Great Man's (sic) Birthday

 

The below is from the Socialist Standard January 1965

‘Here, it was obvious, was what they call a great man. Propped up, glassy eyed, at the window, flapping his hand at the crowd outside. Oozing in his senility, like the old Disraeli with his corsets and lacquered hair. Famous visitors came and went. An enormous cake was carried in, with sacks full of cards and telegrams. The flashlights popped and the television cameras whirred. Winston Churchill was ninety years old.

Most people were agreed that this was a remarkable achievement. Perhaps it was, in a way. An impressive feature of the many newspaper reminiscences of the old man in his hey day was the amount of hard liquor which he has put down. One article said that when he was Prime Minister, he drank champagne and brandy with every meal and sipped at tumblers of whisky and soda all through the day. A man of lesser constitution would almost certainly have been killed by such a deluge of alcohol.

Churchill’s consumption of drink is typical of the gusto with which he has lived his life, and it is this gusto which has been the subject of much recent hypocrisy. First, the business of those ninety years. It is too obvious that to be born into a family like the Churchills gives a person a built in advantage in their prospects of longevity because, everything else being equal, they are going to get the best of everything. The best food. A secure and comfortable home. The best education and, if they want it, an interesting job.

It is a different matter for the people who were cheering so enthusiastically outside Churchill’s window on his birthday and it is worthwhile to take a look at how they live. Their lives may be summed up in one word poverty, although it is a different kind from the poverty their parents knew, in the days when Churchill was a young man. They are, first of all, the people who make the wealth of the world. They design the factories where it is made, they plan its production and they work on the benches and assembly lines where the wealth comes rolling off. They transport the wealth all over the world. Some of them sit in offices, adding up how much profit their employers have made and how much they can hope to make in the future. Without these people, capitalist society would collapse.

But that is not likely to happen. Because not only do those people make the world’s wealth but they do their best to make sure that their employers get the profit which comes from production. Almost all of them are fervent protectors of property rights and readily join up, and if necessary die, to protect the property of one set of employers against the intrusions of another. Patiently, willingly, they trudge through their meagre lives bearing the burden of a parasite class which lives off their labours. They keep this class in luxury, so that one of its members can be a burbling old man at a window—yet rich beyond any dreams of the people outside.

These producing, organising, protecting, patient people are the working class and it is sadly typical of them that they should be so enthusiastic about the birthday of a man who has never entirely hidden his contempt for them.

It is no exaggeration to say that working class life is itself a health hazard. Inferior, constricted housing and sub-standard food is a health hazard. So are typical working conditions—the remorseless assembly line, the endless flow of paper across a harrassed desk. So is the essential insecurity of employment—the fact that a worker’s livelihood depends upon his holding down a job. The strains of working class existence are very real, but they are unknown to a Churchill. Randolph Churchill, in an illuminating passage in his autobiography, shows what a Churchill conceives as poverty by claiming that his family was "poor but honest’’—although they could afford to send him to Eton.

There is a lot of evidence to show that illness or lack of it —is not entirely a matter of chance but one of social background. The Registrar General’s Decennial 1958 Supplement pointed out that the places in this country where the average person stood the greatest chance of an early death were Salford, Liverpool, Manchester and Wigan. It is no coincidence that these are areas of dense population and that the death rates are largely caused by the high incidence of bronchitis. A few years after, in September 1963. Dr. Ian Richardson, of the school of social medicine at Aberdeen, said that among the people of North East Scotland chronic bronchitis was four times more prevalent in what he called the “lower” social classes than in the “ upper.”

What this means is that if we are born rich we have a better chance of staying healthy and living longer than if we are born poor. Churchill, ninety years old, was born rich.

Next, the business of the great man. It is a long time since the Second World War started, but there is no need for distance to lend enchantment to the part which Churchill is supposed to have played in the Allied victory. In the organs of capitalist opinion no praise is too lavish, no phrase too extravagant, to describe his period as wartime Prime Minister. Only a few small voices are to be heard trying to balance this picture, to point out the misjudgments which Churchill made and those of the men in whom he put his confidence. The late Lord Cherwell was one of these men and he made many mistakes. He was hopelessly wrong in his estimate of the effect of the allied bomber offensive. A recent book The Battle of the V. Weapons reveals that there was plenty of evidence that the Germans were preparing to launch rockets against this country, but Cherwell refused to believe it until it was too late. Yet Cherwell stayed in Churchill's favour, and was still there after the war.

Such evidence puts Churchill into perspective as a less than infallible man. who came into the Premiership with the customary history of mistakes. His name has always been linked with the massive, bloody muddle of Gallipoli. Randolph Churchill tells how a schoolmate refused to be his chum because his father had been killed at the Dardanelles, for which he blamed Winston Churchill. The periods which Churchill spent in posts like Chancellor of the Exchequer and Home Secretary were not outstanding for their brilliance he did the jobs in much the same way, and with much the same futility, as any other politician.

For only one thing did he stand out. Between the wars he became the spokesman of the group which saw German capitalism as the greater threat to the established European powers. To stifle this threat Churchill was prepared to do a deal with any other country—even the Soviet Union, which he so quickly turned against after the war. An unforeseen twist to events between the wars might have made Churchill wrong, but in fact he tuned out to be right: Germany was a bigger threat than Russia. This was what gave him the job of Prime Minister at the crucial time, and subsequently loaded him with the myth that he beat German capitalism almost on his own.

The Allied victory did not end Churchill’s miscalculations and indiscretions. In 1945, British capitalism needed a political party which was prepared to push through a big programme of nationalisation, a State health scheme and the like. It needed a continuation of government control over things like building and direction of labour. It needed a party with an image of freshness, one which might repair the morale of a war weary working class by giving the impression of a determination to get on with the job of rebuilding Britain.

The Labour Party seemed to fill these needs pretty well and so they rode to power. Against this impressive tide of events, Churchill offered only an appeal to working class sentiment and his attempt to frighten everyone with his ruinously unwise "Gestapo” speech. When the votes were counted, the great man theory had once more been put in its place. The British working class had faithfully decided that the needs of British capitalism should take precedence over the ambitions of one man.

As the newspapers were anxious to point out, the 1945 election result did not mean that the voters had lost their respect for Churchill. Everywhere he went he was feted. They all loved his funny bowler, his cigar, his V sign. With his jaw clamped, he epitomised the outraged nostalgia of every patriotic slum dweller for the days when the map was covered in pink and a British gunboat was enough to put any number of natives in their place. Good Old Winnie, they cried, in an ecstasy of admiration.

What did they have to thank Churchill for? Did they thank him for always being so militant in defence of the interests of the British ruling class? Did they thank him for urging them on to the battlefields of the world—on to the dusty fly blown slopes at Gallipoli, or into the icy death of an Artic convoy ? Did they thank him for the slaughter of Dresden? For managing the British Gazette during the General Strike ? For always, in fact, fighting the working class tooth and nail whenever they tried to stand out for their own interests ?

A sardonic opinion, perhaps, bred by years of hammering against the solid brick wall of working class ignorance, is that the workers actually enjoy absorbing punishment. Treat them mean, a Tory minister once said, and keep them keen. Churchill has never treated the working class other than meanly; he has never disguised his contempt for them, be has never relaxed in his demands that they should accept whatever burdens and terrors capitalism has imposed on than. And the workers have kept keen. Now Churchill has reached ninety, and presumably has not much longer to live, they are actually grateful to him for all that be has done to them.

Could gratitude, or devotion, or plain damned stupidity, go farther than that ?

Ivan

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2018/03/churchills-birthday-1965.html

Extract from Socialist Standard November 2012

‘Orton satirises Britain’s ‘popular’ wartime leader Churchill who died in 1965. In 1967, Hochhuth’s play Soldiers implicated Churchill in the 1943 Sikorski crash. This member of the capitalist class is also responsible for miners killed in Tonypandy, anarchists burned to death in Sidney Street, 150,000 war deaths in Gallipoli, millions of deaths in the Bengal Famine of 1943, half a million deaths in Allied bombing of German cities, threats to machine gun strikers in the 1926 General Strike and the gassing of Kurdish rebels in Iraq in 1920 In the 1960s the Lord Chamberlain would not allow Churchill’s phallus at the end of the play, so it was replaced with his cigar.’

Steve Clayton

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2019/08/what-joe-orton-saw-2012.html

SPGB Meeting TONIGHT 29 November 1930 GMT ZOOM

 

DID YOU SEE THE NEWS? (ZOOM)

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Event Details

• Date: November 29, 2024 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

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Discussion on recent subjects in the news.

To connect to a Zoom meeting, click https://zoom.us/j/7421974305

Happy Birthday Friedrich Engels

 The below is from the Socialist Standard November 2020

‘Friedrich Engels was born two hundred years ago in November 1820 in what is now called Wuppertal in Germany. He was the eldest son of a textile capitalist. Engels was trained for a career as a merchant, but in 1841 he went to Berlin and became closely involved with the Young Hegelians, a group of left-wing philosophers with whom Marx had also been involved. While in Berlin he did his military service in an artillery regiment, and for the rest of his life he took a keen interest in military matters. Later on, in the Marx household he was known as ‘The General’ and in the socialist movement as ‘Marx’s General’. In 1842 Engels became a socialist – before and independently of Marx – and went to Salford to work in his father’s business.

In England he became interested in the struggles of the English working class. His research resulted in The Condition of the Working Class in England, first published in German in 1845 and in English in 1887. It recorded the absolute poverty of the families in Manchester and their degrading working conditions. Based on first-hand observation and local sources it is still an important primary source for historians. This book greatly impressed Marx and contributed to what was to be their life-long friendship. In a preface for the 1892 edition, Engels wrote that ‘the most crying abuses described in this book have either disappeared or have been made less conspicuous.’ This is why ‘in 1844’ was then added to the book’s title. Engels went on to say:

‘It will be hardly necessary to point out that the general theoretical standpoint of this book – philosophical, economical, political – does not exactly coincide with my standpoint of to-day. Modern international Socialism, since fully developed as a science, chiefly and almost exclusively through the efforts of Marx, did not as yet exist in 1844’.

