My Fellow Americans: We Are Fools by MARGOT KIDDER JULY 29, 2016

JULY 29, 2016

My Fellow Americans: We Are Fools

by MARGOT KIDDER

There is something I am going to try and explain here after watching the Democratic National Convention this evening that will invite the scorn of many of my friends. But the words are gagging my throat and my stomach is twisted and sick and I have to vomit this out. The anti-americanism in me is about to explode and land god knows where as my rage is well beyond reason. And I, by heritage, half American in a way that makes me “more” American than almost anyone else in this country except for the true Americans, the American Indians, am in utter denial tonight that I am, as you are, American as well.

I am half Canadian, I was brought up there, with very different values than you Americans hold, and tonight — after the endless spit ups and boasts and rants about the greatness of American militarism, and praise for American military strength, and boasts about wiping out ISIS, and America being the strongest country on earth, and an utterly inane story from a woman whose son died in Obama’s war, about how she got to cry in gratitude on Obama’s shoulder — tonight I feel deeply Canadian. Every subtle lesson I was ever subliminally given about the bullies across the border and their rudeness and their lack of education and their self-given right to bomb whoever they wanted in the world for no reason other than that they wanted something the people in the other country had, and their greed, came oozing to the surface of my psyche.

I just got back from a rather fierce walk beside the Yellowstone River here in Montana, trying to let the mountains in the distance reconnect me to some place of goodness in my soul, but I couldn’t find it. The scenery was as exquisite as ever, but it just couldn’t touch the rage in my heart. The visions of all the dead children in Syria that Hillary Clinton helped to kill; the children bombed to bits in Afghanistan and Pakistan from Obama’s drones, the grisly chaos of Libya, the utter wasteland of Iraq, the death and destruction everywhere caused by American military intervention. The Ukraine, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, you name it — your country has bombed it or destroyed its civilian life in some basic way.

When I heard all the Americans cheering for the military and the pronouncements of might coming from the speakers in the Wells Fargo Centre, I loathed you. I loathed every single one of you. I knew in my gut that what I was taught as a child was true, which is that YOU are the enemy. YOU are the country to be feared. YOU are the country to be disgusted by. YOU are ignorant. And your greed and self-satisfaction and unearned pride knows no bounds.

I am not an American tonight. I reject my Puritan ancestors who landed in this country in 1648. I reject the words I voiced at my citizenship ceremony. I reject every moment of thrilling discovery I ever had in this country.

You people have no idea what it is like for people from other countries to hear you boast and cheer for your guns and your bombs and your soldiers and your murderous military leaders and your war criminals and your murdering and conscienceless Commander in Chief. All those soaring words are received by the rest of us, by us non-Americans, by all the cells in our body, as absolutely repugnant and obscene.

And there you all are tonight, glued to your TVs and your computers, your hearts swelled with pride because you belong to the strongest country on Earth, cheering on your Murderer President. Ignorant of the entire world’s repulsion. You kill and you kill and you kill, and still you remain proud.

We are fools.

Margot Kidder is an actress and activist in Montana.

JULY 28, 2016 Blame It on the Russians by RENEE PARSONS

JULY 28, 2016

Blame It on the Russians

by RENEE PARSONS

If there is any shock at the level of corruption within the Democratic National Committee (DNC) as revealed in recently released emails attributed to Wikileaks and the DNC’s automatic response to blame Russia, the fact that Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and her staff effectively sabotaged the Bernie Sanders campaign may seem secondary compared with how the Obama Administration has been constructing a false narrative to justify NATO preparations for war with Russia.

While the accusation that Russia is at the root of its email scandal adds titillating fodder for how Clinton defrauded Sanders out of the Democratic nomination, the US continues to pursue every opportunity to identify Russia as the culprit in a myriad of complaints is now using the DNC hacks as part of its geopolitical agenda to discredit Putin while its own house is less than pure.

The potential threat of nuclear conflict in the Baltics may be linked to the DNC’s inappropriate behavior as inconsistent with their mission of neutrality since the end result of that partisan political campaign process is the nomination of Hillary Clinton.

To read that Democrats are placing the hacked emails at the door of Russian President Vladimir Putin as a vehicle to aide Donald Trump’s candidacy might be laughable if the Dems were not so transparent in attempting to deflect attention away from their own malfeasance. It is indisputable that members of the DNC staff wrote and sent the offensive emails without any thought of consequence, overstepping their authority or accountability.

The depth of information contained in the 20,000 email pages are yet to be thoroughly vetted by independent investigators. Those investigations may provide interesting details regarding the DNC relationships with big money and corporate donors and its quid pro quo with ‘liberal’ mainstream media functionaries. As the controversy continues to unfold, the DNC may have reason to be concerned.

Indeed, the DNC and Clinton campaign are spending much valuable time spinning a narrative that the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming rather than focusing on the upcoming race against Donald Trump which promises to be a very tight election. At what point, do the Democrats with egg on their face end up looking foolish, inept and desperate.

