Campaign for a national monument to those murdered by the UK Police Force?

The UK Police Force are the enemies of the working class; they are racist; they are the 'army' of the ruling class on the streets - don't believe the neighbourhood watch propaganda, glossy news letters and sympathetic BBC police drama's.

How many more people must die at the hands of the cowardly police? Protected by batons, hand cuffs, shields, helmets, padded uniforms, reinforcements, the government of the day and hired lackeys in the media - it is time that those murdered by these state sanctioned killers were recognised and remembered.

There are some that think the idea of a national monument to the innocents that have been bullied, battered, beaten, broken and murdered by the police is "sick" and "bitter", that lot's of people who work for the police are "very nice people"; this kind of wallowing sanctimonious display of piety is what has contributed to a steadily rising shrill wail of vengeful sorrow from within the police, demanding the "death penalty" for anyone found guilty of killing a police officer.

It may come as a surprise to some, but there are many amongst us not in the police that are "very nice people" too; those that vandalise intellect by accusing a campaign like this of being "sick" and "bitter" are similar to the fodder that spat hate at the brave Muslim activists who recently protested against the returning imperialist soldiers of the Royal Anglians.

Remembering the fallen that have been persecuted, hounded and slain for scores of decades because they are working class or because their political opinions challenge ruling class hegemony; or because they are the wrong religion or colour or creed will not only honour the memory of those individuals, but that of their families too, all victims who have fallen under the boot of the UK police.

The police have a national monument. This is where they gather, sombre and solemn in worshipful silence to sanctify their dead. Let's have one in honour and remembrance of their murder victims too.

It then follows that a national monument to those murdered by the UK Police Force will also raise awareness in the general public of the deeply oppressive, anti-working class and thoroughly racist role that the police play at an organisational level in protecting the parasitical ruling class.

OLD LABOUR + NEW LABOUR = SAME LABOUR.

I think it is very important to point out that “Old” Labour and “New” Labour are cut of the exact same cloth. I always feel compelled to make sure people do not romanticise “Old” Labour, as I think that leads down a blind political alley of trying to reform the Labour Party from within, which I think has fruitlessly consumed a lot of political energy.

I highlight the opportunistic role of the Labour Party and far left groups in England. Of course I am not saying that every single member of these parties/groups etc is a conniving opportunist - for example, there are some perfectly decent people in the Labour Party and in the far left parties/groups I mention - what I want to highlight is the divisive role they play at an organisational level - which is why I agree that unity is important and try to make the point whenever possible; I quote myself, “As write this, the tanks and soldiers of Zionist murderers roll into Palestine; instead of using our privileged freedoms sniping and sneering from the galleries with unsophisticated Communist bashing, true progressives should be building a bottom up, grass roots movement to fight racism and fight imperialism. Banal bleating... is of no help to the heroic struggle of the Palestinian people. "

However, even if we are to believe what some people obviously believe about an “old” Labour in the 1920's or even early 1980's - the fact is we are now in 2010. Labour does not claim to be Socialist any more, it does not even bother to pretend to represent the working-class – and even if it once did, claiming to be something does not mean that you are what you claim to be. America claims to be the defender of the free world; a free and democratic country where anyone can grow up to be President – but none of those claims are true.

To quote a communist activists that I know, "[building a progressive anti-imperioalist movement is] ...about the need for democracy in the movement, the need to oppose efforts to limit or restrain the militancy of actions, and the need for a complete break with the Labour Party. We need to unite in action on these issues rather than tarring whole sections of the left with the actions of particular groups or individuals…”

I agree. However, I am not attempting to tar whole sections of the left in the sense that I was claiming that every single individual in the various parties or groups on the left all share the same analysis - how can they when for example, the SWP is a mass recruitment organisation? I was trying to highlight the roles that these parties or groups can and do ultimately play at an organisational level - if that is tarring them, then so be it.

I cannot understand how people that might consider themselves as Socialist’s/Communist’s would be members of a political organisation such as the Labour Party without having developed an analysis that would leave them in no doubt that the Labour Party plays nothing more that a regressive role and is an enemy of the working-class. The fact is, Labour is not a Socialist/Communist party. It never has been. It might be a party with people who consider themselves to be Communist - but that does not change the concrete fact that the Labour Party is opportunistic - it is at best Social Democratic rather than Socialist; reformist rather than revolutionary and has never played a progressive role in advancing the interests of the broader section of the working class; it is capitalist, imperialist, Zionist, racist, oppressive and anti working-class.

