Comments

Posted on January 9, 2006 by @ndy

commenting and trackback have been added to this blog…

…again! Ooops. I’ll now be working my way through the comments that have been made over the last week or so.

Cheers,

@ndy.

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What’s up with the Socialist Alliance?

Posted on January 8, 2006 by @ndy

…is the question on everyone’s lips. Below is a “no-bullshit assessment” I found on sydney.indymedia. The text has been edited slightly (for reasons of clarity), but I’ll be returning to it later to add even more clarity (and possibly even some caustic commentary). In the meantime, here ’tis…

What’s up with the Socialist Alliance?
by Mark Lockett
January 2, 2006

A no-bullshit assessment of the Socialist Alliance. Includes the DSP’s four big[gest?] lies of 2005.

[This article was submitted to Alliance Voices on Jan 1, 2006 — latest issue here]

Crisis, what crisis?

Receiving an email is a funny way to find out that the Socialist Alliance [SA] is dead, but that’s the way it happened.

It surprised me. My branch [Perth] seemed to be going quite well. At our last branch meeting we had 13 members in attendance: 5 members of the DSP; 1 member of the ISO and 7 who weren’t members of any affiliate. The non-aligned are a mixed bunch, comprising: a former member of the Greens and refugee rights activist [Mark]; a former member of the CPA and former trade union militant; a former member of the ALP and former trade union militant; a supporter of the Fourth International; a former member of the British WRP; and two self-described ‘greenies’.

The branch decided to hold 4 public meetings in the first three months of 2006: hardly [evidence of] a political party that has collapsed and is being propped up by the DSP. Indeed, our WA state membership is currently at record high levels.

Of course, while the Perth branch is not the only branch of the SA that’s still operational, the sad reality is that a large number of branches — particularly in the major East Coast capitals — appear to have simply stopped operating.

Demoralisation, what demoralisation?

The DSP attempts to blame the current problems of the SA on demoralisation caused by the defeat of Latham in the 2004 federal election. (This is despite the fact that the DSP was the loudest in proclaiming that the re-election of Howard ‘made no difference’.) While I have no doubt that some [SA members] were demoralised by Howard’s victory in 2004, a lot of us were prepared for just that [eventuality]. After all, Howard had won what had seemed an unwinnable election only three [years] prior, in 2001. Some [SA members] — and activists outside it — were demoralised by this previous loss as well. Some people were [also] demoralised by the fact that the SA polled so poorly, and that the DSP [which tends to dominate internal discussion], did not wish to discuss this issue. Eventually, the federal election campaign committee did address the issue, but [by then] it was [a case of] too little, too late…

In the [last] federal election, the SA was able to run the biggest Socialist election campaign in decades, and to run campaigns in regional and outer suburban areas that had never previously been within the reach of the left [sic] (at least, not within living memory). The problem was that Green Left Weekly played a very minor role in this campaign. In fact, far from Green Left Weekly being the ‘scaffolding’ around which the SA was formed, it was the practical task of running an election campaign that formed the ‘scaffolding’ of the Alliance.

After the election, the DSP turned back towards its usual modus operandi: orientation towards ‘movement activism’ and prioritising Green Left Weekly sales and distribution. Simply put, the DSP tried to lead and hoped that others might follow; that is, they attempted to simply ‘progress’ Green Left Weekly to ‘the next level’, and make distribution of [GLW] an Alliance task. They also sought to simply remove anyone who disagreed with this line from the [GLW?] editorial board. The non-aligned majority on the [SA’s] National Executive baulked at this manouevre, and voted down the DSP’s extremely sectarian proposal, although only by a majority of one. [“The new national executive elected [at the last SA conference] comprises: Alex Miller, Alison Thorne, Craig Johnston, Dave Riley, David Glanz, Dick Nichols, Kieran Latty, Lisa Macdonald, Mark Lockett, Melanie Sjoberg, Peter Boyle, Pip Hinman, Sam Watson, Sue Bolton and Tim Gooden” (names in bold = DSP).]

The DSP then generalised its assault on the ‘non-aligned’ leaders of the Alliance, getting rid of them in factional manouervering of the type we commonly see from ALP hacks. And once the conference was over, the DSP simply ‘switched off’ the Alliance. [As a result] a large number of branches, probably a majority, have simply not met since then. Instead, the DSP has concentrated its energies on distributing and fundraising for Green Left Weekly, and sending 20% of their members on a trip to Venezuela. It’s demoralising when there are people around who want a new workers’ party, and the people who are supposed to help build it are off doing other things.

Web of Lies

The DSP told four big lies in 2005:

1) that the DSP did not have a majority at the 2005 national conference of the Alliance;
2) that the DSP did not produce and distribute a how-to-vote card for that conference;
3) that Alex Miller and Dave Riley were actually non-aligned members of the Alliance and;
4) as stated in the DSP NE recommendation to the DSP conference: “…national executive… includes prominent trade union and social movement leaders such as Craig Johnston, Sam Watson and Tim Gooden. The challenge is to try to develop this into an effective leadership” (The Democratic Socialist Perspective and the Socialist Alliance: Draft resolution for the DSP congress, point 11).

The first three need no comment: the [deceit] of the DSP has been exposed and admitted to. In the case of the fourth: Johnston and Watson simply do not come to meetings of the Socialist Alliance National Executive, [while] Gooden has been a member of the DSP for many years. The actual attendees at National Executive meetings are the DSP, the [Non-Aligned Caucus?] independents and the Freedom Socialist Party’s Alison Thorne.

The problem when you start spinning a web of lies is you [can eventually] get caught up in it. Even the lie about Johnston and Watson is [in reality only a] cover for the disastrous restructure of the Alliance National Executive at the last conference, and the accompanying attack on the Non-aligned National Convenors and their supporters. Nor are the above four items the only things in the web; there are many more, actually. These four are simply the only ones ‘well known’ nationally[?]. [Such deceit and political manipulation] is another source of demoralisation: the Alliance should be a step towards a “new workers’ party”, but here we have the leading faction [the DSP] behaving like the worst elements of the “old workers’ party” [that is, the ALP].

The 2004 Election and the Greens

Firstly, the Alliance put in a very poor performance in the 2004 election — no question about it. For our most well known candidate, the (then) Assistant Secretary of Geelong Trades Hall, to have gotten much less than one percent was [a] very poor [result].

But the results represented something of an aberration[?]. [For example] in the run-up to the election, the Alliance scored some much better results. Coral Wynter got 1.6% for the seat of Brisbane in the Queensland state election and 3.5% in the Brisbane council election, but [could] only manage a paltry 0.39% for the federal seat of Brisbane. Lynda Hansen got 3.0% for the South Brisbane state seat but saw that collapse to 0.72% [at a federal level]. The Alliance got 3.1% in the seat of Inala (outpolling the Greens at two polling booths) but in the federal poll Mike Myles (in Oxley) got hammered, getting only 0.45%. In the Tasmanian upper house by-election for Elwick, Kamala Emmuanel scored a respectable 5.4%, but in the federal poll got only 0.85%.

After the [federal] election, things picked up again. [In] the local government elections in Victoria[?], held 7 weeks after the federal poll, the Alliance got between 4% and 13% over 5 different wards[?]. Even in the much maligned Marrickville by-election, the Alliance was able to improve on its [previous] vote in Grayndler, and in fact got a higher vote than in 25 out of 26 electorates in the federal election[?].

That’s not to say all of our other election campaigns got good votes; our vote in the WA state election was pretty ordinary, but then again we deliberately engaged in a strategy that would allow us to best use the resources (that is, people) at our disposal, rather than maximise our percentage vote[?!?].

