Sounding even more like Queen this time around

Wheeling out the international desk

For some cheap, cheap commentary. We haven't been to Venezuela for a fair while. Let's start with some basics.

Revolutions are moments and/or periods when great masses of ordinary people take the initiative to try to change the course of history. This has been the case in Venezuela at the very least at certain points in the last 10 years. The crucial part of every revolution is how they have been sustained and how they have been institutionalised (in every sense of the word) from great matters of state to petty details in civil society, social habits and norms. This is because movements of ordinary people rise and fall. If permanent revolution meant revolution all the time then it would be impossible. This means for every period of revolution there will be a period of reaction.

I may be wrong, but the last apparent mobilisation from below in Venezuela was the drive to win the recall election in 2004. This appears to have been the spur for Chavez to go over to socialism, at least in terms of rhetoric. The meaning of his socialism has yet to fully unfold. You get things like the missions, which aim to deliver services to the working class and poor, bypassing the deeply corrupt state machine (which has yet to have been dealt with). But have these missions made workers power a reality or created a new type of clientelism?

Here we go with news that the Venezuelan public prosecutor is proposing laws to jail journalists who put out material harmful to the public good:

Under the draft law on media offences, information deemed to be "false" and aimed at "creating a public panic" will also be punishable by prison sentences...

It states that anyone - newspaper editor, reporter or artist - could be sentenced to between six months and four years in prison for information which attacks "the peace, security and independence of the nation and the institutions of the state".

This is in part understandable, given the extent to which the private media collaborates with the oligarchy, who still long to overthrow Bolivarianism. But it is also clear that this is an initiative coming from the top of the state. It could plainly be used in many contexts. There is great potential as well as great difficulties within the PSUV. What hope is there for any socialist (or left-wing radical generally) with a independent point of view?

It's probably easiest to say, "fall in and defend the revolution". Venezuela is still and example that undermines TINA. But whose revolution is it now?

Something I missed

The file on New Labour authoritarianism is getting pretty fat, but this needs recording.

The government was accused tonight of giving itself draconian powers to clamp down on protests at the 2012 Olympics. Critics said the powers were so broad they would potentially give private contractors the right to forcibly enter people's homes and seize materials.

The London Olympic Games and Games Act 2006, Section 19(4) reads: "The regulations may apply in respect of advertising of any kind including in particular – (a) advertising of a non-commercial nature, and (b) announcements or notices of any kind." While Section 22 allows a "constable or enforcement officer" to "enter land or premises" where they believe (believe, the SO19 squad believed Jean Charles De Menezes was Hussain Osman, apparently) such an advert is being shown or produced. It allows for materials to be destroyed, and for the use of "reasonable force"... reasonable force.

Of course, what we really know is London will be locked down by 2012. People deemed to be insufficientl loyal will be rounded up and hung for various new crimes. Those crimes will include:

Failing to shop in a built up area.
Being under-25 in a built up area.
Holding an unlicenced opinion.
Attempting to convince a member of the public of an unlicenced opinion.
Knowing more about the law than a police officer.
Refusing to allow reasonable physical chastisement from a police officer.
Resusing to allow a police helicopter to fly up your arse.
Failure to salute the Home Secretary (who, by 2012, following the inorexable downward trend of Home Secretaries will either be [1] an open gangster [2] a xenomorph or [3] Prince Harry).
Defacing the barcode on your wrist.
Playing sport and/or games for the fun of it.
Failing to laugh at Little Britain.
Being a member of anything.
Going home by a different route.
Refusal to remember the good old days.
Unneccesary public mirth.
Walking in an unusual mannner.
Wondering where all the homeless people went.
Wondering how certain run of the mill atheletes suddenly improved six months before the games.
Telling jokes about the Olypmic logo (it does not look like Lisa Simpson giving head AND IT NEVER DID!)
Attempting to distract an athelete from training.
Refusing to give blood to an injured athelete.
Questioning the social value of an athelete's sport.
Glorifying the opposition.
Approaching the main stadium in an irreverent manner.

You get my drift...

Mindhorn

H2O

The fun never starts: Part 13

The assembly met the following morning in triumphant mood. A turning point had been reached. The future was clear to be made anew.

Everywhere was being beaten the conspiracy. In France it was caught in the ice-grip of a general strike, its committees holding effective power. Berlin was under occupation by its free citizens and the rebels were being driven south, into the Alps. Even the US soldiers based there joined the struggle. Partisans in Italy were slowly sweeping north. Rome was under firm control. Only the Veneto had any fascist forces left.

