The real reason behind austerity

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The real reason behind austerity is to erode hope, to increase inequality and to make people's lives so hard that they do not have a chance to demand better. Nay, not just that, but that they even do not dare to demand better for fear of falling every deeper into poverty.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with reducing the country's dept and all that jazz. Portugal did not follow that idea put forward by the EU and others and, erm, no, the country did not fall off a cliff; the economy grew.

Austerity is about putting people into poverty because poverty is the ultimate form of control. Because people who are poor are, more often than not, dependent on government or other agencies for help and thus are controllable.

The aim of the neo-liberals, on whose dung heap those ideas have grown, is to make the poor ever poorer and also put the middle class into the poor bracket, wherever possible, while the elite gets richer by the minute.

Also, people who are poor but are working will not risk taking industrial action, that is to say strike or such, for fear of losing their job, which in turn could lead to losing their home and even losing their children.

In this context we also have to and must see the attempt by the neo-liberal establishment to outlaw, basically, cash and the use of it. Without money in the form of cash people also have no chance to do any extra, unofficial work, or make a little money from hobby crafts, selling surplus garden produce and such. Neither can they be trading on craft and other markets as card terminals would not be within their scope.

The end of cash will also, to a great extent, mean the end of markets in villages, towns and cities, selling produce and other things, as the majority of the market traders would also not be able to afford the use of card terminals.

The entire reason for the neo-liberal idea of austerity is to make the poor poorer still, to make the middle class poor, and to make the rich ever richer and by privatizing every public service making increasing the values of the shares of the corporations and the dividends for their shareholders, mostly the already very rich. It has nothing to do with the economy not with the reduction of the public debt.

Austerity is the tool by means of which the neo-liberal elite is turning most of the people into obedient slaves, who dare not revolt for fear of becoming poorer still.

© 2018

The 196th anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

August 16, 2015 marks the 196th anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre, the cavalry attack in 1819 on a mass meeting of 60,000 in Manchester which left at least 15 people dead and up to 700 seriously injured, among them women and children. It is not known how many of the injured died later from wounds inflicted by saber-wielding cavalry.

The mass meeting was being addressed by radical speakers calling for parliamentary reform. Men, women and children had marched from communities in what is now Greater Manchester to the gathering. It took place as demands for democracy and freedom continued in the aftermath of the French revolution and amid growing poverty and unemployment.

Local magistrates in Manchester panicked and ordered in the military to arrest the speakers. The cavalry — hussars — charged and attacked the meeting, riding their horses into the crowds and slashing and stabbing with their sabers.

The attack, the deaths and the injuries provoked two reactions.

The government cracked down on all public gatherings and passed what are now known as the Six Acts — suppression of public expression of opinion, debate, gatherings and dissent. And do not think for one moment that the government would not bring in legislation like that again – in fact they are already considering some of those.

The second was an outburst of public anger and protests and a growing tide of demand for reform, leading in 1832 to the Great Reform Act, the introduction of increased, though limited, suffrage. It was the precursor to today’s still limited parliamentary democracy. In fact we, in the same way as all other so-called democratic countries, do not actually have a democracy, a true democracy, and many who talk about it would not even know true democracy and what it actually means even if it bit them in the proverbial.

Other outcomes of the massacre were the founding of the Manchester Guardian and Shelley’s mighty poem about the event “The Masque of Anarchy”, described by Paul Foot as “the greatest political poem ever written in English” and including the words, still relevant today “ye are many, they are few.”

The Mask of Anarchy

Written on the occasion of the massacre at Manchester.

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

As I lay asleep in Italy
There came a voice from over the Sea,
And with great power it forth led me
To walk in the visions of Poesy.
 
I met Murder on the way—
He had a mask like Castlereagh—
Very smooth he looked, yet grim ;
Seven blood-hounds followed him :
 
All were fat ; and well they might
Be in admirable plight,
For one by one, and two by two,
He tossed them human hearts to chew
Which from his wide cloak he drew.
 
Next came Fraud, and he had on,
Like Lord Eldon, an ermined gown ;
His big tears, for he wept well,
Turned to mill-stones as they fell.
 
And the little children, who
Round his feet played to and fro,
Thinking every tear a gem,
Had their brains knocked out by them.
 
