Saleh Waziruddin, Eric Blair Club (St. Catharines)
Trump's appeal to white supremacy and patriarchy, not (just) class
#4 talks about the frustration and desperation of the working class from deep economic crisis looking for radical change as voting in part (one particular part perhaps!) for Trump. However the support for Trump wasn't on (just?) a (however misguided) class basis, but on a basis of white supremacy and patriarchy. It wasn't class solutions that these voters were fooled by, but the coded promise of the “restoration” of white, patriarchal supremacy. America being “great” again isn't about it being a workers paradise once more (never was), but about going back to more white supremacist and patriarchal days. To look just at class motivations and (broken) class promises is to miss this key phenomena.
Yes we need both class & anti-racist (and anti-patriarchy) foci but this is not about sectarianism
#7 classifies class-only focus as left-sectarian and an anti-racist, democratic focus as also a mistake. Certainly both foci are needed. But this doesn't mean a class-only approach is sectarian, which is about taking pride not in what is common with the movement but what sets your group apart from the movement i.e. its unique shibboleths, as Marx wrote to Schweitzer about the Lassallians in 1868. Left sectarians might only focus on class but so could racists or sexists. It's good to point out both mistakes but incorrect, and unnecessary, to call the first mistake sectarianism.
Ultimately you can only curb corporate power by taking it over
#9 talks about “curbing” corporate power. The election platform mentions plant closure legislation and ending pro-business trade deals. However corporate power can only be truly curbed by taking over its source of power, its wealth and means of production. Regulating it with laws is worthy but not a sustainable curb and we should point this out. As the US Marine Corps General Smedley Butler said in his anti-war book “War is a Racket”, the people must conscript the corporations and capital before the corporations and capital conscript the people (into the next world war).
PEGIDA
#15 mentions “Pegida” but this is an acronym (PEGIDA) for Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamicisation of The Occident/West), worth spelling out.
Sometimes there isn't a peaceful solution
#16 calls for working for a “peaceful, negotiated” way out of the Syrian crisis while respecting Syrian sovereignty. This is an unnecessary and moralistic point. It's not possible to have a peaceful solution or to negotiate with many of the terrorists fighting the government, so why put forward the idea that it is so?
If we respect Syria's sovereignty we have to recognize the government's not only right, but exercise of not just its right but its duty for self-defense and protection of its people from armed attacks. This means the way out is definitely not going to be peaceful, although of course the less violence the better – but this means ending foreign support for terrorism in Syria, not a peaceful solution.
As President Bashar Al-Assad said in his famous speech soon after the crisis began:
“If we chose the political solution and sought it since the first days, this doesn’t mean not to defend ourselves, and if we chose the political solution since the first days, this means that we need a partner that is capable and willing to move in a political process and enter a dialogue process on the national (sic) level. If we chose the political solution and didn’t see a partner, that doesn’t mean that we didn’t desire one; this means that we didn’t see a partner during the past stage. To be clearer, for instance, if someone wants to get married and sought a partner but didn’t find someone to desire and accept them, this doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want to be married. ...
When you’re under attack and you defend yourself, it’s called self-defense, not choosing a security (military - SW) solution. We didn’t choose war; war was imposed on Syria, and when the state defends the people and we defend ourselves, no reasonable person can call that choosing a security (military - SW) solution. Defending the homeland is a duty and an only choice, and accepting the political solution doesn’t mean not defending ourselves, but also accepting the political solutions means the existence of a political partner that is capable of dialogue and willing to engage in it.
….But who do we conduct dialogue with? With those who are carrying extremist thinking, and do not believe except in blood, killing and terrorism?
Should we conduct dialogue with gangs that receive their orders from abroad and follow a foreigner who orders them to reject dialogue because it believes that dialogue will foil his schemes aiming at weakening and undermining Syria?”
As Plekhanov wrote in his reply to Bernstein in 1901 “Cant Against Kant”, it's one thing to say violence is barbaric and backwards, but it's another thing to then use this to say someone attacked in the street must therefore fight with their hands tied behind their back. We should just drop this language of a “peaceful, negotiated” way out as it suggests a dangerous fantasy. This is confirmed by the multiple violations of cease-fires by the terrorists.
This language is from a Central Committee statement. We can use another quote from the same statement without this problem. In any case, whether it's from the Central Committee or from St. Peter sending it down directly from the Pearly Gates, if it's in the political resolution it's legitimate to discuss.
Getting the economy correct
#27 says in the last quarter of 2015 household spending was responsible for all of Ontario's economic growth. In 2015 all my troubles seemed so far away, but alas it's 2017 and they are definitely here to stay. While household spending might be the biggest component of all spending, the latest data is from the 3rd quarter of 2016 and shows exports lead household spending as a contribution to Ontario economic growth by 0.8% to 0.5% (as components of total GDP growth).
#24 says the economy is driven by the services producing sector, but goods-producing industries had real GDP growth equal to that of service industries at 0.5% for the 3rd quarter of 2016 for Ontario.
Sexism in pay gap for the same work
#29 talks about women disproportionately making up low-wage workers but this isn't just because women are relegated to lower-paid work or unaccessible childcare or unpaid housework. Raises and salary negotiations happen under patriarchy and so women get paid substantially less for the (exact!) same work as men. One of my club members was working side-by-side with a man doing the same work on the same machine in an auto plant but getting substantially less per hour purely because she is a woman in a patriarchal society.
Good rhetoric on carbon tax-type solutions
I really like #74's point about how pro-business environmental solutions make the working class pay twice, once for the loss of environment and then from their “pocketbook”.
Feedback on Election Program
It's good that mental health care is back in our program, it has been our policy but has been left out of several election platforms. The addition of a food and nutritional program is also great.
Our past platforms have been short on culture before even though this issue gets high visibility thanks to the political work of cultural workers, so it's good we have a fuller culture program.
We have an item on protecting farmland but likewise there should be an item under “Climate and Environmental Justice” to protect wetlands and greenbelts from real estate developers, especially under “off-setting” schemes as is threatened in Niagara Falls at Thundering Waters under a $1 billion real estate development project being opposed with mass protests.
For “Equality and Rights for All” we have strict civilian control and oversight but we also need special (i.e. dedicated) prosecutors to prosecute the police, as is demanded in the USA, because regular Crown attorneys have a working relationship with the police that creates a conflict of interest in prosecuting police.
Under “Democratic Electoral Reform” not just permanent residents but all denizens (a more inclusive term than “residents”, for example seasonal foreign workers are legally non-residents though they may have been cumulatively working in Canada longer than some of us have been alive), including foreign students, workers without immigration status, temporary and seasonal foreign workers should get the right to vote. After all they are effected by municipal policies.
Foreigners are allowed to vote in certain US municipalities in general (no restrictions), why should Ontario Communists lag behind? And why just municipal elections, we should demand they be allowed to vote in provincial elections. In one Swiss canton (made up 23% of foreigners) even stateless people who have been living there for five years are allowed to vote at the canton-level and not just vote but run for municipal office! What are we so afraid of in Ontario anyway?!
