Cambodia was to be a model for fair labour practices?

In the 'don't get your hopes up' category, The Toronto Star (October 20) started an article on the plight of the Cambodian garment workers with, "With a growing role in the global garment trade, Cambodia was to be a model for fair labour practices. Its people finally had hope for a better standard of living. So why are workers still struggling to eke out an existence?" Why indeed? Obviously the people at the Star do not understand capitalist economics. If there is something lower, capital will flow there naturally like water flowing downhill. China is outsourcing its clothing orders to Bangladesh. If Cambodia can't get lower than Bangladesh in wages, conditions of work, labour and safety legislation, etc., you are out of luck. There are always greener pastures for capital, until, that is, we, the workers wake up and make all property and the resources therein the common heritage of all mankind. Let's do it! John Ayers

Remember Bruce at Bannockburn? What For?

June 24th 2014 will mark the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn which was just one of many battles between competing Anglo-Norman dynasties for the Scottish crown.

 The de Brus family had ties both north and south of the border. The abbey of Guisborough in Northumberland was a Bruce foundation. Bruce "the competitor" was involved a great deal with the English court and held extensive lands in England. he acted as a justiciar for Edward in the north of England. His son also was involved in the English court and was keeper of Carlisle castle for a while. The young Robert Bruce was brought up at Edward's court and had extensive knowledge of it and was also a favorite of Edward.  He, along with most Scottish nobles, changed sides on more than one occasion depending upon how the wind blew.

Scotland and Scots have been central to the great humanising and democratising strands of British history but their stories are rarely told.

Beside St Andrew's House stands the Old Calton Cemetery and in it, is an obelisk. It's a memorial to Thomas Muir, and colleagues, transported to Australia for campaigning for universal suffrage, who then escaped and participated in the French Revolution of “Liberty Equality and Fraternity”. Inscribed on it are his words:
"I have devoted myself to the cause of The People. It is a good cause - it shall ultimately prevail - it shall finally triumph."

If we need a founding myth, that's where to start, with and for the people, facing the future. Not remembering medieval noblemen squabbling over the right to rule the peasants. Bruce at Bannockburn never fought for the people - he fought to place a crown upon his head.

Getting away Scot-free

In England, Northern Ireland and Wales deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) come into use in March. Aimed at encouraging firms to report themselves in the early stages of discovering potentially illegal behaviour, DPAs allow companies to avoid criminal prosecution if they adhere to strict conditions set by a judge. They are American-style “plea bargain” agreements. DPAs from the London-based Serious Fraud Office (SFO) or England’s Crown Prosecution Service also carry the possibility of a so-called “global settlement”, which would protect firms from prosecution in the United States and other countries. Without it, firms face the possibility of defending the same charges in multiple ­jurisdictions. Also without it there is the claim that companies will “sweep things under the carpet”.

Pause for a moment and ponder the facts. Businesses that commit crimes such as bribery or money laundering, report themselves and impose a fine upon themselves, often less than the actual illegal profits, and subsequently the wrong-doers evade prosecution which in many cases would put them out of business.

So i will rob burglarise your house, make off with your valuables, turn myself in, pay compensation to the government, and will have no criminal record, escape the disgrace and dishonour and continue pretending to be a law biding citizen, permitting me to commit the same action once again. Not a bad deal if it applied to all criminals and not just the corporate ones. Isn’t the usual condemnation of an embezzler by the judge that he or she abused their position of trust and regardless of confession and  consequent re-payment,  they must face the penalty and be punished. Capitalism has created a cheat's charter.

AJJ

It’s nobody’s fault, is it?

Meanwhile, in New Zealand, a man from the low-lying island of Kiribati has a court case citing that the rising seas that have forced him from his home. Although he is bound to lose (it's nobody's fault, is it?), it does bring attention to the problem of what to do with the 200 million to one billion people expected to be displaced over the next fifty years. Without the publicity of court cases like this and other strategies, the environmental question is dying a death in the capitalist newspapers. John Ayers.

