Decentralised participatory planning based on experiences of Brazil, Venezuela and the state of Kerala, India

Marta Harnecker writes on Decentralised participatory planning based on experiences of Brazil, Venezuela and the state of Kerala, India.

These words are aimed at those who want to build a humanist and solidarity-based society. A society based on the complete participation of all people. A society focused on a model of sustainable development that satisfies people's genuine needs in a just manner, and not the artificial wants created by capitalism in its irrational drive to obtain more profits. A society that does all this while ensuring that humanity’s future in not put at risk. A society where the organized people are the ones who decide what and how to produce. A society we have referred to as Twenty-First Century Socialism, Good Living or Life in Plenitude.

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This is a postive statement of what we are aiming for. It is not a negative statement, like saying that we are against Capitalism. This statement also says that we cannot achieve these goals within a Capitalist system.

The key to this model of society is to have decision making done at the appropriate level—not complete centralisation as in the old USSR, nor as complete decentralisation as in Anarchism:

We advocate a more integral process in which it is the people who genuinely discuss and decide upon their prioritises, elaborate, where possible, their own projects and carry them out if they are in the condition to do so without having to depend on superior levels. We seek to fully involve citizens in the planning process, which is why we refer to it as participatory planning.

To achieve complete citizen’s participation we must take the plans of small localities as our starting point, where conditions are more favourable for peoples’ participation, and apply the principle that everything that can be done at a lower level should be decentralised to this level, and only keeping as competencies of higher up levels those tasks that cannot be carried out at a lower level. This principle is referred to as subsidiarity.

Of course, we are not talking about an anarchic decentralisation. The ideal situation would involve the existence of a strategic national plan that could integrate community, territorial/communal and municipal/canton plans with plans developed by other levels of government.

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In Venezuela, the communal council is similar to the soviet in the early history of the USSR:

Each member of the communal council elected by the community fulfils a different function, but it is the residents who, in an assembly, get to analyse, discuss, decide and elect. The citizen’s assembly is the highest decision-making body in the community. Its decisions are binding on the communal council. This is where peoples’ sovereignty and power reside.

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The success of these councils requires the development of people in all communities through education, training, and sharing of experiences.

All this means that those who participate in this process broaden out their knowledge in political, cultural, social, economic and environmental terms, and thereby become politicised in the broader sense of the term. This allows them to develop an independent mind that can no longer be manipulated by a media that remains overwhelmingly in the hand of the opposition.

Harnecker hopes to build such a society within the current system:

Although an ideal scenario would involve the central state deciding to decentralise an important part of the nation’s resources designated to development, there is no doubt that a majority of countries are a long way from finding themselves in such a situation. Nevertheless, we believe that this should not stop local authorities who want to kick start decentralised participatory planning processes in their local area from doing so, thereby contributing to training up residents, through practical experience, to become protagonists of the new society we want to build, one in which peoples’ participation is a central feature.

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Yet, I think Harnecker is wrong to think that membership of such councils should be open to everyone, even enemies. This can only lead to the destruction of the councils.

And Harnecker's desire to build a new society from within cannot succeed without a deep theoretical understanding of the Marxist critique of Capitalism. The creation of such councils is a direct attack on Capitalism, and our enemies have been responding accordingly. They are not doing so in ignorance but in the full knowledge what the success of these councils mean.

Solidarity means the elimination of classes, and the ruling class is directly opposed to this.

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This or that vs. yes or no

Seth Godin writes This or that vs. yes or no.

Encouraging someone to shift slightly, to pick this instead of that, is a totally different endeavor than working to turn a no into a yes, to change an entire pattern of behavior.

When looking to grow, start with people who already believe that they have a problem you can help them solve.

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Communists need to distinguish between three (3) types of people:

1. Those who think Capitalism is mostly working well
2. Those who think Capitalism is failing badly in one or more areas:
• Policing
• Environment
• Racism
• Social Justice
• War
• …
3. Those who think Capitalism has failed completely and needs to be replaced

The first group are the enemy because they will defend Capitalism.

The second group would like to become part of the first group once their particular problem is fixed. However, recruits for the third group can only come from the second group.

It is only when members of the second group realise the reasons why their problem cannot be fixed under Capitalism, that they start to question the system. This usually occurs after all of the reformist avenues have been tried.

