As we have been watching on our tv's today the Syrian government is trying to crush the dissent from the anti government protesters today with huge force.
Syria's army has advanced into the southern city of Deraa, using tanks to support troops amid an intensified effort to curb popular protests.
One activist was quoted as saying that security forces were "firing in all directions", and at least five people were reportedly killed.
Witnesses also said security forces had opened fire in a suburb of Damascus.
A prominent human rights campaigner said President Bashar al-Assad had launched a "savage war" on protesters.
In the US, the Obama administration is considering imposing sanctions on senior Syrian officials to pressure the regime to stop its violent crackdown, Reuters news agency quoted a government official as saying.
The official said steps taken could include a freeze on assets and a ban on business dealings in the US, but gave no time-scale for the measures.
According to a UN Security Council diplomat, the UK and other European states are circulating a draft statement condemning the violence in Syria.
There have been numerous reports of crackdowns and arrests around Syria over recent days, despite the lifting of an emergency law last week.
Deraa is the city in which protesters, many of whom are now demanding that President Assad step down, began calling for political reforms last month.
It is just a few miles from the border with Jordan, which has been closed by the Syrians, according to Jordan's information minister.
Opposition activists said Monday morning's raid on Deraa involved as many as 5,000 soldiers and seven T-55 tanks.
This is a big move by the government, an attempt to sort this out once and for all I think. We'll now have to see if the protesters are going to be forced back into their homes, or whether they will remain defiant despite what's happened.
Syria is a one-party state and it has been extremely repressive in the past. The last time this happened was 1982 when there was an insurgency in just one town, Hama. The father of the current president sent in troops and they killed possibly 10,000 people and razed a whole quarter.
That is the history of this government. We may not be seeing anything on that scale but we are seeing something of that character, with troops being moved in to make sure the government remains the government.
The US has suggested that sanctions may be imposed on Syrian regime officials in response to the crackdown, but I don't think many people in Syria think targeted sanctions will make a difference in a situation like this.
Tanks surrounded the Omari mosque in the old city with snipers firing from rooftops, anonymous opposition sources said. The opposition reported than more than 25 people were killed, and their bodies could not be reached because of the fierce gunfire. This claim could not be independently verified.
One activist, Abdullah al-Harriri, told AFP: "The men are firing in all directions and advancing behind the armour which is protecting them."
"Electricity is cut off and telephone communications are virtually impossible."
While there are reports of growing strife among Syrian army officers on different levels - with suggestions that some soldiers have changed sides and are now fighting with the people of Deraa - foreign journalists have been prevented from entering the country, making information hard to verify.
But the BBC's Owen Bennett-Jones, in neighbouring Lebanon, says the use of tanks has not been reported elsewhere in Syria, and would mark a scaling up in the government's response to protests.
It appears from the latest reports that the government is absolutely determined to use force to suppress the protest movement, he says.
All this news is very worrying for the good people of Syria. Several questions come to mind though firstly will this finnish off this uprising by the good people of Syria or will they cease for now but come back and defy the governments orders at a later date looking to push back the government more ?
also the key here again just like in the Egyptian uprisings the army could be key here. In Egypt as we saw the army split and a lot downed guns and joined the rebels in trying to over over throw the government which ended up in a success in that instance.
Many questions still there for me and what is most notable is the western hypocrisy on this situation. When you looka cross the region to Libya where NATO planes continue to bomb Tripoli and Libya itself enforcing their "no fly zone " which i think they have destroyed all targets now so no idea why they are still there is striking when you look at Syria and American, British and french polititains are not calling for intervention there this time ? this all seems very wrong and why Libya is deamed nessesary to enforce a no fly zone yet Syria is looked at ok to let it carry on while putting up silly sanctions which have no affect at all.
So it will be interesting to see how this one develops. I do hope the government is over thrown in Syria and the power is given to the workers in a trade union movement to brin about a socialist society but i am guessing if there is any chance of that the imperialist west will not like to see that and will act then.
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Monday, 25 April 2011
Sunday, 24 April 2011
The vast influence of Tesco in todays society
As many of you will be aware one of our biggest supermarkets if not our biggest in the UK Tesco dominate the high street in many towns and cities. We now have a case where we get what are called "tesco towns" where the influenceand the role a Tesco has is unrivaled in a town.
I found this set of facts about Tesco from the excellent Tescopoly website which you can check out here
http://www.tescopoly.org.uk/
1) 1 in every 7 pounds spent in the UK in 2007 was spent in Tesco
2) Tesco use their monopoly power to squeeze farmers hard. A Competition Commission investigation revealed that Tesco consistently pay suppliers nearly 4% below the average price paid by other retailers. There isn’t much evidence they pass these savings to consumers – they just pocket the profits.
3) Research by ActionAid found workers in Costa Rica producing bananas for export to all major UK supermarkets earning 33p an hour. This wage is so low that they cannot afford to take an hour off when dangerous pesticides are being sprayed on the crops.
4) Unite the Union have a long running campaign against Tesco over the terrible treatment of workers in their meat supply chain.
5) The New Economics Foundation have shown that fresh fruit and veg is, on average, 30% cheaper at a street market than it is in a supermarket. However, through short term aggressive pricing when they first move into an area, Tesco often shuts down these markets, reducing access to fresh fruit and veg for the poorest.
6) Tesco offer their best deals in out of town shopping centres rather than their city centre stores. This not only encourages driving, but also excludes those without cars – mostly, poorer people.
7) In the 5 years to 2002, an average of 50 local food shops were lost in the UK every week, largely due to the Tesco takeover.
8 ) Tesco is Europe’s biggest property company. In 2007 they were sitting on property assets worth £28bn.
9) Tesco are not a net creator of jobs. Because they aggressively force local shops out of business, and then provide the minimal possible service to customers, on average, every time a large supermarket opens, 276 jobs are lost.
10) Between 2003 and 2007 the Labour Party accepted donations of £54,194 from Tesco.
Unions have raised serious concerns about conditions for workers employed along supermarket supply chains in the UK. Pay and working conditions can be negatively affected as supermarkets squeeze suppliers for goods at lower prices or relocate in search of cheaper products. The major food retailers can exert undue pressure on suppliers causing job losses in food processing companies that simply cannot produce goods at the prices Tesco and their competitors wish to pay.
Unite has been campaigning in Supermarket supply chains such as the Red and White Meat Sectors since December 2007. This began by publicising the harsh conditions many workers in the UK experience when employed by companies supplying meat to some of the major Supermarkets. Unite then undertook a campaign against Tesco’s abuse of power over the Meat supply chains through the ‘Tesco: Every Workers Counts’ campaign. Unite works towards its ultimate goal of ensuring the highest ethical standards in the treatment of customers and to insist upon the highest ethical standards for workers employed by companies throughout the supply chain. For more
Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) meat sector inquiry
In March 2010 the EHRC released its findings from its "Inquiry into recruitment and employment in the meat and poultry processing sector". The report reveals evidence of the widespread mistreatment and exploitation of migrant and agency workers in the sector, and makes recommendations including supermarkets improving their auditing of suppliers; processing firms and agencies improving recruitment practices, working environments and the ability of workers to raise issues of concern; and for the government to provide sufficient resources for the Gangmasters’ Licensing Agency to help safeguard the welfare and interests of workers.
The Commission will review action taken over the next 12 months by supermarkets, processing firms and recruitment agencies, and will consider taking enforcement action if necessary.
The Commission launched its first ever Inquiry into a key sector of the economy in October 2008, focusing on the UK's multi-billion pound meat industry for evidence of employment abuse and discrimination. The meat sector is a significant industry employing some 40,000 workers across Britain engaged in processing and packaging meat for sale in supermarkets and retailers.
Tesco's profits are in very stark contrast with the suppliers who have been squeezed. In 2006 the T&G announced it was forming a national co-ordinating committee to bring together its shop stewards across the Tesco empire. The initiative was the first step on the road to fighting for jobs and decent pay, terms and conditions in the country's top supermarket. Shop stewards report pressures to make efficiency savings as well as demands to give up hard won pay and working conditions in order to be admitted into the Tesco pension schemes. According to Ron Webb, T&G national secretary for transport, "Unbelievable though it may be, Tesco is actually looking to make job cuts on the day it claims to be the consumers' friend. We do not accept these cuts are either necessary or ethical. How can a multi-billion pound outfit attack the pay, terms and conditions of those people it relies on to get its goods to the stores?"
The major supermarket chains have announced numerous environmental initiatives. Tesco announced a Community Plan including an Environment Fund of £100 million in a speech by Terry Leahy in May 2006, and have continued to announce further plans since then, including carbon labelling of their products.
Despite the many benefits of these initiatives, it remains the case that Tesco's size and growth, its numerous unsustainable products, and its impact on independent retailers stop it from being a truly green company. The same is true of the other large chains. With larger numbers of car-based hypermarkets and food being sourced from around the world, and trucked around the UK, these companies continue to damage the environment.
and press release on the environment fund and waste. George Monbiot in his book "Turn up the Heat" suggests that the increasing trend of individuals and companies showing their green credentials, is often green-wash hiding real environmental costs.
Some of supermarkets' environmental costs include:
• The food industry is responsible for a third of greenhouse gas emissions and therefore has a massive part to play in tackling climate change. The bulk of these emissions come from food production. Tesco and the other supermarkets must do more to make sure that their production lines are sustainable - this needs to be prioritised above paying farmers the lowest possible prices. Research by Friends of the Earth has shown that low prices have reduced farmers' ability to produce food in environmentally friendly ways. This needs to stop.
•Fewer local farmers and shops mean both customers and goods need to be transported further. This means more pollution from cars, as people drive further to shop, and more pollution from aircraft and lorries, as food is transported from around the world. Indeed Tesco's business could be seen as one of the drivers behind the rise in UK CO2 emissions. More needs to be done to support local, seasonal produce - something that independent shops and supermarkets are well suited to. On the other hand, a 2005 Friends of the Earth survey found that Tesco came lowest out of the supermarket chains for sourcing British apples.
•Tesco's store sizes means they are some of the most energy-inefficient buildings in the retail sector. A Sheffield Hallam University study found that despite the new stock, large superstores are the most energy inefficient buildings in the sector. It would take more than 60 corner shops and greengrocers to match the carbon dioxide emissions from one average sized superstore. Although they are taking steps to increase efficiency, their commitment to building yet more stores means that these savings will be cancelled out.
•Tesco also encourages shoppers to travel by car. One in 10 car journeys in the UK are now to buy food. Work for DEFRA suggests that car use for food shopping results in costs to society of more than £3.5 billion per year from traffic emissions, noise, accidents and congestion. Tesco has been massively expanding into "Extra" format hypermarkets, which are particularly geared towards car-based shopping. The proportion of Tesco's floorspace taken up by hypermarkets is three times what it was 6 years ago.
•Tesco boasts about its progress on reducing waste and how it is following a market trend to introduce degradable plastic bags. But grocery packaging still makes up roughly a quarter of household waste, and the UK's biggest supermarkets distribute billions of plastic bags, which end up in landfill. Even degradable bags do not help, as they will still predominantly go to landfill sites where the lack of sunlight and oxygen will hinder rapid breakdown. To make a real difference the supermarkets need to stop handing out free bags altogether.
•A large amount of food is being wasted. Tesco was among the supermarkets found to be rejecting apples purely on cosmetic grounds by a 2002 Friends of the Earth survey of fruit growers.
•Biofuels - Tesco is a major shareholder in and customer of Greenergy Biofuels Limited, a UK company promising customers climate-friendly, sustainable biofuels from UK rapeseed oil. The organisation BiofuelWatch has, however, undertaken research which reveals that Greenergy's biofuels contain increasing amounts of palm oil, soy and sugar cane. All three are crops linked to large-scale rainforest destruction, massive greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and peat and forest fires, and in some instances to human rights abuses.
SO Tesco who was the focus of a recent squatter protest in Stokes Croft last week as some of you who follow the news will have read and this is a sign of people saying enough is enough with more and more of these stores opening up every year.
Critics said they did not want the area to lose its local character and feared smaller shops would find their businesses threatened.
But Tesco said evidence showed that opening such a store could bring shoppers back to an area and help local traders.
Robin Markwell from BBC Radio Bristol, who spent several hours outside the building, said campaigners in the street had been shouting support to the squatters on the roof.
There had been one or two minor scuffles involving protesters and police outside. The atmosphere was "relatively calm", he said.
Bristol City Council has approved the change of use for the building.
A protest took place at the site in February.
Claire Milne, who represents the group No Tesco in Stokes Croft, told the BBC last month that the area was "a melting pot of independent traders" who may have to close if they are unable to compete with the multi-national company.
Bushra Randhawa, a postmaster and resident for 24 years, said last month: "It's taken a huge effort from local groups, traders and the community to regenerate this area.
"Only now does it feel like a real community spirit is developing.
"This move will take us two steps backwards when we need to take two steps forward."
As the eviction got under way, a Tesco spokesman said: "We're keen to invest in the area. Many local people we've spoken to tell us they are eager to see a Tesco Express at this site.
"Our store will create approximately 20 new jobs and provide shopping facilities for hundreds of local residents.
"The squatters, who were illegally occupying the building, were asked to leave but refused.
"High Court enforcement officers are removing them from the premises with the support of the police
So i go back to one of my points i've made before that this sort of protest and anger at such a plan by Tesco is down to the brutal nature of capitalism where their drive for profit and bigger dividends for their directors is paramount. If we were to see the top 300 monopolies including the likes of Tesco nationalised by a socialist government and brought in to public ownership under workers control the rich's of these companies would cease going striaght to the top but instead be reinvested in the workers paying them a good living wage for the area they live in. Allowing trade union involvement at a advanced scale to work alongside the workers who will run these monopolies for the many not just the few who cream off the profits year in year out.
Only this way will the power and greed of companies just like Tesco be controlled more equally for the benifit of all of society not just their directors who are dam right greedy.
I found this set of facts about Tesco from the excellent Tescopoly website which you can check out here
http://www.tescopoly.org.uk/
1) 1 in every 7 pounds spent in the UK in 2007 was spent in Tesco
2) Tesco use their monopoly power to squeeze farmers hard. A Competition Commission investigation revealed that Tesco consistently pay suppliers nearly 4% below the average price paid by other retailers. There isn’t much evidence they pass these savings to consumers – they just pocket the profits.
3) Research by ActionAid found workers in Costa Rica producing bananas for export to all major UK supermarkets earning 33p an hour. This wage is so low that they cannot afford to take an hour off when dangerous pesticides are being sprayed on the crops.
4) Unite the Union have a long running campaign against Tesco over the terrible treatment of workers in their meat supply chain.
5) The New Economics Foundation have shown that fresh fruit and veg is, on average, 30% cheaper at a street market than it is in a supermarket. However, through short term aggressive pricing when they first move into an area, Tesco often shuts down these markets, reducing access to fresh fruit and veg for the poorest.
6) Tesco offer their best deals in out of town shopping centres rather than their city centre stores. This not only encourages driving, but also excludes those without cars – mostly, poorer people.
7) In the 5 years to 2002, an average of 50 local food shops were lost in the UK every week, largely due to the Tesco takeover.
8 ) Tesco is Europe’s biggest property company. In 2007 they were sitting on property assets worth £28bn.
9) Tesco are not a net creator of jobs. Because they aggressively force local shops out of business, and then provide the minimal possible service to customers, on average, every time a large supermarket opens, 276 jobs are lost.
10) Between 2003 and 2007 the Labour Party accepted donations of £54,194 from Tesco.
Unions have raised serious concerns about conditions for workers employed along supermarket supply chains in the UK. Pay and working conditions can be negatively affected as supermarkets squeeze suppliers for goods at lower prices or relocate in search of cheaper products. The major food retailers can exert undue pressure on suppliers causing job losses in food processing companies that simply cannot produce goods at the prices Tesco and their competitors wish to pay.
Unite has been campaigning in Supermarket supply chains such as the Red and White Meat Sectors since December 2007. This began by publicising the harsh conditions many workers in the UK experience when employed by companies supplying meat to some of the major Supermarkets. Unite then undertook a campaign against Tesco’s abuse of power over the Meat supply chains through the ‘Tesco: Every Workers Counts’ campaign. Unite works towards its ultimate goal of ensuring the highest ethical standards in the treatment of customers and to insist upon the highest ethical standards for workers employed by companies throughout the supply chain. For more
Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) meat sector inquiry
In March 2010 the EHRC released its findings from its "Inquiry into recruitment and employment in the meat and poultry processing sector". The report reveals evidence of the widespread mistreatment and exploitation of migrant and agency workers in the sector, and makes recommendations including supermarkets improving their auditing of suppliers; processing firms and agencies improving recruitment practices, working environments and the ability of workers to raise issues of concern; and for the government to provide sufficient resources for the Gangmasters’ Licensing Agency to help safeguard the welfare and interests of workers.
The Commission will review action taken over the next 12 months by supermarkets, processing firms and recruitment agencies, and will consider taking enforcement action if necessary.
The Commission launched its first ever Inquiry into a key sector of the economy in October 2008, focusing on the UK's multi-billion pound meat industry for evidence of employment abuse and discrimination. The meat sector is a significant industry employing some 40,000 workers across Britain engaged in processing and packaging meat for sale in supermarkets and retailers.
Tesco's profits are in very stark contrast with the suppliers who have been squeezed. In 2006 the T&G announced it was forming a national co-ordinating committee to bring together its shop stewards across the Tesco empire. The initiative was the first step on the road to fighting for jobs and decent pay, terms and conditions in the country's top supermarket. Shop stewards report pressures to make efficiency savings as well as demands to give up hard won pay and working conditions in order to be admitted into the Tesco pension schemes. According to Ron Webb, T&G national secretary for transport, "Unbelievable though it may be, Tesco is actually looking to make job cuts on the day it claims to be the consumers' friend. We do not accept these cuts are either necessary or ethical. How can a multi-billion pound outfit attack the pay, terms and conditions of those people it relies on to get its goods to the stores?"
The major supermarket chains have announced numerous environmental initiatives. Tesco announced a Community Plan including an Environment Fund of £100 million in a speech by Terry Leahy in May 2006, and have continued to announce further plans since then, including carbon labelling of their products.
Despite the many benefits of these initiatives, it remains the case that Tesco's size and growth, its numerous unsustainable products, and its impact on independent retailers stop it from being a truly green company. The same is true of the other large chains. With larger numbers of car-based hypermarkets and food being sourced from around the world, and trucked around the UK, these companies continue to damage the environment.
and press release on the environment fund and waste. George Monbiot in his book "Turn up the Heat" suggests that the increasing trend of individuals and companies showing their green credentials, is often green-wash hiding real environmental costs.
Some of supermarkets' environmental costs include:
• The food industry is responsible for a third of greenhouse gas emissions and therefore has a massive part to play in tackling climate change. The bulk of these emissions come from food production. Tesco and the other supermarkets must do more to make sure that their production lines are sustainable - this needs to be prioritised above paying farmers the lowest possible prices. Research by Friends of the Earth has shown that low prices have reduced farmers' ability to produce food in environmentally friendly ways. This needs to stop.
•Fewer local farmers and shops mean both customers and goods need to be transported further. This means more pollution from cars, as people drive further to shop, and more pollution from aircraft and lorries, as food is transported from around the world. Indeed Tesco's business could be seen as one of the drivers behind the rise in UK CO2 emissions. More needs to be done to support local, seasonal produce - something that independent shops and supermarkets are well suited to. On the other hand, a 2005 Friends of the Earth survey found that Tesco came lowest out of the supermarket chains for sourcing British apples.
•Tesco's store sizes means they are some of the most energy-inefficient buildings in the retail sector. A Sheffield Hallam University study found that despite the new stock, large superstores are the most energy inefficient buildings in the sector. It would take more than 60 corner shops and greengrocers to match the carbon dioxide emissions from one average sized superstore. Although they are taking steps to increase efficiency, their commitment to building yet more stores means that these savings will be cancelled out.
•Tesco also encourages shoppers to travel by car. One in 10 car journeys in the UK are now to buy food. Work for DEFRA suggests that car use for food shopping results in costs to society of more than £3.5 billion per year from traffic emissions, noise, accidents and congestion. Tesco has been massively expanding into "Extra" format hypermarkets, which are particularly geared towards car-based shopping. The proportion of Tesco's floorspace taken up by hypermarkets is three times what it was 6 years ago.
•Tesco boasts about its progress on reducing waste and how it is following a market trend to introduce degradable plastic bags. But grocery packaging still makes up roughly a quarter of household waste, and the UK's biggest supermarkets distribute billions of plastic bags, which end up in landfill. Even degradable bags do not help, as they will still predominantly go to landfill sites where the lack of sunlight and oxygen will hinder rapid breakdown. To make a real difference the supermarkets need to stop handing out free bags altogether.
•A large amount of food is being wasted. Tesco was among the supermarkets found to be rejecting apples purely on cosmetic grounds by a 2002 Friends of the Earth survey of fruit growers.
•Biofuels - Tesco is a major shareholder in and customer of Greenergy Biofuels Limited, a UK company promising customers climate-friendly, sustainable biofuels from UK rapeseed oil. The organisation BiofuelWatch has, however, undertaken research which reveals that Greenergy's biofuels contain increasing amounts of palm oil, soy and sugar cane. All three are crops linked to large-scale rainforest destruction, massive greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and peat and forest fires, and in some instances to human rights abuses.
SO Tesco who was the focus of a recent squatter protest in Stokes Croft last week as some of you who follow the news will have read and this is a sign of people saying enough is enough with more and more of these stores opening up every year.
Critics said they did not want the area to lose its local character and feared smaller shops would find their businesses threatened.
But Tesco said evidence showed that opening such a store could bring shoppers back to an area and help local traders.
Robin Markwell from BBC Radio Bristol, who spent several hours outside the building, said campaigners in the street had been shouting support to the squatters on the roof.
There had been one or two minor scuffles involving protesters and police outside. The atmosphere was "relatively calm", he said.
Bristol City Council has approved the change of use for the building.
A protest took place at the site in February.
Claire Milne, who represents the group No Tesco in Stokes Croft, told the BBC last month that the area was "a melting pot of independent traders" who may have to close if they are unable to compete with the multi-national company.
Bushra Randhawa, a postmaster and resident for 24 years, said last month: "It's taken a huge effort from local groups, traders and the community to regenerate this area.
"Only now does it feel like a real community spirit is developing.
"This move will take us two steps backwards when we need to take two steps forward."
As the eviction got under way, a Tesco spokesman said: "We're keen to invest in the area. Many local people we've spoken to tell us they are eager to see a Tesco Express at this site.
"Our store will create approximately 20 new jobs and provide shopping facilities for hundreds of local residents.
"The squatters, who were illegally occupying the building, were asked to leave but refused.
"High Court enforcement officers are removing them from the premises with the support of the police
So i go back to one of my points i've made before that this sort of protest and anger at such a plan by Tesco is down to the brutal nature of capitalism where their drive for profit and bigger dividends for their directors is paramount. If we were to see the top 300 monopolies including the likes of Tesco nationalised by a socialist government and brought in to public ownership under workers control the rich's of these companies would cease going striaght to the top but instead be reinvested in the workers paying them a good living wage for the area they live in. Allowing trade union involvement at a advanced scale to work alongside the workers who will run these monopolies for the many not just the few who cream off the profits year in year out.
Only this way will the power and greed of companies just like Tesco be controlled more equally for the benifit of all of society not just their directors who are dam right greedy.
How long will the coalition last ?
Is a interesting question i think. The question was addressed in todays Guardian here http://t.co/481fPCB
It raises the idea that DDavid Cameron holding all the cards close to his chest could break away from the lib dems and call a snap election in the autumn to gain a conservative majority.
As i've blogged about before i think the coalition government is very weaka nd can be brought down with careful planning. But would a labour government be ready for a snap election ? i think not. Labour are trying hopelessly to rebuild and have no policies what so ever but just one that sticks to their cuts agenda which is slightly less than the tories.
But i cannot see labour getting in if a snap election was called i can only imagine a tory majority which i think cameron would love. But how would this come about ?
would Nick Clegg jump ship or would he be pushed.
we hear reports that Nick and Dave are no longer friends. You culd have fooled me but whether this is staged or not we wait to see. If you find careerist polititians like this sickening this will not interest you but as it will effect us all in some way it is interesting to see waht happens now i feel.
Whatever happens it does re-enforce th need for a left of labour new workers party no more than ever to take advantage of labours right wing cuts agenda to provide a clear workers program fighting for a real left alternative with socialist principles.
It raises the idea that DDavid Cameron holding all the cards close to his chest could break away from the lib dems and call a snap election in the autumn to gain a conservative majority.
As i've blogged about before i think the coalition government is very weaka nd can be brought down with careful planning. But would a labour government be ready for a snap election ? i think not. Labour are trying hopelessly to rebuild and have no policies what so ever but just one that sticks to their cuts agenda which is slightly less than the tories.
But i cannot see labour getting in if a snap election was called i can only imagine a tory majority which i think cameron would love. But how would this come about ?
would Nick Clegg jump ship or would he be pushed.
we hear reports that Nick and Dave are no longer friends. You culd have fooled me but whether this is staged or not we wait to see. If you find careerist polititians like this sickening this will not interest you but as it will effect us all in some way it is interesting to see waht happens now i feel.
Whatever happens it does re-enforce th need for a left of labour new workers party no more than ever to take advantage of labours right wing cuts agenda to provide a clear workers program fighting for a real left alternative with socialist principles.
Are anti smog warnings the future as global capitalism takes hold
As an increasing population and more and more of us driving on the roads with bus's and cars taking to the streets of our great capital i thought i'd look into smog levels and how dangerous they are to us as the capitalist system looks to take a tighter grip on our society by increasing globalisation.
Air pollution in London has hit its highest level since 2003 according to official figures.
Under European Union air quality laws daily pollution levels must not be above the legal limit on more than 35 days in a calendar year.
But air pollution levels in London have already exceeded EU daily limits 36 times this year.
It is the first time that the annual limit has been exceeded by this date since 2003 when there were 50 breaches.
On Wednesday, Marylebone Road in central London exceeded EU limits for the 36th day this year.
The station there records air pollution from tiny sooty particles, known as PM10, which are mainly caused by traffic.
The government has issued a "smog alert" for the Easter weekend for PM10s, which can affect people's health.
Simon Birkett, director of Clean Air in London, said: "We need mayor Johnson and the government to tackle an invisible public health crisis with as many premature deaths attributable to air pollution in London in 2008 as we thought occurred during the Great Smog of 1952."
The European Commission has already given the UK two written warnings and the next stage in the legal process will be referral to the European Court of Justice.
The Commission gave the mayor and UK Government until June to come up with a "London action plan" to ensure compliance with the air pollution limits.
The UK will not face fines for the breach, as the EU has given Britain an extension until June before it has to start meeting the standards in the capital.
James Grugeon, chief executive of the charity Environmental Protection UK, said the breaches showed official assurances that pollution was under control in the capital were not true.
He said: "The mayor's air quality strategy, even with a new action plan set to start in June, is not up to the job of tackling the high levels of pollution already recorded this year."
A statement from London mayor Boris Johnson said that until 11 June, the daily limit of PM10 in London was 50% higher as a result of the UK's extension from the EU.
The statement says that as of 19 April, the daily limit value has been exceeded at Marylebone Road just six times this year, meaning that the annual legal limits have not been breached.
We need mayor Johnson and the government to tackle an invisible public health crisis”
Simon Birkett
Director of Clean Air in London
A spokesperson for the mayor said: "The mayor is already taking action to improve London's air quality with cleaner buses, tougher standards for the Low Emission Zone and the first ever age limit for taxis.
"Since the beginning of 2011, we estimate that more than 75% of air pollution episodes have occurred when pollutants have been blown in from Europe."
But Simon Birkett said the extension was only valid when the air pollution action plan is implemented and until then the lower limits apply.
This to me says one thing to me, globalisation is crippling us as a nation and us as a planet. The drive for profit over anything else be that peoples liveliehoods or the environment takes no priority over profit. The mad rush to work everyday during summer months in London is unbearable as it is but despite Londons attempts to ease traffic off with their conjestion charge the smog and fumes keep on coming.
To me the conjestion charge is a load of rubbish it collects lots of money dont get me wrong but where does that money go ?
in the back pockets of city hall chiefs of course and TFL boss's no doubt. What was origianlly set up to reinvest in greener energiesa nd alternative transport has simply not materialised and this comes as no surprise to myself and many other socailists with a care for the environment too.
To me and many others you can not have a green economy without a socialist economy whilst the capitalist companies strive for profit to any length they have no consideration for the economy. Only under a socialist governmenta nd society will green energies be ableto be brought to the front. When the society isnt based on profit but a better life for all not just the few investment and research into green energies can become a priority anda nessessetity to preserve our planet in its current form.
So the smog and the pollution is yes down to man and our greed for moneya nd our nice cars and things but i lay the blame for the pullution of our cities and towns firmly at the feet of capitalism who have no care in the world for the world and this will end up in us destroying our planet unless we change the way society is run.
Air pollution in London has hit its highest level since 2003 according to official figures.
Under European Union air quality laws daily pollution levels must not be above the legal limit on more than 35 days in a calendar year.
But air pollution levels in London have already exceeded EU daily limits 36 times this year.
It is the first time that the annual limit has been exceeded by this date since 2003 when there were 50 breaches.
On Wednesday, Marylebone Road in central London exceeded EU limits for the 36th day this year.
The station there records air pollution from tiny sooty particles, known as PM10, which are mainly caused by traffic.
The government has issued a "smog alert" for the Easter weekend for PM10s, which can affect people's health.
Simon Birkett, director of Clean Air in London, said: "We need mayor Johnson and the government to tackle an invisible public health crisis with as many premature deaths attributable to air pollution in London in 2008 as we thought occurred during the Great Smog of 1952."
The European Commission has already given the UK two written warnings and the next stage in the legal process will be referral to the European Court of Justice.
The Commission gave the mayor and UK Government until June to come up with a "London action plan" to ensure compliance with the air pollution limits.
The UK will not face fines for the breach, as the EU has given Britain an extension until June before it has to start meeting the standards in the capital.
James Grugeon, chief executive of the charity Environmental Protection UK, said the breaches showed official assurances that pollution was under control in the capital were not true.
He said: "The mayor's air quality strategy, even with a new action plan set to start in June, is not up to the job of tackling the high levels of pollution already recorded this year."
A statement from London mayor Boris Johnson said that until 11 June, the daily limit of PM10 in London was 50% higher as a result of the UK's extension from the EU.
The statement says that as of 19 April, the daily limit value has been exceeded at Marylebone Road just six times this year, meaning that the annual legal limits have not been breached.
We need mayor Johnson and the government to tackle an invisible public health crisis”
Simon Birkett
Director of Clean Air in London
A spokesperson for the mayor said: "The mayor is already taking action to improve London's air quality with cleaner buses, tougher standards for the Low Emission Zone and the first ever age limit for taxis.
"Since the beginning of 2011, we estimate that more than 75% of air pollution episodes have occurred when pollutants have been blown in from Europe."
But Simon Birkett said the extension was only valid when the air pollution action plan is implemented and until then the lower limits apply.
This to me says one thing to me, globalisation is crippling us as a nation and us as a planet. The drive for profit over anything else be that peoples liveliehoods or the environment takes no priority over profit. The mad rush to work everyday during summer months in London is unbearable as it is but despite Londons attempts to ease traffic off with their conjestion charge the smog and fumes keep on coming.
To me the conjestion charge is a load of rubbish it collects lots of money dont get me wrong but where does that money go ?
in the back pockets of city hall chiefs of course and TFL boss's no doubt. What was origianlly set up to reinvest in greener energiesa nd alternative transport has simply not materialised and this comes as no surprise to myself and many other socailists with a care for the environment too.
To me and many others you can not have a green economy without a socialist economy whilst the capitalist companies strive for profit to any length they have no consideration for the economy. Only under a socialist governmenta nd society will green energies be ableto be brought to the front. When the society isnt based on profit but a better life for all not just the few investment and research into green energies can become a priority anda nessessetity to preserve our planet in its current form.
So the smog and the pollution is yes down to man and our greed for moneya nd our nice cars and things but i lay the blame for the pullution of our cities and towns firmly at the feet of capitalism who have no care in the world for the world and this will end up in us destroying our planet unless we change the way society is run.
Saturday, 23 April 2011
The Socialist Way: The capitalist world ‘bit bulls’ selectively bred ...
The Socialist Way: The capitalist world ‘bit bulls’ selectively bred ...: "Now as I do recall, we were discussing violence on this here blog, just before I disappeared and got involved with otherwise different and..."
Friday, 22 April 2011
Co-ordinated strike action to defeat the cuts
The government's strategy is clear. They intend to go in hard, fast and nasty; their principal aim is mass privatisation so their big business friends can cherry-pick which parts of the public sector they can squeeze every last drop of profit from.
The TUC march was billed as 'for the Alternative', but what is it? PCS, the left trade unions and the National Shop Stewards Network say no cuts or privatisation must mean precisely that. PCS's alternative is based on conference policy on tax justice, job creation and investment.
Between 500,000 and 700,000 people attended the demonstration on 26 March, a powerful show of strength. We are used to the police and the media underestimating the size of demonstrations but why did the TUC, who claimed there were only 250,000 to 500,000?
The TUC's dilemma comes from support for Labour. At the demo the message in Labour leader Ed Miliband's speech was: there is no alternative to the market and to the cuts and privatisation programme but Labour's cuts would be kinder.
Labour's strategy is to allow the coalition to carry out the cuts virtually unchallenged and hope the Tory and Lib Dems' deep unpopularity will ensure a Labour landslide at the next general election.
The TUC leadership's failure to adopt a clear no cuts strategy is because their unspoken strategy is that of the Labour Party. Even among some on the left there is a failure to call for an unequivocal no-cuts position because of a misplaced hope that not alienating Labour councillors and Labour affiliated unions will strengthen campaigns.
PCS supports demonstrations, peaceful direct action, building the anti-cuts movements in our communities and all other forms of campaigning. But the key to defeating the coalition is widespread, coordinated industrial action.
PCS has failed to receive satisfactory assurances from the Cabinet Office on its basic demands - no pay freezes, no attacks on pensions, the reversal of the indexing of pensions from Retail Prices Index to the Consumer Price Index, which devalues pensions by up to 20%, no job cuts and no further privatisation.
The assault on pensions is particularly pernicious. An agreement with the last government was reached in 2005 which meant pensions costs are not only sustainable and affordable but will actually fall in coming years. Any proposed increase will not go back into the pension scheme but straight to the Treasury to pay for the deficit, in other words the imposition of a pension "tax" on civil servants.
Pensions are deferred wages, low wages mean low pensions. If you remove the tiny percentage of high earners, the average pension of £4,200 is hardly a fortune.
The argument that public sector pensions must be cut because that is what has happened in the private sector is an argument for an equality of misery and a race to the bottom.
John Cridland, CBI big business group boss, recently said pension "reforms" were necessary to make privatisation affordable. But public sector pensions cost around £4.5 billion while tax relief for the richest 1% is £10 billion. It is little wonder PCS members are determined to fight this attack.
PCS has launched a major legal action to challenge the government's attempt to steal our accrued rights under the Civil Service Compensation Scheme and another to challenge the un-agreed re-indexing of our pensions. We will continue to target MPs of all parties to get our case across and continue to challenge the "no alternative to cuts" view that, although shifting, still dominates the media.
We will continue to fight for tax justice and we support the protests by UK Uncut. We reject the increasing use of political policing to silence highly effective peaceful protest just because it is exposing fat-cat tax-dodging billionaires like Sir Philip Green.
PCS, long committed to fighting for the rights of unemployed workers, claimants and the disabled will not treat the attacks on welfare as simply an "industrial" issue. While defending its members' jobs and conditions, PCS will build on its already strong links with unemployed workers' groups and other organisations to challenge the coalition's attempt to hand over this vital area for corporate profiteering.
PCS and others, including the NSSN, have argued consistently for effective industrial action that, in accordance with Congress policy, should be coordinated by the TUC. At this stage PCS is working with the education unions on defending pensions. If agreed by our conference in May, industrial action in June seems inevitable unless the government is prepared to negotiate. PCS will build for vibrant protests and regional demonstrations on the strike days.
While PCS argues that all unions should ballot at the same time and strike together we cannot wait on other union timetables when the attacks are happening now. However we would expect other unions to join us at a later stage in what is an unfolding battle. United strike action by PCS and the education unions would represent a major step forward in the battle to oppose the cuts.
United strike action can potentially stop the arrogant millionaire coalition. But real leadership and determination will be required across the movement and particularly by the TUC if we are to defeat the coalition.
PCS has signed individual cooperation agreements with Unison and Unite. Such agreements can and must be backed up by effective unity in action and campaigning.
Industrial action must also be accompanied by demonstrations and campaigning in our communities.
PCS believes the cuts must be fought wherever they occur. That is why the National Executive Committee (NEC) is urging departmental groups, branches and even individual workplaces to put in submissions for industrial action whenever and wherever necessary and not just wait for national action.
PCS will coordinate any action that arises from individual parts of the union. Already action is being planned or taking place in DWP, on call centre workers' rights, HMRC on unacceptable managing attendance procedures, Driving Standards Agency, the Home Office and elsewhere.
PCS's NEC meets on 12 April to finalise its plans to take forward the campaign to defend members' jobs, pay, conditions and services. The National Campaign Liaison Group will meet immediately following the NEC to hear and discuss the detailed strategy that will be taken to our conference in May.
Workers expect leadership from their unions, but political leadership will be demanded too. Labour cannot fulfil this role. While they almost certainly will make electoral advances, particularly in the short term, they can offer no alternative for workers. The question of effective political representation for working people has never been more relevant.
The political establishment has moved heaven and earth to create a consensus that there must be cuts. They know that if this lie is accepted by the leadership of the trade union and labour movement it will pave the road to division and defeat. PCS challenges this thinking.
The failure of the broad mass of the leaderships within our movement to even mention the word socialism, let alone argue for a socialist alternative is in itself a major obstacle to inspiring workers with the idea that a better way is possible.
The question of leadership is vital in this period, the message from the PCS leadership is that every activist must be a leader in their own workplace and community. Demonstrating effective leadership means speaking out for an unequivocal rejection of the idea that cuts are necessary and inevitable, for the alternative set out by the union and building effective action to defeat the cuts.
The elections for the PCS national executive committee, including president and vice-presidents of the union, run from 14 April to 5 May. The Democracy Alliance leads the union now, an alliance which includes Left Unity, the left organisation which the Socialist Party supports.
So strike action just like 26th march can just be the start not the end. 30th june is lookin big already with hopefully up to a million downing tools and striking and holding strong.
The trouble i see ahead is people scabbing and crossing the picket lines. As the anti cuts movement is still relatively small at this stage with still teh large proportion of the populatin still supporting cuts all be it at a slower scale this could be used against the strikers and a defeat could demoralise the movement.
This is something which union leaders must ber in mind. If sufficient pressure is built from below the union leaders will have to act or face being drowned by a wave of rage from their members.
I do think strike and industrail action is the next step for building the movement. That doesnt meant o say demo's and protests cease they can run alongside strike action and we must support the people wishing to take strike action to defend jobsand pay.
As the truths to the system we live under become clearer and the inequalities of that system- capitalism becomes more apparant to people people will start to question the fairness of it and demand change.
I do think and hope people will start to look towards alternatives like socialism to bring fairness back to this country. Nationalising the top 400 monopolies into public ownership would be the first stage of this. Bringing the heights of the economy into workers control and its assets were used to better everyones lives not just the few at the very top.
The TUC march was billed as 'for the Alternative', but what is it? PCS, the left trade unions and the National Shop Stewards Network say no cuts or privatisation must mean precisely that. PCS's alternative is based on conference policy on tax justice, job creation and investment.
Between 500,000 and 700,000 people attended the demonstration on 26 March, a powerful show of strength. We are used to the police and the media underestimating the size of demonstrations but why did the TUC, who claimed there were only 250,000 to 500,000?
The TUC's dilemma comes from support for Labour. At the demo the message in Labour leader Ed Miliband's speech was: there is no alternative to the market and to the cuts and privatisation programme but Labour's cuts would be kinder.
Labour's strategy is to allow the coalition to carry out the cuts virtually unchallenged and hope the Tory and Lib Dems' deep unpopularity will ensure a Labour landslide at the next general election.
The TUC leadership's failure to adopt a clear no cuts strategy is because their unspoken strategy is that of the Labour Party. Even among some on the left there is a failure to call for an unequivocal no-cuts position because of a misplaced hope that not alienating Labour councillors and Labour affiliated unions will strengthen campaigns.
PCS supports demonstrations, peaceful direct action, building the anti-cuts movements in our communities and all other forms of campaigning. But the key to defeating the coalition is widespread, coordinated industrial action.
PCS has failed to receive satisfactory assurances from the Cabinet Office on its basic demands - no pay freezes, no attacks on pensions, the reversal of the indexing of pensions from Retail Prices Index to the Consumer Price Index, which devalues pensions by up to 20%, no job cuts and no further privatisation.
The assault on pensions is particularly pernicious. An agreement with the last government was reached in 2005 which meant pensions costs are not only sustainable and affordable but will actually fall in coming years. Any proposed increase will not go back into the pension scheme but straight to the Treasury to pay for the deficit, in other words the imposition of a pension "tax" on civil servants.
Pensions are deferred wages, low wages mean low pensions. If you remove the tiny percentage of high earners, the average pension of £4,200 is hardly a fortune.
The argument that public sector pensions must be cut because that is what has happened in the private sector is an argument for an equality of misery and a race to the bottom.
John Cridland, CBI big business group boss, recently said pension "reforms" were necessary to make privatisation affordable. But public sector pensions cost around £4.5 billion while tax relief for the richest 1% is £10 billion. It is little wonder PCS members are determined to fight this attack.
PCS has launched a major legal action to challenge the government's attempt to steal our accrued rights under the Civil Service Compensation Scheme and another to challenge the un-agreed re-indexing of our pensions. We will continue to target MPs of all parties to get our case across and continue to challenge the "no alternative to cuts" view that, although shifting, still dominates the media.
We will continue to fight for tax justice and we support the protests by UK Uncut. We reject the increasing use of political policing to silence highly effective peaceful protest just because it is exposing fat-cat tax-dodging billionaires like Sir Philip Green.
PCS, long committed to fighting for the rights of unemployed workers, claimants and the disabled will not treat the attacks on welfare as simply an "industrial" issue. While defending its members' jobs and conditions, PCS will build on its already strong links with unemployed workers' groups and other organisations to challenge the coalition's attempt to hand over this vital area for corporate profiteering.
PCS and others, including the NSSN, have argued consistently for effective industrial action that, in accordance with Congress policy, should be coordinated by the TUC. At this stage PCS is working with the education unions on defending pensions. If agreed by our conference in May, industrial action in June seems inevitable unless the government is prepared to negotiate. PCS will build for vibrant protests and regional demonstrations on the strike days.
While PCS argues that all unions should ballot at the same time and strike together we cannot wait on other union timetables when the attacks are happening now. However we would expect other unions to join us at a later stage in what is an unfolding battle. United strike action by PCS and the education unions would represent a major step forward in the battle to oppose the cuts.
United strike action can potentially stop the arrogant millionaire coalition. But real leadership and determination will be required across the movement and particularly by the TUC if we are to defeat the coalition.
PCS has signed individual cooperation agreements with Unison and Unite. Such agreements can and must be backed up by effective unity in action and campaigning.
Industrial action must also be accompanied by demonstrations and campaigning in our communities.
PCS believes the cuts must be fought wherever they occur. That is why the National Executive Committee (NEC) is urging departmental groups, branches and even individual workplaces to put in submissions for industrial action whenever and wherever necessary and not just wait for national action.
PCS will coordinate any action that arises from individual parts of the union. Already action is being planned or taking place in DWP, on call centre workers' rights, HMRC on unacceptable managing attendance procedures, Driving Standards Agency, the Home Office and elsewhere.
PCS's NEC meets on 12 April to finalise its plans to take forward the campaign to defend members' jobs, pay, conditions and services. The National Campaign Liaison Group will meet immediately following the NEC to hear and discuss the detailed strategy that will be taken to our conference in May.
Workers expect leadership from their unions, but political leadership will be demanded too. Labour cannot fulfil this role. While they almost certainly will make electoral advances, particularly in the short term, they can offer no alternative for workers. The question of effective political representation for working people has never been more relevant.
The political establishment has moved heaven and earth to create a consensus that there must be cuts. They know that if this lie is accepted by the leadership of the trade union and labour movement it will pave the road to division and defeat. PCS challenges this thinking.
The failure of the broad mass of the leaderships within our movement to even mention the word socialism, let alone argue for a socialist alternative is in itself a major obstacle to inspiring workers with the idea that a better way is possible.
The question of leadership is vital in this period, the message from the PCS leadership is that every activist must be a leader in their own workplace and community. Demonstrating effective leadership means speaking out for an unequivocal rejection of the idea that cuts are necessary and inevitable, for the alternative set out by the union and building effective action to defeat the cuts.
The elections for the PCS national executive committee, including president and vice-presidents of the union, run from 14 April to 5 May. The Democracy Alliance leads the union now, an alliance which includes Left Unity, the left organisation which the Socialist Party supports.
So strike action just like 26th march can just be the start not the end. 30th june is lookin big already with hopefully up to a million downing tools and striking and holding strong.
The trouble i see ahead is people scabbing and crossing the picket lines. As the anti cuts movement is still relatively small at this stage with still teh large proportion of the populatin still supporting cuts all be it at a slower scale this could be used against the strikers and a defeat could demoralise the movement.
This is something which union leaders must ber in mind. If sufficient pressure is built from below the union leaders will have to act or face being drowned by a wave of rage from their members.
I do think strike and industrail action is the next step for building the movement. That doesnt meant o say demo's and protests cease they can run alongside strike action and we must support the people wishing to take strike action to defend jobsand pay.
As the truths to the system we live under become clearer and the inequalities of that system- capitalism becomes more apparant to people people will start to question the fairness of it and demand change.
I do think and hope people will start to look towards alternatives like socialism to bring fairness back to this country. Nationalising the top 400 monopolies into public ownership would be the first stage of this. Bringing the heights of the economy into workers control and its assets were used to better everyones lives not just the few at the very top.
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Libya, the "no fly zone" and the left
here i thought i'd share with you a excellent article by teh general secretary of the socialist party, Peter Taaffe, which is to appear in our may edition of socialism today from the socialist party issue number 148 which you can order a copy from the party at www.socialistparty.org.uk
this article is also available to read on the CWI website at www.socialistworld.net too
this is fascinating and shows up a lot of hypocrisy not just with Ed miliband and labour but also some other left groups when it comes to Libya and the events out there at the moment.
Imperialist powers have implemented a no-fly zone over Libya to protect their own strategic and economic interests and to restore their damaged prestige. Incredibly, some on the Marxist left support this military intervention. PETER TAAFFE writes.
WAR IS THE most barbaric of all human activity, invested as it is in the modern era with fiendish weapons of mass destruction. It also lays bare the reality of class relations, nationally and internationally, which are normally obfuscated, hidden by layers of hypocrisy and the moral turpitude of the ruling classes.
It is the ultimate test, alongside revolution, of ideas and programme, not only for the bourgeois but also for the labour movement and the different political trends within it.
The current Libyan war - for that is what it is - illustrates this clearly. Capitalism and imperialism, masquerading under the moth-eaten label of 'humanitarian military intervention' - utterly discredited by the slaughter of Iraq - are using the conflict in an attempt to regain the initiative.
Taken aback by the sweep of the revolution in Tunisia and Egypt - with loyal props such as Mubarak and Ben Ali toppled - they desperately sought a lever to halt the process and hopefully reverse it.
This is what lies behind the bloody massacre in Bahrain, carried out by Saudi Arabian troops, with a large component of mercenaries from Pakistan and elsewhere.
Not a peep has issued from the British government on the revelations in The Observer of widespread murder gangs - led by Sunni Muslims linked to the monarchy - and the deliberate attempt to foster sectarianism in what had been previously a largely unified non-ethnic movement.
The slogans of the original Bahraini demonstrations were: 'We are not Shia, we are not Sunni, we are Bahraini'. Equally, the 'Labour leaders' - led by New Labour chief, Ed Miliband, who promised something 'different' to the previous regime of Tony Blair - have now shuffled into line to back David Cameron's Libyan policies and the imposition of the no-fly zone.
Incredibly, this policy has been supported by some on the left, including a few who adhere to Marxism and Trotskyism. Amongst these must be included Gilbert Achar, who has written books on the Middle East, and whose support for the no-fly zone was originally carried uncritically on the website journal of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI), International Viewpoint.
His views were subsequently repudiated by the USFI.
No such uncertainty, however, exists for the Alliance for Workers' Liberty (AWL). This organisation's shrill tone, particularly in criticising others on the left, rises in inverse proportion to its small forces and its even more limited influence within the labour movement.
The AWL has even dragged in Leon Trotsky to justify imperialist intervention through the no-fly zone. One headline read: "Libya: no illusions in west but 'anti-intervention' opposition is abandoning the rebels".
Another priceless headline was: 'Why we should not denounce intervention in Libya'. (Workers Liberty website, 23 March)
These latter examples fly in the face of a cardinal principle of Marxism and Trotskyism. That is to strive to instil into the working class and its organisations complete class independence from all shades of bourgeois opinion and the actions that flow from this.
This applies on all questions, particularly during a war, even a civil war, which the Libyan conflict clearly has elements of. There is nothing remotely progressive in the attempt of the imperialist powers of Britain, France or the US to implement the no-fly zone.
The Benghazi rebels are so much small change in their calculations. Only yesterday, these 'powers' embraced Muammar Gaddafi, supplied him with weapons, bought his oil and, through Blair, visited his 'big tent' in the desert and welcomed him into the 'international community'.
This term is a complete misnomer, as is the idea of the United Nations, used on this occasion as the screen behind which the intervention in Libya was prepared, for naked capitalist and imperialist class interests.
Undoubtedly, there are illusions amongst many idealistic young people and workers who look towards such bodies to resolve the problems of war, conflict, poverty, etc.
Some were also motivated to support the no-fly zone because of the fear that the population in Benghazi would be massacred by Gaddafi's forces. But the UN merely brings the capitalist nations together, dominated overwhelmingly by the US, to collaborate when their interests coincide, but which, equally, are very 'disunited' when the opposite is the case.
The jockeying for position and the squabbles between the different imperialist powers over the Libyan intervention illustrate this.
US overstretch and uncertainty
THE REVOLUTIONS IN the Middle East and North Africa initially revealed the uncertainty - almost the paralysis - of the major imperialist power, the US, to intervene.
The administration of Barack Obama has been forced to attempt to separate itself from George Bush's doctrine of a unipolar world dominated by US imperialism, with its overwhelming economic and military power.
It still retains this military advantage compared to its rivals but this is now undermined by the economic weakening of the US.
There is also the problem of Afghanistan and the fear that this is leading to military overstretch. This forced Robert Gates, US defence secretary, to declare early on his opposition - and, it must be assumed, of the US general staff - to the use of US land troops anywhere else in the world.
He also said that it was a 'certainty' that no US ground troops would be authorised by Obama in Libya.
He underlined this when he "laid into the rebels' capabilities, describing the opposition as a faction-ridden and disparate 'misnomer' whose forces lacked 'command and control and organisation'." (Observer, 3 April)
Obama, on the hoof, has sought to formulate a new military diplomatic doctrine in line with the changed position of the US. He has tried to draw a distinction between the 'vital' and 'non-vital' interests of US imperialism.
In 'vital' cases, the US will act unilaterally if the situation requires it but the US, he arrogantly proclaimed, is no longer 'the world's policeman' but, in future, would act as the world's 'police chief'.
This means, it seems, that the US would lend its support, be formally at the head of, a 'multilateral core coalition', so long as this did not mean the automatic actual deployment of troops.
Despite this, the pressure allegedly to prevent a 'bloodbath' has now compelled Obama to sign a public letter with Nicolas Sarkozy and Cameron declaring that it would be 'an unconscionable betrayal' if Gaddafi remains in place and the rebels are left to his mercy.
Libya, they declare, threatens to become 'a failed state'. This appears to set the scene for another somersault, particularly by Obama, to prepare the use of some ground forces if necessary.
When it has been unable to intervene directly, because of domestic opposition for instance, imperialism has not hesitated to use mercenaries to overthrow a regime it did not favour or to stymie a revolution.
Such was the policy of Ronald Reagan's administration in using hired thugs, the Contras, against the Nicaraguan revolution. Imperialism has been forced into the latest stand by the fact that Gaddafi appears to be winning or, at least, has sufficient military strength and a residue of support to avoid outright military defeat, short of a land invasion.
The rebels hold only the east, and not even all of this. The west, in which two thirds of the population live, is still largely controlled by Gaddafi and his forces.
This is not entirely due to popular compliance with the Gaddafi regime. His forces have most of the guns, particularly heavy weapons, tanks, etc.
He has always kept the regular army in check for fear that a coup could emanate from this quarter. Patrick Cockburn wrote in the Independent on Sunday: "Absence of a professional army in Libya means that the rebels have to rely on long-retired soldiers to train new recruits".
(17 April) Gaddafi is also able to draw on tribal support, as well as the political capital accumulated for his regime from the higher living standards in Libya, before the conflict, than in most countries in the region.
The Spanish revolution
MANY SUPPORTERS OF the no-fly zone took this position in the expectation that imperialism would be unable to proceed beyond this.
What will they do if, as cannot be excluded, land forces in one form or another are deployed with the open or concealed compliance of the imperialist powers of the US, France and Britain?
In the House of Commons debate on 21 March, Miliband was unrestrained in his support for Cameron's military action. This is further confirmation of the political degeneration of the Labour Party, from a workers' party at bottom into a bourgeois formation.
Writers from the capitalist class now almost casually recognise this reality: "The Labour Party was once the political arm of the organised working class.
All three main parties are now the political arm of the organised corporate class. This is not a peculiarly British phenomenon.
Almost every advanced democracy, and particularly the US, struggles to control the corporate sector". "(Peter Wilby, The Guardian, 12 April)
Just compare the stance of the current 'Labour' leader to that of Harold Wilson at the time of the Vietnam war. Much to the chagrin of then US president, Lyndon Johnson, Wilson - although he was not averse to supporting military action abroad if he thought he could get away with it - refused to involve British troops.
For him to have done otherwise would have split the Labour Party from top to bottom, probably leading to his removal as leader. In other words, he was compelled by the pressure of the ranks of the Labour Party and the trade unions to desist from supporting military action by US imperialism.
Now Miliband backs Cameron, with hardly a squeak from New Labour MPs or the 'rank and file'. He has invoked Spain during the civil war, in justifying support for the government.
He declared: "In 1936, a Spanish politician came to Britain to plead for support in the face of General Franco's violent fascism.
"He said: 'We are fighting with sticks and knives against tanks and aircraft and guns, and it revolts the conscience of the world that that should be true'." (Hansard, 21 March)
The parallel with Spain is entirely false. Then, a genuine revolution of the working class and poor peasants unfolded, with the creation, at least in the initial period after July 1936, of genuine workers' power, mass committees, and the occupation of land and factories.
Spain was experiencing a social revolution. In the main, this revolution was defeated not by Franco's fascist forces but by the false policies of the republican bourgeoisie which derailed the revolution, aided and abetted by the Communist Party, under orders from Stalin and the Russian bureaucracy.
They correctly feared that the triumph of the Spanish revolution would be the signal for their own overthrow. In this situation, the world working class rallied in support of the demand for arms to Spain.
Then imperialism, particularly the Anglo-French powers, did everything to prevent the Spanish workers from being armed. Yet the right-wing Tory MP, Bill Cash, agreed with Miliband that there was indeed "a parallel with what happened in 1936", and therefore supported the "arming of those who are resisting Gaddafi" in Benghazi.
Does this not indicate the political character of the present leadership in Benghazi and the east, which includes former Gaddafi loyalists like the former head of the special forces, Abdul Fattah Younis? If the original tendency shown in Benghazi of mass committees, involving the participation of the working class, had been maintained there would be no question of support emanating from right-wing Tories! Miliband gave further justification for his support of the no-fly zone: "There is international consent, a just cause and a feasible mission... are we really saying that we should be a country that stands by and does nothing?"
No serious left force can advocate a policy of abstention where working people are subjected to murderous attack by a ruthless dictator like Gaddafi. Clearly, we had to give political support -the position of the Socialist Party and the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI) from the outset - to the people of Benghazi when they drove Gaddafi's forces from the city in a revolutionary uprising.
This is a sufficient answer to those who seek to justify support for military intervention from the outside on the basis that Benghazi's people are defenceless.
They used the same arguments about the impotence of the Iraqi people in the grip of a ruthless dictator to justify the bombardment and invasion of Iraq, with all the murderous results that we see now.
But this argument was shattered by the uprising of the Tunisian and Egyptian peoples who, through their own multi-millioned power, smashed dictatorships.
The people of Benghazi have already defeated Gaddafi's forces once. This was when revolutionary or semi-revolutionary methods were deployed.
These now seem to have taken a backseat as petty-bourgeois and bourgeois forces have elbowed aside the genuine revolutionary forces. On the basis of mass workers' committees, a revolutionary army - unlike the ragtag force supporting the so-called 'transitional government' - could have been mobilised to seize all the towns in the east and make a revolutionary appeal to the people of the west, particularly in the capital, Tripoli.
There are many successful examples of this in history, not least in the Spanish revolution, which Miliband invokes but does not understand. For instance, after the workers in Barcelona smashed Franco's fascist uprising in July 1936, José Buenaventura Durruti formed a revolutionary army which marched through Catalonia and Aragon to the gates of Madrid.
This placed four fifths of Spain in the hands of the working class and poor peasantry. This was indeed a 'just' war on the part of the masses who were defending democracy while striving for a new, humane, socialist society.
Moreover, it was one with real international support from the European and world working class. Miliband's criteria for what is 'just' and what is not is situated within capitalism and what is best for that system, not the interests of working-class people who are in an oppositional and antagonistic relationship to that system, increasingly so today.
Western powers' double standards
OUR CRITERIA OF what is just and progressive, including wars, is that which enhances and strengthens the working masses, increases their power, their consciousness, etc.
What hinders this is retrogressive. Capitalist, imperialist intervention, including the no-fly zone, even if successful, will not strengthen the working class, increase the sense of its own power, to see itself and its organisations as the real and only lever for achieving its ends.
Instead, it directs the gaze of the workers in the east towards an outside 'liberating' force, thereby lowering the consciousness of working people in their own potential power.
As even Tory MPs commented in the Commons debate, Miliband seemed to identify himself completely with the 'Blair doctrine' - so-called humanitarian military intervention from the outside - from which he had appeared to distance himself when first elected leader.
This meant justifying both Blair and Cameron's arguments when confronted with the choice of where and when to intervene in the world. Miliband fell back on the specious statement: "The argument that because we cannot do everything we cannot do anything is a bad argument".
'We', that is capitalism and imperialism, cannot intervene against dictatorship in Burma, cannot even raise 'our' voices against the murderous assaults of the Israeli ruling class on the Palestinians in Gaza.
'We' are mute against the vicious regimes in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Nevertheless, it is 'just' to oppose Gaddafi - while only yesterday 'we' embraced him - and to use force from the sky, at least, against him and his regime.
The 'liberal' Observer newspaper takes the prize for summing up this arbitrary hypocritical approach of capitalism: "Why does this Gulf regime [Bahrain] get the benefit of the doubt when other authoritarian Arab rulers do not? Clearly, there is no question of intervention in Bahrain or in any other state where protest is being crushed.
The entanglement in Libya leaves no appetite for giving active support, whether diplomatic or military, to other rebellions. If only one villain in the region had to be singled out for attack, Colonel Gaddafi was surely the most deserving candidate". (17 April)
"Entirely missing from this argumentation is the real reason for intervention in Libya, and that is the material interests of capitalism and imperialism, above all of oil, with some of the biggest reserves in Africa.
Some have even denied that this is a factor - they argued the same before Iraq. "The oil conspiracy theory... is one of the most absurd", said Blair (6 February 2003).
Now The Independent (19 April) has published a hitherto hidden Foreign Office memorandum, sent on 13 November 2002, following a meeting with the oil giant BP: "Iraq is the big oil prospect.
"BP are desperate to get in there".
Shameful support for military intervention
WHILE THE POSITION of the likes of Miliband is not unexpected, given the rightward evolution of the ex-workers' parties and their leaders, the same cannot be said of those claiming to stand in a Marxist-Trotskyist tradition.
Sean Matgamna of the AWL even drags in Leon Trotsky to justify support for military intervention in Libya: "An individual, a group, a party, or a class that 'objectively' picks its nose while it watches men drunk with blood massacring defenceless people is condemned by history to rot and become worm-eaten while it is still alive".
In this passage, from his writings on the Balkan wars prior to the first world war, Trotsky denounces the spokesmen of Russian liberal capitalism for remaining silent while Serbian and Bulgarian atrocities were committed against other nationalities.
He was not in anyway justifying support for the leaders of one nation against another. This is clear from the rest of the quote, which Matgamna does not cite: "On the other hand, a party or the class that rises up against every abominable action wherever it has occurred, as vigorously and unhesitatingly as a living organism reacts to protect its eyes when they are threatened with external injury - such a party or class is sound of heart.
"Protest against the outrages in the Balkans cleanses the social atmosphere in our own country, heightens the level of moral awareness among our own people... Therefore an uncompromising protest against atrocities serves not only the purpose of moral self-defence on the personal and party level but also the purpose of politically safeguarding the people against adventurism concealed under the flag of 'liberation'."
If anything, the last point from this quote finds conclusively against the AWL. It is supporting imperialist intervention under the false flag of 'liberation'.
Yet we find the astounding allegation: "The would-be left is yet again tying itself in knots over a false political dilemma: the belief that in order not to give general support to the British-France 'liberal intervention' in Libya, they must stridently oppose them on this and on every specific thing they do.
Or at least on every military action. In fact it is a dilemma of their own making".
"Trying to square the circle, Matgamna then adds: "Of course, socialists should not give positive political support to the governments and the ruling capitalists of Britain, France, the USA, or the UN, in Libya or anywhere else".
A child of ten can recognise that support for military action of whatever kind is 'positive political support'. The AWL claims that it can neatly separate support for action of this character from the wider perspectives of the powers that take such action.
It is, in effect, the political attorney and apologist for France and Britain: "The UN, with Britain and France as its instruments, has set very limited objectives in Libya.
"There is no reason at all to think that the 'Great Powers' want to occupy Libya or are doing other than a limited international police operation on what they see as Europe's 'southern border'." Gratuitously the AWL says: "The bitter lessons of their bungling in Iraq are still very fresh to them".
It goes on: "In the name of what alternative should we have told them to stop using air power to prevent Gaddafi massacring an incalculable number of his own people? That is the decisive question in all such situations".
If you do not go along with this nonsense you are incorrigible pacifists, according to the AWL. To show how far these latter-day 'Trotskyists' are removed from Trotsky's real views on war, look at his position during the Spanish civil war on the issue of the military budget of the Republican government.
Max Shachtman, at that time one of his followers, opposed Trotsky who had argued in 1937: "If we would have a member in the Cortes [Spanish parliament] he would vote against the military budget of Negrin".
Trotsky wrote that Shachtman's opposition to this position "astounded me. Shachtman was willing to express confidence in the perfidious Negrin government".
He later explained: "To vote for the military budget of the Negrin government signifies to vote him political confidence... To do it would be a crime.
"How do we explain our vote to the anarchist workers? Very simply: We have not the slightest confidence in the capacity of this government to conduct the war and assure victory.
We accuse this government of protecting the rich and starving the poor. This government must be smashed.
So long as we are not strong enough to replace it, we are fighting under its command. But on every occasion we express openly our non-confidence in it: it is the only one possibility to mobilise the masses politically against this government and to prepare its overthrow.
Any other politics would be a betrayal of the revolution". (Trotsky, From a Scratch to the Danger of Gangrene, 24 January 1940) How much more scathingly would Trotsky assail the AWL's shameful support for imperialist intervention in Libya today.
An independent class position
INCREDIBLY, THE AWL's apology for imperialist intervention allegedly defends 'independent working-class politics'. But there is not an atom of an independent class position in its approach.
We opposed military intervention, but so did the masses in Benghazi in the first period. The slogans on the walls read, in English: 'No to foreign intervention, the Libyans can do it themselves'.
In other words, the masses had a much sounder class instinct, a suspicion of any military intervention from the outside, particularly by the powers that formerly dominated the region: Britain and France.
They correctly feared that a no-fly zone, despite protestations to the contrary, would lead to an invasion, as it did in Iraq. Does this mean that we remain on the level of general slogans, that we are impassive in the face of a possible attack by Gaddafi on Benghazi? No.
But in such a situation we emphasise the need for independent class politics, for the masses to rely on their own strength and to give not a scintilla of support for the idea that imperialism has the best interests of the masses at heart.
Truly, we cannot react - as did Alex Callinicos, a leader of the British SWP - to the arguments of the possible massacre in Benghazi with the statement: "The sad fact is that massacres are a chronic feature of capitalism.
The revolutionary left is, alas, too weak to stop them". Physically, the forces of Marxism may be too weak to prevent massacres - in Rwanda, for instance.
Nonetheless, we are obligated to advocate that the broad labour movement should adopt the most effective position politically to defend and enhance the power and influence of the working class in a given situation.
In Northern Ireland in 1969, for instance, Militant supporters (predecessors of the Socialist Party), opposed sending in British troops to defend the Catholic nationalist areas of Belfast and Derry from a murderous assault by the predominantly loyalist B-Specials.
The SWP, despite later denials, supported sending in the British troops. When the troop did go in, they defended these areas from loyalist attacks and were welcomed as 'defenders'.
But, as we predicted, at a certain stage this would turn into its opposite and the troops would come to be seen as a repressive force against the Catholic nationalist minority.
This is how events actually worked out.
However, faced with a possible massacre of the Catholic population we did not adopt a 'neutral' or passive position. In Militant (now The Socialist), in September 1969, we argued "for a united workers' defence force, the withdrawal of British troops, disband the B-Specials, end of all discrimination, jobs, homes, schools, etc, for all workers".
We stood, in other words, for class unity and for working people to rely on their own forces and not on the capitalist state forces. Only a similar approach based on the foundation of complete class independence, adapted to the concrete conditions in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East, can lead to success for the workers' struggle in a very complicated situation.
We cannot follow Achar either when he declares: "Can anyone claiming to belong to the left just ignore a popular movement's plea for protection, even by means of imperialist bandit-cops, when the type of protection requested is not one through which control over their country could be exerted? Certainly not, by my understanding of the left.
No real progressive could just ignore the uprising's request for protection".
It is wrong to identify the 'uprising', which was originally a genuine mass movement - as we pointed out - with its present leadership, stuffed with bourgeois and pro-bourgeois elements, including remnants from the Gaddafi regime.
Moreover, it is entirely wrong to equate Lenin's acceptance of food and even arms from one imperialist power to be used to repulse another, without any military or political strings attached, to support for imperialism's no-fly zone - as some have done.
It is not a question for Marxism only of what is done, but who does it, why and how.
Defending revolution
ULTIMATELY, IMPERIALISM'S intervention is to safeguard its power, prestige and income from the threat of the unfolding revolution in the region. A spokesman for the Obama administration made it clear that it is not Libya that is the main concern but what happens in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, where most of the oil reserves upon which world capitalism depends are concentrated.
But they see a successful intervention in Libya as a firewall against the threat of revolution in these states and the whole region. They are also concerned about the regional influence of Iran, which grew enormously as a result of the Iraq war.
The situation in Libya is extremely fluid. The outcome of the present conflict is uncertain.
At the moment, it looks like deadlock with neither Gaddafi nor the rebels able to strike a decisive blow for victory in what is now a drawn-out civil war.
This could lead to the effective partitioning of the country, already the de facto case. In this situation, all the latent tribal divisions - held in check partly by the terror of the Gaddafi regime - could come flooding to the surface, creating a new Somalia in the centre of the Middle East, with all its instability, not least in the struggle over Libya's oil reserves.
On the other hand, imperialism is desperate to avoid the impression that Gaddafi could come out as a partial victor in this struggle, enhancing the perceived impotence of the imperialist powers to decide the outcome of events.
But the responsibility of the labour movements in Britain and worldwide is clear.
Absolute opposition to all outside imperialist intervention! Let the Libyan people decide their own fate! Maximum support, from the world working class and labour movement, including the supply of food and weapons, to the genuine forces of national and social liberation in Libya and the Middle East!
Imperialism will not be able to stop the forward march of revolution in North Africa and the Middle East. Yes, there is disappointment, as the CWI predicted, amongst the masses that the fruits of their victories against Mubarak and Ben Ali appear to have been stolen for the moment by the regimes that replaced them.
The hated security apparatus and state machine which existed before, despite the mighty labours of the revolution, remain largely intact. But they are being opposed by the mass movements.
The revolutions endure and millions have learnt enormously in the course of this movement. Hopefully, their conclusions will lead to a strengthening of the working class and the development of independent class politics.
This would be symbolised by the development of the workers' own organisations, new powerful trade unions and workers' parties with the goal of socialist transformation, accompanied by democracy in Libya and the region as a whole.
this article is also available to read on the CWI website at www.socialistworld.net too
this is fascinating and shows up a lot of hypocrisy not just with Ed miliband and labour but also some other left groups when it comes to Libya and the events out there at the moment.
Imperialist powers have implemented a no-fly zone over Libya to protect their own strategic and economic interests and to restore their damaged prestige. Incredibly, some on the Marxist left support this military intervention. PETER TAAFFE writes.
WAR IS THE most barbaric of all human activity, invested as it is in the modern era with fiendish weapons of mass destruction. It also lays bare the reality of class relations, nationally and internationally, which are normally obfuscated, hidden by layers of hypocrisy and the moral turpitude of the ruling classes.
It is the ultimate test, alongside revolution, of ideas and programme, not only for the bourgeois but also for the labour movement and the different political trends within it.
The current Libyan war - for that is what it is - illustrates this clearly. Capitalism and imperialism, masquerading under the moth-eaten label of 'humanitarian military intervention' - utterly discredited by the slaughter of Iraq - are using the conflict in an attempt to regain the initiative.
Taken aback by the sweep of the revolution in Tunisia and Egypt - with loyal props such as Mubarak and Ben Ali toppled - they desperately sought a lever to halt the process and hopefully reverse it.
This is what lies behind the bloody massacre in Bahrain, carried out by Saudi Arabian troops, with a large component of mercenaries from Pakistan and elsewhere.
Not a peep has issued from the British government on the revelations in The Observer of widespread murder gangs - led by Sunni Muslims linked to the monarchy - and the deliberate attempt to foster sectarianism in what had been previously a largely unified non-ethnic movement.
The slogans of the original Bahraini demonstrations were: 'We are not Shia, we are not Sunni, we are Bahraini'. Equally, the 'Labour leaders' - led by New Labour chief, Ed Miliband, who promised something 'different' to the previous regime of Tony Blair - have now shuffled into line to back David Cameron's Libyan policies and the imposition of the no-fly zone.
Incredibly, this policy has been supported by some on the left, including a few who adhere to Marxism and Trotskyism. Amongst these must be included Gilbert Achar, who has written books on the Middle East, and whose support for the no-fly zone was originally carried uncritically on the website journal of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI), International Viewpoint.
His views were subsequently repudiated by the USFI.
No such uncertainty, however, exists for the Alliance for Workers' Liberty (AWL). This organisation's shrill tone, particularly in criticising others on the left, rises in inverse proportion to its small forces and its even more limited influence within the labour movement.
The AWL has even dragged in Leon Trotsky to justify imperialist intervention through the no-fly zone. One headline read: "Libya: no illusions in west but 'anti-intervention' opposition is abandoning the rebels".
Another priceless headline was: 'Why we should not denounce intervention in Libya'. (Workers Liberty website, 23 March)
These latter examples fly in the face of a cardinal principle of Marxism and Trotskyism. That is to strive to instil into the working class and its organisations complete class independence from all shades of bourgeois opinion and the actions that flow from this.
This applies on all questions, particularly during a war, even a civil war, which the Libyan conflict clearly has elements of. There is nothing remotely progressive in the attempt of the imperialist powers of Britain, France or the US to implement the no-fly zone.
The Benghazi rebels are so much small change in their calculations. Only yesterday, these 'powers' embraced Muammar Gaddafi, supplied him with weapons, bought his oil and, through Blair, visited his 'big tent' in the desert and welcomed him into the 'international community'.
This term is a complete misnomer, as is the idea of the United Nations, used on this occasion as the screen behind which the intervention in Libya was prepared, for naked capitalist and imperialist class interests.
Undoubtedly, there are illusions amongst many idealistic young people and workers who look towards such bodies to resolve the problems of war, conflict, poverty, etc.
Some were also motivated to support the no-fly zone because of the fear that the population in Benghazi would be massacred by Gaddafi's forces. But the UN merely brings the capitalist nations together, dominated overwhelmingly by the US, to collaborate when their interests coincide, but which, equally, are very 'disunited' when the opposite is the case.
The jockeying for position and the squabbles between the different imperialist powers over the Libyan intervention illustrate this.
US overstretch and uncertainty
THE REVOLUTIONS IN the Middle East and North Africa initially revealed the uncertainty - almost the paralysis - of the major imperialist power, the US, to intervene.
The administration of Barack Obama has been forced to attempt to separate itself from George Bush's doctrine of a unipolar world dominated by US imperialism, with its overwhelming economic and military power.
It still retains this military advantage compared to its rivals but this is now undermined by the economic weakening of the US.
There is also the problem of Afghanistan and the fear that this is leading to military overstretch. This forced Robert Gates, US defence secretary, to declare early on his opposition - and, it must be assumed, of the US general staff - to the use of US land troops anywhere else in the world.
He also said that it was a 'certainty' that no US ground troops would be authorised by Obama in Libya.
He underlined this when he "laid into the rebels' capabilities, describing the opposition as a faction-ridden and disparate 'misnomer' whose forces lacked 'command and control and organisation'." (Observer, 3 April)
Obama, on the hoof, has sought to formulate a new military diplomatic doctrine in line with the changed position of the US. He has tried to draw a distinction between the 'vital' and 'non-vital' interests of US imperialism.
In 'vital' cases, the US will act unilaterally if the situation requires it but the US, he arrogantly proclaimed, is no longer 'the world's policeman' but, in future, would act as the world's 'police chief'.
This means, it seems, that the US would lend its support, be formally at the head of, a 'multilateral core coalition', so long as this did not mean the automatic actual deployment of troops.
Despite this, the pressure allegedly to prevent a 'bloodbath' has now compelled Obama to sign a public letter with Nicolas Sarkozy and Cameron declaring that it would be 'an unconscionable betrayal' if Gaddafi remains in place and the rebels are left to his mercy.
Libya, they declare, threatens to become 'a failed state'. This appears to set the scene for another somersault, particularly by Obama, to prepare the use of some ground forces if necessary.
When it has been unable to intervene directly, because of domestic opposition for instance, imperialism has not hesitated to use mercenaries to overthrow a regime it did not favour or to stymie a revolution.
Such was the policy of Ronald Reagan's administration in using hired thugs, the Contras, against the Nicaraguan revolution. Imperialism has been forced into the latest stand by the fact that Gaddafi appears to be winning or, at least, has sufficient military strength and a residue of support to avoid outright military defeat, short of a land invasion.
The rebels hold only the east, and not even all of this. The west, in which two thirds of the population live, is still largely controlled by Gaddafi and his forces.
This is not entirely due to popular compliance with the Gaddafi regime. His forces have most of the guns, particularly heavy weapons, tanks, etc.
He has always kept the regular army in check for fear that a coup could emanate from this quarter. Patrick Cockburn wrote in the Independent on Sunday: "Absence of a professional army in Libya means that the rebels have to rely on long-retired soldiers to train new recruits".
(17 April) Gaddafi is also able to draw on tribal support, as well as the political capital accumulated for his regime from the higher living standards in Libya, before the conflict, than in most countries in the region.
The Spanish revolution
MANY SUPPORTERS OF the no-fly zone took this position in the expectation that imperialism would be unable to proceed beyond this.
What will they do if, as cannot be excluded, land forces in one form or another are deployed with the open or concealed compliance of the imperialist powers of the US, France and Britain?
In the House of Commons debate on 21 March, Miliband was unrestrained in his support for Cameron's military action. This is further confirmation of the political degeneration of the Labour Party, from a workers' party at bottom into a bourgeois formation.
Writers from the capitalist class now almost casually recognise this reality: "The Labour Party was once the political arm of the organised working class.
All three main parties are now the political arm of the organised corporate class. This is not a peculiarly British phenomenon.
Almost every advanced democracy, and particularly the US, struggles to control the corporate sector". "(Peter Wilby, The Guardian, 12 April)
Just compare the stance of the current 'Labour' leader to that of Harold Wilson at the time of the Vietnam war. Much to the chagrin of then US president, Lyndon Johnson, Wilson - although he was not averse to supporting military action abroad if he thought he could get away with it - refused to involve British troops.
For him to have done otherwise would have split the Labour Party from top to bottom, probably leading to his removal as leader. In other words, he was compelled by the pressure of the ranks of the Labour Party and the trade unions to desist from supporting military action by US imperialism.
Now Miliband backs Cameron, with hardly a squeak from New Labour MPs or the 'rank and file'. He has invoked Spain during the civil war, in justifying support for the government.
He declared: "In 1936, a Spanish politician came to Britain to plead for support in the face of General Franco's violent fascism.
"He said: 'We are fighting with sticks and knives against tanks and aircraft and guns, and it revolts the conscience of the world that that should be true'." (Hansard, 21 March)
The parallel with Spain is entirely false. Then, a genuine revolution of the working class and poor peasants unfolded, with the creation, at least in the initial period after July 1936, of genuine workers' power, mass committees, and the occupation of land and factories.
Spain was experiencing a social revolution. In the main, this revolution was defeated not by Franco's fascist forces but by the false policies of the republican bourgeoisie which derailed the revolution, aided and abetted by the Communist Party, under orders from Stalin and the Russian bureaucracy.
They correctly feared that the triumph of the Spanish revolution would be the signal for their own overthrow. In this situation, the world working class rallied in support of the demand for arms to Spain.
Then imperialism, particularly the Anglo-French powers, did everything to prevent the Spanish workers from being armed. Yet the right-wing Tory MP, Bill Cash, agreed with Miliband that there was indeed "a parallel with what happened in 1936", and therefore supported the "arming of those who are resisting Gaddafi" in Benghazi.
Does this not indicate the political character of the present leadership in Benghazi and the east, which includes former Gaddafi loyalists like the former head of the special forces, Abdul Fattah Younis? If the original tendency shown in Benghazi of mass committees, involving the participation of the working class, had been maintained there would be no question of support emanating from right-wing Tories! Miliband gave further justification for his support of the no-fly zone: "There is international consent, a just cause and a feasible mission... are we really saying that we should be a country that stands by and does nothing?"
No serious left force can advocate a policy of abstention where working people are subjected to murderous attack by a ruthless dictator like Gaddafi. Clearly, we had to give political support -the position of the Socialist Party and the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI) from the outset - to the people of Benghazi when they drove Gaddafi's forces from the city in a revolutionary uprising.
This is a sufficient answer to those who seek to justify support for military intervention from the outside on the basis that Benghazi's people are defenceless.
They used the same arguments about the impotence of the Iraqi people in the grip of a ruthless dictator to justify the bombardment and invasion of Iraq, with all the murderous results that we see now.
But this argument was shattered by the uprising of the Tunisian and Egyptian peoples who, through their own multi-millioned power, smashed dictatorships.
The people of Benghazi have already defeated Gaddafi's forces once. This was when revolutionary or semi-revolutionary methods were deployed.
These now seem to have taken a backseat as petty-bourgeois and bourgeois forces have elbowed aside the genuine revolutionary forces. On the basis of mass workers' committees, a revolutionary army - unlike the ragtag force supporting the so-called 'transitional government' - could have been mobilised to seize all the towns in the east and make a revolutionary appeal to the people of the west, particularly in the capital, Tripoli.
There are many successful examples of this in history, not least in the Spanish revolution, which Miliband invokes but does not understand. For instance, after the workers in Barcelona smashed Franco's fascist uprising in July 1936, José Buenaventura Durruti formed a revolutionary army which marched through Catalonia and Aragon to the gates of Madrid.
This placed four fifths of Spain in the hands of the working class and poor peasantry. This was indeed a 'just' war on the part of the masses who were defending democracy while striving for a new, humane, socialist society.
Moreover, it was one with real international support from the European and world working class. Miliband's criteria for what is 'just' and what is not is situated within capitalism and what is best for that system, not the interests of working-class people who are in an oppositional and antagonistic relationship to that system, increasingly so today.
Western powers' double standards
OUR CRITERIA OF what is just and progressive, including wars, is that which enhances and strengthens the working masses, increases their power, their consciousness, etc.
What hinders this is retrogressive. Capitalist, imperialist intervention, including the no-fly zone, even if successful, will not strengthen the working class, increase the sense of its own power, to see itself and its organisations as the real and only lever for achieving its ends.
Instead, it directs the gaze of the workers in the east towards an outside 'liberating' force, thereby lowering the consciousness of working people in their own potential power.
As even Tory MPs commented in the Commons debate, Miliband seemed to identify himself completely with the 'Blair doctrine' - so-called humanitarian military intervention from the outside - from which he had appeared to distance himself when first elected leader.
This meant justifying both Blair and Cameron's arguments when confronted with the choice of where and when to intervene in the world. Miliband fell back on the specious statement: "The argument that because we cannot do everything we cannot do anything is a bad argument".
'We', that is capitalism and imperialism, cannot intervene against dictatorship in Burma, cannot even raise 'our' voices against the murderous assaults of the Israeli ruling class on the Palestinians in Gaza.
'We' are mute against the vicious regimes in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Nevertheless, it is 'just' to oppose Gaddafi - while only yesterday 'we' embraced him - and to use force from the sky, at least, against him and his regime.
The 'liberal' Observer newspaper takes the prize for summing up this arbitrary hypocritical approach of capitalism: "Why does this Gulf regime [Bahrain] get the benefit of the doubt when other authoritarian Arab rulers do not? Clearly, there is no question of intervention in Bahrain or in any other state where protest is being crushed.
The entanglement in Libya leaves no appetite for giving active support, whether diplomatic or military, to other rebellions. If only one villain in the region had to be singled out for attack, Colonel Gaddafi was surely the most deserving candidate". (17 April)
"Entirely missing from this argumentation is the real reason for intervention in Libya, and that is the material interests of capitalism and imperialism, above all of oil, with some of the biggest reserves in Africa.
Some have even denied that this is a factor - they argued the same before Iraq. "The oil conspiracy theory... is one of the most absurd", said Blair (6 February 2003).
Now The Independent (19 April) has published a hitherto hidden Foreign Office memorandum, sent on 13 November 2002, following a meeting with the oil giant BP: "Iraq is the big oil prospect.
"BP are desperate to get in there".
Shameful support for military intervention
WHILE THE POSITION of the likes of Miliband is not unexpected, given the rightward evolution of the ex-workers' parties and their leaders, the same cannot be said of those claiming to stand in a Marxist-Trotskyist tradition.
Sean Matgamna of the AWL even drags in Leon Trotsky to justify support for military intervention in Libya: "An individual, a group, a party, or a class that 'objectively' picks its nose while it watches men drunk with blood massacring defenceless people is condemned by history to rot and become worm-eaten while it is still alive".
In this passage, from his writings on the Balkan wars prior to the first world war, Trotsky denounces the spokesmen of Russian liberal capitalism for remaining silent while Serbian and Bulgarian atrocities were committed against other nationalities.
He was not in anyway justifying support for the leaders of one nation against another. This is clear from the rest of the quote, which Matgamna does not cite: "On the other hand, a party or the class that rises up against every abominable action wherever it has occurred, as vigorously and unhesitatingly as a living organism reacts to protect its eyes when they are threatened with external injury - such a party or class is sound of heart.
"Protest against the outrages in the Balkans cleanses the social atmosphere in our own country, heightens the level of moral awareness among our own people... Therefore an uncompromising protest against atrocities serves not only the purpose of moral self-defence on the personal and party level but also the purpose of politically safeguarding the people against adventurism concealed under the flag of 'liberation'."
If anything, the last point from this quote finds conclusively against the AWL. It is supporting imperialist intervention under the false flag of 'liberation'.
Yet we find the astounding allegation: "The would-be left is yet again tying itself in knots over a false political dilemma: the belief that in order not to give general support to the British-France 'liberal intervention' in Libya, they must stridently oppose them on this and on every specific thing they do.
Or at least on every military action. In fact it is a dilemma of their own making".
"Trying to square the circle, Matgamna then adds: "Of course, socialists should not give positive political support to the governments and the ruling capitalists of Britain, France, the USA, or the UN, in Libya or anywhere else".
A child of ten can recognise that support for military action of whatever kind is 'positive political support'. The AWL claims that it can neatly separate support for action of this character from the wider perspectives of the powers that take such action.
It is, in effect, the political attorney and apologist for France and Britain: "The UN, with Britain and France as its instruments, has set very limited objectives in Libya.
"There is no reason at all to think that the 'Great Powers' want to occupy Libya or are doing other than a limited international police operation on what they see as Europe's 'southern border'." Gratuitously the AWL says: "The bitter lessons of their bungling in Iraq are still very fresh to them".
It goes on: "In the name of what alternative should we have told them to stop using air power to prevent Gaddafi massacring an incalculable number of his own people? That is the decisive question in all such situations".
If you do not go along with this nonsense you are incorrigible pacifists, according to the AWL. To show how far these latter-day 'Trotskyists' are removed from Trotsky's real views on war, look at his position during the Spanish civil war on the issue of the military budget of the Republican government.
Max Shachtman, at that time one of his followers, opposed Trotsky who had argued in 1937: "If we would have a member in the Cortes [Spanish parliament] he would vote against the military budget of Negrin".
Trotsky wrote that Shachtman's opposition to this position "astounded me. Shachtman was willing to express confidence in the perfidious Negrin government".
He later explained: "To vote for the military budget of the Negrin government signifies to vote him political confidence... To do it would be a crime.
"How do we explain our vote to the anarchist workers? Very simply: We have not the slightest confidence in the capacity of this government to conduct the war and assure victory.
We accuse this government of protecting the rich and starving the poor. This government must be smashed.
So long as we are not strong enough to replace it, we are fighting under its command. But on every occasion we express openly our non-confidence in it: it is the only one possibility to mobilise the masses politically against this government and to prepare its overthrow.
Any other politics would be a betrayal of the revolution". (Trotsky, From a Scratch to the Danger of Gangrene, 24 January 1940) How much more scathingly would Trotsky assail the AWL's shameful support for imperialist intervention in Libya today.
An independent class position
INCREDIBLY, THE AWL's apology for imperialist intervention allegedly defends 'independent working-class politics'. But there is not an atom of an independent class position in its approach.
We opposed military intervention, but so did the masses in Benghazi in the first period. The slogans on the walls read, in English: 'No to foreign intervention, the Libyans can do it themselves'.
In other words, the masses had a much sounder class instinct, a suspicion of any military intervention from the outside, particularly by the powers that formerly dominated the region: Britain and France.
They correctly feared that a no-fly zone, despite protestations to the contrary, would lead to an invasion, as it did in Iraq. Does this mean that we remain on the level of general slogans, that we are impassive in the face of a possible attack by Gaddafi on Benghazi? No.
But in such a situation we emphasise the need for independent class politics, for the masses to rely on their own strength and to give not a scintilla of support for the idea that imperialism has the best interests of the masses at heart.
Truly, we cannot react - as did Alex Callinicos, a leader of the British SWP - to the arguments of the possible massacre in Benghazi with the statement: "The sad fact is that massacres are a chronic feature of capitalism.
The revolutionary left is, alas, too weak to stop them". Physically, the forces of Marxism may be too weak to prevent massacres - in Rwanda, for instance.
Nonetheless, we are obligated to advocate that the broad labour movement should adopt the most effective position politically to defend and enhance the power and influence of the working class in a given situation.
In Northern Ireland in 1969, for instance, Militant supporters (predecessors of the Socialist Party), opposed sending in British troops to defend the Catholic nationalist areas of Belfast and Derry from a murderous assault by the predominantly loyalist B-Specials.
The SWP, despite later denials, supported sending in the British troops. When the troop did go in, they defended these areas from loyalist attacks and were welcomed as 'defenders'.
But, as we predicted, at a certain stage this would turn into its opposite and the troops would come to be seen as a repressive force against the Catholic nationalist minority.
This is how events actually worked out.
However, faced with a possible massacre of the Catholic population we did not adopt a 'neutral' or passive position. In Militant (now The Socialist), in September 1969, we argued "for a united workers' defence force, the withdrawal of British troops, disband the B-Specials, end of all discrimination, jobs, homes, schools, etc, for all workers".
We stood, in other words, for class unity and for working people to rely on their own forces and not on the capitalist state forces. Only a similar approach based on the foundation of complete class independence, adapted to the concrete conditions in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East, can lead to success for the workers' struggle in a very complicated situation.
We cannot follow Achar either when he declares: "Can anyone claiming to belong to the left just ignore a popular movement's plea for protection, even by means of imperialist bandit-cops, when the type of protection requested is not one through which control over their country could be exerted? Certainly not, by my understanding of the left.
No real progressive could just ignore the uprising's request for protection".
It is wrong to identify the 'uprising', which was originally a genuine mass movement - as we pointed out - with its present leadership, stuffed with bourgeois and pro-bourgeois elements, including remnants from the Gaddafi regime.
Moreover, it is entirely wrong to equate Lenin's acceptance of food and even arms from one imperialist power to be used to repulse another, without any military or political strings attached, to support for imperialism's no-fly zone - as some have done.
It is not a question for Marxism only of what is done, but who does it, why and how.
Defending revolution
ULTIMATELY, IMPERIALISM'S intervention is to safeguard its power, prestige and income from the threat of the unfolding revolution in the region. A spokesman for the Obama administration made it clear that it is not Libya that is the main concern but what happens in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, where most of the oil reserves upon which world capitalism depends are concentrated.
But they see a successful intervention in Libya as a firewall against the threat of revolution in these states and the whole region. They are also concerned about the regional influence of Iran, which grew enormously as a result of the Iraq war.
The situation in Libya is extremely fluid. The outcome of the present conflict is uncertain.
At the moment, it looks like deadlock with neither Gaddafi nor the rebels able to strike a decisive blow for victory in what is now a drawn-out civil war.
This could lead to the effective partitioning of the country, already the de facto case. In this situation, all the latent tribal divisions - held in check partly by the terror of the Gaddafi regime - could come flooding to the surface, creating a new Somalia in the centre of the Middle East, with all its instability, not least in the struggle over Libya's oil reserves.
On the other hand, imperialism is desperate to avoid the impression that Gaddafi could come out as a partial victor in this struggle, enhancing the perceived impotence of the imperialist powers to decide the outcome of events.
But the responsibility of the labour movements in Britain and worldwide is clear.
Absolute opposition to all outside imperialist intervention! Let the Libyan people decide their own fate! Maximum support, from the world working class and labour movement, including the supply of food and weapons, to the genuine forces of national and social liberation in Libya and the Middle East!
Imperialism will not be able to stop the forward march of revolution in North Africa and the Middle East. Yes, there is disappointment, as the CWI predicted, amongst the masses that the fruits of their victories against Mubarak and Ben Ali appear to have been stolen for the moment by the regimes that replaced them.
The hated security apparatus and state machine which existed before, despite the mighty labours of the revolution, remain largely intact. But they are being opposed by the mass movements.
The revolutions endure and millions have learnt enormously in the course of this movement. Hopefully, their conclusions will lead to a strengthening of the working class and the development of independent class politics.
This would be symbolised by the development of the workers' own organisations, new powerful trade unions and workers' parties with the goal of socialist transformation, accompanied by democracy in Libya and the region as a whole.
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