This quote is taken from 'Ireland: The key to the British Revolution', (1984), although we could easily use the same with today's 'Marxist' groups, "...so quick to rally to the defence of the hated Labour Party rather than fight against its racism and attacks against the working classes of the world. The fight against such opportunistic trends is surely interlinked with the fight against Imperialism and the Labour Party itself." And because they do not do this, what do we surmise? That they are willing, conscious imperialist agents. The rank and file is another matter, I suspect many are simply duped but the leadership of these opportunistic groups, their ideological guru's?

Therefore, I have no qualms in attacking the role of the Labour Party, the police and certain groups on the left. I think it is important to understand and recognise the role these opportunistic creatures play and if naming certain individuals on occasion, particularly when addressing their specific points in a discussion helps to drive the point home, then so be it.

ALL OPPORTUNISTIC ROADS LEAD TO THE LABOUR PARTY & THE AWL.

"No" to Hamas is what the imperialists say. Saying "No" to Hamas because they are conservative, clerical, sexists and homophobic is the excuse the imperialists use; when the AWL start attacking the democratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people and their resistance fighters they sound like the BBC that insists on referring to them as "Militants" or the right wing media that suddenly develop a progressive political analysis and hijack the 'moral high ground' by belligerently parroting that the west must intervene in Afghanistan for the sake of Muslim women and referring to all the resistance fighters in Afghanistan as 'the Taliban'; they will not or do not accept that they are a resistance force, same with Iraq.

The Palestinian people voted for Hamas, they saw them as the only organised political and military option available in order to combat imperialism. The imperialist/Zionist "NO" to Hamas and its murder of the Palestinian people represents not just double standards but multiple standards; they only want Palestinian leaders that will capitulate as opportunistically as the corrupt kings and puppet presidents throughout the client regime Arab world - which is what Fatah did. Is that what the AWL want? How can an organisation with close ties to the Labour Party self righteously lecture anybody about the wrongs of Hamas?

Let's remind ourselves of the Labour Party and its affiliates:

“The establishment of the Labour Party was a profound setback for the British working class and the oppressed of the British Empire. It consolidated the political domination of the mass of the working class by a tiny privileged upper layer whose chief political characteristics were those of reaction and support for imperialism, racism and sexism. Since then the Labour Party has been a millstone round the neck of the British working class, preventing it from achieving anything of any consequence. From the day of its inception, the challenge for socialists has been to build a movement that could break Labour's stifling grip on British working class organisation and politics and give a lead to the mass of the working class.

Many on the left will say that Labour today is very different creature from Labour in 1900, that Blair and Brown's New Labour project is a decisive break with the party that was once a home for Keir Hardie and Nye Bevan. But they have created a myth. Labour in 1900 was no more radical or socialist that it is today. Blair and Brown's Labour Party is in substance no different from the one founded on an alliance of imperialist socialists with middle class leaders and reactionary trade union leaders 100 years ago.

Unquestioning defence of British imperialism; contempt for the rights of the oppressed; abhorrence for the poor, these were the hallmarks of Labour in 1900 as much as they are today. Yet the left both within and without the Labour Party has spun illusions in and around the Labour Party for as long as it has existed. Fearing the mass of the real working class, those whom are excluded from the official labour and trade union movement, they have pretended that the election of a Labour government would make a difference. They said this in 1983, in 1987, in 1992, again in 1997. They have fooled only themselves. Blair and Brown's government is what they promised it would be – capitalist (pro-big business), imperialist, Zionist, racist and deeply oppressive.

Labour has always been a capitalist, imperialist, Zionist, racist and war-mongering party.

Labour's list of slaughter includes:

Between 1925 and 1931:

It sanctioned the use of the RAF to bomb unarmed Kurdish villagers in 1925;

It used the RAF once again in the brutal suppression of the Indian freedom struggle between 1929-31;

Between 1945 and 1951 Labour:

Committed British troops to aid the restoration of French colonial rule in Viet Nam and Dutch rule in Indonesia;

Continued military intervention in Greece against the ELAS;

Blockaded Iran following the nationalisation of the British-owned Anglo-Persian Oil Company;

Ruthlessly exploited the British empire in Africa to aid post-war reconstruction in Britain – The NHS for example;

It saw no offence to its socialist principles in using head-hunters in a murderous war against Malayan freedom fighters in 1949-51;

Between 1964 and 1970:

Defended apartheid South Africa, blocking calls for sanctions in the UN;

Capitulated to the racist settler regime in the former Rhodesia;

In 1969 it sent troops into the north of Ireland to bolster the tottering Loyalist statelet;

Between 1975 and 1979 supervised a regime of torture and criminalisation directed against the nationalist minority;

Terrorised the Irish community in Britain, (as it does now with the Muslim community);

Was responsible for the routine torture of suspected freedom fighter detainees in Aden;

It gave slavish support for the US war against Vietnam from 1964-70;

It gave slavish support for Zionist aggression against the Arab people in 1967;

Under Tony Benn’s (Labour left celebrity) guidance, it approved RTZ’s illegal plunder of Namibian uranium in 1968;

Between 1974 and 1979, it:

Implemented a ruthless regime of torture against republican prisoners in the North of Ireland;

It supported the Shah of Iran right to the last days of his regime in 1979 because his regime was the biggest purchaser of British arms;

In 1978 it sold Hawk jet fighters to the Indonesian Suharto dictatorship which were then used in the genocide of the people of East Timor.

