Hands Off Syria, Victory to Assad: An exchange between the CPGB-ML and Media Lens.

Posted on by Red Youth Red Youth

The correspondence below was written by a CPGB-ML member in response to an article that appeared on MediaLens.org titled ‘Structural inclinations – the leaning tower of propaganda: chemical weapons attacks in Ghouta, Syria’ on 9 October.

We publish this not as an attack on Media Lens, whose work we value and respect, but as an exposure of the debilitating ideological castration that separates peace-loving people in the imperialist countries from adopting a class position on questions of war and peace; from turning imperialist war into a war on imperialism, from taking a resolute stand with the oppressed against the oppressors and unifying the workers in the imperialist countries with their brothers and sisters who resist in the oppressed countries.

1) Dear Media Lens

I was horrified to see the extent to which the imperialist bias that you make it your business to expose in corporate journalism has infected your own view of events in Syria.

In your recent article on the chemical weapons propaganda, you felt constrained to emphasise twice — at the beginning and at the end of your article — that President Assad of Syria is a ‘war criminal’. And, just like the journalists you excoriate, you offered not a shred of evidence for this assertion.

Near the beginning of your article you wrote, by way of an apology for criticising the corporate media’s ‘house lefties’:

The point is not that Aaronovitch, Hasan and Monbiot are wrong – the Assad dictatorship has committed many horrific war crimes, and may have again in Ghouta.

And at the end, having yourself referred to just some of the evidence that, when put together, makes it quite clear that the Syrian government did NOT carry out the recent chemical weapons attack in Ghouta, you undermined your whole article with the following statement:

Again, none of this means that the Syrian government, and indeed Assad himself, was not to blame for the August 21 attacks.

For any right-thinking person not infected with colonial prejudice, it is perfectly clear to see that President Assad is a popular, unifying leader in a country that has faced escalating hostility from imperialism for decades.

He heads a government that has been freely elected and which comprises members of many parties — a national-unity coalition, in fact. Syria’s government is far more democratic and representative than our own. Did you know that 50 percent of the seats in the Syrian parliament are reserved for workers? Since you so casually refer to it as a ‘dictatorship’ — as if that was established fact — I can only assume that you did not.

President Assad’s only ‘crime’ is to be the leader of a nation that has refused to ‘know its place’. He unites people from all backgrounds and presides over a much-valued secular state in a region where sectarian hatred has been deliberately fostered (and armed) by outsiders for generations.

Anti-imperialist, independent Syria has stood up to US and British corporate and military interests and to zionism. It has given real, physical support to Palestinian and Iraqi resistance and refugees — at great cost to itself. It has spent its resources on providing free education and health care, on keeping food prices low, and on limiting the activities of the very bloodsucking international corporations you also claim to oppose. It has refused to allow its people to become yet more disposable sweatshop-fodder for the world’s financial elite.

For decades, Syria has stood side by side with Iran and the Lebanese resistance to form a counterweight against Israeli (and therefore imperialist) dominance of the Middle East. It has supported countries all over the world — through both trade and diplomacy — that are trying to carve an independent furrow and lift their people out of the superexploited poverty that western imperialists have consigned them to.

So why should it be that you, who claim to want peace and harmony in the world, and an end to the domination of the imperialist corporations, have such a knee-jerk, hostile reaction to a leader and a government who are actually putting your supposed programme into action by standing up to the forces of imperialism? Why are you so quick to come down against David and agree with Goliath?

The only answers I can come up with are laziness and prejudice. You must have relied on vested interests for information in order to so casually refer to ‘dictator Assad’. And you would seem also to have accepted the right of the free-market fundamentalists who control our media to judge and label their opponents.

But any schoolboy critic of the system can tell you that words like ‘dictator’ and ‘undemocratic’ when used by our corporate media are simply code for ‘uppity native getting in the way of our profit-taking’. Can it be that, despite all your years of opposing the propaganda machine, this simple truth has so far eluded you?

Be that as it may, since you have set yourselves up as an independent voice that purports to expose the bias of the corporate media, it behoves you to find out the truth about the people that the West is demonising. And even if you can’t be bothered to to that, it ought to be a very minimum requirement that you not make categoric statements like ‘the Assad dictatorship has committed many horrific war crimes’ without backing them up.

I can assure you, if you think you have evidence, there are plenty of people out there who can help you see through it. Like so much of today’s propaganda, it will turn out to be paper thin.

Over the years, I have subsidised your work (when able), read your books and bought them for friends, followed your alerts and forwarded/shared them around. I have considered the work you do to be extremely useful to progressive humanity. You have written many things I disagreed with, but I considered you to be thoroughly critical in your thinking and aware that the narrative passed down to us by officially-sanctioned history books and the corporate media is written by vested interests and aimed at keeping us quiescent in the face of Britain’s hideous imperial crimes.

Which only makes your refusal to recognise the lies being told about President Assad and the Syrian government more baffling and disappointing.

I very much hope you will publish a full retraction of statements that — whether you mean them to or not — are reinforcing the lies of the corporate war propaganda machine, and therefore supporting what you yourselves have identified as a criminal war effort.

Sincerely yours
JB

2) Hi

Thanks for your email and support in the past.

Assad is certainly not head of the kind of system we would consider democratic. We’re not alone in that view. Noam Chomsky has commented:

‘First of all, Israel was not opposed to Assad. He has been more or less the kind of dictator they wanted.’

