Wednesday, May 29, 2024

Cuban May Day rally demonstrates resilience in the face of the illegal US blockade

28th May 2024Leave a Comment

“As the sun rose over the Malecon, the seafront was transformed into a bright sea of banners, flags, and the noise of hundreds of thousands of people – the atmosphere was a clear & exceptionally powerful reminder of the resilience of the Cuban people under the illegal blockade”

By Fraser McGuire

Earlier this month I had the incredible opportunity to travel to Cuba as part of the young Trade Unionists May Day Brigade, organised with the Cuba Solidarity Campaign. The brigade included attending the annual May Day celebrations in Havana and participating in a conference on international solidarity with delegates from more than 30 countries across 5 continents.

*Youth Trade Union Delegation to Cuba for May Day 2024.*

When our group arrived in Havana on May 1st it was 4am. There were still several hours before sunrise, yet already the streets were packed with thousands of people who had travelled from across the country to take part in the May Day demonstration. As the sun rose over the Malecon, the seafront was transformed into a bright sea of banners, flags, and the noise of hundreds of thousands of people – the atmosphere was a clear and exceptionally powerful reminder of the resilience of the Cuban people under the illegal blockade enforced by the United States.

Delegates from trade unions and political groups across the world had travelled to Havana to attend the May Day celebrations and extend gratitude and solidarity to the Cuban people. Many of the international visitors gathered near one end of the huge demonstration at the José Martí Anti-Imperialist Platform – which is directly opposite the US embassy. The demonstration was also attended by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez as well as Raúl Castro and other senior government and trade union figures.

The next day we attended the international solidarity conference in Havana, which was addressed by speakers including President Díaz-Canel and the Deputy Foreign Minister, as well as trade union delegates and representatives from the Progressive International and other Latin American nations. A central theme of the conference was a defiant rejection of US interference in Latin America – from intervention in Haiti to the occupation of Guantanamo Bay and the suffering caused by economic sanctions against the people of Cuba and Venezuela.

President Díaz-Canel touched on the hypocrisy of the US regarding the ongoing genocide in Gaza. In the ‘land of free’ which imposes economic restrictions on nations across the world it deems ‘unfree’ can we witness the full repressive force of the state mobilised to injure and arrest thousands of students calling for peace.

Global South nations have stood firm in condemnation of the genocide in Gaza – in Latin America, Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced on May Day the ending of diplomatic ties with Israel, and Brazil has paused a deal with Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems. Cuba has not had diplomatic relations with Israel since 1973.

Everywhere we visited in Cuba there were signs of struggle from the US blockade, and of the impacts of the US classification of Cuba as a ‘state sponsor of terrorism’, a decision made under Trump which has been continued by the Biden administration. The blockade makes it increasingly hard to access food, fuel, and basic medical necessities, while the inclusion of Cuba on the state sponsors of terror list stops Cuba from having access to international banking systems.

The official wording of a US strategy document on the sanctions on Cuba includes the sentence “activities directed against the economy are intended to aggravate existing economic difficulties and thus to increase the level of disaffection… in the popular masses”. Seen up close, it becomes clear that the US blockade is a form of economic warfare against the Cuban people- a punishment for the removal of US backed dictator Fulgencio Batista more than 60 years ago.

As part of the May Day brigade, we had the opportunity to visit a Cuban hospital and speak to doctors and nurses working in Cuba’s inspirational healthcare system. The achievements of Cuba’s healthcare system under decades of embargo are nothing short of a miracle, weathering the covid pandemic with constricted access to crucial medical supplies, and training world-class doctors and scientists. One doctor told me that the successes were because, despite less access to resources, technologies, and international markets, the Cuban system puts patients and ordinary people right at the heart of its healthcare structures.

Despite the ever-growing international opposition and condemnation of the US blockade, solidarity with Cuba has never been more vital than now. The next US election may be one of the most significant in terms of the relationship between the US and Cuba, while the Biden administration has failed to relax the hardline attitude, a second Trump presidency could see sanctions tightened even further.

