Turning out to the annual STUC march – held yesterday in Glasgow – I witnessed thousands of people marching in the pouring rain (and it really was monsoon level) for over three hours, and rallying at the end of it. Watching everyone come into the park at the end, and then watching them keep coming and keep coming and keep coming, til even I got bored and went to find somewhere handy to stand, was immense. I got a bit sentimental.
Something is happening in this country at the moment. Ever since the Sheridan debacle everyone who is casually in favour of the Scottish left has dissed us for not being united, and I think this is pish. I’d rather have honest difference than tactical, artificial unity. But at this point in time there is an honest unity, because people are uniting in the face of a common enemy. This enemy isn’t as simple as David Cameron, it’s the threat that he and his ilk represent – the immense threat to the welfare state and the end of a certain way of life, a certain kind of society: a kind of society which many had started to take for granted, and are now turning out to fight for its continued existence. People in Scotland are no longer deciding what kind of country they want to live in; now they know what kind of country they want to live in.
Independence is broadly being discussed as part of the process of achieving this country, but not the way the SNP talk about independence. For us independence is one possible means to a much more important end – not just the right to choose who runs the country without having to vote tactically against the Tories, but the right to choose what kind of a country we live in, what its priorities are, who it values.
The Scottish left have despaired of finding one party behind which to rally, and instead have banded together without one, building coalitions of resistance, new working groups, community groups, and policy-making units as they went. People have organised sporadically and multifariously, have started taking things into their own hands, have started taking responsibility for what is being imposed on their neighbourhoods (Save the Accord Centre campaign, the Save Otago Lane campaign, the Free Hetherington, earlier the Tripping Up Trump campaign). In the face of an overwhelming, despairing feeling that we cannot do anything in the face of the political power that rains down on us, we have decided we’re damn well going to do something anyway.
And I guess that this is the reason that for the first time in my life really I genuinely feel proud to be part of this entity we call Scotland. Here the nation’s history is being rewritten – people are invoking Red Clydeside, the poll tax riots, the shipbuilder work-in and are relating these things to the current uprising in Scotland, in order to construct an alternative historical narrative. This narrative which is the true story of a people who did not need a political party in order to do something. It is a minor narrative – none of these things changed the world, none of these things stopped the onset of neo-liberal capitalism, and we cannot expect the incredible efforts being expended at the moment to stop neo-liberal capitalism. But these efforts are aimed at slowing the imposition on a people of something it did not vote for, of a way of life to which it does not subscribe – a way of life where the only value is monetary, and where only those who have money are entitled to the support and protection of the state.
Something is happening in this country that hasn’t come from nowhere, and that – if this radical history is any indication – isn’t going away. Scotland, no longer proud of its part in the British Empire, of its stake in British wealth and oil, no longer necessarily proud of its industries (although still of its workers) is creating something else to be proud of: a refusal to sit back and watch while the subaltern suffer.
Being a Socialist is a tricky job. In the 20 years since the Berlin Wall came down, there’s been very little space for the ideas of the radical left to express itself and pro-free market politicians have a variety of swanky PR firms to do work for them that we can only dream of. That’s why it’s always good when a rogue bastard comes along and tactlessly gives the game away to the horror of thousands of stockbrokers.
He is not joking. He would shoot a kitten for money.
One case of this is the BBC interview with Alessio Rastanii. Alessio describes himself as an “independent trader”, which is probably why his answers ranged from “meh” to “fuck you”. When a BBC journalist asked him, with all the sincerity of a small child looking for it’s lost mum, if the Eurozone would be saved he responded that he “didn’t care”, his job was to “make money” and he “dreamed of another recession”. As if this wasn’t enough, he went on to say “Governments don’t rule the world, Goldman Sachs does”.
Fellow honest evil bastard Paul McMullen. I haven’t seen someone this rough and stressed out since I last watched Downfall.
It’s a great example of an evil bastard being so completely honest that you can’t help but admire him -- a bit like crater faced and increasingly-stressed-out with each interview phone hacking bastard Paul McMullen, who repeatedly said he hacked phones, enjoyed it, and who really gives a fuck about Hugh Grant anyway.
