The LEFT Alternative fights for Greener Local Councils

Preston City Council voted yesterday to recognise trade union "environmental representatives" to help the council set and meet stringent carbon emission targets. The TUC and its affiliate unions have been actively working towards establishing such reps as part of their Green Workplaces Project.

The motion was part of a radical package proposed by the LEFT Alternative councillor Michael Lavalette (pictured right) and actively supported by left-wing Labour councillors in the city.

The motion also proposes that the council should commit to the principle of establishing a local power company, under local authority control, which will provide cheap, carbon neutral energy to the local population.

Cllr Lavalette, who proposed the motion, said:

This is an incredibly significant motion. When it is implemented - alongside other motions we have passed on public transport systems - it will make Preston one of the greenest cities in Britain. But the motion also puts us in line to be the first significant employer to recognise trade union environmental reps. The unions will be important players if we are to tackle climate change; it is only right that they and their members are given a recognised role in setting and implementing carbon emission targets.

Labour Deputy Leader Matthew Brown added:

Setting up a local power company is a realistic possibility. It allows us to deal with issues associated with climate change and carbon emissions, and, at the same time, allows us to provide cheap fuel for the people of Preston, some of whom are amongst the poorest in the country.

Both councillors said they hoped that the Preston motion would become a model that other councils would follow. The full motion is as follows:

Preston City Council notes:

1. The continuing threat from abrupt climate change.
2. The world's leading scientists and recognised climate change authorities note that if action is not taken to reduce greenhouse gases (CO2 equivalent emissions) within 30 years there is likely to be an irreversible effect on the Global Climate.
3. The Government's Royal Commission on Environment Pollution has predicted that the target reduction in greenhouse gases, expressed as CO2 equivalent emissions, should be 60% by 2050 and 80% by 2100.

Preston City Council further notes:

1. The efforts made by Woking Council to adopt a comprehensive Climate Change Strategy on a scale that is likely to meet The Royal Commission on Environment Pollution targets of 60% reductions of CO2 equivalent emissions by 2050 and 80% by 2100.
2. That Derby Council have a five year strategy to achieve a 25% reduction in carbon emissions and Norwich council have an annual reduction target of 6%.
3. That the TUC (via its Green Workplaces Project) and its affiliate unions are actively campaigning for employers to recognise 'environmental representatives' with a role in setting CO2 reduction targets, initiating workplace environmental audits and educating members on green and sustainability issues.

Preston City Council resolves:

1. To use solar panels on the Town Hall as a means of meeting energy needs and reducing CO2 emissions
2. To commit to the principle of establishing a local power company within Preston, in local authority ownership, to generate power for the area and investigate how this can be implemented.
3. To use sustainable combine heat and power sources of energy in the City Council buildings - discouraging the production of CO2 type gasses.
4. To increase use of photovoltaic and renewable energy
5. To investigate improvements to insulation in all council buildings and workplaces.
6. To incorporate planning policies which will ensure that new developments in the City reduces CO2 equivalent emissions of greenhouse gases.
7. To establish a carbon neutral approach to the future of services and activities within the City
8. To make progress as speedily as possible on the long-delayed City Council travel plan, aimed at reducing car use for travel to work and staff (and member) travel on business.
9. To enter negotiations with all local authority trade unions to recognise environmental representatives, and to establish with the unions the active role of the representatives in achieving the council's carbon emission targets.

One Law for the Rich . . .

In July, a Barry pensioner spent almost a month in a prison in Gloucestershire because she failed to pay her council tax due to financial hardship.

Last year the majority of billionaires in Britain who face no financial hardship did not pay a single penny in income tax. These parasites faced no threat of imprisonment.

While council tax for working class people goes up every year, income tax for the rich is being continually cut by every government - could there be a connection? Is this wealth redistribution, but from the bottom of society to the top?

(In Wales, Plaid want to tax multinationals even less than Thatcher or Brown)

Under New Labour the gap between rich and poor has grown meaning our society becomes even less democratic.

When there are extremes of wealth, then the idea of democratic choice of goods and services is a sham right from the start. The 'choice' for someone with money is entirely different to that for someone with no money - who has no 'choice'.

We have a free press in Britain - if you can afford one! The idea that a man who owns a couple of newspapers and a supermarket chains is equally represented in society with anyone who works in those supermarkets & reads those newspapers is plainly false. That is why the struggle for equality is a struggle for democracy. Political democracy without economic democracy is bogus.

Dole Queue Rock

On benefits?

Then voting for a mainstream party is akin to a turkey voting for Christmas: The LEFT Alternative is proud to be the only party that stands up for people on benefits, we welcome unemployed members of the working class into our ranks with open arms.

Had a benefit decision go the wrong way?

Remember to lodge an appeal. Usually you have nothing to loose from an appeal, and appeals sometimes win. You normally only have one month to do that though, so be quick! (There are some exceptions allowed, so consider still appealing even if outside the time limit). Independent medicals can be paid for viathe legal aid scheme, so it can be worth making an appointment with a lawyer also for medical related appeals.

With Economists predicting that unemployment is set to rocket due to the credit crunch, the government has launched an offensive on claimants to make life much harder.

The new welfare reform will see the introduction of 'workfare' where people unemployed for over a year face working for their dole doing 'community service' such as collecting litter of the streets or cleaning graffiti for a fraction of the minimum wage.

Sick and disabled vulnerable people face harsh medical tests by private doctors and increased harrasment in order to claim meagre benefits. There is also the threat of being forced prematurely into work - the new mantra is "work is the best medicine": While sitting down to a morning of Trisha might not help you out of your depression, the LEFT Alternative reckons that neither will doing a shit McJob.

Alongside a mass campaign against welfare reform, traditional working class self-help is needed to help claimants - such as credit-unions, grassroots community welfare schemes, and advocacy to help people appeal - if you have skills in these kind of areas why not get in touch!

Sign the People Before Profit Charter

The Credit-Crunch threatens communities with devastation as workplaces close and jobs are lost. People’s lives will be wrecked as their homes are repossessed.

Most of the media presents the collapse towards recession as a natural disaster.

For them, and the politicians, all we can do is sit tight, accept cuts in our living standards, and wait for better times to return.

Gordon Brown’s government only answers are to demand that people stop throwing away food and that we “tighten our belts” to help the economy recover.

But the crisis is not natural and we can do something about it.

That is why trade union activists and other campaigners have launched the People Before Profit Charter.

The Charter challenges the logic of a system that puts profits before people. It puts forward clear proposals to improve workers’ lives and insists that ordinary people should not pay for the crisis.

The Charter can be a rallying point for the resistance that is taking place across the country.

Inflation and recession are now tightening their grip on the economy with every day that passes. Working people face rapidly increasing prices, especially for food and fuel; government led pay restraint; rising unemployment and a disastrous housing crisis. At the same time the super-rich continue to enjoy huge profits, salaries and bonuses - yet pay less tax than under the Tories. The desperation felt by many is having equally serious political effects: the resurgence of the Tories and an increase in anti-immigrant and fascist arguments. We need a coordinated response to these threats. As part of this response please add your name to this Charter and then move support for the Charter at your trade union, party or campaign organisation.

1. Wage increases no lower than the rate of inflation as given by the Retail Price Index. No to the government’s 2 percent pay limit.
2. Increase tax on big companies. Introduce a windfall tax on corporation superprofits, especially those of the oil companies.
3. Repeal the Tory anti-union laws. Support the Trade Union Freedom Bill.
4. Unsold houses and flats should be taken over by local councils to ease the housing crisis. No house repossessions. For an emergency programme of council house building.
5. Stop the privatisation of public services. Free and equal health and education services available to all.
6. End the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and use the money to expand public services. Stop the erosion of civil liberties.
7. Abolish tax on fuel and energy for old people and the poor. Re-establish the link between wages and pensions.
8. No to racism. No to the British National Party. No scapegoating of immigrants.
9. Reintroduce grants and abolish tuition fees for students.
10. Increase the minimum wage to £8.00 an hour. Many workers and trade unionists are now engaged in strikes and protests to defend their pay, jobs and services. We pledge ourselves to support their action and to support the campaigns that are dedicated to protecting working people, including:


* Unite Against Fascism
* Public Services not Private Profit
* Defend Council Housing
* Stop the War Coalition
* Keep Our NHS Public


Please return to: People Before Profit Charter, BM 6035, London WC1N 3XX or email your name and details to peoplebeforeprofitcharter@gmail.com

"The People Before Profit Charter is important because it allows us to debate the economic crisis facing ordinary people outside the boundaries fixed by the mainstream media and the political class it represents.

Everyone knows privatisation has been a disaster, that Gordon Brown’s PFI has been theft by another name, that the City of London’s games and power are unaccountable, that the priorities of public expenditure are distorted – £4 billion for two aircraft carriers, peanuts for public sector workers – and yet orthodox discussion remains stuck in a sterile world of party fortunes and personalities (If only they had personalities!).

