LET THE CAPITALISTS FIGHT THEIR OWN WARS

The only way in which mankind can bring about a social change and build a fraternal society, free of war, is to establish socialism. This will not come about as an expression of non-violence but as the conscious act of a socialist-minded working-class. Our position is that we are against every war and both sides of every war. Wars are struggles between capitalist interests; no army fights for the interests of any working class. Only in a truly socialist world-wide society will war disappear, because while the capitalist world social order lasts, the roots of war remain. So the only way to lasting peace is through a new world —without money, armaments, classes, or nations. There is no need for war, just as there is no natural need for poverty or mass starvation or housing shortages or hospital waiting lists. It is because society is organised to provide profits for the few rather than satisfaction for the many that these problems face us. 

Ukrainian troops are not fighting to defend Peace, Democracy, Liberty or any other high-sounding ideal. The present conflict is represented in certain quarters as one between “freedom” and ‘‘tyranny” and for the rights of a smaller nation for self-determination. . No one should be misled by their fine words and airy phrases about democracy. Whether they nakedly expose their own profit-seeking interests or whether for reasons of tactics and expediency they mask them in phrases about democracy and it is the same cynical capitalist interest that guides them. We are told that this is a war in defence of peace against aggression and that therefore all defenders of peace and collective security should support it. There never was a bigger lie. This war is a fight between imperialist powers over world domination. This war is not a war for democracy against an oligarchy. It is not a war for the liberty of a small nation.

The Russian invasion is just an aspect of the conflict between Western imperialism and Russian imperialism for control of  Eastern Europe. Not an issue in which the Socialist Party take sides. Whichever side prevails the poor people of the region will lose as the war is basically over who is going to govern and exploit them. The answer to capitalist intrigue and power-politics is not to be found in supporting one capitalist group against another. The task before us is still that of winning over the working class to socialism. 

The way to prevent war is not by engaging in anti-war campaigns. These are quite useless because they leave the causes of war untouched. The only preventative is to take away the urge to war; take away the profit motive. While private ownership of the means of existence remains, the making of profit is the object of the private owners. Abolish private ownership and substitute for it common ownership in the means of production and the profit motive disappears, taking with it the seeds of war. Socialism is the only means to defeat the warmongers.

The working class has only to say “stop” and the entire present. system of society will cease to be. We have only to take the means of wealth production and distribution into the common ownership and democratic control of the whole community to put an end to the need for fighting over markets and resources and frontiers. We need only withdraw our consent to capitalism, in a majority, to set in motion the revolution. The truth is that capitalism is triumphant everywhere because the working class are blind to their own class position, and is still persuaded that they have an interest in leaving power in capitalist hands. It is only a degree worse that in some countries large numbers of workers go further on the road of stupid servility, and help to place power in the hands of Fascist demagogues. The only people who can end this are the workers themselves. When they sicken of Fascism they will be well on the road to destroying it, but it can only be done from within the country concerned. It is the duty of each national section of the working class to struggle against their own capitalist masters, aided to the extent that is possible by the international movement. 

 The US’s biggest oil companies pumped out record profits over the last few months as Americans struggled to pay for gasoline, food and other basic necessities.

ExxonMobil reported an unprecedented $17.85bn (£14.77bn) profit for the second quarter, nearly four times as much as the same period a year ago.

 Chevron made a record $11.62bn (£9.61bn). 

The sky-high profits were announced one day after the UK’s Shell shattered its own profit record of $11.4bn (nearly £10bn) for the three-month period from April to June.

The record profits came after similarly outsized gains in the first quarter when the largest oil companies made close to $100bn in profits.

High energy prices are one of the leading factors driving inflation to a four-decade high in the US. Gas prices have fallen slightly in recent weeks but are now averaging $4.25 a gallon across the US, more than $1 a gallon higher than a year ago. Soaring energy prices are driving up the cost of everything from apples to toilet paper.

