Weekly Worker 591 Thursday September 8 2005

Letters

Drug bans

Kay Thompson misses the point concerning prohibition of drugs (Letters, September 1).

I don’t think anybody is advocating substance abuse - rather that prohibition does more harm than good. Prohibition, while funding a criminal mafia, also causes more deaths by driving up prices and enabling criminals to mix the drugs with substances that are in fact more harmful than the drugs themselves. The policy of alcohol prohibition in the United States did not work for similar reasons.

Studies have shown that trying to reduce the supply of narcotics does not reduce the demand for them: it drives users to even more desperation. Drug-related crime among users is a direct result of the enormous cost of a habit due to prohibition. These people would not go and steal if they did not need vast sums of money to finance their use.

It is the current law that makes a group of vulnerable people into criminals, who need help rather than condemnation. While self-medication may be harmful, it is not a ‘crime’, as nobody else’s liberty is being violated. Hopefully there will come a day when the problems that cause chemical dependency will fade away and fewer people will feel the need to self-medicate. But prohibition is not the solution. Rather it adds to the problems.

Downgrading cannabis has not resulted in an increase in its use. If anything it has marginally lessened. Sadly, forbidden fruit is the most tempting for many young people - remove the resulting stigma and mystique and we may see the appeal of narcotics decrease.

At the same time treatment that meets the personal needs of drug misusers (rather than the philosophy of the providers, which is often of the ‘12-step teetotalling’ variety) should be made more widely available to all who need them. Drug users have varying needs and problems like everyone, and they cannot be met by a ‘one size fits all’ solution.

Liz Hoskings
email

CWI Russia

The position of Alexei Kozlov, member of the Russian executive of the Committee for a Workers’ International and leader of the Voronezh CWI branch, is very interesting for all leftwing milieu. As reported in Russian on the internet as early as October 25 2004, Alexei Kozlov, behind the back of CWI Russia, signed a declaration appealing for the creation of an all-Russian political party, the United Greens (see www.seu.ru/members/ucs/eco-hr/2004/1544.htm).

This party stands on the principles of the Masal declaration of the European Federation of Green Parties, whose main inspirer and co-author was the future German minister of foreign affairs, the leader of the European ‘United Greens’, Mr Joschka Fischer. Naturally, the Masal declaration is not based on general Marxist principles or CWI programmatic documents.

I exposed details of Alexei Kozlov’s actions on July 14 2005, after numerous requests from CWI members Denis Davydov and Igor Shibanov on CWI Russia’s www.socialism.ru forum. This resulted in a statement by Alexei Kozlov on July 15 expressing his intention to resign from CWI Russia “because of different interpretations of my views”. In his statement, sent by email to selected present and former CWI members, Kozlov asserted that he “considered that it is possible to support the idea of the appeal to establish a European-type green party” and this could “allow the creation of a left faction within the framework of such a party”. So a member of the CWI leadership calls for the creation of a bourgeois party so as to be able to create a left faction of this party!

It is clear that the member of the CWI’s international executive committee responsible for the CIS, Robert Jones, couldn’t overlook this. However, it is very interesting to observe the actions taken by Mr Jones. Instead of expressing the traditional adherence to principles in contrast to people who have ‘broken with the CWI programme’, Robert Jones made huge efforts to keep Alexei Kozlov within CWI ranks, promising Kozlov his support and a quiet end to the ongoing scandal during discussions with the London centre. Of course, according to Mr Jones, the reason for the scandal is not the undercover activities of Alexei Kozlov, but the “intrigues of enemies of the CWI”.

As a result of Jones’s pressure, the next statement from Kozlov, on July 17, claimed that he had thought better of it and decided “not to leave the CWI at a time so important for the organisation”.

However, this fragile situation represented a Pyrrhic victory for Robert Jones, who had taken responsibility for the political behaviour of his close associate on the leadership of CWI Russia. And then Alexei Kozlov himself made Jones’s situation even worse. On August 20, as a recognised leader (he was elected to the position of executive secretary) of the Civic United Green Alternative (Groza), he polemicised on the forum of the Green Russia party website with opponents of Joschka Fischer’s Masal declaration, insisting that Groza’s ideology is expressed in the documents adopted by its conference in January, which are “based on the European green charter” (see http://rusgreen.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?t=35).