Solidarity isn’t just rhetoric and condemnation, but also must translate to material support and education. Across the UK we have seen trade union and grassroots support for groups like the Cuba Solidarity Campaign as well as meetings and film showings about the impacts of the US blockade on Cuban society. Cuba is a beacon of hope for many, yet it is also a lighthouse warning of the reality of US imperialism. Building and strengthening the movement to end the blockade has never been more necessary.

Fraser McGuire is the Chair of East Midlands Unite Hospitality and an organiser for Arise: A Festival Of Left Ideas. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
You can become a member of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign (CSC) here.

Joseph Stiglitz and ‘progressive capitalism’

28th May 2024Leave a Comment

“If an economy is made more equal, would it stop future slumps under capitalism or future Great Recessions? More equal economies in the past did not avoid these slumps. Progressive capitalism is an oxymoron in the 21st century.”

By Michael Roberts

The liberal leftist economist and Nobel (Riksbank) prize winner Joseph Stiglitz has another book out to proclaim the benefits of what he calls ‘progressive capitalism’. The Road to Freedom is a play on the title of Friedrich Hayek’s infamous book, The Road to Serfdom, published in 1944, which claimed that government intervention into the ‘freedom of markets’ would cause shortages and misallocations of resources and eventually to the end of democracy and freedom in a dictatorship a la Stalinist Soviet Union. John Maynard Keynes expressed his agreement with Hayek after reading his book. He wrote to Hayek that: “morally and philosophically I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it; and not only in agreement with it, but in a deeply moved agreement.”

But Stiglitz certainly does not. For him, Hayek’s claim that ‘free markets’ mean freedom for the individual really means ‘freedom for the wolves and death to the sheep’ (Isaiah Berlin). Free markets are designed to make profits not to meet the social needs of the many. “Externalities are everywhere,” Stiglitz writes. “The biggest and most famous negative externalities are air pollution and climate change, which derive from the freedom of businesses and individuals to take actions that create harmful emissions.” The argument for restricting this freedom, Stiglitz points out, is that doing so will “expand the freedom of people in later generations to exist on a livable planet without having to spend a huge amount of money to adapt to massive changes in climate and sea levels.”

For Stiglitz, the enemy of human freedom is not capitalism as such, but ‘neoliberalism’ which has bred soaring inequality, environmental degradation, the entrenchment of corporate monopolies, the 2008 financial crisis, and the rise of dangerous right-wing populists like Donald Trump. These baleful outcomes weren’t ordained by any laws of nature or laws of economics, he says. Rather, they were “a matter of choice, a result of the rules and regulations that had governed our economy. They had been shaped by decades of neoliberalism, and it was neoliberalism that was at fault.”

Stiglitz has argued before in previous books that it is not capitalism that is at fault but the decisions of governments and their corporate backers to ‘change the rules of the game’ that had existed in the post-war period of managed capitalism. The rules were changed to deregulate; to privatise; to crush labour unions etc. But Stiglitz never explains why the ruling elite felt it necessary to change the rules of the game. What happened to swing the post-war rules into the neoliberal ones?

Anyway, Stigliz reiterates his call for the creation of a “progressive capitalism”. Under the rules of this form of capitalism, the government would employ a full range of tax, spending, and regulatory policies to reduce inequality, rein in corporate power, and develop the sorts of capital for social needs not profits like ‘human capital’ (education), ‘social capital’ (cooperatives), and ‘natural capital’ (environmental resources).

Stiglitz does not want to get rid of capitalism but to regulate it, so it works for the many (sheep) over the few (wolves). “We need environmental regulations, traffic regulations, zoning regulation, financial regulations, we need regulations in all the constituents of our economy,” he writes. But Stiglitz is either naïve or applying sophistry here. The history of regulation is a history of failure in controlling capitalism or making banks and corporations apply policies and investment in the interests of people over profit.

How can anyone not see that, after the global financial crash of 2008, or the subsequent financial scandals galore; or the failure to stop or regulate fossil fuel production and finance? Regulation has not stopped regular and recurring crises of production under capitalism, whether in the imagined ‘progressive era’ of 1945-75 or in the neoliberal era since. Stiglitz has nothing to say on this.

