Dare to struggle, dare to win

Celia S.       20 February 2019

Australian workers! We can be heartened! There are movements and workers on strike around the world that are making great strides to challenge capitalism.  We aren’t hearing much about it, but it is happening.

First we have the teachers in Los Angeles.

Thirty four thousand teachers went on strike to stop the privitisation of the Los Angeles school district. The strike gathered momentum with both students and parents joining in the strike. They demonstrated all day long for six days and as a result won huge gains such as limited class size, reduced standardised testing, more school nurses, more school counsellors, more librarians, less police searches and handed control of thirty school budgets over to local communities. President of the Teachers Union Alex Caputo-Pearl told the striking teachers and the crowd that this strike was “one of the most magnificent demonstrations of collective action that the United States has seen in decades”. He went on to say: “we did not win because of a single leader or a small group of leaders, we won because of you – at 900 schools across the city, with parents, with students, with community organisations – you walked the line”.

 

The six day strike won major concessions, concessions that Austin Beutner, the Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) refused to agree to prior to the strike. Beutner is a former banker, who was selected as the Superintendent on May 1, 2018 by the Los Angeles Board of Education. LAUSD is the second largest school district in the U.S. The school district spans over 720 square miles with over 640,000 students, 900 schools, 187 public charter schools, 60,000 employees, and a $7.5 billion budget. Beutner was leading the move against teachers and public education. His grand design was to privatise and corporatize schooling. The move to privatise schools would mean any school that underperformed would be sold off, like any poor performing stock on the stock exchange. It stands to reason that schools in the poorest areas would be sold off first because they would most likely be the schools underperforming. The teachers and supporters stood firm and by demonstrating all day every day, they made this victory possible.

 

Then we have the Yellow Vest movement in France.

The Yellow Vests have been demonstrating for fourteen weekends straight. It started with protests against rising fuel taxes but it quickly developed into a movement demanding improvement in living standards, calling for better representation in the French government and calling for the resignation of President Macron. Macron is a leader who makes economic concessions to the wealthy in France at the expense of the poor and workers.  People in France no longer believe that the solutions lie in the capitalist system, they are in fact calling for its downfall. According to News.com, “Yellow vest activists are urging French citizens to empty their bank accounts and spark a massive run on the country’s banks in their longstanding fight with the government — which could lead to the collapse of its banking system”.

 

 As a result of this powerful activism, people in the Yellow Vest movement are facing the full force of the State apparatus. The police are using teargas and rubber bullets to dispel demonstrators. These heavy-handed tactics to stop the protests have resulted in deaths and maiming.  Where are the unions in this struggle? France’s biggest union coalition, the General Confederation of Workers, called for a day of general mobilization on December 14, 2018 and in some regions, like Ile-de-France, this garnered support from other unions and federations, such as Workers Force, public employees in the United Workers Federation, the left-wing Solidaires union coalition, and the Union of French Students. However, generally speaking, union support has been limited.

 

The unions in France seem powerless to defend the poor and workers because they are trapped working within the legal system. According to an article published in Jacobinmag, the unions in France are weakened by anti worker laws and by the constant changes being made to these laws so much so that  “they spend a considerable amount of time adapting to a legal framework and that has constantly reduced the margins of manoeuvre”. In other words the unions are becoming further removed from workers struggle as they deal with legal issues. Since coming to power Macron has made this disconnect worse by setting up Social and Economic Councils (CSE) that set out to transform trade unions into “social” managers and remove their powers as a union. They now serve as committees to manage workers. As a result the workers and poor began to look outside the unions to fight for better employment conditions, wages and living standards, hence the development of the Yellow Vests. However as has been mentioned, the Yellow Vests are not limiting themselves to a wages struggle, they are also fighting for political rights and although we hear nothing of the situation in France, the movement is far from over and they aren’t going away no matter the police violence.

