SPC Newsletter 1st Sep 2016

[Socialist Party Head Office]

The Socialist Party of Canada

Secretary's Report for September 2016

Email Report

– WSP (India) EC meeting minutes August 2016 received with thanks.

– WSP (India) 2016 Autumn School & Membership Meeting to be held October 22 & 23, Kolkata.

– WSP (India) 1000 copies of History of Economic published. Contact E-mail: wspindia@hotmail.com; Website:

http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org for more information to purchase.

– The WSP (India) utilizing the free web-service Academia.edu, receiving 18 emails for August.

– Socialist Party of Canada's mail address: PO Box 31024, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, V8N 6J3.

Good of the Movement

– Southern Ontario (Toronto Branch) August socialist meeting held.

– Toronto members attending Toronto's book fair, “Word on the Street,” in late September.

– Autumn socialist discussion meetings (Toronto) – see Toronto Branch Facebook for details –

https://web.facebook.com/Toronto-Branch-Socialist-Party-of-Canada-1120836671294008/

– Social media ad hoc committee: seven members advising on new SPC Facebook, gmail, Google hangouts, Tweet, YouTube, and transitioning of Imagine from paper to digital format.

– Tentative social media ad hoc committee Google hangout conference call evening of September 10 or 11. Members wishing to add their names and suggestions to this new ad hoc committee please let us know at spc@iname.com so we can add you to the list.

– Discussion of party app for smart phones – seeking member volunteer(s) to advise and create.

– Spring issue of Imagine available – http://www.worldsocialism.org/canada/

– Call for submissions, Imagine Autumn issue: 2 draft articles received. Members please forward your drafts & ideas to our email: spc@iname.com

– New Toronto Branch email (June 2016): "Socialist Party of Canada Toronto Branch" <spctorontobranch@gmail.com>

– Socialist education site for redistribution & hyperlinking, S. Shenfield (WSPUS) – http://www.whatissocialism.net/

Finances

– No August expenses.

Outstanding Constitutional matter: Headquarter location and General Administrative Committee-elect (GAC) election(s). An all members-driven conference call could facilitate this and future elections. Our Constitution reads: That every two years, in even numbered years, headquarter's location and General Administrative Committee-elect be determined by Party Conference or general vote of the membership, as per Rule 17 (a), (b), (c), (d).

Secretary recommendation(s): party members should guide this process by close of summer September 21, 2016, so these elections can take place this year. Please forward your views on nominations and changes to spc@iname.com so we can collate and republish them to our entire membership.

Note: Our Constitution calls for elections in first half of December, GAC terms beginning the first of January following — about four months now from this newsletter . . .

Food For Thought

• • An SPC'er recently came across two interesting comments. In Lost Battles, by Jonathan Jones, which deals extensively with the rivalry between Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, we find the following gem regarding Florence's attempt to conquer Pisa: “But there could be no bigger joke, it might seem to us, than a republic that fought year after year, wasting blood and money, causing misery and suffering, just to conquer a neighbouring city thirty or so miles away.”

This and similar wars in Italy were caused by powerful families who wanted to unite Italy into a capitalist state like their western European counterparts. The pressure of commercial interests was obviously of much greater importance than years of misery and suffering, and certainly no capitalist would be in the front line.

It might be a joke to Mr. Jones, though one doubts those affected with “misery and suffering” were laughing.

• • Gandhi said, “In order to find yourself you must first lose yourself in the service of others,” like working for Socialism as an example.

• • Russians have lived under various forms of tyranny in the 20th century. First the tyranny of the Czars and their dreaded secret police, the Okhrana.

Then that of the provisional government of 1917 which prolonged Russian participation in World War 1 and prosecuted those who wanted to end it.

Next of course were the Bolsheviks who, though ending the war, employed officials of the Okhrana and instituted a ruthless police state.

Now the Russian people have supposedly a democratic form of government, but nevertheless gangsters have enormous power economically, which they use to gain political influence.

Capitalism can be administrated in various ways but all of them are, to one extent or another, tyrannical. Another good reason to abolish it.

