The Earth Was Made a Common Treasury for All!
Let's take back our communities from the oligarchs and rich developers.
"And the First Reason is this, That we may work in righteousness, and lay the Foundation of making the Earth a Common Treasury for All, both Rich and Poor, That every one that is born in the land, may be fed by the Earth his Mother that brought him forth, according to the Reason that rules in the Creation. Not Inclosing any part into any particular hand, but all as one man, working together, and feeding together as Sons of one Father, members of one Family; not one Lording over another, but all looking upon each other, as equals in the Creation" - Gerrard Winstanley (1649)
Hello friends and comrades,
Our first special of the last month was titled “SNV Special Interview: Labour International” and was with Mike Mitchell, Branch Secretary of the Labour Party International of the Americas. Mitchell said he grew up on the banks of the River Mersey in England in a small village across from Liverpool. "The first memory that I've got is round about the mid-fifties running up and down the street with a red flag in support of the Labour Party," he said. Everyone Mitchell knew was in the Labour Party and to him "socialism was just a part of life." The Labour Party UK won the 1950 general election, according to Wikipedia, but with only a 5-seat majority. It goes on to say the following:
In the 1951 general election, Labour narrowly lost to Churchill's Conservatives, despite receiving the larger share of the popular vote – its highest ever vote numerically. Most of the changes introduced by the 1945–51 Labour government were accepted by the Conservatives and became part of the "post-war consensus" that lasted until the late 1970s. Food and clothing rationing, however, still in place since the war, were swiftly relaxed, then abandoned from about 1953.
In the interview, we also talked about the recent win by George Galloway in northwest England's Rochdale constituency for the Workers Party of Britain. Mitchell said, "I would not be surprised if [the Workers Party of Britain] start taking seats from Labour, or both Labour and conservatives actually." He said Galloway was able to marshall this win when he "connected all the dots." Mitchell said Galloway made the following case: "Hey, look, we're spending millions, billions giving Israel all this money and we are also supporting the war in Ukraine and there's no money coming into the cities, into our towns." Galloway was able to draw in multiple groups of voters in the area by highlighting the direct relationship between war spending and the economic suffering that people are feeling locally in the Northwest of England.
Our second podcast this month was an item from the archive. This is from our visit to the Mother Jones Monument in Mt. Olive Illinois. The monument is within the only union-established and union-owned cemetery in the United States, the Union Miners Cemetery. The cemetery is the result of the 1898 Battle of the Virden in which mine bosses refused to pay the legal wage to miners. Miners struck, the bosses brought in scab workers and an armed conflict broke out. Eight union miners were killed as were 5 company men. Thirty-five were wounded and the company ended up backing down and paying the legal wage.
Working people must create our own institutions; our own unions, our own universities and education centers, our own parks, our own community hubs, etc. Sometimes we can reclaim the institutions that already exist in the current system, but many times we must create our own institutions from the ground up. Whatever will lead to the most success with the least violence will always be preferred. Even to get what we are legally owed in the current system we often must break the law, just as the miners did in their armed conflict to get their legal wages or as Militant activists did in the Labour Party in Liverpool in the 1980s to build public housing.
Ultimately, the commons can be understood as the shared resources including land, air and water that society or communities hold in common. This could be land where farmers in the community can graze animals or buildings where citizens can gather, socialize or hold meetings. The commons is for all of us in society to use.
Working people are already under attack by the ruling class who are trying to steal as much of our personal and public wealth as they can and transfer it to the accounts of the ruling rich. This takes place through rents, inflation (which in many cases is simply price gouging), military spending, and privatization of public services and public goods.
If we are under attack as working people we ought to fight back. We must demand and force concessions from the leaders of our current society. As one Twitter/X post said it is the "have nots against the have yachts." But ultimately, as socialists, we want to transform society into a situation where working people are actually in control of our lives and don't have to fight tooth and nail for each thing we get. Until then, the most conscious of us must organize against the most egregious and despicable attacks of the capitalists and push for popular reforms and programs for working people.
