HUGO CHAVEZ: REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALIST OR LEFT-WING REFORMIST?

 

For years, the left in Britain and elsewhere, have sang the praises of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, ready always to defend the “gains” of the Cuban revolution as that country withstood everything the US had to throw at it. Now there is a new revolutionary on the block, cast in the Castro mould, flicking the V signs at Western imperialists as he implements social reform after social reform and, like Castro, wining the applause of radicals around the world. His name is Hugo Chevaz, President of Venezuela, and he is the mastermind of the country’s “socialist” Bolivarian revolution, presenting the “threat of the good example” that continues to panic right wing USA.

It is understandable why the left love him when he is regularly heard mouthing slogans and making the kind of demands you normally see in papers like Socialist Worker. Addressing the 2005 edition of the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, earlier this year Chavez said:

"It is impossible, within the framework of the capitalist system to solve the grave problems of poverty of the majority of the world’s population. We must transcend capitalism. But we cannot resort to state capitalism, which would be the same perversion of the Soviet Union. We must reclaim socialism as a thesis, a project and a path, a new type of socialism, a humanist one, which puts humans and not machines or the state ahead of everything. That’s the debate we must promote around the world, and the WSF is a good place to do it."

By all accounts, Chavez was not inebriated, or stoned when he made this statement. He was sober and deadly serious. He had never talked about much socialism before, only about being a “Bolivarian, a humanist and a supporter of the Cuban revolution. But now he bandies the word “socialism” around with the glee of a five year old learning a new schoolyard profanity, and regularly mentions Marx, Trotsky and Rosa Luxemburg.

“Socialism” is the buzzword of Venezuela’s “Bolivarian Revolution”. It is a word Chavez is keen to expunge of what he sees as its negative connotations, namely state capitalism – despite the fact that he seems unclear just what is meant by the term. Speaking recently to senior heads of the country’s military, Chavez asked that they carry the question of socialism ”into the barracks”, to initiate debate and to reassess everything they had hitherto been told about socialism and to help strengthen the ideological offensive.

In the TV programme Alo Presidente, broadcast on September 1st, he pleaded for Venezuelans to “leave to one side the ghosts with which the idea of socialism have been associated” and revealed the result of an independent opinion poll carried out in May and June. He informed his country that 47.9 per cent said they preferred a ‘socialist government’, that 25.7 per cent said they preferred a capitalist government and that some 25% were yet to respond.

Since Hugo Chavez declared that the way forward for Venezuela was to steer towards socialism, this has turned into the main debate within the revolutionary Bolivarian movement, and society generally

Reforms

There’s perhaps no denying that Chavez’s heart is in the right place even if he is somewhat muddled as to the meaning of the word “socialism,” and that he has decent intentions. But his “socialist” agenda amounts to little more than one vast reformist programme that is largely being financed by the country’s oil, which is currently selling for five times its 1999 price.
The generous profits from oil price rises have gone into financing programmes to improve health, provide cheap food, extend educational access, and to organise some land reform. Chavez has initiated operations aimed at ending poverty and improving the economic and cultural lives of Venezuelans. He is keen on educating the population via literacy drives. He is re-nationalising universities and building new housing. The state has taken over some sections of industry and a TV station has been set up to transmit the “socialist” ideas of the Bolivarian revolution.

While Chavez faces a lot of opposition in urban centres, it is clear why, in the poor working class shanties surrounding the city, support for the government is vocal and widespread.

Cooperatives

Chavez, is also keen on workers’ cooperatives. In his 1st September TV broadcast he pointed out that the kind of cooperative he is proposing is one that “generates collective wealth through joint labour, going beyond the capitalist model which promotes individualism”.

