REBUS’S EXIT
Exit Music
By Ian Rankin, Orion 2007
460 pages, paperback £6.99
REVIEW BY ALEX MILLER
Exit Music is the 17th and final novel in Ian Rankin’s Rebus series. The series, which began in 1987 with Knots and Crosses, features the hard-bitten and hard-drinking Edinburgh detective John Rebus.
The book takes us up to Rebus’s official retirement from duty, and is up to the high standard set by Rankin in the previous books in the series. As always, Rankin manages to combine a gripping storyline withy vivid characterisation of person and place, and displays his usual skill in capturing the mood and pulse of Edinburgh.
Published just before the current crisis besetting global capitalism, Exit Music sees Rebus having brushes with various unsavoury characters connected with the enormously successful First Albanach Bank (FAB). FAB is surely a thinly-disguised reference to the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). A sign of how much of what is solid has melted into air since 2007 is that FAB and its nearest competitor are described as having profit margins larger than the GDPs of many small countries. Of course, these days RBS and HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland) have potential deficits larger than the GDPs of many small countries.
Musing on the upper echelons of FAB – “with their games of golf and their ‘quiet words’, their stitch-ups and handshakes, palm-greasing and scratching of backs” – Rebus comes to a conclusion that most socialists would agree with: “it wasn’t so much the underworld you have to fear but the overworld”. Indeed, later in the book Rebus appears to edge unintentionally close to Marx. One character in the book describes poets as “our unacknowledged legislators”, and following on from his experiences with FAB, Rebus reflects that the title of unacknowledged legislators really belongs “to the men in the pinstripe suits”. Or as The Communist Manifesto puts it: “The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the affairs of the whole bourgeoisie”.
Overall, Rankin’s Rebus books do for contemporary Edinburgh what McIlvanney’s Laidlaw books earlier achieved for Glasgow, and Exit Music provides a fitting finale to an ingenious and compelling series.
Apr 27, 2009
Apr 18, 2009
The Tamils need support
Green Left Weekly #791 editorial:
The Tamils need support
One of the great crimes of modern times is occurring on the island of Sri Lanka without a word of protest from governments the world over. The Tamil people are facing genocide.
Already this year, the death toll of Tamil civilians exceeds 4000. Often dozens, and in some cases hundreds, are slaughtered in a single day in Sri Lankan Army (SLA) bombings of the so-called safe zone, into which as many as 300,000 people are crowded.
Those Tamils who flee this zone are being placed into concentration camps by the SLA.
This brutal reality is almost entirely unreported, and not simply because the Sri Lankan government refuses to allow journalists access to the scene of its crime. Instead, the mainstream media is once again siding with the powerful.
When the issue is reported at all, the Sri Lankan government's propaganda is repeated the propaganda of a regime that refuses to allow a free press, with one of the world's highest rates of journalists being murdered each year.
According to Sri Lankan propaganda, the military are merely fighting "terrorism". It claims its war is merely against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), an armed group fighting for an independent Tamil homeland in the island's east and north.
Yet Sri Lanka's actions prove its war is against the Tamil people as a whole.
The actions of the LTTE are a response to the decades of discrimination and violent repression meted out to the Tamil minority by a state dominated by the majority Sinhalese ethnic group. Support for armed struggle grew among Tamils in response to the violent anti-Tamil pogroms in 1983 that killed more than 3000 people.
The solution to ending the decades-long war on the island, and bringing about desperately needed peace, is to end the oppression of the Tamil people.
First, and most urgently, there must be a permanent ceasefire declared. The mass killings must be ended. Food and medical supplies must be allowed into the "safe-zone", without which aid agencies are warning of a terrible humanitarian crisis.
The Tamil people must regain their freedom of movement and the concentration camps must be closed.
Once this occurs, the conditions for a negotiated settlement to the crisis, which can resolve the issue of self-determination for the Tamil people, will exist.
However, powerful governments, in defence of powerful interests, are allowing the Tamil people to be sacrificed. In return, the powerful are manoeuvring for access to lucrative shipping routes and ports.
To avoid upsetting the racist and undemocratic regime in Colombo, that regime is allowed a free hand to implement a "final solution" to the Tamil question. Once again, the corporate elite is placing profit over human life.
People around the world who believe in social justice must raise their voices. The Tamil diaspora is desperately attempting to bring the plight of its people to the world's attention. In their hundreds of thousands, they have marched in cities around the globe.
In India, dozens of Tamils have self-immolated to bring attention to the situation. In Australia, six young Tamils went on hunger strike for almost a week. They refused food or water, with a serious risk of death, in an appeal to the Australian government to press Sri Lanka to call a permanent ceasefire.
We cannot let them stand alone. Those who believe in social justice and political parties, trade unions, churches, social movements must speak out against the atrocities occurring right now.
The powerful have abandoned the Tamil people, it must be ordinary people all over the world who use their power to force action.
When Israel levelled Gaza, millions marched in opposition. That movement must continue, and the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign seeking to isolate apartheid Israel is beginning to have effect. But that display of "people power" needs to be repeated on behalf of the Tamils.
International solidarity helped end apartheid in South Africa, despite Western governments siding with the regime. It helped the East Timorese win their independence, despite Western governments including Australia siding with Indonesia.
It is placing Israel on the back foot, despite the most powerful nations on Earth backing the oppressors of the Palestinian people.
Now, international solidarity must be mobilised to save the Tamil people and stop the genocide.
[Support this very urgent struggle by joining the heroic campaign of the young Australian Tamils. Visit http://www.tamilsydney.com
The Tamils need support
One of the great crimes of modern times is occurring on the island of Sri Lanka without a word of protest from governments the world over. The Tamil people are facing genocide.
Already this year, the death toll of Tamil civilians exceeds 4000. Often dozens, and in some cases hundreds, are slaughtered in a single day in Sri Lankan Army (SLA) bombings of the so-called safe zone, into which as many as 300,000 people are crowded.
Those Tamils who flee this zone are being placed into concentration camps by the SLA.
This brutal reality is almost entirely unreported, and not simply because the Sri Lankan government refuses to allow journalists access to the scene of its crime. Instead, the mainstream media is once again siding with the powerful.
When the issue is reported at all, the Sri Lankan government's propaganda is repeated the propaganda of a regime that refuses to allow a free press, with one of the world's highest rates of journalists being murdered each year.
According to Sri Lankan propaganda, the military are merely fighting "terrorism". It claims its war is merely against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), an armed group fighting for an independent Tamil homeland in the island's east and north.
Yet Sri Lanka's actions prove its war is against the Tamil people as a whole.
The actions of the LTTE are a response to the decades of discrimination and violent repression meted out to the Tamil minority by a state dominated by the majority Sinhalese ethnic group. Support for armed struggle grew among Tamils in response to the violent anti-Tamil pogroms in 1983 that killed more than 3000 people.
The solution to ending the decades-long war on the island, and bringing about desperately needed peace, is to end the oppression of the Tamil people.
First, and most urgently, there must be a permanent ceasefire declared. The mass killings must be ended. Food and medical supplies must be allowed into the "safe-zone", without which aid agencies are warning of a terrible humanitarian crisis.
The Tamil people must regain their freedom of movement and the concentration camps must be closed.
Once this occurs, the conditions for a negotiated settlement to the crisis, which can resolve the issue of self-determination for the Tamil people, will exist.
However, powerful governments, in defence of powerful interests, are allowing the Tamil people to be sacrificed. In return, the powerful are manoeuvring for access to lucrative shipping routes and ports.
To avoid upsetting the racist and undemocratic regime in Colombo, that regime is allowed a free hand to implement a "final solution" to the Tamil question. Once again, the corporate elite is placing profit over human life.
People around the world who believe in social justice must raise their voices. The Tamil diaspora is desperately attempting to bring the plight of its people to the world's attention. In their hundreds of thousands, they have marched in cities around the globe.
In India, dozens of Tamils have self-immolated to bring attention to the situation. In Australia, six young Tamils went on hunger strike for almost a week. They refused food or water, with a serious risk of death, in an appeal to the Australian government to press Sri Lanka to call a permanent ceasefire.
We cannot let them stand alone. Those who believe in social justice and political parties, trade unions, churches, social movements must speak out against the atrocities occurring right now.
The powerful have abandoned the Tamil people, it must be ordinary people all over the world who use their power to force action.
When Israel levelled Gaza, millions marched in opposition. That movement must continue, and the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign seeking to isolate apartheid Israel is beginning to have effect. But that display of "people power" needs to be repeated on behalf of the Tamils.
International solidarity helped end apartheid in South Africa, despite Western governments siding with the regime. It helped the East Timorese win their independence, despite Western governments including Australia siding with Indonesia.
It is placing Israel on the back foot, despite the most powerful nations on Earth backing the oppressors of the Palestinian people.
Now, international solidarity must be mobilised to save the Tamil people and stop the genocide.
[Support this very urgent struggle by joining the heroic campaign of the young Australian Tamils. Visit http://www.tamilsydney.com
A note from the publisher
Because I will be travelling through Europe over the next period, LeftClick will be in hiatus from April 21 to May 24th.Whatever political adventures I notch up will more than likely find themselves logged here but when that will be will ... be.
Anyone who wants to follow these adventures -- unexpurgated -- should sign on with my Facebook site.
CRIME FICTION:Cuba: crime fiction and free health care
Detectives Beyond Borders: A Forum for International Crime Fiction --Peter Rozovsky's self evident musings on crime fiction has some interesting comments about the Cuban crime writer, Jose Latour. I've not read any of this Cuban exile's novels but Rozovsky digs up a quote from his latest, Comrades in Havanna that's worth a hearty scoff :
"Under capitalism, many nations had achieved what he had been led to believe only communist societies could: free education and health care."Cuban artists (and sportspeople) who high tail it outter there for big bucks elsewhere always play up to the role assigned to them by the US ideological template -- while always failing to note that their experience of recognition and encouragement of their achievements relied so much on the conditions of the very process they now professionally denigrate.
This actual situation is touched on in a comment and interview with Leonardo Padura, in the ShotsMag crime fiction zine, who is referred to as Cuba's Hammett -- and the Godfather of crime fiction on the island:
In case you are thinking that I'm too black and white, Rozovsky notes another segment of Latour's novel as a reflection on what's on offer for Cubans from the outside 'forces of democracy' if they retake the country:For those who tend to support the revolution blindly and those who tend to attack it from a position of ideological ignorance, this book should be particularly challenging. For it is clear that Padura is a critical voice from within. At times the sarcasm and behaviour of his policeman indicates an almost heretical attitude. Yet Padura remains in Cuba and is celebrated, certainly by the artistic community and the general population, as one of the nation’s greatest authors.
Padura’s presence in the island and his novels are a great achievement because they illustrate that Cuban socialism is not as repressive as its enemies claim it to be, while at the same time showing that Cuba is perhaps not as perfect as some of its friends might want us to believe.
Padura’s Havana is a heterogeneous place, where the macro politics of the Cold War, the blockade and the confrontation with the United States is not mentioned but broods ominously behind the text where the characteristic scarcities and contradictions of the 1990s are ever present. Padura’s reality is thus carefully nuanced and not easily bracketed into any ideological point of view.
In a sense therefore, Padura exemplifies the maturity of Cuban socialism in that it has been able to produce an author of such ability and education (his influences are wide-ranging - from Shakespeare to Salinger, Cervantes to Montalban, Mozart to Lennon) who is able to create a credible fictional Cuban world that is recognisable to visitors and Cubans alike and which is relevant to the times we are living through.
Some Cuban politicians might feel uncomfortable reading these stories, but then that is precisely the kind of popular literature that Gramsci called for. True art, said Gramsci, is about depicting life as it is now - whereas politics is always about some great future that is going to be. For that reason, he explained, the politician would always be at loggerheads with the artist.
Padura is such an artist. He makes the reader sit up and think, using the medium of the detective story not to propagandise but to philosophise. His novels might be described as morality tales for the post-Soviet era.
One of the defectors, a central figure in the novel:"`But we've reflected on the excesses of democracy and the shortcomings of communism a hundred times. Are we going to do something about it? No, right? So leave it to the naive dissidents who risk their freedom, maybe even their lives. They haven't figured out that when communism falls, Cuban-Americans will give them a medal and a pension before rigging the elections and taking charge. Politics sucks, Victoria."
Apr 17, 2009
PSM Comrade Saraswathy's speech to final session WAAC conference
This is Deputy Chairperson of the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) Comrade M Sarawathy's speech to the final plenary of the World At A Crossroads conference. She is long-term organiser of plantation workers, urban settlers and women workers in Malaysia, and founder of the Textile Union at Imperial Garment.Red Salute from Malaysia to all the friends & comrades ! Socialist Party of Malaysia thanks DSP / Socialist Alliance & Resistance for inviting us for this valuable World at A Crossroads conference.
One of the most widely known truths today is that capitalism is in deep crisis of its own making . The endless search for greater and greater profits with complete disregard for people and the planet , has inevitably in crises which capitalism itself cannot solve.
The clock cannot be turned back on global warming which has resulted in major changes to temperatures and natural phenomena ,and which poses a serious threat to future life on earth.
Capitalism has also resultad in a crisis of resources. The resources of the world have been exhausted and depleted by unplanned production and wasteful exploitation .Peak oil production has been reached and we face the prospects of a world that is short of energy resources.
Currently we are all in the midst of a worldwide economic recession that is entirely created by the capitalist system .thanks to global capitalism no country in the world is spared. Workers are losing jobs in millions ; there is a widespread homelessness and misery. The recession has and is going to create massive poverty. World poverty figures are going to skyrocket.Of course, the capitalist- run media mourns not about the huge suffering of the people but about the bankruptcy of financial institutions such as Lehman Brothers and the drop in the billions owned by the billionaires.And about the billions being pumped in by capitalist governments to save the capitalist system.
The constant warming is that this is going to be the worst crisis in 80 years ,and even worse than the recession of the 1930s .For us socialists this means a long period of suffering and deprivation for the people ,brought about by the ruthless profits first and greed – driven system.
But this very bleak period also is a period of great hope, having created the objective conditions necessary for ending capitalism .Widespread unemployment and poverty also means widespread disenchantment and anger. We have the opportunity to create awareness
among workers y exposing the capitalist system – as a system that rides on the super exploitationand repression of workers. We have the opportunity now to create awreness about the socialist system.We have the opportunity to empower workers .I think we will all agree that the objective conditions are ready for a change.But are we ready to use this opportunity to fight for a socialist future ?
I would like to propose some actions we should take in order to be able to respond to the crisis of capitalism.
1. Sinking our differences
One of the biggest obstacles in the way to a concerted fight against capitalism is the factionalism among the left .Many groups seem to be more concerned about the correctness of their ideology and position rather the onslaught of capitalism and how the left will need a joint response to it. There is a need to unite on our similarities as socialists, oppressed to an inhuman system where the majority remains oppressed,and commit ourselves to struggle for socialism with the working class .There is a need for continuous dialogue over our defferences as we work togather.There is an urgent need for us to think of the challenges and kind of socialism in the 21stcentury and how to arrive at it. And to realize that capitalism is still strong and will will come
back after the recession only because the socialists wasted their opportunity. Human history of working class will never forgive us if we continue divide ourselves!
2.Venezuela and Latin America
We need to look at Venezuela and Latin America ,Non -socialists are achieving what socialists have failed to achieve in decades .Socialism is being introduced in ways never imagined before. What lessons can we learn from Latin America which we can apply in the struggle in our own countries ?
3. We have to work
We have to go the ground and agitate as Che says.Engage the working class in struggles , empower them – we gain the democratic space to enhance our struggles.We have to write pamphlets for workers to understand,have workers discussion – to create awareness and urge them into action. We have to harness the anger and frustration of the workers and make people aware that mankind is not doomed to suffer under the capitalism system for ever.Socialism doesn't drop from the sky!
As Rosa Luxemberg has said , the choice facing mankind is Socialism or Barbarism.There will be great anger and dissatisfaction with the existing economic system.Our role is to turn this frustration into a political struggle for a socialist society.
Long Live Socialism !
Working Class Of The World Unite !
Hidup Perjuangan ! Hidup Sosialisma !
Ian Angus speech at final session WAAC conference
Speech by Ian Angus, Associate Editor of Socialist Voice (Canada) at the final session of the World at a Crossroads Conference in Sydney, Australia, April 12, 2009.Good afternoon.
I want to begin by thanking the Democratic Socialist Perspective, the Socialist Alliance and Green Left Weekly for inviting me to participate in this inspiring event. I have of course known of your work from afar – Green Left is one of the very best English-language socialist publications in the world – but this is my first visit here, and I have to say that your work and your dedication is even more impressive close up. I and the other comrades from Canada have been extremely impressed with the conference – and the many comrades I have met from other countries have said the same thing.
Socialist Voice is a small current in Canada, a network rather than an organization, that is committed to rebuilding and regrouping the left on a nonsectarian basis. This conference has been an invaluable contribution to that process. It was an opportunity for us to meet and exchange ideas and experiences with activists not only from Australia, but from many countries. With this event, the DSP has set an example of practical, working internationalism that we can all learn from, that all of us, in our home countries, should report, explain, and above all emulate.
There are many academic conferences on Marxism these days, but this has been a conference of activists, of people of people who are actually fighting on the front lines, for climate justice, for indigenous rights and sovereignty, against imperialism, and for workers power. If there is one thing that has been crystal clear at this meeting, it is that the revolutionary left now faces new opportunities to grow, to build and lead struggles far beyond what has been possible for some time. We need to break out of traditional ways of operating, to escape business-as-usual, to find ways to work with individuals, groups and social layers beyond our usual circles of influence.
And, as a comrade said in this room yesterday, there is no justification any more – if there ever was – for backbiting, bickering and gossip. Why? Because we have a world to win, a world to change – and that task is just too important for us to waste time with petty foolishness. The goals that unite us are vastly more important than any differences we may have.
In Canada, where the neoliberal offensive and the collapse of the socialist bloc severely weakened the Marxist left, we are rebuilding – not as quickly as we’d hope, but nevertheless we are moving forward. We owe the DSP a great debt for the example they have set. We have published Green Left articles in Socialist Voice, and we’ve been pleased and honoured that Green Left and Links have seen fit to publish some of ours.
In my remarks this afternoon, I want to particularly address a challenge to the comrades who are here from outside Australia. It’s too easy for us to sit back and let the DSP organize conferences we can attend, to let the DSP write articles we can reprint, to let the DSP organize international brigades, and so on. What I would like to see as a result of this conference, is for all the comrades who are here from outside Australia, to commit themselves to extending this practical, working internationalism.
Some of us come from very small groupings, some from fast-growing revolutionary parties – but all of us have a role to play in building a working international movement.
What we need to do above all is to create ever more opportunities to do what we’ve done this weekend, to share experiences and ideas on a continuing basis.
For example, I was very pleased to be able to spend a week before this conference speaking on climate change in several Australian cities, and in the process meeting and learning from a wide range of climate crisis activists. We need to do much more of that, not just on a bi-lateral basis, but multilaterally. It would be wonderful if a conference like this could be organized in India, or South Africa, or even, one day, in Canada. Not all of our organizations have the resources to do that today, but we can all begin moving in that direction.
We also need to expand our exchange of articles, documents and publications. The Internet is a great resource that we do not use nearly enough. When the comrades in India publish a pamphlet, for example, it could be instantly available for printing in other countries – that wouldn’t require huge effort, but it would greatly expand the resources all of us can call on. ==
Much of the most important revolutionary thought and analysis in the world today is being developed and published in Spanish – in Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia. Through cooperative efforts, we could expand the amount of that material that is well translated and widely disseminated, perhaps in printed form, but definitely in electronic form.
I’m very sure there are other ways that we can expand the exchange of ideas and experiences. To some degree, what we need to do is simply to consciously and deliberately take advantage of tools we already have – website, discussion forums and so on. But more than that, we need to make a commitment to allocate real resources, to expand our own material contributions to the practical internationalism we’ve seen here.
Please understand, I am not in anyway suggesting that we need or should create a new international organization. None of us wishes to be, and none of us should accept, any kind of “leading party” or international centre.” No toy internationals, no standardized international tactics. That hasn’t worked in the past, and we know it won’t work now.
But we also know that every current, every group, and every individual in this room, has much to offer and share, and that each of us will be stronger if we can share the work with others. We will build an international movement not by setting up artificial structures, but by finding every possible opportunity to exchange visits, articles, experiences, concrete support, and more. My challenge to the international guests here – and I definitely include my comrades from Canada – is that we move beyond accidental and occasional collaboration, towards a deliberate effort to work together on a regular and continuing basis.
Comrades, this conference could not have been better named. The world IS at a Crossroads. The choice between socialism and barbarism has never been so stark, or so immediate, or so pressing. All of us are conscious of what a huge task we face, of the immense responsibility that rests on our shoulders, on the shoulders of the publications, groups and parties we are part of.
We have an historic obligation to do everything possible to build a global movement to rid the world of capitalism forever. This meeting is a step towards that sacred objective, and I urge everyone here to build on this success, to make practical internationalism a key part of all of our political work in the coming year.
Together — and only together — we can win.
Thank you.
I want to begin by thanking the Democratic Socialist Perspective, the Socialist Alliance and Green Left Weekly for inviting me to participate in this inspiring event. I have of course known of your work from afar – Green Left is one of the very best English-language socialist publications in the world – but this is my first visit here, and I have to say that your work and your dedication is even more impressive close up. I and the other comrades from Canada have been extremely impressed with the conference – and the many comrades I have met from other countries have said the same thing.
Socialist Voice is a small current in Canada, a network rather than an organization, that is committed to rebuilding and regrouping the left on a nonsectarian basis. This conference has been an invaluable contribution to that process. It was an opportunity for us to meet and exchange ideas and experiences with activists not only from Australia, but from many countries. With this event, the DSP has set an example of practical, working internationalism that we can all learn from, that all of us, in our home countries, should report, explain, and above all emulate.
There are many academic conferences on Marxism these days, but this has been a conference of activists, of people of people who are actually fighting on the front lines, for climate justice, for indigenous rights and sovereignty, against imperialism, and for workers power. If there is one thing that has been crystal clear at this meeting, it is that the revolutionary left now faces new opportunities to grow, to build and lead struggles far beyond what has been possible for some time. We need to break out of traditional ways of operating, to escape business-as-usual, to find ways to work with individuals, groups and social layers beyond our usual circles of influence.
And, as a comrade said in this room yesterday, there is no justification any more – if there ever was – for backbiting, bickering and gossip. Why? Because we have a world to win, a world to change – and that task is just too important for us to waste time with petty foolishness. The goals that unite us are vastly more important than any differences we may have.
In Canada, where the neoliberal offensive and the collapse of the socialist bloc severely weakened the Marxist left, we are rebuilding – not as quickly as we’d hope, but nevertheless we are moving forward. We owe the DSP a great debt for the example they have set. We have published Green Left articles in Socialist Voice, and we’ve been pleased and honoured that Green Left and Links have seen fit to publish some of ours.
In my remarks this afternoon, I want to particularly address a challenge to the comrades who are here from outside Australia. It’s too easy for us to sit back and let the DSP organize conferences we can attend, to let the DSP write articles we can reprint, to let the DSP organize international brigades, and so on. What I would like to see as a result of this conference, is for all the comrades who are here from outside Australia, to commit themselves to extending this practical, working internationalism.
Some of us come from very small groupings, some from fast-growing revolutionary parties – but all of us have a role to play in building a working international movement.
What we need to do above all is to create ever more opportunities to do what we’ve done this weekend, to share experiences and ideas on a continuing basis.
For example, I was very pleased to be able to spend a week before this conference speaking on climate change in several Australian cities, and in the process meeting and learning from a wide range of climate crisis activists. We need to do much more of that, not just on a bi-lateral basis, but multilaterally. It would be wonderful if a conference like this could be organized in India, or South Africa, or even, one day, in Canada. Not all of our organizations have the resources to do that today, but we can all begin moving in that direction.
We also need to expand our exchange of articles, documents and publications. The Internet is a great resource that we do not use nearly enough. When the comrades in India publish a pamphlet, for example, it could be instantly available for printing in other countries – that wouldn’t require huge effort, but it would greatly expand the resources all of us can call on. ==
Much of the most important revolutionary thought and analysis in the world today is being developed and published in Spanish – in Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia. Through cooperative efforts, we could expand the amount of that material that is well translated and widely disseminated, perhaps in printed form, but definitely in electronic form.
I’m very sure there are other ways that we can expand the exchange of ideas and experiences. To some degree, what we need to do is simply to consciously and deliberately take advantage of tools we already have – website, discussion forums and so on. But more than that, we need to make a commitment to allocate real resources, to expand our own material contributions to the practical internationalism we’ve seen here.
Please understand, I am not in anyway suggesting that we need or should create a new international organization. None of us wishes to be, and none of us should accept, any kind of “leading party” or international centre.” No toy internationals, no standardized international tactics. That hasn’t worked in the past, and we know it won’t work now.
But we also know that every current, every group, and every individual in this room, has much to offer and share, and that each of us will be stronger if we can share the work with others. We will build an international movement not by setting up artificial structures, but by finding every possible opportunity to exchange visits, articles, experiences, concrete support, and more. My challenge to the international guests here – and I definitely include my comrades from Canada – is that we move beyond accidental and occasional collaboration, towards a deliberate effort to work together on a regular and continuing basis.
Comrades, this conference could not have been better named. The world IS at a Crossroads. The choice between socialism and barbarism has never been so stark, or so immediate, or so pressing. All of us are conscious of what a huge task we face, of the immense responsibility that rests on our shoulders, on the shoulders of the publications, groups and parties we are part of.
We have an historic obligation to do everything possible to build a global movement to rid the world of capitalism forever. This meeting is a step towards that sacred objective, and I urge everyone here to build on this success, to make practical internationalism a key part of all of our political work in the coming year.
Together — and only together — we can win.
Thank you.
