tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84864995896323479142024-03-04T00:27:09.322+00:00Bristol SocialismBlog of the Bristol Socialist Party - for the millions not the millionaires!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07972805600802682520noreply@blogger.comBlogger590125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-24080467038697102032023-07-07T14:42:00.003+01:002023-07-07T14:42:34.699+01:00Pride 2023 leaflet<p><span style="font-family: arial;">The leaflet that Socialist Party members will be distributing at Bristol Pride 2023 is below. There is also an open letter we have written to the organisers in response to their decision to ban political parties from the parade. </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Bristol Socialist Party Public Meeting</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><u>How can LGBTQ+ liberation be won?</u></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">7.30pm Tuesday 11th July</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Quaker House, 300 Gloucester Road, BS7 8PD</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Contact Tom on 07986 951527</span></p><div><br /></div><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/AVvXsEhuBlVU3-RCZekaBEvZUT7b_181m4eFd2vtdQt0yRr4p6fX0fsBGnd5ayHiNmQtc7ohUKBrcFhA69SKaCsfWo1bSNr2BCzk9AnXSxelKba7bFmkdQ-cjhPVTbUhtw1EtfIjnKIQWjuLRTgey_09bHmw3qYhAvEY_cWwD0ijqzSQ3lD18_hfxBsL68M9Bnql/s1397/Pride%20leaflet%20front.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1397" data-original-width="993" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuBlVU3-RCZekaBEvZUT7b_181m4eFd2vtdQt0yRr4p6fX0fsBGnd5ayHiNmQtc7ohUKBrcFhA69SKaCsfWo1bSNr2BCzk9AnXSxelKba7bFmkdQ-cjhPVTbUhtw1EtfIjnKIQWjuLRTgey_09bHmw3qYhAvEY_cWwD0ijqzSQ3lD18_hfxBsL68M9Bnql/w454-h640/Pride%20leaflet%20front.png" width="454" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt2FgMUB5mx_5Ib7NeGuVF1d2z0WxCxWRqSYBXcAyt_eYlYbWnNcg0OP-JMwAfMnnlHKBRkq31ou326VvNhuWHMd7B-ivtLx8BELV0YV9bcwtU3dMRbvNZL1M10IQNqgj1lilOzvGg3bpbJ__Dehx4CLhKMZo93rExFZF2hapdXoWEgK-IuK-riLibqKyu/s1382/Pride%20leaflet%20back.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1382" data-original-width="997" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt2FgMUB5mx_5Ib7NeGuVF1d2z0WxCxWRqSYBXcAyt_eYlYbWnNcg0OP-JMwAfMnnlHKBRkq31ou326VvNhuWHMd7B-ivtLx8BELV0YV9bcwtU3dMRbvNZL1M10IQNqgj1lilOzvGg3bpbJ__Dehx4CLhKMZo93rExFZF2hapdXoWEgK-IuK-riLibqKyu/w462-h640/Pride%20leaflet%20back.png" width="462" /></a></div><br /><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><i><span style="color: black;">The Socialist Party have written the following open letter to the organisers of Bristol Pride to </span><span style="color: black;">challenge their decision not to allow any political parties to join the Pride march as organisations.</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;"> </span><br /></p><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;">The Socialist Party defends our right to participate in Pride.<u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><u></u> <u></u></p></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">We have a record of fighting for LGBTQ+ rights. We fight for the right to self-identify of trans and non-binary people – but also the funding of the public services and resources needed to live all our lives fully. We also have a record of challenging those who attack trans rights under the false premise of defending women’s rights, exposing their divisive ideas as nothing but a dead end to those who genuinely want to improve women’s services.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Our Pride leaflet slogan is ‘Build a mass movement for LGBTQ+ liberation! Tories Out! Fight for socialism.’ We raise political ideas on Prides across the country that can be discussed and debated in the building of the movement for LGBTQ+ rights.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">The fight for LGBTQ+ rights is political. The film Pride portrays how our movement combines solidarity, struggle and politics. LGBTQ+ activists and striking miners found common cause in the fight against Thatcher’s attacks. The miners’ union was able to influence Labour policy and put gay rights on the agenda. Today there is no chance of Starmer’s Labour Party playing that role for us. He doesn’t support the strikes and can’t be trusted on LGBTQ+ rights. But our movement still needs a political fight. We need a new workers’ party. To be effective it must have LGBTQ+ liberation and socialism on its banner.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Pro-capitalist parties have always deployed divisive politics. In a desperate attempt to maintain some kind of a base of support, the Tories have tried to whip up discrimination, and divide and rule, as a means to distract from their utter ineptitude. We face a cost-of-living crisis and a Tory government that has no answers to the problems faced by the 99%. They can only be relied on to attack our rights.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">They want to make the working class and young people pay for the crisis of their capitalist system. They pose a threat to the rights of trans people and all LGBTQ+ people, as well as to the public services and living standards that everyone needs.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Their lies need to be answered – but Starmer doesn’t do that. Instead they need to be answered with socialist politics in the interests of all of us. Even if they are not present on Pride, ideas to answer them are necessary because they have access to the mass media to spread their hate and division.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">The Socialist Party fights for the unity of the working class against discrimination of all kinds. We fight to unite workers and young people in campaigns to fight for housing, jobs and the NHS which are threatened by the pro-big business parties. We stand for a socialist society, based on collective ownership and not on profit for a tiny minority. We believe that this is the only way in which the oppression and exploitation of LGBTQ+ people can be ended for good.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Bristol Pride says that Pride is a protest, we agree. Our leaflet says: “We need pride events that fight back, organised democratically by campaigners and trade unions, not rainbow-washing corporations.”<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">We would also question what the democratic process of Bristol Pride is by which this decision has been made? The Socialist Party has consistently participated in Pride marches and our presence has always been welcomed by others there. The socialist movement have been more consistent fighters for the rights of LGBTQ+ people than the businesses which have become the most prominent organisations at the event. <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">The best way to take up the divisive ideas of the Tories and Labour – is to do just that – take them up! Why not host a public debate on how the fight for LGBTQ+ rights can be won?<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">We will be at Pride spreading the message of socialism and solidarity this Saturday, as we do every day - on the streets, in the workplaces, in the trade unions, in the communities and on campus. <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: black;"><u></u> </span></p></div>Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-52374934450343563602020-06-06T15:08:00.000+01:002020-06-06T15:08:36.551+01:00Black Lives Matter leaflet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<u><span style="font-size: large;">Online Public Meeting</span></u></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>U.S. SOCIALIST SPEAKS ON BLACK LIVES MATTER</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Thurs June 11th, 7.30pm</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">For Zoom details contact </span><span style="font-size: large;">Tom on 07986 951 527 or tomobaldwin@gmail.com</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">FB event: <a href="http://tinyurl.com/SP-BLM">tinyurl.com/SP-BLM</a></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEwgQTH1ptVk4DiK_sMWLIMMMZfXiNXwWbjQRTr0HxaLgGqZkDpQ2eJLODJT_9He3khQJaDadfAHcqNV36wBXdKkoGk9qXohuMq83iwvXAWzJ63BaW0jUi85CjVNr9iXbz9GecwWpNd_kU/s1600/Leaflet+page+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1416" data-original-width="986" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEwgQTH1ptVk4DiK_sMWLIMMMZfXiNXwWbjQRTr0HxaLgGqZkDpQ2eJLODJT_9He3khQJaDadfAHcqNV36wBXdKkoGk9qXohuMq83iwvXAWzJ63BaW0jUi85CjVNr9iXbz9GecwWpNd_kU/s640/Leaflet+page+2.png" width="444" /></a></div>
<br />Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-28881077545428890622018-08-15T13:10:00.002+01:002018-08-15T13:10:53.953+01:00Blog no longer in use<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This Bristol Socialist Party blog is no longer updated with new content and details of meetings may be out of date. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">You can keep in up with what we're doing via our facebook page: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/BristolSP">www.facebook.com/BristolSP</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">You can also see the Socialist Party's national website:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/">www.socialistparty.org.uk</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">and check out any of the other links on the links page.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">You can also contact us via 07986 951527 or <a href="mailto:tomobaldwin@gmail.com">tomobaldwin@gmail.com</a></span></div>
Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-55683235893924958952017-07-10T16:03:00.001+01:002017-07-10T16:03:47.938+01:00Fighting for LGBT+ Liberation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1khIKVnkt3mhBKabIlswX4qqhhrVVqSDelmEcY3eQEnj8dHPluclMm5yyzrjCpxEgfhZs4p4cEs59DS5iMOW6FdISMxWi31oUI8nGr0-zky9JadGHGv1DAT1GsUa4FOzWv8TnhD4ZcmjQ/s1600/Pride+2017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1khIKVnkt3mhBKabIlswX4qqhhrVVqSDelmEcY3eQEnj8dHPluclMm5yyzrjCpxEgfhZs4p4cEs59DS5iMOW6FdISMxWi31oUI8nGr0-zky9JadGHGv1DAT1GsUa4FOzWv8TnhD4ZcmjQ/s320/Pride+2017.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>Socialist Party members at Bristol Pride</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Bristol Socialist Party Public Meeting</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Is Equality Possible Under Socialism?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">7.30pm, Tues 11th July, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Malcolm X Centre (smaller building), BS2 8YH</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We will be looking at how discrimination affects different groups of people and how it can be fought. The introduction will focus on gender and, in particular, the struggles that trans men and women face in today's society. The discussion is open for any points, questions or contributions that people wish to raise. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Call Tom on 07986 951527 if you have any trouble finding us or getting in. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The following article was carried in the centre pages of this week's <i>The Socialist</i> newspaper:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Lessons from the Russian revolution for LGBT+ struggle today</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Michael Johnson</b>, from the Socialist Party's LGBT group, examines the lessons of the Russian revolution for the struggle for LGBT+ rights today.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc4eTn7LNd3YZ4BYImQrn7Pj74A9-v9b8WLPycIb0O51bcLH-plXbPJmOQ-ZN2SVneDaXre-LhnkU9WUP6gI3h69YC-GhLZDLY8_qoN7pzv0PF7HTObr62NqppBp0CDdr21ih1RQy7T2I4/s1600/Rus+Rev+Feb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="652" data-original-width="1000" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc4eTn7LNd3YZ4BYImQrn7Pj74A9-v9b8WLPycIb0O51bcLH-plXbPJmOQ-ZN2SVneDaXre-LhnkU9WUP6gI3h69YC-GhLZDLY8_qoN7pzv0PF7HTObr62NqppBp0CDdr21ih1RQy7T2I4/s320/Rus+Rev+Feb.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Russian Revolution is not typically held up as a significant event in the advancement of the struggle for LGBT+ rights. In fact, it's often seen as the opposite, given the terrible oppression that LGBT+ people faced under Stalinism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 1934 Stalinist slogan 'Destroy the homosexual - fascism will disappear' casts quite a shadow on LGBT+ rights in the USSR. But in this centenary year of the Russian revolution, it's important to look at the genuine and significant progress that was made in the early years after 1917.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Prior to the revolution, bans on homosexuality in Russia could be traced back to the 17th century and were particularly barbaric.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gay men and women were put to death, women explicitly by burning. By the 18th century the government had banned gay men from the armed forces and in the 19th century sexual acts between men had been criminalised.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These laws were by no means unique to Russia. In the UK, male homosexuality was punishable by death by hanging until 1861 and remained criminalised until 1967.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Decriminalised</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Only a handful of countries worldwide had decriminalised homosexuality prior to 1917, starting with France in 1791 in the wake of the French revolution (though it must be noted that in 1960 France introduced indecent exposure laws targeting homosexuality that remained for 20 years).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even today, around 80 countries have laws explicitly against homosexuality or which are used to target LGBT+ people - a number of which include the death penalty. In 28 states in the US it is still legal to fire someone for their sexuality.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Immediately prior to the 1917 revolution, the law in Russia had been applied on a very selective basis, with friends of the imperial family benefiting from a selective tolerance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But institutions like the Eastern Orthodox Church pushed the idea that homosexuality was a sign of corruption, decadence and immorality. While gay rights movements began to develop in other countries such as Germany, this propaganda meant very little was able to develop in Russia beyond fictional representations.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At around this time, under familial and societal pressure, Georgy Chicherin - a flamboyant and openly gay man, already a committed Marxist who used an inherited fortune to support the 1905 Russian revolution and anti-war campaigning - undertook gay 'conversion therapies'.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's unclear which therapies he attempted - at the time they ranged from psycho-analysis, to hypnotherapy, to surgical procedures and castration. Unsurprisingly, this was unsuccessful and Chicherin later described himself as self-accepting of his homosexuality.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8l3bymI5WKrBYflhTWbUDK-HhJSZcDt2rOkKkm-fvriDBIqWw-BZTnaXTn-8FBQUzwibpTnBe_O3cyz0moFNkJ85s659LSfq8rev5UzQsJA4PYesQvwmfObp00zTyHUQ36OsWrGOf6S0U/s1600/Chicherin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8l3bymI5WKrBYflhTWbUDK-HhJSZcDt2rOkKkm-fvriDBIqWw-BZTnaXTn-8FBQUzwibpTnBe_O3cyz0moFNkJ85s659LSfq8rev5UzQsJA4PYesQvwmfObp00zTyHUQ36OsWrGOf6S0U/s1600/Chicherin.jpg" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Georgy Chicherin</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Chicherin was jailed in Britain for his anti-war activities but his release was secured by Trotsky after the 1917 revolution. He went on to work closely with both Trotsky and Lenin, eventually becoming the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This appointment was in 1918 - it would have been unthinkable in any other country at that time, even where there were more active LGBT+ rights movements. It would take until the latter part of the 20th century for other countries to have out politicians in similar positions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Given this background, it was enormously significant that when the Soviet Criminal Code was established in 1922, male homosexuality was not included as a criminal act (female homosexuality and 'crossdressing' had never been explicitly outlawed but were met with heavy repression). This was not, as some historians argue, an inadvertent omission or oversight.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Soviet minister of health proudly spoke in Germany of the abolition of the Tsarist laws against homosexuality, stating: "No unhappy consequences of any kind whatsoever have resulted from the elimination of the offending [law], nor has the wish that the penalty in question be reintroduced been raised in any quarter."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dr Grigorii Batkis, director of the Moscow Institute of Soviet Hygiene, echoed this, saying: "Soviet legislation bases itself on the following principle: it declares the absolute non-inference of the state and society into sexual matters, as long as nobody is injured, and no one's interests are encroached upon."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1926 it became legal to change your sex on passports and intersex and transgender people received access to medical care without state demonisation. The advances for women in the early days of the Bolshevik government secured lesbian and bisexual women with unprecedented freedoms.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">100 years on and millions are marching in the wish that the US president could be close to being that progressive! These steps undoubtedly energised the fight for LGBT+ rights around the world at the same time as the revolution was breathing new life into the revolutionary struggle internationally.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Social attitudes</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But the negative social attitudes fostered during the repressive Tsarist regime could not disappear overnight, especially within a geographical area as large as the Soviet Union.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This perhaps explains accounts such as the (only recorded) raid on a party of crossdressers and gay men gathered for a marriage ceremony. This was justified by a single Justice Commissariat lawyer, despite the decriminalisation, as he felt public displays of 'homosexual tastes' may endanger 'suggestible personalities'.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, so far research has not shown any criminal charges due to crossdressing or public displays of homosexual affection during this early period.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lesbian and bisexual women, who had received praise for their contributions to the soviet military and police during the civil war, are reported to have received admiration as "energetic" participants in the revolutionary landscape. 'Masculinised' women were seen as politically conscious and valued citizens in Russia while in other countries similar fashions were met with increasing scrutiny as a sign of 'female emancipation.'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is also some evidence for the beginning of a change, albeit slow, in social attitudes, facilitated by the government. The novel 'Wings' by Mikhail Kuzmin about same-sex love was republished in 1923 by a publishing house owned by the Soviet government.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Especially within the medical community, there seemed to be a push away from the Tsarist regime's religious, moralistic view of homosexuality. Instead the understanding was that homosexuals had biological 'deformities' and, far from their sexual attraction being a conscious, sinful choice, it was instead something that could not be helped.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was generally coupled to an attempt to find a 'cure' for these desires, but did lead some to conclude that homosexuality's 'inevitability' meant it might be a legitimate part of the 'human sexual spectrum.'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, to a large extent, questions of sexuality were seen as issues that would resolve themselves once the economic and social foundations of the Soviet state had been laid.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There was no real official position of the Bolsheviks. Unfortunately this undoubtedly left the political and social progress LGBT+ people had made following the revolution at greater risk.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Homosexuality was re-criminalised by the Stalinist government in 1934. This was at a time when the regime was pushing the importance of the Soviet 'nuclear family'.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Male homosexuality in particular was focussed on as a symbol of 'bourgeois individualism,' based on the idea that revolutionaries should put aside their own desires for the sake of the continued revolution.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the same time, the government banned abortion, calling for an increase in the birth rate. The Stalin government, reforming its links with the Orthodox Church, conflated homosexuality with rape and paedophilia.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Georgy Chicherin, who had passed away following illness in 1930, became a victim of the Stalinist purges at this time. Most references to him were removed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was probably because of both his sexuality and his politics. Either way, the result is unfortunately of a leading Bolshevik and out and accepting gay man largely lost to history.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The increase of repression led to around 1,000 trials of gay men for sodomy every year under the Stalinist regime (with punishments of five years hard labour). The new laws seem to have been enforced beyond even the scale that they were under Tsarism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The complicated record around LGBT+ rights following the Russian revolution is often treated as a simple one by capitalist historians: the revolution, in and of itself, led to repression for LGBT+ people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Liberation</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This view serves to diminish the real lessons we can learn. The decriminalisation of sodomy was an indisputable step forward, giving a glimpse of the possibility for all kinds of liberation in a socialist society.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The subsequent reversal of these advances and the repression under Stalin show the importance of fighting for more than reforms which can be rolled back at any time. Instead we must fight explicitly for all advances towards liberation, along with organising to change society fundamentally.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To truly end racism, sexism and the oppression of LGBT+ people, we must continue to fight for socialism.</span></div>
