19. mars: 2003 & 2011

SV: Olje

Kva meiner SV om oljeleiting utanfor Lofoten og Vesterålen? Tidlegare i veka blei det meldt at partiet kunne vere på gli, medan andre nektar for at det er tilfelle. Her bør SV lytte til folket og fagrørsla, som ikkje delar "miljøhippiane" og den kaffelattedrikkande, urbane mellomklassa i Oslo sitt einsidig negative syn på denne viktige næringa. Det er nok ikkje tilfeldig at partiet, som alltid har stått uvanleg sterkt i Nord-Noreg, har vore i sterk tilbakegang i landsdelen dei siste par Stortingsvala:

Han mener nordnorske velgere tydelig sa hva de mente under stortingsvalget i fjor.
– SV ble nesten utradert i Nord-Norge, mens partiene som var for petroleumsvirksomhet gjorde det godt. Jeg er sikker på at de fleste som stemte Ap hadde klare forventninger om at partiet ville åpne Lofoten for petroleumsvirksomhet, sier han.

Det burde ha vore sjølvsagt for eit sosialistisk venstreparti å tale industriens sak. Heldigvis er det iallfall eit partimedlem som er på rett side i denne saka:

Samtidig ønsker Stokka økt forståelse i offentlig sektor når det gjelder betydningen av å åpne for oljeboring i Lofoten.

– Jeg håper offentlig sektor forstår hvor viktig det er for våre medlemmer med industrikraft og oljeboring. Vi snakker arbeidsplasser!

Mange i Finnmark SV tok for nokre år sidan til orde for ein meir industri- og arbeidarvenleg politikk. På tide at nordleningane fylgjer etter.


Kanskje på tide at SV byrjar lytte til fagrørsla att?

Revolusjon i Tunisia

Har Aftenposten utløyst ein revolusjon? Les meir hjå Juan Cole:

The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten released a series of US diplomatic cables from 2006 on massive and pervasive corruption and nepotism in Tunisia and its effect on economic development and social problems. The cables show that the United States government was fully aware of the dangerous and debilitating level of corruption in Tunisia, and its anti-democratic implications. But they raise the question of whether Washington was wise to make Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, despite his clear foibles, the pillar of its North Africa policy because of his role, as a secular strongman, in repressing Muslim movements (as William MacLean of Reuters argues).

Av mange rapportar i media skulle ein kanskje tru at det berre var dei universitetsutdanna mellomlaga som protesterte, men legg merke til kor viktig arbeidarklassa og fagrørsla har vore:

Note that since the Tunisian crisis has to do with labor unions, unemployment, class anxieties, and a student youth movement rather than with Islam; and since the Tunisian government is counted as a firm US ally, the American mass media is largely ignoring this story. Ordinarily if it bleeds, it leads; but not when it is about class instead of about race or religion, since the latter categories are the only ones useful to monopoly capital in keeping ordinary people divided and distracted.

Og:

But it would be wrong to see the revolution only as a middle class movement against corruption and nepotism, fueled by facebook status updates and youth activism. The trade unions (al-niqabat) played an essential role, and were among those demanding the departure of the president. You don’t get massive crowds like the one in Tunis without a lot of workers joining in. There are few labor correspondents any longer, and the press downplays the role of workers as a result of neither having good sources among them nor an adequate understanding of the importance of labor mobilization. It is no accident that on Wednesday the head of the Communist workers movement was arrested (he has been released). The rural areas should also not be underestimated. The protests began in a small rural town, and have been nation-wide, not just in the capital. The role of rural workers is clearly important, and likely rather more important than Facebook.

Nei til sal av Noreg!

Salet av til det statsåtte kinesiske selskapet China National Bluestar viser trongen for eit statleg eigarkapitalfond. Medan Kina bruker kapitalen sin til å kjøpe seg opp i strategiske industriverksemder, har finansielle investeringar teke over for industrireising her til lands. Tidlegare kunne ein ha stogga oppkjøp ved hjelp av ervervsloven, men EØS-avtalen kan som vanleg synt seg å vere ei hindring. Alf Holmelid (SV) er heldigvis på saka. LO støtter óg kravet. Kan hende til og med næringsministeren endeleg vaknar opp?

Sosialdemokrati i krise?

Michael Lind om krisa for dei sosialdemokratiske partia (mine uthevingar):

"It would be a mistake to believe that the voters, in rejecting social democrats, are rejecting the middle-class welfare state that social democratic parties built in the 20th century. On the contrary, center-right parties like David Cameron’s Conservatives and the ruling Moderate party in Sweden have been forced to limit their libertarianism in order to win office.

The truth is that voters have not turned against the old-fashioned social democracy of the mid-20th century. In Europe as in the U.S., universal social insurance programs for the middle class, as opposed to means-tested welfare programs for the poor, remain popular among voters on the right as well as the left. Voters in Europe are not voting against public pensions and universal healthcare. Instead, they are tossing out a more recent generation of social democrats who went too far in their embrace of markets.

The greatest assault on traditional social democracy in the last generation has come from "Third Way" leaders of center-left parties like Tony Blair, and their continental European counterparts. Like the Clinton Democrats, these "modernizing" social democrats embraced free markets with a convert’s zeal, celebrating globalization and deregulating finance, while seeking to privatize or dismantle parts of the older welfare state. The politicians of the Third Way were far more libertarian than the voters in their own parties and their actions helped to make possible the global economic crisis.

Having given up traditional social democratic economics for a watered-down version of libertarian conservatism, the Third Way social democrats in Europe, like the Clinton and Obama Democrats in the U.S., sought to replace the traditional bread-and-butter concerns of working-class voters with idealistic campaigns about multiculturalism, climate change and obesity that appealed to more affluent, college-educated voters.

(...)

In general the parallels between the U.S. and Europe are striking. In the U.S., as in Europe, the right is divided between a pro-business right promoting policies of austerity and a populist, nativist right energized by opposition to immigration and multiculturalism, particularly where Muslims are involved. In the U.S., as in Europe, the upper-middle-class activists and intellectuals of the center-left devote far less energy to traditional social democratic issues like social insurance and the minimum wage than to non-economic causes like renewable energy, mass transit, the new urbanism, gay marriage, identity politics and promotion of amnesty for illegal immigrants. On both continents, conservatism is becoming more downscale while progressives are increasingly upmarket."