Hanging Tariq Aziz will be a a brutal barbarous and savage act!

Three years ago I was spending the New Year in Scotland and as they say up there seeing the old out and the new in; and it was on that very New Years Day when the world was first informed that Saddam Husain had been hanged on the first day of Eid ul-Adha, 30 December 2006, despite his wish to be shot (which he felt would be more dignified) The execution was carried out at the strangely named Camp Justice, an Iraqi army base in Kadhimiya, a neighborhood of northeast Baghdad.

The execution was videotaped on a mobile phone and his captors could be heard insulting Saddam. The video was leaked to electronic media and posted on the Internet within hours, becoming the subject of global controversy, it was later claimed by the head guard at the tomb where his body remains that Saddam's body was stabbed six times after the execution.

Now I don’t know about anyone else, but the news of Saddam’s execution and the manner in which it was carried-out has always been a reverberating bone of contention that has laid heavily upon my mind, to put it simply it was nothing more than a barbaric act of political vengeance by the US puppet government in Baghdad and yet another in the litany of war crimes committed by both Bush and Blair since their 2003 invasion.

In recent day’s we the world have now been notified that Tariq Aziz is to hang, you will remember Tariq Aziz who was for decades Iraq’s chief diplomatic representative on the world stage, he voluntarily turned himself in to the US military in 2003. He apparently trusted that his long-standing international reputation—including his diplomatic relations with successive US administrations—would protect him.  

Instead, this ailing 74-year-old man has been subjected to more than seven years of solitary confinement, first by American military jailers and more recently, by Iraqi security forces. When US occupation forces turned Aziz over to the Iraqi government last July he confided to his lawyer, “I am sure they are going to kill me.”

Well he wasn’t wrong then!”

Aziz went through a multiple of trials largely without any legal representation, as lawyers who dared to defend him were threatened with death by Shi’ite militias linked to the US-backed regime, and to top that off the tribunal that handed down the sentence on Aziz was created by a decree issued under the US occupation’s Coalition Provisional Authority for the purpose of trying members of the Ba’athist government that the US invasion overthrew. Its staff was handpicked and paid by the US Embassy in Baghdad. From its inception, this kangaroo court has employed the crudest methods of “victors’ justice.”

If as is expected and Aziz is hanged then make no mistake, this will surely be a brutal barbarous and savage act not befitting humanity in the twenty first century!” 

"Quiet the dragons of worry and fear"

The first thoughts that may come into anyone’s head, if you were to ask them have they heard about Iceland, would be, and I do suppose, the volcanic ash-cloud, followed by Iceland the local supermarket up the road, or if their memory is elastic like and stretching back to the 1970s then the cod war.

What they may not know, or have not heard a great deal about is the impact and forceful consequence which the world recession is having on Iceland and its inhabitants. The crises in this particular country is such an unstable situation and a real reflection of the global failure and bankruptcy of capital the so-called pillar of world society; and of which I am not surprised in the least that the world popular press choose and prefer to keep quiet about its (Iceland’s) financial problems, and particularly how they are bearing upon the ordinary people. I suppose you could say: "Quiet the dragons of worry and fear."

The Irish Republic is even closer to us here in the UK, still our press print and edit only what they would like us to read, old habits and all that, die hard I suppose, but they don’t tell us a great deal about what was known until very recently as the Celtic Tiger; unless you read publications such as the Financial Times and the Economist. The point being that most newspapers don’t bother because too much knowledge is a dangerous thing in the wrong heads.

Anyway the Financial Crisis of 2008 is still clouding the Irish economy severely, compounding domestic economic problems related to the collapse of the Irish property bubble. The first country in the EU to officially enter a recession as declared by the Central Statistics Office it was stripped of its AAA credit ranking and downgraded to AA+ by Standard & Poor's ratings agency, due to Ireland's bleak financial outlook and heavy government debt burden. It has recently been predicted that the Irish economy will not significantly recover until 2011 if at all under present world conditions. Ireland has now been linked with other troubled economies in Europe, known as PIIGS. Ireland now has the highest level of household debt relative to disposable income in the developed world at 190%.        

Although this post is about Iceland’s financial crises, still, we can not be blinkered, for there are a great many comparisons to be made with other countries, because the one single problem that they all share and have in common is the leeched imposition of capitalism, a world system that is now in a prolonged economic meltdown, in fact it can be said to have reached a fork in the road that it cannot by-pass or arrest and control it’s outmoded orthodoxy and orientation based upon profit.

The Irish property boom had been fuelled like elsewhere else by massive lending from the greedy banks, and when this collapsed - and lenders were unable to repay - the Irish banking system was plunged into crisis. Yes, this story seems now to be very familiar, an identical world scenario and sequence of events. Well it is, because capitalism is global and no matter what the governments of the world do, they cannot control its (capitalism) vampire thrust and greedy thirst, the physiological need to drink the lifeblood of anything and everything profitable. It destroys and devours, even destroys completely almost all good things in life on mother earth. 

It is this state of mental disturbance, which has seen millions all over the world, lose jobs and homes whilst governments pile in large sums of money to prop the system up; a very rotten system!" Now austerity is the new buzz word following on from that now universal utterance of quantitative easing, used so much by government, bankers and economists alike.

As governments around the world stumble in an ambidextrous, double-dealing and altogether Janus-faced manner it’s the ordinary people that bear the brunt of this world crisis.

These are indeed uncertain times; general strikes in both France and Greece have been reported in the worlds media in an unfaltering and shock the horror of people power manner, painted as being unreasonable and out of control, but what you don’t read is the press considering for a single moment that it may be the system which really is running out of control, as if economic policy has become the disembodied spirit of capitalism.

Three weeks ago I read a report about the people of Iceland which was not wildly reported around the world. It was about demonstrators who had gathered outside Iceland’s parliament in Reykjavik, voicing their anger at home foreclosures in a country clearly aching from the global economic crisis. The protesters threw glass bottles and eggs - one of which ended up in the prime minister's hair - and held up signs that read "A human future!", "We want a government that works for its people", and "Elections now!"  

This came about because a six-month freeze on mortgage repayments put in place by the government expired, triggering the anger of many Icelanders who will fall short on home payments. According to Icelandic housing experts they say that up to nearly 40,000 households are unable to make their mortgage payments.

So what’s the lesson of this story then, well when the banks failed and through there own greed, they are bailed-out, but when mortgage payers through no fault of their own, default, the banks throw them out!”

This takes place everyday and the world over, surely this can’t be right?”

Don't let London Burn Support the Fire-Fighters!"

Everyday, particularly here in London our fire-fighters will clock-on at work not knowing what a sift will bring forth, their job is beyond a shadow of a doubt a very dangerous occupation. It’s not just a job, "it's the literal truth" they save lives, and on many occasions they lose there's. Can you imagine an occupation where you really don’t know if this is to be your last day, that when you walk out of the door having said you're goodbye’s to the young family and all the time knowing it is possible, you wont see them again. What sort of young men and women are these, we may ask, but the answer is not blowing in the wind. Our fire-fighters like there colleagues in the medical profession do an essential service for the whole community, and I think that they are not thanked or valued enough for there absolute dedicated commitment to us all.

The FBU recently released a report warning of an "unprecedented" rise in fire-fighter deaths, and revealed that nine service members had been killed in the line of duty in adding to the toll of 122 deaths of fire and rescue workers in the last 30 years. Fire-fighters' union leader Matt Wrack once said that losing a colleague is something that touches everyone and is something that fire-fighters never get over."

If I may just say a few things about Matt Wrack before I move on to the real thread of this post, it may or may not be of interest, but I remember Matt when he was a young fire-fighter and a member of the Bethnal Green and Bow constituency Labour Party, he use to attend meetings wearing proudly his fireman’s work-clothing or fatigues. I never had the opportunity unlike his brother (Nick whom I met in Respect), to get to know him personally, but heard him speck back then with a real socialist passion which with his own hard work and commitment has led him to become the leader of today’s fire-fighters, can’t help thinking that we will be hearing a lot more from this outstanding general secretary, and I don’t say things like that often.

Now as we all know the London fire-fighters staged a solid one-day strike yesterday (Saturday) and throughout the capital in regard to an ongoing and now turning nasty dispute with their management and the London Fire Brigade after it sent them all letters of dismissal on 11 August.

London Fire Brigade is proposing to change the start and finish times of duty for its front-line fire-fighters.

By reducing the current 15 hour night shift to 12 hours, and increasing the current 9 hour day shift to 12 hours, therefore providing a longer day shift. So that’s the issues of this dispute in a nutshell. However there is the hidden side to this dust-up which to the public this may not for the time being at least be as obvious at a passing glance, and that’s the hidden agenda and push towards privatisation of the whole service in London. I have to say that this is also about another attempt by the agents of the ruling class to further damage and break trade unions in the UK. One very obnoxious figure that looms large is Conservative member of the London assembly and chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority Brian Coleman: He recently is on record as saying: "I have to say, fire-fighters who don't sign the new contract won't be re-employed." Coleman told London radio station LBC: "If it means 'doing a Ronald Reagan' – where he got rid of the air traffic controllers – I've got 948 fire-fighters who voted not to go on strike, together with the non-union members and the officers, I reckon 2,000 will sign their new contract."

Asked if his words were a pledge to sack fire-fighters, Coleman said: "It's as good as – and I'm quite relaxed about that ... We are at the end of our tether now."

So there it is as plain and as clearly revealed as the nose on my face a declaration of class war, and against the most professional and dedicated public servants of them all, who risk their own lives everyday of the year saving others.

So the capital's 5,600 fire-fighters walkout on 23 October, and will do it again on the1 November following a strike ballot in which 79% of FBU members voted in favour of the move.

The London Fire Brigade in response arranged for 27 fire engines to be stationed at strategic locations across the capital. They will be manned by staff trained by private contractor AssetCo which was hired on a five-year contract last summer to provide emergency cover in the event that regular fire crews are unavailable. Now the worrying thing about this is that here is a private company with its foot well and truly through the door, they have evolved from the leasing and asset management subsidiary of British Gas, which as you will know was a publicly owned utility until the Tories got their dirty hands on it last time and sold it off.  And of course, who needs a reminder of that when the extortionate bills that drops through our letter boxes, dose it every time.

I was told by a fire-fighter on the Poplar Fire Station picket line, that AssetCo, lease all the Fire Engines, uniforms and equipment used by the Brigade, that Coleman has been wined and dinned by AssetCo executives’, he has even, and so it is alleged accepted a Christmas hamper worth £500.

This dispute is now being orchestrated and rubbed along by the Tories as a part of their ideological agenda, which I am convinced, includes, finishing the job that Thatcher and the Tories started the last time they were in office, the total liquidation of trade unionism.

We simply cannot allow this to happen, support your fire-fighters, don’t let London burn!”  

My Take on Wednesdays Downing Street Demonstration

I'm rather late in writing this post about Wednesdays Downing Street demonstration, due to ongoing problems with my Broadband provider and British Telecom. Frustrating as it seemed, it nevertheless has given me time to walk over in examination, the significance of this event. The demonstrations called and organised, and let’s name these organisations, and very important that we do so too: Camden NUT, Camden Unison, Camden Trades Council and Holborn a St Pancras Constituency Labour Party. They must all be congratulated and thanked for having the bottle of real fortitude and determination to help draw that very fine line now in the sand. The march organised by a local network and not a national body is very telling of the sate of the Labour and Trade Union Movement. But beside that, the demonstration and build up to it, marks a mood change amongst some sections of our movement at rank and file level. Ordinary members of the trade’s council and other sponsors did for opposition what has been lacking for a very long time, they called on the movement to assemble the resistance; this was reinforced by calls from speakers to form a National Resistance of all groups and traditions. This call it must be noted, did not come from the official leadership of the TUC but rather from activists on the front line. It came from those of us who are under no illusory blight of withering and rotting acceptance that austerity is the only game in town.

There is no misunderstanding; world global capital is in meltdown, the seed of self destruction as only Marx could describe the ending of this rotting system is in a deep crisis globally, this is evident for everyone to see and taste its discernment very soon.

These are times, that in our wildest nightmare its complete horror must now awaken our class. Our movement in the much broader sense of general consciousness and awareness must stand-up and be counted; we can look and take inspiration from the sandy beaches of Dunkirk that my own late grandfather escaped from in 1940, just one of thousands of working class solders that went to defend the then King and country and the British capitalist way. Yes, this is a Dunkirk moment for the British working class and make no mistake about that. After years of un-provoked attacks first by Thatcher, then by New Labours unwillingness to repeal the legal shackles on workers organisation and defence, which have taken there toll, is not in doubt. But this is not the end story or can we ever allow it to be. When the going gets tough, the tough must get going, and that spirit of resistance bequeathed from our history must kick-in now, gentleness or sentimentality is not what I speck of, but barricade and defence of our very own or in a word our communities.

It was important that demonstration on Wednesday, and I was so pleased that so many attended and answered the call and made the event such a colourful, vociferation of protest, and I estimated that there was between four to 6,000 attendees, on a cold but luckily dry autumn evening in Westminster.

The protest lifted spirits and disbursed any apathy lurking; coming together in unity of purpose is the only way to build, galvanise and stimulate to action a roaring campaign.

The march assembled in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and set off to Downing Street, with local and London trade union banners held proudly. But what was really up-lifting for me in any case was the number of young people prepared and making their voices heard through the London Streets, there was a gravitating sense that we were firing the first shot in the defence of welfare, jobs and services. I met many long time friends and comrades of many years standing. It was like the family re-union coming back together for the first time in decades. And for someone who is a sceptic about marching around streets as part of this or that campaign and it has to be said: that on this day it had relevance, the combustion from well greased pistons, plunging and thrusting in motion. It was after all the very day that the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government’s autumn spending review introduced the most savage package of public spending cuts ever seen in Britain. Half a million public-sector jobs will go, and another half million related in the private- sector as a result.  

Spending for welfare benefits will be slashed by a total of £18 billion between the cuts contained in the spending review and those already made in the emergency budget earlier this year. The poor, the old, the unemployed and our children will be punished for the greed of the Bankers, who almost brought about the collapse of their own rotting system.

There was something special I felt about this demonstration, you could see it in the faces of the demonstrators young and in old hands like me, it was so refreshing and up-beat that I wished it went a few more miles further. When we got into Whitehall the police had shut one half to traffic on the opposite side to Downing Street, but at the Cenotaph the barriers were broken and the police were taken by surprise as demonstrators took over that side of the road. The authorities had allowed a stage to be erected for speakers to address the demonstration, the only speech that I listened to was that of Matt Wrack the leader of our fire-fighters on strike this Saturday, Matt called on supporters to join local picket-lines, and I will be joining the Bow Fire Station picket

London buses or walking to the nearest tube station looked totally at a loss or apathetic to say the least, no cars were hooting horns; this says to me that the press have done a good job on the newspaper reading public.

Circumstances, events and public opinion may well change when the cuts start to bite, but we need to get out and educate the many in our communities of what these cuts will mean in reality, we have to hold meetings and generally be seen as we lift the profile of our campaign by telling people that the most savage of spending cuts since the 1930s, will wreck lives of millions by devastating jobs, pay, pensions, NHS, education, transport, postal and other services, it’s that simple!”

A follower on Twitter of The Socialist Way was a little disappointed that the demonstration did not descend into something more along the lines of say France or even Greece when workers were in confrontation with police and even the military. He tweeted the following: but consider how the French do things. Think about how violence is a hallmark of revolution, for good or ill.

Well what can I say in answer to this eager to bring about a swift end to all our entire problems comrade?

Well what I’ve thought about for over thirty years is the hallmark that is capitalism, its exploitation, its destruction and its many wars. I think of revolution as a solution, but that dose not mean violence, against who would the violence be directed, other workers perhaps, like the police in the first instance, the ruling class are clever in using one set of workers against another. The first port of call must be to win the arguments with and amongst our fellow workers, and we must win it with the majority. That is the only way forward, but that’s not to say that civil disobedience or direct action don’t have there place in our armoury!”