Like many people, I have been both excited and inspired by the fledgeling Occupy movement, of which there are 2000 (and rising) worldwide. Particularly impressive is the declared non-hierarchical & decentralist nature of the movement, making it difficult for external forces to pigeonhole and control.

However, as could have been predicted, the mailed fist has responded, and as I write Occupy Wall Street is (literally) under attack, and eviction notices have been served on London Occupy at St Paul's. One hopes this inevitable repression does not make the movement ephemeral. Even if some ground is lost, we should not give up: the goal is too important.

In considering where we go from here, there are a number of options/strategic paths, and I offer suggestions, not as tablets from above, but as a comradely contribution from somebody who has 'been around the block' (and then some).

1) Where we have won liberated spaces, we should where possible hold them, for symbolic and strategic reasons: visible spaces of counter-power in the heartland of the capitalist beast are always useful.

2) We need to build links with other groups who may lack our visibility and mobility, such as those in the 'Hardest Hit' campaign. The Condemn government are currently targeting society's most vulnerable: for instance there is an unseemly rush to declare many blind people sighted before April 2012, so as to avoid paying them disability Living Allowance. This does not arise from improvement in medical techniques, but a cold determination to victimise the defenceless. It is commendable that Occupy London have recently attempted outreach to vulnerable groups.

3) Broadening the struggle beyond natural allies (such as trade unions) to encompass those who previously radical forces have ignored (and vice versa). In particular, I refer to those struggling against the EU, which conflict is now entering a critical phase. In recent times both Greece and Italy have seen the effective abandonment of even the pretence of democratic government, replacing it by a new besuited Bonapartism. In Greece, PM Papandreou was done for the minute he had the temerity to speculate the Greek people might be asked their views on austerity measures in a referendum. Europhiles like referenda, but only if they can either guarantee the result or re-run it if the wrong result for them occurs. The Greek people were denied that possibility, and now have a government run by a European Central [expletive] (or should that be banker?) responsible for the crisis in the first place. As for Italy: yes, we know full well Berlusconi was a corrupt philandering buffoon, but that is no excuse for abandoning any attempt at democratic government. Not one of the current Italian government are elected, and 'Super Mario' was only declared a Senator to make things look good: analagous (even if not exactly the same) to Hitler's Nazis getting a frightened Reichstag to pass the Enabling Act in 1933. Yet not only have we had no dissent at all to the junking of democratic forms, this 'Super Mario' is given a good press! Yet life, unfortunately, is no cartoon, and the last laugh will be had by international capitalists, crowing at how easily they have swept aside the democratic facade.

It is the same international bankers Occupy holds to account who are dictating terms to various EU governments, and they should be resisted on both the domestic and EU fronts. The Campaign Against Euro-Federalism, whatever its weaknesses, has consitently drawn attention to the links between attacks on working (and non-working) people here and EU policy. Now we are zeroing in on international capital too, these links should be made explicit. We fully support those struggling in the EU, and against the EU, not from a nationalist but internationalist perspective. It is quite clearly international capitalist forces who are trying to shake down the German government to provide more funds for them to snaffle, not any German-led plan.

4) We need to be clear, not ambivalent, about opposing capitalism in principle, not just this or that manifestation. Attempts at recuperation have been made by Vince Cable & Ed Milband, who both feign "sympathy" for ethical issues raised by Occupy. Well, these characters are part of the problem, not the solution, although their word-play indicates the establishment are worried: good, they are right to be!

5) Recuperation (stifling) of the struggle can take many forms. Most obvious are the thankfully dwindling but still shrill, voices of the 'Last Century Left', ever seeking to control corral and 'lead', without ever learning, and despite a track-record of failure spanning 3 centuries now. We at Notes From the Borderland originate in the Left tradition, and see much of remaining value in it, but unlike the LCL (Trotskyist epigones/deadbeat Labourists etc) understand that new movements should learn as much from the Left's historic failures as successes. Inasmuch as Green ideas regarding sustainability, social justice and so on, will be an important part of any solution, it might be thought politically organised Greens are in natural alignment with Occupy: and we note with approval Derek Wall's recent talk to London Occupy...However, we need to be wary here too: the recent 'Paris Declaration' by European Green Parties is a disgraceful document, calling for strengthened EU imperial institutions. These creeps clearly see their role as providing a Green tinge to the hem of the EU imperial cloak. Well, they can sod off and take the Leninists with them, as they dive into the dustbin of history (no recycling of this rubbish please).

