Category: Red Youth

A comrade [http://www.youtube.com/user/NHSinformation, an anaonymous, but avowed anti-cuts and pro-nhs campaigner] sent our party, via its YouTube channel, the following comment / question:

“The £20 BILLION in cuts the NHS plan to make were demanded by NHS chief exec and former CPGB member Sir David Nicholson, and you people still have the cheek to fly Hammer and Sickle flags on pro-NHS rallies”

We reproduce our response below, as there is more than a little of this kind of thinking in such campaigns and movements, and it would be useful for others to explore the arguments:

First, thanks for your interest. Your comment was an interesting one.

I and my party (“we people”) are against the cuts in the NHS, and the social wage more generally. I therefore do not feel at all hypocritical in attending a march to oppose the cuts. I acknowledge the limitation of this form of action, however.

I should point out that I am not and nor have many members of my party – the CPGB-ML – ever been members, or in any way involved with the CPB or NCP (which are the modern day descendants of the revisionist CPGB of which you speak). These parties ‘degenerated’ by becoming entirely synonymous and merging all their aims and ambitions with the Labour party, which I also oppose, although again, I get the sense that you are a Labour Party supporter from your website (I may be wrong here, in which case, apologies.) The video attached deals with our differences (CPB and CPGB-ML) on this point in a useful and accessible way:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePsqU1AhlyY&feature=channel_video_title

This is not to say that there are not good people within these politically rotten parties (CPB et al). There are. We would be happy to accept them into membership if they gave up their unrequited love for the imperialist labour party, and have no doubt that in time we will attract their best elements and the best elements of the working class in general to our cause.

If individuals – such as ‘sir David Nicholson’ – were formerly members of the CPGB, there are a few things to say about this:

1 – He is a renegade from communism, if he ever was a communist. I do not know him. Renegades do not show the just cause of communism wrong. They demonstrate that renegacy itself is wrong. It is a strange feat of logic to reproach loyal communists with the sins of capitalism on this score. [A bit like saying “Harold shipman, former doctor, turned murderer, killed tens and possibly hundreds of patients, yet you doctors have the cheek to carry on practicing your ‘medicine’ on patients in the NHS”]

2 – David Nicholson’s position is entirely consistent with having joined bourgeois politics, which is the weakness of revisionism (post-war CPGB, CPB/NCP) and highlights our criticism of them: the incompatibility of support for capitalism (the Labour Party) and support for the social wage, or wider social justice.  In the last analysis, the capitalist always claims to be a capitalist “for the good of the workers.” Therefore, whatever benefits him, he claims, will ultimately generate jobs/wealth and IN THIS WAY, ‘benefit’ workers. The NHS is no longer ‘economically realistic’ he will state.

3 – this also shows the different needs of capitalism at different stages of its development: the NHS and other benefits were given to win workers away from the real pull of revolutionary socialism after WW2, when the example of the USSR was a clarion call to all workers, even in Britain. Capitalism does not feel threatened by this prospect now.

4 – It is not revolutionary socialism (communism) that is the problem, therefore, “with their hammer and sickle flags on marches”. Rather, it is our weakness and the domination of bourgeois social democracy, (the Labour Party and their supporting grouplets), and the disorganisation and ideological weakness of the working class – which your comment highlights – that allows us to be so cheaply robbed of past generations’ gains.

If you are interested to really know about our party (“we people”), you can read about our history here. We are proud of our record as a growing party that really champions the interests of working people, and are quite open about our origins:

Why the CPGB-ML?: http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=10

The cuts are a direct result, in our opinion, of the policy of successive capitalist governments (labour, liberal, tory) that cannot find any answer for the endemic crisis of capitalist slump. They openly facilitate maximising profitability – i.e.  exploitation of workers – and will always and inevitably seek to put all the burden of cyclic downturns, recessions and indeed full-blown economic crises onto the working class. Hence £850bn for banks, matched by progressive cuts in public expenditure to match this amount. Twenty percent of the NHS budget will be cut per annum eventually, although the current £20 billion is to be spread over three years, so “only a modest” 7% per annum.