In 2011, Amnesty reported:

‘The authorities remained intolerant of dissent. Those who criticized the government, including human rights defenders, faced arrest and imprisonment after unfair trials, and bans from travelling abroad. Some were prisoners of conscience. Human rights NGOs and opposition political parties were denied legal authorization. State forces and the police continued to commit torture and other ill-treatment with impunity, and there were at least eight suspicious deaths in custody.’

You write:

“But any schoolboy critic of the system can tell you that words like ‘dictator’ and ‘undemocratic’ when used by our corporate media are simply code for ‘uppity native getting in the way of our profit-taking’.”

That’s often true but the corporate media doesn’t have a monopoly on the use, or intended meaning behind the use, of particular words. We can use the same words without intending anything of the sort. We have often quoted Ralph Nader on the US political system:

‘We have a two-party dictatorship in this country. Let’s face it. And it is a dictatorship in thraldom to these giant corporations who control every department agency in the federal government.’

In quoting Nader, we didn’t intend to suggest that the US was an uppity native getting in the way of profit-taking.

You write:

“For any right-thinking person not infected with colonial prejudice, it is perfectly clear to see that President Assad is a popular, unifying leader in a country that has faced escalating hostility from imperialism for decades.”

We didn’t say Assad wasn’t popular or unifying. We’ve often pointed out that Syria has faced escalating attacks from external forces of the kind you’re describing. We wrote that the Assad dictatorship ‘has committed many horrific war crimes’. That’s really undeniable. For example, Robert Fisk has cited Syrian army officers who made it very clear that they had not been taking prisoners. The Syrian air force has clearly been bombing civilian areas, also a war crime, and so on. As in any war, the government and head of government are responsible for all crimes of this kind.

Best wishes
DE Media Lens

3) Dear Media Lens

From your reply it’s clear that you are relying on supporters of the system for your information.

‘Human rights NGOs’ are usually backed by the same corporations who control the rest of our media. They are the missionaries of our time, clearing the way for imperial crimes by preaching to the oppressed and spreading slanders about them while pretending to be ‘independent’ of the imperial machine.

They present themselves as ‘neutral arbiters’, but a hefty proportion of what they put out is outright lies, while the rest is distorted through the mirror of western corporate interests.

And who appointed these western ‘NGOs’ as arbiters of rights anyway? Isn’t the first right of people everywhere to be allowed to live in peace? To just live??? Amnesty International led the war propaganda effort for the destruction of Libya with total lies. Its leaders loudly and shamelessly laid the groundwork for a genocide against black Libyans and the almost total destruction of 40 years of civilisational advance — then quietly retracted their lies when the war was over. MSF have been doing the same in Syria by spreading unfounded lies about the use of chemical weapons based on nothing but the say-so of Nato’s death squads.

Robert Fisk and Noam Chomsky are similar ‘left-wing’ imperialists of the type that you are usually quite good at spotting. They are ‘safe’ critics because they never question the really big lies on which the whole ideological edifice of this rotten system rests. If they weren’t such tame critics, you probably would never have have heard of them! I know you have a thing for Chomsky, but I would not rely on him for information for a second. In the case of Syria, he reinforces the western narrative by describing the terror gangs there as a legitimate liberation struggle that has been forced to arm itself. So yes actually, it is perfectly deniable that President Assad is the author of ‘horrific war crimes’ — not only Assad and Syria deny it, but so do most of progressive and oppressed humanity.

There is no civil war in Syria. The US, British and French imperialists are fighting a PROXY WAR. Civilians caught up in terrorist campaigns universally report on how many foreign accents and even languages there are amongst the fighters — who have mostly been drafted in from abroad. These mercenaries are not patriots. They have been trained by their masters to be utterly brutal (ie, killing and kicking out huge numbers of civilians from their homes, kidnapping young children and using chemical weapons on them in order to take photos and blame the deaths on the Syrian government). They recognise no rules of engagement. No crime is too barbaric for them. They are true servants of the Nato nazis.

Syria is fighting for its life as an independent and proud nation against the most powerful forces this planet has ever seen. Are you really saying that you (or Robert Fisk, come to that) are in a position to judge their tactics? One brutal battle where some bloody nasty terrorists got killed does not make the leader of a government into a war criminal. Especially when that government is trying to defend its people’s fundamental right to life by standing up against a criminal onslaught. They are trying not to become the next Afghanistan, the next Palestine, the next Congo, the next Iraq or the next Libya. They are trying to prevent the next middle-eastern genocide.

Do you think the Syrian government would remain popular if it was seen to be bombing its own civilians? Does that actually make sense if you stop to think about it? Why are the Syrian army greeted everywhere as liberators if that’s how they conduct warfare?

There has been a difficulty with ‘democratic freedoms’ in Syria. Where is there not? In Syria’s case, these limitations were a direct result of imperialist and zionist warfare, not the random whim of some mythical ‘evil tyrant’. Countries that stand up to imperialism are forced to take defensive measures. They are under constant attack on all fronts all the time – economically, militarily, via the media and through sabotage and infiltration. In order to allow people to keep going to school, to keep living in their subsidised housing, eating their subsidised food and using their free hospitals, the government had to protect the system that provided those from collapse at the hands of outside agents.

