Taking the Socialist out of the NDP, John Ivison, Nat'l Post, October 7, 2010

http://fwd4.me/POl


Jack Layton used to boast about being a socialist. “I’m proud to call myself a socialist. I prefer it by far to democratic socialist,” he said in an interview seven years ago.

Yet when I posed the same question yesterday, he was less strident. “I’m not into labels, but I prefer the description ‘social democrat’. I am the leader of Canada’s social democratic party and proud of it,” he said.

He sounded like former British Labour leader, Tony Blair, who also preferred the “social democrat” tag.

This is appropriate since Mr. Layton is preparing for his own “Clause Four Moment” — a shift that he hopes will symbolize the metamorphosis of an old 20th century socialist party into a vibrant 21st century social democratic party.

As the NDP prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary at a convention next June, senior staff are busy re-writing the preamble to the party’s constitution — a move that was quietly approved by the rank and file at the last convention in Halifax in 2009.

The preamble currently states the NDP believes in the need “to modify and control the operation of the monopolistic productive and distributive organizations through economic and social planning, … where necessary [through] the principle of social ownership.”

One senior New Democrat strategist said that the move is part of a broader “overhaul” of NDP policy and beliefs. “There’s no more mention of a radical overthrowing of capitalism … Socialism is a word we don’t use,” he said.

The editing of the preamble echoes moves made by Mr. Blair, when he became leader of the Labour Party in the mid-1990s. For 80 years, the Labour Party had committed itself to “common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange,” under its notorious Clause Four. The abandonment of Clause Four by Mr. Blair was seen as a break with the party’s past — the moment Old Labour became New Labour.

The NDP’s move is likely to inflame left-wing rank-and-file members, who already think the party has moved too far toward the centre of the political spectrum.

James Laxer, a political science professor at York University and a former NDP leadership candidate, said the preamble changes reflect a longer term evolution in the party under Mr. Layton.

“The party has moved a long way from any real critical stance about the present economic system and a formal commitment to changing it.

“People say right now ‘what does the NDP stand for?’ It is hard to distinguish between them and the Liberals and some people are asking why we need two parties.”

However, he downplayed the prospect of a merger between the Liberals and the New Democrats. “Organizations have their own culture and part of the NDP culture is that they hate the Liberals,” he said.

A comparative look at the NDP’s 1997 election platform and the raft of policies on the current website reveals just how far the party has moved toward the centre.

Under former leader Alexa McDonough, the party proposed an excess profit tax on financial institutions, which would then finance a National Investment Bank managed by “business, labour, government and the community.” There was much talk of ending privatization and increasing public ownership; of raising corporate tax rates and imposing a “Millionaires’s Tax” on inheritances over $1-million. On foreign policy, the party proposed dissenting from NATO over the use of nuclear weapons.

The image presented today is very different. The “squeeze the rich” rhetoric has been abandoned, in favour of moderate language that tries to reconcile equality and economic well-being. “These goals….are not in conflict, rather they depend on each other. This is likely to be the tenor of the new preamble being written by Mr. Layton’s office.

“This is not the wild, wooly 1970s, when we had to own everything,” said the senior NDP strategist. “We know we need to create wealth and growth in order to allow the Treasury to intervene when it’s prudent and responsible.”

The message is clear — today’s NDP is not your Daddy’s Caddy.

Go easy on Equality says Labour Government minister John Denham: Mr Denham called on Labour Party to confront a "difficult truth"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/uk_news/politics/8129799.stm


Mr Denham called on Labour Party to confront a "difficult truth"

The political left must stop "holding up egalitarianism as the ideal", Communities Secretary John Denham has told the Fabian Society think tank.

Basing fairness purely on "society's response to those in greatest need" risked being unpopular, he said.

He called for a "different, more nuanced view of fairness and equality".

His comments come as an Equality Bill is going through Parliament which would make public bodies consider social class gaps when forming policies.

Mr Denham said that the numbers within society who signed up to the traditional egalitarian view were "simply too small to construct a strong, viable and inclusive electoral coalition".