Exxon, based in Irving, Texas, increased its oil and gas production as crude prices hovered above $100 a barrel. Revenue at Exxon soared to $115.68bn, up from $67.74bn during the same quarter last year.

Shareholders reaped the benefits of high energy prices during the quarter. Since the start of 2022, Exxon and Chevron shares have risen close to 46% and 26%, respectively.

Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of Britain’s Trades Union Congress, called the “eye-watering profits” “an insult to the millions of working people struggling to get by because of soaring energy bills.

“Working people are facing the longest and harshest wage squeeze in modern history. It’s time working people got their fair share of the wealth they create, starting with real action to bring bills down,” said O’Grady.

Oil company profits boom as Americans reel from high fuel prices | Oil and gas companies | The Guardian

Bill McGuire is emeritus professor of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London and his latest book, Hothouse Earth, makes for depressing pessimistic reading.

He makes clear an uncompromising depiction of the coming climatic catastrophe, that for far too long we have ignored the explicit warnings that rising carbon emissions are dangerously heating the Earth. Now we are going to pay the price for our complacence in the form of storms, floods, droughts and heatwaves that will easily surpass current extremes.

He argues that there is now no chance of us avoiding a perilous, all-pervasive climate breakdown and that we have passed the point of no return and can expect a future in which lethal heatwaves and temperatures in excess of 50C (120F) are common in the tropics; where summers at temperate latitudes will invariably be baking hot, and where our oceans are destined to become warm and acidic. 

“A child born in 2020 will face a far more hostile world that its grandparents did,” McGuire explains.

McGuire, a volcanologist and  a member of the UK government’s Natural Hazard Working Group, takes an outlier position. Most other climate experts still maintain we have time left, although not very much, to bring about meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. A rapid drive to net zero and the halting of global warming is still within our grasp, they say.

Such claims are dismissed by McGuire. 

At the Cop26 climate meeting in Glasgow last year, it was agreed that every effort should be made to try to limit that rise to 1.5C, although to achieve such a goal, it was calculated that global carbon emissions will have to be reduced by 45% by 2030.

“In the real world, that is not going to happen,” says McGuire. “Instead, we are on course for close to a 14% rise in emissions by that date – which will almost certainly see us shatter the 1.5C guardrail in less than a decade.”

“I know a lot of people working in climate science who say one thing in public but a very different thing in private. In confidence, they are all much more scared about the future we face, but they won’t admit that in public. I call this climate appeasement and I believe it only makes things worse. The world needs to know how bad things are going to get before we can hope to start to tackle the crisis.” He goes on to point out, “Just look at what is happening already to a world which has only heated up by just over one degree,” says McGuire. “It turns out the climate is changing for the worse far quicker than predicted by early climate models. That’s something that was never expected.”

Wildfires of unprecedented intensity and ferocity have also swept across Europe, North America and Australia this year, while record rainfall in the midwest led to the devastating flooding in the US’s Yellowstone national park and Kentucky. “And as we head further into 2022, it is already a different world out there,” he adds. “Soon it will be unrecognisable to every one of us.”

These changes underline one of the most startling aspects of climate breakdown: the speed with which global average temperature rises translate into extreme weather.

We should be in no doubt about the consequences. Anything above 1.5C will see a world plagued by intense summer heat, extreme drought, devastating floods, reduced crop yields, rapidly melting ice sheets and surging sea levels. A rise of 2C and above will seriously threaten the stability of global society, McGuire argues. It should also be noted that according to the most hopeful estimates of emission cut pledges made at Cop26, the world is on course to heat up by between 2.4C and 3C. From this perspective, it is clear we can do little to avoid the coming climate breakdown. Instead, we need to adapt to the hothouse world that lies ahead and  start taking action to try to stop a bleak situation deteriorating even further, McGuire says.

Heatwaves will become more frequent, get hotter and last longer. Huge numbers of modern, tiny, poorly insulated UK homes will become heat traps, responsible for thousands of deaths every summer by 2050.

“Despite repeated warnings, hundreds of thousands of these inappropriate homes continue to be built every year,” adds McGuire.

McGuire stresses that if carbon emissions can be cut substantially in the near future, and if we start to adapt to a much hotter world today, a truly calamitous and unsustainable future can be avoided. The days ahead will be grimmer, but not disastrous. We may not be able to give climate breakdown the slip but we can head off further instalments that would appear as a climate cataclysm bad enough to threaten the very survival of human civilisation.

McGuire blames a “conspiracy of ignorance, inertia, poor governance, and obfuscation and lies by climate change deniers that has ensured that we have sleepwalked to within less than half a degree of the dangerous 1.5C climate change.

Sadly, in this blog’s view, McGuire fails to identify the chief culprit – capitalism – as the motivating force for inaction.

‘Soon it will be unrecognisable’: total climate meltdown cannot be stopped, says expert | Climate crisis | The Guardian

 Figures, published by Citizens Advice, reveals the difficulties caused by spiralling domestic energy costs, which charities say are driving millions into fuel poverty.

The number of people seeking help because they cannot afford both food and energy has risen more than threefold in a year, according to new data.

The cap on average household gas and electricity bills in the UK – set by energy regulator Ofgem – is likely to soar in October from £1,971 to £3,500, according to forecasts issued last week. But the new data shows that the number of people struggling to eat and pay for energy has already surged, even before the new cap kicks in.

Given the predicted increase in the energy price cap, the National Energy Action (NEA) charity has added half a million households to its estimate of those facing fuel poverty – defined as spending more than 10% of income on energy. The charity, which advises people on how to manage energy bills, now predicts that 8.7m households, more than one in three in the UK, will find themselves in fuel poverty once the next price cap comes into effect in October.

NEA said the choice between food and energy isn’t the only one forced by poverty. “Some people are choosing between food and vital medical equipment like oxygen machines,” said Peter Smith, the NEA’s director of policy and advocacy.

Morgan Wild, head of policy at Citizens Advice, said the numbers were “truly shocking”. 

“That’s people who literally can’t afford to either keep their lights on or put food on the table,” he said.

Data from Citizens Advice also underscores how the cost of living crisis is disproportionately affecting particular groups of people, including those with disabilities or long-term health conditions. But the cost of living overtook all other issues combined for the first time in January 2021 and has since moved far ahead for disabled people, in contrast with the rest of the population. The data also showed higher-than-average referrals to food banks among single people and those in social housing. Referrals among single people, including those while children, have risen much faster than among couples, while there was also a pronounced rise among social tenants.

Citizens Advice pointed out that projections of monthly energy bills of £500 in January mean the cost of heating and electricity could overtake the average £420 spent on social rent in London for the first time.

Food and fuel poverty has more than tripled in a year, says Citizens Advice | UK cost of living crisis | The Guardian

Following Biden’s friendly overtures to  Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), France’s President Macron warmly greets the man responsible for the assassination of a journalist as well as the instigator of bombings in Yemen. 

The fiancee of the late Khashoggi expressed outrage at the visit. “I am scandalised and outraged that Emmanuel Macron is receiving with all the honours the executioner of my fiancee, Jamal Khashoggi,” Hatice Cengiz said.

“I feel profoundly troubled by the visit, because of what it means for our world and what it means for Jamal (Khashoggi) and people like him,” Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard explained, describing MBS as a man who “does not tolerate any dissent…The visit by MBS to France and Joe Biden to Saudi Arabia do not change the fact that MBS is anything other than a killer,” said Callamard, who at the time of the killing was the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings and led the independent probe.

Saudi Arabia is seen by many in the West as an essential partner due to its energy resources, purchases of weaponry and staunch opposition to Iran’s theocratic regime. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made the oil and gas reserves of the kingdom all the more important for the West.

Callamard expressed concern that “values were being obliterated in the face of concern about the rising price of oil”.