In what may be an early sign of a sinking ship as the latest polls show Donald Trump leading Clinton in the Presidential race, Robby Mook, Hillary Clinton Campaign Manager told the Washington Post on Sunday that “There’s evidence Russian state actors broke into the DNC, stole those emails and there are experts saying they are releasing these emails for the purpose of helping Donald Trump.”

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has told CNN of the possibility that ‘a lot more material’ will be released relevant to the US presidential campaign but refused to confirm the source of the emails citing necessary ‘maximum ambiguity’ to protect all sources. Assange went on to say that the DNC reaction “raises questions about the natural instincts of Clinton that when confronted with a serious domestic political scandal, she tries to blame the Russians, blame the Chinese, et cetera.”

Assange explained that “so called experts the Clinton campaign quote are not analyzing our materials, they are analyzing previous materials published,” and further “what we have right now is the Hillary Clinton campaign using speculative allegations about hacks that occurred in the past to try to divert attention from our (current) emails because they are having so much political impact in the United States.”

In an NBC interview with Richard Engle, Assange added that “it has not been proven that Wikileaks published the emails” and that “there is no proof whatsoever” that Russian intel services provided the emails. Assange claimed that “DNC servers have been riddled with security holes for years and that many sets of documents from multiple sources are now in public hands.”

On Tuesday evening, President Obama commented that “anything’s possible” and “I think that Trump’s gotten pretty favorable coverage back in Russia.” The President is hopefully aware that ‘favorable coverage’ in Russia does not translate into votes in the US. In an NBC interview, Obama said, “what we do know ..is that the Russians hack our systems.”

The President might have forgotten that the US and Israel were responsible for a joint Stuxnet project, a malicious computer worm hack against Iran in 2013 that, according to cyber security expert Ralph Langer “was far more dangerous than the cyber weapon that is now lodged in the public’s imagination” and ‘changed global military strategy in the 21^st century.” In other words, Stuxnet opened a wholly new can of (cyber) worms.

Whether the source of the emails may have learned their hacking skills from the US government or not, the fact is that DNC sleaze that Sanders has been alluding to for months has been confirmed.

While former US secretary of State Madeline Albright, a Clinton supporter who has, in the past, exhibited a disoriented sense of proportion when she told Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes that “the price was worth it” regarding the deaths of half a million Iraqi children due to US sanctions and more recently suggested that women who do not support Mrs. Clinton would ‘find a place in hell’ suggested on Tuesday “the truth is that a Trump victory in November would be a gift to Vladimir Putin.” Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort has labeled Albright’s assertions ‘crazy’.

Presumably Albright was referring to, among other issues, Trump’s questions regarding the future of NATO while Clinton has vowed a tough approach to territorial disputes involving Russia indicating how the candidates might differ on issues of world peace.

For all the fuss and convoluted speculation that Russia was the source of the email link, the DNC appears to be increasingly anxious to deflect attention away from the actual contents of the emails and rather spend considerable effort into creating an enormous spin machine that pins the leak on Putin’s government.

CNN continued to report that US officials indicated ‘there is strong evidence” that the leaked emails were the result of hackers familiar to US counterintelligence who are working on behalf of Russian intelligence. But ‘strong evidence’ is no evidence and not admissible in the international court of law; at best, ‘strong evidence’ is only supposition and circumstantial.

Famed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has tweeted that “Evidence that could publicly attribute responsibility for the DNC hack certainly exist at NSA. Even if attackers try to obfuscate origin, #XKEYSCORE makes following exfiltrated data easy. I did this personally against Chinese ops.”

Another famed whistleblower William Binney, the 36-year NSA veteran widely regarded as a “legend” within the agency who created the agency’s mass surveillance program and served as the agency’s senior technical director, responded “Snowden is right and the MSM is clueless.”

For the US mainstream media, to use every insignificant, irrelevant piece of trivia to destroy Putin’s reputation so as to make it easier for the American public to accept future military action against Russia, proves that no amount of obfuscation, no distortion of the facts, nothing is beyond the pale.

Pointing the finger and alleging that Putin is in cahoots with Wikileaks (who never reveal their sources – for obvious reasons), Guccifer 2.0 (who denies any Russian involvement) or some other intel snoop misses the point entirely – the emails are legitimate and factual.  And they are confirmation that staff members of the DNC worked overtime In undermining the Sanders campaign.

Watching the Presidential nominating roll call vote on Tuesday afternoon raised the question of how many Democratic delegates had any awareness that the votes they cast for Hillary Clinton were tainted; the product of a flawed and discredited political process.

And so on Tuesday evening, Bernie, being the good soldier, sucked it up and took the DNC’s betrayal on the chin and delivered his votes to Clinton. Suppressing whatever was left of his self esteem, he reiterated his support for the very objectionable woman he opposed in the Democratic primaries and who had to have some level of knowledge, some awareness of what the DNC was doing on her behalf. Never answering the question of why he entered the primary in the first place if Hillary Clinton “must become President of the United States,” Bernie’s performances on Monday and Tuesday evenings, in effect, sanctioned DNC efforts to discredit his candidacy.   So much for the ‘revolution’.

Putin’s efforts as he stepped in, at the behest of Pope Francis, in 2013 to block US bombing of Syria followed by his response to the US initiated overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected President while reuniting Crimea with Russia has made him a huge target as he has antagonized the pro war neo-cons currently embedded in the Obama Administration and mainstream media – both of whom may be a more significant potential threat to world peace.

Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist and staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC.

FREE ALLA ALEXANDROVSKAYA! Statement by the Presidium of the CC CPRF

WE DEMAND RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN UKRAINE.

FREE ALLA ALEXANDROVSKAYA!

Statement by the Presidium of the CC CPRF

source: Solidnet  http://bit.ly/2azxAvx

Ukraine continues to perform acts of legal arbitrariness and political blackmail  in Ukraine. The latest victim of outrageous pressure is Alla Alexandrovskaya, a champion of the interests of the country’s disadvantaged citizens, member of four parliaments, Honoured Citizen of the City of Kharkov, First Secretary of the Kharkov Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine.  The Ukrainian Security Service unlawfully arrested her on specious charges of “encroaching on the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine.” On June 30 the Kievsky District Court of Kharkov, using trumped-up charges  ordered Alla Alexandrovskaya to be put under guard for two months.

What is happening in Kharkov fits in neatly with the so-called “decommunization” propaganda campaign. Alla Alexandrovskaya has long been the target of a baiting campaign in the Ukrainian media. National-Radicals have leveled  groundless charges against her, threatened her, and staged provocations not stopping short of attacking and beating her. All these Bandera-style actions grossly violate the country’s Constitution, but the authorities have done nothing to interdict these acts. The reason is that the ruling regime in Ukraine itself instigates and follows the practice of cracking down on dissent and persecuting communists.

This time around the victim of the policy emanating from the high offices in Kiev is a 68-year-old woman who has serious health problems. Already under arrest Alla Alexandrovskaya suffered a hypertension crisis. Nevertheless she is still in pre-trial detention. The falsehood of the case is becoming ever more evident and the situation ever more intolerable.

We demand from the Ukrainian authorities to immediately release Alla Alexandrovskaya from the Ukrainian Security Service incarceration.

We call on the world public opinion to support the courageous woman and rise to protect her against political persecution. We appeal to the international democratic and human rights organizations to demand from the Ukrainian authorities an immediate release of Alla Alexandrovskaya, strict adherence to the principle of supremacy of law, protection of democratic rights and freedoms of citizens. We hope that the UN Human Rights Council, the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch will take a principled stand on this issue. We count on the solidarity of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, the Women’s International Democratic Federation and other groups.

FREEDOM FOR ALLA ALEXANDROVSKAYA!

Gennady Zyuganov

Chairman of the CC CPRF

Finnish observer: We record shelling of Donetsk by Ukraine every night, Tuesday, July 26, 2016

 FINNISH OBSERVER: WE RECORD SHELLING OF DONETSK BY UKRAINE EVERY NIGHT

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Tuesday, July 26, 2016 - 13:09

Instead of Tuesday, July 26, 2016 - 13:09

Instead of implementing the Minsk Agreements, Ukraine continues daily bombardments of Donetsk, said at a press conference Johan Bäckman, a political analyst and human rights activist from Finland, who arrived in the DPR to observe the preparations for the pre-voting (primaries).

‘Our entire delegation stays in a hotel. Every night we hear shelling by the Ukrainian artillery, every night we hear the APU bombarding objects and peaceful residential areas of your republic. That’s Ukraine’s attitude to democracy and the will of the people,’ he said.

 

‘I am convinced that the DPR today is the freest country in the world. I have seen with my own eyes that here live peaceful and friendly people who want to determine their own destiny. To this end, the DPR authorities have organized a platform to realize the desires of citizens, the primaries.

 

As a political scientist, I can say that your primaries are unique. They are open and transparent. Meanwhile, in many Western countries the electoral processes are almost entirely secret. There is no transparency there, political parties in the West just realize the interests of their sponsors.

 

But in the DPR, there are no political parties, no classical banking system. There is the people and the people's will. And a platform for its implementation,’ says Bäckman.

 

New Interview with Kemal Okuyan, first secretary of Communist Party, Turkey on The Coup Attempt, 26 July 2016

CP, Turkey, New Interview with Kemal Okuyan, first secretary of Communist Party, Turkey 

Tuesday, 26 July 2016 Solidnet

CP, Turkey, New Interview with Kemal Okuyan, first secretary of Communist Party, Turkey [En]

From the beginning of the military coup attempt, Erdogan or other influential individuals from AKP are said to be responsible for this fiction. In the aftermath of a week what is there to be said on this matter?