The 2004 election was also a poor performance for the Greens. Before the election there was much talk that the Greens would win seats in the federal lower house. As it turned out, they didn’t come close: in fact, they couldn’t even muster a second place. All this in spite of having a sitting MP! [In] the WA state election, it only got worse. Sitting state upper house member Jim Scott tried to move to the lower house; not only did he not win, not only did he not come second, he actually suffered a swing against of approximately 1.0%.

The WA Greens’ woes were not limited to Jim Scott: they suffered an overall decline in their upper house vote, a tiny increase in their lower house vote (only brought about by them standing in more seats than in the previous election) and the loss of three of their five seats in the upper house. This was very embarrassing for them, especially in an election where their main third party competitors — the Democrats and One Nation — had collapsed. In Marrickville, the Greens once again failed to take a single seat, [just when one] seemed to be [within their] reach.

One thing can be said from all of this: the Greens have not increased their hold on the electoral space to the left of the ALP over the last two years; if anything they have [reduced it].

Left Reactionaries

Australia’s worst reactionaries are [on?] the left. Something happens, and the left reacts. There’s a race riot in Cronulla, and Dave Riley creates the ‘Racism No‘ blog. Did it ever occur to him to create it six or twelve months beforehand? The racism of John Howard has been apparent for a long time now. Of course the Racism No blog has hardly any comments on it, and as a consequence we can say hardly anyone reads it. (It seemed to die out after about two weeks anyway.) I don’t wish to unfairly single out Dave over this, he was simply doing the same thing that the rest of the left do: something happens, [we] react. [Nor do I mean to suggest that we shouldn’t react; we simply need to do more than that.] For example, the refugee rights movement held a very successful protest at the Baxter Immigration Detention centre in March this year; we were even able to win real improvements in the conditions of asylum seekers: refugees were not a big issue in the news when organisation for that protest began.

The Alliance has the ability to overcome the [reactionary nature] of the left and to be a… progressive force for social change. Our 2004 federal election campaign was just such a [force]. Pre-selection was conducted early (in most places) and campaigns were well-prepared. Despite the fact that we scored a poor result, we were able to mobilise more people than had been mobilised for a Socialist election campaign in Australia for a very long time. This is in stark contrast to the election campaigns run by the DSP before the founding of the Alliance. These campaigns were typically slapped together at the last minute, poorly run, few people outside the DSP were ever involved, and the actual result was without exception ignored.

The Alliance could have done a lot better though. For an organisation that is nearly five years old, it is to our shame that we have no meaningful policy and no program. The 2003 conference voted to authorise the production of a book about socialism: it was never mentioned again. To this day, should someone ask the question ‘What does the Socialist Alliance do or stand for?’, we can only point them to a shambolic collection of motions passed at various conferences.

The Future for the Socialist Alliance

The above may seem pretty bleak, but it’s rather easy to [solve] the problems of the Alliance. We only need do two major things:

1) Develop decent policy and a decent understanding of the role we play in the class struggle. This shouldn’t take up the majority of our time, but a determined effort [to] make sure it takes up [no] more time [than necessary] will ensure it gets done.

2) Vigorously contest the upcoming state elections in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, as well as vigorously contest the 2007 federal election. Elections are what the Alliance was created to do and over our five year history they are what we have done the best. This should not be seen as a ‘timeless’ solution to the Alliance’s current problems: it’s simply a way of jolting the Alliance out of its current slumber. [The fact is] the Alliance is the only party that takes working class issues seriously.

Growing the Alliance requires not just bringing in new members but developing a new leadership. Despite the fact that [this] was not its intention, the previous policy of reserving 50% of all seats on the National Executive [for the NAC?!?] was able to develop exactly this [leadership]. Therefore, in order to further develop the Alliance, we should return to a structure more closely resembling the former structure, and end the current situation where all meaningful decisions are made by DSP full-timers.

The above [argument] is in stark contradiction to the [current] DSP position, which is that the Alliance should be transformed into a trade union caucus. This position is best summed up in their document: “[SA] remains the best available political vehicle to win over more militant trade union leaders and work more closely with a wider layer of working-class militants in the current political conditions” (The Democratic Socialist Perspective and the Socialist Alliance: Draft resolution for the DSP congress, point 18). The unfortunate reality is otherwise. In the two and a half years that Chris Cain has been state secretary of the MUA, no members of that union have become active in the Alliance who weren’t active before his election. That’s not to say that the MUA Rank and File Group and the Alliance aren’t allies, they are. [But] the Alliance has mostly grown by recruiting old lefties.

The Socialist Alliance should play to its strengths and not to its weaknesses. We won’t overthrow the old order in the immediate future, but modest progress is possible.

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2006 Trot Guide

Posted on January 7, 2006 by @ndy


OK, it’s about that time… time for a 2006 Trot Guide!

Now, exactly how many Trot groups are out there has long been a matter of speculation. Most experts, however, agree that 57 is the most likely figure. In Australia, we find quite a lot less than this number, which naturally suggests that the most recent group to split has yet to decide on a name. Rest assured that when he and his dog do finally arrive at a suitably arresting title, you’ll read it here first. In the meantime, here’s a rough A-Z guide to Australia’s dwindling (neo-)Trotskyist sects:

1) The Communist League (CL). The CL split from the SWP in 1986. It stood one candidate in the 2004 Federal election, and no doubt thrilled to the 335 first-preference votes it gained as a result.

2) The Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP). Together with the ISO, the DSP is probably the largest (neo-)Trotskyist organisation in Australia, although over the last 15 years or so the DSP has moved some way from its ideological origins. Publishes the Green Left Weekly. (The DSP was known until 1989 as the Socialist Workers’ Party, and until even more recently as the Democratic Socialist Party.) Once a member of the USFI, the DSP now seems to be attempting to cobble together some other ‘International’. [Note: “The Democratic Socialist Party is now the Democratic Socialist Perspective. At our 21st Congress on December 27-30, 2003, we voted to stop operating as a separate party, and to function from now on as a tendency within the Socialist Alliance, working to implement the decision of the May 2003 Socialist Alliance conference to become a united, multi-tendency socialist party. The May 2004 SA conference took further steps in that direction, voting to continue the process of the Socialist Alliance having more editorial input into Green Left Weekly.”]

3) The Freedom Socialist Party (FSP). Formed in 1983, the FSP publishes the Freedom Socialist Bulletin and is also part of the Socialist Alliance. Essentially a North American phenomenon, the FSP appears to be what happens when you cross feminism with Trotskyism and to have its strongest — perhaps only real — base in Melbourne. These ‘revolutionary feminists’ appear to be in a class of their own.

4) The International Socialist Organisation (ISO). Formed all the way back in 1971 as the Socialist Workers’ Action Group (SWAG), the ISO publishes the fortnightly Socialist Worker, and is a member of the Socialist Alliance. It’s also a member of the International Socialist Tendency.

5) The Socialist Action Group (SAG). The SAG publishes a zine called Red Alert, and apparently formed as a split from Socialist Alternative in 2004. Tiny and with a membership that appears to be almost entirely located in Brisbane.

6) The Socialist Alliance (SA). Publishes Seeing Red (although probably not for much longer). Easily the largest (neo-)Trotskyist political formation in Australia, dominated by the DSP and ISO. “The Socialist Alliance was formed on February 17, 2001, by eight socialist groups and parties that saw an urgent need for greater left unity in Australia at a time of escalating government attacks on the rights and living conditions of workers and the poor, in Australia and overseas. The founding conference of the Socialist Alliance took place in Melbourne on August 4-5, 2001.” Its dismal electoral performance, together with the DSP’s typically clumsy attempts to establish hegemony within the SA, suggests that it won’t be too long before the Australian SA goes the way of its British predecessor, with the DSP in Australia fulfilling the same function as the SWP in the UK. (“The SA was wound up in February 2005, having been moribund for about a year. In March, a few groups and former members of the SA, who did not join in the Respect Coalition, met as the Socialist Alliance (Provisional). On November 12, 2005, most but not all of the provisional grouping met again and claimed the name of the Socialist Alliance.”)