Food for thought

Canada finally has some allies. No longer is its government alone in trying to delay, diminish, or destroy (Canada's three D's rather than the three R's of environmental responsibility) every environmental conference and piece of legislation to deal with the problem. Now  Australia and Japan have joined in. Last week, Japan, the fifth largest emitter of greenhouse gases announced it was slashing plans to reduce those gases from 25% to 3.8% and since shuttering its nuclear stations will be expected to rely much more on fossil fuels and Australia's prime minister, Tony Abbott, received a congratulatory telegram from our prime minister for gutting the country's carbon tax. Also, reported in The New York Times (Nov 10) Peru's forests are being gobbled up at an unprecedented rate even though preservation of the Amazon basin is considered a key in combating global warming and the Peruvian government has passed laws to protect its forests. As much as eighty per cent of wood exported from the country is done so illegally. In Canada, our Prime Minister Harper has said, "In this party (Conservative), we will not accept that environmental protection must stop economic development." That's political speak for doing nothing. Does anyone really think that a capitalist system will ever get serious about spending money on cleaning anything up? John Ayers.

Nationalisation is not socialism

The modern state as it is often portrayed  is not representative of Society. It is as Marxists would describe a class state. Socialism which leaves the working class as a subject class is not socialism and the path to socialism is not via state ownership. State-capitalism is not an abandonment of capitalism: it is a version of capitalism. Some political commentators misleadingly designated as state-socialism. Whenever the state nationalises an industry, whenever the state imposes its control over industry, many naively accepted this as a rejection of capitalism. What was ending was not capitalism, but the laissez faire, free enterprise, capitalism. What came was not Socialism nor a step towards socialism, but state- capitalism. Socialism, it must be emphasised, abolishes the state; industry is not transformed into the state, but state and industry, as now constituted, are transformed into socialism, functioning industrially and socially through new administrative norms of the organised producers, a co-operative commonwealth, associations,  and not through the state.  Nationalisation is not not socialism and never can become socialism. The State regulates and directs capital and labour and just as the worker must combat his or her employer, the worker is in conflict with the State as the employer. State ownership and control of industry is scarcely  less obnoxious than capitalist ownership and control, just a different form of industrial autocracy, or ‘ wage slavery’  Socialism can only be established after capturing political power, and that this could be achieved only by political and not by industrial action.

Often the Left reformers will use the lure of nationalisation under workers control - state-capitalism is “democratised” ,  placing industry “in the hands of the people.” They define socialism as a system based on extensive state ownership and a certain participation by the population in decision-making. Any form of capitalism is fundamentally and necessarily undemocratic. It strengthens the state and weakens the workers. The capitalist state must not be strengthened but weakened by socialist parliamentary criticism and action; the state must be undermined and dragged down by the developing class power and struggles of the working class by all the general means of action at its disposal. State ownership takes all control away from the workers and leaves them at the mercy of unsympathetic government ministers or public board appointees.

Opponents of socialism frequently say as a objection that there are different kinds of socialists and different kinds of socialism. They are wrong

The Crisis

The capitalist class owns and controls the economic resources of the world. They will strive to perpetuate their power at all costs. Privation in the midst of plenty is the distinguishing mark of the capitalist system of production. The capitalist system cannot ensure the harmonious growth of the economy, cannot ensure work and well being for all the working people, cannot avoid economic crises and the destruction of the productive forces created by the sweat and blood of the working people. Socialists concern themselves with analysing the capitalist system, pointing out its defects and advocating the replacing of the capitalist system by the common ownership and democratic administration of the means of production and distribution. Socialism does not advance necessarily in response to or because of great industrial distress. These crises may point out the fact that something is wrong, but the suggestion of the remedy and the cure for these ills is quite a different problem.

The strategy of employers in the conditions of a recession is aimed at intensifying exploitation, further increasing the concentration of capital and production, carrying out various changes to create the best conditions for the extraction of maximum profits, shifting capital to the areas of maximum capitalist profit whether at home or abroad and stepping up its contention for markets and sources of raw materials with its rivals. The exploitation of the workers at the place of work is being intensified through the cutting of real wages, imposition of redundancies, the intensification of labour through speed-ups and introduction of new technology, the imposition of worse working conditions, and so on, facilitated by the pressure of the vast reserve army of the unemployed. State expenditure is being transferred away from social spending such as on health, education, welfare, to boost the profits of the corporations, and the burden of direct and indirect taxation is being increased to cover the increased state expenditure as a whole.