Tamil Solidarity Resources
It is a useful initial window into the present conflict and its genesis.
Apr 16, 2009
VIDEO:Stop the War in Sri Lanka!
During the last months the Civil War in Sri Lanka has reached its peak. The Government of Sri Lanka is ruthlessly trying to occupy the North of Sri Lanka while they are totally disregarding civilian casualties! Even the British Foreign Secretary Miliband admits that the GoSL is committing "acts of Genocide"!
The indiscriminate bombing of innocent civilians and the use of the internationally prohibited Cluster bombs has to stop!!! Enough women and children have suffered. Enough families were torn apart. The War crimes of the Sri Lankan Army have to stop! Stop the War in Sri Lanka! Stop Genocide! Stop the killing of innocent Civilians!!!
VIDEO:Urban food growing in Havanna, Cuba
A clip from the BBC's "Around the World in 80 Gardens" (2008) showing some of the urban food gardening in Havana, Cuba. This series began last Tuesday night on ABC TV. Its' a fascinating series but the Havanna segment is especially potent.
I shared this a year ago, but if you missed the segment here it is.
.
I shared this a year ago, but if you missed the segment here it is.
FLEXABLE POLITICAL WILL
The biggest enabling factor for the success and eventual integration of the work was flexable political will. This is especially true when it comes to land-use policy. Support for sustainable food systems came direct from the top (Fidel) and laws were altered and practises adapted that suited the development of urban agriculture. Roberto noted that this type of change is not so easy in a capitalist system where land has, what he described as, 'different value'. A good example of this flexability is the clearing and cleaning of vacant lots in Havana. As is common in Britian, vacacnt city lots in Havana gathered rubbish and debris (especially in the 1980s). Masses of red tape and petty quarrels between neighbours often kept these lots in a state of dis-repair. Changes in policy allowed these lots to be cleared and used for gardens. Roberto says that in other countries this would probably never happen. In other countries we often see vacant lots gathering rubbish with chain link fences around them preventing any useful use! In Cuba land only has value related to its usefulness, rather than speculative value.
--Robeto Perez
How Cuba Survived Peak Oil --great documentary on the Cuban experience.
about “The Power of Community: How Cuba Surv…“, posted with vodpod
.
Apr 15, 2009
Ian Angus: World at the Cross Roads , a meeting of people on the front lines.
Ian Angus (pictured right),who edits the excellent Climate & Capitalism blog , summed up his Australian tour with a parting note on the GLW list.
I'm about to head back to Canada after more than two weeks in Australia. I want to thank the comrades of the DSP, Socialist Alliance, Resistance, Ecosocialist Network, Green Left Weekly and others who made my visit such a valuable experience.
I started out by visiting and speaking on climate change in four cities -- Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Hobart. The meetings varied in size, but in every city the audience include new young people who were keen to get involved, as well as activists who are playing leading roles in the Climate Emergency campaign. From a distance, it has been my impression that Australia is really setting the pace for building a climate change campaign in the wealthy countries -- up close that's very clearly true.
The talk I gave during this tour was recorded by a radio station in Adelaide --the audio is available online here:
Then I went to Sydney for the World at a Crossroads Conference organized by DSP, Green Left and Socialist Alliance. I attend a lot of conferences -- this was by far one of the best I've been to in years.
It was this a meeting not of academics or sectarians, but of people who are actually fighting on the front lines, for climate justice, for indigenous sovereignty, against imperialism, for workers' rights and more.
In addition to hundreds of Australians (the official registration count was 440) there were communists from many other countries -- I counted guests from 14 countries on the speakers list, and there were more I was able to speak to and share experiences with informally. The international speakers included governmental representatives from Cuba, Venezuela and Vietnam.
Conference photos here:
If there is one thing that was crystal clear at this meeting, it was that the revolutionary left today faces opportunities to grow far beyond what has been possible for some time. Our resources are still small, but we have enormous potential. The big challenge before us, I think, is to break out of our traditional ways of operating, to reach out to new radicals who don't speak the traditional "left language," and to work with them to create a new radical and global left.
Once again, thanks to the comrades who organized this conference and my tour, and who were so welcoming on a political and personal basis. I look forward to working with you on an ongoing basis.
Ian Angus
Editor, ClimateandCapitalism.com
Associate Editor, SocialistVoice.ca
Solutions to the Housing Crisis VIII
The fight to preserve whats' called Council housing has been a focus for groups in the UK. It is a response to similar restructuring that is going on here in Australia for the public housing sector in sync with dismantling the welfare state.While there can only be similarities I was interested in the political and tactical approach to the issue of how to formulate a fight back s response. This example from the perspective of the Scottish Socialist Party is a useful indication of an approach I'm keen to explore further when I'm in Scotland next month and talking to the SSP comrades.
Scotland faces a housing crisis of epic proportions. More than 150,000 individuals and families are on waiting lists for suitable accommodation.
Another 54,000 are homeless - many of them are young families forced to live in temporary bed and breakfast accommodation.
Rural Scotland has a desperate housing shortage, and some of the worst housing conditions to be found anywhere in the UK, especially in the private sector.
Across Scotland, more than 300,000 people live in homes affected by dampness or condensation.
Almost nine in ten Scottish homes fail to meet reasonable energy standards. And one in five Scottish households suffer fuel poverty.
Over one in three households have someone who is chronically ill or disabled. Yet there is a dire shortage of barrier free homes.
Since Blair and New Labour came to power in 1997, public sector rents have rocketed by 40 per cent.
Over the same period £1billion has been plundered from the public purse that should have been spent on council housing in Scotland.
The Scottish housing crisis has been aggravated by the loss of half a million homes under the right to buy policy.
This has removed some of the best housing stock from the public sector and reduced rent revenues to local authorities.
At least 20,000 homes require to be built every year to meet the demand for rented public sector housing. Yet not a single new council house has been built since 2003.
Last year, Scottish councils evicted more people from their homes last year than they have built over the past decade.
The Scottish Socialist Party is fighting for:
The cancelling of Scotland’s council housing debt of £3billion
The building 80,000 new public sector homes for rent over the next five years
Every home in Scotland to be brought up to a tolerable standard within five years
A freeze on public sector rents
Greater tenant control over housing investment and management
More barrier-free homes
An immediate freeze on the right to buy
No to large-scale stock transfer
The transfer of Glasgow City Councils housing stock over to the Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) has proven an expensive shambles.
Three years after their transfer, not a single house has been built or completely refurbished - even though more than £1.5billion has been made available to the GHA.
Instead of being blackmailed into handing their stock over to super-quangos, Scotland’s councils need large scale investment in housing. Source
- Force private developers to allocate one house for social rent for every 3 new houses built at rent levels set by the local council or housing association.
3) 100,000 NEW HOMES FOR RENT
Scottish Election 2007, manifesto (PDF file)
Scotland is in the grip of a housing bonanza,according to the property deal- ers,with house prices soaring through the stratosphere at supersonic speeds. Certainly,many homeowners are now in the bizarre position where the annual rise in the value oftheir home is out- stripping their annual salary.
That might seem like good news for Scotland’s home owners – though bitter experience suggests that housing mar- kets can go up like a rocket one year,and down like a stick the next.But for the million and a halfScots who do not own their own home,the housing boom is a cruel mirage.
With every rise in house prices,the more securely they become locked out of the housing market.
Scotland is now sitting on a ticking housing time-bomb.The number of first-time buyers is dwindling rapidly – down from 50 per cent to 20 per cent of the market over the past ten years. Rather than a genuine growth in home ownership,we have a sellers’market,a financial merry-go-round with the main beneficiaries being the mortgage lenders.
To make matters worse the social rent- ed sector is at the point of collapse. Decades of government cuts in hous-ing support to local authorities,com-bined with the disastrous right -to-buy policy,has condemned hundreds of thousands of families to a life sentence served out in dilapidated,crime ridden housing schemes.
Last year 11,200 council houses were sold off– but there was not a single one council house built in Scotland.
There are now approximately 25,000 homes built every year.Ofthese,90 per cent are private,leaving just 2500 new houses for rent,built mainly by housing associations.
There is now a desperate shortage of housing for rent.This shortage especially affects larger families,because of the lack offour and five apartment houses for rent;and young people who are excluded from the housing market and cannot afford the exorbitant costs of private rented accommodation.
The SSP wants to redress this imbal-ance between private and public by building 25,000 fully accessible new homes for social rent every year.
This could be financed by:
- Cancelling the housing debt for all Scotland’s local authorities – not just those who have signed up for stock transfer,generating £2billion over four years.
- Forcing private developers to allocate one house for social rent for every three new houses they build - at rent levels set by the local council or hous- ing association.
- Allowing councils to impose a ‘millionaires tax’on all land and property valued at over a million pounds.Even a modest land tax of less than one per cent could generate hundreds of mil- lions for new rented housing.