We must not, however, fight amongst ourselves. As much as possible we must be understanding of each other and direct our anger towards the bourgeoisie capitalists that run the current system. Often they would have us direct our anger towards the most downtrodden of immigrants to our country who are only fellow workers. (25) This brings us to our third podcast of the month which was “SNV Special Interview: Border Truth From Eagle Pass, TX.”
In the third podcast of the month, we spoke with Brad Sigal from the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee: MIRAC. We spoke about the Legalization for all Network delegation to the US-Mexico border in Eagle Pass & Piedras Negras that Sigal was a part of in February. His post on Facebook that drew me to this story was as follows:
I got back yesterday from the border at Eagle Pass, TX and Piedras Negras in Mexico. Trump and Biden are both going to the Texas border this Thursday.
I'm gonna share my photos over the next few days and also share some writing.
We know Trump will spew racist garbage. But Biden is likely to buy into large parts of Trump's racist framework too -- that there is supposedly a 'crisis' or an 'invasion' at the border, which he then will take executive action to combat.
From the people I talked to who live in Eagle Pass, and from what I saw with my own eyes, we need to reject that whole framework. It's completely wrong.
We went to two immigrant shelters in Piedras Negras, Mexico. The so-called 'crisis' or 'invasion' of the border was mostly children. Children with their parents, fleeing violence and desperation in countries like Honduras, Venezuela, and Haiti largely caused by US foreign policy.
Billions of dollars of monstrous militarization of the border...all to stop mostly kids. It's heartbreaking and completely outrageous.
Asylum for all. Legalization for all. No human being is illegal.
Sigal said the first thing you see as you approach the border is a "huge law-enforcement presence" which he said includes "local police, county police, and of course customs and border patrol vehicles, the Texas National Guard and National Guard from other Republican lead states like Florida who have gone in to quote unquote help, and you have also US Army there as well."
We must take the position that, to paraphrase Gerrard Winstanley, The Earth Was Made a Common Treasury For All! Winstanley wrote that 375 years ago in The True Levellers Standard Advanced: Or, The State of Community Opened, and Presented to the Sons of Men. But it still applies today. The super rich are the ones who evict us from our rentals, foreclose on our homes and pay us wages that we can't live on. But we've allowed what Abraham Lincoln called the "Government of the people, by the people, for the people" to direct its ire through its police and military instead against immigrant children and families who are just like you and me.
In our regular episode of April, Episode #57, of Socialist News and Views, we had several news items that outlined how our current system that creates a super-wealthy class has failed us locally. Including one item from the Sahan Journal, titled "Report: Minnesota salaries aren’t keeping up with housing costs, racial disparities persist in homeownership." Also, another item about how Uber and Lyft have not been able to provide living wages for their drivers.
In the interview in the second part of our episode, we spoke with Choo Chon Kai from the Central Committee of the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) and also the Editor of Sosialis.net. This demonstrated that the complete failure of the current system to deliver for our common needs is not only local but global.
Choo said that one of their primary current political campaigns within the Socialist Party of Malaysia is focused on a Universal Pension Scheme. The majority of the people that do have old age savings in the government were forced to dip into their funds during the pandemic and so they only have around 5 years of old age savings left at this point. And many outside the government have no pension or old age savings at all.
PSM, or Parti Sosialis Malaysia (Socialist Party of Malaysia) got its start in the 1990s among "grassroots communities, especially the plantation workers and Urban Pioneers." The Urban Pioneers is the name given to mostly rural migrants who were at one time allowed and authorized to build settlements on government and vacant land.
Globally, if we intend to assert our rights to the commons and that the Earth belongs to all of us collectively (humans, plants and animals alike) as part of the natural world we must reach out and build solidarity amongst the social movements. The most marginalized and ostracized groups must be included if we are to be successful.
Solidarity,
Nick Shillingford - Host - Socialist News and Views
PS The ruling class already knows about the dangers and possibilities of disasters under capitalism and with disasters becoming more common working people should make themselves aware of the possibilities for change and community in such situations as well. Here are two books to do just that; A Paradise Built in Hell: THE EXTRAORDINARY COMMUNITIES THAT ARISE IN DISASTE By Rebecca Solnit; and The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein.