<DIV>
<DIV>1. "In Sheffield, for <BR>example, they insisted on doing their own thing via StWC with regards to the <BR>G8 visit." </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV>2. "If you have been trying to follow then you will have found it very difficult. <BR>You read of no debate in their publications, but instead have to try and <BR>read between the lines of what the leadership is saying."<BR></DIV>
<DIV>3. "There is no real internal democracy for ordinary members of the SWP.<BR>Decisions are made by a self-electing leadership."</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>1. 'Come the revolution' you will no doubt be saying that we insisted on 'doing our own thing via the Working Class'. Hope so. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>2. If you want to know, "what is going on in the SWP at the moment, <BR>with regards to RESPECT and StWC" why don't you just ask? Then come along to a meeting.</DIV>
<DIV>Did you come to the George Galloway et al meeting? 700 others did. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>3. Maybe you have been speaking to some disaffected former members? I might not be the best non-disaffected non-former member to relate to because I have only been a member since 1977 so I might lack your experience, but my (no doubt highly biased) view is that we are working to a direction agreed through our structures in the run up to, and at, our national annual conference. Where we also elect our leadership. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Ian</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Eh?<BR><BR><BR><B><I>Lee Rock <lee.rock@blueyonder.co.uk></I></B> wrote:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">Dan<BR><BR><BR>The SWP does not operate 'democratic centralism'.<BR><BR>All of this is a real problem for the rest of us on the left - as the SWP <BR>are by far the largest and most influential group. (Many of their members would not even have been aware of the <BR>Dissent campaign.) How much better it would have been if there had been a <BR>single united campaign around this one issue, don't you think?<BR><BR>All the best<BR><BR>Lee<BR>----- Original Message ----- <BR>From: "Dan" <DAN@AKTIVIX.ORG><BR>To: "IAN WALLACE" <IAN.WALLACE15@BTOPENWORLD.COM><BR>Cc: <G8-SHEFFIELD@LISTS.AKTIVIX.ORG><BR>Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2005 3:05 PM<BR>Subject: Re: [g8-sheffield] Re: g8-sheffield Digest, Vol 4, Issue 64<BR><BR><BR>Hi,<BR><BR>Yeah, it's good stuff. I also got send this today, from the SWP website:<BR><BR>http://www.swp.org.uk/article_swp.php?article_id=305<BR>"Democracy without
centralism will fail"<BR><BR>It's an interesting article. The writer, for example, cites something<BR>that both Naomi Klein and Starhawk have previously picked up on:<BR><BR>> At one anti-capitalist demonstration not long ago, in Washington DC, <BR>> demonstrators agreed to blockade all the entrances to a World Bank <BR>> conference. But in one area a group decided to follow their own decision, <BR>> ignoring everyone else, and let the bank delegates through-dissolving the <BR>> whole protest into pointlessness.<BR><BR>There are certainly discussions to be had about what kind of structure<BR>works where. The drive toward decentralisation is something that both<BR>certain left-wingers and most economists share. We need more argument<BR>about is when it's really appropriate, and when it doesn't work. The SWP<BR>writer simply says that the task of working towards revolution demands a<BR>level of organisation that autonomistas cannot provide. I have always<BR>believed
that we must walk the talk - that our actions today must mirror<BR>the future we want. That would mean, for example, not having a civil war<BR>in order to give power to the proletariat, because I believe in peace -<BR>and because too many revolutionaries have a category for 'reactionary<BR>elements of the working class' who can also be shot. (This may be naive<BR>of me, but I refuse to drop it just yet!)<BR><BR>There's also a nice bit in Mark Steel's 'reasons to be cheerful' that is<BR>a rather amusing critique of 'the tyranny of self-organisation', about<BR>an anti-fascist rally he was on.<BR><BR>"... every single person amongst the thousands who attend, as they<BR>arrive asks the nearest person ‘what’s happening?’ But no one ever knew<BR>the answer. Eventually, a group of fifty or more would walk in the same<BR>direction and everyone followed. They might have all been going for a<BR>burger, but as everyone joined them it would go around that the fascists<BR>were definitely this