Even amidst the poverty and depres- sion ofthe pre-war years,cities like Glas- gow managed to build elegant tree-lined council estates such as Mosspark and Knightswood.
Scotland today is 100 times richer.It is a myth that we can’t afford high-quality social housing. In contrast to the mainstream parties, the SSP believes that high quality,low- rent social housing holds the key to averting a future housing calamity in Scotland.
The story so far:
- Solutions for the Housing Crisis I: tips from the Brisbane experience
- Solutions for the Housing Crisis II:mobility and living together
- Solutions to the Housing Crisis III: affordability
- Solutions to the Housing Crisis IV: materials
- Solutions to the Housing Crisis V: public housing
- Solutions to the Housing Crisis VI: the enigma of price and supply
- Solutions to the Housing Crisis VII: the complication of too many houses.
- Solutions to the Housing Crisis VIII: a fight back program?
AUDIO: Michael A. Lebowitz. -- What would Marx say?
Is it time to dust off a copy of Das Kapital and revisit Marx´s analysis of capitalism's ills?
Late Night Live hosted a discussion with Michael A. Lebowitz.
Lebowitz was a guest speaker at the World at the Crossroads Conference in Sydney on the Easter weekend and is now touring other centres.
Late Night Live hosted a discussion with Michael A. Lebowitz.
Lebowitz was a guest speaker at the World at the Crossroads Conference in Sydney on the Easter weekend and is now touring other centres.
Popout
Guests
William Coleman
Reader at the School of Economics of the Australian National University; editor of Agenda: a Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor emeritus of economics at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada
Further Information
The Path to Human Development - Michael A. Lebowitz
Publications
Title: Beyond Capital, Marx's Political Economy of the Working Class
Author: Michael A. Lebowitz
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (Second Edition, 2003)
Instant Soup Noodles, the joys of Pho and the blessings of Ho Chi Minh
If you are familiar with Tempopo -- the Japanese movie that tells of the quest for the best of all possible noodle soups -- then you can imagine perhaps what ails me.I am a soup noodle junkie.If I eat out in an Asian restaurant I more often than not order from their soup noodle menu.
My engagement with the ubiquitous instant noodle soups of Asia, and especially my favorite Indonesian brands, has been long standing. Of late I nonetheless have been eating Maggi's 2 minute noodle brand which registers a low GI I also eat Maggi in order to reduce the fat quotient in the meal as instant wheat noodles are first fried before being packed.
My daughter is recently diagnosed with Coeliac disease so we went looking yesterday for rice based instant fare.
If you have ever gone instant soup noodle hunting in Asian shops you'll be overwhelmed by the numbers and variety of products. Asian students studying in Australian capitals live off them and the consequent demand has driven the market.
The problem is that most of these soup packets are printed in Asian languages with only a small , usually pasted on slip -- with mininscule writing -- in English listing the packet's ingredients. So there's only one option: buy and try.
However, since the eating of instant noodle soups can be as gastronomic as you want to make it here's a couple of tips.
My first tip is to make sure you check your brand options with the many reviews and ratings on noodle son. Noodle Son is a Seattle based site dedicated to the appreciation of Asian instant noodles and snacks.
Since I eat instant noodles as a soup every day I've become quite adept of getting the best out of any one packet.
So I make my own by orchestrating a medley of ingredients. You'd be surprized how inexpensive this combination is.
I always add garlic and ginger to the soup base and sliced onion or spring onion. Then I throw in some fresh green vegetable and maybe some chilli and quickly par boil the soup before adding some bean sprouts.
While I always prepare the noodles separate from the soup and soup base (as you would pasta), yesterday we discovered a range of Phở (soup) instant noodles which are excellent -- MAMA brand.
Phở is the quintessential noodle soup and in many suburbs across Australia -- occupied by Vietnamese migrants -- many restaurants will be dedicated to this one menu item. But if you don't live in Darra (Qld), or Springvale (Vic) or Cabramatta (NSW) -- you have to make do.Enjoying Phở also requires a ritual in the way you choose to add fresh bean sprouts, basil, chili pieces, Vietnamese mint, lemon juice or Coriander leaves to your bowl.
You may find yourself eating under posters that call for the overthrow of the Vietnamese government -- but that's becoming less common in the new era of Đổi mới --"renovation".
I first got into Phở as a product of the post bellum period in Vietnam -- as the wave of boat people settled Australia one restaurant at a time. And if I had my druthers I would be living among them just so that I could walk out my door each day and eat Phở for breakfast or
lunch as I'd prefer.I prefer the ambiance of a Phở restaurant to a coffee shop any day. I like the laminated tables, the containers of cutlery , condiments and chopsticks on each table top, the absolute lack of pretension and the focus you have to invest into the protocols of consuming the soup and its passengers.
For me that's what a food evolution would be like: Phở restaurants for all at government subsidised prices! (Maybe with a poster of Ho Chi Minh over the counter).
Here's some trivia: did you know that Ho Chi Minh -- then known known as Nguyen Tat Thanh in 1914 -- worked for the famous French Chef Auguste Escoffie in Paris. Escoffie was the guy who invented Melba toast. Some reports I've read had Thanh working as Escoffie's saucier but I think that's unlikely.
CRIME FICTION:The Urban Landscape of Marxist Noir
Crime Time offers a fascinating interview with Alan Wald about Marxists and the crime novel -- The Urban Landscape of Marxist Noir.Anyone with any familiarity with left fiction will know that communists and a lot of genres have been integrated in a comfortable partnership of outlook. The Wald interview explores this connection by touching on those authors who remained loyal to their radicalism and not just those who wrote well in a Marxian moment only to later recant.
Tip: thanks to Norm Dixon
Apr 14, 2009
Australian Tamil hunger strike against genocide
12 April 2009 Three young Tamil Australians began a hunger strike on April 11 to demand that the Australian government press for a permanent ceasefire by the Sri Lankan Army. The SLA is carrying out a brutal military offensive against the Tamil people in the island's north, with more than 3000 civilians killed this year already.
Initially, the hungers strikers camped outside Kirribilli House, the residence of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Sydney, along with thousands of supporters. On April 14, Tamil protesters and supporters traveled to Canberra to protest.
One of the hunger strikers, Suthra Thanabalasingam, told Green Left Weekly that the hunger strikers have refused to eat food or drink any water since 5pm on April 11. The hunger strikers are demanding that the Australian government to use its diplomatic powers to push the Sri Lankan government:
- To agree to an immediate ceasefire;
- to allow food, medicine and aid into the conflict zone;
- to allow medical and other vital services into the conflict zone; and
- allow the Tamil People, both in the conflict zone and those indefinitely detained in concentration camps in government-held areas, to decide independently where they wish to reside
Thanabalasingam urged the Australian public to support Tamil protests and join the fight against Genocide taking place.
Today there will be protests at The Lodge in Canberra and there are more protests planned.
For more information http://fastuntoaction. wordpress.com/
450 attend international conference!
April 13 - Around 450 people attended the exciting international conference - World At a Crossroads: Fighting for Socialism in the 21st Century - over the weekend. Many stayed on for the national conference of Resistance, socialist youth organisation, held on the Monday. Nearly 30 people attended from Wollongong, including Jay Fletcher, Jess Moore & Paola Harvey who presented talks at the conferences. It was an amazing experience in terms of learning but also for networking - with activists present from every continent around the world. While the many crises faced by capitalism - ecological, economic, political etc - were discussed at length, the conference ended on an inspiring note. There was a real optimism that if people and the oppressed unite in struggle, we can certainly change the world and put people and the planet before the needs of profit. For more information and pictures check out http://www.worldatacrossroads.org/
Source: Illawarra SA blog
Source: Illawarra SA blog
Apr 13, 2009
SLIDESHOW:World At A Crossroads Conference
The World At A Crossroads - Fighting for Socialism in the 21st Century conference was a fantastic success with 440 registrations. A full report and other information will be published in coming days. In the meantime, here are some pictures from the conference (more to come shortly).
Individual pictures can be viewed here with a smaller selection below.
AUDIO: Capitalism and Climate Change -- Ian Angus
Ian Angus is the editor of climateandcapitalism.com and founder of the Eco-socialist International Network.He is also associate editor of Socialist Voice and the director of the Socialist History Project.
Ian was on tour in Australia (Perth poster left) in the run up to the World at a Crossroads conference to be held in Sydney on the Easter weekend.
Ian’s talk addressed the link between our capitalist economic system and the degradation of our environment. This talk was recorded at the Adelaide South West Community Centre on Sunday the 5th of April.