As the delegates met stories came in from all over the world. Reports were read out, excited voices, cheers, stunned disbelief. Mass demos in St Petersburg for the first time in nearly 100 years. The fellaheen and factory workers were descending on Cairo. Over in Bolivia the slum dwellers of El Alto had come down to occupy La Paz one last time. A republic was declared in Saudi Arabia. A new government suddenly appeared in China, promising an end to poverty and political reform.

But dark rumours persisted of a catastrophe, some said atrocity, in the west. The assembly had finished its first full session. It was a late autumn evening. The sun was setting. It was warm for that time of year. A break and hundreds of delegates streamed out onto the plaza to get some fresh air. As they looked, in the west they could see a deep red sunset, very deep, much deeper than you’d normally expect.

The great earthquake, the Big One that took California down sent millions of tonnes of debris into the sky. As he delegates looked on at this vivid sunset and wondered many Americans knew. Clogging, ashen horror was falling over swathes of North America, bombarding and choking all life. Though no one knew at the time, a great deal of this debris was radioactive.

The recently restored government started sending out distress signals, pleas for help. The signals were a sign of things to come. They were the start of the Year Without Sun.

Pitiful, horrific messages were picked up and passed around the globe. In reality no one could come to the victims help. Millions were killed in the initial collapse. A giant caving fissure was opened up from Baja California to Oregon. If anyone had survived the initial quake the Pacific Ocean, billions upon billions of tonnes of water rebounding from the tsunami, came gushing in, scouring all hope.

As the clouds of dust and ash rained down millions more perished over the next few hours. Half a dozen simultaneous eruptions added to the debris from the Big One. One report said that Mount St Helens opened up in a mile-wide fissure. All but the very far east of the country was affected in some way.

The sudden burst of energy created great storms, as cold air rushed across the continent, forming gigantic lightning bursts and lashing rain, followed by swirling herds of tornadoes. The storms of course whipped the dust and debris further across the land.

A tidal wave spread out across the Pacific Ocean. Most inhabited islands were overrun. People assumed there were no survivors. People were found much later on living on the peaks of the Hawaiian Islands.

The wave slowed as it travelled. However, effects were felt on the other side of the ocean. Coastal cities in Japan and the Philippines were evacuated. Twelve hours after the explosion the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolis was flooded out.

As hours turned into days, most of the survivors back in North America began abandoning the towns and cities. The government tried to keep people in their homes. In New York they even (foolishly) deployed the army to help what was left of the Police prevent ‘looting’. Riots ensued.

Some refugees started boarding ships (all planes were grounded without special permission). Some ships were touted by their quick-thinking owners for especially high prices. As the trickle became a torrent, ships more often were commandeered. Crews tried to set sail before they were completely swamped.

Vessels were packed to the rafters, dangerously overweight. A few crews refused to set sail and were either kicked off the boat or murdered. The government tried to catch up with the situation. Navy vessels were dispatched. Officers and crew on leave were sent to the ships to try to restore order.

The situation was on a knife-edge. All ships were ordered to drop nonessential cargo set sail with their human freight. A great flotilla began to creep onto the sea. Ships were to either head north to Newfoundland or south to the Caribbean, although no plans had been made for what they would do when they got there.

Despite lightening the load most ships sunk a few miles out to sea. Some made it further out but were never seen again. Only a few saw land again.

The majority of refugees fled over land. Citizens of the rebel states had a head start making for Mexico. The government was again legislating after the fact.

It was announced that the new Vice President (the previous Vice President had been killed during the short occupation of Washington DC) was heading for Mexico City with members of the Cabinet and Chiefs of Staff to set up a reserve government in the event of a total collapse. Although this was news to the Mexican government they did eventually agree. Also weighing on the President’s mind was the possibility that the rebels might use Mexico City as a base for further attacks. He had good reasons and real reasons for wanting to get there first.

In the space of a week Mexico City swelled from 30 million to an estimated 60 million inhabitants. Though the citizens did welcome the refugees, parks and public were totally enveloped. Fresh shantytowns surrounded the suburbs almost overnight.

The new residents were poor, tired and sick, huddled in dangerous masses. The Mexican government was afraid of an outbreak. There were also rumours of a deadly dust cloud heading south. The great exodus had to continue, down through Central America. A year later Mexico City was also a shadow of its former self. Dilapidated, home to 4 million.