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Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-22327044737906988362017-06-09T13:41:00.000+01:002017-06-09T13:56:38.129+01:00Tories in Tatters - Fight for Socialist Policies!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr9g6-ASmQbBjyIcEz_nr5nB7plGJLF04O-D9YHt7uCLi_63I5jLBAjJC2zpY6I6BOg28vFUyK58j9Sz-KxypD2ffWV6rberVPGlyS79iJyQcpQCfvPPzw8RVmz99Xunj_xAuzRYK7fTRz/s1600/Tory+Tatters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="643" data-original-width="1000" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr9g6-ASmQbBjyIcEz_nr5nB7plGJLF04O-D9YHt7uCLi_63I5jLBAjJC2zpY6I6BOg28vFUyK58j9Sz-KxypD2ffWV6rberVPGlyS79iJyQcpQCfvPPzw8RVmz99Xunj_xAuzRYK7fTRz/s320/Tory+Tatters.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Initial statement from the Socialist Party:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'Theresa Dismay', 'Gamble backfired'. These are the headlines today in the scurrilous Sun and Daily Mail, right-wing rags that have spent the whole election campaign raining down vicious attacks on Corbyn in the vain hope of a Tory landslide.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On the day the general election was called the Socialist Party declared: "If Corbyn fights on a clear socialist programme - for a Brexit in the interests of the working and middle-class - he could win the general election." At the time that was met with derision by many, including, unfortunately, the right wing of the Labour Party who thought a general election would give them the opportunity to unseat Corbyn.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In just five weeks, Jeremy Corbyn's election campaign has proved them all wrong. It has transformed the political situation in Britain. In the face of overwhelming opposition from the capitalist establishment and media, and unfortunately sabotaged by the right of his own party, Jeremy Corbyn has put his anti-austerity programme to the people of Britain. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hundreds of thousands of people, including the membership of the Socialist Party, have campaigned for his programme on the streets of Britain. The result has been the biggest increase in vote share for any party since Attlee's Labour in 1945. Turnout among young people increased from 43% in 2015 to 72% as they streamed out to support Corbyn.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In Bristol, Labour now hold all 4 seats having won Bristol North West back from the Conservatives. The Tory lead was also cut in neighbouring constituencies such as Kingswood and Filton & Bradley Stoke. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Tories have come out of the election in tatters. Now we need to build a movement to force them out of power. The 8 June was the beginning not the end. It was the beginning of a movement to get the Tories out and to create a socialist society that provides free education, decent housing and a well-paid job for all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Fuller article to follow. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If you want to find out more come to our public meeting in Bristol:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What Next After the Election?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Tuesday 13th June, 7.30pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">YHA (Grain House), 14 Narrow Quay, BS1 4QA</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Speaker: Sarah Sachs-Eldridge, Socialist Party National Organiser</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/112895969300723">Facebook event</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Click <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/25388/08-06-2017/public-meetings-after-the-general-election">here</a> for details of Socialist Party meetings elsewhere in the country. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If you agree, click <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/main/join">here</a> to join the Socialist Party!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBmn-IAy_tur4yuZuccWlTAirJdtNmWhJ9Fl8inXflMqwUF5DNU0utyjALff9ikixdP3ud3-9DdGln6r8WxuOuXhm9gmC0PmTrhi9dhbAZcseTNbTXVBH4dCZBSITqN5yKXXBLYzMjwPac/s1600/May+must+go.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="704" data-original-width="960" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBmn-IAy_tur4yuZuccWlTAirJdtNmWhJ9Fl8inXflMqwUF5DNU0utyjALff9ikixdP3ud3-9DdGln6r8WxuOuXhm9gmC0PmTrhi9dhbAZcseTNbTXVBH4dCZBSITqN5yKXXBLYzMjwPac/s320/May+must+go.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Come to the Bristol March for Our Future - May Must Go!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">12 noon, Sat June 10th, College Green, Bristol</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/132538283973437">Facebook event</a></span></div>
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Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-20029563334690210792017-05-31T15:01:00.001+01:002017-05-31T15:01:31.039+01:00Socialist Party Public Election Meetings in Bristol<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bristol Socialist Party has two public meeting coming up, either side of the election. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #4b4f56; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">How Can the Tories Be Beaten?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #4b4f56; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tuesday 6th June, 7.30pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #4b4f56; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">YHA (Grain House), 14 Narrow Quay, BS1 4QA</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #4b4f56; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/events/1874942736112128">Facebook Event</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #4b4f56; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The election on June 8th provides an opportunity to kick out the hated Tory government. For the first time a generation there is a real difference between the two potential Prime Ministers. Jeremy Corbyn's pro-worker manifesto has seen Labour close the gap, yet he faces not just a hostile press but also Blairite saboteurs within his own party. </span></div>
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Former Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition parliamentary candidate Tom Baldwin will be introducing a discussion on what might happen in the election and what will be needed afterwards. How can the Tories be defeated and how can Corbyn's policies be realised?</div>
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<span style="color: #4b4f56; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tuesday 13th June, 7.30pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b4f56; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">YHA (Grain House), 14 Narrow Quay, BS1 4QA</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b4f56; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: start;">Socialist Party National Organiser Sarah Sachs-Eldridge will be coming to Bristol to speak about what the next steps are for socialists following what will be a watershed election in British politics. </span></div>
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We will also be launching the new book by Peter Taaffe - From Militant to the Socialist Party - which tracks the history of our party from 1995-2007 and contains lots of relevant lessons about the rise of the right of the Labour Party and how they can be fought.</div>
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<a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/25520">Review of the book and buy online</a> </div>
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</span>Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-87132373139232130652017-05-24T16:56:00.000+01:002017-05-24T16:56:21.272+01:00Manchester Bombing - Unite Against Terror, War and Racism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Socialist Party statement on the Manchester bombing - by Judy Beishon, Socialist Party executive committee</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Young people out enjoying themselves were instead faced with one of the worst kinds of horror imaginable on 22 May when a bomb was exploded in the foyer of the 21,000-capacity Manchester Arena. Twenty two people were killed and at least 59 injured by this blast at the end of a concert by US singer Ariana Grande.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This atrocity, which the Socialist Party completely condemns, has echoes of the Bataclan concert attack in Paris in November 2015. In both, ordinary people from all walks of life were indiscriminately slaughtered, especially the young.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Early reports suggested the perpetrator was a suicide bomber who died at the scene. It is the worst terrorist attack in Britain since 52 people were killed in the July 2005 London bombings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Manchester people reacted quickly to aid those fleeing the scene, tweeting offers of beds and lifts home, and taxi drivers gave free rides. Their response of solidarity and help - together with that of the emergency and hospital workers - has nothing in common with the hypocritical reaction of Tory government ministers who profess sympathy and sorrow while they stand four-square behind policies that lay down the breeding ground for such atrocities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Terrorist attacks in European cities are becoming more frequent. In Britain, coming this time outside London, people throughout the country will now feel less safe. The reasons behind the attacks often appear to be multi-faceted and no two incidences are exactly the same. But a running feature has been links or ideological sympathy with the likes of Isis and anger at western imperialist interventions in the Middle East.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So as well as opposing reactionary organisations like Isis which support and perpetrate barbaric acts on ordinary people, it's essential to oppose imperialist <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/War" style="color: navy; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">war</a>s and call for the immediate withdrawal of British military forces from the Middle East. We must also build unity of working people against scapegoating, racism and division, and argue for socialist ideas as the only alternative to this present system that can't and won't end poverty, war and terrorism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Following the Manchester atrocity Theresa May will no doubt try to double and treble her 'strong and stable' posturing in order to appear as a firm 'anti-terrorist' law enforcer and boost her election prospects. However, there have been a number of rounds of so-called anti-terror legislation over the last two decades, and none of it is preventing new attacks such as March's killings in Westminster or this latest terrible event in Manchester - as the Socialist Party has repeatedly warned would be the case.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the same time the <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Tories" style="color: navy; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Tories</a>' unrelenting austerity drive is making people more vulnerable when attacks occur. After the Westminster attack we drew attention to the way in which cuts to the emergency services, hospitals and transport staff will inevitably reduce the speed of assistance for those needing urgent help.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It has been reported that eight hospitals in Greater Manchester have treated casualties of the bombing, while at the same time it's the case that some of these hospitals are facing cuts in which the loss of 24-hour emergency cover is being considered. The Manchester Arena attack, taking place in the late evening, exposes the potentially disastrous nature of such cuts, which the Tories want to push ahead with.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During the general election campaign so far the Tories' determination to continue with callous austerity measures has been clear and they met a major backlash to their plans to further penalise people who depend on social care. Now, following the <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Manchester" style="color: navy; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Manchester</a> attack, their self-portrayal as the defenders of ordinary working people needs to be further exposed and rejected in all its guises.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 2004 Madrid train bombings in Spain, in which 191 people died, took place during a general election campaign and the ruling Popular Party tried to use the atrocities to boost their election prospects. Their strategy backfired; mass anger was directed at them after they tried to blame Basque nationalists for the attacks. Rather, it became clear that the perpetrators were acting in sympathy with Al-Qaida, and the mood of revulsion towards the government and its pro-Iraq war position led to the Spanish Socialist Party winning that election.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While it was a particular blunder by the Popular Party that helped to fuel that outcome, in Britain's present general election campaign Jeremy Corbyn's anti-war stance can gain even more resonance and have a strong impact. Corbyn has long been a consistent opponent of intervention by Britain and other western capitalist powers in the Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria wars. These have caused mass devastation and loss of life and have created the conditions for a horrific level of terrorist violence in those countries and beyond.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We in the</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Socialist" style="color: navy; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Socialist</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Party have also strongly opposed those wars and have consistently warned that it would be ordinary working people in the Middle East and worldwide who will pay the price of them, both financially and as a result of the escalating instability they have caused.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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At the same time we condemn (as does Corbyn) the ideology and abhorrent methods of right-wing reactionary organisations like Isis and Al-Qaida that seek to build a highly repressive semi-feudal and capitalist caliphate, with no workers' democracy or basic rights.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is the task of the working class in Iraq and Syria, through building trade unions, democratically-run non-sectarian defence bodies, etc, to lead a struggle against the likes of Isis, assisted by solidarity from workers internationally. The imperialist powers, on their part, are intervening for their own prestige and influence and in the interests of their top corporations.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This includes British imperialism, whether represented by the Tories or the Blairites before them. It was a fitting coincidence that the Guardian's 'morning briefing' following the Manchester Arena attack, after beginning on the bombing, immediately followed it with a second section on the "unprecedented support for the fossil fuel industry" in the Tory election manifesto. Oil industry bosses have promised over £390,000 to May's campaign as a result, it explained.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The general election on 8 June provides a much-needed opportunity to kick the Tories out and take forward the struggle in the labour movement against the Blairites by bringing Jeremy Corbyn in as prime minister. This would be a very important step on the road towards ending the austerity, poverty and war inherent in capitalism, that underlies division, racism and terrorism.</span></div>
Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-24352214015708669222017-05-24T16:47:00.000+01:002017-05-24T16:47:15.318+01:00Thousands March in Bristol to Defend Education<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On Saturday 20<sup>th</sup> May around 5000 people took to
the streets of Bristol to oppose devastating education cuts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The demonstration, organised by the National Union of
Teachers brought in people from across the local area. Tory spending plans will
see 98% of schools worse off by 2020. In Bristol that means schools will lose
more than £32m, the equivalent of 1000 teachers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pupils, parents and teachers alike were chanting “No ifs, no
buts, no education cuts!” Anger toward Tory cuts is rising as some schools in the
area are now sending out letters warning what the impact will be. Increasing
class sizes, shortening the school day, cutting subjects from the curriculum,
cutting support for children with additional needs and firing teachers and
other staff are all being considered to cover the huge shortfall schools will
face. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This government are willing to cause this damage the future
of a whole generation of children just to pay for tax cuts for their super-rich
friends. It’s no wonder that most people at the protest saw the need to kick
the Tories out of power in order to protect education. The Socialist Party’s
message was very well received on the demonstration and we sold over 100 copies
of the Socialist newspaper.</span> <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>See below for pictures of the demonstration. See our <a href="http://www.facebook.com/bristolsp">Facebook page</a> for more photos. </b></span> </div>
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<i>How the Bristol Post covered the demonstration.</i> </div>
<br />Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-31107493091645814452017-05-04T11:20:00.001+01:002017-05-04T11:20:49.279+01:00Kshama Sawant to Speak at Socialism 2017<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Socialism 2017 is an unmissable weekend of rallies, discussions and debates, organised by the Socialist Party in November. We will be discussing all the most important issues of the day as well as marking the centenary of the Russian Revolution. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">We are pleased to announce that Kshama Sawant has been confirmed as a speaker for the event. Kshama caused waves across the world when she was elected as a Socialist Alternative councillor in Seattle, USA. She has been a staunch fighter for working-class people and a leading campaigner against Trump. See <a href="http://www.socialistalternative.org/">www.socialistalternative.org</a> for more information about her. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>Please see </strong><a href="http://www.socialism2017.net/"><strong>www.socialism2017.net</strong></a><strong> for tickets and more information about the event.</strong></span></div>
<br />Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-76376336341707090652017-04-18T18:26:00.000+01:002017-04-18T18:26:07.110+01:00June 8th - Chance to Kick Out the Tories!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Corbyn and May - who will be the next Prime Minister?</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Defeat the Millionaires' Tory Government</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Corbyn Must Fight the Election With Socialist Policies</span></div>
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<b>Socialist Party statement</b></div>
