tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-205230902024-03-18T21:09:36.032-07:00New Worker FeaturesUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1134125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-28729659349881563802024-03-18T21:05:00.000-07:002024-03-18T21:08:41.715-07:00 Another brick in the wall<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCoBJBVpoYlvvFTKFMwAot4My5lNbaU6425LnO2x6bGl4wUqWnFUNjn4P5iLZc_eNqaR87ANA7Ik9QXpHL7Vq6dxsh3z445KND4E7pf0bRfsp6V0-zgw4OP_x4Jr_RUhX-lZI96u2sqmJSvcEOCaSk3K6Rgb0jS92DjuakMRrXJnHk6j7lCJO1qg/s185/tn20240315.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="150" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCoBJBVpoYlvvFTKFMwAot4My5lNbaU6425LnO2x6bGl4wUqWnFUNjn4P5iLZc_eNqaR87ANA7Ik9QXpHL7Vq6dxsh3z445KND4E7pf0bRfsp6V0-zgw4OP_x4Jr_RUhX-lZI96u2sqmJSvcEOCaSk3K6Rgb0jS92DjuakMRrXJnHk6j7lCJO1qg/s1600/tn20240315.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>Moves to curb democratic protests and solidarity movements were announced this week under new government definitions of “extremism” that will be used to blacklist groups the ruling class deem to be seeking to undermine what they call Britain’s “liberal democracy”. <br />The new rules will, of course, not affect the Zionists or the racists who see the Tory party as their natural home following the collapse of the BNP and the National Front. What they will do is prevent public bodies from providing platforms for those spreading “hateful anti-British” ideas that “poison community life”. Though the definition will have no effect on the existing criminal law as it only applies to the operations of government itself, its intention is clearly to isolate and marginalise the massive Palestinian solidarity movement and climate change campaigns that have swept the streets and challenged the bourgeois consensus in recent years.<br />The Sunak government would dearly like to ban the demonstrations outright but it simply doesn’t have the public support to do so. So now it is stepping up the harassment of demonstrators and smearing the organisers as merchants of hate. But who believes their lies these days?<br />London hasn’t become a “no-go” area for Jews. In fact many members of the Jewish community have joined the massive Palestinian solidarity marches that have rocked London over the past five months and have all ended peacefully – despite the dire predictions of “mob rule” in the Tory media. <br />Hundreds of thousands of people have supported the recent cycle of demonstrations calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Millions more support the demand for justice for the Palestinian Arabs and an end to fighting in the Gaza Strip. This is an attack on democracy, not a defence of it. The right to protest must be defended.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br />Keep up the fight</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br />International efforts to stop the fighting in Gaza have come to nothing in recent weeks. The Palestinian resistance have rejected the Americans’ worthless Ramadan cease-fire “pause” that would clearly not have led to a lasting truce given Israel’s declared aim to re-occupy the Strip and wipe Hamas off the face of the earth. The Palestinians want a permanent cease-fire, the total withdrawal of all Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip and internationally guaranteed pledges to speedily work towards the establishment of the independent Palestinian state that the imperialists accept when they talk about a “two-state” solution.<br />Air-drops and floating piers aren’t going stave off starvation in Gaza. If the Americans really want to help they should just tell the Israelis to allow food and medical convoys cross their border into the enclave. If the Americans really want to see the release of the Israelis in Palestinian captivity they should accept the Palestinian offer of a prisoner exchange. If the Americans really want to see an end to the fighting they should stop vetoing truce proposals at the United Nations that have the support of all the members of the Security Council as well as virtually all the countries in the entire world.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-31123173794982291902024-03-11T14:50:00.000-07:002024-03-11T14:50:20.816-07:00Robbing the poor<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiru7xdp-q36jGk2rgIaE9a7wqwbpqMOc5oo-XMj1ye-GNXGhhhmeVPqxoczv6cqBP8YvneSqb_UMk5CW1BhCyvyx5pmhND2soWu1g5QdVkKzbaKpE82Aa5PplwenugR4dP4WhkFLy_9_bJl2PJPerDn0X3yv6e-LvEWuI5qO_ZyGzGjwlA9_icjA/s185/tn20240308.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="150" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiru7xdp-q36jGk2rgIaE9a7wqwbpqMOc5oo-XMj1ye-GNXGhhhmeVPqxoczv6cqBP8YvneSqb_UMk5CW1BhCyvyx5pmhND2soWu1g5QdVkKzbaKpE82Aa5PplwenugR4dP4WhkFLy_9_bJl2PJPerDn0X3yv6e-LvEWuI5qO_ZyGzGjwlA9_icjA/s1600/tn20240308.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>Though the Tories care little or nothing for the working people they exploit to keep the bourgeoisie in clover they have to pose, like virtuous Roman Senators, as impartial governors of the state machine – especially in the run-up to the general election. When the going is good the bourgeoisie will sacrifice a tiny fraction of their immense wealth to maintain the health service and what’s left of the “welfare state”. When times hard – and they certainly are now as we enter the 16th year of a recession that still shows no sign of recovery – they will try to pass the entire burden onto the backs of the workers with austerity measures that they call the “national interest”.<br /></span><span style="font-family: CG Times;">This week’s Spring Budget was no exception. Jeremy Hunt tinkers around income tax and national insurance contributions but at the end of the day it was as Keir Starmer said "just another short-term cynical political gimmick”.<br /></span><span style="font-family: CG Times;">This is a budget for the wealthy drawn up a government that represents the ruling class. People on low incomes or benefits will be hit by cuts in the social wage. Pensioners face an average £1,000 hit to their incomes because of the tax changes. The Labour leader says the Tories “give with one hand and take even more with the other" and "nothing they do between not and the election will change that” – and on this occasion he’s quite right. But Labour has nothing to offer in exchange. <br /></span><span style="font-family: CG Times;">The renationalisation of all the utilities, industries and services that were once in public ownership would pour billions back into the Treasury. The health service could be rescued by restoring the wealth and profit taxes of the Wilson era and scrapping the Trident nuclear arms system could easily provide the funds to end the homelessness crisis. But the Starmer leadership is committed to maintaining the tax-break regime that began after the Tory come-back in 1979 <br /></span><span style="font-family: CG Times;">Paul Nowak, the General Secretary of the TUC slammed “a deeply cynical budget” packed with “wishful thinking on productivity and pre- election gimmicks”. We need a government that will take responsibility for growth, Nowak said, with stronger public services and strengthened public infrastructure not least to meet the climate crisis. For working people up and down the country a change of government cannot come to soon.<br /></span><span style="font-family: CG Times;">Indeed. We will all be glad to see the back of Sunak. But we’ve also got to defeat the class collaborators and bureaucrats who run Labour and most of the unions these days. If we don’t we can only expect the same again from Starmer & Co.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><b>A slap in the face for Starmer</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: CG Times;">Galloway bagged almost 40 per cent of the vote in the Rochdale by-election last week that was dominated by the war in Gaza. Starmer and the sad-sack Blairites that surround him told us that the average Labour voter wasn’t interested in Palestine. Last week proved them wrong.<br /></span><span style="font-family: CG Times;">Though there is a substantial Muslim minority in Rochdale the swing to Galloway and his new Workers’ Party of Britain went far beyond the Muslim community. Disowning their own candidate for supporting Palestine and making remarks deemed to be “anti-Semitic” by the Starmer bureaucracy didn’t help Labour either.<br /></span><span style="font-family: CG Times;">Galloway says he believes his win will “spark a movement, a landslide, a shifting of the tectonic plates in scores of parliamentary constituencies”. But, of course, we’ve heard all this before.<br /></span><span style="font-family: CG Times;">The MP kicked out of Labour for opposing the imperialist invasion of Iraq in 2003 returned to Parliament on two previous occasion on his old Respect platform. But Respect never took off as a national party. Whether Galloway is third-time lucky this time round remains to be seen but without the mass support of the union movement that seems unlikely. <br /></span><span style="font-family: CG Times;">Nevertheless George Galloway’s victory was a slap in the face for Starmer & Co. It augurs well for Jeremy Corbyn’s re-election in London and it was a warning shot to Labour to never take their traditional vote for granted. Now it’s their turn to look over their shoulder. Let them wonder where their slavish support for Israeli aggression and boot-licking the Americans is taking them... </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-45038529089496145942024-03-01T15:17:00.000-08:002024-03-01T15:17:02.228-08:00 Hobson’s Choice<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiimMBLb5Hf4u6DUAiKp9Fr-Uinhkeo1RcDujjn44dPQoU28k8LtQRnFYw4JjHEntDXnasuXCNWzd31M-414r46ez9imOrHQc2BRJX3e0_wuA8PWoq8gywddOO2BAu93XY7UOceRM4J2UM67bEeimyy7wFpwD2-fl9Q7Tbxr3OGxDfcROcb9eQ0TA/s185/tn20240301.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="150" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiimMBLb5Hf4u6DUAiKp9Fr-Uinhkeo1RcDujjn44dPQoU28k8LtQRnFYw4JjHEntDXnasuXCNWzd31M-414r46ez9imOrHQc2BRJX3e0_wuA8PWoq8gywddOO2BAu93XY7UOceRM4J2UM67bEeimyy7wFpwD2-fl9Q7Tbxr3OGxDfcROcb9eQ0TA/s1600/tn20240301.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>The American presidential election is being viewed with increasing trepidation in Westminster and the other chancelleries of Europe. Not surprisingly considering the choice facing the electorate – a senile old man in thrall to the most aggressive and venal sections of the American ruling class or Donald Trump, whose calls for trade wars and tariffs could easily trigger a global slump not seen since the Wall Street Crash of 1929.<br />Though Trump is ahead in the opinion polls at the moment that could easily change if the movers and shakers in the Democratic Party dump Joe Biden in favour of a new leader to face the challenge in November. Many favour Michelle Obama, a lawyer and author, whose only claim to high office is that she is the wife of President Barack Obama and served as the First Lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. Needless to say the views of bourgeois politicians this side of the Atlantic will count for nothing in their calculations.<br />Gone are the days when British politicians on both sides of the House could pose as equals to their American counter-parts and talk about a “special relationship” with US imperialism. Gone – like the dream of the Franco-German bourgeoisie of an independent European Union that could play off East against West or the nonsensical “Third Way” of the Blairites which, in itself, was just another version of the Keynesian economic model pioneered by Fascist Italy and the Third Reich in the 1930s. <br />In the old days British imperialism bragged about the Empire on which "the sun never set" while the German imperialists talked of "world domination". United States imperialism has always been more subtle. After the Second World War it made a bid to control the economic development of the world through the Marshall Plan and its dominance of the fledgling United Nations. This was thwarted by the opposition of the Soviet Union and the new people's democracies. During the Cold War much of the world was divided between the rival spheres of influence of the United States and the USSR. However the end of the Soviet Union enabled the United States to reinforce its grip on Western Europe.<br />Western European leaders still pose as equals of the Americans in the NATO alliance but in reality they’ve been forced to accept the model of subservience imposed on Japan by US imperialism after its defeat in 1945.<br />Dependent on American protection to defend their own global interests they destroyed the Yugoslav federation and the Libyan Jamahuriya at Washington’s behest. They fan the flames of war in Ukraine and the Middle East and prolong the unhappy partition of many countries including Cyprus, Ireland, Kashmir and Korea.<br />Now all they can do is watch as the drama of the race to the White House plays out. Whether Michelle Obama can mobilise the same rainbow coalition that swept her husband into the White House in 2008 is another matter. Biden’s blanket support for Israeli aggression has alienated Arab-Americans as well as large sections of the Black and Muslim community that has traditionally supported the Democrats in the past. Whether they will return to the fold will ultimately depend on Biden’s departure and a more even-handed approach to the Palestinians in the run-up to the election.</span></div><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-5027111578603607122024-03-01T07:32:00.000-08:002024-03-01T07:32:57.549-08:00Donbas communists speak<div style="text-align: left;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYyyaKxZpKLvcAtApHf9kO9U74CbqRw50DaJSTn7jfIF_dcxfnv5ehYiLhZn1GEhZLSJq968nFyhGO-OjW7gLCj4I7tfdxRDfSAA0lKUPtOnZ8JjyS2FiZAdbCPjSz98Vf5kwKOURTJiC1IGaNgLodIkGAVA75aJOvBpPY2sydzst_yeE34WyIFQ/s900/2142FEATSLitvinov.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="675" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYyyaKxZpKLvcAtApHf9kO9U74CbqRw50DaJSTn7jfIF_dcxfnv5ehYiLhZn1GEhZLSJq968nFyhGO-OjW7gLCj4I7tfdxRDfSAA0lKUPtOnZ8JjyS2FiZAdbCPjSz98Vf5kwKOURTJiC1IGaNgLodIkGAVA75aJOvBpPY2sydzst_yeE34WyIFQ/s320/2142FEATSLitvinov.jpeg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Boris Litvinov with RT's Steve Sweeney in Moscow</span></td></tr></tbody></table>by New Worker correspondent</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "CG Times";">Boris Litvinov, secretary of the Donetsk district of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, joined a Zoom meeting with members of International Ukraine Anti Fascist Solidarity (IUAFS) while on a visit to Moscow in February. This was our first contact with comrade Litvinov for some time as residents in the Donbas are still unable to access many applications including virtual meeting platforms.</span></div><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><div style="text-align: justify;">It came at a time when the NATO-backed Ukrainian forces have massively stepped up deliberate attacks on places where large numbers of civilians gather with long range weapons. There have been two recent horrific attacks in Donetsk city and the town of Lisichansk in Lugansk in which almost 50 civilians died.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Every day the situation in Ukraine is becoming more and more unpredictable. Now our forces, those of the Russian Federation and the local militias, are step by step gaining more positions in the fighting,” Litvinov said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“After all the talk about the Ukrainian counter offensive it is now obvious that it has failed. Now both sides are preparing for offensives in the spring and summer.