Clothed with the Bible, as with light,
And the shadows of the night,
Like Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy
On a crocodile rode by.
 
And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, and spies.
 
Last came Anarchy : he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood ;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.
 
And he wore a kingly crown ;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone ;
On his brow this mark I saw—
‘I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!’
 
With a pace stately and fast,
Over English land he passed,
Trampling to a mire of blood
The adoring multitude.
 
And with a mighty troop around
With their trampling shook the ground,
Waving each a bloody sword,
For the service of their Lord.
 
And with glorious triumph they
Rode through England proud and gay,
Drunk as with intoxication
Of the wine of desolation.
 
O’er fields and towns, from sea to sea,
Passed the Pageant swift and free,
Tearing up, and trampling down ;
Till they came to London town.
 
And each dweller, panic-stricken,
Felt his heart with terror sicken
Hearing the tempestuous cry
Of the triumph of Anarchy.
 
For from pomp to meet him came,
Clothed in arms like blood and flame,
The hired murderers, who did sing
‘Thou art God, and Law, and King.
 
‘We have waited weak and lone
For thy coming, Mighty One!
Our purses are empty, our swords are cold,
Give us glory, and blood, and gold.’
 
Lawyers and priests a motley crowd,
To the earth their pale brows bowed ;
Like a bad prayer not over loud,
Whispering—‘Thou art Law and God.’—
 
Then all cried with one accord,
‘Thou art King, and God, and Lord ;
Anarchy, to thee we bow,
Be thy name made holy now!’
 
And Anarchy, the Skeleton,
Bowed and grinned to every one,
As well as if his education
Had cost ten millions to the nation.
 
For he knew the Palaces
Of our Kings were rightly his ;
His the sceptre, crown, and globe,
And the gold-inwoven robe.
 
So he sent his slaves before
To seize upon the Bank and Tower,
And was proceeding with intent
To meet his pensioned Parliament
 
When one fled past, a maniac maid,
And her name was Hope, she said :
But she looked more like Despair,
And she cried out in the air :
 
‘My father Time is weak and gray
With waiting for a better day ;
See how idiot-like he stands,
Fumbling with his palsied hands!
 
‘He has had child after child,
And the dust of death is piled
Over every one but me—
Misery, oh, Misery!’
 
Then she lay down in the street,
Right before the horses feet,
Expecting, with a patient eye,
Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy.
 
When between her and her foes
A mist, a light, an image rose.
Small at first, and weak, and frail
Like the vapour of a vale :
 
Till as clouds grow on the blast,
Like tower-crowned giants striding fast,
And glare with lightnings as they fly,
And speak in thunder to the sky.
 
It grew—a Shape arrayed in mail
Brighter than the viper’s scale,
And upborne on wings whose grain
Was as the light of sunny rain.
 
On its helm, seen far away,
A planet, like the Morning’s, lay ;
And those plumes its light rained through
Like a shower of crimson dew.
 
With step as soft as wind it passed
O’er the heads of men—so fast
That they knew the presence there,
And looked,—but all was empty air.
 
As flowers beneath May’s footstep waken,
As stars from Night’s loose hair are shaken,
As waves arise when loud winds call,
Thoughts sprung where’er that step did fall.
 
And the prostrate multitude
Looked—and ankle-deep in blood,
Hope, that maiden most serene,
Was walking with a quiet mien :
 
And Anarchy, the ghastly birth,
Lay dead earth upon the earth ;
The Horse of Death tameless as wind
Fled, and with his hoofs did grind
To dust the murderers thronged behind.
 
A rushing light of clouds and splendour,
A sense awakening and yet tender
Was heard and felt—and at its close
These words of joy and fear arose
 
As if their own indignant Earth
Which gave the sons of England birth
Had felt their blood upon her brow,
And shuddering with a mother’s throe
 
Had turned every drop of blood
By which her face had been bedewed
To an accent unwithstood,—
As if her heart cried out aloud :
 
‘Men of England, heirs of Glory,
Heroes of unwritten story,
Nurslings of one mighty Mother,
Hopes of her, and one another ;
 
‘Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number.
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you—
Ye are many—they are few.
 
‘What is Freedom?—ye can tell
That which slavery is, too well—
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.
 
‘’Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs, as in a cell
For the tyrants’ use to dwell,
 
‘So that ye for them are made
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,
With or without your own will bent
To their defence and nourishment.
 
‘’Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak,
When the winter winds are bleak,—
They are dying whilst I speak.
 
‘’Tis to hunger for such diet
As the rich man in his riot
Casts to the fat dogs that lie
Surfeiting beneath his eye ;
 
‘’Tis to let the Ghost of Gold
Take from Toil a thousandfold
More than e’er its substance could
In the tyrannies of old.
 
‘Paper coin—that forgery
Of the title-deeds, which ye
Hold to something from the worth
Of the inheritance of Earth.
 
‘’Tis to be a slave in soul
And to hold no strong control
Over your own wills, but be
All that others make of ye.
 
‘And at length when ye complain
With a murmur weak and vain
’Tis to see the Tyrant’s crew
Ride over your wives and you—
Blood is on the grass like dew.
 
‘Then it is to feel revenge
Fiercely thirsting to exchange
Blood for blood—and wrong for wrong—
Do not thus when ye are strong.
 
‘Birds find rest, in narrow nest
When weary of their wingèd quest ;
Beasts find fare, in woody lair
When storm and snow are in the air.
 
‘Horses, oxen, have a home,
When from daily toil they come ;
Household dogs, when the wind roars,
Find a home within warm doors.’
 
‘Asses, swine, have litter spread
And with fitting food are fed ;
All things have a home but one—
Thou, Oh, Englishman, hast none !
 
‘This is Slavery—savage men,
Or wild beasts within a den
Would endure not as ye do—
But such ills they never knew.
 
‘What art thou, Freedom ? O ! could slaves
Answer from their living graves
This demand—tyrants would flee
Like a dream’s imagery :
 
‘Thou are not, as impostors say,
A shadow soon to pass away,
A superstition, and a name
Echoing from the cave of Fame.
 
‘For the labourer thou art bread,
And a comely table spread
From his daily labour come
In a neat and happy home.
 
‘Thou art clothes, and fire, and food
For the trampled multitude—
No—in countries that are free
Such starvation cannot be
As in England now we see.
 
‘To the rich thou art a check,
When his foot is on the neck
Of his victim, thou dost make
That he treads upon a snake.
 
‘Thou art Justice—ne’er for gold
May thy righteous laws be sold
As laws are in England—thou
Shield’st alike both high and low.
 
‘Thou art Wisdom—Freemen never
Dream that God will damn for ever
All who think those things untrue
Of which Priests make such ado.
 
‘Thou art Peace—never by thee
Would blood and treasure wasted be
As tyrants wasted them, when all
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul.
 
‘What if English toil and blood
Was poured forth, even as a flood ?
It availed, Oh, Liberty.
To dim, but not extinguish thee.
 
‘Thou art Love—the rich have kissed
Thy feet, and like him following Christ,
Give their substance to the free
And through the rough world follow thee,
 
‘Or turn their wealth to arms, and make
War for thy belovèd sake
On wealth, and war, and fraud—whence they
Drew the power which is their prey.
 
‘Science, Poetry, and Thought
Are thy lamps ; they make the lot
Of the dwellers in a cot
So serene, they curse it not.
 
‘Spirit, Patience, Gentleness,
All that can adorn and bless
Art thou—let deeds, not words, express
Thine exceeding loveliness.
 
‘Let a great Assembly be
Of the fearless and the free
On some spot of English ground
Where the plains stretch wide around.
 
‘Let the blue sky overhead,
The green earth on which ye tread,
All that must eternal be
Witness the solemnity.
 
‘From the corners uttermost
Of the bounds of English coast ;
From every hut, village, and town
Where those who live and suffer moan
For others’ misery or their own,
 
‘From the workhouse and the prison
Where pale as corpses newly risen,
Women, children, young and old
Groan for pain, and weep for cold—
 
‘From the haunts of daily life
Where is waged the daily strife
With common wants and common cares
Which sows the human heart with tares—
 
‘Lastly from the palaces
Where the murmur of distress
Echoes, like the distant sound
Of a wind alive around
 
‘Those prison halls of wealth and fashion.
Where some few feel such compassion
For those who groan, and toil, and wail
As must make their brethren pale—
 
‘Ye who suffer woes untold,
Or to feel, or to behold
Your lost country bought and sold
With a price of blood and gold—
 
‘Let a vast assembly be,
And with great solemnity
Declare with measured words that ye
Are, as God has made ye, free—
 
‘Be your strong and simple words
Keen to wound as sharpened swords,
And wide as targes let them be,
With their shade to cover ye.
 
