Mediaboss Marketing

Comrade Jim Lawrence died in hospice January 25 in Dayton, Ohio, after months of declining health. He was 83 years old. He is survived by wife of 59 years, Lois, son David, daughter Tanza, four grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

Jim dedicated the greater part of his adult life to the fight for socialism. All who met him were impressed by his commitment to principles, his deep interest in culture and history, and his immense confidence in the revolutionary capacity of the working class.

He was won to the program of Trotskyism in the early 1970s, and he played an important role in developing a base of support for the movement among a key section of industrial workers. The experiences gained in this period played an important role in the subsequent political development of the American and world Trotskyist movement, the International Committee of the Fourth International.

Born in Dayton, Ohio, during the last years of the Great Depression, Jim was one of seven children. His father worked at a foundry in Dayton making parts for the auto companies, in particular, General Motors which played a central role in the citys economy.

Jim said his father considered himself a socialist and held a local union post in the Stalinist-dominated United Electrical Workers at his factory. Jim thought his father likely was a member or supporter of the Communist Party, although his father never talked about it. From his father, Jim said he gained an understanding that there was an alternative to capitalism.

According to Jim, two of his uncles had been recruited by strikebreakers at Ford during the 1941 strike for UAW recognition. However, his uncles quickly realized they were being used and along with other black workers joined forces with the strikers, ensuring the victory of the union.

During his youth, Jim saw scenes of militant industrial struggles in Dayton, including the Univis Lens strike in 1948, led by the UE. It developed into a mass confrontation with strikebreakers. Ohio Governor Thomas Herbert eventually deployed National Guard troops, backed by tanks and armored vehicles, in an attempt to break the picket lines. The sight of soldiers in the street evoked mass popular outrage, eventually forcing the withdrawal of the Guard units.

After he graduated from high school in 1957, Jim went into the US Army. When he was discharged, he obtained a job at the foundry where his father worked. Jim told the story about how the local union had sent him in to integrate a section of the plant that was all white at the time. He later said he initially had trouble due to the racial backwardness of some of the workers, but one white worker befriended him and told the others to stop. He said that this experience helped to show him that class solidarity could overcome racial divisions.

In 1966, Jim went to work at the General Motors Delco Moraine brake plant in Dayton. He participated in the 1970 nationwide strike against GM that lasted 58 days, the last contract in which the United Auto Workers achieved any significant gains.

This was a period when masses of students and young workers were being radicalized by the experience of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement. It was also a period of enormous class battles.

Jim met the Workers League, the forerunner of the Socialist Equality Party (US), in 1972. Supporters of the Workers League were distributing copies of the partys newspaper, the Bulletin.

He recounted that he obtained a copy of a Workers League pamphlet, Where Wallace Really Stands by David North, which explained the position of George Wallace, the notorious Alabama segregationist and racist who was seeking the 1972 Democratic nomination for US president. The exposure of the right-wing nature of the Democratic Party impressed Jim, and he decided to attend his first Workers League meeting.

Jim later said that the Workers League was the only political tendency that could explain the role of Stalinism, the political vehicle of a privileged and nationalist bureaucracy that had usurped power in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and advanced the anti-Marxist theory of socialism in one country. In the 1930s, the Stalinist bureaucracy carried out a wave of political genocide, murdering hundreds of thousands of socialists, targeted above all at the supporters of Leon Trotsky, culminating in the assassination of Trotsky himself in August 1940.

I found out that the Stalinists were the murderers of the leaders of the October Revolution, Jim explained. They did more to discredit socialism than any capitalist could ever do. He paid specific tribute to longtime Workers League member Lou Renfrow, who served as his political mentor.

The Workers League also clarified Jim on the role of the Pabloite renegades from Trotskyism, such as the Socialist Workers Party, who promoted various forms of identity politics, including feminism and black nationalism to confuse and divide the working class. Early on, he developed an abiding hostility to all forms of nationalism and racialist politics.

