Jeremy Corbyn: A revolution in plain sight

 

In their thousands they came. Carrying home-made placards, they came. Women pushing prams, their kids in tow, the young, middle-aged and old, black, white, disabled, the old left and the newly awoken; in the pouring rain they came. They filled St George’s Plateau and still they came, until they filled the road and the central reservation and the pavements beyond. 10,000 strong they closed Lime St, stopped traffic, and still they came.

This is a movement, a mass outpouring that demands, no, deserves to be heard. “Not the usual crowd,” said a friend. That’s us I thought. I’m part of the ‘usual crowd’. The old left. Veteran’s of struggles past. We were there alright, but this time to simply bear witness. This is a spontaneous movement. Some deride it and call it a cult, but that belittles the hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who are now, with one voice demanding change. These people turned out tonight, not for one man, but for hope, for a vision of a better way, and an end to the politics of the few and the demonisation of  the many.

Recently those in the media, sadly including people like Owen Jones, have decried the use of social media in shaping this movement. However, in the absence of main stream coverage, we have had no choice but to turn to alternative forms of communication. We would not know each other existed, if we didn’t; such is the black-out from official outlets. Sharing our stories, supporting each other, preaching to the converted are all important steps in strengthening and emboldening our movement, and this is precisely why 10,000 people closed down Liverpool city centre tonight. We have gained confidence from each other’s successes.

Lime St, LiverpoolCorbyn rally Aug 1, 2016

The people of Liverpool were inspired by their comrades in York, Hull, Leeds, Salford, Newcastle, Plymouth and Cornwall this weekend, and tonight we have doubtless inspired countless others. I have always been proud of my city. It is a place of solidarity, of hope and of determination. Tonight it was one of many cities joined in a nationwide campaign for socialism. We will all never walk alone.

This is how you build a movement. This is how you win hearts and minds. Now is not the time for faint hearts, or for Fleet Street lectures. We knew it was going to be bloody hard. Frankly it’s always been that way. The powerful won’t surrender without a battle, and while some run from the fight, hurling catastrophic prophesies as they flee, let history show that it was us that stood strong. It was we who built momentum, gave each other succour and encouragement. When others ran away, in our thousands we came to change society.

Mass meeting in Leeds July 31, 2016, yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk

The people of Liverpool were inspired by their comrades in York, Hull, Leeds, Salford, Newcastle, Plymouth and Cornwall this weekend, and tonight we have doubtless inspired countless others. I have always been proud of my city. It is a place of solidarity, of hope and of determination. Tonight it was one of many cities joined in a nationwide campaign for socialism. We will all never walk alone.

This is how you build a movement. This is how you win hearts and minds. Now is not the time for faint hearts, or for Fleet Street lectures. We knew it was going to be bloody hard. Frankly it’s always been that way. The powerful won’t surrender without a battle, and while some run from the fight, hurling catastrophic prophesies as they flee, let history show that it was us that stood strong. It was we who built momentum, gave each other succour and encouragement. When others ran away, in our thousands we came to change society.

Large crowd support Jeremy Corbyn www.liverpoolecho.co.uk, Aug 1, 2016

So don’t tell me this is insignificant. I won’t hear that these demonstrations mean nothing, and I don’t believe that change is impossible. This is new territory. The rules are being rewritten. 1983, 1997 and 2010 are ancient history. This is 2016. It’s the old ideas about politics that are irrelevant, not this glorious, magnificent uprising. We are rewriting the rules as we go, and nobody can truly predict what will happen; save to say that the old ways are dead and politics will forever be changed. The political discourse is transformed, maybe forever, and the tired old consensus has been ripped up.

The Westminster elite need to get over themselves. There is a revolution taking place in plain sight. They can choose to ignore it if they like, but they can’t suppress the truth anymore. We don’t need the oxygen of their publicity anymore. Thanks to new media we can talk to each other, organise and mobilise without them. The stronger and more confident we become, the more we can begin to engage with others in our communities and on our streets, in universities and workplaces.

This is just the beginning. The battle to reclaim our heartlands has begun. After decades of ‘Blairite’ neglect the working class are coming home. We’ll come for middle England next. Our message of hope, of a fairer more equal society, where the rich pay what they owe and everybody shares in the fruits of their labours will surely resonate with them too. This is our vision, our common purpose. It’s what mobilises us and it’s what will sweep Jeremy Corbyn to yet another victory in September.

The message to the Parliamentary Labour Party is now a simple one. Get behind us or step

Last night, I was proud to speak at this incredible rally in Liverpool - a city which has a proud history of standing up for justice. Our movement - strong, confident and growing bigger everyday - can win power and ensure every person in our country is decently housed, every child has access to a world-class education and anyone who falls ill has the NHS, free at the point of use, to turn to.

Video from player.mashpedia.com

Source:  Jeff Goulding, Aug 1, 2016

Clash of Civilizations - An extract from The Corbett Report - understanding terrorism

The terrorist are the ones in government

James Corbett on The Corbett Report, Aug 02, 2016 stressed
"We have to understand what is happening now with all the craziness, with all these terror attacks, we have to understand that this is part of an engineered conflict.  This conflict has been engineered for at least a century of history and you can look at the creation of radicalised Islamic groups, the fostering, the funding, the protection, the arming, the training of these groups."

The President of Belgian Magistrates: Neoliberalism is a form of Fascism

Neoliberalism is a species of fascism
By Manuela Cadelli, President of the Magistrates’ Union of Belgium

The time for rhetorical reservations is over. Things have to be called by their name to make it possible for a co-ordinated democratic reaction to be initiated, above all in the public services.

