ALB
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I was going to have a rest this Saturday saying I would only leaflet an event that was on my doorstep. Then I bought a copy of the Morning Star (to see our ad on page 2) and saw that there one in Kingston only a couple of miles away.
There were about 70 there. Apart from Muslims, many seemed to be christian do-gooder types though there was also a banner from Jews Against the War. No sign of SWP, SPEW, FIFR, the new RCP, etc. When I approached one of the speakers who had led chants of “No Peace without Justice” and suggested “No Peace without Socialism” might be better even he said he didn’t know about these things.
The other chant was “No Ceasefire, No Vote” presumably aimed at the Labour Party. That won’t make any difference round here where all three local MPs are LibDems (including their Leader). All three voted for an immediate ceasefire in that House of Commons vote but the speaker was a bit churlish in claiming that they didn’t really mean it, presumably because she didn’t want the chant to be interpreted as a call to vote Liberal.
About half of those present got a leaflet.
Jeremy Corbyn (and a lot of others) will have a smile on his face this morning at the prospect of Piers Morgan, on trial for perjury, being asked 13 times by the prosecutor “were you aware that phone hacking was going on when you were editor of the Scum?”
The editor inserted a dash between “party” and “which”.
I don’t really mind Downing’s behaviour of wanting to stay in the Labour Party being described as grovelling towards the capitalist establishment but my intention was to apply this to the Labour Party.
After all, what Downing said about us was pretty insulting, accusing someone of being “simply a pathetic reformist groveller to the capitalist establishment in the rotten tradition of the anti-Marxist Socialist Party of Great Britain.”
The editor also changed “Trotskyite sectariana” to “Trotskyite sectarianism”, which doesn’t mean the same.
For those who don’t recall the details of Downing’s expulsion from the Labour Party in 2016 and his campaign to try to stay in:
There are more local demonstrations this weekend. We are planning to leaflet those in Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Oxford and London.
It’s in this weeks issue (scroll down to the last letter):
https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1471/letters/
It has been sub-edited to make Citizen Downing rather than the Labour Party as the groveller before the establishment.
One of the constituents of the Stop the War Coalition which, along with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, has been organising the anti-Gaza War/pro-Palestine demonstrations, is the Muslim Association of Britain.
“Jack Conrad” has been writing a three-part series on them in the Weakly Worker:
https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1470/
They are an Islamist organisation linked to the notorious Muslim Brotherhood which seeks to establish an Islamic State in all Muslim majority countries (and in principle throughout the world). Hamas is also linked to them.
Clearly not people that are likely to entertain what we have to say. In fact a group to which we are implacably opposed.
Conrad has his own axe to grind (he doesn’t criticise the Hamas attack on the festival and kibbutzim of 7 October, agrees that it was a terrorist attack but sees nothing wrong with terrorism as such) but his articles contain interesting information including about the SWP and Islamism.
The STW coalition is run by John Rees and Lindsey German who left the SWP after they were held responsible for the failure of that group’s “turn to Islam” when George Galloway kicked them out of the Respect Party in 2007.
Conrad says that the MAB has about 600 members.
So you blame the whole working class for the action of one idiot? What sort of socialist comment is that?
Now Labour is asking capitalist firms to help draw up its election manifesto. Apparently, they want to show that they are “the party of business”. They don’t need to convince us of that as we have always seen Labour as a capitalist party.
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/inews-weekend/20231209/281715504394462
Four members and sympathisers handed out between 900 and 1000 leaflets yesterday in and around the national demonstration in London.
There were of course plenty of Trotskyist ones available but also a leaflet denying human-made climate change and denouncing a cashless society and another about war crimes committed by Ukraine.
The statute of Churchill in Parliament Square was protected by 12 policemen and women completely surrounding it.
Two letters from former members in this weeks Weakly Worker (the first two) but not the one I sent. Maybe next week.
So, as was to be expected, the US state protected its poodle, or rather out of control pit bull, Israel, at the UN, flying in the face not only of what most people think but of what most other capitalist states do too. So the killings and destruction and misery and starvation continue in Gaza.
Commenting on the US vote, the Russian representative told the Security Council
“we cannot and must not” leave innocent civilians to the mercy of a “geopolitical game”.
His state knows all about that of course, but he hit the nail on the head. The US supports Israel for “geopolitical” reasons. The “game” is about retaining control of the oilfields at the northern end of the Persian Gulf and the trade route out of it to which Iran is a threat.
They have put on a show of asking Israel not to kill or starve so many people or destroy so many buildings in Gaza but not out of any concern for the people there. Their concern is what Nutty-yahoo and his bloodthirsty and vengeful cabinet and generals are doing is undermining Israel’s standing in the area and so its effectiveness as a counterweight to Iran.
As the Russian said, it about geopolitics (of oil). I was going to say “all” about that but there is clearly also an element of revenge and retribution on the part of Israel.
And the many more corresponding failures to change minds!
And, with posts with such links, you are not trying to change minds to get people to support the dissolution of the state of Israel? And succeeding?
There’s another national demonstration in London this Saturday:
https://palestinecampaign.org/events/national-march-for-palestine-sat-9-december-full-ceasefire-now/
Naturally we will be leafletting again, with in fact an updated version of our leaflet.
I think you need to explain that the DPP is a Taiwanese political party that currently holds power there and that its nationalism is Taiwanese nationalism. I think that’s right.
The issue is, it is a whole world solution, rainfall and light changes could effect some communities more than others
That is why of course we would have to wait for socialism for it to be applied. Under capitalism it affects the different competing states differently and those which would be adversely affected would block it, drag their feet or refuse to cooperate to get it done.
Because cutting back on fossil fuel production and consumption affects the competitively of the different competing states differently is already why they can’t agree on what is required at the COP conferences. They can agree on something but it’s never much above the lowest common denominator.