Camille Lons, a research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), said that the war in Ukraine has put “energy-producing countries back in the spotlight, and they are taking advantage of it. This gives them political leverage that they will use to reassert their importance on the international stage”

 The United Nations Special Rapporteur on migrants’ rights has said Polish authorities must stop locking up migrants near the Belarus border and put an end to the “very different” treatment of Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian refugees.

Felipe Gonzalez Morales praised the actions of Polish authorities and citizens who have given protection and assistance to more than two million Ukrainian refugees and lodged them in their homes since the start of Russia’s invasion in February. But non-Ukrainian nationals fleeing that country have faced difficulties obtaining residence permits and proper shelter and have not enjoyed the same legal protections, he said.

Some people fleeing the war have been from third countries, often in the Middle East, Asia or Africa, who had been studying or working in Ukraine at the time of the invasion.

“I note with concern that this double standard approach has led to feelings of being discriminated among third-country nationals,” Morales said.

As well as the fallout from the war in Ukraine, Poland has faced attempts by tens of thousands of migrants and refugees since mid-2021 to cross its border with Belarus and enter the European Union.

Poland to set up an emergency zone, build a steel border barrier and introduce a campaign of pushbacks. Meanwhile, estimates suggested at least 20 migrants and refugees have died in the area’s freezing forests and bogs. Morales said these migrants and refugees, many of whom are from the Middle East and Afghanistan, were “routinely” being locked up in de facto detention centres in Poland near the border, including children, in violation of international humanitarian law.

End ‘double standards’ on refugees, UN expert urges Poland | Migration News | Al Jazeera

 Climate experts are concerned that the impacts of global heating will be even more drastic than previously thought.

Friederike Otto, a senior climate lecturer at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, Imperial College London, said: “In Europe and other parts of the world we are seeing more and more record-breaking heatwaves causing extreme temperatures that have become hotter faster than in most climate models.

“It’s a worrying finding that suggests that if carbon emissions are not rapidly cut, the consequences of climate change on extreme heat in Europe, which already is extremely deadly, could be even worse than we previously thought.”

Meteorologists have said the results of this study are “sobering” as they confirm what was previously feared – that climate change is having a large impact on temperatures, making extreme heat more likely.

Fraser Lott, a climate monitoring and attribution scientist at the Met Office, said: “Two years ago, scientists at the UK Met Office found the chance of seeing 40C in the UK was one in 100 in any given year, up from one in 1,000 in the natural climate. It has been sobering to see such an event happen so soon after that study, to see the raw data coming back from our weather stations.

Experts have called for rapid cuts in emissions to prevent the situation from worsening. Extreme heat kills thousands of people across Europe, and it is thought hundreds of excess deaths in the UK were caused by the recent heatwave.

“Heatwaves are the deadliest type of extreme weather event in Europe, killing thousands each year,” said Roop Singh of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre. “But they don’t have to be. Many of these deaths are preventable if adequate adaptation plans are in place. Without rapid and comprehensive adaptation and emissions cuts, the situation will only get worse.”

Climate breakdown made UK heatwave 10 times more likely, study finds | Extreme weather | The Guardian

 Yemen is facing unprecedented rises in the price of food putting millions more people in danger of catastrophic hunger, Oxfam warned. 

Ferran Puig, Oxfam in Yemen Country Director, said: “This unprecedented rise in food prices threatens the lives of millions of people who are now in real danger of starvation. Families who have been pushed to the brink by seven years of conflict are being tipped over the edge as the prices of basic food rises beyond their reach. World leaders must act immediately to prevent catastrophic hunger and a worsening humanitarian crisis.”

Yemen has been hit hard by the worsening global food crises. The prices of wheat, flour, cooking oil, eggs and sugar have all increased by more than a third since March. Such price hikes haven’t been seen since the country was subject to a blockade and never for such a prolonged period. 

Around 56 per cent of the four million internally displaced people have no source of income at all. Women and children who make up around 77 per cent of the displaced population are at greatest risk of starvation.

Between March and June this year, the price of basic foods increased by up to 45 per cent.

