We want more say

Vanguard August 2013 p. 7
Jack D.

In remote towns around Australia and in the regional towns and big cities people want more say. We want more say over what happens in our lives at work, at play, in education, health, food supply both (quality and source), in health, from infancy right through to care of our aged and so on.

One morning at smoko some time ago in our small isolated remote town, we were talking about this. Talking about how little say we had in, and how little control we had over, our lives.

The mix of people at the kiosk was interesting; some workers from the council, from the electricity supply people, a few other workers sat there, owner operators from small private businesses, retirees from many walks of life, the kiosk owners and a few tourists.

There was remarkable consensus about issues like when big business and the ‘establishment’ institutions are talking this ‘democracy’ stuff. It is always seen by them as their ability to dominate society and manipulate things for their benefit.

We agreed the reality was different; reality is the dictatorship of big business, the very rich, the very powerful in society. It was seen that we live under the heel of big businesses jackboot, like it or not. We have little or no say as small business people, and even less as workers, retirees or whatever.

Democracy does not, cannot exist under capitalism. Put simply, democracy and democratic process is supposed to be rule by a significant majority in society. This does not exist in Australia today. It never has. One businessman said “If I tried to do the things some of these big businesses do, I’d be put in gaol” Another, a lady, said (quite bitterly), “When I sought some help I got nothing, but that f*@#ing mining company got and gets massive grants and tax breaks over the years.”

The different treatment of the various groups in society is the principal contradiction that clearly exposes the harsh reality of class dictatorship under the capitalist system. To add to it all as if to emphasise the point, we could see the small semi-derelict boats down along the river, old boat hulls that some of the town’s homeless live in.

Above all, the general consensus was we want more say; we want a real democratic process. We will have a long and difficult fight to get it.

Fundamental change in Australian society will only happen by people banding together and forcing the situation.

Australian "democracy"? Young people aren't convinced

Vanguard August 2013 p. 7
Louisa L.

The Lowy Institute's 2013 poll shows less than half of Australians aged 18-26 say they favour democracy, according to Guardian Australia's Helen Davidson.

Lowy Institute executive director Michael Fullilove said it showed "a disturbing complacency when one looks at the other forms of government that exist in other countries."

But is it complacency or cynicism about a system loaded against the people? Cynicism is dangerous and leads to passivity. But it's understandable.

Rejecting the best of a bad lot

Democracy has class content: it's either power for the people or for the ruling class. And the ruling class are the giant foreign-owned corporations.

That class presents the right to vote in elections as the core of democracy.

This right was won here in bitter struggles. But loosely paraphrasing Lenin, capitalist 'democracy' is the right, every three or four years, to choose which section of the ruling class will hammer you.

Parliament isn't the answer to people's problems, and over 50% of young people sense it. They mightn't know the way to overcome it. Many might be cynical, some might be immersed in capitalist trivia or able to be manipulated into the fascist alternatives that Fullilove is right to be concerned about. But capitalist democracy just doesn't cut it for them.

Winning lost ground
          

Democracy for the people means having power in our daily lives.

As a young high school teacher 30 years ago, I was amazed that my head teacher was there to support me, unlike the factory foremen or charge hands I'd worked under, who squeezed more profit from me.

This support in schools didn't come from thin air. It came from the collective strength built in struggles, particularly from the late sixties, after the O'Shea victory unleashed the organised working class.

In 1980's Australian schools, workload was manageable. Most teachers felt empowered to speak out in lively staff meetings. Many decisions were democratically voted on. Autocratic principals sometimes found themselves isolated and their decisions overturned by industrial threats. Of course these democratic rights were uneven, stronger in some places than others.

But capitalism itself was never challenged. The capitalist class still held state power and their agents continued to wage a systematic campaign to win back lost ground, aiming foremost at the working class.

Beyond the spontaneous

Analysis of the attacks on teachers and public schools has often been covered in Vanguard. But there's a dangerous, less visible, undercurrent.

Insecure work has increased. Workload creeps higher each term, so people are often too busy to reflect and act. Staff meetings where people speak up or vote about educational issues were a training ground for activism. They're disappearing. Instead 'professional development' powerpoints and team meetings disempower or break unity. Key decisions are often made by smaller groups of people and imposed after so-called consultation. It's nationwide, well-planned though still uneven, and aims to promote compliance. It illustrates a trend across all sectors in Australia.

Different electoral results do affect our ability to fight. Abbott's sledgehammer will be bigger than Rudd's.