Unsurprisingly, the interview went viral as someone finally said what millions of people suspect traders actually believe. As it spread round the internets, rumours flew that Alessio wasn’t actually a trader but was in fact one of the “Yes Men”. The Yes Men are a hilarious bunch o lads that once pretended to be the representatives of Dow Chemicals, and wiped several billions of their stock market value when they falsely announced they would be providing compensation to the hundreds of family members of the folk their company killed in the Bhopal disaster. Had they fooled the BBC again?
This guy is a joker. He doesn’t have the same evil glint in his eye.
Nope, the Yes Men denied that Alessio was their guy and like the IRA or Cheryl Cole, they always take credit for their work. That makes Alessio a genuine evil bastard, not joking, not making things up, not being a spoof, not a Noel Edmonds “Gotcha” sketch and not a comic. He is actually genuinely one of the people the entire political mainstream in the developed world have asked you to trust in for the past 40 years, and have been bailed out to the tune of Trillions.
Unionists from the CNT during the Spanish civil war
Unions have forever been a socialists friend, often at the centre of exciting periods of revolutionary activity such as Red Clydeside or the Spanish revolution. However today’s unions seem a far cry from the revolutionary militancy of yesteryear and so it is worth asking the question, why should socialists and radicals today care about unions?
One reason to care is numbers. At 6.5 million members the trade union movement is the largest organised body of the working class in existence. What’s more the trade unions constituency incorporates nearly the entirety of our class, as being a worker is an experience, unlike going to university for example, which almost all of us will share. Now clearly size alone wont cut, after all the largest political party is the labour party and most of the socialist left is to be found (quite rightly) outside of it, but the sheer capacity of the unions must be acknowledged.
This capacity is at its greatest when trade unions mobilise their members collectively to improve their lot. Such a mass experience of collective action, and hopefully a collective victory can not only serve as the basis for further strengthening the organisation and power of our class but also carries within it the seeds of our new society.
If or future society is to be a collective, socialistic one, it should follow that bringing it about must also be a collective effort. Were socialism to be installed by coup or some other individualistic, minority-based strategy then you would expect to find any new collective structures swiftly being corrupted or abandoned as has been borne out by various historical examples. This is partly because people are creatures of habit, and are not very good at going outside their comfort zones. If people have not been socialised into collective ways of working, if they have not experienced for themselves the possible pitfalls such as corruption and how best to deal with them, then it would seem that any collective experiment is doomed to failure. Consequently it would seem that the processes of attaining socialism must in itself be collective and socialistic, building the new world in the shell of the old.
Trade unions can serve to facilitate this collectivism but they can also play an important role in the building process. A revolutionary change in society, especially one involving massive numbers of people is difficult to pull off. It needs organisation and the self-confidence of all those involved. Through building up organisational size and capacity through small victories, increasing the confidence of the members and the reputation of the union bit by bit we have the potential to create powerful fighting machines, just like the unions of yesteryear.
Sadly as we all know unions are presently ill-suited to this task. Density is in decline and the sort of union activity that builds confidence and wins victories is seemingly rare. What’s more large sections of the population, especially young casualised workers have never had any experience of trade unionism. Clearly these workers need to be organised, need to be part of our collective solution to the problems of capitalism, and so the question is then, how is this best achieved?
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn addresses striking IWW silk workers
Ultimately this is a tactical decision. Some, such as the IWW, advocate setting up new radical labour unions and this approach has met with a limited degree of success, for example organising Starbucks workers. Other socialists, noting the huge capacity of the existing movement, feel its better to intervene within those unions that exist and argue for them to extend unionisation to those whom it is presently unavailable.
There are arguments for either approach, what is clear is that one way or another collective action and organisation must be extended to the entirety of the working class. This is why as a socialist I have been drawn towards syndicalism, with its focus on the potential of labour unions as transformative agents in society. But whichever socialist creed you adhere to we should acknowledge that unions, though frequently inadequate and inaccessible, have the potential to play a huge role in changing society for the better.