Throughout its periods in government in the 1960s and 1970s it supported all forms of immigration controls.

Whilst in opposition from 1979, ‘Real Labour’:

Supported the Tories against the Irish hunger-strikers in 1981;

In the same summer, it supported the racist police against the uprisings of black and white working class youth;

The following year, it supported war against Argentina over the Malvinas;

In 1984-85, it betrayed the struggle of the miners and helped destroy their working class communities;

In 1990, tin pot generals such as Kaufman and Kinnock bayed for blood in the first war against Iraq.”

In August 2008 two members left the AWL. Their resignations were part of a wave of discussion triggered by an article by Sean Matgamna which argued that, "The harsh truth is that there is good reason for Israel to make a precipitate strike at Iranian nuclear capacity" from an Israeli ruling-class point of view..." The AWL National Committee has expressed that is "against" albeit not "opposed" to such an attack. "Against" but not "opposed"?

There is good reason for Israel to attack Iran? Israel, the rogue terrorist state with over 200 nuclear war heads pointed at every major Arab city? Matgamna argues that Hamas is waging war in southern Israel? Waging war? Hamas's home made inaccurate rockets are symbols of defiance; they have killed about 8 people in 7 years + a women broke her toe a couple of months ago, (seriously). He ridicules the idea that Israel is apartheid. What is apartheid?

"A state becomes apartheid when it has official policies of racial segregation involving political, legal, and economic discrimination against another race of people."

Is that what Israel does?

"Since the [Zionist] occupation of Palestine from 1948, Israel has employed many apartheid and ethnic cleansing policies in order to to drive out the native Arab population and attempt to create a pure Jewish presence in the whole of Palestine. This racists ideology is being achieved through mass discrimination against Palestinians, intended to make their living conditions so unbearable that Palestinians are forced to leave their homeland."

Israeli apartheid policies include:

Apartheid policies against Israeli Arabs include: Not having the right to buy land; no equal access to social services and assistance despite paying the same taxes as all Jewish Israeli's and Jews only job adverts.

In the occupied Palestinian Territories: Collective punishment (particularly of the Gaza Ghetto - a NAZI tactic); house demolitions and destruction of property; removal and relocation of people or "transfer" away from their homes ; mass torture and internment of family members; closures of entire villages and towns and check points, (this can also happen in Israel).

As I alluded to in an earlier post, who exactly do the AWL think are going to build a revolutionary movement (and what exactly are they doing)? The unions that are still affiliated to the Labour Party? John McDonnell - some of whom wore "Vote McDonnel" badges during the Labour leadership contest a couple of years back - individuals and unions that still support and are members of the above Labour party, spinning the same myth about "old" and "new" Labour, selling the working-class the fantasy that revolutionary change in this country can be achieved through Parliament? The AWL talk of a workers movement, what about asylum seekers, refugees, the unemployed, and when they are employed the non union affiliated lower working class or what about students? Although of course not many working class people are students because of the attacks on free education by the Labour Party.

What right have groups like the AWL from the safety of England got to tell the Palestinian people they are not going to support them because they don't agree with who they voted for when 1) as mentioned, that is what western imperialists do and 2) when we consider the blood splattered imperialists and Zionist history of the imperialists and Zionist Labour Party and the unions that support them, one could say that the AWL reek of imperious middle-calls arrogance.

Let's not have anymore blabber about the targeting of M&S being tactically inept. It is a ZIONIST company, " Aiding the economic development of Israel is one of our main objectives" Said lord Sieff, Long time Chairman of M&S. M&S is not just interested in trading with for profit like other companies, it is, and has always been an unequivocal supporter of Zionism and by explaining that in response to slander about being anti-Semitic - when engaging with people - the message can be communicated clearly - not by running away from the argument because some might accuse you of being anti-Semitic or because ant-Semites might jump on the bandwagon, (I would have thought they'd have their own bandwagon anyway).

Let's not have anymore piffle about forging links with the Israeli working class - a working class than benefit from Israel's war crimes. What do you want the Palestinians to do, sit around and wait for the Israeli working class to get its act together? Don't be so insulting.

Let's not forget that the AWL have been members of the Labour Representation Committee since it was founded in 2004, the LRC is a pressure group within the Labour Party.