The dispute between Alexei Kozlov’s latest fake organisation and Green Russia over who should be recognised as the Russian section of the United Green party of the European Union is not the topic of this letter.

Peter Marin
Russia

Mutual ground

With reference to your article about George Galloway, there are two points raised in the last paragraph that need addressing (‘Confused mish-mash’, July 21).

Firstly, it seems inappropriate to criticise the actions of the Socialist Workers Party in liaising with muslim community groups. One must be realistic about the cultural stratification which exists in our society and realise that, although restricting communication to certain organisations can strengthen racial segregation, the very same groups are also doorways into a community and offer a means to break down cultural divides too.

Secondly, the aim to “break muslim workers from the mosque establishment” merely demonstrates a lack of respect for other ideologies. Personally, I see little difference between that statement and the US mindset of destroying sympathies with communism. Ideologies must be made to work together rather than be seen as in competition. It is futile to try and separate a person from an establishment they believe in - if one attempts to do so then surely the only result will be alienation. Rather than attempting to “break muslim workers from the mosque establishment”, a move which can only cause resentment, surely the CPGB would be better off attempting to find mutual ground upon which to build.

Martin Adams
email

Pro-islamic AWL

According to Jim Denham of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, George Galloway is “an anti-semitic, pro-islamic-fundamentalist Nasserite-Stalinist. Socialists are under no obligation to support scum like him” (Letters, September 1).

This is ridiculous. The AWL are making themselves look very stupid by taking such a hysterical approach. I don’t like Galloway’s politics particularly. But I think this can be discussed rationally and without all the name-calling. The AWL’s predecessor organisation supported the mujahedin’s war against the PDPA regime which was backed up by the USSR in Afghanistan. Does this mean that they were pro-islamic fundamentalist women-haters?

Zinidine
email

None the wiser

I really am left none the wiser after the AWL’s criticism of Dr Naseem of Respect and the Islamic Party of Britain (Letters, September 1). Why would he support financially and be involved with two organisations with totally different aims? And what has this do with the idea that Mossad might be responsible for crimes against humanity?

Paul Anderson
email

Catholic heroes

I would like to point out that James Connolly was a Roman catholic as well as a Marxist. He disapproved of the American Marxist DeLeon’s anti-catholicism.

In his Labour, nationality and religion Connolly quotes church fathers and saints as well as socialist thinkers to denounce social injustice and exploitation. Before he was executed he received the last rites from the Capuchins. Thus he died a Roman catholic and a Marxist.

I think the heroes of the 1916 uprising were all devout christians. They placed their constitution in the hands of almighty god. As a Roman catholic who is a leftwing socialist, I am proud to state this about James Connolly and the 1916 leadership who, like him, were so cruelly murdered by the British.

Andrew Harvey
Carlisle

Philosopher

Some comments on your reports of Communist University 2005.

A first-time attendee writes that “with 27 million people in Britain saying they are Church of England christians, together with one million muslims ...” (‘Highly recommended’, September 1). Where exactly do the above figures come from, as you are not said to be in the business of publishing fiction?

It’s been openly stated in newspapers for the last few years (ask your local priest) that there are only around two million church-goers in Britain, of all denominations (ostensibly protestants); also openly published is the figure of two million-plus muslims in Britain. The big leaving of the church following World War II, when people found out where all the racism came from, did sorely deplete the supporters of the churches. We have evidenced the lack of support they have following the bombings in London and all the talk of a racist backlash. It fizzled out, possibly because too many were blaming the christian churches for their support for the New Labour leadership.

Apart from that John Smithee has not a lot to say politically.

As regards the “attraction of Marx” and the claim that “Marx is still the most popular philosopher in Britain” (‘A week of debates and renewal’, September 1), when one considers Marx and Engels’s position that all philosophy is reactionary, due to the fact that philosophy only translates as a ‘view of life’ and that when a philosopher dies their work is unfinished and develops no further, one can only hope that Mark Fischer took the bull by the horns in his speech and destroyed the illusions of Radio Four. The above is not to say Marx and Engels were against philosophers, but the absolutist approach to fixed ideas, as used by the devotees of philosophy, as opposed to the understanding that matter is in motion.