He told the Fabian Society: "We must confront the difficult truth: that this form of egalitarianism, the one that defines fairness solely in terms of society's response to those in greatest need, is badly out of step with popular sentiment.

reactionary revolutionaries and revolutionary reactionaries by: Saleh Waziruddin, 01 Jan 2008

these days we're seeing the labour, leftist, and socialist/communist movements confused bewildered and confused around the question of the rights of countries facing colonization and occupation. there is really no need to be confused, the issue is very simply that imperialism is objectively bad for all of us and fighting imperialism is good for all. but the successful propaganda against those who resist imperialism as being reactionary and violent, which is based on fact yet also a denial of the most fundamental fact of what a violation of rights imperialism is, as well as the argument for defending the imperialist countries when in fact the wars are destroying the imperialist countries and their people, has fooled a lot of people on the left. we find leftist repeating the imperialists propaganda against those who are resisting imperialism as fascists and reactionaries.

this is not a new problem, socialists during world war i saw their parties fall into the same trap. it was inevitable that reality would make these ideas unsustainable, and everything came crashing down.

here are some quotes from lenin and stalin on this problem

*Lenin in the discussion on self-determination summed-up

It described the Irish rebellion as being nothing more nor less than a "putsch", for, as the author argued, "the Irish question was an agrarian one", the peasants had been pacified by reforms, and the nationalist movement remained
only a "purely urban, petty-bourgeois movement, which, notwithstanding the sensation it caused, had not much social backing". ...

It is to be hoped that, in accordance with the adage, "it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good", many comrades, who were not aware of the morass they were sinking into by repudiating "self-determination" and by treating the national movements of small nations with disdain, will have their eyes opened by the "accidental" coincidence of opinion held by a Social-Democrat and a representative of the imperialist bourgeoisie!! ...

The term "putsch", in its scientific sense, may be employed only when the attempt at insurrection has revealed nothing but a circle of conspirators or stupid maniacs, and has aroused no sympathy among the masses. The centuries-old Irish national movement, having passed through various stages and combinations of class interest, manifested itself, in particular, in a mass Irish National Congress in America (Vorwärts, March 20, 1916) which called for Irish independence; it also manifested itself in street fighting conducted by a section of the urban petty bourgeoisie and a section of the workers after a long period of mass agitation, demonstrations, suppression of newspapers, etc. Whoever calls such a rebellion a "putsch" is either a hardened reactionary, or a doctrinaire hopelessly incapable of envisaging a social revolution as a living phenomenon.

To imagine that social revolution is conceivable without revolts by small nations in the colonies and in Europe, without revolutionary outbursts by a section of the petty bourgeoisie with all its prejudices, without a movement of the politically non-conscious proletarian and semi-proletarian masses against oppression by the landowners, the church, and the monarchy, against national oppression, etc. -- to imagine all this is to repudiate social revolution. So one army lines up in one place and says, "We are for socialism", and another, somewhere else and says, "We are for imperialism", and that will be a social revolution! Only those who hold such a ridiculously pedantic view could vilify the Irish rebellion by calling it a "putsch".

Whoever expects a "pure" social revolution will never live to see it. Such a person pays lip-service to revolution without understanding what revolution is. ...

We would be very poor revolutionaries if, in the proletariat's great war of liberation for socialism, we did not know how to utilise every popular movement against every single disaster imperialism brings in order to intensify and extend the crisis. If we were, on the one hand, to repeat in a thousand keys the declaration that we are "opposed" to all national oppression and, on the other, to describe the heroic revolt of the most mobile and enlightened section of certain classes in an oppressed nation against its oppressors as a "putsch", we should be sinking to the same level of stupidity as the Kautskyites.

*Stalin in foundations of leninism

The revolutionary character of a national movement under the conditions of imperialist oppression does not necessarily presuppose the existence of proletarian elements in the movement, the existence of a revolutionary or a republican programme of the movement, the existence of a democratic basis of the movement. The struggle that the Emir of Afghanistan is waging for the independence of Afghanistan is objectively a revolutionary struggle, despite the monarchist views of the Emir and his associates, for it weakens, disintegrates and undermines imperialism; whereas the struggle waged by such "desperate" democrats and "socialists," "revolutionaries" and republicans as, for example, Kerensky and Tsereteli, Renaudel and Scheidemann, Chernov and Dan, Henderson and Clynes, during the imperialist war was a reactionary struggle, for its result was the embellishment, the strengthening, the victory, of imperialism.