way. So even if they were going for a burger they<BR>would now believe that the fascists are this way anyway and abandon the<BR>burger.” [Mark Steel, Reasons to be Cheerful, London, Simon & Schuster,<BR>2001, p.39]<BR><BR>I'm personally still much more in favour of self-organisation, because<BR>centralisation, historically, always leads to abuses of power. But then,<BR>saying "there's no power here" doesn't make it so either!<BR><BR>A couple of other resources: the Joseph Rowntree foundation have been<BR>funding a 'power inquiry' (see http://www.powerinquiry.org/) and they've<BR>produced a book called "Beyond the Ballot - 57 democratic innovations<BR>from around the world." (PDF from<BR>http://www.powerinquiry.org/publications/documents/BeyondtheBallot_000.pdf)<BR><BR>Maybe we could do something at Matilda, from a much more leftie angle?<BR>It could be an inquiry from the left - with democratic centralists and<BR>autonomists making up two of the positions, for example. (It
was<BR>heartening to read in the SWP article that debate is so important: and I<BR>noted that I fit in to the 'fevered dreams about the SWP being<BR>armies...! I only hope it's not merely spin...)<BR><BR>And if you have time, take a look at http://www.extremedemocracy.com/ -<BR>lots of chapters on devolving democracy until it looks a little like a<BR>free market...<BR><BR>Maybe we shouldn't close this list. Perhaps it could be used for debate...?<BR><BR>Dan<BR>----<BR><BR><BR>IAN WALLACE wrote:<BR><BR>> I think Vol 4, Issue 64 might go down in history itself. Two very good, <BR>> thoughtful, measured, and generally excellent contributions focusing on <BR>> some of the real issues from Mozaz and Fabien.<BR>> Maybe the G8 Sheffield Digest could always be like this?<BR>> Ian<BR>><BR>> */g8-sheffield-request@lists.aktivix.org/* wrote:<BR>><BR>> Send g8-sheffield mailing list submissions to<BR>> g8-sheffield@lists.aktivix.org<BR>><BR>> To subscribe or
unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit<BR>> http://lists.aktivix.org/mailman/listinfo/g8-sheffield<BR>> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to<BR>> g8-sheffield-request@lists.aktivix.org<BR>><BR>> You can reach the person managing the list at<BR>> g8-sheffield-owner@lists.aktivix.org<BR>><BR>> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific<BR>> than "Re: Contents of g8-sheffield digest..."<BR>><BR>><BR>> Today's Topics:<BR>><BR>> 1. Inside the Murky World of Make Poverty History (zerosevenfour two)<BR>> 2. Fwd: [resistg82005] Great article in the guardian today (fabian)<BR>><BR>><BR>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------<BR>><BR>> Message: 1<BR>> Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:49:44 +0000<BR>> From: "zerosevenfour two"<BR>> Subject: [g8-sheffield] Inside the Murky World of Make Poverty History<BR>> To:
g8-sheffield@lists.aktivix.org<BR>> Message-ID:<BR>> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed<BR>><BR>> a must read<BR>><BR>> http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/06/315058.html<BR>><BR>> Make Poverty History would seem an unprecedented success story.<BR>> Uniting<BR>> trade unions, charities, NGOs and a stellar-cast of celebrities,<BR>> its cause<BR>> is dominating media coverage while the campaign's white wristband<BR>> is being<BR>> worn the world over. So why, as the G8 summit approaches, are leading<BR>> members briefing against each other to the press and African social<BR>> movements saying ‘nothing about us, without us'? Stuart Hodkinson<BR>> investigates.<BR>><BR>> For a sun-soaked Friday in late May, there was an unusual air of<BR>> panic at<BR>> the British Trade Union Congress (TUC) for the monthly members'<BR>> assembly of<BR>> Make Poverty History (MPH). Officials hurriedly briefed reception<BR>> with
