By Carlo Sands. First published on - and stolen ruthlessly from - An Alcoholic's Guide to Modern Life
Well it’s that time of the year again, when the world stops and waits with bated breath to discover who a committee of Norwegian people have decided to honour with the Nobel Peace Prize.
This year, they made a seemingly brave choice.
The distinguished committee has gone for a literary reference — a somewhat unsubtle acknowlegement of the works of George Orwell.
As the panel on literature is left in the safe hands of the Swedes, we can only assume this sideways foray into the field is a swipe at the Norwegians hated Scandinavian rivals — who never saw fit to give Orwell his due in his day.
Of course, the Norwegians fail to realise the Swedes were talkin' Orwell before the author was even born.
War is peace, indeed. It has been the case from the beginning.
The Nobel Peace Prize, after all, is named after Alfred Nobel, the renowned 19th century Swedish arms manufacturer.
In fact, the Norwegians themselves have been making the ironic point for years — without anyone appearing to have gotten the reference. So they keep atryin’.
In 1919, the “peace prize” was won by then-US president Woodrow Wilson — whose thoroughly Orwellian commitment to peace involved him taking a reluctant USA into the pointless, mass slaughter of World War One just two years earlier.
1973 was the year for possibly the greatest acknowledgment to Orwell's celebrated concept of “double-speak” — in which a totalitarian regime insists, in his nightmare novel 1984, that “War is Peace”.
The winner that year was Henry Kissinger.
Then-US secretary of state, Kissinger was one of the truly great war criminals of the 20th Century — a century that featured so many top mass murdering names.
Among his many unpeaceful acts, Kissinger was an architect of the Vietnam War (and the bombing of Cambodia, which helped pave the way for the Khmer Rouge to seize power).
And Kissinger famously helped organise the 1973 Chilean military coup that brought the dictator Pinochet to power.
Kissinger uttered the immortal line about the elected left-wing government he helped bury under the corpses of tens of thousands: “I don't see why we need to stand by and allow a country to go communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people.
“The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.”
Never, I have always believed with good reason drawn from personal experience, trust a Chilean.
In that, I am entirely with the former US secretary of state, as well as the Bolivians.
But should legitimate mistrust ever be allowed to degenerate into barbaric and unseemly mass slaughter?
I fear I must draw a line.
Kissinger, of course, also gave Indonesian dictator Suharto the green light to invade to invade East Timor in 1975.
Before Indonesian occupation, supported and armed by the West, finally left in 1999, around one third of the population had died.
Suharto had come to power in October 1965 in a military coup coordinated with the US embassy. (That old joke — “Why has there never been a military coup in the US? Because Washington has no US embassy.”)
In the aftermath of the coup, one of the 20th century’s great mass murders occurred. As many as half a million members of the Indonesian Communist Party, suspected members, suspected sympathisers, and general leftists and suspected leftists, were butchered.
The Australian PM of the day, Harold Holt, said with glee about Indonesia in a speech to a dinner party in New York, as the bodies were still being buried: “With 500,000 to 1 million Communist sympathisers knocked off, I think it safe to assume a reorientation has taken place.”
It is a truly severe tragedy that Holt disappeared while swimming a little over a year later.
This most unfortunate circumstance no doubt is the sole reason Holt was not, justly, awarded Australia’s first and only Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his humanitarian spirit.
I still, to this day, do not see why the Norwegians could not have granted it to him posthumously.
And here we are in 2009, and the Norwegians are as canny and sharp as ever.
In keeping with an understanding of peace that only a prize named after a man whose fortune was made selling things that explode in order to rip human flesh apart could uphold, this year’s prize has been won by the leader of the nation with the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.
A leader of a nation actively using the weapons on civilians in three countries, while happily supplying them for a profit for active use in a number of others.
Yes, US President Barack Obama is the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Some cynics and/or communist agents (just because the Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago doesn't mean the Laos People's Democratic Republic does not have its agents working to undermine the Free World) suggest there is something odd in this choice.
It is true that in Obama, the hopes of millions of ordinary people desperate for change and an end to his predecessor’s policies of war are embodied.
It is also true that this is a peace prize handed to a man not just overseeing, but escalating an actual war.
It is a bold choice. Even when they handed Kissinger his award, it was for the Paris peace accords that recognised that, more or less, the US had lost the Vietnam War.
Kissinger was at least being rewarded for losing a war.
Obama, on the other hand, is yet to even be defeated. And, by the looks of Afghanistan, it isn't as if the Norwegians would have had to wait that long.
There is not much peaceful about Afghanistan. The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner has sent more US troops that his predecessor.
There is increasingly little peaceful about Pakistan either, to which Obama, in a stroke of military genius akin to Kissinger’s brainwave that the way to win Vietnam was to invade Cambodia, has decided to extend the Afghan war.
It makes perfect sense. The Afghan war is being lost, the solution is to start more war next door in a nation more populous.
I try this technique all the time. Horribly drunk after far too many beers, I solve the problem by following each further beer with whiskey chasers.
The results for me are about the same as for the US Empire — pain, tears and stained carpets.
It may well be true, as Spinoza said, that peace is more than the absence of war.
But it is usually considered that an absence of war is, at the very least, a precondition for peace.
Life is more than breathing oxygen, but try it without the fucking stuff and sees how you go.
Drunkeness is more than one beer too, but you can’t reach the nirvana state with only iced water.
The US-led occupation forces was, presumably, working for peace when the US Airforce, as it has repeatedly throughout the war now in its ninth year, bombed a gathering of civilians killing more than 100 in September. And in May. And this month.
Such stories actually occur week in and week out.
No doubt Obama is working for peace when pilotless drones, controlled from a bunker thousands of kilometres way, bomb a Pakistani village that the Taliban have long fled.
No doubt the Obama administration is also working for peace in Honduras. Certainly no one can doubt that, in endless state department press releases, the administration is claiming it is.
In Honduras, the elected president Manuel Zelaya annoyed the hell out of US corporations by raising the minimum wage by 60%.
Not long after, he was kidnapped in his pyjamas, bundled into a place and exiled to Costa Rica.
This act being carried out by a military in which every officer is trained by the US School of the Americas.
The head of the military (and coup) is so keen he graduated from the SOA twice.
Zelaya was flown out of the country from the US military base in Tegucigalpaa.
Despite a public response of, “Hey! Guys! C’mon that’s not nice”, the US continues to train Honduran military officers.
And, claims by state department press releases notwithstanding, has still not cut off the large majority of its aid to the regime.
The military Obama refuses to cut ties with is right now killing and torturing unarmed civilians demanding the president they elected be returned.
In case Latin America didn't get the hint, straight after the coup occurred, it was announced that there would be five new US military bases in Colombia.
Colombia is the third largest recipient of US military aid, which it uses to further world peace by killing civilians pretending they are guerrillas.
It also is home to the highest rate of assassination of trade unionists each year of any other nation. In fact, some 60% of the world total occurs in Colombia.
Of course, the biggest recipient of US military aid is Israel, of which Obama is such an outspoken supporter.
Standard rhetoric about the need for a peace deal, contained in the same state department press releases circulated for the last 15 years, notwithstanding, this continues under Obama without any risk.
Enabling, of course, Israel to commit crimes against humanity.
Whatever the intention of those inscrutable Scandinavians, it does appear that, to win a Nobel Peace Prize, no actual talent in the field of peace is required. The very opposite seems rewarded.
Not unlike the Grammys really.
And, if we look it at it, we must admit: the Obama administration’s contribution to world peace is not really all that different to multi-Grammy winner Mariah Carey’s contribution to music.
Their effects on their respective fields are, in fact, strikingly similar.
And I do find listening to Mariah Carey enables me to feel, in a small way, something of what it must be like to be a prisoner held indefinitely without charge in the US-run Bagrahm prison in Afghanistan.
Those lucky enough to have trialled the services available to a prisoner in both Bagrahm and Guantanamo say they prefer Guantanamo.
Obama made the high-profile pledge to close Guantanamo. Bagrahm, continues unhindered in its torture policy.
And Orwell is at last rewarded with a belated Nobel Prize.
“When you left I lost a part of me, it's still so hard to believe. Come back baby,
'cause we belong together”. This Grammy-winning song’s contribution to the field of music is similar to Barack Obama’s to world peace.
Showing posts with label anti-war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anti-war. Show all posts
Thursday, 15 October 2009
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Palestine, Beer and Oktoberfest Under Occupation TRAILER
This is even more apt, if you remember that bread evolved from beer (not the other way round). So, before people "broke bread", they were brewing beer (and breaking wind instead of heads).
A wonderful vision of the future in Palestine - one single secular state, with christians, jews, muslims and druze, all living under the one big beer tent.
Remember: World Peace - brought to you during Wiezn by beer-lovers everywhere under the Bayerische Reinheitsgebot of 1516.
A wonderful vision of the future in Palestine - one single secular state, with christians, jews, muslims and druze, all living under the one big beer tent.
Remember: World Peace - brought to you during Wiezn by beer-lovers everywhere under the Bayerische Reinheitsgebot of 1516.
Friday, 2 October 2009
Afghanistan: unions support ‘troops out’ rallies
Pip Hinman, Sydney
Green Left Weekly, 26 September 2009
“The country is weary of the war. What I’m trying to do at this point is to make sure that ... we have got a coherent strategy that can work”, United States President Barack Obama told David Letterman’s Late Show on September 21.
For anti-war activist Christine Keavney, Obama’s latest bid to convince an increasingly oppositional US population that a troop surge combined with a so-called counter-insurgency strategy will bring good results sounds very desperate.
“Obama was elected by a war-weary public”, she told Green Left Weekly, “though he campaigned for more war in Afghanistan. That was less than a year ago, and now the polls show the American public disagrees.
“True, many are still worried about calling for the troops to leave, but many more are reaching the conclusion that the bigger the US-NATO presence the worse the war will get.
“These polls reveal a political shift. They don’t translate automatically into a force for change, but they show there’s an opportunity to have that discussion with a lot more people now.”
Keavney is a member of the Sydney Stop the War Coalition (StWC) and the Socialist Alliance. She is helping to organise a protest on the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan on October 8. She said she was pleased with the support for the rally so far.
“Already a couple of unions have signed on — the Fire Brigade Employees Union and the Maritime Union of Australia (NSW branch) — and we are in discussions with others.
“We set out to engage with unions and other community groups that were active in the anti-Iraq war movement. Not everyone is supportive, but at least our approaches are prompting some broader discussion, especially among unions, about Australia being at war for eight years, and why pulling the troops out will assist the people of Afghanistan.”