This talk was broadcast on Radio Adelaide on the 8th of April
Apr 11, 2009
AUDIO: Salvadoran Journalists - English voiceover
Tough biddies (still sparking strong) and young enthusiasts are out there doing tough journalism in a tough country. There's gonzo, and there is survivalist in the world of journalism. There are broadsheets and pamphlets in El Salvador, but we are talking to journalists the more mature ones) who have survived journalism in a Civil War, and others, from the younger generation who see the point.
El Diario Co-Latino is the end product of a newspaper that has been bombed, bankrupted, set on fire, and generally persecuted. It has also been the training ground of young journalists who are not prepared to sell out to financial interests, graduates from the National University of El Salvador, that has refused to sell out to neo-liberal interests. There are over 50 'private' universities in San Salvador many of them controlled byformer military officers of the former regime - a retirement break for US accredited generals and colonels who have been afforded 'impunity' for their role in gross human rights violations. Remains to be seen if the new government can reconstruct the neoliberal 'plantation', or whether the Universities can still generate a critical, committed, and honest journalist.
Apr 9, 2009
CRIME FICTION: & VIDEO : Wallander --: Crime fiction, human reality and depression
Ola Rapace (Stefan Lindman), Krister Henriksson (Wallander),
Johanna Sällström (Linda Wallander)
Johanna Sällström (Linda Wallander)
I've been meaning to write a tad more on crime fiction. I've done a bit of this already so if murder or mayhem isn't your preferred cup of genre you can give this post a miss.
But upwelling within me was a discussion about television crime drama as played out in the excellent new Australian series , City Homicide, and the continuing showing of the Swedish drama series by SBS , Wallander, based on the novels of Henning Mankell.
On a good Sunday night in you get both these gems back to back.
Kurt Wallander
Wallander is especially good. Kurt Wallander is a character created by Mankell as the centrepiece of 9 novels which narrate his police work in the southern Swedish town of Ystad ; and as you'd expect from such a series, Ystad demographics would have been greatly skewed if Mankell's penchant for serial murder plots was played out locally for real.
Nonetheless,Mankell's skill as a writer has sold 25 million books in 37 languages.
This year two more Wallander seriss will be shot in Ystad by separate -- one in English (with Kenneth Branagh as Wallander) and one in Swedish ( with Krister Henriksson in the role)-- film crews, at the same time and the police in the town are reportedly thoroughly sick already of being approached by German tourists for a photograph of themselves outside the local cop shop where Kurt solved many a mystery.
You see, Kurt Wallander is one of the great contemporary creations in crime fiction -- a Swedish Everyman with a penchant for depressive rages whose life is only given meaning through his police work.
He is a fictional continuation of Martin Beck -- another Swedish copper created by the consciously Marxist pair of Sjöwall and Wahlöö.
But the stories in the current series on SBS are not taken from these books. While the first one was based on Mankell's last book in the Wallander series, Before the Frost this was released as a film and featured the character of his daughter, Linda. The rest of the TV/DVD series are original stories not based directly on any of Mankell's books but featuring the series characters.
It's Commedia dell Arte without an ounce of humour.
They are superbly written, directed and acted and you'd be hard pressed to find their equal anywhere else in recent television dramatic experience. Last Sunday's episode was especially shocking, frank and, in its terrible way, tragic. Its theme was a local pedophile network and the murder of a young boy.
Promo for the episode
The Swedes don't pull their punches.
Linda Wallander
I won't spoil it for you by relating the plot, but suffice to say that this episode was another exploration of the perspicacity and character of Linda Wallander who like her father is now a Ystad cop and her dad is her boss.
A major theme in the Wallandar novels is depression and a certain Nordic tension that reminds me absolutely of the films of Ingmar Bergman. That Mankell is married to the daughter of this great Swedish film and stage director perhaps confirms a certain cultural continuity -- although Henning Mankell has had a seventies stint as an avowed Marxist of the Maoist persuasion. In his novels, nonetheless, you get a certain existentialist ethical angst in the raw now played out with a overwhelming concern for the the plight of the people of Africa . Mankell now spends part of his life in Maputo, Mozambique.
The Wallander novels are a working through of many of those issues. However as he comes to create Linda, the daughter, viewed mainly as a component in the dramatis personae network of her father, he has managed to put together a extraordinary portrait of a remarkable but highly identifiable woman. Linda's tragedy and success is that she is her father's daughter and while he does the Swedish thing and occasionally goes on alcohol binges, she has two suicide attempts to her name.
If you get to watch the series the acting by Krister Henriksson is a remarkable fleshing out of words on a page that for those like me who come from the novels to the screen, is almost scary. If you've seen Wallander or the Danish TV series Unit One (also on SBS)-- you'll be surely thinking as I do that Nordic actors are some of the best film actors on the planet.
The role of Linda Wallander is played by Johanna Sällström. Since, this series is primarily about her and her struggle with police work and life, the marriage of this extraordinary actor and the character bequeathed to us from the last of the Mankell Wallander novels makes for a mercurial personal journey caught on film.
Last Sunday's episode had a major impact on me -- but that's not unusual for Wallander (and me watching or reading Wallander), I guess. I was amazed, on edge, engaged and distraught as the tragedy unfolded.
Sällström's performance was wrought with an extraordinary depth and poignancy such that I just had to find out where I could see more of this woman's work as an actor.
But...
Johanna Sällström committed suicide on February 13, 2007. ...
This was thought partly due to her experiences in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
Apr 8, 2009
VIDEO:The Union Show -- 7th April 09
Forest Firefighters, youth workers in fast food and retail, CFMEU and John Holland, and farewell Dave Kerin.
Apr 7, 2009
Solutions to the Housing Crisis VII
The complication of too many houses
One of the argument I'm exploring in this series -- as a hypothesis -- is that building lite and using supplements to extend such structures environmentally -- by using effective insulation for example-- is preferable in regard to flexible options than building solid heavy structures that come at a high green house gas price
The first problem I think is retrofitting. The second is finding the space ( and win the community support to exploit it)in already existing urban areas to locate any new housing (and accommodation) we need so that already existing infrastructure is utilised more efficiently. The third problem is developing the means to build sustainable houses quickly, and cheaply which also offers an option that , in fact, they can be moved elsewhere if needed, or raised up or dismantled and recycled.
On the question of space --while we can go up, how far do we want to go up? Three stories?
Making more neighborhood living space
Aside from unused industrial land and the possibility of dividing already existing blocks , on average one third of the suburban space is taken up by the roads network. So how much can that be harnessed for living and recreational and community use? And how is that to be done?
It's easy to imagine a 'future' house but altering the ecology of already existing suburbs now, today, is another matter altogether.
We know what can be done because we've witnessed so much inner city renewal and gentrification.
The related issue I think, is the complication that the brick house -- even where they already exist in Western Sydney for instance -- is threatened and the structure undermined by soil salinity (image left) -- just as on the urban fringe in the southern capitals, bush fires lick the family home.So sustainability does also mean protecting and maintaining already existing housing stocks.
In my head I'm thinking that the politics we need to consider isn't so much technical at all. But if we are going to ask people to live a different way in smaller spaces we have to offer a trade off.
And this is where the caravan , camping park comes in or the retirement village model. You have to generate neighborhood services that will encourage people to loosen up on their peasant attitude to real estate. And before you can do that you need to make their lives economically much more secure so that their home isn't so layered with security hopes.
The problem of private ownership.
Private ownership is not so easily overcome, but one way, especially with the option of building lite, portable and sustainable structures, is for communities or governments to long term lease land parcels from private family home real estate owners and to build these structures on that land.
That way there's a return for the fact that your plot is suddenly much smaller and en route, the neighborhood gets to experience the crowding while still having the option to pull out of the arrangement at a later date.(eg: after 10, 20, etc years) That way you support the original home owners with a cash commitment which they could rely on while you restructure the local urbanscape without recourse to legislative or authoritarian means .
In many ways you want to draw lessons from the problems, disasters and achievements that were experienced in the past with collectivising agriculture and land reform in various Third World countries. You don't do away with home ownership -- even the Cubans know that -- but you foster a nuanced means in order to introduce collective activity and shared responsibility.
In that sense people trade aspects of what they may value now for a greater promise and convenience as they learn to have confidence in the changes being wrought.
So as you add to the neighborhood more community facilities you expand the local population by using these trade off methods to build more housing on 'privately owned' land. At the same time you restructure the road system and local traffic flow to free up more land for housing and community amenities.
In my head, the game plan is a sort of long term caravan park that invades localities and the longer it consolidates and takes root the more changes are possible and the more permanent -- and socialist -- they become.
I cannot imagine any other way that such massive demographic changes could be engineered with community consent.
But there's a downside that leads to further problems.
The complication of too many houses
In my last post I noted the prospect that in Australia there may indeed be, as far as the market is concerned, an over supply of houses. That there could be 10 million dwellings in Australia rather than the ABS suggestion of 8.3 million. The statistical shortfall being caused by the difference between the number occupied and the number unoccupied. The actual figure perhaps isn't so important but the suggested broad scale of it is.
