[Campaignforrealdemocracy] Fight against cuts as fight for democracy Fwd: Insisting on an alternative: meeting the challenge of the cuts

[Mark Barrett]

        Mike Marqusee
Insisting on an alternative: meeting the challenge of the cuts
 * *
Our campaign against the cuts has first and last to contest their
“necessity”. This involves a challenge to the dictatorship of “the markets”,
which we need to identify as a modern form of despotism. We have to strip
the mask from the financial elite, whose self-interest is dressed up as the
public interest, who disguise self-serving policies as mere obedience to
impersonal economic “laws”. In this consumer society we are offered “choice”
in everything but what matters most: the determination of our common
priorities and the disposition of our common resources. When it comes to
taxing and spending, we are told there is no choice. So the struggle against
the cuts is also a struggle for democracy and should be framed that way.

http://www.tni.org/article/insisting-alternative-meeting-challenge-cuts

New A World to Win Communique:
http://aworldtowin.net/frontline/BuildPeoplesAssemblies.html

Building People’s Assemblies

Communities whose services and living standards are under unprecedented
assault by the Con-Lib coalition government should establish their
independence from the state through building People’s Assemblies and move
beyond resistance.



Delegates to the Assemblies will represent ordinary people’s interests,
whether they are young or old, in work or unemployed, in the public or
private sectors, trade unionists, women, students, minorities and community
groups.



Assemblies will bring together anti-cuts campaigns and all organisations
resisting the Coalition’s attack on jobs, services, pensions and standard of
living.



A network of People’s Assemblies will have the capacity to facilitate a
transition to a democratic society based on co-operation and
self-determination instead of profit and corporate power.



They will challenge the lie that there is no alternative to the capitalist
system, which has plunged into a global crisis and is the source of the
Coalition’s attacks.



People’s Assemblies can:

* Defend communities against closures, evictions, and job losses

* Fight for democracy and rights

* Campaign for action on climate change

* Oppose war and the secret state

* Struggle against racism and attacks on minority communities

* Build links with movements internationally

* Create a new democratic society through a transfer of economic and
political power.
FAQs

*Q: How will Assemblies come into being?*

A: Through local initiatives of people and communities who want to resist
cuts, job losses, repossessions and go beyond protest to build a real
democracy.



*Q. What is A World to Win’s role in setting up Assemblies?*

A: AWTW is joining with others to take the idea forward. We advocate the
policy of setting up People’s Assemblies wherever cuts, closures or strikes
are happening, where young people gather, where people are at risk of
benefit cuts, and home repossessions or evictions are threatened.



*Q: What will Assemblies do to show they are the legitimate representatives
of the people?*

A: They will have a strong defensive role, as the government launches its
attacks. They can learn lessons from others about how to defend communities
and individuals. For example, from the movements in the US against
evictions, where communities are getting together to stop people being
thrown out when they can’t pay their mortgage.



The experiences of Transition Towns who have been encouraging communities to
do things for themselves, exploring new ways of living, can provide a source
of inspiration.



Assemblies can learn from history – from the Paris Commune, early Soviets or
Workers Councils in Russia, from the Councils of Action; the movement that
brought down the Berlin Wall to the struggles in Venezuela and Bolivia
today.



*Q: How will this be different from the old politics?*

The Assemblies will involve and mobilise the whole community, including
young people, people from minority ethnic communities, small businesses and
self-employed people as well as workers from every sector.



They will show by their own actions that there is another way of living, and
another way of “being political” that isn’t about money-grubbing and getting
expenses. They will work for education, for culture and a decent life for
all.



There will be opportunities for everyone to share their skills and talents,
and for young people to work creatively and learn. A wide range of people
will gravitate towards them. They will embrace different points of view, not
only those on the left.



*Q: What will AWTW’s role in the Assemblies be?*

A: Our Manifesto says: “The Assemblies will also look beyond a failed
economic system towards building a true democracy in place of the sham one
we live under now.” That is the revolutionary policy we will campaign for in
the Assemblies.



The Coalition government is taking the actions it is because the system it
serves – the capitalist system – is terminally unstable. It must be
replaced.



The existing parliamentary system is a façade that increasingly undermines
and devalues the right to vote that was won in bitter struggle against the
ruling classes. We have to extend and expand democracy to give expression to
what the term actually means – the power and rule of the people.



We will work within the Assemblies to win people to the idea that they
should not be talking shops, or just organise protests or social support,
but start to see themselves as the legitimate representatives of the people,
with the right to replace the existing undemocratic structures of both local
and national government. This includes revolutionising the Welsh and
Scottish assemblies, which in their present form have dashed the hopes
raised by devolution.
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