Think Britain during WW2. The country was in a state of emergency. People were asked to be vigilant against alien activity. Democracy was curtailed. Were there good reasons for it? Did the people understand it? Would you therefore characterise Churchill’s government as a brutally oppressive regime of war criminals? [In fact, it’s a bad comparison, as Churchill really was a war criminal and a nasty racist piece of work, but you take my point, I hope.]

Syria has been in a state of emergency, a state of war, since Israel occupied the Golan Heights. It has been constantly infiltrated by spies and saboteurs and, of course, some Syrians are in the pay of these forces. Do you honestly believe that a country under such attack should not take any steps to defend itself? Would you like to see imperialism being given free reign to control every corner of the planet? How do you expect countries to defend themselves if not by ‘oppressing’ those who want to hand the country over to the forces of free-market fundamentalism?

But it is not the job of peace-lovers and anti-imperialists to condemn the victim for trying to stop a crime. We should be pointing our fingers at the criminals and exposing their dastardly activities, not helping them to justify their vicious attacks.

The imperialists are angry only because the measures such states take to protect themselves are to a certain extent effective against their attempts to effect regime change from within, by subversion and manipulation. ‘We should be able to control your political and economic life’ is what calls by the imperialists for ‘open government and democracy’ really amount to. They are total doublespeak. Is it really so hard to see that?

Are you aware that the genuine ‘popular protests’ that the West homed in on and infiltrated as an excuse to trigger its proxy war were against market reforms that had been forced through by the IMF? Did you know that a structural adjustment programme had opened up parts of the economy to corporate investors and led to higher prices and unemployment? That the demonstrations were essentially a result of Syria having made concessions to the great economic pressure that has been brought to bear for decades by the imperialists?

Did you know that the real protestors considered President Assad to be on their side in their call for greater democracy (a lightening of the state of emergency) and for a return to a more nationalised economy and better opportunities for young people? Did you know that the mass of people backed a new constitution two years ago and back the government today? If you knew these facts you would not be so quick to believe the stupid lies about Assad ‘clamping down’ on protestors, ‘firing on his own people’, etc etc.

It is documented that terrorist snipers and armed men attacked police at faked ‘protests’ in order to portray the government as ‘brutal’ and justify their impending war — a war that has been in the planning for at least a decade.

Governments get demonised by the West precisely when they do manage to stand up for themselves and protect their people. While imperialism exists in the world, people will have to find ways to deal with that reality. They didn’t create the situation. They didn’t ask to be in the firing line. I’m sure they would like nothing better than to be left the hell alone to develop their economy and their culture in peace.

But that’s not what happens is it?

Why are we in the imperialist countries allowed to identify with the nobly vanquished victim and loudly wish that the world was not so unjust, but not to give any real support to those who are trying not to be the next victims of this barbaric system? Should we not be pulling out all the stops to help those on the front line who are actually doing something to change the balance of forces in favour of the oppressed?

And if Assad is popular, unifying and freely elected, where the hell do you get off calling him a ‘dictator’?

It’s time to dig a little deeper and decide which side you are really on. There are no neutral arbiters in this world.

Sincerely yours
JB

Understand Capitalism – understand your life!

Posted on by Red Youth Red Youth

valuelogo31

Capitalism is in crisis. On this point all are agreed. But what is the crisis? How can it be solved? Is capitalism the ‘end of history’, as Francis Fukuyama famously said after the counter-revolutions in the USSR and Eastern Europe in 1989-91? Will capitalism simply ‘sort itself out’? Is it the best of a bad lot, as Churchill and Thatcher maintain?

OR is it up to you and me, the working people to lay hold of the means of production – the factories, mines, banks, offices, warehouses, shopping empires, shipping, rail, trucking conglomerates, and run them ourselves; to plan production sustainably to satisfy OUR basic needs and to meet OUR pressing interests.

For what will be the cost exacted from the masses of working people of the world in ‘blood and treasure’ for capitalism’s ongoing existence? Can the world bear yet more “belt tightening”, poverty, misery, ill health, malnutrition, environmental degradation, unemployment – with all the physical and spiritual degradation that these entail – and deaths from economic and political causes – notably war and famine? And why? All so the few hundred billionaires can carry on amassing obscene amounts of wealth at our expense!

In this talk, Ella Rule explains the economics of capitalism, including the basics of Karl Marx’s Classic “Das Capital” and Lenin’s “Imperialism”. Only by understanding the problem, can we find a solution. How is value created? how is it amassed? Of what does exploitation consist (How are workers robbed of the values they create?)

Watching this video introduction is a vital step – that takes us closer to the goal of building a movement with the understanding to tackle our parasitic and decadent ruling class; place workers in control; and enable us to build an economy that serves the interests of the vast masses of humanity. Please watch and help to spread it far and wide. You are welcome to repost it, but please acknowledge your source.

“The capitalists are our implacable enemies. Their wealth is built upon our poverty, their joy upon our misery!”

There is not a crime that capitalists will not commit to preserve their monopoly over the means of production, distribution and exchange. The only fitting punishment is to deprive them of their ill-gotten gains.

Our revenge will be the laughter on the faces of our children. A better world is possible.

http://www.cpgb-ml.org
https://redyouth.org
http://www.youtube.com/ProletarianCPGBML

Join the struggle! http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=join

DEFEAT THE MURDEROUS IMPERIALIST PREDATORY WAR AGAINST THE SYRIAN PEOPLE!