Newsgrazers

Here's some stuff worthy of note. The spate of British soldiers dying in Afghanistan has led to the argument sharpening up. Simon Jenkins has an apparently sane, well-informed take on the prospects for Blair's original jihad, summing up:

Everyone knows that the British will go but the Taliban will stay. That is why the strategy of take, hold and build is mere pastiche imperialism. It relies on the palpable nonsense that the Afghan army, a drugged militia of little competence and less loyalty, will fight and defeat its Pashtun cousins. It will not.

Keep that one in yr back pocket.The American and Chinese governments are committed to trade. Jolly good. In January 2009 China owned 24% of American debt, or $739.6 billion dollars. According to the latest figures its now closer to $800, so they better be committed to trade.

The recent Tibetan uprising showed the flaw in the simple rainbow revolution strategy. People appear in the streets, something happens, a liberal (or at least pro-western) government is formed. That something is usually a push from a ruling class, usually the American ruling class. The US ruling class does not need a pro-western government in Beijing. It already has one.

Not news, but more excellent space stuff. Check out the NASA and University of Iowa pages on radio emissions from Saturn. Eerie stuff.

Oh, oh, oh, and the band The Get Up Kids have apologised for inventing Emo. Repent, repent and seek forgiveness!

Meanwhile, in stella news...

Jupiter's been taking a pounding, as you can see from the picture. It was probably hit by a comet. Jupiter is, of course, very handy for life on earth; sucking up a large amount of the debris that would otherwise reach the inner solar system and cause havoc.

Interesting missions coming up: expect good stuff to come from the New Horizons mission, currently heading toward the Pluto system, in 2015. Those of you who can't wait here is the most recent picture taken from the craft. Those of you who can't wait, and who can, should make do with a mission to Vesta and Ceres, which should get most info from 2012-15.

First person coming here from WarmingUp to look at this post gets... well nothing.

Afghanistan: key words

See here:

A concerted effort to start unprecedented talks between Taliban and British and American envoys was outlined yesterday in a significant change in tactics designed to bring about a breakthrough in the attritional, eight-year conflict in Afghanistan.

The first key word is "talks". The various militia in Iraq were pacified through talks, leaving, by the way, a patchwork of power around the nominal government. Afghanistan is already covered by a patchwork of warlord sovereignty. Even at face value the President of Afghanistan is the Mayor of Kabul... and that leads me onto the second set of important words, "British and American envoys".

Not Afghan envoys.

"One false move and I'm Jim Davidson."

There are no big wars on, no celebrity deaths or great political scandals to divert our goldfish minds. Instead, let's look at how offensive comedy seems to have become.

The above quote is from Ricky Gervais's live show. A different example (we can all think of a few): Richard Herring is currently putting on a show called Hitler Moustache, where (and I haven't seen the show) he apparently dishes up straightfaced endorsements of racist ideas. Quotes from the performance:

One recent episode aired Herring's purported hatred of Pakistanis, a routine that he expands on in his new standup set. In another routine, he claims to support the BNP's policy to deport all black people from the UK. Into the awkward laughter that greets this joke, he says: "Don't go thinking I'm the new Bernard Manning. I'm being postmodern and ironic. I understand that what I'm saying is unacceptable." Then he pauses. "But does that make me better than Manning, or much, much worse?" This is "playing around with things", he tells me: "it's the intent behind it that's the important thing."

The trouble with judging things by intent is everyone means well.

The article points out the case of Al Murray. Back in the 1990s there was a right-wing populist obsession with the European Union. People were desperately concerned who would set the interest rates and whether the Queen would still be on coins; almost for lack of anything real to worry about. The Tories were running out the clock before Labour got back in.

Al Murray Pub Landlord satirised this politics and the attendant culture, lumpen nouveau middle class conservatism. These days Al Murray has a slightly anachronistic tint. He, probably wisely, doesn't touch on the modern obsession of Islamophobia. That said Al Murray no longer satirises but celebrates this culture. He has been swept along.

I am not particularly fond of the old-times. One thing I would like to see return is the shame in bigotry. Of course there was racism, sexism and homophobia; too much of it. After the struggles of the 80s it was generally accepted that these were bad things. People accused of prejudice had to work to prove they weren't bigoted, that or shut up. This is not the case anymore.

