The Friendly Lefty

Public meeting: Where now for Egypt and the Middle East?

friendlylefty — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:03:43 +0000

Another poll gives Livingstone the lead in London

friendlylefty — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:06:56 +0000

This from LBC, a London talk radio station, giving credence to last week’s YouGov poll:

An LBC 97.3 poll of Londoners voting intentions suggests Ken Livingstone is now favourite to win the mayoral election

The Labour candidate has 51% of the vote to Boris Johnson’ 49% after second preference votes are allocated.

Mr Livingstone continues to get more support in inner London while Boris Johnson is more popular in the suburbs. But despite the results, when asked, most Londoners still expect Mr Johnson to win.

Boris struggles to win support among Londoners aged 18-44 while Ken struggles to gain the support of older people.

David Cameron’s spending cuts seem to have a greater impact on putting people off voting for Boris than opinions of Ed Miliband do on Ken’s chances.

Liberal Democrat candidate Brian Paddick is the most popular second preference choice for Londoners with 38 percent of the vote.

A few initial thoughts:

1. Momentum is with Ken Livingstone. If sustained, the poll lead is a complete reversal from only months ago, when Boris Johnson, the Tory incumbent, led by eight points. This is most likely attributable to the energetic campaign around the rising cost of transport in London and the growing public sentiment that Johnson is neglecting the interests of ordinary Londoners.

2. The self-deafeating economic line being articulated by Labour nationally might damage the good work being done by Ken and his team in London, by minimising the identifiable policy differences between Labour and the Government. The polls suggest that the general direction in London is superior to that of Labour nationally. Whilst Ed Miliband and Ed Balls have nothing to show from the latest polls by their lurch rightwards, in London the relentless campaign message that Labour is ‘on your side’ against cuts to living standards seems to be bearing fruit. This should be taken on board by Ed Miliband and his supporters.

3. Labour’s campaign team are right to urge against complacency – these are only two polls and we are months from the election in May. Johnson’s campaign and its numerous media backers have already responded with a campaign of negativity towards Labour, but a renewed charm offensive, playing to Johnson’s strengths, would probably bring benefits. Right-wing pundits have also urged Johnson to neutralise the ‘out of touch’ line of attack with a programme of superficial policy announcements, but if Johnson’s article in the Sun attacking unemployed young people is anything to go by, he isn’t taking that on board just yet.

Another private sector collapse

friendlylefty — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:14:34 +0000

Total employment rose in the 2000’s by 1.5 million, 1.1 million in the private sector, and 400,000 in the public. The collapse of the private sector from July 2008 destroyed half of all the jobs created from 2000 to 2007.

At Left Foot Forward, Cormac Hollingsworth gets to grips with the fallacy of a private sector led recovery.

“Now is the time to oppose Israel’s racism”

friendlylefty — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:25:39 +0000

Palestine Solidarity Campaign leader Hugh Lanning exposes Israel’s increasingly racist legislation in today’s Morning Star.

Last Wednesday Israel’s Supreme Court upheld a racist law which has been in operation since 2003. It denies spouses of Israeli citizens any right themselves to citizenship or residency if they happen to be a Palestinian from the West Bank or Gaza Strip, or from purported “enemy states.”

This particular law – originally described as temporary but renewed ever since – is just one of a growing number of racist laws and attacks on human rights passed by Israel’s parliament the Knesset.

Ever since 1948, when over 750,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled from their homes during the Nakba, or catastrophe, Palestinians who managed to remain on their lands inside the Green Line have suffered from discrimination.

Palestinian citizens of Israel, who form 20 per cent of its population, have citizenship but not Israeli nationality.

Israel’s 1950 Law of Return welcomes any Jew immigrating to Israel.

But Palestinian refugees have never been allowed to return, in violation of UN Resolution 194, which has repeatedly asserted the refugees’ right to do so.

The attempt to remove Palestinians from their land did not end in 1948.

The most recent land grab, approved last year, was the Prawer Plan, which when implemented will forcibly remove 30,000 Bedouin from their land in the Negev.

Read the rest of the article here.

Securing the Arab revolutions

friendlylefty — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:16:36 +0000

An interesting discussion between Mehdi Hasan and Wadah Khanfar on the Arab revolution and its prospects.

Happy Birthday Muhammad Ali

friendlylefty — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:26:19 +0000

Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.

Len McCluskey speaks out on the ‘Blairite policy coup’

friendlylefty — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:14:40 +0000

Excellent assessment of the Labour party lurch toward full blown endorsement of austerity by Len McCluskey:

Ed Balls’s sudden embrace of austerity and the public-sector pay squeeze represents a victory for discredited Blairism at the expense of the party’s core supporters. It also challenges the whole course Ed Miliband has set for the party, and perhaps his leadership itself. Unions in the public sector are bound to unite to oppose the real pay cuts for public-sector workers over the next year. When we do so, it seems we will now be fighting the Labour frontbench as well as the government.

The political elite that was united in promoting the City-first deregulation policies that led to the crash is now united in asserting that ordinary people must pick up the tab for it. It leaves the country with something like a “national government” consensus where, as in 1931, the leaders of the three main parties agree on a common agenda of austerity to get capitalism – be it “good” or “bad” – back on its feet.

The only justification offered for supporting the pay freeze is that “jobs must be the priority”, thereby buying into the hoary old fallacy that increasing the wages of the low-paid risks unemployment. The view that deficit reduction through spending cuts must be a priority in order to keep the financial speculators onside has been the road to ruin for Labour chancellors from Philip Snowden to Denis Healey.

This is the last gasp of the neoliberalism which led to 2008, and the final point on the arc of “new Labour” politics – from “things can only get better” to “heaven knows we’re miserable now” and will be for the foreseeable future.

A teaching assistant will be £2,600 worse off as a result of the coalition’s pay squeeze by next year – that does not create a single extra job. Rather, it represents a further squeezing of demand out of the economy during a recession, and will lengthen dole queues. Even the ratings agencies acknowledge that austerity is damaging the economy in Europe.

Of course, for Labour to say it cannot make spending commitments now, and will only make a judgment as to what cuts are reversed in which order nearer the general election, is absolutely reasonable. But this is going much further. As Ed Balls told this newspaper, the “starting point” is “we’re going to have to keep all these cuts”. And this year we have seen one shadow minister after another falling over themselves to endorse savage spending cuts which are hurting real people. Liam Byrne, Jim Murphy, Stephen Twigg and now Ed Balls: four horsemen of the austerity apocalypse.

Where does this leave the half a million people who joined the TUC’s march for an alternative last year, and the half of the country at least who are against the cuts? Disenfranchised.

The real points of differentiation between Labour and the government on the economy are now very hard to identify, the more so since Cameron and Clegg are cutely, if insincerely, positioning themselves as proactive on tax avoidance and executive pay.

No effort was made by Labour to consult with trade unions before making the shift, notwithstanding that it impacts on millions of our members. It is hard to imagine the City being treated in such a cavalier way in relation to a change in banking policy.

This confronts those of us who have supported Ed Miliband’s bold attempt to move on from Blairism with a challenge. His leadership has been undermined as he is being dragged back into the swamp of bond market orthodoxy. And this policy coup may not be the end of the matter. Having won on the measures, new Labour will likely come for the man sooner or later. And that way lies the destruction of the Labour party as constituted, as well as certain general election defeat in my view. It is time for those who want a real alternative centred on investment, job creation and public intervention to end the slump – and a Labour party that will articulate that to get organised in parliament and outside.

Caroline Lucas: we need to challenge the austerity agenda

friendlylefty — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:42:20 +0000

Caroline Lucas MP makes the point well in today’s Guardian letters page that the opposition needs to overcome it’s fear of a fight with proponents of austerity and make the case for public investment as a means of economic recovery.

In his interview with your paper on Saturday, Ed Balls effectively holds up a white flag and admits that Labour has given up any attempt to set out an alternative economic agenda (Beyond the hair shirt: Labour party can give Britain the tough love it needs, insists Balls, 14 January).

His capitulation before the Tory-led coalition’s definition of economic credibility as meaning ever more fiscal austerity, and his jaw-dropping statement that “we are going to have to keep all these cuts” calls into question the very purpose of the Labour party.

Moreover, the choice he poses between higher public sector pay or growing unemployment conveniently ignores the fact that many public sector workers are on very low incomes, and falsely suggests that we can’t afford to fund both. It is investment in decently paid jobs that generates income, and thus the tax revenues to pay for credit or borrowed money, not the other way round. Instead of trying to outcompete the government in some kind of masochistic virility test to see who can threaten the greatest austerity, an opposition party worthy of the name would be making a far stronger case that austerity isn’t working, and offering a genuine alternative.

A combination of more progressive taxation, a crack down on tax evasion and avoidance and, crucially, Green quantitative easing to deliver investment directly in the new jobs and infrastructure the UK urgently needs to make the transition to a more sustainable economy, would do far more to challenge the government than the Tory-lite policies set out by the shadow chancellor.
Caroline Lucas MP
Leader, Green party

Picket at US Embassy: No western intervention in Iran or Syria

friendlylefty — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:01:53 +0000

From the Stop the War Coalition. As imperialists go all out to drum up support in the West for military intervention in Syria and Iran it is vital that the anti-war position is loudly articulated. Many on the left have sadly found themselves in a position of de facto support for the imperialist plan to wrestle back the initiative after the Arab Spring. This is a good opportunity to show the correct stance.