This is the only ‘rational’ choice as long as you accept that ‘capitalism is the only rational economic model.’ We do not, and are therefore consistent. We advocate an alternate economic system, which places working people in power and the satisfaction of their needs as the central pillar of economic policy.

This is quite clearly NOT the position of the Labour party, who really should be ashamed to jump on the ‘save the NHS from Landsley / the Con-Dems / Coalition cuts’  bandwagon, which they use as a cynical ploy for petty election politicking only (UNISON rap songs et al). They have bought into the capitalist market system to the nth degree, “lock, stock and barrel”, and therefore fully support privatisation of the NHS in their actual policy as carried out in government.

I and my comrades (“we people”) have been absolutely consistent on this point and you can read our position here, if you are genuinely interested in learning of our views and motivation, although I understand from your comment that you feel strongly, although incorrectly, that you ‘already know what we’re about’ and it’s ‘bad’ / negative / puts people off / etc.

June 2011 (opposing cuts in general):  http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=730&from=results

 

July 2010 (‘NHS up for grabs’ – on Landsley’s Bill, currently in the Lords)

http://www.lalkar.org/issues/contents/jul2011/nhs.html

 

Oct 2010 (‘liberating the nhs’):  http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=660

 

June 2010 (£20 bn in cuts agreed by ALL parties):  http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=623&from=results

 

Aug 2008 (Labour sharpens privatisation knife): http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=432

 

April 2008 (privatisation and fragmentation of the NHS):  http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=390

 

Aug 2006 (End in sight for the NHS – also produced as a pamphlet): http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=215&from=results

Etc.

Last, the hammer and sickle, which draws forth your cynicism and vitriol, symbolises the union of the working classes (workers and peasants) to become the rulers of society. I don’t know your economic position but your antipathy towards this idea is almost certainly a conditioned reflex that goes against your own interests.

Around 250 men are the real emperors of world-wide finance capital (imperialism) today. They have between them a controlling stake in the world economy and dominate its politics.  Their vast capital allows them to exercise effective control over the most wide-ranging ‘governmental’ decisions, and subvert all ‘democracy’ that they hypocritically claim to uphold.  Unless workers or anti-imperialist forces organise to prevent them, they decide when our nations go to war, who shall form governments and what their policies will be – down to whether or not you and I deserve health care.

Video – capitalism can’t save the planet:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=70FA81E22FC51461

 

We live in a country who’s workers have enjoyed relative prosperity, granted from super-profits derived from our ruling class’ exploitation of the whole world; but even for us, nothing is more precious than independence and freedom; for what is ‘given’ can be taken away when the political and economic climate changes.

These are lessons we all need to learn, if we are to campaign effectively and change the course of our lives and history for the better.

In solidarity.

Prol, CPGB-ML

Issued by: CPGB-ML
Issued on: 08 September 2011

The CPGB-ML warmly applauds the heroic resistance that the Libyan people have mounted against imperialism’s six-month-long assault on their national sovereignty. Despite the blitzkrieg visited upon them by the best-equipped military forces on earth, deployed in support of a rag-tag band of terrorists and agents seeking to undo the gains of the revolution, the Libyan people have remained steadfast.

We recall Fidel Castro’s earlier warning that the “crude attacks against the Libyan people, which have taken on a Nazi-fascist character, may be used against any third-world nation. The belligerent organisation now depends on Gaddafi. If he resists and does not yield to their demands, he will enter history as one of the great figures of the Arab nations.” (panorama.am)

Even were the resistance struggle now to flag, confronted with such an uneven balance of forces, Castro’s words would hold true. Yet despite the false impression created by government and media lies, it emerges that the forces of national resistance are in fact fighting on against enormous odds. In Sirte and elsewhere, the resistance continues.

Shamefully, it is at this hour of greatest peril for the Libyan revolution that the national leadership of the Stop the War Coalition has chosen to issue statements rowing in with the anti-Gaddafi hysteria whipped up by imperialist propaganda. So eager are they to see the Libyan revolution buried that they would dance on its grave, even whilst the outcome remains in the balance.