Posted on by Red Youth Red Youth

Victory to Syria
DEFEAT THE MURDEROUS IMPERIALIST PREDATORY
WAR AGAINST THE SYRIAN PEOPLE !

Having failed miserably in its attempts to overthrow the Syrian government through its jihadist terrorist mercenaries, imperialism is in the final stages of its preparations for a direct military onslaught against the people of Syria and their lawful and popular government. By a concerted campaign, orchestrated by its political and ideological representatives, duly assisted by its gigantic propaganda machine – a veritable host of TV and radio stations and thousands of newspapers – which spews out non-stop lies about its intended victim, imperialism has built up an unstoppable momentum for yet another unlawful, unjust, bloody and predatory war. In the next few days, the Syrian people will find themselves to be the recipients of ‘democracy’, ‘freedom’, ‘human rights’ and ‘rule of law’ delivered by cruise missiles and other deadly weapons, which are bound to cause tremendous loss of life and material damage.

The pretext for this barbarous war is the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government against its own people – a charge that cannot withstand the slightest scrutiny. Why would the Syrian government use chemical weapons when its forces are inflicting decisive defeats on the bloodthirsty brutes unleashed by imperialism, just when a UN team is in the country investigating the use of these weapons, and that too in an area where the Syrian army is present in large numbers. Even the right-wing Zionist website WND expressed the view that the chemical attack was the work of the Syrian opposition forces.

All the evidence points in the direction of imperialism staging a provocation, through the use by its proxies of sarin and other nerve gases, so as to provide imperialism with an excuse for going to war against Syria with the hope of saving the skin of its surrogates who are on the verge of a complete rout.

Faced with this murderous war, the proletariat needs to know the unvarnished truth and not be palmed off with plausible lies. The proletariat needs to know:

• that the war presently being waged by imperialism and its stooges against the Syrian people did not simply and
spontaneously erupt in March 2011, but has actually been in preparation for at least a decade.

• that this war has nothing to do with humanitarianism, rule of law or democracy, which are merely catchwords that
imperialism uses to hide its real aims … it is a war for domination, for booty, plunder and brigandage;

• that in an effort to subvert the revolutionary movements of the people of the Middle East and the Maghreb, the
combined imperialist powers of Nato first targeted Libya and overthrew its government, murdering its undisputed
leader, Muammer Gaddafi, and are now intent on repeating their ‘humanitarian’ blitzkrieg against Syria;

• that Syria has become the target of imperialist subversion and aggression for pursuing independent economic
and foreign policies, for opposing the war in Libya, for its support for the Iraqi resistance, for its support for the
cause of the liberation of Palestine from zionist occupation, and for its alliance with Iran and the Lebanese resistance
movement, Hizbollah; in short, for its position in the axis of resistance that today stands in opposition to the
Zionist-imperialist axis of evil;

• that in the end this war is directed against China and Russia – the two countries which stand in the way of imperialist
domination of the world.

The proletariat must therefore condemn imperialism and its stooges in the most resolute terms and give its wholeheartedsupport to the Syrian people and their leadership, who are bravely defending the independence, sovereignty, honour and dignity of their country against imperialist brigandage.Those who claim to be socialist must take to the working masses the message of non-cooperation with imperialism’s predatory and criminal wars by refusing to play any part in moving materials, making munitions, pointing guns or
broadcasting imperialism’s warmongering propaganda lies.

From the very beginning of the counter-revolutionary rebellion in Syria, inspired, funded and aided by imperialism, we in the CPGB-ML have consistently called for the defeat of imperialism and the victory of the Syrian people led by President Assad, for we are firmly convinced that: “The revolutionary movement in the advanced countries would actually
be a sheer fraud if, in their struggle against capital, the workers of Europe and America were not closely and completely united with hundreds upon hundreds of millions of ‘colonial’ slaves who are oppressed by capital” (Lenin, The Second Congress of the Communist International, 1920).

We make a last-ditch appeal to our opponents in the working-class and ‘anti-war’ movement, especially the leadership of the Stop the War Coalition, who have hitherto deployed one excuse after another, one dishonest pretext following another, to undermine the anti-imperialist Syrian government, just as they did in the case of Libya, to join us in our
correct stance, if they do not want their hands to be dripping with the blood of the Syrian people, just as will be the hands of the imperialists. Failure to do so, whatever their intentions, objectively puts them in the camp of imperialism.

No cooperation with imperialism’s wars!
Victory to the Syrian people led by the Ba’ath Party and its progressive allies!
Death to imperialism and its Zionist and Arab stooges!

29 August 2013
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) www.cpgb-ml.org 01924 218 737 info@cpgb-ml.org

Up Yours!

Hydraulic Fracturing – Fracking the world away?

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With the news full of stories about “fracking” Red Youth national committee member and undergrad Physics student Geoff Bray explains a few of the basics as he see’s it:

What is Fracking? fracking diagram

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is an relatively new and increasingly controversial technique used to extract (primarily) natural gas from previously used or unusable formations of rock.