Business leaders pretend that they have the solution to the crisis and promising recovery as long as it is provided by the workers accepting the shifting of the burden of the crisis onto their backs. The employers demand further sacrifices of the workers in terms of further reduction in real wages, further increases in productivity as the condition of ensuring recovery. The reality, however, is that the capitalists have little control over the course of the crisis; the demand that the workers accept further unemployment and further speed-ups and further reductions in real wages, social services, benefits, etc., is simply a demand that the workers pay the price of the crisis so as to ensure the recovery of profits which is the real concern of the 1%.

The working class should not harbour any illusions about a recovery. The motive of capitalist production is profit and the only recovery for the bourgeoisie is recovery of profits. Such a recovery will not alter at all the condition of the working class as wage slaves, or change the conditions of the exploited in relation to the exploiters. In fact, the recovery of the profits of the ruling class can only take place on the basis of the further intensification of exploitation, the further impoverishment and ruin of the people, with a higher unemployment and an increase in poverty of the working class.

Crises are an inherent feature of capitalism and cannot be eliminated without eliminating the root, the capitalist system. The Left  propose that crises  could be made a thing of the past by means of nationalisation. They argue that the setting up of a nationalised coal industry, a nationalised electricity industry, the nationalisation of steel, industry could be planned and regulated and organised and, as a result, the anarchy of production crises would be eliminated. The course of these industries confirms that state-ownership does not eliminate the anarchy of production but in fact can aggravate it. The anarchy of production and crisis will not be eliminated without putting an end to the capitalist system, thereby removing the contradiction which is at its root, the contradiction between the social character of production and the private capitalist appropriation.

The motive of capitalist production is the securing of maximum profits. Production of goods is in fact an incidental aim of capitalism, as is employment. The capitalist organises production for the purposes of increasing profits. When conditions are such that profits can be increased by increasing production, business does so, and when conditions are such that profits can only be increased by cutting back production to keep up the price, then that is what business does. Thus if it serves to increase profits to increase the numbers of workers in production, then this is done; but if profits can only be increased by intensifying exploitation, getting more or the same amount of work out of fewer workers, then this is done instead. These fundamental features of the capitalist system cannot be eliminated without removing the capitalist system itself.  Workers in every country are being forced to bear the burden of the capitalist crisis and that this crisis proves the necessity to put an end to the capitalist system. All the capitalist parties, all the parties dedicated to the continuation of the capitalist system of wage slavery, are against the interests of the working class. The workers can only wage their struggle in opposition to these forces. In particular the struggle cannot be one simply to remove the Tory government and replace it by a Labour government. They both deny the crisis is the result of the capitalist system but instead merely a result of mistaken policies or maverick traders of this or that individual, manager or government. The Labour Party preach reformism to the workers. The Tories preaches submission, both pretend they will improve the lot of the workers by bringing jobs and prosperity.

Revolution is not only a possibility, it is a necessity. The class struggle must be deepened and strengthened.

Scientists for Peace

END CAPITALISM - END WAR

Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) have written to the organisers of Edinburgh International Science Festival urging them to cut their financial ties to major arms company, Selex ES.

The Festival – which is one of the UK’s leading organisers of science education activities for school children – lists as one of its major funding partners, Selex ES.

Selex ES manufactures a wide variety of military equipment including unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) and targeting systems for combat aircraft and warships. Its annual sales total €3.5 billion. It is a subsidiary of Finmeccanica – one of the world’s largest arms companies. In 2009, one of the Selex family of companies secured a deal with the authoritarian regime of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya for border security equipment worth €300 million. Selex also has a subsidiary in Saudi Arabia, another authoritarian country.

The SGR open letter reads “It is factors such as these which lead us to conclude that Selex ES plays a key role in supporting militaristic activities of both Western governments and governments with major human rights problems. We believe it is entirely inappropriate for a company with such a background to sponsor a science festival aimed at children.”

Dr Stuart Parkinson, Executive Director of SGR, said “Arms companies should not have a role in science education events for children. We should be encouraging children to see science and technology as a means to help tackle pressing social and environmental problems, not finding new ways to wage war.”

Latest figures reveal that global military spending currently exceeds $1.7 trillion a year. This is an enormous amount of money, especially considering that urgent global problems such as poverty and environmental damage do not receive anything like the resources they need to tackle them. The UN Secretary-General recently remarked that “the world is over-armed and peace is under-funded”

SGR is an independent membership organisation of nearly 1,000 natural and social scientists, engineers, IT professionals and architects. It was formed in 1992. SGR’s work is focused on several issues, including security and disarmament, climate change, sustainable energy, and who controls science and technology. 