6) Setting up social centres and enterprises in further liberated spaces is certainloy useful, strategically, as it will show contined fight and inspire others who might be demoralised.

7) A huge demonstration in 2012, providing it is 'imaginative' and not hemmed-in by state manipulation is a useful tool for mobilisation, certainly.

8) An important aspect of 1960's counter-culture was free festivals: next year, this tradition could and should be revived.

9) Important as being against something is, Zizek recently argued we need to develop ideas about what, specifically, should replace capitalism. A big ask, but essential. Some ideas and thnkers from the past are essential, even if contributions are only partial. Karl Marx, for example, had an acute understanding of the mechanics of capitalist crisis still relevant today: even if his alternative was, shall we say, a bit sketchy...The German Greens have been useful here: see the inspirational 1983 German Green Manifesto 'Purpose in Work/Solidarity in Life' for example. Now, sadly, they are largely a party of Empirte, but some of their past is useful. Equally, Rudolf Bahro's vision of sustainable communities is useful, as too the forgotten council communist texts of Cornelius Castoriadis. In understanding the symbolic political importance of occupying space and subverting institutions, the Situationists were pioneers (Raoul Vaneigem & Guy Debord), To understand what we as a movement might signify, the writings of Toni Negri on the 'multitude' are important. To oppose hierarchy effectively, Jo Freeman's critique of the 'Tyranny of Structurelessness' is useful. To get the measure of Leninist/Trotskyist interlopers, Richard Gombin's 'The Origins of Modern Leftism' is superb. On a positive note about how militants can create internal vanguards, check out Adriano Sofri 'Organising for Workers Power'. Learning from, as opposed to reliving groundhog day-wise, the past is important. As Karl Marx might have said were he here today and we could drag him out of the pub for long enough, 'Those who do not learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat it, the first time as tragedy, the second on You-Tube'

We will be returning to these issues on our site and in Notes From the Borderland magazine. Suggestions welcome (including recommended texts). Tell us what you think!

Gary

Please comment on indymedia http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/11/488780.html

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Reasons for Refusal


Busy old lady, charitable tray
Of social emblems: poppies, people’s blood –
I must refuse, make you flush pink
Perplexed by abrupt No-thank-you.
Yearly I keep up this small priggishness,
Would wince worse if I wore one.
Make me feel better, fetch a white feather, do.

Everyone has list of dead in war,
Regrets most of them, e.g.

Uncle Cyril; small boy in lace and velvet
With pushing sisters muscling all around him,
And lofty brothers, whiskers and stiff collars;
The youngest was the one who copped it.
My mother showed him to me,
Neat letters high up on the cenotaph
That wedding-caked it up above the park,
And shadowed birds on Isaac Watts’ white shoulders.

And father’s friends, like Sandy Vincent;
Brushed sandy hair, moustache, and staring eyes.
Kitchener claimed him, but the Southern Railway
Held back my father, made him guilty.
I hated the khaki photograph,
It left a patch on the wallpaper after I took it down.

Others I knew stick in the mind,
And Tony Lister often –
Eyes like holes in foolscap, suffered from piles,
Day after day went sick with constipation
Until they told him he could drive a truck –
Blown up with Second Troop in Greece:
We sang all night once when we were on guard.

And Ken-Gee, our lance-corporal, Christian Scientist –
Everyone liked him, knew that he was good –
Had leg and arm blown off, then died.
Not all were good. Gross Corporal Rowlandson
Fell in the canal, the corrupt Sweet-water,
And rolled there like a log, drunk and drowned.
And I’ve always been glad of the death of Dick Benjamin,
A foxy urgent dainty ballroom dancer –
Found a new role in military necessity
As R.S.M. He waltzed out on parade
To make himself hated. Really hated, not an act.
He was a proper little porcelain sergeant-major –
The earliest bomb made smithereens:
Coincidence only, several have assured me.

In the school hall was pretty glass
Where prissy light shone through St George –
The highest holiest manhood, he!
And underneath were slain Old Boys
In tasteful lettering on whited slab –
And, each November, Ferdy the Headmaster
Reared himself squat and rolled his eyeballs upward,
Rolled the whole roll-call off an oily tongue,
Remorselessly from A to Z.