There are so many of Marx and Engels’s writings to quote from, including their statement that Joseph Dietzen was their philosopher - Dietzen, a militant atheist, was an entirely self-educated worker (his primary skill was as a tanner) who independently created dialectical materialism shortly after Marx and Engels.

The victory of the media in spreading false indoctrination is one that needs opposing - as comrade Fischer says, “We live in a time of extreme weakness and disorientation on the left”. And he also mentions “the feebleness of political forces which call themselves Marxist”.

Gerald Ali
email

To the people

With regard to your Draft programme and the transition to communism, how do you propose to bring about the revolution? Britain is in the grip of materialism and greed - how will your party change this? Words are all well and good on a website, but what about those workers who have no computers, who can’t read this draft because they have no access to it and no knowledge of its existence?

The CPGB needs to stop theorising on the finest points of detail and go to the people. It is the people and not idle words that validate our cause and it is about time that this message was understood by Britain’s left. Communism is the alternative but people only choose the alternative if they know it exists. Asking the people of Britain to join arms in revolutions is like telling them to hold hands and jump with a vague promise that when they land all will be well in the world.

The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. Isn’t it time we gave them the key?

Mark Walmsley
email

Hurricane Katrina

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the suffering in New Orleans and along a 400-mile stretch of the Gulf Coast has shown the world the realities of race and class in the United States. The life-and-death divide along skin colour and wealth is being discussed on the front pages, on news broadcasts, and in local responses to the tragedy. An additional truth - so familiar it goes unrecognised - is the fact that the US poor are overwhelmingly women of colour, their kids, elders and people with disabilities. These are the people who felt the brunt of the storm, the poisonous flood waters and the unfeeling disdain of the Bush administration.

Far from being an isolated calamity, the disaster in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast is the direct result of capitalism’s pursuit of the almighty dollar at the expense of those judged disposable by virtue of their race, gender and earning ability.

New Orleans before Katrina was one of the most impoverished in the US, with nearly a third of the population living in want. The city was wracked by corruption, with police brutality, low-paying jobs, unemployment, rampant racism, failing schools and high levels of violence against women. More than two-thirds of its inhabitants were African American, many of them descendants of the slaves who built the city. In the Lower Ninth Ward, a neighbourhood that was one of the hardest hit, more than 98% were black.

Despite the outrages, the frustration, injuries, illness and mounting, justifiable anger, the survivors showed a tremendous amount of compassion and solidarity. Reports of heroism and selflessness have filtered out. A TV news story told of several mothers who put their 17 children in a rowboat and asked a man to row them to safety, while they stayed behind in the rising waters. A Canadian reporter countered the stories of chaos in the streets with the testimony, “What I see are young people taking care of old people, the relatively healthy caring for the sick, people sharing their paltry supplies. It’s true there’s crime and violence, but tempers are terribly frayed, and feelings of hopelessness overwhelming” (Toronto Star).

Bush insulted the survivors with his pronouncements about getting tough with looters. The media whipped up hysteria about “armed thugs” creating lawless mayhem. When people of colour fought for the food and supplies they needed to survive, police were ordered to stop looking for survivors in order to guard Wal-Marts. Numerous killings by police are receiving little media attention. But unsubstantiated and inflammatory stories about wholesale violence and rapes are getting international play. White supremacists are having a heyday decrying rape and assault against whites by black ‘brutes’.

Though food, water and transportation trickled in, the oil industry took care of itself fast. Over 10 major refineries were knocked out of commission in the Gulf region, but many of them were back operating within the week. Bush released federal oil reserves, but oil companies took the opportunity to jack up gas prices to a criminal level. Unabashed speculation was the name of the game across the nation, but especially in the worst hit areas where gas topped $5 a gallon. Bush also moved quickly to loosen environmental safeguards to allow more pollution by gasoline producers.

Capitalism kills. While politicians wring their hands over the ‘natural disaster’, they ignore the fact that its lethal impact was a result of their own policies. This avoidable tragedy points out the deadly priorities of the capitalist system, which puts profits above human life.

Many reports and scientific papers laid out the precise Katrina scenario. They warned that unbridled development along the coast had done away with millions of acres of wetlands that buffered coastal communities from storms. Scientists have shown that the increased intensity of hurricanes is associated with global warming and rising surface sea temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico. In other words, unchecked US emissions are creating stronger hurricanes. But to address this means tackling politicians’ corporate sponsors.

As the storm waters swept across the Gulf states, more than a third of the Mississippi and Louisiana national guard were fighting in Iraq. Their equipment, including generators, water purification systems and other needed life support and disaster preparedness supplies were overseas as well. Precious hours and days were lost as the bureaucratic machinery leadenly moved equipment from other parts of the country.

Nothing more clearly shows the fact that this is a capitalist-made tragedy than the real-life example of how the workers’ state of Cuba handled a similar situation. Barely a month before Katrina, on July 14 2005, Cuba was swept by Hurricane Dennis - like Katrina, a category four hurricane. Though impoverished by the US embargo and lacking the vast resources the US has at its disposal, the Cuban government was able to limit the death toll to 16, by smoothly relocating over 1.5 million citizens. Surely the richest nation on earth has the technical ability to do the same. But ability and will are two different things.

Hurricane Katrina displaced over 500,000 people in the Gulf Coast region. Now the government is faced with the mammoth job of reuniting these refugees with their loved ones, and finding them clothes, food, medical treatment, homes, jobs, schools and more. While George Bush utters pronouncements about refugees pulling themselves up by sheer determination and religious faith, Halliburton and other corporations are sidling up to the feeding trough for lucrative contracts that will maintain the south’s non-union, racist, sexist labour norms.

Public pressure is needed to prevent this despicable scenario. Demands should include:

l. Ensure immediate housing, food, medical care and childcare for all who need it through government facilities and supplies. Turn the Washington DC national mall, Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, military bases and Camp David into emergency shelters.

2. Institute a massive public works programme and start building housing immediately. Hire the displaced at union wages, and provide relocation allowances and training.

3. Restitution for poor and working people who lost homes, personal property and jobs.

4. Cancel credit card debts for everyone affected, and void all debts on destroyed automobiles.

5. Put a national price cap on gasoline, diesel, heating oil and natural gas, at a rate that slashes corporate profits by at least 75%.

6. Bring the national guard and all troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan now. Divert money from war to social programmes.

Freedom Socialist Party
USA

Gnostic link

We have an article titled ‘Fall of the house of Marx or a new unity?’ posted at www.gnostics.com/newunity.html and have linked this to your article, ‘Solidarity with sacked Gate Gourmet workers’ (Weekly Worker September 1).

Socialists really need to get it together in order to win!

Suzanne Radford
editor

Basic

Capitalism is completely outdated as a social and economic system. It has not only created the material conditions which make the historic ideal of communism a possible reality: its decadence and sheer destructiveness make its abolition and replacement by communism a vital and urgent necessity.

Existing forces of production and distribution could right now meet the basic minimum needs of every human being on the planet: ie, to be fed, clothed, housed, looked after, kept safe, etc.

But this would violate every fundamental principle and motivation of capitalism, a system which is run exclusively to generate profits for a tiny minority of the population - those who own the means of production and distribution. Their interests are in direct contradiction to the interests of the vast majority - we who have to sell our ability to work in order to survive.

All wealth, all goods and all services are created and made by us, the working class. Yet we allow these products of our labour to be owned by our enemies, the parasitical capitalist class, a class which serves no useful purpose whatsoever.

To add insult to injury, this capitalist class then forces us to buy back the vital necessities of life, which we ourselves have created for them! Even worse, they ration our ability to buy back these goods and services by artificially limiting our purchasing power (itself an artificial concept), by giving us wages and salaries which add up to far less than the value of the goods and services we have produced.

The difference in value is the source of capitalist profit, produced by our labour, but stolen from us systematically and brutally. This systemised robbery reflects itself in our relative poverty, our day-to-day struggle to survive - stressed out at work and at home, unable to pay bills, having to breathe and drink polluted air and water and facing the threat or reality of early death from war, illness or starvation.

Communist society would enable abolition of the artificial and damaging distinction between work and pleasurable leisure, and between manual and intellectual labour. The division of labour itself - whereby people are labelled and limited to one form of soul-destroying work - would be superseded. People would engage in a fulfilling variety and range of socially necessary and useful tasks.

Andrew Northall
Northampton

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