Indeed, he almost recognizes that his policy proposals of taxing the rich, regulating finance and the environment and increasing public spending to achieve progressive capitalism are not likely to be adopted by governments and big business. But when asked that, maybe, the only real alternative to achieve human freedom is a revolutionary transformation of the economy and society, he replied at a LSE presentation of his book, that revolutions are violent and risky and so should be avoided in favour of gradualist change.

His answer reminds me of Geoff Mann’s comment in his excellent book, In the Long Run We are all Dead, “the Left wants democracy without populism, it wants transformational politics without the risks of transformation; it wants revolution without revolutionaries”. (p21). Stiglitz really echoes Keynes who once said, “For the most part, I think that Capitalism, wisely managed, can probably be made more efficient for attaining economic ends than any alternative system yet in sight, but that in itself it is in many ways extremely objectionable. Our problem is to work out a social organisation which shall be as efficient as possible without offending our notions of a satisfactory way of life.”

How would regulation and more equality deal with the impending disaster that is global warming as capitalism accumulates rapaciously without any regard for the planet’s resources and viability? Programmes of redistribution will do little for this. And if an economy is made more equal, would it stop future slumps under capitalism or future Great Recessions? More equal economies in the past did not avoid these slumps. Progressive capitalism is an oxymoron in the 21st century. And even Stiglitz doubts that it is possible to achieve.

Michael Roberts is an economist and author, you can follow Michael Roberts’ blog on Facebook and YouTube.
This article was originally published by Michael Roberts’ blog The Next Recession on May 13th, 2024.

Labour’s New Deal for Working People has “more holes than Swiss cheese” – Unite

27th May 2024Leave a Comment

By Labour Hub

Further revisions have been made to Labour’s New Deal for Working People document and union leaders are not happy. The Labour hierarchy released a 24-page document called Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay on Friday, but the further dilution of policies agreed only days ago has sparked a furious response.

Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham commented: “The again revised New Deal for Working People has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. The number of caveats and get-outs means it is in danger of becoming a bad bosses’ charter.

“Working people expect Labour to be their voice. They need to know that Labour will not backdown to corporate profiteers determined to maintain the status quo of colossal profits at the expense of everyone else. The country desperately needs a Labour government, but the party must show it will stick to its guns on improving workers’ rights.

“Fire and rehire is abhorrent and must be banned – no ifs no buts. Unite will continue to call out any row backs on the New Deal for Working People, which was a promise made.”

Back in 2021, Keir Starmer told the Trades Union Congress conference that a Labour government would guarantee sick pay to all workers – and indeed increase it. That pledge has now been abandoned. So has the ban on all zero hours contracts, the end of age bands and the promise of increased maternity and paternity pay.

Just ten days ago, the Labour leadership was reported to have reached agreement with union leaders on its commitment to workers’ rights. But even that was a dilution of the rights set out in a 2023 Party Conference resolution, unanimously passed. Momentum activist Angus Satow has detailed how Labour’s New Deal for Working People has been constantly eroded since it was first announced in 2021.

For Party leaders to have alienated key supporters in the trade unions just days into the general election campaign is not only incompetent, it’s foolhardy. Labour’s New Deal for Workers enjoys “overwhelming support”, including among Tory voters, according to recent polling.

This article was originally published by Labour Hub on May 26th, 2024.

Keep Our NHS Public’s call for the General Election – ‘Restore the People’s NHS’

27th May 2024Leave a Comment

“Our call to end private involvement in NHS-delivered health care is not just a question of principle: privatisation means fragmentation and undermining of safe NHS provision”

By Keep Our NHS Public

After 14 years of Coalition and Conservative government, and nearly five years since the 2019 Johnson government was elected, there is a long-awaited opportunity for political change.