‘Historical materialism’

Engels first met Marx in Paris and agreed to produce a political satire aimed at the Young Hegelians: The Holy Family (1845). Engels and Marx then began writing The German Ideology in November 1845 and continued to work on it for nearly a year before it was abandoned unfinished, as Marx put it, to ‘the gnawing criticism of the mice’ (teeth marks of mice were subsequently found on the manuscript). This work contains an attack on the Young Hegelians (the German ideology in question) and in so doing they set out the basic principles of their materialist conception of history:

‘The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity’.

These key concepts would provide the guiding thread for their researches of the past and present. Engels would later label this materialism ‘historical materialism’, but it should be noted that the materialism here is not a philosophy of knowledge, as it is usually understood in philosophy. It is in the practical sense of the word (not in its acquisitive sense) that socialists are said to be materialists in outlook. This may look uncontroversial now, but at the time it was a revolutionary way of thinking. The widely influential German philosopher Hegel, for instance, conceived human history as the unfolding of an idea.

In 1848 the Manifesto of the Communist Party (now usually known as the Communist Manifesto) was published. Engels was not involved in writing the Manifesto but in the 1888 revised English edition he claimed joint authorship with Marx, who had died five years earlier. The revised edition sometimes improves on the original as, for example, this classic statement of the socialist revolution:

‘All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority’.

Engels had a better grasp of the English language than Marx, and he put it to good use in the many newspaper articles he wrote, some of which were published with Marx’s name as author. In the short book The Peasant War in Germany (1850) Engels drew comparisons between an early sixteenth-century uprising and the recent revolutions in Europe. It could also bear comparison between those revolutions and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917:

‘The worst thing that can befall a leader of an extreme party is to be compelled to take over a government in an epoch when the movement is not yet ripe for the domination of the class which he represents and for the realisation of the measures which that domination would imply’.

‘Scientific socialism’

In 1850 Engels re-joined the family firm in Salford, where he stayed until 1870, helping Marx financially and journalistically. Engels also developed his own lines of interest, especially in the natural sciences, and one result of his studies was his notes published in 1925 as Dialectics of Nature. According to Tristram Hunt, a few years previously the manuscript was in the possession of Eduard Bernstein, acting as Engels’ literary executor, who sent it to Albert Einstein for comment. Einstein thought the science was confused (The Frock-Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels, 2009).

In 1878 he was able to retire and move to London. As Marx became less politically active due to ill health, Engels took on more responsibility for setting out what was becoming known as ‘Marxism’. In 1878 Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science (subsequently abbreviated to Anti-Dühring) appeared. In an 1885 preface, two years after Marx’s death, Engels claimed that the arguments used against the German philosopher Dühring were mainly Marx’s ‘and only to an insignificant degree by myself’. Engels then said: ‘I read the whole manuscript to him before it was printed’. However, Terrell Carver has flagged this comment as odd (Engels: A Very Short Introduction, 2003). The implication of Engels’ comment is that Marx agreed with everything in the book. But with a large, closely argued book like this it seems implausible.

In Anti-Dühring Engels wrote that the dialectic is ‘the science of the universal laws of motion and evolution in nature, human society and thought’. Marx’s scattered comments on science and the dialectic could never be construed as making such a bold claim. That there are universal laws of motion in physics and of evolution in biology may be conceded, but it is more contentious to say that there are entirely equivalent laws of motion or evolution in human society. Like some other thinkers of the time, Engels had difficulty in disentangling philosophy from science.

Populariser of socialist theory

Three chapters from Anti-Dühring were published as Socialism: Utopian and Scientific in 1880. This latter work proved to be immensely popular within the growing socialist movement as a general exposition of Marxism. In 1884 The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State was written and published. This was based on a synopsis Marx had written on Ancient Society, a book by Lewis Henry Morgan that was published in 1877. The Origin takes an historical view of the family in relation to issues of class, female subjugation and private property. It also contains Engels’ classic socialist position on the state:

‘The ancient state was, above all, the state of the slave owners for holding down the slaves, just as the feudal state was the organ of the nobility for holding down the peasant serfs and bondsmen, and the modern representative state is an instrument for exploiting wage labour by capital’.

In Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (1888), Engels explained and defended his philosophy of nature. In his criticism of the German philosopher Feuerbach he wrote that a limitation of his ‘materialism lay in its inability to comprehend the universe as a process, as matter undergoing uninterrupted historical development’. Despite his claim to reject idealism, the universe as an unfolding of the idea is a return by Engels to the Hegelian philosophy of his youth in Germany,

After Marx’s death in 1883, Engels spent most of his time editing Marx’s notes for volumes two and three of Capital, published in 1885 and 1894, respectively. He devoted his last few years as an adviser to the parties of the Second International before dying of cancer in 1895. During their working life together, Engels always regarded himself as the junior partner. However, after Marx’s death and at a time of massively increased interest in Marxism, it fell to Engels to do the explaining. Most of it was done superbly, but he also produced a tendency towards ‘scientism’ – the belief that science also explains human political life. The term ‘scientific socialism’ is really just a philosophical viewpoint, and no less valid for all that.

From the twentieth century onwards, Engels’ political status has been raised to the equal of Marx. But there is nothing in the writings of Engels which justifies the existence of the political and social monstrosities erected in the names of Marx and Engels.’

Lew Higgins

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2023/11/engels-pioneer-socialist-2020.html

Rights and freedoms

The 2024 report from the URI Global Rights Project reveals that ‘most countries around the world have failed to adequately protect the human rights of their citizens’. Countries with fail grades were more than double those with passes. 62% earned an F grade, while just 18% earned an A or B.

Hardly surprising for a global system built on wage-slavery. In any case ‘human rights’ don’t really make sense. There is the ‘right’ to bear arms, and the ‘right’ to kill apostates. But where is the ‘right to eat’ or the ‘right to a home’ or even the ‘right to peace’?

Never mind demanding concessionary ‘rights’ from the boss class. We need to seize our freedom through global revolution.

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/

US Senator: Ukraine is all about the money.

'Ukraine could be extremely useful to the US because it is brimming with valuable natural resources and is willing to negotiate an agreement with Washington on extraction, Senator Lindsey Graham has said.

The Republican senator from South Carolina told Fox News that the Ukraine conflict is ultimately “about money.” An extract of the interview was published on the senator’s YouTube channel. “You know that the richest country in all of Europe for rare earth minerals is Ukraine?” he said, estimating the worth at 2 to 7 trillion dollars.

Graham added that Ukraine is ready to “do a deal with us,” but not Russia. “So it’s in our interest to make sure that Russia doesn’t take over the place,” he said, describing Ukraine as the “breadbasket of the world.”

“We can make money and have an economic relationship with Ukraine. It would be very beneficial to us, with peace,” Graham went on to say. “Donald Trump is going to do a deal to get our money back, to enrich ourselves with rare earth minerals. A good deal for Ukraine and us.”

The president-elect, he added, will also help settle the conflict by concluding an “honorable deal” that would avoid “humiliating” Russian President Vladimir Putin and setting the stage for another conflict.

“Donald Trump knows how to end wars. All Joe Biden knows how to do is start wars,” he said.

Graham is known for his hawkish stance on aiding Ukraine and containing Moscow. In February, he was added to Russia’s list of ‘terrorists and extremists’, after the senator advocated for designating Russia as a ‘state sponsor of terrorism’. In 2023, Moscow expressed outrage over Graham’s remarks during a meeting with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, when he said: “The Russians are dying. The best money we’ve ever spent.”

In mid-October, Zelensky presented his ‘victory plan,’ which stated that Kiev is ready to sign with its Western backers “a special agreement on the joint protection of the available critical resources” in Ukraine.

Earlier this month, Mikhail Podoliak, a top adviser to Zelensky, also stressed that Ukraine has “deposits of rare minerals, such as lithium and titanium, which we can exploit together [with the US].”’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O8h9Smpqnc

JFK: 22nd November, 1963

 

From the January 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘It is part of the mystique essential to the leadership cult that the leaders themselves, dead and alive, are surrounded by myths. When they die in as dramatically horrible a way as the late President Kennedy, the myths may become more exaggerated than usual. Everyone, except for a few lunatics like the Deep South segregationists who cheered when they heard it, must have felt a chill of horror at the news of Kennedy’s assassination. Everyone must feel for Mrs. Kennedy in her endurance of an experience to haunt her for the rest of her life. It is never pleasant to look upon the results of violence, especially the sort of which simmers beneath the garish shell of a city like Dallas.

But the world is larger than one man, no matter how powerful he may be—and Kennedy was a very powerful man indeed. The eminence of the people who attended his funeral is proof—if more proof were needed—of the fact that the United States stands supreme in world capitalism today. But whatever sympathy we may feel for Kennedy we also feel for the millions of other people who suffer under capitalism. We feel it for those who meet, without headlines, equally horrible deaths in wartime. However much we sympathise with Mrs. Kennedy in her grief, we have the same feelings for the relatives of those who died in battle, or in air raids. We feel for all the unnecessary suffering which property society imposes on the human race—for the hunger and the fear and the cruel struggle that is so often the business of living.

Because we feel these things, and want to do something about them, we are Socialists. And because we are Socialists we try to dispel the myths which help to sustain capitalism, no matter what or whom they concern.