For the same reasons, the struggle that the Egyptian merchants and bourgeois intellectuals are waging for the independence of Egypt is objectively a revolutionary struggle, despite the bourgeois origin and bourgeois title of the leaders of the Egyptian national movement, despite the fact that they are opposed to socialism; whereas the struggle that the British "Labour" government is waging to preserve Egypt's dependent position is for the same reasons a reactionary struggle, despite the proletarian origin and the proletarian title of the members of that government, despite the fact that they are "for" socialism. There is no need to mention the national movement in other, larger, colonial and dependent countries, such as India and China, every step of which along the road to liberation, even if it runs counter to the demands of formal democracy, is a steam-hammer blow at imperialism, i.e., is undoubtedly a revolutionary step.

Lenin was right in saying that the national movement of the oppressed countries should be appraised not from the point of view of formal democracy, but from the point of view of the actual results, as shown by the general balance sheet of the struggle against imperialism, that is to say, "not in isolation, but on a world scale." (See Vol. XIX, p. 257)[1]

The hope we've gained from the BNP by Sunny Hundal

Nick Griffin leader of the BNP, by Steve Bell cartoonist at The Guardian











The hope we've gained from the BNP:

Instead of the aghast, uncritical scaremongering, we now have a chance to expose the far-right party in a different way



Sunny Hundal
guardian.co.uk,
Monday 8 June 2009


The election of Nick Griffin, leader of the British National party, to the European parliament, will be near the top of the news agenda today, and for good reason: Britain has finally voted in a fascist leader. When I was twittering the results last night the whole system nearly went into an aghast meltdown.

I'm not saying we should be complacent about the threat the BNP, and the National Front, present – I hope it will start a change in the way we approach the party.

1. The BNP is not increasing its votes. In both Yorkshire and the north-west, its total number of votes fell from 2004. This absolutely does not mean that more people are being seduced by the BNP's propaganda. It means that Labour's share of the vote collapsed and went to other parties, thereby helping the BNP under a proportional system. If the party makes a comeback then there's no reason why the BNP will continue to get its MEPs elected.

2. It may stop Labour ignoring its traditional working-class origins, now so comprehensively stomped over that they're migrating to other parties in droves. This is not an indictment of high immigration and multiculturalism, as no doubt some will call it, but of a centralised party ignoring local concerns. As Sarah Ditum points out, our media tell people every day that their crumbling infrastructure is the fault of those dastardly asylum seekers (rather than lack of investment, which might mean higher taxes). Immigration wouldn't be such a big issue if local councils presented information more quickly about population movements, so resources could be poured in or taken out in response, ensuring local public services didn't suffer. This is also a result of the lack of investment in social housing.

3. I hope this result also puts an end to anti-BNP gesture politics. There are those photo-ops where all the parties come together to tell people to "vote anyone but the BNP". If such people gave us a reason to vote and didn't sound like such vacuous robotic idiots on television, then more of us might even be persuaded to vote. These sorts of gestures only reinforce the BNP's anti-establishment credentials and ensure that people who want to vote "none of the above" vote for them.

4. It shows that appropriating the BNP's language doesn't work. The Labour government is full of people who believe that if they occasionally blurt racist dog-whistles then they'll keep the working-class vote on side. This is not only patronising to working-class people, but also misunderstands that they're angry at the party that let them down, not necessarily at their black neighbours. MPs such as Margaret Hodge, Liam Byrne and Phil Woolas (especially) have for a while sounded tough on immigration and asylum seekers in the absurd hope that it will shore up their vote. They don't have an inspirational message that says, as Obama did, "your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams".

5. It might force the media to re-evaluate how their churnalism aids the BNP. Rather than simply asking them inane questions about whether it is the racist party, it would help if journalists put its activities under the spotlight. For example, Andrew Brons, now elected as a BNP member, has an illustrious past as a bona fide fascist. Much of the establishment's attitude towards the BNP is that of derision: that these people cannot be taken seriously. David Dimbleby's somewhat smirking attitude last night was a perfect example. But the BNP has to be taken seriously because it has shown it can win more than 100,000 votes in a region. This is not a party to be taken lightly and should be exposed as the bunch of incompetent charlatans it is, complete with racist histories. The election of the two MEPs may now force journalists to take the BNP more seriously rather than treat them with the sniffiness that only plays into anti-establishment anger.

