The NDP and left-wing populism

By Murray Dobbin
Murray Dobbin's Blog 

The NDP may well pull itself out of its self-created mess on the long gun registry but not before using up a lot of good will across the country and a lot of political energy. It was a struggle that should not have been necessary. It leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth associated with support for this critical program. Instead of leading the fight to keep the registry, the NDP will be seen as having barely come through. Hardly a glorious day in the party’s parliamentary history.

What is clear to me is that this whole ugly business reflects what people have known for years: that the NDP is now just a party machine and no longer a movement. While Stephen Harper can count on populist anger and mobilizing his base of party members and supporters, the NDP cannot. It depends strictly on paid political operatives, ensconced on Parliament Hill. If they had that capacity their strategy would have been to tell Harper to shove it and do serious education work in the ridings in question and counter the lies and fear-mongering put out by the government.

This lack of grass roots capacity is ironic if you consider the NDP’s historical roots which were quintessentially populist. The CCF was socialist in its vision but populist in its politics. The term populist now has negative connotations because only the right can mobilize people on this basis. The CCF’s populist anger was directed right where it should have been: the banks, the grain companies, the machinery companies and the gouging of other middlemen – and against employers who squeezed every last dime out of their workers.

The CCF/NDP lost its populist character decades ago and has been an electoral machine ever since. The party cannot call on its members to mobilize at the community level and it has virtually no relationship with civil society organizations upon which it could call upon for allies in a fight like this one. It is almost powerless against the kind of politics practiced by Harper.

That is why rural members of the NDP were terrified of losing their seats. Even though all the facts are on the side of the registry, with a hostile and lazy media and no grass roots presence in the communities affected, the NDP MPs had to run for cover falling back on that old excuse of “representing their constituents.” That ends up being just another way of saying opportunism. What happened to principle?

The only way the NDP will ever get beyond its historical high point of about 20% in the polls and elections (it’s now closer to 15%) is if it re-tools itself to become a movement-party once again. A few years ago a project called the New Politics Initiative had as its objective exactly that. It found real support amongst many rank and file NDPers as well as among those, like me, from the social movement side of the ledger. One of its aims was to bridge the gap between the two. A resolution calling for such a change in the party achieved nearly 40% support at a national convention.

Maybe it needs to be reconstituted.

The Trouble with Billionaires

Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks
Toronto Star

In the last few decades, the concentration of income in the United States, Britain and Canada has reached levels not seen since the late 1920s. Such extreme income concentration created a dynamic that led to the disastrous Wall Street crash in 2008 - just as it did in 1929.

The financial collapse is simply the most striking example of the problems caused by the rise of a new class of billionaires. Their massive fortunes - widely considered benign or even beneficial to society -- are actually detrimental to everyone else.

The glittering lives of the new super-rich may seem like harmless sources of entertainment. But such concentrated economic power reverberates throughout society, threatening the quality of life and the very functioning of democracy. It's no accident that the United States claims the most billionaires-but suffers from among the highest rates of infant mortality and crime, the shortest life expectancy, as well as the lowest rates of social mobility and electoral political participation in the developed world.

Our society sees itself as a meritocracy. So we tend to regard large fortunes as evidence of great talent or accomplishment. Yet the vast new wealth isn't due to an increase in talent or effort at the top, but rather to changing social attitudes legitimizing greed and to policy changes made by governments under pressure from the new elite.

Excerpt from: The Trouble with Billionaires by Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks

On the campus of the University of Toronto, buildings bear the names of some notable Canadians: among them, literary giant Northrop Frye, public health pioneer John FitzGerald, inventor Sir Sandford Fleming, who introduced the concept of standard time. But the buildings named in honour of important intellectual figures typically date back more than three decades. In more recent years, campus buildings have been named almost exclusively after those whose distinguishing characteristic is the possession of lots of money.

Economic Democracy: The Working-Class Alternative to Capitalism

Book Review - Economic Democracy: The Working-Class Alternative to Capitalism, by Allan Engler (Halifax: Fernwood, 2010)

By Jim Stanford
CAW economist
rabble.ca

This little book deserves notice simply because it comes right from the trenches, authored by a life-long trade unionist who has also taken the time and effort to research and write a significant contribution to our portfolio of economic and political alternatives. Al Engler has been active for decades with the longshore union in Vancouver (one of Canada's most progressive unions) and the Vancouver Labour Council. This well-researched book is a fine example of the sort of worker-friendly political-economy education for trade unionists that our labour movement needs a lot more of.

Engler's book is divided into three parts, although this time there's a stronger story line that links them. Part I provides a critical review of capitalism. Part II describes Engler's posited alternative, which he calls "Economic Democracy." Finally, Part III discusses political strategy (namely, how to get there). In each case the discussion is well-documented, including both references to historical thinkers, and modern real-world examples (many of them Canadian).