Jim and other supporters of the Workers League established a faction of the Trade Union Alliance for a Labor Party (TUALP) at the Delco Moraine plant, which won wide support through its exposure of the collaborationist policies of the UAW.

At that time, the unions in the United States still had the loyalty of millions of the more politically active and advanced workers and played a significant role in the life of the working class. The Workers League advanced the demand for a Labor Party based on the trade unions as a means of imbuing the militant movement of the working class with a political and socialist perspective by raising the necessity for the workers to rebel against the pro-capitalist trade union bureaucracy and its political alliance with the Democratic Party.

In that period, UAW conventions, though even then tightly controlled, still provided a certain forum for debate over substantive issues. The Workers League would have a large literature table at Cobo Hall in Detroit during the UAW Constitutional Convention, which generally attracted large numbers of delegates. Bulletin reporters were able to circulate among the delegates on the convention floor and hand out leaflets explaining the partys policies. The Workers League was even able to solicit signatures to demand the arrest of the killers of Tom Henehan, a Workers League Political Committee member gunned down at a party event in New York City in 1977.

At one convention, Jim Lawrences presence caused a considerable stir. So many delegates knew about his activity at the Delco Moraine plant and wanted to speak with him that the president of his local, Elmo Parrish, became unnerved. He demanded to know why Jim was not at work. Jim coolly explained that he had taken a personal day so that he could observe the proceedings.

Jim attended the February 1973 founding conference of TUALP held in St Louis, along with 275 trade unionists, and made an important contribution to the discussion.

In the April 1974 local union elections at Delco Moraine, TUALP candidates Jim Lawrence and John Austin received 20 percent of the vote for local president and vice president. TUALP supporters also ran for shop chair and five other executive board positions.

In response to the campaign by TUALP, at one point, UAW President Leonard Woodcock came to Dayton to consult with local leaders. The Bulletin reported that Woodcock raved like a madman against the TUALP caucus. The support won by the TUALP candidates produced a red-baiting campaign by the union and local media, with Local 696 President Parrish even threatening to shoot salesmen of the Bulletin outside the plant.

We were told to come down to the union hall for a meeting with Woodcock, but we refused to go unless we could go with a group of workers, Jim recalled. We figured there would be threats. Despite confusion on socialism, workers recognized Jim and other party members as fighters for the working class, and the UAW was never able to victimize or silence them.

In an interview with David North published in the Bulletin prior to the vote, Jim explained, The reason that local officials always try to prevent us from putting our position forward is that these demands serve to expose the existing leadership of the UAW for what they are ...

He continued, The bureaucrats want to lobby Congress, the same people who passed the laws against the trade unions. They do not wish to take up a fight against the system. They want to fight for reforms, when there cannot be reforms. This has the effect of turning the workers to the existing political parties, and this can only lead to defeat. The workers must know what they are going into consciously, that they are going into a class conflict. ... There must be a break from these political parties, and workers must have their own party.

The ruling class responded to the militant class battles of the 1970s and the protracted decline in the global position of American capitalism by launching a counterrevolutionary offensive in the 1980s. Under the Democratic Carter administration, interest rates were driven to record levels in 1979, forcing into bankruptcy wide sections of industry in order to weaken the working class. The offensive intensified under the Republican Reagan administration, which fired and blacklisted the PATCO air traffic controllers in 1981, opening up a period of unbridled unionbusting.

The unions, based on their nationalist and pro-capitalist program, had no answer to these attacks. The AFL-CIO isolated the PATCO strikers and worked to suppress the widespread sentiment for a general strike. The unions betrayed a series of struggles throughout the decade while transforming themselves ever more directly into instruments of corporate management. Conditions of workers were driven backwards, and hundreds of thousands of jobs wiped out.

Throughout this period, Jim circulated the Bulletin in his plant and continued to fight for the partys policies. He also followed with intense interest the struggle waged by the Workers League and its collaborators in the world Trotskyist movement, the International Committee of the Fourth International, against the national opportunism of the British Workers Revolutionary Party. Jim supported the struggle against the WRP in the 1985-86 split, which laid the basis for an immense theoretical and political development of the ICFI.

