts is the Waste and Resources Action Programme, along with other organisations dealing with canals, national parks, forestry, fisheries, sustainable development and environmental protection. These cuts expose the sham nature of the government’s claim to be tackling climate change just as leading scientists warn of an impending catastrophe as a result of global warming.
Also facing swingeing cuts is the Criminal Case Review Commission (CCRC). Staff are not being replaced and chairman Professor Graham Zellick said that the CCRC had made “great strides” in dealing with a backlog of cases. “Now that’s all going to be reversed, I suspect.” Solicitor Campbell Malone, who helped clear the name of a man wrongly jailed for murder, was more blunt. “The philosophy of this government seems to be that miscarriages of justice don’t matter any more. The climate is changing and the thinking seems to be that, if you go on interviewing people long enough, they will eventually confess.”
Soon to join the wrongly convicted as victims are the disabled. Work and pensions secretary Peter Hain has announced that fewer sick and disabled people will qualify for disability benefits for being unable to work, after a new test is introduced from next year. Hain says the changes will end what he calls "sick-note Britain", which is fine coming from someone who is paid £136,677 a year and who is entitled to endless holidays and various allowances. At the moment more than 60% of the people who apply for incapacity benefits are successful, but only 50% of people who take the new test are likely to pass it. The moral of the story is that if you’re a banker, New Labour will see you alright. But if you doing vital public service work or have a disability, forget it.
Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor
The government has loaned the failed Northern Rock anywhere between £22 and £40 billion and is not quite sure when - or even if - the state will gets its money back. There’s billions in interest due on top of the capital sum and city commentators are agreed that that this is unlikely ever to be repaid by whoever ends up buying the first British victim of the global financial crisis. Today it is revealed that potential buyers have valued the stricken mortgage bank at well below the closing price of its shares on Friday. They were selling at 132.6p each, giving the bank a valuation of £560 million. So much for the government’s soothing words about Northern Rock’s assets totalling over £100 billion.
Meanwhile, spending cuts are coming in thick and fast as the government slashes vital services in a bid to balance its books. According to leaked reports, there are plans to cut £300 million off the budgets of agencies funded through the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Nature England is being asked to cut 30% from its budget for new conservation work. In addition, it is being asked to repay the £12 million spent on setting it up! Another agency facing cuts is the Waste and Resources Action Programme, along with other organisations dealing with canals, national parks, forestry, fisheries, sustainable development and environmental protection. These cuts expose the sham nature of the government’s claim to be tackling climate change just as leading scientists warn of an impending catastrophe as a result of global warming.
Also facing swingeing cuts is the Criminal Case Review Commission (CCRC). Staff are not being replaced and chairman Professor Graham Zellick said that the CCRC had made “great strides” in dealing with a backlog of cases. “Now that’s all going to be reversed, I suspect.” Solicitor Campbell Malone, who helped clear the name of a man wrongly jailed for murder, was more blunt. “The philosophy of this government seems to be that miscarriages of justice don’t matter any more. The climate is changing and the thinking seems to be that, if you go on interviewing people long enough, they will eventually confess.”
Soon to join the wrongly convicted as victims are the disabled. Work and pensions secretary Peter Hain has announced that fewer sick and disabled people will qualify for disability benefits for being unable to work, after a new test is introduced from next year. Hain says the changes will end what he calls "sick-note Britain", which is fine coming from someone who is paid £136,677 a year and who is entitled to endless holidays and various allowances. At the moment more than 60% of the people who apply for incapacity benefits are successful, but only 50% of people who take the new test are likely to pass it. The moral of the story is that if you’re a banker, New Labour will see you alright. But if you doing vital public service work or have a disability, forget it.
Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor
Friday, November 16, 2007
Co-Op FC a winner
At first sight, it might seem like an idea for a new comedy. A football website buys a controlling interest in a serious football club, promising the 20,000 fans who have each put up £35, not only joint ownership, but an equal say in team selection, player transfers and the running of the club. “Own the club and pick the team”, says the website.
A closer examination of the project reveals a wonderful experiment in democracy and co-operative decision-making, made possible by the internet. Football at the top end, of course, like everything else, has been sucked into the orbit of big business and the exceedingly rich dilettantes, oligarchs and billionaires who control it. It has been turned into a capitalist industry with the primary purpose of making money and satisfying the egos of the owners. Many fans have been excluded by soaring ticket prices from even watching their teams.