The Representation Committee has a number of officially affiliated MPs, those being:

Michael Clapham MP

Katy Clark MP

Jeremy Corbyn MP

David Drew MP

David Hamilton MP

Kelvin Hopkins MP

Dr Lynne Jones MP

John McDonnell MP

Bob Wareing MP

The group also receives support from unaffiliated MP Michael Meacher, as well as the Labour veteran Tony Benn.

Affiliated Unions:

The LRC maintains support from a number of trade unions, the most prominent of these being:

ASLEF

BFAWU

Communication Workers Union

Fire Brigades Union

NUM

RMT

Affiliated Constituency Labour Parties:

Ashton-under-Lyne CLP

Brentford and Isleworth CLP

Chingford and Woodford Green CLP

Delyn CLP

Ilford South CLP

Isle of Wight CLP

Islington North CLP

Leeds Central CLP

Leyton and Wanstead CLP

St Helens South CLP

Affiliated Branch Labour Parties:

Bloomsbury and Kings Cross BLP

Brislington East BLP

Henleaze BLP

Hastings and Rye East BLP

Kensal Green BLP

Newport and West Wight BLP

Sutton BLP

Other Affiliated Organizations:

Alliance for Workers' Liberty

Battersea and Wandsworth TUC

Cambridge Morning Star Readers' Group

Camden Trades Council

Education for Tomorrow

Hands Off Venezuela

Labour Against the War

Labour CND

Lambeth TUC

Leftout Socialists

Milton Keynes Trade Union and Labour Party Partnership

Ministry for Peace

Network of Socialist Campaign Groups

New Communist Party

Newrad Communist Collective

PCS Labour Left

Socialist Appeal

Socialist Education Association

TGWU Broad Left

Torbay and District TUC

United Alliance for Labour

Compass (think tank)

Progress (organisation)

You seriously could not make this stuff up.

Of course, while groups like the AWL are affiliated to the Labour Party, they play in to the hands of the fascists BNP that tell the white working class that Labour has deserted them in favour of the middle class and/or asylum seekers/refugees and economic migrants. While groups like the AWL spin the old/new labour myth they fail to point out Labours historic role in protecting British imperialism and it's opportunistic role within the working class - dividing the English working class with the international working class by simultaneously waging war on lower working class people in this country and those abroad.

The Labour Party is a thoroughly racist party and it is they, not the BNP that are waging war on asylum seekers, refugees and economic migrants. With the lies and myths constantly perpetuated by racist gutter snipe middle class journalism at the behest of the privileged silver tongued Labour politicians they choose to support, a division can be created between working class people in England and the working class internationally - which is precisely what these ruling classes want; they do not want a politically aware and unified working class opposition to their thievery, profiteering and ponderous looting of the very countries from which many asylum seekers are attempting to escape. If this were to happen then by doing so working class people in this country would begin to recognise that the same economic system and the same state that is waging war on the working class internationally is the same one that is attacking them. Working class English people and many working class asylum seekers, refugees and economic migrants have the same needs; decent schools for their children, clean hospitals, affordable housing etc. Labour are absolutely complicit in attacking the working class at home and internationally and so are groups like the AWL as long as they spin old/new labour myths.

The British ruling class, its multinational companies and its Labour government support Israel because Britain is an imperialist country. Britain depends on the exploitation of other countries for its massive wealth. Israel plays a crucial role in maintaining this exploitation, by acting as the attack-dog of Britain and the US in their attempts to dominate the middle east. It is the duty of all of us in Britain to stand alongside the Palestinian people in their heroic opposition to imperialism.

Attacks on free speech - censorship!

Unfortunately the democratic rights of some Communists who try to alert the public to British imperialism and racism have come under attack in recent years on the English left. Sadly, as can be read and heard in some repugnant spittle sodden rants we seem to be witness yet again to sinister attempts by these forces of regression at silencing Communists and their newspapers.

Some would even do so not out of racist motivation but because they see working-class English people and particularly working-class asylum seekers as harmless objects of pity that are too stupid to understand an economic class based analysis. What ever camp they choose to squat in, they do so with a skulduggery and belligerence that should make any true progressive simply want to weep - sometimes by tip-toe (the use of archaic by-laws), sometimes with bellicose censorship (the use of archaic by-laws/the judiciary/the police); they only do so in order to protect their own privilege and power.

