Mike’s Letter from America # 9

Got the T-Shirt?

Sometimes Wikipedia gets it right. A few weeks ago the much-maligned on-line encyclopedia described Sarah Palin as the Republican nominee for vice-president, several hours before the official announcement was made. Ironically at the same time I was telling my students about the dangers of trusting Wikipedia as a reliable source. As I drove home from class, BBC World Service on my car radio was announcing that, indeed the governor of Alaska was to be John McCain’s running-mate.

 Needless to say, there is nothing good about Palin’s nomination, despite her being only the second woman to run for the vice-presidency on a major-party ticket, and despite some of her critics comparing her to Hugo Chavez! (http://www.adn.com/front/story/442702.html) Palin ticks most of the Christian-conservative boxes: anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-environment, pro-war, pro-creationism. She is on record as saying that the Iraq War was ‘God’s task’ for Americans. It goes without saying that, as a Republican from oil-rich Alaska, she is in favor in drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, and doesn’t believe that climate change is human-made. An opponent of abortion (even in cases of rape), she also advocates ‘abstinence only’ sex-education in schools. Soon after her candidacy was announced, it was revealed that her unmarried 17-year-old daughter was pregnant, suggesting that abstinence hadn’t been entirely successful in the case of her own family. As mayor of the small town of Wasilla, Alaska, she insisted on rape victims paying $1200 for the cost of the ‘rape kit’ used by the police to obtain forensic evidence. As governor, she attempted to fire her sister’s ex-husband from his job as a state policeman, and then sacked the state official who refused to go along with it. Just for good measure, she is now refusing to cooperate with the official investigation into the affair.

Palin is a curious choice given the Republicans’ criticism of Obama as too inexperienced, as before she became governor less than two years ago her highest political office was mayor of a city with fewer than 9000 inhabitants. But of course, this isn’t about Palin’s abilities (or lack of them), it’s a cynical ploy by the Republicans to embarrass the Democrats in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s narrow failure to win the presidential nomination, and to win over women voters. This always seemed unlikely, given Palin’s views on rape and abortion, and the latest polls show a 21% swing to the Democrats among women voters.  

Palin’s reputation (such as it is) rests on the bogus claim that she is an outspoken anti-establishment figure – much like McCain, but even more conservative. At the Republican convention she claimed, to loud cheers, to have stopped the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’. This was a notorious example of what are euphemistically known as ‘earmarks’ (and less politely, as ‘pork’); spending measures added to bills in Congress by representatives keen to see federal money spent on their home states. What she failed to mention was that she initially campaigned for the bridge, and (unless it’s been removed by now) Wikipedia shows a picture of her wearing a T-shirt supporting the project. It’s true that, as governor, she cancelled the bridge - but she still kept the money. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravina_Island_Bridge  

All of this confirms what we already know – that the Republican right are a bunch of bigoted right-wing Christian fruit loops in hock to Big Oil. But what’s happening in the Democratic camp? As I reported last time, Obama is moving to the right to court ‘mainstream’ America, but that hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm his supporters feel. Right now, my 14-year-old step-daughter has just returned from an Obama rally (“it was AWESOME”) which gives you some indication of Obama’s appeal to idealistic young people.

The gulf between the suspicions that we on the left may have of Obama, and the excitement felt about his candidacy among many Americans, was brought home to me when I attended the Detroit Jazz Festival during the Labor Day weekend, just after the Democratic convention where Obama officially accepted his party’s nomination. Detroit is one of the Blackest cities in the northern states, and arguably one of the most working-class. At its height, the now-devastated automobile industry of ‘Motor City’ attracted hundreds of thousands of African-American workers to Michigan, escaping poverty and segregation in the South. I was struck by how many people – and, in particular, how many African-American people – were wearing Obama T-shirts. And they weren’t official T-shirts from the Obama campaign, but an exuberant array of different (no doubt unofficial) designs, including a particularly fetching image of Obama’s face picked out in sequins. But perhaps the most revealing shirt (politically revealing, that is) showed a picture of Obama’s face morphed with that of Martin Luther King, above the words ‘I was there when history was made’ along with the date and the name of a local cinema. The shirt was, of course, worn by an African-American man. In other words, Obama’s acceptance speech was not only viewed by millions of people on their TVs at home – it was an event that working-class Black people went out to bars, theatres, and cinemas to watch together, so that they could share a moment of history.