Saturday 28 January 2pm-4pm - Picket at US Embassy: No western intervention in Iran or Syria

US Embassy, Grosvenor Square, London W1

The growing threats against Iran in recent weeks have been backed up with increased sanctions. As we know from Iraq, these are a prelude to war, not an alternative to it. There are signs of covert intervention already in Iran, as there are in Syria. Stop the War opposes all military intervention from the west in the region, for which there is absolutely no justification.

We will be gathering outside the US embassy, Grosvenor Square, London W1 on Saturday 28 January from 2-4pm. Please support it if you can.

Mission: Invade Iran

friendlylefty — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:18:56 +0000

Excellent analysis by George Galloway in Saturday’s Morning Star.

Support the Morning Star: donate to its Fighting Fund here.

It is 12 months since the heroic shabab of Tunisia overthrew EU favourite Ben Ali and set in motion the Arab masses across the region.

Now we see clearly the response of the ailing Western powers which were thrown off kilter as their system of client states creaked, cracked and began to fall apart.

It is war – actual and threatened.

The drumbeats for war with Iran are getting louder, and the escalating provocations by Western capitals are developing a logic of their own.

It admits of no alternative and points in only one direction – towards military conflict.

Or, to put it more accurately, towards open military conflict. The head of Britain’s MI6 has already called for covert military operations in Iran which are, of course, an act of war – and they have been taking place. So are the drone overflights, which are also legally an act of aggression.

Are there great difficulties facing any such venture? There most certainly are. Huge ones, which would make it a disaster of world historic proportions. But it is a false, if comforting, logic which says that on account of such catastrophic consequences war with Iran is unthinkable.

Many will recall that “unthinkable” was the then foreign secretary Jack Straw’s response to the proposition a few years ago. We now know, thanks to the Guardian, that that is no longer the position of the mandarins of the British state. It is, in fact, to sign up our country to a war in advance.

And now we have the British government taking Iran’s English language Press TV station off the Sky platform. The justification will bring a smile even to those who are most inured to the catalogue of double standards applied by the West to the Middle East. There was a mistake, you see, in the original application for a broadcasting licence. It should not have been granted because Press TV is not headquartered in Britain and therefore could not pass the tests for editorial accountability required by the regulator. All fair, impartial and very British is the reasoning. Nothing to do with our bellicose foreign policy.

Except there is the rather glaring inconsistency that CNN, Fox News, etc are also not headquartered in Britain, yet were not only given broadcasting licences but still have them and face no prospect of this impartial rule being applied to them. I don’t know which of David Cameron’s Eton/Oxford-trained chums came up with this wheeze imagining that it would convince anyone, but their parents and the taxpayer have wasted their money on his education.

We already knew, thanks to Wikiileaks, that the British government was assuring its allies in the Middle East and elsewhere that it was investigating all avenues to get Press TV off Sky. One of those allies is, of course, the bloated House of Saud.

With the fall of Mubarak, it has been elevated to the role of gendarme of reaction within the region, invading Bahrain – an act reported seriously only by Press TV – leading interference across the region by the Gulf Co-operation Council, which represents monarchical states including the distinctly non-Gulf Jordan and Morocco, under the shameless guise of promoting “democracy,” and fomenting murderous sectarian division aimed at weakening Iran and anyone who supports its independence.

This is the same House of Saud which received $30 billion of war lanes the other week from a US which is busy telling us it is for the people against the military in, for example, Syria.

And it is a US where the grotesques in the Republican primaries are outbidding each other over who would be first to pull the trigger in the Gulf and who is more in thrall to Israel’s Binyamin Netanyahu.

The rapid turn of events is alarming even some Establishment figures, from foreign policy wonks in Washington to former heads of Israel’s internal and external spy agencies. We can be sure that tortured deliberating is going on at the highest levels.

But it would be light-minded in the extreme to imagine that the existence of those making plausible and rational arguments against unleashing what would turn out to be a major war – much bigger than the one-sided assault on beggared Iraq – means that they will either prevail or necessarily act as a brake on the slide down the bloody slope.

If this was about rationality and plausibility, we would never have gone to war with Iraq. Cast your mind back exactly 10 years ago.

We had gone to war in Afghanistan. Indeed, we were told by Tony Blair and George Bush that it was all but over and there would be a swift move to democracy, development and stability. We know now that there had been a sharp debate in the White House immediately following the events of September 11 2011 over whether to attack Iraq first or invade Afghanistan and then Iraq.

Both countries, of course, had nothing to do with with September 11 – not a single one of their citizens was involved. The attackers were overwhelmingly Saudi.

But throughout 2002, as the Stop the War movement rolled into towns and cities across the country, we were told by wise heads in the op ed columns that so great were the risks and so unfeasible the aims of war on Iraq that sense would prevail and it would not take place. And their arguments against the war were cogent. Some of them were a reflection of the some of the arguments we made – that there would be resistance, that the war would lead to further wars, that there were no weapons of mass destruction, that there was no al-Qaida in Iraq but that there would be as a result of invasion, and, as anyone who knew anything about the region could see, that toppling Saddam Hussein would massively increase the power and influence of Iran within Iraq and throughout the region.

The Establishment divisions grew and the argument escalated internationally.

It was not a prelude to an outbreak of sanity, however. It was a precursor to war, the decision for which had already been made. In the same way the sanctions and UN resolutions were not an alternative to war, but a prelude to it.

Ten years on, we face an eerily similar situation, but with an Iran which, as predicted, is stronger. It would be folly to hope against all the evidence to the contrary that our leaders this time will bow to rational argument if left to their own devices.

They have their own warped rationality, summed up by one national security insider in Washington who said: “You think war with Iran would be tough now? You’re right. But it will be even tougher if we leave it five years.”

Even in their own terms, their attempts to defend their hegemony in the Middle East lead to incendiary contradictions as the plates shift afloat a magma of boiling popular anger.

So we have a US administration which is desperate to establish some relationship with – and shackles on – whatever government arises in Egypt as an alternative to military rule.

Yet at the same time Obama wields an extremely expensive veto at the UN security council at the end of last year yet again blocking condemnation of Israel’s settlement-building.

Obama’s approval rating in Egypt stands at 3 per cent, lower even than George Bush’s and less than a 15th of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Or we have a French government which knows full well that encouraging a pro-Western policy by Nato member Turkey is crucial to attempts to turn the strife in Syria into the imposition of a friendly government that will abandon any notion of resistance to imperialism and Israel. Then the same French government picks a fight with the whole of the Turkish political class by supporting a law that would make denial of the Armenian genocide illegal. As for the systematic murder by French imperialism of the Algerians, Vietnamese and many others – well, you can justify that all you want.

Then there is the British government. As well as its own inanities, it also follows the US and French in theirs, from Israel to what is increasingly recognised to be the bloody blunder of Libya.

Finally, there is the false counsel that the deepening economic crisis means that they simply don’t have the money for war, especially one that would make the previous oil shocks look merely like an irritating case of gazumping.

It is true that the Pentagon now faces financial constraint – and the US accounts for 75 per cent of Nato military spending.

Obama has officially announced what has long been known to be the new military doctrine — to draw down as many forces as possible in Europe and the Middle East and to redeploy into a more aggressive posture encircling China.

Hence the withdrawal from Iraq and the doomed attempt to exert influence there from an absurdly named “embassy” of 16,000 people including 5,000 mercenaries, which means that the private sector picks up the bill for their pensions, missing body parts and so on.

This is precisely the point. For decade after decade the US state could provide guns as well as butter in the form of rising living standards and economic growth. Now it can provide no butter. But it has every intention of providing guns.

According to its own warped logic it has no alternative.

Facing a growing China and shifting balance in the world economy, the one thing that US capitalists have is a super-abundance of guns which can be used to extract other people’s butter.

So don’t imagine that financial strictures and the strains of shifting the military balance to the Pacific mean that there is more likelihood of the US, with its allies, accepting Iran as a major, independent regional power in the Gulf — the most important oil-producing area on the planet.

The opposite is the case. It is more likely to lead them to calculate that it is better to “take down” Iran now, which is why they are concerned about Syria, in order not to leave a gigantic problem as they are forced to refocus elsewhere.

It’s more likely to leave them more dependent on arming bellicose and volatile allies in the region to hold the fort during and after — Saudi Arabia and Israel.

And if you think the dysfunctional US political system has a tendency to produce crazies, it is nothing compared to Riyadh and Tel Aviv.

Does this mean that war is inevitable? Far from it. The mobilisation of mass opinion can shift the calculus, allied as it now can be with the revolutionary developments in Egypt, Yemen and elsewhere.

We need to raise the alarm in order to agitate that mass.

We also need to stand foursquare against all the softening-up arguments that are being deployed to send us to sleep — from new dodgy dossiers to fanciful suggestions that perhaps just a little bit of military action in Libya, or Syria, will be welcome and an alternative to wider suffering and conflagration.

It is not. It is what it always has been — stepping stones to greater slaughter.
The Stop the War Coalition national steering committee meets next Saturday. I urge you to follow its deliberations and calls to action.