tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26250182782967475652024-03-05T12:49:51.165-08:00A FURNESS REDA British communist working for peace and socialism in south CumbriaUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger51125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-87435899833704584972013-05-05T10:08:00.000-07:002013-05-05T10:08:18.672-07:00MAY DAY IN FURNESS 2013<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>WORKERS' MAY DAY CELEBRATIONS, BARROW 2013</b></span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSuOduOLcBNxkFcWtb6707DnjT-0HzWmQtfoSeZqJ2-Vqzc_StZmC1245FLWr8OL7e0dNXeVy_xO4eLQ6pCs-KBkGgiNXUmAR2k1gTubdHuWrJCikp20NJ3Iam7aNKGqoeUoJMvdRjBTw/s1600/SAM_0446.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSuOduOLcBNxkFcWtb6707DnjT-0HzWmQtfoSeZqJ2-Vqzc_StZmC1245FLWr8OL7e0dNXeVy_xO4eLQ6pCs-KBkGgiNXUmAR2k1gTubdHuWrJCikp20NJ3Iam7aNKGqoeUoJMvdRjBTw/s320/SAM_0446.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">BARROW TOWN HALL, 1ST MAY</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Just like last year and the twentyfive years before it, there were no May Day celebrations of any kind</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>in Barrow or at any other location in Furness on the first of May or on Saturday 4th. The local labour movement (Labour Party, trade unions, and Barrow and Furness Trades Union Council) are not interested. It is worth noting that May Day events were soon abandoned following the collapse of Barrow and South Lakes Communist Party. The last time I made mention of what was once some local May Day activity many years ago was in the posting of 14 May 2011.</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Although there is no sign of worker solidarity or class consciousness anywhere in Furness I am encouraged by the well-supported rallies in numerous towns and cities throughout Britain. Some unions are to assess the likely response to a call for a General Strike and the leader of the Unite union, Len McCluskey, has indicated his belief that civil disobedience may be necessary if working people are to defend the Welfare State and the National Health Service but this might be wishful thinking on his part.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the absence of any celebration I will be content with reproducing a poem, a copy of which was published in the 1st May edition of the Morning Star.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>GATHERING</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I woke in this city one fine May Day morning</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I saw a small crowd, like a gathering stream,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And though they were only a few hundred strong,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They were singing old songs I'd not heard for so long</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That it seemed I was still in a dream.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'O where are you going this fine May Day morning?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And what are these flags that you carry so bright?"</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"We are marching," they said, "in the steps of the dead,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of all those who have marched under banners of red,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So that we may continue their fight."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"But why are you angry this fine May Day morning,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When the Summer is wearing its holiday hat?"</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"We are angry," they said, "that the people must pay</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With their jobs and their homes for the world's disarray</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While the rich and the powerful grow fat."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"But what can you do on this fine May Day morning?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When their lies are so many and you are so few?"</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Our strength," they replied, "is not measured in numbers,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For our songs have awoken the dead form their slumbers."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And I listened and knew it was true.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For I heard in the crowd this fine May Day morning</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The voices of those who had marched here before:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the fight for the Charter, for Land and for Bread,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the Eight Hour Day, for the Haymarket dead,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the victims of hunger and war;</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They were marching from Sedgemoor, from Newport and Burford,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They came from Soweto and Moscow and Spain,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And they carried their flags from Hanoi and Havana</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Till it seemed the city was one scarlet banner</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And it shone like a glittering plain.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And I watched as they marched on this fine May Day morning,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like a field full of folk by the banks of the Tyne,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As strong as a river that reaches the sea,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As old as the rings in a blossoming tree,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And I saw that their banners were mine.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Andy Croft, 2009</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I find clever poetry such as this to be quite uplifting, especially when I become jaded following months of casting pearls before swine. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is highly likely that I will be taken to task by some comrades for that last comment and it would never appear in an official Party document but this isn't a Communist Party blog, it is the personal blog of a communist local activist struggling up to his waist in crap, who has been doing so (in Furness) for the past 32 years, and who is still not prepared to lie down.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whilst the working class remains apathetic in the face of devastating cuts, wage feezes, price rises, and job losses the boss class of millionaires will be encouraged to dish out more punishing measures until there won't be any need for the working class to 'rise up' because there won't be anything left worth defending or fighting for. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b> </b></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-17837196199489089702013-03-09T08:54:00.001-08:002013-05-19T14:28:25.330-07:00MATERNITY UNIT CAMPAIGN<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuTJfkbFTXjvSlMtuY29rmk7hNnMNeDHxUc9Isnz5_R16TPJHV7D_cZNmB9CV-8Q8UtkSdYCfzulARWnc7nfUg9MDzO4J9mK8EWRU3t9YLQnZI6nkipNN59zvCNg7vMrSpSCZrBGJCgkc/s1600/SAM_0776.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuTJfkbFTXjvSlMtuY29rmk7hNnMNeDHxUc9Isnz5_R16TPJHV7D_cZNmB9CV-8Q8UtkSdYCfzulARWnc7nfUg9MDzO4J9mK8EWRU3t9YLQnZI6nkipNN59zvCNg7vMrSpSCZrBGJCgkc/s320/SAM_0776.JPG" width="187" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Woodcock, MP and Mandy</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>EXCELLENT CAMPAIGN TO DEFEND STATUS OF LOCAL MATERNITY UNIT</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>It is really refreshing to be able to report on yet another local event resulting in a positive outcome instead of the apathy and negativity usually found in this region. Mandy Telford, wife of our MP John Woodcock, headed a very well organised campaign against a threat to downgrade the maternity unit at FGH (Furness General Hospital), part of the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust (UHMBT) </b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 'Thousand Voices' campaign to save the FGH maternity unit was efficiently conducted and very well funded with support by the unions GMB and Unison together with the Labour Party. Full colour glossy leaflets - doubling as posters - were posted throughout the town and use was made of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Leaflets were also handed out in the town centre from a garden 'gazeebo' at which locals could be filmed making their comments and these can be viewed at - <b>www.YouTube.com/SaveFGHMaternity </b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Constituents can sign the local petition at: <b>epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/35936</b> and record a video message supporting the campaign and emailing this to: <b>SaveFGHMaternity@gmail.com</b> 'Thousand Voices' can be contacted by phone at : </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>0797 407 8814</b> and updates are posted on Facebook: <b>Save FGH Maternity Unit</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">There was an outstanding turnout of around 400 people at the Public Meeting held at the Forum from 6.00 until 7.30pm on Thursday 8th March and Mandy Telford demonstrated a high level of skill in chairing the meeting (indeed, she could teach 'Question Time' chairman Dimbleby a thing or two!) during which many people were able to air their concerns and put questions to <b>Jackie Daniel</b>, (UHMBT chief executive officer), <b>Dr George Nasmyth</b> (Trust medical director), <b>Dr Geoff Jolliffe</b> (lead commissioning GP for Furness) and <b>John Woodcock</b> (<b>MP</b> for Barrow and Furness). There was a good atmosphere throughout the meeting and everyone left the event satisfied that all had been given a fair opportunity to air their views on not only the status of the maternity unit but on other hospital related matters such as threatened ward closures and plans to create 'patient environmental assistants' i.e. porters will now also be required to engage in Terminal Cleans (deep cleaning operations of specific areas including any where there have been particular problems such as the highly infectious and deadly MRSA) </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000;">(I'll answer the Evening Mail comment on this matter in the next posting. - Muddz) </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;"> Strangely, chief executive Jackie Daniel claimed to have no knowledge of Patient Environmental Assistants but assured me she would discuss this with me 'on line'......? Perhaps she means I must contact her so I'll try to do so early next week.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">Last year </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">Furness Against the Cuts</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;"> organised a public meeting at the Forum to defend the National Health Service and the Welfare State with guest speaker Dr David Wrigley, a GP based in Carnforth who is also a national executive council member of the British Medical Association and leading voice in the national Keep Our NHS Public campaign. It attracted an audience of just over twenty persons. Hire of the small Studio Theatre for 2 hours was £40, hire of the 'roving' microphone was £16 and black and white photocopied leaflets cost £10 and these costs had to be met by FAC (which was not a fund-raising organisation) through voluntary contribution by those attending the meeting and a generous donation. And this was all done by just three persons with no physical or financial assistance from any other source whatsoever. No local media interest, certainly no national TV crews, and no union interest either. Compared with the resources made available to the Thousand Voices campaign, FAC'c effort was of Cinderella status. Jealous? No. Envious? Yes, a little but this was easily offset by the pleasure of observing the success of the Thousand Voices initiative.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is, of course a fundamental difference between the FAC campaign and that of the Thousand Voices: Thousand Voices is, essentially, a single issue campaign that could be broadened in the future but the FAC campaign was broad-based, embracing the cuts being made against jobs, benefits, care provision, pensions, privatisation of the courts, prisons and probation services, depletion of fundamental public services, reduction in social housing and inability of councils to continue supporting the voluntary sector - as well as resisting government plans to sell off our National Health Service. It also campaigned against rising living costs and 'wage freezes', against escalating gas and electricity bills, against the mega-bonuses of the bankers and financiers who had created the economic mess and against wars and the further development of nuclear weapons. At the same time, however, FAC promoted the People's Charter for Change, a charter that had been fully endorsed by delegates attending not one but <i><u>two</u></i> national conferences of the Trades Union Congress but local unions and Trades Union Council remained indifferent. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Furness Against the Cuts is now dormant but can still be viewed at <b> <a href="http://furnessagainstthecuts.blogspot.com/">http://furnessagainstthecuts.blogspot.com</a> </b></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-65218199670842856552013-02-27T15:19:00.000-08:002013-03-02T13:34:09.501-08:00DEDICATION AND DETERMINATION WON THE DAY<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Epy9xT3Q_R08bpRHOIAJhaDAYojPBW1uaR56PZkhQFENLLsLlg_qlqwXZyUmMZhBbq_pAiT1MvT0zgTZliDhQVJk4th-uvrtL4TNXROORqt0OOrFUHzIHUbETwuK53PwKk2x22vB1Hc/s1600/SAM_0442.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Epy9xT3Q_R08bpRHOIAJhaDAYojPBW1uaR56PZkhQFENLLsLlg_qlqwXZyUmMZhBbq_pAiT1MvT0zgTZliDhQVJk4th-uvrtL4TNXROORqt0OOrFUHzIHUbETwuK53PwKk2x22vB1Hc/s320/SAM_0442.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anti-nuke dump campaigners at Barrow, September 2011</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>SOMETIMES, PEOPLE REALLY ARE PUT BEFORE PROFITS</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The plan to house the waste site in Cumbria was rejected by the County Council last month and so Baroness Verma has confirmed the county is no longer an option and announced work must begin on identifying an alternative UK site.</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For many years the campaign against the shipment, processing and storage of highly irradiated nuclear waste was conducted by CORE (Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment) formerly </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">BAG (Barrow Action Group).</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="color: #660000;">(I never discovered why my alternative suggestion for BAG - Barrow Anti-Nuclear Group - BANG! - was rejected in those earlier days. Too flippant, maybe? Anyway, once it was agreed to expand the action beyond Barrow and include the whole of Cumbria whoever thought up CORE did a great job. Muddz) </i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">There isn't space here to describe the work and campaigns of CORE but Martin Forwood and Jean McSorely deserve special mention as they were the leading lights of the organisation. Jean achieved international recognition for her work and lived for some time in Japan. Martin stayed in Cumbria and remains spokesperson for CORE to this day although the group seems to have become much depleted </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000;">(no pun intended! Muddz)</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;"> in recent years. Fortunately, Radiation Free Lakeland together with supporters of Friends of the Earth stepped in to take the reins. The photograph shows wildlife artist and RFL member, Marianne Birkby,(centre), with two fellow campaigners outside Barrow Town Hall having delivered their protest before a meeting of Cumbria County Council.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">I remember attending a Cumbria Joint TUC meeting at Whitehaven during the 1980s when an expansion of the irradiated waste facility at the Sellafield site had been proposed and was met with resistence by trade unionists. Ray Buckton, a senior national officer - probably General Secretary - of the ASLEF union became most agitated when, despite his cajoling and pleading for the proposal to be adopted, members still rejected the idea. Then, as it is commonly said, he 'lost his rag'. He ranted and he raged. It was, he claimed, a brilliant idea because trade unionist would be involved so safe handling and procedures would be guaranteed. Sadly, some members changed their minds but I suspect this had more to do with preventing Buckton from having a seizure than actually agreeing with him.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">So what's the situation at the moment? Moves to have the council decision overturned are now afoot. </span><b style="color: #20124d;">Councillor Anne Burns</b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;"> (pro-dump) "The waste is already at the site, it's deteriorating unless we do something about it."; </span><b style="color: #20124d;">Councillor Oliver Pearson</b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;"> (pro-dump) "If we shut the door on this, they (the government) may shut the door on us." </span><i style="color: #660000;">(That's blackmail, Oliver! Muddz) </i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;"><b>Steve Nicholson, </b>Sellafield Workers Campaign, "Fifty thousand people in my community depend on the nuclear industry."; <b>Councillor Tim Knowles</b> (pro-dump) "It is inherently uncertain whether a suitable site can be found. Is it worth more to reduce doing that uncertainty?"</span><i style="color: #660000;"> (A nice example of mangled English! Muddz) </i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;"><b>T. Farrer,</b> in letter to Westmorland Gazette "Why was it that only ten councillors - the Cabinet - made the decision? Surely a matter of this magnitude should have been debated in full council....Once again it seems that the 'green' lobby with its anti-nuclear stance is blocking progress." <b> Kevin Coyne</b>, Unite union national officer "This is an extremely short-sighted decision by the Cumbria councils that voted no." </span><i style="color: #660000;">(Shades of Ray Buckton? Muddz.) </i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">The bureaucratic structure of local government administration involving several borough councils here in Cumbria can create complications. For example, Copeland Borough Council has voted to remain within the process (of searching for a suitable Cumbrian site for nuclear waste storage) and Copeland's MP, Jamie Reed, could now pressure the government to have the repository built within his district. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">Then, of course, we have the 'Political Thespians' dramatically hamming up all too expected performances in enacting scenes of subterfuge and 'outrageous fortune' </span><i style="color: #660000;">(Apologies to Bill the Bard. Muddz) </i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">County Councillor conspirators claim Council Leader, Eddie Martin, had threatened to quit unless fellow Tories backed him in the vote (against the repository) </span><i style="color: #660000;">(Friends, councillors, Cumbrians! I come to bury the repository, not to praise it! Muddz) </i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;"> and this is denied by Eddie Martin who then announced he would not, in any case, be standing for re-election in May </span><i style="color: #660000;">(Touche! Muddz) </i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">Now, get this for a great closure by Eddie Martin: "There was no one single reason for rejecting. It was a cumulative effect. We were left with no other choice. This particular issue is not Copeland specific. It affects the whole of Cumbria and my responsibility is to the people of Cumbria, not Westminster. I'm not beholden to Westminster or David Cameron. The people of Cumbria elected me, not David Cameron." </span><i style="color: #660000;"> </i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000;"><i>(Bravo, Councillor Eddie Martin! Although you are a Tory, you get a standing ovation from this Communist. As for the Labour specimens who would consign Cumbria to the nuclear dustbin in perpetuity it's a case of 'hold the nose and yank on the lavatory chain' Muddz)</i></span></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-17677052932103984012013-02-24T12:26:00.003-08:002013-02-27T09:23:28.109-08:00SOMETHING POSITIVE AT LAST<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-jfcN5Iuzzr_Xb0ABREfIH43AUWZHgcQ_0StcWTC-GWeunwfY0hfDBiMR0eHhaa3Tm_RP38clQcin0NQoxolV0Rb9dt8zPA8VGp612IeTtgCW-eHa9qdia9KZD9yrQi7vPeRCIPNLuG0/s1600/SAM_0766.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-jfcN5Iuzzr_Xb0ABREfIH43AUWZHgcQ_0StcWTC-GWeunwfY0hfDBiMR0eHhaa3Tm_RP38clQcin0NQoxolV0Rb9dt8zPA8VGp612IeTtgCW-eHa9qdia9KZD9yrQi7vPeRCIPNLuG0/s320/SAM_0766.JPG" width="297" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anti-dump celebrations may be somewhat premature<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>COUNCIL CABINET VOTE WITHDRAWS COUNTY FROM SELECTION PROCESS</b></span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Despite a huge financial outlay in terms of newspaper advertising, hiring halls for public meetings, prime-time slots on radio and TV, glossy brochures with full-colour illustrations and distribution of literature by those having a vested interest in a vast underground facility for the storage of high level irradiated nuclear waste beneath Cumbria the only thing to be dumped was their ambition.</b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, most people can be forgiven for believing that this is the end of the matter because democratically elected councillors had weighed up the results of the numerous public consultations and lobbying by both those for and against the proposal and agreed the weight of local opinion was firmly on the side of rejection. In the words of Council Leader, Eddie Martin, "I have to ask myself why it is no other community in the whole of England or Wales has ever wanted to host a geological disposal facility, even given that there are 36 placesin the UK that produce nuclear waste. I am just not convinced that Cumbria is the place to even begin looking for a geological disposal facility." </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Three councillors voted for continuing the planning process and seven voted against but it was not long before there was a clamour of protest against that decision from the usual suspects .......the 'pro-nuke' tribe comprising big money interests such as developers and the construction industry, local trade unions whose only interest is 'jobs' (irrespective of consequences for the environment and the health of the local population) and 'populist' politicians who will milk the 'positive economic' aspects for all they are worth. Then, of course, there is the government that only wants to bury this highly toxic material as quickly and with as little fuss as possible. None of these will accept their plans have been thwarted by a bunch of local peasants and, in the weeks and months to come, I can imagine great pressure will be brought to bear upon those councillors who had the audacity to bow to the will of the people and morality.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Consider for a moment the situation in Barrow, just a few miles south of the proposed dump site - 'work' is the only thing that matters which is why Barrow imports irradiated nuclear waste, why nuclear submarines are built here and why it is likely that a new fleet of submersible launch platforms for American Trident weapons of mass destruction will also be constructed. "Such work is good for the town because it boosts the local economy and will allow the town to grow." parrot the pro-nuke lobby. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If this really is the case in the past why has Barrow got a declining population, high unemployment, areas of deprivation and shops and businesses closing down? "Trident means jobs!" was the slogan bleated by the pro-nuke lobby in the late 1980s....we got Trident......and 11,000 jobs were lost! But they've got a short attention span in these parts and take little account of the long-term damaging consequences of seeking immediate short-term gains.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Forces are already gathering to have the County Council's decision overturned. The unions cannot see further than their economic snouts , some councillors will use the myth of 'jobs and a brighter future' for purely political purposes (in the hope of getting re-elected) and the government just wants to bury a really difficult problem so it can forget about it. So the people of West Cumbria should prepare themselves for the battles ahead. Not everyone is a Nuke Nutter. What of our farms and forests, our tourist industry, those who work in public services - hospitals, schools, colleges, accomodation, catering, environmental maintenance, utilities, etc.? And what of those in construction and manufacturing that have no connection with the nuclear industry in any form?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then, of course, I could be mistaken and the pro-nuke supporters will accept that a democratic decision has been made and move on........</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>(The 'nodding donkeys' piece will have to wait until a more convenient time)</i></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-62748254238637667262013-01-22T14:27:00.001-08:002013-02-27T09:03:33.028-08:00ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER STRUGGLE<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfSvURU1y4FHNQHjemKNLsvis4I8Si5rWaW4ginRHuOy5RojeuVv1Ri6CYD3qVGMY3yRhT2s3GsJaCQlUrDTkDKUywkO7hOZVbY0b4h3lfSRmZSMuse4h0P_b4eg4DQKbuKhyphenhyphenaeEKWjEU/s1600/SAM_0714.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfSvURU1y4FHNQHjemKNLsvis4I8Si5rWaW4ginRHuOy5RojeuVv1Ri6CYD3qVGMY3yRhT2s3GsJaCQlUrDTkDKUywkO7hOZVbY0b4h3lfSRmZSMuse4h0P_b4eg4DQKbuKhyphenhyphenaeEKWjEU/s320/SAM_0714.JPG" width="217" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is that why you don't sell many in Barrow</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">?</span></td></tr>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">OBSERVING THE PROLETARIAT</span></b><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just as I predicted, I am now in the process of 'off-loading' some activities to enable me to engage in other things. Barrow Peace Council - wrapped up. Furness Against the Cuts - wrapped up. Barrow and Furness Pensioners' Association - resigned. </span></b><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Barrow Association of the National Union of Teachers and also Barrow and Furness Trades Union Council - 'in the balance'. I finally cancelled the venue for a weekly Morning Star Readers and Supporters Group and abandoned the Saturday Morning Star town centre sales pitch at the market entrance (which I held on my own for four months) because two people (not Party members) who had indicated they wished to support this simply failed to turn up. In addition, my physical condition and my wife's general state of health may also force me to discontinue the 150 mile round trip to attend the three-hour CPB Northern District Committee meetings at Carlisle and this is the only activity I shall really be sorry to miss.</span></b><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The comment beneath the photograph was made by an elderly and quite disabled former engineer who had worked in Vickers Armstrong (engineering and ship building) as he purchased a copy of the paper. We both laughed and he added "You won't get much sense out of them round here!" </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In all the weeks selling the paper I never ever sold a copy to the same person twice (nobody </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">returned the following Saturday, or any other Saturday). As I stood at the market entrance I was able to watch assorted members of the local population as they wandered about. Some strode by most purposefully as if heading for a pressing engagement or a transaction of some importance (but, more likely, just to catch a bus) Young lads would pass as if on auto-pilot whilst they focused their attention on a small hand-held device on which they made small jabbing movements with their thumbs, avoiding young women with a similar object pressed against an ear and who talked incessantly as they pushed before them a babybuggy loaded with child and shopping. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Middle-aged, bored, disinterested husbands waited for their wives outside 'bargain shops' and outlets offering 'special sales discounts'.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most men and women of all ages, but especially those in their twenties to fifties, would only become animated when, in sunlight, they caught sight of their own reflection in the large window of a store - young women would appraise their figures and their outfits and young men would assess their 'style' and one or two would roll a tee-shirt sleeve just a bit higher so they may show off their latest tattoo or suddenly square their shoulders and puff up their chests to appear 'more manly'. Yes, members of the Furnesss public certainly know what is important to them - until, one day soon, they begin to be deprived of the things they currently take for granted such as benefits, allowances, a roof over their heads, heating, lighting and food, social welfare and a free health service. And that is how I was entertained when attempting to sell copies of the world's only English language national daily socialist newspaper in 'Lumpensville'.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And what of the Pensioners' Association? Well, its constitution clearly states it is 'a campaigning organisation'. Over a period of four years I did my best to involve members in campaigns to defend their pensions, their bus passes, their standards of health care and they just could not be bothered to make any effort whatsoever. In the months before resigning I had begun to refer to the members as the 'Grub and Grumble Graveside Club' because they did not want a campaigning organisation and were determined to turn it into a pensioners' social club for entertainments such as raffles and bingo with tea and biscuits to pass the time whilst waiting to drop off their perches. They didn't want me going on about the Retail Price Index and the Consumer Price Index, or maltreatment of the elderly in hospitals and care homes, or the privatisation of the National Health service - as one member said "You make us depressed and we come here to be cheered up!" </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, there is a really sad part to all this: the secretary of the organisation is no mug - she knows what the situation is. Ordinary monthly meetings attract an attendance of around eleven or thirteen members yet subsidised 'dinners' (such as the Christmas lunch) attract thirty or forty! When the annual Pensioners' Parliament is held in Blackpool, members queue up for the cheap deal four nights hotel accomodation and the vast majority use this as a holiday and have no interest in the parliament. Members of the association want to use it solely for what they can get out of it and are not prepared to put anything back in (in terms of time, effort or money). In many ways it is just like the situation with Barrow and Furness Trades Union Council (monthly correspondence club for nodding donkeys) except the secretary of the pensioners is heartbroken and the secretary of the TU council is very contented.......but more about sly nodding donkeys in the next posting. </span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-5605995116837601712012-11-27T15:37:00.000-08:002013-01-22T11:00:08.157-08:00THE REGULAR GRIND CONTINUES<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG9cxqeQxO7iRf7-fJuFigGNH4mGsotOd7qiVP_lHMN6aRCEYSw2db9COckAVlYHb2xs3szf_WG4nv07Vc6k5bYQsDufjWxyNbCco_krFVXu2bBn65iYOMgywHlvB0f51a0QB_Sx915vc/s1600/SAM_0682.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG9cxqeQxO7iRf7-fJuFigGNH4mGsotOd7qiVP_lHMN6aRCEYSw2db9COckAVlYHb2xs3szf_WG4nv07Vc6k5bYQsDufjWxyNbCco_krFVXu2bBn65iYOMgywHlvB0f51a0QB_Sx915vc/s320/SAM_0682.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">LEAFLET CAMPAIGN BARROW STATION 5 NOV 2012 </td></tr>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">SUCCESSFUL EVENT DESPITE DOWNPOURS</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pouring rain did not hinder leaflet distribution at Barrow railway station on the morning of 1st November. Photos were taken during all too brief gaps in the heavy showers and members of the public willingly accepted the leaflets that were offered to them. Some, having read the leaflet, actually thanked the assembled trade unionists for the work of trying to save the rail service before rushing off to board their train taking them to their place of employment.</span></b><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The dozen or so campaigners who began at 5.45am were joined by others as the morning brightened and the rain eased until, at 8.30 (just thirty minutes before the end of the campaign) a reporter and photographer from the local press arrived and 'interviews' were earnestly conducted. Three activists of Barrow Trades Union Council (RMT and NUT delegates plus GMB member and Unite Against Fascism organiser) attended throughout but the secretary and chairman were absent.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0c343d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>IF LEADERS FAIL TO LEAD, THERE IS NO LEADERSHIP.</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>In an earlier posting I mentioned the failure of the secretary of Barrow Trades Union Council to attend a public meeting to promote the work of the organisation and the refusal of the chairman to speak at the event. Frankly, I cannot understand this attitude yet it is one that seems to be common to most organisations here in south Cumbria - persons get themselves elected (or appointed) to positions of responsibility and then utterly fail to honour that responsibility.</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Take, for example, the secretary of Cumbria Unison, Deborah Hamilton, - responsible, since 2009 for co-ordinating the anti-austerity campaign in the area from Barrow to Kendal - who, except for a very brief appearance at Barrow market entrance one very wet Saturday - has never ever played any part in the campaign.....a campaign organised and sustained for three years by just three pensioners without any assistance from any other organisation. Churches did not wish to know. Charities would not assist for fear of being considered 'political' which could threaten their funding status. The Trades Union Council was not interested and the local Labour Party could not support an anti-austerity campaign because, if elected, <i><b>it would impose an austerity programme of its own!</b></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Appeals to the secretary of Barrow TU Council to promote support for the anti-cuts campaign were steadfastly ignored but, some eighteen months later, following two articles in the local paper in which the secretary appealed for TU delegates to support the local TUC or risk him having to 'wrap it up', the pensioners (each a member of a trade union) decided to assist the Trades Council. More delegates responded and it seemed that Barrow TUC had been saved from extinction. There were, however, ominous warning signs.....nobody would accept the position of treasurer. The chairman elected at that very first meeting never ever made another appearance! And so the local TUC limped through that year with the secretary doubling up as treasurer also.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The following year (current) saw the election of a chairman, George Appleton (former secretary of the now defunct Ulverston TUC) but still no treasurer - thus the unsatisfactory arrangement of a joint secretary/treasurer is set to continue.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a previous posting I described the farcical pantomimes of two Barrow TUC meetings</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and do not need to repeat these here. They arose because of illiteracy and lack of firm leadership and this situation prevails. As both the chairman and secretary are now both in their 60s it is doubtful that even an intensive remedial course in English would improve their comprehension but they may still have the capacity to understand that they must contribute more if the council is to be saved for the future.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Currently, the secretary and chairman appear to believe that the secretary is merely a clerk and the chairman a conductor - the first handles correspondence and literature once a month and the second manages the agenda much the same way as a conductor manages an orchestra (except the orchestra here is comprised of musicians each playing from a different music sheet with the result that we end up with a discordant racket that nobody wants to listen to!)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some local people get elected onto the local borough council and then do nothing except attend the occasional borough council meeting. Fulltime, paid, TU officials rarely leave their offices and will not support local initiatives. Elected officers of voluntary organisations do not wish to campaign on local issues. Local politicians remain silent as people's living standards plummet. Yes, the message is clear - those who bask in their 'status', who like to mouth off for the local press and maybe get their mugshot published for all to see could not really give a toss about those they claim to represent. And, of course, it will continue like this until those who put these people into these positions of responsibility decide to bring them to account. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-25618705381592874562012-11-16T06:47:00.000-08:002013-01-22T10:45:31.920-08:00'FIGHT-BACK' MOTIVATION - WELL, WE TRIED.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZuVEbUTuXl_5sRZJtq41gaOYXFalKexdY3moQedvD-9kJMVn8NBV0DPIpgmCgmwmIdIf71WLmwc9GuxTLqRI-Yo3ZKdus9yhfS9E8B-3Q2z0psoRrrO_oXWXkDoZyr41zuDYzpwF-qVQ/s1600/SAM_0679.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZuVEbUTuXl_5sRZJtq41gaOYXFalKexdY3moQedvD-9kJMVn8NBV0DPIpgmCgmwmIdIf71WLmwc9GuxTLqRI-Yo3ZKdus9yhfS9E8B-3Q2z0psoRrrO_oXWXkDoZyr41zuDYzpwF-qVQ/s320/SAM_0679.JPG" width="201" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cde Greenshields, Chairman CPB</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">THE PUBLIC MEETING AT BARROW</span></b><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">and RMT leaflets at Barrow station.</span></b></div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When it was proposed that an executive member of the Communist Party of Britain could attend a public meeting at Barrow on 31st October I confess I was dubious about the outcome. </span></b></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Firstly, it was Hallowe'en and a night when locals would either be escorting their children around the streets begging for sugar-laden confections or attending a fancydress party and 'getting blathered'. Secondly, the population is - well - disinclined to attend Public Meetings (For example: a recent Police Federation meeting held at Barrow, called to discuss the impact of a much reduced constabulary, attracted just FOUR members of the public....an Ulverston town councillor, the (then) secretary of Ulverston Trades Union Council who was accompanied by his wife, - and me. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But then I considered it would be an opportunity - not just for a leading Party member to address a local audience - but for local Trade Unionist officials to put the case for two TUC initiatives: promoting activity as a follow-up to the 20th October 'A Future that Works' and generating campaigns supporting the People's Charter.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, a list of willing TU speakers was drawn up - Craig Johnston, Cumbria relief officer of the RMT (Rail, Maritime and Transport union); Ryan Shaw, secretary of Cumbria PCS (Public and Commercial Services union); John Holden, national executive member of the UCU (University and College Union), and Robert Pointer, secretary of B&FTUC (Barrow and Furness Trades Union Council). Leaflets were distributed around the town, an advertisement was placed in the local paper which resulted in the event appearing in a single columnX3cm 'news snippet'. The 'Bay' radio station did not respond. The 'political reporter' for the local paper, was invited to attend. The Studio Theatre at the local Forum was booked. Everything was ready, so what could possibly go wrong?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As the evening darkened, the wind increased and we were subjected to a massive and prolonged torrential rain-storm. News was received that Bill Greenshields, travelling from Derby, was stuck in a traffic jam some forty miles away on the M6 motorway. The train from Lancaster was running 30 minutes late. Ryan Shaw (PCS) would be 'late' and there was no communication from Robert Pointer (B&FTUC) </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">explaining why he hadn't shown up. And twenty people were patiently waiting for the meeting to commence. After twenty minutes had elapsed I really began to wish I could sing and/or play a musical instrument....or had prepared a 'stand up' comedy routine I could perform...just to fill in the time until our speakers were in place. Alas, I possess no such skill. And throughout this, neither Craig Johnston (RMT) nor John Holden (UCU) offered not a single word of complaint. </span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At last, running some forty minutes late, the meeting got under way and each speaker delivered much food for thought. No member of the public attending the event would have been left in any doubt about the seriousness of the political assault that was being mounted against the wellbeing and standard of living of Britain's working class and lower middleclass population and of the pressing need to mount a most determined opposition in political parties, trade unions, and 'pressure groups' such as peace organisations and social and charity associations.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Was it a successful event? Knowing my home town as well as I do I can say that, despite the initial setback and wimpish behaviour of the BFTUC secretary (still don't know why he failed to attend) and Stephen Forbes local GMB officer - who said he would attend (and didn't) but would 'leave the speaking to Bob' (Pointer) - then, yes, it was. And the reporter from the local press failed to materialise. Maybe there are some fully grown adults in this town who still cling to the belief that if they go out in the rain they will dissolve. I'm tempted to remark that they are wet enough already........</span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Craig Johnston (RMT) explained the likely consequences for public rail travellers should the recommendations of the MacNulty report be adopted and announced that the following morning a leaflet campaign would be held outside Barrow's railway station from 5.45 until 9.00am.</span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally, financial contributions by the public almost completely covered the full cost of the room hire.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now it remains to be seen what results, if any, arise from the meeting. I won't be holding my breath filled with anticipation. </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-22740370673239260012012-11-10T10:05:00.000-08:002012-11-10T10:05:05.203-08:00NEW SIGNS OF BTUC ACTIVITY? <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp5V2ydqVepmm7if3zKP1lyYe4UBU6uZwpJZFzYTB9DEs9E9m1pd75Ddxhh3967Oez-gEkEUh_yzBwbuswLH7-cQSTsZx0cM74gnWnQ8I28Se7wVGqM1r6az_C4TqYkqXZ1qSgaBnN1Nc/s1600/Brent-20121020-00179.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp5V2ydqVepmm7if3zKP1lyYe4UBU6uZwpJZFzYTB9DEs9E9m1pd75Ddxhh3967Oez-gEkEUh_yzBwbuswLH7-cQSTsZx0cM74gnWnQ8I28Se7wVGqM1r6az_C4TqYkqXZ1qSgaBnN1Nc/s320/Brent-20121020-00179.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">BARROW TUC MINIBUS CONTINGENT FOR THE EVENT</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>YET ANOTHER TUC DEMO - 20TH OCT 2012....</b></span><div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Maybe things are beginning to look up at Barrow TUC thanks to the initiative of Mandy (far right) who organised the minibus to take eleven local people to the TUC demonstration in London on 20th October.</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Northern TUC provided £500 towards the £750 cost of bus hire and Barrow TUC coughed up the £250 difference to enable Barrow people to attend the demo free of charge - very helpful for any who were unemployed or on low wages. This was, for Barrow, a good turnout - and exceeded my expectation by seven. Even more encouraging was the sight of Barrow TUC secretary, Bob Pointer,(third from right) boarding the bus and giving his most sincere assurance that he <b><i>would</i></b> be a speaker at a Public Meeting to be held in Barrow on 31st October: maybe he was finally becoming vertebral, growing intestines and developing a set of testicles - maybe he was now going to be fit to lead Barrow TUC in the struggles ahead! And, on top of this, Barrow Association of the NUT (National Union of Teachers) had not only paid the Trades Council delegate fee for the past year but also the fee for the next twelve months!! Clearly, I had to quickly revise my previous decision to wash my hands of the lot of them (but maintain a healthy scepticism, of course).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Two events are to follow: a Public Meeting, entitled <b>'Bring Down the Con-Dems: Britain Needs Socialism' </b>and held at the <b>Forum, Barrow on 31st October</b> - this to back up the 20th Oct TUC demo 'A Future that Works' - followed the next morning by an RMT (Rail, Maritime and Transport union) leaflet distribution to passengers at Barrow rail station from 5.45am until 9am. Well, you know the common saying..."You wait for ages for a bus and then..."</span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next meeting of Barrow Trades Union Council will be held on Tuesday 6th Nov so there will be plenty to report upon.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the struggle continues.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-8397946521461828582012-11-02T10:54:00.002-07:002012-11-02T10:59:16.918-07:00NEVER SAY "NEVER AGAIN."<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b> ARE ANY WORDS REQUIRED HERE?</b></span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVXMjf-0I3AVbtI402j1SelqprMVhBJ8s8Q0ppC2yZW72czy6ka9MTKasbb3g_wz9kBpLGocCUlRAQc8ebJau6ef1_6L6QqpqzguSBZ17nSY8OawXVbqvyYVo4Y7rj_zpLIuhVL9dFvMw/s1600/SAM_0625.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVXMjf-0I3AVbtI402j1SelqprMVhBJ8s8Q0ppC2yZW72czy6ka9MTKasbb3g_wz9kBpLGocCUlRAQc8ebJau6ef1_6L6QqpqzguSBZ17nSY8OawXVbqvyYVo4Y7rj_zpLIuhVL9dFvMw/s400/SAM_0625.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Early 21st Century</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiODLZ98PTqxHH_UBmtixQq_xEy90aZBq1x6K77ijcFh52jmUNEQWemo1VL9Yw8WmrnQClY-yWPChirgid7trIj1Qu6zl9Ck2MnwCVcBxlCDoSusAnOrufZsMf3hxXYve9KeATVoyZ-o8E/s1600/SAM_0573.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiODLZ98PTqxHH_UBmtixQq_xEy90aZBq1x6K77ijcFh52jmUNEQWemo1VL9Yw8WmrnQClY-yWPChirgid7trIj1Qu6zl9Ck2MnwCVcBxlCDoSusAnOrufZsMf3hxXYve9KeATVoyZ-o8E/s320/SAM_0573.JPG" width="170" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Late 19th Century</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b><br /></b></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-49726474747854492782012-09-10T04:08:00.000-07:002012-11-02T09:53:27.309-07:00LAYING IT ON THE LINE<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">POLITICAL REPORT GIVEN AT RECENT MEETING OF THE NORTHERN DISTRICT COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF BRITAIN </span></b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">CARLISLE, CUMBRIA, UK, 18th August 2012</span></b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Many parts of the world are in turmoil as the people of several nations confront the challenges that are placed before them. </b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In South America the struggle to maintain the advances gained through the Bolivarian Revolution and the courageously sustained principled stand by the people of Cuba continue to thwart the undermining efforts of the counter-revolutionaries aided and abetted by the United States. The 'Arab Spring' held out much hope and promise for the people of North Africa and the Middle East yet has resulted in frustration and disappointment. In some cases, such as Libya, it created an opportunity for western direct military intervention just as it is now providing chances for covert action to achieve destabilisation and regime change in Syria. Nato, led by the US continues to prop up puppet regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan whilst US drones inflict a terrible toll on the populations of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The US ignores the Geneva Convention and the UN Human Rights Convention and maintains the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay. The US holds Bradley Manning in inhumane conditions for allegedly revealing 'state secrets' - namely, exposing US attrocities in Iraq - and this paranoid, psychopathic nation now seeks to get its hands on Julian Assange.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Meanwhile, Israel, with the backing of the US, Britain and some middle eastern Arab states, is seeking to find an excuse to launch an attack on Iran. The people of Palestine continue their struggle for freeedom from Israeli occupation. In Russia, the legitimacy of President Putin's election is being challenged. In South Africa, over thirty protesting trade union miners were shot dead by police.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c1130;">In Britain, a repeat of last year's 'London Riots' failed to materialise to the disappointment, one suspects, of the news media. Britain's unelected government, composed of a rich gang assisted by a nest of little helpers, is busy conducting an ideological campaign to dismantle every social gain enjoyed by the people of this country since 1945 namely, the Welfare State and the National Health Service. This gang and its helpers are merely the servants of the group that is really in charge - the Ruling Class, and it is this class that remains in power whichever political party is elected to parliament. This assault on the working class has been described as a 'blitzkrieg' but it is more like a Tory 'Operation Barbarossa' as it has been conducted with such speed and on such a wide front. Unlike the initial Soviet resistence to the Nazi invasion, the response of the British working class is to roll over and hoist the white flag. As for the battalions of organised workers in the Trade Unions, the response has been to call for a day's outing every six months or so for members to join together to parade through the streets with flags, banners, placards and balloons, blowing colourful plastic horns and shouting fray-edged slogans, flogging badges, tee shirts and handing out leaflets before returning to their coaches for the journey home where they can simply wait for the next outing to be arranged. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The task before us is immense. Our attempts to mobilise people to campaign against the arms trade, the succesor Trident submarine building programme, the development of new nuclear weapons, further military interventions, privatisation of the National Health Service, attacks on social services and welfare benefits, rising unemployment, homelessness, the rise of Fascist ideology, attacks on pensioners and the disabled, racism, blacklisting, corruption in banking, the media and the police force, loss of civil liberties, privatisation of the education service, raising the age of retirement, erosion of women's rights and the rights of the lesbian, gay and transgender community are exhausting. In addition to the above however, we must also seek to build the Party, encourage support for the People's Charter and promote sales of the Morning Star. We are indeed a tiny spark in a sea of darkness.