SPC Newsletter 1st Oct 2017
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THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF CANADA
worldsocialism.org/canada | spc@worldsocialism.org | twitter.com/spc_news
Secretary's Report for October 2017
Email Report
– WSP (India) EC meeting minutes No. 179, Sunday, September 3, 2017, received with thanks.
– Autumn School, 7 October, Saturday, 2pm-7 pm: Subject: History of Universal Suffrage (HUS). Autumn Membership Meeting 8 October, Sunday, 2pm-7pm. A new pamphlet by the same HUS subject name in draft form.
– WSP (India) Academia.edu – 61 papers and 12 drafts, 15 book chapters, and 3 teaching documents.
– WSP (New Zealand) EC meeting minutes Sunday September 3, 2017, received with thanks. WSPNZ on-line radio station with adverts being created to reach wider audiences. Expansion of WSPNZ library. WSPNZ Treasurer sends backdated minutes for: WSPNZ meeting 1st November 2015 | WSPNZ meeting 2nd August 2015 | WSPNZ meeting 4th October 2015 | WSPNZ meeting 5th July 2015 | WSPNZ meeting 6th December 2015 | WSPNZ meeting 6th September 2015 | WSPNZ meeting 4th September 2016 | WSPNZ meeting 7th August 2016 | WSPNZ meeting 7th February 2016 | WSPNZ meeting 12th June 2016 | WSPNZ meeting 2nd April 2017 | WSPNZ meeting 5th February 2017 | WSPNZ meeting 6th August 2017 (members wishing any of the above minutes request at spc@worldsocialsim.org.
Good of the Movement
– Two introductory packages sent out.
– Toronto Branch, Word-on-the-Street 2017 book festival tabling Sunday, September 24, 2017, Magazine Mews Section, Harbourfront Centre, 235 Queens Quay West, Toronto. Branch Secretary report: A pleasant event, selling some materials, but less people or location did not attract as much attention as hoped. A few people argued the SPC supported the Soviet system until the dissolve of the Soviet Union. Summarizing the SPC position countering these few people's misunderstandings was not easy but some progress was made. Two people vocally supported the SPC, stating we were "An anchor of sanity among insanity all around." A young person of about 10 years old purchased two booklets, an interesting highlight of the day. The Toronto Branch Secretary also reports on the War Resister International's "A call to action: 4th International Week of Action Against the Militarization of Youth, November 20-26" (link below), and queries the SPC general membership about publishing an SPC declaration against militarization of youth to help bridge understanding. Please comment to spctorontobranch@gmail.com and/or spc@worldsocialism.org.
– SPC Toronto Branch public meeting, held Wednesday, September 27, 6:30pm to 8:30pm, The Second Cup Coffee House, 324 Bloor St W, Toronto.
– Toronto Branch upcoming meetings Oct 25, Nov 29 & Dec 27: 6:30pm to 8:30pm, The Second Cup Coffee House, 324 Bloor St W, Toronto. Visit Toronto Branch Facebook for further details:
https://web.facebook.com/Toronto-Branch-Socialist-Party-of-Canada-1120836671294008/ & our website https://www.worldsocialism.org/canada/
– WSM An Introduction to World Socialism – A Post-Capitalist Society – a brief and
well produced video of the case for Socialism. Visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZonz0YE50A&feature=youtu.be
– Imagine Spring 2017 – Visit https://www.worldsocialism.org/canada/ for online version, or contact the secretary at spc@worldsocialism.org
– Socialist Studies Educational Materials http://www.socialiststudies.org.uk/
YouTube Channel Marxian Economics
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXq0kw9sU6xvrr34yezA_Tw
– Socialist Party of Canada Facebook public page https://web.facebook.com/socialistpartycanada/ & members' page https://web.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100012582758245
– Ongoing request from Cormade Matt Culbert (SPGB Blog Committee) requesting SPC members use our Imagine Blog, dormant since November 2010. Suggestion is for members to post several times per week. Members, please write in and use this free site – The Imagine Blog http://imaginespc.blogspot.co.uk/
– Socialist content and education website for redistribution & hyperlinking, S. Shenfield (WSPUS)
http://www.whatissocialism.net/
– SPC new email spc@worldsocialism.org.
– Toronto Branch new email spc.toronto@worldsocialism.org.
General Admistrative Committee 2017-2019
– One GAC seat remains vacant.
Finances/Expenses – Imagine printing for Word on the Street, Toronto: Winter & Spring, 200 copies, total cost $248. Photcopying $10, books and pamphlets shipping for Word on the Street $31, outgoing mail $1.80. SPC Branch Treasuer and Secretary working to set up PayPal for the main website to simplify literature purchases, dues and donations.
Dues – $25 per year or $2 per month. Funds are used to conduct Party work such as post, photocopies, public meeting expenses and internet url services. All other Party activity is voluntarily run. Members needing dues waivers please contact our treasurer or general secretary to arrange.
F ood for T hought – member contributions & views to share: Send to spc@worldsocialism.org
From World Socialist Party New Zealand, Moggie Grayson gives us his review of the movie, The Young KarlMarx –
Hello Comrades,
At this year’s Film Festival in Wellington I went along to see “The Young Karl Marx”. If you haven’t seen it yet, I can thoroughly recommend it. It deals with Marx and Engels from their first meeting through to when they published The Communist Manifesto. It was mostly filmed in Europe and the dialogue is mostly in French and German. A few people commented that they had difficulty reading the sub-titles at the bottom of the screen, so I wouldn’t recommend trying to watch it on a small T.V. screen, unless you can get a DVD that has been dubbed into English. If you get the chance to go and see it at a cinema I’m sure you will find it absorbing. I was hoping to find a review of it in The Standard, but maybe it hasn’t made the Film Festivals in your neck-of-the-woods yet. You can find reviews of it on the internet.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz-1BLjQlHo
Yours for Socialism,
MOGGIE
WSP NZ – Save the planet – its the only one with chocolate!
● Gods buddy, Justin Welby, a.k.a. the Archbishop of Canterbury, was reported in the London Sun, September 6, as pretty p.o.d about the wage inequality in U.K. Mostly the dear old Bish mouthed off really fierce at the heads of the Financial Times Stock Exchange paying themselves more than 150 times their average employees wage. Bishy, previously an oil exec. said,''Between 2010 and 2015, when many workers were seeing their pay fall in real terms, the median pay for directors in FTSE 100 companies rose 47 per cent. The seemingly runaway nature of high pay among the richest and most powerful bears little relation to the experience of the majority of people". Boy! does this guy catch on fast. And just how does Mr. Bishy suggest we fix the problem? To sum up his long and garbled discourse briefly its simply tax the crap out of the rich dudes. Therefore the government which, lets face it, is the executive committee of the capitalist class would have more loot in its pathetic attempt to administrate a chaotic system, like B.F.D. Exploitation,war, poverty, unemployment and all the other niceties of capitalism would continue no matter how much the parasites are taxed. Nor would their political stooges do what he wants, if anyone did anything in this matter Mr. Welby should be doing stand up comedy. The old Bish would be better advised advocating a world where wages wouldn't exist.
● Our good friends at the Toronto Star ran an article in their Sept.9 edition which focused on the "benefits" of working for temp. employment agencies, most of which was an exposure of Toronto's Fiera Foods bakery. It made clear that for many of the working class wages and working conditions haven't improved much since the industrial revolution, especially since Fiera aren't the only ferocious exploiters around. Since the article is two and a half pages long I would recommend, dear reader, to check it out, on page one, thestar.com. There is though one aspect I want to draw your attention to, that of the problems of compensation for injuries on the job. The company doesn't pay up because they say the worker is employed by the agency. Over the last ten years the injury rate for temps who work with machinery has been double the rate of permanent workers who do. Though exact figures are not available, many temps who are injured do not make claims for fear of losing their jobs. Their it is folks, not a pretty picture, but please read the Stars expose.
● George owns a coffee stall at the mall across the street from my building. He told me he had worked for ten years in kitchens for low pay, no benefits or holidays. Whenever he asked a boss if he could have a two week holiday the answer was all the same and needs no translation,"Sure you can but I cant promise you'll have a job to come back too". So George never took one. Wanting to be his own boss George opened the coffee stall. Now he works twelve hours a day, six days a week and doesn't take a holiday because he needs the sales to make the business pay. That's life under capitalism for most of us, every which way your screwed.
● In The Guardian's 27 September 2017 article, Jeremy Corbyn: neoliberalism is broken and we are now the centre ground, informs us that Corbyn's tax reform platform in the UK is high sounding better news for many workers in Britain as well as the rest of the planet. Rent controls, taxing developer's unused land, 'ending austerity, abolishing tuition fees, and scraping the public sector pay cap' – all music to some workers' ears. But what about this blind alley of reforming old capitalism? To good to be true? The globe is a big place, and no one has to look far to learn how capitalists easily move capital country to country, seeking higher and higher returns on capital; the exploitation of the great unwashed and washed alike, endlessly tossing up more human miseries, social degradation, pollution, social strife and inequalities . . . These are ubiquitous features of capitalism functioning in its usual disgustingly healthy way. We wish Corbyn and his company of reformists well, who wouldn't, but as long as capitalism is around it is 'pie in the sky' hoping it will ever run in the interests of workers. The point is to dump capitalism altogether.
● Three unrelated reports recently added fuel to the fire of those who call attention to the terrible way we are destroying our planet. Studies warn that by 2100 the melting of Arctic ice sheets will have caused the sea levels of the south-eastern states to have risen by three feet. One third of the global population suffers deadly levels of heat for at least 20 days a year. By 2100 this could be above 70 per cent. We wont have to wait till 2100 for heavy flooding in Peru. The countries institute for glacier research said that melting glaciers have caused Lake Palcacocha to rise and a large avalanche of melting ice would be ,''like throwing a bowling ball in a bathtub''. Three billion gallons of water would roar down the side of Mount Pucaranra and bury 200,000 residents of the city of Huaraz under a tsunami of mud trees and boulders. A grim forecast indeed, but its not to late to escape our fate; I think the escape route is called Socialism.
● One might think the gents elected to office in Ottawa would be above thinking in sexist terms, well think again pally 'cos some of 'em are really goofy. Gerry Ritz, Tory MP for Lloydminster really put it on,(sorry folks couldn't resist it, bot please keep reading I wont do it again), called Catherine McKenna, minister for environment and climate change ,''a climate Barbie''. Nor did his leader Andrew Scheer criticize him. Foreign Affairs minister Chrystia Freedland was laughed at for wearing a red dress and dismissed for her charm. Incoming governorgeneral, Julie Payette, an engineer and astronaut was hounded over the details of her divorce and for having been found faultless in a traffic accident. It makes one wonder when these clowns will ever wake up and realize that as far as brains, talent and inclination are concerned there are no differences between the sexes, but differences between people. I guess it will take a Socialist Society to make 'em see the light.
● Speaking of Ms.Freeland – on Sept.22 she informed the government of Venezuela that Canada has imposed sanctions against 40 members of the regime of President Nicolas Maduro, including himself. Since taking office in 2013, Maduro has ruled by decree and ignored the elected national assembly. These individuals are, to quote Ms.Freeland,'' Helping to undermine the security, stability and integrity of democratic institutions in Venezuela.'' Many capitalists would like to abolish democratic institutions so they can do exactly as they wish and many who defend political democracy do so to conn the working class into thinking by electing the upholders of capitalism to office they are the ones who rule. In the final analysis there is only one real democracy and its called Socialism.
● We are all aware of the rapidly increasing tension between the US and North Korea, the latest development being the Koreans threat that they may test a Hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean. This would mean a nuclear armed missile flying over Japan. It must surely occur to many that something could go wrong and it might actually land on Japan. For many years the world was haunted by the fear of a nuclear war which was gradually replaced by the threat of global warming, now the old threat has returned. This shows how nothing has changed under capitalism, which is a good reason to abolish it.
● A statue of Mikhail Kalashnikov was unvieled amidst much pomp and ceremony in downtown Moscow on Sept.19. Amongst the hoopla a priest sprinkled holy water on it, though it would have been more fitting if he had sprinkled body water. Kalshnikov's great contribution to humanity was the invention of the AK-47 rifle, which has killed more people than any other single weapon, including the atom bomb. Russia's minister for culture, Vladimir Medinsky called the rifle,'' a Russian cultural brand, which equates it with Americas Coca-Cola and Levis. Thankfully their was some negative reaction. A protester held up a sign saying, the creator of weapons is the creator of death. He was promptly arrested. One thing is crystal clear- capitalism's despicable priorities.
For socialism,
Steve, Mehmet, John & all contributing members of the SPC.
Socialist literature for your further interest
– Ward, O. (1888). The ancient lowly: a history of the ancient working people from
the earliest known period to the adoption of Christianity by Constantine. Chicago,
Charles H. Kerr.
For those interested in understanding the origins of modern Christainity and its more radical traditions, a free online version of this 1400pp two volume text is available at The Open Library: https://openlibrary.org/books/OL13490680M/The_ancient_lowly
– WSP (India) History of Economics: A Scientigfic Investigation into the Political Economy and Its Swindler 'Economics' published. 50.00 Rupees/CD$1-1.50. Contact E-mail: wspindia@hotmail.com; Website: http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org for more information to purchase.
– Red Lion Press:
Revolutionary Socialist: Life of the Socialist Party of Canada and the OBU, 1910-1922.
Fred Casey's Thinking: An Introduction To Its History and Science.
Method in Thinking: An Introduction to Dialectics.
Costs: $3 for Pritchard, $6 each for the Casey's plus postage costs. Contact E-mail: redlionpress@hotmail.com or enquire with the publisher: https://web.facebook.com/search/more/?q=Larry+Gambone&init=public
Greetings Everyone, Hoping you are all well.
Attached is our October 2017 Monthly Report for your review and interest.
News or views to share with members? All correspondence to spc@worldsocialism.org
Yours for Socialism,
John, Mehmet, Steve & GAC members
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