To the ones who ask ‘what kind of a coup attempt is this?’ we can respond ‘what kind of a fiction is this?’. I do not want to repeat myself, but, if we are confronting with this question once more, let us first underline that: Turkey does not own a government that has such an integrity as to plot such a fiction and then bring it into practice. At least, some number of bureaucrats at critical positions must have been part of this game. If you can count five governmental authorities who trust each other, then I may take the allegations of fiction seriously! It has already been a week and there is a total confusion on who is responsible for the coup attempt, there are contradictions in the testimonies, the pro-government media is making contradictory broadcasts and are blaming each other for betrayal and provocation. I knew a lot about Erdogan, but I had no idea of him being a conductor. I mean, "to fortify his power, Erdogan made up the military coup, to support him, the USA put a sauce to this fiction, and Russia entangled to this fiction in order to protect him. And viola! Happy end: the Turkish democracy is saved!" Is that it? Is this what they want us to believe? We do not buy that...

But there are really awkward things.

Yes, indeed there are. This is because of the big number of the main governmental institutions that hesitated to take part in the coup and because of the specific aims of the coup attempt.

What are these specific aims?

There are allegations that the coup aimed at carrying Gülen to a governmental position. This must be a joke. That he would come to Turkey as a khalif (Islamic leader)… No way. In this coup attempt there is something much further from taking over the political power. Putting in the centre the thought of ‘a new political power’ does not have any sense. Within the existing system does Turkey have a political power alternative to AKP? The Gülen movement, even considering its strength within the social balances of army and jurisdiction, cannot govern the country. That is why it had to rely on some forces within the AKP. Now, though they damn the coup attempt in chorus, there are pretty good things that would make them happy with AKP ruling without Erdogan. And not all of them are Gulenists. CHP furthermore, has a positive stand on 'AKP without Erdogan' formula. In short, the theory that ‘the coup attempters would form their own government’ is not much believable.

But they had prepared their lists?

A governmental list has not been documented, yet! Regardless of this, we do not think that in the narrow sense they aimed at a ‘Gulen government’. We can guess that some of these lists are only gossips and some of them were served by the Gulenists to confuse the public. This is what they do best: Fraud. The reason of this panic and cacophony is the information that everyone is Gulenist. Undoubtedly, what makes this more or less valid is the fact that in the existing political system, everyone including AKP has cooperated in one or another way with the Gulenist movement.

You have also stressed this in an interview with Ceyda Karan from Sputnik News Turkey, that everyone except the communists and the revolutionaries have developed a relationship with the Gulen movement. Can you open this matter?

Everyone, quite reasonably is putting pressure on AKP, they deserve it. We hold Gulenists as part of the same bloc with the AKP. For a considerable time, they were together but at some point AKP began to liquidate them. However, Fethullah Gulen has deeper roots. He is an actor who took role in the ‘struggle against communism’, under the flag of NATO and other institutions. He stated that ‘we should support the USA’.  Before Gulen, his antecessor Said Nursi stated that ‘the muslims should support the USA for the struggle against communism’. Everybody speaks ill of Gulen today but after all, all such reactionary elements of our history have been declared as heroes then. And under every move of this movement, we see the signature of the USA.

But the power of the Gulenist movement in the government was revealed later, was it not?

Why was it revealed? Everyone talks merely about the clandestine dimension. This is a sham. And nobody but the communists shall reveal this sham. One of the factors that transformed Fethullah Gulen from a simple weapon against communism to a world power is the fact that the capitalist classes and any governments that they had saw Gülen as a mean to expand their power. Today nobody speaks about TUSKON (The Turkish Confederation of Entrepreneurs and Industrialists, which was the strongest instrument of the Gulen movement). Talking about the coup attempt without telling a word about TUSKON is in vain, and it is hypocrisy. TUSKON is not a simple capitalist organisation. Beyond providing opportunities to its members, it has functioned as a mediator for the capitalist class as a whole. Gulen owns more than a hundred schools, globally. And these schools are not popular only among Islamists. They educate the pro-American cadres for the bureaucratic positions in underdeveloped countries. Their graduates obtain critical duties. Turkish bourgeoisie has made a great expansion through these schools, TUSKON, the existence of the Turkish Armed Forces abroad, and Turkish Airlines' adding strategic flights to the related regions.

This process started in the 90’s, continued with AKP governments. New markets, new investment areas… That is why the files on the Gulenist organization had been skipped over in the past. The most famous capital groups, the so-called seculars, and certainly the Islamist capital owners owe a lot to the Gulenist movement. Nowadays, they are doing research on the whole Gulen genealogy. They probably will reach to the grandfather of his grandfather, but will they say anything about how he served the interests of the Turkish capitalists? The bureaucrats who called themselves ‘Kemalists’, including social-democrat Ecevit, were speaking about the 'loyal-to-country' character of Gulen. Now they are watching the preaching videos of Gulen with laughter and swearwords!

Indeed, nobody is supporting the Gulenist movement.

The reason is that during past years the movement reached an operational force. During AKP rule, it became the brain and the dirty hand of  the government. They infected the left wing too. I mean "the left wing." We shall not forget those who blessed the movement as a democratic element of civil society. Those who posed at their public meetings cannot belong to the left, but their being regarded as such is our shame. Today, most of these have come to support AKP against the coup attempters. In fact, they have not changed a bit. Now they are swearing because the Gulenist movement could not advance to become a governmental project in reality. But what else could the Gulenists do? They have already managed to penetrate the state. Furthermore, let us not forget that until the end of 2014, the oppositional bourgeois parties of the existing system had developed their strategy based on Gulen's  actions to weaken Erdogan.

Let us then speak about the aim of the coup. Who is behind this awkward operation?

Suppose you accept the longtime connection of Gulen with the CIA, you know that he lives in the USA, that he had been strengthening Erdogan's hand by the approval of the US, and that he is responsible for the liquidation in the state. After all that, can you ignore the US factor in the coup attempt? If you do, I would say: what a consistency(!) Not the administration as a whole, but a strong wing in the USA certainly had a connection with this coup. It is difficult to reach into the details of the connection, as a matter of fact, even the operational mechanisms behind the coup of September 12 (1980) have not yet been resolved. Sometimes, reasoning and theory is all you need! The USA is certainly linked to this coup attempt. The attempt did not have merely a single aim, they must have considered alternative consequences. I do not think that it was planned with a perspective of ‘absolute success’. They could have captured or even killed Erdogan. In this situation we could have been talking about AKP without Erdogan, whereas now they are trying to find a way to restrict AKP and Erdogan. If this does not work, there is no doubt that they have already created a suitable ground for a plan B or C.

You had mentioned some evidence about the connection of the USA after the coup. What is there to be said after one week of time?

The USA and EU did not declare their support to Erdogan during the first phase of the coup attempt. They have just used rhetorics about stability, democracy… I am not an expert in military coups but I have some background in international relations. This is not usual. Secondly, Erdogan asked for asylum in Germany… Even if these claims are untrue, it is a fact that they have been published by significant sources, regardless of their trustworthiness. I point out to the possible untruth in such claims since there are so many details that what really happened may not be revealed for a long time. But who did spread such information? US officers, Reuters, Stratfor… Given these, there is no other meaningful explanation of the fact that Stratfor broadcasted Erdogan's flight coordinates during the most crucial moments. During the coup attempt, thousands of AKP adherents protested Stratfor, which shows that it did not go unnoticed. Russia officially blamed the NATO, for not backing their ally. Also, do you think that it is possible that there would be a coup attempt and from the divided Turkish Armed Forces there will be no intelligence flowing to CIA?

It is alleged that Russia informed Marmaris (the place where Erdogan was during the coup attempt) for the coming helicopters…

There are many allegations. But if Russia was informed about this, they must certainly have passed the information.

What makes you so sure?

Although annoyed with Turkey on the matter of Syria, the position of Putin’s government was to keep Erdogan away from the USA at the most possible extent until the Russian jet was downed in November 2015. So much that the Russian media was continuously warning Erdogan that ‘the USA is aiming at a coloured revolution in Turkey’. Some of these warnings were incoherent and some were based on real information. Also, you should recall Putin calling Erdogan a ‘folk hero’. Then the jet was downed, and Putin besieged Erdogan from every possible corner. The main strategy was the same: dragging Erdogan away from the USA.

But this time, Russia made a call to the US and NATO for getting rid of Erdogan. The control was lost and Russian media began even writing that Turkey had to be thrown out of the NATO. Erdogan could not continue to fight with the USA, EU and Russia at the same time. Erdogan gave Putin exactly what he wanted, an excuse and partial withdrawal of the support that he was providing to the jihadists in Syria. And Putin came back to the old point. The Russians still insist that Erdogan should get out of NATO.

Is this possible?

Very difficult. Putin shall tactically help Erdogan to strengthen his hand against the US and EU. Moving Turkey from the West to the Shanghai Five is a pretty hard project! It is not solely up to Erdogan! The Russians know that if Erdogan gets weaker, he shall make big concessions to Washington in order to save himself. They will try to prevent this from happening.

What about the allegations against Erdogan saying that the Russians gave a file to the United Nations? What about these accusations?

We have been telling from the very beginning, this should worry those that regard Putin as the ‘protector of the peoples’. The Russian state is a capitalist state, serving its own interests. They keep the file, they either use it in the proper time or they do not. At this point we have to say that the real revolutionaries in Turkey know that neither the USA nor the EU can guarantee freedom and democracy. On the contrary, the international monopolies bring war, occupancy and exploitation. But it is forgotten that Russia does not own a different social system. The Soviet Union is long dissolved. Relying on this or that country or on various unions and axis shall not bring the salvation.

Let us come back to the internal affairs. What is going on?

They are trying out a new format for Erdogan and AKP. Erdogan on the other hand, is trying to reinforce his power while showing that he is open for this new format.