Blood Money

Socialist Courier previously reported on a mining company’s criminal neglect of safety that caused the lives of 29 workers in New Zealand, here and here .

The NZ prime minister at the time hit out at the mining company, saying it "completely and utterly failed to protect its workers"

The company was found guilty of 9 charges of health and safety breaches.  Its former chief executive Peter Whittall was also charged with 12 counts of violating labour laws following the blast. Government lawyers say they would now be dropping the charges against the CEO in exchange for a payment of 3.41 million New Zealand dollars (about £1.72m), made on behalf of company officials to victims’ families.

Anna Osborne, whose husband Milton died in the explosion, said that she has lost faith in the justice system. “It is just another slap in the face for the families,” she said, adding that “as far as I’m concerned, it’s blood money”.

Workers Pay Drop

A Workers Life

The average earner in Scotland is more than £1,700 worse off compared with three years ago. Data on wages from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that, across the UK, pay rose by 2.1 per cent in the year ending April 2013, to an average of £27,000 a year. But with inflation rising by 2.4 per cent, the figures show wages are continuing to fall behind the cost of living. While the rise in wages is higher than many expected, it is the fifth year running inflation has outpaced wages.

Union leaders in Scotland said full-time earnings had now fallen by 6.2 per cent since 2010, when inflation was factored in. The biggest fall in earnings had been for those earning the least, ensuring that income inequality was increasing, they said. In cash terms, it means the average earner is £1,753 worse off than they would have been if pay had kept pace with inflation.

Scottish Trades Union Congress general-secretary Grahame Smith said: “The ongoing squeeze on real wages is without precedent in modern times and most workers are simply not benefiting from the supposedly strengthening recovery”.

Socialism - It is all about the family

Socialism is the protest against the waste of human life. Socialists are often accused of holding the delusion of a world in which all men and women will be equal but the socialist idea is not at all incompatible with the development of individual genius and character. On the contrary, until we wish to socialise all the opportunities for healthful living, so that they are the common heritage of all. Socialism is not aiming a level playing field of mediocrity but at the equality of advantage and opportunity for every child born full and free access to every social gift, so that he or she may develop all his or her gifts. Poverty must be abolished, because it is anti-social, and denies millions  an adequate opportunity to develop their abilities. Child labour must go, because it stunts the body and the mind, destroying the physical, intellectual and spiritual forces which are essential to the highest development of a human being.

To-day the production and the exchange of wealth are functions carried on with an anti-social object, namely, the profit of a class of non-producers. That is the fundamental wrong of capitalism. That is the source of its poverty, its crime, its inefficient lives, its inequality of opportunity. No one is poor because there is not enough for all. No child  suffers hunger because there is a dearth of food . No child wears rags or goes without shoes because good clothes and shoes cannot be made in sufficient quantity to supply all. Machinery and labour and raw materials are plentiful. Those who make the bread of the world cannot eat the bread their hands have made.

If our economic activities were inspired and controlled by a social purpose, no human want would remain unsatisfied so long as there still remained productive powers. All our resources and our skill and might would be combined to meet the needs of every human being. If we found ourselves incapable of producing plenty for all, we should, if we were truly social, see to it that all shared in the dearth due to the lack of productive capacity. On the other hand, finding ourselves capable of producing infinitely more than we need, we should, if we mere truly social, see to it that all shared the advantages of our triumph as producers. We should aim to make life better, richer, happier and more beautiful for all. We should see that the result of our triumph was more beauty in the homes of all and larger leisure for all to enjoy the beauty. Inspired and controlled by the ideal of social well-being, we should see that no human being performed in pain a task which might have been performed in joy; that nothing ugly was produced which might have been made beautiful; that nothing was made which was unworthy of our best power; that our work was the worthiest, and performed under the worthiest conditions, of which we were capable.

So long as the prevailing capitalist system lasts this social ideal will remain unattainable. For capitalism is essentially anti-social. Its entire structure rests upon the production of things primarily for sale to the end that a ruling class may profit, instead of upon the social principle of production for use, for social gain, for the common good and joy of all. The only reason why men who are capable of building beautiful homes – as is shown by the palaces they build for the rich – build ugly, prison-like, gloomy tenements for themselves and their wives and children to dwell in is the fact that their labor is governed, not by the desire to attain supreme usefulness, but by the desire for profit. The only reason which explains the wanton destruction of the food for which men, women and children pine, and for lack of which they starve and die is that same anti-social thing, profit.

