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Victims

Refugees in their own homes shot and shelled.

Young men and women in battle fatigues,

Their own lives imperilled by the intrigues

And ambitions of those who feel impelled,

By destiny or profit, to fabricate

Self-serving, spurious justification,

Such gold braided vain glorification

Of leaders in a belligerent state.

War’s irony is its inanity,

The crass and brutal way it insists

In transforming mere men into rapists,

To deny women their humanity.

The world’s changed, or so politicians claim,

But for victims it is always the same.

D. A.

What-er shambles

4 June 2025

cynical but optimistic

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An interim Water Commission report released on 3 June tells us that “the current system is not delivering what people expect and need” but “There is no simple, single change, no matter how radical, that will deliver the fundamental ‘reset’ of the water sector”

Alongside the blather about a ‘long-term direction’ and better regulation is a plea for the already low risk to investors to be made lower still, to make low returns more attractive to capital.

And there’s the rub – the Commission is (of course!) stuck with the capitalist mindset.

There is indeed a single radical change to make it easier to produce all of the goods and services that we all need – expropriate the capitalists.

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/

Tiananmen Square

4 June 2025

cynical but optimistic

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Editorial from the June 1990 issue of the SocialistStandard

It takes guts to stand up against a brutal dictatorship. One year ago in China those who exhibited such courage were slaughtered on the streets. They paid the price for expressing dissent in what is absurdly titled a “people’s democracy”.

Since then much has happened. The Chinese state-capitalist bosses still hang to power, but their counterparts in Eastern Europe have discovered that the strength of workers is greater than the arrogance of so-called Communist state bosses. With the exception of the Leninist rulers of Russia and Albania, the pseudo-socialist rulers have been ousted throughout Eastern Europe. Events have occurred which socialists, only one year ago, would have been called utopians for predicting. The Berlin Wall has disappeared; genuine elections have taken place where one-party rule used to exist; inside the Russian Empire workers are joining independent, non-state-controlled trade unions—even the army has formed one, pledging itself not to fire on the workers in the event of an attempted military coup.

The explosive developments of the months since the Tiananmen massacre demonstrate the rapidity with which historical change can take place. It has also shown the power which arises from peaceful, democratic, organised action by workers who will no longer tolerate the conditions under which they are living. No doubt the first workers on to the streets of Leipzig or Bucharest were called utopians by some doubters—surely they did not really imagine that they, mere unarmed civilians, could defeat the might of the militarised state-capitalist regime. But they did. History once again proved the cynics and doubters to be wrong.

The unsuccessful struggle in China was not futile. The victory of the state bosses left blood stains which will give rise to workers’ consciousness. Those who were murdered are not forgotten—after them will come other Chinese wage slaves who will complete the task of removing the Deng dynasty.

But what has the “success” of the East European workers amounted to? Greater democratic freedom exists now than before the workers demanded it. That gain is not to be sniffed at by workers in the West. Apart from the greater opportunities to express themselves and organise, the workers of Eastern Europe are still the victims of a dictatorship: the Dictatorship of Capital.

Do the Poles now own Poland or the Hungarians Hungary or the Rumanians Rumania? Will the Russians own Russia if the Communist Party is dislodged, or will the Lithuanian workers own the wealth of Lithuania once they leave the Russian Empire? Of course not. The means of wealth production in these countries still belong to a small minority of the population—the composition of this minority may have changed (although in Poland and Hungary many of the old state bosses are now buying up the private capital), but they are still the exploiting class.

As long as the profits of the bosses are the product of the legalised robbery of the wealth producers the workers are not free. To be a wage slave in Britain is less like being a prison inmate than being one in China, but the compulsion to work in order to make the bosses rich is the same for both.

It is the capitalist system which is the enemy. It is only by establishing a classless, stateless, propertyless global society that real freedom will be won. The struggle of workers in Britain to get rid of the profit system can only strengthen the struggle of our fellow workers in China, just as the heroic actions of our fellow workers in Tiananmen Square will serve as a permanent reminder to us of the ability of workers to stand up and be counted in the most difficult of circumstances, and the ruthless resolve of our class enemies to destroy dissent.

News by jingo

2 June 2025

cynical but optimistic

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Once upon a time, long before the internet, reading the Sunday newspapers used to be a pleasure. In those long lost days one naively believed that the Labour Party actually cared about the working class. As a source of what was happening in the world, along with the radio and a few television channels, one had no idea then of the hidden agendas such media outlets were promoting. That pleasure, and that belief in politicians, has long since gone.

The Sun, Sunday, 1st June, says that ‘NEW Labour big beasts are at war over proposals to scrap the two-child benefit cap — as statistics suggest more youngsters are being plunged into poverty. In a bombshell intervention, ex-Home Secretary David Blunkett comes out against tearing up the welfare limit..An estimated 4.5million kids were living in relative poverty last year compared with 4.3million the year before, figures from the End Child Poverty coalition show.’

Writing in The Sun on Sunday, Lord Blunkett said work, not handouts, is the best way to raise families out of poverty. He said: “Surely having children that you cannot afford to feed is the legacy of a bygone era? The simple and obvious truth is that child poverty springs from the lack of income of the adults who care for them.”’

Scrapping the cap would cost around three and a half billion pounds.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/35202995/labour-benefits-cap-starmer-poverty-politics/

SOYMB, 31 May, noted in a piece on German warmongering,‘The Legacy Media is already drip drip feeding of propaganda designed to put fear into the hearts of its various populaces. Is it likely or unlikely that we may see compulsory two minute hatred with venom being directed at Putin or whoever might be the Russian leader after him?’

https://soymb.com/2025/05/german-stupidity.html

The government doesn’t want to alleviate child poverty. It has other priorities.

Meanwhile the drip feeding is starting to become a flood.

Headlined, ‘WAR FOOTING ,Starmer warns UK must prepare to fight against enemies as he orders biggest investment in guns & bombs since Cold War’

Writing in The Sun on Sunday, Sir Keir said ‘Britain is facing a “more dangerous world” and the time has come to “transform how we defend these islands”.He added: “We will meet this moment head on — by mounting the kind of response not seen before in most of our lifetimes.

“We will restore Britain’s war-fighting readiness as the central purpose of our Armed Forces.So we must be ready to fight and win. After all, the best way to prevent conflict is by preparing for it.”Unveiling key details of the long-awaited Strategic Defence Review, he revealed the UK will move to wartime levels of arms production by building six new munitions factories. This £1.5billion investment will create or support nearly 2,000 jobs cross the country. [Quality Jobs for quality products!] Some 7,000 long-range weapons will also be bought. It is the biggest rearmament programme the nation has seen in decades and will move the UK to an “always-on” level of production.’

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/35203807/starmer-biggest-investment-armed-forces/

The Mail Online is also jingoistic. Headlined, ‘ Top Gun! British fighter jets will soon carry nuclear weapons for the first time ever as part of biggest defence expansion since the Cold War.’

‘Sir Keir Starmer is looking to purchase several fighter jets capable of firing tactical nuclear weapons.The sensitive talks include Defence Secretary John Healey and Admiral Sir Tony Radakin who are looking to buy US fighter jets capable of launching gravity bombs with lower power than conventional nuclear weapons.’

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14768419/Top-Gun-British-fighter-jets-nuclear-weapons-Cold-War.html