‘Of the Left’ or wrap around economics?

by Les May

SPEAKING to students at the Cambridge Union during a book promotion tour of the UK earlier this year Bernie Sanders said 'If I give a speech about combatting racism people would say ‘that’s great we cannot tolerate racism or sexism or homophobia’ and people respond to that. But what is harder for a variety of reasons for people to deal with is the fact that increasingly in this country, and Corbyn makes this point, and in my country, we are looking at oligarchic forms of government where the people on top have increased power, increased wealth, while the middle classes shrink and why many people live in desperate poverty.  That is an approach that makes certain people uncomfortable. They feel uneasy about that, but I applaud Jeremy Corbyn for raising those issues”.

At the Oxford Union he said, 'There is an area which is not nearly so sexy as dealing with race, as dealing with gender, as dealing with homophobia and that is the economic struggle and in that struggle we are not only not making progress, we are losing ground'.  As if to emphasise his point the applause came when he made reference to ‘gay’ marriage in the UK.

He had said much the same thing in his own country. On the campaign trail in 2015 he said 'Once you get off of the social issues — abortion, gay rights, guns — and into the economic issues, there is a lot more agreement than the pundits understand.'

Both Sanders and Trump announced their bid for the presidency in that year so saying that there was ‘agreement’ on economic issues seems strange.  But as Trump went on to show millions of voters were ready to listen to someone promising to reverse the long time decline in their economic prospects. Trump may be a phony but he won the Republican nomination and the election by saying he could do just that. And it was Hillary Clinton not Bernie Sanders who was nominated by the Democrats.

Sanders it seems did not ‘connect’ with ‘women,  Latinas and Blacks’ in the way that Clinton did, or so we are told.   If that’s true it tells you more about the priorities of some members of the Democratic party and their journalist friends than about the priorities of voters.

The response to Sander’s 2015 comment from one Destiny Lopez was to say he had ‘set economic issues against reproductive health’ and he was ‘throwing abortion rights under the bus’.

But as Sanders told his Oxford audience the economic issues ‘wrap around’ all the social issues.  If you are on a zero hours contract, living in a lousy house for a rent which takes a third of your income, are always one pay packet away from being penniless, working but having to use a food bank, it’s not because you are black/white, male/female, gay/straight, cis/trans, keto/enol, it’s because the people who run the system want it that way.  They and their even richer friends benefit from running the political system along neo-liberal lines.  And you will find some of the beneficiaries in all the categories listed above.

It’s not just the Sun and the Daily Mail in their efforts to present Corbyn and his supporters as dangerously left wing which bolster the status quo. At least these have the merit that they are focused on Corbyn’s political and economic policies.   The supposedly liberal papers play the same game and are equally opposed to radical change.  A few week ago the news that one Holly Willoughby was getting a pay rise found its way onto three pages of the ‘i’ culminating in an article by Jessica Barrett with the heading ‘Why stars pay matters to all of us’.  It seems that Ms Willoughby had been given a pay rise of £200,000 taking her pay from a measly £400,000 to £600,000. It also seems that Jessica Barrett was using a different dictionary for her definition of the word ‘all’ than the one I use.

I doubt the lady who cleans the toilets at the ITV studios gave a whoop of joy at the news. I suspect that like me she would be more likely to ponder what qualities Ms Willoughby has which makes her worth £600,000 a year.  If she did, she was more astute than Jessica Barrett to whom it does not seem to have occurred that the ratio between the pay of women at the top and the bottom of the pay hierarchy is much, much, greater than the ratio between men and women. The same is true of the pay hierarchy for men.

In the world that those journalists who characterise themselves as being ‘of the left’ inhabit, Holly Willoughby’s pay rise was no doubt seen as a blow for gender equality. The fact that in Rochdale we now have two ladies who work as loaders when our wheelie bins are collected each week probably wasn’t. It’s not a high status job so it doesn’t count.   Call it snobbery or the antics of the liberal elite the effect is the same. They and their male counterparts are marginalised. The likes of Jessica Barrett aren’t going to write articles telling us that what wheelie bin loaders are paid matters to us all.