Production for use instead of profit, for the common good instead of for the gain of a few at the cost of the many, can only be made possible through the collective ownership of the resources of nature and the principal means of production.  Common ownership of the means of production, with democratic management, is the central demand in the World Socialist Movement.

Millions of people have practically no private property at all to-day. They do not own the things they produce.  When sickness, accident, or other misfortune, compels them to be idle for a few weeks they are reduced to dependence upon a state hand-out or private charity as the only alternatives to starvation. Even in the most prosperous times millions of people are so divorced from property of all kinds that they never have enough good food to eat, enough good clothes to wear, or decent homes in which to live.  Socialism would make it possible for every human being to have and own all the private property (common ownership) which that human being could use to advantage and without imposing any disadvantage upon another human being. The collective ownership of the principal means of social production–that is, the natural resources, the mines, factories, railways, machinery, and so on–would not take away anything from the great majority of people. True, the worker would not himself own the machine used by him, but that is his condition to-day. The workers in our great factories and workshops do not own the tools with which they labor. They do not own the raw materials upon which they labor. They do not own the places in which they labor. They do not own the things which they produce by their labor. All these are owned by an exploiting class of non-producers, whose interest it is to see that the producers get in the form of wages as little as they can manage to live upon, and produce as much more than they receive as possible. This is the inevitable interest of the owning class, because its own income is derived from that which the workers produce over and above what they receive in the form of wages.

Common ownership and democratic control of the means of production would not give the ownership of the tools of labor to the individual worker. That was once possible, in the days when production was of necessity carried on by hand labour. It is not possible with machine production, which is only carried on by the organised labour of masses of workers. But collective ownership would make it impossible for the idle few to exploit the industrious many. It would make it possible for the workers themselves to exercise an effective control over the products of their labor and their distribution. It would make certain a fuller enjoyment by the producers of the wealth they produce.

Every person can see that the principle is the same as that which governs the home. The ideal home is, indeed, only a microcosm of the ideal society - the family of Man.  In the well-regulated home there is equal care for the collective interest of the family as a whole and for the individual interest of each member. The comfort and advantage of each individual member of the family depends upon the denial of the power to monopolise many things in the home, and maintaining them as the common property of all the members, sharing. No one member could assert and exercise a right to the sole ownership and control of these things without injuring every other member of the family. On the other hand, there are many things which must be regarded as belonging to individual members, if harmony is to prevail. Every family member understands the philosophy of distribution upon which it is based. If there are things essential to the welfare and happiness of all the members of the family, the control of which by a single member would give that member a power to rule all the rest, and to deny them comfort and happiness except upon irksome and humiliating conditions, the safety of the family is only assured by making those things common to all. But things which the individual needs to own and control for the attainment of personal happiness and well-being, the ownership and exclusive use of which does not subject other members of the family to discomfort, properly belong to the individual, and the happiness of the family depends upon the ability of each individual in it to secure all such things necessary to the satisfaction of his or her wants.

The message of socialism claims for every child all the advantages of healthful and beautiful environment. It would destroy the dread fear of want. It would bestow upon every child, as its rightful heritage, opportunity to develop all its powers. It would apply the principles of the family to the society as a whole. It would end the waste of human lives by poverty, and make true wealth possible for all . It would put an end to war–the war of classes as well as the war of nations. Socialism is the enrichment of life for all and the realisation of human brotherhood. We will no longer be the slaves of fear.