It cannot be a coincidence that we have also had a near-10-year ruling class drive to legitimise prejudice toward muslims as part the war effort. The drive to legitimise particular bigotry can only have a knock on effect, legitimising it in general. Can you smell the sulphur, feel the damp rise?

Is it enough to say I'm challenging lefty-liberal guilt? The majority of people attending comedy nights are relatively well off. But the world is not run by them.

When it comes to handling hot topics, you shouldn't simply play with ideas such as the forced deportation of Black-Britons and sigh if people don't get it (if that is what's happening). You have to be clear, otherwise it is much, much worse.

Even More French Revolution

Lenin once described a social democrat as a Jacobin linked to the working class. The last legacy of the French revolution was reconstituting notions of citizenship and universal democracy. The people sitting at the greatest peak of the revolution were known as the Montagnards, the mountain, as they sat on the top benches of the national assembly. They were also known as the Jacobins, after the political club they belonged to.

They reached the peak of power because they were connected with Paris masses, who felt they spoke for them, while the Jacobins in turn carried out their decisions through the masses. They were linked.

There was an interesting moment in the revolution, June 2nd 1793, when a particular radical section of the Parisian masses purged what was then called the National Convention (a body with legislative and executive power), calling for a fixed price on bread and a restriction of the franchise to the lower classes. This was the first faint notion of working class power. The movement of the Parisian masses, known as the Sans Culottes, threatened the bounds of private property. As the Convention, led by the Jacobins (who supported private property) fought to maintain themselves, the clamped down on the Paris radicals, undermining their own basis and leading to their eventual downfall.

Democracy, as we know it today, is presented as the will of the people. In fact it is a tool for generating consent. In most cases the decision has already been taken. If the public cannot be won to supporting it, the power can actually bring it into be despite the opposition (e.g. the Iraq war) or simply ask the same question again (example: the Irish referrendum)

There was already a strong executive under the ancien regime. The long revolution actually ended up strengthening the power of the executive, to the point where it was simply capped with an emperor. The revolution of 1871 dissolved the state into the perople, as such it was something qualitatively different.

The French revolution turned on various uprisings in Paris. The city was utterly hegemonic in French public life. The old power would retreat to various parts of the country, try to set the village against the city. Power, which they had formally used to rule, was now set against them in the form of the sans culottes.

The French revolution created democracy as we know it. The ruling class presents its decisions to the public for ratification. But it also created an alternative form of democracy. If formal democracy is democracy after the fact, revolutionary democracy, where different groups would put out calls for action and Paris would respond, was democracy in the act.

A much smaller example of different types of democracy, the rank and file of the CWU is pushing for a national strike in the face of attempts by Royal Mail and the government to break the union. There are currently 500 ballots for strike action in progress or pending. Should the union obey the dictates of the law and formal democracy and wait for each ballot (in which time the changes may be driven through), or should the members launch unofficial action and rely on democracy in the event?

Moosic

Temper Trap: from Australia. They sound nothing like their name: Science of Fear:



Reverend and the Makers. Until now Jon McLure has simply been a great guy. But now he's gone one better and made some good music: Silence is Talking.

"Armed with supplies of food..."

The police, by their own description, are trying to starve the Vesas occupiers into submission:

In the early hours, a supporter from Kent was arrested when he rushed on to the factory premises and tried to attach food to a rope lowered by the protesters from a balcony.

Ben Leamy, 38, was held for several hours but released without charge.

His custody sheet, seen by The Times, accused him of being “armed with supplies of food”.

The arresting officer wrote: “Believed that the DP [Detained Person] was going to supply the food. In doing so, fear that that the protest would be prolonged and therefore possibility of breach of the peace. Arrested to prevent same.”

Pigs!

Send messages of support to: savevestas@googlemail.com
Lobby: ps.ed.miliband@decc.gsi.gov.uk
Object to: professional.standards@hampshire.pnn.police.uk
Demonstrate (in London): Wednesday 22nd July , 6.00 pm, outside the Department of Energy and Climate Change, No 3 Whitehall Place
(off Whitehall, Charing Cross tube).
Updates: http://savevestas.wordpress.com/

Save Vestas

Vestas is a multinational company that makes wind turbines. Despite the business making large profits (59% 1.1 billion Euro rise in sales in the last quarter), despite government's verbal commitment to green jobs, factories in the Isle of Wight and Southampton are being threatened with closure.

Vestas workers in Newport IOW have gone into occupation to save the factory. Here is a quote (c/o The Sauce) from one of the staff there, explaining why.