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“But there is a big difference between the conduct of the war on both sides. French, British and American long-range missiles and shells are being used indiscriminately against Donetsk and other cities in the Donbas. Civilians are being killed every day, and 50 percent of Donetsk city is without power. This has become a big problem.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“The Russian Federation and Ukraine are waiting for the other side’s ammunition to be exhausted, or for the other side to weaken.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“If we look back to the attacks on our country throughout history, in 1918 14 countries of the Entente Powers attacked Russia, and in the Second World War all [the Nazis led] the forces of Western Europe were brought together to fight our country.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“At the moment, you wouldn't believe it, 50 countries are participating in this military operation against Donetsk.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“What Western people can't understand about the Russians is our collective mentality and our internationalism. This is especially difficult for many Anglo-Saxons, for people in Britain and the United States, to understand.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Yes, sometimes we take time and we don't take action, we are absolutely different from people in Western European countries, but when it comes to a huge threat, sooner or later we ull together, shoulder to shoulder, to resist.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“What is happening now, we are together, we are brothers, we are comrades. This is our country, this is our motherland. Maybe not everyone realises this, but in spite of this the majority of our people realise that when there is a huge threat we can come together to defend ourselves.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Actually, this is a disaster which is threatening our country, and it is not just Russians by the way, it is also 130 different nationalities living in our country.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“For us this is very emotional for all of us. We can't understand why Europe doesn't resist. There are millions of people in different countries, we do understand that most of the people are brainwashed, but still ordinary people should understand that it is high time to stop sending money to kill people, instead of sending money on healthcare, education and housing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“But people in the West have very short memories, they should understand never to mess with Russia, never to attack Russia. These people don't learn from history that we know how to fight, and sooner or later this will bring terrible results for many European countries.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“This time we will achieve victory, but at a terrible price. How many lives of young people, how many Russian people, how many Ukrainian people, do we need to lose?</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“It's high time to stop it. We don't want to fight, please stop sending money to kill people. What can we do? We have to defend our people.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Please remind your people, please read the history of Russia. Whenever Russia is attacked it has been rebuffed, and it has been our victory.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“The Ukrainians are Slavonic people, they are our brothers, so please make efforts to pressure your governments to stop sending money to kill people in Ukraine.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Putin is not Russia, and Russia is not Putin. There are many people in Russia, including ourselves, who are against him. To a very large extent what is happening now is his fault. If he had taken the decision to recognise the Donetsk and Lugansk republics he should have done it in 2014.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“He waited eight years, and it is his fault that people are dying today. We in the Communist Party have called on Putin to do this for eight years, and during that time Ukraine acquired huge amounts of armaments and soldiers from abroad. So it is his fault that our guys are dying now in Ukraine, his fault personally and the government which he heads.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The Communist Party is alive and our comrades now have a faction in the Donetsk parliament, the People's Council, with six people out of 90. They are working hard and actively, and actually more than any other faction in the parliament. There are four communists in Kherson, three communists in Zaporizhia and four communists in the Lugansk parliament”.</div></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-84621835663837245162024-02-28T13:48:00.000-08:002024-02-28T13:48:43.573-08:00 Chaotic scenes in Parliament<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAfZuj4BiyJIJ5iyXgOXVh41Cif21NUVOWkGx3dICOqaZo9Mi8jmI1TW4q3G0cwI69CSgwJfvFu4WtBjE6jcQ2RwKNxoRM3Qcss9tb-iK0Qo0JNnYjfA623s4Hph4WaqMlXx95VJWX0PMGHGZW0uTX57PgtaUHbSwzAD9GO4-pnaqo3uargGnMuA/s185/tn20240223.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="150" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAfZuj4BiyJIJ5iyXgOXVh41Cif21NUVOWkGx3dICOqaZo9Mi8jmI1TW4q3G0cwI69CSgwJfvFu4WtBjE6jcQ2RwKNxoRM3Qcss9tb-iK0Qo0JNnYjfA623s4Hph4WaqMlXx95VJWX0PMGHGZW0uTX57PgtaUHbSwzAD9GO4-pnaqo3uargGnMuA/s1600/tn20240223.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><span style="font-family: CG Times;">The chaotic scenes in Parliament that followed the Speaker’s decision to take the Labour amendment to a Scottish National Party demand for an “immediate cease-fire” in Gaza certainly staved off the Labour revolt Keir Starmer was most desperate to avoid. Whether Sir Lindsay Hoyle’s handling of the motion on the Gaza crisis was a breach of the arcane rules and conventions of the House of Commons is a matter that only MPs can judge. Over fifty of them already have done so – signing a motion of no confidence in Sir Lindsay Hoyle, whose position is now seriously in question.<br />The Labour amendment calling for an “immediate humanitarian cease-fire” was clearly intended to move closer to the worthless platitudes of Joe Biden and his minions who drivel on about striving to end the bloodshed and talk about a “two-state solution” to meet some of the Palestinian demands while vetoing every cease-fire call at the United Nations and rushing weapons to Israel to help them continue the mass slaughter of civilians in the Gaza Strip.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /><b>Boycott the Zionist state</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br />The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign is a Palestinian-led movement for freedom, justice and equality. BDS upholds the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity.<br />Israel is occupying and colonising Palestinian land, discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes. Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the BDS call urges action to pressure Israel to comply with international law.<br />BDS is now a vibrant global movement made up of unions, academic associations, churches and grass-roots movements across the world. Since its launch in 2005, BDS is having a major impact and is effectively challenging international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.<br />The tragedy of the Palestinian Arabs began when British imperialism first occupied their land in 1918 and encouraged Zionist immigration through the Balfour declaration. British imperialism sought to create a community of Zionist settlers who would prolong their occupation of Palestine indefinitely. The Zionists helped British colonialism crush the Palestine Revolt in 1936. But after the Second World War the Zionists seized the opportunity to push for a separate state of their own. In 1948 the British colonial mandate ended and the State of Israel was proclaimed. On that day the first Arab-Israeli war began. It has never ended.<br />The first war led to the expulsion of a million Palestinian Arabs from their homes by the Zionist regime. Those refugees and their descendants have never given up their right to return to their land. And this is the heart of the crisis in the Middle East that has led to five full-scale wars and continuing simmering conflicts.<br />Israel is an American protectorate. It is economically and politically entirely dependent on American imperialism and successive Israeli governments have existed to serve the needs of American imperialism in the region. Those needs are to weaken and divide the Arabs to ensure that the big oil corporations can continue their exploitation and plunder of Arab oil until it eventually runs out.<br />While licking the boots of the Americans is second nature to Labour leaders Starmer is mindful of the mass support for the Palestinians on the street that threatens to undermine the Labour vote, and not just amongst the Muslim community. That’s why the protests that have swamped the capital time and time again over the past few months must continue until the Israelis are forced to cease-fire and end the bloodshed. That’s why the campaigns across the country supporting the Palestinians and calling for a boycott of the Zionist state must continue until the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs are restored. </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-32857449312200375162024-02-28T03:22:00.000-08:002024-02-28T03:22:02.604-08:00An epic tale of the West Country <div style="text-align: left;"><b> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK8Gpv2KgL3e901rthZiiZ6daaBjGok_9nFHjgFYas1RPDhZlNroYQC9fVM4-cXwCs-jcQ_-55wFaci7YYWi67hkN0wY7Qv6SYyJAY4JgTbUND-QUypA__k-r2EbHEtA8e7i7fsODaYfNkeo4ZLxJmKFHBhD5ObJzxnWZEhROR50PzZvUntOwNWA/s500/Follett.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="352" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK8Gpv2KgL3e901rthZiiZ6daaBjGok_9nFHjgFYas1RPDhZlNroYQC9fVM4-cXwCs-jcQ_-55wFaci7YYWi67hkN0wY7Qv6SYyJAY4JgTbUND-QUypA__k-r2EbHEtA8e7i7fsODaYfNkeo4ZLxJmKFHBhD5ObJzxnWZEhROR50PzZvUntOwNWA/s320/Follett.png" width="225" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: CG Times;"> by Ben Soton</span></b><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /><br /><b>The Armour of Light by Ken Follett: Macmillan 2023; 752 pp; £25:00 Hbk, £6:00 Pbk</b><br /><br />The <i>Armour of Light</i> is the fifth novel set in the fictional West Country city of Kingsbridge. The previous four include <i>The Pillars of the Earth </i>set in the 12th century; The <i>World Without End</i>, covering the Hundred Years War and the <i>Black Death</i> and the <i>Column of Fire</i> set during the Reformation. Meanwhile in 2020 Follet wrote the prequel <i>The Evening</i> <i>and the Morning</i> set in the years before the Norman Conquest. <br />Follett’s latest novel is set during the Industrial Revolution, covering the period from 1792 to 1824. Kingsbridge is now a centre of cloth-making; with the inevitable class-struggle between employers and workers. The novel includes strikes, machine-breaking and in general highlights many of the injustices of the period.<br />The<i> Armour of Light</i> also highlights religious differences between the Anglican Church, favoured by the Establishment and the Methodists, who were in turn favoured by more progressive employers and some workers. We see an element of scandal with members of the gentry having affairs with member of the lower orders and a focus on events abroad; namely the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. To summarise the book could be described as Silas Marmer meets Jane Austin, meets Sharpe. <br />The novel is however a product of Follet’s politics; which he describes as centre-left. Ken Follett, the husband of former Labour MP Barbera Follett, is a committed Blairite and almost certainly a supporter of the present Labour leadership. The book’s heroes are the better or progressive manufacturers; namely Amos Barrowfield and David Shoveler (known as Spade). Both men, although committed Methodists, are involved in affairs with female members of the gentry. The novel’s leading villain is Alderman Hornbeam, a bad employer and harsh magistrate. Another character portrayed in a positive light is Sal Clitheroe, essentially an early form of trade-union moderate who favours class collaboration. But her husband Jarge Box, a more militant worker who sympathizes with the French Revolution, is portrayed as a drunken, hot-headed fool. <br />Many of the main characters find themselves either on or near the battlefield at Waterloo. This is an obvious attempt by Follett to promote “national unity” above that of class; a concept rejected by Marxists. Ironically, at one point in the story Jarge Box argues that the Napoleonic Code may well be a fairer legal system than English Common Law; not so much the drunken fool there. <br />Despite its faults <i>The</i> <i>Armour of Light</i> is still an enjoyable read; especially when Follett’s last novel the apocalyptic Never was such a disappointment. It is well researched and contains interesting and useful historical information. What is also interesting is whether Follett, who turns seventy-five this year, will write a sixth and final Kingsbridge novel; taking the city into the present day. </span></div><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-91630506750099112292024-02-23T08:46:00.000-08:002024-02-23T08:46:07.994-08:00 The voice of the oppressed<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 10pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQN0nlaEUx_-S0Y4u49nlwh2Zi9h7fe-2sHNB9WFP9vBy1hyhaS861qqpOFmiXOFP73jI0yxQKtvC7-q-muPefElbC71Pn4q1ZRIuSTtZQY5IItpiaB5nFSBMI2Wzx8Lc0PKEFJDkNEzNitUH0u3SOZ8cAldrSVsa6CNJ0saQlwt60FgthXQjj7A/s500/NEWSPIC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="407" data-original-width="500" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQN0nlaEUx_-S0Y4u49nlwh2Zi9h7fe-2sHNB9WFP9vBy1hyhaS861qqpOFmiXOFP73jI0yxQKtvC7-q-muPefElbC71Pn4q1ZRIuSTtZQY5IItpiaB5nFSBMI2Wzx8Lc0PKEFJDkNEzNitUH0u3SOZ8cAldrSVsa6CNJ0saQlwt60FgthXQjj7A/s320/NEWSPIC.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />The
Israelis are rampaging through Gaza. Raiding hospitals. Killing women
and children. Destroying schools and homes .Spreading terror with
bombs and drones – that’s what their much vaunted army is good at
– but it’s a different story when they come up against the
Palestinian resistance. The Israelis are paying a high price for
their aggression in Gaza and the West Bank. Their northern border is
ablaze. Over half a million Israelis have fled abroad to escape the
fighting and the Houthi Yemeni government’s blockade has closed
Israel’s only port on the Red Sea.</span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">China,
Russia and the Global South are demanding an end to the fighting but
these calls are ignored by the Israeli government that knows that it
can do whatever it likes under the protection of US imperialism.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Though
Americans maintain the pretence that Israel is an independent state
everyone on the Arab streets knows that the Israelis can do nothing
without the sanction of US imperialism and that ultimately it is the
US government that denies Palestinian rights and seeks the
destruction of the Palestinian resistance.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">The
most venal and aggressive sections of the Anglo-American ruling class
that thought this was going to be the “New American Century” are
dying on the streets of Gaza.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">They
can’t crush Arab resistance. They can’t stifle the global
anti-war movement calling for an immediate end to Israeli aggression.