The first notion we have to examine is the one which is held, in different ways, by the man who shot the President and by the people who applauded, and by those who grieved, his death. This is the notion that murdering Kennedy will substantially alter the course of history. Predictably, there have been many comparisons with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln at the end of the American Civil War. Yet Lincoln’s murder did not change anything. It did not alter the fact that the North had won and that as a result the American Union would continue to be solidified and to develop into the great power that it is today. If the American Negro is still, in many parts of the United States, held in near slavery, that is only because one of the real factors in the moulding of history—the massive will of a people—wants him to remain so and not because a man who is mistakenly supposed to have stood for Negro freedom was murdered.

In the same way, the policies which Kennedy followed, whatever superficial effect he himself had upon them, were basically determined for him by the conditions of his time. Kennedy, it is said, regarded politics as the art of the possible which means, among other things, that he tried to acknowledge the realities of modern capitalism. The new President, Johnson, lost no time in declaring that he, too, would work within these realities. Thus there will probably be no change in Washington’s new attitude towards the Soviet Union. This attitude sprang, not from a change of heart on the part of Mr. Khrushchev, nor from a pacific impulse on the part of President Kennedy, but from the new balance of power after the rift between Russia and China. This rift, incidentally, was symbolised by different reactions to the news of Kennedy’s assassination—regret in Moscow, jubilation in Peking. This situation has brought about a change in Russo/American relations; American policy is now the compound of firmness and caution upon which the dead President put his stamp.

We are accustomed, now, to hearing such changes described as the actions of peace-loving leaders. President Johnson has run true to form on this; in, his first speech to Congress he said:

“We will be unceasing in the search for peace—resourceful in our pursuit of areas of agreement even with those with whom we differ—and loyal to those who join with us in common cause.”

There will, too, be no change on civil rights. Racial intolerance is a considerable obstacle to the advance of organised industry in some parts of America; any government which faces modern realities must be opposed to it. Here was one of Kennedy’s greatest difficulties. He knew the importance of desegregation but he also knew that to push a programme of equal rights would cost him votes. And so it did. He was, in fact, in Texas in an effort to heal a split in the local Democratic ranks, and to rally support for his presidential campaign next year, when he was shot down.

The Kennedy policies, then, will continue because they expressed the conditions and the needs of American capitalism today. If some Congressmen opposed them, if fanatical racialist Senators from the South persisted in regarding Kennedy as a dangerous revolutionary, that is only a measure of the fact that they reflect the ignorance of the people who elected them. This ignorance need not concern only such things as class consciousness; it can also apply, as it does in the case of racial intolerance, to the realities of modern capitalism. Johnson will also do his best to make the United States face these realities. “I hate this as much as you do,” he once shouted at some obstinate Congressman, “But this is happening.” Which is a typically Texan way of summing it up.

Kennedy’s image was of a gracefully relaxed, yet energetically driving, young man. A cultured, sincere man; a man whose good looks, background and accomplishments made him something of a model for every modern sales executive. Kennedy was rich enough to have had, and to have taken advantage of, a very good education. One report put his personal fortune at between £3½ million and £4¼ million, and that of his father at something like £100 million. His social regime in the White House showed that he was deeply appreciative of the arts. But at the same time Kennedy was a very cool politician. He planned years ahead for his assault upon the Presidency. The manner in which he convinced the Democratic Party that his comparative youth and his Roman Catholicism did not weaken his power to attract votes was a classical example of his single-minded political campaigning. His professed sincerity and ideals did not prevent him, when he named Johnson as his Vice-Presidential candidate, from working the vote-catching compromise which is usual in American presidential elections. The campaign itself was a masterpiece, with Kennedy the man very much in control. Alistair Cooke reporting the campaign for The Guardian, contrasted the possible reactions of the candidates if they lost. Nixon, he thought, would take defeat bitterly but Kennedy would not let it worry him—he would “sleep sound o’nights.” 

There is no reason to suppose that Kennedy’s death will basically change anything. Perhaps there will be different decorations at the White House, or fewer famous musicians performing there. But the ideas and the policies which come out will be to all intents and purposes the same as if Kennedy were still alive. This is what American investors thought; Wall Street slumped when the President was shot, but a couple of days later it recovered with a rise the like of which has not been seen for over thirty years. The Stock Exchange in London, and its equivalent in other capitals, were also not slow to express their opinion that, whoever is in the White House, capitalism is going to live on.

The Cuban crisis made Kennedy the first man ever to have wielded, in apparent earnest, the threat of nuclear war as an instrument in capitalism’s international disputes. The manner in which he handled that crisis may be enough to set him down as one of the world’s more incisive leaders. Because of this, he will be buried in the myth that a leader’s political skill, or lack of it, substantially alters history. In fact, Kennedy was very much like the men who were Presidents before him, and the man who has succeeded him. He worked within the art of the possible. Perhaps at times he hated what he was doing yet was compelled to do it—because it was happening.’

Ivan

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2020/01/kennedy-and-after-1964.html

SPGB Meeting TONIGHT 22 November 1930 (GMT) ZOOM

 WORK

Speaker: Paul Bennett

Studs Terkel’s book Working begins, ‘This book, being about work, is, by its very nature, about violence – to the spirit as well as to the body … To survive the day is triumph enough for the walking wounded among the great many of us.’ This talk will look at one form of work, employment under capitalism, and will mainly make use of the words of workers themselves, as recorded by Terkel and others. We’ll ask why employment is like this, and whether it is necessary.

To connect to a Zoom meeting, click https://zoom.us/j/7421974305

US: 'Acceptable' use of nuclear weapons

 

‘The US is ready to use nuclear weapons if necessary but would only do so on terms “acceptable” for the country and its interests, US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) spokesman Rear Admiral Thomas Buchanan has said.  

Speaking at the Project Atom 2024 event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Buchanan noted that such conditions imply that the US will “continue to lead the world.”  

“If we have to have an exchange then we want to do it in terms that are most acceptable to the United States,” which are namely to maintain a position where the US is largely viewed as a world leader, Buchanan said.  

The admiral noted that in the event of a potential nuclear exchange, the US would seek to maintain a portion of its arsenal for continued deterrence.   

“We’d have to have reserve capacity. You wouldn’t expend all of your resources to gain winning, right? Because then you would have nothing to deter from at that point,” Buchanan said.  

At the same time, he stressed that the US “would not like to be in an environment that would follow the exchange of nuclear strikes,” and seeks to avoid any such scenario. The admiral urged ongoing dialogue with Russia, China, and North Korea to reduce the risk of a nuclear conflict, adding that “nuclear weapons are political weapons.”  

His remarks come days after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a new national nuclear doctrine that outlines the scenarios in which Moscow would be authorized to deploy its nuclear arsenal.  

The new doctrine states that Moscow will have the right to consider the nuclear option if Russia or Belarus come under attack by conventional arms, and if such aggression creates a “critical threat” to their sovereignty or territorial integrity.  

Commenting on the updated nuclear doctrine, a number of political experts pointed out that it could force the US and other Western nations to reconsider their military support for Ukraine.  

Following the publication of the revised rules, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained that the new doctrine effectively gives Russia the right to consider a nuclear response to the use of Western-supplied non-nuclear missiles by Kiev against Russian territory.’

What lies beneath....

 If you’ve being paying attention recently, you will have heard Labour ministers claiming that they are “fixing the foundations” of the economy. Convinced? Neither are we. Because the foundations (actually, foundation singular) of the current system is profit-seeking, which works best when it is able to screw the maximum possible amount of unpaid labour from the workers.

Like the previous lot (who were going to Build Back Better, remember?), Starmer, Reeves et al love a construction analogy, but daren’t let on that the capitalist edifice, foundation included, was built for the benefit of the capitalists, and that the role of government is to try to ensure continuing ‘peaceful enjoyment’ of said edifice for the minority class.

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/

US call for more meatgrinder victims in its proxy war.

 

‘A shortage of American weapons is not the problem, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has argued

Ukraine should ramp up military mobilization and send more troops to fight Russia, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has suggested in an interview with PBS News on Monday. Sullivan also rejected the argument that more American weapons could turn the tide on the frontlines.

“Have we seen a marked difference since we have provided tanks to Ukraine in terms of the battlefield? Similarly, on F-16s, have we seen a marked difference?” he asked host Nick Schifrin, referring to the firepower donated by the US and its allies to Kiev.

“It’s about manpower, and Ukraine needs to do more, in our view, to firm up its lines in terms of the number of forces it has on the front lines,” he said. “Where is the straightest line between Ukrainian performance and inputs? It’s on mobilization and manpower.”

Moscow has long stated that no amount of Western military aid could change the outcome of the conflict. Instead of chasing a military victory, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky should have compromised and agreed to the terms of the draft truce which the two sides negotiated in Istanbul in 2022, Russian officials have argued.

Zelensky’s decision to abandon the talks, following intervention from then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, suggests that he is complicit in a Western ploy to inflict maximum damage to Russia while fighting “to the last Ukrainian,” Moscow has alleged.

Sullivan claimed that Russia had deployed thousands of North Korean troops to the frontline in Kursk Region. Moscow and Pyongyang have neither confirmed nor denied this, while Zelensky has claimed that his forces could face as many as 100,000 North Korean soldiers unless the West ramps up support.

Zelensky ordered the incursion into Russian territory in August in what many military experts called a dangerous gamble aimed at slowing down Russian advances. Moscow’s Défense Ministry estimates Ukrainian losses in the operation at almost 34,000 casualties, over 200 tanks and thousands of other pieces of heavy weaponry.’

Has the Doomsday Clock just jumped forward?

‘On Monday, millions of Swedes will start receiving copies of a pamphlet advising the population how to prepare and cope in the event of war or another unexpected crisis.