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Theresa May has called a general election for one reason - not the reason she gave - but because of the government's weakness in face of a rising tide of anger in British society.<br /><br />Workers are suffering the most prolonged squeeze on wages since the start of the nineteenth century. Benefits cuts are leaving millions without enough money to feed themselves and their families. Last year a record 200,000 people were admitted to hospital suffering from malnutrition. Education and the NHS are facing life-threatening cuts. The housing crisis is acute. The new ultra-draconian anti-trade union laws are creating bitterness and frustration among trade unionists.</div>
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Far from being a strong government, May fears that, given the Tories' wafer-thin majority in parliament, she could be overwhelmed by forced u-turns. In the first year of the government alone there were eleven, now - in order to try to prevent more - May has made the biggest u-turn yet. Having pledged not to call a snap election she has gone ahead and done so. This shows how capitalist politicians change the rules whenever it suits them.<br /><br />Cameron and Clegg introduced the Fixed Term Parliament Act in order to try to shore up the Coalition government for five years, now May is over-riding it to try to strengthen a weak Tory government. She is gambling, based on current opinion polls, that she will win the general election with an increased majority and will then be more able to carry out her real programme - not the warm words about helping the 'just managing', but vicious austerity.</div>
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<i>photo: Paul Mattsson</i></div>
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High risk for Tories</h3>
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Her gamble is high-risk. The real poll will take place on 8 June, and a lot can happen between now and then. She is partly posing the <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Election" style="color: navy; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">election</a> as a referendum on Brexit, hoping that the third of Tory voters who supported 'remain' will reluctantly continue to support her government. This is not guaranteed however - some may well switch to the pro-remain Liberal Democrats.</div>
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Moreover, the hated Tories are very unlikely to make significant inroads in Scotland. The Scottish National Party is not yet fully exposed and is likely to largely maintain its electoral base. Winning the Copeland byelection has probably given May hope that theTories can improve their position in the North of England. However, in both the Copeland and Stoke byelections the Tory vote actually fell in absolute terms. The Tories only scraped victory in Copeland because the Tory vote held up better than the Labour vote.</div>
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Globally the lesson of recent elections - from the US, to France, to the Netherlands - is that voters want to punish the capitalist establishment; and those parties and candidates that claim to be anti-establishment can have a mass appeal. Look at Melenchon in France, who by standing on a left programme, has soared to 19% in the opinion polls with a possibility that he will even go through to the second round. Jeremy Corbyn has already stated that Labour will not oppose the general election going ahead. Now he needs to launch an election campaign based on socialist policies that are relevant to working class people's lives.</div>
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Policies for socialist change</h3>
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It is clear that much of the pro-capitalist cabal at the top of the Labour Party will be secretly welcoming this election because they think Corbyn will be defeated and they can then replace him with some pro-capitalist pro-austerity leader. However, they could rue the day this election was called. If Corbyn fights on a clear socialist programme - for a Brexit in the interests of the working and middle-class - he could win the general election.</div>
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The policies that first thrust him into the leadership of the Labour Party would be a good beginning - an immediate introduction of a £10 an hour minimum wage, free education for all, mass council house building and nationalisation of the rail and energy companies. These should be combined with policies such as an immediate end to all cuts in public services and a pledge to immediately renationalise Royal Mail.<br /><br />Jeremy should make clear that he would kick the privateers out of public services and education. He should pledge to introduce a real socialist NHS - a well-funded, comprehensive, high quality NHS, under democratic control, with care free at the point of use. These demands should be linked to the need for fundamental socialist change - for a society run in the interests of the majority instead of for the profits of a few.</div>
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Such an election campaign should not be limited to speeches and election broadcasts. The campaign to defend the NHS should be linked to the mass movement which began with the national demonstration on 4 March. Jeremy Corbyn spoke at that demonstration. Now he, together with the trade union movement and health campaigners, should call a second demonstration, during the election campaign, mobilising millions onto the streets against the Tories and in defence of the NHS.</div>
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<b>See <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/">www.socialistparty.org.uk</a> for more.</b></div>
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<a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/main/donate"><img border="0" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLHnQd8z1muSBXFnE7D76Ef8z9sRhED6SdgPbRQevJFDFxNghHwbWVA00i0lgaUfBg8WnoWrj3h05SZC8lyueK7tOBToVyVTB6MHZKjY2H07UwsuPqkg3pmHzsHUuNo7ut9-ejoqf3FudO/s200/Donate+button.png" width="200" /></a><a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/main/join"><img border="0" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVOi6PoHs69Mkn5yOPq6Ttg28AV9OzYij5qyRguzB-yVseCYjRa4oeaQTzC6lxaK92qCJx3ATVJWQcF3xJnNrkKEGaguemEfLvQJwgwfDR2-eiPQg9gS5puNXnb-_a1UnEoq19elUPB2FD/s200/Join+button.png" width="200" /></a></div>
Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-51211848276748910662017-04-12T17:06:00.000+01:002017-04-12T17:06:17.228+01:00Bristol Socialist Party Shows Solidarity With Jobstown Protesters<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Members of the Bristol North/East branch of the Socialist Party showing support for Jobstown protesters.</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Members of the Socialist Party in Bristol have added their support to an international campaign of solidarity with protesters in Ireland who face kidnap charges for their participation in a sit-down protest that kept the then Deputy Prime Minister delayed in her car. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The arrest and trial of these protesters (due to start on April 24th) have shown the police and judicial system playing a nakedly political role. This is an anti-democratic attack on the right to protest and it must be opposed by campaigners across the world. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">See <a href="http://www.jobstownnotguilty.com/">www.jobstownnotguilty.com</a> for more information. </span></div>
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Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-8493011385014534502017-02-22T20:21:00.004+00:002017-02-22T20:54:54.168+00:00Council Security BITE Anti-Cuts Protester<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Bristol City Council Block Entry to Public as They Vote For £33m Cuts</span></b></div>
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Bristol mayor Marvin Rees addressed the Bristol City Council budget meeting yesterday, claiming “transparency is a key commitment”. Minutes later the public gallery was cleared by security staff, leaving councillors to discuss the city’s budget behind closed doors. In an unprecedented move members of the public were then cleared from City Hall altogether.</div>
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Unaccountable private security staff were again deployed by the council as an anti-cuts protest gathered outside City Hall from 5pm. Members of the public were physically blocked from entering, first at the bottom of the access ramp and then again at the door.</div>
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In a shocking incident, Bristol and District Anti-Cuts Alliance (<span class="il">BADACA</span>) campaigner Mike Luff was bitten by security staff as he tried to gain access to the meeting. The violent attack drew blood and the victim was later treated in hospital. </div>
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Complaints will be followed up against the council. This attempt to undermine the democratic right to protest will not be tolerated.</div>
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<span class="il">BADACA</span> spokesperson Tom Baldwin said:</div>
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“<i>We saw disgraceful behaviour from Bristol City Council last night. This was not just a vicious assault on one individual, it was an attack on local democracy and on the right to protest. Councillors and the mayor are supposed to represent the people of this city, it is our right to witness the discussions and decisions that they are making. If Marvin Rees claims that he must make these cuts then he should be upfront and honest about the process, not hiding behind closed doors and hired thugs.</i></div>
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“<i>Disgusting as the biting incident was, the most violent act committed that night took place inside the council chamber itself. The budget passed contains £33m cuts, as part of over £100m being cut in the next few years. Councillors have voted to devastate services that many Bristolians rely on.”</i></div>
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<b><span class="il">BADACA</span> Pledges That 'The Fight Goes On' as Bristol City Council pass cuts budget.</b></div>
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The huge cuts laid out in the budget passed last night (Tuesday 21<sup>st</sup> February) by Bristol City Council are not acceptable to the people of Bristol. We hear the excuses from the Labour Party that they have no alternative and the Tory government made them do it. But if this is really true, then why do we even bother electing local politicians?</div>
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As we set out in our petition, signed by 456 people, which we presented to the budget meeting yesterday, Labour councils could legally choose to use reserves & prudential borrowing to suspend the cuts and joint the fight for more money. A united campaign of ordinary people, anti-austerity groups, the trade unions and Labour councils would put huge pressure on the Tory government to capitulate and properly fund local government. Surrey County Council have proved that central government can be pressurised into providing more money and we will continue to campaign for the Labour Party to adopt this policy rather than destroying the services that hold our city together.</div>
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<span class="il">BADACA</span> Organising Secretary, Matthew Carey said, <i>“It is a tragedy that the </i><i>L</i><i>abour Party has chosen to pass this budget enabling </i><i>them to move towards huge cuts to vital services in Bristol. But for <span class="il">BADACA</span>, the fight goes on! We will fight every step of the way to defend voluntary sector services, bus services, libraries, Neighbourhood Partnerships, public toilets, Customer Service Points, meals on wheels, care services, </i><i>children's centres, leisure centres</i><i> and all other threatened services as detailed proposals are put forward by the council.”</i></div>
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Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-65078359461783773852017-02-22T20:04:00.001+00:002017-02-22T20:44:35.112+00:00200 March Against Bristol Council Cuts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">200 people marched through Bristol in a demonstration called by the Bristol and District Anti-Cuts Alliance (BADACA). They were out to defend jobs and services and oppose the draconian cuts being made by Bristol City Council. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Socialist Party members Tom, Sheila, Sue and Roger addressed the demonstration, see their speeches below. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For more photos and videos of the demonstration go to the BADACA facebook page. <a href="http://www.facebook.com/BristolAntiCuts">www.facebook.com/BristolAntiCuts</a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">See other recent posts on this site for more about the cuts and how they can be stopped.</span></div>
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Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-23280941602132677992017-02-07T12:09:00.001+00:002017-02-09T16:00:03.755+00:00Stop £101m Cuts to Bristol City Council!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">£101m cuts are due to be voted on by Bristol City Council on Tuesday 21st February. We don't yet know the full details of what these mean - most of them come under vague headings of "rethinking" or "restructure". However what we do know indicates that these cuts will devastate many vital local services. Libraries will be sold off, public toilets will close, as will all council advice centres other than Temple Street. Less will be spent on adult education, arts, swimming and busses. There will be £1m cut from the Crisis and Prevention Fund. Charges will also be rising for things as varied as dementia care, museum admission and residents' parking schemes. See below for a full list of the cuts, events coming up to oppose them and for comment on how they can be beaten. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A full list of the cuts proposals so far can be found on <a href="http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/the-latest-hit-list-for-bristol-city-council-s-budget-cuts-but-there-are-still-more-to-come/story-30055756-detail/story.html">the Bristol Post website.</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u>Stopping Council Cuts - Socialist Party public meeting</u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Tuesday 7th February, 7.30pm</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Malcolm X Centre, 141 City Road, BS2 8YH</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/407148139620986/">Sign up to and share the Facebook event</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #4b4f56; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">At this meeting we will be discussing how council cuts can be stopped and hearing from Nick Chaffey from Southampton's people's budget campaign.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u>Bristol and District Anti-Cuts Alliance Demonstration</u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Saturday 18th February, 11am</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">College Green, Bristol</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1223010921094911/">Sign up to and share the Facebook event</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #4b4f56; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Join the protest the weekend before the council meets to vote on the cuts. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #4b4f56; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><b>Sign and share the <a href="http://epetitions.bristol.gov.uk/epetition_core/community/petition/3705">BADACA online petition</a> against the cuts - to be presented to the council when they meet to vote on the cuts budget. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Labour Party have been distributing the leaflet above, claiming to be fighting back against Tory cuts. However, while Bristol's budget is being cut by the Tories in Westminster, it is Labour mayor Marvin Rees who is passing on the cuts locally. They have been drawn up by him and his cabinet team (which includes a Tory) and it looks likely that they will be voted through by the majority Labour council. This is a disgrace, people didn't vote for a Labour mayor to get Tory cuts. Instead of handing out leaflets trying to shift the blame Labour should be building a campaign to defeat the cuts. Fighting back should start with not voting for the cuts, which undermines Jeremy Corbyn's anti-austerity message and causes more misery for the people of Bristol, especially the most vulnerable who will be hardest hit. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We reject the claim that Labour have no choice but to make these cuts. The Socialist Party calls for a no-cuts budget based on what
Bristol needs, not the cuts the Tories are demanding. This must be backed by
the building of a mass campaign that can push the government back. The council
has huge reserves which can be used to keep services running while such a
campaign is built.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Working with the unions and anti-cuts campaigners, local
people can be brought into a campaign of protests and strikes if necessary that
can force the government to reverse the cuts. Linking up with other Labour
councils that have been put in the same position by the Tories and are willing
to fight will strengthen the campaign further. The Tories are hopelessly divided over Brexit, this is a weak government and
they can be beaten. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There is plenty of money in the country for us to be funding
these vital services. Austerity is a political choice not an economic
necessity. The Tories claim that there is no money for public services but have
still managed to cut taxes for the super-rich. We need to stop the austerity
steamroller and fight for a socialist society where the needs of ordinary
people come before the profits of big business. </span></div>
Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-65556862774551634472017-02-03T13:36:00.002+00:002017-02-07T11:22:32.905+00:00Defend Our NHS - 4th March National Demonstration<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px; text-align: center;">
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Our NHS is under threat from Tory cuts and privatisation. This year the Red Cross have warned of humanitarian disaster in the NHS. Investment is needed for this vital institution but instead the government are cutting drastically. £22bn is being cut from the NHS in England under the secretive STP cuts. We don't yet know exactly where the £300m+ cuts in the Bristol area will hit but other areas have already announced hospital closures. The Tory government is pushing the NHS toward privatisation so their rich mates can grab a slice of the profits to be made from illness. There is already a creeping privatisation in the health service, with private companies operating at a profit to provide services behind the NHS logo. Recently Richard Branson's Virgin health company took over NHS contracts worth £700m in the Bath area. </div>
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This national demonstration is vital, we must send the message loud and clear:</div>
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Save our NHS! No cuts, no closures, no privatisation!</div>
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Coach tickets from Bristol can either be booked via Unison or UNITE Trade Unions (non-members welcome) or The People's Assembly:</div>
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Unison Area Health Branch:</div>
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Tel: 07813142832</div>
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UNITE Bristol Area Health Branch:</div>
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Tel: 07983233908</div>
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(UNITE and Unison both free for members with a £5 returnable deposit or £10 charge for non-members)</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The People's Assembly at a cost of £6-£10 at:</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bristol-coaches-its-our-nhs-national-demo-tickets-29984231644" rel="nofollow noopener" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bristol-coaches-its-our-nhs-…</a></div>
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Further information about the demo can be found at:</div>
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<a href="http://www.healthcampaignstogether.com/" rel="nofollow noopener" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://www.healthcampaignstogether.com/</a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVwfpmFMrPZ54xdeayUa2z4Zhfpc5t0Z8MkRDnQhM-If-V5jzD60I1d3YbDin4O0K4VC5Sjbqq5_n8Ivd9QQekG1hbTOTNc18HfsZRiBLNcfuuHfS95lzAuKaqidUQ26M4SGG-tk7CzH37/s1600/NHS+march.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVwfpmFMrPZ54xdeayUa2z4Zhfpc5t0Z8MkRDnQhM-If-V5jzD60I1d3YbDin4O0K4VC5Sjbqq5_n8Ivd9QQekG1hbTOTNc18HfsZRiBLNcfuuHfS95lzAuKaqidUQ26M4SGG-tk7CzH37/s320/NHS+march.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Below an NHS nurse and Socialist Party member explains why they are going on the march:</div>