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>"</b><i><b>Maybe the answers</b> </i>(to building an anti-monopoly alliance)<i> <b>are still out there.</b></i><b>" suggests comrade Graham Stevenson, chief organiser of the recent Bishopgate Conference, adding "<i>We will need to find the means to force the Labour Party leadership to be part of the solution, not part of the problem by siding with the class enemy or even adopting its policies wholesale. We will need to unify all those unions in struggle as well as forge an alliance between organised labour and the mass of the people.</i>" </b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps we might begin to find our way towards those answers when we ask why trade unionists and trade union councils ignore policies agreed at annual conferences of the Trade Union Congress, why some Communist Party members do not purchase and read a daily copy of the Morning Star or contribute nothing in time, effort or money to their Party branch, why there exists a Communist Party of Britain, a New Communist Party, a Communist Party of Great Britain, a Revolutionary Communist Group, a Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) and a gaggle of other parties purporting to be Communist, Marxist, Socialist, etc. If we cannot ourselves unite, how can we hope to unite the working class? This, comrades, is a serious question and deserves a serious answer.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally, an indicator of class consciousness from that working class town, Barrow in Furness:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"A lot of people in this town don't think they're working class. And the rest don't think."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-31458492519340587862012-05-13T13:50:00.000-07:002012-05-13T15:38:55.234-07:00GRAND FINALE AND HELLO FREEDOM!<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBjKG409g1DjhkhUXVfc0obf1C9lug0aZHKi96YOigtTtfMN6Wle4uqAdCvLqJhl4vWKzA5ouB8g1Pt7LPTM8SHHVRRzwaMz5ivakSSjTjwDwlazu_70rTNfZDIl8TBqHEvY9D3S4PLZs/s1600/SAM_0619.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBjKG409g1DjhkhUXVfc0obf1C9lug0aZHKi96YOigtTtfMN6Wle4uqAdCvLqJhl4vWKzA5ouB8g1Pt7LPTM8SHHVRRzwaMz5ivakSSjTjwDwlazu_70rTNfZDIl8TBqHEvY9D3S4PLZs/s320/SAM_0619.JPG" width="165" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ship of Fools, Bosch, 1490/1500</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>ESCAPE FROM THE SHIP OF FOOLS</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>(with apologies to Hieronymous Bosch one of my favourite artists of the medieval period)</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>This posting will definitely bring to a close my dealings with both Barrow National Union of Teachers and Barrow Trades Union Council for reasons that will become obvious to any who choose to read further.</b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I realise this may be boring to many but what follows adequately illustrates why there is so little resistence to the Tory/LibDem cuts in this region and, as such, is a vehicle of enlightenment.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the last meeting of Barrow Trades Union Council on Tuesday 1st May (MAY DAY!) the secretary produced his alternative letter. Unfortunately, the very first paragraph contained the inappropriate use of a BIG WORD - <b><i>disenfranchisement</i></b>. Read, if you will, this start to his long-winded rambling letter and make sense of it what you can. (I won't test your patience with the rest of it)</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="color: #660000;">British Politics may be considered to be at a critical watershed, due to the effective disenfranchisement of the electorate by the continuing lobby by the vested interests of those who caused the financial debacle in the pusuit of thier own agendas. </i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">(Note: I have not corrected the spelling mistake - Muddz) An attempt was made to draw attention to the misuse of '<i>disenfranchisement</i>' but a health service delegate retorted she was not here (at BTUC) for 'politics' but to support Barrow Trades Union Council. What a ludicrous statement!! Attempts to have the wrong word corrected were drowned out by a general hubbub of 'No politics!' that confused the chairman who then moved 'Next item on the agenda' and this brought an end to the din. By this method, the mobsters of the Labour Party not only successfully ended any criticism of the lack of Labour Party opposition to the cuts but also any fightback that was expected of a party of opposition. The dead hand of Labour will now dominate Barrow Trades Union Council until such time as a chairman possessing the strength of character to assert his will and insist on discipline at the meetings is found. This is not currently the case so it is likely that the secretary may soon find himself sitting on his own at BTUC once more.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">Following this last meeting, I determined it was high time to leave the asylum and to also abandon Barrow NUT as the delegate fee of £10 remained outstanding - to leave them all to stew in their own juice. This wisdom of this decision was confirmed when, on the drive homeward, I found myself singing (I only ever dare sing to myself in the car!) :</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Well I don't know why I came here tonight,</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>I got the feeling that something ain't right,</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs,</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Clowns to the left of me,</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Jokers to the right, here I am,</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Stuck in the middle with you.</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Yes I'm stuck in the middle with you,</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>And I'm wondering what it is I should do</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">It's so hard to keep this smile on my face,</span></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Losing control, yeah, I'm all over the place,</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right,</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stealers Wheel "Stuck inthe Middle With You" from Reservoir Dogs soundtrack</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0c343d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">So, with this song and the image of Bosch's 'Ship of Fools' in my head, my mind was made up. Enough of the stupidity. Enough of the incompetence, inefficiency and complacency. I sent out notice to both organisations of termination of my interest in their affairs. My efforts on behalf of Barrow & Furness Pensioners' Association together with Furness Against the Cuts will also follow suit. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">Look, I enjoy a comfortable pension, the mortgage on our home was completed some years ago and our children have grown up and lead independent, secure and healthy lives of their own - </span><b><i style="color: #990000;">so why am I using my time campaigning on behalf of those who don't even care what happens to themselves let alone anyone else? </i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-size: large; font-style: italic;">What an idiot I have been these last few years - but no more! </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">Yes, work to promote the Party and those willing to stand up to fight for their class but no more dealings with apathetic dolts and complacent oafs. No more involvement with the hapless and helpless led by the hopeless. Goodbye to all that.</span></b></span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-24166485744758846462012-04-09T12:03:00.002-07:002012-04-14T16:10:28.485-07:00INHERITANCE OF RESISTANCE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/A9MRbek0JXk?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>SALUTE THE IRISH REBELLION OF 1916</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>I am the son of a Scottish mother and she the daughter of my Irish grandmother so</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>maybe it is from this source that I get my profound sense of fairness and justice <i>and propensity for rebellious belligerence? </i>Can such character traits be inherited? I have absolutely no idea!</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A courageous band of brave patriots took up arms and fought for what they believed in. Sadly, they could not enlist the support of the majority of the people of Ireland and were put down by the superior military might of the men of the British army whose comrades were dying in their tens of thousands in the mud of Flanders 'For King and Country'. </span><br />
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</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, if anyone interested in reading this fears they are to be subjected to a potted history of the Irish republican struggle against the rule of British colonialism then relax - far better persons than I, with superior literary ability and greater in-depth knowledge of the historical events of the time to that which I possess, have produced a wealth of informative material on the subject. Every revolutionary situation and struggle for emancipation has its own parables and romanticism in narratives, poetry and song. The Struggles produced a wealth of material that is now available to anyone who is interested - thanks to the wonder of the internet. </span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I believe in the right of all nations to enjoy the freedom of self-determination. British rule over Northern Ireland, just like the royal family, is an anachronism that the people of Britain ought to have abandoned long ago. (Incidentally, reading Julie Burchill's feature:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>'Once we had anarchy in the UK. Now all we have is monarchy in the UK' </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Observer newspaper, Review Section, 8th April, made my Sunday!) </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Am I an English republican nationalist, then? Only in as much as I hold that the people of my country should be able to decide, by fair democratic means and without interference by any other country or external influence, its economic, social and political direction and development. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And it was always my wish that my fellow country men and women would choose to adopt and maintain a system that would not permit one person to exploit any other person or persons and that it would be through a sense of pride and honour that individuals would choose a moral code by which we cared for the weak and disadvantaged in our society, one in which we shared equal responsibility and where collaborative endevour for the good of society made competitive greed obsolete. Altruistic? Certainly, but I was young in those days. </span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do I still have the belief that men and women can bring about mutually beneficial change in society? Yes, I do - but only if they possess the political will do so. However, before they can have the political will to change society for the betterment of all, they must first become politically educated so they are able to chart the correct course and able to consult older charts which show up historically recorded dangers, concealed entrapments and potentially lethal cul-de-sacs. And they must have strategies to cope with any unexpected storms that drive them from their true course so they are able to swiftly resume their direction.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do I see any desire on the part of local people to become politically educated? No, I do not. If, in the 1990s they were 'reluctant' and in the 2000s they were 'resistent', then here in the 2010s they are positively antagonistic - many, seemingly, '<i>do not wish to know</i>'. As for those workers who profess to have a reason for voting the way that they do I've heard the lot - including "If the Tories were good enough for my father, then they're good enough for me!" and "The worst that Labour does is better than anything the Tories do." And then, of course, we meet that Ship of Fools otherwise known as Barrow Trades Union Council which, it is said, suffers severe constipation - not for many years has a motion of any substance been passed. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So what of the republican aim of a united Ireland? The economic runaway boom time period of the Celtic Tiger was always a bubble waiting to burst, for such development was unsustainable. I cannot see how having already endured four years of crippling austerity measures, the emigration of almost one million of its inhabitants in the past twelve months alone and yet worse austerity measures in the pipeline will assist Irish Republicanism unless Republicans, leftwing political organisations and progressive workers join together to present a united front against the European Union and the remnants of British colonial rule in the six counties of the north. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-47267768009313381272012-04-06T03:31:00.000-07:002012-04-06T03:31:10.683-07:00BARROW TUC DETERMINED TO DO SOMETHING<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>SEND A LETTER TO THE LOCAL PRESS! </b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>At the 7th February meeting of Barrow Trades Union Council delegates expressed their concern about the affects </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>of government imposed cuts upon the people of this area - rising youth unemployment, increasing waiting lists for social housing, reductions in benefits and allowances, the fear of new 'assessments' of the disabled and their 'fitness for work', and the political vacuum caused by a lack of Labour Party opposition to these measures both locally and nationally which creates a breeding ground for far right organisations such as the BNP and EDL. Delegates agreed a letter expressing these concerns be written and sent to the local press for publication. Then progress of business hit the buffers - <i>who would write the letter</i>? </b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The secretary, Robert Pointer, stated he was too busy to do so. The acting chairperson (Barrow TUC elected a chairman last summer who then went absent and has never been seen or heard from since that time) asked for a volunteer but no one indicated they wished to take on the task. The acting chairperson then directly asked the NUT delegate (who had initiated the discussion) if he was prepared to compose a letter and send it to the secretary and the delegate agreed to do so in readiness for the next TU council meeting.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Below is a copy of the letter that was presented for discussion/amendment/approval at the meeting held on 6th March.....</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000;"><i>DRAFT OF PROPOSED LETTER </i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000;"><i>The Labour Party is considered to be the 'Party of Opposition' in parliament yet delegates to this Trades Council see little evidence of any determined opposition, either locally or nationally, to the austerity measures being imposed by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat government. </i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000;"><i>William Keegan, financial correspondent, wrote in the Observer (Sunday 29 January 2012)</i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000;"><i>'...while Labour leaders are right to avoid making too many commitments at this stage, statements about not reversing cuts they have opposed make people wonder why they should vote Labour at all.'</i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000;">Labour's acceptance of capitalism and monetarism make it no different to either the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats. Thus people who must work for a wage or a salary feel there is at present no political party <i>capable of being elected to parliament </i>that will serve their best interests and this has created a political vaccuum.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000;">This Trades Council is concerned that this vacuum will be readily exploited by opportunist fascist, far right organisations, as they have done in the past, leading to a dramatic increase in hate crimes against minorities as the economic situation worsens and so calls upon the membership of the Labour Party to look seriously at the Alternative Strategy of the Trade Union Congress and also the People's Charter that was fully endorsed at the TUC's November 2009 conference.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000;">Whole sections of the British population - workers, unemployed, disabled, sick and elderly, and those who can no longer afford to continue educational studies are crying out for change. Locally, the number of children suffering poverty is escalating and the level of youth unemployment is much higher than the national average. It really is time for the Labour Party to listen carefull to<i> the people</i> <i>by whom it was founded</i> and <i>for whom it was originally founded to represent.</i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000;"><i><br />
</i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">A Unite delegate (and former Labour councillor) immediately objected to the letter declaring he knew nothing about it and it should not be put to the vote as it has just been pushed forward. <b>He was not present at the February meeting when the matters contained in the letter were discussed and this was why he knew nothing about it.</b> The NUT delegate proposed the secretary send copies of the letter to all delegates so they may prepare and submit any amendments at the April meeting, and this was agreed.</span></span><br />
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</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;"><b>BARROW TUC MEETING 3rd APRIL</b></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Usually, these meetings are gatherings at which a few - perhaps five or seven - (mainly retired) persons sit and listen to the secretary read out correspondence, maybe have a chat about things arising from the correspondence, and then go home and wait for the next meeting when they can turn up and go through exactly the same procedure. It was only last year the secretary declared in the local press that if people didn't start to support the Trades Union Council he would have to wrap it up as sometimes he was left sitting on his own. Why did people stop attending? Did they maybe find the boredom and lack of activity suffocating? Three new delegates, one from the NUT, one from Unison (and secretary of Barrow Pensioners' Association) and another, GMB (and regional representative of Unite Against Fascism) could breathe some life into the council because each considered the council to be important and did not want to see it fold. Since last year attendance by most delegates has been sporadic but that of the secretary and the GMB, RMT and NUT delegates has been regular and consistent.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, proceedings commenced at a leisurely pace. George Appleton, secretary of the now defunct Ulverston Trades Union Council, agreed to be acting chairperson until the resignation of the former chairperson could be obtained. Correspondence was read and discussed sedately in the usual manner. The small protest by Remploy workers was noted. The proposed construction of a new biomass power generating station was discussed and it was noted a local unofficial group was holding a protest meeting at Roose school at 7pm on the evening of Friday 6th April. Then <b>THE LETTER </b>came up for discussion.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Unite delegate objected to the letter and declared he would not vote for it. The NUT delegate explained a vote was not being asked for at this time as this was only a draft and open to amendment. The Unite delegate said he didn't want any of it. One delegate (Unison, health section) said she agreed with most of the letter but had to leave for another engagement. The RMT delegate agreed with most of it but not some of it but did not specify. The GMB delegate agreed with some parts but not other parts but gave no details. The NUT delegate asked for any amendments to be recorded. The chairperson asked for amendments but none were proposed. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The NUT delegate asked the chairperson if the letter could be considered paragraph by paragraph and amendments noted and he agreed. The Unite delegate again declared he would not vote for it. Another Labour Party member and delegate (attending for the first time in many months) asked if the letter could be sent to local Labour MP John Woodcock for his comments but this was rejected. It was then proposed that the MP be invited to attend the next Trades Council meeting to discuss the letter and this was also rejected. Delegates made it impossible for the chairperson to tackle the letter section by section and, as it was clear no progress would be made, the NUT delegate proposed the letter be withdrawn and this was agreed. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even if nothing came out of this episode at least the discussion was heated in parts and the delegates became animated. <b>The main problem was that delegates had not bothered to read the letter and to make changes to it. Neither did they possess the wit nor the wisdom to make amendments when the letter came up for their attention at the meeting.</b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So what conclusions can be drawn by this pantomime? One could be that although the state of the local Masonic Lodge is unknown, it is clear the local branch of the Moronic Lodge is doing very nicely.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The situation at the moment is this: attendance at TU council meetings varies between four and eight persons. On one occasion it went as high as ten. Attendance by most delegates however, is inconsistent and this makes continuity difficult. The council may soon have a reliable chairperson but it still has no elected treasurer. Some delegates need to pester their union branch to ensure their delegate fees are fully paid up otherwise, as demonstrated at the last meeting, their presence has no legitimacy.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More fun and games next month, perhaps, especially as it was just <b><i>the letter</i></b> that was withdrawn - not the decision that a letter be sent to the local press on the issues that had been raised at the February meeting. The NUT delegate has proposed (by email) that the secretary of Barrow TU council prepare one and send it to all members in readiness for amendments or approval by delegates at the council meeting in May. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-58095993169402710242012-03-18T08:53:00.002-07:002012-04-05T23:48:03.904-07:00STILL ON THAT WELL-TRODDEN ROAD<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Announcement of first TUC Congress 1868</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>THE WORKING CLASS, AND </b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The first Trades Union Congress was held in the Mechanics' Institute, David Street, Manchester, from 2nd until 6th June 1868.</b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Amongst other things, the Congress passed a resolution "that it is highly desirable that the trades of the United Kingdom should hold an annual congress for the purpose of bringing the trades into closer alliance and to take action in all Parliamentary matters pertaining to the general interests of the working classes."</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There then followed a period in which the TUC's efforts were directed - with occasional and limited success - towards influencing successive governments' to protect the trade unions as societies and to protect the worker as an individual human being.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>"Notwithstanding all the teachings of political economists, all the doctrines taught by way of supply and demand, we say there is a greater doctrine overriding all those and that is the doctrine of humanity."</b> Sam Woods, secretary of the Parliamentary Committee of the TUC (1894 - 1904)</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, in the affairs of mice and men (and women) things are never simple and straightforward. Keir Hardy, stalwart advocate of a truly independent Labour Party, correctly accused the TUC of having tepid policies and a flaccid leadership. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(<i>Not much change there, then. Muddz</i>)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Later, in 1895, the TUC excluded from Congress all local trades councils - which had previously always been there as of right - because, according to the TUC leadership, this duplicated membership. However, many believed the real reason to be because the TUC leadership felt the trades councils were an awkwardly militant element. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(<i>A similar attempt by the TUC to exclude trades councils was</i> <i>made in the 1980s but defeated. Muddz</i>)</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the first thirty years or so after its foundation, the TUC had just two major successes: the Repeal of the Criminal Law Amendment Act and the introductionof the Fair Wages Clause.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1888, following the successful strike by a few hundred Bryant and May match girls, a resolution was moved in Congress by Miss Black of London: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-weight: bold;">"That in the opinion of this Congress it is desirable, in the interests of both men and women, that in trades where women do the same work as men, they shall receive the same payment." </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">And then, just a few days after the Gas Workers, led by Will Thorne, had confronted the gas companies with a demand for an eight-hour day and won, came the great dockers' strike of 1889.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">The dispute began when a few labourers at the West India Dock went on strike. Ben Tillett, secretary of the Tea Workers and General Labourers' Union and strikers' leader immediately received offers of assistance from two stalwarts: John Burns and Tom Mann. The business of the Port of London was brought to a complete standstill and the strike went from strength to strength. Union funds, however, were rapidly depleted. Just when an ignominious end to the strike seemed inevitable, money from Australia began to pour into the coffers of the striking dockers. This money came from almost every Australian trade union, the warf labourers of Brisbane, and from Australian football clubs. Ultimately, the dockers obtained the major part of what they wanted and this victory lifted the hearts of other dockers and workers in other fields - gas workers, railwayworkers, textile workers, building workers, shipbuilding and metal workers, miners and boot and shoe operatives who rallied to their own unions in response to the story of the "dockers' tanner."</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>(You can read about how British miners in their determined and courageous struggle against the ranged forces of the the Tory government, The State, the capitalist media, scab labour, coppers' narks, class traitors, personal back-stabbers, turncoats and a pious Labour Party under the wet leadership of Kinnock, held out for a full year (1984 - 5) and exposed the sham of so-called 'British democracy' in the book The Enemy Within by Seumas Milne. But be careful of your blood pressure if you do so. Muddz.) </i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Britain in the early part of the 19th century was firmly in the grip of the 'Landed Gentry' and the aristocracy - much to the great frustration of the rising industrial bourgeoisie who, although possessing economic power were locked out of any political power and control of the State and the only way forward for them was to bring about revolutionary change. Imagine that - a <i>bourgeious (capitalist class) revolution</i>! <b>They needed to achieve representation in Parliament so they could carry through legislation in their own interests. </b> But they could not achieve this on their own - they needed assistance, and they obtained this assistance by extending the franchise (democracy) to the working class. However, James Mill, whilst prepared to enlist the support of the working class to defeat aristocratic political power, was determined that the business of government remained firmly in the hands of the rich. Universal education of the masses would teach the lower orders to respect the 'property of their betters'. Hard-fought battles resulted in one million people being added to the electoral role in 1867 and, for the very first time, working class voters found themselves in the majority in some constituencies. Capitalist social ownership concentrated power and wealth in the hands of the few and any further extension of democracy threatened this 'ownership' - it might lead "to the transfer of power from the hands of property and intelligence." </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is not room here to go to any detail about the struggles and effort that were put into the formation of a political party to represent the interests of 'the lower orders' ie the Labour Party, but I cannot close this post without two last pieces that I believe are of particular relevance in Britain today.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">Here is Walter Bagehot, political theorist of the bourgeousie </span><b style="color: #20124d;">"...in all cases it must be remembered that a political combinationof the lower classes, as such and for their own objects, is an evil of the first magnitude; that a permanent combination of them would make them (now that so many of them have the suffrage) supreme in the country. So long as they are not taught to act together, there is a chance of this being averted, and it can only be averted by the greatest foresight of the higher classes."</b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;"> </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000;">Engels</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;"> remarked that with the passing of the 1867 Reform Act, </span><b style="color: #20124d;">the ruling class had learnt how to rule directly by means of universal suffrage. </b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">That is, the people had the vote but economic and political power remained firmly in the hands of the ruling class. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000;">(</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>We are now in the year 2012 - has anything changed? Muddz.) </i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And finally (honestly!) The new mass party system was moulded into the older established constitutional state system with its emphasis on the supremacy of the Parliamentary Party dominated by the parliamentary leaders. The Parties were simply vote-catchers, their role was to serve and support the Party in Parliament. At the beginning of the 20th century, A. L.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;"> Lowell made his now famous statement, that both parties (Conservative and Liberal) were shams: the Conservative party a transparent sham, and the Liberal an opaque sham. And Lord Balfour saw as the outstanding genius and achievement of the British political system that the alternating Tory and Liberal Cabinets, fully supportive of the capitalist foundations of society, could safely afford to bicker. Whatever the measures of democratic rights won, the capitalist social system remained supreme and, to all intents and purposes, unchallenged. Bourgeois political power had mastered universal suffrage. And what of the Labour Party? The fundamental reason for a party of the working class is </span><b style="color: #20124d;">the conquest of political power and the introduction of socialism. </b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;"> However, the new Labour Party had no socialist objective or programme - its sole aim was to break with the old Liberal leaders and win independent working class representation in Parliament but without being politically independent of the bourgeoisie - the seeds of class collaboration had been sown. </span><b style="color: #20124d;"> Indeed, it has been with the aid of the Labour Party leadership that the capitalist class has succeeded in maintaining its rule in periods of serious social crisis. </b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000;"> Does this ring any bells today?</span></i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000;"><b>So, now we have the Conservative Party, a transparent sham; the Liberal Party, an opaque sham, and the Labour Party, a semi-transparent semi-opaque sham! </b><i> That's progress?</i></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;"> </span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-45968262625771637242012-02-18T02:38:00.003-08:002012-03-18T07:02:48.344-07:00A WELL TRAVELLED ROAD REVISITED<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBbbq2pZgikbihx0eQql-jNIATEUvlOlSQYW_6R2CiXGbz8CJVXc6My9xCze1ttv4S2qSBarQUY8Axxx36pYt2BAZuICkYHethJeGk47mD8jHLeZwhYP8vYre4J_tD_ThKBxnYX_YYPF8/s1600/SAM_0562.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBbbq2pZgikbihx0eQql-jNIATEUvlOlSQYW_6R2CiXGbz8CJVXc6My9xCze1ttv4S2qSBarQUY8Axxx36pYt2BAZuICkYHethJeGk47mD8jHLeZwhYP8vYre4J_tD_ThKBxnYX_YYPF8/s320/SAM_0562.JPG" width="218" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>SO MANY LESSONS TAUGHT; SO FEW LESSONS LEARNED</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>All that any leftwing activist needs to know about the history of the class struggle in Britain, be they a member of a trade union or not, is contained within the book shown opposite but few will have seen it and even fewer will even know of its existence.</b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am fully aware the above could invite criticism - "What about the revolt of slaves in Roman times....ever heard of Spartacus?" "Remember Wat Tyler and the peasants' revolt?" "The Craft Guilds of medieval times?" "How about the Diggers, the Levellers, Cromwell, Tolpuddle Martyrs, the Chartists, and don't forget the French Revolution!" "And what of the Pugachev rebellion and the peasant uprisings in Russia?" </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, these occurred before 1868 and seriously, this isn't a concise history of workers' struggle for emancipation: it is just a simple blog on parts of the history of the TUC and how this history contains lessons for those conducting the class struggle in Britain today. It is also a commentary on the role of the Labour Party in working people's attempts to obtain true parliamentary representation that would serve their interests <b><i>as a class.</i></b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Social Science Association was a middle-class body that claimed to have a sympathetic interest in trade unionism. However, when William Dronfield, secretary of the Sheffield Typographical Society attempted to defend trade unions following a savage attack on them by a previous speaker at a Congress of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, there was not a single mention of this in the Association's report. Dronfield gave word of this to two fellow compositors, Samuel Caldwell Nicholson, President of the Manchester and Salford Trades Council, and William Henry Wood, secretary of the trades council, and questioned the point of trade unionists going to these congresses of supposedly 'progressive' middle-class organisations if the views of working men were to be suppressed. Nicholson's response was to ask "Why not have a congress of our own?" Later, on February 21st 1868, Nicholson and Wood sent out the first summons to the first Trades Union Congress to be held on 4th May that same year. It should be noted that Manchester and Salford Trades Council took the initiative and that the congress would be of Representatives of Trades Councils and other Federations of Trades Societies. <b>The Trades Union Congress of today owes its existence to the work of the Trades Councils of 1868 </b>- a fact that ought never to be forgotten by the trade union movement of today.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The history of British working people's struggles for better pay and conditions by means of Trade Unionism and through politics is something of which we should be proud. British workers have engaged the class enemy at home and fought foreign enemies abroad. Yet the battle at home continues and will continue until capitalism has been thoroughly defeated and replaced by socialism.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-23384514019213932412011-12-31T10:24:00.000-08:002012-01-11T08:52:41.377-08:00EMERGENCY! SOLUTION REQUIRED BEFORE MIDNIGHT!<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0c343d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The 'Unions, Labour Party and labour movement' matter will have to be continued in the next posting - as will further comments I wish to make about the Member of Parliament for the Barrow and Furness constituency, John Woodcock - because, as reported in yesterday's edition of the Morning Star, many Britons will (together with members of other English-speaking nations) at midnight this evening (31st December) either just make up, or mime, the words of the song 'Auld Lang Syne'. How absolutely humiliating this must be for them, and how awfully embarrassing for those unfortunate enough to be in their company at what ought to be a joyful moment for everyone.</b></span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>FEAR NOT; A COMMUNIST COMES TO YOUR RESCUE!</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to min'? Should auld acqaintance be forgot, And days o' lang syne? For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne, We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, For auld lang syne.</i></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>We twa hae run about the braes, And pu'd the gowans fine, But we've wander'd mony a weary foot, Sin auld lang syne. (Chorus - For auld.....)</i></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>We twa hae paidl't i' the burn, From mornin' sun til dine; But seas between us braid hae roar'd, Sin auld lang syne. (Chorus - For auld....)</i></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>And here's a hand, my trusty fiere, And gie's a hand o' thine; And we'll tak a right guid willie-waught, For auld lang syne. (Chorus - For auld....)</i></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp, And surely I'll be mine; And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, For auld lang syne. (Chorus - For auld.....)</i></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Words by Robert Burns. Tune 'I feed a lass at Martinmas' Taken from 'The Song Book', published by Macmillan & Co, London and New York, 1892</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OK, so a brief departure from things political as I have a headcold and I'm a wee bit peely-wally the nicht.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sincere best wishes to all comrades actively engaged in the battles of the class war.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The struggle continues!</b></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-63461645390322207692011-12-19T04:02:00.000-08:002011-12-29T08:53:54.568-08:00MASS POLITICAL PARTY OF LABOUR NEEDED<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizndeRUqfI3JixTLAVR7xPvBSaj8fctISafycwgC8fdenvNaCG2x47mMG8_HvJ_7HWPTWVxamcFi4I4yVipRw9OPTN5vxsFWOHCyIiDEe9s7rW5JP5fI7x8PnvUAOBkq7WBVidFwRgtdc/s1600/SAM_0283.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizndeRUqfI3JixTLAVR7xPvBSaj8fctISafycwgC8fdenvNaCG2x47mMG8_HvJ_7HWPTWVxamcFi4I4yVipRw9OPTN5vxsFWOHCyIiDEe9s7rW5JP5fI7x8PnvUAOBkq7WBVidFwRgtdc/s320/SAM_0283.JPG" width="259" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Barrow MP, John Woodcock, 'Baby Hugging'</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>SYSIPHUS AT LEAST GOT SOME SATISFACTION</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Condemned to forever roll a boulder to the top of the mountain only to have it roll back to the bottom again was the lot of poor Sysiphus - but at least he had the satisfaction of getting that rock to the summit each time, which is more than can be said for those who struggle for socialism here in Britain.</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Communists and socialists know that Socialism is the only system that will create a fairer society but British working people do not appear to understand this simple message even when the results of capitalism (a ruthlessly greedy system designed to rob and cheat them and which offers them nothing but anxiety and conflict) are staring them in the face.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Millions buy copies of imbecilic tabloid 'newspapers' to fill their heads with vacuous nonsense and fantasies every day of the week and seem to be incapable of holding any type of meaningful conversation lasting more than a minute. Yet persistent brief encounters reveal that these people know something is 'not right'. Some will vote Labour and/or join a trade union in the hope that 'someone' will sort things out for them but it is then that the real problem is created - when Labour 'betrays' them, or their union 'sells out'. </span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Socialists are ridiculed for suggesting that the Labour Party can be 'reclaimed' as a party for working people and that the individual unions can unite in the struggle to achieve a more just society when, according to critics, historical evidence demonstrates this is but a pipe dream. Unfortunately, historical evidence does indeed prove them to be correct - Labour governments <u><i>do</i> </u>betray working people and unions <i><u>do</u></i> sell out their members. But, today, people on 'the Left' are engaged in finding ways of 'restoring the trust' (in Labour and the unions). Does the contemporary issue of the Communist Party of Britain's programme, <i><b>Britain's Road to Socialism</b>,</i> offer any guidance?</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Whether the trade unions and the socialist and social-democratic trends <i>(in the Labour Party)</i> will be sufficiently strong, resolute and united to take back control of the Labour Party from New Labour can only be assessed in the course of a determined struggle to do so.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> The working class and peoples of Britain need a mass political party, based on the labour movement, that can win general elections, form a government and implement substantial reforms in their interests.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> For as long as many of the biggest trade unions are affiliated to the Labour Party, the potential exists to wage a broad fight to reclaim the party for the labour movement and left-wing policies. Certainly, this is the most direct route to ensuring the continued existence of a mass party of labour in Britain, and is an objective that every non-sectarian socialist and communist should support, whether from within the Labour Party or from without.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> But decisive progress in this direction requires the unions themselves to fight both inside and outside the Labour Party for policies that will challenge state-monopoly capitalism in Britain. Moreover, support will need to be won at every level of the trade unions and the whole labour movement for an alternative economic and political strategy (AEPS) to that being pusued by the British ruling class. This would provide the most favourable conditions in which to resolve the crisis of working class electoral representation. Here, too, the Communist Party and the daily socialist Morning Star newspaper have an important contribution to make to the struggle within the labour movement. (BRS, p21)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, before there are groans of "Oh, no - just more of this 'reclaim the Labour Party' wishful- thinking nonsense!" it is necessary to read further......</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b> Only after a determined fight can the big trade unions make a realistic assessment of whether the Labour Party can be reclaimed. </b>They will have to decide whether to persevere or, together with their political allies, to re-establish a mass party of labour that will represent the interests of the working class and the people generally.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> For as long as little or no progress is made in the direction of reclaiming or re-stablishing such a party, other left-wing and class-struggle trends are likely to emerge that are not organisationally or politically related to the Labour Party. It is likely that they will seek to participate in the political and electoral arena.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> The Communist Party's role is to work with all left trends that have a real, sustained base in the labour movement, urging them to unite around policies and in actions which raise the combativeness, confidence and political consciousness of the working class. This would lay the basis for their convergence in a reclaimed or re-established mass party of labour, one federally organised to permit the affiliation of socialist and communist parties committed to the fight for socialism. (BRS, p21)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So the way forward is either by</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a) the trade unions, and the socialist and social-democratic trends uniting to take over the Labour Party, or by </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">b) them abandoning a Labour Party that no longer represents their interests and forming a new federal party of labour that is unequivocal in its aim to establish a British socialist state.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, that's the theory and it all seems quite simple and straightforward, so what could possibly go wrong? (To be continued in the next posting)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Meanwhile, leader of the Labour Party, <b>Ed Miliband</b>, does not agree with workers striking to defend their pensions, makes no proposals for returning energy provision or transport to public ownership and has little to say about regulating speculative bankers and financiers.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b> John Woodcock</b>, (pictured above) Labour MP for this constituency, believes 'The Cuts' are necessary. He was unable to attend a public meeting for the defence of the National Health Service because, his assistant explained, he was attending 'a meeting'. Yes, he was - he was on a trip to Israel as new chairman of Labour Friends of Israel and was pictured 'standing in an area that could receive a Palestinian rocket attack'! Gosh! As no full explanation for the visit was provided, are we to assume it was just another meeting to draw up some new lucrative weapons contract to assist Israeli expansionism and further illegal occupation of Palestinian territory? Or did he advise them, as a friend, to begin heeding United Nations resolutions before the Security Council finally loses patience, imposes sanctions, draws up a comprehensive 'no fly zone' and lays the ground for a full NATO invasion?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <b> Robert Pointer</b>, Labour Councillor and secretary of Barrow Trades Union Council, agrees 'The Cuts' are necessary. This probably explains why he persistently ignores requests to support the TUC-endorsed People's Charter local campaign and why he did not attend the recent meeting of Trade Union Councils in Derby - though he did confess "I don't like travelling in winter."</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The struggle continues.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-72388763219749196412011-12-10T09:59:00.000-08:002011-12-10T09:59:03.827-08:00SOME WORDS ON STRIKES AND COMPROMISES<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5zbTVhuU2mW4W2zrGHmW3iqwMebZqKMm3_xTjw0BSkeNdvZ23_1fTraq2tcmNT5UiwmGzmx3WHRIO389LAae9vfQbyfZt1xMFt6aJuvhg4xRLtDOgx8MADEnh79tRNjVBd9qkaBmoW6s/s1600/SAM_0518.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5zbTVhuU2mW4W2zrGHmW3iqwMebZqKMm3_xTjw0BSkeNdvZ23_1fTraq2tcmNT5UiwmGzmx3WHRIO389LAae9vfQbyfZt1xMFt6aJuvhg4xRLtDOgx8MADEnh79tRNjVBd9qkaBmoW6s/s320/SAM_0518.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Strikers rally in front of Town Hall, Barrow, 30 Nov 2011</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Guidance worthy of note from comrade Lenin</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Can there ever be compromise in the class war? Is it ever acceptable to retreat at the height of confrontation with the class enemy?</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #274e13; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'...proletarians schooled in numerous strikes (to take only this manifestation of the class struggle) usually understand quite well the very profound (philosophical, historical, political and psychological) truth expounded by Engels. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #274e13; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every proletarian has been through strikes and has experienced "compromises" with the hated oppressors and exploiters, when the workers had to go back to work either without having achieved anything or agreeing to only a partial satifaction of their demands. Every proletarian - owing to the conditions of the mass struggle and the sharp intensification of class antagonisms in which he lives - notices the difference between a compromise enforced by objective conditions (such as lack of strike funds, no outside support, extreme hunger and exhaustion), a compromise which in no way diminishes the revolutionary devotion and readiness for further struggle on the part of the workers who have agreed to such a compromise, and a compromise by traitors who try to ascribe to outside causes their own selfishness (strike-breakers also enter into "compromises"!), cowardice, desire to toady to the capitalists, and readiness to yield to intimidation, sometimes to persuasion, sometimes to sops, and sometimes to flattery on the part of the capitalists.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #274e13; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>(</i><u style="font-style: italic;">The history of the British labour movement offers especially many instances of such treacherous compromises by British trade union leaders, </u>but, in one form or another, nearly all workers in all countries have witnessed the same sort of thing)'</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(My emphasis - FR)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And further...</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #274e13; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Of course, in politics, where it is sometimes a matter of extremely complicated - national and international - relations between classes and parties, very many cases will arise that will be much more difficult than the questions of a legitimate "compromise" in a strike, or the treacherous "compromise" of a strike-breaker, traitor, etc. It would be absurd to formulate a recipe or general rule ("No Compromises!") to serve all cases.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #274e13; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #274e13; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One must use one's own brains and be able to find one's bearings in each separate case. That, in fact, is one of the functions of party organization and party leaders worthy of the title, namely, through the prolonged, persistent, variegated and comprehensive efforts of all thinking representatives of the given class, to evolve the knowledge and experience and - in addition to knowledge and experience - the political instinct necessary for the speedy and correct solution of intricate political problems.'</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #274e13; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And finally...</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #274e13; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Within every class, even in the conditions prevailing in the most enlightened countries, even within the most advanced class, and even when the circumstances of the moment have roused all its spiritual forces to an exceptional degree, there always are - and inevitably <i>will be </i>as long as classes exist, as long as classless society has not fully entrenched and consolidated itself, and has not developed on its own foundations - representatives of the class who do <i>not</i> think and are incapable of thinking. <u>Were this not so, capitalism would not be the oppressor of the masses it is.</u>' </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(My emphasis - FR)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Text from "Left-Wing" Communism, an Infantile Disorder, V.I. Lenin, pp 63, 64, 65</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For many who took part in the one day of action on 30th November, this was their first ever strike. The public sector workers who took part that day did so in the belief that their leaders were taking the correct decisions and had a strategic plan for the future confrontations that are sure to follow. These workers are advised to keep a close eye on that leadership and the nature of any 'negotiations' conducted on their behalf.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #274e13; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-76299053459734558692011-12-09T08:24:00.000-08:002011-12-19T04:45:07.781-08:00TUC ONE DAY PUBLIC SERVANTS' STRIKE<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieIDjVplcRb1GDuEdBva7L_nw2lIYn_XRtZwQIQpkIa4bH-eh_OjLA61Ed9DskOFXkyAy5pyP4AgMmTZlVBHrKqj-0zdu-jL8NkDBIPCpKNdPmJtd2R3WNsJtJraPHKCifBHyrNGwf5Do/s1600/SAM_0511.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieIDjVplcRb1GDuEdBva7L_nw2lIYn_XRtZwQIQpkIa4bH-eh_OjLA61Ed9DskOFXkyAy5pyP4AgMmTZlVBHrKqj-0zdu-jL8NkDBIPCpKNdPmJtd2R3WNsJtJraPHKCifBHyrNGwf5Do/s320/SAM_0511.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">7.30AM PICKET, DWP, 30 NOV, BARROW IN FURNESS</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b> NOVEMBER 30TH 2011</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>"United, we stand; divided, we fall." is a simple enough statement and one that most people understand yet it is apparently beyond the comprehension of many in Furness. Either that or the many have become convinced that, no matter what they do, they will not succeed in bringing about change.</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many remember Prime Minister Gordon Brown declaring there would be a cut of 100,000 civil servants and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling warning that cuts about to be imposed by the New Labour government would be 'worse than under the former Tory Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher'. And all this before the General Election in May 2010 at which the Conservatives, with the backing of the Liberal Democrats, took (unelected) power to unleash a slash and burn campaign against the Welfare State and to privatise sections of the National Health Service.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The TUC one day strike of Public Sector workers on 30th November was, in Furness terms, quite well supported. Pickets were evident outside schools, the offices of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP, pictured above), the Town Hall, and Furness General Hospital, for example. A thirty minute 'rally' in the town square, supported by local members of Unison, GMB, PCS, and NUT unions culminated in 'one minute of noise' obtained by blowing of whistles and vuvuzelas. Furness Against the Cuts attended with a stall and members of Unite Against Fascism displayed their banner. The secretary of Barrow Trades Union Council was seen sidling about in the background and the local Labour Party was conspicuously absent. Later, the local press gave the event good coverage estimating an attendance of 300 persons. </span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Was the strike successful in drawing the public's attention towards the threat to its Public Services and demonstrating workers' strength of feeling against the proposed Pensions reform? The strike certainly made national headlines in the press and was featured in TV news programmes so, in this, it was a successful piece of publicity. Did the strike serve to strengthen workers' resolve to take further action? In as much as the strike had little affect upon the government's Pensions plans and further pressure will be required, then the results of future union strike ballots will demonstrate whether resolve was, or was not, strengthened. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One thing that has not yet been clearly understood by local unions is the pressing need to educate the public about the damage being planned for the Welfare State and the National Health Service. They will certainly not educate anyone by sitting in a room discussing issues amongst themselves, or having a 'fun' rally for half an hour every six months: they need to follow the lead provided by Furness Against the Cuts by getting out into the town, talking to members of the public and explaining exactly what is at stake here. But then, of course, any <i><u>serious</u></i> campaigners would have been doing this months ago and promoting the People's Charter as the TUC's alternative to the government's politically-motivated cuts agenda.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Blackleg office worker entering DWP "I'm not supporting the strike; the union's never done anything for me!"</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Picketing union official "What do you think your union is doing for you <i>today</i>, then?" </span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYXtLvBvh0AX60PdNsVYJa_gtUT-x5NZ5o5hyVn4YbF9rfAAzNrjLVxjBt4fE1A-iONU3ltLqPNfZfuBVp6lhHghasSYUIaDn2CpBJN5YwvMhMwALnAyFuCtOcbGIvpk7KN_hHXTHfOvM/s1600/SAM_0514.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYXtLvBvh0AX60PdNsVYJa_gtUT-x5NZ5o5hyVn4YbF9rfAAzNrjLVxjBt4fE1A-iONU3ltLqPNfZfuBVp6lhHghasSYUIaDn2CpBJN5YwvMhMwALnAyFuCtOcbGIvpk7KN_hHXTHfOvM/s320/SAM_0514.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">JOB CENTRE PICKET, 30 NOV, BARROW IN FURNESS</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Neither the secretary of Barrow Trades Union Council nor the secretary of Ulverston Trades Union Council was prepared to attend tomorrow's (Saturday 10th December) Trades Union Councils' Joint Planning Meeting - for Jobs, Industry and Public Services - at Derby. Literature for this event clearly points out <i>'The TUC Trades Council programme of work highlights working with The Peoples' Charter'. </i>Given that Carlisle Trades Union Council and Kendal TUC have both been defunct for some time, and that Barrow and Ulverston TUCs are contemplating a merger 'just to keep going', it would seem the first proirity of the Trade Union movement ought to be encouraging trade union branches to support their local Trades Councils recognising that TUCs are an invaluable means of communicating directly with the general public. Class conscious, politically aware, trade unionists know this of course. Has anyone spotted the elephant in the room here - that thing which is so obvious but which most seek to deliberately ignore? <i> </i> </span><br />
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</b></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-57384580944295219292011-10-08T12:21:00.000-07:002011-10-10T11:05:52.222-07:00WHERE HAVE ALL THE WORKERS GONE?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiufN-2ajYtIYtMT4iZg6XHQIe0U_Ch4joRxcgasLBPf92AlaKVRe9K_YnW7MfUmSCu4q83dQpwSFEcoBh2JULwrZ-Y_WtLHxOPEbAt76FLuFacKhZluG5Wm2jd1ZfxWWioXxf1xWMBx3s/s1600/SAM_0483.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiufN-2ajYtIYtMT4iZg6XHQIe0U_Ch4joRxcgasLBPf92AlaKVRe9K_YnW7MfUmSCu4q83dQpwSFEcoBh2JULwrZ-Y_WtLHxOPEbAt76FLuFacKhZluG5Wm2jd1ZfxWWioXxf1xWMBx3s/s320/SAM_0483.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">TUC march, Manchester, 2nd October 2011 </td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>SENT UP 'THE GARDEN PATH', EVERYONE.</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn? </b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The answer, my friend, isn't blowing in the wind - it's being held in denial by those very same trade union organisations that workers are looking to for a sense of purpose and direction.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">People are asking,"If there is little difference between Conservatives, Liberals and Labour, who do we vote for?"</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The coalition government of Tories and LibDems will administer a swift death for our Welfare State and National Health Service. Labour, on the other hand, prefer a more lingering demise. Whichever is chosen, the result is the same. The coalition government claims the cuts are necessary and Labour agrees.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The unions huff and puff, work people up into wanting to 'do something', arrange a 'day of action', book coaches in towns and cities and ferry thousands to either the capital or a major city to march with balloons, banners, flags, whistles, horns, drums and loud hailers to protest and demand an end to government policies - then they get on the coaches and return home.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What has been achieved? Other than a superficial sense of solidarity, absolutely nothing because, the following day, it is as if the event didn't happen. Everything returns to 'normal'. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The government continues its policies of attacking the standard of living and quality of life of those who depend on a wage or a salary (and those who are totally reliant upon sickness or disability allowances) for their survival. Labour declares it would reform none of this legislation if elected to government and major unions continue to bankroll the Labour Party even though this party will not eliminate 'anti-union' laws which prevent unions from taking action to defend their members' terms and conditions of employment or act in solidarity to defend other workers against exploitation.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Workers become frustrated and angry. They need to let off steam. Organise a day's march and a rally! Yes, that will do nicely to shut them up for a while. How much more of this will workers tolerate before they begin to ask "What the hell are we doing here? These marches are achieving nothing!" How much longer will it be before workers tell the unions to stuff their marches and demonstrations and to provide some meaningful <b>political</b> leadership?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There was a time most unions 'educated' their new members, providing them with an understanding of Surplus Value and a sound understanding of the Class System. Sadly, this has not been done for many years and is why workers look upon a major economic crisis, with its attendant unemployment and deprivation, with incomprehension. If the system can plunge them and their families into destitution then there is something wrong with the system. It is inhumane. Surely, it is not beyond the wit and wisdom of the human intellect to come up with an alternative, is it?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At its November conference in 2009, the British Trade Union Congress completely endorsed the People's Charter. This Charter explains why ordinary members of the British population, who did not cause the current economic crisis, should not be required to pay for it in terms of a severe reduction in their standard of living and quality of life. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Charter describes how the deficit could be met by closing the doors to 'tax havens' (make the super rich pay their taxes just like the rest of us), stop forking out vast sums for foreign wars, introducing a Tobin Tax (also known as the Robin Hood tax) with a tiny percentage paid on all business transactions and, controversially for Furness, cancellation of all further development of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems (such as submersible American Trident missile launch platforms - affectionately referred to as Trident subs in these parts). These measures would eliminate the deficit and provide funds for manufacturing leading to economic growth and a return to prosperity. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, that sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Some trade unions appear to disagree for they have done precisely nothing to promote the Charter. In Furness, the unions ignore the Charter completely and boycott all efforts to bring it to the attention of the general public. Their blanket of silence is fully endorsed by the local Labour Party and the Labour MP, John Woodcock. Oh, they will make sympathetic noises but they are indifferent to the suffering which is about to be inflicted upon the constituents of this region and the population at large.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In closing, I am minded of what George Bernard Shaw had to say about the opposite of Love.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"<i><b>The opposite of love is not hate; it is indifference.</b></i>"</span><br />
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</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-70513269185829977402011-10-04T14:24:00.000-07:002011-10-05T08:44:55.563-07:00ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER STRUGGLE<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicmYWoAAf4LQK1Kf0PJvy4UHGyVdcPUJyD63ciguHr-N-CVFN1UZ0erPmgcp-azW8-9GZh_JUs88Ez-OAj79H-cTGBt4G86rBPJ9SybkUxjtfOi3qPTWhvPin97f_dLKA8mKVOVhJ5y2o/s1600/SAM_0488.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicmYWoAAf4LQK1Kf0PJvy4UHGyVdcPUJyD63ciguHr-N-CVFN1UZ0erPmgcp-azW8-9GZh_JUs88Ez-OAj79H-cTGBt4G86rBPJ9SybkUxjtfOi3qPTWhvPin97f_dLKA8mKVOVhJ5y2o/s320/SAM_0488.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">TUC march and rally, Manchester, Sunday 2nd October </td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>SHOWING OPPOSITION TO TORY AUSTERITY MEASURES</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The people have marched against war, they've marched against the Poll Tax, they've marched against racists and fascists and now they march against the Tory attack on our Welfare State and National Health Service. When, I wonder, will 'marching fatigue' set in and the people demand more direct action? </b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And, if and when they reach that stage of wanting something else what will they choose to do? Will they engage in non-violent direct action (such as blocking major roads and bridges - as in the USA) or resorting to rioting (as seen recently in towns and cities here in Britain)? Will doing either - or both - bring about the changes they claim to desire? Unfortunately, no.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the first place, the struugles in the street are only about economics - about jobs, benefits and pensions. Yes, this is coupled to a defence of the Welfare State and the National Health Service, but there has been no complete awakening of class consciousness and the need to act politically, to move in a particular political direction i.e. socialism. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Marxist-Leninists know the road to socialism is through class struggle which can be realised in three forms:economic, political and ideological. Of these, the political struggle is the most important because it throws into relief the primary question of the class struggle - of power - and how it can be resolved.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Workers can complain and campaign until they are blue in the face but they will change nothing unless they are prepared to learn from the political lessons dished out to them by the boss class and organise to bring about a fundamental, revolutionary, political change. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-7208373472698213582011-09-24T00:34:00.000-07:002011-09-30T23:38:41.090-07:00STILL PUSHING AGAINST INDIFFERENCE<div style="text-align: left;"></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN NOBODY WANTS TO KNOW?</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The answer to that is, of course, "Keep going" </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>because, although the savagery of the cuts will eventually dawn on the local population - and this is likely to be 'later rather than sooner' in Furness if past performance is anything to go by - it might just be possible to awaken a few and then a few more. It is slow, frustrating work, especially when the unions in Furness remain intransigent.</b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The local anti-cuts group has received assistance from the GMB which printed its posters for a public meeting - the group provided the paper - to be held at The Forum, Barrow, on the evening of Thursday 6th October. A few members have been distributing the posters and unions and community organisations have been notified. A 'street stall' on Saturday 1st October will publicise the meeting and further promote the local anti-cuts campaign. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is interesting to note Ryan Shaw, secretary of Cumbria PCS, who had promised support for the anti-cuts campaign, appears to have hibernated and is not answering phone calls, or responding to email or text messages. It must be the way unions do (or don't do) things around here for this is exactly how Deborah Hamilton, Secretary of Cumbria branch of Unison conducts (or does not conduct) union business, the secretary of Barrow Trades Union Council never responds to communications and neither does the secretary of Barrow NUT. It has been asked "How do these useless officials remain in office?" I wish all questions were as easy to answer as this....<i>it is because nobody else wants the job </i>so it ends up in the hands of someone who wants the <i>status </i>but not the <i>responsibility</i>. What better set of persons could a lazy union member wish to have in place than a committee that doesn't organise regular branch meetings or pester them to campaign to protect their own pay and conditions of work?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What local trade unions and their members do not seem to realise is that when they are called upon to take any form of action to defend their jobs, pay and conditions (such as the proposed national day of action on 30th November) they are going to need the public on their side. To get that support means them being out on the street, weeks in advance, patiently explaining to the public why they are taking action - <b>not just for themselves</b> - but against the cuts that will affect everyone except the most wealthy. If they do not apply themselves to this task it is likely the general public will be antagonised by any union action that causes members of the public any personal inconvenience (such as schools being closed for the day or cancelled hospital appointments, for example) And this struggle against the cuts is one struggle that workers in Britain cannot afford to lose. As has already been explained in earlier postings, a one day strike may allow workers to gain some idea of their potential but, politically, is of little consequence. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Workers who will not defend themselves are easy meat for the boss class. If workers do not fight the greed of the capitalist class they will, as Marx himself put it, be degraded to one level of broken wretches past salvation.<i> "By cowardly giving way in their everyday conflict with capital, they would certainly disqualify themselves for the initiating of any larger movement."</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol2, p.75</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The people of Furness have certainly demonstrated over the past eighteen months that they qualify for such disqualification. Given this, there must come a time when persistently fruitless efforts to motivate them are discontinued. As of this date, I cannot envisage the anti-cuts campaign lasting beyond December.....</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaYZeipQnOEXf1hlnWiUAQf4KLApQUItXzO1L6n1iyrfMrC8dpOInzY-WiOOfa8wIBVAutCf8igZHtnNYE3Rc04IEJ_FTOBjK_G1uVb7Y2OhUhyduF7lBw5FmAMcuFbnTAU4vPCrH9PZw/s1600/SAM_0448.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaYZeipQnOEXf1hlnWiUAQf4KLApQUItXzO1L6n1iyrfMrC8dpOInzY-WiOOfa8wIBVAutCf8igZHtnNYE3Rc04IEJ_FTOBjK_G1uVb7Y2OhUhyduF7lBw5FmAMcuFbnTAU4vPCrH9PZw/s320/SAM_0448.JPG" width="231" /></a></div><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> ......but, for now, the struggle continues.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>LATEST NEWS</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Terry McSorely, agent of our local member of parliament, John Woodcock, has written that the MP will 'not be able to attend' the public meeting. No explanation was provided.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Note: John Woodcock MP was also 'not able to attend' the previous Anti-Cuts public meeting held in March of this year.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OOPS! Last digit missing from phone number - 140<b><u>5</u></b> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Corrected as many distributed posters as possible even though it's most unlikely anyone will use it. Phone number required for authentication purposes so it had to be correct.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-50032165636496870552011-08-24T16:46:00.000-07:002011-09-01T03:10:21.727-07:00DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPqySlK19GtXOPU2eOB7gVFx0syZ28X4TBWXSFw1Ivas3i_mMj1RzEGjJCroCy1Jg0l0OzCAz592cwJYqRXTVPJHLkfZ62CPeuI0nOAGy8Kmr5ACQ5vvisCQyy_anH14iEzdsNctnjV0o/s1600/ForRoz+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPqySlK19GtXOPU2eOB7gVFx0syZ28X4TBWXSFw1Ivas3i_mMj1RzEGjJCroCy1Jg0l0OzCAz592cwJYqRXTVPJHLkfZ62CPeuI0nOAGy8Kmr5ACQ5vvisCQyy_anH14iEzdsNctnjV0o/s320/ForRoz+001.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Billboard boy in Barrow earning a crust.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-size: x-large;"> 1936</span></b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>LESSON FROM HISTORY</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Italy has never seen anything similar to the type of planning exhibited by the Government of Soviet Russia.</b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When an important branch of the banking system, or a large-scale industry which could be confused with the "higher interests of the nation" has threatened to collapse, the Government has stepped into the breach and prevented the breakdown by emergency measures. If there is a field in which planning is necessary and can be done without notable obstacles, it is that of public works; but even a Fascist expert is obliged to recognise that "they are begun as required without a general plan in the region where the depression is most severe." </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The policy of the Italian dictatorship during these years of world crisis has been no different in its aims, methods, and results from the policy of all the Governments of the capitalistic countries.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">The Charter of Labour says that private enterprise is responsible to the State. In actual fact, it is the State, i.e. the taxpayer, who has become responsible to private enterprise. In Fascist Italy the State pays for the blunders of private enterprise. As long as business was good, profit remained to private initiative. When the depression came, the Government added the loss to the taxpayers' burden. </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000;">Profit is private and individual. Loss is public and social.</span></b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0c343d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Under the Axe of Fascism, Gaetano Salvemini, LBC, 1936, page 416</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In Britain today, taxpayers bailed out failed banks to the tune of £1.3 trillion and workers are paying the price of this in job losses, benefit cuts, erosion of health care, wage freezes, and rising energy and food costs whilst the bankers and financiers are able to return to awarding themselves millions in annual bonuses. And this has been achieved without the usual Fascist coercion techniques of blackjacks, torture or concentration camps. How much longer will it be before the unemployed will be housed in 'hostels' and engaged in 'work details' for the good of society - and will they be obliged to wear striped pyjamas, perhaps?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the meantime, three men (one, in his twenties here in Furness) have died in eight days as a result of police using a combination of immobilizing tasers and pepper sprays. There has been a significant increase in cases of police intimidation and brutality against young, elderly, and even disabled civilian demonstrators in recent years and courts are dismissive of any attempts to bring thuggish police to account. The future use of water cannon and plastic bullets must surely now be on the agenda as protests against government-imposed poverty increase in size and frequency.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-56538935285922493322011-08-15T02:33:00.000-07:002011-09-01T03:16:03.114-07:00CRISIS OF CAPITALISM LURCHES DOWNWARD<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkAJjD-mzmaya4M2Qv0lgJCQfDJaHAKHQEPmH-GfMQdrdQQKECfHL3c3Nnxca8QYiSNcvamJTytpdUtsoZrgeHyV6guQa3ElHTi8kllH5HRfbhh7rALZdJfZOOobI6qZ8k9Qpyvr1bUvY/s1600/SAM_0334.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkAJjD-mzmaya4M2Qv0lgJCQfDJaHAKHQEPmH-GfMQdrdQQKECfHL3c3Nnxca8QYiSNcvamJTytpdUtsoZrgeHyV6guQa3ElHTi8kllH5HRfbhh7rALZdJfZOOobI6qZ8k9Qpyvr1bUvY/s320/SAM_0334.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Workers' sculpture, shopping centre, Barrow in Furness</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>IT'S A RIGHT MESS</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Whilst fully aware of events that are happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lybia and in some towns and cities here in England (but not Scotland or Wales, please note!) this blog is chiefly concerned with events and reactions here in Furness. On the riots, let it be sufficient to quote from a recent Morning Star editorial: <i>'Someone who has a job, a home and a future does not riot.'</i></b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The general public here does not really seem to be aware of any particular crisis unless it is the one regarding seagulls. Yes, that is correct - <i>seagulls</i>. Some are working themselves up into quite a lather about seagulls 'pooing' on their cars parked in the street and on washing hung out to dry and are calling for these birds to be culled i.e. killed. (Heaven help the bankers if this lot wake up and realise how they've been swindled!) Fortunately, seagulls - and, unfortunately, bankers - are a protected species so any local councillor hoping to gain popularity by reducing the seagull population will have to think again. Surprisingly, these gulls live by the sea - which is why they are called seagulls. If some people don't like seagulls they should move away from the coast. Sorted.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On a more serious note - in just one edition of the Evening Mail it was reported that FOUR Barrow businesses are in trouble. The Appliance Services Centre in Dalton Road has gone into liquidation (that's yet another shop front to be decorated with a giant photograph of a shop interior), Cumbria Commercials, a car repair workshop on Walney Road, has also gone into liquidation together with The Fire Place, a heating company based in Holker Street, and an engieering firm is currently under investigation by Her Majesty's Inland Revenue for alleged tax irregularities. These losses will add to the 1,810 people already on Job Seekers' Allowance chasing just 128 vacancies (figures for June 2011). The breakdown is as follows:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Barrow Island 151</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Central 299</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hawcoat 33</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hindpool 212</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Newbarns 106</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ormsgill 219</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Parkside 100</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Risedale 166</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Roosecoat 104</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Walney Nth 104</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Walney Sth 104</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dalton Nth 102</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dalton Sth 110</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the tide comes in and the tide goes out - twice a day.</span><br />
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</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625018278296747565.post-64734673087094992912011-08-14T14:53:00.000-07:002011-08-14T14:53:06.945-07:00DEFEND NHS CAMPAIGN CONTINUES<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinxwV7O_RgO_gyChNnKBaxC56ynYCTTarWOnfwvJLEVXjazTrvg8L-FYhKKaIrFqTBzwg28LQ6q9IbGF3slfa4Dj8dkoT_TGIAC0BOYMWiN2hmhofMyCcs-7gIapDPfKiZKkAPXltQCEA/s1600/SAM_0417.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinxwV7O_RgO_gyChNnKBaxC56ynYCTTarWOnfwvJLEVXjazTrvg8L-FYhKKaIrFqTBzwg28LQ6q9IbGF3slfa4Dj8dkoT_TGIAC0BOYMWiN2hmhofMyCcs-7gIapDPfKiZKkAPXltQCEA/s320/SAM_0417.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>LABOUR PARTY HOSTS PUBLIC MEETING TO DEFEND NHS</b></span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Westmorland & Lonsdale Constituency</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Labour Party called a public meeting to address government proposals to sell off the most highly profitable parts of the National Health Service to private companies. The meeting was held at the Shakespeare Centre, Kendal, on Thursday 14th July and was attended by about 45 persons.</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The panel (left to right) consisted of Paul Gardner (Royal College of Nursing), Tim Ellis (Unison), Paul Braithwaite (W&L CLP) and Doctor David Wrigley, GP (Keep Our NHS Public campaign).</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dr Wrigley, a member of the British Medical Association Council, described the remarkable step forward when, 64 years ago, the National Health Service was introduced. Minister Bevan described this as a Milestone in History and a Civilized Step for it provided health care for all that was free at the point of need. Gone was the great fear of falling ill and having to meet a doctor's bill for treatment and medication. No health and social care for vulnerable people should rely upon service provided by some business that could, like some retail company, fail and be bankrupted. (<i>Liquidation of Southern Cross care homes is a good example here</i> - Muddz) Dr Wrigley explained how the Private and Public Finance Initiative (PPFI), introduced by the previous Labour government, has <b>cost</b> £65 billion for a <b>value</b> of just £25 billion.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tim Ellis stated the NHS needed to be fully resourced and trusted. He stated contributions to the public purse would be much greater if the 49 richest people and 220 companies that PAY NO TAX were to pay the estimated £120 billion lost through their tax evasion. The current White Paper is about introducing competition into the NHS and should not be amended but killed off. Public pressure could sink this bill just as it did Thatcher's bid to introduce the Poll Tax in the 1980's. (<i>Top Tories noted public opposition, feared this would have electoral consequences and so pressed Thatcher to drop it</i> - Muddz)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Paul Gardner reported 98% of delegates attending the RCN conference in Liverpool gave a vote of 'No Confidence' on the current Secretary of State. The RCN severely critical of commissioning by GP fund-holders and strongly suggests there be a nurse on every commissioning body. Essentially, priorities are quality of care, safety, assessment of level of safety and of risks during and following hospital treatment and that the experience of the patient must be positive. Minister Lansley's agenda undermined these.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There followed some good contributions by members of the audience with, of course, one by the token defeatist "These cuts will go through so what we've got to do is see how we can reduce their impact on people." (<i>It was noted that not a single person under the age of fifty years was in attendance</i> - Muddz)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The meeting ended with an overwhelming vote to ask our local Members of Parliament to oppose the Health and Social Care Bill.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As the cuts begin to bite it is being reported that some (nonNHS) dentists are refusing to treat gum disease in children "because it is too time-consuming and thus not profitable." This on Dispatches: 'The Truth about your Dentist' ,Channel 4, 8pm, Monday 23 May 2011. Untreated gum disease, apart from being extremely painful, can lead to tooth loss and serious illness.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some NHS Trusts are refusing to fund operations to remove infected tonsils as a cost reduction measure. If untreated, diseased tonsils can be extremely painful, give rise to quinsy and blood poisoning with possible fatal consequences.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And yet other Trusts are now charging for cataract and hip replacement operations, and have privatised their ambulance service.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But campaigning against the cuts is being sustained by very few. It was sad to note that Kendal Against the Cuts has folded owing to lack of consistent support but encouraging that Furness Against the Cuts remains active - street stall to be held from 10am until noon on Saturday 27 August and a Public Meeting already booked for The Forum, Barrow, from 7.30 until 9.30pm on Wednesday 14 September.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The struggle continues!</span><br />
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</span></div><div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0