The Victorian branch of the Maritime Union of Australia is supporting a similar rally in Melbourne on October 10. Other endorsees include: Victorian Trades Hall Council; the Electrical Trades Union (Victorian branch); community Radio 3CR; Campaign for International Cooperation and Disarmament; the Federation of Australian Muslim Students and Youth; the Victorian Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (mining and energy division); the National Tertiary Education Union (Victorian branch); the Socialist Alliance, Resistance and other socialist groups.
While the Victorian Greens decided not to support the rally, the NSW Greens will, and NSW Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon will speak. The NSW Greens have also signed on to a statement issued by StWC called “Ten reasons to get out of Afghanistan”.
Keavney said that an important part of organising these protests was the contribution to public discussion about the war.
“We have to try to convince people to do more than simply disagree privately. These rallies are just the beginning of a more systematic campaign to pressure the Rudd government to bring the troops home”, she said.
[For more information, visit troopsoutofafghanistan.blogspot.com and www.stopwarcoalition.org.]
Green Left Weekly, 26 September 2009
“The country is weary of the war. What I’m trying to do at this point is to make sure that ... we have got a coherent strategy that can work”, United States President Barack Obama told David Letterman’s Late Show on September 21.
For anti-war activist Christine Keavney, Obama’s latest bid to convince an increasingly oppositional US population that a troop surge combined with a so-called counter-insurgency strategy will bring good results sounds very desperate.
“Obama was elected by a war-weary public”, she told Green Left Weekly, “though he campaigned for more war in Afghanistan. That was less than a year ago, and now the polls show the American public disagrees.
“True, many are still worried about calling for the troops to leave, but many more are reaching the conclusion that the bigger the US-NATO presence the worse the war will get.
“These polls reveal a political shift. They don’t translate automatically into a force for change, but they show there’s an opportunity to have that discussion with a lot more people now.”
Keavney is a member of the Sydney Stop the War Coalition (StWC) and the Socialist Alliance. She is helping to organise a protest on the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan on October 8. She said she was pleased with the support for the rally so far.
“Already a couple of unions have signed on — the Fire Brigade Employees Union and the Maritime Union of Australia (NSW branch) — and we are in discussions with others.
“We set out to engage with unions and other community groups that were active in the anti-Iraq war movement. Not everyone is supportive, but at least our approaches are prompting some broader discussion, especially among unions, about Australia being at war for eight years, and why pulling the troops out will assist the people of Afghanistan.”
The Victorian branch of the Maritime Union of Australia is supporting a similar rally in Melbourne on October 10. Other endorsees include: Victorian Trades Hall Council; the Electrical Trades Union (Victorian branch); community Radio 3CR; Campaign for International Cooperation and Disarmament; the Federation of Australian Muslim Students and Youth; the Victorian Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (mining and energy division); the National Tertiary Education Union (Victorian branch); the Socialist Alliance, Resistance and other socialist groups.
While the Victorian Greens decided not to support the rally, the NSW Greens will, and NSW Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon will speak. The NSW Greens have also signed on to a statement issued by StWC called “Ten reasons to get out of Afghanistan”.
Keavney said that an important part of organising these protests was the contribution to public discussion about the war.
“We have to try to convince people to do more than simply disagree privately. These rallies are just the beginning of a more systematic campaign to pressure the Rudd government to bring the troops home”, she said.
[For more information, visit troopsoutofafghanistan.blogspot.com and www.stopwarcoalition.org.]
Thursday, 1 October 2009
Winning hearts and minds...
Via BoRev, a painful and distressing example of WTF?!! I can't even laugh...
"According to the BBC, the leaflet box was supposed to open in mid-air, spreading pro-coalition propaganda over rural Helmand province. But the container failed to break apart, landing on top of the girl, who died later in the hospital."So off-topic and yet so...not.
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
Join the protests at the ALP 2009 national conference Jul 30-Aug 1
Below are details of some of the protests against the Rudd Labor government's right-wing policies that will be held at the ALP national conference this week (Thursday July 30 - Saturday August 1). The Socialist Alliance would like to encourage everyone to attend. You can read about why these protests are taking place here.
There will be a Socialist Alliance working bee to make props, placards and banners in Sydney 5.30pm-7pm Tuesday July 28 @ the Resistance Centre, 23 Abercrombie St, Chippendale. If you can come and help us at any of these protests and/or help at the working bee please call Brianna 0439 694 505 or Peter 9690 1977/0401 760 577
Thursday: Tasmanians Against the Pulp Mill
9am @ Convention Centre, Darling Habour
Thursday: Stop the NT Intervention
Join a public lobby of the ALP conference. Hands off Tangentyere - no blackmail! - no take-over of Alice Springs Aboriginal town camps - housing and services NOW for all communities. 12noon Thursday July 30 @ Convention Centre, Darling Harbour. Organised by the Stop the Intervention Collective Sydney.
Thursday: Troops out of Afghanistan
Join the Stop the War Coalition from 12 noon on Thursday 30 July at the Darling Harbour Convention Centre, to call on the ALP to bring the troops home and end the war on the people of Afghanistan. For more information ph Pip Hinman 0412 139 968, Marlene Obeid 0401 758 871, Anne Picot 0404 090 710
http://www.StopWarCoalition.
Thursday: Gaza Defence Committee is calling on supporters of Palestine to help leaflet the ALP conference
At noon GDC will be leafleting outside the convention centrewith a leaflet calling for support for the campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.
A further action will take place at 5pm at an event being organised by Paul Howes, secretary of the Australian Workers' Union and a promoter of an international group, TULIP, which is opposed to isolating apartheid Israel. This event is at the Maritime Museum, 2 Murray St, Darling Harbour.
For more information about the Howes' event see <http://labor.net.au/news/
For more information about TULIP, see <http://www.tuliponline.org/>
For a critical appraisal of TULIP see <http://www.labournet.net/
To find out more about this action ring Raul 0403 037 376 or Diane on 0413 003 148.
Friday: Billionaires for Coal's "celebration" of ALP coal & climate change policy
9am @ the Convention Centre
Friday: Protest for Honduras
Restore democrasy, no more dicatorships! Protest outside the ALP national conference. 5pm Friday July 31 Convention Centre Darling Harbour. Convention Centre Darling Harbour.Organised by the Latin American Forum. Ph John for more info 0413 310 452.
Friday: Jobs and Rights for Working Australians - Rip up all Howard's anti-union laws!
12.45pm – 2pm Friday 31 July. Parkside Auditorium, Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre Darling Harbour. Meeting for all trade unionists & ALP conference delegates. For more information contact Pirjo Laine: plaine@actu.asn.au ph 03 9664 7333
Saturday: National Day of Action for Same-Sex Marriage. This year we alongside our Melbourne brothers and sisters, we will stage the nation's largest 'illegal' same-sex wedding! Chances are your relationships won't be formally recognised on the day, and you'll still be considered a second-class citizen long after you've consumated your marriage... so, what the hell... grab your partner, shine your ring, and invite your friends - we're getting hitched! Start 12pm @ Town Hall march to ALP conference @ the Sydney Convention Centre.
Organised by Community Action Against Homophobia www.caah.org.au.
Progressive fringe events at ALP conference:
Burma's future and Australia's role in it
Date: Saturday, August 1, 2009
Time: 12:30pm - 2:00pm
South Steyne Floating Restaurant and Function Centre
Cockle Bay, Darling Harbour
Sydney, Australia
Phone: 0416289235
Email: admin@aucampaignforburma.org: Australia's Role in a Time of Crisis
THE PERFECT STORM: Australia's role in a time of crisis
The Centre for Policy Development and Oxfam Event at the ALP Fringe Porgram
Friday July 31, 6pm, The Sussex Room, Crowne Plaza, 150 Day St, Darling Harbour.
Speakers include: Sharan Burrow (ACTU and ITUC President), Andrew Hewett (Executive Director, Oxfam Australia), Ian Dunlop (CPD Fellow and previous head of the Australian Institute of Company Directors), Reverend Tafue Lusama (Chairman, Tuvalu Climate Action Network), Ben McNeil (Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW)The Centre for Policy Development and Oxfam Event at the ALP Fringe Porgram
Friday July 31, 6pm, The Sussex Room, Crowne Plaza, 150 Day St, Darling Harbour.
RSVP to marian.spencer@cpd.org.au or call 02 9514 2034.
Monday, 6 July 2009
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
New Pamphlet: The Tamil Freedom Struggle in Sri Lanka
The Tamil Freedom Struggle in Sri LankaChris Slee, Brian Senewiratne, Vickramabahu Karunarathne
Published by Resistance Books
2009, 40pp, ISBN 978-1-876646-65-3, Pamphlet
$5.00
Ever since Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) gained independence from Britain in 1948, the basic rights of the Tamil minority have been under attack.
The ruling elite from the Sinhala majority have found anti-Tamil racism an extremely convenient device to secure their power and privilege and deflect discontent from below. The history of Sri Lanka is marked by a shameful and bloody series of government-instigated anti-Tamil pogroms.
The persecuted and besieged Tamils finally turned to armed struggle to secure independence or self-government in their traditional homeland areas. With the military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the death of its main leaders, this phase appears to have come to an end.
The victory of the regime was made possible by the backing of the West and China. These governments — Australia included — all have blood on their hands.
Is the Sri Lankan regime going to continue with its Nazi-like ‘final solution’ or will the Tamils be offered some measure of autonomy? Now more than ever, the oppressed Tamil people need the solidarity of progressive forces around the world.
This pamphlet provides an essential background to the conflict from a socialist and Marxist viewpoint.
- Chronology of Key Events
- The Tamil Struggle in Sri Lanka by Chris Slee
- Sri Lanka: Genocide of the Tamil Minority by Brian Senewiratne
- Sri Lanka: A War on Tamils by Brian Senewiratne
- Genocide of Tamils & Atrocities in Sri Lanka While Australia Looks On by Brian Senewiratne
- Right of Self-determination of Ilankai Tamils by Vickramabahu Karunarathne
Thursday, 14 May 2009
Rudd puts warfare before welfare: A sad day for the people of the Illawarra
MEDIA RELEASE
May 12, 2009 - Illawarra Socialist Alliance has condemned the Rudd government’s plans to spend over $300 billion on defence projects over the next 20 years, as outlined in the May 2 defence white paper.
Illawarra Socialist Alliance convener, Chris Williams, said: 'Instead of committing to a multi-billion investment plan to reduce global warming – a very real threat – the Rudd government will spend hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on countering non-existent military threats and encouraging an arms build up in the region.