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We're seeing almost daily headlines announcing the NHS is in crisis. From overstretched A&Es, to patients left on trolleys, to staff morale being at an all-time low - <a class="a-border" href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/campaign/NHS/24191" style="border-bottom: 0.06rem solid rgb(217, 216, 220); color: navy; text-decoration: none; transition: border-color 0.2s ease-out;" target="_blank">our NHS is at breaking point</a>.</div>
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The Tories' empty promises in 2010 that the <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/NHS" style="color: navy; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">NHS</a> was 'safe in their hands' have been broken time and time again. A real time pay cut of 25% since 2010 has left some NHS staff relying on food banks. Our commitment to caring for our patients is continuously exploited. The jokes about nurses going whole shifts without time for a toilet break are becoming an increasing reality.</div>
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We're seeing mass <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Privatisation" style="color: navy; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">privatisation</a> of services - including those on the frontline. Proposed closures of hospitals, specialist services and A&Es are provoking thousands to go onto the streets in disgust.</div>
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The future is one of either fight or be trampled. The mood is gathering among <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Health" style="color: navy; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">health</a> workers to come down firmly on the side of fighting back. The inspirational struggle of the junior doctors has given confidence to others in the NHS.</div>
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The campaign against the pay freeze is now to be debated in parliament after an <a class="a-border" href="https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/168127" style="border-bottom: 0.06rem solid rgb(217, 216, 220); color: navy; text-decoration: none; transition: border-color 0.2s ease-out;" target="_blank">online petition hit over 100,000 signatures</a>. Despite the attacks from the right-wing media aiming to undermine faith in the NHS, working class people still see it as the jewel in the crown. And despite massive cuts, staff still deliver an overwhelmingly good quality of care.</div>
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The <a class="a-border" href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/23830" style="border-bottom: 0.06rem solid rgb(217, 216, 220); color: navy; text-decoration: none; transition: border-color 0.2s ease-out;" target="_blank">national demonstration on 4 March</a> is vital. It's a chance to bring together the hundreds of local campaigns across the country into the national spotlight. It's a chance to show the government that we will fight for our health service.</div>
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I'll be marching to defend the NHS for the working class today and for future generations. I'll be marching because NHS <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Workers" style="color: navy; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">workers</a> deserve more than a continuous pay freeze and because the patients I and other NHS workers care for deserve better.</div>
Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-27503988440002163632017-01-31T16:13:00.000+00:002017-02-01T09:08:25.832+00:00Dump Trump - No Ban, No Wall!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIt8fdYZAEPKzbd3nxDGGXVWp-KJzSD5P7SYCtvq4VOtoXaZIP5bm9-PfLoqaHOxSjfmSAChTyTGA1hvqvPHwkiiThu055vnAEPzJqspUbmQER7q0to0RCyisW0GIt7rvENgQrxVZH9qk6/s1600/Anti-Trump+Bristol+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIt8fdYZAEPKzbd3nxDGGXVWp-KJzSD5P7SYCtvq4VOtoXaZIP5bm9-PfLoqaHOxSjfmSAChTyTGA1hvqvPHwkiiThu055vnAEPzJqspUbmQER7q0to0RCyisW0GIt7rvENgQrxVZH9qk6/s400/Anti-Trump+Bristol+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>The huge anti-Trump rally in Bristol, 30th Jan.</i></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Around 3000 of people poured onto College Green in Bristol on Monday night to protest Donald Trump's racist immigration policies. Organised at just two days notice the protest was a resounding 'no' to his border wall and Muslim ban and to Theresa May's 'hand in hand' relationship with him. Rivers of predominantly young people quickly turned the green to mud. Speakers included Labour mayor Marvin Rees (before he returned to the Council House to put forward £100m of cuts). Socialist Party members were swamped by the sheer number of people arriving and wanting to find out more about how to defeat Trump and everything he stands for, all the leaflets we had were taken. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">There is another anti-Trump demonstration:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sat 4th Feb, 12.30pm, Fountains, Bristol City Centre</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">See below for Socialist Party comment on defeating Trump.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgprZ6K39ZlDfI2le2nknlO9p_yJOrSRPXXaShIX3VbL27q7TzQc3ZqVyMkJXKmEaeHMwicEoppur6Gjka8DnEAMzYCJj8zlXr4afXC-S_pvu9f570KolE-jvaqHoOKhpEU9Q4rSqmNx-9t/s1600/NoBan+NoWall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgprZ6K39ZlDfI2le2nknlO9p_yJOrSRPXXaShIX3VbL27q7TzQc3ZqVyMkJXKmEaeHMwicEoppur6Gjka8DnEAMzYCJj8zlXr4afXC-S_pvu9f570KolE-jvaqHoOKhpEU9Q4rSqmNx-9t/s320/NoBan+NoWall.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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"We saw the real power of the 99% last night at many airports around the nation. We can build a movement to defeat Trump. Let's turn 1 May into a national day of protest against Trump. We need to shut down the highways, the airports, the workplaces, peacefully but defiantly".</div>
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These were the words of Kshama Sawant, a council member in Seattle for <a class="a-border" href="https://www.socialistalternative.org/" style="border-bottom: 0.06rem solid rgb(217, 216, 220); color: navy; text-decoration: none; transition: border-color 0.2s ease-out;" target="_blank">Socialist Alternative</a> (US co-thinkers of the Socialist Party), when speaking to a massive demonstration at Sea-Tac airport.</div>
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Trump's vile racist ban on the rights of millions of people from seven M<a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/US" style="color: navy; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">us</a>lim-majority countries to travel to the US has been met with a mighty movement of US workers and young people. Demonstrations at the airports have been combined with strike action by taxi drivers.<br />
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The New York Taxi alliance organised a one-hour strike, declaring: "Our 19,000-member-strong union stands firmly opposed to Donald Trump's Muslim ban. As an organisation whose membership is largely Muslim, a workforce that is almost universally immigrant, and a working-class movement that is rooted in the defence of the oppressed, we say no to this inhumane and unconstitutional ban."</div>
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There is no 'honeymoon' for this president of the 1%. His appointment of a billionaires' cabinet has already exposed the cynical claims he made to anti-establishment credentials. This is despite the obvious discomfort felt by sections of the American elite about his 'maverick' character.</div>
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Already he is trying to push through a series of reactionary, pro-big business attacks. Among the most prominent are plans to deport millions of people, cancel funding for Planned Parenthood, and end state funded healthcare coverage for low-income families. Also in the pipeline are new limitations to workers' and trade union rights, escalating attacks on the environment and a bonanza of tax-cuts for corporate America.</div>
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Biggest protests ever</h3>
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But if Trump thought he would have plain sailing he is already discovering otherwise. The demonstrations in the US on the day after his inauguration were the biggest in US history. Now we have the protests against the travel ban. These are the gathering forces that have the potential to stop Trump in his tracks.</div>
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And it is not just in the US that ordinary people are out on the streets. Worldwide we are taking to the streets. His presidency not only poses a threat to working class and oppressed communities in the States, but to people all over the world. That is why resistance to Trump must not be confined to America. An injury to one is an injury to all.</div>
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<a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Socialist" style="color: navy; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Socialist</a>s in the US were among the first to call action to oppose Trump's presidency. Within 24 hours of his election win, Socialist Alternative made a call which brought over 40,000 people onto the streets. It is in the tradition of the socialist movement that working class people stand together across borders. The US election showed that we cannot rely on capitalist politicians to hold back the rise of reactionary and bigoted figures and parties.</div>
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Even before his <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Election" style="color: navy; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">election</a>, polls showed Trump to be the most hated presidential candidate in the whole of US electoral history. Only 26% of the eligible voting population endorsed him at the ballot box. It was not enthusiasm for Trump, but profound disillusionment with the political establishment, that allowed him to pull off this unlikely victory. Hillary Clinton - the candidate of Wall Street - decisively failed to offer voters a break from the rotten status quo.</div>
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Socialist alternative needed</h3>
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The huge enthusiasm generated by Bernie Sanders - a self-proclaimed 'democratic socialist' - showed the enormous thirst that exists in the US for an alternative to big business politicians. That's why <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Socialist_Alternative" style="color: navy; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Socialist Alternative</a> called for Bernie to continue his run for president when he failed to win the Democratic nomination.</div>
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Seattle councillor <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Kshama_Sawant" style="color: navy; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Kshama Sawant</a> - who led a successful struggle for a $15 minimum wage - was among the most prominent figures to call on Sanders to resist the pressure to fall in line behind Clinton. Had Bernie done so, it could have transformed the landscape of US politics, completely undercutting Trump's support. What's more, it could have helped lay the foundations for the creation of a mass party of the 99%.</div>
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But despite this missed opportunity, there remains huge potential for new forces to be built. It is only by building a political alternative that the basis for Trumpism can be well and truly undermined.</div>
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The task of building a mass party for the 99% is not unique to the US. Here in Britain, the election of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of Labour showed a deep desire for a break with the pro-capitalist politics that has dominated the mainstream parties for decades.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px;">But while Corbyn has been twice elected as leader, the majority of the party's MPs, councillors and bureaucratic machinery remain wedded to the pro-austerity politics of the past. Unless there is a concerted fight to defeat the Blairites, this opportunity to transform Labour into a party that stands up for working class people risks being lost.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOkrzvEpwM8wVHz9LrAM4mEVk5SLI6IFqVmyztuDth2hHgYCZduwnMCl-jTxySQlyQx2wqfeYnKQZtDnsE9wLogWOeW1bjDapYofRz52HeELbc6ZEaCTExzMY-kJQ850aeoPH0duw0Ny00/s1600/Anti-Trump+Bristol+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOkrzvEpwM8wVHz9LrAM4mEVk5SLI6IFqVmyztuDth2hHgYCZduwnMCl-jTxySQlyQx2wqfeYnKQZtDnsE9wLogWOeW1bjDapYofRz52HeELbc6ZEaCTExzMY-kJQ850aeoPH0duw0Ny00/s320/Anti-Trump+Bristol+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-418847711116024362017-01-31T16:00:00.000+00:002017-02-03T11:14:54.120+00:00Bristol Police Taser Their Own Race Relations Adviser<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF3DVTm1B0e0l5q1myhyphenhypheneWIrzUn9oedtHRXyhQzhtu6_CKZeqM7ZMUDPK_4hm87qB_0mxndFqqHtcvklY66_tyNrsco_HsBY-wmQdm34i-p1Mok_JHgCOjdS6vcs2EwzHMEkgpvdwJZoB6/s1600/Justice+for+Judah+meeting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF3DVTm1B0e0l5q1myhyphenhypheneWIrzUn9oedtHRXyhQzhtu6_CKZeqM7ZMUDPK_4hm87qB_0mxndFqqHtcvklY66_tyNrsco_HsBY-wmQdm34i-p1Mok_JHgCOjdS6vcs2EwzHMEkgpvdwJZoB6/s320/Justice+for+Judah+meeting.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px;"><i>The Justice for Judah meeting called in response to the incident.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px;">Footage of </span><span style="border-bottom: 0.06rem solid rgb(217 , 216 , 220); font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; transition: 0.2s ease-out;">police in Bristol tasering an innocent black man </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px;">has made news around the world. The attack was even more shocking because the victim, Judah Adunbi, was a prominent member of the police's race relations group.</span></div>
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The video, captured by a neighbour, shows the 63-year-old being confronted by police with their taser already drawn. They had the wrong person, but threatened to arrest him when he legally refused to give his name.</div>
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Officers blocked him from his own back gate, pushed him back and tasered him, causing him to fall to the ground. He had to be taken to hospital and was then held by police for ten hours.</div>
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Unbelievably, the victim was charged with assaulting a police officer despite video evidence showing the opposite. The person filming accurately countered police claims: "He wasn't trying to fight... you started it. You both made physical contact first."</div>
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The charges have now been dropped. Mr Adunbi was also attacked by police in 2007, and was clear that this was a racist incident.</div>
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Sadly, statistics show institutional racism still exists within the police. <span style="border-bottom: 0.06rem solid rgb(217, 216, 220); transition: border-color 0.2s ease-out;">Avon and Somerset Constabulary's own figures</span> show officers are twice as likely to fire tasers on oppressed racial groups once drawn.</div>
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Nationally, black and Asian people are almost three times as likely to be stopped and searched as white people, <span style="border-bottom: 0.06rem solid rgb(217, 216, 220); transition: border-color 0.2s ease-out;">according to Home Office data from last year</span>.</div>
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The <span style="border-bottom: 0.06rem solid rgb(217, 216, 220); transition: border-color 0.2s ease-out;">Black Lives Matter movement that erupted in the US</span> following police murders of black people has been taken up in this country as well. The anti-Trump protest in Bristol showed its support, stopping outside a police station chanting: "No justice, no peace! No racist police!"</div>
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We need to fight for democratic community control of police policy and hiring to start to address institutional racism in the police.<br />
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<u>Report of Justice for Judah meeting</u><br />
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Around 200 people crammed into a meeting in St Pauls, Bristol, on 28 January to discuss the horrendous <a class="a-border" href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/24307" style="border-bottom: 0.06rem solid rgb(217, 216, 220); color: navy; text-decoration: none; transition: border-color 0.2s ease-out;" target="_blank">tasering of a police race relations group member Judah Adunbi</a>.</div>
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There was a feeling of anger at what had happened and a desire to achieve justice for Judah but it didn't stop there. Speaker after speaker from the floor talked of personal experiences of injustice and that enough was enough. Action needs to be taken to ensure this stops now.</div>
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A campaign has been formed by the community, and Avon and Somerset <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Police" style="color: navy; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">police</a> are in the spotlight. Further meetings and events are set to be arranged to highlight the case and the racist policing. The elected police commissioner, Sue Mountstevens, sat silently throughout the meeting, declining the opportunity to comment.</div>
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Bristol mayor Marvin Rees spoke to highlight the racial nature of the problem but declined to indicate how £101 million of cuts to <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Council" style="color: navy; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">council</a> services are likely to make things better.</div>
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This when a recent report from the Roundtree Foundation indicates that <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Bristol" style="color: navy; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Bristol</a> is one of the most unequal cities, with the BME population trailing behind in job opportunities, health, and social access.</div>
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Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-8419915148771627642017-01-31T15:50:00.000+00:002017-02-03T11:19:45.170+00:00Centenary of the Russian Revolution 1917<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi9iBl3qKjEeRgTnMzrJNKTEiAut0s9sXQCwPFLXmZ7MO8aR-4_r5mjIrNPSa6A97JuWlyqyjaF1i5UPdcLVxvVJaK5UU7jxYKOYm8y3hmCuAQWuuGEn4uwPXtgGWpmqJK0_J64pQkL6k0/s1600/1917+banner.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="61" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi9iBl3qKjEeRgTnMzrJNKTEiAut0s9sXQCwPFLXmZ7MO8aR-4_r5mjIrNPSa6A97JuWlyqyjaF1i5UPdcLVxvVJaK5UU7jxYKOYm8y3hmCuAQWuuGEn4uwPXtgGWpmqJK0_J64pQkL6k0/s400/1917+banner.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet" , "georgia" , "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Committee for a Workers' International, the international organisation that the Socialist Party is part of have launched a new website to mark the centenary of the 1917 Russian Revolution. Led by the Bolsheviks workers took power in a country for the first time and began to try and build a socialist society. Keep an eye on the website throughout the year for articles on the events of 1917 and analysis of how the Soviet Union later degenerated into Stalinism.</span></span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet, Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px;"> </i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet, Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="http://www.1917revolution.org/">www.1917revolution.org</a></i></div>
Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-55890752653911909002017-01-05T11:40:00.000+00:002017-01-05T11:40:55.979+00:002017: Upheaval and fightback will continue<b>By Peter Taaffe, Socialist Party general secretary</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">2016 was
the year when the pent-up anger of the masses worldwide finally spilled over in
a series of political earthquakes - a delayed reaction to the <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/6421/23-09-2008/make-the-super-rich-pay" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">devastating world economic crisis of 2007-08</span></a>. And tremors are
still being felt, with serious aftershocks - if not new earthquakes - expected
in 2017.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">The
changed situation was dramatically illustrated by Brexit, with repercussions
not just in Europe but worldwide. At bottom, this reflected a <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/23119" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">working class
revolt against the austerity programme</span></a> both of the British Tory
government and the predatory capitalist EU.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">The <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Socialist" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Socialist</span></a>
