It Hots Up in the North Pole

Yet another one in this blog's long series on the military build-up on Arctic region as various nations seek to take advantage of the melting of the ice-cap to exploit its natural resources.

Trump  a year ago  said he would like to buy Greenland, a vast territory that is administered by Denmark.  It is about the same size as Saudi Arabia, and slightly smaller than India — a big country in which there is a Pentagon base at Thule. Denmark and the rest of the world laughed at Trump’s silly fantasy which caused the usual Trump reaction, in that he promptly cancelled a scheduled visit to Copenhagen and tweeted childish abuse about Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.  His reason for scrapping the visit and insulting the Danish people was that the prime minister had “no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland”.  Trump considers that when a country is presented with demands made by the United States then there has to be speedy and totally compliant action on the part of the targeted government.

 Defence News tells us, it is “the U.S. military’s northernmost base and the only installation north of the Arctic Circle. It is home to the 12th Space Warning Squadron, a cadre of Air Force officers and enlisted personnel that provide 24/7 missile warning and space surveillance using a massive AN/FPS-132 radar. Besides being a critical site for missile defence and space situational awareness, Thule hosts the Defence Department’s northernmost deep-water seaport and airfield. Those assets would come into play in any sort of military conflict in the arctic, giving the Pentagon forward-basing options if needed.”

In the Pentagon’s “New Arctic Strategy” it is stated that the Space Force will “develop new technologies and modernize existing assets in the Arctic necessary to ensure access to and freedom to operate in space,” while Air Force Secretary Barbara Barret announced in July that “U.S. air and space forces value the Arctic. Access and stability require cooperation among America’s allies and partners, along with a commitment to vigilance, power projection, and preparation.”

Russia has refurbished airfields, invested in search and rescue, and built radar stations to improve awareness in the air and maritime domains.

As to China, the American summation is that it is “attempting to gain a role in the Arctic in ways that may undermine international rules and norms, and there is a risk that its predatory economic behaviour globally may be repeated in the Arctic.” 

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/08/28/washington-schemes-to-heat-up-the-arctic/

Deciding For Ourselves

The Socialist Party places before our fellow-workers the limitations of present-day democracy. We are told that we live in a "democracy" in which we are free to choose what kind of society we live in. But the most important of all political decisions – what the community produces – is never subjected to any kind of democratic process. Instead Wall St investors decide which goods will deliver the greatest or most reliable profits. In other words these decisions are made by a tiny elite minority in the interests of an even smaller minority. In capitalist society the only ‘choice’ voters have is who will decide how taxes are distributed to create and maintain the state infrastructure – armies, police, road, rail, law, health and social security system and, of course, the education system. Even this choice is only ‘given’ to the people once every five years between two political parties with no important differences in ideology. And this is political democracy?

One of the driving forces for the creation of the Socialist Party was the view that democracy was integral to the establishment of socialism and thus a party with that object needs to be a reflection of the democratic principle. So although with a long history as a political party based on agreed goals, methods and organisational principles we still remain a small propagandist group. Mandating delegates, voting on resolutions and membership referendums are democratic practices for ensuring that the members of an organisation control that organisation – and as such key procedures in any organisation genuinely seeking socialism. Socialism can only be a fully democratic society in which everybody will have an equal say in the ways things are run. This means that it can only come about democratically, both in the sense of being the expressed will of the working class and in the sense of the working class being organised democratically – without leaders, but with mandated delegates – to achieve it. In rejecting these procedures what is being declared is that the working class should not organise itself democratically.

The Chartist Bronterre O'Brien is credited as the originator of the term " social-democracy." He had used it to express the views of those who wished to bring about a complete social reconstruction under democratic forms. As he expressed it elsewhere, “… it is to establish Democracy, not only in the government, but throughout every industrial department of society…”

O’Brien never ceased to emphasise the antagonism of interest between the working class and the middle class and to insist on the need for the workers to gain political power — through the implementation of the Charter — before they could do anything effective to improve their social position.

"The history of mankind shows that from the beginning of the world, the rich of all countries have been in a permanent state of conspiracy to keep down the poor of all countries, and for this plain reason — because the poverty of the poor man is essential to the riches of the rich man…The rich have never cared one straw for justice or humanity since the beginning of the world. We defy any historian to point out a single instance of the rich of any age or country having ever renounced their power from love or justice, or from mere appeals to their hearts and consciences. There is no such instances. Force, and force alone, has ever conquered them into humanity." -  Bronterre O'Brien, Chartist, 1838.

