Who Cares About Local Campaigns?

Well I do! As you may have noticed I like having people making useful comments on pieces appearing on this blog. But I do get concerned about lack of commenting too. Particularly as I notice that people often don’t comment on local reports I put up of activities in Bangor. I think this is a really big shame.

Why? You may ask. Well I think a lot can be learnt from local campaigns when campaigning on similar issues elsewhere. Local reports of events can also be a good indicator of the support for various ideas in different places.

Now I suppose the question is whether the lack of comments represents people not just reading a report (and often the ones I post are versions of articles published in The Socialist) or whether they read it but don’t think it is worth commenting?

Now as you may have realised, I am particularly interested in student politics (as in involving actual students in political campaigning – rather than engaging purely in shouting matches with the NUS bureaucracy). As such I am usually quite delighted when I can find reports of the activities of student political societies on the internet, it helps me to generalise from the situation here in Bangor to the rest of the country.

For example, I would say the willingness of students to get involved with campaigning is definitely greater than it was last year when I was a student in Huddersfield. Now this could be down to me just being in a different place, but from reading reports from elsewhere it seems to be the case everywhere on a general level. Of course the events of last week show that students at Manchester Uni and Bangor Uni have a big gap between them in terms of level of political awareness, preparedness to campaign and level of organisation.

So here’s a plea to other bloggers – more reports of your own local political activity – and if I haven’t been commenting on stuff in the past – then I’ll try and do it more often from now on.

On Building Anti-Nuclear Campaigns

A week or so ago this question was brought up on Duncan’s blog. In the course of replying to the post I raised several points which I wish to develop further here. I’m going to develop them in relation to nuclear power in North West Wales, however, I hope that to an extent they can be transposed elsewhere, although important differences need to be taken into account (ie. the Sellafield reprocessing centre is obviously a different type of establishment to most nuclear plants).

In an attempt to appear ‘green’ first Blair’s labour government and now Brown’s has been driving towards a new generation of nuclear power as a solution to the ‘energy crisis’. They present it as a carbon neutral solution which needs to be adopted as existing energy sources (coal, gas, oil) are too dirty (and rely to a large extent upon ‘unreliable’ countries) and renewables (wind, tidal, wave etc.) are not developed enough get. So naturally what’s good for British capitalism is good for everyone.

But lets not forget that nuclear power gets ten times as much spent on research into it than renewables, or that nuclear gets massive subsidies. Or that nuclear power is not carbon neutral – the uranium has to be mined and transported, nuclear power stations have to be constructed etc. This isn’t to mention the health risks of radiation seeping out, the somewhat clichéd possibility of meltdown (unlikely – but given the bad safety record of the British nuclear industry, and the likelihood of a new generation of nuclear power been privately owned – it cannot be written off) and, probably most worryingly of all, that there is no known way of dealing with nuclear waste (and simply saying that we’ll somehow be able to deal with it in the future doesn’t solve the problem).

So nuclear power isn’t good and we know it. But this isn’t the whole story – nuclear power has been in existence in the UK for over 40 years, it has become embedded into local communities. Many of the places where nuclear power stations have been built are somewhat rural or isolated and thus the nuclear power plant is likely to be the main employer in the area. No matter how forceful the above arguments are, this is likely to be of far more importance.

I mean to write another piece on decommissioning nuclear power plants and nuclear waste, but for now it is sufficed to say that decommissioning tends to employ as many people as an active plant. Transfynedd is Gwynedd has been in the process of decommissioning for over 15 years now and still employs around about as many people as when it was active. This is before mentioning that maintaining renewable sources of energy would also employ some more people too. However, this level of employment is on a capitalist basis is only a beginning, on a socialist basis by reducing the working day, employment could be found for many more people.

As Socialists we need to go beyond just what any other anti-nuclear protesters say (as they do not necessarily solve peoples problems) and explain what a socialist society could do about these issues. We also need to orientate anti-nuclear campaigns to engaging in campaigning activities. Whilst Pawb (www.stop-wylfa.org.uk) is very good in terms of explaining the problems with nuclear power, it is much less good at getting ordinary people in Ynys Mon and Gwynedd involved in trying to do something to change the world around them. It is not just a question of doing something to stop this generation of nuclear power plants from being implemented, but a question of taking our destinies into our own hands so we don’t face this same battle again.

LiveEarth

Yesterday the LiveEarth concerts were staged around the world, many broadcasted on TV, I was working and missed it all (and probably wouldn't have watched much either, not really my musical taste). However, I do want to post my thoughts on it.
Firstly, there was criticism by Geldof and co. saying that it was copying the Live8 concerts held a while back around the Make Poverty History campaign that it was stealing its thunder to an extent, and that the event lacked clear goals (like Live8 actually met its goals!).
Now, unlike some liberal commentators I don't have a problem with the so-called hypocrysy of musicians who travel a lot because of touring, performing at a gig that aims to get carbon emissions lowered. (not that i am defending huge levels of individual consumption). A bigger problem for me is the fact the event is being sponsered by multinational companies that are part of the problem. This was at it's most hypocritical in China where the concert was virtually invite only to the country's elite, with only 3000 attending.
However, for me the concert was like putting the chicken before the egg. It was standing for in general a good idea (that of reducing carbon emissions), but with a wrong approach of how to get there blaming all individuals equally, when us poor people have don't have the money to spend on all these low cost alternatives. Looking to China again, as I posted a while back there have been mass protests against a chemical plant there, which has forced the local government to back down. It is these mass movements that we should look to attempt to tackle the problems of climate change, armed with a socialist programme of nationalising the economy under democratic workers control where discussion on how to plan lower carbon emissions (by producing energy efficient products cheaper etc.) could be put into practice. Concerts could be used to fundraise for such a movement or popularise the ideas of a movement, but only real struggle can create such a movement.

A Different Kind of Stall

Most people in the SP are away at conference this weekend, I had something else on, but before I went away to do that , I helped run our usual saturday stall in Huddersfield. After about a year or so of on and off campaigning on the NHS, new local issues are coming to the fore, the plans to build two academies in Kirklees, the sacked unique care workers (see www.socialistparty.org.uk for articles in the Socialist about this),but we covered today the council's budget proposal which includes scrapping three well used children's nurseries in Fartown, and replacing the services with private ones. So on thursday, instead of concentrating on the Stop the War rally in Huddersfield, like the SWP and co, some SP members were at a public meeting in Fartown against these proposals to which 200 parents and workers attended (even the local useless labour councillors came to try to hijack the meeting).
Anyway, what has this to do with anything. Well, I was half-asleep when we actually got round to setting the stall up, and I thought it was going to be one of those stalls that's just dull really. It was hard work, we were there for half an hour before a union member and two parents turned up to help, and it was really slow. But as soon as they came, took some petitions and leaflets, I suddenly found myself, invigorated by the fact that it wasn't just the two of us Socialist party members there, there were five of us all campaigning against these closures.
I'm not sure what feeling exactly i'm trying to get across to you, but being part of a bigger movement on the build feels good, campaigning with fighting trade unionists feels good, not having to be the most optimistic person on a stall feels great.
I think the message is that other comrades should invite other campaigners to do activities together, sure you might not sell as many papers or whatever, or perhaps get so many contacts for your given party, but you are building a mass movement against cuts, privatisation and capitalism and in the long run that's got to be worth something.