‘Let the tyrants pour around
With a quick and startling sound,
Like the loosening of a sea,
Troops of armed emblazonry.
 
‘Let the charged artillery drive
Till the dead air seems alive
With the clash of clanging wheels,
And the tramp of horses’ heels.
 
‘Let the fixèd bayonet
Gleam with sharp desire to wet
Its bright point in English blood
Looking keen as one for food.
 
‘Let the horsemen’s scimitars
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars
Thirsting to eclipse their burning
In a sea of death and mourning.
 
‘Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war,
 
‘And let Panic, who outspeeds
The career of armèd steeds
Pass, a disregarded shade
Through your phalanx undismayed.
 
‘Let the laws of your own land,
Good or ill, between ye stand
Hand to hand, and foot to foot,
Arbiters of the dispute,
 
‘The old laws of England—they
Whose reverend heads with age are gray,
Children of a wiser day ;
And whose solemn voice must be
Thine own echo—Liberty !
 
‘On those who first should violate
Such sacred heralds in their state
Rest the blood that must ensue,
And it will not rest on you.
 
‘And if then the tyrants dare
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew, —
What they like, that let them do.
 
‘With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.’
 
‘Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.
 
‘Every woman in the land
Will point at them as they stand—
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street.
 
‘And the bold, true warriors
Who have hugged Danger in wars
Will turn to those who would be free,
Ashamed of such base company.
 
‘And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular ;
A volcano heard afar.
 
‘And these words shall then become
Like Oppression’s thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain.
Heard again—again—again—
 
‘Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number—
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you—
Ye are many—they are few.’

Never forget those on whose shoulders we stand! Many of them gave their very lives for the cause.

© 2015

Reflections for the First of May

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The 1st of May of the Day of Action for the Working Class! But we will only celebrate this day when the vultures of capitalism have been banished and the workers see themselves truly as a class once again. The working class.

Worker – how proud and great a word and sound. Workers are those who you have to thank for your daily bread but also for your beer. Those are also the women who stand their ground in the daily organization for their families and they are also the children and young people from our midst who stand for the future of mankind. But they are also the veterans of labor who have given us the sun. And when you look at your hands you not only see the callouses and scars from your hard work but also the hands which unite your class on a global level. It is the working class – your class.

The true celebration of this day can and will only happen in earnest once the working class has taken its rightful place in the order of things and when the means of production are truly in the hands of the workers. And I do mean “in the hands of the workers” and not in the hands of the state, for the latter is but state capitalism and the working class then only exchanges one master for another.

Let us march boldly together into the new future of true socialism where man and Earth count for something and not just as targets for exploitation.

Workers of all lands unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.

Red Front!

Gedanken zum 1-ten Mai

Der 1. Mai ist Kampftag der Arbeiterklasse! Aber gefeiert wird erst wenn die Geier des Kapitals verscheucht sind und sich der Arbeiter wieder als Klasse empfindet, als die Arbeiterklasse.

Arbeiter - wie stolz das klingt. Arbeiter sind die Menschen denen Du das tägliche Brot, aber auch das Bier verdankst. Das sind Frauen an Deiner Seite welche ihren "Mann" im täglichen Organisieren für die Familie stehen. Das sind die Kinder und Jugendlichen aus unserer Mitte welche für die Zukunft der Menschheit stehen. Aber auch die Veteranen der Arbeit welche uns die Sonne gereicht hatten. Und wenn Du nun Deine Hände anschaust, dann siehst du nicht nur Schwielen und Narben von harter Arbeit sondern auch die Hände welche weltumspannend deine Klasse eint. Es ist die Arbeiterklasse - Deine Klasse!