“In case of crisis or war” has been updated from six years ago because of what the government in Stockholm calls the worsening security situation, by which it means Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The booklet is also twice the size.

Neighbouring Finland has also just published its own fresh advice online on “preparing for incidents and crises”.

And Norwegians have also recently received a pamphlet urging them to be prepared to manage on their own for a week in the event of extreme weather, war and other threats.’

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjr4zwj2lgdo

Shades of the UK’s Protect and Survive.

A report on social media, sourcing the Financial Times, (paywalled) says that Estonia’s Foreign Minister has said that if the President Elect of the USA makes a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, one of the terms is that Ukraine does not join NATO, then a European coalition, led by Britain and Poland should step in to fihght on Ukraine’s side. This apparently will stop Russian aggression.

A Sun ‘journalist’ writes that the USA should have provided Ukraine with the missiles it may now have access to at the beginning of the conflict. The latest decision to provide these weapons will not lead to WW3 he asserts. He opines that, ‘Ukraine is maybe Europe’s front line but its soldiers are fighting for more than their homes. They are defending the world as we know it. ‘

What world might that be? Shades of Billy Bragg’s fighting to keep the world safe for capitalism.

‘US President Joe Biden has reportedly authorized Ukraine to use long-range American missiles to strike targets inside Russia’s pre-2014 borders, according to a New York Times reporting anonymous American officials.

The decision, if accurately conveyed by the newspaper, marks a major shift in Washington’s policy and will raise the stakes in the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. The White House has yet to comment publicly on the matter.

The report states that Ukraine is expected to deploy the Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) against Russian forces and alleged North Korean troops in Russia’s Kursk Region, where fierce fighting is ongoing. The supposed presence of North Korean forces has been used as part of the justification for the policy change, though there is no verified proof of Pyongyang’s troops operating in Russia.

ATACMS missiles can be fired from HIMARS launchers, which Ukraine has had in its arsenal since 2022. Kiev's forces have had ATACMS missiles since April, but have until now been limited to using them on land considered Ukrainian by Washington. ATACMS missiles travel at supersonic speed and have a range of 300 kilometers (190 miles).

“The move is a significant escalation and may provoke a direct response from Moscow,” the report notes. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly warned that any attacks on Russia’s internationally recognized territory with American-supplied weaponry would be viewed as NATO entering the conflict directly. Such actions, he has suggested, could lead to severe repercussions, including retaliation against Western interests.

The reported US policy shift has also divided Biden’s advisers, the newspaper claims. While some argue the change is necessary to counter Moscow’s supposed  military moves, others fear it could further escalate tensions and risk a broader conflict.

Supporters of arming Ukraine more aggressively believe that previous hesitation by the US has emboldened Moscow, while critics warn of potential Russian retaliation against American and Western European assets.

The Times report also highlights that while the Ukrainian military may first target Russian and alleged North Korean forces in Kursk, the strikes could potentially be expanded to other regions.

The long-range capabilities of ATACMS would allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory, potentially disrupting supply lines and troop concentrations.

Kiev’s desire for long-range capabilities has been a longstanding request. With Biden’s reported authorization, the geopolitical dynamics of the conflict could now shift dramatically.’

The cost of capitalist destruction

‘The US Congress has allocated $182.99 billion to Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s military operation in February 2022, according to a report from the Pentagon’s Inspector General.

Of the total amount, around $131.36 billion has been directed towards security-related activities. This includes $46.51 billion earmarked for an increased US military presence in Europe and $45.78 billion for replacing weaponry supplied to Ukraine. In addition, $43.84 billion has been allocated for governance programs, which include salaries for Ukrainian public servants, while $4.08 billion has been designated for humanitarian assistance.

The US has provided a range of military equipment to Ukraine, including vehicles, ammunition, weapons, artillery, and demolition equipment. The aid packages have specifically included Bradley fighting vehicles, which Ukrainian troops have come to prefer over Abrams tanks due to their speed and agility on the battlefield, the report says, adding that American maintenance experts continue to offer remote support for this equipment through secure communication channels.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has allocated $3.9 billion in additional direct budget support to Ukraine, part of a larger $7.84 billion supplemental appropriation approved in April 2024. This budget support facilitates ongoing government operations and the provision of essential services in Ukraine. The funding covers salaries for civil servants and school employees, assistance for internally displaced persons, support for low-income families, as well as subsidies for housing and utilities.

While the administration of US President Joe Biden has maintained its commitment to providing financial and military support to Ukraine “for as long as it takes” amid the conflict with Russia, concerns have arisen regarding the potential impact of President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory on future military assistance.

Trump (has) stated that his administration will work diligently to resolve the conflict, stressing the need to prevent further bloodshed.’

Estonian equates poverty and crime: Someone explain Capitalism to them.

 

‘Poverty is to blame for rising crime rates in Estonia, the country’s justice and digital minister, Liisa Pakosta, has claimed. The comments came ahead of a European Commission report partially attributing Tallinn’s recent economic woes to severing trade ties with Russia.  

