WhY RESPECT needs a youth Young people are more involved in politics and more con-ing the side of small numbers of more or less any time since the 1960s. However they are not becoming active in the unions nor are they joining political parties. Liam Mac Vaid argues that today's youth will be the ones The average age of a member of the public sector union UNISON is 48. It's one of the largest unions in Britain. The youth organi- sations connected with the major political parties, which used to have thousands of members, no longer have a meaningful ex- istence. RESPECT'S conference passed a resolution on youth in a section of the con- ference called 'youth and crime'. This may have been an unfortunate error but it also says something about where the discussion on youth is in Britain today. David Blunkett's authoritarian streak is never far from the surface. This was the Home Sec- retary who thinks that people who have been wrongly convicted should have "board and lodging' deducted from their compensation after they are released from prison. One of his innovations is the Anti-Social Behaviour Order (ASBO). These are imposed by civil courts, which require a lower level of evi- dence than a criminal court. They are intend- ed to stop people going to specified places, meeting named individuals or behaving in a particular way. Alexander Murat, who is 87 8 scious of the inequalities that capitalism creates than at At the same time there are dark clouds on the horizon for them when they try looking for a place of their own to live, pay off their debts from university or try to make themselves financially secure for later life. who have to pick up much of the bill for New Labour's commitment to neo-liberalism and the Labour Move- ment's inability to challenge it. years old, was told by a Liverpool court that he is not allowed to be sarcastic. He is not typical. Half of the ASBOs have been awarded against people under the age of 18. Breaching the conditions can result in a criminal punishment that in- cludes five years in prison. ASBOs are baa... is a very New Labour / Old The ASBO Tory way of dealing with what is a real is- sue in some working class areas. A minor- ity of young people in search of an identity and looking to something to relieve their boredom or release their energy do behave in ways that are anti-social. To pretend that this does not cause real distress is to refuse to accept the reality of life for some working class people. Much of what the left has to say about this issue is one-sided, uncritically tak- organisation lumpen' youth and disregarding the effect they have on their communities. To be on the receiving end of an ASBO you do have to possess a well-established track record of making life miserable for other peo- ple. But there is no great mystery to keeping young people out of trouble. Well-equipped, free or very cheap recreational activities staffed by qualified youth workers are an at- tractive alternative to annoying the people in your street. Sports centres that don't cost a fortune to get into and pleasant places in which to socialise are more appealing than standing on street corners. Schemes which of- fer the opportunity to learn how to drive and maintain cars and motorbikes have a proven history of reducing offending behaviour. But when the government's greatest boast is "fi- nancial prudence' the expense of funding these initiatives makes the cheaper option of criminalisation much more attractive. The ASBO also seems to be serving an ideo- logical function. New Labour's support for American imperialism requires an 'enemy without' to terrify society. That is Al-Qaida's job. One of the many 'enemies within' is the swarm of violent young criminals and to deal with them the state requires a new array of repressive legislation. This is despite the fact that the British Crime Survey (BCS) shows that major types of crime have fallen since 1995: vehicle crime down by 50%, house burglary down by 47%, assault down by 43%, wounding down by 28%, vandalism down 27%. One of the neat tricks of the ASBOs is that even though you don't need a criminal conviction to get one you can be criminalised if you break one. They fit in very neatly with the whole repressive thrust of New Labour legislation such as identity cards, locking up people without trials and the proposed trials without juries. 1.- A Marxist term used to describe the lowest levels of the working class, the unemployed and dispos- sessed who have little or no class solidarity and is almost impossible to organise.
.. but student fees are worse Despite the furore they have caused. and in Sheffield whole areas are subject to ASBOs, they affect only a tiny minority of young peo- ple. What Labour has done to students has hit hundreds of thousands of young people and their families. Choosing to become a student in Blair's Britain means undertaking to ac- quire a debt that will financially hobble you for at least a decade. Tuition fees alone cost £1,125 a year at the moment. It is made plain that New Labour wants to allow universities to set their own fees levels. pricing students from poorer backgrounds out of some univer- sities. Grants have effectively been abolished and students are required to take out loans to finance themselves. These loans are paid back after graduation. The rate of income tax graduates have to pay to repay their loan is higher than that paid by millionaires. It is not unusual for students to leave university with debts of more than £15,000. The ideology behind this is the same as the hostility to the benefits that the Welfare State brought to working class families that we see in the Health Service and Brown's job cuts in the Civil Service. Education too is to be pri- vatised. It is not to be provided by the state. It is to be purchased by the consumer. And just as we are all equally free to shop in Harrods of Kwiksave so we are equally free to buy the education we want. The treatment meted out to the majority of kids (who don't go to university) is even worse. Having squandered millions on initia- tives like Training & Enterprise Councils, the government decided that the training provided by FE colleges was not responsive enough to business needs. There now seems to be a two track ruse: on the one hand to leave training to employers like Macdonalds, whose profits depend on the super exploitation of youth and who will also immediately fire anyone who joins a union, or on the other hand to push 'enterprise' education into schools. Along- side the ideological purpose of this (and the rich pickings for business consultants who, of' course, are the only ones really 'qualified' to deliver these courses) comes the inculcaca- tion of the idea that the unemployed are only in this state because they don't have the 'en- terprise' to create jobs for themselves. Moving away from home Whether or not you've had the opportunity to acquire a degree and a £15,000 debt you still need somewhere to live. The average wage in Britain is f25,000 a year. In London it is around £30,000 but these figures mask enor- mous inequalities, and in London you can ex pect to pay £193,000 for your first home. For young workers and recent graduates this is a mountain that cannot be climbed. This is true for the whole southeast of England and is be- coming common in other parts of the country. Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Teather gave a good description of what this does to people. In almost every surgery the same story is told: a family of four has been on the wait- ing list for a number of years, and usually one or both parents are on anti-depres- sants as a result. The parents have mood swings and are often angry and lash out. The children have asthma caused from the damp in the property. The family have let- ters from their GP and the school stating that illness is affecting the child's ability to thrive and their academic standards. It is all because of the way they are living.? Between 1981 and 1999 there was a net loss of over 2.5 million council homes in England, Wales and Scotland through Right to Buy and other policies - 40% of the 1981 stock. In 2000 fewer homes were built than at anytime since 1924. Contrast New Labour's house building strategy to what Aneurin Bevan did after WW2. He permitted only one private house to be built for every four built by lo- cal authorities and allowed them to take over unoccupied dwellings. New Labour does not let councils build houses and is twisting their arms to force them to yield control of their housing stock. The result is that hundreds of thousands of children and young people are having their lives made into a living hell. Then when they are able to move out the only accommoda- tion many of them can find is at extortionate rents in the private sector. Offered a choice between building affordable homes in the public sector for young workers to move into New Labour is content to let them take on astronomical mortgages or pay large parts of their salaries to private landlords. The campaigning organisation Defend Coun- cil Housing (DCH) has a clear idea who ben- efits from this. It is lawyers, estate agents, landowners, banks and construction compa- nies - many of the same groups of people who benefit from Labour's other privatisations. ...all those involved in the legal and real estate fields gain because their fees are a proportion of property values. So do the vendors of land sold for new housing de- velopment since its value reflects the fu- ture sales value of the houses to be built on it. And can the lending institutions be regarded as disinterested 'honest brokers' in'all this? Or are a significant number of their board members also involved in property related activities such as land management, construction, valuation and property transactions?? Labour governments now see their main function as that of administering the market and guaranteeing the highest rates of profit for capital. This is hitting young people today hard and, as they get older, it will hit their harder still as Britain's limited employmer: protection and increasingly poor pension pri- vision make them more and more insecure. No over 27s The National Union of Students' leadership showed itself reluctant to put up a real fight cillors are unwilling to make sure that young people will have affordable homes or thi: they are provided with adequate leisure ::- cilities. The unions are allowing themse! e* to wither by not recruiting young hyper-a.- ploited workers. These facts alone just ira existence of an organisation for young petrie and RESPECT is in a very good positior. c launch it. What would it look like? It would have an age limit of 25 or 27. It would have the autonomy to decide on its campaigning priorities and the right to ask for support from the main organisation. Everything else about it would be decided by its own members and it would have the opportunity to organise young people's fightback against the appall- ing effects of neo-liberalism on their lives. 9 2. - Written by Sarah Teather MP and published in Hansard on Tue 26th Oct 2004 3.- DCH Case for Council Housing pamphlet, January 2003