The process can be said to resemble an induced earthquake, aiming to break the surface of the formations, enabling a flow of fluid that is then extractable for its use as fuel and of course its profitable sale on the market. By directing a high-pressure mixture of water, sand and hundreds of chemicals into a drilled well, small fractures are created in the surface of the impermeable formations. Wells that have ceased to flow can also be stimulated by fracking enabling continual extraction of the resource. Hydrochloric acid amongst other chemicals assists in causing initial cracks to appear in the surface, sand holds open the cracks, allowing a continual flow of gas or oil. From here, it is the vast array of other chemicals that make the whole process work – over 700 known chemicals alongside “propietery” chemicals are undisclosed as a ‘special recipe’.

A study by TDEX (the Endocrine Disruption Exchange) stated that 93% of the hundreds of chemicals tested and identified in their study are hazardous to health. 43% are what are known as endocrine disruptors – chemicals that interfere with development and function. BTEX(an acronym that stands for benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene) compounds are amongst the hundreds identified. These carcinogens can substantially damage both the nervous and digestive systems are can find their way into humans by contamination of soil and groundwater.

Fracking and the impact on the environment

Despite the colossal expansion of the US fracking industry, there is clear evidence that fracking causes environmental damage. Both water and air-pollution have been linked to the fracking fluid and natural by-products of the extraction.

Wastewater from the process has been identified in the TDEX study as radioactive and intoxicated with the presence of Barium and the BTEX compounds, being potentially cancerous to those exposed to or in contact with it.

Government officials and managing directors on both sides of the Atlantic have started to make a reputation for themselves in blaming “poor-workmanship”, bad maintenance and structural faults for the intoxication of drinking water. Such a statement shows that for the directors and barons of finance capital excuses are easily found for damage inflicted on our natural resources, in the eyes of capitalism, humanity and nature are secondary to profit – extracting gas and making cash comes before the welfare of society and the environment.

Fracking and Britain

Tremors have also been reported in Britain. April 2011 saw a 2.3 magnitude earthquake hit Blackpool, caused by fracking. The Financial Times this year attempted to resolve concerns claiming that fracking “very rarely causes earthquakes that can be felt from the surface.” But stating they can rarely be felt from the surface does not deny that indeed, hydraulic fracturing is continually causing tremors beneath the surface and having vast geophysical impact.

Californian anti-fracking activists have gained significant support over this cause. 11 earthquakes have hit the west-coast state since the beginning of 2010, all recording magnitudes over 4.0 and peaking at over 7.0 on the Richter scale. It is thought that the introduction of hydraulic fracturing could jeopardise the safety of millions by unnaturally aggravating the likelihood of natural disasters.

Although clearly less recognizable in terms of collateral damage, it should not be under-estimated that Britain will not face the same geophysical alterations as California and the rest of the US. For America, it means more earthquakes at higher magnitudes. For Britain, it could mean the regular arrival of significant magnitude’s of earthquakes as a part of Britain’s geology.

Rigged Research?

Recent ‘studies’ carried out in Pennsylvania on the Marcellus shale has brought with it results of ‘zero-contamination’ in water-supplies and a green light for fracking. These results have been immediately disputed, for it is thought they paint a significantly different picture than that found across the majority of fracking sites. The well in question from the study is over 7000 feet below the surface, whilst the water supply remains within the first 1000 feet. This situation is not a true reflection of the majority of fracking sites, with most falling within the 2000 feet margin. It is precisely for such reason that the data has been collected from this site and not those that are far more likely to be immediately contaminated.

As anyone aware of the effects of various radioactive materials will atest, it should not be presumed that contamination would not be an issue for wells of such distance. In the immediate sense there is almost no risk of such, but in the long-term, the quantitative build up beneath the surface of these volatile compounds will ultimately lead to a hazardous qualitative change in the water supplies.

Academic research andwell-respected universities are also continuing to present contradictory reportsas companies press ahead with plans to frack, the University of Pittsburgh states, “No proof of groundwater contamination in Pennsylvania from hydrofracking doesn’t guarantee the water’s clean.”

The insight comes from the fact that Pennsylvania is one of 2 US states that “doesn’t require monitoring for water quality in individual well supplies” –this in addition to the unknown mixture to be found in the ‘secret recipe’. It has been stressed that further research is required before any kind of confirmation of zero-contamination.

The thirst for capital

The British Geological Survey, a government report, revealed an estimation of 1,300 trillion cubic feet of shale gas in the north of England alone – double that previously estimated. Upon this discovery, the Energy Minister went on to describe shale gas, rather timely, as “an exciting new energy resource”.

The estimation see’s an extractable figure comparable to almost 450 years of current gas usage in Britain. At the same time, around half of Britain’s gas is imported, so it is easy to see why the proposal has made it past the first hurdle.

Public reaction to all this news however is somewhat less excitable than the politicians and corporations. Private energy corporations will prosper from this investment into fracking and will turn over much greater quantities of gas than are presently extractable from the North Sea. In so doing it will be these corporations who prosper at the expense of the public. Gas prices for the public will not plummet, only the price the corporations are paying for it before they sell it on to us!

In typical fashion the media has not been deaf to the overtures of the industry, beginning to harp on about how the supply of natural gas in the North Sea is running out, doing so in such a way as to make one think that society itself will come to an end. But as it stands, the North Sea has not drained its last drop, nor is it the only source of energy for Britain. Besides importing resources from lands far greater enriched than our own, alternative and renewable energy production is still a far more valid option. Hydrogen power is labelled “too expensive”, although putting it into mass-production would of course bring down the price. Nuclear energy is significantly more stable and secure than fracking, but is denied in fullest due to its controversial nature, even though it makes up 1/6 of the energy in Britain.