Ok maybe David Cameron wasn’t as blunt as the headline above, but he wasn’t far off it. When SNP MP Angus MacNeil asked the Prime Minister whether he agreed with 68% of Scots that the North Sea oil wealth should be devolved -- i.e. put under the ownership and control of the Scottish Parliament, it’s unlikely David Cameron would have supported the right of Scotland to have exclusive access to such massive wealth. North Sea oil has already been used by the Tories to pay the British States’ million strong giro bill during the Thatcher years, and with massive government cuts approaching it’s a source of wealth the British State can ill afford to lose.
However Cameron’s response was childish and pathetic even by the worst British Unionist standards -- he said “if you ask a stupid question, you get a stupid answer” -- inferring that what Scotland does with it’s own natural resources is “stupid” and that we are also “stupid” for thinking we should have control over it. As Cameron gave his rebuttal the Tory front bench were positively pissing themselves with laughter at the very concept the sweaty jocks from the North could control anything more complex than a deep fat fryer let alone Europe’s largest oil reserves.
It’s this naked arrogance and patronising contempt for Scots that means the Tories are so despised here their frontrunner for leader is talking about disbanding the party itself, and pretending they’re not Tories anymore. Good luck with that one.
It’s not the only piece in the news today about the North Sea’s oil reserves -- the BBC revealed that Old Labour Energy minister Tony Benn tried to buy North Sea oil off British Petroleum for the state owned British energy company. Benn was denied the opportunity, as the Labour Government at that time believed nationalisation of oil went too far -- despite the vast majority of oil producing countries having state owned oil companies, that are to varying levels used to build the infrastructures of their respective states.
No such luck for Scotland though -- we have the dubious honor of being one of only two countries in the world to find oil and get poorer, the other being Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Declassified civil service documents revealed that the British state deliberately covered up the scale of oil wealth in the North Sea to stop the massive swing towards Scottish nationalism in the 70’s.
Today the movement for Independence is even stronger than then -- opinion polls show a majority of Scots backing Independence, and this is before the Government’s massive cuts are enacted. These cuts would be at the very least reduced if Scotland had access to this oil wealth, instead of having it frittered away by Westminster on Trident and the unwinnable war in Afghanistan. It’s not “stupid” for Scots to ask why we have the poorest cities in Western Europe sitting right next to the greatest source of wealth in Western Europe -- the only thing that’s stupid is allowing an unaccountable clique -- whether it’s Westminster Tories or private oil multinationals laughing all the way to the bank with our money.
There was a definite sense of deja vu in Edinburgh today as the far-right Scottish Defence League attempted to hold their latest ‘demonstration’, with hundreds of anti-fascists gathering to oppose them. But, unlike last time around, the script could’ve been written well in advance for the way in which events would play out today. And indeed, it had been – Lothian and Borders Police saw to that.
Having been turned down on their initial proposal to hold a march through the city centre, the SDL were forced to make do with a police sanctioned “static protest” outside the Apex Hotel on Waterloo Place, at which they gathered from early on. Anti-fascists were meanwhile meeting at the foot of the Mound, where a rally had been organised by Unite Against Fascism. After hearing from several trade union and political party speakers, a short, five minute march along Princes Street took place. However, upon nearing the pre-arranged spot for a ’second rally’, it became clear that the march was, in fact, being directed straight into a ‘designated protest area’ surrounded by metal barriers. When a sizeable section of the march stalled and attempted to resist entering this area, and to encourage others not to as well, UAF stewards rapidly intervened. We had to enter the protest area, we were told – and through a mixture of lies, confusion and just following the crowd, most did. Around 40 remained outside, staying mobile and attempting to reach the SDL – both to ensure that they would not be allowed a demonstration publicly, and to let them know that there was an anti-fascist presence in Edinburgh that day.