There lies the contradiction of Obama – a very mainstream candidate in terms of his policies, he has nonetheless become for millions an inspiration and a symbol of hope. Given the choice between ‘Obama the movement’ (to use Michael Moore’s phrase) and a Republican ticket that has just unambiguously identified itself with the most reactionary and loopy elements of the Christian right, it’s increasingly difficult for socialists to argue the ‘they’re as bad each other’ line. Somehow, the left in the U.S.A. has to find a way of identifying with ‘Obama the movement’ while arguing the case for an anti-capitalist third party.  

1st edition of Grassroots newsletter delivered.

The first edition of Oxford Left Alternative's new quarterly newsletter 'Grassroots' has been delivered around Florence Park/Cowley. The summer edition featured articles on the campaign to re-instate the No 10 bus service to Florence Park, Asylum Rights and local Post Office Closures. Two and four page versions of the newsletter are available on request to Oxford residents (e-mail Oxfordrespect@yahoo.co.uk).

Work has now begun on the Autumn edition. If you would like to contribute an article on a local issue or campaign please e-mail Dave at the above address.

Message from Oxford Stop the War Coalition

August may be a month when everyone goes on holiday and nothing  happens but the anti-war movement's struggle against imperialist  interventions carries on regardless.  

The situation in Iraq and Afghanistan continues to deteriorate.  British casualties in Afghanistan continue to climb, fatalities have  now reached 114, and no figures are available for Afghani casualties  because they are not counted. As far as the occupying forces are  concerned, Afghani lives are less important than British or American  ones! A recent survey derived from conversations with inhabitants of  Kandahar and Helmand provinces revealed that one in three people have  had family members killed by the indiscriminate British and American  air strikes or ground assaults by the occupying forces.  The rhetoric against Iran continues to be pumped out by London and  Washington and Israel holds provocative "excercises" which seem  likely to be precursors to an assault on that country. 

Discussions  are taking place and plans are being developed with groups locally to  respond to the rapidly growing threats against Iran and any attack,  in whatever form that may take. We will of course keep you informed  as soon as we have concrete information.  At home, civil liberties continue to suffer with the plans to  increase detention without trial to 42 days going through Parliament  and increasing obstacles to the right to peaceful protest. The recent  attempt by the Metropolitan Police to ban the Protest against the  visit of George W Bush in London followed by the unprovoked and  brutal attack by the police on protesters (after they very  begrudgingly "permitted" it) and this weeks atack by police on the  climate camp in Kent both graphically illustrate the challenges we  now face. 

There are also a number of local events taking place in the near  future that are of note and need your support: 

Saturday, August 9th. Nagasaki Day To commemorate victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. Lantern  floating, 7PM onwards at Donnington Bridge. Music, reflection, and  speakers. Bring lanterns and a picnic to share. The Mayor launches  first lantern at 9PM. Organised by Oxford CND and Christian CND. Saturday, 

September 20th. National Demonstration at the Labour Party  conference in Manchester Troops Out of Iraq and Afghanistan! Assemble 12:30, All Saints,  Cavendish Street,  Manchester. Called by Manchester Stop the War Coalition and CND.  

Saturday, October 4th. Demonstrate at RAF (USAF!) Croughton. Part of  Keep Space For Peace Week. Further details 07967 392229. Called by  Oxon Peace Campaign and supported by Oxford Stop the War Coalition. Next meeting of Oxford Stop the War Coalition: Thursday, September  11, 7:30PM, Oxford Town Hall. 

Respect goes west- Mike's Letter from America #8

Obama Turns Right

Sorry to go on about Barack Obama again, but he is still the biggest story in U.S. politics, and his recent European tour means that you on the other side of the pond have just had your share of Obamania. I’ve written before that it is hard to entirely dislike someone who Fox News accuses of being a being a secret Muslim terrorist communist. His ability to mobilize the people who are traditionally disengaged from mainstream politics is exciting and significant. Yet as the presidential campaign begins to swing into action, Obama is sounding increasingly like the timid, conservative, party-machine candidates who turned those people off the Democrats in the first place.

It’s true that Obama was never that left-wing in the first place; he is worryingly close to Wall Street, and supports the war in Afghanistan. But in the last few weeks, he has swung further to the right. Take his heavily-reported speech in Berlin: as one of the commentators on the news channel MSNBC put it, “John McCain could have given that speech”. It was full of nostalgic references to the Cold War and appeals to Europe to help get the U.S. out of the hole it has dug for itself in Afghanistan. No doubt Fox News will take Obama’s admission that the USA isn't perfect as a sign of his treasonous Islamo-Bolshevik tendencies. Otherwise, however, the speech was a hawkish appeal for a transatlantic alliance in the ‘War on Terror’.

The Berlin speech was only the latest in a series of right-wing moves by Obama. In 1968, when French student leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit was accused of being ‘A German Jew who thinks he’s Karl Marx’, the students responded with the slogan ‘we are ALL German Jews’. When ‘accused’ of being a Muslim, Obama’s response was not to say ‘supposing I am Muslim, what of it? In America we enjoy freedom of religion’. Instead, he strenuously denied that he was a Muslim and went to great lengths to stress his Christianity.

This could be written off as an unfortunate but necessary move to reassure an Islamophobic American electorate. (If so, it isn’t working, as the conservative media still pepper their comments with references to ‘Barack HUSSEIN Obama’, and ‘Barack Osama’). Sadly, it wasn’t an isolated incident. In the last few weeks, Obama has supported extending the death penalty to crimes other than murder; called for the extension of George Bush’s farming out of public services to ‘faith-based’ groups; offered unconditional support for Israel, and – in defiance of international law and the UN – supported the continued occupation of Palestinian East Jerusalem; and taken on a team of pro-corporate economic advisers.

Obama’s apologists argue that this is the inevitable logic of electoral politics – a candidate has to appeal to the centre ground to get elected, so must drop the more ‘extreme’ policies that appeal to the party base. This of course was the argument used to defend Blair in 1997 – and we all know the result of that. But it simply isn’t true that candidates have to move to the centre. The Republican John McCain certainly hasn’t – in fact, since clinching the nomination he has moved to the right, ditching his reputation as a centrist to embrace the failed politics of George W. Bush. None of this makes sense in terms of electoral arithmetic – Bush’s policies are hugely unpopular, and the polls show that the vast majority of Americans want withdrawal from Iraq, and blame the Republicans for the disastrous state of the economy, all of which would play into the hands of Obama if he were to stick to the simple message of attacking the Iraq War and the free-market economy.

So why do both candidates embrace unpopular policies? As Obama’s courting of Wall Street suggests, it’s because real power rests not with the voters, but with corporate America. The Republicans are clear what base they represent; they are the party of big business, and reliably pursue pro-business policies. If in doubt, they swing to the right, even if it doesn’t make sense in electoral terms. The Democrats, however, do not have a similarly strong base among the poor or the working class, as they too are a pro-business party. As American socialist Mike Davis wrote at the time of Kerry’s defeat in 2004, “the great achievement of the Clinton era was to realign the Democrats as the party of the 'new economy', of the bicoastal knowledge industries and high-tech exporters. Instead of an economic rescue package for the heartland as demanded by the industrial unions, Clinton rammed through the job-exporting North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta).” http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=9148

So the Dems cannot easily counter the Republicans with a strong anti-corporate message. Now, I’m not suggesting that, in the unlikely event that they reinvented themselves as a socialist party, the Democrats would sweep to victory. However, it’s not so hard in the present climate to at least imagine them routing the Republicans on a populist platform of opposition to the war and to corporate greed. But they won’t, for fear of alienating their rich backers. So by conceding the ground on arguments of social class and economics, they allow the Republicans to make inroads into the white working-class vote by appealing to fear of foreigners, gays, and the ‘liberal elite’.

The need for a third party based on anti-corporate politics is as clear as ever. This election is not the ideal time for such a challenge, as the desire to end 8 years of Republican rule, added to Obama’s bogus-radical credentials, looks set to turn the strong mood for change into a vote for the Democrats. On top of this, the progressive vote will be split between Ralph Nader (running as an independent) and the Green candidate Cynthia McKinney, an African-American ex-Democratic congresswoman with a proud anti-war record. But a left alternative is necessary, and if activists can tap into the idealism of Obama’s supporters, the growing trade unions in the ‘new economy’, and the mass movements against the war and in support of immigrants, building such an alternative might not be a pipe-dream. 

Keep Oxford Mail Centre Open

The Oxford Royal Mail sorting office at Cowley is under threat of closure with plans to ship mail to a 'super hub' at Swindon. If the plans go ahead the result will be the loss of hundreds of local jobs and a worsening service with later dilivery times and earlier collections.

For more information please visit: http://www.oxfordmailcentre.com/

A message from Oxford Love Music Hate Racism

Lethal Bizzle helped build the national march and carnival on 21st June by meeting with local MC's and rappers including Mr ShaoDow, Provokal, n-zyme, MC Muzzy Blax and some DJ's from OX4fm. 

Our music is living testimony to the fact that cultures can and do mix. It unites us and gives us strength, and offers a vibrant celebration of our multicultural and multiracial society. Racism seeks only to divide and weaken us. Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR) was set up in 2002 in response to rising levels of racism and electoral successes for the Nazi British National Party (BNP). 

We use the energy of our music scene to celebrate diversity and involve people in anti-racist and anti-fascist activity – as well as to urge people to vote against fascist candidates in elections. LMHR has helped to mobilise against further BNP election victories, in the tradition of the Rock Against Racism (RAR) movement of the late 1970s. 

There have been now been over 400 LMHR events, from large outdoor festivals to local gigs and club nights. Top artists who’ve performed at LMHR events include Ms Dynamite, Hard -Fi, Babyshambles, Akala, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly, Estelle, The View, Lethal Bizzle, Roll Deep and Basement Jaxx. Just as important are the up-and-coming bands, DJs, MCs and their fans who have performed at or organised their own local LMHR nights. 

We want to create a national movement against racism and fascism through music, so it’s vital everyone gets involved however they can. 

Dozens of bands and DJs from across Oxfordshire have already helped us raise funds for the national carnival and to spread the message. 

Over 60 people went on the LMHR subsidised coach to the 100,000 strong carnival to celebrate diversity and to oppose racism. Photos of the carnival can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/lovemusichateracism/ 

The fascist British National Party’s London fuhrer, Richard Barnbrook, has managed to con a small minority of Londoners into voting for him, to scrape onto the London Assembly via the cross-London party list - largely through votes won in outer London boroughs like Barking & Dagenham and Havering & Redbridge . Without the anti-fascist campaigning prior to the election, and particularly the 100,000 strong Love Music Hate Racism Carnival, the BNP would undoubtedly have gained more seats in London. The Carnival showed the mass audience opposed to racism and fascism which can build the bigger united anti-fascist movement that can stop the Nazis. The BNP gained a further ten seats nationally, though this is far less than their target thanks to consistent campaigning against them. 

The BNP represent the politics of hate and division. BNP members like David Copeland have been involved in planting bombs in London. Only last month BNP Nick Eriksen one of the BNP candidates in London was forced to withdraw his candidacy, after he was exposed for writing sexist, racist and offensive comments on a blog in which he uses the name “Sir John Bull” visit www.uaf.org.uk for quotes from his blog. 

Barnbrook must not be allowed to settle comfortably into his ill-gotten office, but must be resisted at every turn. Our aim must be to prevent the BNP from turning their assembly win into a respectable platform for spreading racist poison in London. 

Weyman Bennett from Unite Against Fascism said: “Several members of BNP have convictions for racial hatred this includes the leader of the BNP Nick Griffin. In the past other fascists leaders have use the democratic freedoms in order to destroy everybody rights and freedom of speech. ” 

Drew McConnell, of leading LMHR-supporting band Babyshambles, said: “Multicultural Britain should be celebrated. Immigration is not to blame for unemployment or housing problems, and does not negatively affect the economy, but the BNP tell us this is actually the case. We want them to know they’re not fooling us. Everyone knows the BNP are a Nazi organization, and they can’t hide behind their suits forever.” 

We still need artists to join us and play gigs in Oxfordshire to help us raise funds and spread the word. We also need volunteers to put up posters and handout leaflets at gigs. Contact us if you can help

Contact: LMHROxford@bethere.co.uk

Respect goes West- Mike's Letter from America #7

What ‘liberal media?’

Those of you nursing bruises from last Sunday’s demonstration against Bush’s visit to the UK will be surprised to hear that it never happened. I know this thanks to National Public Radio’s ‘White House Correspondent’ Don Gonyieh, who assured us that there was ‘not a single protestor’ on the streets of London. The fact that (a) this was not true and (b) that if had been, it was only because the march had been banned, seemed to have been totally lost on Gonyieh. Clicking on the BBC website left me little the wiser (no change there). Eventually, thanks to the English-language news on Germany’s Deutsche Welle TV (which we get thanks to basic cable) I was finally able to see footage of non-existent policemen whacking non-existent demonstrators with non-existent truncheons.

The U.S. media is notorious for its insularity – the first time I visited America, I watched CNN’s ‘World News Hour’ in the hope of finding out what was going on outside the 50 states. It turned out that the main item of ‘world’ news was American troops being sent off to some foreign country (I think it was Bosnia that week). But you would expect better of National Public Radio (NPR). This is, roughly speaking, the equivalent of BBC Radio 4, but with a far smaller budget. NPR and its TV equivalent PBS are publicly funded through a mixture tax dollars from Congress, and listener or viewer fund-raising drives. This gives it an editorial independence lacking in the corporate networks, and most of the time, NPR is excellent in a ‘BBC circa 1950’ sort of way. It has more overseas correspondents than any other network; it has in-depth news coverage that goes beyond sound-bites; it caters for those Americans who do not think music starts and ends with soft-rock; it hosts quirky shows which would never see the light of day on bottom-line-driven networks.

All of this means that NPR and PBS are targets for inevitable accusations of liberalism and elitism from the Right, and clearly public broadcasting should be defended unconditionally from those who would like to cut off its (pitifully small) funding. However, its supposed liberalism is debatable. When I first came to the US, my initial reaction was ‘thank God, something intelligent on the radio’. However, over the weeks I began to notice how, like the BBC back home, NPR’s ‘balanced’ news reflects the orthodoxies of US politics. So coverage of Venezuela always focus on Chavez’s ‘grandiose’ gestures, not on the substance of the country’s politics, while coverage of Iraq too often sounds like warmed over Pentagon press releases. I’ve no desire to defend Vladimir Putin, but why was his last speech as president described as ‘typically bombastic’, when NPR would never dream of calling one of Bush’s speeches ‘typically rambling and incoherent’?

Of course, NPR is way ahead of Rupert Murdoch’s cretinous Fox News, which quite unashamedly peddles conservative propaganda under the laughable banner ‘Fair and Balanced’. I occasionally turn on Fox News just to see how long I can stand it before switching to another channel; (record so far – about 15 seconds).  It would take hundreds of blog entries to catalogue all the shocking, offensive, or just plain daft examples of Fox’s pushing the Republican agenda – check out the film documentary Outfoxed http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418038/ or all Al Franken’s book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them http://www.bookmarks.uk.com/cgi/store/bookmark.cgi. To take just the most recent example, one Fox news anchor claimed that a fist-punch gesture made by Barrack Obama and his wife was a ‘terrorist fist jab.’ Fox News is an extreme example, but networks such as CNN paved the way for it by focusing on style above substance, trivia before real news. Readers who are my age will probably remember CNN’s reporters at the start of the 1991 Gulf War crowing that Baghdad was ‘lit up like a Christmas tree’ by allied bombing.  It is one of the ironies of the modern media that we have 24-hour news networks, but less real news reporting.

Despite all this, the right constantly cry ‘liberal bias’ against the media – a rather ridiculous accusation in the circumstances. The writer Eric Alterman rightly chose the title What Liberal Media? for his book on right-wing bias in the news. For that matter the ‘liberals’ in the media aren’t even particularly left-wing – for example, Al Franken’s book is a great read, as he rips into the lies of right-wing commentators while also being funny, but at times it reads like a hymn of praise for the Bill Clinton administration, including its armed interventions in Haiti and the Balkans.

So are there any rays of hope? As in the UK, there are plenty of left-wing periodicals, blogs, and indymedia sites, but in the mainstream media, the popularity (especially among younger people) of satirical shows such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report shows that there is a big audience for political programming that lays into Bush and his cronies. Both shows use humour to make serious points about politics and the media, and it’s significant that a poll showed that viewers of the Daily Show (which bills itself as ‘fake news’) were better informed about the news than those who watch the ‘real’ news on Fox.

I’m not sure whether that is encouraging or depressing…