The voice of the oppressed, the millions that support the legitimate
rights of the Palestinian Arabs is being heard across the world. Let
them hear it in Tel Aviv! Let them hear it in Washington!</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: CG Times; font-size: x-small;"><br /><span style="color: black;"><b>Meanwhile in Rochdale...</b></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">A
former Labour leader tells us the party’s leadership has sometimes
lacked political “savvy” with its handling of recent crises,
including its green spending pledge and the Rochdale by-election. But
Neil Kinnock, a grandee who now sits in the House of Lords, was
perhaps understating the crisis of confidence that has shaken the
Starmer leadership over the past few weeks.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Labour
still has a huge lead over the Tories but the mounting anger at
Starmer’s refusal to call for an immediate end to the fighting in
Gaza is undermining Labour’s support throughout the movement.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Dumping
the Labour candidate in the Rochdale by-election shows how unfit
Starmer is to lead the Labour Party. The Zionist lobby that launched
the witch-hunt that drove Ken Livingstone and many other supporters
of the Palestinians out of the Labour Party worked hand in glove with
Blairites to undermine Jeremy Corbyn. Last week they joined the Tory
media to force Starmer to get rid of Ali.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Azhar
Ali, a member of the Muslim community, has been suspended after
making some anti-Israeli remarks at a private meeting deemed to be
“anti-semitic” by the Tory press. The leader of the Labour group
on Lancashire County Council; an advisor to Tony Blair and Gordon
Brown during the last Labour government had been, until last week, a
staunch supporter of Starmer & Co and was seen a safe pair of
hands to hold Rochdale. Disowned by Labour but too late to replace
him Azhar Ali’s name will still appear on the ballot paper as the
official Labour candidate at the end of the month.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Now
the door’s wide open for yet another George Galloway come-back.
Standing on his own “Workers Party of Britain” platform the
veteran Palestinian solidarity campaigner hopes to be swept back into
Parliament by a protest vote that goes far beyond Rochdale’s Muslim
community.</span></span><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /></span></div>
</div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></div></div>
<p align="justify" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p>
<p align="justify" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-66401890199828206882024-02-14T02:39:00.000-08:002024-02-14T02:39:24.543-08:00Where are we going?<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD3GvXVWLQ8p5Qc6PhLQqA94rzA6l1XNnijL6vfhv3-W28EWwmK7H6FbX3z6LwhLgcWv9XaBW0x19jbzDlrbC8BiJMc1KiFfdOwO0NoDqq7JxZhYOYJF9hznL44nFH4S8f5NeWX3S_G5crfC2NG4U7vahbROHJ3eh8xcil4Y1geKKM8Lo2wIgN-Q/s185/tn20240209.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="150" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD3GvXVWLQ8p5Qc6PhLQqA94rzA6l1XNnijL6vfhv3-W28EWwmK7H6FbX3z6LwhLgcWv9XaBW0x19jbzDlrbC8BiJMc1KiFfdOwO0NoDqq7JxZhYOYJF9hznL44nFH4S8f5NeWX3S_G5crfC2NG4U7vahbROHJ3eh8xcil4Y1geKKM8Lo2wIgN-Q/s1600/tn20240209.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><span style="font-family: CG Times;">Labour
looks set to win the next general election. If the vote was held now
the fifteen to twenty points lead in the opinion polls would give
Starmer a landslide victory of Blairite proportions. But the polls
can be misleading.<br /></span></span></span><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span> </span>Sunak
is undoubtedly in trouble. He’s failed to win back the so-called
“middle Englanders” who abandoned the Tories when the economy
nearly collapsed under Liz Truss. Sunak’s failed to appease the
Tory bigots over the refugee crisis who are now turning to the
“PopCons” – the ‘Popular Conservative’ Trussite faction in
parliament or the Faragist Reform Party.<br /></span></span><span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span> </span>Only
time will tell whether the appeal of the “Popcons” or the
“Reformers” will split the Tory vote. Sunak’s team hopes not.
Some think they can still rally the Tory faithful. This, of course,
may just be wishful thinking. But it’s interesting to note the air
of caution coming from one of the leading Blairites this week.<br /></span></span><span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span> </span>Peter
Mandelson, a Blairite grandee, says people “are not pricing in
sufficiently” the possibility of Labour failing to win a majority.
Labour’s poll lead is “artificial” and “is going to
contract”. A landslide is not a foregone conclusion and if Labour
fails to maintain its current momentum, it is on course for “a
somewhat more ambivalent result than than the opinion polls are
currently suggesting”.<br /></span></span><span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span> </span>That’s
certainly true. Starmer has hounded out most of the Corbynistas that
the party relied on to do the canvassing needed to get the Labour
vote out while promising little or nothing to the millions of working
people whose votes will decide the next election. Starmer & Co
may well believe that crawling to big business, media barons and the
Americans is the key to victory – but it means nothing to the
workers who will only rally round Labour if there’s real reform on
the agenda.<br /></span></span><span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>We
reject the “parliamentary road” and electoral politics. But the
left social-democrats who call themselves “revolutionaries”
aren’t the answer. They claim to be the alternative voice of the
labour movement. But their slates will end up, as always, amongst the
also-rans at election time. The same goes for George Galloway and his
new “Workers Party of Britain”. Though he bucked the system in
the past, returning to parliament on two occasions on his Respect
platform, he achieved nothing.<br /></span></span><span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span> </span>These
posers call for social‑democratic reforms while campaigning
against the only mass force capable of implementing reform, the
Labour Party itself. The paltry results of all these parties reflect
the futility of trying to compete with Labour in bourgeois elections.<br />
</span></span><span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span> </span>They
foster the illusion that there is a left electoral alternative to
Labour when the reality is that the only alternative — in the
current situation — to a Conservative government is a Labour
government. So they end up portraying Labour rather than the ruling
class as the main enemy of the working class. Objectively they end up
in the camp of the class enemy.<br /></span></span><span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span> </span>A
Labour government, with its links with the unions and the
co‑operative movement, offers the best option for the working
class in the era of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. Our strategy
is for working class unity and our campaigns are focused on defeating
the right‑wing within the movement and strengthening the left
and progressive forces within the Labour Party and the unions.<br /></span></span><span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span> </span>We
must demand that the Labour Party reflect the wishes of the millions
of its affiliated union members, expressed through the unions’
democratic procedures. And the unions we must struggle to elect
genuine working class leaderships, who are prepared to represent and
fight for the membership.<br /></span></span><span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span> </span>The
Party must campaign for a democratic Labour Party controlled by its
affiliates; a Labour Party whose policies reflect those of a
democratic union movement would become a powerful instrument for
progressive reforms that would strengthen organised labour and
benefit the working class.<br /></span></span><span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span> </span>Our
Party’s strategy is the only way to fight for the communist
alternative within the working class of England, Scotland and Wales.