It couldn’t be more different at Ebbsfleet United (formerly Gravesend and Northfleet FC), in North Kent. Proposals from the new owners are not only designed to give the fans a voice and a share of the club, both on and off the pitch, but also to stop any possible takeover or abuse by one or more individual interests. It is open to all to pay the £35 (less than the cost of a ticket to watch many premiership matches) and become a voting member, including those living overseas (which will help the club’s scouting network, says the site), but nobody is allowed to buy more than a single share. “All profits generated by the club will be re-invested in the club, meaning members will not be paid a dividend or share of these profits… There will be no shareholders who take money out of the club.”
How will the team be picked? “The head coach will brief members online. This will include a review of the previous match, reports from the training ground and views on the forthcoming opposition. He will also give his thoughts on players, their form and fitness, as well as possible selections and tactics. Members will then submit their preferred 11, formation and tactics. A database will calculate the most popular choice. This will be handed to the Head Coach to instigate.” The manager (to be re-named head coach), the players, the full-time employees and everyone involved are all supporting the takeover of Ebbsfleet United, currently 9th in the Blue Square Premier League and only one promotion away from getting into the Football League proper.
The plan is unheard of in football; in fact it is rare outside the game. Several clubs have been formed by supporters trusts, but none of them have this level of input and control by members. Wimbledon AFC in 2002 and FC United of Manchester in 2005 were both set up as not-for-profit trusts by fans infuriated at decisions taken, with money and profit in mind, by the directors of Wimbledon and Manchester United.
Both these new teams are doing well and regularly get gates of between 2,000-3,000 at home matches, far larger than any of the other teams in their league. Soon after the takeover of Manchester United by the Glazers, one of the fans of the new club, FC United, Martin Howe, said: “The excitement is back in my football life. The banter with the fans, the quality of the football, the pricing and , best of all, the feeling of being part of something that is not funding unscrupulous men in suits, but is ours, it belongs to all of us”.
Developments like these at Wimbledon and Manchester, and now at Ebbsfleet arise from a powerful hostility to the commercialism rampant not just in football , but in all sport. And they point the way to new forms of ownership and co-operative working in the wider world beyond sport.
Peter Arkell
A closer examination of the project reveals a wonderful experiment in democracy and co-operative decision-making, made possible by the internet. Football at the top end, of course, like everything else, has been sucked into the orbit of big business and the exceedingly rich dilettantes, oligarchs and billionaires who control it. It has been turned into a capitalist industry with the primary purpose of making money and satisfying the egos of the owners. Many fans have been excluded by soaring ticket prices from even watching their teams.
It couldn’t be more different at Ebbsfleet United (formerly Gravesend and Northfleet FC), in North Kent. Proposals from the new owners are not only designed to give the fans a voice and a share of the club, both on and off the pitch, but also to stop any possible takeover or abuse by one or more individual interests. It is open to all to pay the £35 (less than the cost of a ticket to watch many premiership matches) and become a voting member, including those living overseas (which will help the club’s scouting network, says the site), but nobody is allowed to buy more than a single share. “All profits generated by the club will be re-invested in the club, meaning members will not be paid a dividend or share of these profits… There will be no shareholders who take money out of the club.”
How will the team be picked? “The head coach will brief members online. This will include a review of the previous match, reports from the training ground and views on the forthcoming opposition. He will also give his thoughts on players, their form and fitness, as well as possible selections and tactics. Members will then submit their preferred 11, formation and tactics. A database will calculate the most popular choice. This will be handed to the Head Coach to instigate.” The manager (to be re-named head coach), the players, the full-time employees and everyone involved are all supporting the takeover of Ebbsfleet United, currently 9th in the Blue Square Premier League and only one promotion away from getting into the Football League proper.
The plan is unheard of in football; in fact it is rare outside the game. Several clubs have been formed by supporters trusts, but none of them have this level of input and control by members. Wimbledon AFC in 2002 and FC United of Manchester in 2005 were both set up as not-for-profit trusts by fans infuriated at decisions taken, with money and profit in mind, by the directors of Wimbledon and Manchester United.
Both these new teams are doing well and regularly get gates of between 2,000-3,000 at home matches, far larger than any of the other teams in their league. Soon after the takeover of Manchester United by the Glazers, one of the fans of the new club, FC United, Martin Howe, said: “The excitement is back in my football life. The banter with the fans, the quality of the football, the pricing and , best of all, the feeling of being part of something that is not funding unscrupulous men in suits, but is ours, it belongs to all of us”.
Developments like these at Wimbledon and Manchester, and now at Ebbsfleet arise from a powerful hostility to the commercialism rampant not just in football , but in all sport. And they point the way to new forms of ownership and co-operative working in the wider world beyond sport.