Capitalism and the environment

Evidentially, capitalism will manipulate science to obtain the results it wishes to declare, before distributing the newfound ‘truth’ via it’s faithful ally, the corporate media. The data published in accordance with Marcellus shale is an outright diversion from the overall picture and overall impact of hydraulic fracturing.

Not only will capitalism manipulate and utilise science; it will outright deny and stoop to any level to discredit any science that stands in the way of searching out avenues of profitable investment. Ignorance to global warming, pollution, contamination and nuclear fallout brings humanity to its knees and the planet ever closer to its demise. The scientist, alike every other worker, has long been alienated from his work and transformed into a mere pawn of monopoly capitalism in its drive towards domination and exploitation.

Environmental damage is no concern, nor is the welfare of all humanity for imperialism. Whichever method makes the most profit is carried forward, regardless of any poisoning of water supplies, or the hazardous presence of chemicals such as mercury, uranium and radium and the significant danger this could all pose to the public.

Without an end to capitalism, we will never see an end to the inhumane savagery and environmental destruction that troubles our planet. No amount of reasoning is possible with monopoly capitalism, for its incentive is singular – maximum profit. Without meeting this demand, there is no negotiation, and since the exploitation of the earth brings about the most profitable resource – energy – we will never see an end to this parasitic mechanism until the control of these industries are put into the hands of the workers.

Nadezhda Popova, WWII ‘Night Witch,’ Dies at 91

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Nadezhda (Nadia) Popova, night bomber pilot, died on July 8th, aged 91

popova

This article is from the New York Times Europe

WHEN their hair was chopped off—as it had to be when they joined one of the Soviet Union’s three women-only air-force regiments—some of the women looked just like boys. Add in the bulky flight jackets, the too-big trousers and the size 42 boots, all made for men, and they could have passed for male pilots, just about. Not Nadia Popova. Somehow she managed, with a cinched waist here and a few darts there, to look like a Hollywood star. Between sorties she would fluff her hair, pressed flat by her leather flying helmet, in her tortoiseshell mirror (as at the centre of the picture above). Before each flight she would pin to her uniform a beetle brooch, which also served as a lucky charm. Beside her wooden cot in whatever shed they were sleeping in—once a cowshed—she kept a white silk blouse and a long blue silk scarf, in case she had to make a really feminine impression.

This was also the young woman—she was 19 or 20 then—who could turn her aircraft over and dive full-throttle through raking German searchlights, swerving and dancing, acting as a decoy for a second plane that would glide in silently behind her to drop its payload of bombs. That done, the second plane would act as decoy while she glided in to drop bombs herself. She made 852 such sorties in the second world war as a pilot in the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, later named the 46th Guards in honour of its courage. Once, over Poland in 1944, she made 18 sorties in a single night. The aircraft were old two-seater biplanes, PO-2s, originally training planes, made of canvas and plywood with open cockpits. When it rained, water ran over the instruments; when the planes were shot at, shrapnel tore the wings to shreds. There was no radio and, to save weight, she never wore a parachute. If you were hit, that was it.

She was a wild spirit, easily bored; she loved to tango, foxtrot, sing along to jazz. It made her feel free, which was also why at 15 she had joined a flying club without telling her parents. A pilot had landed his aircraft one day outside their town, Donetsk in Ukraine, astonishing as a god fallen to earth, in his leather jacket. From that moment she too wanted to soar like a bird. Walking towards a plane, every time, she would get a knot in her stomach; every time she took off, she was thrilled all over again.
Often she flew in pitch dark and freezing air. In an aircraft so frail, the wind could toss her over. Its swishing glide sounded, to the sleepless Germans, like a witch’s broomstick passing: so to them she was one of the Nachthexen, or Night Witches. To the Russian marines trapped on the beach at Malaya Zemlya, to whom she dropped food and medicine late in 1942, she sounded more like an angel. She had to fly so low that she heard their cheers. Later, she found 42 bullet holes in her plane.

Falling torches

Loving life as she did—running barefoot in the grass, exulting in the cherry trees that flowered outside her bedroom window—it was odd that she had suddenly wanted “the freedom to die”. It took no time, though. The moment the German invasion was announced, in June 1941, she abandoned the dance-dress she was ironing and ran to the airfield. She was one of the first to enlist in her regiment, demanding to be a fighter pilot. Soon enough, too, she had personal reasons to hate Germans. They killed her brother Leonid in the first month of the war. In August 1942, having crash-landed her plane in the North Caucasus, she saw Stukas bombing the desperate columns of refugees on the road. Her family home was commandeered by the Gestapo, the windows smashed and the cherry trees cut down.

The worst, though, was to lose friends. Eight died in a single sortie once when she was lead pilot, as hulking Messerschmitts attacked them in the dazzle of the searchlights. To right and left each tiny PO-2 went down like a falling torch. She never cried as much as when she returned to base and saw the girls’ bunks, still strewn with letters they had never finished writing. She was tough (“No time for fear”) and surprised at her increasing toughness as the war went on. But she was a woman, too.
The military men never let them forget it, mocking “the skirt regiment” even when its members had become heroines in the press. The women expected it, and did just fine without them. It was fun, though, to organise dances with the men; many of them fell in love; and so did Nadia Popova, with a blue-eyed heavily bandaged pilot she spotted under a tree, another god fallen to earth. He warned her not to make him laugh, as she clearly wanted to, because his wounds hurt. She read him poetry instead, and when she found her Semyon again for good it was at the Reichstag in Berlin in 1945, where they wrote their names in victorious pencil on the walls.