The electorate has the chance to vote in the General Election 4 July. Keep Our NHS Public will be emphasising how much damage this government has done to the NHS and to social care. Injustices and heightened health inequalities have impacted on the majority of working people, disabled people, black and brown communities and groups vulnerable to exploitation, including undocumented people:

14 years of damaging underfunding of the NHS, public health, social care and education
14 more years of inviting private sector interests to parasitise the NHS
Record waiting lists – now at 7.54 million (up from 2.5m in 2010)
Worst ever cancer waiting times
14 years of overseeing the rundown of social care services
Thousands stuck in hospital because of lack of community care and social support
NHS GP services underfunded, undermined and corporate business allowed in
Access to an NHS dentist almost destroyed
Wages and working conditions for NHS staff driven down, endangering staff morale and safety
Workforce planning neglected and NHS doctors and nurses being replaced by physician associates and nursing assistants
Staff vacancies of 120,000 in NHS and 165,000 in social care
268 people suffering avoidable deaths each week from delays in urgent care
Ambulance service in crisis
39,000 premature deaths in 2022 alone on waiting lists for cardiac care.
Scandal after scandal in maternity care involving avoidable deaths of hundreds of babies and too many mothers.
One of the worst covid pandemic outcomes among rich nations – 239,688 with Covid on their death certificate: 260 people dying weekly this last year.
Renewed cynical attacks on the benefit entitlements of disabled people.

The NHS needs a sea-change in policy from a new political leadership in government. Keep Our NHS Public will be highlighting the record of those in government to asking voters to select those who will best support a public and well-funded NHS, and move to establish a publicly funded national care, support and independent living service. This requires a fundamental change in perspective – one that regards funding of public services as an investment in human well-being and an underpinning of a productive economy. Good public services maximise the ability of people to participate in society and a productive economy – they are not simply a cost to be grudgingly accepted.

The new government, which it is assumed will be Labour-led, must change key policies on the NHS.

Our call to end private involvement in NHS-delivered health care is not just a question of principle: privatisation means fragmentation and undermining of safe NHS provision – starkly seen in the undermining of NHS eyecare (ophthalmology).

The NHS needs stability and urgent funding, not reform and further reorganisation. NHS staff and services need security to do their job and to treat patients safely and well. Primary and community care, hospitals and public health desperately need urgent support.

Our vision is to restore the people’s NHS:

a publicly provided NHS and an end private involvement
an NHS funded to succeed – not defunded to fail
respect, recognition & decent pay & conditions for all health workers
re-invest in public health & tackle health inequalities
a rebuilt, restored and expanded NHS

The NHS when funded to succeed has been and can be again one of the best health systems in the world. We are calling on political parties to back this vision – we need commitment to change. Please join us to make our vision for the NHS a significant part of the 2024 General Election campaign.

This article was originally published by Keep Our NHS Public on May 23rd, 2024.

State repression of Greece’s student protests for Palestine

29th May 2024Leave a Comment

“By standing in solidarity with those targeted, we can expose the state’s oppressive mechanisms and continue the struggle for true liberation – for Palestinians and those incarcerated.”

By Migrants Solidarity, Athens

On May 13, students in Athens joined the global movement of the student intifada in solidarity with Palestine and occupied the Athens Law School. They demanded that Greek universities stop all cooperation in the form of research projects or exchange and funding programmes with the Israeli state. The next morning, police raided the occupied space and arrested 28 people. They confiscated a number of items from the grounds of the university, with no existing evidence to relate these items to any of the arrested individuals.

After the finalisation of the law enabling Greek police presence within the university campuses last year, there were unleashed waves of violence against students on their own campuses, while this year has seen a fast-tracked path to the privatisation of universities. Increased police presence and intimidation tactics in once free and autonomous spaces extend beyond the university walls. Events, activities and collective gatherings in public spaces – whether political or not – are targeted by police repression and violence. The state’s aggressive stance is an attempt to quash any form of anti-capitalist solidarity with migrants in support of free movement.

The 28 arrested in the Athens Law School were immediately transferred to the central police station (the Gada). Lawyers were only allowed access to them eight hours after their detainment, with the police attempting to force detainees to provide fingerprints prior to the arrival of their lawyers. In the meanwhile, hundreds of solidarians gathered in front of the Gada, demanding the immediate release of those arrested, while affirming their support for a free Palestine.