But more people understand that the only way we can protect ourselves is to organise and fight, no matter which of the two main parliamentary parties wins office. While our ability to do so has been undermined, people haven't caved in. They search for the way forward and are learning that no right is ever secure under capitalism.

 
Communists must organise to sharpen these ideas into theory that lifts struggle beyond the spontaneous. New times require detailed understanding and new methods of battle. But behind it all, our people are still under the heel of giant foreign corporations. 

Working people still have chains to break, and a country and a world to win.    

More of the poor brought under income management

Vanguard August 2013 p. 8
Nick G.

(Above: May 20, 2013 and anti-CIM protesters target Labor MP Nick Champion in SA)

Following the introduction of  compulsory income management (CIM) to 73 prescribed Aboriginal communities as part of the Howard government’s racist Northern Territory “intervention”, this paper warned that it would not be long before “repression directed at a minority may become generalised across the rest of society” (Vanguard February 2010).

This followed the announcement that any area in Australia could become a “declared income management area” and that three types of welfare recipients would be targeted:

·         “disengaged youth”  between 15 and 25 years old who have been receiving Youth Allowance, Newstart, special benefits and parenting  payments for 13 out of 26 weeks

·         “long-term recipients” for those over 25 but not yet old enough for the pension and who have been receiving the above payments for 52 out of 104 weeks

·         “vulnerable welfare recipients” for anyone who is on a welfare payment who is considered “at risk”.

Beginning July 1 last year, five very low SES communities around Australia were placed under CIM. Since then the APY Lands in SA, the Ngaanyatjara Lands and Laverton Shire in WA, Perth and the Kimberleys have been added.

On the anniversary of that roll-out, a further two categories were identified for automatic inclusion on CIM as “vulnerable welfare recipients”.  They are:

·         people aged under 16 years granted the Special Benefit by a social worker or those aged 16 and over granted the Unreasonable to Live at Home payment by a social worker; and

·         people under the age of 25 who receive crisis payment due to prison release.

This will apply to people living in the NT, in the five declared areas and in the APY Lands.

Those now automatically included will have 50% of their payments quarantined for the first year, in the case of released prisoners, and for at least a year and until a social worker declares them not to “need” CIM in the case of those in the first category.

The extension of CIM to new categories of persons continues the punitive and coercive approach taken by the bourgeoisie to the poor.  It continues to stigmatise, humiliate and demean many people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent.

It continues the approach to those on welfare that the wealthy know best, that they are socially superior people who are entitled to interfere in the domestic affairs of people who are poor because their poverty results from personal failings rather than the failings of the capitalist social system.

It continues despite the findings of a series of studies into CIM that conclude that it is an effective control mechanism (hence its appeal to the ruling class) but not effective in empowering people to escape from poverty and social marginalisation.

Great campaigns against CIM are occurring in the five declared areas, the NT and the APY Lands.

Abolish CIM!

Only anti-imperialist independence and socialism can alleviate poverty and empower the people!

NT Intervention - Six Years On

Vanguard August 2013 p. 8

We print below an edited extract from an article by Barbara Shaw, an Aboriginal woman from the Mt Nancy Town Camp near Alice Springs.  It reveals the heartache imposed on communities in the NT by the imposition of income management.

Six years ago my family watched the TV in my living room as John Howard announced he would be sending in the military and taking control of our communities.

I have never been more frightened in my life. I locked the gate of my town camp and kept the kids inside for two weeks for fear of them being taken. I worried constantly about my family out bush who didn't understand what was coming.

They said the Intervention was about stopping children from being abused, that it was going to stop the drinking and domestic violence. But all I have seen is racism and disempowerment of our people. It's the old assimilation policy back again, to control how we live.

The government and many non-Aboriginal NGOs have taken over the assets and responsibilities of our organisations, both in the major town centres and remote communities forcing us to comply with their policies that take no account of Aboriginal culture and our obligations.

Take income management, which I have been on for five and a half years. I ran for parliament in 2010 and outpolled both Labor and Liberal candidates in Central Australian communities. I have represented my people at the United Nations. But the Government says I can't manage my money. On their own estimations of $6000 to 8000 per person per year administrative cost for income management, the government has spent more than $30,000 dollars just to control my small income.

This system has made it much harder for us to share and care for each other. I used to run an unofficial safe house here at Mt Nancy town camp. I'd get money off all the parents every week. If there was drinking and fighting and the kids needed somewhere to be, they knew they were safe here at “Big Mamma's” house and that I could buy meals for them. No one has the cash to chuck in any more. The Government has refused to fund a community centre here on our town camp.

The town camps of Alice Springs have seen a massive influx of people coming in from remote communities. Taking away Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) and Aboriginal Community Government Councils out bush means people have nothing to do there.

