A time to get angry......

There are plenty of reasons to be angry today for anyone concerned for democracy in Britain, for anyone who thinks that broadly defined class interests are more real and important than racial and cultural differences that are used to divide us, for anyone concerned about human rights and peace in the Middle East, for anyone who would like to see the promising shoots of change and challenge to global neo-liberalism in South and Central America blossom and grow rather than be drowned in blood.

Last night saw the New Labour drones and Euro-nationalist utopians of the Lib Dems combine to defeat the (for once) principled stance of the Tories and those in the Labour and Lib Dem parliamentary parties who have any respect for public opinion or democratic accountability. Recent polls show 80% plus favour a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty (the rebadged European Constitution) and a large campaign has been fighting to get such a referendum. "Stalin-Bean" Brown whipped his troops into line and the increasingly dislikeable rightist liberal leader Clegg attempted to whip his, but failed (though only a quarter of Lib Dem MPs showed any conscience). So for now, you will not get a say on the Treaty, which countless statements of less duplicitous European pro-constiturion politicians say is virtually indistinguishable in effect to the constitutional treaty (the British pro-treaty politicians are of course playing with words in a pedantic manner when they say it is "not a constitution") Another nail in the coffin of any respect that the British people had for what (if I remember correctly) Morris in News From Nowhere made into the "Westminster Dunghill". And just to rub it in, further announcements this morning about the roll out of National Identity Cards.

The BBC is running a malevolent campaign around the "forgotten White Working Class". The same BBC whose general line (from its' liberal establishment groupthink ivory tower) for many years has been that the working class in Britain either does not exist, is irrelevant or backward. Their programmes seem to be designed to further cement division. Anyone with an ounce of political awareness on the left (the real left, not the social/cultural liberals more concerned with defending the legacy of Shirley Williams and Roy Jenkins than changing the power structure or uniting a force capable of resisting rampant, corrosive, destructive neo-liberalism) knows that the moment you locate your identity around race rather than class you are lost in a morass of division and resentments. We only have to look at the history of "progressive" politics in the United States for proof of this - even at its most inclusive and liberating moments (the civil rights movement) the lack of a specific orientation on power and structures in society sowed the seeds for the movement's decline into a mess of competing special interests and petty rivalries. And the threat to the establishment posed by those who began to break out of the narrow mould of racial/social liberal struggle was shown by the vicious and documented way in which the US state and state security forces dealt with those who began to take a more dangerous stance (Malcolm X, Cointelpro etc etc.)

Meanwhile, Gaza burns and starves, and the tanks face off over the borders of South America whilst the Oil Company vultures circle.

As I say, now is the time to get angry. But it is also the time to try and put together some left unity, whilst there is still time.
They will always try and divide and rule, be we must unite and fight back.