This was carried out with limited success, a shouting match (from great distance) with the SDL here and dash past police lines there. But with the vast majority of the anti-fascist demo, which had numbered up to 4-500 people, being herded into a pen, there was no scope for the kind of blockade of the SDL that took place last time they visited Edinburgh. With officers from at least four Scottish forces in attendance, the city centre was in a state of virtual occupation, with riot vans, prison buses and dozens of cops on every street in the proximity of the demonstrations. In this context, it wasn’t a victory for anyone but the forces of the state, who gave a textbook performance of flooding the streets with officers, keeping two opposing sides apart, maintaining order and having the whole thing over and done with by 2.30pm.
the fash get escorted away following their demo
Some sections of the anti-fascist movement – namely Unite Against Fascism – are already declaring a massive victory on the streets of Edinburgh today, much as they did in Tower Hamlets last week (where they also succeeded in banning all marches for a 30 day period). The twitter feed of UAF’s Martin Smith is a sight to behold – an utterly delusional portrayal of the day’s events which counts police kettles, the fact that the SDL were “nowhere to be seen” (certainly not from where the UAF demo was situated) and Labour councillors giving grandstanding speeches “evoking the spirit of Cable Street” (lol) as some kind of stunning victory. But in reality, the SDL still numbered around 100+ supporters, were able to have their demonstration on Waterloo Place, and then leave pretty much of their own accord by Calton Hill. Of these 100 or so, though, a sizeable contingent had travelled from England – banners and hoodies were seen from Luton and Newcastle EDL divisions, alongside the EDL splinter group the “North West Infidels”. The SDL are not in a position of strength; whether they were strengthened by today’s demo, though, is difficult to say.
Anti-fascists can claim a success in that the SDL were not able to venture beyond a tightly controlled cordon. The very fact that there was opposition to them in the streets today was key in ensuring that they were unable to come into contact with the general public (with the exception of the unfortunate couple having a wedding inside the same hotel). But the willingness to accept “designated protest areas”, while allowing the police to “do their job” of penning in the fascists in their protest area, is extremely dangerous territory not just in the fight against the far-right, but for the progressive movement as a whole. These very same forces who have spent weeks now fetishising the riots and anti-police sentiment today walked into, accepted and pulled others into a dystopian nightmare-esque vision of “legitimate” protest in “designated” confines. They shall not pass – the police cordons, that is.
The story is all too familiar. Once again this Saturday, the rump group of semi-organised racists that make up the “Scottish Defence League” will take to the streets of a Scottish city. Having been denied their proposed march route by Edinburgh City Council last month, the group are now claiming to be holding a “static rally” in the capital’s city centre this weekend.
This represents the first time the SDL have attempted to demonstrate in a major city since February 2010, when they were outnumbered over 25-1 and left unable to march in Edinburgh, as hundreds of anti-fascists evaded police lines (and UAF megaphones) to ensure the SDL were kettled inside Jenny Ha’s pub at the bottom of the Royal Mile. Although no formal application to march had been made, it’s almost certain that the police would have allowed a demonstration to proceed outside of the nearby Scottish Parliament, had there not been such a large anti-fascist presence.
Since their last Edinburgh outing 19 months ago, which followed a not much more successful first demo in Glasgow in November 2009, the SDL have adopted a strategy of holding demonstrations in near secrecy out with the main cities, making anti-fascist mobilisation more difficult. Now, however, the SDL are venturing back to the big city, with all the subsequent publicity that that has entailed, particularly coming just a week after the much-hyped up EDL demonstration in Tower Hamlets.
The level of opposition the SDL will face on Saturday is unclear, although Lothian and Borders Police have issued a statement promising “robust action against any disorder or unlawful actions”. Unite Against Fascism have organised a counter-demo, which will meeting at the foot of the Mound at 11am before marching along the road to the Wellington Statue at the east end of Princes Street, where a rally will hear from various MSPs and local dignitaries. They state that “By holding the area around Wellington statue we will physically prevent the racists from entering our city centre. This area will be within sight of where the SDL intend to assemble, so the size of our protest will demonstrate that that they are a tiny extremist minority.”