If these unoccupied houses could be made suddenly available for occupancy then some of the supply genesis of the housing crisis is ameliorated. This could be done by changing the whole financing structure and ensuring that any housing stock is not utilised as investment fodder but used for owner or tenant occupancy. Negative gearing and similar capital gains perks should be done away with and housing should be for need rather than for private profit. In effect, such changes would undermine speculation in real estate. Unoccupied dwellings would need to be 'liberated' by various government initiatives by perhaps fostering a sort of squatters movement to ensure that the buildings are occupied and a set legislated rental is paid to real estate owners as a transitional measure.
However, a major complication immediately kicks in. If by this means 750,000 dwellings or 1 million or whatever large number of dwellings were suddenly made available/dumped on the market -- house prices and rental costs would collapse. In fact a process like this may occur anyway as the recession deepens and owner investors seek to liquidate their assets.
This impact would be even greater if there was also a massive government investment in public housing at the same time.
Of course this is a good thing. Housing would become less an area for financial speculation and become more in tune with fulfilling actual human need. There would be a tendency for housing to become more 'affordable' (assuming people were in jobs and could 'afford' to purchase or rent it). This impact would be greater if there was also a massive investment in public housing stock. Not only could governments fix house price and rentals in that sector and make housing even more affordable by such means, the consequent drift from the private market place to the public sector would drive down house prices and rents across the board.
Nonetheless there is a complication that would also need to be addressed. If house prices fell drastically -- as they are and will anyway in the present financial crisis -- a layer of mortgagees will have no choice but to walk away from their homes they have been paying for because they will be paying much more than their properties were now worth. It would be a self evident course for them to cut their loses, walk away and seek cheaper accommodation.
This is in fact happening on a massive scale in the United States and is even a significant phenomenon here already.
This too -- either by people walking away or by a sharp rise in foreclosures -- would feed the downward price spiral.
Similarly, the gross personal wealth of millions of families would drop as the presumed nest egg congealed in their home was whittled away by the house price fall. Thousands too would now be owning real estate that they paid much more for than they could now get on the open market.
Oh woe is the contradictions of private ownership!
So the 'Housing Crisis' even as it works itself out, is sure to extract a heavy toll on working people unless other aspects of the economy are also restructured.
The story so far:
One of the argument I'm exploring in this series -- as a hypothesis -- is that building lite and using supplements to extend such structures environmentally -- by using effective insulation for example-- is preferable in regard to flexible options than building solid heavy structures that come at a high green house gas price
The first problem I think is retrofitting. The second is finding the space ( and win the community support to exploit it)in already existing urban areas to locate any new housing (and accommodation) we need so that already existing infrastructure is utilised more efficiently. The third problem is developing the means to build sustainable houses quickly, and cheaply which also offers an option that , in fact, they can be moved elsewhere if needed, or raised up or dismantled and recycled.
EG:The one piece of lumbar harvested and cut in 1910 can still be in use and recycled a century later.Whereas a house brick caked with yesterday's mortar, isn't always so long lived.Here where I live in Queensland thermal mass isn't a major factor in ecological design so much.I'm also considerate that the houses we need to build are bush fire and cyclone resistant( and when you talk tin roof you have to be careful on how that roof is pitched and curved). And in my head -- relative to the grid, I think there is a lot to be said for designing allotments that are as much plug in /switch on as a caravan site's are.
On the question of space --while we can go up, how far do we want to go up? Three stories?
Making more neighborhood living space
Aside from unused industrial land and the possibility of dividing already existing blocks , on average one third of the suburban space is taken up by the roads network. So how much can that be harnessed for living and recreational and community use? And how is that to be done?
It's easy to imagine a 'future' house but altering the ecology of already existing suburbs now, today, is another matter altogether.
We know what can be done because we've witnessed so much inner city renewal and gentrification.
The related issue I think, is the complication that the brick house -- even where they already exist in Western Sydney for instance -- is threatened and the structure undermined by soil salinity (image left) -- just as on the urban fringe in the southern capitals, bush fires lick the family home.So sustainability does also mean protecting and maintaining already existing housing stocks.The irony is that after native bush is cleared to make way for new housing and supposedly to keep bushfires at bay, the ecological changes can foster soil salinity as a long term consequence of the changes in land use. So despite the presumed solidity and longevity of structures built from of bricks, cement and mortar, in Australia these materials are not as apt as lighter off ground structures.The question that is the most pressing is that given the politics of home ownership how do you move beyond the present mindset to a more community and collective neighborhoods which will willingly give up even "privately owned" real estate for the sake of a collective ecology? Related to this is the complication that you cannot so easily remake the use of the road network without dealing with the transport challenge .
In my head I'm thinking that the politics we need to consider isn't so much technical at all. But if we are going to ask people to live a different way in smaller spaces we have to offer a trade off.
And this is where the caravan , camping park comes in or the retirement village model. You have to generate neighborhood services that will encourage people to loosen up on their peasant attitude to real estate. And before you can do that you need to make their lives economically much more secure so that their home isn't so layered with security hopes.
The problem of private ownership.
Private ownership is not so easily overcome, but one way, especially with the option of building lite, portable and sustainable structures, is for communities or governments to long term lease land parcels from private family home real estate owners and to build these structures on that land.
That way there's a return for the fact that your plot is suddenly much smaller and en route, the neighborhood gets to experience the crowding while still having the option to pull out of the arrangement at a later date.(eg: after 10, 20, etc years) That way you support the original home owners with a cash commitment which they could rely on while you restructure the local urbanscape without recourse to legislative or authoritarian means .
In many ways you want to draw lessons from the problems, disasters and achievements that were experienced in the past with collectivising agriculture and land reform in various Third World countries. You don't do away with home ownership -- even the Cubans know that -- but you foster a nuanced means in order to introduce collective activity and shared responsibility.
In that sense people trade aspects of what they may value now for a greater promise and convenience as they learn to have confidence in the changes being wrought.
So as you add to the neighborhood more community facilities you expand the local population by using these trade off methods to build more housing on 'privately owned' land. At the same time you restructure the road system and local traffic flow to free up more land for housing and community amenities.
In my head, the game plan is a sort of long term caravan park that invades localities and the longer it consolidates and takes root the more changes are possible and the more permanent -- and socialist -- they become.
I cannot imagine any other way that such massive demographic changes could be engineered with community consent.
But there's a downside that leads to further problems.
The complication of too many houses
In my last post I noted the prospect that in Australia there may indeed be, as far as the market is concerned, an over supply of houses. That there could be 10 million dwellings in Australia rather than the ABS suggestion of 8.3 million. The statistical shortfall being caused by the difference between the number occupied and the number unoccupied. The actual figure perhaps isn't so important but the suggested broad scale of it is.
If these unoccupied houses could be made suddenly available for occupancy then some of the supply genesis of the housing crisis is ameliorated. This could be done by changing the whole financing structure and ensuring that any housing stock is not utilised as investment fodder but used for owner or tenant occupancy. Negative gearing and similar capital gains perks should be done away with and housing should be for need rather than for private profit. In effect, such changes would undermine speculation in real estate. Unoccupied dwellings would need to be 'liberated' by various government initiatives by perhaps fostering a sort of squatters movement to ensure that the buildings are occupied and a set legislated rental is paid to real estate owners as a transitional measure.
However, a major complication immediately kicks in. If by this means 750,000 dwellings or 1 million or whatever large number of dwellings were suddenly made available/dumped on the market -- house prices and rental costs would collapse. In fact a process like this may occur anyway as the recession deepens and owner investors seek to liquidate their assets.
This impact would be even greater if there was also a massive government investment in public housing at the same time.
Of course this is a good thing. Housing would become less an area for financial speculation and become more in tune with fulfilling actual human need. There would be a tendency for housing to become more 'affordable' (assuming people were in jobs and could 'afford' to purchase or rent it). This impact would be greater if there was also a massive investment in public housing stock. Not only could governments fix house price and rentals in that sector and make housing even more affordable by such means, the consequent drift from the private market place to the public sector would drive down house prices and rents across the board.
Nonetheless there is a complication that would also need to be addressed. If house prices fell drastically -- as they are and will anyway in the present financial crisis -- a layer of mortgagees will have no choice but to walk away from their homes they have been paying for because they will be paying much more than their properties were now worth. It would be a self evident course for them to cut their loses, walk away and seek cheaper accommodation.
This is in fact happening on a massive scale in the United States and is even a significant phenomenon here already.
This too -- either by people walking away or by a sharp rise in foreclosures -- would feed the downward price spiral.
Similarly, the gross personal wealth of millions of families would drop as the presumed nest egg congealed in their home was whittled away by the house price fall. Thousands too would now be owning real estate that they paid much more for than they could now get on the open market.