'The $20 million BlueScope contract is a complete sell out for the people of Wollongong , and not because it represents only one day’s work. The Port Kembla steelworks should be utilised for a massive program of green job creation, e.g. wind turbine production, not for making ‘warfare destroyers’. This is a huge slap in the face for voters who considered Rudd the anti-war candidate and one committed to act on climate change.
‘The difference between the expectations Rudd has raised and the actual proposals he’s made is huge. We must demand more of our government. What’s necessary in this time of crisis is real job creation – not one day’s work – that addresses environmental problems as well as the recession. Massive government investment in the production of renewable energies would be a great start.
‘The ALP government is putting warfare ahead of the welfare of our community and environment. The Socialist Alliance stands for the complete opposite and demands a change now', Williams concluded.
Thursday, 7 May 2009
Protest the Troop Surge in Afghanistan, May 8
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Troop Surge Protest
5pm Friday May 8 Sydney Town Hall 483 George St Sydney (Near Town Hall Station & George St buses) Speaker: Gerry Binder, stand fast - veterans against war Prime minister Kevin Rudd has given the order to increase Australia’s military presence in Afghanistan by 450 - making a total of 1,550. Join stop the war in a protest vigil and speak out in the city this Friday afternoon. Come along to tell Mr Rudd that he is sending more soldiers to join an illegal, Bush-era war against people who had no connection to 9-11, in a struggling, damaged and deeply impoverished country. The people of Afghanistan need our support to begin a new era of peace, self-determination and improved quality of life. They don’t need more pointless destruction of innocent lives and property.
Info: Pip 0412 139 968 Rob 0411 449 033 Andrew 0409 959 014 |
Thursday, 30 April 2009
Stop the War Coalition on Rudd's Troops to Afghanistan
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sydney Stop the War Coalition
April 30, 2009
Peace coalition condemns Rudd's decision to send more troops to Afghanistan
The Sydney Stop the War Coalition today condemned the Rudd government for its decision to send 450 more troops to Afghanistan. Some 21,000 US troops are being sent for a troop "surge" in Afghanistan. NATO has agreed to send at least 5000 more, and now Australia, already the biggest non-NATO contributor of troops to Afghanistan, is following suit even though Australians are overwhelmingly against the Rudd government's decision to send more troops.
"The Rudd Labor government's decision to send more troops, despite the fact that a March poll showed that two thirds of Australians do not agree matches the arrogant dismissal of the democratic will of the people by the previous Howard Coalition government," said Pip Hinman from the Stop the War Coalition.
"PM Kevin Rudd's argument is that Australia has to send its troops to train Afghan troops to defend the Afghan people from the Taliban. But since this war of Western occupation began in October 2001, the Afghan people have not been liberated. Corruption is rife, opium production and distribution has flourished, and key social indicators, including employment, life expectancy, literacy and malnutrition have worsened. Women have not being liberated and the hated Taliban has gained in strength.
"In 2008, more than 2100 Afghan civilians were killed - an increase of 40% on the previous year according to the UN Mission in Afghanistan. The 2008 civilian death toll was the highest of any year since 2001, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. This will only worsen as more foreign troops are sent.
"Canberra spends some $575 million per year on this war and occupation, money that would be better spent on helping reconstruct this devastated country, or on essential services here", concluded Ms Hinman.
The Sydney Stop the War Coalition says that all foreign troops should leave so that the people of Afghanistan have a chance to rebuild their country.
PROTEST: 5-6.30pm Friday May 8
Town Hall Square, Sydney
Organised by Stop the War Coalition www.stopwarcoalition.org
Information: Pip Hinman 0412 139 968 or Rob Kennedy 0411 449 033
Sydney Stop the War Coalition
April 30, 2009
Peace coalition condemns Rudd's decision to send more troops to Afghanistan
The Sydney Stop the War Coalition today condemned the Rudd government for its decision to send 450 more troops to Afghanistan. Some 21,000 US troops are being sent for a troop "surge" in Afghanistan. NATO has agreed to send at least 5000 more, and now Australia, already the biggest non-NATO contributor of troops to Afghanistan, is following suit even though Australians are overwhelmingly against the Rudd government's decision to send more troops.
"The Rudd Labor government's decision to send more troops, despite the fact that a March poll showed that two thirds of Australians do not agree matches the arrogant dismissal of the democratic will of the people by the previous Howard Coalition government," said Pip Hinman from the Stop the War Coalition.
"PM Kevin Rudd's argument is that Australia has to send its troops to train Afghan troops to defend the Afghan people from the Taliban. But since this war of Western occupation began in October 2001, the Afghan people have not been liberated. Corruption is rife, opium production and distribution has flourished, and key social indicators, including employment, life expectancy, literacy and malnutrition have worsened. Women have not being liberated and the hated Taliban has gained in strength.
"In 2008, more than 2100 Afghan civilians were killed - an increase of 40% on the previous year according to the UN Mission in Afghanistan. The 2008 civilian death toll was the highest of any year since 2001, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. This will only worsen as more foreign troops are sent.
"Canberra spends some $575 million per year on this war and occupation, money that would be better spent on helping reconstruct this devastated country, or on essential services here", concluded Ms Hinman.
The Sydney Stop the War Coalition says that all foreign troops should leave so that the people of Afghanistan have a chance to rebuild their country.
PROTEST: 5-6.30pm Friday May 8
Town Hall Square, Sydney
Organised by Stop the War Coalition www.stopwarcoalition.org
Information: Pip Hinman 0412 139 968 or Rob Kennedy 0411 449 033
Brisbane protest for Tamils
ASSEMBLE FRIDAY 5.15PM FOR 5.30PM MARCH, STATE PARLIAMENT (George St, City)
All those who stand for basic justice and equality are urged to join and support Brisbane's Tamil community as they march this Friday as part a global campaign to STOP THE RACIST GENOCIDAL SLAUGHTER OF THE TAMIL PEOPLE IN SRI LANKA
Rwanda, Sudan, and now Sri Lanka - again the world stands still in the face of genocide. Never again!
MARCH COMMENCES 5.30PM STATE PARLIAMENT, George St, City (outside QUT Gardens Point)
Please read the international appeal below.
Also see http://www.tamilnet.com/
SLA fired 5,600 shells within 15 hours
Unprecedented carnage unfolds in Vanni
US, UN & International Community facilitate genocide
April 24, 2009, Sri Lanka
An appeal to the international civil society to act immediately to prevent further destruction in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka is in a dire situation that begs for the attention of the world community focused on it and for urgent action immediately followed to avoid further destruction.
Sri Lanka government backed by the Sinhala supremacist oppressors, has almost crushed the struggle of the Tamils for their rights, in order to retain the structure the Lankan state as a Sinhala chauvinist regime. For as much as a half a century, the Sinhala supremacist governments have repeatedly avoided granting the political rights of the national minorities within the post-colonial state structure. Instead, they pushed the Tamil minority to the wall through repeated pogroms and terror actions to repress latter's non-violent struggles to win their rights. Eventually this caused the upsurge of a ferocious armed struggle.
The government of Lanka manipulates the conceptual definition of
terrorism to legitimize repression of minority rights and to muster support of the global powers to crush the struggles for rights. In 2008, the government unilaterally revoked the cease fire and moved away from the peace process brokered under the patronage of the Co-chairs of the donor-community. In the process of total annihilation of the struggle of the Tamils for their democratic rights, the government banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and declared war against Tamil radicalism. The media access to the conflict zone was effectively blocked and later the government, ordered the humanitarian organizations as well to evacuate their offices, and expelled the international staff. At the peak of the siege, the state ordered the government health staff too to vacate the hospitals. All these measures were taken while carrying on a massive military onslaught via land, sea and air targeting the traditional dwellings of the Tamil people in Northern Province of Lanka.
People were uprooted from their dwellings and made internally displaced in multiple times.
Their houses were shelled and bombed, cultivations and other property were devastated and the entire environmental topography was demolished beyond repair. At the culmination of this military onslaught, the state urged the people to move into a government-designated no-fire zone in a small patch of land in an area where basic amenities were so scarce for such a massive population.
Later, the government repeatedly shelled and carpet bombed parts of the no-fire zone too in the guise of hunting terrorists. Now they have advanced into the no-fire zone naming the operation a 'hostage rescue mission' killing and miming thousands of civilians.
There are allegations that the government is using chemical weapons as well against the Tamil Tiger rebels disregarding the impact on the civilians huddled in the small area.
This warfare is totally against the accepted norms of war and the international law. Sri Lanka government denies these charges stating that the allegations are mere propaganda of the Tamil Tigers. Independent verification is impossible since free media and humanitarian organizations sans ICRC are blocked entry into the conflict zone.
The government has detained thousands of internally displaced civilians in heavily guarded concentration-styled camps in an environment of thoroughly restricted mobility. They call these places as 'welfare centers'. Even the UN agency staff members that have moved out of the no-fire zone are held in these camps in the guise of screening terrorists.
Several months back, the government submitted a proposal to embassies in Colombo seeking financial assistance to set up semi-permanent camps for 200,000 civilians for three years.
Thus this is not the first time. The government, in the recent past, during operations in the east, retained an area named Sampur in the Eastern Province without allowing the residents to resettle. Now the discussions are underway to set up a coal power plant in the lands of those residents without compensating them. Thus, there is a racially-oriented ploy to change the demography behind the devastation of the traditional lands of Tamils while holding them for a long period in concentration camps.
-We, representing the civil society of the island, extend our deepest regrets over the inaction and the silent approval given to Lankan regime by the international good governance systems like UN amidst these unfathomed crimes of Lankan rulers and their allies.
-We urge the international community, especially the international civil society not to allow Sri Lankan government, to manipulate the so-called fight against terrorism to win support of the UN and other authorities, and to continue with chauvinist state terrorism on the minority Tamil community.
-International community should urge authorities like UN and the donor forum of Sri Lanka to compel the government to stop war immediately and begin an internationally monitored peace process aimed at a sustainable solution to the dragging national problem of the country.
-The right of people to their traditional villages should be defended. Compensation should be paid for the damages done to their life and property and help must be given to reconstruct their lives.
-Immediately unblock the access of the media and the humanitarian organizations into the areas of the internally displaced and war affected people live, and guarantee their freedom of expression.
Signed by,
Dr. Vickramabahu Karunarathne
Prof. Sucharitha Gamlath
Prof. Jayantha Senewirathne
Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri
Dr. Terence Purasinghe
Chandrapala Kumarage (attorney at Law)
Servant Yohan Devananda
Patrick Fernando
Thursday, 23 April 2009
Statement: Stop the Genocide Against the Tamils!