Given past experience of SDL demonstrations, the UAF statement amounts to little more than part fantasy, part sheer fallacy. There is no way of knowing where – or indeed when – the SDL will assemble, nor how they will arrive in the city. Given that they will now not be marching, at least officially, it’s highly likely that the police have reached a private arrangement for the SDL to meet elsewhere in the city, under close police supervision. The idea that this will be anywhere near the official UAF demo, let alone that UAF will be able to “physically prevent” the SDL from being able to enter the city centre by being effectively kettled next to a statue, is complete delusion.
Just like last February, anti-fascists need to directly confront the SDL and prevent them from being allowed to have a public assembly in Edinburgh city centre. Then, as now, the police had reached a private arrangement with the fascists for a demonstration spot. Meanwhile, anti-fascists were meant to keep their side of the bargain and not venture outside of a strictly pre-arranged march route, enforced by megaphone-toting UAF officials. Several hundred of us disagreed, and evaded police lines to reach and surround the pub in which the SDL were situated. Throughout, UAF stewards attempted to direct everyone back to Princes Street Gardens, whilst claiming that the SDL were “in Haymarket”, and that the alleged fascists in Jenny Ha’s pub were in fact “Hibs casuals”. It was, of course, a lie – and a dangerous one at that.
The lessons of last February need to be learned from and remembered. We can’t rely on the state to crush the far-right, a failed strategy that has multiple political pitfalls, and ultimately doesn’t work and never has done. And nor can we rely on official marches and rallies, penned in by police miles away from the fascists – we need direct action on a mass basis, to confront and prevent the SDL from spreading their racist bigotry to Edinburgh’s streets.
Talk of deficits, massive debt and brutal public spending cuts are pretty much in the British news 24/7 these days, so if you’ve noticed the recent debt crisis in the USA you’ll have noticed some of the same terms being thrown about, but if you paid close attention you might have noticed that unlike the UK there’s been a standoff between the two main political parties in how to handle the debt crisis.
This crisis started when the US Treasury requested an increase in the amount of money it was able to borrow -- but this amount, known as the debt ceiling has to achieve backing for the US Congress. Unfortunately for Democratic President Barack Obama, the Congress is currently in the control of the Republican Party. Ouch. And many of these Republican Congressmen and women are members of the Tea Party, a political movement that was formed in opposition to public spending and incurring any more government debt. Double ouch.
This standoff between the Republicans -- who wanted no tax increases but massive public spending cuts and the Democrats, who wanted some tax increases, but still some massive cuts as well -- went on for weeks with angry Americans venting their frustration on twitter, as pundits warned that the most powerful superpower in human history was about to follow in the footsteps of Hearts of Midlothian FC. Fortunately, after days of wrangling the politicians managed to sort it all out -- a compromise was reached, and the USA can go back to hopey changey goodness under President Obama -- right?
Unfortunately not -- the Democrats led a full scale surrender to the most extreme Republican demands in Congress. In exchange for extending the debt ceiling, there will be spending cuts of a whopping $2.5 trillion over the next 10 years, made in the very, very limited welfare net of the USA. Just to clarify, $2.5 trillion is how much money you would need to pay Bill Gates for him to shit himself in public with his mum and dad watching. These cuts come a few months after Republican hardliners -- many of them from the Tea Party -- refused to ditch Bush era tax cuts, designed to help the richest 2% of Americans. At the same time as these cuts are made, there will be no new taxes to raise revenue -- not even on the super rich in the USA, who have seen their personal wealth skyrocket in the past 30 years.
“I’ve spent all my money bombing the middle east and bailing out the worst bankers in history, at a time of capitalism in collapse. Can I get credit? AYE!”
The Republicans have pushed for these cuts supposedly to stop “out of control” Government spending, but the reality is that the US debt has been incurred largely due to the bailout of multiple US banks and corporations and maintaining the most powerful army in mankind’s history (currently at war in three countries, with dozens of bases dotted across the globe). The picture painted by Republicans of a Socialist Obama borrowing money recklessly to give to the poor is a complete fantasy . Like in the UK, the political establishment in the USA, both Democrat and Republican, supported massive bail outs of failed private enterprises with virtually no control or direction on how US taxpayers money should be spent.