some<BR>> last-minute security instructions: “You must make sure that only<BR>> assembly<BR>> members are let in,” one instructed. “The meeting is open to the<BR>> public, but<BR>> only public members of Make Poverty History.”<BR>><BR>> The nerves were understandable. Two damning stories about MPH were<BR>> about to<BR>> break in the British national press. The cover story of British<BR>> centre-left<BR>> weekly, New Statesman, ‘Why Oxfam is failing Africa', had exposed<BR>> deep anger<BR>> among members of the MPH coalition at Oxfam's ‘revolving door'<BR>> relationship<BR>> with UK government officials and policies, accusing it of allowing<BR>> Britain's<BR>> two most powerful politicians, Prime Minister Tony Blair and<BR>> Chancellor<BR>> Gordon Brown, to co-opt MPH as a front for New Labour's own<BR>> questionable<BR>> anti-poverty drive.<BR>><BR>> The right-wing Sunday Telegraph, meanwhile, had given notice
of<BR>> its shocking<BR>> exclusive on how large numbers of the ubiquitous MPH white<BR>> wristband – the<BR>> very symbol of the campaign – had been knowingly sourced from Chinese<BR>> sweatshops with Oxfam's blessing.<BR>><BR>> Inside MPH, however, the embarrassing revelations were no<BR>> surprise. For the<BR>> past six months, some of the UK 's leading development and<BR>> environmental<BR>> NGOs have been increasingly vocal in their unease about a campaign<BR>> high on<BR>> celebrity octane but low on radical politics. One insider, active<BR>> in a key<BR>> MPH working group, argues there “has often been a complete divergence<BR>> between the democratically agreed message of our public campaign<BR>> and the<BR>> actual spin that greets the outside world”. He is angry:<BR>><BR>> “Our real demands on trade, aid and debt, and criticisms of UK<BR>> government<BR>> policy in developing countries have been consistently
swallowed up<BR>> by white<BR>> bands, celebrity luvvies and praise upon praise for Blair and<BR>> Brown being<BR>> ahead of other world leaders on these issues.”<BR>><BR>> THE RISE AND RISE OF MPH<BR>><BR>> This is surely not what campaigners had in mind back in late 2003<BR>> when Oxfam<BR>> initiated a series of informal meetings with charities and<BR>> campaigning<BR>> organisations to consider forming an unprecedented coalition<BR>> against poverty<BR>> in 2005 to coincide with the UK presidency of both the G8 summit<BR>> and EU, the<BR>> first five year evaluation of progress on the UN Millennium<BR>> Development<BR>> Goals (MDGs) agreed in 2000, the 6th WTO Ministerial Meeting in<BR>> Hong Kong,<BR>> and the 20th anniversary of Live Aid.<BR>><BR>> In September 2004, the Make Poverty History coalition was officially<BR>> launched as the UK mobilisation of an international coalition, the<BR>> Global<BR>>
Call to Action Against Poverty (G-CAP), led by Oxfam<BR>> International, Action<BR>> Aid and DATA – the controversial Africa charity set up by U2<BR>> frontman, Bono<BR>> and multi-billionnaires, George Soros, and Microsoft's Bill Gates,<BR>> the<BR>> world's second richest person with a fortune of just under $50<BR>> billion.<BR>><BR>> Since then, MPH has become an impressive campaigning coalition,<BR>> boasting<BR>> over 460 member organisations including all the major trade unions<BR>> and the<BR>> TUC, development NGOs, charities, churches as well as several<BR>> faith and<BR>> diaspora groups. Its successful mix of celebrity backers and<BR>> anti-poverty<BR>> message has captured the attention of both politicians and mass<BR>> media,<BR>> encapsulated in the near-hysteria following the annoucement by<BR>> veteran rock<BR>> star and Africa campaigner, Bob Geldof, that a series of free<BR>> concerts in<BR>>
London, Paris, Philadelphia, Rome, and Berlin would take place<BR>> under the<BR>> banner ‘Live 8' to coincide with the MPH campaign to lobby the G8<BR>> summit in<BR>> Gleneagles, Scotland in July.<BR>><BR>> But despite the success, there is widespread unhappiness within the<BR>> coalition over the campaign's public face and its cosiness to<BR>> Blair and<BR>> Brown. Critics argue that on paper at least, MPH's policy demands<BR>> on the UK<BR>> government are fairly radical, especially its calls for “trade<BR>> justice not<BR>> free trade”, which would require G8 and EU countries, notably the<BR>> UK, to<BR>> stop forcing through free market policies on poor countries as<BR>> part of aid,<BR>> trade deals or debt relief. MPH also says rich countries should<BR>> immediately<BR>> double aid by $50bn per year and finally meet 35-year old promises<BR>> to spend<BR>> 0.7 per cent of their national income in development aid.