At the moment I have five families and four generations staying in my house, my little family and others from the bush, many trying to access services like respite care which should be available back in their home community. We are one family in each room and another in the lounge room. As always, I have given up my bed out of respect for older relatives.

Many who come into town to access the services just stay here, or others come in just to drink. I am witness on a daily basis to the increase in drinking and fighting on our camps that has come from this.

It makes me sick in my stomach when I hear Aboriginal MLA Bess Price attack me in Parliament as an anti-Intervention activist who does not care about the suffering of women and children. I have to deal with these issues every day and I see them getting worse because of the policies she has supported. The massive influx of her own constituents from bush communities that have been robbed of jobs and assets is a major driving factor.

Bess Price promised on ABC radio after being elected to the Northern Territory Parliament last year that she would put back the Yuendumu community council. Where is that promise now?

Her Country Liberal Government has made it clear they will not be bringing back the Councils. Her Government has cut funding for our youth programs, has cut funding for domestic violence workers in NT Hospitals. These are all things we have been campaigning for.

The $1 billion that has been budgeted since the Intervention for the income management system Bess Price supports — but has never had to live under — could fund the support and services that we actually need to deal with these issues.

Many more police are employed now in Alice Springs, supposedly to deal with the social problems. But the relationship with Aboriginal people has seriously broken down. We live in fear of the police, always hearing stories about them bashing our relatives, or taking them 20km out of town so they have to walk back. We are scared what happened to Kwementyaye Briscoe, who died last year after being taken into “protective custody” by the police.

The Intervention gave police the power to enter our homes without a warrant to search for alcohol, along with “star-chamber” powers that treat us as terrorists. I have heard that this week in a case brought by Palm Island residents, the High Court ruled that alcohol laws which target Aboriginal people are "special measures" under the Racial Discrimination Act because they are for our own good.

Let me explain what this means for my life. Earlier this year there was a massive police raid here on my camp which they said was a "routine operation" to search for alcohol. There were paddy wagons, squad cars, four wheel drives, a surveillance van and police officers on dirt bikes circling every yard, going in to search every house.

I was shaking in my shoes. I had many children in the house who are already scared of police and I didn't want them coming through. I was breaking the law that day. I had three cans left over from a six pack of beer in the house. I was worried I was going to be arrested and taken away with all these children in my house. I gave it to the police and asked them not to come through because of the children. But they said they had to. They walked through making comments like they were a landlord doing an inspection, "this is a nice house, not like those other ones".

So many more of our people are going to prison. There are twice as many people locked up now than before the Intervention and three times as many women. Close relatives of mine — men, women and teenagers are all currently in prison. I'm giving support to my brother in law looking after a baby and young child while his wife is in prison.

The house I live in is just one year younger than me. My father fought for funding to build houses on our town camps. We used to manage them ourselves before we were forced to sign over our leases to the Commonwealth government. Now I am paying next to market rent to the NT Housing agency on a house I have lived in for much of my life.

We have so many problems with NT Housing. We used to get repairs and maintenance done through our Aboriginal council Tangentyere, but now we have to wait and wait for shoddy work from NT Housing. We used to be able to have people making trouble on our town camp dealt with straight away through Tangentyere. now we don't have that power and can't do anything about problem visitors.

I sit at my front door and see Public Housing Officers, toy coppers who just cruise around our camps watching for trouble and calling the police. It used to be our Night Patrol — our own people who would actually get out of the car, engage with us, try and solve problems where they could without police. Our Night Patrol is still active, but are being pushed aside out of their role.

Living under Territory Housing rules and regulations is not culturally appropriate. For example, in Aboriginal society when somebody passes away, the family moves out of that house and another moves in. We swap houses. Or if a young fella comes out of ceremony camp, he has to stay in a house with other young men. We can't take our own initiatives to make these changes any more. There is a real ignorance and a hostile mentality towards Aboriginal people within the NT Housing department.

I have fought the Intervention from day one. We built a massive amount of support from people and organisations right across Australia to try and stop the government from continuing the Intervention for another 10 years through the "Stronger Futures" laws. But they refused to listen to us.

I will keep fighting. Self-determination is the key to getting us out of the social problems that we face today. It is the only way to do this. It is just disgusting how much money has been wasted on bureaucrats to control us, or on ineffective non-Aboriginal services that cannot engage with our people.

Whether it's in a remote community or here in a town camp — services must be delivered by our people. We must be given the power and resources to take control. We have the language, we have the communication, we can relate to one another. And there must be proper funding to our organisations, on a scale that can actually help lift us out of shocking living conditions. Not just peppercorn short term grants that set us up to fail.

