Letters

Republicans

Jack Conrad writes: “However, the northern bourgeoisie became increasingly frightened by the results of the second revolution. Most Republican leaders - the Republican Party was formed in 1854 out of the remnants of the Federal Party - were unenthusiastic about freeing the slaves. And after the Confederacy had been defeated, they feared that the poor - especially the doubly oppressed black population - would push democracy way beyond the limits imposed on it by the interests of property. Black soldiers in the union army kept their 
rifles and the freed slaves organised action committees and defence squads. There was a series of splits in the Republican Party.”

It was actually the Whig Party, which did descend from Federalists, that the Republicans came from.

Joseph Tyler
email

Disappointment

Further to Jack Conrad’s concise political history of the US, American rulers have always disavowed an interest in military adventure abroad, in contrast with the old empires of Britain and France (‘One, two, three revolutions’, April 21). Yet from Mexico to Cuba, Europe to Asia, Washington has never stopped intervening with force to assist its commercial empire - aka ‘freedom’.

Accordingly, in Hollywood cinema we mostly find not happy squads of ‘officers and men’, as in British film, but various gunslingers, lone wolves (Rambo), fantasy guerrillas (Star wars) and subaltern grunts supposedly fighting for themselves as much as Old Glory. Every movie from Shane to Avatar, not forgetting An officer and a gentleman, proposes that patriots need not be interested in the facts of a military class going about its job, but only the bravado of a ‘few good men’, initially reluctant, but still ready to survive the fight with Evil.

In politics, we are even presented with Democrats not keen on war, like Bobby Kennedy and Obama, who manage, however, to never totally condemn the federal state’s military ‘responsibilities’. But Hillary Clinton - currently all hugs and adherence to ‘smart power’ - may prove, as president, as big a disappointment to her fans as warrior Blair was to his. I don’t fancy the Palestinians’ chances much.

Mike Belbin
London

Simple

Arthur Bough writes that the Labour Party “always has been and still is a bourgeois workers’ party” (Letters, April 21). True, but the question is, can it be anything else and under what conditions?

Too often the term ‘bourgeois workers’ party’ is used to justify sectarianism. As long as capitalism thrives, the right wing will control the party or have significant influence on it. If capitalism goes into long-term decline, the right will begin to lose their influence and thereby their control of the party. But there are issues which are more important than the present nature of the Labour Party, such as the nature of the left in general.

For instance, whether socialism comes to Britain via the Labour Party or some other grouping, it will probably end in some kind of police dictatorship, encouraged by the Marxist theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, followed by the state bureaucracy trying to take power, if we are not careful. This is precisely what needs to be avoided.

What do we need to do? The answer is simple: we should all campaign for a democratic socialist society. I want the freedom to criticise a socialist government, leader or theory.

Tony Clark
Labour supporter

Weird

Arthur Bough’s letter, which says the ‘working class’ has a bourgeois outlook, is clearly an attempt to scramble the readers’ minds. We are being befuddled by words and collective terms that need to be broken apart in order to understand them afresh.

As for Ukip, it would be interesting to look at the political map to see where their support is coming from in order to challenge the lie that they are some kind of additional ‘working class’ election vehicle. It doesn’t seem credible that a business-minded party that hasn’t got a democratic bone in its body should be classified in that way.

We need to get back to solid social and economic reality. Capitalism, according to Arthur Bough, is vital to the existence of the ‘working class’. Just as in Alice in Wonderland it couldn’t get weirder than that.

Elijah Traven
Hull

Busted flush

The sort of Labour Party we need is one that can get elected.

As a backbench outsider MP, Corbyn manifested out of Nato, out of Europe, scrap Trident and use reserves to avoid cuts. No-one paid any attention and he could avoid the political realities, of which he had no experience. Now he is a frontbench insider and he has learnt the political realities of that position. So six months after his election, he now manifests in Nato, in Europe, swap the nuclear warheads for conventional ones and don’t set illegal anti-austerity budgets.

This apparent volte-face is the result of the political realities that he now faces if he wants to get elected in 2020. By the time we reach 2020, Corbynism will have mutated in Blairism. That is necessary to win the Tory marginals that hold the keys to No10.

All the busted flushes that constitute the fringe left continue to think like backbench MPs who can say what they like because no-one except naive young idealists and tired old revolutionaries pays them any attention.

Capitalism is not approaching its final crisis. Class conflict is not about to break out like wildfire the length and breadth of the country. The working class is not going to leap up and overthrow the existing order. Dream on.

Unless you can get elected, then all your policies are merely leaves in the wind.

Michael Ellison
email

Exploitation

Eugene McAteer (Letters, April 21) writes: “There is no better way to free the working classes than a secure income.” Free them from what, Eugene? Certainly not from capitalist wage-slavery.

Marx explains: “A rise in the price of labour, as a consequence of accumulation of capital, only means, in fact, that the length and weight of the golden chain the wage-worker has already forged for himself allow of a relaxation of the tension of it. In proportion as capital accumulates, the lot of the labourer, be his payment high or low, must grow worse.”

He explains elsewhere that “the system of wage labour is a system of slavery, and indeed of a slavery which becomes more severe in proportion as the social productive forces of labour develop, whether the worker receives better or worse payment.”

The Marxist concept of exploitation is very different from a proposition which equates exploitation with workers being paid low wages. Even if we were paid high wages, we would still be exploited. Exploitation is something which is built into the very nature of the employment relation itself, which implies the division of society into employers/owners and employees/non-owners and all this entails. Apologies if I misinterpreted the letter’s intent and am preaching to the converted.

Alan Johnstone
SPGB

Hypocrisy

There are images in every conflict symbolically summarising its nature which we cannot forget - brutal scenes which create indelible memories. Such as the events sometimes captured on film by the organisation B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.

On March 24, in the occupied city of Hebron, Ramzi al-Qasrawi and Abd al-Fatah a-Sharif, two Palestinian residents, attacked Israeli troops with a knife. One soldier was left slightly injured and the two assailants were immediately neutralised by Israeli gunfire. A lethal shot killed al-Qasrawi on the spot and another bullet wounded a-Sharif.

The video filmed by a passer-by and then sent to B’tselem opens with a-Sharif lying, open arms and eyes skyward, in the middle of the blocked road. Around the man, there is the coming and going of troops, doctors and civilians helping the wounded soldier, while others transmit radio messages, reporting on the incident. A-Sharif is clearly alive, but ignored by doctors and soldiers. No-one seems interested in approaching him or providing first aid - a legal and military requirement, and more notably a human and moral duty of any doctor. And it is precisely this indifference that seems to outline, as I see it, the sense of despair and madness illustrating the absurdity of the ongoing conflict and oppression, carried out for political and economic interests, power and money.

Only a few more seconds into the video and the unexpected happens: a military paramedic cocks his rifle, moves a few steps towards a-Sharif, who is still lying on the ground. Unhurriedly he takes aim and pulls the trigger, releasing a bullet which hits the Palestinian in the head and kills him instantly. Unaffected by the sound of the shot, everything proceeds unchanged - the same bustle continues, the same soldier with his ear to the radio carries on as if nothing has happened.

These are shocking images of an execution in broad daylight - ignored by almost everyone present: soldiers, doctors, paramedics, commanding officers. Judging by the coldness and lack of interest of the parties involved, it is natural to ask whether this is not a common reality, a daily occurrence. One can almost wonder whether there would have been any need to comment on what happened but for the uncomfortable fact that this execution was filmed and the video made public. Otherwise what impact would it have made on public opinion?

Should this tragic event not be thoroughly investigated now that it has been made public? Should the culprits not be judged in the courts before the eyes of all?

However, Zionist propaganda has to carry on perpetrating the myth of the inevitability of the occupation and the moral superiority of its perpetrators. And so it was when the unnamed soldier - little more than 18 years old - was brought before the judges. He claimed he feared that the Palestinian had a bomb strapped around his waist. But the same commanders who were uninterested and distant during the fatal event itself rejected that defence - it was all a lie. Justice had to be served and punishment meted out.

Of course, nothing can restore the victim to life, but we should also spare a thought for the soldier on trial, to whom the papers refer only by his initial, ‘A’. The executioner, the man who pulled the trigger, is also a victim. A victim of the system that led him to take up that gun and shoot.

In contrast to their silence and impassivity during the act itself, his commanders were suddenly prominent in hurling allegations at this one individual. Once the video was distributed, everything turned upside-down. Nobody had tried to stop ‘A’ before he took aim, no-one took his weapon away after the crime, no-one paid any attention. But suddenly everyone was high-minded and upright in their condemnation.

But in a system that prepares kids to love weapons and the flag, and to hate the designated enemy, a system which teaches them to shoot and puts a machine gun in their hands, who can frankly and sincerely expect that such tragic events will not happen? Certainly not the politicians and rightwing leaders, the military chiefs and heads of institutions which themselves instruct the lower ranks on how to commit such crimes - and then, hypocritically, act amazed and dismayed if they are committed in front of a camera.

Shlomo Ben Yosef
Tel Aviv