6. Is the country now going to descend into a racial war? I doubt it. The BNP itself has had to increasingly temper its message as it moved closer towards power (apparently, it is not a racist party any more, which should come as a great disappointment to many of its rabid supporters, who say they're proud to be racist). Most people have enough contact with someone of an ethnic minority to know how stupid racism is. That personal knowledge will always override whatever the BNP says.

All this doesn't mean we should welcome the BNP with open arms. Only that some of the over-the-top scaremongering plays into the BNP's hands.

CANADIAN LABOUR, By Sam Hammond

By Sam Hammond

(The following article is from the May 16-30, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper.)
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OUR LABOUR MOVEMENT is a very real and important example of social organization, reflecting the existence of opposing classes in the capitalist stage. It is both historically a result of the creation of a working class which the early capitalists needed to exploit, and a quantitative component of the ensuing class struggle.

It is necessary to understand the historical need that created the labour movement, because that original historic purpose is essential to measure whether the movement is a quantity of decline, or still a quantity of growth in the competition and struggle between the opposing classes. In the escalating attack on Canadian labour launched by imperialism, the corporate neo-liberal agenda is a weapon wielded by compliant governments and chameleon institutions. Is our labour movement capable of mounting defensive struggle and counter-attacking, or are we a spent force?

Although the attack is universal it spins out in different ways in the imperialist states, of which Canada is one. We have a highly developed working class that has created a mature and able trade union movement. However, the period from the beginning of the Cold War to the early 1970s, marked by McCarthyism, by the attack on the left and left-led unions, can be looked at in retrospect as a period of attempted pacification of the working class. The purpose of the state (and its allies within our class) was to neutralize the quantity of resistance, of class struggle, and replace it with a quantity of compliance and collaboration.

Although not completely successful, this offensive destroyed the Canadian Seamen's Union, and wore down the membership of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers who had given so much to Canadian labour. It was used to justify the expulsion of other left unions from the central labour bodies, and to separate the peace movement and the social justice movements from all but the minority of left unions. Leadership was gradually shifted into the hands of those who rose in position because of anti-communism, not through experience or ability to represent workers needs.

The recognition of this injustice against the working class and its most militant representatives must be part of the resurgence of labour and its rededication to the needs of all working people. To the credit of the Canadian working class, the victory of capital was never complete. While business trade unionism became dominant at the top, in contradiction to rank-and-file needs, a small but very tenacious left survived and continued to exert considerable influence. The emergence of CUPE, the CAW and CEP were all expressions of continuing creativity and militancy, and the ability of Canadian workers to struggle not only for unionism but for Canadian unions.

In Quebec the working class also maintained its historic roots, introducing its national character and needs into the struggle, with the CNTU growing as a force and the QFL establishing itself within the CLC as a national labour body.

The present onslaught, whose central thrust is brutally directed against the CAW, was preceded by more than twenty years of skirmishes and probes. The economic slump of the mid-1980s was a softener. The 1995 election of the Harris Tories preceded an attack on the dispossessed, twinned with an attack on Ontario public sector workers. This Tory agenda was challenged by massive worker support for the Ontario Days of Action, which ended in a split between the CAW and the Ontario Federation of Labour over whether to continue the fight. The right won and the fightback was abandoned. The CAW unfortunately left the OFL in search of go-it-alone solutions that led it to the Liberal party and weakened Ontario labour considerably.

Ontario's teachers launched an historic political strike in defence of quality education and funding but were failed by weak leadership. In British Columbia, emboldened by weak labour leadership, the Campbell government shamelessly drove back wages and working conditions for health workers, despite their massive public support and the stirrings of a general strike. The same Campbell government, using the Supreme Court as a weapon, was later repulsed and shamed by the courageous stand of the BC Teachers, who put it on the line in a major struggle for teaching and learning conditions.

In Quebec a few years ago, preparations for massive resistance to the Charest government, including a national work stoppage, were neutralized behind the scenes by the machinations of some major union leaders. But things have changed. On May 11, all the public and para-public sector unions in Quebec announced the creation of their biggest common front in history, representing half a million workers. Despite the economic crisis, unions are demanding a major wage increase of 11.25% over 33 months. Calculated on the average public sector wage level, this means negotiating an increase of over 15% for lower paid employees. The Charest government has reacted by saying that unions must be "reasonable."

These skirmishes, by no means passive, were not the only ones fought in the recent past. They clearly demonstrate the two main ideological trends in Canadian labour, and their corresponding strengths and weaknesses.

The rejection of independent labour political action by the right forces in the OFL allowed then CAW President Buzz Hargrove an excuse to implement concessionary thinking, including a semi-alliance with the Liberal party hidden behind programs of strategic voting that were embraced by some Ontario Teachers, most Building Trades unions, and a few others. The OFL went into a deep slumber and became an absentee labour movement. The CLC has also been in "Rip Van Winkle" mode, emerging periodically to check its own shadow. There have been campaigns on paper but not on pavement, with the exceptions of a CAW attempt to put substance into the CLC "Manufacturing Matters Campaign," and the CLC's EI and "Get Real Campaign" that so far has received only token support from the rest of labour.

Against this backdrop, the CAW leadership made some rather dramatic turns into concessionary bargaining and a failed experiment with a company compliant, collaborationist "Framework of Fairness" agreement with Magna Corporation. The die was cast. Buzz Hargrove no longer looked to the militants in the rank and file, but to the elements of compliance and careerism who could be easily recruited to his agenda. Three years of concessions (small at first but developing into major) and early contract openings with the "Big Three" auto plants in Ontario preceded the vicious attack by the Harper Tories government, the auto companies, and in the background, the Bush presidency. Now labour's "friend in the White House" is demanding non-union parity from the United Auto Workers, with the "Northern Stooge" putting the same to the CAW.

CAW president Ken Lewenza walked into this cesspool, and has been desperately trying to salvage his members and union from corporate double-cross, government attack and broken promises. A couple of explosions of militant action, reminiscent of the older CAW, have been handled too easily by court injunctions.

Sold as a way to save jobs in the CAW, concessionary bargaining only whetted the corporate thirst. The present onslaught was bolder because of this sign of weakness. The jobs have disappeared and the union is left without a "Plan B". The demands of the capitalist state and the corporations were not retarded or lessened by a resistance campaign, or even a condemnation of the attack. In fact, Ken Lewenza has mistakenly complimented the two levels of government for their injection of public cash into the corporations, approved the takeover of Chrysler by yet another foreign corporation (Fiat of Italy), and failed to raise the possibility of nationalizing what we have already paid for to launch a real Canadian vehicle, transportation and farm implement industry. He is no doubt desperately searching for a way to save his members and his union. This deserves respect, but it is not the way.

The labour movement is in rather deep hibernation, but it is not a spent force. The most mauled, the CAW, is still intact. It has the members and the traditions to regroup, to sustain itself and counter-attack. This cannot be done by one union alone, and it is a compliment to Ken Lewenza and his union that they are going back into the Ontario Federation of Labour even if the horse is out of the barn.

Hopefully this will spur some militant fightback in Ontario, where the OFL and all workers need the CAW presence in the central labour body as an alternative voice to wake up the Rip Van Winkles. Ken Lewenza is not the architect of concessionary bargaining, and hopefully he will learn that there are other roads.

The victims of the global crisis include one in ten of Canadian children who eat out of food banks, the 75% of workers who cannot access Unemployment Insurance, auto workers deprived of wages and benefits, the unemployed from 67 idle wood processing mills in British Columbia, the Quebec workers ejected from Bombardier, relocated Maritimers all over Canada, teachers wrestling with education funding cuts, the Hamilton Steelworkers, the locked-out Hamilton Steel Car Workers, striking BC Paramedics. All these citizens and their children are wondering how to pay rent and mortgages, how to eat, how to heat, how to hold families together. For them there is no sleep.

The Canadian Labour Congress, the Quebec Federation of Labour and the CNTU cannot sit in their respective solitudes while the Canadian working class is dissected piecemeal. There must be early and urgent meetings to plan a counter-offensive that includes the social justice movements. Coalition building led by organized labour is the order of the day. No group or strata is strong enough to repulse the tactics of the offensive by capital and the state. With the organization and experience of labour in the pivotal position, coalitions will rush together to turn the tide and win public support. This is the lesson of France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Guadeloupe, and other recent struggles.

As long as there is exploitation and as long as working people have needs, the labour movement will be the most important part of the fightback, the latent threat of massive resistance, the training ground of tactical struggle, and the potential army of a political movement of the left that will destroy this treadmill of gain and loss and give our hard won gains constitutional permanence.

Canadian Labour is not a spent force. It remains to be seen if the present leadership of labour is a spent force.
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