We want day‑to‑day reforms and they can only be achieved
by the main reformist, social democratic party in Britain, the Labour
Party. We want revolution and that can only be achieved through the
leadership of the communist party.</span></span></span></div>
<p align="left" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-70054371965545532672024-02-05T03:28:00.000-08:002024-02-05T03:28:44.416-08:00 The thin red line<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNsoTX5d0GxMXMEl-L0p8-xliq0A39Iu6YPQSMVFLlRf8troJzvKH0RMdH9_ROKuV5tSRABkRSbvndgeWdyKKHL4FDrpQy5NJe78NZs4mqVWZyzz5RHeosuAjid5_VAavh3aiGa_9jFSsxxJciq0C1mV6oYBz1_Hyfrp7UW-qfsyHmAVXrltm_WQ/s185/tn20240202X.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="150" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNsoTX5d0GxMXMEl-L0p8-xliq0A39Iu6YPQSMVFLlRf8troJzvKH0RMdH9_ROKuV5tSRABkRSbvndgeWdyKKHL4FDrpQy5NJe78NZs4mqVWZyzz5RHeosuAjid5_VAavh3aiGa_9jFSsxxJciq0C1mV6oYBz1_Hyfrp7UW-qfsyHmAVXrltm_WQ/s1600/tn20240202X.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>The Sunak government has wisely dismissed General Sanders recent call for a “citizen army” for war with Russia, which in his mind has already begun in Ukraine. "This war is not merely about the black soil of the Donbas, nor the re-establishment of a Russian empire” the worthy general says. “It's about defeating our system and way of life politically, psychologically, and symbolically. How we respond as the pre-war generation will reverberate through history. Ukrainian bravery is buying time, for now”.<br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Downing Street says the “British military has a proud tradition of being a voluntary force. There are no plans to change that" adding that "hypothetical scenarios" about potential future conflicts were "not helpful".<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The grandees are well aware of the outcome of such a war in which there would be no winners and very few, if any, survivors. They know how deeply unpopular a return to conscription would be with the teenagers who would be the first to be called up for what was called “national service” until it was abolished in 1960. The same goes for the senior officers who shudder at the thought of injecting the youth culture of today into the armed forces.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>General Sanders, the Chief of the General Staff, is a scion of the ruling class who’s spent his entire life in the army. He knows all this. He knew he’d get no takers when he made his controversial comments at the International Armoured Vehicles Conference (IAVC) in London last week. His speech isn’t the beginning of a new campaign to take us back to the “good old days” but part of the efforts by the most venal and aggressive sections of the British ruling class to serve US imperialism ND maintain and increase British defence expenditure. <br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> The United States is the only country that’s used nuclear weapons against a civilian population and since World War II they have threatened to nuke other countries including those that don't possess nuclear weapons. Britain is a major arms supplier and its troops are deployed in a growing number of war zones and areas made unstable as a result of imperialist intervention and aggression. <br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> In 2008 the Americans removed their nuclear missiles from the UK after judging that the supposed threat from Moscow had diminished. Now they’re coming back.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Now US navy secretary Carlos Del Toro calls on the UK to "reassess" the size of its armed forces given "the threats that exist today” and the Americans are using the “Russian threat” to create new bases on our soil for their weapons of mass destruction. According to the Telegraph the US plans to place B61-12 gravity bombs, three times as strong as the Hiroshima device, at the RAF Lakenheath air base in Suffolk.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In the corridors of power those who do the bidding of the United States argue that this is the only way to protect the British imperialist interest across the globe. They call it the “special relationship” though the only thing that is special about the Atlantic alliance is that the Americans speak our language. General Sanders, however, speaks theirs.</span></span></div><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-81630958703597360862024-01-28T14:54:00.000-08:002024-01-28T14:54:08.558-08:00Fanning the flames<div style="background: #ffffff; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjwBkrErhiBAtsUv1EuP7CqNyQldUqyQFEAFqOwFZ7_4cO3aRaoSbqwJ3oMQAzbPN9HSQng-yId25_uP-xO2hqfrTi3PoGN3sqEMwbmywpPREY1GlwNWQGlvwQDR3gJZYVZ2PUdwOvI5rpTst0qaDiWDIeCEilXCcGF85fOEZQ5H2IcGEouLV8rQ/s185/tn20240126.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="150" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjwBkrErhiBAtsUv1EuP7CqNyQldUqyQFEAFqOwFZ7_4cO3aRaoSbqwJ3oMQAzbPN9HSQng-yId25_uP-xO2hqfrTi3PoGN3sqEMwbmywpPREY1GlwNWQGlvwQDR3gJZYVZ2PUdwOvI5rpTst0qaDiWDIeCEilXCcGF85fOEZQ5H2IcGEouLV8rQ/s1600/tn20240126.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><span style="font-family: CG Times;">The shameful
decision of the Sunak government to send the RAF in to bomb Yemen in
support of American offensive against the defiant Arab republic has
done nothing for the merchant shipping the imperialists claim to be
protecting. The Houthi government that controls most of the country
have stepped up their blockade that’s closed the Red Sea to all
Israeli shipping. And the US campaign, ludicrously called “Operation
Prosperity Guardian” has now put the Red Sea off limits to British
and American vessels as well.<br /></span></span></span><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>Though
crawling to the Americans is second nature to Conservative and Labour
leaders it’s a different ball game in Europe. Franco-German
imperialism wants to sit this one out and the European Union foreign
policy chief Josep Borrel says that the bloc has no intention to send
warships to the US naval mission in the Red Sea.<br /> </span></span><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>“This bloc
does not intend to escalate the conflict with the Yemeni army, we
must do everything possible to ensure freedom of navigation, but at
the same time avoid escalation,” Borrel said.<br /> </span></span><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>The EU wants
to distance itself from Anglo-American aggression to guarantee the
continued supply of oil and gas from Qatar and the other oil kingdoms
of the Persian Gulf which supply most of the continent with its
energy needs these days. Qatar, which has long supported the Muslim
Brotherhood and Hamas, has warned that the escalation of the crisis
in the Red Sea could force shipping to take a much longer and more
expensive diversion via South Africa that would seriously impact on
LNG cargoes to Europe.<br /></span></span><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>It will also
affect the delivery of supplies from the Far East to Europe. Tesla
has announced that due to the auto parts flow disruption caused by
transportation delays, it will stop its production in its Gigafactory
in Berlin. Volvo, the now Chinese-owned car manufacturer. Has
suspended production at its plant in Ghent, Belgium, due to delays in
parts deliveries.<br /> </span></span><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>The Houthi
leaders have repeatedly said that their objective is to stop the
slaughter in Gaza. Their blockade will end when the Israelis
cease-fire. One call to Tel Aviv from the White House would do the
trick, If the Biden administration had any sense it would do it now.</span></span></span></div><div style="background: #ffffff; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: CG Times;"><br /><b>Preparing for Power?</b></span></div><div style="background: #ffffff; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="color: #050505;"><b><br /></b><span style="font-weight: normal;">The Tory
government is on its last legs. Playing the race card over the
refugee crisis has done nothing to boost their flagging fortunes. The
pundits say Sunak will go for an autumn general election. The opinion
polls put Labour streets ahead of the Tories. The media tell us
Labour is preparing for power and Starmer is already writing the next
King’s Speech. But what is Labour preparing us for?<br /></span></span><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>Absolutely
nothing if anything the Labour leadership say is anything to go by
these days. No national mass housing plans. No renationalisation of
the railways or the energy and water utilities. No major increase in
public investment in education or the health service, Doing whatever
the Americans want – well that goes without saying.<br /></span></span><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>It difficult
to see where Labour actually differs from the Conservatives on most
issues – and this is what Starmer wants. Starmer’s spent most of
his time knifing Corbyn in the back and driving out the former Labour
leader’s supporters out of the party. The Labour leader clearly
thinks this is the key to victory at the next general election.<br /></span></span><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>But a
manifesto that consists entirely of vacuous platitudes will do
nothing to mobilise working people to vote Labour – and if Labour
can’t get their vote out then the Tories will win by default.</span></span><br /><br /></span><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-50224145386468336202024-01-24T19:48:00.000-08:002024-01-24T19:48:04.636-08:00 A dangerous escalation<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhAoUjwPqZn9u0P_wVZKDsFgH66L64F35Ox-LiCO24IqeaopE1oax3ceSxEuN5PoifeTOtreMEgExevOVaMCWCMenQhz-dk4yu-Kxv8bWT_niyKdltGN5cs8ZvM9AtVkWPnkDVJ4GGGiwR4ajZOMIA6YI5Fjsvys32tjPHzTmmin2W0cZX0tfvyg/s185/tn20240119.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="150" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhAoUjwPqZn9u0P_wVZKDsFgH66L64F35Ox-LiCO24IqeaopE1oax3ceSxEuN5PoifeTOtreMEgExevOVaMCWCMenQhz-dk4yu-Kxv8bWT_niyKdltGN5cs8ZvM9AtVkWPnkDVJ4GGGiwR4ajZOMIA6YI5Fjsvys32tjPHzTmmin2W0cZX0tfvyg/s1600/tn20240119.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>In the 19th century the imperialists used “gun-boat diplomacy” to carve up Africa the rest of the world into various European spheres of influence. It worked because only the colonial powers could manufacture the weapons of mass destruction needed to enslave the people of what is we now call the Global South. They thought their realms, like the British Empire on which “the sun never set” would last forever. They called it “civilisation” and “the White Man’s burden” when they brutally crushed all resistance to the forces used to build colonial empires that spanned the globe. But they couldn’t crush the spirit of freedom amongst the oppressed masses who swept away the colonial system after the second world war.<br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The masses of the Third World who took up the gun in the national liberation wars in Algeria and Zimbabwe showed that it was people, not arms, that decide the outcome of struggles while the Korean and Vietnamese people taught the American imperialists a lesson they still have yet to learn.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If the Anglo-American attacks on Yemen were meant to build a new NATO bloc in the Middle East to protect Israel and intimidate the Arabs it has clearly failed. Most of America’s allies have refused to join this new “coalition of the willing” which only consists of Britain, the United States, Canada and some tiny islands in the Pacific that no-one’s ever heard of.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If the US-led attacks were meant to force the Houthi government to abandon its blockade of Israeli shipping they have clearly failed. The Red Sea remains the “Arab Sea” and the Houthis are now adding British and American vessels to their list.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Yemenis say they will end their blockade once the fighting in Gaza stops. All the Americans have to do to make that happens is to tell their puppets in Tel Aviv to cease-fire and end the carnage.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /><b>One up for the RMT</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br />The RMT transport union ended its dispute with Transport for London (TfL) following an improved pay offer from City Hall that has added an extra £30 million to the pay budget to meet union demands on pay, grading structures and travel facilities. <br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Last month RMT rejected a below inflation pay offer of five per cent from the London Underground. This, they said was “unacceptable when TfL has created a bonus pot of £13 million for senior managers and the commissioner took an 11 per cent pay rise in 2023 taking his salary up to £395,000”.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: “Following further positive discussions today, the negotiations on a pay deal for our London Underground members can now take place on an improved basis and mandate with significant further funding for a settlement being made available. This significantly improved funding position means the scheduled strike action will be suspended with immediate effect and we look forward to getting into urgent negotiations with TfL in order to develop a suitable agreement and resolution to the dispute”.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Though Management initially refused to budge the solid response by the membership to past strike calls and the union’s determination to continue prolonged industrial action forced them to respond realistically to the union’s demand for higher pay and the restoration of full staff travel facilities for all Tube workers.This is what collective bargaining is all about and this is why it has to be defended.</span></span></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-87150854793415187492024-01-15T06:10:00.000-08:002024-01-15T06:10:45.578-08:00 Stop the war – support the Palestinians!<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en-GB"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9XyQei7Tu1kg500x-IDVCw8KtN34ZuS96xBwADdXafNwJc3z03HXgQCSASIIEzDpiP-VVLOlIHcJBU-0sSuCiojmlDSVck39r0LNfSFYjrjElj_dpdb0v8ACiG5K-hWLhHqrYM0J8h4tnRVUmVphmADsVKiGVXlbnNyUB_q-4w2yYDe3nj3zMBg/s500/NW1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="418" data-original-width="500" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9XyQei7Tu1kg500x-IDVCw8KtN34ZuS96xBwADdXafNwJc3z03HXgQCSASIIEzDpiP-VVLOlIHcJBU-0sSuCiojmlDSVck39r0LNfSFYjrjElj_dpdb0v8ACiG5K-hWLhHqrYM0J8h4tnRVUmVphmADsVKiGVXlbnNyUB_q-4w2yYDe3nj3zMBg/s320/NW1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Millions
upon millions throughout the world are again demanding an end to the
carnage in Gaza – not least in London where the biggest
demonstrations in support of the Palestinian Arabs in the Western
world are regularly taking place. Across the bourgeois political
spectrum mainstream politicians justify their crawling to American
imperialism by parroting Zionist lies and claiming the public as a
whole largely support Israel. But a recent YouGov poll tells a
different story.<br /></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en-GB"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
<span> </span>The survey commissioned by Medical Aid for Palestinians and the
Council for Arab-British Understanding shows that there is an
overwhelming level of public support in this country for an immediate
ceasefire in Gaza.<br /></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en-GB"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>The
survey conducted on 20-21 December 2023 found that 71 per cent of the
British public believe there definitely (48 per cent) or probably (23
per cent) should be an immediate ceasefire in Israel and Palestine.
Only 12 per cent felt that there should definitely not (6 per cent)
or probably not (6 per cent) be an immediate ceasefire.This echoes
the results of a similar YouGov poll on 19 October, <span> </span>demonstrating
robust and continuing public support for an end to the current
violence in Gaza.<br /></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en-GB"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> The
poll also found that only 17 per cent of people approve of the Sunak
government’s handling of the conflict and only 9 per cent approved
of the Labour Party’s handling of the conflict.<br /></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en-GB"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>Chris
Doyle, Director of CAABU, says “This poll shows a total and utter
lack of public confidence in the way both the UK government and the
Labour Party have handled this. The figures could hardly be lower.