7) Socialist Alternative (SocAlt). A Trotskyist splinter from the ISO. Largest Trotskyist group outside of the SA and publisher of the monthly Socialist Alternative (click here for Dec 05/Jan 06 issue), SA appears to regard the University of Melbourne, and Melbourne generally, as its stronghold.

[8) Socialist Appeal. Socialist Appeal is actually the former name of the Militant socialist organisation, now Socialist Party.]

9) Socialist Democracy (SD). A Trotskyist groupuscle that formed as a result of a split in the Progressive Labor Party in 2000. Alleged to be ‘close’ to the USFI.

10) The Socialist Equality Party (SEP). It’s the Australian section of the International Committee of the Fourth International. Formed in 1972 as the Socialist Labor League, in the last few years it appears to have ceased most activism outside of maintaining a website, although it did stand a candidate — Mike Head — in the 2005 Werriwa by-election, gaining 458 (0.68%) of first-preference votes (in 2004, Head gained 497 votes (0.6%)). In fact, the SEP/WSWS stood several other candidates in the 2004 Federal election: “Nick Beams and Terry Cook for the Senate in New South Wales, James Cogan in the Sydney eastern suburbs seat of Kingsford Smith, Mike Head in the Sydney western suburbs electorate of Werriwa and Peter Byrne in the northern Melbourne seat of Batman”. Results suggest that the socialist revolution is more than just a t-shirt away for the SEP: James Cogan received 214 votes or 0.3% of the total and Peter Byrne even less: 201 votes or 0.3%. And ah, Nick Beams and Terry Cook received a miserly 99 (00.0%) and 17 (00.0%) (out of a possible 4,117,674) votes respectively, for a grand total of 0.0002% of the vote.

Is this the least successful electoral campaign in Australian electoral history? Enquiring anarchist minds demand to know!

*11) The Socialist Labor Party of Australia (SLP). The SLP was formed in the USA in 1907. Or possibly 1890. The Australian branch appears to be just that. (Oh, and the SLP proudly proclaims itself to be “the home of Marxism-De Leonism”, so strictly speaking, it’s not actually ‘Trotskyist’.)

12) The Socialist Party (SP). Until January 2000, the SP was known as the Militant Socialist Organisation (MSO). The SP has distinguished itself from the rest of the Trotskyist pack by actually being successful at contesting an election… A member of the Committee for a Workers’ International.

13) Solidarity. One of the most recent additions to the Guide, Solidarity formed in 2003 as a split from the ISO, and is led by Ian Rintoul.

14) The Spartacist League of Australia (SL). My personal favourite. Unreconstructed Trotskyists and proud of it. Publish the Australasian Spartacist and member of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist).

15) Workers’ League. Another tiny sect, it too is a member of the SA, is currently aligned with the International Workers League (Fourth International) and is closely associated with Bob Gould’s circle (see below).

16) Workers’ Liberty (AWL). Formed in 1980, the (Alliance for) WL in Australia is a subset of the AWL in the UK, and is also a member of the SA.

17) Workers’ Power. See above. I first encountered this mob in 2000, and again last year at the Sydney Social Forum. Member of the League for the Fifth International.

*18) The World Socialist Party of Australia. Formed in 1996, but kept a close family secret, it allegedly publishes Socialist Comment (I can find no reference to it anywhere I look). One of the more obscure parties, it’s the local chapter of “The World Socialist Movement (WSM)… an international organisation of socialist parties. They are revolutionary Marxist but not Leninist. All the parties, except the Austrian BDS, began as offshoots from the Socialist Party of Great Britain; WSM members in countries without a companion party of their own are as a rule SPGB members.” Sure to take the world by storm… very, very slowly.

OK folks, that’s just about all for now. (Incidentally, most of the information contained herein is based on that available at the Leftist Parties of the World site; the Australian section in particular.) In the meantime, you could do worse than refer to Ozleft for gossip and discussion of the latest batch of resignations. However I really do need to conclude by way of quoting David Greason (I was a teenage fascist, pp.244-246) on the Spartacists:

I wanted to join the Spartacist League. True, we used to laugh at them; in fact everyone laughed at them, but in their isolation lay their appeal. The Spartacist League was this bad-tempered Trotskyist group that had probably no more than twenty — no, make that thirty — members throughout the country mainly based on campuses like LaTrobe and Sydney. We occasionally had run-ins with them, although they tended to keep their distance because they imagined that we were out to kidnap them individually and dump the bodies in shallow graves off Rye backbeach. We wouldn’t have done; there were plenty of leftist groups clamouring for that opportunity.

Since the early 1970s, the Australian left had been more gauche than sinister, despite what groups like People Against Communism said. That was the appeal of the far-right, I guess: groups like the League and the Nazis were either nutty or offensive, both of which amused me no end; or it spoke such unambiguous commonsense (like the British NF or the Alliance) that you couldn’t help but identify with it. Well, at least I couldn’t. Most of the left, on the other hand, was dull and earnest and out of touch. You just had to read the left’s papers or, even better, look at the miserable faces of the people selling them. How they ever recruited was beyond me. I certainly didn’t fancy spending my Saturday afternoons in draughty meeting rooms discussing Marx’s Theory of Surplus Value. If I’d wanted to learn that sort of thing I’d have paid attention in fourth form economics classes.

That was the beauty of the Spartacist League. They had this paper, Australasian Spartacist, and virtually every issue had at least one page devoted to sectarianism. Yes, they were Marxists, and yes, they also ran pages of boring leftist tripe that they no doubt thought had some appeal to the working masses — the very same working masses who would never buy their paper, week after week after week — but they specialised in airing the dirty laundry of all the other rival left groups around: the Maoists, the Eurocommunists of the CPA, the Send In the Tanks Stalinists of the Socialist Party, and all the other cheek-by-jowl rivals to the title of Trotsky’s heirs — the Socialist Workers’ Party, the Socialist Labour League, the Communist League (were they still going?), the International Socialists, etc. etc. No wonder they were generally considered to be police agents.

And they had a great writing style — snotty and sneering and puffed-up. It was pretty much like ours, actually. If you could hear what you read, they’d be saying it from the corners of their mouths, then laughing at you. They insulted other leftists worse than we insulted other leftists. They insulted other leftists worse than they insulted us. That was no doubt why they kept getting bashed by other Trotskyists. Technically, though, we were the Great Satan, because we were Fascists with a capital F, and the other left groups were part of the workers’ movement.

The politics would have taken a bit of getting used to, but that certainly wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility. I envied them. They knew what they believed. They knew who they hated, and why, and it was all footnoted and there was never any room for error and they could pick up deviationism from the most innocuous slip of the tongue and they were as hard on their own people as they were on everyone else and by Christ they were hard on everyone else. No one was good enough for them.

The line was laid down, probably in the US, and you’d know pretty much from the start what you could like and dislike and it would all be explained and there’d be references and cross-references in all the back issues of Australasian Spartacist so no one could just make it up as they went along…

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Venezuelan Anarchists on Chavez, WSF

Posted on January 7, 2006 by @ndy

WSF Caracas: Shroud for Venezuela’s social movements

A member of the group promoting the Alternative Social Forum explains why the World Social Forum (WSF), taking place in Caracas during January 2006, is another attempt by the Chavez government to impede the autonomous development of social struggles in the country.