I want to appeal to all the supporters I know are out there to keep fighting alongside me. Income management is not just in my backyard, now it's coming to yours. Today, 21 June, there will be a press conference in Playford South Australia of a new coalition that has formed there to fight the expansion of income management into their community. Tomorrow on 22 June there will be a rally in Bankstown in Sydney which is also facing income management.

We are all staring down the barrel of a Tony Abbott government. The Opposition Leader has said that income management should apply to all people on Centrelink across Australia. I truly believe he will be even worse for Aboriginal people than John Howard. I encourage everyone to vote for progressive parties other than the two major parties which have kept us under this Intervention.

But most importantly we must continue to stand together and to struggle, to fight for Aboriginal self-determination and to fight for jobs and services for all struggling communities — not the punishment of the Intervention. Black and White unite!

Refugee/Boat People "crisis" hides the real invasion of Australia by finance capital - Migrants build this country

Vanguard August 2013 p. 9
Ned K.

The latest United Nations report on the movement of people defined as refugees or asylum seekers claims that 45.2 million people were ‘displaced’ last year. 15.4 million were refugees, 937,000 were asylum seekers and another 28.8 million were ‘internally displaced people’, those forced to find refuge within their own country.

In Australia, there is an attempt by politicians and the corporate media barons to create a picture of Australia on the brink of invasion by hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers in leaky boats, while their multinational finance capitalist masters continue the real invasion of every aspect of the Australian economy. (See article in winter edition of Journal of Australian Political Economy, "Restructuring of Corporate Ownership In Australia through the Global Financial Crisis").

According to the Parliament of Australia web site, in 2011-12 there were 14,415 asylum seeker arrivals in Australia. 48.6% arrived by air, 51.2% arrived by boat. More asylum seekers arriving by boat than by plane are granted refugee status due to legitimate persecution in their country of origin.

Australia is a developed country according to the United Nations and with far greater infrastructure and far more complex level of economic activity than developing countries. Yet where are the vast majority of refugees hosted? In developing countries according to the UN. Pakistan hosts 1.6 million, followed by Iran with 868,200. Eighty-one per cent (8.5 million) of refugees are hosted by developing countries.

Where Do Most Refugees Come From?

The three largest sources of refugees in 2012 were from Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq, both war ravaged countries where US imperialism and its allies (including Australia) have either invaded or interfered to the detriment of those countries’ national sovereignty and their people’s well-being.

What Happens When They Get Here?

Many recent refugees once in Australia live a precarious existence on various forms of working visas. The worst form of visas requires refugees to find continuous employment for two years to progress their visa status or face the real possibility of being turfed out of the country. This makes them an easy target for economic exploitation. It is not uncommon to find recent arrivals to Australia being classed as ‘self-employed’ in service industries for as little as $10 to $14 per hour. These workers usually have a sham employment arrangement (in terms of industrial law of the capitalists) where they are three or even four times removed in contractual arrangements from the big corporations who benefit most from their exploited labour power.

What Should Be Done?

These new workers in Australia are looking for people who they can trust and who can work with them appropriately to overcome their exploitative situation without placing unrealistic demands on them which leave them open to deportation. 

They are forced to tolerate poor conditions of work not because they enjoy this situation but because they know they cannot win on their own. 

They want to join with more established workers in this country and often have stories of struggle and endurance to tell that many of us will find unimaginable. 

They are an important element of the working class and of the future of the struggle for independence and socialism, just as were migrant workers in previous periods of our history.

Stop imperialist espionage against the people!

Vanguard August 2013 p. 10
Nick G.

Edward Snowden, (above), the former employee of the CIA and of defence contractors at the US National Security Agency (NSA), has performed a great service to the people of the world.

In exposing the secret electronic surveillance regime, PRISM, operated by the NSA since 2007, he has lifted the lid on routine violations of privacy involving millions of citizens of the US and of countries like Australia.
 

Multinational corporations such as Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, YouTube, Skype and Apple collaborated with the NSA to provide details of all electronic data flowing through their systems.

This has very little to do with combatting "terrorism" - after all, it is the world’s No. 1 terrorist - the US imperialist state - that operates PRISM.
 

Rather, it is a violation of democratic rights and liberties for the purpose of "full spectrum domination" by US imperialism.
 

 

Imperialism has feet of clay

The imperialists look strong, but the reality is that they still need people to run their system. Some are happy to be bought off and to play their despicable anti-people role.
But others see the oppression, the fascism, the great threats to ordinary people and they choose the path of defiance, of rebellion, of whistle-blowing. They have the honour of being part of the clay feet of the colossus.