The following day, solidarians were present at the court to show their support for those arrested, with chants for a free Palestine and an end to the intimidation tactics. Finally, the 28 were released and the hearing postponed until May 28 of those accused of vandalism, disruption of the public order, refusal to cooperate with police procedures and possession of “weapons”. In spite of the decision to release all detainees, the state security department registered the nine non-Greek international comrades as “unwanted” and decided to continue their detention. Their lawyers were then informed that a deportation order would be issued – an unprecedented development for European citizens.

Administrative detention and deportations are part of the strategy that the Greek state practises as one of the deeply racist components of the murderous Fortress Europe. The state’s blatant racism is evident in the massive number of arrests, detentions, torture and deportations that happen on a daily basis – and mostly go unnoticed by society.

The brazenness with which the Greek state acts is also explained by years of enacting a deadly border policy against refugees, migrants and undocumented people. There are four grounds for administrative deportation, which give the police complete freedom to judge whether a person is a threat to public order, and people can be detained without trial and deported. The detention and threatened deportation of the nine detainees – from Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Britain – is a new application of these repressive orders targeting the solidarity movement with Palestine.

The technology used by the Greek state in its violent and deadly pushbacks of asylum-seekers rely on research and technologies of containment, surveillance and control that the Israeli state tests on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Opposition to the Israeli state, its military occupation of Palestine and the wars it wages in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, is a ‘threat’ to the EU and to Greece’s military border security complex.

The rightwing media released information about the detention and deportation of the nine individuals before any of them or their lawyers were informed – a move that underscores the state’s use of the media as a tool for psychological warfare.

Migrants and those without papers who exercise their right to free speech by being politically active, are now under increased risk of deportation and other legal action. This is exemplified in the case of our Egyptian comrade who, having attended pro-Palestine demonstrations, has been threatened with deportation by the Egyptian embassy. Governments and media outlets collaborate to criminalise and delegitimise efforts to support the Palestinian struggle, portraying individuals as a threat to national security.

These actions reveal the state’s desperation to maintain control and suppress resistance. It underscores the need for alternative media and solidarity networks to counteract these intimidation tactics. By standing in solidarity with those targeted, we can expose the state’s oppressive mechanisms and continue the struggle for true liberation – for Palestinians and those incarcerated. There is a need to escalate our solidarity, to say clearly and loudly that neither intimidation nor imprisonment and deportation will stop the struggle. Resistance will never die, Palestine will never die!

We demand:

The immediate release of the nine international detainees.
No to their deportation.
The abolition of administrative detention for all migrants and asylum-seekers.

This article was originally published by Migrants Solidarity, Athens.

Students from across Europe join wave of Gaza demonstrations and protest action

27th May 2024olandLeave a Comment

“The spread of campus protests to Europe follows a wave of occupations and encampments across the US. Some of these have been highly successful, with some universities agreeing to divest from companies with links to Israel”

By Labour Hub

Student protests against Israel’s genocidal bombardment and starvation of Gaza are spreading across Europe.

In Germany, thousands of students have mobilised in support of Palestine, leading demonstrations, organising lectures and sit-ins occupying university buildings and campus lawns. They have faced hostile media coverage, repressive legal measures taken by universities and politicians, and police violence.

Students who occupied the department of social sciences at Berlin’s Humboldt University were evicted by police, with 25 charged with suspicion of committing criminal acts. The occupation followed the dismantling of an encampment at Berlin’s Free University earlier this month, with officers punching, choking and kicking peaceful protesters without provocation, while they made 79 arrests.

After more than 300 lecturers from Berlin universities signed an open letter that accused the Free University of violating its duty its students, the signatories were publicly condemned by the Minister of Education and pilloried in the right-wing tabloid, Bild, as “Tater”, the German word for “perpetrator”, which often carries an implied comparison with the Nazis. The SPD-led Coalition government is now proposing a new law to facilitate the expulsion of students on disciplinary grounds.

The spread of campus protests to Europe follows a wave of occupations and encampments across the US. Some of these have been highly successful, with some universities agreeing to divest from companies with links to Israel, or agreeing to take up student demands with bodies in charge of overseeing their investments.