The statement below was initially circulated at the World at a Crossroads conference hosted by Green Left Weekly in Sydney, April 10-12. A selection of the much larger number of names that signed on are included below. To add your name to the statement, email stuartmunckton@gmail.com
Stop the Genocide Against the Tamils!
Participants at the World at a Crossroads conference, Sydney April 10-12, recognise the genocide being carried out against the Tamil people by the murderous Sri Lankan government. The genocidal policies of the Sri Lankan government are a continuation of over six decades of systematic discrimination carried out against the Tamil population.
The drive towards genocide of the Tamils has intensified since the Sri Lankan government abrogated the peace process in January 2008 and embarked on the reconquest of the island's north through brutal war with devastating consequences for Tamils.
The last few months has been particularly brutal. More than 3500 Tamil civilians have been killed in a space of three months by the Sri Lankan state offensive. Tamils fleeing the fighting are being herded into concentration camps.
According to the former Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka “A few months ago the government started registering all Tamils in Colombo on the grounds that they could be a security threat, but this could be exploited for other purposes like the Nazis in the 1930s. They’re basically going to label the whole civilian Tamil population as potential terrorists.”
Two hundred thousand Tamils are now facing starvation.
We believe people throughout the world must become more vocal against this genocide and protest governments that support the Sri Lankan government. Governments such as the United States, Israel, China, India and Pakistan have all equipped the Sri Lankan army with high technology weapons, including illegal chemical weapons and cluster munitions.
The undersigned participants call for:
- an immediate end to the Sri Lankan governments attacks on Tamils and for there to be an immediate ceasefire;
- that diplomatic, economic and cultural sanctions be applied till the Sri Lankan government agrees to an immediate ceasefire
- that all military aid and assistance from governments to the Sri Lankan government must end immediately, because the money is being used to perpetrate genocide;
- the IMF not to grant the Sri Lankan the use of $1.7 billion, as it will be used on military equipment to kill Tamil civilians;
- that governments of the worlds to recognize and give full citizenship rights to Tamil refugees who have had to flee to avoid the genocide;
- that the self determination of Tamils up to and including their right to form an independent state must be respected by the governments of the world; and
- that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam be taken off proscribed terrorist lists.
signed:
* Salim Vally — Spokesperson of the Palestine Solidarity Committee (South Africa); lecturer and senior researcher at the Education Policy Unit and the School of Education at Wits University;
* Kavita Krishnan — central committee member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) and an editor Liberation magazine; national secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association;
* Michael Lebowitz — Director of "Transformative Practice and Human Development" at the Centro Internacional Miranda, Caracas; Professor Emeritus of economics, Simon Fraser University;
* Luis Bilbao — Union of Socialist Militants (Argentina); advisor to the Hugo Chavez government in Venezuela; editor of XXI magazine;
* Reihana Mohideen — vice-chair of international department of the Power of the Masses Party (PLM — Philippinnes); chairperson of Transform Asia, a gender and labour institute in South East Asia; editor of "Socialist Dialogue magazine;
* Mericio Juvinal Dos Reis — Executive Director of the Luta Hamutuk Institute (East Timor;
* Ian Angus — Socialist Voice (Canada), co-founder of Ecosocialist International Network;
* Roger Annis — Socalist Voice (Canada),
* Ian Beeching — Vancouver Socialist Forum;
* Mike Treen — Nation director of organising, Unite union, New Zealand;
* Daphne Lawless — Socialist Worker New Zealand;
* Dr Brian Senewiratne — Singalese pro-Tamil activist;
* Tim Gooden — Secretary, Geelong and Region Trades and Labour Council;
* Jess Moore — Resistance national co-organiser;
* Dick Nichols — Socialist Alliance national co-convenor ;
* Peter Boyle — Democratic Socialist Perspective national secretary;
* Pip Hinman — Sydney Stop the War Coalition; Socialist Alliance
* Brianna Pike - DSP Sydney organiser;
* Stuart Munckton — Green Left Weekly co-editor;
* Emma Murphy — GLW co-editor;
* Peter Robson — GLW journalist;
* Tony Iltis — GLW journalist;
* Jay Fletcher — GLW journalist;
* Federico Fuentes — World at a Crossroads conference co-organiser, GLW journalist, editor of Bolivia Rising;
* Lisa MacDonald — World at a Crossroads conference co-organiser; DSP National executive;
* Terry Townsend — managing editor of Links, International Journal of Socialist Renewal
* Chris Latham — National Tertiary Education Union, Murdoch University branch organiser;
* Jamie Doughney — Senior researcher at the Work and Economic Policy Research Unit, Victoria University of Technology;
* John Robb — Nelson, NZ;
* Janet Solomon — Ecum Secum, N.S. Canada;
* Simon Ashworth Wood — Socialist Alliance, Sydney;
* Joycey Berry — USA
Stop the Genocide Against the Tamils!
Participants at the World at a Crossroads conference, Sydney April 10-12, recognise the genocide being carried out against the Tamil people by the murderous Sri Lankan government. The genocidal policies of the Sri Lankan government are a continuation of over six decades of systematic discrimination carried out against the Tamil population.
The drive towards genocide of the Tamils has intensified since the Sri Lankan government abrogated the peace process in January 2008 and embarked on the reconquest of the island's north through brutal war with devastating consequences for Tamils.
The last few months has been particularly brutal. More than 3500 Tamil civilians have been killed in a space of three months by the Sri Lankan state offensive. Tamils fleeing the fighting are being herded into concentration camps.
According to the former Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka “A few months ago the government started registering all Tamils in Colombo on the grounds that they could be a security threat, but this could be exploited for other purposes like the Nazis in the 1930s. They’re basically going to label the whole civilian Tamil population as potential terrorists.”
Two hundred thousand Tamils are now facing starvation.
We believe people throughout the world must become more vocal against this genocide and protest governments that support the Sri Lankan government. Governments such as the United States, Israel, China, India and Pakistan have all equipped the Sri Lankan army with high technology weapons, including illegal chemical weapons and cluster munitions.
The undersigned participants call for:
- an immediate end to the Sri Lankan governments attacks on Tamils and for there to be an immediate ceasefire;
- that diplomatic, economic and cultural sanctions be applied till the Sri Lankan government agrees to an immediate ceasefire
- that all military aid and assistance from governments to the Sri Lankan government must end immediately, because the money is being used to perpetrate genocide;
- the IMF not to grant the Sri Lankan the use of $1.7 billion, as it will be used on military equipment to kill Tamil civilians;
- that governments of the worlds to recognize and give full citizenship rights to Tamil refugees who have had to flee to avoid the genocide;
- that the self determination of Tamils up to and including their right to form an independent state must be respected by the governments of the world; and
- that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam be taken off proscribed terrorist lists.
signed:
* Salim Vally — Spokesperson of the Palestine Solidarity Committee (South Africa); lecturer and senior researcher at the Education Policy Unit and the School of Education at Wits University;
* Kavita Krishnan — central committee member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) and an editor Liberation magazine; national secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association;
* Michael Lebowitz — Director of "Transformative Practice and Human Development" at the Centro Internacional Miranda, Caracas; Professor Emeritus of economics, Simon Fraser University;
* Luis Bilbao — Union of Socialist Militants (Argentina); advisor to the Hugo Chavez government in Venezuela; editor of XXI magazine;
* Reihana Mohideen — vice-chair of international department of the Power of the Masses Party (PLM — Philippinnes); chairperson of Transform Asia, a gender and labour institute in South East Asia; editor of "Socialist Dialogue magazine;
* Mericio Juvinal Dos Reis — Executive Director of the Luta Hamutuk Institute (East Timor;
* Ian Angus — Socialist Voice (Canada), co-founder of Ecosocialist International Network;
* Roger Annis — Socalist Voice (Canada),
* Ian Beeching — Vancouver Socialist Forum;
* Mike Treen — Nation director of organising, Unite union, New Zealand;
* Daphne Lawless — Socialist Worker New Zealand;
* Dr Brian Senewiratne — Singalese pro-Tamil activist;
* Tim Gooden — Secretary, Geelong and Region Trades and Labour Council;
* Jess Moore — Resistance national co-organiser;
* Dick Nichols — Socialist Alliance national co-convenor ;
* Peter Boyle — Democratic Socialist Perspective national secretary;
* Pip Hinman — Sydney Stop the War Coalition; Socialist Alliance
* Brianna Pike - DSP Sydney organiser;
* Stuart Munckton — Green Left Weekly co-editor;
* Emma Murphy — GLW co-editor;
* Peter Robson — GLW journalist;
* Tony Iltis — GLW journalist;
* Jay Fletcher — GLW journalist;
* Federico Fuentes — World at a Crossroads conference co-organiser, GLW journalist, editor of Bolivia Rising;
* Lisa MacDonald — World at a Crossroads conference co-organiser; DSP National executive;
* Terry Townsend — managing editor of Links, International Journal of Socialist Renewal
* Chris Latham — National Tertiary Education Union, Murdoch University branch organiser;
* Jamie Doughney — Senior researcher at the Work and Economic Policy Research Unit, Victoria University of Technology;
* John Robb — Nelson, NZ;
* Janet Solomon — Ecum Secum, N.S. Canada;
* Simon Ashworth Wood — Socialist Alliance, Sydney;
* Joycey Berry — USA
Veterans Group reflects on brutality of war and question how politicians use our armed forces on ANZAC Day
Press release
23 April 2009
The Australian-based veterans group Stand Fast, comprised of veterans and former military personnel who oppose the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, today called on people to reject blind patriotism and flag waving this ANZAC Day. Stand Fast has called for reflection on the brutality of war and for people to question if Australia’s current wars are really in the interest of the people of Australia.
In Brisbane Stand Fast spokesperson and East Timor veteran, Hamish Chitts said the group thinks the increasing spectacle of flag waving and cheering on ANZAC Day departs from its origins as a sombre day of remembrance. The group is concerned that this trend stops people openly questioning these wars amid fears that they will be accused of being ‘unpatriotic’ or not supporting the troops.
Vietnam veteran and Sydney based Stand Fast member Gerry Binder said, “The original idea was to remember the brutality that war is so that we would never let it happen again, not marching up and down with bands and people waving and shouting and cheering.” He said, “I’ve marched in Anzac Day marches and I was horrified that people are bringing their kids to cheer, to clap. I don’t want to be congratulated; I want them to understand that this must not be repeated.”
In Melbourne former army Major Chip Henriss, a Bouganville and East Timor veteran said, “I march on ANZAC Day every year but along with my medals I wear a button that says "War is Terror". For us in Australia it's been about mainly young people that have gone off time after time on what we believed was a just crusade only to return wounded physically and mentally. Yes I love the mates I served with and many of whom continue to serve but it doesn't mean I can't see these wars for what they are.”