Liberalism was a doctrine derived from the philosophy of Enlightenment, at once political and economic, which aimed at imposing on the state the necessary distance for ensuring respect for liberties and the coming of democratic emancipation. It was the motor for the arrival, and the continuing progress, of Western democracies.

Neoliberalism is a form of economism in our day that strikes at every moment at every sector of our community. It is a form of extremism.

Fascism may be defined as the subordination of every part of the State to a totalitarian and nihilistic ideology.

I argue that neoliberalism is a species of fascism because the economy has brought under subjection not only the government of democratic countries but also every aspect of our thought

The state is now at the disposal of the economy and of finance, which treat it as a subordinate and lord over it to an exte3nt that puts the common good in jeopardy.

The austerity that is demanded by the financial milieu has become a supreme value, replacing politics. Saving money precludes pursuing any other public objective. It is reaching the point where claims are being made that the principle of budgetary orthodoxy should be included in state constitutions. A mockery is being made of the notion of public service.

The nihilism that results from this makes possible the dismissal of universalism and the most evident humanistic values: solidarity, fraternity, integration and respect for all and for differences.

There is no place any more even for classical economic theory: work was formerly an element in demand, and to that extent there was respect for workers; international finance has made of it a mere adjustment variable.

Every totalitarianism starts as distortion of language, as in the novel by George Orwell. Neoliberalism has its Newspeak and strategies of communication that enable it to deform reality.  In this spirit, every budgetary cut is represented as an instance of modernization of the sectors concerned. If some of the most deprived are no longer reimbursed for medical expenses and so stop visiting the dentist, this is modernization of social security in action!

Abstraction predominates in public discussion so as to occlude the implications for human beings.

Thus, in relation to migrants, it is imperative that the need for hosting them does not lead to public appeals that our finances could not accommodate. Is it In the same way that other individuals qualify for assistance out of considerations of national solidarity?

The cult of evaluation

Social Darwinism predominates, assigning the most stringent performance requirements to everyone and everything: to be weak is to fail. The foundations of our culture are overturned: every humanist premise is disqualified or demonetized because neoliberalism has the monopoly of rationality and realism. Margaret Thatcher said it in 1985: “There is no alternative.” Everything else is utopianism, unreason and regression. The virtue of debate and conflicting perspectives are discredited because history is ruled by necessity.

This subculture harbours an existential threat of its own: shortcomings of performance condemn one to disappearance while at the same time everyone is charged with inefficiency and obliged to justify everything. Trust is broken. Evaluation reigns,  and with it the bureaucracy which imposes definition and research of a plethora of targets, and indicators with which one must comply. Creativity and the critical spirit are stifled by management.2 And everyone is beating his breast about the wastage and inertia of which he is guilty.

The neglect of justice   

The neoliberal ideology generates a normativity that competes with the laws of parliament. The democratic power of law is compromised. Given that they represent a concrete embodiment of liberty and emancipation, and given the potential to prevent abuse that they impose, laws and procedures have begun to look like obstacles.

The power of the judiciary, which has the ability to oppose the will of the ruling circles, must also be checkmated.  The Belgian judicial system is in any case underfunded. In 2015 it came last in a European ranking that included all states located between the Atlantic and the Urals. In two years the government has managed to take away the independence given to it under the Constitution so that it can play the counterbalancing role citizens expect of it. The aim of this undertaking is clearly that there should no longer be justice in Belgium.

 A caste above the Many

 But the dominant class doesn’t prescribe for itself the same medicine it wants to see ordinary citizens taking:  well-ordered austerity begins with others. The economist Thomas Piketty has perfectly described this in his study of inequality and capitalism in the twenty-first century (French edition, Seuil, 2013).

In spite of the crisis of 2008 and the hand-wringing that followed, nothing was done to police the financial community and submit them to the requirements of the common good. Who paid? Ordinary people, you and me.

And while the Belgian State consented to 7 billion-euro ten-year tax breaks for multinationals, ordinary litigants have seen surcharges imposed on access to justice (increased court fees, 21% taxation on legal fees). From now on, to obtain redress the victims of injustice are going to have to be rich.

All this in a state where the number of public representatives breaks all international records. In this particular area, no evaluation and no costs studies are reporting profit. One example:  thirty years after the introduction of the federal system, the provincial institutions survive. Nobody can say what purpose they serve. Streamlining and the managerial ideology have conveniently stopped at the gates of the political world.

The security ideal                                                                                                          

Terrorism, this other nihilism that exposes our weakness in affirming our values, is likely to aggravate the process by soon making it possible for all violations of our liberties, all violations of our rights, to circumvent the powerless qualified judges, further reducing social protection for the poor, who will be sacrificed to “the security ideal”.

Salvation in commitment

These developments certainly threaten the foundations of our democracy, but do they condemn us to discouragement and despair?

Certainly not. 500 years ago, at the height of the defeats that brought down most Italian states with the imposition of foreign occupation for more than three centuries, Niccolo Machiavelli urged virtuous men to defy fate and stand up against the adversity of the times, to prefer action and daring to caution. The more tragic the situation, the more it necessitates action and the refusal to “give up” (The Prince, Chapters XXV and XXVI).

This is a teaching that is clearly required today. The determination of citizens attached to the radical of democratic values is an invaluable resource which has not yet revealed, at least in Belgium, its driving potential and power to change what is presented as inevitable. Through social networking and the power of the written word, everyone can now become involved, particularly when it comes to public services, universities, the student world, the judiciary and the Bar, in bringing the common good and social justice into the heart of public debate and the administration of the state and the community.

Neoliberalism is a species of fascism. It must be fought and humanism fully restored.9

Source: Defend Democracy Press, July 11, 2016

Published in the Belgian daily Le Soir, 3.3.2016
translated from French by Wayne Hall
Le néolibéralisme est un fascisme, par Manuela Cadelli