As O’Brien then wrote in 1834: The great advantage of a strike is that it increases the enmity between labourers and capitalists, and compels workmen to reflect and investigate the causes of their sufferings. . .

 Bronterre O’Brien, when asked whether the capitalist did not work as well as his wage-earners, replied: “Yes, he works, works hard, works o’ nights. So does the wolf. He works, works hard, works o’ nights. But the harder he works, my friend, the worse it is for the sheep.” 

The Choice - All for All

Lack of money is sufficient reason to let people starve. Hungry people cannot eat because they have no money. The world provides ample food for all to eat yet  about 3 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet. 

 Socialism teaches that the revolution against capitalism and the socialist reconstruction of the old world can be accomplished only through conscious, collective action by the workers themselves.  Radical changes in the way a society produces its wealth call for radical changes in how that society is organised. We will inspire our people with a society organised for the benefit of all. A society built on cooperation and the well-being of its people above the profits and property of a handful of billionaires. The Socialist Party will reorganise society so that the abundance is distributed according to need. The material and technical resources for such a society, unquestionably exist in the world today. No competent inquirer doubts that insofar as it depends upon natural resources and the productive capacity, everybody could have a comfortable home, adequate nutritious food,  opportunities for leisure, recreation and education, decent healthcare against accident, sickness, and old age; and the sense of independence and self-respect that goes with these things. Instead we actually have, however, is mass insecurity and widespread poverty. There is an appalling contrast between what is and what might be. It arises from the nature of the economic system – capitalism – under which we operate.

A revolution in technology is in process. The system acts as a brake upon production so that, as the phrase goes, you have “want in the midst of plenty.” It is impossible for this antiquated system of private/state ownership and profit to supply the needs of the population today. Socialism is in essence a world economy. Every effort to establish “planned” production under private capitalism breaks down, since the warfare between rival capitalists, in a nation and capitalist groups in different nations disrupts such efforts.

Today capitalist ownership of the means of production and its legal right to exploitation of labour stands in the final analysis determines all political relations; which is another way of saying that those who own and control the means of production are those who rule. The mere change to government ownership or public ownership, so long as these capitalist relations remain in effect, would therefore not suffice. It is nonsense to assume that production for use, which pre-supposes the expropriation of the means of production and the transfer of the ownership thereof to the producers, can find its realisation without the overthrow of capitalist rule. The demand for production for use and not for profit has revolutionary implications and presupposes revolutionary action for its realisation.

Socialism proposes wealth for all. Plenty of the good things of life for everybody. A fine home to live in. A table of good things to eat. Abundance. Opportunity and means to travel the world. Leisure to read and play and work. No poverty any more. You say all this is a dream? No, no dream at all, but an immediate possibility. By means of the vast new technology of this modern world, we can produce wealth enough for all without any trouble. There is no doubt at all about this. Automation and Artificial Intelligence have so increased the productive capacity that all men and women could have abundance of wealth by working only 3 or 4 hours a day. Socialism proposes to get this abundance for all.

In order to get this abundance for all, we must do something. The Socialist Party proposes this: To take to ourselves industry and use it for producing for the welfare for all instead of producing for a few owners and investors. The only reason we live in misery now is that a few people own these great modern enterprises for their own benefit. If we owned these factories  and mines and mills ourselves in common and worked at them to produce wealth for our own use and happiness, all the problems associated with poverty would disappear. The Socialist Party proposes that society as a whole takes possession of the means of wealth production and run them for the use of all. We propose that the people shall come together in a political party and vote the capitalists out of power.

The Socialist Party appeals to our fellow-workers on the ground of their self-interests. They have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. We seek to empower working people with the understanding of their role in striving for this new society and with the confidence that it’s possible to win. A socialists we indulge in no dreams or false hopes. We say to our fellow-worker, “Come join our party, vote yourselves into power, use that power to capture back those means of wealth production which the capitalists have stolen from you, and then you will get all that abundance which modern technology can offer to you.” 

The aim of the Socialist Party is to muster together fellow-workers whose real interests lie in abolishing the private ownership of the means of production, and also to oppose the parties who wish to preserve the present system.

The one road to security, to peace, to freedom, to cultural advancement is the road of the socialist revolution. This is your choice – capitalism which means increasing chaos or socialism which means a future for civilisation.

The Socialist Party - for the cooperative commonwealth

The Socialist Party exists to help build the Cooperative Commonwealth. The Socialist Party stands not for reform but for revolution, because it holds that the rule of the capitalist class, under which the workers now suffer, must be brought to an end. As to the means by which the capitalist class is to be overthrown, the real question worth considering is what means will prove most effective.

If it could best be done by, reformism, working for “one gain at a time,” and bidding for the votes of people who have no idea what the class struggle means, we should no doubt favour that method. But history has made it very clear that such a method is a dead failure.

If, on the other hand, the working class could best gain power by insurrection taking up arms, we should know that the capitalist today control the military that could in a few hours slaughter any revolutionary workers of any of our cities.

It is by voting for the party of the working class, that is, the Socialist Party, plans to assume political power. The old pro-capitalist parties are controlled by “bosses” who take their orders from the capitalists who pay the campaigning bills. There is a worldwide chasm between the social philosophy and political aims of Socialism and those of the old parties. The politics of the dominant political parties revolve around property and property rights. They are rooted in the conception that the world exists for business and profits and that the men and women in it are only cogs in the industrial machine. Socialist politics, on the other hand, are concerned with life and liberty and are inspired by the conviction that the earth and the fullness thereof are for people, and that all wealth and industries are for the happiness and well-being of the human race

The Socialist Party understand that if all the “reforms” that are being agitated were to be conceded by the capitalists, there would be no real gain of any great importance for the working class. Its constant aim is to organize the workers into an effective political party to dislodge the capitalists from power once for all, and establish the Cooperative Commonwealth.

While the streets and alleys of the poor have remained ugly and filthy, lined with dark, crowded, and disease-breeding tenements. A Socialist administration would give its first care to the dwellings of the poor. It would construct attractive and sanitary buildings with proper provisions for light, air, and privacy. It was the capitalist system of industrial and commercial rivalry, the system of exploitation, hatred, and intrigue, the capitalist system with its kaisers on the throne, in the factory and counting-house in all lands, that plunged the world into the unspeakable disaster. It is the socialist movement based on the rule of the people, the Socialist movement synonymous with true absolute democracy, industrial as well as political, that lone can save the world. The Socialist Party will bring peace to the whole world. The Socialist Party alone has the courage to voice their desire and their demand openly, vigorously, and defiantly. We are for peace. We are unalterably opposed to the killing and the draining of our resources in a bewildering pursuit of an incomprehensible ‘democracy,' a pursuit for democracy which has the support of the men and classes who have habitually robbed and despoiled the people; a pursuit of democracy which begins by suppressing the freedom of speech and press and public assemblage, and by stifling legitimate political criticism. Not terrorism, but socialism will make the world safe for democracy.

Left to die

Mercy Baguma, 34, was an asylum seeker from Uganda.

She was living in “extreme poverty” and relying on charities and friends to buy food and was found dead next to her crying baby in a flat on the Southside of Glasgow. Her one-year-old son was suffering from malnutrition and required hospital treatment.

Baguma had lost her job after her limited leave to remain expired.

Robina Qureshi, the director of Positive Action in Housing, said “The question remains, why are mothers and babies being left to go hungry in this city, and why is it being left to charities and volunteers to pick up the pieces? The fact is there is no safety net if you are a refugee or migrant.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/25/mercy-baguma-woman-in-extreme-poverty-found-dead-next-to-crying-baby-in-glasgow

Socialism Now More Than Ever

The Socialist Party strives to explain that capitalism is incompatible with the advancement of the interests of the working class. What is meant is that the workers in their struggle can go only so far within the boundaries of the system. The socialist conception of social revolution is that it is the process by which the people go beyond the limits of capitalism in the course of their class struggle.

Capitalism has provided the trained workers and the technology, i.e., the machines, plants and techniques which are necessary for a socialist reorganization of society, it long ago ceased to provide for the simple wants and needs of the plain people. We want peace, instead of bloodshed and destruction. We want security and jobs, instead of insecurity and joblessness. We want decent homes for our families and good and plentiful schools for our children. We want comfort and prosperity, instead of slums, child labor, low wages, unemployment and starvation. We want democracy and freedom instead of totalitarianism, bureaucracy and racial and religious conflict. Despite intricate machines and abundant natural resources, capitalism is unable to provide us with these elementary wants. It is unable to avoid constant warfare. Instead it dooms us to serfdom and poverty. 

