KitNotes

Once again, we are forced to see the right to dignity  in disability clouded with the capitalist’s pricer gun.

The BBC reports that the numbers of people developing dementia is vastly increasing and that carers, usually immediate family who bear the cost of care which rapidly increases as dementia progresses.

Whatever happened to “from cradle to grave”, eh? Universial free health care seems to stop when you have a terminal disease. Patients who have terminal cancer, dementia or other such terminal diseases don’t seem to have their care paid for by the NHS. Even though they will have paid NI contributions their whole life, it is up to charitable organisations like Alzhiemers UK and Macmillian Cancer Care to carry the can.

People have the right to a dignified end and the level of support given to carers is abomoniable. I know this from having to witness great Uncle Leary decend into dementia until he passed away at Urmston General a couple of years ago. He was only supported after he was admitted into hospital. Before then, our family had to carry the can.

It takes the piss, it really does. Why is the care of some of the most vunrable and needy people left to the charitable sector? Whatever happened to supporting those who need society’s help? These are basic democratic socialist principles being ignored by our ‘democratic socialist’ government who would rather serve the likes of Ronnie “PFI” Cohen and his fellow fatcats. And I’m not even a “democratic socialist”.

Everyone has a right to dignity, period, and it shouldn’t depend on either your or your family member’s bank balances.

Dear Micheal,

I’m writing to ask you not to stand for Labour leader.

Now, you might think that I’m a John McDonnell supporter. And you’d be right. I think that it’s important that not only is there a leadership contest, but that there is a challenge from the left, which reinvigorates the party and can draw people in, and rebuild Labour as a socialist, campaigning party.

During the course of the campaign, I’ve seen John manage to bring back to Labour the very people it should represent - workers, young people, people facing oppression. The campaign already has the backing of several major unions and big tendencies of members in other unions. John’s campaign is bringing together socialists and progressives who want to see Labour take a socialist direction and put solidarity and socialism back into Labour.

Of course, you claim that John won’t get the parliamentary support. Well, there are several MPs who have already given their support to John, and more are on the way, from what I’ve heard. But MPs, as far as I know, can nominate more than one candidate, and since the election for Labour leader is based on the electoral college of members, unions and the PLP, it isn’t just about Westminster.

Please, stand down, and give John a clear run.

Yours,

Kit
Disabilities Officer, LRC Socialist Youth Network
Member, Twickenham CLP

————

Marsha-Jane has also written to him as well.

I’ve been trying to avoid commenting on Nick Cohen’s “What’s Left: How Liberals Lost Their Way”. Mainly because I have a disdain for people like Cohen - “watchtower intellectuals” as I call them. That’s because all they do is whinge and moan from up on high, but are prepared to do nothing about it to change it. The Euston Manifesto lot are of a similar ilk.

But, I feel somewhat forced to step into the debate because Tom Miller of NewerLabour has written a fairly interesting article which you can read here.

The first thing is that we should be reluctant to allow Watchtower Intellectuals like Cohen to define who we are, just as we should be opposed to allowing demagoges like George Galloway to define who the opposition to imperialism are. Cohen’s main argument is that, sections of the Left are so blinded by their hatred of America that they get into political bed with Islamists. There might be some truth to that. But Cohen is so blinded by his hatred of ‘Islamists’ that he ends up getting into bed with US Imperialism.

Neither are, in my view, progressive forces.

The Sadr Army has a nasty habit of running fake job ads in Shia newspapers, gathering up the workers onto a bus, and then blowing it up. The Modtqa Army (I’m not sure that’s the right spelling) also has a nasty habit of shooting university students because men and women mingle together at them.

Equally, the US occupying forces have tried everything they could to prevent trade union organisation from developing. The statutes introduced by Paul Brenner’s Coalition Provisional Authority outlawing effective trade unionism are still on the books. Trade unionists - who are just as opposed to the Islamists as they are to the occupation - are still rounded up.

This is why I am, personally, for ‘troops out now’. The US occupation is currently the catalyst for the current bloodshed in Iraq, just as much as the Islamist ‘resistance’. But I do not think that an immediate troop withdrawal will be the end of it.