In the aftermath of the split with the WRP, the Workers League, on the basis of the experiences of the 1980s and a theoretical examination of the significance and implications of globalization, drew the conclusion that the official unions, controlled by a highly privileged layer of upper middle class executives, had undergone a fundamental transformation. They could no longer be characterized as workers organizations, as they worked deliberately and systematically to lower the living standards of the workers they claimed to represent. Based on this assessment, the Workers League withdrew its previous demand for the formation of a Labor Party based on the unions.

In 1996 Jim stood as the Socialist Equality Party candidate for US Congress in Dayton. He used the opportunity to campaign among workers directly based on the partys program, drawing the lessons of the UAWs endless betrayals and its bankrupt policy of support for the Democratic Party as the lesser evil.

That same year, GM workers struck the two Delco Moraine brake plants in Dayton for 17 days, forcing the temporary idling of 75,000 GM workers. The UAW obtained phony promises from GM to preserve jobs at the plant, which along with all other GM plants in the area were eventually closed anyway with the loss of some 20,000 jobs. Today, Delco Moraine, as Jim explained, is just a concrete slab.

In 2004, the SEP selected Jim to run as its candidate for US Vice President alongside WSWS writer Bill Van Auken. Jim was involved in the drive to place the SEP candidates on the ballot in Ohio, which involved a fight against the unscrupulous actions of Democratic Party state officials in the wholesale disqualification of hundreds of genuine signatures of registered voters based on trivial technicalities.

The 2004 elections were dominated by the expanding imperialist war in Iraq and the ongoing decimation of industrial jobs in the United States, overseen by the UAW and other unions. In a speech given to a meeting in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 2004 Jim explained the role of the unions, The UAW and the AFL-CIO officially adopted the position of corporatism in the 1980s, rejecting the very concept that workers had any interests separate and apart from the corporate bosses. Union officials were put on the boards of directors of corporations like Chrysler, and a myriad of labor-management structures were put into place, allowing the companies to use labor officials to impose speedup and various cost-cutting measures to improve competitiveness.

Hand in hand with management, the UAW and other unions promoted the most poisonous national chauvinism and racism, aimed at convincing American workers that their enemy was not big business but Japanese and European workers who were supposedly stealing American jobs.

What has the promotion of economic nationalism produced? When I first joined the UAW, the union had 2.25 million workers in basic industry. Today it has 638,000 members. Throughout the US, just 8.2 percent of private sector workers belong to unions, and just 2.2 million factory workers belong, down 60 percent from two decades ago.

In 2005, Jim intervened along with other SEP members at a meeting of autoworkers in Kokomo, Indiana, to oppose the massive destruction of jobs at parts maker Delphi. He stressed the need not just for workers to form independent organizations of working class struggle but to build a political leadership based on a socialist and internationalist program.

In his later years, declining health prevented Jim from active participation with the SEP. But he continued to read the WSWS and followed political developments closely. In a video interview in 2018 he made the following appeal to workers and young people:

The policies of the capitalists are such that they are leading us from one war to another war, heading to the destruction of the human race itself. All of this is with the approval of the union bureaucracy everywhere. ... The unions have always been tools of the ruling class. You should not kid yourself. Even in the 1970s the more astute workers understood that if the union bureaucracy was involved in any way, it would be betrayed.

The only way you can free yourself from wage slavery and threat of war is to abolish capitalism. Only the working class has the power to do that.

The working class must be conscious of its power; it is a lot more powerful than the bourgeoisie. But for that it must be organized. The Fourth International has fought for the last 80 years for the interests of the working class. Only the Fourth International has done that. I would ask you to join the Fourth International wherever you live. It is the only way forward for the human race.

To his final days, Comrade Jim remained a committed socialist and fighter for the working class. He will be sorely missed.