 

The Yellow Vest movement has already won major concessions from the right wing government of Macron. He has removed the fuel tax, and according to Lucy Williams of the BBC, he is setting up committees to discuss reforms in an attempt to stem the sense of disgruntlement in the country. This is the background to Macron’s "grand debate" initiative- a series of local meetings across France to discuss political, economic and social reforms. The Yellow Vest movement has not been deceived by this attempt to quell the unrest, though without a clear direction it may not be possible to continue with such a movement. Time will tell, but for now they have shown us that determined prolonged struggle can win huge gains, as was the case with the teachers strike.
 
At the moment, the union movement in Australia is also caught up in the anti worker legal system. The unions in Australia are hamstrung by anti-worker laws that make industrial action and entering a workplace to defend members illegal. Unions here now have to fight institutions such as the ABCC that will prosecute and charge union members and officials for taking a stand against employers. It would seem to ordinary workers that the unions are failing to recognise that they are being reduced to defending individual members and officials for participating in union activity (costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in members’ money) while very little is being done about working conditions and living standards, especially the casualisation of the workforce.  Our living standard, our wages and legal rights are all being eroded, all the while the rich get richer and don’t pay taxes and the poor get poorer. The Change the Rules campaign run by the ACTU is lacking the grassroots movement of workers. In 2018 Australia also saw the largest rallies of workers for decades, upward of 150,000 people. We have shown by the size of attendance at these rallies that we, the workers are dissatisfied with the way things are, but the campaign isn’t involving us, it is being left in the hands of union leaders to negotiate a change in the rules. We could force a change in the rules if we took to the streets in protracted strike action as the teachers in LA did.

 

We may not be in the same place to challenge the system as teachers in LA or the Yellow Vest protesters in France, but they have shown us that we can win if we stay resolute and strong and not be afraid to carry out a protest struggle that may last for weeks.  Yellow Vest protesters are showing Australian people that we have power and that even in the face of police brutality it is possible to stand strong.

 

A note of caution

Be warned young workers, there is an imitation movement being started here in Australia headed up by right wing fascists using the Yellow Vest movement to gain popularity. Do not join them. They are not promoting the same demands as the French Yellow Vests. Find out what the Yellow Vests really stand for and support them, not the right wing copycat versions.
References:

See Facebook page: YELLOW VEST Australia

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-46516073

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/12/yellow-vests-unions-gilets-jaunes-macron

http://time.com/5509770/los-angeles-teachers-strike-agreement/

“Ramping” - a Third World problem in a First World setting

Nick G.        20 February 2019

In Australia we seem to have First World ambulance services and hospital facilities, yet Third World conditions where the two meet.

Yesterday, an old lady in her nineties developed bed sores as a result of being “ramped” for eight hours.

There was nothing wrong with the ambulance that transported her to Adelaide’s Flinders Medical Centre and nothing wrong with the facilities inside, had she been able to access them when she arrived.

It is not uncommon for ambulances to be “ramped” – parked at the Emergency Department entrance of a public hospital but unable to deliver their patient into hospital care – for 3 to 4 hours.

Up to 20 ambulances at a time can be ramped at each of the two major public hospitals in this state – Flinders and the new Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH).

Ambulance crews and patients are placed in a situation where they are exposed to the serious health risk of a buildup of diesel fumes from the ambulance engines.  

Phil Palmer, State Secretary of the Ambulance Employees’ Association (AEA), told ABC radio recently that ambulance crews being ramped often had to work past their rostered daily shift, and that whilst they were paid overtime, they were being kept from attending to others requiring ambulance services, as well as from their families.

He said, under figures provided by the employer, SA Ambulance Services, $660,000 was being spent on paramedic overtime payments every fortnight.

Other ambulance officers were “on call” to make up shortfalls – called in on their days off to fill the gaps in services that occurred when crews were being ramped.

Ramping is an ongoing problem and was not addressed by the previous state Labor government.  Nor is it being addressed by the current state Liberal government. There have been numerous times over the last few years when ramping has resulted in most of the metropolitan area and large parts of the whole State being without emergency ambulance cover.