Thirty years ago in his book ‘Choose Freedom: The future of democratic socialism’ Roy Hattersley pointed out that there isn’t such a thing as a ‘socialist’ foreign policy. By the same token there isn’t such a thing as a ‘socialist’ view about gender, sexual orientation, racism, abortion, nuclear weapons, women only railway carriages, or whether transexuals should be allowed to enlist in the military or use women’s toilets. But there is room for a nuanced debate about all of these things. And if you don’t accept the possibility of debate you are headed down the road signposted totalitarianism.

Bernie Sander’s question needs to be answered. Why is it that people, and not just young people with their demands for ‘safe spaces’ and the like, cannot resist sniffing out and condemning anything they think smells of racism, sexism or homophobia, yet don’t show the same enthusiasm for combatting the rise in vast inequalities in both income and in wealth, the growth of zero hours contracts, the receding possibility that they will be able to live a dignified and not poverty filled old age, the demonisation of the poor as work shy
scroungers, the lack of social housing and the increasing proportion of household income that is going to a new rentier class?


You can find video recordings of Bernie Sanders talks to the Oxford and Cambridge Unions on YouTube

*******

Wrapping up Identity Politics

by Les May

I HAVE little liking for Tony Blair’s politics but I am inclined to agree with him that the only way to make Brexit a ‘success’ is to turn the UK into a Singapore style low tax, low regulation economy to compete with the EU.

After a quarter of a century of scepticism about the EU I realised that at the heart of the project was a desire to produce a ‘level playing field’ and prevent economic competition between countries leading to a ‘race to the bottom’ which is why I voted to remain in the EU.

Blair is not the first to point out that a Singapore style economy is a possible outcome of the vote to leave the EU.  Vernon Bogdanor made exactly this point in a wholly non-partisan way in a lecture broadcast on the Parliament Channel (Freeview 232).

A shift to a Singapore style economy would result in profound changes not just in our economic relationships but in our social and democratic relationships. Singapore has been described as a ‘flawed democracy’ and ranks 70^th in the Democracy Index tables. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

Where I disagree with Blair is his claim that ‘voters would not back such big shake up to the economy and society. In reality no-one is gong to ask the voters for their opinion until it is too late.

The fact is that there is little interest in economic matters amongst the public which take its lead from what appears in the press and on the electronic media. A shift to a Singapore style economy seems to be entirely consistent with the policies being pursued by the politicians in charge of negotiating the UK’s leaving the EU and the line of the Brexit supporting papers.  Even the supposedly more ‘liberal’ papers rarely put the case for a fairer economic system.  Commentators can pass themselves off as ‘left of centre’ by holding forth on the ‘right’ views about sexism, racism, and the ‘alphabet soup’ of ---phobias.

If you remember what attracted most attention from these commentators after both the leadership elections won by Corbyn wasn’t his economic policies but whether he had the right number of women in the shadow cabinet and whether the posts they held were sufficiently prestigious.

Much attention has been given to the fact that younger people tended to vote for Labour at the recent election but was it Labour’s economic policies which attracted them?

Speaking to students at the Cambridge Union during a book promotion tour of the UK earlier this year Bernie Sanders said “If I give a speech about combatting racism people would say ‘that’s great we cannot tolerate racism or sexism or homophobia’ and people respond to that. But what is harder for a variety of reasons for people to deal with is the fact that increasingly in this country, and Corbyn makes this point, and in my country, we are looking at oligarchic forms of government where the people on top have increased power, increased wealth, while the middle classes shrink and why many people live in desperate poverty. That is an approach that makes certain people uncomfortable. They feel uneasy about that, but I applaud Jeremy Corbyn for raising those issues”.

At the Oxford Union he said, “There is an area which is not nearly so sexy as dealing with race, as dealing with gender, as dealing with homophobia and that is the economic struggle and in that struggle we are not only not making progress, we are losing ground”.  As if to emphasise his point the applause came when he made reference to ‘gay’ marriage in the UK.

The anti Labour press knows how to exploit the politics of identity for its own ends. See for example http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4804176/MP-hyprocrisy-Naz-Shah-accused-racism-herself.html So let’s not play their game.