There is an emerging third camp of workers, Worker-communists, women and the unemployed. It’s still in it’s embryonic stages, but all embryos grow, in the right circumstances.

My support for a ‘troops out now’ position is based upon that - the outright victory of the third camp.

Of course, for people like Cohen, we all have to be on-side with the most liberal and democratic people. This means getting into bed with people like George Bush, and the US state, who’s activities at Gitmo aren’t exactly ‘democratic’, especially given that every single other bourgeois democracy on earth - save the United Kingdom - has denounced it. And that’s just externally; I still remember Flordia 2000, even if Cohen doesn’t.

Because the concept of political independence is lost on Cohen. Miller (if I’ve read him correctly) makes the point that Cohen is essentially the mirror image of the SWP. While Cohen screams and rants and raves about how the SWP and their fellow travellers in groups like the ISG and Workers’ Power nail their mast firmly to the side of the Islamists - having no real critique of the Islamists (Workers’ Power did once have a fairly critical leaflet about the Iraqi resistance and the need for working class organisation. Co-incidentially, it was the only leaflet for Workers’ Power which I wrote).

Like I said before; principled socialism? Yes please, I’ll have some of that. Even if the SWP and their mirror don’t.

The above phase sums up the entire RESPECT Coalition and the Socialist Workers’ Party attitude to standing candidates, and their relations with the Muslim ‘community’.

What’s even more depressing is that the above phrase is taken from an interview with Yasir Idris. Yasir is the RESPECT candidate for the Birmingham Kings Heath ward, beating SWP full timer and former NUS exec member Helen Salmon. The interview, with the Weekly Worker (I guess that they just got his phone number and asked him; I’m not being funny but the CPGB lot do have brass necks) can be read here.

Other choice quotes from the interview include:

Helen - fantastic young lady. I listened to her speak attentively when she was saying her bit. But unfortunately it wasn’t to be for her on that day. Votes are what are going to win you the seat and I think I’ve got a better chance of getting elected than Helen within my locality. Patronising. Sexist. Nice.

I don’t know if you know, but I used to box for England, so I’m well connected within Birmingham and I’d do as much as I could for Helen to make sure she got elected. So it’s not abot the politics, then? Just about the bragging rights, then? I wonder about this boxing claim, actually. I might have to do some digging.

I was brought up in Kings Heath and there’s a lot of people I know and who my father knows. He’s a very, very respected individual within the community.

Now, this is where it gets interesting. Anyone who’s been active in socialist or progressive politics for at least six months will be able to tell you that, when they want to, the SWP can pack a meeting and get their own way. For years it went on. I know because I partook in it myself for the SWP, when I was a member.

But, for once, the SWP were outpacked. Just two days before the selection meeting, 60 - yes, sixty - supporters of Idris submitted their membership forms and membership fee - the low rate £10 a year one, natch. It isn’t the first time this has happened in Respect, where Tower Hamlets’ selection meeting was packed by a huge number of ‘new members’ signing up just days before the meeting.

It’s disgusting. But that’s the game the SWP want - and want all of us - to play. They can shove it up their arse; I’ll take principled socialism anyday.

PS. A while back, I asked by an SWP comrade how I could possibly balance my socialist concience with being in the same party as people like Tom Miller or Adele Reynolds (who, by the way, has a new blog). Apparently, I’ve sold my socialism, joined the Labour Party, and I’ve given up on independent working class politics.
Now, I disagree with much of what Tom, Adele, or even some of my comrades in SYN say. But they’re principled people who would never sell out their beliefs. I’d rather worked with principled people like Tom or Adele than form rotten blocks with ‘community leaders’ or reactionaries of any stripe.

The events in Birmingham prove it. I’m glad that I’m full support of John McDonnell, who, unlike Galloway, doesn’t go around kissing the arse of tyrants (yeah, yeah, I know; he has a soft spot for Chavez, but I don’t particuarly think Chavez is anything like Saddam ‘Indefalgability’ Hussein) and actually stands up for working class socialism, not jet-setting around the world, or Portugal.

I made the right choice. My concience is clear.