The AEA recently launched legal proceedings against government department SA Health and the employer, SAAS, over the overtime crisis.  Pretending to be fair-minded in the public spotlight, SA Health Minister Stephen Wade said the union was entitled to stand up for its members in whatever forum it wanted to.

But less than 10 days later, the AEA state President was denied entry to a summit of “ramping stakeholders”.

This is typical of the anti-union stance of the Liberals, who are trying everywhere to de-unionise the State: taking union reps off statutory boards, removing teacher union reps from merit selection and school review panels, and not consulting unions like the AEA over significant crises like ramping.

More ambulances and paramedics are urgently required.  More beds in expanded Emergency Departments are required.  Significant investment in primary/preventative health care is required.  It was recommended to the previous Government many years ago (The “Generational Health” Review), but they chose not to invest. So here we are.

Capitalism is not working when measures are not taken to address a Third World problem like ramping. Neither of the major capitalist parties, Liberal or Labor, has done, or is doing, anything to alleviate the crisis.

If the legal action undertaken by the AEA fails to resolve matters, AEA members will have to creatively develop those forms of industrial action which, without compromising their professional obligations, leave them free to create some old-fashioned mischief.

They are assured of widespread community support.
 

Operation Yellowhammer and Psy-ops

(Contributed)       19 February 2019

 

Recent media coverage of Operation Yellowhammer in the UK has revealed the use of psychological warfare operations (psy-ops) as part of emergency provision for conflict over Brexit.

 

Psy-ops have a long and interesting history. In recent times United States-led military planners have had a preoccupation with their development through social media and apps as a means to control civil populations.

 

It has far-reaching implications for Australia: the UK is central to the Commonwealth which includes Australia; the Five Eyes intelligence networks link the two countries closely with the US, Canada and New Zealand, for western military and security provision.

 

It would therefore be inconceivable that there is not an Australian connection with Operation Yellowhammer.

 

The Operation Yellowhammer psy-ops also reveals a great deal about the mind-set of those responsible for formulating the plan, together with reasons for the behaviour.

The recent Brexit vote has raised fears amongst the British ruling class about a possible breakdown of law and order. It has resulted in revamping previous Cold War military planning with Operation Yellowhammer, including plans to evacuate the Royal family from London to a secret location for their safety. Further operational provision has included the supposed safeguarding of vital medical supplies with 3,000 British troops being placed on standby, 'to ensure medical supplies, such as cancer-fighting isotopes, can bypass port congestion'. (1) The size of the troop mobilisation for the stated reason remains difficult to believe; other factors are far more likely and believable. As the operation has been based on previous planning to handle a Soviet nuclear attack, one major factor for ruling class consideration would obviously be the notion of dealing with 'the enemy within' through repression and detention. 

 

It has, however, been the ruling class use of psy-ops which has raised eyebrows amongst serious people observing developments. News clips of helicopters landing on the roof of the US embassy in Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War, for example, gave the evacuation planning for the Royal family a new mode, conjuring images of war-time fantasies. (2) 

 

The use of the news clips concerned appear, at first glance, ridiculous. It is only when studied in-depth, in the context of psy-ops that their use makes sense.

 

Psy-ops are designed by military planners to distort information, mislead civilian populations and manipulate and channel behaviour. They have a long history. In more recent times, however, US-led military planning has included former Defence Secretary in the Bush administrations, Donald Rumsfeld, being responsible for the creation of the so-called Office of Strategic Influence (OSI). The shadowy Pentagon operation included provision for 'covert operations aimed at influencing public opinion and policy-makers in friendly and neutral nations'. (3)

 

Even the US Congress of the period found the disinformation program too much to handle, and refused official funding. Following the demise of the OSI, Rumsfeld, however, remained defiant and stated 'fine, I'll give you the corpse.....you can have the name, but I'm gonna keep doing every single thing that needs to be done and I have'. (4)

 

The Pentagon were more successful with their next planned program, the Total Information Awareness Program (TIAP), which did receive some official funding for data mining and profiling. (5) The TIAP, and later Total Information Awareness (TIA), was, not surprisingly, linked to the Pentagon and formed part of the so-called War on Terror. Official media releases from the period also note the Pentagon was planning a vast computer system for troves of personal information with instant access. (6)

 

Despite the official funding for the TIA ceasing in late 2003, the program appeared to continue: secretly within the National Security Agency (NSA); through private, out-sourced organisations.