GOD'S probably accelerate in 2005. The underlying cause of this decline is America's vast current account deficit running at about 6% of GDP - the war alone is costing $4.5 billion a month. At the same time personal debt is escalating out of control. The decline of the dollar in relation to other currencies, to- gether with the unstable and generally rising price of oil, are only the most visible sign of the growing imbalances in both the US and world economy. Many economists have predicted that 2005 will see the value of the dollar continue to fall with a flight from dollar reserves and a general sell-off of devalued dollars by Japan, and possibly China, resulting in a severe decline in US stocks. A knock-on effect would be a sharp reduction in US imports, and a dampening down of economic growth in an increas- ingly uncompetitive Eurozone and Japan. And this means rising unemployment for the workers. THEGRAND Here David Packer looks at American strategy and its con- sequences as it unfolds at the beginning of 2005. Irrespec- tive of the outcome of the Iraqi elections, he foresees a year of deepening conflicts in Iraq and internationally, social and economic crisis, but also a development of resistance and a growth in mass ac- tions on the streets. 'As the New Year begins the mili- tary and economic prospects for the US Empire are much worse than a year ago.? (James Petras) The apparent endorsement of the Bush Presidency and its belligerent milita- rism by US voters in November does not mean that the US will be able to launch major wars in 2005 against Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, or other "rogue states'. The military weakness of the US in the face of the escalating Iraqi resist- ance, which is set to continue during and after the elections in Iraq, combined with serious eco- nomic and political problems at home, makes this unlikely. The economic house of horrors. In contrast with the unchallenged hegemony of the dollar and a booming economy during the Vietnam War, 2004 saw a precipitous decline of the dollar, particularly after Bush's re-election, which will 10 STRATEGY C F AT WAR Then there is the question of oil prices, which can only rein- force these tendencies. They have been rising sharply because of exceptionally high demand from China and India, com- bined with the consequences of the Iraq war. Initially, European governments were sanguine about the surge of the Euro (and the pound) against the falling dollar because oil prices are traded in dollars and it helped insulate the European economies against the sharp price rises. However, with the price topping $50 per barrel last year the situation became dangerous. Worse, the OPEC cartel has recently announced cuts in production to keep the price permanently at over $40 per barrel, exacerbating sharp ten- sions between rich oil-guzzling economies and the producer countries such as Saudi Arabia. High oil prices can only further depress global economic growth.
THEAMERICAN EMPIRE: NATION liberal Hillary Clinton is now calling for more troops to be sent to Iraq - an increase of up to 100,000 is frequently mentioned by Democrats and Republicans alike. Some Democrat critics of the Bush administration are more bellicose than Rumsfeld. The problem for the American ruling class is that any serious escalation would probably involve re-introducing the draft. Nonetheless, the coming year is likely to see greater American and British military involvement in Iraq. More British soldiers are being sent as we write - to police the elections, of course. But more troops will further stimulate the resistance movement and create more casualties, increasing opposition from the families of veterans and from the British and American populations. 'Quagmire' is now a IN 2005 The huge stakes for imperialism in Iraq, the declining dollar. combined with the perceived risks to oil prices and to flows from Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, are further precipitating a crisis in the dollarized world weakens the domestic foundations of the US Empire. The US government hopes that Asian govern- ments, banks and multinationals, will not sell off their dollar holdings, because their own economies are dependent on US consumer demand. But the globalised capitalist system and world market is anything but a planned or regulated economy. It should be noted how- ever that for the moment the US economy expand, partly the declining value of the dollar but also because it remains based on external fi- economy, which in turn scientific term to describe imperialism's predicament. Deepening political fissures, but common strategic objectives? The war in Iraq is going badly. Despite the brutal destruction of the city of Fallujah by US forces, presented as a military victory, the resist- been quelled. In fact lujah is a Pyr- rhic victory that has strengthened the Iraqi resist- ance - the growth and breadth of which is showing the world that the US Empire is not invincible and the imperial military ma- chine can be ground to a halt, if not defeated. The declining fortunes of this US colonial war, the withdrawal of allied forces (Spain, Hungary, Po- land, Ukraine) and not least a growing anti-war movement in the US itself, will provoke more crisis and open up fissures within the Bush regime in 2005. Internal political conflicts at the top are brewing. Some within the militarist alliance of Neo-Con- servatives, Christian fundamentalists and Zionists are beginning to distance themselves from their own failed policies and blame Bush and Rumsfeld for their 'weakness'. In this, they will be supported by none other than Senator John Kerry. During the Presidential Elections, he de- nounced Bush for his incompetence in running the war, and for not send- ing enough troops to 'finish the job', calling for 60,000 more troops to be sent. Even 11