This should be a wake-up call to the political leaderships to realign
themselves both with public sentiment, international law and the need
to address the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza”.<br /></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en-GB"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span> </span>There’s
not much chance of that happening in the near future. Crawling to the
Americans comes as second nature to the ruling class who believe that
their global interests are best preserved through the might of US
imperialism. Since the Second World War grovelling to the White House
has been </span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">almost
compulsory for Tory and Labour leaders who drone on and on about
“partnership” and the “special relationship” to justify
British imperialism’s slavish support of American power throughout
the world.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en-GB"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
So it’s no surprise to read this week that Keir Starmer regularly
liaises with US national security adviser Jake Sullivan.<br /></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en-GB"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>But
some Labour MPs disagree. One former shadow minister, told the
parliamentary news blog PoliticsHome, that Labour should support a
permanent ceasefire in Gaza and expressed concern over how much the
US position appeared to be influencing Labour's foreign policy
approach. "We don't have an independent foreign policy, a Labour
policy," the MP who was not named, said. "We have
outsourced it to the US administration: that's not helpful. I don't
like it”.<br /></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
<span> </span>Starmer and his cohorts would have us believe that we live in what
the Americans call the “free world”; that the USA is some sort of
democratic utopia and that anyone who opposes imperialism is evil,
mad or both. Backed by bought and paid-for labour leaders and a daily
dose of lies from the bourgeois media these people think they can
play this cynical game forever and ever. We must prove them wrong.</span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-9928584957099808062024-01-15T05:55:00.000-08:002024-01-15T05:55:32.194-08:00A man of his times<p><b style="background-color: white; color: #050505;"></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="background-color: white; color: #050505;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitVDqAcge9hJ3YXOaWaTWOGsY08LPPzocpWvev5JRS8z9FayJSDV5TR8J6moGzq55Yat-XOwsP1NMT8ddRUBrrGbjkQ1864Ue8MtDhEsvOro_zKPC7kiI6o7ogpzgwP2YVj3OmhWXk1ugC64dptFurW5FsG5DEbgAxbP2SZV3cDLdne-f86NC3zA/s964/2236p10SOTONpic.webp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="964" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitVDqAcge9hJ3YXOaWaTWOGsY08LPPzocpWvev5JRS8z9FayJSDV5TR8J6moGzq55Yat-XOwsP1NMT8ddRUBrrGbjkQ1864Ue8MtDhEsvOro_zKPC7kiI6o7ogpzgwP2YVj3OmhWXk1ugC64dptFurW5FsG5DEbgAxbP2SZV3cDLdne-f86NC3zA/s320/2236p10SOTONpic.webp" width="266" /></a></b></div><b style="background-color: white; color: #050505;">by Ben Soton</b><p></p>
<p align="left" class="western" style="background: #ffffff; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="color: #050505;"><i><b>Yours For the Revolution – The
Evolution of Tom Mann’s Political Thought</b></i></span><span style="color: #050505;"><b>:
Phil Katz, Manifesto Press, 2023, £20.00</b></span></span></p><p align="left" class="western" style="background: #ffffff; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "CG Times";">“</span><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "CG Times";">Yours For
the Revolution” was how the legendary trade union leader Tom Mann
would sign his letters; his life is the subject of Phil Katz’s
latest book. Katz is also the author of works such as Freedom From
Tyranny: The Fight Against Fascism and the Falsification of History;
a study into how the, EU-backed far-right is attempting to falsify
history and equate communism with fascism. With this in mind any
book by Katz is certainly worth reading.</span></p><div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>The book, by
its name covers the ideological development of Tom Mann (1856-1941)
from Christian Socialist, through syndicalism to eventually arrive at
Marxism-Leninism and the Communist Party of Great Britain. It is
divided into seven sections covering key periods in Mann’s life.
Subsequently the book is useful for anyone interested in the history
of the labour movement from the late nineteenth to early twentieth
centuries.<br /></span></span><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>Mann is best
known for his involvement in the 1889 London Dock strike and the
development of New Unionism. New Unionism saw the emergence of Trade
Unions representing unskilled workers; a move away from unions
representing primarily skilled, and to that matter male workers. The
1889 Dock Strike saw gains for many workers including an eight-hour
day and the establishment of a Royal Commission of Labour. The Royal
Commission eventually saw some union leaders bought off by the
establishment; most notably John Burns, who later became a Liberal
Peer. This was far from the case with Tom Mann. He remained active
in the Labour Movement in Britain and abroad; with his activism
taking him to Australia, South Africa, America, Russia and eventually
China. His support for workers across the globe drove him in the
direction of internationalism and his understanding of the state
eventually lead him from the limited ideology of Syndicalism to
Marxism-Leninism.<br /></span></span><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>Katz
criticises revisionist historians who wish to keep Mann in his early
Christian (Utopian) socialist phase; thus, hiding the syndicalist and
especially communist phase in his development. To achieve this, they
often make little reference to his life after the 1880s; subsequently
ignoring the remaining sixty years of his life. The author points
out that there have been attempts to dilute the work of William
Morris in a similar war; portraying him as a romantic artist and a
designer of wall-paper rather than a Marxist revolutionary.<br /> </span></span><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>In this,
highly detailed book Katz performs an outstanding role in debunking
this reactionary myth; making the book a fitting tribute to one of
the British labour movement’s most outstanding figures. Tom Mann
was after all a founder member of the Communist Party of Great
Britain, which he remained a member of until his death in 1941.
</span></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-77521813703818242612024-01-03T12:58:00.000-08:002024-01-03T12:58:47.397-08:00 The hopes and fears of all the years<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2bjAHyHcJi-Cx1gP33OswEWgoOzokov1jI_pa-BaLBSf9s7Ar9gIKjMuh05LqZPOS1PjdNK75QV0yD68r1pUE-_G5ZOYDAKgRZDenlQALzMWyAWyz2jPI6RwZn8bOQH654dDMuPweuTP3YwH1ZHJNQP4GAudnkAeQ1IV4ZUh79ZeVtrMMf5ORRw/s185/tn20231222.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="150" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2bjAHyHcJi-Cx1gP33OswEWgoOzokov1jI_pa-BaLBSf9s7Ar9gIKjMuh05LqZPOS1PjdNK75QV0yD68r1pUE-_G5ZOYDAKgRZDenlQALzMWyAWyz2jPI6RwZn8bOQH654dDMuPweuTP3YwH1ZHJNQP4GAudnkAeQ1IV4ZUh79ZeVtrMMf5ORRw/s1600/tn20231222.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><span style="font-family: CG Times;">So this is Christmas. Celebrating the winter solstice goes back to hallowed antiquity from the Stone Age hunter-gatherers whose lives revolved around the seasons to the Saturnalia when Roman masters served their slaves in orgies of feasting and drinking in which all the rules of society could be temporarily broken. In the Middle Ages the Catholic Church, itself largely a product of the feudal era, turned the old pagan holiday into a Christian holiday to celebrate the birth of the founder of their faith in pageants and parades that heralded the coming spring.<br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In Britain Jesus seldom gets a look in these days. Though still fun for the kids the modern festival has been largely been reduced to eating and drinking and a ritual exchange of cards and gifts.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This orgy of consumerism is, of course, a welcome break from the drudgery of work. A chance to put one’s feet up, eat and drink and enjoy the life the rich enjoy in their mansions every day of their worthless lives. But for the homeless, unemployed and destitute victims of the capitalist crisis, it’s just another day of despair. The festive clichés of the politicians and the princes of the church mean nothing to them. Meanwhile the Palestinian Arabs fight to stave off a brutal Israeli enemy in Gaza.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In Britain millions of people of many faiths or none at all have taken to the streets to call for an end to the fighting. People from all walks of life are now campaigning for Palestinian rights and freedom. They are taking on corporations that profit from the Israeli occupation, the Sunak government that still refuses to hold Israel to account and the media that does not report the truth.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Palestinian solidarity protests have been held every week in London and in many other towns throughout the country. Huge marches, the biggest in Western Europe, have rocked London. They must continue until the guns fall silent and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs are recognised once and for all.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Over Christmas we get the usual drivel from the Established Church, whose clergy reserve their most pious platitudes for the supposed birthday of the ‘Prince of Peace’ on 25th December while ignoring his teachings for the rest of the year. <br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>These modern Pharisees talk about the “poor and needy” while ignoring the words of the Nazarene who drove the money-changers out of the Temple and told his followers to “go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven”. <br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>They tell us to think about those needier than ourselves and many of us, will indeed, give generously to beggars or charities. But what we should be thinking about is those much wealthier than ourselves and the capitalist system they uphold and how they’ve got the money to spend every day of the year like Christmas, living off the backs of workers forced to make do with the miserable crumbs left at the rich man’s table.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> But the days when people listened to the rich men who told us that the greatest virtue of humanity was the possession of the largest amount of money are over.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> The ruling class maintains that capitalism is the only game in town. And it is – but only for themselves. Capitalism, in the final analysis, is simply a system designed to perpetuate the rule of the rich to ensure that a tiny handful of parasites can live the lives of Roman emperors on the backs of the millions upon millions of working people. There is only one answer to the crisis and that is socialism. Speed the day!</span></span></div><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-72056224972181048062023-12-22T02:01:00.000-08:002023-12-22T02:01:43.224-08:00 Justice for Palestine – cease-fire now!<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv0LP5f1pz5nCHfKeC7kt26MPd2g_7zlQ2tSqRTufRTzbjl2cfy9yw3zYCgSkFtNjYYbYuKRdUddLwSaLRtweiVQ4DomgD4wFsEwqGX_J5dryZ9zDQtGshK74cpx_8bsfItPofVJeRMG10_0N4hLDW4A6CNABVYUXIpymBw48S-SidLK547Fa0dg/s185/tn20231215.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="150" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv0LP5f1pz5nCHfKeC7kt26MPd2g_7zlQ2tSqRTufRTzbjl2cfy9yw3zYCgSkFtNjYYbYuKRdUddLwSaLRtweiVQ4DomgD4wFsEwqGX_J5dryZ9zDQtGshK74cpx_8bsfItPofVJeRMG10_0N4hLDW4A6CNABVYUXIpymBw48S-SidLK547Fa0dg/s1600/tn20231215.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><span style="font-family: CG Times;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en-GB"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Gaza
faces a full-scale humanitarian catastrophe as Israel mercilessly
maintains indiscriminate attacks on the civilians in the beleaguered
Palestinian enclave that is bitterly resisting the Israeli onslaught.
But world public opinion made its voice heard at the United Nations
this week when 153 member-states voted for an immediate end to the
fighting. Only eight lackeys of US imperialism joined Israel and the
Americans in voting against the call for peace. Some of America’s
NATO allies took the principled stand and supported the demand for
peace. Others like Britain shamefully abstained – though some say
this modest departure from the American script is a step forward for
the Sunak government.<br /></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en-GB"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>If
that’s so, and we can only hope it is, it is largely down to the
wave of support that we have seen for the Palestinians in Britain and
throughout the rest of the world. Grovelling to the Americans and
turning a blind-eye to Israeli war crimes may be second nature for
the Tory government and the leaders of the Labour Party but even they
cannot blind-eye the mass protests of millions of people that rock
the streets of Britain week after week. Nor can they ignore the view
of their Saudi friends, who have shelved a planned summit with Sunak
in London over the crisis, or those of the other Arab princes who’ve
invested their oil riches in the UK and made this country their
second home.<br /></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en-GB"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>These
protests have encouraged those in the Jewish community that the
Zionists claim to exclusively represent to also take the principled
stand of supporting the demand for justice for the Palestinian Arabs.
