How Not To Fight Tory Smears

EXTRACT: Livingstone, like everyone else, is playing the system - perfectly legally. Frankly, why shouldn’t he? Moralistic handwringing in its leftist or rightist forms about the relative success Livingstone, or his accountant, have had in gaining pecuniary benefit from the diabolically complex tax system are quite ludicrous. And for Tories to come out with such accusations is a repellent exercise in utter hypocrisy. The communist position is clear. If the state sets rules which allow tax exemption/reduction in certain situations, then you cannot blame individuals for taking advantage of those rules - people are not saints nor should we expect them to be. We flatly reject the notion that there is a universal, classless, morality which dictates that each individual must in all circumstances hand over a portion of their money to the bourgeois state to use as it sees fit - ie, build up the means to oppress us. The bourgeois state is an enemy which we want to smash, not hand over money to like supplicants.

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EXTRACT: Aung San Suu Kyi - just like Nelson Mandela before her - is undergoing the process of sanctification by the bourgeoisie and its media. She is viewed as a valuable asset who can help bring stability to Burma (and the region as a whole) and in general prevent real revolutionary change occurring in that country - the very last thing imperialism wants, it almost goes without saying. That is the role imperialism assigned to Mandela and the African National Congress - to bring ‘peace’ to South Africa and hence stop it from developing into a revolutionary ‘hot spot’, with the potential to upset the imperialist world order. And with the assistance, or connivance, of Mikhail Gorbachev - as the Soviet Union slid into extinction - that is exactly what happened. An imperialist-imposed ‘peace’.
Which is not say that Suu Kyi and Mandela are mere tools of imperialism, or have not endured enormous hardship in their obviously sincere struggle to bring about democratic reform and social advance. Only a callous leftist idiot who subscribes to conspiracy theories would make such a claim. Yet that in no way detracts from the plain fact that Suu Kyi is being coopted into the world capitalist establishment In other words, she is someone who imperialism can do business with - in every sense of the term.

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Expect the Unexpected

EXTRACT: For the last few weeks we have been led to believe that the euro zone crisis is all but over. Thanks to the second Greek bailout, the dishing out of €1 trillion in cheap loans to distressed banks by the European Central Bank and economic recovery in the United States, there was now a bright light at the end of the tunnel. Everyone could breathe a sigh of relief.

But this has proved to be a self-serving fantasy. As the May 6 Greek elections approach, there is a distinct possibility that the Greek people will elect a parliament that will reject the bailout terms imposed by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund troika. Raising the spectre again of a default. No wonder that some within the European Union bureaucracy wanted to indefinitely postpone the elections - you never get the right result. Meanwhile, the US jobs market has stalled and all the ECB’s Long Term Refinancing Operation (LTRO) did was slap a piece of sticking plaster on the euro zone’s open wound - which continued to fester. The crisis never went away.

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Pouring Oil on Stormy Waters

EXTRACT:  They saw, or thought they did, the perfect opportunity to distract the attention of the media away from Tory corruption and towards the Labour Party by trying to mount a scare about union bosses holding the country to ransom. After all, the unions, including Unite, bankroll Labour. In this way, the Tories hoped to utilise the disclosure by Ed Miliband on March 30 that he has had eight formal meetings or dinners (Cornish pasties?) with Len McCluskey, the Unite general secretary, since he was elected Labour leader in September 2010. Surely a chance to turn the tables on Labour - too good to miss.
Thus the Conservative Party sent out a ‘secret’ memo to constituency associations outlining their cynical strategy to exploit, and ramp up, the dispute between Unite and the haulage companies. Unfortunately for them however, the memo was quoted in full by Charles Moore in the pages of The Daily Telegraph. There we read: “This is our Thatcher moment. In order to defeat the coming miners’ strike, she stockpiled coal. When the strike came, she weathered it, and the Labour Party, tarred by the strike, was humiliated. In order to defeat the coming fuel drivers’ strike, we want supplies of petrol stockpiled. Then, if the strike comes, we will weather it, and Labour, in hock to the Unite union, will be blamed” (The Daily Telegraph March 30).
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