The final paragraph of a statement on Libya issued nationally by the Stop the War Coalition on 22 August chimed in with the imperialist demonisation of Gaddafi, airily informing us that “The old rulers will not be missed if and when they depart. The decisive issues – genuinely democratic and popular regimes across the Arab world, the exclusion of great power interference in the region and justice for the Palestinian people – remain in the balance and require our solidarity.”

So rather than support the real resistance that is actually being mounted against the aggression of our own ruling class, these gentry are reserving their precious ‘solidarity’ solely for what their tunnel vision is prepared to recognise as a “genuinely democratic and popular” resistance movement – ie, a movement which for the moment exists only in the realm of their imagination.

Such ‘solidarity’ can well be dispensed with by those engaged in resisting imperialism in reality.

John Rees in turn informs us in a YouTube interview that “nobody is going to shed a tear for the fall of this brutal dictator” and advises the quisling “Transitional National Council” to gain credibility by “telling the major powers where to get off” – ie, to adopt his own tactic of salting a counter-revolutionary position with some bogus anti-Nato rhetoric.

Such games will not sanitise Nato’s quislings any more than they sanitise Rees’s own vile stance.

We denounce all such treachery towards the Libyan national resistance. It brings the Stop the War Coalition further into disrepute, weakening and dividing an anti-war movement whose ability to mobilise has already been seriously weakened over the past ten years by its persistent enslavement to social democracy.

The working class in Britain will advance the faster on the road to its own emancipation as we learn how to break the link with Labour and social democracy – and how to give real solidarity to those engaged in resistance against our own imperialist masters.

The struggle of the Libyan people is also our struggle. Whatever the immediate future may hold, we may be sure that history is on our side.

Victory to the Libyan resistance against Nato terrorism!
Victory to Gaddafi!

by Frances Thomas September 5, 2011 (http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=628492)

September 1st is the anniversary of an event little known in the West. Today, twenty years on, the people who deserve to be celebrating it, are instead enduring a war. Yet the achievement changed their lives greatly and merits recognition.

A tap was turned on in Libya. From an enormous ancient aquifer, deep below the Sahara Desert, fresh water began to flow north through 1200 kilometres of pipeline to the coastal areas where 90% of Libyan people live, delivering around one million cubic metres of pure water per day to the cities of Benghazi and Sirte.

Crowds gathered in the desert for the inaugural ceremony. Phase I of the largest civil engineering venture in the world, the Great Man-made River Project, had been completed.

It was during the 1953 search for new oilfields in southern Libya that the ancient water aquifers were first discovered, four huge basins with estimated capacities each ranging between 4,800 and 20,000 cubic kms. Yes, that’s cubic kilometres. There is so much water that Libya had recently also offered it to Egypt for their needs.

After the bloodless revolution of 1969, also on September 1, the new government nationalised the oil companies and spent much of the oil revenues to harness the supply of fresh water from the desert aquifers by putting in hundreds of bore wells. Muammar Gaddafi’s dream was to provide fresh water for everyone, and to turn the desert green, making Libya self-sufficient in food production. He established large farms and encouraged the people to move to the desert. But many preferred life on the coast and wouldn’t go.

So Gaddafi next conceived a plan to bring the water to the people. Feasibility studies were carried out by the Libyan government in the seventies and in 1983 the Great Man-made River Authority was set up. The project began the following year, fully funded by the Libyan government. The almost $30 billion cost to date has been without the need of any international loans. Nor has there been any charge on the people, who do not pay for their reticulated water, which is regarded in Libya to be a human right and therefore free.

GMMRP figures are staggering. The ‘rivers’ are a 4000-kilometre network of 4m diameter lined concrete pipes, buried below the desert sands to prevent evaporation. There are 1300 wells, 500,000 sections of pipe, 3700 kms of haul roads, and 250 million cubic metres of excavation. All material for the project was locally manufactured. Large reservoirs provide storage, and pumping stations control the flow into the cities. The pipeline first reached Tripoli in 1996 and when Phase V is completed, the water will allow about 155,000 hectares of land to be cultivated.