"This protest is about jobs and about the environment. The government says it will create 40,000 new green jobs but there is 600 highly trained staff right here and we're being threatened with redundancy.

"I split with my partner a few weeks ago partly because of the pressure of hearing about our jobs going. There are people who are mortgaged up to the hilt and HP-ed to the hilt and they are desperately trying to keep their jobs.

"I went to sign on last week for the first time in 20 years and was told there were just 37 jobs here on the island. And they were chefs, cleaners and care work. I'm a skilled member of staff. I've spent five years getting skills and I'm being offered wages a quarter of what I earn now."

Word is they are currently under attack from riot police. Save Vestas, support the occupation.

Teenage pregnancy and STDs rose under George Bush presidency

Which should be another source of shame for the Good Old Boy.

In a report that will surprise few of Bush's critics on the issue, the Centres for Disease Control says years of falling rates of teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted disease infections under previous administrations were reversed or stalled in the Bush years. According to the CDC, birth rates among teenagers aged 15 or older had been in decline since 1991 but are up sharply in more than half of American states since 2005. The study also revealed that the number of teenage females with syphilis has risen by nearly half after a significant decrease while a two-decade fall in the gonorrhea infection rate is being reversed. The number of Aids cases in adolescent boys has nearly doubled.

Chuck on top a booming prison system, a mountain of debt, declining public services, a decade of war and a seemingly terminal recession and you have a deeply toxic legacy left by Bush for future generations. Young Americans would be well within their rights to spit on his unfilled grave.

Back the topic there is a clear correlation between this rise and the rise in promotion of abstinence. This should be case closed with regard to that idea, although the religious right will fight on:

Kristi Hamrick, a spokeswoman for American Values, which describes itself as a supporter of traditional marriage and "against liberal education and cultural forces", said the abstinence message is overwhelmed by a culture obsessed with sex.

"It is ridiculous to say that a programme we nominally invest in has failed when it fails to overcome the most sexualised culture in world history. Education that emphasises abstinence as the best option for teens makes up a minuscule part of overall sex education in the United States," she said.

Which makes you wonder. Sexuality (in the fullest sense of the word) is the most common human pastime. It is the most common creative outlet and source of comfort. The American Values spokesperson almost hits the nail on the head. Culture has always been sexualised. Modern culture, however, is commodified, and that is what distorts human relationships.

The leaders of the religious right, and the ruling class in general must know that teaching sexual abstinence to young adults will fail. It will fail if the goal is reducing teenage pregancy and STDs.

But if the goal is to mire a generation into quiescence (in the same way Mike Davis argues the ruling class fostered urban riots to drive through neo-liberal cuts) then it is surely succeeding. The 60s youth rebellion was based on affluence. Young people had the time and money to enjoy life, but not the social or political freedom.

The US ruling class has worked day and night to roll back the freedoms won by the 68ers. There is probably no misery they're unwilling to inflict to make sure their power will never be challenged again.

More French Revolution

The French revolution was a bourgeois revolution. To cut a 90 year long story short it created an independent centre of capital accumulation in France. Simples.

To do so the revolution had to create a unified state with a single language, law, currency, borders and so on. Much of this was formally acomplished by feudal absolutism, in the same way that much of the socialism programme has been formally accomplished under capitalism. We call that state capitalism, which is simultaneously the closest pass and furthest from socialism, workers power.

The French revolution created the modern idea of nationality. Nationhood before the revolution was a much looser concept. For example, it was not expected that the head of state would speak the native language or even come from the same country. The French revolution made national sovereignty into a key political norm.

This was countered, after the first great bout of the revolution, by the Concert of Europe. It was an agreement between old ruling class that formalised the pacts and military coalitions against the French revolution. The key idea was the powers each had a duty to uphold territorial arrangement agreed at the Congress of Vienna. In other words states had the right to intervene in the internal affairs of other states where the common good (defined as the interest of the ruling class) was threatened.

This is an early example of the idea of interventionism, a disputed concept even today. Against this revolutionaries uphold the right of national self-determination and the self-sufficiency of each revolution. The success of a revolution is its own moral defence.

Phun Phriday Philler

Actually that depends on your definition on Phun. Here's something I'm probably the last to know, there are seven colours of sound.

For no rasin

Talkin bout revolution

There are two events that stand out in the modern mind as Revolution, The French and Russian revolutions. While the Russian revolution is often closed off for discussion as a revolution, the French revolution is relatively open. That's not to say people don't fight hard ideological battles over its meaning.

Let's have a good old think about what the French revolution has left us in terms of politics and culture (I want to have a long dander along the lines of Jacobinism later). Firstly there is the image of revolution.

See the picture above. It's very famous picture called La liberté guidant le peuple (Liberty Leading the People) by Eugène Delacroix. This is the common visualisation of revolution. Perhaps you'd throw in a dash of Les Miserables, but it more or less sums up radical eruption in most people's minds.

This vision of revolution is amended slightly for modern times. One of the things invented by the French revolution was the modern, professional army. Ordinary people cannot take on the modern military in a straight fight, they have to win over members of the armed forces. So, we have the appearance of people in the street, refusing to give ground. That is revolution.

Or, at least, that is revolution the event. As well as a grand act of overturn, revolution is also a process of change as people attempt to find new ways of living. Revolution is a change in social attitude, of personal habit, of thought, of work and play. Take these things out of the picture you have a great deal of trouble explaining revolution, either after or before the fact.

Explain to people how a future revolution might avoid degenerating into tyranny you say something along the lines of: "it has to spread and, eventually, go global". Global revolution? What, you want us to all simultaneously storm each local Bastille? Of course not. Revolution is a process, as well as an event.

As a side note the notion of insurrection as essentially chaotic, frantic dismantling, overthrowing is used to undermine the October uprising. How can a mass uprising be so effortless, almost bloodless? Some people conclude October was a coup de etat. This is contradictory to begin with. Strictly speaking a coup de etat is where part of the state, usually the army, overthrows the government. The state structure is left intact.

The October revolution replaced one state structure with another. Once you add in the movement from the defeat of Kornilov, through the re-election of the soviets, up to the insurrection itself (in other words the process of revolution) you can see this clearly.

Other anniversaries

July 20th will be the 40th anniversary of the Moon landings. SW has a nice, orthodox piece regarding the contradiction of good reasons vs real reasons for the Apollo mission.

There are many ironies about modern militarism. In the 1950s the US war machine spend time and money developing a chemical that, by the 1960s, became the sacrament of the greatest anti-military movement in living memory.

The Apollo astronauts, who "came in peace for all mankind” were brave, talented men. But they were the cutting edge of US techno-military struggle, which at the same time was bearing down on millions of people in South-East Asia. Once the great boom began to falter by the mid-seventies Apollo was deemed uneconomic. Mankind has not been back to the moon since.

Happy Bastille Day

Celebrate, the traditional way.

"Why don't the BBC just change their domain to .gov.uk and be done with it?"

Grammatically wonky but to the point; a commenter underneath Seamus Milne's latest piece.

From the way official Britain pontificates about the war in Afghanistan, you'd never know that most British people want troops withdrawn by the end of the year and only a minority have supported the US-led campaign for years.

Today's ICM poll for the Guardian and the BBC's Newsnight shows 56% want all British troops out of Afghanistan by the end of the year, and 60% by 2011, against 36% who want them to stay until "they are no longer needed".

That was interpreted by the Guardian's headline writer today as "public support for war is firm, despite deaths".

In terms of actual news: PM says Afghan soldiers must hold ground taken by British forces. Stop for a moment and think, what kind of government has to be asked to hold territory that is supposed to already belong to it? The Obama gamble is that Iraq would be written off so Afghanistan could be brought to a successful conclusion (from the point of view of the US ruling class).

The trouble is they are fighting Afghans for control of Afghanistan.

Top Tips

C/o Proletarian Tide.

On that double-dip recession

There is a greater context to the recession (being the declining rate of profit). In terms of actions, though, we have to note government action around the height of the winter crash stabilised the situation, but at the cost of serveral knock on effects:

Fears that the global economy is poised to sink back into recession after a brief spring rally took centre stage as leaders of the G8 gathered in Italy for their annual summit today.

The G8 was due to discuss Barack Obama's plan for a crackdown on oil speculators amid concerns that the recent increase in crude prices threatens a double-dip recession. After falling from a peak of $147 a year ago to a trough of $35 at the turn of the year, oil prices rose above $70 a barrel last month.

We see something similar going on in terms of bankers bonuses, an example:

City accountancy firms are putting proposals to investment banks that would see high-earning bankers avoid the full impact of the new top rate of income tax on their bonuses.