4.- Anatol Lievin of the Carnegie Institute. discussing US global strategy. quoted in Callinicos. The New Mandarins of American Power. (2003) Polity. I have drawn on a number of books and articles, notably by Peter Gowan, The Global Gamble. 1999. London: Robert Went. Globalization. Neoliberal Challenge. Radical Response. 2000. Pluto Press: James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer. Globalization Unmasked, 200:. Zed books: Tarq Ali. The Clash of Fundamentalisms. Crusades. Jinads and 'anarnity. 2002. Verso: Gilbert Achcar, The Clash of Barbarisms. 2002, New York, and various articles now collected in Eastern Cauldron, 2004. Pluto Press: Alex Cailinicos. As a result of military and political failures the professional mili- tary and security forces - the FBI, for example - are also beginning to question the Neo-Conservative control of Pentagon policy. Has Colin Powell resigned in order to head up this fight? Or, is he just bowing out from a disastrous policy? Political fissures are not just the result of the war. The phenomenal growth and power of China's economy and potential military power is one of the main concerns of the US Neo-Conservatives. But, as James Petras points out, there are growing signs in 2005 of conflict over the China policy between the Neo-Con ideologues in the White House and Pentagon and major US multinationals and bankers. As China expands its economic reach overseas, securing access to energy and raw material resources, the Neo-Conservatives (and their 'human rights' allies) will demand a more aggressive political and military confrontation. In contrast, the realists on Wall Street realize that China's purchase of US bonds is crucial in preventing a collapse of the dollar; US investments in China total over $300 billion dollars and fifty percent of Chinese ex- ports to the US are by US multi-national corporations. ' However, the conflicts opening up between the Neo-Con ideologues and the so-called 'realists', are in my view, mostly between long-term strategic objectives and short-term economic interests — a contradic- tion that is always a problem for capitalist leaderships, as the Neo Cons themselves have often pointed out. Despite the important divisions opening up within the American rul- ing class about the war in Iraq, in their majority, they are united in their objective of 'finishing the job'. The isolationist wing remains politically marginal. But as in Vietnam, the presence of more soldiers 12 and armaments in Iraq is likely to lead to increasing massacres, a greater use of torture and a widespread destruction of Iraqi society; an escalation likely to turn a resistance movement into a national libera- tion struggle - a peoples' war - with the possibilities of a widening conflict - a regional, total war. Why is American imperialism appar- ently so united in pursuing such a high-risk policy? The stakes for America's long-term hegemony are very high. America cannot afford to suffer what would be a strategic defeat in oil-rich western and central Asia, the location of half the worlds oil reserves. The military bases in Iraq and elsewhere are crucial to the success of US strategy in the 21st century. So more setbacks are likely to lead to greater escalation of the war in the short term. The outcome will depend on the success of the Iraqi resistance and the scale of the anti-war movements in the West. Part of the explanation for US policy can be found in strate- gic documents produced by the Neo-Cons whose long-term analysis, if not always their short-term political solutions, are widely supported within the political elite. What is new in the 'New Imperialism' and in the global strategy of the Neo-Cons? The Neo-Conservatives developed a geo-political paradigm, a 'grand strategy' couched in a language that is a fusion between reactionary demagogic nationalism and Christian fundamentalism. Alex Callini- cos has called this 'The Rhetoric of Conquest'. Today this populist style is common currency in the USA and typically utilises pre-En- lightenment, pre-modern forms of speech of which the Pilgrim Fa- thers would have been proud. World politics has become "The struggle between good and evil, the enemy is the 'axis of evil'. There are 'evil terrorists' and 'rogue states'. While at last year's Republican Conven- tion there were placards proclaiming George Bush was doing 'God's work'. Behind this demagogic populism lies a serious and dangerous politics not only for the peoples of Iraq in 2005, but the peoples of the world in the coming decades - if we allow them to get away with it. The Empire in the Year 2005'. article found at www.giobalresearch.ca 1.- James Petras. 2.- The National Security Strategy of the United States of America. September 2002. www.whitehouse.gov 3.- The Project for the New American Century. Statement of Principies: 3 June 1997. www.newamericancentury.org The New Mandarins oi American Power. 2003. Polity.
AT WAR IN 2005 5.- William Kristol, a central ideologue of the Neo-Cons. ays down the line on North Korea. 'To move beyond a policy that is 'long on attitude (axis of evil) but short on strategy,' Eberstadt writes that the Bush administration must recognize that North Korea cannot be talked or bribed out of its nuclear program, and that getting rid of Kim Jong If and the current government James Woolsey, former Director of the CIA, expresses the brutal- ity of the Neo-Cons' world-view. A strong advocate of the 'war on terror', which he describes as World War Three, he explained at a seminar that, 'America was not just fighting terrorism but creating a 'new Middle East', spreading democracy to prevent hostile Muslim and Arab forces from 'destroying liberal civilisation'. Globalizing free-market capitalism is the practice and Christianity the ideologi- cal message. Appeals for democracy are the smoke screen. The New Imperialist strategy is not a hidden agenda and can be found in the Bush war manifesto, The National Security Strategy of the Unit- ed States of America? However, the ideas of the Neo-Cons find their most explicit expression in the many texts of The Project for the New American Century. 'The generally agreed plan is unilateral world domination through absolute military superiority.* In these docu- ments, Russia, China and India, although seen to share some common interests and values with the capitalist West, are primarily perceived as a potential threat to American hegemony in the 21st century.! Before 1989 US strategic thinking was traditionally concerned with the threat posed to American power by the Soviet Union, a German-dominated Europe, or competition from Japan and the Pacific Rim. More recently the emphasis has shifted to the 'war against global terrorism', a smokescreen for military/economic ex- pansionism. After Afghanistan and Iraq there remain other 'Rogue states': Iran, Syria, and North Korea and Venezuela. If the US can hold the line in Iraq, bringing these countries under US control will be Bush's next priority. But these are not the only objectives of the New Imperialism's global offensive. Today US strategists also discuss the rising threat of China. When China reaches the productivity levels of South Korea - which is some years away - its GNP will be 1.35 times greater than the GNP of the USA. Some important forces in the Neo-Con Republican right, notably Rumsfeld and Richard Perle entertain an ambitious project to reorder the so-called Middle East (or central Eurasia) and control the world's most important oil reserves, as a step towards the long-term contain- ment of China. Simon Bromley argues that in addition to the econom- should be our goal. W. Kristol. 'Toward Regime Change in North Korea,' November 22. 2004. www.newamericancentury.org 6.- S. Bromley, American Hegemony and World Oil, 1991. Cambridge. 7.- National Security Strategy. pp. 26, 27 & 30. Quoted in Callinicos (2003). 8.- Quoted by Callinicos (2003). 9.- See R. Perle, 'Thank God for the Death of the UN', Guardian, 21 March 2003. GOD'S NATION ic significance of oil to the capitalist world economy, since the Second World War, it is also a 'strategic commodity', key to America's 'over- all management of its global leadership' ° This is particularly the case today when three of the Empire's potential rivals, Europe, Japan and China, have a greater dependence on imported oil than America itself. Saudi Arabia is by far the largest exporter of oil and petroleum, most of which goes to Asia, while less than one fifth goes to the US. The first Gulf War in 1991 was fought to stop Saddam Hussein from gaining control of the Gulf and Saudi oil reserves. Direct control of these reserves would give the United States powerful economic and political leverage in Eurasia. Central Eurasia, with half the world's oil, must not, in the American view, be allowed to fall into the sphere of influence of China, or Rus- sia, which already controls substantial reserves of oil. The establish- ment of American military bases in central Asia, in the Indian Ocean (Diego Garcia) and on the Pacific Rim, meets the strategic objective of militarily encircling potential rivals. The Bush doctrine also asserts that only the US is allowed to devel- op 'advanced military capabilities'. Some passages in The National Security Strategy of the United States of America document have a threatening tone, 'in pursuing advanced military capabilities that can threaten its neighbours in the Asian-Pacific region, China is pursu- ing an outdated path that, in the end, will hamper its own pursuit of national greatness.' The section concludes, 'our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in the hopes of surpassing, or equalling, the power of the United States.' 7 John Bolton has summed up the Neo-Con attitude to international in- stitutions thus: 'There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is an international community that can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that is the United States, when it suits our interests and when we can get others to go along.' Bush's main strategist Karl Rove elaborates this thesis in relation to the global war against terrorism: 'It's the battle of Iraq, not the war: .. This is part of the war on terrorism.'. This is a permanent state of war called 'preventive war' based on the idea that if you think somebody is threatening you then you must immediately strike to forestall the threat. It is the ethics of the Wild West - shoot now and ask questions later. International law or the UN has little to do with it. ' 13