Take the cure

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Socialists have diagnosed what ails the world and have identified the disease as capitalism. It is capitalism which is the virus that infects the entire world. Socialists have also prescribed the cure: revolution to take control of the means of production by working people who make up the vast majority of society. The cure isn’t easy. There is only one remedy for working-class ills and that is to overthrow the present social system, based upon the private ownership of the means of living, and to set up in its stead a system based upon the common ownership of those things. Since this involves the abolition of the capitalist claes, they will certainly resist it to the utmost extremity of their power. 



The essential first step in the working-class revolt is for the toilers to get control of the armed forces of the nation. These armed forces, as we are continually pointing out, are controlled by Parliament. It is therefore necessary for the workers to organise in a political party for the capture through the ballot of the Parliament. When they have captured this capitalist stronghold they will have control of the machinery of government, and will be able to proceed to their emancipation secure in the control of the means of dealing with any capitalist rebellion. As socialists we hold that the franchise presents to the workers the way to their emancipation. Until the workers learn to use this instrument properly they are not fit or ready for socialism.



Democracy is a product of struggles and sacrifices of the working class. The campaigns for freedom, equality and justice and the social and political movements for livelihoods have helped to deepen democratic practices all over the world. But capitalist democracy has failed people with false promises of prosperity and empowerment. The vampire class are getting ready for another inevitable feast of blood sucked from the working class. All around us we see rising nationalism, populism and the conservative forces sapping the strength of democracy. Top–down bureaucratic decision-making normalise authoritarian tendencies. We are manipulated, we are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by a process we can never discern. The sociali controlm suppressng and repressing us is invisible, camoflaged by a complicit media. Capitalism directs and steers our hopes, fate and futures for the sake of its profit and to protect the interest of the ultra-rich.



There is no shortcut to progressive mass movements, which can change the course of history and fortify our democratic future. It can only be achieved through collective struggles based on our collective interests. Such a political organisation exists in the Socialist Party, founded upon sound principles, principles which have stood the searching test of years, and have proved sufficient to keep the organisation true to working-class interests. We invite every man and woman to study them in a critical, challenging spirit, and to reveal any flaw he or she may find in them. If they prove sound, the worker’s duty is clear.



Masters of War

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Data compiled by the New York Times showed that the chief executive officers of the top five military-industrial contractors received nearly $90 million in compensation in 2017. 



 An investigation that same year by the Providence Journal discovered that, from 2005 to the first half of 2017, the top five defense contractors spent more than $114 billion repurchasing their own company stocks and so boosting their value at the expense of new investment.



http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55141.htm

Hong Kong Protests Return

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300 people were arrested during day-long protests across Hong Kong, as residents railed against controversial legislation aimed at bringing the territory further under Beijing’s control. Police fired pepper-spray bullets crowds as people shouted slogans. Officers stopped and searched residents, including students, and rounded up suspected protesters, forcing them to sit in rows on the ground. Roads around the Legislative Council building, where lawmakers were holding a debate on the anthem law, were blocked off and pedestrian walkways open to only those with work passes. Nearby shops were also closed. 



 Thousands of armed police had flooded the streets to stop the planned demonstrations aimed at halting a law criminalising ridicule of China’s national anthem. Opponents say the anthem law could be weaponised against pro-democracy activists and legislators. Under the proposed law “intent to insult” the anthem, such as by changing lyrics or music or singing in a “disrespectful way”, carries financial penalties and jail of up to three years. The March of the Volunteers is the national anthem of the People’s Republic of China, as well as Hong Kong and Macau. Booing of the anthem at Hong Kong football marches has previously embarrassed Beijing.



 Police in riot gear stopped and searched mainly young people outside Hong Kong’s MTR railway stations, prompting accusations on social media that the city had become “a police state”.  People were detained in Mong Kok, with at least 180 arrested in Causeway Bay for an unauthorised gatherings and protesters repeatedly charged at in Central and fired at with pepper-spray rounds.



 The protests have been given a fresh urgency with Beijing announcing last week plans to force a sweeping anti-sedition law on Hong Kong. Protest organisers on social media urged people to “be water” and keep moving throughout the city, but acknowledged it would be difficult to stop the anthem debate without high risk of arrest. The crowds remained chanting: “Hong Hong independence, it’s the only way.”



 “But you can at least make a statement,” said one post. 



 “Of course I need to make my voice heard. They’re forcing this upon us and we can’t fight against them,” said Mrs Lam, 74. 



 A 73-year-old woman who gave the surname Cheung said she swam to Hong Kong from China to “escape the dictatorial rule of the CCP [Chinese Communist party]” when she was 15. “The Communist party is not trustworthy,” she said. “When they say you’re guilty then you’re guilty. Is there still ‘one country, two systems’? Of course we need to fight.”



 “I’ve come for something I care deeply about – ultimately it’s freedom,” said a 40-year-old lawyer who wished to remain anonymous, citing the national security laws, Beijing encroachment, and a recent report clearing police of wrongdoing. “If we keep quiet, they can get away with it. I don’t think we can change things but need to make sure our voices are heard.”



 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/27/hong-kong-trump-china-security-crackdown-protests



Climate Change – No Change – Business as Usual

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G20 nations remain committed to the Paris agreement, which aims to keep global temperature rise well below 2°C and further limit it to 1.5°C by 2100. Despite their public commitments to the Paris agreement, G20 countries continue to subsidize the fossil fuel industry. Key findings include that support for the fossil fuel industry has “stayed steady” since the Paris agreement



A  new report, from Oil Change International and Friends of the Earth (FOE) U.S., focuses on financing for oil, gas, and coal projects from members of the Group of 20 (G20), which comprises governments and central bank governors from 19 countries and the European Union show governments continued to pour $77 billion a year in public finance into propping up the fossil fuel industry.


The new report—Still Digging: G20 Governments Continue to Finance the Climate Crisis (pdf)—warns that “with the health and livelihoods of billions at immediate risk from Covid-19, governments around the world are preparing public spending packages of a magnitude they previously deemed unthinkable…We cannot afford for the wave of public finance that is being prepared for relief and recovery efforts to prop up the fossil fuel industry as it has in the past. Business as usual would exacerbate the next crisis—the climate crisis—that is already on our doorstep.



FOE U.S. senior international policy analyst Kate DeAngelis said in a statement, “Our planet is hurtling towards climate catastrophe and these countries are pouring gasoline on the fire to the tune of billions,”



Oil Change International research analyst Bronwen Tucker said, “Government money must instead support a just transition from fossil fuels that protects workers, communities, and the climate—both at home and beyond their borders. Instead of bankrolling another major crisis—climate change—our governments should invest in a resilient future.”



Most of this fossil fuel finance flowed to wealthier countries,” the report says, noting that China, Canada, Japan, and Korea provided the most public finance for dirty energy projects from 2016 to 2018.



“It is unacceptable that such a high investment, which will provide billions of profits for foreign companies like Total, is contributing to the impoverishment and oppression of already vulnerable local communities,” said Justica Ambiental director Anabela Lemos.

“Peasant and fishing families have lost their livelihoods for a lifetime,” Lemos added. “The discovery of gas has stolen their identity and failed to provide them with the conditions stipulated in the so-called community consultation processes.”




Weapons for Duterte

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Anti-war and human rights groups have issued an open letter calling on the U.S. Congress to put a halt to two pending arms sales to the Philippines totally nearly $2 billion, warning that President Rodrigo Duterte’s track record of human rights violations.



At issue are two possible sales of U.S. military hardware adding up to nearly $2 billion. The larger of the two, at an estimated $1.5 billion, is for six AH-64E Apache attack helicopters. The other possible sale is for six AH-1Z attack helicopters and related equipment totalling roughly $450 million.



“What could help the Filipinos right now is aid for their under-resourced healthcare system and for programs to assist poor people to survive during the current lockdown, not an arms sale,” the letter to U.S. lawmakers reads. “We plead with you to use your voice against the gross human rights violations in the Philippines and put forth a resolution to stop arms sales to the Duterte administration until the government takes the effective steps to end human rights abuses.”



Duterte has placed the military in charge of COVID-19 response. On April 1, he ordered troops to “shoot dead” quarantine violators, causing human rights abuses to immediately surge. The next day, a farmer, Junie Dugog Piñar, was shot and killed by police for violating the COVID-19 lockdown in Agusan del Norte, Mindanao. Police have locked curfew violators in dog cages, used torture and sexual humiliation as punishment against LGBTQ people, and beaten and arrested urban poor people protesting for food. Beatings and killings to enforce “enhanced community quarantine” continue.



https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/26/citing-dual-threat-covid-19-and-duterte-coalition-calls-congress-block-us-arms-sale

Under the Iron Heel. (1922)

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 From the May 1922 issue of the Socialist Standard

During the Big War, on one occasion when a crowd was dispersed in Turin for demanding bread, by the simple expedient of dropping bombs on them from airplanes, the present writer gave it as his opinion that this method would be resorted to in future disputes between the oppressors and the oppressed, and that this occasion marked its introduction as a permanent feature under capitalism. Events since then have fully born out that statement.



Wherever we turn—India, Egypt, Africa, in fact, any place where “rebellion” is in progress—there you will find this latest instrument of slaughter freely used. So far, this method has not been employed in this country, but it is not too much to say that if the capitalist class take it into their heads that this method is the best and most effective for producing “order,” its introduction will not be long delayed. A few mass meetings of the out-of-works and strikers, and the unemployment problem would be solved!



Its use on the Rand, where hundreds of Trade Unionists were in the midst of a trade dispute which had developed into a test of violence, is sufficiently recent to be remembered.



However justifiably workers may have acted in taking any particular line, the point to be remembered is that the master class is determined to smash up such efforts, and will not scruple to use any means to effect that end.



The writer has been asked his opinion regarding the scenes depicted in the novel by Upton Sinclair, “King Coal,” as to whether they were, or were not, exaggerated. Readers of that book will remember that Mr. Sinclair describes the system supposed to be in operation in the mining districts of the Western States, where hired thugs, spies, and other evils are employed by the capitalists against the workers. I gave it as my opinion that these evils were in way exaggerated, and the recent reports from the States conform the correctness of that opinion.



The mine owners in West Virginia seem determined to stamp out the movement for organising the workers into the United Mine Workers’ Union. More than 45,000 miners are already enrolled in this Union, and the organisers were determined to get another 45,000 non-unionists in. These are mostly located in the Logan and Mingo counties, where, it seems, the mine owners are in complete command of the county administration, with the sheriffs also in their pay. As most of the houses tenanted by the miners are owned by the companies, naturally the first thing the latter did was to threaten with eviction every man joining the Union.



This they did, utilising for the purpose detectives of the Baldwin-Felt Agency, who are notorious gunmen. Fights were the result, with the loss of life on both sides. On one occasion, during a march of Union men, they were met by troops and mine guards, which resulted in a battle in the mountains lasting for days.



Whenever things are not lively enough for the gunmen, they proceed to “shoot up” a town or two in order to strike terror into the hearts of the miners and their families. The State Attorney-General himself admits that the mine owners hold the entire machinery of administration in their grip, so that the miners in their quest for “justice” find themselves “up against it” at every turn. The latest reports show that efforts are being made to have the United Mine Workers declared an illegal association! (“Manchester Guardian,” 28/10/21.)



Another account, taken from the “Toiler” (New York), says: –

The mines, stores, churches, schools, hospitals, homes, Press, and the entire governmental machinery are owned outright by the coal barons. The salaries of deputy sheriffs are paid by the operators, and the State Constabulary is picked from lists prepared by them. All the mining area is under the domination of the Baldwin-Felt Detective Agency’s gunmen and murderers. These armed guards watch the pay rolls, collect rents, evict workers, run miners out of town, and serve as general thugs and hangmen for the capitalists. The workers are robbed going and coming . . . any defiance of this system of slavery, any sign of workers’ resistance, is met with club, bayonet, and machine gun . . . Finally, Harding was appealed to for a conference. In reply to this appeal came Federal troops, aeroplanes, gas bombs, and machine-guns to crush the workers.” (Quoted from the Worker, Brisbane, 2/2/22.) Very similar to this was the way in which the workers were treated during the recent strike in the San Joaquin oilfields of California. After striking against the reduction of a dollar a day and the abolition of the Arbitration Board, they found themselves against a very formidable and well-organised resistance. The strikers themselves formed a body of pickets, whose business it was to see that no strike breakers were brought into the district, and at the same time to prevent any disorder taking place, so that a straight fight on principle could be waged. This, however, was futile. Guards were rushed in and the Press made the most of the affair—in the interests of the bosses, of course. Like the West Virginia coal owners, the oil companies had their hired thugs and spies, who conducted their operations clandestinely. Appeals to the Government were useless, and the strikers soon found themselves down and out, with the result that the strike collapsed and the men decided to return to work without having secured any advantage. When they offered to return, however, they were informed that they were not needed. It was then discovered that a very elaborate system of blacklisting had been prepared during their absence. Each company apparently possessed full particulars of every applicant for work, and on every occasion he was turned away. This soon had the effect of creating a large body of moneyless, jobless men. To make matters worse, the strikers soon discovered that the names on the black list had been circulated by the companies among the traders of the town, so that it was an impossibility to obtain credit. As in most disputes, the Press endeavoured to show that the trouble was due to the agitation set up by the Bolsheviks, Socialists, and what not. Raids made on the homes of individuals resulted in the finding of quantities of seditious literature, which, as is usual in such case, had been carefully concealed beforehand by the “finders.” These facts I have taken from “The Golden Age,” Brooklyn, N.Y. (15/2/22).



Altogether, what has been reported lately from the various industrial centres of America leads me to believe that what Sinclair was rather under-estimated, if anything.



One needn’t be surprised, of course, at any of these things. They are not confined to America. The same class is in possession everywhere, and everywhere its methods are the same. It follows that there is only one cure—Socialism.
Tom Sala



The Locusts Plague India

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“We are battling a major locust attack from across the border. This is the biggest invasion in nearly three decades. The swarms are very big and they have migrated from across the border after breeding a month earlier than we were expecting,” KL Gurjar, deputy director of India’s Locust Warning Organisation, said.
The swarms flew across the border around 30 April, and they are still active in five districts of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Each of these one-square-kilometre swarms contains up to 40 million insects and they travel fast, sometimes up to 400km (248 miles) in a day, officials say.
“We are lucky that there is no crop in the fields now. But the locusts eat up all the green vegetation, leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds and plants,” Mr Gurjar said. An average small locust swarm, say officials, can eat as much food in a day as about 2,500 people. If not controlled, desert locusts can damage food supplies and cause famine. Some 45 million sq km of land in 90 countries are potentially prone or under the threat of invasion by the desert locust, according to the FAO.
“They have migrated here after breeding across the border. It is a severe attack,” Om Prakash, a plant-protection officer, who works in Rajasthan state .
A 100-odd workers who are battling the insects, using vehicle-mounted sprayers, pesticides and drones in the searing desert heat. They are staying in the villages, where they are being given foods by locals, and going out at night to hunt down the insects in face masks and wearing some basic protective clothing. India, clearly, needs to be watchful in the months ahead. “We need to be alert and anticipate where this is going next. The situation is all the more alarming as it comes at a time when the affected states are already reeling under Covid-19 and the ongoing heatwave,” says Anshu Sharma of Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development Society, a non-profit disaster management organisation.
A second wave of a locust attack has also hit East Africa. Africa’s second most populous state, Ethiopia – along with regional economic powerhouse Kenya and politically unstable Somalia – are among countries worst hit. The UN estimates the swarms could be up to 20 times bigger than during the first invasion -and they could become 400 times bigger by June. 


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52804981



The Hostile Environment and the NHS

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The NHS charging regulations require upfront payment for the full cost of care from those who cannot prove they are entitled to use the NHS. Worse, they are charged at a 50 per cent mark-up. Those who can’t pay their bills can be reported to the Home Office. This is one part of the hostile environment, a set of policies introduced during Theresa May’s tenure as Home Secretary, designed to make life as difficult as possible for those without leave to remain in the UK.



Doctors did not go through six years of medical school to become border guards. Their purpose is to look after the sick. 



The government’s Immigration Bill is an assault on the strength and resilience of the NHS and social care workforce. Policies that exclude any individual from healthcare threaten the health of all. While populism usually discriminates against a minority, the NHS Charging Regulations are harming the entire population. The NHS and the hostile environment do not mix.



https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/doctors-nhs-surcharge-migrant-workers-hostile-environment-lockdown-a9526731.html

Quote of the Day

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“The earth is polluted neither because man is some kind of especially dirty animal nor because there are too many of us. The fault lies with human society —with the ways in which society has elected to win, distribute, and use the wealth that has been extracted by human labour from the planet’s resources.” — Ecologist Barry Commoner, The Observer 9 January 1972.

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