Of all the squirmers, Roger Frampton’s lips
Most elegantly curled, showed most disgust.
He was a pattern of accomplishments,
And joined the Party first, and left it first,
At OCTU won a prize belt, most improbable,
Was desert-killed in ’40, much too soon.

His name should burn right through that monument.

No poppy, thank you.

MARTIN BELL (1918-1978)

Just back from Jersey after a visit with a Greek TV crew, John Christensen of Tax Justice Network speaks at Occupy London Stock Exchange University teach-in about Tax Havens, the City of London and what to do next. John appears at 30.51, half way through.

Nicholas Shaxson author of “Treasure Islands – Tax Havens and the men who stole the world” and John Christensen of Tax Justice Network, visited Jersey for a few days to promote the book and speak to activists locally. They also provided interviews for a Greek Television team researching into where the rich in Greece hide their money and why the country is consequently bankrupt.

Nick and John took time out of their busy schedule to speak to TOM GRUCHY on the issues as they see them and Jersey’s future.






[Submitted by uknowwho]

Mr David Cameron, the Etonian prefect of Her Majesty’s Britannic government, was quoted responding to the unrest in London and other cities:


There was no irony in this statement, no humility, no cognitive spark in this scholastic boilerplate. Quite the contrary: after the Neanderthal neo-papist Mr Blair, returning from abroad, Mr Cameron has emerged as the incarnation of Britain’s bullying class, to perform his role as mouthpiece for those who fear most that they will not be able to rule Britain (or the rest of the world) by economic and military terror.

The Financial Times cited an unnamed ‘race relations expert’ (a term with a nostalgic apartheid-era tone) what he witnessed in Camden. He said:



In the same article a forensic psychologist is quoted:

Flash to the last page of the same FT edition and one can read ‘Equities plunge further on eurozone fears’. One Michael Hewson from an investment firm is quoted: ‘With investors so nervous and markets so feral, any rumour or doubt seems to be getting amplified as volatility and fear increases.’ The fear terrifying Hewson is the notion that something like popular discontent could persuade governments to stop diverting all their revenues into the troughs of banks and bondholders. A trader friend of mine related yesterday how it was impossible for him to close transactions online since the entire computer trading system was blocked — by algorithmic mass trading, naturally. As economist Professor Michael Hudson once observed, the average time period for which a share is held is approximately
22 seconds.

These ‘markets’ are nothing more than a pathological sphere in which anonymous trader proxies shift around corners, disperse and regroup, stand about and watch or hurl missiles at edifices of the real economy and society. Masters of this kind of ‘social media’ do not evade police constables on foot, they dodge entire sovereign systems. Mr George Soros proudly sold the pound sterling short in the amount of GBP 10 billion by borrowing enormous amounts of sterling and investing them in rival currencies within the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. Knowing that these purchases of French Franc and Deutsche Mark would push the pound down below the EERM limit, he essentially forced the British government to buy his borrowed currency positions to boost sterling’s exchange rate. As the pound continued to sink he could cover his sterling positions with cheap money issued by the British treasury to support the exchange rate. The difference went into his pocket.

Now a portion of the profits from Soros’ economic looting are diverted through his Open Society Foundation into training people to use ‘social media’ to manipulate incipient unrest throughout the world — the world his ‘culture of fear’ has exacerbated. The streets have increasingly become the only homes left to people who can no longer find paid work or affordable housing in economies wrecked by the fear-mongers of global finance.
The past weeks have been full of distractive reporting about the inevitability or justifiability of US government default on its debt. The rest of the white world is held in acrimonious anxiety because the côte dictatoire of Europe is no longer the great reservoir of tax-free profits to which northern European banks have become accustomed. The term ‘PIGS’ (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain) was never used when the vandals of Frankfurt, London, and Paris could rely upon Salazar, Franco, King Constantine and colonels or corrupt Gaelic collaborators, to assure their return on investment. In the US, the real fear is that the debt machine funding what is essentially the Third World War will collapse unless more wealth is extracted from the emaciated US middle class. As the US economy ceases to employ people at wages sufficient to garnish, the only option remaining is to burn the last legal barriers protecting ostensible income reserves — the deferred tax assets accrued from the meagre state pension and healthcare systems — cynically named ‘Social Security’. The Standard & Poor’s downgrade of US debt was as predictable as the burning of a Debenham’s department store in Clapham Junction — once the largest junction of a functioning British Rail system and now a paragon of Margaret Thatcher’s neo- Victorian nightmare.

The issues here are indeed fear and so-called social media for sure. But who are the perpetrators? Certainly they are not the homeless or jobless on Facebook or Twitter. If one tries to find them online, they will shift and disappear into the datasphere. They lurk around the corners of cabinet offices and philanthropic facades. They assemble as markets with no faces or names and launch their Molotovs from the White House or Downing Street. They scramble masked through the mirrored mazes in which we are led to believe our sovereignty is exercised. Armed with the sledgehammers of speculation and bearing sacks issued by our national treasuries, they steal at will and destroy what they cannot carry.

The historical term for what are now called ‘capitalists’ was ‘adventurer’. The open society for them is a world of endless speculation and theft with no higher purpose, just a small volume of people ‘with a history of impulsive behaviour having a giant adventure.’

TPW

[Submitted by brotherbead]

Racism is nothing new in society. What matters is the relationship between racist sentiment and the state.

When Mikhail Gorbachev heard that the Ukraine, a Soviet Republic was separating from the union to form an independent state, his skepticism was expressed with his remark that they would probably return to their old ways, best summed up under the slogan, “Death to the Jews and the Poles”.

To listen to the Chief Minister give a sanctimonious speech about racism in the States today, showed, once again, the gall of the Jersey political elite. One of his ministers, Senator Freddy Cohen, had received racist communications, including a death threat. Interestingly, BBC Radio Jersey journalist, in her report of the day in the States, could not bring herself to call the beast by it true name. Anti-Semitism is not in the vocabulary of our Liberal minded radio station.

When one of the Ministers is subject to anti-semitic abuse, the Chief Minister makes a statement, yet for years the racism experienced by Poles, Romanians and Portuguese, never gets a mention. Not that government is going to do anything about it – like introduce laws against discrimination or racist activity.

Racism is frequently encountered at all social levels in the island. It is of course something that those with right-wing opinion hold close, and not surprisingly it is very prevalent. It is the Poles and especially the Portuguese, who somehow rank lower in the racist hierarchy, that are singled out because they form significant minorities. In the nineteenth century it was the French immigrant workers that were the subject of racist abuse. The “Mafeking Riots” of 1900, led to violence in French Lane (Hilgrove Street), necessitating the use of troops from the garrison to maintain order, as a patriotic mob attacked persons and property.

Twice a year our rulers pay lip service to memory of the victims of militarism and fascism in the form of Holocaust Day and the Liberation Day remembrance for forced workers at Mount Bingham. Many wreaths are laid by Ministers and dignitaries but none speak about the need for legislation to protect human rights and protect citizens against discrimination based on race or colour.

Flags are potent symbols, but first they must be endowed with significance, or else they just float limply in the air as so much coloured decoration.

The Jersey independence lobby were quite literally flying their flag this week at an event, that had it not been reported in the Thursday edition of the Jersey Evening Post newspaper, would have passed the world by. That it was on the facing inside page with a colour photograph of Jersey’s Bailiff hoisting the flag at Fort Regent signal station on a sunny Spring afternoon, indicates that the managers of public opinion would have us take the event seriously.

We know Jersey’s elites have plans for political independence. Their reason for doing so is to ensure that their offshore finance centre can operate into the distant future. There is no intention of breaking the economic ties with the City of London however. In calling for separation from the British state and its ultimate oversight of insular affairs, would require, if not active support, then a major degree of acquiescence, by the inhabitants. To achieve this, the elite seek to both manufacture and manipulate insular identities in ways that suit their long term goal. Quite literally the elite wraps itself in the flag in order to claim that it, and it alone, has the right to speak for the island interest. This reinforces their role as leaders. There is however a deception going on because the interests of the elite are narrow and specific, confined to the retention of power and wealth in a socially divided island. How can the rich elite speak for the poor? They do so by the manipulation of identities with which the poor are encouraged to associate.

For formal independence to happen there has to be some form of resonance within island society for it to be legitimate. The elite know full well that their project lacks legitimacy. Independence serves the interest of international finance, which by its very definition, has no loyalty to the island from which it operates, other than to ensure that business continues as usual. Domestic affairs are a matter of indifference as it is the wealth and interest of foreign clients that are preeminent.

Careful examination of the JEP colour photograph reveals its political artifice. It is not a mere photograph; it is a device and political statement, which is reinforced by the text of the article. We learn that the Bailiff was accompanied by the Chief Minister and the heir apparent as Chief Minister. This was a government endorsed event. The “Jersey Flag Group” however well meaning, allow themselves to be used by both media and government, and one suspects it is done willingly.

In the foreground of the photograph accompanying the newspaper article, the Bailiff pulls on a rope attached to the flag pole, in the act of hoisting, the not visible, flag. In the rear, amongst the small number of spectators to the event, is to be seen Deputy Angela Jeune looking upward and at attention. This particular States Member is not noted primarily for her intellect, but rather for the quality of her loyalty to the Establishment. She must surely have been in her element on that deferential and windless Wednesday.


[Submitted by Julia Ward Howe]

“Oh wad some power the giftie gie us,
To see oursel's as others see us!

Robert Burns: Poem "To a Louse"

As followers of the Jersey blogosphere we are constantly astonished by the lack of broader vision into our general condition, shown by many writers. Were they to have grasped the bigger picture the value of their comment would greatly improve. It stems essentially from the right wing politics that so many Jerseymen seem to embrace. Some of these writers call themselves “progressives”(whatever that might be on a sunny spring day outside the C ock and Bottle). Limited by this straitjacket of thought, their solutions to the problems generated by the system they refuse to critique fundamentally, are inevitably limited. Invariably it involves some form of more authoritarian restriction on the liberty of the individual, which once applied to themselves, they shout and holler foul play.

We tolerate the trivialization of public affairs when it comes from the Establishment. Part of our fundamental critique is that they often cannot see further than the end of their noses. This is in part deliberate, in that they stay within the comfort zone of acceptable discussion; it is also a reflection of their paucity of intellect and provincialism. We know that they love nothing better than a good States Debate on “safe subjects”like island speed limits and yellow lines is St Clement. The media now echo this narrow perspective to the extent that BBC Radio Jersey, is not just promoting an island chauvenisim, it is now trading a narrow Parish mentality. The idea is to undermine collective solidarities that rest upon social and economic interest.

Politics in general is being written off the agenda. Big issues no longer matter. Triva rules. Everything is being done to avoid the unpredictable. Hence the lunchtime phone-in programme was abolished to prevent the expression of views that were not mainstream and conventional. Comment is now sanitized and channeled in to safe topics with safe invitees, chosen for the blandness of their views. Security agendas dominate with an emphasis on the need for policing and the dangers posed by the other – those we do not know – our neighbors, immigrants and the poor . BBC Radio Jersey’s Sunday local politics show “Talkback” has been reduced from two hours to one and relegated to “dead time” between six and seven on a Thursday evening when no one will be listening.

Those who want to grasp the “bigger picture” would be well advised to read the current edition of the London Review of Books which carries an erudite review by David Runciman of Nicholas Shaxsons’ Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World . We have already referred to some of Shaxons’ insightful comments from a London School of Economic lecture he gave to promote the book and it needs no apology to include a short extract that refers directly to Jersey. The full version of the article can be read here http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n08/david-runciman/didnt-they-notice

“The other thing most of these [tax havens] have in common is that they are islands. Islands make good tax havens, and not simply because they can cut themselves off from the demands of mainland politics. It is also because they are often tight-knit communities, in which everyone knows what’s going on but no one wants to speak out for fear of ostracism. These ‘goldfish bowls’, as Shaxson calls them, suit the offshore mindset, because they are seemingly transparent: you can see all the way through – it’s just that when you look there’s nothing there. Jersey is the template: a nice, genteel place, with a strong sense of civic responsibility and plenty of opportunities for public participation, including elections to all manner of public offices (senators, deputies, parish constables), but weak political parties, staggered ‘general’ elections, and never a meaningful change of government. ‘If you don’t like it, you can leave’ is the basic refrain of Jersey politics. Dissent is not obviously suppressed, as it might be under a dictatorship (which is why dictatorships make bad tax havens: you never know when the whole thing is going to blow up). Instead, dissent is simply allowed to wither away.”

Curiously, whilst Guernsey is politically "dead", with a total absence of dissent, and so fits Runciman's description, the situation in Jersey is in reality quite different. There is organised opposition, that far from withering, is growing as the social and economic contradictions tighten.
Needless to say, the media fails (deliberately as part of the "withering" strategy) to record or report any of this movement.

Could Runciman's article constitute "adverse publicity" for Jersey's rulers? Too right it does. The London Review of Books is respected and widely read.

[Submitted by unite]