 

Nearly a decade later, for example, it was noted the TIA was 'quietly thriving' inside the NSA. (7) For all intents and purposes, it is still likely to be doing so: the NSA remains central to US-led defence and security provision.

 

It is also interesting to note, during that period, Rumsfeld was actually planning a parallel espionage network to the CIA, to enable 'clandestine operations abroad'. (8) During the same period US military planning also increasingly became preoccupied with traditional hegemonic positions in the Asia-Pacific region due to the rise of China. Official media releases identified 'Asia as the most likely arena for future military conflict, or at least competition'. (9) Australia was, therefore, increasingly important for US regional military planning with the establishment of triangular diplomatic relations with Japan for regional control.

 

Secondly, private, out-sourced groups to provide financial and other support for TIA-type organisations included shadowy bodies such as the Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL). Their publicity material left little to the imagination: in an official capacity, SCL stated their business included 'military disinformation campaigns' together with capacity to 'influence operations' and use 'mass deception' techniques for the manipulation of public opinion. (10)

 

Two important factors therefore arise about SCL and official linkage to government departments:

    

SCL held military contracts with the US and British governments, which included 'providing training for Britain's 15th Psyops Group (11);                 
  
Their brazen attitude of swashbuckling bravado was presumably linked to SCL being described in official publicity as 'a trusted partner of Britain's Ministry of Defence', which included their listing on 'X lists of companies cleared to have routine access to U.K. secret information'. (12) 

 

SCL official business would appear commissioned at the highest level within the British State, and therefore, gaining access into Commonwealth and Five Eyes networks including Australia.

 

SCL was also closely linked to Cambridge Analytica (CA) and the later scandal which included 87 million Facebook entries being stolen for ulterior motives. Both SCL and CA subsequently folded, but not before they were employed for 'advance work for the pro-Brexit campaign'. (13) Those in control sought to distance themselves from the scandal and unfavourable publicity. In their place, however, another similar organisation arose, Emerdata, officially registered as a Data Processing company, which had no difficulty raising US$19 million from private sources and operated from the same business premises in London. (14) The services they provided were obviously still in demand for those willing to fund the 'business' operations.  

 

Psy-ops, in recent times, has made extensive use of social media and apps, for three significant reasons: they lack security and are readily accessible; users reveal extensive information about themselves and their backgrounds; they can easily be used for manipulative purposes.

 

Psy-ops rely upon the use of personal information to be effective; social media and various apps provide the means of massive intelligence-collecting techniques.

 

The initial contact with social media controllers and their apps are invariably offered on the mass circulation basis through Smart-phones and personal computers, usually without being requested.

 

As early as 2006, Harvard University staff were data mining Facebook for personal information. The following year British researchers linked to the Psychometrics Centre, Cambridge University, had created the My Personality app also from Facebook information. The My Personality app has now data mined over six million Facebook users, each being offered quiz-like questions about their innermost thought and emotional feelings. (15)

 

Other apps, using similar data collection techniques, include The Worry Box, where users log their thoughts and then receive suggestions about planning their lives, raise serious questions about the manipulative agendas of those controlling the systems. (16) There is little doubt whole societies are now vulnerable to manipulation. The official position of the Australian government about the problem has been revealing: they are well aware of the problem of 'social media disinformation'. (17)

 