Party has consistently opposed the capitalist, imperialist EU from its origins
and therefore called for a Leave vote in the referendum, along with the
transport workers' union the RMT and many others.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Moreover,
it was striking that those who had suffered under the iron heel of the EU - the
Greek, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian workers - <a href="http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/7666" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">hailed Brexit,
which they saw as striking a decisive blow</span></a> against their mortal
enemies, the gang of EU robber capitalists.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; margin: 0px;">Fight the right</span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">We also <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/22496" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">fought against the
corrosive nationalism of Ukip</span></a> and other reactionary forces who
attempted to seize hold of Brexit as a means of dividing workers against one
another. We will stay implacably opposed to the neoliberal EU while at the same
time proposing a class and socialist alternative: no to the EU, yes to a
socialist confederation of Europe.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">It is no
exaggeration to say that the leave vote resounded throughout the world. How
dare the ignorant untutored masses defy their rulers, reasoned an army of
capitalist comentators!</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">The leave
vote upended the Tory cabinet and Cameron was soon consigned to history. Absolute
turmoil has ensued, which continues into 2017, plunging the Tory party under
Theresa May into an endemic crisis. The capitalist media constantly harps on
the split within <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Labour" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Labour</span></a> but from the medium and long-term perspectives, the
divisions within the Tory party are much more serious.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/22880" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">A schism within the
Tory party</span></a>, like that over the Corn Laws in the first half of the
nineteenth century, is entirely possible. This saw the Tory party out of power
for generations.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">In Italy,
Renzi has followed Cameron, after a <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/24073/07-12-2016/italy-establishment-routed-workers-alternative-needed" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">stunning 60% to 40% rejection</span></a> of his own undemocratic
referendum, which sought to consolidate his austerity regime.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">But the
far right in Europe is still on the march, having been given a lift by the
victory of Trump in the US presidential elections. Although the <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/24075/07-12-2016/austria-far-right-temporarily-halted" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Austrian far right failed to win</span></a> the re-run presidential
election.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">It is not
even excluded that at a certain stage some countries - Austria, France, the
Netherlands and possibly also Italy - could repeat the successes of the far
right in Eastern <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/EU" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Eu</span></a>rope, participating in right-wing coalition governments. </span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; margin: 0px;">Failure</span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">It is the
transparent failure of right-wing social democracy in Spain, Greece, Portugal
and <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Britain" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Britain</span></a> -
trapped within the framework of diseased capitalism and consequently presiding
over savage cuts, eye watering poverty, mass unemployment etc - which has
provided this opportunity for the right to emerge and threaten past conquests
of the working class.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">They
believe that they have been given a huge comfort blanket by the victory of
Donald Trump in the US elections. There are even some on the left who believe
that a 'festival of reaction' will follow.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Nothing
of the kind is likely or possible. Without in any way minimising the threat
from the right - which should be fought - the relationship of class forces is
still decisively in favour of the working class and its organisations, although
weakened. The fascists could not successfully use today <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/3701" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">the methods of
Hitler or Mussolini</span></a>, the mobilisation of mass middle class forces to
terrorise and atomise the working class.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Coming to
power - even partially sharing power in a right-wing, conservative government -
would act like a crack of thunder to awaken the <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Working_class" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">working class</span></a>
and particularly the youth into ferocious resistance to such governments and
the measures that they would undertake.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Witness
the marvellous <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/23775" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">resistance of Polish women to the attempt to restrict abortion rights</span></a>.
Other powerful mass women's movements have developed in Ireland against strict
abortion laws, in Argentina against vile attacks on women, and in Turkey
against attempts to legitimise rape.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Look also
at the <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/23990/23-11-2016/usa-mass-protests-break-out-to-resisttrump" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">mass resistance that erupted against Trump</span></a>'s fraudulent
victory in cities in the US, in some cases led by our co-thinkers in Socialist
Alternative. It is expected that mass demonstrations in the US and worldwide
will take place on 20 January at Trump's inauguration. This is just a little
payment on account for the mass working class resistance he is likely to
encounter in the next years.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Moreover,
such right-wing governments with far-right participation would pave the way for
a massive swing towards the left among the working class, which would be
reflected in the labour movement. This will act to further discredit the
right-wing social democrats, who through their failure have paved the way for
the right's re-emergence.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">The truth
is class radicalisation overwhelmingly predominates worldwide. This was shown
in the 180 million <a href="http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/7709" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Indian workers who demonstrated their power in a mighty general strike</span></a>
against the right-wing Modi regime in September 2016.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Unprecedented
mass movements have also a broken out in South Korea, which are likely to force
the president out on corruption charges.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; margin: 0px;">Middle East</span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Of
course, this has to be balanced against the horrific intractable crisis in the
Middle East with its countless victims - a monument to the endless horrors to
which humankind will suffer on the basis of outmoded <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Capitalism" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">capitalism</span></a>.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">The <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/War" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">war</span></a> in
Syria has lasted longer than World War One, and moreover there is an element of
that situation in the present conflict with its mutual slaughter. Leon Trotsky
remarked in relation to the pre-1914 Balkan war: "Our descendants... will
spread their hands in horror when they learn from history books about the
methods by which capitalist peoples settled their disputes." </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">If
nothing else, the Syrian war has demonstrated beyond all doubt that none of the
capitalist powers - the US, Russia, the European Union - can <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/21570" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">provide a solution
to the myriad national conflicts</span></a> within the region. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Indeed,
imperialism in all its guises - British, French, US - is the author of the
present divisive patchwork divide-and-rule tactics on a massive scale,
undemocratically stitched together when these imperialist powers were forced to
retreat from direct domination of the region in the post-1945 situation.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">A
representative of the British spy agency MI6 recently appeared on British
television and had the effrontery to quote from the Roman historian Tacitus -
"You create a desolation and call it peace" - while attacking Putin's
Russia! If so, then Putin learnt well in the school of the British ruling class
and MI6. They were the first to pursue a bloody divide-and-rule policy, to
carve out their empire upon which the 'sun would never set'.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Only the
decisive intervention of the working class and poor in the Middle East region
through a programme of class unity and socialism on the basis of a democratic
confederation can put an end to this horror once and for all. The first step
towards this would be the development of an independent political voice for the
masses.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">But in
the meantime the catastrophic situation which has beset all countries in the
Middle East will continue. The <a href="http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/7663" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">attempted coup in Turkey</span></a> has led to an <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/23914/09-11-2016/turkey-erdogan-tightens-repressive-screw" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">even bigger and more effective right-wing counter-coup</span></a> led by
Turkish President Erdoğan himself. Over 100,000 public sector workers have been
dismissed; there has been a clampdown on the media and suppression of
democratic rights. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Only by determined struggle, and a vision of a new humane,
socialist society, will the forces of the right be pushed back.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; margin: 0px;">Donald Trump</span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Nowhere
is that more necessary than in the US following the <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/23947" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">victory of the
right-wing demagogic populist Donald Trump</span></a>, who lied and cheated his
way to power by pretending to champion the 'working class'. Nothing could be
further from the truth. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">He lacks
any real 'legitimacy' for his right-wing programme. While he won the Electoral
College, he was decisively beaten in the 'popular vote' by 2.6 million,
receiving fewer votes even than the last defeated Republican presidential
candidates Romney and McCain, and George W Bush when he won.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Within a
matter of weeks - and without being installed yet as president - <a href="https://www.socialistalternative.org/2017/01/03/trump-prepares-vicious-attacks-prepare-massive-resistance-2/" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">he has shredded most of his promises</span></a>. His proposed government,
true to form, is stuffed with billionaires, representative not of 'Main Street'
but of Wall Street, which he denounced during the election campaign. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">He is
recruiting heavily from Goldman Sachs, which after the crash of 2007-08 was
described by Rolling Stone magazine as "a great vampire squid wrapped
around the face of humanity". Its tentacles are poised to try and further
strangle working people in the cause of Trump's pro-big business agenda. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">The trade
unions face a massive challenge as he seeks to emulate Ronald Reagan in rolling
out so-called 'right to work' legislation to weaken them. He will seek to
reward Wall Street sharks who supported him by ruthless measures like
privatisation and sackings, particularly of public sector workers.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; margin: 0px;">Infrastructure and jobs</span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">He hopes
to soften the blatant pro-billionaire agenda by borrowing from capitalist
economist Keynes with a promise to increase government spending of at least $1
trillion on the US's collapsing infrastructure. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">However,
as welcome as any new jobs would be in restoring the confidence of the US
working class to fight back against the bosses and providing the unemployed
with work, nevertheless these would not replace the high paid secure jobs which
have been lost in the massive deindustrialisation of the US. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">An
estimated 70,000 factories in the US disappeared during this process, never to
return on the basis of capitalism. Since 2010 something like 15 million new
jobs were generated in the US but these have been overwhelmingly low paid and
insecure, many the equivalent of the hated zero-hour contracts in Britain.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Moreover,
the US is already saddled with colossal debt - government, corporate and
personal - which is the main reason why enfeebled US and world capitalism has
been able to still stagger on. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">But will
even a Republican congress ratify big increases in public spending, without any
overall economic growth and ratcheting up even more debt? Top US tax expert and
Congressman Ken Brady has declared: "The greatest threat to our prosperity
long term is our growing national debt."</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">On the
basis of capitalism, particularly the parasitic kind which Trump represents, a
return to a 'golden age' when today appeared to be better than yesterday, and
tomorrow would certainly be better, is over. The 60% of the US population who
now consider themselves worse off than before signifies this. </span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; margin: 0px;">Bernie Sanders</span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Hence the
explosive developments in the US with the rise of the Bernie Sanders movement. <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/20737" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Sanders' call for a
political revolution</span></a> drew mass support from discontented workers and
young people and in turn terrified the pro-capitalist Democratic Party
establishment.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">When he
was denied victory in the primaries by the manoeuvres of the pro-Clinton Democratic
establishment, <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/23132" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Bernie made a big mistake</span></a> in not taking to the open road and
establishing a new party. He had successfully appealed to the same impoverished
and discontented layers of workers and young people to whom Trump was also
pitching his message.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">If he had
stood for the presidency, then if not beating Trump, he would have at least
attracted sufficient support to have allowed for the possibility of Hillary
Clinton coming to power. This would have been the ideal scenario for the
prospects of the further political awakening of the American working class and
the youth. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">A Clinton
Democrat administration, which would have been tested to destruction - much as
the Liberal Party in Britain was at the turn of the 20th century - could have
created the base for the emergence of a new mass workers' party. Given the
economic catastrophe of US capitalism and the desperation of the masses for an
alternative, a new mass movement for socialism would have taken shape.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">The
election of Trump - the whip of counter-revolution - will not halt but
ultimately spur on this process. There are features present in the current
situation reminiscent of the explosive years in the 1960s and 70s. Socialism is
an idea which has already captured the imagination of the new generation of
workers and young people.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; margin: 0px;">Socialism in the US</span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">'</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Trotsky
in New York 1917' - part of the avalanche of new books in preparation for the
hundredth <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/19591" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">anniversary of the Russian Revolution</span></a> this year - while
inaccurate about Trotsky's real political views, nevertheless provides valuable
insights about the powerful attraction for the American masses of socialism and
its leading international figures then.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">We are
informed that "at least six New York newspapers with more than half a
million readers would announce Trotsky's arrival in the city. Three put the
story on the front page." There was a vibrant socialist movement and
Eugene Debs had stood as a <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Socialist_Party" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Socialist Party</span></a>
candidate in every presidential election since 1900, receiving over one million
votes in 1912, the equivalent of six million today.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Those
traditions will be revived, alongside those of the monumental class battles of
the 1930s. American capitalism's colossal wealth and power allowed it to soften
class relations in the post-1945 situation. Its relative economic decline has
now sharpened these divisions, which will be further deepened by Trump.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">And this
will develop with American speed and elan. The success of our US co-thinkers,
with the spectacular growth of <a href="https://www.socialistalternative.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Socialist Alternative</span></a> and the election of the <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/21712" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">first socialist
councillor</span></a> in 100 years in Seattle - Kshama Sawant - is a measure of
the changes wrought in the heartland of world capitalism.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">As is the
<a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/24025" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">success of the
school student union in Spain</span></a>, which chalked up a big national
victory against the PP government - the first in five years - when it
successfully mobilised two million school students in a national strike which
compelled the government to withdraw its attacks on education. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">The
political force behind this victory, the <a href="http://izquierdarevolucionaria.net/" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Spanish Marxist
organisation Izquierda Revolucionaria</span></a>, is in the <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/23707/05-10-2016/joint-declaration-by-izquierda-revolucionaria-and-the-cwi" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">process of linking up</span></a> with the <a href="http://www.socialistworld.net/" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Committee for a Workers'
International</span></a> (CWI), which represents a great strengthening of the
genuine forces of Marxism internationally. This will undoubtedly act as a
magnet for other Marxist forces to come together with us to confront capitalism
and its agents within the workers' movement.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; margin: 0px;">Warnings</span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Never has
this been more necessary. Even the representatives of the capitalist system,
like Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, have warned the class they
represent of the inherent dangers arising from the current crisis. Carney
warned of the worst crisis for over 100 years with the UK "suffering its
first lost decade since the 1860s", when Karl Marx was alive. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">He
repeatedly referred to the sense of insecurity and frustrations with global
trade and technology, which has favoured "the superstar and the lucky...