For a' that, an a' that, 
It's comin yet for a' that, 
That man to man, the world, o'er 
Shall brithers be for a' that.
Robert Burns

The impoverished social bargain that lies within

Food for thought 2

Not so for the workers though. The employees are not happy and the company is, "running up against a new appreciation of what economic critics call the impoverished social bargain that lies within" (Toronto Star, Nov 24). Apparently, wages are so low that even Walmart has tried to find a solution (apart from raising the darn wages, of course!). Collection bins have appeared in the employees' backrooms with the sign, "Please donate food items here so associates (i.e. workers) can enjoy Thanksgiving dinner." This is no joke. The Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper brought it to the public's attention asking its readers if they thought that this move was a prove of low wages. (Silly question of the year!). It garnered so much attention that Walmart felt compelled to reply, " It's unfortunate that an act of human kindness has been taken so out of context." Maybe the company can put the top executives heads together to come up with some other form of human kindness like a living wage. John Ayers,

Food for thought

The Toronto Daily Star of November 1^st. reported that Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan and Chase & Co., the world's largest bank, admitted losing $20 billion for the bank. The bank is expected to pay back $11 billion in fines and restitution for " An equally unimaginable variety of misdeeds. They include allegations of money laundering, peddling deceptive mortgages, ripping off customers with faulty investment products, and manipulating world derivative markets." Yet, it is expected that Dimon will get a raise in pay because to do otherwise would, in its directors' eyes, weaken public confidence in the bank. That's something to reflect upon when a worker might get fired for losing his boss a hundred bucks! John Ayers.

End War - End Capitalism

So long as there remain capitalists with the need to realise profits they will find themselves involved in the conflicts which are the inevitable results of capitalism.

 Our chief aim must be to warn the workers against allowing themselves to be misled by the lies of the press and the capitalists, and to remember that the worker in enemy countries is just as much a victim of capitalist oppression as they are. The war to end war is the class war. The war to end wage-slavery, to end capitalism with its evils of misery and degradation. You are called to fight in it; you cannot escape; you must take part. And until that war is ended we do not want peace—because such peace will be the peace of the beggar and the slave.

People would never support a war fought, that is, for the interests and advantages of the governing class; a war fought to protect or extend capitalist profits, and colonial  possessions Unfortunately, no ruling class ever admits going to war for such sordid objects. Every war has to be a “righteous"war, every war is for humanitarian” purposes, for “freedom”.

The causes for the war are to be found in the very process of capitalist production, distribution and exchange which creates the need for business to seek to establish control over markets, sources of raw materials and areas for exploitation.  This search comes up against the existing state boundaries which are in fact mainly based upon other and rival commercial interests. Those industrial and financial interests  first in the field have secured the main territorial advantages. The late-comers are driven to contest the advantageous positions established.

This process, unavoidable so long as capital rules, creates ceaseless conflict. The struggle does not begin when a government – serving its national corporations  – declares war on another state. It goes on all the time, taking many forms; some open, some concealed. Diplomatic intrigues, negotiations and manoeuvres, agreements and alliances between states, subsidised economic warfare, small wars waged ostensibly between small powers, actually as proxies on behalf of great ones – all these are manifestations of the same conflict. The formal declaration of war – nowadays more and more dispensed with – is merely the continuation of this same struggle in a sharper, more open form.  Victory by one group is not the end this struggle. The losses of one group are the gains of another; the temporary cessation of one conflict gives rise to the sharpening of other conflicts. War strengthens the ruling-class grip on the people.

Our policy on war  is an immediate peace to save workers lives and the little freedom we have, had handed down to us, so that the war of classes may be fully prosecuted until we have  accomplished the Co-operative Commonwealth. The duty imposed on members of the Socialist Party is that of refusing to participate in war or the preparation for war. It is necessary to point out that the fight against war is inseparable from the fight for socialism. Only the class war for the overthrow of capitalism can end wars by ending the cause of war - capitalism.

News we like to hear.

Up to half the Catholic churches across swathes of Scotland face the prospect of closure as another diocese warns of a crisis of clergy numbers and falling congregations.

The Diocese of Galloway has released figures showing the number of priests has more than halved since 1990, with the fall in churchgoers nearly as steep. The number of regular Catholic church-goers in the Galloway diocese has dropped by half since 1990 while the number of priests has fallen from 55 to 23.  Across the diocese, which covers most of south west Scotland, there is currently one priest for every two churches.

A similar tale is to be told in the Netherlands. One of the Catholic bishops of the Netherlands, told Vatican Radio they are facing the closure of hundreds of churches and an ongoing exodus of the faithful. “The number of practicing Catholics is diminishing very quickly,” Willem Jacobus Eijk Cardinal and Archbishop of Utrecht and chairman of the Dutch bishops’ conference said. “In the 1950s 90 percent of Catholics still went to church every Sunday. Now, it’s only five percent.”
This mass exodus has hit the bishops hard in their bank accounts. “The Dutch Church,” the cardinal said, “does not have a subsidy from the state but depends on voluntary contributions of the faithful. Therefore, we are forced to close many churches.”  He added. “The Church was losing the relationship with the doctrine of the faith and no longer touched people’s daily life.”