To achieve all this, construction work was tendered and many overseas companies, including from US, Korea, Turkey, Britain, Japan and Germany took up contracts for each Phase, and some have worked for decades in Libya. The project has not been without problems, including faulty materials and financial difficulties within some of the contracting firms. Since the NATO air attacks on Libya began in March, most foreign nationals have returned home, including those employed on the hydro scheme. The final phase of the Great Man-made River Project is stalled.

Libyan people put their hearts into work on the GMMR from the beginning, and years ago took on most of the managerial and technical positions as their expert knowledge increased, with government policy encouraging their education, training and employment. They proudly call the GMMRP “the eighth wonder of the world.”

(UN Human Development Index figures for Libya since the beginning of Gaddafi’s influence can be found here http://bit.ly/b4ItsI )

The project was so well recognised internationally that UNESCO in 1999 accepted Libya’s offer to fund an award named after it, the Great Man-Made River International Water Prize, the purpose of which is to “reward remarkable scientific research work on water usage in arid areas”. http://bit.ly/rnxiCf

Gaddafi was often ridiculed in the West for persevering with such an ambitious project. Pejorative terms such “pipedream”, “pet project” and “mad dog” appeared in UK and US media. Despite a certain amount of awe for the enormity of the construction, the Great Man-made River was often dismissed as a “vanity project” and then rarely mentioned in western media. But truth is, it’s a world class water delivery system, and often visited by overseas engineers and planners wanting to learn from Libyan expertise in water transfer hydro-engineering.

On 22 July this year, four months into the air strikes to “protect civilians”, NATO forces hit the GMMR water supply pipeline. For good measure the following day, NATO destroyed the factory near Brega that produces the pipes to repair it, along with killing six guards there.

NATO air strikes on the electricity supply, as well as depriving civilians of electricity, mean that water pumping stations are no longer operating in areas even where the pipelines remain intact. Water supply for the 70% of the population who depend on the piped supply has been compromised with this damage to Libya’s vital infrastructure.

Oh, and by the way, attacking essential civilian infrastructure is a war crime.

Today in Sirte, which along with Benghazi was one of the first two cities to receive the water, there should be a celebration to mark the twenty years since fresh reticulated water first came to their city, and Gaddafi’s vision should be honoured.

But today Sirte is encircled by the rebels, and right now is being carpet bombed by NATO. The civilians are terrorised, and many families have tried to flee. But the rebels block all the exits, they kill the men, and send the women and children back into the city to be bombed. In the media the rebels are reported to have given Sirte until Saturday to surrender before they commence a full attack. But that’s not what’s happening really.

September 1, 2011, will be remembered in history for NATO’s complicity in the massacre of the people of Sirte.

Back in 1991, at the gala opening of GMMRP Phase I, and maybe recalling the 1986 bombing of his home (which was carried out by US military on Reagan’s orders), Muammar Gaddafi spoke these words to the invited international dignitaries and assembled crowd:

“After this achievement, American threats against Libya will double …. The United States will make excuses, (but) the real reason is to stop this achievement, to keep the people of Libya oppressed.”

His words were prophetic.

http://panafricannews.blogspot.com/2011/08/left-spreads-misinformation-about-libya_29.html

Harpal Brar Speks – July 30 2011

The following from Russia Today:

“What did John Lennon say? “War is over, if you want it”? It’d be lovely if that was the case in the real world, but it’s simply not that easy. Try telling that to the mainstream media though.

Outlets across the globe aligned to an anti-Gaddafi cause have painted a pretty picture of a war waged almost to the end since rebels reportedly surged into Tripoli over the weekend. Journalists and leaders alike are reporting that the end for Colonel Gaddafi’s regime is near, the rebels are taking control and the tyranny of the decades-long dictator is as good as gone.

But really now — what’s actually happening?