Of course there will always be those who also strangle debate by baffling and befuddling their counterparts in a exercise of intellectual gymnastics through entangling their opposition in a deceitful web of word play by use of covert semantic pedantry - they come in my many political shades. To them it is important that working-class people are not seen – or heard - to be in the vanguard; working class people and those from other oppressed sections of society might start saying the ‘wrong sort of things’ which might mean that the ‘wrong sort of people’ might start listening to them – the oppressed. And of course, if we are to have change then it is better that it be monochrome mediocrity rather than radical; better to leave it to social democrats rather than communists; reformists rather than revolutionaries. The same dangerous social democrats and reformists that betrayed and effectively murdered Rosa Luxemburg.

It therefore follows that if the oppressed do want change – they must ASK, and ask NICELY for the door to be opened and for them to be let in from the cold. Concessions might be made, but only as long as those asking for those concessions do so on the understanding that those opening the door can slam it shut in their face at any time. If like Malcolm X you not only DEMAND that the door be flung open but want to rip down the wall that supports it – you will be silenced. Indeed, it is interesting to note that as Martin Luther King began to recognise and actually say that white Middle-Class Liberals with their insistence on non-violence in order for black people to protect themselves individually and in their communities (but who where happy to accept state violence in the shape of armed white police officers to ‘protect’ black people) where more of a threat to the black civil rights movement than the white racists were – he was silenced.

Coincidences? I think not.

What ever the form of censorship, where ever the attack on free speech comes from – it must be opposed. Independent activists such as those who work extremely hard administering on an accountable level within groups like the the Tyneside Community Action for Refugees (TCAR) are not charities and need the financial as well as political support of the public. At TCAR meetings, leaflets advertising events such as film showings and fund raising gigs are often on display along with news papers; particularly Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! which has a complete back page dedicated to informing and updating on the daily struggles of asylum seekers as well as those asylum seekers being held in prisons and detention centres throughout Britain with every one of its bi-monthly publications – this kind of democracy (particularly in a Capitalist society) and the publicising and information sharing it encourages needs funding in order to print and distribute. Most literature is often not free to publish, therefore cannot often be given away free; money raised can also help to pay for public transport costs, the hiring of meeting venues and the purchasing of materials for banners and information stalls.

These kind of activists need the solidarity of truly progressive people in order to build a working class movement that is bottom up, not top down; one that is grounded in concrete reality, not some fuzzy idea that has been dreamt up in vacuous head. This of course is at odds with many “Anarchists” that seem to think that they are living in a "movie" of their own wonderfulness; serious political activism isn't about chanting empty slogans or chasing cop vans about town, riding to the rescue like a bandana wearing cavalry.

Whether upper working class or lower middle class social democrat or Anarchist posturer's, their skulduggery and belligerent attempts at conniving bellicose censorship would make any true progressive simply want to weep, they only do so in order to protect their own privilege, power and influence; these are the real threats to grass roots movements, not the swaggering, simian semi-imbecile’s of the BNP or the NF but opportunist "vote Labour" class collaborator scabs and psuedo middle-class life style anarchists, (who's swagger is not too dissimilar to the NF).

Poem

Men in Uniform

Men in uniform - they are all the same, "Welcome to the force son!" - Welcome to the game. Vicious sadism with badges casually advances, accusing eyes and scything glances - that signify then multiply the ever encroaching fights. Every word that they say, every nuance of their voice, is loaded as they goad me like I’m a liar, a thief and a cheat; that I should look downward for an answer - somewhere round my feet - ‘white trash’ kicked around in the gutter like a half crushed can, treated like a boy when I’m a thirty-something man. Listen to my verse as I spit it like a curse. He is just a frustrated, often third rated; Silly - Little - sham. Nothing ever changes does it? Middle aged blokes with tunics and false hopes avoiding the reality - I have what you no longer own - vitality, energy - youth on my side - that is what you cannot abide; and that is why you stare, and that is why you leer, and that is why you hunt me - I represent your fear. Saturday night’s I don’t look for fights - I’m as broke as a joke but it is me your wife is peering over your shoulder at as you slaver in her ear. Your Universe is small - a trivial non-entity, a lifeless void - a Black Hole. So many times I’ve heard it before - How could man guard the oven door - at Auschwitz? They’re all around you - Campus Security, prison warders who’s brutality rules in Strangeways, men that carry keys and rattle them so you look - Police Constable 763 - the man that drives the Bus; sat up there in his little cabin, power hungry, he owns the road, - it’s you he’s havin’. So that man in the uniform follows you home, he pulls you up, frisks you down - Good Cop/Bad Cop playin’ it by the book I know I’m getting picked on ‘cause I have that look - I don't confidently stride in a corporate suite with a well fed waste line - nor am I the young women, the young pace setter, the liberated young ‘go-getter’. I - am - a - young - white - working - class – man; another number, a pointless prankster, I have no name - police fair game - a trouble maker, part of the problem not the solution yet - I steel cars, burgle houses, rape old ladies it’s a moral panic that arouses the media - an amplification for the nation - a frenzied fever - in me they revel - the newest, baddest, meanest ‘Folk Devil.’ I sell drugs to little kids, I own the girl on the corner - I’m her pimp/I’m a ponse - it’s young men like me that killed ‘Stephen Lawrence’ - I deserve everything I get. I know you want believe me - but do you sense the "Irony" ? Sometimes I think I’d be better off old - now that is a crime - a young man in his prime, grated, baited, a youthful lust turned to rust waiting for the passing of time maybe then everything will be better men in uniform no longer a fetter or is it me, a life style choice? I can’t sleep at night, so I walk the street, a lonely voice. If I had a ‘Girlfriend’ I would have acceptability, which is nothing more than a phoney shambolic necessity that is the hub for the club of social respectability - but I don’t want conformity. No... so I’ll just get picked on by little Napoleon with his shiny buttons and buckles scraping his knuckles along the floor as I stand by in helpless motion while those men in orange jackets at the Metro Station remove homeless people from the warmth to were it is rainin’, or the half starved Busker at Christmas time trying to make money with poem and rhyme... so quit that song and don’t take long - you don’t smell very nice and you look quite rough - you’re spoiling the view and it ain't no joke - how are the Psalm singing hypocrites that are the sombre masses of the Christian folk, that read the "good book" and demand you show awe like a meek flock of sheep to their pack of wolves - supposed to enjoy the view - with you - in the way? This isn’t what they asked for when they knelt and prayed. Working Class servility you are shafting your own and I hate ya, you leave me simmering with hatred... A uniform is a traitor.

