alanjjohnstone
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http://rt.com/news/ukraine-crimea-parliament-government-056/ On May 25, Crimeans will vote “yes” or “no” on whether the “Autonomous Republic of Crimea has state sovereignty and is a part of Ukraine, in accordance with treaties and agreements.”Earlier the presidium of the Crimean parliament have announced that they are confident "that only by holding an All-Crimean referendum on the issue of improving the status of the Autonomy and expanding its powers Crimeans will be able to determine the future of the Autonomy on their own and without any external pressure.”
Another article by myself. Yes, internationalism presupposes nations where i use it in a more common and less accurate parliance so if anybody wants to point that out please add the comment at the website. http://www.countercurrents.org/johnstone020314.htm
Of course, protecting your ethnic cousins was the excuse that Hitler used to invade Sudetenland and countless other wars of aggression/defence.
I found Craig Murray's short article to the point and could relate to it. http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/03/territorial-integrity/
i can't believe the cant. Defense ministers of Nato emphasized the “principle of inviolability of frontiers.” Uh-huh, this after Yugoslavia wars and then Kosovo, later Afghanistan then Libya and umpteen other military interventions in Africa. Not to mention the very convenient blind eye turned to the Chechyna massacres and slaughter when it suited Nato.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-26/nato-urges-intact-ukraine-as-russia-holds-military-drill.html
The latest armed incident took place yesterday in Chhattisgarh where seven para-military policemen were killed.http://www.arabnews.com/news/532926
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/02/27-2A Curious HistoryThere’s also a curious history behind U.S. attitudes toward ethnically divided Ukraine. During Ronald Reagan’s presidency – as he escalated Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union – one of his propaganda services, Radio Liberty, began broadcasting commentaries into Ukraine from right-wing exiles.Some of the commentaries praised Ukrainian nationalists who had sided with the Nazis in World War II as the SS waged its “final solution” against European Jews. The propaganda broadcasts provoked outrage from Jewish organizations, such as B’nai B’rith, and individuals including conservative academic Richard Pipes.According to an internal memo dated May 4, 1984, and written by James Critchlow, a research officer at the Board of International Broadcasting, which managed Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe, one RL broadcast in particular was viewed as “defending Ukrainians who fought in the ranks of the SS.”Critchlow wrote, “An RL Ukrainian broadcast of Feb. 12, 1984 contains references to the Nazi-oriented Ukrainian-manned SS ‘Galicia’ Division of World War II which may have damaged RL’s reputation with Soviet listeners. The memoirs of a German diplomat are quoted in a way that seems to constitute endorsement by RL of praise for Ukrainian volunteers in the SS division, which during its existence fought side by side with the Germans against the Red Army.”Harvard Professor Pipes, who was an informal adviser to the Reagan administration, also inveighed against the RL broadcasts, writing – on Dec. 3, 1984 – “the Russian and Ukrainian services of RL have been transmitting this year blatantly anti-Semitic material to the Soviet Union which may cause the whole enterprise irreparable harm.”Though the Reagan administration publicly defended RL against some of the public criticism, privately some senior officials agreed with the critics, according to documents in the archives of the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. For instance, in a Jan. 4, 1985, memo, Walter Raymond Jr., a top official on the National Security Council, told his boss, National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, that “I would believe much of what Dick [Pipes] says is right.”
http://libcom.org/forums/news/protests-ukraine-02122013?page=2I was shocked to read this on the Libcom Maidan thread.""There are other anarchist groups in Ukraine but they are also extremely marginal. One group called Narodniy Nabat (The People's Bell) have been participating in the direct confrontation with the police forces. From what I can gather (and its difficult to nail down with absolute accuracy) they have adopted the strategy of a temporary armistice with some of the far-right groups, whom they had been previously been trading blows, in order to focus on the bigger enemy of the state.'…. ….i find myself in tune with this other comment:"For the working class there's no one to choose in this fight …. Where is the working class in this "revolution" or "civil war" – it doesn't exist as any sort of independent force, not even in embryo. Worse than that, it is having the shit kicked out of any possible consciousness of its class identity as it can only line up as individuals …"
Not to belabour the point but i happened to come across this reference to our attitude towards the ballot which i think reflects my earlier statement that we don't passively accept bourgeois democracy as it is but would engage with it. "People jeered at “impossible Communism”! as alluded to by Marx in his “The Civil War in France’ where he praised the workers of Paris : Working men’s Paris with its Commune will be forever celebrated as the glorious harbinger of a new society. Of course! But for what? As I understand now, for the one new principle that it forged and fastened on to universal suffrage: elected delegates “responsible and revocable at short terms” which made me to coin “revocably delegated socialist democrary”,I mean not just a ballot and a vote to elect, nor just a “right” to recall but more, a real content: participatory and decision-making democracy." – Binay Sarkar, Word Socialist Party (India)
I think i should really emphasise that no where do i suggest or agree that we use parliament, trade unions, or any other expression of social organisation "as they are". We intend to change them into a more fully representative reflection of the workers movement. You criticise political parties, and i say to you that the SPGB took the conventional concept and created something better from political parties as they were in 1904 and as they are now in 2014. We declined dumping the whole idea of a politcal party and made the political party fit for purpose. In fact, we will boast that our form of organisation is superior to many other leader-less groups in that it retained some elements of past traditions such as accepted rules of debate and standing orders. Nor is parliament to be used as a passive weapon, a vote every few years and thats the the only role a worker play as you try to suggest. We envisage a fully active and imaginative participation of workers in politics, local national and international. Wilson said a week is a long time in politics…and it can be fully filled with involvement. The electorate will have no back-seat spectator role watching aspiring laders of the likes of Galloway grandstanding. (We have discussed amongst ourselves how we would transform parliament while still a minority. One suggestion has been every candidate will sign an undated application to the Chiltern Hundreds to rein in any maverick.)In an earlier post you talk about the workers councils only functioning in a revolutionary manner "when run by class-conscious workers"This is exactly what we say about the vote, trade unions, industrial unions, in fact every aspect of society…they will be revolutionary when made up of revolutionaries. Even your IBMs and Ford will change when their workers begin to transform their work-places. There too things will not be "as they are". But will these same workers abolish everything about these transnationals…despite being profit corporations they have made production a worldwide social production. We will use their research , we will use their forecasting, we will use their logistic chains, we will use their information systems. Those already organised within these giant corporations such as the trade unions, or professional scientific and trade associations won't be untouched by rising workers' consciousness. We will not use them "as they are" but turn them into "what we want them to be."By extension we say we can adapt bourgeois democracy into social democracy. Men and women as Marxists keep saying make their own history, they take what exists and wield it in their interests. The discussion on workers councils is important but they do not exist right now. Each time they arise it is under different conditions and not always in the same way.When was the last time they had any real relevance? Argentina? We could debate it was not class consciousness that motivated workers to take over abandoned factories and class consciousness never increased because of it but a survival strategy that either failed or succeeded and if it succeeded it was because they integrated into costs and profits. And the current ongoing struggle for them in Argentine is to gain legality and recognition by the State through parliament and the law so they can borrow credit from banks and the suchlike.And here again the SPGB are not saying to workers, don't take over the factory if you can get away with it to save your jobs and feed your families but do more…make it a political fight so they cannot use the police and courts to re-instate capitalist property rights. Make it a class conscious struggle otherwise whats the old Lenin quote…a half-revolution signs its own death warrant.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/08/george-orwell-such-such-schooldaysHere is a good piece on Old EtonianS' mindset. "…I attribute to my education not only an uncountable number of advantages and privileges, but some of the characteristics I find least attractive in myself. I have a craven teacher-pleasing tendency: a deference to authority and a desire to excel within parameters established by others rather than to challenge those parameters. I am a more conventional – sometimes timid – thinker than I would like."… He also conveniently reminds us of all the "public school socialists"