Under capitalism, an elite control the wealth and power of the country. They own industry, banking, mining, transportation. They own our jobs. They own the politicians because they finance the business parties which put these men into office. They send us to war to protect their vested interests. They have the power of life and death over all of us. The insanity of this system of capitalism is that it creates inequality, poverty and unemployment and all the crises of society because it produces too much! Not, to be sure, in relation to human needs, but in relation to the market. While the capitalists are united against the workers and their political and economic organizations, they are in competition against each other and against their capitalist counterparts abroad. They all try to outproduce and outsell each other on the market because the mainspring of capitalist production is profit, not human needs. Capitalism produces more and more for destruction. It has not been able to use its vast technical and material resources for constructive purposes.

Socialism, and only socialism, will create a true world commonwealth, a world without national barriers, without international rivalries, without masters and slaves and a world without war.  Its primary purpose will be to conduct the affairs of the world with the aim of eliminating poverty, hunger and general insecurity. Its sole criterion would be the needs of the people.

Socialism will end root problem of modern society, i.e., the private ownership of the means of production, the factories, mines, mills, machinery and land, which produce the necessities of life. With socialism, these instruments of production will become the property of society, owned in common, producing for use, for the general welfare of the people as a whole. With the abolition of the private ownership of the means of life and with it the factor of profit as the prime mover of production, the sharp divisions of society between nations and classes will disappear. Then, and only then, will society be in a position to become a social order of abundance and plenty for all, for socialism will create a new world of genuine cooperation and collaboration between the peoples of the earth. 

In abolishing classes in society, socialism will change the form and type of governments which exist today. Governments will become administrative bodies regulating production and consumption. They will not be the instruments of the capitalist class, i.e., capitalist governments whose main reason for existence is to guarantee the political as well as the economic rule of big business, their profits, their private ownership of the instruments of production, and the conduct of war in the economic and political interests of this class. The preoccupation of the administration in socialism will be to improve continually the living standards of the people, to extend their leisure time and thus make it possible to elevate the cultural level of the whole world. In abolishing classes, the nation- state and war, socialism will at the same time destroy all forms of dictatorship, political as well as economic. World socialism will be the freest, most democratic society mankind has ever known, truly representing the majority of the population and subject to its recall. A citizen of a socialist society will look back with horror upon the capitalist era with its wars, destruction and bloody and cruel despotism.

The world cooperative commonwealth will assess the industrial potential of the world, determine its resources, the needs of the people and plan production with the aim of increasing the standards of living of a free people, creating abundance, increasing leisure and opportunity for cultural enjoyment. Socialism will not concern itself with profits and war, but with providing decent housing for all the people. Socialism will provide for a multitude of schools for all the people. Socialism will eliminate illiteracy, which is one of the hallmarks of capitalism, and cease to regard schools primarily as institutions to produce skilled labour to help operate the profit economy. Socialism will create a system of health preservation in which the needs of the people and the improvement of the human race would be the paramount consideration. Above all, socialism will provide jobs without exploitation. For the aim of socialism is not the increased exploitation and intensification of labour, but the utilization of machinery, technology, science and invention to diminish toil, to create time in which to permit all the people to enjoy the benefits of social progress.

Today’s world holds all the necessary conditions for socialism. All about we observe gigantic industrial enterprises containing technology which could produce the goods of life in abundance. Mankind has developed a marvelous machinery. The discovery and control of automation and robotics has not only made it more possible for humanity to control natural and social environment to create a fruitful life of abundance, but has made it imperative. Socialism will place at the disposal of science and the scientists all the material means to help create an ever-improving social life for mankind. Under capitalism, scientists are mere wage workers hiring out their skills to private industry, servants of the corporation. The fruits of their intelligence, learning and research become the exclusive property of the capitalists, protected by patents who profit from the efforts of these scientists. Thus, science has become subordinated to profits rather than to the common good of all mankind. Yet the future society depends in large measure on changing this relation of science to society. Only socialism can place science where it properly belongs: in the service of the people.

Humanity is at a crossroads. We can travel the road of capitalism, i.e., the route to chaos, war, poverty and barbarism, or we can take the socialist path  toward true freedom, peace and security, the road toward a society of plenty for all which would end the exploitation of man by man for all time.