If company owners found the going difficult, he said, the state was prepared to come to their aid with low interest credit, though on the understanding that “the employers give workers participation in management, the direction and the profits of the company.” And which capitalist could resist that offer? Chavez observed that 700 closed companies had been identified with a view to expropriation; that many had assets and the machinery ready to start producing.
Expropriation comes at a cost to worker organisation however. The fist company to be taken over was the paper mill Venepal, now renamed Invepal. There, union leaders broke up the union – against the better advice of others in the trade union movement – and now look forward to buying out the state’s stake in the company so they will have sole control over company and profits. Overnight former militant trade unionists have turned into aspiring capitalists.

Threat

As far as the US is concerned with Venezuela, the “threat if the good example” that the Bolivarian revolution poses is the least of their problems at the moment. The real concern stems from the fact that Venezuela has considerable oil wealth. Venezuela is the fifth largest oil exporter in the world – 13 per cent of the world’s oil comes out of the country - and Chavez controls the largest oil supplies outside of the Middle East.

At a time of rising oil prices, instability in the Middle East, and with China emerging as a major challenge to US economic interests in the near future, Chavez earlier this year signed an agreement with China's vice president Zeng Qinghong, smoothing the way for the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation to invest in the development of Venezuelan oil and gas reserves. Chavez further agreed to sell fuel and crude oil to China at reduced prices to compensate the high shipping costs of oil to East Asia.

Moreover, Caracas recently signed up to a much publicized agreement for a group of sales reps from the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA (Petroleos de Venezuela) to be trained by Iranian experts on strategies for penetrating the Asian market.

And who else does Chavez cosy up to? None other than arch enemy of US conservatism Fidel Castro. In the past two years, Venezuela has supplied Cuba with vital shipments of subsidized oil to ease the country’s perpetually faltering energy and transport systems, and in return Cuba has sent an army of professionals to Venezuela to help the ongoing social programmes, inclusive of 14,000 doctors, 3,000 dentists, 1,500 eye specialists and 7,000 sports trainers.
And then there are Venezuela’s recent Arms purchases – i.e. 40 helicopters from Russia, attack light aircraft and 100,000 Kalashnikovs from Brazil, which will no doubt provide the Bush regime with the excuse to channel still more weaponry to neighbouring Bogota, escalating regional tension and the likelihood of future instability.

Little wonder the US is becoming a mite anxious at the ongoing antics of the Latin American upstart Chavez. And just to make matters a little more precarious, Chavez has repeatedly made it plain that if the US starts flexing its muscles at Venezuela then he would not hesitate to cut of all oil exports to the USA.

Pat Robertson, tele-evangelist, entrepreneur, one-time presidential candidate and close friend of the Bush family, undoubtedly expressed the sentiments of many US neo-cons when, speaking on his TV show on 22nd August, he referred to Chavez as "… a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us badly."

He said: “You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he [Chavez] thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war, and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop.”

Acknowledging that the US had the ability to bump Chavez off, Robertson continued: “…I think that the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.”

Robertson’s “un-Christian” outburst quickly brought condemnation from the republican hierarchy, keen to keep Bush away from further criticism. Whilst Robertson may claim not to know “about this doctrine of assassination “, the simple fact is that consecutive US governments have attempted, arranged or supported the elimination of scores of leaders around the world. That Chavez has lasted so long is undoubtedly due to the international attention he has attracted of late.

Not Socialist

Rest assured, Venezuela is no nearer socialism than Russia was when it claimed to have established it. Not only is it the case that it is impossible to establish socialism in one country, but it could never be established by a leader. If Chavez can take his country into socialism, which is downright absurd, then some other leader could just as easily lead them out of it again. Similarly, the reforms he has implemented could be taken away the moment he is removed from office.

The country still has a monetary system. The banks and big business, particularly oil interests, are still in private hands. There have been no seizures of land. International oil companies have bent over backwards to provide new investment, in spite of Caracas having increased the royalties that they have to pay. There is until commodity production, still exploitation, still trade on the terms laid down by international capital and still armed forces ready to defend the economic interests of Venezuela’s capitalist class.

One thing looks certain – that the popularity of Chavez amongst the poor will assure Venezuela of further years of Bolivarian reformism, years of capitalism with all we associate with it, regardless of how Chavez wishes to disguise the word.

John Bisset

Dump the Bosses off your Back (music)

 

Exposing The Jesus Myth

 

The following is from an old anarcho-punk newspaper, named Profane Existence.

In order to prove that Jesus Christ existed, one must have basic historical facts that can be agreed upon in official records. Though it doesn't necessarily make Jesus a historic figure to assign him a birthplace or a birthday, it's a good start. Unfortunately, neither the bible nor church documents can sustain the claim that Jesus was born on the twenty-fifth of December (a date assigned to most of the saviours of the ancient world, including: Adonis, Attis, Pan, Bacchus, Osiris and Dionysus among countless others). Even the Bible cannot agree with itself, in Luke (1.199), Jesus is said to have been born during the time of Quirinus, making his birth a fourteen-year difference from the time of Matthew (1.199).

So the day and year aren't known exactly; so what! That doesn't mean anything. Unless one realises that his most intimate friends supposedly wrote the gospels during the lifetimes of his mother and siblings Understanding that Jesus' birth is not verifiable through any written document is essential to knowing that he wasn't a real person and only a Universal sun myth (consider this: Jesus' death was accompanied by the darkening of the sun, his resurrection happens to be the date of the vernal equinox, and that this date has progressively shifted from the 25th December to the 6th January). (3.272).

What about the events surrounding his birth? Are they real? No, and they can easily be refuted with a little knowledge of world mysticism and language. In the Gospels, the word for stable is Katalemna, but this word’s actual meaning is a temporary shelter or cave (1.32). Among the babies born in a cave is Pan, Mithras, and Zeus (again...there are many more). The birth of Mithras was said to have been witnessed by three shepherds, equivalent to Jesus’ three wise men (1.33). Even the presents offered unto Jesus were those offered to Adonis, whose sacred incense was myrrh.

The town of Bethlehem was the supposed birthplace of this supposed saviour. The name Bethlehem means ‘house of bread’. Adonis was the god of corn and the god of bread. The star that the three wise men had followed to the birth of Jesus was, in Egypt, a yearly omen of the flooding of the Nile. The flooding of the Nile is associated with the ‘world renewing power of Osiris,’ so it is obvious that this star symbolised in the ancient world the ‘coming of the lord’ (1.33).

What of the miraculous virgin birth? It seems that this too is simply an appropriation of mythology. Throughout most of the ancient religions it is extremely common to have a god impregnate a virgin woman (3.275). From China to Siam and even Mexico to Palestine, all gods chose the method of impregnating virgin women to come into this world. Jesus was born to Mary, Buddha to Maia (as well as Hermes), Agni to Maya, Adonis to Myrrha, Bacchus to Myrrha, and so on (2.301). Most, if not all of these women, ascended to heaven and each were known as ‘Queen of Heaven’.

What about the surrounding situation of this god-man’s death? Well, ‘Good Friday falls not before the spring equinox, but as soon after the spring equinox as the full moon allows, thus making the calculation depend upon the position of the sun in the zodiac and the phases of the moon.’ (3.273). What did that mean? It meant that the festival originally designed to celebrate the Pagan goddess of fertility, Oestera, has become what the Christians now call Easter.

Needless to say, the eggs and rabbits are symbols of fertility and NOT Jesus’ crucifixion.
This calls into question whether or not Jesus was in fact crucified. Cross has a general meaning of stake in the New Testament. Jews used to display the bodies of those they had stoned to death on stakes. In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter says that Jesus was “hung on a tree”, and so does St Paul in his letter to the Galatians. Attis and Adonis were both hung on a tree as well, the latter being known as “He on the tree.”

Before the crucifixion, both Jesus and Dionysus wore purple robes, crowns - the former of thorns, the latter of ivy – and both were given wine to drink. Jesus dies next to two thieves. One goes up to heaven with him and the other goes to hell. Eleusis, as well as Dionysus and Mithras, have on their side two torch-bearers, one pointing the torch upwards and the other pointing the torch downwards (symbolising the ascent to heaven and the descent to hell) (1.51). The story originates with the Greek brothers Castor and Pollux, which on alternate days are given the name “The Sons of Thunder,” which in the gospel of Mark are what Jesus calls James and John.

 

Aside from this immense amount of evidence showing that Christians merely thieved the ideas from their predecessors, there is much more found in other religions. In fact there are fifteen crucified saviours, inclusive of Krishna, Odin, Hesus (not Jesus), Quetzalcoatl, Criti, Baili, and Indra (2.352). Therefore, the crucifixion is an appropriation of Pagan symbolism (the cross originally symbolising spirit in the centre of the four elements). Early Christians and Buddhists wore the swastika because it was a good luck sign meaning “it is well” in Sanskrit. As the Church grew in power they wanted to instil a sense of guilt and therefore changed their symbol into a slaughtered lamb, and then a crucified saviour paying for the sins of the world.

The Jesus story can not even stand up to the criticism of a rational and fairly knowledgeable person, so how can the rest of the beliefs contained within the bible be true? Well, even though the literary works written down during the time of Jesus’ supposed birth to a century after can fill libraries, its interesting to know that neither Jesus nor the twelve disciples are mentioned - and Christianity only get a few paragraphs at the most (1.133). So how is it that Christians can ascertain that there were twelve disciples? Because there have been few god-saviours who did not have twelve apostles or messengers.

Numbers were very important to ancient mythological stories, especially the numbers 12, 7, 3 and 40. For instance, Jacob had twelve sons, there were 12 tribes of Israel, twelve months in the year, 12 gates or pillars of heaven and the Jews were in the wilderness for 40 years. Jesus fasted for 40 days; from the resurrection to the ascension were forty days. Moses was on the mountain with God for 40 days. Noah and Hercules were swallowed by a whale, at exactly the same place – Jappo – and were inside the whale for 3 days, the same number of days between the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus. The feeding of the five thousand – a miracle interestingly also performed by Elisha in 2 Kings 43-44 – happened with 2 fish and five loaves of bread, equalling seven. In Mark 18:17-21 Jesus is trying to make his disciples understand that his stories are meant to be taken as complex allegories involving numbers. Jesus says: ”To you it is given to know the Mysteries of the Kingdom of God. But to the rest of them it is only given in allegories.” In Luke 8:1, Jesus admits to speaking in riddles and parables yet only the literal world has been spoken for centuries. Perhaps the message has been “misrepresented” by religious authorities on purpose.

Early Church fathers Origen and Clement tried to establish Christianity amongst Pagans by using the argument that it would be absurd to believe in Paganism and not Christianity. Why would it be absurd? Because of the extreme similarities that they themselves acknowledged (3.273). As a result of the likeness between Pagan religions and Christianity, the latter continued to grow. Alterations of biblical documents, addition of forgeries, and addition of previously held heretical books and the omission of parts of the Bible became a norm in the Church.

Eventually fanatics came up with the idea known as Diabolical Mimicry to refute the Pagan claim that they were using their ideas to gain power (1.26). Diabolic Mimicry holds that the devil knew the Jesus story thousands of years before and so had created religions similar to Christianity in order to keep people astray from the one true saviour. Unfortunately, for the masses, Christian dogma had won favour with the Roman politicians and this idea was forced onto the people through heresy hunting (the killing of anyone who held different ideas to the Church) mass slaughters (of Pagan followers, “witches”, and other freethinkers), war and repression (1.244-6). All Pagan books were ordered to be burned. Pope Gregory VII burned the Apollo Library. Emperor Theodosius burned 27,000 ancient scrolls. Ptolemy Philadelphius burned 270,000 ancient documents and after 1233 more than 25,000 were burned (even some in the new world). The tragedy is that most of the works burned had nothing to do with Paganism – they were scientific documents seized by illiterate peasants.

So what is the true legacy of the Church after two thousand years? A Church built upon the ruins of an old Pagan temple that symbolises racism, sexism, homophobia, sexual repression guilt, organised crime and HATE!

Sources:

1. The Jesus Mysteries by Timothy Freke and Peter Ghandi.

2. Deceptions and Myths of the Bible by Loyd M Graham.

3. The Truth About Jesus by M.M Mangasarian, found in You Are being Lied To, edited by Russ Kick

War is a Racket (video)

 

Too late to stop global catastrophe?

 

The threat of global warming is clearly a global problem that can only be dealt with by co-ordinated action at the world level. But this is not going to happen under capitalism. As a system involving competition between profit-seeking corporations backed up by their protecting states, it is inherently incapable of world-wide cooperation. There never has been such cooperation. Just the opposite, in fact. The inevitable clashing interests between different states, each seeking to pursue the interests of its profit-seeking corporations, breeds war rather than cooperation. Look what happened last century. Look at the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

So it’s not going to happen. There is not going to be any coordinated world action to deal with global warming as long as capitalism is allowed to continue. Something will be done but it is bound to be too little, too late.

It’s certainly going to be too little. These days, when private corporations have governments under their thumb much more than in the recent past, what is being proposed is not even state intervention to force carbon-polluting corporations to limit their emissions in the overall capitalist interest. It’s to try to use the mechanisms of the market to solve the problem: fiddling about with the tax system to make investment in anti-pollution measures more profitable; establishing an artificial world market and price for carbon. Anybody can see that this is not going to work.

 

Governments are also proposing that individuals play their part, as if individuals rather than the system were to blame. They want us to drive smaller cars, even cycle to work, turn off the lights when we leave a room, not leave our TV on standby, not fly to our holiday destination. That’s all very well but unless they want us to reduce our standard of living that will just mean we would have money to spend on something else.

 

As the capitalist class are always wanting us to reduce our standard of living since this means more for them as profits - and provoke strikes and impose austerity to try to do so socialists are naturally suspicious of the motives behind the government propaganda here.

In any event since the great bulk of carbon emissions come from energy generated for industry, offices and commercial transport, as well as from deforestation, even if we did all the things they want - and we’re not saying we shouldn’t, that’s an individual life-style choice - it wouldn’t make much difference. Changing life-styles is no more a solution to global warming than letting the invisible hand of the market have a go.

Having said this, individuals do have some responsibility in the matter. Capitalism - the cause of the problem - only continues in the end because people put up with it. Most people don’t see any alternative to working for wages, producing for profit, using money, the world divided into states, the existence of armies. These attitudes both reflect and sustain capitalism. And every time people get a chance to vote, a majority back politicians committed to maintaining the capitalist system as the way of organising the production and distribution of wealth. So capitalism continues. As do its problems, including the threat of global over-warming. Maybe as this gets nearer people will be driven to consider an alternative.

Global warming can only be tackled by global action. And effective global action will only be possible within the framework of a united world. A united world is only possible on the basis of the Earth’s natural and industrial resources being the common heritage of all humanity.

 

“At every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing over nature – but that we, with flesh and blood and brain, belong to nature and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly. We are gradually learning to get a clear view of the indirect, more remote social effects of our productive activity, and so are afforded the opportunity to control and regulate these effects well. This regulation, however, requires a complete revolution in our existing mode of production…in our whole contemporary social order”

You could be forgiven for thinking the above quotation came from a modern day ecologist or environmentalist, commenting on impending global ecological catastrophe and drawing upon the myriad reports currently in existence, written by scientists that portend cataclysmic changes to our life styles if we don’t stop abusing our natural environment immediately. The quote is in fact 131 years old and is taken from Dialectics of Nature, written by Frederic Engels (1875).

So let’s get one thing straight from the outset. Socialists have been warning about the effects of capitalism’s penny-pinching production methods for well over a hundred years, and how they impact on the wider environment, and it is often with despair that we reiterate the Engels message from the latter 19th century, more so now that state of the art technology exists that provides hard evidence as to the dire effects of capitalist production.

In the oceans, almost fish stocks are being over-exploited. On land, soil erosion and degradation mean that half a billion people live in countries whose arable land can no longer support their own populations. The natural habitats of many animal species are being lost on an alarming scale, which with the decline of bird species, plants, forests - on which, ultimately, the human race depends – signals a crisis for biodiversity.

And the best capitalist politicians can think up is to tempt the master class with the whiff of profits to come if they agree to mend their ways. The very people who have disregarded the effects of their production methods on the natural environment for hundreds of years are now being asked to show it some mercy! Global environmental catastrophe can be halted by throwing money at the problem!

Right across the planet the economic system that governments defend plunders and squanders the Earth’s non-renewable mineral and energy resources and with one object in mind – profit. All over the world it pollutes the seas, the air we breathe, the forests, rivers and lakes, upsetting natural balances, eco-systems and defying the laws of ecology. Clearly, this destruction and waste cannot continue indefinitely. It should not and must not and no amount of money is going to redress the delicate balance.

Socialists have long argued that it is quite possible to meet the material needs of every person on this planet without destroying the natural systems on which we depend and on which we are party. So what stands in the way? Why isn’t this done? The simpler answer, which we must not get tired of reiterating, is that under the present economic system, production is not geared to meeting human needs but rather to accumulating profits for a few. Consequently, what we produce and the methods and the materials we employ are not decided rationally and democratically, but are dictated by market forces.

Production today is in the hands of business enterprises of one sort or another, all competing to sell their products at a profit. All of them – and it does not matter whether they are privately owned or state-owned – aim to maximise their profits. This is not the result of the greed of the owners or managers, as some Greens claim, but an economic necessity, imposed by the forces of the market. If a business does not make a profit it goes out of business. “Make a profit or die” is the law of the capitalist jungle.

Under the demands of the market, businesses only take into account their own narrow financial interests, ignoring wider social and ecological considerations. The whole of production, from the process employed to the choice of what to produce, is distorted by this drive to make and accumulate profits. The result is an economic system governed by anarchic market forces which compel decision-makers, however selected and whatever their personal views or sentiments, to plunder, pollute and waste.

So it’s no wonder that nature’s balances are upset today, and that we face problems like global warming, acid rain and the widening hole in the ozone layer, to name just a few. It’s no wonder that the Earth’s easily accessible resources are plundered without a thought for the future; that the power stations and factories release all sorts of dangerous and noxious substances into the air and water; that chemical fertiliser and pesticides that get into the food chain are used in agriculture; that animals are injected with hormones, fed unnatural diets; that human waste is not recycled back to the land; that non-biodegradable plastics and textiles are produced; that lead is put into petrol; that goods are made so as not to last, etc. The list of anti-ecological practises imposed by market forces is endless.

The conclusion is clear: If our needs are to be met while at the same time respecting the laws of nature, the present market-driven profit system must go and be replaced with a system capable of producing the essentials humans need, but in an ecologically friendly way.

 

Most Greens believe that things could be put right with a change of government policy, which is exactly what Labour now proposes. What is needed, they say, is a government that will pass laws and impose taxes – on air travel, motoring and high emission vehicles - to protect the environment. But experience shows that no government, however well meaning or determined, can protect the environment. Governments exist to run the political side of the profit system. They do not have a free hand to do what is sensible or desirable. They can only act within the narrow limits imposed by the market system. This is why the reformist policy advocated by the Green Party, Friends of the Earth etc. is not working. At most it could only succeed in slowing down the speed of decay, not in making the profit system work in an environmentally friendly way. Those who want a clean and safe environment are up against a well entrenched economic and social system, based on class privilege and property and governed by the overriding law of profits first. What Greens should work towards is not a change of government, but a change of society.

If we are to meet our needs in an ecologically acceptable way, we humans must first be in a position to control production or, to put it another way, to consciously regulate our interaction with the rest of nature – and the only basis on which this can be done is the common ownership of productive resources.

Once the Earth’s natural and industrial resources have become the common heritage of all humanity, then production can be geared to meeting needs in an ecologically acceptable way, instead of making profits without consideration for the environment. These include types of farming that preserve and enhance the natural fertility of the soil, the systematic recycling of materials obtained from non-renewable energy sources while developing alternative sources that continually renew themselves (i.e. solar energy and wind power); industrial processes that avoid releasing poisonous chemicals or radioactivity into the biosphere; the manufacture of solid good made to last, not planned to break down after a period of time.

We are talking about a system of society based on common ownership and democratic control of productive resources. That is the only basis on which we can meet our needs whilst respecting the laws of nature. And it’s the only basis on which we can begin to successfully reverse the degradation of the environment caused by the profit system. The only effective strategy for achieving a free and democratic society, in harmony with nature it to build up a movement which has the achievement of such a society as its sole aim.

Climate Activists Anthem

 

One Worldists

 

Those in charge of the political affairs of British capitalism are worried. The nationalist propaganda that their predecessors pumped out for years -- justifying the British Empire on the grounds that the colonised peoples were inferior -- has come back to haunt them. A large section of the native working class still believes this crap, long after it has ceased to be of any use to the ruling class. Now that there is a large minority of workers from or descended from people from the old Empire, our rulers want them, in the interests of national unity, to be regarded as fellow Britishers. So now they are going to "educate" workers that it is nasty and wrong to think black people are inferior and cannot be British.

Of course, people who have dark skin are not, and never were, inferior. All human beings are members of the same biological species -- homo sapiens -- and we all have the same capacity to learn. There is, if you like, only one race -- the human race. We are all citizens of the world, Earthlings.

But this is not what the politicians are proposing should be taught in the schools. They want to teach working-class kids "what it means to be British" in true Jingo fashion.

So, although racism is now out, equally divisive nationalism is still in and is in fact to be stepped up. Schoolkids are to be taught, as before, that they are primarily members of a supposed "British nation" all of whose members allegedly have a common interest different from the subjects of other so-called "nation-States". The only difference will be that they will be taught that this British nation now includes dark-skinned people from the former Empire and that such people too can now proudly look down on "foreigners".

Socialists will try to do what they can to counter this nationalist state-propaganda by pointing out that nationalism is an ideology which ruling classes use to try to obtain the acquiescence and support of those they rule over and that wage and salary workers from all countries have more in common with each other than with their rulers. Ultimately, they have a common interest in establishing a socialist world commonwealth where there'll be no frontiers or nation-states just people speaking different languages and enjoying different tastes in dress, music, culture and the like but which everybody will be entitled to share in.

The solution to the ongoing insanity, we insist, remains the same. There is one world and we exist as one people in need of each other and with the same basic needs. There is far more that unites us than can ever divide us along cultural, nationalistic or religious lines. Together we can create a civilisation worth living in, but before that happens we need the conscious cooperation of ordinary people across the world, united in one common cause – to create a world in which each person has free access to the benefits of civilisation, a world without borders or frontiers, social classes or leaders and a world in which production is at last freed from the artificial constraints of profit and used for the good of humanity – socialism.

As socialists, we do maintain that it is dangerous to listen to leaders of any party and from any country, regardless of their flower cant, and insist that anything they say is taken with a pinch of salt and that workers should organise against them and in their ilk and in our own interests. The concept of leadership has emerged with class society and will end when we abolish class society when we abolish the profit system and all that goes with it. The master class have been allowed to lead because of their control over the means of living, their control of the education system, and their monopoly of the media and other information processes.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The greatest weapons we possess are our class unity, our intelligence, our ability to question every corrupt word that is uttered by politicians and to imagine a world fashioned in our own interests. Leaders perceive all of this to be a threat and so will do anything to keep us in a state of oblivion, dejection and dependency – not least of these methods is to further lie to us at every opportunity. Our apathy is the victory they celebrate each day. Our unwillingness questions everything they say, to unite as a globally exploited majority and to confront them on the battlefield of ideas is the subject of their champagne toasts.

Education (video)