Who is designing this format?

All the international powers! The USA does not want to go on with a Turkish leader that is difficult to control. With the strong mass support and his ideological bigotry, Erdogan turns into a problem when he becomes more than a simple instrument. While Putin wants Erdogan out of his way in the Black Sea and Syria, he wants him as a partner in the energy lines. Turkey may end up as a more 'steady' member of NATO. This is possible. When I say ‘steady’, I do not use that in a positive way, of course. Note this: Erdogan wore out this country and the region in general to the extent that almost everyone, except the communists, shall accept a reasonable membership of NATO abroad and the existing (so-called) limited Islamic fundamentalism inside. Provided of course that he satisfies the markets with his trade-oriented mind.

Let us ask the same question for this matter: is this possible?

They will try it. The capitalist class in Turkey will gradually start to take initiatives and use its influence. At this point CHP (social democrat party) is most likely to assist AKP, at least during this period. Actually the two parties are assisting each other. The administration of AKP has eventually decided to open space to CHP, or at least they want to give this impression. That is, for some time CHP will be welcomed because AKP needs CHP. If CHP did not provide the help at this moment, AKP would have real problem with its political legitimacy. CHP will have control on AKP. And in fact, there are some actors within the AKP who want to have control on the party through the hand of CHP. As far as we understand, some ‘democratic forces’ of the left wing have also come to this way. While they create panic that ‘fascism is rising, the slaughters are on the edge, the dictatorship of AKP is tightening’, it is interesting that they give shoulder to the AKP-CHP convergence. What they have in mind is something like that: the CHP will have control on the AKP and the left wing on the CHP. What a pyramid scheme!

Yet, our question did not find its answer. Is this possible?

It is possible but not ever lasting, because the country AKP has created has more than one fault lines. The possible alliances will continuously face serious obstacles. There is no any condition that can satisfy everyone, no win-win situation. They can only create the impression of a normalisation, a false impression.

What about a chaotic alternative?

They will try to normalize the situation. They may not succeed, though. They may come with other new instruments against Erdogan and then he, on his turn, may try to take everything under his control. And they tell us that we should prevent this and allow for the normalization process. What a pity! Look the Communist Party, Turkey made a declaration that the country was almost surrendering to the dirty hand of an imam, named Fethullah Gulen. After all these years that Erdogan has been governing take a look at the country. Now should we calm AKP, let AKP have a good relationship with CHP so as everything not to get worse? No, thanks! Yes, we are aware of the danger but it is not possible to prevent anything this way. One week now, we are watching this bloody-minded reconciliation but at the same time we see the other side of the coin. There is no need to panic, by exaggerating certain points they want us to accept the normalization of AKP but we should not overview the fact that the counter-revolutionary forces are gaining power. The noise of the crowd in the streets is not the main point. The point is that with the rhetorics of normalization the counter-revolutionary forces have gained legitimacy.

What is it to be done? You are most probably getting accused of turning up your nose at everything or of dogmatising.

We do not like CHP mentoring AKP and the ‘left wing forces’ mentoring CHP. Let me say the opposite: It is them who have been criticising the revolutionaries for the last 15 year while actively participating in the existing political system who are liable for the current situation of the country. The people in this country will either continue to have hope on the antagonisms among imperialist powers and waste time with concepts that do not question the capitalist system such as ‘an anti-coup position’ and ‘democracy’ and hence accept the dominance of the ruling class and its obscurantism, or, they will stand against this world of dirty plots and dark conspiracies relying on its own power and a working class character. Let those who say that this is not possible get normalised together with imams.

How do you justify your abstaining from participating in the demonstration of CHP?

Ordinary people who took part in it had some concerns that we understand. It is clear that we do not question that. Furthermore, we should not leave the space free for the reactionary forces. But from a broader perspective, as I have been telling before, a project of normalisation is on the agenda. If this project succeeds, Turkey will be condemned for long years of obscurantism, that is accepting the dominance of AKP. And if it fails, those that are getting frightened of ‘the bigots coming with their knives’ and on the other side those that see as a last hope the CHP-AKP alliance, which if proves to be false, will totally surrender.

The left wing forces in Turkey followed the Kurdish movement so as not to leave it alone by itself against AKP. Now, there is a new invention: to try not to leave CHP alone against AKP. This is a project of harnessing AKP through CHP. This sounds very much like the project that was tried by England and France on Germany of Adolf Hitler. It is the needs of the capitalist system that shapes a capitalistic world. If we are not happy with this, the efforts to normalise, to cool down, or to harness the situation are in vain. An independent, progressive, egalitarian and anti-capitalist class movement should rise as soon as possible.

(Note: The demonstration was held by CHP on Sunday. AKP supported the demonstration. A manifesto was read in the demonstration by the leader of CHP, Kilicdaroglu. The statement had no significant points further than pluralism, parliamentary democracy, national will etc. No mentioning of NATO, imperialism, the role of big capital and even Gulen movement. Most of the groups in Turkish “left” participated while Communist Party, Turkey declared that the demonstration will help legalising AKP government and liquidate all anti-imperalist, class based positions.)

Last Updated on Tuesday, 26 July 2016 

Remaking Labour MP Jon Trickett on studying under Ralph Miliband and how Labour can become a million-member party,. by Jon Trickett in JACOBIN

Source:  https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/07/labour-party-trickett-miliband-momentum-corbyn-socialism-tories/

Jon Trickett came to prominence in the 1980s as a member of the Leeds City Council. Elected to his position amid the miners’ strike in 1984, he served through the period of its most intense confrontations with the Thatcher government and went on to serve as its leader in 1989.

Trickett was later elected member of parliament (MP) for Hemsworth in Yorkshire in 1996 representing some of the region’s historic, and now largely deprived, mining communities.

Aligning himself with the left of the party, he was a critic of many aspects of Tony Blair’s government, including the Iraq War and public service reforms. After arguing that Labour’s 2005 election result necessitated a leftward shift in policy he was brought into the tent under Gordon Brown, serving as his parliamentary secretary.

Joining the Shadow Cabinet for the first time under Ed Miliband, Trickett became one of the thirty-six MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbynfor Labour leader in the 2015 election. After the latest reshuffle he now occupies a dual role as shadow secretary of state for business, innovation, and skills and chair of Labour’s campaigns and elections chair under Jeremy Corbyn.

Trickett recently talked to Jacobin’s Ronan Burtenshaw about his career in Labour politics, his time studying under Ralph Miliband, and how the party can be reformed to meet the twenty-first century.

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How did you get involved in the Labour Party and labor politics?

I was a working-class kid in Leeds in the 1960s who was expelled from school with no qualifications. At first, I felt that as a failure. I thought, “I’ve let my mom and dad down.” But as I went in to manual labor, after school, I began to think differently. I thought, “No, the system failed me.” Then my second thought was “the system fails a lot of people like me.”

When you begin to think there is a system which is grinding certain types of people down you develop a political consciousness. You think to yourself, “Who are we? Why are we being held down by a system? What is this all about?”

I don’t want to pretend that I wasn’t also a very difficult chap at school! But that is how I began to think about politics. Then I encountered socialism because there were mass movements against the Vietnam War. Just the other day I was thinking about Muhammad Ali and how some of the things he said about war and imperialism had shaped me.

After that, at work, I got involved in the trade union. I had some issues to deal with which a shop steward helped me with. He told me, “You have got to join a political party because there are certain things in your life that must be resolved by changing the way society runs.”

I was working in the building industry at that time and started to open my mind to a series of ideas. People began to tell me about the history of class. A guy who was very political got me reading books for the first time about that.

Then decided I should get an education. I went very quickly through further education, college, and into university and I finished up studying under Ralph Milliband in the University of Leeds.

What effect did studying under Ralph Miliband have on you?

He was a remarkable man, very charismatic. I remember I was with him at the moment Harold Wilson resigned as prime minister and we had a fascinating conversation. In those days there were major debates going on about socialism, particularly how we should interpret the communist states and if there was a socialism outside of that. Miliband was a major figure in this discussion, not only in Britain but across the world.

I knew the New Left of that time well, including his collaborator John Saville. I remember getting drawn into the controversy that happened between Miliband and Poulantzas over the nature of the state. A group of us, studying under Miliband, set up a Poulantzas study group. We sided against him! It was a kind of rebellious act at the time and, looking back, I think Ralph was right about most of his analysis.

I remember he got us to read the Eighteenth Brumaire of Karl Marx, which is a foundational text of political sociology and really influenced me. In that Marx explained how a superstructure of society rose out of property and social relations, which were the basic structures.

One important aspect of that idea relates to the Miliband-Poulantzas debate, about the relative autonomy of the state, but another relates to individuals. Marx’s talked about how they make history but not under “self-selected circumstances.” Ralph was preoccupied with that, and it fascinated me too.

After this he persuaded me to research a particular period in Russian history just after the revolution which many had called state capitalism. This was the period of the New Economic Policy (NEP). It was a socialist state with a capitalist economy.

Ralph wanted to know if you could have such an arrangement and still be in control. I never got to the end of the piece of work but it shows what way Miliband was thinking.

How do you think Ralph Miliband would interpret this moment in the life of the British Labour Party?

It is an interesting question because one of Miliband’s most important areas of research was how structures themselves mitigate against radical social change. In State in Capitalist Society he is examining how the individuals who populate a state’s structures can give it a certain character, and maybe there are some lessons in that.

But we have to also remember that politics evolves, it has eras. The Labour Party is changing quite substantially at the moment and this reflects changes in the wider society and economy. We can debate precisely how long this change has been taking place but a mold was set in 1979 for our politics and economy which has been crumbling in recent years.