::

During the week of January 24 to 29, 2006 the polycentric version of the VI World Social Forum as well as the II Social Forum of the Americas will take place in Caracas. The event has generated great expectations since this city is the epicenter of what since 1999 has been known as the “Bolivarian Revolution”, with much impact in Latin America and wide popularity among diverse social and left movements in the world. The fact that Venezuela is the second continental seat of the WSF is a tacit backing of the governmental performance of President Hugo Chavez, as happened at the time with the local government of the Workers Party in Porto Alegre during its slow but true climb to the presidential chair. Is this backing of the government related to the actual strength of the social movements of Venezuela? Or, to say in different words, what contributions the WSF in Caracas will make towards the process of consolidation, expansion and articulation of the country’s social movements? To answer this question we will first make a brief review of the nation’s contemporary history.

“Punto Fijo” and “Caracazo”

After decades of military and strong man dictatorships, in 1958 a new democratic period is inaugurated in Venezuela. The so called Pact of Punto Fijo is made among the principal dominating actors, who agree to alternate the main political parties of that era, Democratic Action and COPEI, in power. A few years later a period of armed struggle by the insurgent left starts, a chapter lasting less than a decade with the progressive incorporation of these actors into the “legal” and parliamentary politics, motivated by, among other things, the social floor built by the social-democracy thanks to the large income from oil. The royalties of black gold allow for democratic stability unknown in the continent, paying for a generous social security, widespread education at all levels and subsidizing labor unions and trade associations all over the territory. The oil tanker that daily filled their hulls at the Venezuelan ports financed the ample middle class that developed during the decades of the 60’s and 70’s, reaching its climax with the so-called nationalization of oil that happened in 1976, when transnational corporations such as Shell stopped operating in the country. From that year until the end of 1981 it was the period known as the fat cows due to the huge amount of money that came into the national treasury. At the beginning of 1983 the devaluation of the currency, the bolivar, is announced, and a period of economic crises begins that initiates the break up of this governmental model started in 1958. During the mid 80’s large popular mobilizations start but do not translate into votes for the left political parties which historically maintain a percentage around 5%.

The most notable expression of the death throes of the Pact of the Punto Fijo happens in February 1989, during the so called “Caracazo”, when hundreds of businesses were looted in different cities in a week of violent popular explosions, brutally repressed by the army, with a number of deaths and disappearances still unknown, which some say is over a thousand. It is from that February that a civil society, outside the established political parties and with no client relationship to the state, begins to take form. To name but a few, we find the first human rights organizations, ecological associations and networks that promote the Environmental Penal Law and the social initiatives that fueled the mobilizations against the neo-liberal “package” of Carlos Andres Perez -– then president of Venezuela –- which constitute examples of what autonomous social struggle were possible in that context when political parties and other upholders of the government showed clear signs of fatigue.

1989 represented an important moment in the history of the autonomous social organization of popular demands. The effervescence apparent before and after the popular revolt shows the seams of a social fabric made up of infinite socio-political initiatives, with different and growing levels of articulation among themselves. They take aim against the president and his policy of “the big turn”: his attempt to apply the neo-liberal prescription dictated by the International Monetary Fund which contrasted with the populist policies imposed by previous governments. In this scenario of growing citizen mobilization something never seen before takes place: the Attorney General of the Republic opens a case against the president for corruption and misappropriation of the so called “secret parties”. In May 1993 Perez was suspended from his functions.

Chavez and his movement

A year before the president’s fall due to charges of corruption, a political recourse that seemed to be relegated to the past came back to the front pages of the press: the coup d’etat. From the years 1899 to 1958, five conspiracies headed by the military forced the change of the first president, paradoxically including one that in 1945 claimed to be in the name of democracy and the parties system.

Military insubordination in order to take power wasn’t the exclusive patrimony of sectors identified with the right. Several armed insurrections stimulated by the Marxist-Leninist left spoke of the “civil-military alliance”, in which political vanguards linked with “progressive sectors of the armed forces” to provoke change. This appeal to a pretended progressiveness of the Venezuelan army interpreted its multi-class character under dialectical materialism, attempting to exacerbate the “class contradictions” between soldiers and officers to “win them over to the socialist cause”. It is true that the popular heterogeneity of the Venezuelan army is different from the elitist conformation of other armies in the continent, but the Marxist reductionism forgot that its hierarchical and value systems educated them to see themselves as a class different from the civilians. On the other hand, the Venezuelan army was also formed in the anti-communism and the fight against subversion according to the dictates of the Southern Command of the United States, as part of the logic of the Cold War.

After 34 years without military conspiracies – one of the premises of the Pact of Punto Fijo – in 1992 a large group of middle rank army officers attempts a coup d’etat against Carlos Andres Perez. On TV, a character in uniform unknown to all announced the defeat of the uprising “for the time being”. That officer was Hugo Chavez, who spend some years arrested for military mutiny and was set free, via pardon, by the next elected president: Rafael Caldera, who, like Perez, was in power for the second time.

Chavez liberation, which happened during the mid 90’s, took place amid large mass mobilization and consciousness rising. For the first time a presidential candidate from the non-traditional sectors, Andres Velasquez, got to improve on the historical 5% of the left, placing himself very close to the elected candidate in percentage points. This was symptomatic of the will for change that like an epidemic grew among Venezuelans faced with the economic crisis and the fatigue of the democratic system. Chavez and his movement piggy back on that dynamic giving it a face to the unhappiness, thanks to the media magnification and its insurrectional aura. We repeat: a development that qualitatively and quantitatively is contemporary to Chavez’s movement and of which the MBR-200 (the name of Chavez’s first political group) was only a part. The paratrooper from Sabaneta makes a cynical and pragmatic reading of this reality, going from his militant abstention, during which time he was able to get the sympathy of many grass roots social movements, to the presidential candidature, and let’s not forget, with the support of the mass media and the financing from sectors of international capital. Chavez and his charismatic dominion convince many sectors that he represents the vanguard of the struggle against the binomial AD-COPEI and is a project for revolutionary transformation. The shortsightedness of the traditional parties and their own mummification accelerated their final crisis, partially masked by the media show of the events of 2002 but that sooner rather than later –as indeed happened – would end up dismantling the empty shells of such parties.

Institutionalizing rebellion

We were saying Chavez rides on a wave of popular unhappiness that in 1989 started weaving a social fabric made up of infinity of embryonic organizations, with different but growing levels of mutual articulation. One of the virtues of chavism is gathering diverse demands and incorporating them in its diffuse ideology giving the sensation that bolivarianism was a legitimate expression of the left’s and the community’s will. The next step was the establishment of an uncontestable direction, paradoxically spreading a democratic proposal of “participation” and the imposition upon its grass root basis of an agenda decided at the top, basically limited to re-legitimization at the ballot. This way the social movements already spent due to their progressive incorporation in the cumulative politico-electoral logic are mortgaging their own autonomy, and even more important, to the imposition of an authoritarian model of domination, becoming immobilized to raise their own demands. It is in the imposition of organizational models directed by a single hand and in the dismantling of citizen’s initiatives that preceded it that one finds the key to understand the current fragmentation of the social movements in Venezuela.

Whoever watches from the outside the avalanche of revolutionary propaganda financed by the Venezuelan state may well be astonished by this statement. Out of the many examples that support it let’s name one key fact. During the 90’s the management of the state’s hydrocarbon company, Pdvsa, attempted to lobby around a policy of opening up the oil trade in order to involve transnational companies in the exploration and exploitation of new wells, reversing the nationalization of 1976. The proposal, in agreement with free market policies, generated widespread and rabid resistance in many sectors, rendering it politically inapplicable. Behind the revolutionary and anti-imperialist rhetoric centered mainly on George Bush Jr., President Chavez has signed off on the largest concessions of energy resources since the decade of the 40’s with no internal opposition. For example, the largest natural gas reserve in the country, the Delta Platform, has been given in concession to Chevron, Conoco-Phillips and Statoil for periods of over 30 years. From January 1, 2006 on, mixed enterprises between the multinationals and the state’s oil company will be in force, both parts being partners in the exploration and commercial development of the reserves. As of this writing, December 2005, there had been no mobilization by any sector against this measure. Pablo Hernandez Parra, an oil expert and collaborator with the web site www.soberania.org says in one of his articles in the press: “The essence of all that’s happening in this new Macondo called Venezuela is just the fact that national and international capital headed by oil companies have donned the red beret and sash, and advancing with triumphant strides impose their privatization program under the guise of socialism for the XXI century. Everything that happens today in this country, from the oil policy to the media circus with land expropriations, is nothing more than a vulgar show between the puppets of capital: government and opposition, in order to consolidate the process of privatization of the natural resources of the nation: oil, gas, mines, land, for the exclusive benefit of big capital.”

The World Social Forum

In the last four years Venezuela has undergone a polarization induced by the top players vying for power: the old “punto fijista” bureaucracy (Fedecamaras, CTV, political parties) against the new Chavez bureaucracy that has supplanted the previous one. This antagonism, false inasmuch as real vs. pretended exercise of power, sustained and amplified by the media, has benefited those who have cast themselves as legitimate voices of the sector of Venezuelan society they claim to represent. Part of the demobilization of the social movements answers to this logic: having taken part in, and assumed blindly the political agenda imposed from above, postponing their own claims. Another chapter belongs to the expectations created by some of the social activists faced with a “progressive and left” government, spokesmen of a discourse that assumes the language of the movements but whose policies go in the opposite direction.

The former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela, John Maisto, told the press: “Chavez has to be evaluated by what he does, not by what he says”. This explains why in spite of diplomatic bruising, Venezuela makes her best deals with the most dynamic sectors of global capitalism, including the Big Brother from the North, which consumes over 60% of the energy exports leaving our ports. Here we need to clarify that international geopolitics is radically different from that of the Cold War. As long as countries keep to their roles assigned by economic globalization, they can have the local politics they like best. This is precisely the Venezuelan case not only on oil and energy matters – counting on more than $60 a barrel, the highest prices ever – but also in the most dynamic sectors of the world’s economy: banks, finances and telecommunications. Also, remember that Caracas continues to be a punctual payer of its external debt and obeys without any flack the obligations contracted with the IMF.

This is the context in which the World Social Forum will take place in these shores of the Caribbean: with demobilized local social movements and with no freedom of action, with a government that will finance it and even brags about it in advertisements and press conferences, at the beginning of a year of presidential elections and with the tribune of the WSF as the ideal starting point in the electoral campaign. The lack of operative social networks and infrastructure of citizen’s initiative, the event’s logistics: room and board, transportation, will be done by the Venezuelan army for the lesser delegations and by the Hilton hotel chain for those of higher strategic importance for the national executive, as has been the tradition in previous “revolutionary” councils in Caracas. As a movement Chavism – where the main spokespeople of the committee promoting the WSF in Caracas belong – in seven years has only recognized as players those who submit to the leadership of Hugo Chavez, therefore his declarations regarding the realization of a pluralistic forum sound like demagogic speech for the peanut gallery. In this sense, this event will deepen the current dispersal of social elements and will not, in our opinion, change anything.

Because of this and in spite of all the difficulties, of the lack of resources and infrastructure and the asymmetry, a group of us believe it’s necessary to have an event parallel to the WSF (in the same city and during the same days) to insure that energy policy discussions, concentration of power, militarism, autonomy and new social movements, the model for the development of the mine industry and the environment, alternative communications and counter-power will take place opening the possibility to spread other versions of what’s happening in Venezuela. To this we add the degradation experienced by the WSF: it being controlled by NGO’s and sanitized social groups such as ATTAC and Greenpeace, as well as the manipulation by left political parties as platforms for propaganda. Besides, the Latin American situation opens up new agendas for discussion which we feel will not be sufficiently considered at the WSF: the fact that several South American governments are “left” and how their social policies have been incapable of reducing poverty, promote structural changes, preserve the environment and safeguard the rights of minorities, since they limit themselves to capitalism with a human face. We think our event, the Alternative Social Forum (ASF) can be one of the many necessary spaces for gathering and dialog among different grass roots movements, in order to establish our claims and elaborate our agenda of events and mobilizations, without interference from anybody outside its own dynamic. Therefore we invite all activists to visit Venezuela in this fourth week of January to participate whether in the WSF or the ASF, and, most importantly, to see with their own eyes the reality of this country, to contrast versions and data and stop interpreting things listening exclusively to the propaganda manufactured by the Venezuelan state or the opposition political parties.

Facts on the paralysis of the Venezuelan social movements:

* Mobilizations in solidarity with the direct action done by the indigenous Pemon people (Gran Sabana) against the electrical transmission line to Brazil at the beginnings of 2001: None.
* The largest demonstration against the war in Iraq: Gathering at Plaza Venezuela, Caracas, 1200 people, May 25, 2003.
* Are there independent media centers, Indymedia in Venezuela? No
* Attendees at the demonstration before the Supreme Court of Justice by women’s groups protesting the release of the accused for the physical attack of Linda Loayza, October 26 2004: 80 people.
* Attendees at the national march against carbon exploitation in the state of Zulia, March 31 2005: 1000 people.
* Attendees at the demonstration called by the Bari, Yukpa and Wayuu peoples on October 11 2005 at Plaza Bolivar against carbon exploitation in the state of Zulia: 150 people.
* Mobilizations against the energy concessions by the government to multinational companies: None.
* Mobilizations against the governmental regulation of the largest forest in the country, Imataca, for mine and lumber exploitation: None.
* Mobilizations against the deplorable state of the hospitals in the country: None.
* Audiovisual productions the from a Chavist position denounce the contradictions between what the government says and what it does: One, “Our oil and other tales” (2004) by the Italians Gabrielle Muzio, Max Pugh and others, censored by the government. The TV stations Telesur, Canal 8 and Vive TV show previous productions from this audiovisual collective, but don’t show this last one.
* Any other direct action called by popular movements? On October 12, 2004 about one hundred activists from Chavist grass roots organizations gathered in front of a statue of Columbus in Plaza Venezuela to tear it down. During the convocation they expressed their desire to “take the head to Chavez” who at the time was at a function in the Teatro Teresa Carreño. Three activists were arrested for the destruction of the statue. On October 21 50 people demonstrated in front of the Court demanding the release of those arrested. A year later, according to writer Luis Britto Garcia, one of them continued in prison.

Rafael Uzcategui

El Libertario

===================
* El Libertario is a journal of an anarchist collective in Venezuela
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The more things change

Posted on January 7, 2006 by @ndy


George Orwell (Eric Blair), ‘As I Please’, Tribune, May 19, 1944

A SPECIMEN of Tribune’s correspondence:

TO THE JEW-PAID EDITOR, TRIBUNE, LONDON.
JEWS IN THE POLISH ARMY.
YOU ARE CONSTANTLY ATTACKING OUR GALLANT POLISH ALLY BECAUSE THEY KNOW HOW TO TREAT THE JEW PEST. THEY ALSO KNOW HOW TO TREAT ALL JEW-PAID EDITORS AND COMMUNIST PAPERS. WE KNOW YOU ARE IN THE PAY OF THE YIDS AND SOVIETS.
YOU ARE A FRIEND OF THE ENEMIES OF BRITAIN! THE DAY OF RECKONING IS AT HAND. BEWARE. ALL JEW PIGS WILL BE EXTERMINATED THE HITLER WAY—THE ONLY WAY TO GET RID OF THE YIDS.
PERISH JUDAH.

Typed on a Remington typewriter (postmark S.W.), and, what is to my mind an interesting detail, this is a carbon copy.

Anyone acquainted with the type will know that no assurance, no demonstration, no proof of the most solid kind would ever convince the writer of this that Tribune is not a Communist paper and not in the pay of the Soviet Government. One very curious characteristic of Fascists—I am speaking of amateur Fascists: I assume that the Gestapo are cleverer—is their failure to recognize that the parties of the Left are distinct from one another and by no means aiming at the same thing. It is always assumed that they are all one gang, whatever the outward appearances may be. In the first number of Mosley’s British Union Quarterly, which I have by me (incidentally, it contains an article by no less a person than Major Vidkun Quisling), I note that even Wyndham Lewis speaks of Stalin and Trotsky as though they were equivalent persons. Arnold Lunn, in his Spanish Rehearsal, actually seems to suggest that Trotsky started the Fourth International on Stalin’s instructions.

In just the same way, very few Communists, in my experience, will believe that the Trotskyists are not in the pay of Hitler. I have sometimes tried the experiment of pointing out that if the Trotskyists were in the pay of Hitler, or of anybody, they would occasionally have some money. But it is no use, it doesn’t register. So also with the belief in the machinations of the Jews, or the belief, widespread among Indian nationalists, that all Englishmen, of whatever political colour, are in secret conspiracy with one another. The belief in the Freemasons as a revolutionary organization is the strangest of all. In this country it would be just as reasonable to believe such a thing of the Buffaloes. Less than a generation ago, if not now, there were Catholic nuns who believed that at Masonic gatherings the Devil appeared in person, wearing full evening dress with a hole in the trousers for his tail to come through. In one form or another this kind of thing seems to attack nearly everybody, apparently answering to some obscure psychological need of our time.

Fighting Fascism in 1930s Britain
1958: Beating back Mosley in Notting Hill
The Battle of Lewisham, 1977

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Lenin On Trial

Posted on January 7, 2006 by @ndy


Almost five years ago now, Lenin was placed on trial:

L E N I N O N T R I A L:

Condemned by History, Who Dares Defend Him?

Presented by ‘NO GODS, NO MASTERS’, the Melbourne Anarchist and Autonomist Conference.

WHEN:

Sunday April 29th, [2001], 6 – 9pm.

WHERE:

Public Lecture Theatre, Old Arts Building, University of Melbourne. (400 seats, advance tickets available.)

ENTRY:

$5.00 (free to conference goers).

ENQUIRIES:

Rob Dolchek:

——

PROCEEDINGS WILL BE VIDEOTAPED BY SKA-TV, AND BROADCAST AT A LATER DATE.

——

The CHARGES:

* Counter-revolution * Tyranny * Treason * Terror *

——

V.I. Lenin: Revolutionary Genius or Social Frankenstein?

The collapse of the Soviet Union has read the verdict of history on Lenin’s megalomaniac adventurism, but the Red Left has yet to learn the lessons. Old slogans reappear in new catchphrases, and old tactics are repainted as the urgent and necessary goals of the moment. Anarchists are putting Lenin on trial, and challenge the Red Left to defend him. Four charges will be heard:

1) That Lenin was a counter-revolutionary, who attacked the revolutionary movement to build his own power.

Prosecutor: Leigh Kendall
Offences: The suppression and massacre of the Kronstadt garrison.

2) That Lenin was a terrorist, who enslaved the people with all the instruments of military and civil repression.

Prosecutor: Rob Dolchek
Offences: The supression of the Maknovschyna, and the wars against
autonomous revolutionary collectives throughout Russia.

3) That Lenin was a tyrant, who enslaved the people under state capitalism, deceitfully proclaiming it to be the dawn of Marx’s utopia.

Prosecutor: Owen Gager
Offences: Lenin’s butchery of Marxist theory of the state and
socialist economy.

4) That Lenin was a traitor, who continually undermined his own party and betrayed his own revolutionary colleagues.

Prosecutor: Leigh Riley
Offences: Lenin’s subversion of Party democracy, manipulation of the
Party program, and selective and opportunistic betrayal of his rivals and of dissidents generally.

——

PROCEDURE:

Each charge will be heard in turn, with a prosecution and a defence each speaking for 12 minutes.

All speakers will then be allowed a short response.

Questions and contributions will be taken from the floor.

The assembly will vote on Lenin’s guilt.

——

CHALLENGE:

We invite the Red Left to nominate speakers for the defence. Contact Rob Dolchek on

——

TICKETS:

Door tickets will be available, but we advise that pre-purchasing will secure a seat, and a chance to join in the fun. For more details, ring Rob or purchase tickets directly from:

BARRICADE BOOKS / INFOSHOP

——

FURTHER ARRANGEMENTS:

Will be notified as planning proceeds.
To be realistic, demand the impossible

As it turned out, only one person was daring enough to defend Lenin: Lev Lafeyette. (In fact, you can still find Lev’s defence — titled ‘Defending Lenin’s application of Marx’s theory of the state and socialist economics’ — here.) I was disappointed by the Red Left’s reaction, but not altogether surprised: they have enough difficulty defending their bankrupt ideology as it is without having to do so in front of a hostile audience. Still, it would have been fun I reckon. And it wasn’t like nobody had the time; a number of authoritarian leftists attended the conference at one point or another, including some more ‘senior’ party members.

Or maybe they just felt like Chicken That Night?

Finally, in other, related news:

News Highlights from October 23-October 30, 2000

Vladimir Lenin is on the run—wanted in Estonia for tax fraud.
The inclusion of Lenin’s name on a police wanted list on October 24 raised eyebrows in Estonia. The fugitive, however, isn’t the famed Communist revolutionary, but a namesake 34-year-old.
Estonia’s Lenin, an ethnic-Russian Estonian citizen, even shares the same middle initial as the founder of the Soviet Union, “I,” according to Estonian police spokesman Hannes Kont.
The living Vladimir I. Lenin is accused of participating in a scam with nine other suspects to set up a phony oil firm to fraudulently claim some 800,000 dollars in tax rebates from the government.
Many Estonians do advocate putting the better-known Lenin on trial posthumously for setting up the Soviet secret police system blamed for the murder and deportation of millions of people last century.
Police spokesman Kont said he couldn’t say if Lenin, the Communist revolutionary, might qualify for prosecution under Estonia’s tough crimes against humanity laws used to convict several living ex-Soviet secret police.

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Sub Motorcycle Diaries

Posted on January 6, 2006 by @ndy

Everyone knows about Che’s famous journey by motorcycle through South America. But as Paul Berman reminds us:

The cult of Ernesto Che Guevara is an episode in the moral callousness of our time. Che was a totalitarian. He achieved nothing but disaster. Many of the early leaders of the Cuban Revolution favored a democratic or democratic-socialist direction for the new Cuba. But Che was a mainstay of the hardline pro-Soviet faction, and his faction won. Che presided over the Cuban Revolution’s first firing squads. He founded Cuba’s “labor camp” system—the system that was eventually employed to incarcerate gays, dissidents, and AIDS victims. To get himself killed, and to get a lot of other people killed, was central to Che’s imagination. In the famous essay in which he issued his ringing call for “two, three, many Vietnams,” he also spoke about martyrdom and managed to compose a number of chilling phrases: “Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine. This is what our soldiers must become …”— and so on. He was killed in Bolivia in 1967, leading a guerrilla movement that had failed to enlist a single Bolivian peasant. And yet he succeeded in inspiring tens of thousands of middle class Latin-Americans to exit the universities and organize guerrilla insurgencies of their own. And these insurgencies likewise accomplished nothing, except to bring about the death of hundreds of thousands, and to set back the cause of Latin-American democracy—a tragedy on the hugest scale.

And in news just to hand:

Approaching this year’s Presidential elections, the Zapatistas take to the road on the Other Campaign with the aim of turning México upside-down.

Sub Motorcycle Diaries
by Ramor Ryan
Chiapas
January 3rd, 2006

Like a cross between Mad Max and Zorro, Subcomandante Marcos zoomed out of the remote Zapatista stronghold of La Garrucha on a black motorbike with EZLN blazed across its handlebars and his cock hanging off the back. As the gathered scrum of media scrambled to capture the dramatic exit and beginning of the new Zapatista political initiative, all they were left with was a cloud of dust and the fading squawk of the unfortunate chicken – the campaign mascot called “Penguin” for its lopsided appearance – riding pillion.

The infamous guerrilla commander, a kind of post modern Che Guevara with a flair for the theatrical, was on the road again. Somewhere outside San Cristobal, reporters caught up with him and asked was he really going to go on the campaign trail on this
motorcycle. “All the way to Tijuana” he replied.

From Sub Commander to Delegate Zero

Under the moniker Delegate Zero, Marcos launches a six month tour of all Mexico, unarmed and apparently alone, not to speak or run for office but “to listen to the simple and humble people who struggle”. This new political initiative, called the Other Campaign, is intended to influence Mexico’s July presidential election. The Zapatistas will reach out to anti-capitalist and leftist organizations across the country, creating a nation wide movement that will turn the national political agenda “upside down”.

Rejecting the suggestion that they were leaving the armed struggle and entering the political mainstream, the Zapatistas say they are conducting a campaign “from below, for below”, focusing on “a radical transformation of the Mexican political system”.

A Tumultuous Night in San Cristobal

Flight from the Zapatista lair in the Lacandon Jungle – the Desert of Solitude of colonial literature fame – was, for Marcos, brief. 80 miles away, some 15,000 Zapatistas and supporters, heralded Marcos´ arrival in San Cristobal. Amidst the ubiquitous frantic and impassioned welcome, Marcos — now joined by the other Zapatista comandantes — surfed through the multitude occupying a town center completely deserted of police and military.

From the stage, Comandante David explained the mission – “A new stage of the political struggle of the EZLN has arrived. Delegate Zero will blaze the trail and open new doors”.

Rapturous applause greeted Marcos as he took to the platform. An unlikely hero, he bowed his masked head and characteristically mumbled his words.

“I have been chosen to go out across the country to test the road and to see what dangers lie there within, and to recognize who by their face and word is down with the struggle. So that we can unite the Zapatista struggle with the struggle of the farmers and the workers of the country called Mexico.”

The Long Road of Struggle

It has been 12 years since the Zapatistas exploded onto the Mexican and world stage with the 1994 armed uprising, and 4 years since the unarmed “Zapatour” across the nation, which brought out millions of supporters, but no resolution to the conflict, as proposed legislation for indigenous autonomy failed to go through Congress. Frustrated by the lack of political progress, the Zapatistas fell into a silence and concentrated on building local autonomy in their zones of influence.

This led to the creation of 32 autonomous municipalities which refused to accept any state presence and set about organizing health and education services, as well as overseeing the implementation of justice and social welfare measures themselves, through a system of participatory democracy and assembly based council communalism.

Despite heavy repression from state and military forces, Zapatista guns remained silent during the low-intensity conflict as they undertook a path of non-violent resistance. This strategy led to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle – La Sexta (‘the Sixth’) — which spelt out their political philosophy as distinctly anti-capitalist, against parliamentary democracy and in favour of direct or participatory democracy, as exemplified by their autonomous municipalities.

La Sexta was made public during the red alert of August 2005, when some analysts predicted a EZLN return to armed struggle. Instead they announced an unarmed strategy to critique and organize against the unequal, unjust and corrupt form of democracy permeating the Mexican political system.

In answer to the ever prevalent question posed by Lenin a hundred years ago — ‘What is to be done?’, the Zapatistas subtly rephrase it — ‘What do we want to do?’. And the answer is “reorganize the nation from below and to the left”.

Sinister Elements

The reaction of the political parties and establishment has been favourable, choosing to focus on the apparent abandoning of arms instead of the political issues raised by the Other Campaign. “It’s a good thing that they have left behind the armed struggle”, said Cardinal Rivera Carrera, head of Mexico’s conservative Catholic church. The out-going ruling party PAN has also welcomed the new Zapatista initiative, but elements within the right wing, neo-liberal party, such as Congress leader Hector Larios, dismiss the campaign as “surreal and clown-like”. The center-left PRD — favourites in the poll to win the upcoming elections — are adopting a conciliatory tone despite much of Marcos’ stringent criticisms directed at the neo-liberal drift of the party.

The PRI, who ruled the country un-interrupted for 70 years, is running a close second place to the PRD in the polls. Sinister elements within the ex-dictatorship are the ones to be wary of. These are the intellectual authors of the Acteal massacre in 1997, and the assassination of the reforming Presidential candidate Luis Colosio, in 1994. Marcos has dwelt on the possibility of his own assassination as he goes about the country. “We don’t fear to die struggling. The good word has already been planted in fertile soil. This fertile soil is in the heart of all of you, and it is there that Zapatista dignity flourishes.” In a bizarre move, the PRI mayor’s office turned off the lights of the Boulevard as the Zapatista caravan swept into San Cristobal on the night of the 1st.

Town Hall Meetings

Hundreds of delegates from some of the 443 social organizations and NGOs who subscribe to the Other Campaign packed out the first series of town hall meetings held in San Cristobal on January 2nd.

Marcos, masked and flanked by an unarmed civilian bodyguard, introduced the encounter. “Its necessary to hold public meetings but not the type of the old politics where one speaks and the rest applaud.” In this sense, he proposed to differentiate the Other Campaign from the “electoral circus”.

Speaking from the floor, Fr Miguel Concha Fray Francisco de Vitoria (Human Rights Centre), explained how this new campaign was not a stunt to influence July elections, nor a parody of the official election campaigns but a renewal of nationwide grassroots political organizing. “It’s not an anti-campaign. This is another campaign that goes beyond the electoral consensus: its something focused on the medium or long term.”

The tour continues to the state of Yucatan on January 9th.
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Look at moi plois Ben, look at moi. Now, I’ve got one thing to say to you Ben…

Posted on January 6, 2006 by @ndy

Recently, Ben Weerheym (left) saw fit to drop by the Australian Anarchy Bulletin Board and leave me some words of wit & wisdom. Posting as “anti-antifa!” in a thread dedicated to discussing the upcoming benefit gig for Fightdemback and Timur Kacharava — ‘anti-antifa!’ was, incidentally, the warcry of Timur’s vicious and cowardly murderers — Weerheym, commenting on Yidcore‘s support for the gig, wrote:

[Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 3:41 am]

woohoo! a bunch of neurotic jews on stage? well I never!

have fun sucking kike dick people

and as a simple ‘Guest’:

[Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 3:42 am]

somehow I don’t see this gig happening, all the anarchist punk druggie fuckwitts would be too smacked out on the couch to get off their asses.

come on, it’s getting to mid january people!

you are a cocksucker andy

Oh well. I guess this means I can cross Ben off my Xmas list?

Honestly Ben, grow up.

Elsewhere, this sociopath has been scribbling manically in his defence:

What garbage you people speak. I am not a “white supremacist”. I know your type loves to use such buzz words but unfortunately you only prove your ignorance by doing so. I will not explain why I am not a W.S because you have shown that you are obviously not worth the time.

No Ben, you will not “explain” why you are not a fascist for the simple reason that you are one.

We on the free thinking and un-indoctrinated what you like to call the “right” have been on the receiving end of violence, threats, intimidation and general harassment from the likes of anarchist, marxist and “anti-racist” rabble in the past. The formation of the LEFTYWATCH list/group is to keep tabs on you and to make you more easily accountable in a legal sense for the actions you have proven you are capable of.

You may like to imagine that your critics think that you belong on the “right” — and ah, you’re right — but you’re neither “free thinking” nor “un-indoctrinated”. In fact, you’re a fascist who less than two years ago was convicted on nine (9) counts of wilful damage. Let’s refresh your memory, shall we?

‘Neo-Nazi duo jailed for race hate attacks’
Sydney Morning Herald
August 5, 2004

…A third man, Benjamin Weerheym, pleaded guilty to nine counts of wilful damage and received a sentence of six months and one day, which was suspended for 12 months.

The court was told Weerheym had acted as driver for both Klavins and Lemin and while his culpability was equal, his level of criminality was lower than that of his associates.

The court was told the attacks – in which posters promoting the ANM were plastered on buildings alongside racist graffiti – were premeditated and carried out in a clandestine way.

The right-wing ANM is headed by Jack van Tongeren, who spent 12 years behind bars for a spate of racially-motivated fire bombings in Perth in the 1980’s.

That’s documented fact. And what exactly were your targets? A synagogue, a kosher food store and a Chinese restaurant.

And what have you done since Ben? What lessons have you learnt? Very few, it seems. You continue to rant and rave about “the Jews”, ‘Asians’ who supposedly “have their own culture and religion, form ghettoes and do not assimilate”, the perils of homosexuality and any expression of sex, sexuality or gender that goes beyond your petit-bourgeois notions of ‘decency’ (especially those which undermine, if only symbolically, the patriarchal order). And that’s just the beginning!

Not only are you a prude, you’re also a hypocrite. According to ‘Duck Monster’, you’ve threatened to not only kill him, but, in addition, to commit arson against the homes of Perth Indymedia activists. Further, he alleges you’ve: vandalised the homes and workplaces of activists you didn’t happen to like, “endangered the lives of protected witnesses in New Zealand… posted maps to houses of anti-racist activists and hinted that they should be assaulted… and… knowingly posted details to the parents’ [homes] of more than one [other] Australian activist”. Threats which, as ‘Sue Denim’ points out, you’ve yet to either retract or to apologise for. (And no prizes for guessing why: apologising for your actions only makes sense if you admit to them in the first place.) And to accuse others of the same without evidence is pathetic.

And you know Ben, “in the past” there was this thing called WWII. (Australia took part and everything.) And you know what? Australia’s enemies used the same language: we were ‘anti-fascist’ rabble under the spell of International Jewry. And do you know how many Australian casualties there were in WWII Ben? I didn’t, so I looked it up. The official statistics read:

Battle related deaths 19,235
Non-Battle deaths 20,194
Wounded in action 23,477
Prisoners of War 28,756
Prisoner of War deaths 8,031

Of course, this list of casualties fails to include all those who re-entered civilian life deeply scarred by the horrors they’d witnessed, and the many who, along with their families, suffered greatly in ‘peace’ as well as ‘war’. To sum up: there is no indication that any evidence exists that contradicts the view widely held in activist circles that you’re anything other than a sociopath — and plenty of evidence to support it. Such evidence includes Leftywatch.

According to you: “The formation of the LEFTYWATCH list/group is to keep tabs on you [‘anarchist, marxist and “anti-racist” rabble’] and to make you more easily accountable in a legal sense for the actions you have proven you are capable of”.

And as Starshark so aptly replied: “Well, you’ve dismally failed there. There’s been so much disinfo you’ve published because you’re too fucking stupid to do some basic fact checking that no-one would believe you even if you did manage to find some legit info. I’d tell you to give up, but the truth is it’s funny waiting to see if you’re going to ‘out’ the leader of the QLD national party as a ‘lefty activist’ again.”

Oh, and have I thanked you for the photograph (right) of Der Furher Daevid J Palmer? No? Well, as for your ‘corrections’…

You write: “let me clear some things up for you (I don’t know why I am doing this but I will anyhow)”. Never a truer word was spoken. “I don’t post on Stormfront, I made about 40 or so posts during the [Cronulla] saga but besides that, have not posted there for about 1.5 years.”

Yeah well, we all know that’s not true Ben.

As for your DJ-ing: if others want neo-Nazis to entertain them at their parties, so be it. I’m sure it must be convenient for you that some people think that ‘politics’ ends at their front doorstep. It must also be of great comfort to the people whose businesses and places of worship you vandalised — as well as the various groups you regularly target for villification on your website — that their “friends” in Perth think that a convicted neo-Nazi is actually quite an entertaining person. Oh well! I guess that as long as you’re not an Australian of Jewish or Asian or indigenous descent, gay, lesbian or ‘queer’, an anarchist or leftist of any description… you’re alright.

Right?

While at the parties I have had plenty of people point at me and whisper in peoples ears and stare at me. There also have been a couple of smart arses make comments out the corner of my ear even directly to my face a couple of times to which I have ignored and not retaliated to – where is the ‘violent nazi’ you speak of here?

Dunno. But if I was to take a wild guess, I’d say hoping and praying no one calls his bluff.

“One of the great attractions of patriotism — it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what’s more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.” — Aldous Huxley

Posted in Anarchism, Anti-fascism | Leave a comment

three way fight

Posted on January 6, 2006 by @ndy

three way fight :: an insurgent blog on the struggle against the state and fascism ::

Sunday, June 12, 2005

About Us
This site is directed towards the revolutionary anti-capitalist movements that have emerged over the last several years. The rise of these movements shows the potential for radical struggle that breaks with parliamentary reformism and the remnants of the various state socialisms. However, much of this potential remains untapped. Our side is small, undeveloped and, in the recent past, mainly on the defensive. Our inability to consolidate a substantial political alternative out of the very real potentials points to the difficulty of the tasks.

The contributors to this site consider the fracturing of the global capitalist system to be a real possibility. However, there is no guarantee that political opposition to global capital will coalesce around a radical liberatory alternative. There is another opposition emerging – a reactionary neofascism that aims to overthrow the current capitalist hegemony and institute a radically different oppressive social order. This leads us to conclude that we are in a three way contest where the faultlines don’t conform to a simple “Us” and “Them”.

We have set up this site to contribute to the development of ideas for action. We need to clarify the actual political processes, not manufacture some new slogans, and work out some political strategies that aren’t just chewed over reruns of past debates and failures.

What you will find here is opinions, analysis, debate, and news covering the politics and culture of our current world and the new movement(s) we are attempting to create. Some posts may be long, in depth and part of ongoing discussions, while others may be short and to the point. What we are aiming for is the transmission of engaging and informative commentary.

Posted in Anarchism, Anti-fascism, State / Politics | Leave a comment

Skinhead Attitude

Posted on January 6, 2006 by @ndy


‘Mainstream’ (read: corporate/state-controlled) media frequently confuse skinheads with boneheads. “Bonehead” is a derogatory term used by Traditional and other Skins to denote any Skinhead who holds to racist or White Power beliefs, as well as those Neo-Nazis who have adopted the Skinhead “look” in an attempt to hijack the movement. The documentary film Skinhead Attitude is one of the few to take this distinction seriously (although the filmmaker’s use of the analogy of Cain & Abel is deeply problematic). In any case, I highly recommend this film, as it at least provides authentic skins a voice. (Oh, it also features a very sexy French skin called Karole as our ‘guide’… sigh.)

«To be a Skinhead, you must love your Doc Martens. You must love Ska-music. You must have the right attitude, the right attitude from the heart AND the brain. You must like football. You must like to dance harder than anybody else, of any subculture. And most of all, you need to be antiracist.»
Buster Bloodvessel – BAD MANNERS

Posted in Anarchism, Anti-fascism, Film, History, Music | Leave a comment