Understanding Islamophobia

By Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed , Samia Aziz
New Left Project

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Development in London and has taught at the University of Sussex and Brunel University. His most recent book is a User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation and he has also written extensively on Western foreign policy and terrorism. In addition he maintains a blog called The Cutting Edge.

In this interview, Nafeez and Samia Aziz discuss Islamophobia – its nature, causes and dynamics, and how it can be resisted.

The term ‘Islamophobia’ has only become part of common political vocabulary in the last two decades. First of all, can you tell us what this word means?

Islamaphobia refers to a state of mind or a set of beliefs which characterise Muslims in a regressive and derogatory way, resulting in them being discriminated against. That’s putting it very simply. First of all, it’s the targeting of Muslims as a specific group. Furthermore, it’s a set of ideas about them, which are usually mistaken, inaccurate and can be harmful. These then lead to forms of behaviour which are discriminatory in the social, political, economic and cultural realms, manifesting itself in a number of ways.

Read more HERE.

It was workers who defeated Mussolini

Alexis Vassiley
Socialist Alternative

Book Review: The Italian Resistance: Fascists, Guerrillas and the Allies.

Tom Behan, Pluto Press 2009.

Between 1943 and 1945 a mass political and military movement led by the working class and headed by Communists freed Italy from fascism. Incredible though this may seem to non-Italian readers, it is historical fact. The Italian Resistance: Fascists, Guerrillas and the Allies –unfortunately the late socialist Tom Behan’s last book – magnificently draws out the central role played by the working class in defeating fascism.

It was workers who went on strike in Nazi-occupied cities, risking death or deportation to Germany. It was workers who took to the mountains to become partisans (guerrillas) in their tens of thousands. It was workers who marked the final day of liberation, April 25 1945, with insurrections in the three cities that make up the industrial triangle in Italy’s north: Turin, Milan and Genoa. It was workers, motivated by the desire for a better, socialist world, who fought Italian fascists and German Nazis to the death and won. German Field Marshals surrendered not to Allied troops, but to Communist industrial workers.

Irwin Silber 1925-2010

By Ethan Young
Submitted to Portside (CCDS)
September 12, 2010

Irwin Silber in Lennon Park, Cuba with his great grandson

Irwin Silber died at the age of 84 on September 8, 2010, after complications from Alzheimer's. Silber's life intersected with the emergence of the radical left out of the Eisenhower/McCarthy era, and the critical cultural expression that broke barriers throughout the country and the world. Silber, well known as a leading figure in the post-World War II folk music revival, also reached and influenced a broad audience of left activists with his political criticism and analysis.

Silber grew up during the Depression in the Lower East Side of Manhattan - a time and place of grinding poverty and radical ferment. As a New York Communist born and bred, his first political campaign was in grade school, a fight for universal penny milk. As a teenager, he attended the Communist Party sponsored Wo-Chi-Ca (Workers' Children's Camp), where Paul Robeson not only sang for the children, but played baseball with them. At the age of 19, already a college graduate, Silber and friends formed the Folksay group, developing a cultural form that highlighted politics and a sense of solidarity. They created a series of American square dance calls with pro-union messages, and performed European folk dances learned from their neighborhood.

Wascana Centre needs new funding: report

Urban park will 'crumble' without additional dollars - CBC News

The Wascana Centre Authority maintains 930 hectares of parkland in Regina. Regina's largest park is in desperate need of a cash infusion, according to a report prepared for city council.

The Wascana Centre, which includes the man-made Wascana Lake and other manicured property around the provincial legislative building and the University of Regina, has been strapped for operating funds in recent years, the report says.

The green space, which sprawls across 930 hectares of Regina, is maintained by the Wascana Centre Authority, which receives money from the U of R, the province and the city as well as some user fees collected from special events in the park.

"Wascana Centre Authority is facing serious challenges from an operating perspective," officials note in the report.

'This almost 50-year-old wonderful centre and legacy that is free for all people to enjoy on a daily basis will soon crumble.'

Report on funding issues facing Wascana Park in Regina
The report details how funding has not kept pace with rising costs over the years. It says the park was "well funded from its inception in 1962 until the mid 1980s."

The hardest time for the park was from 1990 to 2003 when "funding dropped 17 per cent and then remained at virtually no increase," the report states.

The centre currently receives $5.6 million for its annual maintenance and operations.

"Maintaining 2,300 acres with only $450,000 more than 25 years ago is simply not feasible," the report warns.

"If the operating deficit … is not addressed, this almost 50-year-old wonderful centre and legacy that is free for all people to enjoy on a daily basis, will soon crumble and no longer be the jewel [of the legislature and city]," the report concludes.

Extra cash for 2010
City administrators are recommending Regina chip in an immediate $150,000 for the park.

The report says the provincial government "will be providing providing an additional $150,000 to Wascana Centre Authority for 2010."

To cope with funding shortfalls, the authority has already laid off the only full-time constable who patrols the grounds and reduced the hours of other constables to provide coverage only on summer weekends.

Cuts have also been made on horticulture services in the park and snow removal.

The park was spruced up in 2005 with a special project, which became known as the "Big Dig," when Wascana Lake was drained and deepened.

Since then, the report notes, usage of the park has doubled.

WCA worker

The recommendation for additional spending by the city goes to a committee of city council on Wednesday. If the committee accepts the recommendation it will go to a regular meeting of Regina city council for approval.

SGEU 2006 Brief on WCA
SGEU 2002 Brief on WCA

‘The Manchurian President’: Chicago’s Commie Liberal Puppet

The paranoid style of American politics is alive and well.

By Chip Berlet
In These Times

America is in the midst of a 21st-century witch hunt. A loose-knit network of right-wing ideological strategists, Republican Party operatives and media demagogues generate the odious smears. Their goal is to stymie the Obama administration's policy initiatives, capture Congress in November and unseat President Barack Obama in 2012. This propagandizing echoes the scapegoating of liberals, union and community organizers, peace activists, gay people, Jews and people of color during the anti-communist witch-hunts of the McCarthy era.

Anti-Obama rhetoric also mimics 1960s slurs dubbing Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. a dupe of a communist conspiracy -- claims circulated by groups like the ultra-conservative John Birch Society, the white supremacist "Citizens' Councils" and the Ku Klux Klan. Billboards and flyers with this revelation appeared across the South, and postcards were distributed nationwide.

Ken Loach on September 11

Chile: the other 9/11 anniversary

The devastating legacy of Pinochet's coup of 11 September 1973 goes far beyond the economy and the armed forces

Raúl Zibechi
guardian.co.uk
Saturday 11 September 2010

The body of Salvador Allende is carried from the destroyed
presidential palace of La Moneda, Santiago on 11 September 1973.
 Allende committed suicide before he could be captured.
Photograph: El Mercurio/AP

Of the many military coups faced by the republics of Latin America, it is the coup of 11 September 1973 that has engraved itself most permanently on the collective memory. The images of the bombing of the Moneda Palace, of the despair on the face of Salvador Allende shortly before his suicide, of the defiant expression worn by Pinochet behind his dark glasses and of the public burning of books that circulated around the world and became the symbol of military brutality.

The dispersal into exile of 200,000 Chileans, most of them to Europe, added to the media images of men and women who had seen their lives destroyed by the death or disappearance of friends and relatives. The murder of thousands of political opponents and the detention and torture of people who were identified with the constitutional government isolated the military regime internationally.

Keepers of the Water: A wake-up call from the North

By Rita Wong
Rabble.ca

I was very fortunate to participate in the Keepers of the Water conference in Wollaston Lake, northern Saskatchewan, in mid-August. It was my first time to this remote community, which can only be reached by barge/boat or airplane as there are no roads that go directly there. People say the water there is clean enough to drink right out of the lake, which I saw someone doing. The lake, one of Saskatchewan's largest, certainly looked beautiful, though I hesitated to drink from it like the locals.

Wollaston Lake was the site of protests against uranium mining in 1985, when roughly 200 indigenous people and their allies blocked traffic in and out of Rabbit Lake (now the world's second largest uranium mine) and Collin's Bay. This was documented in Miles Goldstick's book, Wollaston, which describes Saskatchewan as the Saudi Arabia of the uranium industry. Unfortunately, the extraction continued, and Canada is the world's largest exporter of uranium because of northern Saskatchewan, which is the epicentre of the mining. A new proposed Millennium Project would be "150 km from Wollaston Lake, an area already inundated with radioactive tailings from past mines," according to Dr. Jim Harding.

Socialism is Love - Max Romeo

The Spectre of Barbarism and its Alternative

Michael A. Lebowitz
The B u l l e t
Socialist Project • E-Bulletin No. 414

The following two documents are presentations made or prepared for different purposes in Venezuela. The first (‘The Spectre of Barbarism and its Alternative: Eight Theses’) was presented at a conference of Venezuelan intellectuals organized by Centro Internacional Miranda (CIM) in Caracas on ‘The New International Situation and Construction of Socialism in the 21st Century’ on 1 October 2009; this paper points to both the international struggle and (peripherally on this occasion) the internal struggle. The second intervention (‘The Responsibility of Revolutionary Intellectuals in Building Socialism’) was presented at a CIM conference, ‘Intellectuals, Democracy and Socialism,’ on 2 June 2009 – a conference in Caracas composed largely of leading Venezuelan intellectuals which generated much controversy because of public criticisms of ‘the process’ made there; despite my statement that this presentation was ‘general rather than specific to Venezuela,’ it nevertheless was declared to be as an attack on PSUV (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela) by a Chavist faction linked to the oil ministry.