This creates crises in people’s lives, their economic position deteriorates, and they begin to move against ossified social structures which are no longer responsive to their needs. They don’t say, “neoliberalism is the problem,” but they might say the political structures are crap and they have got to be transformed.

This is where the refrain comes from that we need a new politics. People collapse down a quite complex set of problems into “the politicians are all the same.”

You can understand that because the ideology of liberal democracy suggests they should be behaving in ways that they aren’t, that the system should be accountable to people. It is becoming clear that it is not.

This has created a fascinating development inside the Labour Party. There is, as there has to be, a serious debate about where we are going. It is not at all clear how that is going to finish up.

What is clear is that only a change in political structures and culture can deliver the kind of economic and social changes which will break through the impasse that we are now in. Changes in the party are necessary but not sufficient conditions to create the change we need in society.

How do you think Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party has gone so far?

It is an uneven process. It was never going to be easy. Tony Blair built his Labour Party on the premise of accepting the 1979 Margaret Thatcher settlement. His deal with those in power was, “I will tinker around the edges but I’m not going to challenge the fundamentals of this.” That kind of politics can’t work now.

The way I see British history there are two big settlements since the war. One happens in 1945 and endures until roughly the mid-seventies. This is a loosely social-democratic settlement in which a lot of progress is made by working-class people, with strong economic growth. But then in the 1970s there is a fiscal crisis and other problems which cause a rupture. Thatcher comes in with a reforming, neoliberal model that gives control back to business and the market.

If we think about it as 1945 to 1979, that’s thirty-four years. From then until 2008 is a similar period of time. We are now in between settlements, in one of those moments Gramsci talked about the old dying and the new not yet being born.

The Labour Party needs to break through to end this prolonged period of blockage. Inevitably this creates a problem. For a party which has accepted for quite a long time the lines of the 1979 settlement now to say we are going to try to be the engine to give birth to a new set of social and economic arrangements necessitates substantial change. It is going to be turbulent. It has been! But in the end there can be no going back.

This is true for the whole European left. There is hardly a country in the West where new social and political movements are not emerging.

In Proportional Representation (PR) systems sometimes there arenew parties. In fact, in a number of cases, such as Greece and Ireland, social-democratic parties have been almost replaced.

In others, they are much weaker than they once were. But these changes manifest differently in Britain, and in the United States, where the political systems dictate that the battles happen within those parties.

Speaking of battles within parties, how do you think the Labour left has dealt with the internal opposition it has faced since winning the leadership election? How do you draw the line on what is in this new left and what is outside?

I take the view that anyone who holds the same party card as me has said, to one extent or another, that they want to be on the Left and not part of a politics led by the Conservative Party. Therefore, we have things in common.

We accepted, when we were in a minority, the hegemony of people with whom we had disagreements. You have to hope that, if we act in a generous way, they will respond in kind.

Is that what you expect them to do?

We made a massive effort to reach out. We will continue to do that. But it must be understood that there can be no going back to status quo ante.

I think it is our job to win over as many people as possible to our analysis. We have to talk compellingly about the changing nature of our society and the broad historical changes we’re seeing. We have come to the end of a settlement and we need to give birth to a new politics.

I would ask members of the party to look at what has happened in recent years and see that it is unsustainable. Why have so many people turned off politics? Why has the Labour Party not responded? Why is it now in disrepute? The world has changed, capitalism is not seen today as a dynamic force that can improve people’s lives. It is imposing great hardship on many. We have to respond to that with a more critical approach.

I hope at the end of this debate the vast majority of our movement can accept that we have to have a direction, and that we have to be broad. We will argue our corners but we move on together, because we have to stop the Tories from destroying people’s lives.

What would a Labour Party capable of transforming society in the way that you describe look like?

Too many British institutions represent a kind of nineteenth-century verticalism, whereas we now live in a more networked and horizontal world. Political organizations, particularly on the Left, need to capture that organizational zeitgeist. People have found new ways of communicating and organizing, and technological change is facilitating that. We have got to adapt.

For the Labour Party, this will mean a significant cultural change. A long time ago we debated “post-Fordism,” but the only place Fordism seems to live on is in political parties!

There is a huge task in front of us, every member of the party. We are now the largest political party on the left in Europe. We are well over half a million members with their own talents and expertise which they can contribute. We have got to find a way of energizing all of these people, many of whom are in a political party for the first time in their lives. And we should be aiming to bring more people in. A million-member party, why not? It is not impossible.

When I first joined the Labour Party in 1969 I was in a working-class community in Leeds and there was something called a “street captain.” They would be responsible for the Labour members in the streets around where they live.

On a Friday night they would knock on the door and collect the subs. Then they would sit at the table, have a cup of tea and say, “What are you thinking?” The street captains would then meet the election agent and would then speak to the MP. It was an organic relationship between ordinary people and the party.

I don’t want to glory in the past or be too romantic, but that is a basis for real left-wing politics. That can change things. We have a mass membership again. We should be imagining a way of putting a foot in every community in this country.