More on the Co-ops demise. Putting its farms up for sale and looking for offers on its its pharmacies. http://www.scotsman.com/business/retail/co-op-looks-to-sell-farms-ahead-of-2bn-loss-1-3321436
Views on Venezuela from some anarchists http://libcom.org/news/open-letter-situation-venezuela-comrades-fel-el-libertario-nosotros-los-pobres-26022014
If some of our views about workers councils are coming over too negative it is probably because we are reacting to the contrary negativism about voting for a socialist party is not really representing the workers.Too lazy to return to the post but it was mentioned that modern industrial unionists and worker council proponents had to incorporate communities in decision making, not just the work-place. So what is illegitimate about existing local council wards, local councils, parish councils being part of the democratic process in socialism? Do we have to re-invent the wheel? Coming up soon is the anniversary of the miners strike and wasn't one of the strong points of that, the women's support groups, but did they actually have a vote or say ? Or were they sometimes excluded when their entitlement was almost the same as a NUM member? The German SPD is often held up as a really bad bureaucratic socialist party but actually it incorporated all these social, educational, cultural and sporting associations within it which were reflecting much more than the narrow parliamentary part of it. Surely, a socialist party of the future can be the umbrella organisation for all the single issue campaigners. The SPGB have made it clear that we consider workers councils or industrial unions, whatever the working class choose to opt for, will be valid and vital forms of running society. There is no disagreement on that. We only add a caveat that perhaps they will not be the only means of democracy tasked with the role of running local, district, regional, and more wider geographical areas. Other approaches may entail a collection of different ways and style of administration and whats okay for Merseyside might not be suitable for Mumbai. Nor is there any disagreement that class struggle can contribute to rising consciousness by highlighting the social conflicts in the world but once again we do not insist that it is the only way to it. Environmentalists may well reach socialist conclusions without ever being in a union or taking part in a strike against the employer. Class struggle has widened its definition to include protests against pollution. We also say that plain old arguing and debating is part of the process of acquiring socialist consciousness. We want a world where wealth is shared equitably and we want to start this sharing by sharing our ideas on it with one another, when pub conversations isn't about the latest tv reality show or football result because it i when these conversations are dominated by racist and sexist views that they get reinforced and transmitted and become commonly held attitudes. I lose count with the times i'm told by somebody ".. . i'm glad you said what you did because i always thought a bit like that myself but can't put in words in an argument especially when another person claims what they say is factually true but turns out, as you proved, it is not so…" ..well, i think you know what i am getting at there, it has happend to you too, i am sure. Where differences begin to arise is amongst those who offer such things as co-ops and worker-owned enterprises as stepping stones. You mention in passing that workers councils show the capacity of workers to run society without recourse to profit and what-not. I would refer people to the voluntary charity RNLI as an example of the same thing and umpteen other charities. One thing we don't require told i our capability and capacity to organise society…the working class problem is that they do it for our ruling class rather than for ourselves. I am sure on the brink of revolution there will be occupations and factory committees springing up all over the place. Also discussions on how to transform the anti-social aspects of production into socially useful…remeber the 1970s union pland for Lucas Aero-Space – swords into ploughshares but in their case from cockpits of jet fighters to kidney dialysis machines. ….i often ask, without the vote for a socialist candidate for parliament, just how can someone not working, not able to participate in mass assemblies, even attend party branch meetings, due to disability or infirmity, family responsibilties, old age or whatever restricts his or her active participation able to express his or her wishes. Are they simply to be excluded from the revolutionary process?So we are all in agreement mostly, just a bit diference in emphasis and priorities..that doesn't make us class enemies. In the end its not you or me who will decide on strategy but tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands , millions of our fellow workers. Long before they decide they will have devised the structure to do so. You and me are only concerned about the few hundred in the SPGB and perhaps the couple of thousand in the Left-communist and class-struggle anarcho-communistt movement. Maybe apart from that we got a voice in our trade union branch, as well. Should we ignore that existing organisation too, expend our energy and resources dismantling it in the midst of a class war to build something that shares the same purpose? Ahhh…trade unions…are they the spawn of satan as some lead us to believe?
Yes indeed. But it does also draw out the problem that someone who claims to know about left groups has not heard of us and another who has never been where we have been ie never actually encountered us. Let's not rest on our laurels. Maybe the new Yorkshire Branch will be able to focus on this. But certainly good to have our "prominent shop-front" recognised, justifying all our attention to it .Plus our 2nd world war tactics to avoid censorship mentioned !! Even that would not have occurred to me to mention in theis anniversary of WW1 year.