But what of the frustrated and frightened?" <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/24071" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">He denounced
"inequality"</span></a> as well as the banks who had been, according
to him working in a "heads I win, tails you lose bubble".</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Its
intent was to warn the bosses who Carney represents of the incendiary economic
and social situation in Britain which threatens to blow the system apart. And
the examples which he uses are damning indictments of British capitalism, as
well as an indication of further seismic events to come. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">More than
a fifth of the UK's population - almost 14 million people - is below the official
yardstick for calculating poverty, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
That includes 4.8 million adults and 2.6 million children <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/24106/14-12-2016/them-amp-us" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">in poverty despite living in a working family</span></a>. The numbers in
this category grew by over a million in the last decade, symbolising the
inexorable impoverishment of broad swathes of the British people.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Stories
now creep into the press of how those who come from the middle class can now
rapidly sink into a desperate situation. From having a job, to no job,
therefore no income, then being incapable of paying the rent and ultimately
ending up on the streets. The wheel of progress has gone into rapid reverse
towards barbarism, with some <a href="https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/uk/caves-welsh-seaside-town-sealed-off-stop-homeless-using-shelter/" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">homeless people now found to be living in caves in Wales</span></a>!</span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; margin: 0px;">Jeremy Corbyn and Labour</span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">It was
these conditions - arising from the complete failure of traditional 'social
democracy' trapped within the framework of outmoded capitalism to provide an
answer - which lit the flame of populist revolt symbolised in Britain through <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/21216/14-08-2015/corbyn-stand-a-welcome-upheaval-in-british-politics" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">the mass movement gathered around Jeremy Corbyn</span></a>. And yet 18
months after this - and with the crushing <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/23635/28-09-2016/consolidate-the-corbyn-victory" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">defeat of two right-wing Blairite coups</span></a> - his campaign has now
stalled. Jeremy himself seems to be missing in action. Why?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Because a
policy of 'peaceful coexistence' during a civil war, which has existed in the
Labour Party and the labour movement from the very first day that Jeremy was
elected, has been adopted by his closest supporters in the leadership of
Momentum. It is <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/23870" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">potentially fatal for his leadership prospects</span></a> and the mass
anti-austerity movement around him. This has been successfully urged on him by
his closest advisers in Momentum. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">There is
an element of dual power in the <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Labour_Party" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Labour Party</span></a>
at the moment. The right controls the Parliamentary Labour Party - mainly the
unreconstructed Blairite right, who display their opposition and contempt for
Corbyn and his allies on a daily basis. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">These
'Labour' MPs are unmistakably in the camp of the bosses. This was illustrated
by Chris Evans, MP for Islwyn - one of the poorest constituencies in South
Wales - seeing himself as the 'voice' of the parasitic hedge funds rather than
the working class, and proposing a parliamentary liaison committee with these
City of London creatures. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">This
right-wing MP is prepared to get into bed with the financial spivs, who create
nothing and who treat factories and workplaces as 'assets' that can be gambled
away on the stock exchange. They are the sworn enemy of working people and yet
this alleged representative of the workers of South Wales seeks the
participation of corrupt, parasitic swindlers who are shunned by even 'respectable'
capitalists.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">This
shows just how politically corrupt large swathes of the Parliamentary Labour
Party are - the sooner they are driven out the better. The Labour right have
played for time, while the left has dithered and refused to conduct a real
struggle, therefore playing into the hands of the right. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">This is
particularly the role of the leaders of Momentum. They refused to consistently
support the one measure that would have mobilised hundreds of thousands of
left-leaning workers and youth who joined the Labour Party in great enthusiasm
to complete the Corbyn revolution: namely, <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/23805" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">subjecting
right-wing MPs to reselection</span></a>. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">The
Socialist Party has offered to further this process, to <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/24065/07-12-2016/no-more-concessions-to-labour-right" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">join the Labour Party on the basis of a political and organisational
reconfiguration</span></a>, leading to a federal form of party. Jon Lansman,
the leader of Momentum, unceremoniously refused to support this, while showing
touching sensitivity to the right. His tactics have blown up in his face, with
Momentum torn apart over forms of organisation. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">There
have been no systematic protests at the arbitrary and bureaucratic denial of
access to its ranks or that of the Labour Party. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Our
request for <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/23961" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">readmission of 75 supporters of the Socialist Party</span></a> previously
expelled has met a brick wall. This while the right have ruthlessly used their
position on the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Labour Party to
consolidate their grip.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; margin: 0px;">Unresolved civil war</span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">The right
have a clear plan to expel and marginalise all those on the left who pose a
threat to their continued rule. The left under the baton of <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/22197" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Momentum's
leadership - organisationally and politically inept</span></a> - have allowed
the right to make a comeback. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">All of
this could have been avoided if clear direction had been given from the
beginning to the hundreds of thousands who rallied enthusiastically to Corbyn's
anti-austerity programme and clearly demonstrated the desire to drive the
Blairite right out of the Labour Party. The response of Momentum's leadership
was to rule out any such political 'confrontation' with the right. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">The
Labour Party is still composed of two incompatible parties in one. The right
from the beginning showed they were absolutely <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/22000/13-01-2016/corbyn-must-lead-a-fight-against-the-right-and-for-an-anti-austerity-programme" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">unreconciled to Corbyn's leadership and would overthrow him at the first
opportunity</span></a>. That still remains their goal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">The civil
war which has existed from the beginning of Corbyn's accession to the
leadership remains unresolved. The right, having failed to remove him in an
open coup and afraid of leaving the Labour Party in the hands of the left, have
fallen back on a 'creeping coup'. The tactics consist of a war of attrition,
constantly seeking to discredit Jeremy and John McDonnell, and marginalising
and excluding their supporters.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; margin: 0px;">Blind alley</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">There is
nevertheless everything to play for in 2017. Capitalism is a blind alley,
incapable of taking society substantially forward. All of those parties who
accept the system will ultimately fall under the wheels of history. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">The
movement around Jeremy represents a determined attempt to throw off the
outmoded shell of Blairite pro-market, pro-capitalist forces and take to a more
radical, socialist road. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">The
Socialist Party, together with the CWI, will do everything in its power to
assist workers and young people to attain the goal of a mass, socialist party
fighting for a socialist society in Britain and the world.</span></div>
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-38768587247902261072016-11-10T17:56:00.000+00:002016-11-10T17:56:04.602+00:00Trump Victory - We Need Mass Resistance and a Party of the 99%<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic0sPpzKQxuTFA-3IMWj3XoqJmUwJ3zJfYCQ9DjDgQBOJVu5LHjTP5ULaLp8Kp1Y3CBl0XJBBgL_Lr80wA_xJnvY3CAGDa0zDv_kkiYzT80vzBHK6f3vWY_wS3b5Fb_Ua2zp-vmnWRsK5X/s1600/Anti-Trump+rally.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic0sPpzKQxuTFA-3IMWj3XoqJmUwJ3zJfYCQ9DjDgQBOJVu5LHjTP5ULaLp8Kp1Y3CBl0XJBBgL_Lr80wA_xJnvY3CAGDa0zDv_kkiYzT80vzBHK6f3vWY_wS3b5Fb_Ua2zp-vmnWRsK5X/s400/Anti-Trump+rally.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>Anti-Trump protest organised by Socialist Alternative, one of many across the US</i></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bristol Socialist Party Public Meeting</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Trump - How could this happen and what comes next?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tuesday 29th November, 7.30pm</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">YHA Bristol (Grain House), 14 Narrow Quay, BS1 4QA</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Article below by Philip Locker and Tom Crean of Socialist Alternative, co-thinkers of the Socialist Party in the US. </span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b>We Need Mass Resistance Against Trump and a Party of the 99%</b></span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">People in the US and around the world awoke today to one of the most shocking political upsets in living memory with the election of Donald Trump as president. It was the culmination of an election cycle when ordinary Americans rose up against the political establishment and against the destructive effects of globalization and neo-liberalism. This was expressed both on the left, with the campaign of Bernie Sanders which galvanized millions for a “political revolution against the billionaire class,” and, in a distorted way, on the right with Trump’s campaign.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #555555; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 5px; padding: 5px 0px;">
<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">But Trump did not just run as the alleged defender of the “forgotten men and women” in working class communities. He also ran the most overtly bigoted and chauvinist campaign of a major party candidate in modern times. He created a space for white nationalists and open white supremacists to come out of their holes and try to reach disaffected white workers and youth. This is a very dangerous development.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">However, we completely reject the notion – relentlessly pushed by liberal commentators, trying to deflect from the staggering failure of the Democratic Party – that the outcome demonstrates that the bulk of the white working class shares Trump’s racism and xenophobia. Clinton actually won the popular vote by a narrow margin. Trump only got 47.5% overall, with tens of millions of the poorest and most downtrodden Americans not voting.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Trump’s vote was first and foremost a vote against Clinton and the establishment; it was a vote for a “change agent” against a consummate representative of the corporate status quo. Many responded to his attacks on the “rigged system” and corporations who move jobs overseas.What was tragically missing was a clear choice on the left that could offer an alternative to the seduction of right populism.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Socialist Alternative stands with the millions of women who are disgusted by the election of an open misogynist and correctly see it as a step backward; with Latinos who fear that mass deportations of undocumented workers are about to ramp up to unprecedented levels; with Muslims and African Americans who fear that Trump’s hate speech will incite more violence and the growth of a far right force.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">We immediately called protests in cities around the country to make it clear that working people and the oppressed must stand together and prepare to resist the attacks of the right. In the past 24 hours we have been inundated with requests for more information about our organization. We must start today to build a genuine political alternative for the 99% against both corporate dominated parties and the right so that in 2020 we will not go through this disaster again.</span></div>
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<b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">A Shock to the Ruling Class</b></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">It needs to be underlined that the outcome of this election was not just a shock to tens of millions of progressive workers, women, immigrants, people of color, and LGBTQ people but also – for quite different reasons – to the ruling elite of the United States.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The majority of the ruling class see Trump as temperamentally “unfit to govern.” It is certainly true that Trump’s bully boy approach of publicly humiliating opponents and reacting to every perceived slight with nasty twitter posts has more in common with “strongmen” dictators in “failed states.” Even George Bush was not as proudly ignorant of international affairs as Trump. The ruling class see a Trump presidency as potentially deeply damaging to the interests of US imperialism at a time when its global power is waning, particularly in the Middle East and Asia, challenged by Russia and especially by an increasingly assertive Chinese imperialism.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">They strongly object to Trump’s vociferous rejection of free trade deals and the dominant capitalist economic doctrines of the past forty years. But the truth is that globalization is stalled. Its engine of trade has gone into partial reverse. The Trump vote has some parallels with the Brexit vote in Britain to leave the European Union earlier this year which also reflected a massive rejection of globalization and neo-liberalism by the British working class.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The ruling class also fear that Trump’s crude racism, xenophobia, and misogyny will provoke social upheaval in the US. In this they will certainly be proved right.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">At a deeper level, perhaps the most shocking aspect of this outcome for the ruling elite – including the corporate executives and the political establishment and corporate media outlets who serve them – is that the way they have dominated politics in this country through the two party system is broken. In election cycle after election cycle, the primaries have been used to weed out candidates who are not acceptable to corporate interests. Then the electorate would be left with the choice of two “vetted” nominees. The corporate elite might strongly prefer one or the other but they could live with either. Ordinary people were then left with the choice of picking a “lesser evil” or voting for a third party candidate with no chance of winning.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">All that changed in 2016. First Bernie Sanders raised $220 million dollars without taking a dime from corporate America and came very close to defeating Hillary in the rigged Democratic primary. Trump was also largely shunned by the Republican “donor class” and the last two Republican presidents and the most recent Republican nominee were very public in rejecting him.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeEicpogIc72ONPw1pJ9URMD5ge6egsGDndp3771UVFlztR3YRgnqFGOBE2a88Wxy6_a6lTJPeJYLZM3JLciKQoOZwPi6VJk4VFyQEGgvQ7FKorVbKi0CYXfQxtG6J-FbnfTSLUua8gQ6-/s1600/trump_clintons.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeEicpogIc72ONPw1pJ9URMD5ge6egsGDndp3771UVFlztR3YRgnqFGOBE2a88Wxy6_a6lTJPeJYLZM3JLciKQoOZwPi6VJk4VFyQEGgvQ7FKorVbKi0CYXfQxtG6J-FbnfTSLUua8gQ6-/s320/trump_clintons.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><i style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Trump and the Clintons in happier times</i></b></div>
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<b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Chickens Have Come Home to Roost</b></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">It is still staggering that the outcome of the primaries left people with a choice between the two most unpopular major party candidates of the modern era. Exit polling showed 61% of voters had an unfavorable view of Trump and 54% said the same about Clinton.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">In the primaries, the Democratic National Committee did everything it could to stack the deck for the establishment’s chosen candidate, Hillary Clinton, against Sanders whom polls showed consistently doing much better against Trump. This speaks directly to the fact that a significant element of Trump’s eventual electorate was open to a genuine working class argument opposing the power of Wall Street and their free trade agenda while calling for a $15 minimum wage, free college, single payer healthcare and massive investment in green infrastructure. But the truth is that the Democratic leadership would rather lose than to be tied to a program that really spoke to the interests of working people and the poor.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Disgracefully most union leaders threw their support and millions of dollars behind Clinton in the primaries while an important section of trade unionists and several national unions backed Sanders. In this way, the labor leadership helped to prop up Wall Street’s candidate against a pro-working class challenge.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Clinton limped into the general election as a deeply damaged corporate candidate. What received the most attention in the media was the State Department email scandal. But the continuing Wikileaks revelations also confirmed in detail and underlined the picture that Sanders had painted in the primary: that Clinton was a servant of Wall Street who said one thing in private speeches to bankers who handed her millions and another in public.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Liberal apologists will seek to blame the white working class, Bernie supporters or even Jill Stein’s voters for the outcome. But as we have repeatedly pointed out the Democratic Party long ago abandoned even the pretense of defending working class interests. For decades they implemented or supported one neo-liberal measure after another: from “ending welfare as we know it,” expanding mass incarceration, pushing through NAFTA and repealing Glass Steagall under Bill Clinton to bailing out the banks while millions lost their homes under Obama.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">After the 2008 and 2009 economic crash, the left gave Obama a pass. The Democrats controlled Congress and did little to help the working class in the worst crisis since the 1930s. This opened the door to the Tea Party to mobilize opposition to the bailout of Wall Street and anger at the politicians.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Under pressure from the 45% who supported Sanders in the primary, the Democrats adopted the most left platform at their convention in 40 years. But Clinton ran her campaign solidly focused on the message that Trump was an existential danger to the Republic and that “America was already great.” Hillary’s donors did not want her stressing issues like the minimum wage or ending college debt for fear of raising expectations among fired up working people. It could be argued that Hillary had no credibility as a progressive so what could she do? Well what she did was make Tim Kaine who supported TPP and bank deregulation her vice presidential candidate instead of someone like Elizabeth Warren. She refused to promise not to appoint a bunch of Goldman Sachs personnel to her administration. All of this was completely uninspiring to the millions of people hungry for real change.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">It is therefore no surprise that Clinton was unable to enthuse greater voter turnout. Neither Trump nor Clinton got 50% of the vote. And while Clinton got a very slightly larger share of the popular vote than Trump, she got six million fewer votes than Obama in 2012 and fully ten million fewer than Obama in 2008. Meanwhile, Trump’s vote was actually a million votes lower than Romney’s!</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">As </span><i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Jacobin </i><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">pointed out: “Clinton won</span> <span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">only 65 percent</span><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> of Latino voters, compared to</span> <span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Obama’s 71 percent</span><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> four years ago. She performed this poorly against a candidate who ran on a program of building a wall along America’s southern border, a candidate who kicked off his campaign by calling Mexicans rapists. Clinton won</span> <span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">34 percent</span><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> of white women without college degrees. And she won just 54 percent of women overall, compared to Obama’s 55 percent in 2012. Clinton, of course, was running against a candidate who has gloated on film about grabbing women ‘by the pussy.’” Clinton also did not excite younger black voters, many of whom sat the election out. And she lost in white working class communities where Barack Obama won handily in both previous elections.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Democratic establishment played a dangerous game in this election – and they lost. And it will be working people, communities of color, and women who bear the brunt of their failure.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbj4EWT8xwSm7QZUs1kS1WKkKAwhxKD_JjqFt2oLkoA0JPhyphenhyphen6MguX6rBaxGywnQoKoN1ie8eeKaSjnCb_3BSpU-pJHZjF5C8V7u1v8gTnfS0gaUAIMq8ivqRb9yQPTz_PmNcCDUZlPq4_q/s1600/bernie+sanders.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbj4EWT8xwSm7QZUs1kS1WKkKAwhxKD_JjqFt2oLkoA0JPhyphenhyphen6MguX6rBaxGywnQoKoN1ie8eeKaSjnCb_3BSpU-pJHZjF5C8V7u1v8gTnfS0gaUAIMq8ivqRb9yQPTz_PmNcCDUZlPq4_q/s1600/bernie+sanders.jpg" /></a></div>