According to Chitts Stand Fast believes that “to claim these wars bring democracy and that they are in our best interests are ridiculous. Stand Fast believes politicians are looking after the interests of big business and dressing it up to look like the people of Afghanistan or Iraq have the capability and desire to attack Australia”.
Former Royal Australian Navy officer Mark Rickards led over 70 vessel boardings in the Red Sea following the first Gulf War. Speaking from Hobart Rickards said, "Anzac Day is an opportunity to pay tribute to those who served, and particular who died, in wars which were fought in defence of peace. However it is also the perfect time to stop and reflect on the growing death toll of Australian service personnel who are currently serving in unjust wars.
Chitts continued, “These members of parliament, both Labor and Coalition vie with each other to be more ‘the diggers friend’ than the other. Most have never served in the Defence Force and would be horrified if their children did. As veterans, our thoughts are with all those who have suffered from war, those still suffering physically and mentally because of war and all those still in harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan. No more blood should be shed for the profiteers. Those who truly support the troops should join the call to bring all the troops home now”.
For further information contact Hamish on 0401 586 923 or email standfast.au@ gmail.com or visit www.stand-fast. webs.com
Wednesday, 22 April 2009
Sri Lanka - The Tamils need support
Green Left Weekly #791 editorial:
The Tamils need support
One of the great crimes of modern times is occurring on the island of Sri Lanka without a word of protest from governments the world over. The Tamil people are facing genocide.
Already this year, the death toll of Tamil civilians exceeds 4000. Often dozens, and in some cases hundreds, are slaughtered in a single day in Sri Lankan Army (SLA) bombings of the so-called safe zone, into which as many as 300,000 people are crowded.
Those Tamils who flee this zone are being placed into concentration camps by the SLA.
This brutal reality is almost entirely unreported, and not simply because the Sri Lankan government refuses to allow journalists access to the scene of its crime. Instead, the mainstream media is once again siding with the powerful.
When the issue is reported at all, the Sri Lankan government's propaganda is repeated the propaganda of a regime that refuses to allow a free press, with one of the world's highest rates of journalists being murdered each year.
According to Sri Lankan propaganda, the military are merely fighting "terrorism". It claims its war is merely against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), an armed group fighting for an independent Tamil homeland in the island's east and north.
Yet Sri Lanka's actions prove its war is against the Tamil people as a whole.
The actions of the LTTE are a response to the decades of discrimination and violent repression meted out to the Tamil minority by a state dominated by the majority Sinhalese ethnic group. Support for armed struggle grew among Tamils in response to the violent anti-Tamil pogroms in 1983 that killed more than 3000 people.
The solution to ending the decades-long war on the island, and bringing about desperately needed peace, is to end the oppression of the Tamil people.
First, and most urgently, there must be a permanent ceasefire declared. The mass killings must be ended. Food and medical supplies must be allowed into the "safe-zone", without which aid agencies are warning of a terrible humanitarian crisis.
The Tamil people must regain their freedom of movement and the concentration camps must be closed.
Once this occurs, the conditions for a negotiated settlement to the crisis, which can resolve the issue of self-determination for the Tamil people, will exist.
However, powerful governments, in defence of powerful interests, are allowing the Tamil people to be sacrificed. In return, the powerful are manoeuvring for access to lucrative shipping routes and ports.
To avoid upsetting the racist and undemocratic regime in Colombo, that regime is allowed a free hand to implement a "final solution" to the Tamil question. Once again, the corporate elite is placing profit over human life.
People around the world who believe in social justice must raise their voices. The Tamil diaspora is desperately attempting to bring the plight of its people to the world's attention. In their hundreds of thousands, they have marched in cities around the globe.
In India, dozens of Tamils have self-immolated to bring attention to the situation. In Australia, six young Tamils went on hunger strike for almost a week. They refused food or water, with a serious risk of death, in an appeal to the Australian government to press Sri Lanka to call a permanent ceasefire.
We cannot let them stand alone. Those who believe in social justice and political parties, trade unions, churches, social movements must speak out against the atrocities occurring right now.
The powerful have abandoned the Tamil people, it must be ordinary people all over the world who use their power to force action.
When Israel levelled Gaza, millions marched in opposition. That movement must continue, and the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign seeking to isolate apartheid Israel is beginning to have effect. But that display of "people power" needs to be repeated on behalf of the Tamils.
International solidarity helped end apartheid in South Africa, despite Western governments siding with the regime. It helped the East Timorese win their independence, despite Western governments including Australia siding with Indonesia.
It is placing Israel on the back foot, despite the most powerful nations on Earth backing the oppressors of the Palestinian people.
Now, international solidarity must be mobilised to save the Tamil people and stop the genocide.
[Support this very urgent struggle by joining the heroic campaign of the young Australian Tamils. Visit http://www.tamilsydney.com
More here:
http://tamilsol.blogspot.com/
http://fastuntoaction.wordpress.com/
The Tamils need support
One of the great crimes of modern times is occurring on the island of Sri Lanka without a word of protest from governments the world over. The Tamil people are facing genocide.
Already this year, the death toll of Tamil civilians exceeds 4000. Often dozens, and in some cases hundreds, are slaughtered in a single day in Sri Lankan Army (SLA) bombings of the so-called safe zone, into which as many as 300,000 people are crowded.
Those Tamils who flee this zone are being placed into concentration camps by the SLA.
This brutal reality is almost entirely unreported, and not simply because the Sri Lankan government refuses to allow journalists access to the scene of its crime. Instead, the mainstream media is once again siding with the powerful.
When the issue is reported at all, the Sri Lankan government's propaganda is repeated the propaganda of a regime that refuses to allow a free press, with one of the world's highest rates of journalists being murdered each year.
According to Sri Lankan propaganda, the military are merely fighting "terrorism". It claims its war is merely against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), an armed group fighting for an independent Tamil homeland in the island's east and north.
Yet Sri Lanka's actions prove its war is against the Tamil people as a whole.
The actions of the LTTE are a response to the decades of discrimination and violent repression meted out to the Tamil minority by a state dominated by the majority Sinhalese ethnic group. Support for armed struggle grew among Tamils in response to the violent anti-Tamil pogroms in 1983 that killed more than 3000 people.
The solution to ending the decades-long war on the island, and bringing about desperately needed peace, is to end the oppression of the Tamil people.
First, and most urgently, there must be a permanent ceasefire declared. The mass killings must be ended. Food and medical supplies must be allowed into the "safe-zone", without which aid agencies are warning of a terrible humanitarian crisis.
The Tamil people must regain their freedom of movement and the concentration camps must be closed.
Once this occurs, the conditions for a negotiated settlement to the crisis, which can resolve the issue of self-determination for the Tamil people, will exist.
However, powerful governments, in defence of powerful interests, are allowing the Tamil people to be sacrificed. In return, the powerful are manoeuvring for access to lucrative shipping routes and ports.
To avoid upsetting the racist and undemocratic regime in Colombo, that regime is allowed a free hand to implement a "final solution" to the Tamil question. Once again, the corporate elite is placing profit over human life.
People around the world who believe in social justice must raise their voices. The Tamil diaspora is desperately attempting to bring the plight of its people to the world's attention. In their hundreds of thousands, they have marched in cities around the globe.
In India, dozens of Tamils have self-immolated to bring attention to the situation. In Australia, six young Tamils went on hunger strike for almost a week. They refused food or water, with a serious risk of death, in an appeal to the Australian government to press Sri Lanka to call a permanent ceasefire.
We cannot let them stand alone. Those who believe in social justice and political parties, trade unions, churches, social movements must speak out against the atrocities occurring right now.
The powerful have abandoned the Tamil people, it must be ordinary people all over the world who use their power to force action.
When Israel levelled Gaza, millions marched in opposition. That movement must continue, and the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign seeking to isolate apartheid Israel is beginning to have effect. But that display of "people power" needs to be repeated on behalf of the Tamils.
International solidarity helped end apartheid in South Africa, despite Western governments siding with the regime. It helped the East Timorese win their independence, despite Western governments including Australia siding with Indonesia.
It is placing Israel on the back foot, despite the most powerful nations on Earth backing the oppressors of the Palestinian people.
Now, international solidarity must be mobilised to save the Tamil people and stop the genocide.
[Support this very urgent struggle by joining the heroic campaign of the young Australian Tamils. Visit http://www.tamilsydney.com
More here:
http://tamilsol.blogspot.com/
http://fastuntoaction.wordpress.com/
Tuesday, 14 April 2009
Australian Tamil hunger strike against genocide
12 April 2009 Three young Tamil Australians began a hunger strike on April 11 to demand that the Australian government press for a permanent ceasefire by the Sri Lankan Army. The SLA is carrying out a brutal military offensive against the Tamil people in the island's north, with more than 3000 civilians killed this year already.
Initially, the hungers strikers camped outside Kirribilli House, the residence of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Sydney, along with thousands of supporters. On April 14, Tamil protesters and supporters traveled to Canberra to protest.
One of the hunger strikers, Suthra Thanabalasingam, told Green Left Weekly that the hunger strikers have refused to eat food or drink any water since 5pm on April 11. The hunger strikers are demanding that the Australian government to use its diplomatic powers to push the Sri Lankan government:
- To agree to an immediate ceasefire;
- to allow food, medicine and aid into the conflict zone;
- to allow medical and other vital services into the conflict zone; and
- allow the Tamil People, both in the conflict zone and those indefinitely detained in concentration camps in government-held areas, to decide independently where they wish to reside
Thanabalasingam urged the Australian public to support Tamil protests and join the fight against Genocide taking place.
Today there will be protests at The Lodge in Canberra and there are more protests planned.
For more information http://fastuntoaction. wordpress.com/
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Sydney rally against the genocide of the Tamils in Sri Lanka
From Sydney Tamil Youth
Dear All,
Sydney Tamil Youth have organised a demonstration in Sydney on Saturday the 28th of March. The demonstration will begin at MARTIN PLACE. We urge all Australian Tamil's to attend MARCH FOR FREEDOM as we unite as one to have our voices heard.
As the blood of thousands continues to lubricate the gears of state-sponsored genocide, the fate of the Tamil people tethers on the brink of extermination at the hands of Sri Lankan armed forces.
In these darkest of hours, we call upon the people of Australia to join us on Saturday 28th March as we protest the carnage of ethnic cleansing & voice our aspirations for self-determination.
Please take the time to attend this event and to pass this on to every person you know, urging them to take part as well.