After a decade of decline, crime levels started to grow in 2023, Pakosta told a press conference, as quoted by the ERR public broadcaster. The upward trend has continued this year, with overall crime rates up 4% year-on-year. Scams have seen the most notable jump of 25%, the minister said.

The figures are part of a “wider European trend” of growing crime rates, which analysts blame on the deteriorating socio-economic situation, she added.

“Unfortunately, the number of people who say that they steal because they otherwise do not have money to buy food and basic necessities has also increased,” Pakosta said.

Around 20% of Estonia’s population of 1.37 million people is at risk of poverty, while the absolute poverty rate stands at 2.7%, according to official statistics. Inflation rose by 4.1% in October year-on-year.

Estonia's gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 3% in 2023, and the country is expected to remain in recession in 2024 amid weak domestic demand, according to the European Commission.

The latest economic forecast released by the Commission’s Economic and Financial Affairs department on Friday projects the Estonian economy growing by 1.1% in 2025. However, growth will remain weak in the coming years “as a result of several factors, including the permanent loss of cheap inputs from Russia.” 

Among other factors are “weak growth in the country’s main trading partners,” which in 2023 were the EU member states, and “lingering geopolitical concerns,” the report states.

SPGB Meeting TONIGHT 15 November 1930 (GMT) ZOOM

 

YET MORE WAYS THAT SOCIALISM CAN HEAL THE WORLD (Zoom)

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Event Details

• Date: November 15, 2024 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

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Speaker: Paddy Shannon

To connect to a Zoom meeting, click https://zoom.us/j/7421974305

SPGB Meeting Friday 1 November 1930 (GMT) ZOOM

 

YET MORE WAYS THAT SOCIALISM CAN HEAL THE WORLD (Zoom)

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Event Details

• Date: November 15, 2024 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

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Speaker: Paddy Shannon

To connect to a Zoom meeting, click https://zoom.us/j/7421974305

Socialist Sonnet No. 172

Lest We Forget

 

‘Lest we forget’ the pious legend runs

Around the cenotaph, fallen leaves swept

Away for the marking of that unkept

Promise, the final silencing of guns,

Rumbling ever since. Led by royalty

Decked out in their martial pomposity,

While conflicts with all gross ferocity

Make a deadly mockery of loyalty,

The gathered all silently bow their heads

And whisper to themselves, ‘Never no more!’

But such sentiment does not prevent war:

Indeed the living thus betray the dead.

There’s no peace, not even an armistice

While capitals continue to claim their price.

 

D. A.

Billionaires already benefitting from Trump election

‘Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election has led to the net worth of one of his biggest financial backers, Elon Musk, skyrocketing by $26.5 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.   

The Index is a ranking of the world’s 500 wealthiest people based on their net worth. It takes into account fluctuations in the share price of companies in which they have holdings.    

Musk, the owner of Tesla, SpaceX CEO, and X, has led the ranking as the world’s wealthiest person with a fortune estimated at $290 billion.  

Shares of Tesla surged by 14.8% on Wednesday as investors bet that Musk and his electric vehicle producer will benefit from Trump’s return to the White House.    

Musk, who campaigned alongside the president-elect, supported Trump to the tune of millions of dollars since officially endorsing him in July. According to media reports, he donated about $119 million to the Republican’s political action committee.

Tesla, which dominates sales of EVs in the US with a market share of 48.9%, is expected to make sharp gains under a Trump administration, given the Republican’s plans for extensive tariffs on imports of Chinese cars.  

“Tesla has the scale and scope that is unmatched,” said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, in a note to investors. “This dynamic could give Musk and Tesla a clear competitive advantage in a non-EV subsidy environment, coupled by likely higher China tariffs that would continue to push away cheaper Chinese EV players.”   

Trump has repeatedly warned he will impose tariffs of up to 200% on vehicles imported from China.   

“They’re going to pay a 100% or maybe even a 200% tariff because we’re not going to let them come into our country and destroy what’s left of our auto industry,” he pledged in October.  

Earlier this month, Trump also promised the Tesla CEO a role in his administration.   

Apart from Musk, the fortunes of a number of other billionaires also skyrocketed following Trump’s victory.   

Amazon owner Jeff Bezos saw his net worth surge $7 billion to $223.5 billion, maintaining his position as the world’s second-wealthiest person behind Musk.  

Crypto magnates also made out well. The net worth of Brian Armstrong, co-founder and CEO of crypto exchange Coinbase, soared by $2.6 to $11 billion, according to Bloomberg, while Binance crypto exchange founder Changpeng Zhao added $12.1 billion following the election, boosting his fortune to $52.7 billion.’

SPGB Meeting TONIGHT 8 November 1930 (GMT) ZOOM

 

THE US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION (ZOOM)

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Event Details

• Date: November 8, 2024 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

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Discussion about the result.

To connect to a Zoom meeting, click https://zoom.us/j/7421974305