Snowden came to realise that he was working for a surveillance organization whose all-consuming intent, he told the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald, was "on making every conversation and every form of behavior in the world known to them."

When the US imperialists made clear their intention to get Julian Assange, the CPA (M-L) unequivocally called for solidarity. "Hands off Assange!" we said. "The US imperialists must not control our sources of information!"

Now we say, "Hands off Snowden!" "The US imperialists must stop their espionage against the people!"
 

We salute Snowden’s courage and demand that he be granted asylum and be protected against the fascist reach of US imperialism.
 

He is right to flee the US. Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame, supports his right to avoid returning to the US.
 

"I hope that he finds a haven," he said, "as safe as possible from kidnapping or assassination by U.S. Special Operations forces, preferably where he can speak freely."
 

He does not want to see Snowden subjected to the same treatment as Bradley Manning, the US soldier who is alleged to have given Wikileaks its US embassy files. The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Torture described Manning’s conditions as "cruel, inhuman and degrading."
 

Measures can be taken to avoid surveillance

We call on progressive Australians to take practical measures to weaken the US imperialist surveillance regime, such as boycotting Google, Hotmail, Yahoo and so on.

Search engines such as Ixquick, which claims to encrypt Internet search enquires and to protect users from surveillance, DuckDuckGo and Startpage can be used. Email services such as the Russian Yandex, which are under no obligation to provide data to the US, can be used.

But the best form of evasion of imperialist surveillance is to have a life of rich contact with the people, to be a fish in their water.
 

Whilst being conscious of security, progressive people will not be cowed and must increase their level of political activity and work for the overthrow of capitalism and imperialism.
.............................

Further reading: CPGB (M-L) aryicle on Snowden: http://www.lalkar.org/issues/contents/jul2013/snowden.html

Catholic nun exposes Syrian "rebels"

Vanguard August 2013 p. 10
Nick G.

Mother Agnès-Mariam de la Croix (above), superior of a Carmelite convent near Qara, 90 kilometres from Damascus, has recently toured Australia to speak on events in Syria.

All of her meetings were very well attended. Her audiences included many members of the Syrian community in Australia.

Mother Agnes-Mariam said that she was not a supporter of President Assad and had viewed the first demonstrations against his regime as "beautiful" and peaceful.

Foreign provocateurs created tensions

However, she said, she had noticed that as the demonstrations progressed there began to be faces of people she did not recognise, and who were not known to the people attending her monastery.

These strangers to the community then began acting provocatively. They were often armed and fired on the Syrian security forces who, in turn, began shooting at the demonstrators.

Reports from other parts of Syria confirmed this as part of a nation-wide pattern.

None of this was reported accurately by the media.

Eye-witness to "rebel" atrocities

She had personally seen unidentified "rebel" forces killing people indiscriminately, including security forces personnel.

She had gone with a French reporter to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) "rebels" and asked them to arrange for her to meet some of the people the "rebels" had claimed to have been victims of the regime – people who had been shot or tortured by the security forces.

She and the French reporter had waited for hours but the "rebels" could not produce one person to verify their claims against Assad’s forces.

On a visit to Homs she saw and heard evidence of women being abducted by the FSA. She presented photos of a man thrown from a top floor window and killed by the "rebels". There was also a shop owner who had been killed by the "rebels" because he defied their orders to close his shop. She described beheadings by the "rebels", including those of a whole group of around one hundred women and children.

She claimed that "rebels" had freed common criminals from the jails to create havoc, to destroy property and sow divisions amongst the people.

She reported on the rape of Christian women and the killing of priests and moderate Muslims.

She said the French and the Americans were aware that the FSA was faction-ridden but dominated by Al Qaeda, but that they were prepared to support these "rebels" for the sake of achieving regime change.

She said the "rebels" were coming from all over the globe, pursuing their own extreme religious agendas whilst serving as proxies for the Western powers. She said that CIA estimates had suggested that if elections were held today, as many as 70% of the population would support the current government and that was why foreigners and criminals were being promoted and supported by the big Western powers as "freedom fighters".

(Above: Al-Nusrah rebels, trained by the CIA, execute Syrian soldiers)

Syria, she said, had once been peaceful, much like Australia. In 18 years she had never seen a beggar in the streets. Now, 9 million people had been reduced to poverty and hunger and were more or less begging for aid.

She called for the ending of outside interference in Syrian affairs, for Australian neutrality, and for humanitarian aid to victims on both sides of the conflict.