Avoiding Global Catastrophe by Unifying the Struggles of the Left

Extinction Rebellion must challenge Capitalism or it will achieve nothing.

Two significant problems currently stand in the way of the essential political actions absolutely necessary to dispense with the clearly evident causes of both accelerated climate change and profound social inequality - the Capitalist System that dominates our planet.

For nothing less could possibly make any real and lasting difference!

However, being confronted with such a seemingly impossible-to-achieve solution (global system change, no less) will always then impel everyone to focus their anger-and-actions upon a current single issue or evident problem which seem capable of being addressed. And, the apparent lack of any wide-ranging and integrating stance for our activism, more or less guarantees the inevitable downturn and final ebbing-away of support in all such individual-and-separated endeavours! The underlying cause isn't dealt with and so these burgeoning movements can ultimately achieve nothing.

The first difficulty is that clearly and evident separation of all the necessary and growing struggles, which, when so isolated from one another, and with no evident, overall-solving-objective available, can never individually have the necessary wherewithal to actually visualise any real change-in-the-system, and no matter how legitimate those single issues are, they will definitely only swiftly build to a maximum, and then decline, ENTIRELY due to each isolated struggle's unavoidable lack of achieving any persisting success.

Surely, the dynamism of such struggles just HAS to be understood!

For, the "purely moral" isolation often involved does NOT naturally indicate a necessary wider scaling-up of protest into something both more general, and with a wider range of other related and important struggles - with common causes. And crucially, a unifying-political-form of organisation, encompassing the extended, clearly-related range of issues, and a consequent coherent, comprehensive and integrated Programme of what has to be done, AND ALSO, necessarily, a series of clear Objectives to be concretely achieved, on-the-road to a Final permanent Political Transformation of the situation, will be vital in sustaining the necessary momentum of all the struggles.

I was immediately energised by the Extinction Rebellion response to the clearly accelerating Global Warming and consequent Climate Change, and the also clearly evident increasing undermining of the usual Climate Stability, into instead the possibly catastrophic outcomes for both the Planet and its Peoples.

I have been involved in a wide variety of such political struggles all my adult Life, and have seen the rise and fall of many totally legitimate, but almost always separated social movements, which, even when they succeeded, NEVER left behind a sufficient political Change to defend and maintain those gains! So, while the solution seems clear,  the Unity of such Struggles required is never ever achieved both concretely or organisationally.

YET, the argument frequently and vigorously insisted upon by many organisers of such actions is that the widening the struggles will drive away supporters of this particular individual struggle, and hence cause it to fail! This is certainly the flawed reasoning behind trying to keep Extinction Rebellion "apolitical" - which basically means, don't criticise Capitalism!

Quite the opposite - it will fail precisely because the basis for the problem still remains, and at the first opportunity any gains will be removed again.

I was greatly stimulated by the remarkable actions of those energised to both help, and then to vigorously organise and demonstrate after the terrible Grenfell Fire Disaster in London: there were many angry, energetic, articulate and organising people powerfully moved to do whatever they could.

Justice for Grenfell

But, like so many other protest movements, it rose to a crescendo, then finally ebbed away...

Such great people (mostly powerful grassroots voices from that community) should have been integrated into a force-for-change, but where are they now?

What a waste of love, energy and talent!

Now, we have to reveal exactly why this never happens.

I am a Working Class person, who got an Education and thereafter a series of posts in Educational institutions, from Schools to Universities, in three different countries. I was, throughout my adult life, involved in such struggles, and consequently ended up involved in one organisation or another, but though they all had what they considered was an overall unifying stance, the leaders both didn't, and indeed couldn't, have meant it.

These people were invariably from the Wrong Class!

And, the level of understanding, though often sophisticated, and well-read, was always inadequate to powerfully energise both their members, and those they were attempting to help or recruit.

I have subsequently met many of my past-colleagues again later in life, and they had all reverted-to-Class, and they found my continuing political commitments embarrassing, and even often pretended that they didn't recognise me, and kept out of my way!

So I was, over time, in a variety of different leftwing Political Parties - but none, in the end, could do anything.

I came to revolutionary politics via an odd route. Despite my working class roots as I was far from class-conscious as a youth. 

I am a physicist, but a steadfast opponent of the then and now current Copenhagen Stance, which is still today the consensus position in Modern Sub Atomic Physics, so, in my youth, I looked around for an alternative stance. I finally found it in a book entitled Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, which criticised the at-the-time-of-its-writing, increasingly popular ideas of Henri Poincaré and Ernst Mach, who were termed Positivists.