DATE: Saturday 28th March
TIME: 11 am to 1 pm
STARTING PLACE: Martin Place
Through the power of our voice, let us open the eyes of the world, break the shackles of our oppression, and forge the foundations of liberty and equality.
CANADA: Over 150,000 Tamils attended...
SWITZERLAND: Over 50,000 Tamils attended...
BELGIUM: Over 40,000 Tamils attended...
Our time is now.
Dear All,
Sydney Tamil Youth have organised a demonstration in Sydney on Saturday the 28th of March. The demonstration will begin at MARTIN PLACE. We urge all Australian Tamil's to attend MARCH FOR FREEDOM as we unite as one to have our voices heard.
As the blood of thousands continues to lubricate the gears of state-sponsored genocide, the fate of the Tamil people tethers on the brink of extermination at the hands of Sri Lankan armed forces.
In these darkest of hours, we call upon the people of Australia to join us on Saturday 28th March as we protest the carnage of ethnic cleansing & voice our aspirations for self-determination.
Please take the time to attend this event and to pass this on to every person you know, urging them to take part as well.
DATE: Saturday 28th March
TIME: 11 am to 1 pm
STARTING PLACE: Martin Place
Through the power of our voice, let us open the eyes of the world, break the shackles of our oppression, and forge the foundations of liberty and equality.
CANADA: Over 150,000 Tamils attended...
SWITZERLAND: Over 50,000 Tamils attended...
BELGIUM: Over 40,000 Tamils attended...
Our time is now.
Wednesday, 18 February 2009
Sri Lankan Crisis Statement
Via http://fastuntoaction.wordpress.com:
[A PDF copy of the statement can be downloaded here, and the Socialist Alliance has set up a page of solidarity resources here.]
**************************************
[A PDF copy of the statement can be downloaded here, and the Socialist Alliance has set up a page of solidarity resources here.]
**************************************
Despite international calls for a cease-fire, the conflict in Sri Lanka continues to escalate.
The district health official in the conflict zone has stated that 40-50 Tamil civilians are dying each day. Most recently the Sri Lankan government issued orders to doctors and other health staff to leave the conflict area immediately.
In an attempt to put an urgent stop to the humanitarian catastrophe, a group of young Tamil Australians have written a ‘Sri Lankan Crisis Statement’ for the wider Australian community to sign.
From 2 March 2009 we will take it to the media and the Australian government to raise our concern for this largely unreported war.
If you want to sign this statement, please leave a comment on this page or email fastuntoaction@hotmail.com as soon as possible with your name and title.
Please forward it to other contacts who maybe interested in signing this statement.
****** STATEMENT ******
We are Australian citizens who share a deep concern about the escalating civilian crisis in Sri Lanka.
We call on the Australian government to demand the Sri Lankan authorities and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam declare an immediate ceasefire.
We are deeply concerned about the lack of medical staff and aid agencies serving the estimated 250,000 civilians trapped in the conflict zone. In September 2008, the Sri Lankan government evicted United Nations and international aid agencies from these areas.
While the local Red Cross is still operating within the conflict area, their presence is threatened by the ongoing conflict. The departure of international witnesses within the conflict area will remove accountability for all parties to the conflict.
The Sri Lankan government has also issued orders to doctors and other health staff to leave the conflict area immediately.
We demand the Sri Lankan government allow international monitoring and medical and aid agencies unrestricted access to the conflict zones immediately.
In direct violation of the Geneva Convention, civilian hospitals in the conflict zones have repeatedly come under aerial bombing and shelling. Furthermore, on 2 February 2009 the Sri Lankan Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse stated that everything outside a government declared safety-zone is a military target and no exception will be given to medical facilities.
We urge the Australian government to demand the Sri Lankan government stop the aerial bombing of hospitals and both parties cease placing civilians in direct cross fire in all areas. Foreign and domestic media have been banned from entering the conflict zones since January 2008, when the government unilaterally withdrew from a cease-fire and commenced its military offensive. Without independent reporting, it is impossible to separate fact from propaganda mitigated by all parties to the conflict.
We call on the Australian government to pressure Sri Lankan officials to permit independent journalists unrestricted access to the conflict zones.
Furthermore, we recognise that the Tamil citizens of Sri Lanka have been subject to ethnic discrimination by successive Sri Lankan governments since Sri Lanka gained independence in 1948.
We acknowledge that all people, including the Tamils, have the right to self-determination and must freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
We acknowledge that a military solution to this conflict will not bring lasting peace to Sri Lanka.
With the intention of ensuring long-term peace, we call on the Australian government to lead political negotiations that recognise the legitimate aspirations and protects the human rights of all Sri Lankans.
Signatories:
- Wendy Bacon, Professor of Journalism, University of Technology, Sydney
- Chris Nash, Professor of Journalism, Monash University
- Antony Loewenstein, Independent journalist and author
- Damien Kingsbury, Associate Professor, Deakin University
- Charles David, NSW Public Service retiree
- Jude Prakash, Chartered accountant
- Jeff Loewenstein, Barrister
If you want to sign this statement, please leave a comment on this page or email fastuntoaction@hotmail.com as soon as possible with your name and title.
Friday, 6 February 2009
Interview: The Liberal Defence of Murder
Left-wing British MP George Galloway interviews author, activist, and UK SWP member Richard Seymour (of Lenin's Tomb fame) on his (apparently fantabulous) new book, The Liberal Defence of Murder.
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
Capitalism’s burning house
30 January 2009
John Bellamy Foster is editor of US socialist publication Monthly Review, professor of sociology at the University of Oregon and author of a number of books including Marx’s Ecology. This is an abridged interview with him on the economic crisis republished from WIN magazine, the journal of the US-based War Resisters League (http://warresisters.org/winmag).
From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #781 4 February 2009.
John Bellamy Foster is editor of US socialist publication Monthly Review, professor of sociology at the University of Oregon and author of a number of books including Marx’s Ecology. This is an abridged interview with him on the economic crisis republished from WIN magazine, the journal of the US-based War Resisters League (http://warresisters.org/winmag).
Are we at the beginning of an economic depression? How much longer do you foresee the economic crisis lasting?
What we have is a very severe crisis now in what economists call the “real economy”, no longer simply in speculative finance. There is no way of accurately determining where the bottom is.
Given the severity of this crisis, which is on a depression not recession scale, it will most likely continue well into 2010 and quite possibly beyond.
In fact, none other than then-president George Bush, in prepared remarks for a November 2008 summit of the central bank governors and finance ministers of the G20 economies, said if governments do not act decisively enough we could be facing “a depression greater than the Great Depression’s”.
What is absolutely clear at this point is that we are confronted with the likelihood of a long period of slow or nil growth, beyond the mere business cycle, since the main means of combating the deeply entrenched stagnation tendencies of monopoly finance capital, i.e. “financialisation” or the ballooning of debt, appears to have reached its limits at present.
The crisis of financialisation thus spells a weak economy for a long time to come. Economists have a euphemism they sometimes use for this situation; they call it an “L-shaped” recovery.
Do you think that the emphasis of the US government on neoliberal economic theory, while ignoring the class basis of the economy, is a contributor to the failure of the government to address the problem of financialisation sooner?
Neoliberal economic theory and policy was no accident, but was the way in which the system responded to growing stagnation tendencies that first began to surface with the economic slowdown of the 1970s, which were manifested in such factors as rising excess capacity and unemployment/underemployment and weakening net investment.
With the economic pie growing more slowly, capital reacted by promoting economic restructuring with the aim of increasing profit margins at the expense of workers’ wages (average real wages for non-agricultural workers in the United States peaked in 1972 and today are at the same level as in 1967), cutting back on social welfare spending, squeezing underdeveloped countries with the help of the International Monetary Fund, and more.
At the same time, capital, driven to maintain and enlarge its profits despite weak investment opportunities, turned to financial speculation. Ever-increasing inequality was a necessary part of providing the cash flow to feed the successive financial bubbles.
Eventually, however, speculation based on home mortgagees ran afoul of the worsening income and increased debt load of households. As defaults spread. the housing bubble popped and the entire financial superstructure began to deleverage, creating cascading defaults and deflation.
Since the fundamentals of the economy were extremely weak, once the financial balloon began to deflate the whole economy started to fall, with the end not yet in sight.
I think it is best to see this as a whole phase of capitalist development, which we could call monopoly finance capital, with neoliberalism as its main legitimating ideology. Of course this period generated extraordinarily bad economics: monetarism, supply side economics, rational expectations theory, new classical economics, etc.
Even the name of the system was changed from capitalism to a vague and essentially meaningless ideological designation of the “free market”. Like orthodox economics in general, it was a means of control and a way of justifying what capital found necessary.
Orthodox economics is not innocent of class analysis; rather the class position that it represents requires the ideological concealment of class relations (class does not exist as a category in neoclassical economics). This, however, does not prevent them from constructing concepts (for example the “natural rate of unemployment”) that are means of maintaining class power.
In contrast, 19th-century classical political economy was explicit about not only class but also the political nature of economics. As Marx explained in Capital, only when the capitalists had conquered the state in the 1830s and ’40s did scientific political economy turn into vulgar political economy.
Neoclassical economics (“vulgar political economy”) was based on a class-analytic perspective that could no longer be openly confessed. Its interests were no longer revolutionary, as in the early stages of capitalist economics, but had given way to the “bad conscience and evil intent of apologetics”.
It is no coincidence that this happened as soon as the working class began to become a conscious force and thus a threat to the status quo. Eventually, political economy was renamed economics.
In order to struggle effectively today, we need, for starters, to change economics back into political economy, making the economy a political/public issue once again.
Capitalism works by way of an “invisible hand”: it needs to be made visible.
You talk about the costs of the economic crisis being borne disproportionately by those at the bottom of the class system. How would you restructure the current economy to function in an equitable way?
In the US at the beginning of this decade, the top 1% of wealth holders combined owned twice the wealth of the bottom 80% of the population.
If this is viewed in terms of financial wealth (which excludes owner-occupied houses), the top 1% taken together had four times the wealth of the bottom 80% of the population. Income inequality is at extreme levels.
When productivity and economic growth goes up, we are told in economics textbooks that this pulls up real wages. Yet, real wages in the United States are the same as they were when Lyndon Johnson was president.
This situation of stagnant or declining real wages is actually a product of a long class struggle waged by those at the top against the rest of the society. And it is this growth of inequality — the highest since the 1929 stock market crash — that is at the root of the present economic problem.
Inequality is far greater still if we look at matters from a global standpoint. In 2006, Bill Gates’s wealth was equal to that of the combined GDP of Ethiopia, Niger, the Congo, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Central African Republic, Namibia, Lesotho, Malawi, and Tanzania in Africa — 226 million people.