Read more from the original source:
Jim Lawrence, American autoworker and longtime Trotskyist, dies at age 83: A life dedicated to the fight for socialism - WSWS

RICHARD LONDON

State College

An accusation that Republicans love to hurl at Democrats is that they are socialists. Do these Republicans understand what American Socialism, also called Democratic Socialism, really is? Are they confusing it with Soviet Socialism, from the old USSR days, or modern socialism in North Korea or Venezuela?

Socialism, or socialization, is any structure whereby a governmental agency (federal, state or local) collects funds from the general public via taxes, and uses the money to provide a service back to the population at little, or no, cost at the time of delivery. The arrangement has been authorized by the people, through their representatives; hence Democratic Socialism.

Everyday examples include public schools and highways (state level), Social Security and Medicare (federal level), and public libraries (local level). Nearly all Republicans embrace, and enjoy, these benefits provided by the socialization mechanism, but decry socialism in general. One wonders why.

Maybe its a knee-jerk reaction to Democratic social issue proposals. Maybe they just dont understand the term. Maybe they do understand, but want to turn public opinion against the proposal by using a loaded term from the past.

The difference between Republicans and progressives is not that the progressives accept socialization and the Republicans reject it, since both do accept it. Both are willing to use the mechanism for education, highways, and libraries, and even for retirement and health insurance plans (at least for the elderly); progressives want to use it for additional things.

Come on, Republicans!

Youre socialists, too.

Admit it.

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

Follow this link:
Socialism's bad rap | News, Sports, Jobs - The Express - Lock Haven Express

ARF Bureau Youth Office leadership seminar, January 2022

This week, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) Bureau Youth Office hosted a two day virtual leadership seminar. About a dozen ARF youth from the eastern and western regions of the US and Canada came together to discuss, learn and grow in the guided wisdom of respected ARF community leaders from around the world. We were all fortunate to have the opportunity to proudly represent the AYF-YOARF Eastern United States.

The leadership seminar opened with the always inspirational words of ARF Bureau member Aram Kaloustian followed by a series of discussions on the following topics:

-ARF Socialism Ideology and the ARF Youth led by Khatchig Der Ghougasian (Argentina)-The ARF Leadership led by Mario Nalpandian (Argentina)-The Armenian and ARF Youth in the Armenian Political Arena by Mher Karakashian (Canada)-Artsakh Current Situation and the ARF strategy by Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) executive director Aram Hamparian

Der Ghougassians lecture challenged us to expand our thinking about socialism. Der Ghougassian frequently asked for input from participants, forcing us to mull over important questions like in what ways is the ARF socialist? or what policies do you think the ARF would implement in government? Der Ghougassian pushed us to go deeper and get to the heart of the issue, beyond ideas like the ARFs socialist roots simply because we call each other unger.

There is an Armenian phrase, Glorve khoup, gde poulik (The lid rolls, finds a pot), referring to two things that are perfect for each other. The Tashnagtsoutioun is that pot and socialism is its lid; the two are inextricably linked in a manner that goes far beyond merely select passages from the Dzrakir. The ARFs particular style of socialism, its commitment to political, social and economic equality, is an inseparable part of this 13-decade old organization. This, in particular, was clear after Der Ghougassians lecture, at the end of which he asked participants to think of one way in which they could effectuate socialist change in our communities through three of the facets of the ARFs style of socialism: gender rights and equality, environmental justice and just redistribution of wealth and income.

Unfortunately, this sort of deep reflection on the ideology of the ARF is missed by many members of the Armenian Youth Federation (AYF). In countless cases, exposure to socialism consists of surface-level exploration of the ARF program or singing of the anthem of the ARF, Mshag, Panvor. These important discussions were the highlight of the seminar, as we do not normally delve deep enough into the ideology of the ARF, reflected Aram Brunson of the AYF Greater Boston Nejdeh Chapter. But as the future generation of the Tashnagtsoutioun, these are the sorts of conversations and discussions that must occur at every level of the AYF-YOARF.

Though Der Ghougassian specifically spoke about socialism, what was particularly poignant was the idea of truly interacting with all of the ideals of the ARF. As Simon Zavarian once said, Words are dead without action. Such is the nature of the ARF, which has spent far more time implementing its fundamental ideals than talking about them. The Tashnagtsagan represents this at a core level; it is not enough to know and believe in our ideals or even to simply hope for their adoption as policy under the rule of a future Tashnagtsagan government. We, as Tashnags, must live and breathe our ideology and work toward its practical application, no matter where we are.

In our third lecture-based discussion of the day, Mher Karakashian reiterated the term underpinning why over a dozen ungers spent their weekend in attendance: hairenasiroutioun. To be hayrenaser is testament to our survival. To be hayrenaser as a people under constant threat of annihilation is at the essence of the Armenian identity; our strong history is a culmination of actors attempting to challenge this will of the Armenian people, and time and time again, the Tashnagtsoutioun takes this devotion to our nation and puts it into action.

we are born advocating for justice

The Armenian identity itself is a political one; we are born advocating for justice. What we recognize as the permanent struggle is part and parcel of both our history and present. We must be in constant conversation about the current state and future of Armenian politics, whether in the homeland or in our respective diasporas.

With diaspora odarootioun, our center of gravity proves to be our getrons and agoumps. Throughout these communities, it is the responsibility of our Armenian and ARF youth, now more than ever, to ask: how can I contribute to the askayin kaghakagan kordz? This is where the essence of the Armenian identity merges: to be hayrenaser and utilize politics as an avenue to serve our nation. Every Armenian, no matter their profession, must strive to immerse themselves in Armenian politics, for it will elevate the Armenian Cause in our diasporas.

Within an already existing Armenian political arena, it is our responsibility to take advantage of this potential as the present and future of our nation to become politicized and realize what we risk if this call to action is ignored. It is the desire of both Turkey and Azerbaijan to stifle Armenian political action, which alone demonstrates the need to vitalize this conviction.

Karakashian implored the ARF youth in attendance to always apply the heghapokhagan mindset in their political endeavors, to approach everything with a critical and analytical lens, to ask ourselves, What is the stamp that the ARF youth will leave? There is a central theme to the character traits necessary to leave that stamp: Bargeshd, Artar, Midke Layn, Sirde Pats, Kach, Oojegh and Chvakhtsogh. These traits, paired with the persistent nature of a Tashnagtsagan, are the backbone of our steadfast permanent struggle.

By embodying the mindset of serving the homeland, the ARF youth are able to inspire by way of antsnagan orinag. And by serving by example, the hope remains that the wider community of Armenian youth will become kaghakaganatsadz. In reflecting on U. Mhers inspirational words, my immediate reaction was to think of Armenian advocacy. My advice to Armenian youth answering the call to action, start with the ANC, noted Nairi Diratsouian of the AYF New Jersey Arsen Chapter.

Aram Hamparian spoke on the current situation in Artsakh and ARF political strategy. He powerfully summarized the role of the ARF as an organization that will not bend to the will of any other entity, be it factions of American politics or international alliances such as NATO. His words prompted the ungers to reflect on how, despite constant marginalization, the ARF has always remained firm and loyal to the Armenian nation. He reminded us that as Tashnags, we proudly inconvenience those who seek to destroy Armenia. These words and ideas left the ungers with a feeling of pride knowing that whatever the future holds, the ARF spirit will never be broken.

On the following day, knowledgeable lecturers introduced the final three topics:

Management lead by Taleen Haneshian (Canada) and Louisa Baboyan (Lebanon)-PR and Technology in the political arena by ANCA government affairs director Tereza Yerimyan-The ARF Youth in the Next Five Years, Expectations and Necessities by ARF Bureau member Hovsep Der Kevorkian (France)

Hovsep Der Kevorkian concluded the virtual event with encouraging remarks, reminding ARF youth that planning is the key, but it means nothing if one does not follow up on the plans.

At the end of the seminar, the ungers were given the opportunity to discuss constructive criticism. An overall consensus? The seminar was too short. We need to have more of these worldwide fundamental and leadership seminars, more fruitful discussions, in order to continue to build the strongest ideological foundation for our future generations to come, reflected Galy Jackmakjian of the AYF DC Ani Chapter.

Overall, the participants felt that their desires for abundant discussions around ARF Kaghapar were satiated by the imperative nature of this seminar; however, they yearn for more because seminars like this throw a flammable kindling into the already roaring fires of our passionate ARF youth.

Aram Brunson is a freshman at the University of Chicago from Newton, MA. He is a proud member of the AYF-YOARF Greater Boston Nejdeh Chapter and serves on the AYFs Central Educational Council. In addition, he dances with the Hamazkayin Sardarabad Dance Ensemble and is a member of the Armenian National Committees of Eastern Massachusetts and Illinois.

Kristen Bagdasarian is a sophomore at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She is studying anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies with a focus on Armenian history.

Nairi Diratsouian is a rising senior at Ramapo College of New Jersey. She is pursuing a degree in psychology with a triple minor in public policy, political science, and crime and justice studies. On campus, Nairi serves as the vice president of the Psychology Affiliation and the Armenian Students Association. Currently, she works as the communications specialist for the ANCA-Eastern Region and serves on the AYF Central Hai Tahd Council as well as the New Jersey Arsen Executive. Nairis passion for her heritage is evident through her participation in the Hamazkayin of New Jersey Nayiri Dance Ensemble, Homenetmen of New Jersey, ARS Shakeh Chapter, ANC of New Jersey and the Hovnanian School Alumni Association.

Galy Jackmakjian has been an active member of the AYF-YOARF Washington DC "Ani" chapter for the past 11 years. She has also served many leadership roles in the HMEM DC chapter throughout her life. Galy is currently serving on AYF Eastern regions Central Armenian Language Council, as language and Armenian preservation are one of her many passions.

Go here to read the rest:
ARF Bureau Youth Leadership Seminar: Lighting the Fires of ARF Youth - Armenian Weekly

The attempt by Prime Minister Scott Morrison to overcome his governments deep political crisis with a re-set speech at the National Press Club on Tuesday has failed spectacularly. Ongoing factional conflicts within Morrisons Liberal Party have erupted into public warfare, and it is an open question whether the PM will even survive until the next federal election, likely to be held in May.

Morrisons speech had two aims.

Firstly, to try and dampen down mass popular anger over his central role in letting the virus rip, which has created the countrys worst COVID surge since the pandemic began. His and the governments opinion poll results are the lowest since Morrisons installation as prime minister in August 2018. And secondly, to convince the ruling elite that his government is capable of enforcing the continued reopening drive and the pro-business restructuring that is to accompany it.

If anything, the speech only made things worse on both fronts.

Amid ongoing mass infection, illness and death resulting from the decision of governments to allow Omicron to spread in December, Morrison acknowledged for the first time: I havent got everything right and Ill take my fair share of the criticism and the blame.

But the PM refused to apologise for the catastrophe, in line with his pitch to the corporate elite that he will continue the policies that caused it. You must be prepared to listen to that advice, but also to take the decisions that strike the right balance, he said.

Later, during the question session, Morrison claimed that his government had been too optimistic about Omicron and, We could have communicated more clearly about the risks and challenges that we still faced. His only regret was that the military was not called in earlier to run the vaccination operationwhich points to discussions and plans to deploy the military more generally in the event of social unrest.

To claim optimistic misunderstanding is a fraud. The government, backed by the entire National Cabinet of federal, state and territory leaders, deliberately misled the public. They all insisted that the Omicron variant of COVID-19 was mild, in order to justify the lifting of nearly every safety restriction, followed by the reopening of schools, in order to push workers back into workplaces despite mass infections.

Even after 1,519 COVID fatalities were reported in January alone, including more than 450 aged care residents, Morrison contemptuously declared that our health response has ensured that our health and aged care system has stood up to the global pandemic. To add insult to this dismissal of the death toll, he then promised the over-worked and abysmally-paid aged care workers two $400 retention payments before May, the likely election month, while rejecting calls for wage rises.

Morrison once more attempted, as he has done for two years, to hold out the prospect of locking in our economic recovery in 2022, saying his government stood for strong economic management. That means further driving up corporate profits at the expense of the jobs, wages and conditions of workers.

Morrison also sought to incite fears about a direct threat to Australias economic and security interests. He did not name China. But he highlighted the signing of the AUKUS agreement, a military alliance directed against Beijing, the powering up of the Quad, a quasi-military pact with the US, Japan and India to confront China, and the sealing of military or strategic partnership agreements with India, South Korea, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea.

In other words, the key planks of Morrisons appeal were that he would boost the fortunes of the ultra-wealthy, and ramp-up a national security agenda involving further attacks on democratic rights and an escalation of Australias involvement in US-led wars.

Even at the National Press Club event, there were indications that sections of the ruling class and the Liberal Party itself do not think Morrison is up to the job.

Network 10 and Australian journalist Peter van Onselen, who has connections inside the party and is a figurehead of the Murdoch press, read out text messages, apparently two years old, in which the then New South Wales (NSW) Liberal Premier Gladys Berejiklian described Morrison as a horrible, horrible person who was more concerned about political point-scoring than peoples lives. In reply, an unnamed cabinet minister called him a fraud and a complete psycho.

Such texts could have been leaked only by senior figures in the Liberal-National Coalition, which is increasingly wracked by factional in-fighting.

Within days of the speech, the conflicts have openly erupted. Such is the rancor that a few months out from the federal election, the Liberal Party has been unable to finalise preselection for candidates in more than a dozen seats. Some of them are crucial electorates, including Hughes in Sydney, where the sitting member Craig Kelly defected from the government last year, and Warringah, the seat previously held by former Liberal Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

Sitting MPs are facing potential challenges to their candidacy, including Environment Minister Sussan Ley, Immigration Minister Alex Hawke, and prominent North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman. Thirteen others, including six ministers, are retiring from federal politics, prompting media references to rats fleeing a sinking ship.

In line with Van Onsolens decision to drop a bomb at the National Press Club, the Murdoch media, previously a key support of Morrison, has adopted an increasingly skeptical tone regarding his political viability. Similar opinions are being voiced by leading commentators at the rival Nine Media group. There are broader fears of a potential bust up, both of the Liberal Party and its governing coalition with the Nationals.

Under these conditions, Labor is presenting itself as the vehicle best suited to implement the demands of the financial elite, for austerity, militarism and forcing the population to live with the virus.

Its leader, Anthony Albanese has repeatedly harkened back to the 1980s, when the Hawke and Keating Labor governments formed a tripartite alliance with the unions and big business to enforce sweeping economic deregulation and restructuring.

Albanese was installed as leader after Labor lost the unlosable election of 2019 because broad sections of working people, as hostile as they were to the Liberal-Nationals, did not buy its phony fair go rhetoric.

Labor has responded by shifting even further to the right, dumping token taxation measures and foreswearing any demagogic references to social inequality. Instead, Albanese has insisted that Labor is a party of aspiration.

Throughout the pandemic, Labor has largely marched in lockstep with the government, supporting and enforcing the profit-driven pandemic policies, the massive handouts to big business, and attacks on democratic rights, including the forcible deregistration of smaller political parties without parliamentary representation. On foreign policy, Labor insists that it could work more closely with the Biden administration, as the US prepares for war with Russia and China to try and reverse the economic decline of American capitalism through military means

Labors right-wing pitch demonstrates that the upcoming election will resolve nothing for workers and young people. That is why in the deepening political crisis and the federal election, the working class must adopt an independent position, against the Coalition, Labor and the entire parliamentary set-up.

The needless sacrifice of lives globally in the pandemic has exposed the moral and social bankruptcy of capitalism and all its political servants. An entirely opposed political perspective has to be adopted and fought for. That is a socialist one, based on the protection of health and lives, not private profit, and the total reorganisation of economic and social life by workers governments.

This is the perspective fought for only by the Socialist Equality Party. In order to advance this program in the broadest possible manner, we will be standing candidates in the federal election, despite the new anti-democratic electoral laws pushed through parliament jointly by Labor and the Coalition.

But there must be no illusions that socialism can be achieved through the parliamentary apparatus of capitalism. Indeed, the electoral laws are a warning of the anxiety and determination of the ruling class to silence any opposition from workers and youth. A new revolutionary leadership must be built in the working class to overturn the entire failed capitalist order.

Join the SEP campaign against anti-democratic electoral laws!

The working class must have a political voice, which the Australian ruling class is seeking to stifle with this legislation.

See the original post here:
Australian government in meltdown months out from federal election - WSWS

Submitted by Dave Zink.

The first book Ill review here is City Builders and Vandals in Our Age: Articles and Essays on Socialism, by Caleb T. Maupin, 2019.

In this compilation, Maupin takes a long view of history, from the birth of civilization, through the Greek and Roman Empires, the emergence of feudalism, capitalism, and socialism to modern times. Along the way, he sheds light on the Paris Commune, China and the Belt and Road Initiative, Russia, the Middle East, and how capitalism, imperialism, and militarism are all tied together today.

Maupin describes City Builders in his introductory essay: Throughout human history, two distinct trends have been present among us. There have always been innovators, scientists, unifiers, [and others] who push civilization toward a higher state of being, driven by an inner flame of creativity and boldness.

Who are the vandals? City-builders have always stood in opposition to the efforts of vandals: hate-mongers, ignorance-celebrators, lynch-mob leaders, persecutors, snake-oil salesmen, bullies, [etc.] who are forces for division and profit from tearing down what others have built.

Todays vandals? How about health insurance corporations dead-set against a common-sense Single-Payer system that would diminish their profits and power? Proud-Boy Republicans who seem intent on turning the USA toward full-tilt fascism?

Maupins essays cover a lot of ground. He reveals why Julius Caesar was executed by the Roman oligarchy and looks into the deep roots of American socialism and the origins of the New Left. Throughout this book, youll find interesting history you probably didnt get in school.

In his essay titled Native Americans and the Confusion in American Politics, Maupin writes about the genocide against indigenous people: not as a crime to be blamed on all whites, but as a crime of capitalism Exposing the crimes of this international economic order is not an attack on workers who happen to be white. On the contrary, opposing capitalism and fighting for the establishment of governments that represent the majority of people, rather than the millionaire elite, is in the interest of all Americans, of all backgrounds.

The second book Ill talk about is We Are City Builders: The Center for Political Innovation (CPI) Education Manual, 2021. Youll find some real gems in this anthology. I really enjoyed The Parable of the Water Tank, by Edward Bellamy, Why Socialism?, by Albert Einstein, a Letter to America Workers by Lenin, and speeches by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Vice-President Henry A. Wallace.

Traditionally, Henry Wallace would have been re-nominated as the Democratic Partys vice-presidential candidate for Franklin D. Roosevelts unprecented 4th run for president in the 1944 campaign. Wallace was clearly the most popular choice for vice president among Democrats, and many journalists predicted that he would win renomination. Roosevelt, in failing health, sent a public letter to the Democratic Party convention chairman saying, I personally would vote for [Wallaces] renomination if I were a delegate to the convention. If Wallace had become president after FDRs death, the USA would probably be much better off today. Its a tragedy of history that anti-New Deal backstabbers succeeded in getting Harry Truman onto the ticket instead.

These are just a few of the threads Maupin weaves together in the CPIs Educational Manual. After each section of, there are thought-provoking questions for study and group discussions.

In these inspiring and optimistic books, Maupin lays out where we are politically, how we got here, and points the way forward. You may not agree with him on some things, but he presents ideas and asks questions that merit consideration by any who favor transformative progressive change.

Go here to see the original:
Book Review: City Builders, We Are City Builders The Suburban Times - The Suburban Times