I. The spectre of barbarism and its alternative: eight theses

“Make socialism fly” - street art in Caracas.
Photo from nosabemosdisparar.blogspot.com.

Thesis One. The capitalist economic crisis is not over.

Although the immediate financial crisis appears to have been resolved, all of the underlying factors (which are the result of the overaccumulation to which capitalism is prone and which made fictitious capital so vulnerable) are still present.

The incredible trade imbalance of the U.S. economy has not been addressed; the unprecedented deficit of the U.S. federal budget is rising; the over-extension of consumer credit hangs over the economy; unemployment is rising and thus consumer confidence and spending is not likely to return to previous heights; and, the general picture is one in which the U.S. economy, the dominant economy in the world, will continue to lose hegemony. When commentators stress signs of recovery, it is essential to remember that this pattern differs not at all from that of 1929 to 1933 – in other words, the period between the stock market crash and the bank failures – a period before much of the depression of the 1930s. At best, although capitalism itself may recover, the prospect is one of a significant geographical restructuring of capital on an international basis, which will require a painful adjustment for the U.S. economy – one which involves acceptance of continued stagnation or decline of incomes for the mass of people.

Thesis Two. The resource/food/water/climate/environment crisis is deepening.

All these elements are connected. There is a food crisis which reflects, among other things, drought as the result of climate change and the diversion of food for the production of biofuels. Despite the ability to produce sufficient food at this time for the world, unequal distribution has meant starvation for many and has been reflected in food riots over the price of staple products like rice. There is a process of land grab occurring in which countries such as China, India, South Korea and Saudi Arabia are in the process of leasing land in Africa, Pakistan, and the Philippines among other places for the purpose of securing food (especially grain) and fuels. For example, Daewoo of South Korea took a 99 year lease on 3,000,000 acres of land in Madagascar (half of all arable land in the country) for the purpose of producing corn and palm oil. Similarly, Pakistan offered a half million hectares of land and promised Gulf investors that if they signed up it would hire a security force of 100,000 to protect the assets. A significant aspect of these contracts which secure arable land for foreign investors is that it is a way of dealing with the impending crisis of water shortage. And, this problem is becoming increasingly serious with the melting of glaciers for example in Tibet and the Andes – which will affect the availability of water not only for consumption and agriculture but also for hydroelectric power. This problem, the problem of over-expansion of economic activity in relation to existing resources under capitalism, will only get worse as India and China in particular attempt to emulate the consumption standards of the developed North.

Irwin Silber R.I.P.

From Wikipedia,

In 1991, Paredon Records founders Irwin Silber and Barbara Dane
sat down with Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
 archivist Jeff Place to discuss why they founded the label
and tell the stories behind each album.
 Download a PDF of the transcribed interview here.

Irwin Silber (born October 17, 1925 died September 8, 2010) was an American journalist, editor, publisher, and political activist. The co-founder, and former long-time editor of Sing Out! magazine from 1951 to 1967. Silber was perhaps best known for his writing on American folk music and musicians until he left Sing Out! and began writing for the Guardian (US). His creation of Oak Publications was responsible for a large portion of the folk music material available in print during the growth of the revival.

Canadian politics needs a game-changer

By Murray Dobbin
Murray Dobbin's Blog

As we head into a new political season it looks depressingly like the old: a stand-off between the malignant minority government of Stephen Harper and the seriously diminished Liberal Party and its hapless leader Michael Ignatieff. Both these parties and their leaders are so off the mark in terms of what Canadians want and need that they can’t even break through the 30 per cent support mark. Harper seems to have written off Quebec—a typically petulant response to that province’s stubborn attraction to social democracy. The Liberals have lost their ability to connect with Quebec as well, virtually guaranteeing that the Bloc Quebecois will continue to dominate that province and make a majority federal government almost impossible.

In this seemingly pathological stalemate Harper’s efforts to dismantle the federal government continue unabated. He rules the country by repeated doses of fear. It’s all about keeping Canadians off-balance so they can’t keep their eye on the stuff that actually matters. The census: be afraid of the evil, nosy government prying into your affairs and “intruding” into your life. The tough-on-crime bills: be afraid of the bogeyman—especially the unreported crime that Stockwell Day wants to build prisons for (because reported crime is rapidly decreasing).