Obama and bankrupt UK
catp...@gmail.com
new era of world politics. The main strategy of big business under the
leadership of George W Bush was divide-and-rule, particularly Muslims
from Christians and Jews - with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and
indeed the orchestration of 9/11 beforehand as justification for those
wars (there is massive evidence of US secret service complicity in
9/11 as a BBC investigation into the collapse of the third tower, not
hit by a plane, has shown - see http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=9072062020229593250
for the video or http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk/conspiracy-files.htm
for my review of it). In contrast, Obama pledged to unite members of
those three religions, as well as Hindus, with the mention of the
latter religion particularly significant after the terrorist
atrocities in Mumbai (with Hinduism being the largest religion in
India).
As well as uniting people of different religions, Obama is dedicated
to uniting people of different races and classes. The old left mantras
of the Democrats being solely a party of big business, and of the US
president being the leader of Western imperialism, are out-of-date,
and socialists will render ourselves irrelevant if we keep repeating
them and using such dogmatic attitudes as a guide to action.
Obama has given off mixed messages as to his strategy in the Middle
East - supporting Israel and suggesting more troops in Afghanistan,
while pledging to withdraw from Iraq and negotiate with the Iranian
regime (with the latter act capable of massively transforming the
attitudes of the masses in that region in favour of unity, democracy
and peace). What Obama actually does will largely be dependent on
pressure from below and the balance of world forces. Writing him off
as "the world's #1 terrorist" as James Turley did in last week's
Weekly Worker is premature and naive to say the least!
Some have pointed to Obama's privileged upbringing - going to a mainly
white private school and Harvard university, but he also grew up in
Indonesia and went on a pilgrimage to Kenya (the country in which his
father was born) and was a leader of protests for more black (and
particularly female) members of staff at Harvard. He read books by
Alice Walker (author of "The Color Purple" which was made into a great
anti-racist film) and Karl Marx as well as the capitalist icon Adam
Smith. Obama is clearly genuine in what he is trying to do, and he is
providing capitalism with its best hope of keeping control of the
planet in these times of dire financial crisis.
If we are to believe the most dire of capitalist economists, the
British economy may shrink by 3% this year. Bearing in mind the
extremely weak state of the left in Britain and its inability to take
advantage of the credit crunch so far, if such a consensus was
correct, there would be no realistic hope of ever overthrowing an
Obama-led capitalist world. However, New Labour's attempt at a second
bank bailout is doomed to failure, and UK plc is bound to become
bankrupt, due to the reliance of our economy on the faltering City of
London, because they simply won't be able to borrow the vast sums of
money required on the money markets - the insurers of UK government
bonds are bound to go bankrupt so no astute capitalist will be
prepared to buy them!
Socialists, particularly Marxists, have stuck to the old mantra of
wanting to represent solely the working class - and wanting a society
where the 40% or so who regard themselves as middle class are denied a
say. In contrast, I have been promoting the idea of a form of
socialism based on proportional representation using single
transferable vote (the fairest form of PR since it eliminates the need
for tactical voting), but also with democratic control from below.
Birmingham councillor Salma Yaqoob (who received the highest vote ever
in the UK for a far left candidate standing against the mainstream
parties with 49% of the vote) told me at the Convention of the Left
held at the time of the Labour Party conference (which brought
together left-wingers inside and outside and that party and that has a
recall conference in Manchester on Saturday - see http://www.conventionoftheleft.org)
that she has been advocating PR within Respect. Salma stands a great
chance of becoming a Respect MP at the next general election (and I am
backing her for prime minister on Facebook!) but, realistically,
change has to come through the Labour Party as well as the far left
parties if we are to ever achieve socialism.
--
Steve Wallis (Manchester, England)
Preferred email address: revolutionary...@yahoo.co.uk
Blogs: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/steve-wallis-socialist-blog,
http://blog.myspace.com/galaxiasteve
My socialist website: http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk
My pages at Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1038291480,
MySpace:http://www.myspace.com/galaxiasteve and Bebo:
http://www.bebo.com/SteveW519
Founder, Ethical Capitalism Network: http://www.ethicalcapitalism.net
Founder, Foundation for Proportional Representation-based Socialism:
http://www.PRsocialism.org
Founder, Revolutionary Platform Network: http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net
My revolutionary socialist band, Galaxia:
http://www.galaxiamusic.net,http://www.myspace.com/galaxiamusic,
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Galaxia-a-revolutionary-socialist-band/84310120180,
http://www.bebo.com/galaxiamusic.
My socialist band, Red Day: http://www.red-day.net,
http://www.myspace.com/reddayband,http://www.facebook.com/pages/Red-Day/27468311341
Author, "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist
revolution will never happen?":http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net
For discussion of the credit crunch, go to
http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/forum/index.php?board=156
For discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories, go to
http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/forum/index.php?board=89