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<i>Bernie Sanders</i></div>
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<b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Sanders Should Have Been on the Ballot</b></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">In the past few years we have seen a profound political polarization in the US with the growth of support among young people for socialism and Black Lives Matter while there is a growth of open xenophobia and racism among a minority of the population. But the overall trend in American society has been to the left, expressed in support for marriage equality, a higher minimum wage and taxing the rich. This election does not change that underlying reality but it clearly puts the right in the driver seat with control of the presidency, both houses of Congress and the bulk of state legislatures.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">A large section of the white working class and middle class did indeed use this election to underline their utter rejection of the Democratic Party and also the establishment of the Republicans. In a distorted way, tens of millions were looking for a way to oppose the corporate elite. We cannot close our eyes to the growth in support among a minority for far right ideas but it is revealing, for example, that exit polls showed that 70% said undocumented immigrants “should be offered legal status” against 25% who said they should be deported.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">This is why it is absolutely tragic that Bernie Sanders was not on the ballot yesterday. We urged him to run as an independent as early as September 2014 when he first raised the idea of a presidential campaign. When he decided to run within the Democratic Party primary we disagreed with accepting this framework but continued to engage with his supporters in a discussion about how to achieve his program and the need for a new party.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Our warnings about the consequences of supporting Hillary have been tragically borne out. If Sanders had continued to run all the way to November, as we and many others urged, his presence would have radically changed the character of the race. He would have almost certainly forced his way into the presidential debates and we would right now be discussing the immediate question of forming a new party of the 99% based on the many millions of votes he would have received. This is a massive opportunity missed.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Socialist Alternative supported Jill Stein of the Green Party who received just over one million votes because she also put forward a platform that substantively spoke to the interests of working people. Stein’s campaign had many limitations but, despite them, her vote in a small way indicates the massive potential that exists for the development of a mass left alternative.</span></div>
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<b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">A Presidency of Chaos and Struggle</b></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The election of Donald Trump is a disaster which will have many negative consequences. But it is also a phase in the ongoing process of political and social upheaval in the US. Capitalism and its institutions are discredited as perhaps never before, a process that continued right through the end of the general election with the FBI interjecting itself into the political process and Trump relentless talking about the “rigged” political system.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">There will inevitably be widespread despair in sections of the left and a feeling that all attempts to move society forward are useless. It is absolutely essential to push back against this mood. Real change as Bernie Sanders correctly pointed out comes from the bottom up, from mass movements in the workplaces and the streets.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Trump’s victory represents the “whip of counter-revolution.” There will be chaos and provocations which will impel millions into defensive action. This is why those who have been radicalized in the past period must redouble their efforts to build a real mass movement for change, independent of corporate control. The social movements of recent years and especially BLM show the potential.</span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">But it also essential to see that Trump will inevitably disappoint his supporters. “Building a wall” will not create millions of good jobs to replace those lost to automation and trade deals. And though he talks about investing in 21st century infrastructure, he is also committed to even further massive tax breaks for billionaires like himself. A mass movement against Trump will need to appeal directly to the white working class and explain how we can create a future where all young people can have a decent future rather than trying to recreate the “American dream” by deepening racial division. Such a future can only be achieved with socialist policies.</span></div>
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<i>Dump Trump!</i></div>
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Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-55454377537686546272016-10-17T13:27:00.001+01:002016-10-17T13:29:49.670+01:00More Massive Cuts Planned for Bristol City Council<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Bristol mayor Marvin Rees on BBC Points West</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">By Mike Luff, Bristol Unison member, personal capacity</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bristol is facing a massive attack on its jobs and services, with a rapidly capitulating newly elected Labour mayor and its Labour controlled council. The Mayor, when challenged on the television that he was elected on an anti austerity platform, surprised the interviewer saying by saying “NO”. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Proposed cuts include the halving of bus subsidies, charges for users of dementia service, fees for disabled parking bays, handing over parks from Council control, cuts in museum hours, reduction of lollipop controls, ending of companion bus passes for carers, library service closures and some removal of short term help for paying bills – the list goes on. This amounts to £27 million cuts for 2017/2018, and then there is a further £65m cuts by 2020. Even the Mayor describes his proposed cuts as “horrifically unpalatable”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is in addition to 1000 full time equivalent posts being cut, one sixth of the workforce over the next few months. This will inevitably lead to hundreds of compulsory redundancies. No service closures have been announced, so we are likely to see reductions in services. As a Regional Unison officer said ”the cuts in jobs are not sustainable at such thin levels”. Services will easily collapse. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the day before these announcements, the Anti Cuts Alliance, BADACA, met with Mayor Rees. We gave a clear way forward to build a mass popular campaign of trade unions, communities and campaigns from across the city, which would strengthen the demand for the return of our money from this weak Tory Government. By using reserves, prudential borrowing, the cuts can be frozen legally for a period, during which such a campaign can be built. This could act as a beacon to other authorities to build a national campaign to defeat the Tory government cuts.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The excuse given for not trying to build such a campaign was that it would weaken negotiations with the government! The fact that such an approach has been used and failed over the previous years is conveniently forgotten. On the following day, Sajid Javid, the Local Government Secretary visited Bristol and was asked about the government funding, he said “What I say is local government are looking to use their money more efficiently and having to make savings”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jeremy Corbyn has visited Bristol supporting Rees on a number of occasions during the election campaign stating “the message of opposition to austerity”. Jeremy has to face up to those who are undermining</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1e1717; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the general election campaign of an anti austerity government by carrying out the Tory cuts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><u><span style="font-size: large;">Bristol and District Anti-Cuts Alliance public meeting</span></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Report back of meeting between BADACA and Mayor Rees</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">7.30pm, Monday 17th October</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tony Benn House, 92 Victoria St, BS1 6AY</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Come to the meeting and hear a full report back of the discussion between Marvin Rees representatives of BADACA. We will also be discussing how we can resist this latest round of swingeing cuts.</span></div>
Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-50523592044046186752016-10-06T15:23:00.000+01:002016-10-06T15:24:34.479+01:00BADACA meeting - Stop the 1000 job cuts at Bristol City Council!<span style="background-color: white; color: #4b4f56; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">From the Bristol and District Anti-Cuts Alliance (BADACA):</span><br />
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<span style="color: #4b4f56; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;">Report back of meeting between BADACA and Mayor Rees</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #4b4f56; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">7.30pm, Monday 17th October</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #4b4f56; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tony Benn House, 92 Victoria St, BS1 6AY</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #4b4f56; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><i>Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees addresses a lobby opposing huge cuts to council jobs. </i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #4b4f56; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Bristol Labour Mayor Marvin Rees has agreed to meet a delegation from Bristol & District Anti-Cuts Alliance (BADACA) to discuss our concerns about the cuts programme that he has already embarked on, 1,000 extra redundancies this financial year, and cuts planned in the budget for future years. The delegation will be lead by two-time anti-austerity mayoral candidate, Tom Baldwin. (Tom stood for mayor in 2012 & 2016 for the Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition (TUSC) )</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #4b4f56; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">BADACA has always opposed all cuts and will be calling on the mayor to refuse to implement the cuts and to join with the Local Government unions, the anti-austerity movement & Labour authorities in other cities in fighting back. Reserves & prudenti<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">al borrowing should be used to stop the cuts for now while the movement builds. Jeremy Corbyn has just been re-elected as Labour leader, with an increased mandate & on a clear anti-austerity programme. Labour has the power to start to push back on Tory austerity measures as they have successfully under Corbyn with disability benefits & tax credits. Local authorities can't take any more - we need to end austerity NOW!!!</span></span></div>
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With the Tories in disarray after the unexpected Brexit vote and the sudden political demise of Cameron, Osborne, Iain Duncan-Smith & Michael Gove, we can push them back. Replacement chancellor, Philip Hammond has already abandoned Osborne's austerity targets... the alternative to fighting is the end of council services as we know them in Bristol!!</div>
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Come & join us at Tony Benn House at 7.30pm on Monday 17th October for a report-back on the meeting with the mayor and a discussion on where the campign needs to go from here. All welcome!!</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #4b4f56; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The meeting will hear from a member of the Save Hanham Library campaign about the cuts to libraries in South Gloucestershire and a teacher about the attacks on education from the Tory government, including the proposals for new grammar schools. </span></div>
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This meeting follows our successful meeting in September which was attended by about 15 people and agreed to continue to get BADACA meetings going again. At this meeting we are hoping to set a date for an AGM so new officers can be elected. More info in an email bulletin shortly. If you're not on our mailing list and would like to be, please message matthewcarey@mykolab.com with your name & email address.</div>
</span></span>Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-7456501696429161452016-09-29T15:54:00.001+01:002016-09-29T15:54:19.452+01:00Consolidate the Corbyn Victory<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Refound Labour as a democratic, socialist, anti-austerity party!</span></div>
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<b>Come to the Bristol Socialist Party / Socialist Students public meeting on</b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Trotskyism, Corbyn and the Labour Party</span></b></div>
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<b>Tuesday 4th October, 7.30pm, YHA, 14 Narrow Quay, BS1 4QA</b></div>
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Editorial from The Socialist newspaper:<br />
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"The war continues." So declared one ex-shadow cabinet minister to the Sunday Times (25 September).</div>
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The attempted coup against Jeremy Corbyn by 172 <span style="color: navy;">Labour</span> MPs has ended in abject failure, with his mandate strengthened. In the aftermath of the leadership contest many Corbyn supporters will have hoped that it would now be possible to unify the Labour Party around a clear anti-austerity programme in a battle to defeat the Tories. Within hours however it was clear that, as we warned, there is no possibility of the right accepting the democratic will of Labour Party members. They are reeling under the impact of a crushing defeat, with no clear idea of how to launch the next stage of their 'get Corbyn' campaign, but the one thing they are united on is its necessity.</div>
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Around the country a smattering of Blairites have torn up their <span style="color: navy;">Labour Party</span> cards, including the leader of Portsmouth council Labour group, and businessman and SDP founder Lord Mitchell. The majority have, however, made clear that at this stage they intend to stay and try to 'reclaim' their party for the capitalist class. There are rumours that a few will rejoin the shadow cabinet but most are indicating that they will only do so if the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) gets to choose its membership.</div>
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Disgracefully, <span style="color: navy;">Dave Prentis</span>, general secretary of Unison (which voted to support Corbyn in the leadership contest) has suggested that this is the way to heal the rifts in the Labour Party. But such a measure would not be about healing rifts but handing victory to Tom Watson's rumoured 'Project Anaconda' - to isolate and then crush Corbyn.</div>
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That they have failed to do so to date is only because of the hundreds of thousands of people who have rallied to the defence of Jeremy's leadership and <span style="color: navy;">anti-austerity</span>platform, resulting in Labour having the biggest membership of any party in Western Europe. However, Labour remains two parties in one: the old pro-capitalist, establishment party and the new anti-austerity party in formation.</div>
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Whose interests?</h3>
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In essence the struggle taking place in the Labour Party is about in which classes' interests it is going to act - the working class majority in society and the middle class with no hope for the future, or the capitalist 1%? The pro-capitalist wing of Labour dominates the PLP and Labour councils. It still controls much of the Labour Party machine, successfully preventing around 150,000 voting in the leadership election and banning regular local Labour Party meetings from taking place during the leadership contest.</div>
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The expulsions and exclusions look set to continue. The list of words that Labour Party members are banned from using even includes 'Blairite'! The right are also fighting tooth and nail to establish a majority on Labour's National Executive Committee.</div>
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To respond to these savage attacks by attempting to pacify the right is a major mistake. This was the approach taken after Jeremy's first leadership victory and it ended in the coup. A second attempt could only end the same way. The leaked 'Project Anaconda' email put it bluntly saying: "Every concession JC makes will be used to tighten the grip." No more concessions should be made. Nor should the current, highly-undemocratic, Labour Party rules and structures be accepted. Labour should be rebuilt as an open and democratic anti-austerity party.</div>
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Right-wing <span style="color: navy;">MPs</span> are in a frenzy because Jeremy only said that the "vast majority of MPs will have no problem whatsoever" in keeping their seats in the selection contests that could take place as a result of boundary changes. Nothing but a promise that the seat of every single MP was safe would satisfy them.</div>
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But every MP and councillor should face mandatory reselection. This democratic procedure was hard fought for by the left in the past, including Corbyn and McDonnell, only to be abolished as part of the Blairites consolidating their grip on the party. There is no doubt that this made it easier for Labour MPs to vote for tuition fees, privatisation and war, and in some cases to fiddle their expenses, without any fear of being removed and replaced by their local membership.</div>
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The reintroduction of mandatory reselection would be an important step forward, but is not sufficient alone. Jeremy has a huge mandate for the anti-austerity programme on which he was elected. He should now insist that all Labour MPs agree to support his leadership and vote for his programme in parliament. It can no longer be the case that Labour MPs can vote for benefit cuts or privatisation of hospitals without consequence. MPs who do so should be excluded from the PLP.</div>
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In the short term this would undoubtedly leave Labour with fewer MPs but a PLP which was united in opposing<span style="color: navy;">austerity</span> and supporting workers in struggle would be far more effective than the current situation, where a big section of the PLP are doing their best to 'get Corbyn' even at the cost of losing a general election.</div>