Die wahre Feier dieses Tages, jedoch, kann und wird erst dann richtig stattfinden wenn die Arbeiterklasse in der Ordnung der Dinge seinen rechtmäßigen Platz eingenommen hat und wenn die Produktionsmittel sich wirklich in den Händen der Arbeiter befinden. Und ich meine “die Produktionsmittel in den Händen der Arbeiter” und nicht in den Händen des Staates, für das letztere ist naemlich Staatskapitalismus und der Arbeiterklasse tauscht dann nur einen Herren für einen anderen ein.

Lasst uns gemeinsam vorwärts schreiten in die neue Zukunft des wahren Sozialismus, wo Mensch und Erde für etwas zählen und nicht nur als Ziele der Ausbeutung.

Arbeiter alles Länder vereinigt Euch! Ihr habst nichts zu verlieren ausser eure Ketten.

Rot Front!

London New Year Fireworks for the rich only

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

For the first time in its history the New Year's fireworks in London were a ticket only affair and anyone without a ticket was not welcome.

Not only do they wish to keep the poor away from London altogether as in living there; the poorer classes – the riff-raff – are also no longer welcome at events for which taxpayers' money is being used. Can you say social cleansing?

There was a time, during the GLC under Ken Livingstone especially, when such events were absolutely free and everyone was welcome. Under Boris Johnson things have changed quite a lot and not just as far as such events are concerned.

London, ever since the arrival of the London docklands Destructions Corporation, is intended to be an enclave for the rich only with everyone else to be pushed out of the capital. While not by force, as yet, it is done by inflating the housing and living costs and also by deliberately destroying the social housing stock, the housing estates, and what is left of them, when they are refurbished, after the people have been moved out of the capital, as has happened with the Ocean and the Robin Hood Estates, will be sold off to the elite who can afford them.

Not only are former working class areas of London, such as the Docklands and other East End Boroughs being gentrified; they are deliberately made too expensive for those of the working class to be able to continue living there. And where are they rehoused to? Well outside of London so they do not end up mingling with the rich. In the process also old established communities are deliberately broken up and dispersed just in case the Red disease could have taken root there.

By dispersing the working class in such a way they hope that any social “unrest” will not take place as they no longer have their friends and family and their comrades near them with who to cooperate. And no, comrades, the Labour Party, as it is at present, the Red Tories, would not do it any differently, as that party too is but a party of the establishment and will work for the elite and not against it.

© 2015

Overcoming Materialism

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

This also and especially must be the task of any new political movement of the working class. But materialism has been and is the new god, even among and particularly the working class, despite the fact that many may not be able to afford the things that they want.

It would appear that everyone almost everywhere in the developed world believes that things make him or her happy and the more things the greater the happiness. Alas this is, however, not so. The problem is that the more wealth and possessions people have the more they worry about losing them through theft and in other ways and that sure does not make happy.

Even the poor, who can barely afford, if at all, to feed themselves and their families, more often than not, want all those material things, those goods that advertising makes them believe that they need. Needs and wants are two different things and those needs suggested in such a way are but wants. However, the manufacturers must make us believe that we actually need those things; otherwise they cannot sell us those things.

People all too often end up in a quandary here in that, because of advertising, they really believe that they need all those material goods and then also there is the “keeping up with the Joneses”, with the neighbor. If the neighbor gets a new three-piece suite they have to get an even “better” and more expensive one, and so on, regardless of whether they need it or actually can afford it, and often they forgo, in order to be able to compete in this game, the necessities of life.

Material possessions are put before anything and everything else and people are being judged by everyone almost as to how much they earn, have and own, and it was Margaret Thatcher, to a great degree, in Britain who bequeathed this to us. She also stated, so it is being reported, that anyone in his early thirties still using a bus should be considered a failure. It was the Thatcher government who also destroyed the social rented housing market buy wanting “to make everyone home owners”, which is a load of garbage.

Using the bus rather than driving and even owning a car or renting a home (in the social sector) should not make someone a failure. In many countries in the European Union, such as, for example, Germany, the great majority rent their homes rather than own them, although many areas are now becoming gentrified and rents are rising to such an extent, with the protection that used to exist, apparently having been removed, well beyond the ability of the ordinary people's incomes.