Flour increased by 38 per centCooking oil increased by 45 per centSugar increased by 36 per centRice increased by 30 per centCanned beans increased by 38 per centPowder milk increased by 36 per centEggs increased by 35 per centPetrol and diesel prices also increased by 43 per cent in the first quarter of the year.

The average national price of the Minimum Food Basket (MFB) has increased by 48 per cent since December 2021 and 25 per cent since the start of the year, with the increasing costs of food imports further exacerbated by exchange rate fluctuations. Yemen’s national currency, the rial, has lost its value by 28 per cent since the beginning of the year.

Yemen imports 90 per cent of its food, including 42 per cent of its wheat from Ukraine. Importers have warned that stocks may run out in the coming months and that global increase in costs will challenge their ability to secure wheat imports into Yemen.  In a country where many people depend on bread for most of their daily food to survive, this could push millions towards starvation. Any drop in global prices could well be short-lived and may not translate into a reduction in cost for ordinary Yemenis. 

 An unseasonable drought caused by rising temperatures globally have caused more suffering, especially for farmers. Many Yemenis depend on agriculture and livestock as a main source of income but have seen their crops damaged or delayed and livestock dying during the current drought.

The lack of resources and funding has come with devastating consequences. The World Food Program has been forced to reduce the amount of aid it provides, with five million recipients of food aid now set to receive less than half of their daily calorie requirement. Eight million will receive just 25 per cent.

Unprecedented spike in food prices puts Yemenis at risk of extreme hunger – Yemen | ReliefWeb

 Families are spending an average of £89 more a month on energy, food and fuel than they were before the pandemic, Lloyds Banking Group said.

Lloyds’ chief executive, Charlie Nunn, said about 20% of the bank’s customers had had to adapt their spending “significantly” to rising prices, forcing them to refrain from purchases such as white goods and computers. He added that customers had cancelled or blocked 2.2m subscriptions services such as Netflix since the summer of 2021.

 UK banks have largely benefited from nine consecutive months of interest rate rises by the Bank of England, where policymakers have been trying to get soaring inflation under control. Rising rates are usually good news for bank finances, since banks are able to charge borrowers more for loans and mortgages, which in turn increases their net interest margin – a key measure of profitability and growth. Lloyds pre-tax profits for the three months to the end of June were in line with the same period last year at just over £2bn, exceeding analyst estimates of £1.6bn.

Lloyds’ net interest margin – the difference between what it earns from loans and pays for deposits – rose to 2.87% in the second quarter compared with 2.5% last year.

Lloyds lays bare impact of soaring inflation on everyday customers | Lloyds Banking Group | The Guardian

 According to Save the Children, families in Myanmar have lost on average more than half of their income since the political crisis and escalation of conflict in February 2021. The economic crisis drove an increase in the share of households experiencing moderate to severe food insecurity between August and October 2020. Since February last year, the country has suffered further economic decline, with mass job losses, business closures and a weakening of the Myanmar currency (kyat), which has affected households across the country.

Shaheen Chughtai, Regional Advocacy Director for Save the Children in Asia, said: “More than a year on from the coup, millions of children do not have enough to eat and families are having to beg or borrow to survive. These new figures are especially sobering at a time where humanitarian response is severely underfunded. At a time when children in Myanmar need us most, they are being let down by the international community…”

The economic impact of the political crisis, coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic, has left families struggling to feed themselves and their children.

Some 80% of families said food was their primary concern, with adults in one in five households cutting back on meals in order to feed their children. 

A third of households are borrowing food or relying on help from others to feed their families.

Families are reporting an average price increase of between 30% and 70% for basic foods.

Even middle-income households are now being pushed below the poverty line.

Earlier this year, Save the Children reported that at least 150,000 children had been forced to flee their homes due to violence, and last month reports showed that the number of children out of school had doubled over the past two years.

https://reliefweb.int/report/myanmar/families-myanmar-lose-more-half-their-income-year-conflict-says-save-children