Oh woe is the contradictions of private ownership!
So the 'Housing Crisis' even as it works itself out, is sure to extract a heavy toll on working people unless other aspects of the economy are also restructured.
The story so far:
- Solutions for the Housing Crisis I: tips from the Brisbane experience
- Solutions for the Housing Crisis II:mobility and living together
- Solutions to the Housing Crisis III: affordability
- Solutions to the Housing Crisis IV: materials
- Solutions to the Housing Crisis V: public housing
- Solutions to the Housing Crisis VI: the enigma of price and supply
- Solutions to the Housing CrisisVII: the complication of too many houses.
Buzz developing around World at a Crossroads Easter Conference
Over the last week, a real buzz has begun to develop around the World At A Crossroads conference in Sydney over Easter. The phones at the Abercrombie Street orgnanising office have been ringing hot with inquiries, interstate speakers doing workshops at the conference are reporting that they are also fielding inquiries about the conference, and the organisers say are starting to get more media requests for interviews than they can handle. It seems that many people will be coming to the conference “off the street” (not pre-registered).
A sign of the gathering momentum is that, except for Socialist Alternative who have their own conference in Melbourne at the same time, every socialist organisation has now booked a stall at our conference. Stalls have been also booked by the Australia-East Timor Association, International Volunteers for Peace, the Guatemalan Human Rights Association and the Australia-West Papua Association, in addition to the AVSN, Socialist Alliance, and the DSP/Resistance stall.
International speakers update
The bad news is that Ammar Ali Jan from the Labor Party Pakistan will not get to the conference as he did not receive his visa in time to make the trip from Lahore to Karachi to catch his flight (it was held up, not by the department of immigration this time, but by separate Australian “security checks” – it seems that the Australian government now considers every Pakistani a potential terrorist).
On a brighter note, it is now confirmed that well-known Zimbabwean socialist Muyaradzi Gwisai will definitely be attending the conference. Munya is a central leader of the International Socialist Organisation Zimbabwe, and deputy chairperson of the Zimbabwe Social Forum. He teaches law and is a well-known class fighter in his country.
Munya was elected to the national parliament in Zimbabwe in 2000, as the MP for Highfield in Harare, on a ticket backed by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. However, in 2002 he lost his seat when he was expelled from the MDC. The ISO Zimbabwe, along with Zimbabwe's trade unions and other militants, played an important role in the creation of the MDC. However, as the MDC leadership came to be dominated by members of Zimbabwe's capitalist class and increasingly embraced neo-liberalism, Gwisai and the ISO Zimbabwe often clashed with the MDC leaders.
A sign of the gathering momentum is that, except for Socialist Alternative who have their own conference in Melbourne at the same time, every socialist organisation has now booked a stall at our conference. Stalls have been also booked by the Australia-East Timor Association, International Volunteers for Peace, the Guatemalan Human Rights Association and the Australia-West Papua Association, in addition to the AVSN, Socialist Alliance, and the DSP/Resistance stall.
International speakers update
The bad news is that Ammar Ali Jan from the Labor Party Pakistan will not get to the conference as he did not receive his visa in time to make the trip from Lahore to Karachi to catch his flight (it was held up, not by the department of immigration this time, but by separate Australian “security checks” – it seems that the Australian government now considers every Pakistani a potential terrorist).
On a brighter note, it is now confirmed that well-known Zimbabwean socialist Muyaradzi Gwisai will definitely be attending the conference. Munya is a central leader of the International Socialist Organisation Zimbabwe, and deputy chairperson of the Zimbabwe Social Forum. He teaches law and is a well-known class fighter in his country.
Munya was elected to the national parliament in Zimbabwe in 2000, as the MP for Highfield in Harare, on a ticket backed by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. However, in 2002 he lost his seat when he was expelled from the MDC. The ISO Zimbabwe, along with Zimbabwe's trade unions and other militants, played an important role in the creation of the MDC. However, as the MDC leadership came to be dominated by members of Zimbabwe's capitalist class and increasingly embraced neo-liberalism, Gwisai and the ISO Zimbabwe often clashed with the MDC leaders.
"Our" democracy -- the QLD example
200 000 Queenslanders with no political representationMedia Release Friday 3 April 2009
As counting for the Queensland elections is being finalised the Queensland Greens are set to receive a record number of almost 200,000 primary votes.
The Queensland Greens say that the result proves that they are clearly the third force in Queensland politics and that it is a travesty that the Queensland electoral system has denied them any representation in the parliament.
‘Any fair system would have given representation to such a large body of voters. It is time the state considered electoral reform to bring it in line with the other states and territories,’ Queensland Greens spokesperson Libby Connors said today.
Under Queensland’s unicameral, single-member electoral system, the ALP which has won 42.28% of the vote is going to take more than half the seats in the new parliament. Under a proportional system they would be entitled to 38 seats but are set to take 51 seats.
The LNP with 41.57% of the vote is expected to win only 34 seats, whereas under a proportional system they would be entitled to 38. Independents, who are likely to take 4 seats, would be entitled to 5.
‘The Queensland Greens on 8.37% would have won 8 seats if Queensland had a proportional system along the lines of every other state and the Australian Capital Territory,’ according to spokesperson Libby Connors.
‘The unfairness of the system is further highlighted if we look at the figures for Brisbane. In the five inner city electorates of Brisbane Central, South Brisbane, Mt Coot-tha, Indooroopilly and Yeerongpilly, 25 526 people voted for the Greens, equivalent to one whole electorate, but they will have no Greens to represent their interests in the Queensland Parliament.’
Arundhati Roy: Sri Lanka --The war on the Tamils a brazen, openly racist war
From the Boston Globe:
Read more...
THE HORROR that is unfolding in Sri Lanka becomes possible because of the silence that surrounds it. There is almost no reporting in the international press - or in the mainstream media in India, where I live - about what is happening. From the little information that is filtering through, it looks as though the Sri Lankan government is using the propaganda of "the war on terror"as a fig leaf to dismantle any semblance of democracy in the country and commit unspeakable crimes against the Tamil people.
The government is working on the principle that every Tamil is a terrorist unless he or she can prove otherwise, and civilian areas, hospitals, and shelters are being bombed and turned into a war zone. Reliable estimates put the number of civilians trapped at over 200,000. The Sri Lankan army is advancing, armed with tanks and aircraft.
Read more...
Solutions to the Housing Crisis VI
The enigma of house price and supply.
Steve Keen’s excellent Debtwatch has an important post today -- Lies, Damned Lies, and Housing Statistics -- which discusses the historical trend in home affordability and supply.
While it is clear that house prices have risen sharply since 1997 (at least). Keen explores the prospect that there is an over supply of houses in Australia. This is indeed argued by Hometrack Australia who point out
The story so far:
Our analysis indicates Australia may already have an excess of housing. We estimate there are at least 10 million dwellings in Australia compared with ABS data showing occupied dwellings of 8.3 million. The extra one to two million dwellings consists of a mixture of housing awaiting sale or development, vacant dwellings, second homes, and abandoned homesKeen goes on to comment:
Whoops. Over the period 1985-2009, an average of 1 residential dwelling was built per 1.75 new Australians, and only in the last 3 months has the rate of new building fallen behind population growth. This build rate is well in excess of the current ABS ratio of 2.55 persons per occupied dwelling. Only if 30% of new dwellings involved the demolition of existing properties–an improbably high number–would the rate of supply of new dwellings be running behind the rate of growth of population.Keen explores the topic of price and supply in some detail so you'll need to read his post. But the salient factor is this: (He writes)
Far from having an undersupply of housing, Australia may well have a substantial oversupply. It’s just that no-one is living in many of them.
A very likely cause of this large stock of unoccupied homes is Australia’s system of negative gearing. Most “investors” build houses not for the rental income, but for capital gains, and rental returns in Australia are now so low that for many investors, the drawbacks of renting–damage to property, having to manage tenants, etc.–are not worth the rental income. Better to keep the property off the rental market, and claim the loss against tax. The under-supply of housing to the rental market, and the alleged shortage of properties for sale, could be a perverse result of Australia’s peculiar property development laws.If this analysis is correct and the actual situation is as Keen's argument suggests then the "housing crisis' in Australia is not just a complication of the market that is so brutal to those without the where withall to pay, but that the whole industry is set up to subsidise capital investment and guarantee a return regardless of whether the houses are occupied or not.
The story so far:
- Solutions for the Housing Crisis I: tips from the Brisbane experience
- Solutions for the Housing Crisis II:mobility and living together
- Solutions to the Housing Crisis III: affordability
- Solutions to the Housing Crisis IV: materials
- Solutions to the Housing Crisis V: public housing
- Solutions to the Housing Crisis VI: the enigma of price and supply
- Solutions to the Housing Crisis: the complication of too many houses.
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