AS SOCIALIST OUTLOOK goes to press, the Tories are in deep crisis over the pit closures, apparently on the verge of offering substantial subsidies, although this is being fought hard by ultra-right wingers in the cabinet. The campaign must continue until every pit is reprieved. But the fact that Heseltine and Major have been forced to the verge of a humiliating climbdown is full of lessons. Only the mass campaign, the huge demonstrations and the outburst of working class protest has forced the Tories to the brink of retreat. The battle to defend the pits and 100,000 jobs is just the leading edge of what must be a massive struggle to defend the public sector. Thousands in rail, local government, the post office, the NHS and other public services face redundancy, as real unemployment zooms past 4 million. A victory by the miners will further divide the government and create openings for renewing working class resistance. It must be followed by action to bust the 1.5 per cent public sector pay limit. Destruction of jobs and services, and the pay freeze, must be fought by building a public sector alliance, at national and local level. Every initiative towards this end must be supported. Arthur Scargill has called for a national 'stayaway' on 18 February; the RMT, NUM and other unions are balloting simultaneously on March 5 for a day of strike action. These initiatives can drive forward a new stage in the fightback. A victory for the miners will not end the Tory crisis, but deepen it. There is still no sign of economic recovery, but there are green shoots of a workers fightback. Now is the time to put the boot in.
Build a public sector alliance!
ACCORDING to one-time left winger Michael Ignatieff, never since the Roman Empire has a single imperial power been so alldominant as the US today.
His evidence is the ease with which the US bombs Irag. walks in uninvited to Somalia, controls the UN and isorganising 'allied' forces for an intervention in ex-Yugoslavia.
But is this frenzy of military activity a sign of strength or weakness? And what were the air raids on Irag all about?
To put these things in porspectve 1015 U90 0 100K at what has been happening to since they won the election last Clinton has 'discovered', lo and behold, that the figures on the US budget deficit are much worse than he knew during the presidential election campaign.
Net result: he is going to have to back-track on his election pledges of health reform, January 30, 1993 No. 36 ducation spending, cutting he budget deficit and reduc only half true. What has been revealed in the past few weeks is an extra $60 billion deficit beyond the commonly quoted figures. But this is peanuts in terms of the hundreds of billions that the US owes.
In short, the US economy is indeep structural debt to international financial institutions, particularly the japanese banks. This represents the massive decline in the US economy over the past 25 Years. And this is the crucal background to the flurry of over te past months; the US is trying to asponucal leadership of the West, as a boosting economic position.
Political dominance always nas a massive spin-oft in terms of trade; and the US made a profit from the Gulf war out of khe tribute paid by Japan, Germany and the Gulf states to finance the US expedition.
The recent raids on Iraq were however motivated by forces in the military. ligence and foreign policy establishment which George Bush represents were making to their policy of military adThe excuse for the raids, forcing Iraq to 'comply with UN resolutions' was so utterly feeble that even Frande was forced to state that the cruise missile attack on the factory outside Baghdad was 'outside UN resolutions' Everyone knows that the 'no fly zones' have done nothing to prevent Saddam Hussein trom anacking the Marsh Arabs in the south with utter impunity.
n many ways these raids After everything, Saddam Hussein is still in power. Sanctions and military attacks have succeeded in hurting only the cople of Iraq, not the regime. ush has gone, but Saddam remains.
But more fundamentally, U55 kITT. the relative decline of the US economy continues unabated. and cluster bombsand missiles dance at Bag are 05 8omg 0 turn the situation around.
If the US military is able to strut the world, apparently unopposed, this is caused not by a new and powerful, economically confident US, but by political changes which give the US this option.
The collapse of the Soviet Union is the first cause: ten years ago it was unthinkable that the USSR under Brezhnev or Andropov would have alowed US military intervention, especially with UN approval.
China, where the process towards capitalist restoration is deeply entrenched, has at best abstained in the UN Security Council, thus effectively giving the green light to every US attack.
But in western Europe, social democracy is the real culprit - socal democracy in power, social democracy in oppain, and particularly France, have signed on the dotted line for every US abomination.
And in Britain of course, the Labour Party under Kinnock in the Gulf war, inc now under Smith, could think of nothing better do than repeat parrot-like that new raids on Saddam Hussein are absolutely necessary.
The truth is that the US is engaged in a frenzied world oftensive to detend its own position because it has to. Ten years hence the relationship of forces with japan and Germanled Europe might be much, much worse. That's why raids on Iraq have to be seen as part of the same process which led to the US CHUN PURCUTE he GATT trade negotiations Precisely because the recent raids on Iraq were part of the game-plan by the Republican regime to tie in Clinton to their marary ponces, i seems un likely that the recent wave of But overal! what will characterise the Clinton regime is continuity with what has gone before. Economically Clinton will not be able to fulfil his no new deal coming for US workers, no big relaunch of the economy, no big welfare conInternationally. Clinton may shirk, in the short term, from expensive absurdities like using 40 cruise missiles to blow up one factory, but the overall imperial posture of the US is unlikely to change.
One constant which will remain for certain is staunch support for Israel. The recent raids of course came while 400 Palastinians are stil Stuck One snow-bound mountainsidebewith little food and medicine. his obsconity is an attront to the whole Arab world.
But the Democrats are notoriously more pro-Israel than the Republicans. The peace process' started because Bush heavied the Israelis into it. Now even this minimal pressure on israel will be reduced.
Ignatieff is wrong about the US. Of the major imperial period of dominance, roughly from the 1930s to the 1970s, has been the shortest.
We are not in a 'uni-polar world, but a world in which the US is decaying and stagnating, challenged by Germany and Japan. And even 40,000 cruise missiles can't put US hegemony back together again.