Weekly Links 27/04/08

A very busy week this week in the run up to May Day and the elections, but just enough time for a quick run around this corner of the blogosphere......

Plenty of stuff on the coming elections, particularly those in London.

Derek Wall at Another Green World pointed out that the Observer newspaper Leader this weekend, whilst ultimately backing Ken Livingstone, has favourable comment on the Mayoral campaign of Sian Berry and suggests a first preference for her!



Derek also blogged on the record of the Greens on the London Assembly.

Andy Newman at the Socialist Unity Blog has had a post critical of the SWP's Left List leaflet in London and another post praising the strategy of the Greens.

Stroppyblog highlights the News Of The World story on the far right candidate in the London Mayoral elections.

The Lenin's Tomb blog made a relatively rare excursion into environmental topics this week with observations on the implications of the latest news and predictions of Arctic thawing. He then spoils it in the comments by the usual predictable green-slagging, oh well, you can't have everything.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, Anton Vowl at Enemies of Reason blog this week reported on the strange tabloid story of the mutant squirrels and the unpleasant undertones in the reporting. Always a pleasure to end, News at Ten style, on a fluffy animal story.....

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Global Warming Primer

Today's Independent newspaper in the UK has a free booklet in its Science Made Simple series on "Global Warming" by Mark Maslin, Director of the UCL Environment Institute. Mark Maslin is a leading palaeoclimatologist and is the author of the book Global Warming : A Very Short Introduction.
The Independent also has a thoughtful editorial on the dilemma posed by the recent onshore windfarm decision in Scotland.
However, in the interests of "balance" the Independent still gives room to the tedious contrarian (from a clan of tedious far right neo-liberal contrarians) Dominic Lawson, to rant on in the same vein as his father about the global conspiracy and how everyone else are idiots, fools and dupes - and all the world needs is more markets, more competition, more red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalism. Yeah, right. We still remember Lawson senior's disastrous term under the Iron Handbag......

A Further Stern Warning On Climate Change

When the Stern report was published back in 2006, many in the Green movement pointed out that Stern's assessment of the risks erred on the conservative side, and that his suggested remedies were a combination of similarly conservative steps and fashionable "market based" solutions like Carbon Trading. It seems that, at least on the analysis of the challenge and threat, Stern has come around to a view a little closer to his critics at that time:

"We badly underestimated the degree of damages and the risks of climate change," said Lord Stern in a speech in London yesterday. "All of the links in the chain are on average worse than we thought a couple of years ago."

More from Danny Fortson in the Independent here.

Yet despite his reassessment of the situation, Stern is still in favour of the "market solutions" (free market economics and neo-liberal globalisation are a large part of the problem) and expensive nuclear technical "fix" (I have less problem with his call for more investment in developing Carbon Capture and Sequestration and renewables)

Will Stern's words have any effect this time? It is sobering to recall George Marshall's account of some of the response to the original Stern Report.

Selbourne Moves On To Peddle Reaction In The Guardian

After exposing his agenda and prejudices badly in the Spectator the other week, the apologist for authoritarian nationalism David Selbourne has moved on to the Guardian to peddle a watered-down-for-liberals version of his reactionary garbage. The differences between the two articles (no respectful quoting of Cromwell in full-dictator-mode in the Guardian!) simply illustrates Selbourne's opportunism and the nakedness of his agenda. By conflating concern for civil liberties and human rights with neo-libertarian market fetishism Selbourne dishonestly tries to discredit completely legitimate concerns by association with a powerful, but fortunately now struggling, destructive cult. Fortunately, as in the Spectator, Selbourne gets a good thrashing in the comments, for his dishonesty and incoherence as much as his sheer malevolent wrongheadedness.

Weekly Links - 06/04/08

Blogs
Jim, at Daily (Maybe) this week launched a survey of readers of his blog on the British political situation and also linked to the "Vote Match" site for the London Election.
On that subject, Liam Mac Uaid this week reported on his left group's statement on the London Mayoral election - calling for a first preference for Sian Berry, the Green candidate.
Duncan Money, one of the bravest current anti-fascist bloggers, reported this week on the latest foot shooting incident of one of the far rightists in London.
In a week that has seen day after day of barely concealed tabloid joy at stories which gave them the opportunity to play on the meanest and basest prejudices, Anton Vowl at Enemies Of Reason took a look at the pit of stench that is the current worst offending tabloid, The Express. At Obsolete, Septicisle also looked at the influence of the tabloid scum on topics such as privacy/data theft and cannabis classification.
Meanwhile, from Ireland, there is comment on Cedar Lounge Revolution blog in the wake of the Bertie Ahern resignation announcement.
From the US, Renegade Eye started a debate on Obama and US foreign policy on Monday.
Finally this week, news that the lefty blogger responsible for high traffic UK blog Lenin's Tomb is going into print.

Activism
Rising Tide called a day of action on polluting energy companies failing to address the challenge of climate change on April 1st, entitled "Fossil Fools Day".
There were a series of actions around the country, including in Nottingham, where E.On were targeted and blockaded, and in London where the Football Association were targetted due to their acceptance of prominent sponsorship by E.On.

Green Politics



Just love those Sian Berry posters!
The Green Party of The United States this week posted election news from Illinois and Wisconsin.
English Green MEP Caroline Lucas this week led a delegation to talk to EU Commissioner (Environment) Dimas about illegal logging and deforestation.

Labour News
Various interesting stories highlighted on Labourstart this week - amongst those catching my eye were a large protest against low pay and corporate greed in Slovenia, continuing industrial unrest amongst Nike workers in Vietnam, and repression of workers struggles in Egypt.

April Industrial Worker Highlights Green Unionism

The April issue of the IWW (Industrial Workers of The World) newspaper, the Industrial Worker is now out and highlights green syndicalism/unionism in a centre spread.

Headlines:

* Puerto Rican teachers defy government
* Scottish college sacks Unison steward, cuts jobs
* Maquila workers denounce NAFTA

Featured Articles:

* Metro Lighting a scab business
* Green unionism
* Review: End of America offers no alternatives, ignores unions

Part of the green spread is a Dan Jakopovich article - Dan has had articles published in British IWW publications and the online US Green discussion journal Synthesis/Regeneration.

As part of their campaign against cuts and closures in the Blood Service in Britain, the IWW are supporting a demonstration outside the National Blood Service HQ in Watford on 11th April :

All-out for big demonstration at Blood Service HQ in Watford! IU 610s, other wobblies and supporters will be visiting the offices to cause a fuss and demand that the head honchos revoke their damaging proposals, democratise the service, and are called to account for their shoddy and dangerous policies.

Bring noise-making implements, banners, placards and loads of friends!

There is also an IWW supported public meeting in Leicester this week (9th April) about the campaign to oppose closures and cuts in Adult Education in Leicester which I blogged on a while ago.

It is good to see the rapidly growing British Isles organisation (BIROC) of the IWW getting stuck in with high profile campaigning. BIROC is happy to be hosting the first IWW General Assembly to take place in Europe, in London this summer.

Something Nasty Stirs In English Politics....

There is a whiff of something unpleasant coming from a clutch of articles and op-ed pieces from people at some stage seen as influential in the two main parties in Britain this week. I say English politics as any fool knows that "British Nationalism" is almost always "English Nationalism" and frequently "White Anglo Saxon Protestant English Nationalism". I doubt whether the disturbing drift in the views of some of the political writers I am about to name will have much echo in Scotland, for example.

Tory Adviser and "thinker" David Selbourne has an odd article, given front page prominence in the main Conservative leaning magazine, The Spectator, entitled We Are Living In A State Of Emergency: And We Are Getting Angrier. At first glance the piece appears a typical, perennial Mail/Express Why-Oh-Why essay on the Country going to the dogs, but on closer inspection appears to go further down a dangerous path than writers like Phillips, Littlejohn, Glover et al have done of late. The editors of the Tory organ are obviously aware of the controversial nature of Selbourne's opinions and cover their backs by prominently calling for comment in the print edition.

Selbourne's analysis of the current malaise of Western societies, and in particular liberal democracies pursuing neo-liberal economic policies and social engineering, is certainly forthright and persuasive :

The ills of Western democracies are afflicting the most liberal societies known to history. Among other things, Britain suffers from growing inequality, housing shortage, a falling quality of health provision, rising rates of many types of crime, a failing pedagogy, agricultural impoverishment and a huge scale of ‘consumer debt’. Yet, for many, we are not free enough, being allegedly threatened by encroachments upon our personal liberties, coddled by a ‘nanny state’ and menaced by Orwellian surveillance.

However, his final call, after lambasting the main British political parties, and by implication, much of the population is for some kind of strong man, the "smack of firm government", ID cards, nationalistic corporatism etc - something that sounds like a caricature of the path that New Labour are already leading us down -

‘Up and be doing!’, said the great Protector in 1643, speaking directly to us now; ‘we must act lively, do it without distraction, neglect no means’; and, going to the heart of today’s confusions also, ‘weak counsels and weak actings undo all’.

Moreover, as the ‘free society’ disintegrates, it is a progressive not a reactionary stance to favour the restoration of the idea of nation, the values and duties of citizenship, the safeguarding of the public domain from the privateer, the elevation of the ethic of public service over private interest and, yes, ID cards too. To hold otherwise is to invite, or incite, the justly angered to find their own ways to a new political settlement in Britain — or to leave it in ever greater droves.

It is no wonder that the orthodox Thatcherites of the Spectator blanched at the thought of his article being seen as an editorial view and saw fit to invite comment on the controversial piece. Selbourne's attachment to democracy and civil liberties seems to have evaporated (if it was ever there) at the same time as his Islamophobia grew to obsessive proportions.

A slightly more liberal and watered down version of Selbourne's appeal for a powerful state appears in Matthew Parris' Times article, although he does opine that

People need governing. People need governments, strong governments. People need certainty. People need consistency. People need constraining, inspiring, harnessing and directing, and they need it done with the clarity and command that central government alone can offer.

Nevertheless, he hedges round his new found faith in authoritarian solutions with the usual Parris one nation Tory liberalism. Not so Selbourne, who seems to take pleasure in repeatedly quoting Britain's one time Military Dictator, Oliver Cromwell, implying that someone of Cromwell's "calibre" is what is required. Selbourne, unlike Parris, approaches from a new-found radical rejection of what he calls the "corner shop" mentality of the Tory party and a barely concealed urge for political and religious conflict (Selbourne has form - Muslims play the scapegoat role that Catholics played for his revolutionary hero.) It is all too much for some rightists still in thrall to those who Parris names as his fallen and now historically irrelevant "household gods" - Hayek, Sherman and Joseph - they lambast the heretic Selbourne in the comments, as do the Royalists enraged by his elevation of the regicide and the Protestant bigots upset that he does not locate the source of all the ills he describes in the decline of subscription to their superstitions and bigotry. (Of course, Selbourne has his own superstitions and bigotries) At least one commenter makes the observation that Selbourne's advocacy of ID cards, culture wars and strong state are at least a little reminiscent of a former little bald dictator of the country in which Selbourne now apparently lives.

Nevertheless, all this rightist sectariana and backbiting aside, the intersecting opinions of Parris and Selbourne are still of importance as we have just witnessed the ruling party and the establishment fawning to the rightist French President - a President who combines envy of vicious "anglo-saxon" neo-liberal economic and social policies with residual statism and that figleaf of republicanism and laicite that is used in France and the Low Countries to justify anti-muslim bigotry and the division, where possible, of the working class along racial and religious lines. It seems that neo-liberal economics, fake-enlightenment cultural supremacism and authoritarian statist politics are coming together more explicitly than previously. It is ironic that Selbourne sees himself as the ignored prophet and rebel, when the spokespeople of the establishment "left" echo his outlook.

Look no further than right-labourite witchhunter in chief Martin Bright at the New Statesman - equivalent of the Spectator for the ruling Labour Party. The magazine itself backs off from Bright's stance of recent weeks which seemed to suggest that a defeat for Ken Livingstone in London would be a good thing - this week it headlines a demolition job on the Tory Candidate Boris Johnson. However, Bright is still in there, digging his claws into his former leftist comrades like a latter-day Paul Johnson. He opines about the futile horribleness of 1968 and the anti-war movement in 2003, (much in line with the French President's views)and without a blush quotes Tariq Ali as "negative and gloomy" where Ali is in actual fact attacking people very much like Bright and his new-labourite pals. Bright meanwhile can only negatively and gloomily reflect on the fact that both 1968 and "Third Way/Liberal Interventionist" idealism both came to grief.

Now, before any misconceptions take hold, I, and this blog, resolutely defend secularism, republicanism and progress. Whilst seeing a role for localisation and mutualism - ideally seeking workers' control - I can see that in the short term public ownership of utilities and transport would be a step forward, and national and international planning would play a major part in any sustainable ecosocialist strategy. This makes opposition to the Selbournes, the Brights, the Parrises (and those who would fellow travel with them on the right of the European Green movement) even more important. The superficial attraction of some of Selbourne's analysis (e.g. his condemnation of the sell off of council housing) and the mild social democratic sound of some of what Parris has to say, the appeal to enlightenment secularism of Bright should not blind us to the fact that they are at best apologists for the authoritarian trajectory of the ruling class, and in Selbourne's case advocates of a kind of anti-democratic, xenophobic and militaristic nationalism that comes close to the "F" word that we should not overuse to avoid accusations of exaggeration and hyperbole.

The ruling class of Europe in "left" and "right" manifestations - Brown and Sarkozy - move ever closer to the nuclear-powered-corporatist-national-security state, meanwhile some of those sanctioned by the establishment media as "controversial" critics offer as alternatives a return to the 1930s or the 1650s!

The time for a real oppositional movement with a developed understanding of the crises facing modern "capitalist civilization" and the perspective of bonding together the social forces that can move us forward to the next stage is clearly upon us. The despairing views of Selbourne and Bright are evidence of the political and social decay that is fast setting in. They must be countered by a positive, internationalist and inclusive movement committed to democracy, ecosocialism and progress.

Aldermaston Demo Pics and Reports

As promised on Monday here are some pics and reports from the 50th Anniversary CND demos at Aldermaston.

Here are some pics and a report from the East Midlands contingent, posted on Indymedia.

More pictures here.

From the MSM, here is the report from the Independent, and here from the Guardian.

Survivors to return to TV

I have in the past referred to Terry Nation's memorable 1970s apocalyptic drama series Survivors as raising interesting questions and even playing a role in the growth of the green movement in Britain.

After much talk since the success of the new version of Doctor Who back in 2006, it seems that a new version of the drama is set to arrive on our screens. The new version is to be written by Adrian Hodges, responsible for bringing two of Philip Pullman's gothic dramas to life and the promising, but perhaps ultimately disappointing Primeval on ITV.

This follows the success of the CBS post-apocalyptic drama Jericho, set in small town America in the aftermath of a series of nuclear explosions in the USA. (N.B. - I have just had news that CBS have today again cancelled further episodes of Jericho)

The new Survivors has been discussed on a variety of blogs, forums and sites over the last 6 months or so. It is actually going to be a dramatisation of Terry Nation's novel rather than a remake of the three original series.

Here and here are fan sites of the original Survivors with some nice pics and links. Here is the TV Gold discussion forum for Survivors.

Finally, there is a blog on the progress of the new Survivors, which linked my own humble ruminations of last year.

Whilst we are on the subject of survival and resilience, perhaps it is not too much of a leap to link to the increasingly popular ideas of Transition Towns.

A Transition Initiative is a community that is unleashing its own latent collective genius to look Peak Oil and Climate Change squarely in the eye and to discover and implement ways to address this BIG question:

"for all those aspects of life that this community needs in order to sustain
itself and thrive, how do we significantly increase resilience (to mitigate
the effects of Peak Oil) and drastically reduce carbon emissions (to
mitigate the effects of Climate Change)?"

The resulting coordinated range of projects across all these areas of life leads to a collectively designed energy descent pathway.

The community also recognises two crucial points:

* that we used immense amounts of creativity, ingenuity and adaptability on the way up the energy upslope, and that there's no reason for us not to do the same on the downslope
* if we collectively plan and act early enough there's every likelihood that we can create a way of living that's significantly more connected, more vibrant and more in touch with our environment than the oil-addicted treadmill that we find ourselves on today.

Food for thought....

The World This Week

Three crises loom large this week.

First, the banking crisis continues with the effects of the latest developments in US banking rippling out across the world's stock markets and governments. The bargain basement buy out of Bear Stearns by JP Morgan will give both economists and conspiracy theorists plenty to speculate fruitlessly about! A view here from Martin Wolf in the establishment Financial Times early last week, and here from the left from Barry Grey on the World Socialist Website.

Second, gold and oil prices continue to rise - more here from Barry Grey and here, the more establishment view from Anthony Reuben at the BBC.

Finally, the turmoil in Tibet continues, with some interesting overflow of problems into neighbouring provinces of China. This could all be shortlived, or be something that gathers momentum to develop into something quite different.

Weekly Links - 09/03/08

Firstly, away from politics for a while, and as a Yorkshire born lad myself, may I say Glory, Glory Barnsley FC! who yesterday repeated their FA Cup "giant killing" of Liverpool by defeating the "mighty" (ho-ho)Chelsea. Barnsley's success and the promotion chasing efforts of Doncaster Rovers in League One give some much needed excitement to football in South Yorkshire, away from the trials of the two Sheffield Teams. Come on Barnsley and Donny!

Onto the blogs, and a football link there to start too - Anton at Enemies of Reason Blog has a piece on the latest despicable behaviour of the Express newspaper - this time in relation to Paul Gascoigne and his troubles.

Elsewhere, Phil from A Very Public Sociologist blog reports the death of holocaust survivor and veteran anti-fascist Leon Greenman.

Over at the Cedar Lounge Revolution there are some interesting thoughts on the return to print of the anti-postmodernist hoaxer Sokal.

Louise reports on the International Women's Day events in London this weekend over at the Socialist Unity Blog.

Septic Isle reviews the latest George Romero film, Diary of the Dead at Obsolete.

Liam MacUaid this week publishes an account of the situation with the Green Party in the USA as regards the upcoming elections, written by New York State Green Party Member Steffie Brooks.

Jack Ray has interesting reflections this week on the meaning of democracy and self determination in a world of globalised capitalism.

The GPTU blog has Derek Wall's Green Party statement on the Shelter dispute.

Green From Below this week has Guy Debord's Situationist Theses on Traffic.

Jim at Daily (Maybe) reports on the call from Green MEP Caroline Lucas for progressive opposition to the Lisbon Treaty. He also has a piece on the Bush regime and torture, and some thoughts on death. A cheery note to end on this week!

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.

The more things change.......

The treatment in the mainstream British media of the announcement regarding the contracts for building wings for the US Imperium's new refuelling aircraft (to enable their continued global reach and "full spectrum dominance") is a timely reminder of the supine and craven attitude of the establishment media. This in a week in which the "Prince Harry's Big Afghanistan Adventure" has been an excuse for blatant sycophancy and forelock tugging (regardless of Harry's obvious contempt for the media and his refreshingly unconstrained - even what people of his class might in the past have called "vulgar" - way of expressing himself in public); in a week in which this Royal story has been used to "rally the nation" around the increasingly desperate imperial project, in which Britain is allotted the role of faithful (albeit resented and condescended to) poodle.

So, to the howls of US nationalists and "labor representatives" who think their aircraft should be 100% domestically built, 20% is to be built in Europe and up pop the New Labour-lapdog bureaucrats of Unite to uncritically applaud this example of (not quite) "British Jobs For British Workers" in the carefully chosen BNP-voter-wooing-words of the Prime Minister at the Labour Conference. Of course it is excellent manipulative politics from the US side, whatever their domestic "labor representatives" may say - cement a level of support for the US imperial project through "guaranteeing" thousands of British jobs. This reveals of course, that US labor can be ignored to woo British Labour (in both senses of the word)to support of the larger goals of the US ruling class. A grand chess game with workers as pawns.

The craven media discourse and quiescent political establishment is of course not a new thing. Here are the wise words of E.P. Thompson writing in 1960, published 20 years later in Writing By Candlelight:

As the arteries of parliamentary life have hardened, the arteries of communiccation have hardened in sympathy. One process has reinforced the other. A bewildering variety of opinions must somehow be compressed into one or other pack, under an authorized party brand-image. Constitutional procedures become confused with the expedients of voluntary institutions. The breach of party or trade union discipline becomes confused with a breach of law - and may indeed entail effective loss of political rights. Outraged morality and outraged orthodoxy adopt the same tone of reproof to the 'proscribed' organization, the 'unofficial' striker, 'extra marital' relations, and actual illegality.

In such a climate, the possibility of propagating an alternative ("unauthorized") diagnosis of our social problems becomes more remote. And it is made doubly remote by the conformity of those media which - in classic liberal theory - should have been the first to resist the insolent encroachments of party and Parliament upon the political rights of the citizen. It is true that a world of discrete political discourse continues, in which all questions are open and the ailments of mass society are itemized. But it is a world of small circulation journals, student societies, enterprising publishers, 'intellectuals'.
BBC and ITV, quality and popular press - these inhabit the world of 'responsible', practical politics. Of course - for it is a world which they have created.

It is not only the number of 'responsible' views which are determined by the media. They also determine, to great degree, the questions which it is possible to have views about, and the form in which these questions arise. An issue which arises outside the media - let us say the clause four controversy in the Labour Party - is taken up, shaped and altered out of recognition when it is admitted to their vast distorting hall. Some voices are magnified, others silenced; some issues seized upon, others dismissed; the view of Mr Gaitskell or Mr Crosland may be reported in extenso ; other views may be personalized, caricatured, or dramatized, not as arguments, but simply as a Row.

p4-5 Writing by Candlelight, "The Segregation of Dissent", Merlin Press, London, 1980.

Green Party Spring Conference Updates

The Green Party of England and Wales Spring Conference is taking place in Reading until Sunday. Here are some links for updates -

The Green Party Health spokesperson is today responding to the Darzi Review here.

Caroline Lucas MEP will be giving her keynote speech today - previewed here.

On the Fringe today Martin Bell is addressing a meeting on integrity in public life.

A range of my fellow Green bloggers are blogging from the conference at the Red Pepper Green Party Conference group blog - Green Despatches.

A series of discussion documents from voices inside and outside the party are to be found at Caucus which seems a very positive and outward looking development. Top marks to Jim and those who have assisted him with that project.

Weekly Links - 27/01/08

Space

The hot news of the week on space related topics is the probable falling to earth of a US spy satellite reportedly the "size of a bus" in February or March.

Green Politics

Green Party of England and Wales MEP Caroline Lucas has contributed a piece to a book that was published a few days ago called "Do Good Lives Have To Cost The Earth?" the collection of essays is edited by Andrew Simms of the New Economics Foundation and Joe Smith of the Open University.

Derek Wall is spreading the green message on the Socialist Unity Blog and this week posted a downbeat but realistic assessment of the US Presidential Election situation and the evolution of the Green challenge by Todd Chretien who has stood in California for the Senate as a Green candidate.

Industrial

Interesting industrial stories on Labourstart this week include the possible end of the honeymoon period enjoyed by the new Australian Government as regards the unions, increasing friction between public sector unions and government in Germany, and Remploy staff in Liverpool voting for strike action.
One green union story is the exposure of the "green" hypocrisy of currently-job-exporting Cadburys.

Blogs

A very good post over at Climate and Capitalism this week, where Ian Angus has posted the text of his keynote speech at “Smells Like Green Spirit,” a conference sponsored by the University of British Columbia Student Environment Centre, on January 19, 2008. The piece is entitled "How To Avoid Action On Climate Change" and though it deals with the Canadian government, the behaviour it describes is familiar on this side of the Atlantic as well.

Jack Ray lays into the odious Nick Cohen here over the latest red-baiting around the London Mayoral election. The Sunday Times returned to the attack on the Mayor this weekend, dragging in CND, and Andy at Socialist Unity Blog published CND's response.

Jim at The Daily (Maybe)reports this week on Peter Tatchell ambushing the limo of the Dictator of Pakistan, Musharraff; and on the more regrettable story that the Countryside Alliance won the Channel 4 Political Awards.

And finally....as they say on the recently returned News at Ten a cheery little look at the Black Death from Peter at Earthquake Cove.

Weekly Links - 13/01/08

First up this week, the energy debate has been high on the agenda with the British Government's nuclear announcement. After the article I linked in my Thursday blog, Peter Tatchell posted another piece on the Guardian Comment Is Free site about the renewable options. My prediction that the Labourite apologists and neo-liberal drones would try to blame the coming energy crisis on the Greens has come true already, with this ridiculous outburst from the increasingly puffed up and hysterical Nick Cohen. Yes there is a problem with middle class greenery, Nick - but left greens will take no lessons from someone who now spends his time sucking up to the neo-liberal and neo-conservative projects - no middle class beardies amongst Nick's new friends, mind, just bona-fide members of the ruling class and their oily apologists.

Various blogging reactions to the Peter Hain affair from Jack Ray, (Practically Insurgent), Louise at Socialist Unity Blog, and Septic Isle (Obsolete).
Dave Osler puts a different perspective on it by republishing a 1986 article by Hain from the days when he laughably (it is an even sicker joke today) called himself a "libertarian socialist".

Elsewhere this week the Anglo-Irish blog Organized Rage has two interesting stories - the first that Alliance For Green Socialism member Tony Greenstein has forced an apology out of revolting Blairite journalist David Aaronovitch (Kept watch on here). Secondly that CIA-defector, socialist and writer Philip Agee has passed away.

Bali - Despite Concessions, World Surrenders to Bush Regime?

European politicians are doing their best to spin the shoddy "compromise" (for which read capitulation) agreement at Bali as a great global step forward and a victory for common sense. The supine BBC (Brown Broadcasting Corporation?) plays ball by presenting the US "U turn" on what was needed from and for developing countries as the main story. This is presented as the pay-off for kicking any binding targets for the US itself at least two years into the future (presumably in the faint hope of awaiting the election of an administration more amenable to actually doing anything that begins to have an impact on the massive problem)
So now we have another two years of negotiation leading up to the UN Climate Conference of 2009 in Denmark, when all the best scientific opinion tells us drastic action is needed now. This is a significant victory for the ruling class of the US and its Canadian and Japanese partners in crime.
Of course, moves to halt deforestation, and to transfer cleaner and renewable technologies to developing countries are very welcome and desperately needed, but without significant action by the big emitters in the short term these moves are not enough.
At least the French are being a little less triumphalist about the deal -

France's Deputy Ecology Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet acknowledged the deal amounted to far less than the EU had wanted.

But, she told the AFP news agency: "The public can understand that we brought the United States into the negotiations.

"It's a framework that is quite weak but which still moves forward."

Much of the agreement again rests on market mechanisms such as carbon trading which have been so weak in achieving results so far and in some cases amount to a license to pollute based on speculative assessments of what might have happened without the trade.

Friends of The Earth International response here.

Greenpeace International report here.

Energy debate in MSM

With various news stories around oil, coal, gas and renewables and the continuing Bali conference some UK mainstream media (MSM) outlets are commenting around these issues.
One of the stories is about BP (Beyond Petroleum? I don't think so!) investing £1.5 billion towards the extraction of oil from Canadian tar sands. This is a very expensive procedure in both financial and energy terms. This was reported in yesterday's Independent.

Mike Hudema, the climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace in Canada, told The Independent: "BP has done a very good job in recent years of promoting its green objectives. By jumping into tar sands extraction it is taking part in the biggest global warming crime ever seen and BP's green sheen is gone.

"It takes about 29kg of CO2 to produce a barrel of oil conventionally. That figure can be as much 125kg for tar sands oil. It also has the potential to kill off or damage the vast forest wilderness, greater than the size of England and Wales, which forms part of the world's biggest carbon sinks. For BP to be involved in this trade not only flies in the face of their rhetoric but in the era of climate change it should not be being developed at all. You cannot call yourself 'Beyond Petroleum' and involve yourself in tar sands extraction." Mr Hudema said Greenpeace was planning a direct action campaign against BP, which could disrupt its activities as its starts construction work in Alberta next year.

Mike Hudema's Independent article is here. The paper's editorial referenced the story in its' editorial yesterday.

The Guardian picked up on the story today and linked it to the news that Shell are selling off parts of their renewables operations in developing countries.

The Guardian also subjects the government wind energy announcement to scrutiny. There is growing scepticism about the UK govt's ability to deliver on this pledge.

The paper hosts a version of much of what George Monbiot said at the Climate Change rally on Saturday, where he says that fossil fuels should be left in the ground, but that the peak oil situation will mean that they are more attractive to investment and resources that are ever more difficult and costly to extract will be brought to market and add to the emissions problem.

