Letters

Shining example

On November 21, the Associated Press reported that Iraq had run out of money to pay for widows’ benefits, farm crops and other programmes for the poor, leaving those dependent upon welfare support both frustrated and angry. “How can we pay for our daily needs and for our medicine, or cover the needs of my children?”, said one woman who stopped receiving government payments over four months ago.

Some members of Iraq’s parliament demanded to know what happened to the estimated $1 billion which had been allocated for welfare by the finance ministry. The cause of the shortfall was unclear, but officials have been left worried that the deadlock over forming a new government since March’s inconclusive election would ultimately lead to further funding shortages. Whatever the cause, the welfare cut-off has been felt by average Iraqis, while MPs have been collecting around $180,000 each in one of the world’s most oil-rich nations.

Meanwhile, the Brookings Institute estimates that over 40% of Iraq’s professionals have fled since the US invaded in 2003 and, despite demand for their skills abroad, they often wind up in low sector jobs because their certifications and experience aren’t recognised, their English is often inadequate and their understanding of the host culture is sometimes limited.

“We hear these stories of the doctor who’s a nanny or the lawyer who’s driving a cab - it’s a waste of human capital,” said Tadd Wamester, manager of strategic initiatives for Upwardly Global, a New York-based non-profit agency that works with Iraqi refugees, but still there is no relief given to either the people who are bravely remaining inside or the refugees who have been forced to flee since Iraq became a ‘shining’ example of Western democracy.

Shining example
Shining example

Help

The eviction operation planned by Basildon District Council against the Dale Farm community could now cost a staggering £13 million. That is the outlay Tony Ball, head of the council, is prepared to make to bulldoze 90 homes and ‘clear’ just five acres of so-called greenbelt which will be left vacant and derelict.

In response to this ethnic-cleansing - promised in a bid to gain extreme rightwing votes in the May 2011 elections - Dale Farm families are asking supporters to come and stay with them when the eviction operation is announced.

Camp Constant is being set up to help protect homes, children and old folk from Constant & Co, the notorious private bailiff firm hired by Basildon. It will come into existence when Basildon delivers its final 28-day quit notices to residents - probably in the new year. Please send a message to dale.farm@btinternet.com if you can undertake any of the following: join the advance party setting up Camp Constant; spend at least one night at Camp Constant as part of a non-violent human shield; or join the rota of human rights monitors.

Help
Help

Grassroots

I attended the Welsh Labour Grassroots annual general meeting earlier this month. Around 40 comrades gathered for what turned out to be an interesting event.

WLG is a broad coalition of Labour left activists in Wales and attempts to cohere work that ensures the interests of working class communities in Wales are fully met not only by the Labour Party in the Welsh assembly government but also by the party in Westminster. It was unsurprising therefore that much of the AGM was spent discussing the achievements (or failures) of both.

Although the event was somewhat ‘top-heavy’, important topics emerged from the floor throughout the day around which much debate was focused. The limitations of Keynesian economics as an alternative to meeting working class needs, the differences between the Labour Party in the Welsh assembly and the party in Westminster, how socialist goals could be achieved and the issue of party democracy were all prominent concerns.

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the AGM, however, concerned the event’s main motion. Acknowledging the importance of working in the anti-cuts movement and the failure of New Labour in government, I suggested that the motion was somewhat tame on the Welsh Labour Party in the assembly. Its recent draft budget would mean even further job losses to those already expected (and taking place) as a result of the Lib-Cons austerity plans. Along with the proposal for an amendment that would note this, I also suggested an amendment that would have cohered Labour activists in Wales to campaign “most determinedly” for those Labour candidates who have fought against the idea that cuts are necessary and have pledged not to implement them.

Both proposals were defeated, although some comrades from Socialist Appeal abstained during the vote. The reasons for their defeat centred on the fact that, although far from perfect, the social democracy of the assembly party was eminently preferable to the privatisation and free-market dogma of New Labour, whilst prioritising to campaign for certain Labour candidates over others was considered divisive for the party here in Wales.

But facts are facts and jobs will go because of the assembly government’s budgetary decisions. How can a strategy other than that of a militant defence of working class rights be adopted?

Grassroots
Grassroots

Right to know

The WikiLeaks revelations regarding secret US diplomatic cables have exposed the two-faced, dirty diplomacy of the US government and its support for unsavoury regimes and human rights abusers.

Exposing duplicity and injustice is a good and honourable thing to do, regardless of whether the whistle-blowers are exposing such malpractices in the US, Britain, Russia, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, China or anywhere else.

In the absence of open, honest government, leaked documents are often the only way we have of knowing what Washington is really doing and saying. The public has a right to know matters of public interest. Thanks to WikiLeaks, we now know many things that the US government (and others) wanted to keep hidden from us, like America’s secret wars in Yemen and Pakistan.

Contrary to what Pentagon and White House officials claim, there is no evidence that WikiLeaks has put anyone’s life in danger. The evidence presented by WikiLeaks is embarrassing, not life-threatening.

In advance of publication, WikiLeaks invited the US government to identify any documents that could potentially put individuals at risk. The US declined to do so. Despite this snub, WikiLeaks appears to have mostly acted responsibly by redacting and withholding certain documents. Where, in some cases, they have not protected the identities of individual people at risk, such as in Afghanistan, this is deplorable and wrong.