All too often – most of the time – people judge other people by what they have by way of possessions and money; by the kind of house they own and if you don't own your home you are already looked down upon automatically; by the car they drive and if you don't drive, and well, if you do not own a car and drive one then there must definitely be something wrong with you and you must not be working hard enough to earn enough; by the clothes they wear; and by the gadgets they own, aside from also how they look, talk and walk. We are not what we own or what we wear but how we live.

© 2014

Capitalists can buy themselves out of any crisis

"Capitalists can buy themselves out of any crisis, so long as they make the workers pay" – Lenin

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Those words of Vladimir Ilyitch Ulyanov (Lenin) are still as true and valid today as they were when he made that statement, maybe even more so.

The capitalists will, on the backs of the poor and on the backs working class, buy themselves out of any crisis and most if not indeed all of those crises are created by the capitalists themselves. There are very few that cannot be laid at the door of capital and the banks.

Wars are almost always the result of the machinations of the capitalists and the ruling classes, the junkers and those others that lord it over the people. Other crises too are all too often orchestrated by those in order to further their interests whatever those may be at that particular time.

While the poor may commit (petty) crimes in order to feed themselves and their children they have never started a war or orchestrated some crisis to get what they want. They only, in general, go after what they need.

The ruling class and the capitalists, on the other hand, do not need more but still they want more. More resources, more money, and that ideally for nothing. They oppress the people, exploit the workers, and it is they who reap the profits and not the people what actually do the work. Many of them also do not even risk their own capital but play with stolen money and resources. Any poor person would end up in jail for what seems to be considered acceptable practice and even laudable when done by the capitalists and the ruling class to further their interests. Are they not growing the economy and that is what counts?

Aside from the fact that the perpetual growth economy not being sustainable it is all done by exploitation. Exploitation of the workers in the factories and businesses, exploitation of other countries and the exploitation of the environment to such an extent that the Earth is being destroyed. And all for profit and more, more and more money that they do not need.

Crises are manufactured so as to advance their interests, especially as regards to the exploitation of natural resources in other countries, whether oil, gas, gold, timber or whatever. The accusation against Saddam Hussein of Iraq of having weapons of mass destruction was fabricated in order for US companies especially to get their dirty hands on Iraq's oil and Afghanistan has not been invaded to fight Islamic terrorism but in order to get the minerals and rare earths that are there in them hills. And whose sons and daughters have to fight on the fields of battle? Those of the working class and not those of the ruling class.

Financial crises too have been fabricated in order to devalue currencies and destroy economies and the poor and the working class are the ones who have to carry the can once again by having to take wage cuts but having to pay every rising prices for food and utilities. It is they that are made to pay for the crises that the capitalists and the bankers create to further their own interests and those of the businesses and banks that they represent.

Only when the workers truly own the means of production and other businesses will the worker ever be free of this exploitation. But this liberation is not achievable by simply expropriating the current owner and making the state the owner of such businesses for the status quo of boss and worker still then remains.

Nationalizing of industry and businesses does not make for ownership by the workers (and the people). It creates nothing but ownership by the state, and I mean the state, that is to say state capitalism, and turning workers not into owners but into wage slave to the state and that just will not do.

© 2014

Keir Hardie and the Labour Party of today

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Keir Hardie was a socialist of the old school and founder of the Labour Party, however not of the kind that we know today and this can be seen from address of his below.

“I shall not weary you by repeating the tale of how public opinion has changed during those twenty-one years. But, as an example, I may recall the fact that in those days, and for many years thereafter, it was tenaciously upheld by the public authorities, here and elsewhere, that it was an offense against laws of nature and ruinous to the State for public authorities to provide food for starving children, or independent aid for the aged poor. Even safety regulations in mines and factories were taboo. They interfered with the ‘freedom of the individual’. As for such proposals as an eight-hour day, a minimum wage, the right to work, and municipal houses, any serious mention of such classed a man as a fool.

These cruel, heartless dogmas, backed up by quotations from Jeremy Bentham, Malthus, and Herbert Spencer, and by a bogus interpretation of Darwin’s theory of evolution, were accepted as part of the unalterable laws of nature, sacred and inviolable, and were maintained by statesmen, town councilors, ministers of the Gospel, and, strangest of all, by the bulk of Trade Union leaders. That was the political, social and religious element in which our Party saw the light. There was much bitter fighting in those days. Even municipal contests evoked the wildest passions. And if today there is a kindlier social atmosphere it is mainly because of twenty-one years’ work of the ILP.

Scientists are constantly revealing the hidden powers of nature. By the aid of the X-rays we can now see through rocks and stones; the discovery of radium has revealed a great force which is already healing disease and will one day drive machinery; Marconi, with his wireless system of telegraphy and now of telephony, enables us to speak and send messages for thousands of miles through space.

Another discoverer, through means of the same invisible medium, can blow up ships, arsenals, and forts at a distance of eight miles.

But though these powers and forces are only now being revealed, they have existed since before the foundation of the world. The scientists, by sympathetic study and laborious toil, have brought them within our ken. And so, in like manner, our Socialist propaganda is revealing hidden and hitherto undreamed of powers and forces in human nature.

Think of the thousands of men and women who, during the past twenty-one years, have toiled unceasingly for the good of the race. The results are already being seen on every hand, alike in legislation and administration. And who shall estimate or put a limit to the forces and powers which yet lie concealed in human nature?

Frozen and hemmed in by a cold, callous greed, the warming influence of Socialism is beginning to liberate them. We see it in the growing altruism of Trade Unionism. We see it, perhaps, most of all in the awakening of women. Who that has ever known woman as mother or wife has not felt the dormant powers which, under the emotions of life, or at the stern call of duty are even now momentarily revealed? And who is there who can even dimly forecast the powers that lie latent in the patient drudging woman, which a freer life would bring forth? Woman, even more than the working class, is the great unknown quantity of the race.

Already we see how their emergence into politics is affecting the prospects of men. Their agitation has produced a state of affairs in which even Radicals are afraid to give more votes to men, since they cannot do so without also enfranchising women. Henceforward we must march forward as comrades in the great struggle for human freedom.

The Independent Labour Party has pioneered progress in this country, is breaking down sex barriers and class barriers, is giving a lead to the great women’s movement as well as to the great working-class movement. We are here beginning the twenty-second year of our existence. The past twenty-one years have been years of continuous progress, but we are only at the beginning. The emancipation of the worker has still to be achieved and just as the ILP in the past has given a good, straight lead, so shall the ILP in the future, through good report and through ill, pursue the even tenor of its way, until the sunshine of Socialism and human freedom break forth upon our land”.

Keir Hardie was first elected to Parliament in 1895 and was integral to the founding of the Labour Representation Committee (later the Labour Party) in 1900, becoming its first leader in 1906. On April 11th 1914 – just a little over one hundred years ago – Hardie attended the twenty-first anniversary of the formation of the Independent Labour Party in Bradford where he gave the address above.

Despite the fact that the present-day Labour Party is about as far removed from socialism and Hardie's ideas and ideals they will always claim that they are his children, basically. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth.

The Labour Party of today and the majority of its (leading) members would not know socialism if it bit them in the proverbial butt and those of the ordinary membership who claim that their Labour representatives do also must examine as to whether they have the lightest idea of what socialism truly is and is all about.

It is not only about free health care but a great deal more. In fact those socialists that went before understood it even better, such as Owen, and those who stood for the Co-operative Commonwealth.

While there are flaws in many of the programs of those old socialists and those that followed it is possible by combining the good from all programs and by thinking up our own ways to create true socialism where everyone gets a fair chance and where everyone is – yes – equal. Where everyone has a home, has work, or is free to pursue his or her own calling as to making a living, but where everyone works in one way or the other; where work is seen as a duty and as a honor. Where health care is first of all true health care and not a business with sickness and where everyone has a right to treatment as and when needed free. Where man and Nature are at the center and not corporation, economy and profit. Where there are no more masters and slaves. It can be done but not with the system we have at present and that includes that of political parties.

© 2014

The problem with the British Labour Party

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

The problem with the British Labour Party is that is has been infected with a Blairite ideology for the best part of 20 years, and that when the pack is reshuffled, and Blairite ministers are kicked to the kerb, they are just as likely to be replaced by other Blairites and left-wing Tories, to give them the correct name.

The party, in fact, has lost its way and has become nothing more than a slightly left-wing Tory party and has left the working class in the lurch and, in fact, betrayed the working class and the Trade Unions that created the Labour Party.

Personally I do not believe that the Labour Party, the formerly British party of the working class, can be reformed; neither from the inside nor from the outside, and the working class of Britain needs to look for another way. I say “another way” not another party to further its interest and finally bring about the changes that are necessary to put the means of production into the hands of whose who do the work. However, nationalization of industry and businesses and a planned economy is not the answer. This only creates, as Albert Einstein put it in his essay “On Socialism” that a planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. Nothing could be added to that.

Any such organization of the working class must be and has to be answerable to its members and the working class as a whole and not be “staffed” with career politicians and those looking for an easy job.

The British Labour Party no longer is representing the working class as far too many of those that are in position of leadership have never have done a real day's work in their entire lives. Many come from upper middle class to even better backgrounds and have been to the schools of the elite, such as Eaton and nothing ever that comes out of Eaton will benefit the working class.

Tony Blair, the man who basically destroyed the Labour Party as it was, and that almost single-handed, may have been, as it has been suggested, an establishment plant, tasked with destroying the party of the British working class.

The Labour Party of today is bleeding members left, right and center (and no, this has nothing to do with political leanings) and the leadership seems incapable to understand why this is so. Rather to work to retain the real working class grassroots within the party they are more interested in getting the center left and center right to become Labour members.

Ever since the later 1970s the Labour Party has stopped representing the British working class and, maybe, already before that time, though it then still had some true Socialists within its ranks and those of the leadership.

John Smith was a true Socialists though inspired by his Faith and the teachings of Christ while others were more inspired by the teachings of Marx, Engels and Lenin. While John Smith died a far too early death others were expunged and purged by the Blairites and others hellbent on purging the party of all that believed in true Socialism.

We need a new organization of the working class in Britain and not a new Labour Party or a reformed Labour Party as political parties will always make compromises in order to get elected. The working class needs an organization to lead them and then must take its own steps to change the country into a worker and peasant state, finally breaking the rule of the junkers and the aristocracy. Chance would be a fine thing though.

© 2013

Labour has deserted the working class

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

RMT general secretary Bob Crow has accused Labour of deserting the working class and called for a new political party rooted in the trade unions after Ed Miliband promised Labour would cap benefits spending if elected to office.

The fact is that Bob Crow is absolutely right when he said that the Labour Party has deserted the working class and is did that already under Tony Blair when “New Labour” was created and under Ed Miliband with the “One Nation Labour” it is getting worse still.

The Labour Party now, under Miliband, is having a tiswas with the trade unions because it has been accused of being in the pockets of the trade unions and thus they are going to cut their nose off in spite their face and want to distant themselves from the movement that gave the party birth.

Labour has moved so far to the right that it is difficult to differentiate between that party and the Tories and one could, as I have done before, refer to them as the left-wing conservatives while the Lib-Dems are middle ground conservatives. The once party of the working class, Labour, has become a party full of toffs and people who have never done a real day's work in their lives and are about as far removed from the working class and the lives of the real working people as Moscow is from Cape Town; further probably.

The Labour Party rose out of the trade unions and the movements of the working class but, since Blair, has been stabbing the working class in the back. Ever since the death of John Smith the Labour Party has been leaning further and further to the right and deserted the working people more and more.

It has to also be said that many of the trade unions today are about as democratic as the Stalinist Soviet Union and thus are not suitable to create a new party of the working class. The working class itself – from within itself – has to bring about a new party of the working class. One with true values of socialism and democracy and which puts the interest of the working people above everything else.

What This country needs, and not this country only, is a party of unity of all those on the left, whether in a party or not. A true Socialist Unity Party that truly will be representative of the working class. The Labour Party in the UK, in the same way as the Social Democrat Party in Germany, and other, has long ago lost the mandate.

While it might be possible to resurrect a true Labour Party as was intended by the founders of the Labour movement a unity of all true socialist parties would make much more sense and would create a better power base and the trade unions, after being reformed and brought back to democracy and honesty, could be an integral part of it.

© 2013