No matter what the mainstream media feeds as facts in an attempt to show a war that’s not a waste of resources, men and money, the reality of it is that the battle that is being waged against Gaddafi does not appear to be as far from over as most are led to believe. One would think so, however, due to misinformation represented with no regard for the truth and a public that deserves to hear it.

Monday afternoon in America, US President Barack Obama spoke to the country about the Libyan civil war. “This much is clear,” declared the president. “The Gaddafi regime is coming to an end, and the future of Libya is in the hands of its people.”

“For over four decades, the Libyan people had lived under the rule of a tyrant who denied them their most basic human rights,” added Obama. “Now, the celebrations that we’ve seen in the streets of Libya shows that the pursuit of human dignity is far stronger than any dictator.”

And while Obama did not say that the war is in fact at an end, he did say one thing for certain: “it’s clear that Gaddafi’s rule is over.”

Obama’s speech came within hours of announcement that the second son of Colonel Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, had been detained by authorities. The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for his arrest, which was then carried out by the Libyan National Liberation Army and announced by the National Transitional Council. Coupled with Obama’s assurance that the enemy’s empire was crumbling, the capture of the colonel’s son and main heir apparent would appear to be only a catalyst for the coup, signaling an end all too certain.

Hours after his supposed arrest, however, the younger Gaddafi rolled up to Tripoli’s Rixos hotel in a white armored limousine. The BBC described him as “pumped full of adrenaline”and “brimming with confidence.” He wore an army-green t-shirt as he flashed the V-for-Victory sign from both hands, entertaining reporters and supporters alike. “I’m here to refute all the rumors and reports,” he told journalists, and then announced that they would “hit the hottest spots in Tripoli.”

The National Transitional Council had issued a report earlier that the colonel’s son was captured, being held “in a safe location.”

Saif’s response? Damn them.

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi says it is an “electronic and media war in order to spread chaos and fear in Libya.” Are the rebellions really as raw as they are made out to be? “They are acting more as desperate militia. It is a de facto government but they haven’t grasped this yet,” Fawas Gerges, a professor of Middle Eastern politics at the London School of Economics, tells The Guardian.

And while that fear and chaos spreads among the citizens of Libya, for the western world it is a sign of hope and democracy. One must question how obtainable that really is, though, especially when the facts aren’t fully present.

Obama says the colonel is on the verge of collapse, but his own son tells reporters that “of course” he’s safe. The media makes it as if the rebel resurgence is ravaging his regime, but other reports suggest Gadaffi’s men are stockpiling tons upon tons of mustard gas, and others say they are wandering the halls of rebel hospitals, unloading bullets upon the war-torn and injured.

The mainstream media thinks otherwise. But what about those actually on the ground? Pepe Escobar, correspondent for Asia Times, tells RT that journalists from CNN and BBC “reporting” from Tripoli are “pathetic.” The story that they give to their audience is delivered from hotel rooms where they are held up, donned in bulletproof vests. The independent journalists actually on the scene, he says, are risking their lives to get the story straight, but few are willing to find an outlet for them to tell the truth.

Perhaps the biggest example of misinformation made available to the public was a release from Al-Jazeera TV on Monday. According to a news bulletin, a NATO warplane shot down a scud missile fired from Muammar Gaddafi’s home city outside of Tripoli. The release is great for those wanting to hear that NATO and American allies are in control and on the side of the rebels, but for those wanting the truth, they are sadly in the dark yet again. Why?

Planes can’t shoot down scud missiles.

By Tuesday morning, news sources show Gaddafi’s compound billowing with black smoke, fires raging and rebels rejoicing in tears. They say the war is almost over and the end is near, and hey, they have the footage of a mansion on fire to prove it. But where is Gaddafi? Where is his imprisoned son today? What is NATO actually doing and will they lie about it before the sun sets tonight in Tripoli?

While time may tell what’s to become of the people of Libya, time might be all the public has on their side. Surely the media can’t be relied on for the facts, but with the only the future of the world and the lives of millions at stake, what good are facts?”