More and<BR>> better<BR>> aid, meanwhile, should be matched by cancellation of the<BR>> “unpayabale” debts<BR>> of the world's poorest countries through a “fair and transparent<BR>> international process” that uses new money, not slashed aid<BR>> budgets. With<BR>> additional calls for the regulation of multinationals and the<BR>> democratisation of the IMF and World Bank, John Hilary, Campaigns<BR>> Director<BR>> of UK development NGO, War on Want, has a point when he asserts<BR>> that MPH's<BR>> policies “strike at the very heart of the neo-liberal agenda.”<BR>><BR>> The problem, however, is that when these policies are relayed to a<BR>> public<BR>> audience, they become virtually indistinguishable from those of<BR>> the UK<BR>> government. This was brought home back in March this year when<BR>> Blair's<BR>> deeply compromised Commission for Africa set out its neo-liberal<BR>> proposals<BR>> for the corporate
plunder of Africa's human and natural resources<BR>> under the<BR>> identical headlines used by MPH – ‘trade justice', ‘drop the debt'<BR>> and ‘more<BR>> and better aid'. In return, most MPH members, led by Oxfam and the<BR>> TUC,<BR>> warmly welcomed the report's recommendations. As Ghana 's Yao<BR>> Graham makes<BR>> clear in July's Red Pepper, African civil society is far less<BR>> enamoured with<BR>> the Commission's report, which he argues lays out a blueprint for<BR>> “the new<BR>> scramble for Africa ”.<BR>><BR>> REVOLVING DOORS<BR>><BR>> Thanks to the New Statesman exposé, much of the blame is placed on<BR>> the<BR>> leadership of Oxfam – the UK 's biggest and most powerful development<BR>> agency. Despite its pro-poor image around the world, over the last<BR>> two<BR>> decades, Oxfam has become a feeder school for government special<BR>> advisers<BR>> and World Bank officials and has a particularly close
relationship<BR>> with New<BR>> Labour. Blair's special advisor on international development, Justin<BR>> Forsyth, was previously Oxfam's campaigns manager. Forsyth's<BR>> opposite number<BR>> at the Treasury is Oxfam board member, Shriti Vadera, a former<BR>> director at<BR>> the US bank, UBS Warburg, and specialist in public-private<BR>> partnerships, a<BR>> policy that litters the Africa Commission's report. Less well<BR>> known is John<BR>> Clark, who left Oxfam for the World Bank in 1992 to join the World<BR>> Bank<BR>> where he was responsible for the Bank's co-optation strategy with<BR>> civil<BR>> society before advising Tony Blair in 2000 on his “Africa Partnership<BR>> Initiative” that directly led to the New Partnership for Africa 's<BR>> Development (NEPAD) in 2001. At the heart of MPH is Oxfam's Sarah<BR>> Kline, a<BR>> former World Bank official who champions the organisation's<BR>> ‘constructive<BR>>
dialogue' approach with the IMF and World Bank.<BR>><BR>> Oxfam's political independence from neo-liberal governance is also<BR>> compromised by the £40m or so of its annual income that comes from<BR>> government or other public funds. Nearly £14m alone originates<BR>> from the<BR>> Department for International Development (DfID), which is a major<BR>> champion<BR>> of privatisation and its benefits for UK companies in developing<BR>> countries.<BR>> In this, Oxfam is of course by no means alone – almost every<BR>> development NGO<BR>> in Britain is on DfID's payroll. While it is possible to take and use<BR>> government money progressively while being critical of the donor's<BR>> policies,<BR>> such large amounts of government funding inevitably influence how<BR>> far Oxfam<BR>> will stick its neck out politically and risk future funding cuts.<BR>><BR>> Oxfam's unrivalled financial resources and existing public profile<BR>>
make it<BR>> by far the most powerful organisation in the MPH coalition. Last<BR>> year,<BR>> Oxfam's annual income surpassed £180m – three times the amount<BR>> received by<BR>> its nearest rival, Christian Aid, and dwarfing more social<BR>> movement-oriented<BR>> development NGOs like WDM and War on Want who punch way above<BR>> their weight<BR>> on just over £1m each. Such wealth disparity inevitably translates<BR>> into the<BR>> direction taken by the coalition, especially its public image.<BR>> Oxfam's army<BR>> of press officers, researchers and campaign officers can naturally<BR>> take<BR>> advantage of the huge media opportunities generated by the campaign.<BR>><BR>> But making Oxfam the scapegoat for MPH's co-optation by New Labour<BR>> misses<BR>> the key role played by Comic Relief and its celebrity co-founder,<BR>> the film<BR>> director, Richard Curtis. As one of Britain's most prolific and<BR>>
brilliant<BR>> comedy writers, Curtis shot to fame in the 1980s with the TV series<BR>> Blackadder, and his since penned hits like Mr Bean, The Vicar of<BR>> Dibley, and<BR>> the blockbuster movie, Four Weddings and a Funeral. With wealth<BR>> and fame has<BR>> come enormous political clout. In 2001, British centre-left daily<BR>> broadsheet, The Guardian, ranked him the 10th most powerful person<BR>> in the UK<BR>> media industry, ahead of every national newspaper editor, except<BR>> Paul Dacre<BR>> of the Daily Mail.<BR>><BR>> Curtis's personal commitment to raising money for Africa goes back<BR>> to 1985<BR>> when, at the height of the Ethiopian famine, he visited refugee<BR>> camps as a<BR>> guest of Oxfam. It was a life-changing experience and on his<BR>> return to<BR>> London persuaded showbiz friends to set up Comic Relief, the<BR>> celebrity-led<BR>> charity that uses the medium of comedy to raise both awareness
about<BR>> poverty, famine and disease in Africa , and huge sums of money to<BR>> such<BR>> causes.<BR>><BR>> Despite its incredible success in bringing in the bacon – over<BR>> £337m since<BR>> its inception – Comic Relief's live televised shows every two<BR>> years are also<BR>> criticised for their distinct lack of politics and inaccurate<BR>> portrayal of<BR>> Africa as a continent-come-country ravaged by natural disasters<BR>> and warring<BR>> tribes – the roles of colonialism, IMF and World Bank structural<BR>> adjustment<BR>> programmes and Western corporations don't get a look in.<BR>><BR>> THE MPH MEDIA MACHINE<BR>><BR>> Comic Relief's apolitical approach to Africa is deeply important<BR>> to the<BR>> fractious debate inside MPH. For while Bono and Geldof get the<BR>> limelight and<BR>> Oxfam dominates the policy agenda, it is Richard Curtis who is in the<BR>> driving seat of MPH's all-important
publicity machine.<BR>><BR>> Curtis's power partly lies in the financial and human resources he<BR>> brings to<BR>> the campaign. He has personally ensured the bankrolling of MPH,<BR>> convincing<BR>> Scottish multi-millionaire business tycoon, Sir Tom Hunter, to<BR>> donate a £1m<BR>> to the campaign, and advertising executives to donate more than<BR>> £4m of free<BR>> airtime. This helped propel his ‘Click' advert worldwide in which<BR>> global<BR>> film and music mega-stars, like George Clooney, Bono and Kylie<BR>> Minogue,<BR>> kitted out in full white T-shirt and wristband regalia, click<BR>> their fingers<BR>> every three seconds to mark another child dying in Africa . Curtis<BR>> has used<BR>> his unrivalled celebrity address book to ensure that MPH's<BR>> platforms, events<BR>> and entire PR strategy are dripping with celebrities.<BR>><BR>> While most MPH members gratefully accept that Curtis's
celebrity<BR>> support has<BR>> been integral to the campaign's phenomenal marketing success<BR>> (sales of the<BR>> MPH white wristband are nearly 4 million and the website gets<BR>> thousands of<BR>> hits a minute), some believe it has come with too heavy a price.<BR>> First<BR>> there's the dubious role of Sir Tom Hunter, no ordinary sharp-dressed<BR>> philanthropist. Worth £678m, his Hunter Foundation charity is an<BR>> evangelical<BR>> force behind public-private partnerships and child entrepreneurism in<BR>> Scotland . Since 2001, it has helped fund the Scottish Executive's<BR>> Schools<BR>> Enterprise Programme in which the private sector helps groom<BR>> children as<BR>> young as five in the wonders of business.<BR>><BR>> Ewan Hunter, CEO of The Hunter Foundation, rejects this<BR>> characterisation of<BR>> the scheme as “completely erroneous”, and claims it is “a world<BR>> leading<BR>> initiative” to support
a “can do” attitude in children: “For the<BR>> record we<BR>> consult widely with the relevant trade unions, councils, governments,<BR>> teachers and children before agreeing any investment in<BR>> education.” Note he<BR>> doesn't actually refute the business-child relationship.<BR><BR>=== message truncated ===</BLOCKQUOTE>