The Guardian's editorial makes various sensible points about the need to clean up existing emissions and develop Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) as quickly as possible (If it can be - and as Monbiot gloomily comments - this is a big if) for both developed world use and for those engaged in massive coal-fired power building programmes as in China.

These are all difficult and complicated questions, but a way must be worked through, and workers' organisations should both have an input and engage in open minded debate on the issues. As such the Trade Union Climate Change Conference organised for February 22nd at the University of London Union by the Campaign Against Climate Change could be important, and it would be good to see open minded involvement from mining and energy union members. The campaign have made it clear that they have no fixed position on the energy path for Britain, whilst being fairly clear that renewables should play as large a part as possible.

Education : Fighting The Neo-Liberal Assault

Workers in France are today stepping up their attempts to defend themselves against the gathering neo-liberal assault of Sarko, whose attacks are being given the full support of the right-wing media apparatus. Students are already in struggle, along with railworkers, joined today by other public sector workers and teachers. Sarkozy's attack on pension rights and the all-too familiar attempts by the media to set private sector workers against public sector ("Why can't they have as crap conditions as we have?")are just the latest stage in the global neo-liberal assault as manifested in Europe.

Meanwhile in Britain the policy auction, whereby the two main neo-liberal parties try to outbid each other in their attempts to break up and privatise the remaining elements of what could be democratically controlled and fairly provided public services continue. The Tories have announced their latest wheeze - a variation on their trojan-horse mutualism/co-operativism that I commented on previously. The Tories want to give "parents" (no prizes for guessing what sort of parents!) the right to set up their own independent schools - funded by the tax payer. New Labour, for their part are quite miffed at this, being as it is an attempt to upstage their own corporatist break-up policy - City Academies - whereby religious evangelicals of various stripes and entrepeneurial "evangelicals" for free market dogma are given the right to get their sticky fingers into local education.

The net effect is of course the same - to impoverish and deprive the remaining locally controlled schools and prepare the way for the final destruction of any potential for locally controlled and fairly resourced education. A small example of this process is the policy on exclusions - City Academies are allowed to break free of the penalties that normal schools now suffer for expelling disruptive pupils and are allowed to expel far more frequently. And where do these disruptive pupils end up? Result - a downward spriral, hardly a "level playing field". Education should not be a field for commercial or religious exploitation or competition, but a field of common endeavour where the interests of young people and their communities should come first.

In a way we should be grateful that this is all so blatant. Both Tories and Labour are now acting quite blatantly in class interests - the interests of the ruling class and their ideological and philosophical props in the churches and "entrepeneurial" communities. The French are showing at least part of the way it can be fought - through militant workplace organisation and action. We should not be afraid to put forward our own demands - we are not in the position of simply defending the current inadequately resourced and over-examined education system in the UK. Education should become more democratic and accountable - with the involvement not of religious zealots, big business and empowered selfish elements of the middle classes - but of pupils, teachers and the whole local community.

For those in East Anglia there might be chance to look at these issues at a meeting organised by Norwich and District Trades Council at 7.30 on Tuesday November 27th. They have Bill Greenshields, Vice President of the teachers union, the NUT, speaking on "The Future of State Education" at the British Legion Club, Aylsham Road, Norwich NR3 2HF.

Elsewhere the opportunity to organise for a more general fightback against neo-liberalism is given by the first Midlands meeting of the new National Shop Stewards Network. (NSSN) This is from 1.30 to 5.30pm on Saturday, November 24th at the Gallery Room, Birmingham and Midlands Institute, Margaret Street, Birmingham 3. (The venue is 10 minutes from Snow Hill and New St Stations.)

Meanwhile, the IWW (Industrial Workers Of The World) are beginning to organise militants in the eduction sector in the UK through their IU 620 organising efforts. They have set up a UK web page here.

Three Interesting Comment Pieces

Three interesting pieces have just gone up on the Guardian's Comment is Free pages.

First, George Monbiot launches an attack on Matt Ridley and right-libertarian politics here.

Secondly Peter Tatchell talks about the film Rendition here.

Finally, here is Graham Smith of Republic reflecting on the curtailment of freedoms for Republicans in Spain and asks if similar things are likely here.