Washington is angry because the manifest contradictions between its public and private stances have been exposed by the on-going leaks of diplomatic cables. They show a clear lack of government accountability, honesty and transparency.

The WikiLeaks controversy is, first and foremost, a battle between state secrecy and misinformation on the one hand, and the public’s right to know on the other hand. It’s a freedom of information issue.

The allegations of sex abuse against the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, are something different - and worrying. They were made some months after WikiLeaks had previously embarrassed the US by exposing its war crimes and cover-ups in Iraq. Mere coincidence? Possibly.

Julian Assange is accused of rape. These allegations must be taken seriously. He might be guilty of sex crimes. If so, he should face prosecution and punishment, just like anyone else.

So far, however, he has not been charged with any offence and these rape allegations were previously dismissed in August by the Swedish prosecuting authorities. For the moment, he is innocent until proven guilty.

Meanwhile, major war criminals and human rights abusers roam free. No judge dares touch them. But a non-violent campaigner like Assange feels the full force of the law. A man who exposes war crimes faces criminal indictment, yet the people and governments who perpetrated these crimes do not. Double standards or what?

Is the US seeking to frame Julian Assange? In the 1970s, they tried to discredit the heroic Vietnam war whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg. A plan was hatched to portray him as mentally unstable. Are the charges against Assange a rerun of what they tried to do to Ellsberg? We don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.

The decision by a British judge to deny bail to Julian Assange looks vindictive and unjustified. Assange is not a dangerous, hardened criminal. He should have got bail. People charged with robberies, assaults and sexual crimes are often bailed. Assange is well known and not able to easily disappear. The chances of him absconding are slight. So why the hardline denial of bail in his case?

Is the judge an establishment stooge? Was he pressured to remand Assange in custody? Or did he conclude, of his own free will, that it is appropriate to refuse Assange bail?

Perhaps the judge sincerely believes that the sex allegations against Assange are credible - and, in addition, that Assange is a grave threat to public order and national security, who is unfit to remain free until he is extradited and put on trial. If so, in my opinion, the judge has lost his moral bearings and his sense of reality and proportion.

The US-inspired blocking of donations to WikiLeaks and the attempts to deny WikiLeaks internet access are outrageous infringements of press freedom, civil rights and freedom of expression. As of now, WikiLeaks has not been found guilty of any crime. Yet some governments and major corporations are acting as if the whistleblowing website is a proven criminal organisation.

The US appears to have successfully pressured Amazon, Visa, Mastercard and PayPal to withdraw their services from WikiLeaks. The Swiss bank PostFinance has closed Assange’s personal account. This is a politically motivated witch-hunt that is attempting to use economic pressure to silence WikiLeaks.

Congratulations to Operation Payback and the anonymous hacktivists. They are right to hit back at the people who have attempted to drive WikiLeaks off the internet and cut its funding. This suppression and censorship has to be resisted, by any reasonable, non-violent means necessary.

Limited, qualified cyber-attacks are legitimate forms of protest against the way some corporations have victimised WikiLeaks, apparently under pressure from the US government. If Washington can lean on these corporations, why shouldn’t the defenders of WikiLeaks retaliate and exert pressure on them in the other direction?

We, the people, have a right to know what governments are secretly saying and doing, in our name and allegedly in our interests. The government, police, security services and judges are our servants. We are not pawns in their power games, to be manipulated and hoodwinked.

All power to WikiLeaks for shining a light on the duplicity of the US government. Thanks to WikiLeaks we now have clear evidence that the US frequently says one thing in public and something different in private - and that it cosies up to tyrants, and ignores or acquiesces in human rights abuses. Bravo WikiLeaks and Julian Assange!

Right to know
Right to know

Falsification

Members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain believe that the working class can overthrow capitalism and build socialism without political leadership. Furthermore, they ascribe this anarchistic position to Marx and Engels. Stuart Watkins even suggests that it was Lenin who poisoned the working class with the idea of political leadership (Letters, December 9). This is probably the grossest falsification of Marxist history to date.

According to Watkins, Marx and Engels did not believe in political leadership in their later years because they argued that, “Where the question involves the complete transformation of social organisation, the masses must be consulted, must themselves have already grasped what the struggle is about, and what they stand for”.

So, according to the SPGB, grasping what the struggle is about and what they stand for in general terms, means that the masses don’t need political leadership. The SPGB has read into the above passage a repudiation of political leadership where none was intended. It’s even possible to argue that reference to the masses needing to be consulted seems rather patronising coming from Marx and Engels, although this would have been unintended.

The theory that the working class can end capitalism and start socialism without political leadership has nothing to do with Marxism. Even if Marx had argued this, he would have been wrong. Those who suggest that he held such a view need to explain why Marx sought to exclude anarchists from the International Working Men’s Association.

If the supporters of the SPGB choose to believe this nonsense, they should at least be consistent and dissolve their organisation immediately. If the working class does not need a political leadership, what use have they for a party? Why can’t the functions of, say, the SPGB be performed by other ad hoc bodies?

Falsification
Falsification