600-700 Catholic churches in the Netherlands will be decommissioned by 2018. In 2010, the group published a report that said two churches a week are closing due to lack of congregations.  According to data collected in 2008, the report said, “it is to be expected that in the near future 1,000 to 1,200 Roman Catholic and Protestant churches will be closed. Of the 170 monasteries which are still in use for religious purposes, approximately 150 will close in the next 10 years. 326 parishes are being merged into 49 “very large” territorial amalgamations in each of which one church is to be designated as a “Eucharistic centre.”

“Today shortage of priests to celebrate Mass in every church, so we have centralized the celebration of the Eucharist in one,” he said.

Niips and Tucks to Pension?

According to Jim Leech, who will soon retire as head of the Ontario Teachers' Plan, more than 60% of employed Canadians do not have a workplace pension but, if you are among the 40% who do, your plan could be underfunded by market upheavals. Your boss may have to make 'nips and tucks' to the pension you thought was guaranteed. Security may seem to be attainable in the good times but we know that never lasts and when the slump comes, anything is up for slashing or even wiping out. John Ayers.

This Fracking Process

In October there were protests against the proposed massive gas extractions from shale formations in New Brunswick. Premier David Alward said," …the development of twenty-five new wells a year could see more than $300 million investments and 500 jobs." However, the locals are more than concerned about polluted drinking water among other hazards from the fracking process but it's a losing battle against the power of capital. John Ayers.

Who Owns the North Pole - Part 68

Vladimir Putin vowed to step up Russia's military presence in the region in response to a claim by Canada to the north pole. The Russian president told his defence chiefs to concentrate on building up infrastructure and military units in the Arctic. He said the region was again key to Russia's national and strategic interests. Russia is returning to the Arctic and “intensifying the development of this promising region” so it needs to“have all the levers for the protection of its security and national interests,” Putin said at an expanded meeting of the Defense Ministry Board. Russia is reinstating its military base in the Novosibirsk Archipelago (New Siberian Islands), which had been abandoned by the military in 1993, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The islands “have key meaning for the control of the situation in the entire Arctic region,” Putin told the top military brass. This year, Russia has also started restoring its Arctic airfields including one called “Temp” on Kotelny Island near the city of Norilsk. It is also overhauling urban facilities in Tiksi, Naryan-Mar, and Anadyr. The country is set to continue the revival of other Russian northern airfields as well as docks on the New Siberian Islands and the Franz Josef Land archipelago, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said. 

His comments were a response to Canada, a rival Arctic power. On Monday Canada's foreign minister, John Baird, said his government had asked scientists to work on a submission to the UN arguing that the outer limits of Canada's territory include the north pole, which has yet to be claimed by any country.  Baird said it would take several years for Canada to map the continental shelf and to complete its full UN submission. "We are determined to ensure that all Canadians benefit from the tremendous resources that are to be found in Canada's far north," he said.

Canada and Russia have been stepping up their military footprint in the oil- and gas-rich region. Putin has said Russia will restore Arctic bases that fell into disrepair after the collapse of the Soviet Union, including one on the New Siberian Islands. On Tuesday he said this base and others were crucial to protecting Russia's "security and national interests".

"It's often said that the Russians act with their Arctic policy in an aggressive, nationalistic and unilateral way. The same thing can be said about the Canadians," said Andrew Foxall, director of the Russian Studies Centre at the Henry Jackson Society. "Harper has said Canada is an Arctic nation. He frequently goes up into Canada's high Arctic. There are large-scale military exercises there."

Cold Facts

One in four Scottish households are living in fuel poverty, according to a new report. 

647,000 households were fuel poor in 2012, which means energy costs more than ten per cent of their income.  170,000 households were living in extreme fuel poverty in 2012, with energy costing more than 20% of their income.

Why a political party?

What is a political party?  Most people would answer this question with something like “A bunch of windbags trying to steal as much of our tax money as they can get away with.” . But if we really want to understand the question, we have to go a little deeper – we have to ask ourselves, “Who do these parties represent?”