Instead of her beetle brooch she eventually wore on her smart dark suit the medal of a Hero of the Soviet Union, the Order of Friendship, the Order of Lenin and three Orders of the Patriotic War. With enormous pride she sported them, a beaming blonde among the men. She admitted she stood gazing at the night sky sometimes, wondering how she had ever managed to perform such feats up there. Well, came her down-to-earth answer, because you had to; and so you did.

CPGB-ML and Workers Party of Korea mark 60 years since the first historic defeat of US imperialism

Posted on by Red Youth Red Youth

Comrades and friends assembled in Saklatvala Hall on Saturday and celebrated both the defeat of US imperialism in the Korean war and the attacks on the Moncada barracks led by Fidel Castro which heralded the beginning of the Cuban revolution.

Members of the Kim il Sung Socialist Youth League performed revolutionary songs and cpgb-ml artists performed classics such as Joe Hill with everybody finishing with the Internationale.

Kim il Sung Socialist Youth League DPR Korea Embassy Victory in Korea cpgb-ml
cpgb-ml bbq

A history of the communist movement in Britain has now been uploaded to our youtube and can be seen here presented by cpgb-ml member -and former CPGB and NCP member- Steve Cook:

A video of the Internationale performance is here.

Harlow trades council defending workers terms and conditions

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We reproduce below a letter to Harlow council Labour group leader Mark Wilkinson from the Harlow trades council, and the reply from the local Labour group leaders…

“Dear Mark,

From the link below you will see that Kier Services in Harlow intend to delay the pay for monthly paid workers by 2 weeks without agreement with the recognised union UCATT.

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/135939

I recall that when Cllr Forman introduced her Kier blacklisting motion to the Labour Group earlier this year, much was made of the partnership deal with Kier Services where Harlow Council retained 10% of the shares.

So, naturally, I request that the Labour Group use it’s 10% stake to demand that Kier Services negotiate with UCATT on the pay issue to defend workers’ interests just as vigourously as it did to defend Kier’s over blacklisting.”

In response to the request on behalf of the interests and rights of workers, Mark Wilkinson responded,

” I am sure the labour group will do everything possible to support this issue.”

Red Youth supports wholeheartedly the actions of Harlow Trades Council in bringing this matter to the attention of local trade unionists. What is to be seen yet again is the willingness of the Labour party to serve big business interests rather than the working class! If all trades council’s were as quick to challenge such behaviour the movement would be in a much better place!


The comments of Mark Wilkinson are a clear indication of how little regard the Labour group leaders have towards workers’ interests. Red Youth rejects the words of ‘reassurance’, and suggests that any affiliation with Labour is one for the benefit of the capitalists rather than the workers.

cpgbml break link

Meeting remembers brave anti-imperialist Ghadar fighters

Posted on by Red Youth Red Youth

A packed meeting in Handsworth, Birmingham remembered the sacrifice of those who took up arms against British imperialism for freedom, independence and liberty. About 300 people came to the hall to hear speeches from Birmingham and Sandwell Indian Workers Association (GB) President Harbahjan Dardi, Secretary Sheera Jouhl, IWA(GB) General Secretary and CPGB-ML cadre Avtar Jouhl and CPGB-ML Chairman Harpal Brar and others. Cultural performances and songs performed by Bhagwant, Virdee and other talented performers finished an excellent afternoon of celebration. The meeting received a message of greetings from the Socialist Labour Party General Secretary and the full speech of comrade Harpal will be available here shortly. Congratulations must go to Birmingham and Sandwell branch of the IWA and all the family for an inspiring afternoon remembering and honouring these braves sons and daughters of India and flowers of the international proletariat. Inquilab Zindabad!

For now here are some photos.

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Ghadar Party 100th Anniversary,

Ghadar Party 100th Anniversary,

Ghadar Party 100th Anniversary,

ghadari

A young person's reflections on a parent who works in the NHS

Posted on by Red Youth Red Youth

nhs save

Red Youth welcomes letters and comments from supporters and friends. Below is a heartfelt letter which we have received from a young comrade in the east midlands. We reproduce it below without change…

Having a family member work for the NHS rarely entitles you to any benefits. Working for the NHS in 2013 is synonymous with working unsocial hours trying to manage the work of a dozen on your own, all the while the sword of redundancy hangs precariously above your head. Having a mother who has worked for the NHS for nigh on two decades now, this is the sort of thing I’m used to hearing when she returns home. Nevertheless, despite all this, my mother has consistently come home with some of the most humorous and also some of the most saddening stories from a workplace that I’ve ever heard. Unfortunately, this story falls into the latter category.

Allow me to set the scene for the last tale she came home with. The hospital my mother works at currently, and has done for the best part of 10 years now, has been relatively ‘lucky’ when it comes to NHS cuts. The hospital (which I will not name to spare it the embarrassment) still stands relatively intact and has no major calamities to plague it. To the voyeur, this is one of Britain’s better public hospitals. If there was ever an apple with a rotten core however, then this would be it.