In France, pro-Palestinian protests at the Sciences Po university and the Sorbonne last month were broken up by riot police. Police also broke up an encampment at Paris’s School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences after just 48 hours.

In the Netherlands, police broke up a pro-Palestinian camp at the University of Amsterdam, beating some of the protesters and pulling down tents. Campuses in Austria, Finland and Denmark have also seen protests.

Major universities in Italy have been affected. In Rome, Florence and several other cities, students are demanding a halt to the genocide in Gaza, that their universities publicly call for a ceasefire and oppose Israel’s invasion of Rafah and “disinvest and cut ties with any organization complicit in genocide.”

In Belgium, students have joined the growing European wave of protests, calling for an academic boycott at the Free University of Brussels, with similar initiatives in Ghent, Liège and Brussels francophone university.

In Spain, student protests in Barcelona, Valencia, the Basque Country and Madrid have won the support of over 2,000 academics. Spain recognises the state of Palestine and the protests have been wholly peaceful and partly an expression of solidarity with US students, whose camps have been violently attacked.

Poland is the latest country to join the European wave of protests. On May 24th, students, academics and workers at the University of Warsaw began an occupational strike in the University’s Autonomy Park to highlight the university’s silence on the ongoing genocide in Gaza committed by Israel.

The activists are calling on the university to condemn Israel’s attack on Gaza and its occupation of Palestine. They are demanding the university break off all partnership agreements with Israeli universities, research centres, and other academic institutions, divest from Israeli companies profiting from the Gaza genocide and the occupation of Palestine, and make information about the university’s investments in Israeli companies publicly available.

Their statement says: “On the day we began our strike, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to immediately halt its offensive on Rafah, in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide, citing ‘immense risk’ to the Palestinian population.

“To end Israel’s violations of international law, Palestinian civil society has called for an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions. To protect the value of academic freedom, the boycott is not directed at individuals but at institutions in Israel that enable the violation of the rights of Palestinians.

All universities and 80% of schools have been destroyed by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip. Since October 7th, more than 5,479 students, 261 teachers and 95 university professors have been killed, and more than 7,819 students and 756 teachers have been injured. On April 18th, UN experts warned that these acts amount to “scholasticide” which aims to destroy the foundations of Palestinian society…

“We believe that today, the University is not living up to its values. With our demands, we call on the University to prove its commitment to being on the right side of history.

“Like the rest of the global student movement, our actions are strongly rooted in humanitarian values and empathy. We condemn all armed offenses against civilians, and we oppose and condemn all forms of racism and discrimination, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, all manifestations of violence and discrimination against LGBTQ+ and neurodiverse people.

“In particular, we see the need to create a space in Polish society for Jews, Arabs, non-Jews and non-Arabs, to learn from each other and heal together. Both Jews and Arabs have shared and still share the experience of racism in Poland. We feel it is therefore important that these communities feel safe and heard in the conversation about Palestine and Israel in this country. We aim to nurture this empathy, to invite all communities to come together in solidarity with Palestine, and find common footing in their oppression today.”

This article was originally published by Labour Hub on May 26th, 2024.

Damning chart sums up devastating impact on household incomes under Tories

Shocking chart shows just how badly incomes have been hit in the last five years under the Tories

Hannah Davenport

Yesterday
Left Foot Forward

A shocking chart has laid out just how badly household incomes have been hit in the last five years under the Tories.

Since the 2019 general election, real household disposable income has actually fallen by 1% during this time, a chart by the think tank Resolution Foundation, using ONS data, has shown.

Comparing the figure for each Government since 1955, the last five years represent the only recorded drop in household income per person over this period.

Resolution Foundation believes this will make up one of the key economic arguments for Labour throughout the general election campaign, with a focus on the decline in disposable income as a measure of just how bad the Conservative economic record has been

The second slowest growth period recorded in the last 68 years was between 2015-2017, with the graph a devastating reminder of just how hard households have been hit in the last decade.

Of significance will be the next ONS figures for family income in early 2024, set to be announced on Friday 28 June. The Resolution Foundation predicts this will matter politically ahead of the election, although, “the substance won’t change: our incomes have stagnated over five long years.”

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment