07.07.2005

Finances and mass consciousness

Last week was important, to say the least. The huge demonstration in Edinburgh and the Live 8 concert in London's Hyde Park brought a whole mass into political action for the first time. Inevitably the level of consciousness is extremely low. Most of them look for leadership from people such as Sir Bob Geldof, Bono and Gordon Brown. Not the organised left. Obviously through ongoing involvement, that can change. That is why, having captured Make Poverty History, the establishment will now try and divert the whole thing into heart-bleeding liberal gestures and charity-mongering dead ends. There is, after all, no democracy in Make Poverty History, no means of exerting popular control. The whole thing is run according to elitist principles. Meantime, the take-up of communist literature is going to be negligible, at least relative to the numbers mobilised. At the moment people really do believe that poverty can be abolished by eight men "¦ if there is good will and a bit of moral pressure. Nevertheless, our Summer Offensive has been given a healthy boost. Last issue I reported that we were at £6,064, or a fifth of the way towards our £30,000 target. Well, we have moved forward "¦ mainly due to sales in Edinburgh. Comrades there raised £2,500 just over the weekend. That includes a donation of £20 from comrade DB in York. Hyde Park proved somewhat more modest - only £150. This does not reflect upon the abilities of the 'reserve' forces we kept behind in London. Rather it was the consciousness of those attending the Live 8 concert. Many, though by no means all, came along simply because the event was free and had an impressive line-up of famous musicians. Others felt they were solving global poverty merely by being there. Besides that we had another £140 sent in, including a cheque for £60 from that long-time supporter of the Weekly Worker, comrade TR. In total therefore we are now up to £8,854. With the disruption caused by comrades still being in Edinburgh, as I write these lines, we are not in a position in the Weekly Worker office to tell you how much we received via our PayPal facility. But I can tell you that, as of the stroke of midnight on Wednesday July 6, we notched up 12,439 e-readers over the last seven days l Howard Roake