My mother works in the pathology department of the hospital. Or at least, sometimes she does. Her hospital has experienced such a shortage of staff (many of which due to walk outs due to poor treatment, but more on that later) that she and her co-workers often rotate between three and four different departments simply to cover the workload. Of course, this is masqueraded as a ‘varied experience’ for the staff, but in reality means they can’t afford to set on any more staff. 

This tale from my mother concerns one of the other employees at the hospital, a co-worker left to manage an entire department on her own during a particularly busy shift of organizing blood samples, which are obviously quite crucial to the maintenance of patients’ health. Aware of the high workload demanded of its staff, the management’s solution to this problem is to send any excess work on to a nearby (by which I mean around 75 miles) hospital to be completed there. So, worrying that that the workload would go uncompleted if she were to carry on by herself, she sends some of the samples on the 150 mile round trip to be completed elsewhere. All done according to the guidelines she was given. Job done, work sorted, everyone carry on.

This hospital has achieved something of a wonderful bureaucracy of late, where staff can be expected to answer to around half a dozen different ‘bosses’, who don’t really do a great deal of work nor management, and any work or managing they do often conflicts with the work or management of a rival boss. The entire hospital appears to consist of little more than bosses, not sure what to do or who to manage. When the employee was questioned about what was done with the excess samples by another ‘senior’ boss. When she replies, confirming that she did was was instructed, this senior boss’ reply is, ‘that costs too much, you should have done it yourself’. 

But what about the patients who needed these samples and who would go without if she was left to do them alone? The reply is, ‘stuff the bloody patients’.

So, what’s the point in this story? It might appear to be just another ‘boss from hell’ story, it certainly is, it’s much more than that. This is not just an isolated incident but a reflection of the way the entire hospital is run. The one thing that has plagued this hospital, and by extension the NHS, over the last few years is the complete disregard for human lives. Sure, these type of stories are your average ‘horrible boss’ story when it comes to any other place of work and I’m sure every person you talk to will have one. But when it come down to it, the ‘horrible bosses’ of the NHS are in charge of people’s lives as well as people’s wages. 

In one harsh sentence, this senior boss has reduced the lives of patients at this hospital to little more than a monetary exchange, where if the cost is too high then they are left to rot. But it is not just the patients who’ve been reduced, but also the staff. The management at this hospital have long had a reputation for treating both patients and staff as a little less than human, little more than machines. As is common in so many workplaces, the boss is the craftsmen and the workers his tools. Faceless objects of labour, built to work and little more. This senior is the face of capitalism corrupt, where money is deemed more valuable than human lives. 

Obviously, to attribute the failings of the NHS to the management based on a story from one hospital would be foolish indeed. But when the senior boss who was so keen to save money puts time aside in his schedule, which is quite frankly bare, to play golf every week with an even more senior management, then I find it hard not to judge the management for being completely detached and incompetent. The management at this hospital showed an attitude of such inconsideration which has no place in a modern society, let alone its health service.

It is the inconsiderate management that is to blame for the catastrophe that is the NHS in 2013, both within and without the institution. Whilst the hospital management do an excellent job of treating patients and employees like dirt, the management of the country do an even better job of treating everyone like that. Needless to say, the NHS is one of the greatest things that Britain has installed, so why is it being left to disintegrate? The simple answer to that question is because of the inconsiderate, incompetent and detached management, that comes in the form of the government. I write this in the wake of austerity measures, and coincidentally on the 65th birthday of the NHS, so we are all fully aware of the extreme measures that cuts to public services are facing. Only a few days ago, we saw that funding to hospitals, schools and other services was being cut again but somehow our government could justify increasing military and intelligence spending. Rather than nurture its own country, our government has chosen war-making and spying on its own citizens instead of caring for and educating its ill and vulnerable.

There is no justification for this. No excuse can warrant the slashing of public services whilst intelligence and military funding increases. Where is the intelligence in that? Its this kind of behaviour that leads me to label the government as incompetent and detached, but there are no other words to describe them (none I wish to put into print, at least). As it has been for so long, the few in our management seek to benefit themselves whilst the majority lay unattended for. The golf trip is paid for, whilst the many struggle. But where are we, the many, to turn to in such times? There was a time when the Labour Party were the obvious candidates to represent the many, who needed the NHS and the many other public services Britain used to provide. If you weren’t turned away from Labour after the Oil Wars, then you were almost certainly turned away when Labour declared they would do nothing to reverse austerity. What’re we to do, when the devil in the red mask is the same as the one in the blue? The words of Karl Marx spring to mind; ‘The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.’

The only thing the many who depend on public services can do is to continue fighting for them. Regardless of how powerful the few thing they are, they are still nought when compared to the many. The people you elected to represent you and your needs, now only represent the needs of themselves and the few. So no, this story is not just an isolated case and is not just the failure of management when it comes to the needs of employees and patients, but also the failure of government and ultimately the failure of capitalists when it comes to the needs of the working class.

The many must manage themselves when the boss is absent, which is why we have to keep up the defence of public interests, not the interests of those who seek to abuse us. The power has always been with the people, which is why they try so hard to repress us and take away that which we need. That is why its so important to keep fighting for the interests of the many, of the working class, of those who tire of seeing their rewards be reaped by someone else. We must remain defiant in the face of capitalists, for true power is possessed only by the people and the more the few are made aware of this fact, then the sooner we might seek to gain our rightful place as people, not just as tools.

Save the NHS from capitalist Greed!