The accountants Grant Thornton are believed to have contacted clients offering ways of cutting employees' tax contributions by as much as 40 per cent. There are other accountancy firms offering similar services and the fact that the service is being touted in a year that will see some bankers receive huge payments after a busy few months in the City is likely to cause consternation at the Treasury.

It comes in the week that Alistair Darling will publish his White Paper on banking reform, much of which is expected to concentrate on the way bankers' bonuses are paid.

With all the money doled out to the banks there is now the question of how it will be used and who will actually stump up (of course, the government doesn't actually have £500 billion in the kitty, it just says it will at some point). As far as 'they' are concerned it seems the working class will have to pay, in particular public sector workers.

If you follow mainstream economics you end up chasing your own tail. Why is there a recession? Lack of effective demand due to the withdrawal of overextended credit. Why was credit overextended? To cover the gap in effective demand? OK, How do we respond to a recession? We must raise profit levels. How can we do that? Cut wages and jobs, cut and/or privatise public services. Won't that reduce the level of effective demand?

Uh....................

Even Mo' Marxism

You mean there's a link? Well, yes, in every sense of the word. Around 40 Irish comrades came to London for Marxism, absolutely buzzing with enthusiasm, and with good cause. The Irish working class is fighting in the face of great odds:

Victory to the Electricians
All Out to Stop Greedy Employers

The strike by 10,500 electricians is fully justified by a group of workers who have been waiting three years for a pay rise.

The workers are owed their increase from May last year. The employers agreed an increase over a year ago, and began charging their customers on the basis that the increase was being paid. But they have stalled paying their workers what was agreed and now outrageously are demanding a pay cut.

Despite seeking proper negotiations through the LRC and the Labour Court, the union side has seen the employers refusing to engage in meaningful negotiations.

Every worker should support this strike
Let no-one be taken in by the media spin that these workers are being unrealistic. They have managed over the years to win decent pay on the basis of their skills, the profits they have made for their employers and their willingness to organise a strong trade union.

If they win this dispute, it will give encouragement to less well organised and less well paid workers to stand up for their rights too. It will show that it is possible to defend working class living standards by standing up and fighting. As employers throughout the country try to attack jobs, wages and conditions to feed their greed for profits, that spirit of fightback has never been needed more. That is why every worker should support this strike.

Shut down the industry
Jack O'Connor of SIPTU has said that his union stands ready to support the electricians through Congress if called on. But why wait? Every trade unionist, no matter what their trade or employment, must respect the electricians' picket lines and SIPTU and Congress must be made to throw their full weight behind this strike.
The stakes are so high, there needs to be a complete shutdown of the construction industry until the employers give in.

Make the bosses sacrifice, not the workers
The media also spin that we must all make sacrifices. This is doubly wrong. The developers, bankers and speculators are being bailed out to the tune of tens of billions—no sacrifice there. This sort of talk is just a crude way of trying to make working class people pay for the crisis caused by the multi-millionaires and their crazy capitalist system.

But wages restraint – and even worse pay cuts – will not safeguard jobs. Instead, with less money in our pockets, we will have less to spend which is a sure way to cause more, not less, unemployment.

Get rid of this rotten government
The electricians are fighting for their just entitlements. It is part of the same fight against health, social welfares, pension and education cuts that this discredited Fianna Fail/Green Party government is trying to ram down our throats. It's the same government that is so sweet with the crooked developers and greedy employers.

Our best defence is to stand shoulder to shoulder with the electricians and take a leaf out of their book. Fighting workers and militant trade unionism has never been needed more.

The outside world...

Is a strangle, uncanny place after several days at Marxism. In news from t'abroad, high up are the riots in Xinjiang, Western China. China is huge (duh). In different historical circumstances the various dialects which make up Chinese would have turned into full blown languages, their different speakers into full blown nationalities.

I won't pretend to know much about the current riots (this might fill some gaps). They seem to be blowing up into a significant race war between the native Uighur and the Han. The Uighur and the Tibetans are the most distinct nationalities within the current Chinese state.

The civil unrest this year and last shows that Chinese civil society is not uniformly quiescent. If you were Chinese socialist looking to attack the weakness in Chinese capitalism you would look to link these movements against national oppression with the working class movement in the great coastal cities.

China is a monumental empire, hard to break down. Each struggle should inform and encourage each other.

Mo' Marxism

I went to the Marxism and Anarchism meeting, where Chris Bambery filled in at the last moment. He did a very good job (as he almost always does). Unlike last year's encounter with the libertarian left (Callinicos vs Holloway) the meeting was less shadow boxing and more pantomime. A group of anarchists attended and sent a spokesman up with what might as well have been a pre-prepared statement.