Sander’s point was that economic issues and the increasing influence of the super rich on our political life, ‘wrap around’ these questions of identity politics. Identity politics plays to the interests of a few.   How we organise our economy and how fairly the wealth it creates is distributed affects us all.

Noam Chomsky on the Labour Party

by Brian Bamford

LAST Sunday, Trevor Hoyle wrote a comment on the 'McCluskey states the obvious' post on this N.V. Blog in which he claimed:
'Not clear what your position is Brian. "McCluskey states the obvious" -- well it is obvious because it's true that the vast majority of the mainstream corporate media are, and always have been, against Corbyn. ANY leader, no matter who, with such a sustained campaign of vitriol waged against him, including the so-called left-of-centre Guardian, would have struggled to overcome such a negative media image. '
Earlier this month dealing with the relative unpopularity of the British Labour Party, Noam Chomsky admitted to an interviewer:
'... that the current polling position suggested Labour was not yet gaining popular support for the policy positions that he supported.' 
Only last Saturday, Joshua Chaffin, in the Financial Times said that the polls 'suggest Mrs May is cruising toward a big victory on June 8.'
But by yesterday, with news that the 'dementia tax' was hitting the conserative party hard on the doorstep, Mrs May rewrote a major item in her election manifesto - social care reform - after four days of pressure; leaving her open to the accusations of show bad political judgement and being weak when the heat is on.
Meanwhile, over the weekend the polls showed that Labour under Corbyn, was closing the gap on the Tories.  Yet, still the Corbyn approach lacks charisma.
Professor Chomsky described to The Guardian what he thought was wrong:
' "If I were a voter in Britain, I would vote for him,” said Chomsky, who admitted that the current polling position suggested Labour was not yet gaining popular support for the policy positions that he supported.'
Pro. Chomsky then added:
'There are various reasons for that – partly an extremely hostile media, partly his own personal style which I happen to like but perhaps that doesn’t fit with the current mood of the electorate,'  he said. 'He’s quiet, reserved, serious, he’s not a performer.  The parliamentary Labour party has been strongly opposed to him.  It has been an uphill battle.'
Trevor Hoyle in his comment complains:
'I don't think Corbyn or McDonnell are dull at all.  They state their case and explain their policies in adult, measured tones.  To expect them to go all showbiz and join the media frenzy is to support exactly what is wrong with the political climate in this country.'
It might well be that a serious tone is preferable to those who read The Guardian like Trevor Hoyle, or The New York Times like me, but most of the people in the towns and cities in the North of England where the working-class target voters reside don't read these papers, and these people judging from what we are hearing prefer what Cyril Smith used to call Razzamataz than the kind of sombre socialism we might fancy.
When asked what motivation he thought newspapers had to oppose Corbyn, Chomsky said the Labour leader had, like Bernie Sanders in the US, broken out of the 'elite, liberal consensus' that he claimed was 'pretty conservative'.
Chomsky told Anushka Asthana, The Guardian Political Editor on Wednesday on 10 May 2017, that 'Labour needed to "reconstruct itself" in the interests of working people, with concerns about human and civil rights at its core, arguing that such a programme could appeal to the majority of people.'
Chomsky talks of the need for socio-economic programmes and the way the key defence against the existential threats of climate change and the nuclear age were being radically weakened, and then goes on to describe what he wants is the defence as a 'functioning democratic society with engaged, informed citizens deliberating and reaching measures to deal with and overcome the threats'.
This is all well and good, but the circles I move in among my neighbours  and other working people, I don't find much genuine concern about the kind of things that might concern Chomsky, Trevor Hoyle and me, like 'human rights'; 'civil rights'; or even the environment generally.
The great academic, Noam Chomsky who often describes himself as 'a kind of anarchist', and who is in Britain to deliver a lecture at the University of Reading on what he believes is the deteriorating state of western democracy, claimed that voters had turned to the Conservatives in recent years because of  'an absence of anything else'.
What the good professor ought to understand is that the left in this country since the Chartists, has rarely had a program or a strategy for social change which in any way will convince or inspire ordinary people, instead it continues to react to an aganda set by the establishment and the State.  Marching, protesting and demonstrating against cuts; Trade Union Acts; privatisation and the erosion of the NHS is all that the left reacts to.  There is very little vison on the British left, and that is why the right in this country these days always tends to have the initiative.