The immediate issue right now in the US is the question of a new “New Deal” (policies implemented by then-president Franklin Roosevelt in the ’30s to combat the impact of the Depression).
Will there be a launching of work relief programs and other measures that substantially improve the conditions of the majority of the population on a level with the later 1930s? Will there be a resurrection of the Works Progress Administration, the most radical employment program the US ever witnessed?
The answer to these questions is that a genuine New2 Deal will not come about, despite the election of a Democrat administration, unless there is a revolt from below on the scale of the 1930s.
Here I recommend David Milton’s book The Politics of US Labor on the New Deal era. One of the things that Milton demonstrated was that the revolt from below in the ’30s was led by radical syndicalists and communists, who were often ahead of the mass of the workers in terms of making radical demands, but whose militant and far-seeing leadership was crucial to the threat that labor then represented.
It was this mass rise of working people, inspired by socialist and syndicalist leaders, that made some of the more radical reforms of the New Deal-era possible. There is no lack of changes to be made in the US if a class/social movement revolt from below is set in motion.
Government spending in the US is a much smaller share of GDP than in the other advanced capitalist states. This mainly has to do with what Marx called “the respective power of the combatants” in U.S. society. So the only answer is a class-based revolt.
Fred Magdoff and I have coauthored a book The Great Financial Crisis, just now published, that addresses the economic crisis and the question of a New2 Deal.
Nevertheless, a New2 Deal, even if it were to materialise, would not eliminate the deep contradictions of capitalist society or create an egalitarian order. For that a more revolutionary change in society, transcending capitalism, will be necessary.
If this seems extreme, think of the extreme conditions we are living in, both in the United States and the world at large.
World capitalism is in its worst crisis in 80 years. Billions of people in the world are suffering from hunger in the world food crisis that has emerged over the last couple of years.
Science tells us that if we continue with “business as usual” for a decade or two we will be facing irrevocable climate change. This could lead eventually to the elimination of most higher species and the destruction of civilisation — even endangering the survival of humanity itself.
Meanwhile war preparation is expanding in an age of nuclear proliferation and preemptive warfare, associated with declining US hegemony.
In these circumstances, revolutionary change simply means struggling for the sustainable development of humanity and the earth.
My own view is that the only way that humanity can save itself and move forward is a socialism for the 21st century.
Would it work? We don’t know, because it is something that we would have to create through our collective struggles. But as Brecht explained in Buddha’s Example of a Burning House, it is irrational to cling hopelessly to a burning house, as the flames lick its walls and singe our brows, in sheer terror of stepping into the world beyond.
Capitalism is such a burning house.
You have talked about how war spending contributes to an upturn in the economy. What are the benefits to the economy when the government spends on the military? How does this relate to US imperialism?
Using the figures of the Office of Management and the Budget, the US spent about $550 billion on the military in 2007, about equal to the whole rest of the world put together. Actual US military spending was $1 trillion.
Historically, one of the ways in which the US and other capitalist states have gotten out of the economic doldrums is by government spending on the military, which serves the imperial purposes of capital, and does not meet the same resistance from the ruling-class forces as does civilian government spending (which is seen as interfering with the private domain).
However, military spending has become increasingly capital-intensive and technology-intensive, employing relatively little labour for the sums expended. In addition, much of the spending is abroad.
So it is less effective dollar for dollar as a stimulus compared to many other forms of spending. Moreover, if the US were to greatly increase its military spending, it could well set off a world arms race and point to unlimited destruction.
It is worth recalling that World War II was how the US economy escaped the Great Depression. Today, the magnitude of the risk of heading in this direction is beyond all measurement.
What is needed is not more but less military spending, to be replaced by greatly expanded civilian government spending, directed at people’s most pressing needs.
The main reason for US military spending is to keep revolutions from occurring (and to defeat them when they do) throughout the world. It is a means of limiting human freedom globally. All real solutions to the world’s problems therefore require the dismantling of Washington’s military machine.
If today there seems to be an increasing trend toward war it is only because capitalism as a whole has lost its former creative role and is tending toward exterminism in every sense: economic, ecological, and military/imperial.
Our slogan today should no longer be simply Rosa Luxemburg’s “Socialism or barbarism” but “Socialism or exterminism”.
Resistance to war is resistance to an entire system of destruction.
What we have is a very severe crisis now in what economists call the “real economy”, no longer simply in speculative finance. There is no way of accurately determining where the bottom is.
Given the severity of this crisis, which is on a depression not recession scale, it will most likely continue well into 2010 and quite possibly beyond.
In fact, none other than then-president George Bush, in prepared remarks for a November 2008 summit of the central bank governors and finance ministers of the G20 economies, said if governments do not act decisively enough we could be facing “a depression greater than the Great Depression’s”.
What is absolutely clear at this point is that we are confronted with the likelihood of a long period of slow or nil growth, beyond the mere business cycle, since the main means of combating the deeply entrenched stagnation tendencies of monopoly finance capital, i.e. “financialisation” or the ballooning of debt, appears to have reached its limits at present.
The crisis of financialisation thus spells a weak economy for a long time to come. Economists have a euphemism they sometimes use for this situation; they call it an “L-shaped” recovery.
Do you think that the emphasis of the US government on neoliberal economic theory, while ignoring the class basis of the economy, is a contributor to the failure of the government to address the problem of financialisation sooner?
Neoliberal economic theory and policy was no accident, but was the way in which the system responded to growing stagnation tendencies that first began to surface with the economic slowdown of the 1970s, which were manifested in such factors as rising excess capacity and unemployment/underemployment and weakening net investment.
With the economic pie growing more slowly, capital reacted by promoting economic restructuring with the aim of increasing profit margins at the expense of workers’ wages (average real wages for non-agricultural workers in the United States peaked in 1972 and today are at the same level as in 1967), cutting back on social welfare spending, squeezing underdeveloped countries with the help of the International Monetary Fund, and more.
At the same time, capital, driven to maintain and enlarge its profits despite weak investment opportunities, turned to financial speculation. Ever-increasing inequality was a necessary part of providing the cash flow to feed the successive financial bubbles.
Eventually, however, speculation based on home mortgagees ran afoul of the worsening income and increased debt load of households. As defaults spread. the housing bubble popped and the entire financial superstructure began to deleverage, creating cascading defaults and deflation.
Since the fundamentals of the economy were extremely weak, once the financial balloon began to deflate the whole economy started to fall, with the end not yet in sight.
I think it is best to see this as a whole phase of capitalist development, which we could call monopoly finance capital, with neoliberalism as its main legitimating ideology. Of course this period generated extraordinarily bad economics: monetarism, supply side economics, rational expectations theory, new classical economics, etc.
Even the name of the system was changed from capitalism to a vague and essentially meaningless ideological designation of the “free market”. Like orthodox economics in general, it was a means of control and a way of justifying what capital found necessary.
Orthodox economics is not innocent of class analysis; rather the class position that it represents requires the ideological concealment of class relations (class does not exist as a category in neoclassical economics). This, however, does not prevent them from constructing concepts (for example the “natural rate of unemployment”) that are means of maintaining class power.
In contrast, 19th-century classical political economy was explicit about not only class but also the political nature of economics. As Marx explained in Capital, only when the capitalists had conquered the state in the 1830s and ’40s did scientific political economy turn into vulgar political economy.
Neoclassical economics (“vulgar political economy”) was based on a class-analytic perspective that could no longer be openly confessed. Its interests were no longer revolutionary, as in the early stages of capitalist economics, but had given way to the “bad conscience and evil intent of apologetics”.
It is no coincidence that this happened as soon as the working class began to become a conscious force and thus a threat to the status quo. Eventually, political economy was renamed economics.
In order to struggle effectively today, we need, for starters, to change economics back into political economy, making the economy a political/public issue once again.
Capitalism works by way of an “invisible hand”: it needs to be made visible.
You talk about the costs of the economic crisis being borne disproportionately by those at the bottom of the class system. How would you restructure the current economy to function in an equitable way?
In the US at the beginning of this decade, the top 1% of wealth holders combined owned twice the wealth of the bottom 80% of the population.
If this is viewed in terms of financial wealth (which excludes owner-occupied houses), the top 1% taken together had four times the wealth of the bottom 80% of the population. Income inequality is at extreme levels.
When productivity and economic growth goes up, we are told in economics textbooks that this pulls up real wages. Yet, real wages in the United States are the same as they were when Lyndon Johnson was president.
This situation of stagnant or declining real wages is actually a product of a long class struggle waged by those at the top against the rest of the society. And it is this growth of inequality — the highest since the 1929 stock market crash — that is at the root of the present economic problem.
Inequality is far greater still if we look at matters from a global standpoint. In 2006, Bill Gates’s wealth was equal to that of the combined GDP of Ethiopia, Niger, the Congo, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Central African Republic, Namibia, Lesotho, Malawi, and Tanzania in Africa — 226 million people.
The immediate issue right now in the US is the question of a new “New Deal” (policies implemented by then-president Franklin Roosevelt in the ’30s to combat the impact of the Depression).
Will there be a launching of work relief programs and other measures that substantially improve the conditions of the majority of the population on a level with the later 1930s? Will there be a resurrection of the Works Progress Administration, the most radical employment program the US ever witnessed?
The answer to these questions is that a genuine New2 Deal will not come about, despite the election of a Democrat administration, unless there is a revolt from below on the scale of the 1930s.
Here I recommend David Milton’s book The Politics of US Labor on the New Deal era. One of the things that Milton demonstrated was that the revolt from below in the ’30s was led by radical syndicalists and communists, who were often ahead of the mass of the workers in terms of making radical demands, but whose militant and far-seeing leadership was crucial to the threat that labor then represented.
It was this mass rise of working people, inspired by socialist and syndicalist leaders, that made some of the more radical reforms of the New Deal-era possible. There is no lack of changes to be made in the US if a class/social movement revolt from below is set in motion.
Government spending in the US is a much smaller share of GDP than in the other advanced capitalist states. This mainly has to do with what Marx called “the respective power of the combatants” in U.S. society. So the only answer is a class-based revolt.
Fred Magdoff and I have coauthored a book The Great Financial Crisis, just now published, that addresses the economic crisis and the question of a New2 Deal.
Nevertheless, a New2 Deal, even if it were to materialise, would not eliminate the deep contradictions of capitalist society or create an egalitarian order. For that a more revolutionary change in society, transcending capitalism, will be necessary.
If this seems extreme, think of the extreme conditions we are living in, both in the United States and the world at large.