Poem

From the River to the sea.

A solemn Keffiyeh draped man gathered a variety of tiny boots and mobile phones off a Palestinian street, placing them into a tattered bag; the smouldering carnage of a burnt out school in the background; a cruel retribution, for a nation's cause.

Those same phones now suddenly vibrating and pulsating with life; one, then another and then another and then other, each one a signature tune of the childs personality; pink coloured phones, Scooby-Doo ring tones.

Desperate Fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, friends, grand parents, uncles, aunties, school teachers; any one of a thousand possibilities that had been sent their way during such a short life, hoping against any conceivable nightmare that the image on their TV screens, was not the one, with the bomb, that had torn apart their flowering song. Phones that had been more than a mere accessory; sharing pain, sadness, hurt, the school yard intrigue, the highs, the lows, innocence, sunny days in the park, some one to talk to while walking home alone in the dark, sharing everything, listening intently...

Pleading for their hands, hoping, waiting for tiny fingers decorated with shiny baubles, wrists jangling with spangles and bangles... now possibly lying somewhere in a street, or maybe melted, part of smouldering, dismembered heap; the same crowded street the besotted girl waved to her family from only minutes previous; that same family who before leaving the house on such a morning that should surely have trembled to begin; whilst gathering their elderly saw the TV scenes; now phoning, waiting; watching the old man with the bag...

Poem

Murder Machine.

Americas list of slaughter:

Cuba

Vietnam

Cambodia

Laos

Korea

Nicaragua

Panama

Grenada

Indonesia

Bosnia

Kosovo

Afghanistan

Iraq.

1963 - 2003.

R.I.P.

Racism Imperialism Power.

Poem

Control through dependence.

British and American leaders

repeat their meaningless mantras;

"We have no quarrels with the Iraqi people."

US and UK led UN embargoes

Beggaring a nation

Exploitation begins at home;

Silent genocide

This biggest mass grave

Is dug in our name:

Baby food, rice, agricultural pesticides, shirts, boots, children’s clothes, tennis balls, shoelaces, school books, granite shipments and all building materials, glue for text books, all electrical equipment, badminton racquets, dialysis equipment, paper, pencils, pencil sharpeners, sanitary towels, deodorants, tissues, toothpaste, toilet paper, Shampoo, disinfectant, PVC sheets, water purification tablets, medical swabs, medical gauze, medical syringes, medical jackets, cancer drugs, catheters for babies, nasal gastric tubes, surgical gloves, bandages, oxygen tents, surgical instruments, stethoscopes.

What is "Zionism" and other musings?

"What is Zionism? - It means diff’ things to diff’ people, (an) almost meaningless term of abuse."

Was what I read on a message board recently.

What complete and utter nonsense.

Zionism is not a term of abuse, (although Zionism is an abusive ideology). Zionism is a policy for establishing and developing a national homeland for Jews in Palestine; a movement of world Jewry that arose in the late 19th century with the aim of creating a Jewish only state in Palestine.

The formulation for this grotesque equation could be qualified thusly: One group of people (Jews), are given someone else's land (Palestinians), on behalf of a third group of people (UN) because of what a fourth group of people (white Christian European NAZIS) did to the first group of people; (with God acting as the estate agent).