The stance of the writer of that book, a certain V. I. Lenin, was brilliant, philosophically, but he was no physicist.

Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism

So, finding out that Lenin was a Marxist, I joined the Communist Party, expecting to find what I needed there... But it wasn't available!

It took me some time to find out, but I never found anyone who wanted to discuss the problem, and finally realised that the version of Marxism which they subscribed-to, resided solely in a series of books covering a particular area of studies - and that certainly did not include Physics!

No one was an active practicisng Marxist, though they all insisted that they were. And throughout my political life, in various Parties, I found the very same problem. A consistent, coherent and comprehensive stance was simply not involved.

So, more generally, the separation of struggles COULD NOT be integrated via a shared theoretical stance - for nobody involved seemed to have one!

Now, even supposing such a comprehensive Marxist Stance actually existed, and I could understand it, several difficulties were still inevitable. Not least was its comprehensive application to Modern Physics - a truly mammoth task: then a facility for applying it to political campaigns and objectives, and finally, perhaps most difficult of all, the means by which all the various struggles including new ones (as they arose) could be presented from an integrated critical position - absolutely essential to formulating the correct policies for them all, and sufficiently energising to my auditors to integrate them all into a coherent and extendable overall campaign.

I feel I have finally got somewhere with the first two of these objectives.

But now, at 80 years old, and almost blind, I feel I will not complete the third...

That, perhaps, will be your task!

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Harriet Fraad is good on this, demonstrating how current political issues of racial and sexual discrimination intersect profoundly with class oppression through a long (and continuing) history of exploitation and invasion by the rich and dominant ruling class. 

Is Lexit really possible?

Contradictions in current attitudes to the European Union

Both the supporters and opponents of the EU, and the arguments they have pressed on to the crucially uninformed populace, have long profoundly misled the latter into a false dichotomy of options, which could never enable a real understanding of the actual issues, because the real imperatives were and are never revealed.

Both sides of the original Brexit argument came from different wings of the Ruling Capitalist Class, internal struggles in the Tory party, and sadly most of the current leaders in the Working Class took sides in that argument without establishing any thought-through Class position at all!

Just a few, on the Left, long ago, realised that the European Union was essentially a pro-Capitalist Organisation, and that it would be used to undermine the usually nationally-arrived-at policies of most Working Class organisations, Trades Unions and even Parties. But, the most common reaction was that Tariff-free Trade would help workers as goods would be cheaper.

Now, contrasting strongly with these ideas were those of the Ruling Class, who had split into two warring factions.

The pro-Europe wing saw the advantages of switching production to cheaper or less well-organised areas of the large economic area, and that the free movement of labour and goods would benefit the profit margins of businesses and corporations.

The opposite wing of the Tories didn't relish the possibility of a Europe-wide organisation of the Working Class, and the possibility of worker protection legislations (and other regulations designed to keep business in-check) getting through the European Parliament, via the preponderance of Social Democratic Parties common all over Europe.

The Left case for Remain is that the Tories will have a regulation bonfire after leaving the EU
damaging workers rights further, and emboldening the far right.

And, of course, the major and enduring economic slump of 2008, pressed the Nationalist wing much further to the right - just as had happened with the great depression of the 1930s.

We see a new rise of the Far Right across the globe.

The Ruling Class had immediately used the current economic difficulties to drive down wages and conditions, and desired to turn-back-the-clock even further - with a no-deal Brexit they could push austerity without possible restraint from Europe-wide Labour and social democratic parties via the European Parliament.

But, the "social democratic left" in Britain had major problems!

There are pro-Labour laws and protections in place in Europe that are now threatened, but all the policies outlined for the next Labour Government in Britain, for extensive Nationalisation, are currently prevented in the EU.

Now the situation is serious because Leaving Europe has long been the chosen ground for the Right Wing in the Tory Party: it isn't their main purpose at all - which is for the Right Wing to take control of the Party - to become its leadership and frame its policies! And the increase in both refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, along with Free Movement throughout Europe, gave the Right its usual chance of both exploiting and fanning prejudice as a means of mobilising the yobs and pushing the Overton window rightwards.

Believe it or not, the Labour leadership have the correct policy for the British Working Class - namely, to remain in a Tariff-Free Trade relationship with Europe without being a full member and having to abide by anti-socialist laws and policy! 

The case for Lexit.

Outside Europe, a Labour Government could begin its policy of re-nationalisation, and this time, as their policies seem to reflect, with a measure of Worker Control, as in their stated policy of Workers Co-operative Companies.

It isn't either obvious or automatic, but the Labour Party as a whole could be moved further to the Left, and the fight for Socialism really set in motion with real "momentum"! For, in spite of its evident Labour militancy in certain parts of Europe, the only generally-agreed policy seems to be limited to getting worker-friendly laws through the European Parliament, and NOT the overthrow of Capitalism and the establishment of a Socialist Europe.

And, this isn't just an alternative to the Social Democratic objective: for that has NEVER worked. It is an alternative to extreme Right Wing, or even Fascist solutions, and as was the solution in 1939, World War!

Do you doubt it?

Wealth and Power - and why it must be dismantled!

The wealthy are running 'democracy' like never before

Is Real Democracy now totally impossible?

Substantial, irrefutable evidence, finally makes it clear, that absolutely NO Democratic mechanisms still exist which can effectively counter the Wealth and Power of the Ruling Capitalist Class! Primarily, this is due to the decisions of the People having to be made without being supplied the necessary wherewithal to make them.

Indeed, as the Media are firmly in the powerful hands of the Enemy Class (or certainly those who can see no alternatives to the status quo), neither the Truth, nor any detailed alternatives are ever being made available to the majority of people.

In fact, the people are assailed on all sides with what only can be called severely biased accounts, along with blatant lies and even deliberately orchestrated incidents, intended to mislead.

And, as always with the Right, the identification of scapegoats abound!

Every distinct minority group, within Society, as long as they are suitably powerless, are targeted as the causers of the current situation. In particular, those migrants escaping from the wars - actually perpetrated by the very same wealthy amd powerful leaders of the Capitalist Powers - are daily identified as the real enemy, and the real solution being said to be their expulsion from the country.

Refugee camp in Calais

Why is all this true NOW?

It is because the long trek by those in power to discredit Socialist oppositions to Capitalism, was assisted greatly by the major recession of 2008, for it allowed a major re-casting of Employment among the Working Class, from Factories and Offices, with Trade Unions and political organisation, and into what we call the "Gig Economy", with more and more self-employed workers eeking-out a far inferior living, and, literally NO working class organisations able to reach them, inform them and organise them.

The pattern is most clearly evident in the USA.

Real wages for the Workers have stopped rising. Jobs have been exported to other countries where wages are much smaller, while immigrants were encouraged for the poorer-paid jobs - while also delivering ideal scapegoats to blame for the increasingly desperate situations facing the resident working class. This is to blame for the increased racial tensions we see, all over the western world. And these tensions are exploited by the wealthy and powerful for their own political gains.

The old Social Democratic parties, having lost their support among the People, by vying with the parties of the Right, upon literally the very same ticket, now have absolutely nothing to offer. The odd exceptions appear to be leftwards-moving Parties, like the British Labour Party, who could indeed win the next General Election. 

Jeremy Corbyn's Labour is one of the few to counter the right-ward trend

But if they do win, will the now prodigious Wealth and Power of the Capitalist Class ever allow then to succeed?

I'm afraid a left-leaning Labour Government alone won't be enough!

The Wealth and Power of the Ruling Capitalist Class has to be terminated.

So, for a Labour Government - YES! But, as a step to a Socialist State run in the real interests of The People.

Corbyn on media smears

The Alliance of Toffs with Yobs

Lord Pearson of Rannoch, the former leader of Ukip, has been criticised for inviting far-right "activist" Tommy Robinson to the Palace of Westminster.

What fuels the rise of the far-right?

And where does it lead?

Listening to the Radio, or watching TV News, may indicate what is happening currently, in the still extant aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis - and by far and away the biggest since the Great Depression of the 1930s, yet no real reasons are ever given, or likely outcomes revealed.

Yet, the best indicators are very clearly available in History!

But, you have to focus on the final, dissociating crises of played-out, dying systems, as the once seemingly unassailable Ruling Classes desperately and violently struggled then, as they do now, to survive.

They were then, and are now, a tiny minority of the World's population, but they had then, and have now, both the power and the money to "run-the-show" their way. But, as that show begins to fall-apart beneath their well-shod feet, so the old performances now increasingly cease to enwrap their audiences. New ways and new alliances become imperative!

And, even the scarcely-effective organisations of the Working Class have to be emasculated and their leaders besmirched with invented lies!

Do you doubt this scenario?

Look around you!

As the Roman Empire began to crumble, the rich retired into well-defended and well-equipped Latifundia - walled enclaves, mirrored today by gated communities.

And, alliances with backward, prejudiced communities were, and still are, both fostered and financed to supply the paraphernalia, slogans, and easily-identified "targets" to be blamed for their difficulties!

What was the general solution for most Ruling Classes in the 1930s?

It was Fascism and War!

Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Japan and many other Ruling Classes not only established Fascism at home, but extended it vastly by conquest, in a truly World War!

Can you foresee a possible World War 3?

The inappropriate issues focussed upon by the Media (owned, of course, by the Ruling Class) must be cast aside!

The problem is Capitalism - an economic system which is dying - and the solution is Socialism!

We have to understand what is happening, and who are enemies are: the Rich are the instigators, but we must be ready for the Yobs, who they will recruit to attempt to destroy us! If they march in our streets, as they did in Cable Street in London in the 1930s, they must be defeated NOW as we defeated them then!

Tories OUT!

Socialism IN!

Organise at every level for the coming struggle! Be like the heroic Grenfell survivors - Organise and Fight Back!

Building the Left

Where will we find the resources?

What must be our policies?

Who should we target?

The approaches pursued by the Left for decades have never been effective!

Yet, the circumstances over the last 25 years, and increasingly since the economic collapse of 2008, could not have been more conducive to an informed, vigorous and appropriately-directed push, within the Left, to finally marshal the forces to change things fundamentally.

The Social Democratic "Left" has invariably revealed its total inadequacy to the necessary tasks, and when they get the chance to act, merely line-up with the Right to make the Working Class pay for the current, irreparable mess that is 21st century capitalism. When they get into power, even with a mandate from the Electorate to dump Austerity, they simply betray-and-administer that essentially the-very-same Austerity.

They are totally bankrupt politically - observe France!

"François Hollande's vision of an anti-austerity Europe was just a dream"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/30/francois-hollande-anti-austerity-europe-dream

What is needed is a real Socialist Agenda - for the End of Capitalism! And, the resources to do it must be the Youth.

But, we must not be diverted into social-adjustments, which do not permanently address the real problems. The issues of Gender, Race, Jobs and Health must be predicated upon the fight to change the Capitalist Economic System.

Capitalism - if essentially left unchanged, can only make the situation worse - observe Trump!

It's got to go - this must be our Prime Objective.

All the many consequent evils of that system must still be pursued, and even more vigorously, BUT with an insistence upon these necessary political objectives.

When seeming allies warn against bringing politics into particular struggles, drive them out: they don't agree that Capitalism is the major engine for all our problems, and any gains they make will be both inadequate and temporary.

We must bang the drum for Real Socialism!

Oppose any inwards-turning or purely local "suggested solutions", whether they concern Racism, Jingoist Nationalism, Gender Equality or even Defence of the NHS. All of these battles will be lost without economic change. All must be centred upon the main thrust of Socialism!

And, the Youth will be the Vanguard.

Recruit them within all activisms as polemicists and partners for the Main Purpose! For example recruit Moslem Youth, Black Youth, Unemployed Youth, Striking Youth, Demonstrating Youth, Student Youth, Homeless Youth, Young Musicians, Young Artists and Youth at Music Festivals.

They must be our forces for change!

But, we must also be serious about Socialism. We must know what we are talking about, and why. We must be Marxist!

We must understand what we are fighting and what we will need to replace it with.

And the time for this type of struggle is NOW.

Global Capitalism: Nationalism and Scapegoating Foreigners

Brexit and the murder of Jo Cox

No one is saying it but it needs to be said!

The murder of Jo Cox has highlighted the crucial sides in the Brexit debate.

The murderer is a right-wing fanatic, who considered her to be the real enemy.

Yet, consider the reactions of the ones who really care, who came out strongly about the way she was and what she did for people.

In this increasingly nasty, nationwide argument between the right-wing of Toryism, who want to lead that party, and the rest of us who are trying to survive, the rantings of the Leave Leaders show a marked contrast.

The UKIP leader, Farage, thought putting out his racialist poster was ill-timed, because of Jo's murder. Contrast that with the genuine out-pourings of love from those who knew her.

Don't let the Right win by voting LEAVE!

If they do they will take over the Tory Party and the nation! And you will be faced with five years of these reactionaries, who will, most certainly, intensify their policy of making us all pay for their Slump.

Vote REMAIN to defeat the Reactionary Right!