U.S. Syndicalist Comment on Trump & Hillary

Dear friends,

If you would like to know some of our thoughts, for what they are worth ...

Don't mourn!  Do not attach yourself to the destiny of other people!

Hillary Clinton could have saved the country from impending disaster, simply by withdrawing from the campaign late last winter.  All of the normal indicators then demonstrated that Mr. Sanders had become a very viable candidate (the sheer amount of monies collected from ordinary people to support the Sanders' campaign; the incredible numbers and diversity of people attending his rallies; the simple fact that Bernie had no problems of character (unlike both Trump and Clinton).  For much of the campaign it was clear that Hillary's efforts were not focused on winning.  She was tired.  She was absent-minded.  Self-absorbed, she wanted to win but she did not want to struggle to win.  She refused absolutely to learn new ways of doing things.

Wikileaks and other sources revealed that the Democrat Party machine was not even fair with Mr. Sanders.  The DFL machine in Minnesota, especially, cannot learn anything new; they just keep repeating their limited rituals from out of the past.  Always, they are obsessed with nothing but 'control'.  They are the worst example of machine politics in the country today.  How do they stave off the inevitable collapse?  They can't, and they won't!

Mr. Sanders was the first person in national political life in the United States since the 1930s and 1940s to openly use words like 'socialist' and 'socialist democracy', and to do so in positive contexts.  Considerable numbers of people had no problems with his efforts, thus putting the big lie to all the secret 'socialists' and secret 'communists' of several generations.  What did Proudhon and Kropotkin say about acting in our own right, and in our own name, and for ourselves?

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, two Center-Rightists portraying a ritualized dispute, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, after furious verbal battle set down their weapons and quietly agreed to “peaceful” and friendly transition of 'power'.  It doesn't matter to either of them; one thoughtless Center-Rightist is as good as another!

We are witnessing the malaise of late-stage capitalism.  It is nothing but a spectacle of dysfunction and chaos.  Trump, the first truly Imperial President, the new Caesar, the new Bonaparte, proposes to accomplish what Aaron Burr, in the long ago, could not.  Many people will suffer greatly as the extreme Center-Right experiments with their 'new' vision of a “new” Utopia, a plebeian and élitist if not fascist Utopia.

However, even in the time of Hitler or Stalin, people could still think and act creatively and positively in the world.  Do not allow yourselves to become demoralized or depressed!  (That is the real devil; not Trump!)  Act and think for yourselves!  In the collective context of social responsibility, act and think now for a better future!

I'm sure you will find many opportunities in the near future for constructive direct action.

In solidarity,

The activists of SAN (Syndicalist Action Network),

in the U.S.A.

Lets Play Hypotheticals

by Les May

LET's play hypotheticals and rerun the US presidential election race.

 

Sarah Palin wins the Republican nomination on a ticket of offering tax breaks to the very wealthy, promising a fence along the Mexican border, no gun control and turning back Obama’s health care reforms.  Bernie Sanders wins the Democrat nomination on a platform of debt free college, tackling income inequality, universal healthcare, campaign finance reform and the Nordic model of social democracy.

 

A few weeks before the election a video emerges which shows Bernie making some disparaging remarks about women.  Who do you hope wins the presidency?

 

The rise of identity politics has had a paralysing effect on the political Left.  A less than wholehearted commitment worn on ones sleeve, to feminism, anti-racism and the whole alphabet soup of LGBTQIA+ is enough to sideline a wholehearted commitment to economic equality.  The sad thing is that whilst politics can do very little to change personal attitudes it can do a great deal to change the economic prospects for millions of people irrespective of their sex, ethnic origins or sexual orientation.

 

So in our little game who would you want to win the presidency?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders

 

http://observer.com/2016/10/bernie-sanders-won-the-trump-clinton-debate/