DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST PERSPECTIVE

By Dick Nichols

“Will my superannuation fund be next?” “Are my savings safe?” As working people in the developed economies watch the assets of one financial institution after another vaporise into nothingness, tens of millions are asking these dreadful questions.

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Yesterday’s AAA assets are now junk and yesterday’s “risk-free” investments are losing money. No-one, not even the world’s central bankers, who are spending sleepless nights arranging rescue bailouts and emergency injections of trillions of dollars into a financial system frozen with fear and distrust, can answer them with 100% certainty.

Dear friends

Preliminary estimates by Cuba and the United Nations indicate that hurricanes Gustav and Ike did $5 billion worth of damage to Cuba’s economy. This colossal cost for the tiny socialist nation is compounded by the United States government’s criminal economic blockade.

To: The National Executive
Communist Party Nepal (Maoist)

Dear Comrades,

The Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP), a Marxist tendency within the Socialist Alliance in Australia, and the socialist youth organisation Resistance, would like to extend our greetings and congratulations to the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) following the recent election of Comrade Prachanda as Prime Minister of Nepal and the formation of a CPN(M)-led government. As a youth organisation, Resistance would also like to send greetings to the Young Communist League. The youth have been playing a leading role in the movements in Nepal, inspiring Resistance members and other young people in Australia.

August 21, 2008

President Alvaro Uribe Velez
Vice-president Dr Francisco Santos Calderon

Dear Srs President and Vice-President,

The Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP) in Australia is writing to protest in the strongest possible terms the arrest and detention on August 8 of workers’ and human rights advocate Liliany Obando.

The DSP has met with Liliany Obando during two of her visits to Australia on behalf of trade union federations and human rights organisations in Colombia. We have heard detailed reports from her about the situation of Colombia’s people and the peaceful solutions she always advocated.

Dear Comrades in Pakistan

Congratulations to the fighting masses in Pakistan for their latest victory! Given the history of Pakistan has been so bloodied by military dictatorships, such a humiliating end to the political career of the latest military dictator is a great victory for people's power.

This was a victory made in the streets by masses that braved the guns, batons and bayonets of the military. The whole world watched this valiant struggle progress, critically around the sustained mass response to Musharraf's removal of the "inconvenient" top judges who refused to keep doing his bidding.

Dear President Evo Morales,

We are writing this letter from the Democratic Socialist Perspective in Australia as a public statement of solidarity for your democratically-elected government and the struggle of the Bolivian people for true justice.

We offer our full support and best wishes for the campaign in the recall referendums to be held on August 10, knowing full well that your presidency and the process of change that your government is leading enjoys the support of the majority of Bolivian people, especially the poor and oppressed.

We know that the Bolivian oligarchy, directed by Washington, cannot stand to have an indigenous man from a humble background occupy the presidency. We realise that this oligarchy is directing a disgustingly racist and violent campaign, mobilising fascist forces, in order to attempt to impose by force what they have failed to win majority support for — the subjugation of Bolivia to a racist elite that sells the country to US and European interests.

We believe, at a time when powerful internal and external enemies are determined to use what ever means possible to destroy the democratic revolution underway, it is important to state that even half way around the world, the Bolivian struggle is being enthusiastically supported.

We know the corporate media lies about Bolivia's struggle, as it does to all struggles of ordinary people for justice. This is the case in Australia, where, for example, the Sydney Morning Herald on August 9 regurgitated the same distortions seen in corporate media globally about events in Bolivia. We will continue to use the newspaper we produce, Green Left Weekly, to counter these lies and get the real story out.

We believe the example of Bolivia is important for Australian people. Here, we are struggling against attempts to privatise essential services, while in Bolivia your government is nationalising important sectors to be run for the common good.

In Australia, the most oppressed section of our population comprise the indigenous people, who have never ceded sovereignty over their land and whose rights and dignity are violated daily. Bolivia today shows a way forward for justice for all indigenous peoples.

We have full confidence that Bolivia's oppressed - who have been in the global vanguard in the fight against neoliberalism; who bought Bechtel to its knees; who brought down the US embassy's puppet Goni; who placed a leader of the indigenous peoples in the presidential palace for the first time ever; who achieved the nationalisation of hydrocarbons over the opposition of the multinationals; who, despite every attempt to sabotage it, carried out the constituent assembly process to draft a document for a new, just Bolivia that respects the indigenous nations and reverse neoliberialism - will win their historic battle.

In solidarity,

Peter Boyle
for the National Executive of the Democratic Socialist Perspective

By Dick Nichols

Whatever the final detail of the federal government’s carbon emissions trading scheme — the framework of which is contained in the green paper released by climate change minister Penny Wong on July 16 — there’s one thing we can be sure of: it won’t be of much use in cutting Australia’s carbon emissions.

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Past generations have stood up against the great injustices of their time: slavery, Apartheid, fascism, and war. They envisioned the world as it should be, not just as it was, and through their struggles achieved things once thought impossible. Now is not the time to despair. We need to get angry, get active and get organised.

Resistance is a socialist youth organisation: We look at not only what is wrong, but why - and how we can change it. We argue that the injustices in the world today are fundamentally caused by capitalism. We believe that the only viable alternative is socialism - the the democratic control of society and economy by ordinary people, not corporations.

The Resistance national conference will bring together young activists to make decisions on furthering progressive campaigns how we build a socialist alternative to capitalism. It will give you the opportunity to hear eyewitness accounts from Venezuela's inspiring socialist revolution; Come and share your ideas for a better world.

The Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP) in Australia has suffered a destructive split organised by the Leninist Party Faction (LPF), a minority whose perspective of retreating from left regroupment and engagement with broader forces in struggle had been decisively rejected by large majorities at the last two DSP congresses.

From the May 2005 NC, it was clear that there were different assessments about the value of Socialist Alliance within the leadership of the DSP. But this is a difference that we could have easily and constructively dealt with within a united DSP if the minority leadership had kept a sense of proportion and responsibility about their differences. Instead, they chose to factionalise the DSP and develop new theoretical differences, including labeling the democratically adopted course of the DSP as “liquidating” its revolutionary socialist politics.

By Brianna Pike
Resistance National Coordinator & member of the DSP National Executive

Plans are under way for the 2008 Resistance national conference, to be held at the University of Technology, Sydney from June 27-29. This year’s theme is: “war, racism, environmental destruction, homophobia, sexism … Turn anger into action!” All DSP members are invited.