Peter Arkell
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Just not cricket
There’s a striking simultaneity about events in Britain and Pakistan in the last 24 hours. Yesterday in Pakistan, Imran Khan, current Chancellor of the University of Bradford, former captain of the Pakistan cricket team - one of the finest all-rounders the game has ever produced - and a graduate of Oxford University, attended a protest rally against the imposition of emergency rule by US-supported authoritarian military dictator President Musharraf. Within minutes of appearing Khan was seized by religious students and handed over to the police who charged him under anti-terrorism legislation. Penalties under the act include life imprisonment and death.
Yesterday in New Labour’s Britain, as the Governor of the Bank of England warned of increasing threats to the economyfrom the global financial crisis, Gordon Brown introduced new measures to counter the perceived threat of terrorism. These include hardening the physical protection for public buildings, offering guidance to those operating public buildings, strengthening regional counter terrorism units, and “training neighbourhood police teams to deal with radicalisation in their local communities”. In addition, a single senior judge has been nominated to manage all terrorism cases, whilst a single senior lead prosecutor will be responsible for cases relating to “inciting violent extremism”. Musharraf has cited “judicial activism” – opposition from the judiciary - amongst his reasons for locking up all political opponents. It certainly looks as through Brown is side-stepping any future judicial opposition in the UK by selecting those who can be trusted to toe the line.
A major, nationwide “hearts and minds” campaign of propaganda emphasising “our shared values” will be launched in every community through schools, colleges, mosques and sports facilities, amongst faith groups and criminalised youth, in fact anywhere where people might be influenced by “ideologues” proposing radical change. After ten years with personal responsibility for the British economy, it is clear that Brown shares his values with his financial friends in the City of London, so “updated advice for universities on how to deal with extremism on the campus” is highly likely to include the identification of students seeking changes to the status quo, and guidance on neutralising them and rooting them out.
Also yesterday contracts were issued for the intelligence infrastructure involving biometric technology and shared databases, to support the UK Border Agency which will have 25,000 staff, uniting passport control, and customs with new powers of arrest and detention. Together with a new legislative assault on the rights to privacy and confidentiality, these measures will enable a huge range of police and other agencies to share up to 90 separate pieces of information on all cross-border travellers. “Airline liaison officers” based abroad will have new powers to cancel visas.
As the global recession begins to hit hard, millions will be radicalised as they lose their jobs and homes. New Labour is in the forefront of governments preparing and implementing a wide range of authoritarian measures to deal not just with suspected terrorists, but all those opposed to the capitalist corporations and the consequences of globalisation. No wonder the government’s response to Musharraf’s suspension of the constitution and the removal of Pakistan’s top judges has been muted.
Gerry Gold
Yesterday in New Labour’s Britain, as the Governor of the Bank of England warned of increasing threats to the economyfrom the global financial crisis, Gordon Brown introduced new measures to counter the perceived threat of terrorism. These include hardening the physical protection for public buildings, offering guidance to those operating public buildings, strengthening regional counter terrorism units, and “training neighbourhood police teams to deal with radicalisation in their local communities”. In addition, a single senior judge has been nominated to manage all terrorism cases, whilst a single senior lead prosecutor will be responsible for cases relating to “inciting violent extremism”. Musharraf has cited “judicial activism” – opposition from the judiciary - amongst his reasons for locking up all political opponents. It certainly looks as through Brown is side-stepping any future judicial opposition in the UK by selecting those who can be trusted to toe the line.
A major, nationwide “hearts and minds” campaign of propaganda emphasising “our shared values” will be launched in every community through schools, colleges, mosques and sports facilities, amongst faith groups and criminalised youth, in fact anywhere where people might be influenced by “ideologues” proposing radical change. After ten years with personal responsibility for the British economy, it is clear that Brown shares his values with his financial friends in the City of London, so “updated advice for universities on how to deal with extremism on the campus” is highly likely to include the identification of students seeking changes to the status quo, and guidance on neutralising them and rooting them out.
Also yesterday contracts were issued for the intelligence infrastructure involving biometric technology and shared databases, to support the UK Border Agency which will have 25,000 staff, uniting passport control, and customs with new powers of arrest and detention. Together with a new legislative assault on the rights to privacy and confidentiality, these measures will enable a huge range of police and other agencies to share up to 90 separate pieces of information on all cross-border travellers. “Airline liaison officers” based abroad will have new powers to cancel visas.
As the global recession begins to hit hard, millions will be radicalised as they lose their jobs and homes. New Labour is in the forefront of governments preparing and implementing a wide range of authoritarian measures to deal not just with suspected terrorists, but all those opposed to the capitalist corporations and the consequences of globalisation. No wonder the government’s response to Musharraf’s suspension of the constitution and the removal of Pakistan’s top judges has been muted.
Gerry Gold
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