As with Holloway, the anarchists did not seem to think it worthwhile getting up and discussing politics. None of the others got up. Unfortunately some of the comrades speaking might have confirmed their suspicions, as they started venting with (understandable) frustration at years of having to sit in meetings being subjected to jazz hands, consensus decisions and so on... then being told that they're the ones who are elitist.

Surely there must be some intelligent anarchists out there. There must be an autonomist who is not a childish provocateur. Ultimately, despite all the experience of this general milieu, we must be getting something wrong in the way we approach them, because the twain never seem to meet.

This year's meeting on the dialectic was suitably nerd-tastic. Johnny Jones brought out the essence of the topic very well, sticking to the nuts and bolts of political theory and leaving the question of relativity and whether the rose is red to gits like me.

Roobin does Blur and Marxism: part 1

So, I actually dipped out on the first day of Marxism to go and see Blur. A very kind friend of mine won tickets to their first Hyde Park gig and invited me to come along. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It was a beautiful day, the only downside was getting stuck behind a line of men taller than me (which is difficult) and having to stand on one of the pathways for most of Blur's set. That and Crystal Castles.

Dribble on the social significance of Blur and musical milieu: The first point about 90s musical culture is the similarity between Grunge and Britpop, headlined by the slogan Bungee Jump Against Racism. Both phenomena were defined by gentle political tints. But this was the age of politics without politics. The triumph of neo-liberalism in politics and economic, post-modernism in culture and thought, led to the almost complete evacuation of meaning and direction in public life.

Blur were always at the most thoughtful end of their music scene. Though Britpop was tinged by nationalism, when put to the test most prominent musicians at the time were lefties of some stripe. The retro obsession with 60s and 70s style was ultimately about connecting with a time with meaning and ideals. It is a short step from the cultural revolution to the social one.

Away to Marxism, I have heard a figure of 7,000 attendees. If true that would be great, the best ever since I started attending. Subjectively it seemed as if there were more new people, on the team, running the event. None of the meetings I went to were sparse.

Impressions: I went to Colin Sparks meeting on Friday. Does the media control ideas, staple title. The meeting actually benefited from Colin's slightly prosaic concentration on newspapers. There is still an argument going on about the value and significance of new media, in particular the internet.

I had a sleepy time in Pat Devine's meeting about his model for a socialist society. It occurred to me in the meeting, in the past numerous intellectuals (formal and Gramscian) have posed models for a future society. One of the great steps forward came when Marx and Engels linked the goal of socialism with the working class movement. The work of the intellectual (in the Gramscian sense, an individual with the means and ability to express the interests of a social group) is better as guiding and shaping the movement against capitalism, rather than realising the mental ideal of what is to be achieved.

Intellectuals don't help when they try to grab the initiative... I have decided your goal, now you realise it. Yet a lot of young, educated left-wing people often want to know specifics about what socialism will be like before they decide to commit. We cannot simply argue the movement is everything.

China Mieville's meeting The Politics of Monsters should have been complimented by an event called The Monsters of Politics, where well known lefties compete in a demolition derby to the strains of thrash metal. Not being the case I skipped to an excellent meeting about Darwin and the Origin of Species.

The Origin of Species was part of a a general intellectual breakthrough. The fundamental thesis of the Middle Ages was that everything in motion has been disturbed, objects exist naturally at rest. Darwin showed, in nature at least, differentiation comes from constant change, evolution by natural selection.

Capitalism is a dynamic system. Modern humans are used to the idea of change. The general contest is over the significance of change. Is change incremental and slow, or does it come suddenly in violent bursts? The analogue of this argument in biology is between traditional Darwinism and the model of Punctuated Equilibrium.

The fact-hungry bear pawing through the newsbins

The National Express may be giving it's train lines back to public ownership. This includes the London to Edinburgh line, East Anglia and Essex lines. They can't find a way of making money out of a bald-assed monopoly so I suppose they better return it, the nerds.

The big event that everybody thinks is a big event for everybody else except them and except that nobody knows is a big event for nobody. Michael Jackson's body is to go on public display. Do. Not. Want.

Norm Coleman, the flapping sock-puppet at attempted latter-day McCarthy has received his last slapping.

Britain is heading for a double dip recession... and no-one finds that rude or suggestive.