These protests are now rippling through the broader labour movement
and now we’re seeing Palestinian demands taken up by unions at a
local and regional level. We’re even seeing support for a ceasefire
growing within the Parliamentary Labour Party with even some of
Labour’s biggies now going beyond his meaningless calls for
“humanitarian pauses”.<br /> </span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en-GB"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>This
week Labour’s Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy slammed Israel
over its attacks on Palestinians. He described the death and
destruction in Gaza over the past two months as “intolerable” and
attacked two Israeli cabinet ministers for “totally unacceptable”
support of illegal Zionist settlements in the Israeli-occupied West
Bank.<br /></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en-GB"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
<span> </span>A permanent ceasefire must be the starting point to address the
underlying causes of the crisis, including decades of Israeli
military occupation and a system of oppression against the
Palestinian Arabs that is considered internationally to meet the
legal definition of apartheid.<br /></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en-GB"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>Nearly
18,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, with over 40 per cent
of those being children. Now is the time to really put the pressure
on labour and trade union leaders and all the other powers that be in
the UK to end the slaughter. They need to hear the call for a
cease-fire from as many as possible and that Britain must end its
complicity in Israeli war crimes now. Make sure they hear it by
supporting the protests until the fighting stops.</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;"><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-36196064193363010222023-12-13T03:13:00.000-08:002023-12-13T03:13:40.460-08:00 Take action for Palestine!<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhifpcJExVCcKj_9r4q0ZVmypKgZdz_r_yqeCIx73Wy8TgpQKfVk4u_xBjYR4TYaXJV03QSTZ8l6ttM01kbfOjpOKiPZqcSPCHi2ngxASJJxrrPR4LcqsS0y-HF_V62we-f5ZZ3dNhjd2oIxybMArNZCuLe8i8Y7s1XjwkK-AXNgXla3Lnq6RPJiw/s185/tn20231208.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="150" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhifpcJExVCcKj_9r4q0ZVmypKgZdz_r_yqeCIx73Wy8TgpQKfVk4u_xBjYR4TYaXJV03QSTZ8l6ttM01kbfOjpOKiPZqcSPCHi2ngxASJJxrrPR4LcqsS0y-HF_V62we-f5ZZ3dNhjd2oIxybMArNZCuLe8i8Y7s1XjwkK-AXNgXla3Lnq6RPJiw/s1600/tn20231208.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>It didn’t take long for Israel to resume fighting in Gaza. The Netanyahu government has shown its true colours, jeopardising the lives of the remaining Israeli prisoners held by the Palestinian resistance by its indiscriminate bombing that is clearly intended to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for many years to come. <br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>On the Arab street millions upon millions are demanding action to stop the carnage. Across the world, not least in Britain, millions more are demanding an end to the fighting and justice for the Palestinians.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Sunak government crawls to US imperialism and turns a blind eye to Israeli war-crimes. The Labour leaders who soon hope to form the next government do much the same. But the mass protests that week after week rock the streets of London and the protests that are taking place right across the country are fuelling the opposition to Starmer & Co within the broader labour movement. <br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The demand continues for a ceasefire and for our politicians to halt their support for Israel’s war crimes. Make sure they hear it by supporting the protests until the fighting stops.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><b><br />Kissinger leaves the stage</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br />Though it ill behoves anyone to speak ill of the dead it would nevertheless be hard to find a good word to mark the passing of Henry Kissinger, the former US foreign minister who passed away last month at the ripe old age of 100.<br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Kissinger, the academic turned diplomat who served US imperialism during the Nixon era will, of course, be remembered as the pioneer who made a historic contribution to the normalisation of American relations with People’s China. He was also a supporter of detente which led to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union that curbed the nuclear arms race during the 1970s.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The political career of the man who was said to be the master of “realpolitik” in his hey day ended in 1977 with the defeat of the Republicans in the presidential elections. Kissinger returned to academia to promote his own legend while retaining an advisory role in Republican ruling circles right up until his death in November.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Kissinger may have called his dealings with the USSR “reciprocity” or “realism”. In reality it was just horse-trading with the Brezhnev leadership that was pursuing a futile attempt at achieving nuclear parity with the Americans to divide the world into Soviet and American spheres of influence.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But in what US imperialism considered to be its own “sphere” Kissinger merely continued the Cold War tactics of supporting worthless kings like the Shah of Persia and military dictators throughout the Global South who willingly sold themselves to US imperialism while supporting what we would now call “regime change” with disastrous results for the people of Chile and Cambodia. <br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> In reality Kissinger achieved little during his years in Washington. While he remains one of the few post-war American foreign ministers any can recall this is simply because those that followed him were much, much worse.</span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-32104292941393504762023-12-11T19:29:00.000-08:002023-12-11T19:32:03.905-08:00 Hospital workers stand for Gaza!<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEPPZoYsnUnqF7jNG9uMRPYBmGqZFLAWzRBxlGs-JbFo5ocYImU_eQNoACMe-Bobj7M7h20bCG_732LTTALODzxseNVVizZ-RYuafGlDDi-6Z4JKDjT6a_X8FG7deaqxyPq8DuXNMg64EGwoc3sEn7O5wXudqrsxJId4XT8D7oVAWj_MZu57b1pg/s3728/2233p3NHSpic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2322" data-original-width="3728" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEPPZoYsnUnqF7jNG9uMRPYBmGqZFLAWzRBxlGs-JbFo5ocYImU_eQNoACMe-Bobj7M7h20bCG_732LTTALODzxseNVVizZ-RYuafGlDDi-6Z4JKDjT6a_X8FG7deaqxyPq8DuXNMg64EGwoc3sEn7O5wXudqrsxJId4XT8D7oVAWj_MZu57b1pg/s320/2233p3NHSpic.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>by New Worker correspondent<br /></b><br />NHS workers held a moment of silence in memory of their colleagues killed during the brutal Israeli onslaught against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip at a solidarity picket outside St Thomas’ Hospital in central London on Tuesday. Hospital staff and Palestinian solidarity activists called for an urgent and permanent cease-fire to end the slaughter of defenceless civilians that has already claimed the lives of over 11,000 Palestinian Arabs during the Israeli invasion. </span></div><p><span style="white-space: normal; white-space: pre;"> </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-15725643439682295002023-12-11T19:24:00.000-08:002023-12-11T19:24:19.199-08:00 Stop the Slaughter in Gaza!<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><b><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6lxhkyK3nqepuheBfGwXWP9B5I7Ki2CLrR9zEB6V4iPY3R0LGhrm6wwfw8YzRlq8bGRw6zXzHMk8DlXTC_TaTuFqnRFNaal_ZMYeIoQHydCD4oOHYMvzX7BO-_zbW6RiLrFd8OaC0ltytJ9GPDwrGsfrtx6YRemSLDC3b_7dc8Uy9m9vfwWntwg/s1600/2233p10CAMDEN.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1204" data-original-width="1600" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6lxhkyK3nqepuheBfGwXWP9B5I7Ki2CLrR9zEB6V4iPY3R0LGhrm6wwfw8YzRlq8bGRw6zXzHMk8DlXTC_TaTuFqnRFNaal_ZMYeIoQHydCD4oOHYMvzX7BO-_zbW6RiLrFd8OaC0ltytJ9GPDwrGsfrtx6YRemSLDC3b_7dc8Uy9m9vfwWntwg/s320/2233p10CAMDEN.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Marching through Camden</span></td></tr></tbody></table>by New Worker correspondent</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br />The first Saturday of December saw the latest round of pro-Palestine solidarity events calling for a ceasefire, with unions joining the protests for the first time. Local protests were held all around the country and all over London. London comrades joined demonstrators at two of them. <br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In North London, protesters marched down to a rally outside Camden Town Hall in Bloomsbury sending a vocal message to the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, the local MP who still refuses to back calls for a ceasefire.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>RMT President Alex Gordon addressed the rally, speaking of the need for union representation at these events, and pledged his union’s ongoing support and solidarity while Liz Wheatley, from Camden Unison, spoke of the overwhelming support for a ceasefire among the Camden Council workers that her branch represents, and how no Camden Labour councillors have called for a ceasefire.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Sabby Sagall, of Camden PSC, and Sam Weinstein of IJAN (International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network) both spoke of how their Jewishness informed their support for the Palestinian cause and people, and that to them, being Jewish meant always being on the side of the oppressed and not the oppressor, echoing the words of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising leader Marek Edelman.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There were also speakers representing predominantly Bangladeshi Muslim local Community Groups. Among the points they made were opinion polls in Camden suggest 90% local support for a ceasefire, even higher than the 74 per cent national average, and that our local representatives, at local and national level, do not represent the communities they are supposed to serve.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>South of the river supporters of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign along with the South East London People’s Assembly gathered outside Lewisham Library to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as well as to mobilise support for the big rally on the 9th of December and to support the boycott of Puma.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Speakers said that the oppression of Palestinians did not start on the 7th of October but existed long before that. The local Labour MP Ms Janet Daby was notable by her absence and was denounced by one speaker for not supporting the motion in parliament for an immediate ceasefire.</span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-16188799564711987662023-12-03T23:10:00.000-08:002023-12-03T23:11:54.409-08:00 The road to Brussels<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "CG Times"; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhPXh0Bxly6bKL9tm9dWGiLZDx25RxWbtLB8-Enftyt_qcaCuQAPj6nqYHlYrOb4ZoYfKC5KNkdtXSpmLs4SYJJWn602Cerc45CmSLIEzUwAA2yUYBwvKaxzQzD_baxITLnLTLuGB8RPcDDnqHfGB24j6z7VEeMW1_CuW44yuk3A2Nfz3V0uzsQQ/s185/tn20231201.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="150" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhPXh0Bxly6bKL9tm9dWGiLZDx25RxWbtLB8-Enftyt_qcaCuQAPj6nqYHlYrOb4ZoYfKC5KNkdtXSpmLs4SYJJWn602Cerc45CmSLIEzUwAA2yUYBwvKaxzQzD_baxITLnLTLuGB8RPcDDnqHfGB24j6z7VEeMW1_CuW44yuk3A2Nfz3V0uzsQQ/s1600/tn20231201.jpg" width="150" /></a></div></span><h4 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span><span style="font-weight: normal;">The
Remainers are on the march. The newly ennobled Lord Cameron is back
in the saddle as No 3 in the Sunak government and while his first
overseas visits were predictably to Ukraine and Israel, his major
task is to rebuild economic and diplomatic bridges with the European
Union.</span><br /></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span> </span>Rishi
Sunak has made it clear that he’s not going to do anything to rock
the Brexit boat in the run-up to the next election. But the return of
David Cameron to the Foreign Office is more than a sop to the
Remainers in his ranks. It’s a victory for those sections of the
ruling class that want Britain back in the UK and it can only help
build their block in Parliament. The Scottish nationalists and the
Liberal-Democrats are long-time Returners. So are most Labour MPs.
The next strep for the Remainers is to move for the return of the
prominenti kicked out by Boris Johnson in 2019 when they tried to
stop the no-deal Brexit. This will then, they hope, create enough
cross-party support for a second-referendum in the near future
regardless of who’s in power at the time.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span> </span>The
Tory Brexiteers are rudderless. Their self-appointed parliamentary
leader was Boris Johnson – now seen for the fool he always was.
Their real leader was, of course, Nigel Farage who has abandoned
politics for the more lucrative shores of reality TV. Johnson reduced
the Eurosceptic argument to a crude choice between the Treaty of Rome
and a Treaty of Washington which was a figment of his imagination.