• • On July 20, April Corcoran, 32, was sentenced to 51 years in prison in Ohio after pleading guilty to raising money to feed her heroin addiction by loaning out her 11 year old daughter to her drug dealer, who, with the mother's blessing, raped and abused her, sometimes videotaping it, reported the Cincinnati Enquirer.

According to Corcoran's lawyer, “they tell me before she became hooked on heroin she was a very loving and attentive parent.” As horrifying as all this is to most of us, it wasn't the rural area of Ohio where Corcoran lived. “I mean things like this happen a lot down here,” said resident Keith Benson.

It's another appalling example of what a very sick world we live in. Socialists cannot say there will be no use of narcotics in a socialist society, but we can say the awful pressures that drive people to take them will not exist in it.

• • The Toronto Star of July 21st ran an article about the latest drone technology. On July 12, in San Francisco, a patent was filed by Amazon for a “Multi-use unmanned aerial vehicle docking system.” Its purpose would be to deliver packages to a docking system near a purchaser's house.

The most recent prototype weighs about 25 kilograms and can carry packages up to about two kilograms.

These would fly under 120 meters and use “sense and avoid” technology to dodge potential obstacles. The docking stations will be able to accommodate multiple drones and be located high up and out of the way of cell towers and other vertical structures. With solar panels they could generate their own power.

All this means, so far, is Amazon has a patent on it. The Federal Aviation Administration doesn't allow package delivery. But let's look to the future and be realistic – if the capitalists can make money on it, the F.A.A. will change its rules; and if docking stations are near someone's house, (or even on a purchaser's property), it will be less people needed for delivery, hence bigger profits for the company.

This doesn't mean socialists are against new technology – we are against the system that uses it to make some rich and screw the rest.

• • The Toronto Star, with its usual reforming zeal, has investigated complaints made about the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB). Its article of July 23 claims the number of complaints made to the provincial watchdog about Ontario's worker compensation system is up 20% over the past year. Nearly 600 complaints between last April and March of this year, a jump from 2014/15 when there were 480 grievances against the board.

141 complaints have been lodged since March.

Doctors, labour groups, and injured workers' lawyers are demanding an investigation. They allege the WSIB ignore the diagnoses of victims own doctors which leads them being “kicked off benefits.”

The Star has detailed allegations of unfair and unlawful cost cutting measures that include the use of so-called 'paper doctors' who review injured workers' files without examining them in person and wrongly attributing accident victims symptoms to preexisting conditions so as to reduce compensation.

To quote Aidan MacDonald of the Injured Workers Consultants' Community Legal Clinic: “It's a pretty good indication to the ombudsman that external intervention is needed. Injured workers are just being cut off benefits.

They're being denied treatment that they need, they're being denied medication that they need.”

Such news to workers is not surprising. Those who attempt to administrate capitalism will try to save money any way they can regardless of who has to suffer.

• • With all the uproar going on recently about Black men being shot by police, its easy to forget it just 'ain't Blacks alone. According to the Washington Post of July 22, 533 people have been shot and killed by police in the U.S. this year. More than half were armed with a gun, and only a quarter killed by police were Black. What makes the police seem so racist is that some of the shootings were videotaped and uploaded to the internet.

Anyone can clearly see that, though capitalism will not collapse economically, the horrendous pressures this misery inducing system puts on people will inevitably cause tremendous unrest resulting in riots all over the place.

The Blacks who are protesting and the cops they hate have one thing in common: they are both members of the working class, and like other workers are subject to the same pressures of poverty, insecurity, and crime capitalism creates.

It's time to stop rioting and to work harmoniously, Black, White, Red and Yellow, together to have done with a system that causes such division, pressure, and hate.

• • In late July media coverage was given what was called, quiet seriously, “a royal snub”; the decision made by, or on behalf of, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to avoid Ontario on their tour of Canada this fall.

Some folks were upset they didn't get a chance to cheer for them, but does it really matter where a couple of parasites go? Since they live on the wealth they’ve extracted from the working class, shouldn't they be cheering for us?