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And far from being unpopular, such an anti-austerity Labour Party could quickly make electoral gains. Unfortunately, the attempts to compromise with the right have muffled Corbyn's anti-austerity programme over the last year. But many of his policies - a £10 an hour minimum wage, free education, mass council house building, renationalising the railways - are enormously popular and now need to be shouted from the rooftops. Unfortunately the Labour Party conferences shows the danger that, once again, the anti-austerity message is not heard because of a desire to compromise with the right.</div>
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The question of local councils is an important aspect of this. Millions of working class people do not yet recognise Labour as an anti-austerity force because they live in Labour-led local authorities, which are implementing savage austerity. Central government funding of local authorities has been cut by 40% since 2010 and Labour local authorities are dutifully wielding the axe, resulting in 670,000 job losses and destruction of vital local services.</div>
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Pressure is mounting. This year Unite and GMB conferences supported a call for councils to refuse to implement any further cuts. In a vain attempt to protect Labour <span style="color: navy;">councillors</span> from the anger of workers whose jobs and services are being destroyed (like the 20% of Manchester firefighters facing the sack from a Labour-controlled fire authority) a rule change is being put to Labour Party conference barring Labour councillors from voting against Labour cuts budgets or from setting so-called 'illegal' no-cuts budgets.</div>
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The <span style="color: navy;">Labour leadership</span> should urgently make clear their opposition to it. It is in part a red herring but Labour conference should be passing a motion demanding Labour councils refuse to implement cuts, not trying to prevent them from doing so. The 58 Labour-led councils that had elections this year alone have £4.5 billion in general reserves. If these were pooled every Labour council in the country would be able to implement legal no-cuts budgets. This could be used to launch a struggle against Tory austerity which could defeat the government.</div>
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In Liverpool, where the Labour Party conference is taking place, in the 1980s the council was able to successfully take on Thatcher and win an extra £60 million in funding for the council. In the course of doing so they were decreed to have broken Tory laws, but the results - building council houses, nurseries, leisure centres and more - stand in bricks and mortar. Labour Party conference delegates should be taken on a tour to visit them.</div>
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And far from being electorally unpopular, the swing to Labour in Liverpool in the 1987 <span style="color: navy;">general election</span>, had it been repeated on a national scale, would have led to a landslide victory for Labour instead of the defeat it was led to by witch-hunter Neil Kinnock.</div>
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It is urgent that a battle is launched to transform Labour into an anti-austerity party in word and deed. Alongside this a campaign should begin to democratise the party. This should include readmitting all those <span style="color: navy;">socialist</span>s that have been expelled and excluded.</div>
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The role of the <span style="color: navy;">trade unions</span> - workers' organisations with over six million members - should be restored, on a democratic basis so that union delegates genuinely represent the views of their members. John Hannet, the right-wing general secretary of the Usdaw shop workers union, is backing the Blairites to the hilt. But he is not representing the views of many of his low-paid members, who would fully support a leadership fighting for a £10 an hour minimum wage.</div>
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The national structures of the Labour Party would also need to be opened out and democratised. The Socialist Party argues for a return to the founding structures of the Labour Party which involved separate socialist political parties coalescing with the trade unions and social movements like women's suffrage campaigners and the co-operative movement. That federal approach applied to today would mean allowing political parties that were prepared to sign up to a clear anti-austerity programme, including the Socialist Party, to affiliate to Labour as the Co-op Party still does.</div>
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The movement in support of Corbyn opens up a very important opportunity for working class people in Britain. It creates the possibility of a workers' party - standing for the 99% instead of the 1%, and able to attract all those workers and youth wanting to fight back against capitalism. It is urgent that <span style="color: #ff3300;">Jeremy Corbyn</span>'s victory is consolidated and the opportunity grasped.</div>
Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-11130213420957526462016-09-20T19:42:00.000+01:002016-09-20T19:45:28.345+01:00Trotskyism, Corbyn and the Labour Party - public meeting<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #4b4f56; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The Jeremy Corbyn leadership campaign is once again inspiring thousands of people to get active in politics and stand up for the future they want. It has driven the right wing of the Labour party to distraction as they try every dirty trick to oust him and take control of the party back. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #4b4f56; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Trotskyism has been thrown around as a dirty word in an attempt to smear some of their opponents. The name of Militant, (now the Socialist Party) a Trotskyist group expelled from Labour for being too left wing has been brought up and many slanders spread.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #4b4f56; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">In this meeting we will discuss how Corbyn and his supporters can consolidate a political voice for the 99%, not the 1%. We also look at the real history of the Militant Tendency and what the Russian revolutionary socialist Leon Trotsky actually stood for.</span></div>
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Organised by Bristol Socialist Party and Bristol University and UWE Socialist Students groups. All welcome.</div>
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</span>Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8486499589632347914.post-21752368910921420452016-09-08T10:19:00.000+01:002016-09-08T10:19:07.806+01:00Organise mass working class resistance to austerity<h1 style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Come to the National Shop Stewards Network rally at the TUC Congress</span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 13px;">Join fellow trade unionists and socialists including <b>Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell</b> and <b>BFAWU (Bakers Union) general secretary Ronnie Draper</b> on the</span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 13px;"> </span>NSSN<span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 13px;">lobby of the TUC in Brighton on <b>11 September, 1pm </b>in the <b>Ashdown Suite, Holiday Inn, 137 King's Road (seafront), Brighton, BN1 2JF</b></span></div>
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Junior doctors and teachers march together in a joint BMA and NUT demonstration in April. Now Cameron is gone we need to get Hunt and the rest of the Tories out photo Paul Mattsson </div>
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Rob Williams, Socialist Party industrial organiser</h5>
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TUC congress is taking place at the end of what has seemed like a hot summer, industrially at least. In the run up to the event, the figures for days lost in industrial action in 2015 were published.</div>
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On the surface, they are alarming. The lowest number of <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Workers" style="color: navy; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">workers</a> on strike - 81,000 - in a single year since records began in 1893 and only 170,000 days lost through action - the second lowest in history. In the 1980s, on average more than three million days were lost.</div>
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No doubt the conclusion drawn by the pessimists and cynics within the trade union movement will be that this confirms that the organised working class is too weak to defeat the employers and their government.</div>
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In fact, the <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/TUC" style="color: navy; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">TUC</a> press officer, Michael Pidgeon, has used the figures to argue that the Tories had no need to bring in the repressive Trade Union Act, the biggest attack on the unions since Thatcher's anti-union laws three decades ago.</div>
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They will also be used to justify the absolutely baleful role of the right-wing union leaders in the fight against Tory <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Austerity" style="color: navy; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">austerity</a> over the last six years. No serious campaign of co-ordinated strike action has been called against the biggest jobs cull ever seen in the public sector. Last year, it was estimated that 400,000 workers had been sacked, with the possibility of another half a million going by 2020.</div>
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Opportunity</h3>
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The biggest opportunity to confront the cuts was the 2011 struggle to defend public sector pensions which saw 2 million workers walk out on the 30 November strike that year. If that dispute had been continued and escalated, it had the potential to stop Cameron and Osborne's austerity offensive in its tracks. Instead, the conscious sell-out only emboldened the Tories to go further.</div>
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The result has been devastating in terms of jobs, services and pay as well as pensions, which have contributed to the 10% drop in wages with increased pension contributions. No wonder the income of workers in the UK is still at pre-crisis levels. It was this position that forced joint action over pay in 2014. Although that too only lasted one day.</div>
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But it would be a huge mistake to draw pessimistic conclusions from a superficial view of these statistics. In some respects, they are a reflection of the disappointment of workers at the seeming inability of the unions to lead an effective fight against the Tory cuts.</div>
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As we have pointed out, this is the responsibility of the right-wing union leaders. Two of the three leaders who were primarily responsible for the ending of the pensions dispute, then leader of the TUC Brendan Barber and GMB general secretary Paul Kenny, were knighted by Cameron. The other, <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Unison" style="color: navy; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Unison</a> general secretary Dave Prentis, is under increasing pressure from members of his union because of his role.</div>
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Joint action</h3>
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The ability of the Tories to drive through cuts in the public sector (which has a majority of union members and is where their density is greatest) without large-scale joint action over the last two years has undoubtedly had an effect on the figures.</div>
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But this masks the huge discontent and anger that exists. This has been reflected in individual union disputes in the public sector. For example, there have been national disputes by civil servants' union <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/PCS" style="color: navy; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">PCS</a> and the Fire Brigades Union.</div>
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There have also been prominent local disputes, such as by Unite members in Bromley and Greenwich councils and Unison in Glasgow and Barnet. Socialist Party members have been prominent in some of these struggles.</div>
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There are many other disputes that don't even make the figures. Over the last few months there has been an uprising of teaching assistants in Derby and then Durham against pay cuts of up to 23% by Labour councils.</div>
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In Durham, 500 of these low paid workers filled a meeting and launched a public campaign but no actual official strike days have yet been sanctioned by the<a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Unions" style="color: navy; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">unions</a>, Unison and the GMB.</div>
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Similarly, there have been three incredible disputes in London recently, at Deliveroo, UberEats and among contracted cleaners. It is likely that not one day of their action is officially recorded as neither of the small independent unions involved - the United Voices of the World (UVW) and the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) - have a recognition agreement with the employer.</div>
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Nevertheless both Deliveroo drivers and UVW cleaners have won victories against their brutal working conditions. Many of these workers are migrants and many have to hold down two or more jobs to have any chance of a living.</div>
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'Self-employment'</h3>
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Their struggles should be celebrated and show that it is possible for unions to flourish in the era of zero-hour contracts and bogus self-employment. The trade union movement, especially 'new unionism' in the late nineteenth century, was built in similar exploitative conditions.</div>
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The strikes also showed a number of features that are becoming increasingly common. The use of social media has been important to advertise the disputes and build solidarity, including protests and financial support.</div>
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UberEats workers ride into town to face down their bosses photo Scott Jones, photo Scott Jones (Click to enlarge)</div>
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The IWGB raised £8,000 in two days in their dispute with Deliveroo. PCS raised over £100,000 that helped pay National Gallery strikers during their dispute that lasted over 100 days last year. In fact, a number of disputes are seeing longer action.</div>
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Some of these disputes - such as those by BFAWU bakers' union members in 2-Sisters plants in Sheffield and Newport and PCS in the Welsh and Scottish Museums - were over employers attacking premium pay to compensate for the increase to the new National Living Wage.</div>
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The RMT has appeared to be on strike on all fronts - including Eurostar, Virgin East Coast, Southern Rail and ScotRail. Many of these have also involved protracted action. There have also been bitter disputes by Unite members on the buses in Leeds and Weymouth.</div>
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Construction workers went on strike at the Fawley oil refinery in Hampshire to ensure that migrant workers were paid the same as UK workers. Also, the first strike took place in the offshore oil industry for nearly 30 years. Both of these strikes got results.</div>
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Trade Union Act</h3>
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The Tories may find that their Trade Union Act could actually up the ante, as the new law means that disputes could be timed out after six months, forcing a re-ballot. Workers could draw the conclusion that they might as well go all-out from the beginning.</div>
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Actually, far from dismissing the threat from the unions, the right-wing Tory press have a far more realistic appraisal of the potential threat of the unions.</div>
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They have particularly been fulminating about the rail strikes, demanding the immediate introduction of the new undemocratic higher voting thresholds or even outlawing strikes altogether!</div>
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In response to the new strike figures, Matthew Lynn of the Telegraph wrote, "Strike action may have fallen to the lowest levels in over a century - but the sooner it is eliminated completely the better." He was railing against the Southern Rail strike but also what he calls the 'public sector middle class'.</div>
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Of course, the most prominent of disputes among this group has been the inspirational junior doctors. They exploded onto the scene, not just on picket lines outside hospitals but campaigning in town and city centres.</div>
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Scandalously, the overwhelming support they have received from fellow trade unionists and the public hasn't matched by that of the TUC and most union leaders, especially in health.</div>
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However, the junior doctors have rejected the government's offer and are embarking on the next phase of action. It should be a key debate at TUC congress to turn support into active solidarity. </div>
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At the very least there should be a national TUC demonstration in support of the BMA doctors' union and also widened to defend the NHS.</div>
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National demonstration</h3>
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There is already a national demonstration called by the National Union of Students and lecturers' union <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/UCU" style="color: navy; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">UCU</a> in November to defend education, just as national action has been taking place by teachers and lecturers.</div>
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The potential exists to bring all these struggles together. 90 years after the 1926 general strike, an increasing number of workers are groping towards the understanding that mass strike action can transform the political, as well as the industrial, situation.</div>
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The attempted Blairite coup against Jeremy Corbyn has deliberately deflected attention away from the historic crisis within the Tories after Brexit. The main architects of the brutal austerity offensive, Cameron and Osborne, are history.</div>
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May's government has no authority and she is only prime minister because of a defeat for an administration she was part of. In any other circumstance, there would be a clamour for a general election. Even if only semi-consciously, workers can feel that this is a weak government and this will only increase as more workers engage in action.</div>
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The National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) is again holding a rally before the start of TUC congress.</div>
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Its two main themes will be for the unions to prepare the mass strike action necessary to take on what's left of the Tories and also to defend the left Labour leadership of Jeremy Corbyn against the Labour right. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell will be addressing the rally alongside leaders from some of the most militant unions.</div>
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The political and industrial are beginning to fuse. The second Corbyn wave, created by the whip of Blairite counter-revolution, has drawn more workers into the struggle against the Labour right.</div>
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Workers understand how much is at stake as the right wing try to turn the political clock back. This is not a period of passivity but one of increasing volatility. If given a lead it can develop into a mass movement of struggle to defeat the Tories and their Blairite agents.</div>
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Join fellow trade unionists and socialists including John McDonnell and Ronnie Draper on the <a href="http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/NSSN" style="color: navy; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">NSSN</a> lobby of the TUC in Brighton on 11 September, 1pm in the Ashdown Suite, Holiday Inn, 137 King's Road (seafront), Brighton, BN1 2JF</div>
Tom Baldwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01849855049486369051noreply@blogger.com0