World capitalism is in its worst crisis in 80 years. Billions of people in the world are suffering from hunger in the world food crisis that has emerged over the last couple of years.
Science tells us that if we continue with “business as usual” for a decade or two we will be facing irrevocable climate change. This could lead eventually to the elimination of most higher species and the destruction of civilisation — even endangering the survival of humanity itself.
Meanwhile war preparation is expanding in an age of nuclear proliferation and preemptive warfare, associated with declining US hegemony.
In these circumstances, revolutionary change simply means struggling for the sustainable development of humanity and the earth.
My own view is that the only way that humanity can save itself and move forward is a socialism for the 21st century.
Would it work? We don’t know, because it is something that we would have to create through our collective struggles. But as Brecht explained in Buddha’s Example of a Burning House, it is irrational to cling hopelessly to a burning house, as the flames lick its walls and singe our brows, in sheer terror of stepping into the world beyond.
Capitalism is such a burning house.
You have talked about how war spending contributes to an upturn in the economy. What are the benefits to the economy when the government spends on the military? How does this relate to US imperialism?
Using the figures of the Office of Management and the Budget, the US spent about $550 billion on the military in 2007, about equal to the whole rest of the world put together. Actual US military spending was $1 trillion.
Historically, one of the ways in which the US and other capitalist states have gotten out of the economic doldrums is by government spending on the military, which serves the imperial purposes of capital, and does not meet the same resistance from the ruling-class forces as does civilian government spending (which is seen as interfering with the private domain).
However, military spending has become increasingly capital-intensive and technology-intensive, employing relatively little labour for the sums expended. In addition, much of the spending is abroad.
So it is less effective dollar for dollar as a stimulus compared to many other forms of spending. Moreover, if the US were to greatly increase its military spending, it could well set off a world arms race and point to unlimited destruction.
It is worth recalling that World War II was how the US economy escaped the Great Depression. Today, the magnitude of the risk of heading in this direction is beyond all measurement.
What is needed is not more but less military spending, to be replaced by greatly expanded civilian government spending, directed at people’s most pressing needs.
The main reason for US military spending is to keep revolutions from occurring (and to defeat them when they do) throughout the world. It is a means of limiting human freedom globally. All real solutions to the world’s problems therefore require the dismantling of Washington’s military machine.
If today there seems to be an increasing trend toward war it is only because capitalism as a whole has lost its former creative role and is tending toward exterminism in every sense: economic, ecological, and military/imperial.
Our slogan today should no longer be simply Rosa Luxemburg’s “Socialism or barbarism” but “Socialism or exterminism”.
Resistance to war is resistance to an entire system of destruction.
From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #781 4 February 2009.
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
Gaza protests must continue until criminal Israeli siege ends
Socialist Alliance Statement
19 January 2009
For 22 days the Israel armed forces bombed, shelled and strafed the suburbs, villages and camps of Gaza before unilaterally declaring a cease-fire on January 18.
The death toll has already exceeded 1300, including more than 400 children—an entirely predictable result of the precision bombings of buildings where people had fled for their safety and of the use of such horror weapons as white phosphorous.
Israel’s military occupation of Gaza is the intensification of its a year-and-a-half of near total siege, itself an act of war directed at all the people of Gaza. Even before the Israel assault the siege was causing a dreadful humanitarian disaster.
But this cease-fire is not an end to Israel’s war. It is not a genuine ceasefire while the siege continues and while Israeli troops are still in Gaza.
The war and the slaughter will not end because the people of Gaza will continue to fight on in whatever ways they can. The latest massacre is not a stand-alone event, but a continuation of the ongoing Israeli oppression of Palestinian people, which started over 60 years ago. Two thirds (one million) of the Gaza population are refugees from the 1948 ethnic cleansing (“Al Nakba”), still living in refugee camps and waiting for a just solution”.
They know that Hamas is their legitimate, freely elected representative. Indeed this “terrorist organisation” happens to be one of the very few elected government in the Middle East. Palestinians in Gaza are being punished by Israel for voting for Hamas and for exercising their right to self-defence against the Israeli seige.
The will of the Palestinian people to resist can only have been strengthened by the massive outpouring of global solidarity over the past three weeks. People from around the world, including tens of thousands inside Israel itself, have taken to the streets in protests that have grown bigger as the war has continued. Because of this vast and unprecedented solidarity response, the Zionist state is already paying a very large political price for its military advances.
The Socialist Alliance believes that the solidarity campaign with Gaza must look for all possible ways to isolate Israel. A campaign to boycott companies with economic ties to Israel is already underway, with Israeli anti-war activists calling for the placing of sanctions on the country.
The Socialist Alliance repeats its call on the Rudd government to break ties with Israel over its war crimes, following the example of the Bolivian and Venezuelan governments. It must also recognise Hamas as the legitimate government of Gaza, and remove it from the Attorney-General’s list of terrorist organisations.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions should a follow its New Zealand counterpart, at the very least demanding that the federal government revoke the credentials of the Israeli ambassador, cut contacts with Israeli military and intelligence officials, ban goods manufactured in the Occupied Territories, ensure that the government does not make use of Israeli products or services in its procurement provisions, and end working holiday schemes for young Israelis.
Moreover, the burgeoning movement for justice for Palestinians needs to grow in its diversity and unity. All who want to see Israel’s military occupation ended and its criminal siege lifted must be able to stand together with equal right of participation in the movement.
This particularly applies to Australia’s Muslim communities, the victims since the Howard years of the worst campaigns of vilification and scapegoating.
In this way all supporters of freedom for Palestine will help build a movement powerful enough to make ongoing support for Israel too high a political price for the Rudd government to pay. In turn, the Israeli regime, increasingly deprived of the backing of its powerful friends in the US, UK and Australia, will have to retreat.
The strength of the movement against Israeli aggression against Gaza lies in its unity and determination to keep protesting until the Israeli military withdraws and the siege is lifted. The Socialist Alliance calls on its members and supporters to redouble efforts to strengthen solidarity with the suffering but unbowed Palestinian people.
Comment and further information
Sydney: Tim Dobson 0413 928 894 Melbourne: Ema Corro 0406 402 401 Brisbane: Paul Benedek 0410 629 088 Adelaide: Ruth Ratcliffe 0403 679 742 Hobart: Rose Matthews 0407 550 805 Perth: Sam Wainwright 0412 751 508 Canberra: Karl Miller 0403 964 247 Geelong: Tim Gooden 0438 088 112 Newcastle: Niko Leka 0406 296 141 Wollongong: Chris Williams 0425 329 963 Cairns: Jonathan Strauss 0431 683 088
For Arabic language media: Soubhi Iskander 02 9769 1991 or 0425 289 885
19 January 2009
For 22 days the Israel armed forces bombed, shelled and strafed the suburbs, villages and camps of Gaza before unilaterally declaring a cease-fire on January 18.
The death toll has already exceeded 1300, including more than 400 children—an entirely predictable result of the precision bombings of buildings where people had fled for their safety and of the use of such horror weapons as white phosphorous.
Israel’s military occupation of Gaza is the intensification of its a year-and-a-half of near total siege, itself an act of war directed at all the people of Gaza. Even before the Israel assault the siege was causing a dreadful humanitarian disaster.
But this cease-fire is not an end to Israel’s war. It is not a genuine ceasefire while the siege continues and while Israeli troops are still in Gaza.
The war and the slaughter will not end because the people of Gaza will continue to fight on in whatever ways they can. The latest massacre is not a stand-alone event, but a continuation of the ongoing Israeli oppression of Palestinian people, which started over 60 years ago. Two thirds (one million) of the Gaza population are refugees from the 1948 ethnic cleansing (“Al Nakba”), still living in refugee camps and waiting for a just solution”.
They know that Hamas is their legitimate, freely elected representative. Indeed this “terrorist organisation” happens to be one of the very few elected government in the Middle East. Palestinians in Gaza are being punished by Israel for voting for Hamas and for exercising their right to self-defence against the Israeli seige.
The will of the Palestinian people to resist can only have been strengthened by the massive outpouring of global solidarity over the past three weeks. People from around the world, including tens of thousands inside Israel itself, have taken to the streets in protests that have grown bigger as the war has continued. Because of this vast and unprecedented solidarity response, the Zionist state is already paying a very large political price for its military advances.
The Socialist Alliance believes that the solidarity campaign with Gaza must look for all possible ways to isolate Israel. A campaign to boycott companies with economic ties to Israel is already underway, with Israeli anti-war activists calling for the placing of sanctions on the country.
The Socialist Alliance repeats its call on the Rudd government to break ties with Israel over its war crimes, following the example of the Bolivian and Venezuelan governments. It must also recognise Hamas as the legitimate government of Gaza, and remove it from the Attorney-General’s list of terrorist organisations.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions should a follow its New Zealand counterpart, at the very least demanding that the federal government revoke the credentials of the Israeli ambassador, cut contacts with Israeli military and intelligence officials, ban goods manufactured in the Occupied Territories, ensure that the government does not make use of Israeli products or services in its procurement provisions, and end working holiday schemes for young Israelis.
Moreover, the burgeoning movement for justice for Palestinians needs to grow in its diversity and unity. All who want to see Israel’s military occupation ended and its criminal siege lifted must be able to stand together with equal right of participation in the movement.
This particularly applies to Australia’s Muslim communities, the victims since the Howard years of the worst campaigns of vilification and scapegoating.
In this way all supporters of freedom for Palestine will help build a movement powerful enough to make ongoing support for Israel too high a political price for the Rudd government to pay. In turn, the Israeli regime, increasingly deprived of the backing of its powerful friends in the US, UK and Australia, will have to retreat.
The strength of the movement against Israeli aggression against Gaza lies in its unity and determination to keep protesting until the Israeli military withdraws and the siege is lifted. The Socialist Alliance calls on its members and supporters to redouble efforts to strengthen solidarity with the suffering but unbowed Palestinian people.
Comment and further information
Sydney: Tim Dobson 0413 928 894 Melbourne: Ema Corro 0406 402 401 Brisbane: Paul Benedek 0410 629 088 Adelaide: Ruth Ratcliffe 0403 679 742 Hobart: Rose Matthews 0407 550 805 Perth: Sam Wainwright 0412 751 508 Canberra: Karl Miller 0403 964 247 Geelong: Tim Gooden 0438 088 112 Newcastle: Niko Leka 0406 296 141 Wollongong: Chris Williams 0425 329 963 Cairns: Jonathan Strauss 0431 683 088
For Arabic language media: Soubhi Iskander 02 9769 1991 or 0425 289 885
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