It really is quite simple and to try and underplay the role of British capitalism, in this case M&S's, as supporters of an apartheid, naturally racist, Jewish only client statelet to a general term of abuse is offensive in and of itself.

"A state becomes apartheid when it has official policies of racial segregation involving political, legal, and economic discrimination against another race of people."

Apartheid policies against Israeli Arabs include: Not having the right to buy land; no equal access to social services and assistance despite paying the same taxes as all Jewish Israeli's and Jews only job adverts.

In the occupied Palestinian Territories: Collective punishment (particularly of the Gaza Ghetto - a NAZI tactic); house demolitions and destruction of property; removal and relocation of people or "transfer" away from their homes ; mass torture and internment of family members; closures of entire villages and towns and check points, (this can also happen in Israel).

Some make sweeping statements that claim the rest of the high street buy goods from Israel and that therefore it is wrong to solely target M&S for it's support of Israeli apartheid. As far as I am aware, not all stores on the high street do buy goods from Israel and I have never seen any evidence to support that kind of sweeping statement.

I myself try and boycott any goods or produce bought from Israel; I never knowingly buy anything from the Zionist, apartheid statelet and I also encourage others not to financially or academically support the rogue terrorist statelet of Israel.

However, why does the fact that other capitalists buy from Israel mean we can't focus on encouraging others to stop buying goods from one of them? That doesn't make sense to me.

Other apologists for Israel, Zionism, capitalism, imperialism and racism claim that M&S now actually have a more ethical policy than other retailers and that to attack M&S's role is simply ignorant.

Shell Oil claims to have an ethical policy, many capitalists do. Just because M&S claim to like flora and fauna it does not mean that they do not support the wiping of Palestine off the map.

Although some people, "... whole heartedly condemn the actions of Israel not just in recent times but since the early 1960s when military hostilities against ethnic Palestinians began."

Hostilities with Palestinians began as far back as the 1920's and more specifically in 1948 with the genocidal ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their towns and villages, what Palestinians and their comrades refer to as “The Nakba“. Remember the Deir Yassin massacre where Jewish Zionist terrorists (Irgun and Lehi) butchered an entire village between 9 April and 11 April 1948. An initial estimate of 254 were murdered.

The size of that figure had a considerable impact on the conflict in creating panic and became a major cause of the 1948 Palestinian diaspora as the fear of further genocidal ethnic cleansing by Jews began to spread.

Although of course it is not just about religion and of course not all Zionists are Jewish - many are bible thumping bigots from Africa, Europe and America and it these lunatics that welcome destruction in the middle east - seeing it as fulfilment of prophecy in Christian biblical scripture.

The tragedy of the Palestinian people is about economics and relegating the conflict down to the level of religion is what the imperialists do in order to side step the economic arguments about capitalism, imperialism and Zionism - at the same time this makes it easier to terrorise Muslim communities in England in order to turn the wider population against them, convince them that it is indeed about religion, play in to the hands of racists and terrorise the Islamic community from becoming more militant.

Some support British trade union motions on Israel. A group like the AWL and their supporters can support the role of trade unions in this country as much as they like - these are the same trade unions that are affiliated the capitalist, imperialist, Zionist and racist Labour party - A Labour party has been a Zionist party since its 1944 conference called for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.

Listening to their analysis you'd think that only the employed are capable of forging a working class, anti-imperialist movement; what about the unemployed, asylum seekers, refugees, students and those in the lower working-class that are not in unions or who the larger unions could not give an opportunist damn about?

The AWL et al in their slavish support for the old Labour myth and the unions STILL affiliated to "new" Labour don't recognise the split in the working class and the opportunist role that Labour affiliated unions play, Labour leftists and they them selves play. Maybe some do recognise the analysis but are simply brazen opportunists.

Do the same so-called socialists that desire a two-state solution call for the right to return if the Palestinian diaspora? In the case of the AWL, the answer is “no”. Something I've noticed in the trade union motions I've read that the AWL support have also not called for.

Israel is a rogue terrorists state that will never accept Palestinian democracy; they drowned Fatah in blood when Arafat was the elected representative of the Palestinian people. Now Hamas are being terrorised as the elected representatives of the Palestinian people as Fatah are now corrupted, Israel and its allies bathe in the corpses of Palestinian children.

Targeting Hamas as some on the left do as being conservative, clerical, homophobic etc is of no use to the heroic people of Palestine. There is only one state and that is Israel, let's fight for the recognition of a Palestinian state first - In Palestine at the moment those fighting for Palestine are Hamas and their resistance fighters - legitimately elected - as well as the Palestinian people, many of whom voted for them. Some would argue that the NAZIS were legitimately elected but this ignores political historical materialism. The Palestinians are not NAZIS, the NAZIS were not being ethnically cleaned from their land - they were the ones doing the ethnic cleansing. Any analysis of the conflict must start with the rights and safety of the Palestinians first, not the rights and the safety of the Israelis. Israel is a nation state - it is not as nation - and it is a nation state built by the fascist and racist conquest of another nation.

Ironically this must be seen in the context that Israel and the west supported the founding of Hamas in order to split the Palestinian vote and help ferment fundamentalism.

Hamas are the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people. The US, UK, EU and others simply do not recognise that fact - and neither do certain groups on the left. What right have people got - in the safety of England's cosy suburbs, thousands of miles away from the horror of a Jewish only state terror machine - to tell the people of Palestine that they got it wrong? The people of Palestine voted for Hamas because they saw Fattah for the corrupt traitors that they are.

Hamas represent a concrete challenge to imperialism in Palestine - that is why we should be supporting them. "No" to Hamas is what the imperialists say. Saying "No" to Hamas because they are conservative, clerical, sexists and homophobic is the excuse the imperialists use; when the AWL et al start attacking the democratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people and their resistance fighters they sound like the BBC that insists on referring to them as "Militants" or the right wing media that suddenly develop a progressive political analysis and hijack the 'moral high ground' by belligerently parroting that the west must intervene in Afghanistan for the sake of Muslim women and referring to all the resistance fighters in Afghanistan as 'the Taliban'; they will not or do not accept that they are a resistance force.

The Palestinian people voted for Hamas, they saw them as the only organised political and military option available in order to combat imperialism. The imperialist/Zionist "NO" to Hamas and its murder of the Palestinian people represents not just double standards but multiple standards; they only want Palestinian leaders that will capitulate as opportunistically as the corrupt kings and puppet presidents throughout the client regime Arab world - which is what Fatah did. Is that what the AWL want? How can an organisation with close ties to the Labour Party self righteously lecture anybody about the wrongs of Hamas?

Of course, while groups like the AWL are affiliated to the Labour Party, they play in to the hands of the fascist BNP that tell the white working-class that Labour has deserted them in favour of the middle class and/or asylum seekers, refugees and economic migrants. While groups like the AWL spin the old/new labour myth they fail to point out Labours historic role in protecting British imperialism and it's opportunistic role within the working class - dividing the English working class with the international working class by simultaneously waging war on lower working-class people in this country and those abroad. That is why making the connection between racism abroad and racism in this country is important. It is right to make the link between attacks on Muslim people in oil rich lands with racism against Muslims in Britain - indeed all asylum seekers’ just like it was correct to make the link between South African Apartheid racism and attacks against black people in Britain in the 1970‘s and 1980‘s; we must also do the same with Apartheid Israel and attacks on Muslims in Britain today.

In August 2008 two members left the AWL. Their resignations were part of a wave of discussion triggered by an article by Sean Matgamna which argued that, "The harsh truth is that there is good reason for Israel to make a precipitate strike at Iranian nuclear capacity" from an Israeli ruling-class point of view..." The AWL National Committee has expressed that is "against" albeit not "opposed" to such an attack. "Against" but not "opposed"? I am not even sure what that means, that reads like a labrynth of contradictory nonsense.

Let's not have anymore blabber about the targeting of M&S being tactically inept. It is a ZIONIST company, "Aiding the economic development of Israel is one of our main objectives" Said lord Sieff, Long time Chairman of M&S. M&S is not just interested in trading with Israel for profit like other companies, it is, and has always been an unequivocal supporter of Zionism - it supports Israel politically - it is not just interested in trade. By explaining that in response to slander about being anti-Semitic - when engaging with people - the message can be communicated clearly - not by running away from the argument because some might accuse you of being anti-emetic or because ant-Semites might join the campaign, (I would have thought they'd have their own campaign’s anyway).

Some on the left trumpet the role of the so-called Israeli "refusniks" because they believe is good to recognise that there are Israeli's that refuse to fly helicopter gun ships and murder Palestinians - but let's not have anymore piffle about forging links with the Israeli working-class - a working class than benefit from Israel's war crimes. What do these people want the Palestinians to do, sit around and wait for the Israeli working-class to get its act together? Don't be so insulting.

The British ruling class, its multinational companies and its Labour government support Israel because Britain is an imperialist country. Britain depends on the exploitation of other countries for its massive wealth. Israel plays a crucial role in maintaining this exploitation, by acting as the attack-dog of Britain and the US in their attempts to dominate the middle east. It is the duty of all of us in Britain to stand alongside the Palestinian people in their heroic opposition to imperialism.

Resistance is not terrorism.