These folk and their tribe exist primarily as public relations ambassadors for the British capitalist class, and also because too many people feel a need to believe in someone “above” themselves. When one does that one gives power over themselves. It's better to work for a world where everyone can believe in themselves, where there will be no need for royalty at all.

• • An article in the Toronto Metro News of July 27 focused on Ludwig the Robot, a creation by researchers atthe University of Toronto and the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, headed by Frank Rudzicz, assistant professor of computer science.

Ludwig's function will be to converse with patients at a Toronto care centre who are suffering with Alzheimer’s. As Rudzicz explained, “Ludwig assesses cognitive function continuously as he engages elderly residents in conversations and games. Each time he interacts with a patient, he learns how to do it better, by learning to recognize voices and ask follow up questions. Ludwig can converse about nearly anything, from news to sports, or a person's childhood. If the conversation gets derailed the robot is a of recovering or starting anew.”

Since Ludwig is just off the assembly line it's too soon to know to what extent he will be effective. This may seem like a wonderful invention, but since we live under capitalism, monetary considerations cannot be overlooked.

It would seem like a new way to slow down Alzheimer’s, but wouldn't it be better to find out if can be cured or, better still, prevented? One can be sure of one thing – that won't happen under capitalism.

• • The Canadian Jewish News of July 28 ran an article about the life of Elie Wiesel who died on July 2. One paragraph by reporter Sheri Shefa summed it up best: “Wiesel, a professor, a writer, and Nobel Laureate, a humanitarian and a Holocaust survivor, devoted his life to Holocaust education and to combating indifference, intolerance and injustice, while promoting acceptance, understanding and equality.”

It may seem brutal and callous to speak of Wiesel's life as a waste, but the undeniable fact is he tried to eradicate indifference, intolerance and injustice within capitalism, a system which, by its very nature, creates it.

One may admire Wiesel's intentions, but good intentions aren't good enough when the ignoble root of capital grows ever more hatreds between people the world over.

• • Now it's official the U.S. election will be between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Those with a chauvinistic streak may well ask themselves, “Do I vote for a woman, or a real estate mogul who makes an ass of himself in public and is more bigoted than I am?”

Though Clinton comes across as a caring person, nevertheless she will be beholden to the Wall Street tycoons.

As Sandra Sarandon said, “They haven't contributed millions of dollars to her campaign for nothing.”

The most anyone can say at this time is if Clinton is elected things will be less chaotic than if Trump is. In other words Clinton will be the lesser of two evils. This indeed may well be the case, however, as socialists we are opposed to choosing between politicians who are pledged to administrate the affairs of the capitalist system. Why?

Because no form of capitalism is worth voting for.

Neither Clinton or Trump have any intention of making fundamental changes to society to benefit workers, nor could they without a mandate to do so from the American working class. Both seek to maintain a society that causes war, pollution, racism, societal breakdown, unemployment and poverty. Clinton may do a bit better than Trump, but as socialists we don't care about a bit better, but a whole lot better, which won't happen until a fundamental change is made in society. A change that will eliminate the above social evils – a change called Socialism.

Karl's Quotes

One of the amazing things about capitalism is that whereas machinery creates abundance millions are in want.

As always Marx hit the nail on the head.

“It is not the case that too much wealth is produced. But it is true that there is periodical over-production of wealth in its capitalist and self-contradictory form. The limitations of the capitalist mode of production become apparent:

1) In the fact that the development of the productive power of labour establishes, in the falling rate of profit, a law which becomes, at a certain point, hostile to this mode of production itself and which can only be overcome by periodical crises.

2) In the fact that the expansion or contraction of production is decided by the appropriation of unpaid labour and by the proportion of this unpaid labour to materialized labour in general, or in the language of the capitalists, by profit and by the proportion of this profit to employed capital, by a definite rate of profit, instead of being determined by the relations of production to social needs, to the needs of socially developed human beings.

Consequently, the capitalist mode of production reaches its limit at a level of production which would be wholly inadequate in terms of the second proposition (production for needs) it comes to a standstill at a point determined by the production and realization of profit, not by the satisfaction of human needs.

Capital Volume III

For socialism, Steve and John.

 

 

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