This combination of no new taxes on the super rich, but also a desire to maintain a massively expensive military industrial complex is a contradiction that the credit ratings agencies of the USA haven’t ignored -- as noted by the US Darpa’s continued research into rocket planes in the same couple of weeks that Bright House came to the White House asking for their telly back. In a historic first these credit agencies downgraded the United State’s credit rating from AAA to AA+. It may not sound so bad -- if you came home with a AA+ mark in a Maths exam you’d probably be quite chuffed -- but when the self-described leader of the free world, the victor of the Cold War and the world’s only Hyperpower has a credit rating lower than those cheese eating surrender monkeys in France, you can see why a lot of the miniature American flag brigade are worried.
This supposed threat of bankruptcy in the USA has been grist to the mill of the Tea Party movement, an organisation which is known internationally for their hilarious placards and obsession with long form birth certificates. The Tea Party came to prominence in the wake of the massive bail out of US Banks at the start of the economic crisis a few years ago, alongside the election of President Barack Obama. Their raison detre is opposition to the US Government incurring any more debt and “big government”. Don’t try to point out to them that the Republican Party also voted for the bail out of Wall Street or that part and parcel of “big government” is the ability to bomb foreign people half the world away with missiles wi cameras attached so you can upload it to your you tube account. You’ll probably just get screamed at that you’re an IslamoMarxist as well.
As hilarious as many of these nutters are, they are dangerous not just to millions of the poorest Americans, but to the billions of people in the world who are intertwined with the USA through it’s domination of finance capital and military power. Right wingers in the USA often go a bit funny when a Democrat gets in, exaggerating things somewhat -- like believing Bill Clinton is a Marxist NWO member cos of Waco, or calling JFK a traitor and arranging for him to drive in an open top car at 5mph through Dallas. But the Tea Party are something special.
The Tea Party are a movement of white, upper middle class wealthy Americans fearful of the world economic crisis and it’s threat to their privilege. Regular slogans at Tea Party rallies and protests talk about how they want to “take back America” -- a declaration that the Tea Party don’t think the votes of African Americans and poor whites should determine who occupies the White House, but rather the organised block vote of Christian Evangelicals across the USA. As well as demanding massive public spending cuts, the Tea Party also gives a platform to racists angry at the first Black President in the USA -- Tea Party placards in Washington declared “The Zoo has an African Lion and the White House has a Lyin’ African”. This is alongside their ongoing campaign to demand Obama’s birth records, to prove he is a Kenyan and not an American citizen.
Mad as a bag of cats
The Tea Party’s biggest prejudice is their naked class hatred towards the poorest in the USA. The Tea Party live in a fantasy world where the unemployed, immigrant, low paid, Hispanic and African American population of the USA live a life of luxury off the back of their tax dollars in free healthcare and benefits. One Tea Party supporter, South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer (no relation to Jack we presume said)
This was in reference to a program in his state that allowed students to receive subsided lunches. Tea Party supporters quite literally look upon the working class in the USA like they’re animals. They’re the worst kind of right-wing libertarians who don’t ever stop to consider the link between a massive pool of cheap exploited labour and their personal wealth. Nowhere do the Tea Party try to hold accountable the billionaires in the USA who wrecked the economy with their own rampant greed -- probably because despite the mom and pop apple pie image, the Tea Party are funded by billionaires, happy to have an astroturfed campaign to defend their right to be filthy rich.
Unfortunately there’s been little sustained attack from the Left against the Tea Party. With the exception of the heroic struggle against Republican union-busters in Wisconsin, most of the Left in the USA has fallen back to defending Obama, despite the fact he’s been totally unable to harness the millions involved in his election campaign to push forward a halfway progressive agenda in the states. This means that it’s by no means certain Barack Obama will be re-elected in next years Presidential elections -- and that the door is open for a Republican President influenced and supported by the Tea Party’s ideas.
Perry’s already made moves to court the nutter vote, by saying the Chairman of the federal reserve would be guilty of treason if he printed more money before the 2012 election -- a pretty harsh statement, given treason is more usually associated with trying to undermine or overthrow the democratic process -- possibly by systematically lying about a country’s threat in the build up to a war for example. While opposing any tax increases on the rich, Perry decries that only half of Americans pay tax -- posing towards Tea Party supporters and backing their assertions that they are the dynamic, wealth producing section of American society that keep the country afloat. In reality, in Texas the poorest 20% pay 6% of their income on sales tax while the richest 20% pay only 1.3% -- “Texas is not a low-tax state if you’re low-income” one analyst correctly noted. This is in line with other right-wing “low tax” regimes, like Thatcher in the 80’s -- where the poor ended up paying more in tax, through an increase in regressive taxes and the Poll Tax.
As well as backing Tea Party tax policy, Perry has also called for the use of (unarmed) predator drones to patrol the border between Mexico and the USA. This anti-immigrant rhetoric is justified by the ongoing “War on Drugs” across the border in Mexico, as the cartels and the Mexican Government destroy both each other and Mexican society in the crossfire. Perhaps some slack should be cut for Perry -- he identified the Mexican city of Juarez as the most dangerous city in America. Oops.
Geography lessons for Perry
If Perry’s geography skills are a bit shite his scientific knowledge isn’t better. Perry supports the teaching of intelligent design ie creationism in schools, and also believes global warming is a myth. So far this is all pretty standard fare Evangelical Christian stuff; alongside support for creationism, Perry also responded to a drought in his state with the same policy plan as the ancient babylonians -- with a three day designated “Days of Prayer for Rain in the State of Texas”. Unfortunately, in a shocking victory for athiests in the Republican state, praying for rain did not work and the drought got worse. This might scupper some future Perry Whitehouse initiatives, such as “Praying nobody trades oil in euros instead of dollars week”, “national month of deficit reduction mass” or “Praying the Chinese never want all that money back”.
As well as being fond of the old Christianity a bit much, Perry’s also controversially hinted at support for the secession of Texas from the Union -- a risky policy gambit not tried in a Whitehouse race since pre-Civil War America. Perry said to journalists after a Tea Party rally that, ”Texas is a unique place. When we came into the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that… My hope is that America and Washington in particular pays attention. We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what may come of that.” It’s a pretty bold statement from someone who a) wants to be President of the USA and b) is happy to accuse folk of treason for pursuing different economic policies than his.
Rick Perry supports the use of B-52 bombers to defend the unborn foetus.
It’s easy just to put the blame for extreme right-wingers in the USA like the Tea Partiers and Perry down to stupid Americans voting for mad people with crazy ideas. The problem is that in one sense the Tea Partiers are right -- they are getting support because the USA is in the middle of a crisis, just not the one they think it’s in. The USA is a superpower whose economic power is dependent on a massive military industrial complex -- one big enough to stop anyone trading oil in anything other than dollars, for example -- but free market fundamentalists in the USA are unwilling to call for even slight tax increases on the super rich to fund this military power. This contradiction is what’s forced credit agencies to downgrade the credit rating of the USA, in an attempt to force the political class in the USA to get it’s act together, and run the most powerful capitalist superpower with responsibility to the needs of finance and bankers. Because this system is international -- the US debt crisis has had negative effects on the world’s stock markets -- the far-right in the USA’s total support for complete free market capitalism could help plunge the world into a second recession. Forget George Bush dragging us into Iraq -- the American empire might yet bring the world into a much greater economic disaster if we don’t find a way to declare independence from the mad, mad world of the stock market.
Hundreds take direct action against the SDL in November 2009, Glasgow
Edinburgh City Council today denied permission to the far-right Scottish Defence League for a proposed march through the city centre next month. This is the first time that the SDL have gone before a local government decision making body, in the past having favoured circumventing official permission and going straight into negotiations with local police.
The march was set to have taken place on Saturday 10 September, reportedly to ‘commemorate’ the ten year anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. Following huge political pressure, the council today refused to grant permission for the march, which was to take a route from near the US Embassy to the Wellington monument off Princes Street, on fears that disorder could break out.
Such a move should be welcomed – albeit cautiously. Calling for restrictions and bans on the right to protest is dangerous territory for any progressive organisation to step into, having backfired in the face of the left on countless occasions in the past. However, despite the ban on marching, the SDL are standing defiant and are still calling for a mobilisation of their supporters on the 10th September in central Edinburgh.
And so we’re back to square one: the same situation as November 2009, when the SDL held their first ever demo, in Glasgow, and February 2010, when they attempted to march in Edinburgh. Since then, the rump group of around 50 hardcore supporters have held a number of lower profile demonstrations, generally in smaller towns across Scotland, and most recently in Irvine, to varying levels of success.
But the SDL have struggled to gain anything near the same momentum as their English counterparts, for a number of reasons. High among these is the sheer level of opposition the SDL have faced on the streets in Scotland, which has meant they’ve struggled to ever get off the ground, with thousands of anti-fascists facing them down (and winning) in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and in the latter case, maintaining a physical presence which prevented the SDL from being allowed, or able, to march.
With the SDL now gearing up for a static demonstration on the 10th, it’s imperative that anti-fascists once again organise and mobilise to oppose them en masse on the streets. What attitude the police will take to the SDL presence is entirely unpredictable, as previous demonstrations have showed, with the balance of forces on the day likely to be key.
As Britain recovers from the riots, it’s facing the second blow of having to cope with lots of people’s “explanations” for the mass looting. Some of it’s ridiculous – blaming Blackberry Messenger for the chaos – and some of it’s a bit more sinister, like David Starkey blaming black culture for the riots. Unfortunately Starkey isn’t the only one whose using the riots to engage in a bit of casual racism – the admin of the pro-Met police page on facebook was exposed as a racist from his tweeter feed.
Don't know if trolling or just stupid
Now a Tory councillor, Bob Frost has fallen victim to the dangers of social networking, with his racist views exposed in another case of the over 40s not understanding how the internet works. Frost – a 56 year old who is a “right wing libertarian” made reference to the looters being “jungle bunnies” on his facebook. Oh dear. In most cases of public exposure of racist views the individuals concerned put their hands up and apologize, refuse to comment and hope it blows over, or resign in disgrace. There are exceptions to these rules however and Bob Frost’s response has to attract attention for sheer, out and out olympic class fantastical bullshit.
As Bob explains, he was “referring to the urban jungle”, and was originally going to call the rioters animals but picked bunny instead as people might be offended by him “calling fellow humans this so I chose something I thought was innocent and also cuddly.” Later on he received a phone call accusing him of racism, at which point he promptly checked his dictionary which gave him the shocking news that ”it would appear that the term jungle bunnies is pejorative and is a racist slur relating to African-Americans”.
So you see Bob is just a man who has tried to be too politically correct, but in his efforts to placate the EUSSR Harriet Harperson feminazis has gone through the anti-racist time space continuum and ended up as a bigot due to no fault of his own.
Seriously though Bob, this must rank as the biggest pile of bullshit since Baptist Minister George Rekers claimed he took a male prostitute with him on holiday to carry his bags for him. We would be very interested in hearing Bob’s other crazy excuses in life – “Where have all the biscuits gone Bob? Had to eat them all for a Charity Special of Ant and Dec, you just missed them”, “Bob it’s your round mate? No, you bought a pint for my identical twin Bob Tsorf” or “Bob have you got that fiver I leant you last week? Well I would, but with today’s currency fluctuations I’d need to check what it’d be worth the now”.
We are sure with such a fantastic flair for combining casual racism with an ability to engage in extravagant lying and bullshitting Bob will be back in his old job soon enough, with a Tory cabinet post waiting in the wings for him.
Turning out to the annual STUC march – held yesterday in Glasgow – I witnessed thousands of people marching in the pouring rain (and it really was monsoon level) for over three hours, and rallying at the end of it. Watching everyone come into the park at the end, and then watching them keep coming and keep coming and keep coming, til even I got bored and went to find somewhere handy to stand, was immense. I got a bit sentimental.
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