A recent Australian newspaper editorial, for example, noted: “The opaque algorithm of the digital platforms encourages people to huddle in  information enclaves where their views are not tested by competing arguments or facts.” (18)
    
Due to the close nature of the diplomatic alliance between Australia and the US, it would appear inconceivable decision-makers in Canberra would not be aware of the following:

 

Psy-ops, for governments, rest upon three important criteria:   
   
1. White operations are official government viewpoints, tending to be factually-based,
   
2. Grey operations are designed to be deliberately ambiguous, the source of the information not being readily identifiable,
   
3. Black operations are usually hostile and used for strategic planning, they are invariably deceitful and out-sourced to enable government departments to distance themselves from any political fallout.

 

Both Grey and Black operations, nevertheless, come at heavy costs with far-reaching implications; the logical outcome being once discredited, all other information is treated with extreme caution or automatically discarded. A credibility gap then emerges, where governments face a legitimacy crisis and either fall or rely upon repression to continue.

 

At an official level the Australian government has been unusually quiet about Brexit and the crisis in Britain; nevertheless, they must be monitoring developments due to active involvement with the Commonwealth and Five Eyes intelligence provision. There would obviously be an Australian connection with Operation Yellowhammer although the silence surrounding it is deafening.

 

And returning to the use of old news clips in Britain with images of US helicopters airlifting those involved in supporting the Pentagon-backed neo-colonial administration in Vietnam in 1975 to safety in the US, may reveal the disturbed nature and disposition of the British military planners concerned. They would appear to be displaying behaviour attributed to being both desperate and having lost contact with the everyday reality of ordinary people.

 

But then, having employed Cambridge Analytica to manipulate the outcome of the Brexit referendum, living with the consequences which have undermined much of the traditional influence of the British ruling class and the institutions through which they wield power, must be a mighty uncomfortable position for military planners to find themselves in. (19) Their use of Grey and Black operations paid dividends they never expected.

 

Having also assessed the likelihood of Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters winning office and political power in the forthcoming general elections, and the subsequent crisis facing the ruling Conservative government - and their possible demise, the military planners are attempting to rectify the desperate situation of their own making. The evacuation news clips are, therefore, perhaps best studied in a predominantly symbolic manner for all those who hold traditional class and state power to heart: the puppet Vietnamese ruling class and their middle-class supporters were running away to regroup elsewhere to return for 'US interests' at a future date and time.

 

The use of these news clips under such circumstances, make perfect sense! 

 

Recent developments in Britain, also reveal the legitimacy crisis is well under-way, which all progressive-minded people should regard as a victory for the common-sense of ordinary working people. The Republican Movement could seize upon the opportunities if they so wished, to rid Australia of the remnants of British oppression.

 

An independent foreign policy to distance ourselves from this pantomime is a matter all Australian people should seriously consider.

1.     Brexit plan to evacuate Queen from London, Australian, 4 February 2019.  

2.     Ibid.

3.     Iran-Contra and the Israeli lobby, Ellen Ray and William H. Schaap, Covert Action, the roots of terrorism, (Melbourne, 2003), page 158.

4.     Ibid.

5.     Website: TIA – Wikipedia; and, Threats and Responses, New York Times, 9 November 2002.

6.     New York Times, op.cit., 9 November 2002.

7.     Giving in to the surveillance state, New York Times, 22 August 2012.

8.     Pentagon's parallel spy network revealed, The Guardian Weekly (U.K.), 28 January-2 February 2005. 

9.     Asia moves to forefront of Pentagon planning, The Guardian Weekly (U.K.), 1-7 June 2000.

10.   Website: Wikipedia - Nigel Oakes, Strategic Communications Laboratories.

11.   Roots of Cambridge Analytica, New York Times, International Edition, 24 April 2018.

12.   Ibid.

13.   New York Times, op.cit., 24 April 2018.

14.   Cambridge Analytica, The Daily Mail, 22 March 2018 ; and, Wikipedia – Nigel Oakes, SCL, op.cit.; and, Cambridge Analytica, The Register, 2 May 2018.

15.   Vast troves of data from Facebook unsecured, New York Times, 9 May 2018.

16.   Stress less with these apps, Manila Bulletin, 25 April 2018.

17.   Editorial, Journalism serves democracy, Australian, 14 February 2019.

18.   Ibid.

19.   New York Times, op.cit., 24 April 2018, makes reference to the CA role for the pro-Brexit campaign.

Pathological Privatisation

John C      19 February 2019

It is nice to know that governments are so concerned that we don’t pay too much for the services that are funded by the taxes that we pay!

 

And pigs might fly. The pigs in government are hard at work ensuring that their mates in the private sector get a slice of the public services which are profitable.

 

The South Australian (SA) government has in its sights SA Pathology Services.

 

SA Pathology provides a comprehensive high-quality medical diagnostic pathology service to medical practitioners and hospitals (public and private). It services both the Adelaide metropolitan and regional areas, and has convenient easily accessible sample collection points for patients. Diagnostic testing is carried out in a timely and high quality manner to meet the needs of those awaiting their pathology results. The service operates 24 hours a day.

 

This service is provided without cost to the patient.

 

Furthermore, it carries out world-class medical research and is staffed by highly qualified and experienced medical and scientific experts who are motivated by the public good.

 

Sounds too good to be true? Sounds like something you would expect in a socialist country?

 

The government thinks so too.

 

It has set up a so-called “SA Pathology sustainability project” to look into factors such as “consolidation of services”, “business delivery model”, “work profile”, “cost consciousness” and more. With all this it is seeking to make cuts of $150million over the next 3 years. We all know that this is code for attrition of service to the point where SA Pathology becomes unviable as a government-funded entity.

 

In order for the capitalist system to continue, it must produce ever-increasing profits. This involves cutting the costs of making this profit as much as possible. For example, by reducing workers’ wages to the minimum allowable.

 

these avenues are exhausted, another strategy is to increase market share of the product or service that the capitalist is involved in. This can be done by swallowing up a competitor (“one capitalist kills many” - Marx).

 

The other is to access previously inaccessible markets, such as profitable government enterprises.

 

This is where SA Pathology comes in. There are a number of private pathology service providers in Australia and the bigger ones are listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. These include companies such as Healius, Sonic Healthcare and Healthscope. Companies such as these must produce more and more profit in the ways indicated above in order to survive.

 

They would love to get their hands on an entity such as SA Pathology or the market it services.

 

It is the job of governments as administrators of capitalism to deliver the means for achieving this, whether or not they are asked directly by a specific industry to do so.

 

The SA government has indicated that outsourcing the work of SA pathology is a “possibility”. This is a segue leading to privatisation and softening up people into accepting it.

 

Services such as SA Pathology are a fine example of the type of guaranteed essential services that would be provided under a socialist system. Certainly every effort would be made to ensure that these operate effectively and efficiently but they would not be allowed to fall into the hands of private ownership where the motive is to make profit rather than to improve the lives of people.

 

This is where the relations of production in society differ between socialism and capitalism, with socialism being the superior model. The capitalists know this, which is why they incessantly drum into people the false notion that socialism is not an alternative system to be considered because it is, according to them, an inherently repressive system.

 

This propaganda is just delaying the inevitable replacement of capitalism by socialism. It must be acknowledged that mistakes were made in the past and are still being made in the implementation of socialism. However, the crucial role of sustained sabotage by the forces of capitalism must also be acknowledged as the real cause for the interruption of people’s first attempts at socialism. As a species, we are now in a far better position to implement a socialist system with the hindsight of previous experience and the organisational tools we now have.

 

People are not idiots. Especially the increasing number of young people who have access to the tools for sifting through information that enables them to seek the truth and who think critically.

 

Hands off SA Pathology!
No more privatisation!
Seek truth from facts!
Towards socialism!