Every opinion poll shows a clear public majority in favour of the principle of public services before profit. That should be the starting point.” - John Pilger, Writer & Broadcaster

Quote of the Week - Dom Helder Camara

"When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. But when I ask why the poor have no food they call me a communist”

Dom Helder Camara (1909 - 1999)

In the 60s and 70s many Latin American catholics became radicalised. Dom Helder Camara was part of this wave, in his seminal 1971 text, The Spiral of Violence, he observed how violence built up at three levels in a society: Primary violence is the everyday effect of structurally ingrained social injustice. This generates secondary violence - the revolt of the oppressed. And that in turn provokes tertiary violence - repression by the powerful to secure their privileged position. And so the spiral of violence tightens

MAHMOUD DARWISH: 13th March 1941 – 9th August 2008

Her eyes are Palestinian
Her name is Palestinian
Her dress and sorrow Palestinian
Her kerchief, her feet and body Palestinian
Her words and silence Palestinian
Her voice Palestinian
Her birth and her death Palestinian

The LEFT Alternative in Cardiff salutes Mahmoud Darwish who died this week. Adam Johannes writes in tribute.

Mahmoud Darwish was not only the poet of Palestine, but one of the great poets of the twentieth century. It is perhaps fiting that he died aged 67 - the same age at which Edward Said, the great intellectual of national liberation, bid farewell to life, and in the same year as George Habash. All three men died in exile, and all three were iconic figures of Palestinian nationalism. They formed part of a generation of giants forged in the afterglow of the 1968 battle of Karemeh and birth of the PLO, and their lives spanned the great epic of modern Palestinian history that rose from the ashes of 1948 when the land disappeared from the maps of the world. Tragically none lived to see freedom and justice restored.

In Darwish's writing Palestine was not only Palestine, but also the loss of Eden, the fall of innocence, birth and resurrection, dispossesion and exile, love and rage. Stripped of his Israeli 'citizenship', a citizenship he famously derided in his poem 'Identity Card', he spent most of his life in exile, he was a witness to the '82 Israeli invasion of Lebanon when Beirut with all its flowers came to smell of smoke and fire. Beirut was to be a pivotal moment for him, his poetry and the dream of Palestine. He left on the raft of a ship with other members of the Resistance for Tunisia.

One commentator captured the greatness of Darwish: "under house arrest, having his second-class citizenship revoked, being chased and hounded from one exile to another, being bombed in almost each of these exiles and living under countless sieges, Darwish's humanism never succumbed. One of his most popular poems, Rita, spoke of his love for a Jewish Israeli woman by that name; and about the absurdity of wars coming between lovers. This poem was made into a popular song by Lebanese musician Marcel Khalife."

His deep humanism was witnessed in his address to the Israeli soldiers shelling his neighbourhood during the 2002 siege of Ramallah,

You, standing at the doorsteps, come in
And drink with us our Arabic coffee
For you may feel that you are human like us

Darwish will also be remembered for his hand in crafting the 1988 declaration of independence, and the speech with which Arafat electrified the UN General Assembly in 1974, "Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand. Repeat, do not let the olive branch fall from my hand". He has the good sense to reject the the sell-out of the Oslo frauds.

Towards the end of his life, he became dismayed at the division in the Palestinian house. Last summer in a bitter voice thick with irony, he was to declaim:

"We have triumphed . . . Gaza won its independence from the West Bank. One people now have two states, two prisons who don't greet each other. We are victims dressed in executioners' clothing. We have triumphed knowing that it is the occupier who really won. We have to understand - not justify - what gives rise to this tragedy.

It's not because they're looking for beautiful virgins in heaven, as Orientalists portray it. Palestinian people are in love with life. If we give them hope - a political solution - they'll stop killing themselves.

Sarcasm helps me overcome the harshness of the reality we live, eases the pain of scars and makes people smile . . .the sarcasm is not only related to today’s reality but also to history. History laughs at both the victim and the aggressor.

I will continue to humanise even the enemy... The first teacher who taught me Hebrew was a Jew. The first love affair in my life was with a Jewish girl. The first judge who sent me to prison was a Jewish woman. So from the beginning, I didn't see Jews as devils or angels but as human beings." [Several poems of his poems were to Jewish lovers] "These poems take the side of love not war"

This poem written during the siege of Beirut, contains a line that poignantly captures the deadlock of the Palestinian resistance - "Where do we go after the last frontier? Where does the bird fly after the last sky?". After armed struggle, appeals to international law and the conscience of the world, negotiations, peace processes. mass civil disobedience, Palestine still remains unfree:

The earth is closing on us, pushing us through the last passage, and
we tear off our limbs to pass through.
The earth is squeezing us. I wish we were its wheat so we could die
and live again. I wish the earth was our mother
So she'd be kind to us. I wish we were pictures on the rocks for
our dreams to carry
As mirrors. We saw the faces of those to be killed by the last of us in
the last defense of the soul.
We cried over their children's feast. We saw the faces of those who'll
throw our children
Out of the windows of the last space. Our star will hang up in mirrors.
Where should we go after the last frontiers? Where should the birds
fly after the last sky?
Where should the plants sleep after the last breath of air? We will
write our names with scarlet steam.
We will cut off the head of the song to be finished by our flesh.
We will die here,
Here in the last passage. Here and here our blood
will plant its olive tree.

The Assembly Gravy Train

Spent £245 on a night in a hotel recently?
Spent two grand on a sofa recently?
Recently purchased a £1000 surround-sound TV system?

. . . then you may be an Assembly Member, only they didn't spend this money - we did!

All these items were paid for by the taxpayer out of an allowance given to AMs. And not only these items, also luxuries like cable TV, a glass bowl costing £2 and a host of other items. It seems the Assembly is a gravy train stopping at every station . . . !!

Many workers forced to commute to work on overcrowded public transport will feel little sympathy with overpaid politicians who live 45 minutes drive from Cardiff getting £12,500 a year living expenses for a house in the capital.

It may be fair that AMs who have to travel from North Wales to require accomodation in Cardiff, but should two AMs like Lynne Neagle & Huw Lewis who share a house in Penarth be given thousands from the public purse for a second home?

While public sector workers are being told to tighten their belt in the face of the credit crunch and facing a wage freeze, the majority of Assembly Members believe they are entitled to a pay rise of more than 8%.

But this sleaze and lawful corruption point to a deeper malaise. If you are wondering why Welsh politicians have been virtually silent over British Gas (who had a 500% rise in profits last year) raising bills dramatically, then consider: How can our politicians empathise with the problems faced by the majority of Welsh people such as rising fuel bills, increases in food prices & council tax, debt, housing costs when they are able to live such an elite lifestyle?

The recent death of former socialist MP, Terry Fields reminds us of another model, Terry was elected to parliament in 1983 on the slogan a "worker's MP on a worker's wage" taking only the average salary of a British worker, and donating the remainder of his salary to trade union and community causes, because he believed that an MP should live the same lifestyle as the people he or she claimed to represent. While a Labour MP he was imprisoned for refusal to pay the poll tax.

The LEFT Alternative is not made up of wannable politicians but rather working class people who want to organise in the community for change. To get involved, email: respect_yourself_cardiff@hotmail.co.uk

Civilians pay for American and Russian imperialism

Over 2,000 people have been killed in the recent fighting in the Caucasus after Georgia declared war on Russia over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. These regions have never wanted to be part of Georgia and the treatment of minorities within Georgia's borders has always been a problem.

But the fighting is also the result of imperial powers attempting to secure the energy and resources in the region through military force, and it must condemned.

The US has responded to the fighting by accusing Russia of wanting "regime change" in Georgia. The hypocrisy of this accusation is astounding, given that the goal of the US in Iraq was nothing less than regime change. Yet for the US administration this is an unacceptable goal for other imperial powers to have.

Russia shares this hypocrisy. While Russia moved against Georgia on what it claims are humanitarian grounds, arguing that because many South Ossetians have Russian citizenship they must be protected, the real reason is to secure its geopolitical interests. Russian aggression has little to do with humanitarian principles. It claims that if the US can recognise Kosovo as independent, it can make moves to ensure that South Ossetia and Abkhazia are under its sphere of influence. Russia also wants to prevent Georgia from joining NATO, and has demonstrated it will use military force to do so.

The region is heavily contested between Russia and the US, and each have interests in securing their domination of the untapped oil reserves. Pipelines are being built from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey, with strong political support from the US. The situation has undoubtedly escalated tensions between the US and Russia, not seen since the end of the Cold War.

The US administration referred to a "significant long-term impact" on US-Russian relations if Russia continued to attack the Georgians disproportionately. But this is exactly the way the US is fighting in Iraq; through disproportionate attacks.

It is unacceptable that both powers are using military force to secure their interests, without concern for civilians. The Left Alternative opposes the fighting and calls on all sides to end hostilities. We also call on Britain to refrain from supporting the US and break with US foreign policy.

Police bullying at Camp Kingsnorth

GARETH DALE reports from the Climate Camp 2008

I've just returned from a 2-3 day sojourn at the Climate Camp at Kingsnorth -- site of a proposed new coal-fired power station – which is now gearing up towards its climax. As usual the headlines focus upon policing and the inevitable 'discovery' of a weapons cache, more on which below. But once you make the effort – a word I use advisedly -- to get through police lines and into the camp itself the overwhelming impression is of a D.I.Y. heaven: solar panels and a wind turbine being erected, water pipes connected, sanitation systems constructed, media and cinema tents put up, impromptu kitchens, cleaning zones … an al fresco and non-commercial soukh catering to the pleasures and necessities of daily life.

The Camp's great strength is that theory and practice share a space for a week. Having kicked off with marches and due to finish on Saturday with direct action, in the days between there are workshops galore – a hundred or more – covering the usual themes as well as not a few tailored to specialist tastes: "the world lawn tango championships," "five-finger direct action training," and – one cannot but wonder whether practice and theory were united here -- "safe sex for activists." That Arthur Scargill made an appearance was welcome, although it was disappointing to see that he has not yet got it. (In the USA at the outset of World War Two it was union leaders who, against bitter resistance from big business, championed the conversion of auto plants to make planes. In the war upon climate change, just think: the skills of power station engineers; solar, wave and wind; surely a no-brainer.) The high-point was a session (pictured above) at which George Monbiot spoke on the role of the state in mitigating climate chaos -- although it was marred when that organ itself, in the shape of riot police, threatened to enter the camp, prompting most of the 250-strong audience to exit theory in a headlong rush to practice.

A degree of division arose with regard to the appropriate tactics for countering the police, but it was a no-win situation. Agreement to allow the police onto site – with their batons and video cameras, their bullying, snooping, sniffing and otherwise canine ways – would have necessitated constant surveillance of the surveillers, a continuous and enervating tug-of-war. The other option, the one taken, was to concentrate forces at the gates, to keep them at bay. With this, the boys in blue-and-dayglow-yellow needed only to build up forces at one gate, deploy riot police to the fore, or engage in any minor feint, in order to panic and disrupt the Camp. Which of course they did. In afternoons, during workshops. At two a.m. -- waking all with a cacophony of sirens that sparked a mass exit from tents, followed by the thuds of sleepy running bodies tripping over guy ropes. And then again, after adrenaline levels had subsided and campers had returned to sleep, at the break of dawn.

The question is, why have Her Majesty's police force decided to subject a crew of campers to such astonishing levels of harassment? What tactics are involved, and at what level were they authorised?

On harassment and intimidation the litany is endless. We observed their tactics, aghast. They must've looked up and memorised every petty by-law they could find, in addition to compendia of recent legislation. (Thanks to the cop who dropped his copy of the 'Pocket Legislation Guide on Policing Protest,' which gives an overview of legislation that can be used to stifle any form of legitimate protest, we know a bit more about an organisation, the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit, that assisted them in this.) They terminated our shuttlebus service (for ferrying participants from rail station to campsite) and arrested the driver on the grounds that one copper, claiming to have witnessed a passenger give a driver a donation, deemed it to be an unlicensed taxi. They filmed everyone. There were interminable and repeated searches of anyone entering or exiting camp -- and these were not the usual cursory pat down. In my case (not an extreme one): in addition to searching all bags and pockets they were uncommonly interested in the linings of my trousers; and they dismantled my mobile phone and took the battery out ("in case there's a razor blade concealed inside"). From me they took nothing but others were less fortunate. The innumerable items confiscated included: plywood, wheelie bins, a track for wheelchair access, a puncture repair kit, carpet, a board game and part of a windmill. And, of course, childrens' crayons. (They're a graffiti hazard, don't you know?)

Arguably the most visible and unarguably the most audible police presence is the helicopter. Upon arrival, I asked the copper who was searching me – time for such conversations was not rationed -- why the chopper was in the air. "It's because an incident is going on. Don't worry, it costs a fortune to keep it up there, it'll only be sent up when there's something going on." In fact, it was airborne about one minute in every three; deafening, menacing, watching. Even at night it hovered above us, and would sometimes swoop low – perhaps in case its clatter at normal altitude hadn't yet woken a few of those below.

So we may return to the question: why apply these tactics? The resources involved, in terms of manpower, equipment and fuel, are colossal. In conversation with a senior police officer, I listened to his point of view. "Don't get us wrong: we know very well that 99% of the people in the camp are completely non-violent. It's the other 1% we're concerned about." A machete, he claimed, had been found in nearby undergrowth. During my days there, I saw nothing to suggest a potentially violent "1%" – and, unlike the officer, I was observing campers up close. The machete story is a smear. Chances are it is a fiction, or planted, or belonged to a nearby villager. Activists, being ecologically aware, know full well that to approach Kingsnorth does not require hacking paths through jungle. But let's assume for a moment that he is right. There are around 1,000 people at the Camp. If that same officer were responsible for policing a village of 1,000 people, and was informed that 10 were potentially violent, would he call up a fleet of fully-manned vans from the North Wales Heddlu, alongside similar convoys from the West Mids, South Yorks, the Met, Essex, Kent and all? Rumour has it that 27 forces were involved! Would he call in a helicopter, and riot police? Or would he think "me oh my what an English idyll – a pity, perhaps, about one or two delinquents at closing time on a Friday night, but a token presence should deal with that"?

Perhaps there is a better reason: the police tactic is all about defending Kingsnorth. After all, the Camp's clearly and openly stated aim is to shut it down. But this explanation has no more traction than does the "violent 1%." Participants show no sign of going anywhere near Kingsnorth until Saturday, so why police the Camp, which is situated many miles away, all week long? To the possible rejoinder that an absence of police attention would encourage activists to approach the power station sooner than declared, there is an obvious reply. With the same police numbers deployed to harass the Camp, the power station could be thrice encircled: it could be sealed off by land, sea, air and any other conceivable avenue of approach, and with enough spare policepower to boot (no pun intended) that the Heddlu and the Brummies could be sent back home. Just think of all the trouble and tension that could be spared, not to mention police overspend.

The only possible reason for this level of intimidation – apart, perhaps, from an interest in giving riot cops some live training -- is that the police force is hell bent on hounding and intimidating the movement against climate chaos. This does not represent a departure from recent trends in policing – as witnessed in London at the anti-Bush protest (with its use of agent provocateurs) and the 'Circle Line Party.' Yet it is an escalation.

The question that remains is: who authorised this strategy? Downing Street, one would suppose, but we should be told.

Our City is Not For Sale - No to Privatisation

The LEFT Alternative fully supports Cardiff UNISON's campaign against the possible privatisation of council services, which could see rising prices for swimming pools, leisure centres, libraries, theatres and other services: Our city is not for sale, and we will resist the corporate takeover of Cardiff - by any means necessary.

Branch secretary, Mark Turner was quoted last month as saying in the South Wales Echo, privatisation would

"sever the link between democratically elected councillors and the management of the service and replace public control with the control of the market. In other cities in the UK where charitable trusts have been set up to run leisure centres, libraries, swimming pools and theatres they have had to increase ticket and entrance prices to keep afloat. Council services are about people. Inevitably people take second place to profit if the private sector or its methods were to be used in Cardiff.”

In May, when the LibDems and Plaid Cymru formed a coalition to run Cardiff Council they made a public commitment that there would be a "presumption against privatisation", yet in the public "consultation" one of the options being considered, as part of the shake-up of council services, is for the delivery of services to be moved out of the council’s direct control to arms-length organisations and charitable trusts. We urge the ruling parties to keep this pledge.

If you want to know what privatisation would mean in practice, Cardiff UNISON on their website give a glimpse of previous sell-outs:

"Car Parks controlled by Cardiff Council sold to private company

Council now powerless to stop massive price rises seen recently. Profits going into private hands instead of supporting rate payers.

University Hospital of Wales entered into long car park lease with private company

Now unable to comply with Welsh Office requirements to cut patient parking charges for many years. Profits going into private hands instead of supporting patient care.

Suicide victim left in garage for 5 hours

Due to Police now using private firm for FME that do not have manpower to act swiftly. Unlike previous system of using local doctors

Do we want this happening to council services ?
This could happen under the council's 'Partnership for Change'
This is likely to lead to job and service quality losses"

Another Cardiff is possible!

Climate Camp 2008

Food riots abroad, house prices and pensions collapsing at home, energy prices skyrocketing worldwide. And slap bang in the middle of all of this - climate change - which the government and the power giant E.ON propose to make worse by building the UK's first coal-fired power station in 30 years at Kingsnorth in Kent.

The Climate Change Camp people have secured a site for the camp which officially began today!

Some of our activists are down in Kent at the moment, happy camping! For a report of last years camp, see here, and for more articles on the planet, see here

CRACH WAR at the EISTEDDFOD

Working class people used to be the salt of the earth, now we're the scum of the earth. We need to rebuild old traditions of solidarity and start reclaiming our communities back from the profiteers and privateers. Enough IS Enough!

Nothing shows the contempt that the 4 main parties in Wales have for us more than their silence over a 35% rise in our gas bills at a time when British Gas is raking in record profits. What do the Labour Left in Wales have to say about this? What are Plaid saying? What are the LibDems saying? Nothing. What can one say about these jokers? Each is as bad as the other. Each is worse than the other.

The 4 capitalist parties don't have the bottle to rock against the rich. They could be calling for a wonderful windfall tax on the energy companies profits. They could demand the Brown raise corporation tax (not likely from Plaid who want to cut corporation tax even more than Thatcher did!), they could start campaigning for the government to put a cap on how much the corporations can increase bills.

But they are not doing it. Working people are gonna have to get organised themselves. As Che said, words are beautiful - but action is even better.

This week, Welsh speakers in the LEFT Alternative have produced hundreds of leaflets calling for an end to the great gas rip-off to dish out at the Eisteddfod. Nobody in the Welsh political establishment is calling for the gas and electricity companies to be re-nationalised, so we're gonna shout it from the rooftops! Wales has some righteous traditions of good old fashioned socialism and right-on working class militancy. It's time!

The LEFT Alternative defends the Welsh language, not out of nationalism but out of respect for international culture. International culture to us does not mean the 'culture' of Murdoch, Mcdonalds and Market Values, but of those who believe another world not only possible; but necessary. We believe our children should have access to the Mabinogion, Shakespeare, Salman Rushdie, Caradoc Evans, Dylan Thomas, Bapsi Sidhwa, Chinua Achebe and many others - and in whatever language they want! Such a stance also includes fighting for the rights of those who speak other languages such as refugees and asylum seekers and their children so that they have access to education and other facilities in their own languages.

We believe the money is there to provide this, but the government wastes billions on a war opposed by millions. Our movements, whether they be for language rights, or against war and injustice have begun to provide the basis for a real alternative to the status quo. But our views are far too often marginalized and disregarded by the mainstream political parties. We want to be a megaphone for the millions who are opposed to war, racism, privatisation inequality and the destruction of the planet. We hope to create a new fighting coalition of the working class.

Quote of the Week - Eugene Debs, 1918

"While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

Eugene Debs, American Socialist, 1918 at his trial for sedition for agitating against the first world war.

On Wednesday, Binyam Mohammed turned 30. He's the last British citizen to be detained in the US concentration camp in Guantanamo Bay and was tortured with the support of the UK government in Morrocco and Afghanistan. We will continue to campaign for Binyam's release, the closure of Guantanemo Bay, an end to the attacks on our civil liberties, and the defeat of our rulers 'war on terror'.

Campaign Against the Level Motorways (CALM)

Green activists in the LEFT Alternative asked us to flag up this campaign and invite people to support it. Our group hopes to support all local campaigns that put people and planet before profit. If you are involved in any activism or have any news stories why not email us!

Campaign Against the Levels Motorway is an alliance of individuals and organisations who oppose the construction of the M4 relief motorway through the Gwent Levels Site of Special Scientific Interest.

To relieve congestion on the M4 around Newport the Welsh Assembly Government wants to build 24km of dual three-lane motorway around the south of the city. The road would link junction 23A at Magor with junction 29 at Castleton with two new junctions being proposed for Newport.

In 1999, consultants acting for the Assembly Government concluded that steps to reduce the demands for car journeys plus improved public transport could be a successful alternative to major roadbuilding. They also added that construction of the M4 Relief Road would cause huge environmental damage to nationally important sites and would encourage more car trips.

If approved, the new road would:

* cost hundreds of millions of pounds
* be Wales' first toll motorway increase traffic levels and pollution in South Wales
* devastate important wildlife sites
* shatter the tranquillity of the Levels
* fuel dangerous climate change

Cardiff Zimbabwean Activist Speaks Out

Finally, a bold step is taken by Mr Brown, as it would seem, but lets pick up on the obvious: Halting deportations to Zimbabwe. What about those in detention? What does that mean for them? Nothing at all.

What does it mean for a suffering Asylum seeker? It means continue suffering while we try to get you back to Zimbabwe to a life you escaped 10 years ago. 10 years that you will never get back, to a home that is now foreign to you.

Basically, Mr Brown is not going to do anything positive for the Asylum seekers, the exit route has already been mapped out, keep them in Limbo, as long as it takes, until we can send then back.

But Mr Brown picks out the positives in all this. Failed asylum seekers get accommodation and shopping vouchers to keep them from being destitute. Some of the accommodation I have seen would not be suitable for a dead dog and this accommodation is not pro families. If you were single when you applied no consideration is made when you now have a family, thus you are forced to stay at a specified address while your family stays else where; with most abandoning the accommodation because partners can be forced to live in different cities. No one cares to address the family issue.

As for the shopping vouchers, let's see what one can do with £35 per week: buy food, clothes and all you need with just £140 per month? Because the shopping voucher is used in very specific shops and you have no actual money for local travel, all those asylum seekers walk because they can't afford to catch the bus. Imagine braving the cold and rainy weather on foot, well we are African so we must be accustomed to suffering even in places where things are meant to be easier.

The LEFT Alternative fights for unity between all workers - legal or 'illegal', migrant or 'native', locally and internationally. We support ALL anti-deportation campaigns.

Stand up to this tide of anti-Muslim hatred

It is now three years since the 7 July terrorist attacks on London that killed 52 people along with the four bombers. Those three years have witnessed a systematic ratcheting up of prejudice and hate propaganda against Muslims.

A new report by researchers from Cardiff University’s School of Journalism shows that recent years have seen a series of stories that paint Muslims as terrorists and extremists, or claim that Islam is incompatible with “Western values”. Only 5 percent of stories involving Muslims focus on the problems faced by the community.

It is no surprise that this media assault has been accompanied by an increase in physical attacks on Muslims in Britain. These attacks typically go unreported by newspapers that are only too happy to devote endless space to elaborate descriptions of terrorist plots based on little more than a spook’s imagination.

Meanwhile crazy “clash of civilisations” rants that were previously confined to the fringes of the right are now considered respectable middle class opinion. The novelist Martin Amis fantasises about “strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan”, while the Sun’s Trevor Kavanagh states that “Muslim men are entitled to beat their wives... such barbaric treatment of women has been imported and thrives here.”

The real “barbarism” going on here is one that is perfectly compatible with “Western values”. The current campaign against Muslims is all but identical to that waged against Jews in the first half of the 20th century. That antisemitism opened the door to the Holocaust. And today’s Islamophobia is potentially no less deadly.

LibDems & Plaid to Close More Schools

Last time Rodney Berman tried to close our schools he was defeated by the biggest street demonstrations and popular movement in Cardiff since the 2003 resistance to the Iraq War, a return to the streets is necessary if we are to defeat round two of the "school re-organisation programme". This is part of a battle across Wales, and we have tried to link up with campaigners elsewhere to compare and share experiences and strategies.

With the LibDem/Plaid council announcing the closure of Cefn Onn Primary School, in Llanishen, and St Anne’s Church in Wales Infant School, in Roath, it is clear that parents, teachers, school students, trade unions and citizens need to organise quickly to defend our communities. LEFT Alternative supporters who attended campaign meetings around the earlier attempt to close St Anne's will be pleased to offer whatever support we can to those fighting to save both schools threatened with closure.

The new attempt at closing schools has also shown up the utter cynicism of Plaid Cymru in Cardiff, who in exchange for power, have cut a completely unprincipled deal with the Liberal Democrats to just save schools in West Cardiff where they have their base while supporting closures elsehwere. People in Cardiff will wonder how Plaid can agitate to save schools in their patch, but support and vote for similar schools being closed in other areas of Cardiff. Such an approach is consistent with the approach of the mainstream parties who see politics as being about getting the best deal within existing neoliberalism rather than fighting to roll back the tide.

Council Workers Strike

If you are around during the day, there are two events which you can attend to show support for striking council workers, LEFT alternative supporters hope to be out in force!

Wednesday 16 July

Rally at The Point, Mount Stuart Square, Cardiff Bay, 11.30am.

Thursday 17 July

Lobby of the Senedd, the Welsh Assembly, Cardiff Bay, 12 noon.

Community Notice - Spread the Word

According to the Beeb, if you used the Natwest cashpoint at Cardiff Central Station between the 7th & 14th July you may be at risk:

"Customers who used a cash machine at Cardiff's main railway station are being warned to destroy their cards after a card skimming device was found. "

We're here to serve the people - If you have any other community news or notices, email us!

Solidarity Forever! Support the Local Strikes

The politcal elites are using the credit crisis to drive down our wages, they hope to stabilise their profits by squeezing the working class. They seek to impose a cut in living standards on all public sector workers, as the first step in attacking the wages of all working people.

There has been (or will be) strike action across a huge section of the union movement: Teachers, Postal Workers, Civil Servants, Council Workers, Railway workers, Lecturers and others. If all these unions were strike on the same day - a general strike of the public sector - it would turn an economic dispute into a political blow against New Labour.

Brown has been using divide and rule - in his references to public sector workers enjoying privileges that most workers don't enjoy - but if the attack on pay in the public sector succeeds it will send a clear signal to big business to start cutting wages for workers in the private sector: They divide each to conquer all.

Therefore, each individual struggle of a group of workers against the pay freeze is a fight for all working people, because they are part of a fightback against the attempt to impose a cut in living standards and wages on ALL working people.

In our group we have been trying in a modest way to support groups of workers on strike - taking collections at our workplaces for striking workers, setting up an informal network of rank and file unionists, trying to make people aware that these disputes are in defence all working people, and trying to push for co-ordinated strike action. We also seek to build a grassroots alternative to the union bureaucracy and Labour Party link. Sure it's not perfect, but if we can help build a fighting coalition of the working class on some level, then that will be something.

Supporters of the LEFT Alternative will be on strike this week, and others will be visiting picket lines. It's all about basic working class solidarity. For us, any working class people trying to fight back against the bosses merit support.

This strike is taking place against the backdrop of wider unrest. Currently a huge proportion of people in Wales work in the public sector, the attempt at a wage freeze comes at the same time as workers are already feeling the pinch of rising fuel prices, electricity and water bills, rising council tax, rising food prices. We also know that it's not everyone being told to tighten their belts - for the rich, they've never had it so good!

As socialists we support the trade union movement. We believe that if this strike is successful it will build confidence among other workers to organise and improve the lot of our class. People in Britain now work the longest hours for the worst pay in Europe - why? Because the trade union movement was smashed under Thatcher. Supporting these seemingly small disputes is part of rebuilding the combativity of working class organisations so that we can begin to improve the life and conditions of people in Wales and start pushing back against the continued dismantling of the Welfare State and the reforms won in 1945 like free health care and free education. Because of their strategic power under capitalism, workplace organisation is very important, the best weapon for social justice that we have.

The strikes this week are not just a dispute between one group of workers and the council, but rather about working people as a whole bettering themselves through collective organisation and collective struggle.

Quote of the Week - Aneurin Bevan

"That is why no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party that inflicted those bitter experiences on me. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.

They condemned millions of first-class people to semi-starvation. Now the Tories are pouring out money in propaganda of all sorts and are hoping by this organised sustained mass suggestion to eradicate from our minds all memory of what we went through.

But, I warn you young men and women, do not listen to what they are saying now. Do not listen to the seductions of Lord Woolton. He is a very good salesman. If you are selling shoddy stuff you have to be a good salesman. But I warn you they have not changed, or if they have they are slightly worse than they were."

The Nationalist parties have indicated that in the event of a hanged parliament after the next election they would be prepared to prop up the Tories. This follows them coming within a whisker of forming a coalition in the Assembly in 2007 that would have seen the Tories brought into power in Wales, such scabbing cannot be tolerated and is alien to the best traditions of working class struggle in Wales.

Pride

The Left Alternative (formerly Respect) had a successful float and walking group at this year's Pride Parade where we were able to give out thousands of leaflets, outlining our policies against homophobia and for full social and economic equality for all LGBT people, to a crowd of 800,000.

London Pride Parade is a yearly event that aims to promote equality and diversity and raise awareness of discrimination and the issues and difficulties affecting the lives of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered people around the world.

After an effective 2007 float, Pride organisers invited the Left Alternative back again to have a float and walking group on their "fairytales, myths and legends themed parade. Our legend was based on Robin Hood - People before Profit and was the only socialist themed float on the parade.

A group of Left Alternative activists dressed up and handed out material that called for:

* Support for all LGBT people facing discrimination in any country
* A grassroots campaign in every school of LGBT teachers, school catering staff, unions and their supporters to bring about cultural change in the education system
* Legislation of same sex marriages
* Full equality for LGBT people
* Cab pooling to get people home at night, bus conductors and tube guards brought back, and more refuges and counselling for hate crime victims.

To see Lindsey German's speech at this year's Stonewall hustings click here

Letter to the G8 - From a Zimbabwean Activist in Cardiff

Dear Gordon Brown,

It is with deep sadness that I watch and read the news about the G8 were you masquerade triumphantly on your new added sanctions that do not cause Mr Mugabe any loss of sleep but actually turn up the heat on the already suffering, brutalised, dejected, hopeless, sick, starving, poor and dying Zimbabweans citizens.

For years we have had sanctions against Mugabe, travel restrictions but it seems those were targeted at the Zimbabwean citizens as We are the ones that seem to be restricted on travel as Mr Mugabe seems to still travel as he pleases.

Recently you have decided to punish our sportsmen how is that a deterrent for Mr Mugabe who has had some of the most vocal protests about his regime come from our sports women and man.

What a performance you put on showing fake concern, Zimbabweans that escaped the regime have been made destitute and live in limbo; with uncertain futures while Your goons at the Home Office wait for the window opportunity to forcibly remove over 12 000 failed asylum seekers.

At the moment we have 6 Zimbabweans that have been in detention for 23 months.They have been treated like criminals or terrorist held for so long with no sentence, indefinitely. Their only hope being to just surrender to their fate and voluntary return to Zimbabwe for slaughter. So that we can read about them and add them to the statistics that you have and read every morning with your cup of tea.

In closing next time you speak on behalf of the Zimbabweans and their suffering don't bother with the performance because We all know you do not care about Us.

The Dispossessed

Writing about the Black civil rights movement, Harlem Renaissance Poet-man, Langston Hughes scrawled:

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the events that Palestinians refer to as Al-Nakba, 'The Catastrophe' when the land of Palestine disappeared from the maps of the world. Until there is justice for the people of Palestine there will be no peace in the Middle East.

If the American War of Independence (from Britain) was simultaneously a war of expansion against the indigenous native populative, then likewise what Israelis refer to as a "the war of independence" was also a war of expansion against the people who had lived there for generations. These people were ethnically cleansed and their memory cleansed also in an orgy of destruction that saw over 400 Palestinian villages totally destroyed in the land that is now called Israel.

Like the Native Americans, Palestinians were driven at gunpoint from the land where they had lived for generations, many were herded into refugee camps where they still live alongside children and grandchildren. The West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem was carved up between the Arab states, and later under Israeli occupation. A small remnant remained in Israel to live as third-class citizens. For the first twenty years of Israel's existence this Palestinian minority lived under direct military rule. The situation in the Middle East is explosive, 60 years of dispossession is 60 years too long: Palestine is a dream deferred.

Power in the Union

The language of priorities is the religion of socialism. There is an anecdote about Arthur Scargill & the miners of South Wales that perhaps puts things in the correct perspective:

In 1972, during the great strike, Arthur Scargill rang Dai Francis the leader of the South Wales miners and said,

‘Look, Dai, we need pickets up at Saltley, in Birmingham.’

Dai said, ‘Where’s that?’

Arthur explained.

‘Yes, we can organise them. When do you want them?’

‘Tomorrow, Saturday.’

Dai paused.

‘But Wales are playing Scotland at Cardiff Arms Park.’

There was a silence, and Scargill replied,

‘But Dai, the working class are playing the ruling class at Saltley.’

Needless to say a big delegation of miners from South Wales were present at the Battle of Saltley Gate!

Fighting for Wind Power - Challenging the Myths

Wind energy - offshore and onshore - could generate up to a third of Wales' electricity, but there is a campaign of misinformation being waged. This excellent new briefing from Friends of the Earth Cymru answers the myths. RESPECT/Left Party says let's make Wales and Britain a 'global showcase for clean energy' and campaign for a rapid transition to a low carbon economy.

Afghanistan: Get the Troops Out NOW!

The hundredth British soldier was killed in Afghanistan today.

Afghanistan is a distaster for occupier and occupied alike: NATO forces are bogged down, deeply unpopular, facing more and more resistance and bringing mayhem rather than democracy.

When our media says "Taliban killed", the reality is usually that ordinary men, women and children cut down, and this is uniting the Afghan people against the foreign invader. We demand Brown pulls the troops out, because British soldiers shouldn't be dying in a futile war, and there can be no progress in Afghanistan while it is occupied by foreign armies.

Read Jonathan Neale on the forgotten war in Afghanistan here

Peter Hain's Aspirations for Wales

Former minister Peter Hain has argued that Welsh Labour must move to the right, but his analysis is way off the mark, writes Huw Williams, a socialist activist in Blackwood, South Wales.

Following New Labour’s disastrous election results on 1 May, the Neath Labour MP and former cabinet minister Peter Hain has written a pamphlet, Changing Wales: Changing Welsh Labour.

The pamphlet, published by Blairite think tank Progress, essentially calls on the Welsh Labour Party to enact the changes to its policies that New Labour undertook in England during the 1990s.

Hain argues that the nature of Welsh society has changed to such a degree that “Old Labour” type politics no longer have a mass appeal.

He says that Welsh Labour needs to look to what he terms the “aspirational vote” as well as the “core vote”. The terms are essentially bywords for middle class and working class voters.

Hain argues that the working class and its organisations no longer provide the mechanism by which Labour can dominate Welsh politics as it has done for generations.

It is a familiar argument – the decline of the mining and steel industries is seen as the end of the working class. Hain points to the decline of trade union activity in Labour but also to how wider working class social networks such as rugby clubs have declined.

He states that people live more private lives and gain their views via the television and not the workplace.

Hain is right of course that the mining and steel industries have been in sharp decline for many years. However the view that this somehow signals the end of the Welsh working class is fundamentally flawed.

Those working in the NHS, local government, education or service industries are part of the working class. They have to rely on collective organisation to better their conditions as much as miners or steel workers did.

The real reason for longtime Labour voters staying at home is the sense of betrayal caused by New Labour’s hand-outs to the rich, its worshipping of big business, its lies about the Iraq war, its commitment to privatisation and its scapegoating of immigrants.

Hain argues that it is wrong of the “ultra new Labourites” to simply expect “core voters” to keep turning up and to assume they have nowhere else to go. He cites the worrying vote for the British National Party.

However he fails to address the fact that the main haemorrhaging of Labour’s vote in the Welsh council elections was in its heartland of the valleys.

Here Labour voters in great numbers switched from Labour not to the fascists but to historically large numbers of independent candidates.

Many, although not all, of these independents are former Labour Party members and some are grouped around the Welsh Assembly Member Trish Law from Blaneau Gwent.

In the main the appeal of these independents is that they are seen as critical of New Labour from the left and able to connect with the concerns of working class communities in those areas.
Plaid Cymru also continues in the main to speak an “Old Labour” message – albeit now compromised by its coalition with New Labour in the Welsh Assembly.

Hain argues that the councils that Labour retained – such as Neath Port Talbot and Bridgend – did so because they took tough financial decisions and provided good services.

Of course Hain doesn’t mention that Bridgend council workers in the Unison union are contemplating strike action due to a deal which offers only a 12 month protection of wages, or that they have privatised meals on wheels and leisure service provision.

Likewise Hain argues that young people are not interested in politics.

Yet many school students took part in strikes against the Iraq war and school students in Pontllanfraith Comprehensive School in Caerphilly recently held a day’s strike and protest against teacher redundancies.

Surely Hain should be asking why the Labour Party has no appeal for these people.
There is no doubt that Wales has changed dramatically over recent generations. The loss of mining and the defeat back in 1985 of the Miners’ Strike still has a resonance in Labour heartlands.

Communities have been fragmented by these changes but the question is how socialists rebuild those traditions of struggle and solidarity.

The vast majority of workers still believe that there is a fundamental divide between the rich and those working.

Lastly, the very fact that middle class voters are described as “aspirational” smacks of the elitism running through New Labour.

The working class have aspirations – but these are for affordable housing, good healthcare and education, an end to wars and privatisation.

The real problem for New Labour is not how its message is spun but that it doesn’t share the aspirations of the mass of working people.

Hain’s message is a call for more of the same from New Labour and to remove what little was different in Welsh Labour from New Labour.
Welsh workers deserve better.

'O Arglwydd, dyma gamwedd' - Oh Lord, here is injustice: The Merthyr Commune of 1831

Go to the indoor market on St Mary's Street in Cardiff and see the place where Dic Penderyn was hanged in 1831. Gaze with solemn wonder at the plaque to remember him. His last words:"Oh Lord, Here is injustice" . This man - everyman - was a hero and martyr of the working class. He died young - aged 23, his spirit lives on: Adam Johannes looks at the Red Commune of 1831, "The Merthyr Rising", when Welsh workers stormed heaven.

Redundancies. Rising prices. Wage-cuts. A credit crisis. Ordinary people protesting are fired upon by the British army massacring two-dozen people. The protestors fight back hard and raise the red flag. Armed workers drive out the rich and take-over Merthyr placing it under ‘workers control’. They throw up barricades on the roads leading into the town. The authorities are surrounded and under siege in their own headquarters. Another battalion of the British army is surrounded and disarmed. For five glorious days working class people rule the town against the army who eventually crushed them.

In May-June 1831, the Welsh working class exploded onto the pages of history in a ferocious uprising unprecedented in British history. It is no accident that popular novelist, Alexander Cordell was to title his account of the Merthyr Rising, The Fire People. But what happened in Merthyr has historic significance. This was the first time the Red Flag of rebellion and revolution was raised on this Island and the working class took independent action as a class-for-itself, a time when, for almost a week, the people set up a “Commune”, a democratic society run by the poor organised from below rather than grasping elites. It took a thousand British troops to smash the dream.

At that time, Merthyr was a wild 'frontier town', the town of pig-iron - over a third of all iron in Britain was dragged up from the mines of Merthyr. It was a fluid town, being rapidly reshaped in the furnace of industrial revolution. All kinds of people were being uprooted and little changes in consciousness taking place. Many ordinary people felt a sense of dislocation of living in a world that was changing fast. They had come in from the countryside with old traditions of rural solidarity to be herded into what was the largest and fastest growing town in Wales at the time. Many were temporary and seasonal workers who would make a long trek back to West Wales at harvest time. Many of the workers were familiar with subversive literature from London that was circulated, and the latest political pamphlets and Jacobin writings were eagerly passed around and discussed.

With talk today of a credit crisis, we do well to remember that it was such a crisis that lay the foundations for poor and working people taking direct action in Merthyr. A British economic depression starting in 1829 becomes the tinder that lights a fire three years later. Times are hard, with the prices of basic goods rising, people begin to be forced into debt - just to survive, and face having the Court of Requests seize their property. By 1831, bailiffs are extremely active in the area and goods are being seized on a regular basis. There is a river of political discontent too - protests against the corn laws, marches for parliamentary reform. The town is also teeming with immigrant workers who bring different political traditions and vibrant cultures to the place, young and chaotic, prone to wild enthusiasms, they are destined to be swept into currents of history that would carry the whole town with it.

Another strata of discontent were the "shopocracy" a middle class, strongly influenced by liberal-democratic traditions and a Unitarian faith. Above all this loomed the local bosess: Four local iron masters who like lords ruled this wild place and its economy. In May, the Iron Masters are beginning to make men redundant and force wage cuts. This has the effect of crystalising working class discontent into a profound rage against the existing order. There is a general heightened political atmosphere in the town. Thousands of people take to the streets that month, and many take out their anger on the rich. The 'ringleaders' are arrested.

This might be the end of the matter, but thousands force the magistrates to set them free. It is the birth of popular power in South Wales. And for a brief week the streets of Merthyr transmute into a festival of the oppressed.

A simple outline of events reads like a movie-script. A poor but defiant man, defends his home from bailiffs. They attempt to seize goods from his home, but during the night he finds allies, and is supported by his neighbours who prevent them entering the humble abode.

The name of our hero is Lewis Lewis (Lewsyn yr Heliwr). He may be a kind of Bakunin of the barricades, an Emilano Zapata type leader who would rather die on his feet than live on his knees. But at this point, he is just a poor man standing up against injustice who steps onto the stage of history at the right moment.

The bailiffs call the magistrate, and a compromise is brokered: The bailiffs can remove a single trunk belonging to Lewis.

So far, so good. But within 24 hours, there is a march from Hirwaun led by Lewislewis to the home of the shopkeeper who now owns his trunk. The crowd take the trunk back by force and return to Merthyr. On the way, they go, house to house, reclaiming goods that the bailiffs and debtors Court of Requests had repossessed from the poor and return them to their owners. Like Robin Hood they ransack the home of one of the Bailiffs and take his property. The crowd is growing, swelled by angry working men from Cyfartha and Hirwaun Ironworks and they march into the area near the Castle Inn, where the wealthier members of the community reside. A hated moneylender has his house laid siege to. He is forced to sign a pledge to return the goods of a woman whose goods had been seized for defaulting on a debt.

By now, a local magistrate, fears that the town is close to being in the grip of mob rule. But this isn’t a ‘mob’, it’s a popular revolt against the Court of Request with justice on its side. The magistrates call in70 special constables, all middle class, to restore order. A message is sent to the Brecon garrison to warn that troops may be needed. The Ironmasters try and get the crowd to disperse. The Riot Act is read out. The crowd not only ignore these pleas but proceed to drive the Magistrates out of town. As things escalate, the crowd assemble outside the house of the President of the Court of Requests, demanding the court records and records of debtors.