According to official mythology, we live in a “democracy” because we get to choose who are going to run the government; but what this really boils down to is that we get to choose which section of the ruling class is going to run the government and exploit the working people.

The Labour Party is more “liberal” – they believe in throwing the working class a few crumbs every now and then to keep them quiet; the Conservative Party is as their name implies more conservative – they’d rather use the stick than the carrot. But both parties represent the interests of the “super-rich,” the small group of people that own and control most of the wealth the working people produce in their factories etc. – and they own and control the Labour and Tory parties, too. A small group of THE immensely wealthy convince the vast majority of the population – who all work their lives away making them rich – that they have the right to decide how the country will be run when in reality the only right they have is to continue to be exploited. Socialists call this system “bourgeois democracy” (bourgeois meaning capitalist) because it’s democracy for the capitalist ruling class, but dictatorship for the working class – under our “two party” system, the working class is left out of politics altogether.

So the answer to our question “What is a political party?” is that a political party is the representative of an economic class in the political arena. The Conservatives and Labour parties both represent the capitalist economic class, and are the main tool by which that class maintains its domination and exploitation of the vast majority of the people. They’re structured entirely around winning elections, or in other words, doing a better job at fooling the people than the other party. The masses of people have no say whatsoever in the policies of either party.  The trade unions may be affiliated to the Labour Party, but this is a mere formality and it certinly doesn’t make the Labour Party a true party of labour.

Socialists think the working class can and must have its own political party, a party that will serve its own interests, not those of the exploiting class. Basing themselves on the Marxist theory of society, socialists understand that politics is essentially a war between the two main classes in modern capitalist society: those that work (the working class or proletariat) and those that exploit those who work (the capitalist class or bourgeoisie). Just as the bourgeois parties strive to defend and maintain capitalism and the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, a working class party would strive for socialism where the fruits of our labour, the immense social wealth we create each and every day, will be shared equally through a planned economy based on the needs of people rather than profit. We will have a society where the majority of ordinary people govern themselves rather than serve a small ruling class sitting pretty on top of the rest of society; in other words, we will have a society where democracy is a reality for the many and not a privilege of the few.

Secretary of the London Working Men’s Associalition  William Lovett describes the task of a socialist party admirably:-
 “We had seen enough of the contentions of leaders and the battles of factions; to convince us, that no sound Public Opinion, and consequently no just Government, could be formed in this country as long as men's attention was constantly directed to the useless warfare of pulling down, and setting up, of one Idol of Party after another ....
The masses, in their political organisations, were taught to look up to "Great Men" (or to men professing "greatness") rather than to great Principles. We wished therefore to establish a political school of self-instruction among them, in which they should accustom themselves to examine great social and political principles, and by their publicity and free discussion, help to form a sound and healthful public opinion throughout the country .....
We have not wished, neither do we desire to be, Leaders, as we believe that the principles we advocate have been retarded, injured or betrayed by Leadership, more than by the open hostility of opponents. Leadership too often generates confiding bigotry, or political indifference on the one hand, or selfish ambition, on the other.
The principles WE advocate are those of the peoples' happiness, and for these to be justly established, each man must Know and feel his Rights and Duties. He must be prepared to guard the one; and perform the other with cheerfulness. And if Nature has given to one Man superior faculties, to express or execute the general wish, he only performs his Duty at the Mandate of his bretheren; he is therefore the "Leader" of none, but the equal of ALL ....”

The class struggles we are forced to wage each and every day just to survive can only lead to trying to cure a cancer with a band-aid. This is because these “spontaneous”, everyday struggles only attack part of the problem (a particular corporation, a particular employer, etc.), not the problem itself – which is the capitalist system. Short-term policies will not change economic and political inequality, and repeating the strategies of the past will not bring hope to a society worn down by powerlessness and dependency. The past is mother to the present, but the future is limited only by what we can imagine. An alternative future demands new ideas and the courage to make deep changes. Let the workers remember that in every country there the same struggle is going on between the workers on the one hand, and the exploiters  on the other hand. Workers have learned  by bitter experience that industries nationalised by the State, are no cure for wage-slavery, because they are still carried on for profit; and nothing but the SOCIALISATION OF THE MEANS OF LIFE under a free Co-operative Commonwealth will abolish the present system, and give the wealth of the world to the workers of the world.