Now all these Brexiteers have got left is planes to Rwanda, racism
and anti-immigrant hysteria.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span> </span>But
the European Union isn’t a benevolent society. It’s a fraud, an
institution designed solely for the benefit of the oppressors and
exploiters. What few benefits the EU has brought, such as increased
trade and open borders, could all have been achieved through separate
agreements and treaties.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> Johnson
had a golden opportunity to make Brexit work. He squandered it with
all this nonsense about a deal with Donald Trump that was never going
to happen. But it still can work if the UK takes Brexit seriously and
open its doors to free trade with China and the rest of the world.</span></span></span></h4><h4 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: small;"><b>The
Covid enquiry</b></span></h4><h4 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The
nonsense about “herd immunity”; the callous and incompetent
response to the pandemic that led to many avoidable deaths amongst
the frail and the elderly and the indifference of a Prime Minister
who most of them time seemingly let Dominic Cummings, his
Rasputin-like aide, steer the ship of state. It’s all coming out in
the Covid inquiry. None of this should surprise us. Johnson’s
despicable conduct, and that of his henchmen showed how totally unfit
all of them were for high office.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>Johnson
counts for nothing in the political arena now. </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en-GB"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Crawling
to the Trump crowd in the United States and grand-standing amongst
the Ukrainians is all that Johnson’s got left these days. </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Johnson
is fortunately gone. Sunak will, hopefully soon follow.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
<span> </span>Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, may
have jumped the gun when she claimed the UK could be on the path to
rejoining the European Union last week. But she clearly reflects the
thinking of the European old guard that want to see Britain speedily
returning to the European fold.</span></span><br /></span></h4></div>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><br />
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-86271854708071383902023-11-25T15:04:00.000-08:002023-11-26T03:26:51.297-08:00 Keep up the fight for Palestinian rights!<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Prata;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5BoARqR6sb1PdqQ7MjjL3YJIDi1EBGS9xYtHwmvKe8eu8thkR378DclD8BfwHEB32MxH_KpeFUEpK37pRRJYRtBi2WNjlMZzUijYx4C3HSMnzzU1DHTXc3slaAtjxvdTmX9lHaH73Jo8iFCP099eMBUfqr4V486Y2-wb6filvvswg83sIkUjM-A/s185/tn20231124.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="150" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5BoARqR6sb1PdqQ7MjjL3YJIDi1EBGS9xYtHwmvKe8eu8thkR378DclD8BfwHEB32MxH_KpeFUEpK37pRRJYRtBi2WNjlMZzUijYx4C3HSMnzzU1DHTXc3slaAtjxvdTmX9lHaH73Jo8iFCP099eMBUfqr4V486Y2-wb6filvvswg83sIkUjM-A/s1600/tn20231124.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>Though the prisoner exchange between Hamas and the Israelis may bring about a temporary halt in the fighting there can be no let up in the campaign for a permanent cease-fire and an end to the siege of the Gaza Strip. <br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) quite rightly says that “while a temporary truce is welcome it is not a solution. We won’t stray from our demands. We demand a permanent ceasefire and an end to the siege of Gaza and to Israeli apartheid”.<br /></span>.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Next week’s national demonstrations in London, Cardiff and Glasgow must go ahead and the campaign must continue to mobilise mass pressure throughout the labour and peace movement not only to end the fighting but to restore the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs.<br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Truces and armistices may have brought about temporary pauses in the Arab-Israeli war that began with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. But they never led to a permanent end to the conflict let alone the “comprehensive, just and lasting peace” that the imperialist leaders pretend to support while ensuring that it can never be achieved.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The first war led to the expulsion of around a million Palestinian Arabs from their homes by the Zionist regime. Those refugees and their descendants have never given up their right to return to their land. And this is the heart of the crisis in the Middle East that has led to five full‑scale wars and continuing simmering conflicts.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Zionists still dream of dominating the Middle East and colonising Palestine. But their petty ambitions are not the driving force of American imperialism.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Israel is an American protectorate – economically and politically entirely dependent on US imperialism. Israeli governments exist simply to serve the needs of American imperialism in the region. And those needs are to weaken and divide the Arabs to ensure that the big oil corporations can continue their exploitation and plunder of Arab oil until it eventually runs out.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We are, once again hearing the Americans talk about a “two-state” solution. This was, indeed, the basis for the partition of the British colony in 1948 which gave the Palestinian Arabs 44 per cent of their land with Jerusalem under an international administration. It is also the basis of the current UN proposals that simply call for Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territories they seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war to allow the Palestinian Arabs to establish their own independent state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But what the Americans are talking about doesn’t even go that far. Their “two-state” solution would see the Israelis retaining all their West Bank settlements in exchange for worthless desert in Israel that would be attached to the Gaza Strip and what’s left of the Arab West Bank for the establishment of a powerless “state” whose independence would barely stretch beyond that of an Indian “reservation” in the United States. It’s all there in Donald Trump’s worthless “Abraham Accords” that were supposed to bring peace to the Middle East but in the end were only accepted by Israel and the craven oil-princes of Bahrain and the Emirates. <br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>American imperialism believed it called all the shots. They thought all resistance can be crushed by brute force. They hoped to find enough willing Arab tools to do their bidding and sign a surrender peace. The Palestinians have, once again, proved them wrong.</span></span></div><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-40454074815636634942023-11-25T06:40:00.000-08:002023-11-25T06:42:09.759-08:00DFLP: Israeli war-crimes in the Gaza Strip<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "CG Times";"><b>by Fouad Baker<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirfI2CAPOKDilmBRrPcvrj2yswaU5G-WYOM7bdUrZl4oVHmEJ012SRXhApg_RbsQFGhtiJrQyY0xvRtzkA46HHXVng1diMbzZZKNm4IslEzibGb8_GHoZIG1viZb__6QuCSAEeEa6sFzhJLQcDZTLU0SWUWdq0i1hAFU7UJ1WQmniyWiW44N9vmg/s1280/2231DFLPPic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirfI2CAPOKDilmBRrPcvrj2yswaU5G-WYOM7bdUrZl4oVHmEJ012SRXhApg_RbsQFGhtiJrQyY0xvRtzkA46HHXVng1diMbzZZKNm4IslEzibGb8_GHoZIG1viZb__6QuCSAEeEa6sFzhJLQcDZTLU0SWUWdq0i1hAFU7UJ1WQmniyWiW44N9vmg/s320/2231DFLPPic.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><h3><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Commander Abu Khaled of the DFLP</span></span></h3></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></b></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "CG Times";">The barbaric Israeli aggression supported by the West, especially the United States, which has been continuing since the 8th October, was not the first. Rather, it was preceded by many wars on the Gaza Strip, resulting in thousands of martyrs in addition to the systematic destruction of homes and infrastructure.</span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Aggression, massacres and war-crimes are an inherent feature of the Zionist entity. The Gaza Strip is an area with the highest population density – 2.2 million people live in the 365 km enclave. Over the last 17 years, from the start of the brutal siege that began in 2006, on Israel has launched 12 incursions into the Strip, including six destructive invasions. Over 4,300 Palestinians were martyred in these wars and over 19,500 wounded while the number </span></span><span style="font-family: "CG Times";">of Israeli deaths did not exceed 136 dead and about 4,000 wounded.</span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><b>2006: </b>277 Palestinians were killed and 1,167 wounded in Israeli raids that </span><span style="font-family: "CG Times";">continued for three months.</span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "CG Times";"><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><b>2008:</b>125 Palestinians were killed and large numbers of wounded over the course</span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;">of five days of bombing.</span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><b>2008 – 2009</b>: 1,430 Palestinians were martyred, including about 400 children and 240 women, 5,400 wounded, in addition to the complete or partial destruction of more than 10,000 homes. In the Battle of the Shale Stones about 180 Palestinians were martyred, including 42 children and 11 women, and about 1,300 others were injured. In the battle of the Eastern Storm 2,322 Palestinians were killed and 11,000 wounded. In the Battle of the Cry of Dawn 34 Palestinians were killed, and more than 100 others were injured and some 250 Palestinians were killed and over 5,000 wounded in the Battle of Saif al Quds (the Sword of Jerusalem).</span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;">The Gaza Strip is an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territories and it is not possible to create any kind of geographical or political separation between them. These territories are a single and unified territorial unit. Any dealing with them in a partial manner is an attempt to divide the Palestinian land and divide the Palestinian people. We will fight to defend<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> the unity of the land, the people, and the cause.</span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What must be emphasised repeatedly is that what happened on 7th October is an extension of what was happening before that date in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the city of Jerusalem in terms of criminal practices against the Palestinian people. Therefore, the battle of Al-Aqsa Flood must be seen in the context of responding to the massacres and crimes committed against our people in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and in the Gaza Strip. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It was a response to the daily killings, arrests, theft of land for the purposes of</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;">settlement, demolition of homes, the burning of entire towns and the storming and destruction of cities and refugee camps by the Israeli aggressors. </span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"> <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Therefore, we say that there is no solution to our national issue without recognising that the basic issue is the occupation and settlement of our land.</span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Israeli aggression is not against any Palestinian faction or party, but rather against all the Palestinian people and all their parties and political and social components.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> It is a systematic aggression, a genocide, against an entire people – women and children, the sick and the elderly – everything that lives and moves in the Gaza Strip.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It’s not just in Gaza. It’s all over Palestine. This year over 500 Palestinians have been killed on the West Bank – 200 martyrs since 7th October. This, the bloodiest year for the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Jerusalem, confirms that the main problem is the physical presence of the Israeli occupation army and the Israeli settlers.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The United Nations and its resolutions consider the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem to be Palestinian lands occupied by Israel. International law allows persecuted peoples to resist invaders. The Palestinian people have the right and even the duty to resist the Zionist occupier, and the legal, political, moral and humanitarian duty of the international community is to support the people’s resistance.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> The Palestinians struggles to liberate their land and enable them to freely exercise</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;">their national rights free from occupation, subjugation and colonialism.</span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Israeli occupation and the Israeli settlements are the main root of the problem, and any solution that does not take into account the national rights of the Palestinian people will perpetuate the conflicts in Palestine and the region.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) calls on all parties of the world and its political and popular institutions to condemn the war of extermination pursued by the Israeli enemy against the Palestinian people, to take punitive and deterrent measures against Israeli war criminals, and to exert pressure on Western governments that support the aggression to stop their partnership in killing and crimes against civilians of the Palestinian people and to work from In order to stop the series of crimes against humanity.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-40792096720966603412023-11-25T06:29:00.000-08:002023-11-25T06:29:32.978-08:00 USA: Brave voices speak out for peace<div><b> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_2nmpf2vgHn8d4P2jx0AW5LQHiXiTeN3kduRBg-yl-wa_3FgEmIjkPnMDPGH2XmmjKWnSLYXJ30q4qBuFmTTuCkFk4CC0fCcB7RTQICHIHtLFX0kpx-9pEo5XMJJJlMItJ0qnNfMIjaNDfKIDGDY4WQ_93rBSpq8T_GrKsrWlhswS2pNiS0RcSg/s4080/2231ChrisMahin%5Bpic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3072" data-original-width="4080" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_2nmpf2vgHn8d4P2jx0AW5LQHiXiTeN3kduRBg-yl-wa_3FgEmIjkPnMDPGH2XmmjKWnSLYXJ30q4qBuFmTTuCkFk4CC0fCcB7RTQICHIHtLFX0kpx-9pEo5XMJJJlMItJ0qnNfMIjaNDfKIDGDY4WQ_93rBSpq8T_GrKsrWlhswS2pNiS0RcSg/s320/2231ChrisMahin%5Bpic.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: CG Times; font-size: x-small;">Solidarity action in Chicago</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: CG Times;">by Chris Mahin</span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><b><br /></b>“It feels like the new McCarthyism”. That’s how Genevieve Lakier described the mood in the United States since the Gaza crisis began in early October. Genevieve is a professor of law at the University of Chicago whose work focuses on freedom of speech. In an interview with Politico in early November, she compared attacks on those who oppose Israel’s brutal attacks in Gaza to the anti-communist Red Scare campaign spearheaded by US Senator Joe McCarthy during the 1950s.<br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Dima Khalidi, the director of Palestine Legal, an organisation that seeks to preserve the civil rights of supporters of Palestinian rights in the United States, told The Intercept: “We are seeing people being fired from their jobs, being investigated by HR over their social media posts or conversations with colleagues, and having job offers rescinded.”<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The attacks on freedom of speech started almost as soon as the crisis erupted on 7th October. Some examples:</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><b><br />On 7th October</b> at Harvard University, 34 student groups co-signed a statement calling on Harvard to “take action to stop the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians.” Within days, personal information about the signers was being posted online and their family members were being threatened. Numerous CEOs from billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman to Sweetgreen CEO Jonathan Newman called for the list of signers to be made public so that companies could blacklist them. A truck with a digital billboard – paid for by a right-wing group – circled Harvard Square in Cambridge Massachusetts, flashing the names and photos of the student signers under the headline “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites”.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /><b>On 10th October</b> New York University Law School student body president Ryna Workman sent an intra-community message to classmates expressing “unwavering and absolute solidarity with Palestinians”. As a result, Workman was ousted as student body president, had a job offer from a prestigious law firm withdrawn, and received many death threats online.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><b><br />On 19th October </b>the prestigious arts magazine <i>Artforum</i> published an open letter on its website calling for a ceasefire and suggesting that Israel is responsible for a genocide. The letter condemned all violence against civilians. It criticised the silence of cultural institutions about the Israeli bombing of residents in Gaza. The statement was signed by thousands of artists, academics, and cultural workers, including the magazine’s top editor, David Velasco. On October 26, Velasco was fired by his publisher Penske Media. Velasco had been at <i>Artforum</i> or 18 years. After Velasco was fired, multiple top editors at <i>Artforum </i>quit, and some contributors announced that they would boycott the magazine.</span></div><div><b><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /></span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><b>On 20th October</b> Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen was scheduled to appear at the 92NY in New York, a prominent cultural hub, to promote his new memoire <i>A Man of Two Faces</i>. Earlier in the week, Nguyen had joined more than 700 other writers in signing an open letter published in the <i>London Review of Books </i>calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. A few hours before the event was supposed to take place, a spokesperson for the ‘Y’ said that the event had been “postponed”.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><b><br />On 23rd October </b>Michael Eisen, a geneticist at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) that he was being replaced as the editor- in-chief of <i>eLife,</i> a prominent open-access science journal, for retweeting a satirical article from The Onion critical of Israel. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /><b> On 24th October</b> Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ordered the state’s colleges to shut down chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Florida was the first state to outlaw the group on its campuses.<br />On 25th October the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) wrote to the presidents of almost 200 colleges and universities urgently requesting them to investigate the chapters of the Students for Justice in Palestine on their campuses. The ADL claimed that these students should be investigated for “materially supporting a foreign terrorist organization.”</span></div><div><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><b><br />On 27th October </b>the US Senate passed a unanimous resolution condemning what it called “anti-Israel, pro-Hamas student groups” across the country.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><b><br />On 7th November,</b> perhaps the most high-level attempt to silence dissent about Gaza took place. That evening, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 234-188 to censure Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, the only Palestinian-American in the US Congress. (The tally included 22 Democrats voting in favour of the censure.) The censure resolution viciously distorted comments that Tlaib had made about the Gaza crisis.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br />In addition to the cases which have garnered widespread publicity, there have also been many others involving less prominent people. Just weeks after the crisis began, the Palestine Legal organization had received more than 200 reports of retribution against people speaking out on the Gaza crisis. A concerted effort is underway to use the Gaza crisis to further limit what people are allowed to say at work or on their workplace social media and to punish those who challenge the status quo. This is extremely dangerous and is setting a terrible precedent which will curtail discussion and debate on many issues other than American policy in the Middle East.<br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>However, at the same time that censorship is growing, so is the resistance to it. The crisis has spurred many people of good will to speak up and loudly defend freedom of speech for those advocating a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to Israeli apartheid. In many of the cases where speaking engagements were cancelled or editors fired, tremendous outrage and protest has followed. More of this is needed. We cannot allow a new McCarthyism to take root in this country!</span></span></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-69659744986705643932023-11-20T04:31:00.000-08:002023-11-20T04:31:19.397-08:00 Stop the Israeli war on Gaza<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyssYfgzEdR_lkG9VUvVrLulnIeQu0E0XZl27-OegvJWSt2PDieD_qk9rJXIsyuwBHdQdSSzG3PBeZ_xh-n3ZYDGCQfXIGsTjpTmxh7M-BV3B7nlKGrKAsuyRPjUjig7BlGEVvb_aby6Y2JSYsUkfr2R_lrWaSA4Zw-KFkUR5ylVumKLY88bJ3WQ/s185/tn20231117.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="150" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyssYfgzEdR_lkG9VUvVrLulnIeQu0E0XZl27-OegvJWSt2PDieD_qk9rJXIsyuwBHdQdSSzG3PBeZ_xh-n3ZYDGCQfXIGsTjpTmxh7M-BV3B7nlKGrKAsuyRPjUjig7BlGEVvb_aby6Y2JSYsUkfr2R_lrWaSA4Zw-KFkUR5ylVumKLY88bJ3WQ/s1600/tn20231117.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hospitals stormed. Innocent women
and children are being slaughtered. Thousands upon thousands of
Palestinian Arabs have been made homeless. This is Gaza today as Israeli missiles rain down on the beleaguered Palestinian enclave and
Zionist troops pour into Gaza spreading death and destruction in
their wake.<br /></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> <span> </span>On the streets of London and in
the capitals of all the other imperialist heartlands millions upon
millions are joining in the world-wide demand for an immediate and
unconditional end to the fighting. But in Washington Joe Biden turns
his back on demands to end the war being waged by America’s most
loyal puppet in the Middle East. In London the craven Sunak
government does the same and sadly so does Sir Keir Starmer, who is
determined to outdo the Tories in crawling to imperialism.<br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> <span> </span>But more and more Labour members
are refusing to toe the imperialist line. It began with breakaway
councillors in mainly Muslim areas. It rapidly spread to Scottish
Labour and the regional leaders of London, Manchester. Now 56 Labour
MPs have taken the principled stand to defy the Starmer clique in
Parliament this week.<br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> <span> </span>They rejected Starmer’s
meaningless call for “humanitarian pauses” in the fighting which
Biden and Netanyahu support simply to buy time for the Israeli army
to finish the slaughter. They supported a Scottish nationalist call
for an immediate cease-fire. And ten Labour front-benchers, including
eight shadow minsters, left their jobs to vote with the SNP.<br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> <span> </span>The SNP motion called for an end
to the "collective punishment of the Palestinian people"
and urged "all parties to agree to an immediate ceasefire".
It was defeated by 125 votes to 294, with the 56 Labour rebels
joining the other opposition parties to demand a ceasefire, against
the Conservatives who opposed it.<br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> <span> </span>Outside protesters gathered to
call for a ceasefire and justice for the Palestinians. Every week the
protests get bigger. Last weekend around a million people marched
through London to demand and end to Israeli aggression. Let make it
even bigger next Saturday...</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">
Sunak shuffles his pack</span></b></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Prime Minister reshuffled his
pack on Monday. Suella Braverman is out. David Cameron is in while
Sunak played musical chairs with the Cabinet to create a new
ministerial team which he clearly hopes will reverse the Tories
flagging fortunes in time for the general election next year. Sacking
Suella Braverman was the easy part. Bringing Cameron back from the
political wilderness is more problematic.<br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> <span> </span>Braverman may have been an icon
for the Neanderthal wing of Tory party but amongst the public at
large few will miss her. But even fewer missed Cameron when he
resigned after losing the Brexit referendum.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>Some, however will be pleased.
The Remainers were delighted at the news that one of their own is now
in charge of the Foreign Office. They clearly hope that Sunak will
encourage more of the pro-European old guard to return to the fold.
Whether it will have the same effect on the electorate remains to be
seen.<br /> </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> <span> </span>Labour is still streets ahead of
the Tories in the opinion polls with a 27 point lead over the
Conservatives that would give them a victory of landslide proportions
if repeated at a general election.<br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> <span> </span>Still, as Harold Wilson famously
said a week is a long time in politics. The veteran Labour leader won four elections in the 1960s and 70s. Wilson was the master of
come-backs. Sunak is not. But neither is Sir Keir Starmer…</span></span></div>
<p align="left" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
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</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-28112946456812993842023-11-19T06:42:00.000-08:002023-11-19T06:42:11.892-08:00A call to all free people in the world<div style="text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">communist & workers' parties joint statement</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Amidst the continuous and severe Zionist airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, targeting residential, civil, and healthcare facilities, particularly escalating attacks on hospitals and their surroundings, notably the Al-Shifa Medical Complex, one of Gaza's largest hospitals, which has ceased operations due to the lack of fuel, supplies, and necessary medical drugs for treating the injured and ill. According to the director of Al-Shifa Medical Complex, there have been over 100 corpses for days in the hospital's yard, starting to decompose, unable to be buried due to continuous gunfire targeting anyone moving inside or outside the hospital. Continuous fatalities of infants and critical cases persist due to the halt of medical equipment, including incubators, ventilators, and other vital devices, with similar conditions prevailing in other hospitals across the Gaza Strip. <br /><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Given these dire and dangerous circumstances and due to the stubborn refusal of the fascist occupation to heed international appeals from organizations like the Red Cross, the United Nations, and others to allow the necessary medical supplies into hospitals, the Palestinian Communist Party calls upon all freedom-loving individuals worldwide and all Communist and Workers' Parties globally to rally and demonstrate outside the embassies of the fascist occupying state, and the embassies of the United States of America. This is to pressure their governments to sever ties with this fascist occupation and form a global alliance to halt aggression, lift the siege on Gaza, and allow all humanitarian and medical aid without conditions.<br /><i> <br />We call upon all parties to sign this appeal</i><br /> <br /></span><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Communist Party of Albania </span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">New Communist Party of Britain</span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Colombian Communist Party</span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Communist Party of Chile</span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Socialist Workers' Party of Croatia</span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Communist Party of Denmark</span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Communist Party of Greece</span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Communist Party of Kenya</span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Kuwaiti Progressive Movement</span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Lebanese Communist Party</span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Communist Party of Pakistan</span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Palestinian Communist Party</span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Philippines Communist Party [PKP 1930]</span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Romanian Socialist Party</span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Communist Party of the Russian Federation</span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Communists of Serbia</span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">New Communist Party of Yugoslavia</span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Communist Party of Sri Lanka</span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Communist Party of Swaziland</span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Syrian Communist Party [Unified]</span></b></li><li><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Communist Party of Turkey</span></b></li></ul></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523090.post-58249786654656803122023-11-13T14:29:00.000-08:002023-11-13T14:29:07.629-08:00End the siege of Gaza now!<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh92mwwabIMtcvmwsihp9Bj_2sYGfzJBkMtU2QH_B6IbUjEKqRbRO1pD2_bDxlnml3E_5PCc8K8z8sDSNAf5m2Qetd6DoHA1F-5ISQLR21iwXbXrATXFgcR-jU3MSsVyIWRp0NSIkAZn4ghzWDd8S_jNOVxFlvN04IT0sTuMy_3EGcnQvhCr81mhg/s185/tn20231110.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="150" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh92mwwabIMtcvmwsihp9Bj_2sYGfzJBkMtU2QH_B6IbUjEKqRbRO1pD2_bDxlnml3E_5PCc8K8z8sDSNAf5m2Qetd6DoHA1F-5ISQLR21iwXbXrATXFgcR-jU3MSsVyIWRp0NSIkAZn4ghzWDd8S_jNOVxFlvN04IT0sTuMy_3EGcnQvhCr81mhg/s1600/tn20231110.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Week after week millions upon
millions around the world have taken to the streets to stand with
Palestinians and demand a ceasefire. These marches are so powerful
because when we come together we create a force that cannot be
ignored. In Britain its encouraged the long-standing Palestinian
solidarity campaigners to stand firm and emboldened others to take
the principled stand and support the demands of the Palestinian
Arabs.<br /></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>Within Labour ranks the call for a
cease-fire has gone far beyond the Corbynistas and the Muslim
community. Some of the Labour prominenti have stood up to challenge
their leader’s mealy-mouthed apologies for Israeli aggression.
More are joining them and more will join them as the marches and
protests get bigger and bigger and more and more stand up to those
who serve imperialism inside the labour movement.<br /></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>In Gaza the genocidal slaughter
that has taken countless lives, including thousands of children, has
horrified and outraged humanity. Yet the prospect of the hated
apartheid apparatus of the Zionist regime crumbling has given hope to
workers and oppressed people all over the world. All communists must
close ranks around the demand for a cease-fire now and a just and
lasting peace in the Middle East that can only be based on the
restoration of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs.</span><br /><br /><b>
One up for the unions!</b></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">The Government decision to axe
plans to scrap all ticket offices on the railways was a significant
victory for the transport unions and the passenger lobbies that
defended the crucial role booking clerks played in sorting out the
best deals for the pensioners, students and the disabled that are
sidelined by the ticket machines the companies thought could simply
replace the human touch.<br /></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>Over 750,000 responses were
received by the transport watchdogs during the public consultation,
with 99 per cent of them opposing the proposals. RMT, the main rail
union played a major role in the campaign. Its Save Ticket Offices
campaign inspired local protests outside stations; mobilised public
opinion and generated a large number of responses to the surveys.
This is what unions are for – defending jobs and defending the
services they provide to passengers.<br /></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>The railways were once a truly
national service during the days of publicly-owned British Rail. You
could buy a ticket to any station in the United Kingdom at any
station on the network. In those days fares were set at a national
standard. These days passengers have to go through a confusing maze
of offers and deals from the companies that now run the rail network
– not to provide a service to the travelling public but simply to
make a profit for their shareholders.<br /></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>These days it’s fashionable in
the corridors of power to talk about air pollution and “green”
agendas. Electric cars are all the rage amongst the well-to-so. But
if the Government is serious about discouraging excessive use of the
internal combustion engine both by individuals and haulage companies,
much more must be invested in the railways to make them pleasant and
reliable for the travelling public and to restore the freight rail
network which could remove so many heavy lorries from our roads.<br /></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>The current situation on the
privatised railways is a sick joke that will not pass until they are
brought back into public ownership.</span><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></div>
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