Following a mass meeting on Hirwaun Common where different political factions debate and argue, the records are publicly burnt down in the street, along with the court house. Appropriately during the mass meeting, Lewis Lewis has leapt upon his recovered trunk to make the speech that will launch the insurrection. Working class insurgents are now storming all the local bastilles. The offices of the bailiffs, where property reposessed from the poor has been kept, is razed to the ground, along with the records of the debt. Demonstrators then marched on the local mines, demanding that the workers stage a general strike. Something else dramatic is about to happen, some unknown proletarian will do something symbolic that will create a new symbol of workers power: A white sheet is taken and dipped in the blood of a calf to make a red flag that is placed at the head of the march – The first time a red flag is raised in Britain!

The burning down of the hated debtors court represents a profoundly symbolic moment of liberation. Akin to the kicking over of the statues in the 1989 events in Eastern Europe, or the anarchists burning immoral money in the looted gun-shops of Barcelona, or jubilant workers shooting the clocks off churches in the Paris Commune, it is a deep cry against the injustice of this world where the big fish always eat the small fish.

By now, troops are being dispatched. At the same time the crowd form flying pickets, marching on local ironworks to persuade workers to walk out in wildcat strikes and join the movement. Internationalist and radical slogans are being chanted: “Remember Paris!”, “Bread AND CHEESE!”, “Down with the King!”, “Remember Poland!”. The insurgents meet the soldiers of the 93rd Highlanders and force them to retreat to the Castle Inn where the agents of the old order – the bosses, the magistrates, and soldiers from the British army - are besieged. The workers dispatch emissaries to the bosses demanding concessions: A wage rise, a reduction in the price of bread, but the bosses refuse to negotiate with (what they call) a rabble.

When the workers refuse to disperse, the Ironmasters order their soldiers to open fire on the crowd murdering two-dozen men and women. The workers fight back, keeping the inn under siege, and return fire. By now the insurgency and the ordinary people are in effective control of the town. Roadblocks and barricades are set up, and armed workers guard checkpoints into the town. When the Swansea Cavalry arrive from Aberdare they are surrounded and disarmed. There is an attempt to spread the revolution, with delegates of workers rushing to other local towns.

The rising finds an echo: Hundreds of workers from other areas of Wales are only prevented from entering Merthyr by troops under the lead of another local boss. The magistrates have also left – fled – town and make their way to Cardiff, Newport and London for reinforcements. Fierce clashes take place between insurgent workers and soldiers over the next 48 hours. There is a millenarian mood of people demanding utopia now.

To buy time, as reinforcements are being sent, the bosses offer concessions. This spreads confusion through the working class movement, with some believing the rising should end, while others wanting to press for more. As the movement stalls, a thousands troops are arriving on the scene. Soon they have re-established "order".

In the aftermath of the Rising, the old order takes revenge. Lewis Lewis is transported to Australia. A young miner by the name of Richard Lewis, better known as Dic Penderyn is arrested and thrown in gaol. Rather than make a martyr of the leaders, the authorities choose to make an example of an ordinary working man, they pick a typical worker from the community, one of many young men who had flocked to Merthyr from elsewhere looking for work, frame him on trumped up charges of stabbing a Scottish soldier, and hang him in Cardiff.

They want to see an ordinary worker die to show all ordinary workers what will be in store for them if they dare to rise up against injustice. Penderyn becomes a popular hero, thousands will sign a petition for his release, and his coffin is followed by thousands to its burial ground. But what Penderyn stood for is not buried. Over the next hundred years, the workers of South Wales will become known as the most militant in Britain.

There are many good ways to remember our secret heroes, Dic Penderyn and Lewislewis, on the anniversary of the Red Commune of Wales. You could pay a visit to the picket line of Cardiff Council workers who are due to go on strike shortly to show solidarity. They are under attack from the LibDems and Plaid Cymru who want to victimise workers who take time off due to ill-health. You can read Gwyn Alf Williams masterful book, The Merthyr Rising, that has been called The Making of the Welsh Working Class. You can take Alexander Cordell's novel about the rising, The Fire People as your holiday reaching with you to Barry Island beach, and if you are a fellow wage-slave hold your head high: Lewis Lewis and Dic Penderyn did it for us!

Support the Raytheon 9 - Resisting War Crimes is Not a Crime!

The trial of Derry Anti War Coalition activists, the Raytheon 9, has begun. It is being held in Belfast. The trial was moved to Belfast after the Prosecution Service applied to have it moved; it argued that the Derry jury pool is likely to know too much about the campaign against Raytheon, including the non-violent direct action taken on 9th August 2006 and that any jury from Derry may be too sympathetic to the action and/or intimidated by the level of support for the Raytheon 9 because of all the protests held outside the court over the almost two years since the nine were arrested.

The Derry Anti War Coalition is confident that, wherever the trial is heard, there will be large demonstrations in support of the Nine and that any jury who hears the truth about what was happening in Lebanon when the action took place cannot but find that the Nine acted to stop war crimes and, therefore, committed no crime.

Rush messages of support to resistderry(at)aol.com

Davy McAuley, travelled to Cardiff recently to speak on behalf of the Derry Anti-War Coalition to speak at a protest rally called by the Stop the St Athan's Military Academy Campaign. He says “The creation of a military super-academy at St Athan, between Cardiff and Swansea, was announced as a done deal in January 2007. Despite the fact this represented the biggest PFI in history, involving £14 billion of taxpayers' money, there had been no debate in either Westminster or the Welsh Assembly (Senedd). DAWC were invited to speak because the winning bidders for the project were the Metrix consortium. This consortium includes Raytheon and the anti-war people of Wales are as unhappy with their taxes pouring profits into the coffers of arms traders as are the anti-war people of Derry. The consortium also includes Qinetiq, the privatised research and development wing of the MoD. Qinetiq was recently the subject of intense criticism by the National Audit Office. Its privatisation was proposed by MoD managers - who then saw their shares rise 10,000% on the day of the sale!"

Davey says that, in any case, “people need to imagine think about what else could be done with £14 billion! With hospitals and schools closing throughout Wales and the North of Ireland, with a desperate need to improve social facilities, create sustainable sources of energy etc, such public money could be invested in socially useful projects rather than the preparation for future wars of occupation like Iraq."

More about the Raytheon 9 can be found here

MESSAGE TO CARDIFF PEACE MOVEMENT:

It is a fact, not an allegation, that Raytheon is complicit in war crimes in Lebanon, Palestine and elsewhere in the world. Human Rights Watch reports have detailed the appalling suffering inflicted by Raytheon munitions on helpless civilians in Lebanon in the summer of 2006. The response of raytheon was to rush replenishments to the region so that slaughter might proceed.

We greet the members of the Stop the St Athan Military Academy Campaign and the Cardiff Stop the War Coalition who have highlighted the role of Raytheon in fuelling war for profit. We send our solidarity to you in your struggle to expose the obscenity of Raytheon involvement in military training in Wales. We thank you for the support you have shown us. We look forward to working in the future with you and with opponents of war and mitlitarism everywhere to cleans the world of the ugliness which Raytheon represents.

Eamonn McCann, Raytheon 9, Derry

A Worker Reads History

Who built the seven gates of Thebes?
The books are filled with names of kings.
Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?
And Babylon, so many times destroyed.
Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima's houses,
That city glittering with gold, lived those who built it?
In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished
Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome
Is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up? Over whom
Did the Caesars triumph? Byzantium lives in song.
Were all her dwellings palaces? And even in Atlantis of the legend
The night the seas rushed in,
The drowning men still bellowed for their slaves.
Young Alexander conquered India.
He alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Was there not even a cook in his army?
Phillip of Spain wept as his fleet
was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears?
Frederick the Greek triumphed in the Seven Years War.
Who triumphed with him?
Each page a victory
At whose expense the victory ball?
Every ten years a great man,
Who paid the piper?

So many particulars.
So many questions.

- Bertold Brecht

"When the old is dying but the new cannot be born, a great variety of morbid symptoms appear"
Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act"
George Orwell

May 1968 - When Students & Workers Rocked the World

Today is May Day - International Workers Day, a day to celebrate solidarity and common humanity. 40 years ago, students and workers rose up in Paris because they believed "Another World is Possible" - 10 million people waged an all out general strike. We still believe Another World is Possible. RESPECT/LEFT Party is standing two candidates in Adamsdown and Butetown, if you have some spare time vote for us - but better still get involved in the movement - if voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal!

Graffiti daubed on the walls of Paris in May 1968:

In the decor of the spectacle, the eye meets only things and their prices.

Commute, work, commute, sleep . . .

Meanwhile everyone wants to breathe and nobody can and many say, “We will breathe later.”

And most of them don’t die because they are already dead.

Boredom is counterrevolutionary.

We don’t want a world where the guarantee of not dying of starvation brings the risk of dying of boredom.

We want to live.

Don’t beg for the right to live — take it. I

n a society that has abolished every kind of adventure the only adventure that remains is to abolish the society.

The liberation of humanity is all or nothing.

Those who make revolutions half way only dig their own graves.

No replastering, the structure is rotten.

Masochism today takes the form of reformism.

Reform my ass.

The revolution is incredible because it’s really happening.

I came, I saw, I was won over.

Run, comrade, the old world is behind you!

Quick! If we only have enough time . . . In any case, no regrets!

Already ten days of happiness.

Live in the moment.

Comrades, if everyone did like us . . .

We will ask nothing. We will demand nothing. We will take, occupy.

Down with the state.

When the National Assembly becomes a bourgeois theater, all the bourgeois theaters should be turned into national assemblies.[Written above the entrance of the occupied Odéon Theater] Referendum: whether we vote yes or no, it turns us into suckers.

It’s painful to submit to our bosses; it’s even more stupid to choose them.

Let’s not change bosses, let’s change life.

Don’t liberate me — I’ll take care of that.

I’m not a servant of the people (much less of their self-appointed leaders).

Let the people serve themselves.

Abolish class society.

Nature created neither servants nor masters.

I want neither to rule nor to be ruled.

We will have good masters as soon as everyone is their own.

“In revolution there are two types of people: those who make it and those who profit from it.” (Napoleon)

Warning: ambitious careerists may now be disguised as “progressives.”

Don’t be taken in by the politicos and their filthy demagogy.

We must rely on ourselves.

Socialism without freedom is a barracks.

All power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

We want structures that serve people, not people serving structures.

The revolution doesn’t belong to the committees, it’s yours.

Politics is in the streets.

Barricades close the streets but open the way.

Our hope can come only from the hopeless.

A proletarian is someone who has no power over his life and knows it.

Never work.

People who work get bored when they don’t work. People who don’t work never get bored. Workers of all countries, enjoy!

Since 1936 I have fought for wage increases. My father before me fought for wage increases. Now I have a TV, a fridge, a Volkswagen. Yet my whole life has been a drag.

Don’t negotiate with the bosses. Abolish them.

The boss needs you, you don’t need the boss.

By stopping our machines together we will demonstrate their weakness.

Occupy the factories.

Power to the workers councils. (an enragé) Power to the enragés councils. (a worker)

Worker: You may be only 25 years old, but your union dates from the last century.

Labor unions are whorehouses.

Comrades, let’s lynch Séguy! [Georges Séguy: head bureaucrat of the Communist Party-dominated labor union]

Please leave the Communist Party as clean on leaving it as you would like to find it on entering. Stalinists, your children are with us!

Man is neither Rousseau’s noble savage nor the Church’s or La Rochefoucauld’s depraved sinner. He is violent when oppressed, gentle when free. Conflict is the origin of everything. (Heraclitus) If we have to resort to force, don’t sit on the fence.

Be cruel.

Humanity won’t be happy till the last capitalist is hung with the guts of the last bureaucrat. When the last sociologist has been hung with the guts of the last bureaucrat, will we still have “problems”?

The passion of destruction is a creative joy. (Bakunin)

A single nonrevolutionary weekend is infinitely more bloody than a month of total revolution. The tears of philistines are the nectar of the gods.

This concerns everyone.

We are all German Jews.

We refuse to be highrised, diplomaed, licensed, inventoried, registered, indoctrinated, suburbanized, sermonized, beaten, telemanipulated, gassed, booked.

We are all “undesirables.”

We must remain “unadapted.”

The forest precedes man, the desert follows him.

Under the paving stones, the beach.

Concrete breeds apathy.

Coming soon to this location: charming ruins.

Beautiful, maybe not, but O how charming: life versus survival.

“My aim is to agitate and disturb people. I’m not selling bread, I’m selling yeast.” (Unamuno) Conservatism is a synonym for rottenness and ugliness. You are hollow. You will end up dying of comfort. Hide yourself, object!

No to coat-and-tie revolution.

A revolution that requires us to sacrifice ourselves for it is Papa’s revolution.

Revolution ceases to be the moment it calls for self-sacrifice.

The prospect of finding pleasure tomorrow will never compensate for today’s boredom.

When people notice they are bored, they stop being bored.

Happiness is a new idea.

Live without dead time.

Those who talk about revolution and class struggle without referringto everyday reality have a corpse in their mouth.

Culture is an inversion of life.

Poetry is in the streets.

The most beautiful sculpture is a paving stone thrown at a cop’s head. A

rt is dead, don’t consume its corpse.

Art is dead, let’s liberate our everyday life.

Art is dead, Godard can’t change that.

Godard: the supreme Swiss Maoist jerk.

Permanent cultural vibration.

We want a wild and ephemeral music.

We propose a fundamental regeneration: concert strikes, sound gatherings with collective investigation.

Abolish copyrights: sound structures belong to everyone.

Anarchy is me.

Revolution, I love you.

Down with the abstract, long live the ephemeral.

(Marxist-Pessimist Youth) Don’t consume Marx, live him. I’m a Groucho Marxist.

I take my desires for reality because I believe in the reality of my desires.

Desiring reality is great! Realizing your desires is even better!

Practice wishful thinking.

I declare a permanent state of happiness.

Be realistic, demand the impossible.

Power to the imagination. T

hose who lack imagination cannot imagine what is lacking.

Imagination is not a gift, it must be conquered. (Breton)

Action must not be a reaction, but a creation.

Action enables us to overcome divisions and find solutions.

Exaggeration is the beginning of invention.

The enemy of movement is skepticism.

Everything that has been realized comes from dynamism, which comes from spontaneity. Here, we spontane.

“You must bear a chaos inside you to give birth to a dancing star.” (Nietzsche)

Chance must be systematically explored. A

lcohol kills. Take LSD. Unbutton your mind as often as your fly.

“Every view of things that is not strange is false.” (Valéry)

Life is elsewhere.

Forget everything you’ve been taught.

Start by dreaming.

Form dream committees.

Dare! This word contains all the politics of the present moment. (Saint-Just)

Arise, ye wretched of the university.

Students are jerks.

The student’s susceptibility to recruitment as a militant for any cause is a sufficient demonstration of his real impotence. (enragé women)

Professors, you make us grow old.

Terminate the university.

Rape your Alma Mater.

What if we burned the Sorbonne?

Professors, you are as senile as your culture, your modernism is nothing but the modernization of the police.

We refuse the role assigned to us: we will not be trained as police dogs.

We don’t want to be the watchdogs or servants of capitalism.

Exams = servility, social promotion, hierarchical society.

When examined, answer with questions.

Insolence is the new revolutionary weapon.

Every teacher is taught, everyone taught teaches.

The Old Mole of history seems to be splendidly undermining the Sorbonne. (telegram from Marx, 13 May 1968)

Thought that stagnates rots.

To call in question the society you “live” in, you must first be capable of calling yourself in question.

Take revolution seriously, but don’t take yourself seriously.

The walls have ears. Your ears have walls.

Making revolution also means breaking our internal chains.

A cop sleeps inside each one of us. We must kill him. Drive the cop out of your head.

Religion is the ultimate con.

Neither God nor master.

I suspect God of being a leftist intellectual.

The bourgeoisie has no other pleasure than to degrade all pleasures.

Going through the motions kills the emotions. S

truggle against the emotional fixations that paralyze our potentials. (Committee of Women on the Path of Liberation)

The more I make love, the more I want to make revolution. The more I make revolution, the more I want to make love.

SEX: It’s okay, says Mao, as long as you don’t do it too often.

Comrades, 5 hours of sleep a day is indispensable: we need you for the revolution.

Embrace your love without dropping your guard.

I love you!!! Oh, say it with paving stones!!!

I’m coming in the paving stones.

Total orgasm.

Revolutionary women are more beautiful.

Zelda, I love you! Down with work!

The young make love, the old make obscene gestures.

Make love, not war.

Whoever speaks of love destroys love.

Down with consumer society.

The more you consume, the less you live.

Commodities are the opium of the people.

Burn commodities. Y

ou can’t buy happiness. Steal it.

See Nanterre and live. Die in Naples with Club Med.

Are you a consumer or a participant?

To be free in 1968 means to participate. I participate. You participate. He participates. We participate. They profit. T

he golden age was the age when gold didn’t reign.

“The cause of all wars, riots and injustices is the existence of property.” (St. Augustine) Happiness is hanging your landlord.

Millionaires of the world unite.

The wind is turning. The economy is wounded — I hope it dies!

How sad to love money.

You too can steal.

I don’t like to write on walls. Write everywhere. Before writing, learn to think. I don’t know how to write but I would like to say beautiful things and I don’t know how. I don’t have time to write!!!

I have something to say but I don’t know what.

Speechmaking is counterrevolutionary.

Comrades, stop applauding, the spectacle is everywhere.

Don’t get caught up in the spectacle of opposition. Oppose the spectacle. Down with spectacle-commodity society. Down with journalists and those who cater to them. Only the truth is revolutionary.

It is forbidden to forbid.

To hell with boundaries.

You can no longer sleep quietly once you’ve suddenly opened your eyes.

The future will only contain what we put into it now.