Unfortunately, due to the relatively small size of the third group, we cannot follow Godin's advice for growth. We have to continually involve ourselves with the second group and assist them with their objectives because they are our objectives too.

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Huge US anti-racist protests herald new movement

Danny Katch writes that Huge US anti-racist protests herald new movement.

SATURDAY'S PROTESTS marked a further step for the emerging movement for racial justice against the police.

By bringing in larger numbers than ever before, they demonstrated that growing numbers are challenging the legitimacy of police departments as agencies in charge of administering justice. They gave people a focal point to organize classmates, co-workers, and social circles and put them in touch with future organizing—at the New York City march, there were two separate trainings for future direct actions being circulated.

There will be many challenges moving forward there will be many challenges, starting with the questions of what type of organization can be formed to carry forward the struggle and how they can give shape to the spirit of the protests that have erupted since the two grand jury decisions in Ferguson and New York City.

There will doubtless be disagreements over the way forward—the conflict on stage in Washington, D.C., showed as much. But that's a necessary part of rebuilding the struggle against racism and injustice in the U.S.

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This is how participatory democracy evolves. The genesis is chaotic and many mistakes are made. The key element to success is respect for other people. One needs to have a willingness to listen and discuss all ideas.

Unfortunately, dogma and sectarianism are poison to such movements.

This movement will eventually fizzle out as did the ant-war movement from 2003. The major roadblock to all such movement is the unwillingness of the majority of people to challenge the legitimacy of Capitalism. People are quite willing to admit that certain aspects of Capitalism are not working properly. But it is gigantic step from there to challenge the legitimacy of the system.

In this case, most young people will admit that the police do not act to protect them. They have had the continual harrassment by being moved on, stopped from having fun, being too rowdy.

But, they have not developed the political understanding of why the police act as they do. They tend to believe that better behaviour on the part of the police will solve the problem. They want to participate in the system, not overthrow it. In other words, the gates need to open wider, not tear down the castle.

The behaviour of the police and the justice system are all determined by their place in the Capitalist system. The key to the Capitalist system is the private ownership of the means of production. The police and the justice system exist to protect that.

Any threats to that are to be resisted violently and suppressed. In essence, society is divided into those who have and those who have not. The police and the justice system instinctively know to protect the former and attack the latter.

A massive police presence did everything it could to keep the protests out of the streets, and to disrupt and split up the march. At one point, police forced their way in between demonstrators, refusing to let either side cross the street to rejoin the others—even as shoppers crossed freely against the crosswalk signals. As protesters chanted, "The streets are public, let us cross!" and "Do we really need a shopping bag just to cross the street?" people on each side coordinated a plan, and eventually reunited the march.

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Such movements cannot sustain themselves until they face the question of legitimacy of Capitalism. If they accept that, then the movement will die because continuation means acceptance that the system is not working and cannot be reformed.

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Rolling Stone hangs rape victims out to dry

Caroline Hale chastises mass and social media as Rolling Stone hangs rape victims out to dry.

Rolling Stone let us all down, but most of all, they let Jackie down, by letting her become an example to all rape survivors of what will happen to you if you step out of line, if you don’t fit the impossible mold of a “good” victim but dare to speak out anyway.

It is disappointing to see so many progressive media outlets reinforcing the same victim-blaming narratives as conservative pundits. Such narratives have a wide-reaching impact and tell people it is okay to disregard sexual assault survivors who don’t tick all the right boxes.

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And what a convenient way to silence survivors: say that we can be heard and believed, but set the bar so high that only a tiny percentage of us are deemed worthy of listening to. And that those of us not worthy of listening too are deemed worthy of attack.

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But people who are serious about campaigning to end rape culture do owe solidarity to anyone who speaks out like Jackie did, especially someone like Jackie who had asked not to have her story published — a solidarity that includes challenging victim blaming myths that silence survivors.

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As John Pilger says, there are worthy victims and there are unworthy victims. People who are oppressed by the current system are unworthy victims. And those who fulfil a need for the system are worthy victims.

Compliance with the systems requires one to ignore the pain and suffering of the unworthy victims. For to accept and console such pain suffering is to challenge the inherent goodness of the system. And ruthless systems do not tolerate such challenges. Their legitimacy derives from the acceptance of their inherent goodness.

Brutality, such as rape and torture, delineates between the rulers and the ruled. The former can do what they like to the latter with presumed impunity.

One cannot accuse those fine, young men who will one day ascend to the highest echelons of our society in order to continue the benevolent rule of our masters. They cannot be such beasts to rape and brutalise other people. It that were true, it would call into question the inherent superiority and quality of our ruling class.

This is why all such claims must be quickly quashed and forgotten. Otherwise the system would be exposed for the rotting corpse that it is, and civilization would collapse because there is no alternative (TINA) to Capitalism.

This brutality serves to keep us in line, for we know what will happen to us if we dare to question the system.

Thus, there is a contradiction to brutality. We cannot believe the victims, nor publicly call it out. But we must silently acknowledge its existence through our continued compliance.

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South Africa: Radical NUMSA-backed United Front declares 'Enough is enough'!

South Africa: Radical NUMSA-backed United Front declares 'Enough is enough'!.

As activists of the United Front, we view our first and main task to build movements that mobilise to fight corruption, looting of public resources, failing service delivery, increasingly unaccountable governance, violence against women, children and LGBTQI people, police brutality, and anti-poor/pro-rich economic policies (“neoliberalism”). We will resist retrenchments, [service] cut-offs, evictions, the collapse of our education and health systems and the retribalisation of the countryside

Our goal is to strive for the deepening of democracy and the building of people’s power in social, economic and political spheres where collective needs and interests of the people as a whole come before profits and other elite interests.

We call on the workers, the unemployed, women and youth, shack dwellers, back yarders, farm workers, landless and the dispossessed, to organise, mobilise and build the United Front in every corner of the country.

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A united front allows people with similar objectives and worlviews to work together in a common cause without having to adopt a common political program or ideology.

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Cultural liberalism is about personal responsibility

Noah Smith writes Cultural liberalism is about personal responsibility.

Social conservatives, in my experience, often tend to argue that the lower classes of society are not smart enough to handle personal responsibility. They seem to argue, in effect, that lower-class people are stuck at Piaget's "concrete operational stage" - thinking in terms of rigid rules — while upper-class people are able to move on to the more abstract "formal operational" stage. In other words, they don't trust the masses to do the right thing if given freedom from punishment.

Now, if that sounds like a straw man, well, good, because I am not a big fan of that idea, and I hope it's more rare than it seems. But I suspect you'll find at least hints and threads of this idea throughout the arguments of many social conservatives.

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Why they need us! is the cry of ruling classes throughout history. The rulers are there to protect us from ourselves.

This is why Communism requires a much greater personal and social development of the workers. We have to be confident and experienced enough to take on the awesome responsibility of running society for everybody's benefit.

Once we achieve that, we would have achieved full adulthood in all aspects of our lives.

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Socialists warn against racial incitement after Sydney siege

Socialists warn against racial incitement after Sydney siege.

“Socialist Alliance condemns the right-wing and racist groups and individuals who used social media during the course of this tragic event to incite racial violence against the Muslim minority in this country.

“While the most overt incitement has come from the far-right 'Australian Defence League' — which has called on 'Australians' to 'converge on Lakemba' — Murdoch's News Ltd and right-wing radio shock jocks are not far behind.

“The Abbott government has also exploited this incident to promote the lie that it acts in the interest of all Australians when the truth is that it acts in the selfish interest of the corporate rich. That is plain to see in Abbott's May budget and the mini-budget delivered yesterday.

“This tragedy is a case of system failure.”

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“If we want to end war and terror, we will have to end this gross inequality and the capitalist system which has created it.”

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Remember it is in the interests of the ruling class to stir up intense emotions based on racism and xenophobia in order the workers fighting among themselves.

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How citizens’ revolt in Burkina Faso unfolded

Ernest Harsch describes How citizens’ revolt in Burkina Faso unfolded.

Where and to what extent the sparks from Burkina Faso may ignite fires elsewhere will depend largely on the combustibility of local conditions: Are social and political elites united behind the regime, or have cracks emerged at the top? Are people sufficiently aggrieved and their rulers so impervious to change that activists see no alternative but to risk open, mass defiance? And are they organised enough, especially at the grassroots level?

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The work of such activists did much to boost the demonstrations called by the opposition party leaders. They also contributed to an increasingly notable feature in many anti-government actions: references to the late revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara. More than a quarter century after his death, Sankara remained a hero and inspiration to many young Burkinabè, his portrait carried by marchers, voice recordings played over demonstration sound systems, and sayings quoted in slogans and speeches.

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Whether motivated by revolutionary visions or just determined to see Compaoré gone, it was the young activists who spurred the final push to insurrection. Diabré and other senior opposition leaders had called the demonstrations, and even urged their followers to engage in civil disobedience against the amendment vote. But it was members of Balai Citoyen, the CAR, and others on the frontlines who decided to breach the security lines around the National Assembly.

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Here the experience was physical confrontation with an authoritarian regime. There was an ideology that was indigenous to Burkina Faso through the work of Thomas Sankara that combined national liberation with socialism after the fashion of John Connolly.

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Lima climate agreement fails humanity and the Earth

Lima climate agreement fails humanity and the Earth.

The Peoples’ Summit and its march through the streets of Lima demanded the defence of Mother Earth, and the guarantee of rights of all peoples, of all genders. It presented a clear vision for solutions to the climate crisis, and for alternatives to its causes.

People across the world are taking up these alternatives and fighting to transform the system. We are struggling for survival and for the safety and security of our homes and livelihoods from climate disasters.

We are fighting for a transformation of energy systems, away from fossil fuels, towards access to decentralised, renewable, safe, community controlled energy systems for all. We are defending our food sovereignty and expanding agro-ecological solutions, whilst struggling to adapt to the devastating consequences of locked in climate change. Just as community-based forestry programs work in the interest of people, particularly indigenous peoples, instead of bankers and financial capital in the North.

People are building power — at local, national and global level. We continue to put more people on the street, to block mines, ports, corporate offices — and our strength is growing, as is our power.

We will reclaim power from those who don’t act in our interests. We will resist the imposition of a ‘global climate deal’ that does nothing for the climate and even less for people.

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We have this urgency to change the system in order to save ourselves. Despite the recent ravages of the weather, people do not seem to have the necessary sense of urgency that we need to change the system.

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Enter the Dragon: China offers Iraq Aerial Strikes on ISIL/ Daesh

Juan Cole writes Enter the Dragon: China offers Iraq Aerial Strikes on ISIL/ Daesh.

The list of powers eager to see Daesh (what Arabs call ISIS or ISIL) defeated grew larger this weekend with a report in the Financial Times that Iraqi foreign minister Ibrahim Jaafari received a pledge from his counterpart Wang Yi that China would intervene against Daesh from the air. It was not clear whether China was offering to fly fighter jets or just programmed missile strikes.

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In short, China is beginning to behave like a classic capitalist imperial country, intervening with military force to protect investments, markets and trade routes. In short, Beijing now has an interest in Iraq that seems to make it willing to deploy air power to defeat Daesh.

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Capitalists also use military power to take investments, markets and trade routes away from other Capitalists. Capitalism needs to expands continuously, and when the market becomes saturated, competitors must be destroyed or subsumed.

Ninety-seven years ago, Lenin argued that Imperialism was the highest form of Capitalism. He defined imperialism as follows:

1. ‘the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life;’
2. ‘the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this ‘finance capital’, of a financial oligarchy;’
3. ‘the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance;’
4. ‘the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves, and’
5. ‘the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed.’

Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism p.92

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James Connolly: National liberation and socialism

Doug Enaa Greene speaks about James Connolly: National liberation and socialism.

In terms of his legacy, Connolly was not just one of the first socialists in an colonial country to take up arms to overthrow the coloniser, but he tried to build the type of revolutionary movement that could link national liberation to socialist revolution. The questions, alliances, tactics, strategies and theories that Connolly had to deal with in Ireland would be faced by other socialists in different forms, in national liberation struggles throughout the colonial and semi-colonial world, such as Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Amilcar Cabral, Carlos Fonseca and many others.

In Ireland, following Connolly's death, his dream of an all-Ireland Socialist Republic was unrealised.

During the years of the Irish war for independence and civil war, his leadership was sorely missed. While the IRA's war effort get most of the credit for driving the British to the bargaining table, we should not forget that the Irish working class launched radical actions in support of the national liberation struggle — general strikes, factory seizures, sabotage of the occupation forces and even the proclamation of soviets. However, there was no revolutionary working-class party in Ireland to channel this energy and to put forward a socialist program and banner. Rather, the working-class leaders who followed Connolly subordinated the struggle of the labour movement to that of the bourgeois nationalists. As a result, Ireland was partitioned between the British-ruled North and the conservative neocolony in the south.

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In any revolutionary struggle, a revolutionary party, on the Leninist model, is vital. For this party encompasses the theoretical and practical knowledge and expertise bourne out of the long, difficult struggle. Such knowledge and experise cannot ne acquired overnight in the heat of the insurrection.

The importance of Connolly is that he linked national liberation with socialism. The true liberation of a nation required the liberation of the working-class as well, and vice verse, for the Capitalist class is internationalist in composition, but not in idealism. The Capitalists will stop fighting each other long enough to fight their true enemy: the working class.

It is time for the working class to follow suit by adopting an internationalist approach to fighting the Capitalist, but also to truly embrace the internationalist ideal in order to sustain the struggle. For always there lurks the evils of racism and xenophobia to disrupt and destroy any internationalist movements in order to get the workers to fight among theirselves.

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Far right protests as Penrith council votes to allow construction of Muslim Community Centre

Richard Jackson writes Far right protests as Penrith council votes to allow construction of Muslim Community Centre.

Protest and counter-protest descended on Penrith on December 8 as Penrith’s council voted to uphold their decision to allow the construction of an Islamic community centre in Kemps Creek.

The reasons given by the protestors reflect the lies told in the media about Muslims. So, we have a situation in which the purveyors of these falsehoods, and the believers are vilified. No wonder people are confused.

This is the sleight-of-hand pulled by modern racism. The rich and powerful can slur a minority with impunity. These slurs are blessed by the priesthood of the ideological superstructure: academics, media presenters, bloggers, commentators, etc. And yet the people who trained to listen and obey their betters, are vilified for believing and acting on this nonsense.

Yet, racism has a very long history, and is deep-rooted. People born here cannot escape its trendrils. That people are racists is an accident of birth.

To remain racist is a sign of intellectual laziness. Self-education and reflection are the best cures for this. It is a painfully slow road as one confronts the lies told by people that one respected and revered. One has to be prepared to sever ties with loved ones. No wonder it is easier to go on sprouting hatred than to confront the ugly truth of one's life.

And that ugly truth is that white live in a life of privilege immersed in lie after lie about non-whites. And these lies justify this privilege. So the implicit contract is that continuing belief and propagation of these lies is necessary for the continued enjoyment of that privilege.

I would rather be a human being than a white person. Humanity is far more important than privilege. And as I keep saying, the nourishment of humanity within oneself requires the acknowledgement and respect for the humanity in others.

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People Who Think Torture is OK Need to Die and Go Away

Ted Rall writes that People Who Think Torture is OK Need to Die and Go Away.

If you think torture is OK — under any circumstance, for any reason — you are dangerous.

Pro-torture? You should not be tolerated.

If you believe that “they” had torture coming because “they” attacked “us” on 9/11, or because “they” chop off “our” heads, you are psychotic and sociopathic and should not be free to walk the streets, much less sit on juries or vote or drive a car or hold a job that a perfectly sane unemployed person needs.

If you diminish the exquisite horror of torture — if you think sleep deprivation and blasting loud music into victims’ ears and solitary confinement and stress positions and mock executions and beatings are not “really” torture — I want you locked up, the key thrown away, never to be heard from again. You are not fit to be near children or animals.

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How desensitised the Americans have become to the pain of others? This is what prolonged exposure to neo-liberalism does to people. Only the individual matters, and the more money you have, the more you matter.

Here we have the roots of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, etc.. This inability to see the other as a human being is the root of all this evil.

And the material basis for all this is that we want to share things with people like us. The narrower we make this category, the more there is for each member.

The cult of individualism is the shackle that binds us to Capitalism. This myth is propagated the ideological superstructure as the heroic individual who defies the ignorant and brutish mob who are like so many orcs to be slaughtered for sport by the noble and wise elves.

This evil of torture rots the very soul of those who do it and those who condone it. It corrodes whatever smidgen of humanity they have left.

Our humanity is nourished by the daily exercise of practising and seeing the humanity in others, not just people like us. Every time I confront the prejudices that have burned in my soul by schooling and cultural influences, I scrape away a tiny flake of that prejudice.

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